Royston

Thanks Matt, I'm starting undergrad maths near the end of the year...so what you said actually helps a lot, and something I'll look into as preperation.

My current course uses maths for scientific applications...so the principles are not clearly defined from a maths perspective, they're more a convenience.

Sorry everyone for going off topic.

Snail, JustStuit, stop it.

Understood, I think I'll be avoiding the maths sections until I've finished my course...I'm clearly not competent enough to be posting in these areas.

Apologies to IMM for being my usual rash self.

I`m left wondering which is the "Abnormal" reaction here' date=' on the Very are occasion that I do go to bed "Drunk" I don`t dream at all, at least nothing I can remember, but when I wake I feel as if I`ve had no sleep either, I`m just as tired as I was before I went to bed.

ordinarily I dream quite vividly every night without exception, but with booze...Nada.[/quote']

 

This seems more logical, as in, when you're drunk you tend to forget what you said or done the previous night, so really you should have difficulty recollecting your dreams. So it does seem odd it has the reverse effect in many people.

 

I usually feel I've had little sleep if I'm been at the juice the night before...the strange thing is, the day after, I'm in an incredibly good mood, sometimes even ecstatic. I thought I'd fallen in love with one of my ex girlfriends a few years ago, only to realise that it was just a hangover ! It took me a while to notice how elevated my mood gets after a heavy night out. I'm the only person I know who gets this.

There's a lot of grey area as to what it means.

Thanks Juststuit...I thought I was missing something obvious for a second.

The sequence stops as soon as you divide the figure by itself...0.9 recurring has nothing to do with 1, unless I'm completely off the mark...I'm currently studying this, so please explain how the sequence works, unless you're rounding off 0.9 recurring how can it equal 1 ?

1/9 = 0.1111111111111111...

2/9 = 0.2222222222222222...

3/9 = 0.3333333333333333...

4/9 = 0.4444444444444444...

5/9 = 0.5555555555555555...

6/9 = 0.6666666666666666...

7/9 = 0.7777777777777777...

8/9 = 0.8888888888888888...

9/9 = 0.9999999999999999...

 

 

0.9999999999... is a rational number just like all the others' date=' and I dont know how else to write its fraction equivalent except as 9/9, which is 1. So .9999999999... = 1.

 

What could be more straightforward than that?[/quote']

 

9/9=1, it is not 0.9 recurring, what could be more straight forward than that, I don't recall anyone talking about significant numbers. What do you mean by rational ? What equation comes up with .9 recurring out of interest ?

Someone with the fat gene can make themselves skinny. Someone with the bad chorlesterol gene can alter their diet and exercise and reduce their chloesterol numbers' date=' etc.. One can have a red hair gene and dye it black. .

 

I am not talking about genetic potential as a superhuman part of the genes to which one can strive to. That is the function of consciousness which is more than the sum of the genes.[/quote']

 

There's no such thing as a 'fat' gene it's been correlated with addictive behaviour. In our present state (despite the consequences of our effect on the environment) it's far more accelerated than evolution, and therefore has no consequence on genetics.

 

Per previous posts you really need to read up on genetics et.c...someone dieting doesn't mean they will pass on a dieting gene.

Crikey...I just wanted to put my music on the net for free, although it's advertising, I never saw it as 'desperate', more convenient. A friend told me about it a few months ago, so I thought I'd stick a few tunes on there...I never realised it had such a reputation.

Here's mine...mp3's don't do music justice IMO, but hey if anyone wants a listen your welcome...

http://www.myspace.com/oimush

For music myspace is ok...being free and everything, but I'm not a great fan either...and yes, I have more than 3 friends !

Like the internet pic Bascule, very nice

Doesn't that violate relativity ?

It would if they travelled faster than light.

This should answer your question...

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7069&highlight=doppler+effect+sound

I usually have vivid dreams with or without alcohol, probably because I think too much before nodding off. However I've found red wine seems to bring on nightmares...though I find nightmares fascinating, so on occasion I've purposely induced them. Anyway here's a link to why alcohol affects sleep...

http://www.hazelden.org/servlet/hazelden/cms/ptt/hazl_alive_and_free.html?sf=t&sh=t&page_id=25427

It's the random movement of particles in a fluid...first discovered when pollen was seen to 'jump' randomly when suspended in water.

It was discovered by the botanist Robert Brown (hence the name) but it was called Brownian 'movement' before being accepted by physicists. I think the same effect can be observed with dust particles in the air.

IIRC we used smoke as an example when I was doing my GCSE's...many, many moons ago. I remember being baffled how you could model such movement.

This may seem a daft question, but how is dark matter 'hot' if it gives off no radiation ?

I'd hazard a guess that many of the threads are not a particularly good advert for what SFN is about (as many new viewers will see the homepage first)...after all it is a science forum, and speculation in itself isn't the scientific method. Isn't Philosophy and Religion, Pseudoscience and Metaphysics left out from the home page as well...and General Discussion.

I usually access SFN from the forum index URL - because A: I like to browse, and B: there's many times where there's been a lot of activity and it's easy to miss some interesting topics if a thread has been left for a day or two...if your solely going by the latest posts anyway.

I guess it must just be where we live (right on the southern coast) it's very open where we are so when the skies are clear we've had some incredibly cold nights. Let's hope that Siberian winter doesn't make it's way over and snuffs out all the early daffodils...no sign of those or crocuses down here yet.

Please see the full article via the link below...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-01/uoc--igp012406.php

Using a popular internet game that traces the travels of dollar bills' date=' scientists have unveiled statistical laws of human travel in the United States, and developed a mathematical description that can be used to model the spread of infectious disease in this country. This model is considered a breakthrough in the field.

 

The physicists were intrigued: Like viruses, money is transported by people from place to place. They found that the human movements follow what are known as universal scaling laws (from local to regional to long-distance scales). Using the game data, they developed a powerful mathematical theory that describes the observed movements of travelers amazingly well over distances from just a few kilometers to a few thousand. The study represents a major breakthrough for the mathematical modeling of the spread of epidemics.[/i']

Please see the full article via the link the below...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17943650-23109,00.html

"We are planning to build a permanent base on the moon by 2015 and by 2020 we can begin the industrial-scale delivery ... of the rare isotope Helium-3," Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of the Energia space corporation, was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying at an academic conference.

Helium-3 is a non-radioactive isotope of helium that can be used in nuclear fusion.

Rare on earth but plentiful on the moon, it is seen by some experts as an ideal fuel because it is powerful, non-polluting and generates almost no radioactive by-product.

UK has been hit with a cold winter this year...apparently the temperatures that Russia and Poland have been experiencing (down to -40 oC) is coming our way ! I doubt it'll be quite that extreme, but much colder than normal.

And btw, I've never had acupunture, my grandmother has.

That explains it, sorry for getting the wrong end of the stick Nevermore

If one was to assume that there is some type of effect going on, one way to interpret the effect is that nerves contain charge. Since all these satelite charges throughout the body are integrated via the brain, through the nervous system, by alterring the local charge within various satalites, one will also alter the final integration affect within the brain. For example, if one is under stress because of someone, it is not uncommon to have a pain in the neck both literally and figuratively.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by satellite charges ? Also what do you mean by altering the local charge...we have Freeview in our house, but we have to pay for terrestrial TV channels. I think satellite subscriptions have a fixed rate per TV package, but you can also get 'pay per view' where you can buy individual films and programmes which is pretty neat, and saves walking to Blockbuster if your feeling lazy.

I don't think 'local' charges would work because surely it's specific to what you watch rather than where you live...and I agree bills of any nature can be a real pain in the neck...though I don't actually feel physical pain in my neck, that would be very odd indeed.

I'll have a look for the full study, in the mean time, all the scan was picking up is that acupuncture has the same effect as feeling pain - so for it to be used as an anaesthetic it is (as the article states) merely a distraction.

It'll be like stubbing your toe, then pinching the skin on the back of your hand to distract yourself from the pain of stubbing your toe.

However acupuncture is a tingly sensation as Nevermore (who has experience with acupuncture) has stated. This to me says, that acupuncture is not so much confusing the brain with another source of pain, but it has a subjective placebo effect. Even if it was distracting the brain by being moderately painful, you may as well have a nurse slapping you round the face as a means of anaesthetic.

A good control would be to have a 'placebo pill' used instead of acupuncture. If the same effects are apparent from a fake painkiller as they are with acupuncture (with patients feeling a level of discomfort throughout the experiment, to gauge it's effects), then we could ascert that acupuncture truly is a placebo effect.

Now now, there's nothing wrong with feeding the ducks on occassion...or as I like to put it, 'a gentlemans way to relax.'

Drink or drugs can go either way if your using them to purely cheer yourself up...it can make you feel ten times worse.

Justsuit, all I can suggest is that things could be a lot worse...imagine if your held captive, waking up everyday not knowing if you'll be fed, tortured or murdered and have no clue how long you'll be held captive, and when or if you'll see your friends and family again...really try and think what that would feel like.

Now look around and see how lucky you are, you're young, you live in a rich country, you're intelligent so you have lots of prospects, and you have friends and family (I presume) - and you have friends here (from all over the globe.)

I know it's a crappy time when you're a teenager, I used to get sick of people saying 'cheer up' they're the best years of your life...wrong, I'm happier now than ever, and I know plenty of people that say the same. That doesn't mean you have an excuse to be down, but feel happy that for whatever reason you're p*ssed off, it'll pass.

Hmm, so you know that acupuncture is a placebo effect, but you 'feel' that it's doing you some good...I can't follow that. Please don't think I'm trying to be difficult, I just think it's interesting that you feel that acupuncture is doing you some good...makes you feel physically better, when really you know it's not doing anything at all. Is it that you just like the tingling sensation that you get with an acupuncture treatment ?

You fail to note that acupuncture involves sticking nedles in your nerve-endings. This will invariably do somthing funny.

I mentioned that in the first post...I'm also carrying on in the context of placebo effects as a whole (acupuncture being one of them.) As Prof. Wildsmith states you have to believe in the effects of acupuncture, so I'm under the assertion sticking ultra fine needles into the nerves is nothing more than a placebo effect. There appears to be no proof that stimulating a nerve has any anesthetic / or 'healing' qualities...give me one good reason why it should.

Well I found this that explains that pain could be overlapped between a 'neuromatrix' which is mapped to regions of the cerebal cortex that deal with touch, and specific pain centres which have evolved from a primitive version of the brain that controls the general health of the body.

As there is emotion processing involved (though I have no clue what point the emotion is processed and how) it can make pain seem subjective - which it obviously is, though I'm not sure any of this satisfies how we can condition ourselves to not react to pain. It regards this problem under the section 'A possible synthesis', though with no conclusions...

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/pain/microsite/science2.html

I also found this interesting news article, where people have reduced the amount of pain they are experiencing by viewing MRI scans of their own brain activity...

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2006/01/23/brain_over_pain/?page=1

Theres your proof (if you needed any)

I find it a bit hard to believe you could make a tumor 'melt' through a placebo effect. I'm not sure there are any physical repercussions it's (as the article states) purely a psychological one.

It's probably better to give a link from a reputable source before you can say it's 'proof'.

What I was trying to get across is that if pain can be overcome albeit placebo conditioning, or tolerance through meditation or training (armed forces / martial arts) for example...then surely the nerves are not wired directly to the part of the brain that give a motor response to stimulus...there's something more going on.