Reaper

http://www.slate.com/id/2172461/fr/rss/ Maybe our congress members should have a dictionary with them every time they vote from now on. I thought "warrant-less" is a pretty straight forward concept that our "representatives" all understood /sarcasm I really don't know, and I'm sure that the people who do know about this are more worried about paying their bills and getting their kids to college.

Nah, I would have to agree with bascule. The information required to create the universe, even one the size of the Milky Way, on a computer simulation far outstrips what is physically possible, unless it is programmed so that only a very small part of it actually exists.

Technically it is not Autism, but many of the symptoms are similar such as complete absence of social skills and cognitive abilities. In his case, because he is missing a corpus callosum, both hemispheres of the brain can't really communicate with each other. So what ends up happening is that the brain has a hard time being able to monitor the health of the body, coordinate movement, and their cognitive abilities are virtually non-existent. While they can memorize very well, they really can't understand what they know or conceptualize it. Social skills are also severely impaired. Seizures are quite common. Intellectually, people with this condition range from average intelligence to below average, going all the way down to mental retardation.

You sure he is unintentional about that? Modest titles such as "The God Delusion" and "The Enemies of Reason" seem to indicate otherwise. His books are an example of bad science and bad philosophy.

I know that in literature, George Orwell explored something similar to this in his book 1984 with his "Newspeak", which was designed by the state to limit the range of thought. It also has an impact in political sciences and politics in general, because the way you phrase a given sentence will convey different meanings.

I agree with some his arguments against God's existence, but I find that he is so prone and eager to over-generalize a given religion and slap labels.

Anybody here know about Kim Peek? He is a world famous savant. Basically he has agenesis of the corpus callosum (meaning that he is lacking a corpus callosum all together), and that is believed to give him the ability to memorize vasts amount of information and numbers. In particular he has an intense interest in postal zip codes. He scores well below average on the IQ test though, and has very poor social and self-help skills. I actually watched the video on it and what I found interesting is that with a corpus callosum, it is impossible for us to do the things he can do. However, Kim's ability to reason is virtually non-existent, and he still lives with his dad. here is the video on it, and they detail MRI scans of his brain and psychological tests: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6767261625889336539&q=Kim+Peek&total=50&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2 Rainman was inspired by Kim Peek.

You could just get a bug zapper.

I'm starting my freshman year in college and I'm a physics major. I'm thinking of going into either astrophysics or high energy physics.

Time dilation has been observed in subatomic particles when they have been accelerated to near light speeds. The Muon Experiments are a well known example. Also, we have not been able to pull quarks apart yet. It is a very difficult task.

Yeah, pretty much you really can't use a laser to do anything with it. Anything beyond ultraviolet is way too energetic, and anything below that is way too big for the DNA molecule. We usually use electron microscopes to see details of DNA strands.

I know what you are saying. What I'm saying is that it isn't true. Yes, it does exist on a scale in that people on the autistic spectrum can range from mild to severe, but it is not representative of the whole population. Some people might display some characteristics, but most of the time it is not clinically significant, and it certainly doesn't mean that they have it. Also, some symptoms of Autism are also present in ADD/ADHD and Schizophrenia. Yeah, that is because Asperger's Syndrome is very hard to diagnose. In some cases, they may have some other disorder. Also, there seems to be the misconception that shyness or being introverted means that you have Aspergers or some other ASD. The DSM-IV books list otherwise. Lack of empathy is a characteristic of ASD so it is no surprise that people with ASD's will score much lower on the EQ test. I'm quite skeptical on the SQ part though. Having a high SQ score means that one is quite good with analytical skills and to some extent mathematical or logical reasoning. From what I know, some symptoms of Aspergers and other ASD's actually interfere with the ability to do that properly such as working memory and the tendency to be literal. While the results do show that some people with Aspergers can score high on the SQ part, I'm not convinced that it means that people with Aspergers have an "extreme male brain". True. It is believed that these increased testosterone levels are responsible for superior attention to detail in infants but lack of social adequacy. As for symptoms, current research indicates that a deficiency in grey matter in both the frontal lobes and the cerebellum may be primarily responsible for them. In more full blown autistics, there is also an abnormal levels of white matter. However, the study also indicated that the brains of normal people, not Aspergers, tend to decrease in volume as they increase in age.

I was hiking with a few of my friends up in the Appalachians, and we decided to take a rest. Someone sat on a log, which was a bee hive. Ouch!

I've got a friend with Tourette syndrome (Not really Autism, but symptoms are similar), and one of my brothers has Aspergers. I have HFA myself, meaning High Functioning Autism. It's similar to Aspergers, but much more full blown. Diagnosed since I was 9, and went through speech therapy throughout my elementary school years. I learned how to talk when I was 3 1/2 yrs. Social skills have been a pain in the arse for me. My IQ is about a high average, about 125, but I don't really pay any attention to that. I have a very good photographic memory too, but my working memory is very weak. I've been on anti-depressants when I was in the middle school, and ritalin throughout both my elementary and middle school yrs. Nowadays I'm drug free. To this day I'm still not very verbal at all, much easier to talk via internet or other alternative means. I'm not on any medication, and my intense interest in science helped me to get through school and make it to a very competitive college . Majoring in physics, looking to pursue astrophysics or theoretical. Same here, though drugs did help somewhat. Not really. The diagnostic criteria is that the IQ's range from normal to above average. Most of them fall in the average range. The Simon-Baron Cohen model states that women are predominantly wired for empathy while men are predominantly wired for systemizing. As for the math difference, men tend to have better mathematical and logical reasoning. As for calculation they are about the same. Verbal and empathy scores aren't really that much different either, though women tend to test slightly better in those areas. As for autism, I find that the Simon-Baron Cohen model isn't adequate for determining autism because it is only testing for SQ and EQ skills. One can have a high SQ score and still have decent social skills. You have to be careful with intelligence tests, especially with regards to gender, because often you will find that the actual results and averages don't differ by that much (usually a 2-3 point difference). It all depends on the sample. Almost all intelligence tests are culturally based and biased, and the tests themselves only test a limited portion of human intellect. Well, from my experience, I've spent about 4 days in college and I already have more than 10 new contacts on the cellphone, so socially there isn't much worry. You should avoid going to a big university because then you may get overwhelmed. I go to a technical institute and they have about ~3000 students, so it's not that bad. I had quite a different experience. I like to hang out. Makes me feel less lonely, and it's a lot more fun to go with a group of people rather than by yourself all the time. ------------------------------------------------------ You guys should watch this video. It contains one of my most favorite people and it's really good in general. It's about Kim Peek.

Hey, I was just asking if he shredded the cheese before he made the sacrifice:-p. ================================================ In my personal opinion I think Richard Dawkins tries way too hard to discredit anything he doesn't agree with. It's actually quite similar to what any other religious wacko does.

Did you at least shred the mozzarella?

1/10 ratio. Well, I would guess more like 1 to 8. I agree. I'm just a mere college freshman....

True, but it should give me a good idea as to who comes here to actually sign up and with the intention of posting here regularly and have scientific discussions. I won't dispute that most people who visit this site probably do so because of some google search or something like that, and only look at this site very briefly before moving on. so far, this seems like a male dominated site.... Thats true:D.

Not really. Space exploration only became political at the dawn of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and the US were locked in an arms race. The reason the US funded the space program was so that they feared that the Soviets were surpassing them technologically, and that they were developing the capability to bomb them anywhere in the world. Before then, space exploration was confined to telescopes, and the reason for even looking up at the stars was more or less human curiosity. As for boats, they wouldn't have had any real reason to do that, except for maybe crossing rivers initially. The usefulness of boats, especially for exploration, would have been discovered afterwards. And I did not say that humans left for any particular continent when they did leave Africa. But why did they even bother in the first place. Humans (modern humans that is) back then were just as intelligent as they are now, there was certainly more to it than just drifting, especially when you consider that they migrated to populate every continent except for Antarctica. I know its hard to believe, but most of humanity really isn't that imaginative. Not everything that is thought of or explored of will have a direct use or a economic, political, etc...reason to do so as most people seem to think. Just look at mathematics . "just because its there" is every justification to go ahead and go somewhere or do something. Curiosity is a very powerful motivation.

Just out of curiosity, how many here on SFN are males, and how many are females? For some reason, I tend to think that almost all people on sites like SFN are male. But then, that could be social stigma and I could be mistaken with regards to this particular site. BTW, I am a male.

This Saturday, NASA is expected to launch the Phoenix Mars Lander. The launch will take place between 5-6 a.m. EST. For those of you who don't know, the Phoenix Mars Lander is intended to land on the northern polar cap where there is carbon dioxide and water ice in abundance. By going here, scientists hope to study how the polar regions affect Martian climate, the dynamics and history of water in the polar caps, and maybe even the possibility of life. It is equipped with the capability to analyze soil samples. This mission is intended to make up for the failure of the Mars Polar Lander, and some of the instruments that were designed for that spacecraft will be on the Phoenix. It will travel in an arc for a distance of about 679 million km before finally arriving at its destination. I hope they don't put off or delay the launching, and I certainly hope it doesn't fail. Here is the full story: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-084 And here is the list of equipment that the Phoenix will bring along: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/science05.php Thoughts or comments?

For calculus, you would want to know: Basic trig ratios, Basic trig functions (e.g. y = sin x) and their transformations, and basic trig identities such as (sin x)^2 + (cos x)^2 = 1. You should probably get a textbook on Trig if you don't feel you know a whole lot, so that you can catch up and go over it quickly. I would suggest getting "Just-in-Time Algebra and Trigonometry" 3rd Edition by Guntram Mueller and Ronald I. Brent. I have their second edition, but that was written quite some time ago. Their books is very user-friendly, breaks down concepts so that they could be easily understood, and you can go through it very quickly. It is also great for review too. You can get it on Amazon

Well, why not speculate on that? This is a little like asking why Renaissance and Enlightenment astronomers, or even some ancient Greek philosophers, pondered about traveling through the solar system even though they haven't even explored or mapped the entire Earth yet. Then there is the question of whether or not they would survive the trip. But then, if Panspermia is possible, then it would make the task far easier. Also, there is the famous case of microbes hitchhiking on space craft on one of the Apollo missions and surviving for a number of years. Well, then you have to ask yourself this: Why did humans even bother leaving Africa? Or building boats, or colonizing the Pacific Islands, or doing anything that involved enormous risk and/or lots of resources? After all, our current exploration of space, whether manned or unmanned, uses up considerable resources and carries a lot of risk. And better yet, the only real justification we have for even spending resources on exploring other planets is pretty much "because its there". With better knowledge of our solar and galactic neighborhood, it becomes easier to find more justifications for going back (e.g. economic, political, population control, etc.) --------------------------------------------- Anyways, I took the time to make some basic calculations about how long it would take to get to the Large Magellanic Clouds (about 1.6 X 10^5 light years from Milky Way) if you were to be traveling at 0.2c. At that speed, it would take about 803872 years minimum. And this is of course assuming perfect conditions (such as leaving from the furthermost edge of our galaxy that is close to the LMC). Of course, these are very simple calculations, and I left out things such as energy requirements. I'm going to work out energy requirements and length of time for a few galaxies in the local area a little later.....

This thought actually came up to me when I was looking at some pictures of distant galaxies. What I was wondering is, given the incredible distances between galaxies, could it actually be possible to colonize other galaxies than our own? Even with Star Trek technology it could still take hundreds of thousands of years to actually reach another major galaxy. If wormholes, warp drive, etc. is possible then I could see intergalactic travel as feasible. But if FTL travel in any form isn't possible at all, then would it even possible to colonize other galaxies and spread all over the universe? For instance, colonization of the solar system shouldn't be that difficult, as long as we don't blow ourselves up while we are at it, and should take a couple or so centuries. Colonization of our galaxy at sublight speeds shouldn't take that long on a cosmic scale either. While it would be slow, colonizing the entire galaxy could happen in a few million years. But what about sending colonists, or anything at all for that matter, one a one way journey to the Andromeda galaxy? At sublight speeds, it would take thousands of years to even leave the Milky Way, and then millions of years to actually reach Andromeda even though it is blue shifted and coming at us. Even reaching the Magellanic Clouds could take well over a million years to actually get to at sub-light speeds. Never mind the local cluster. I'm not sure if anything could function that long. Could it even be possible to send anything across the intergalactic space in a finite amount of time, or are we, or any other space faring creature for that matter, forever stuck in the Milky Way? For one, most galaxies are receding away from our galaxy and from each other, save for Andromeda and a few others that are blue shifted. While I can imagine that we would be capable of reaching the Magellanic Clouds (since they orbit around the Milky Way), and even Andromeda, I'm not so sure about other galaxies, even with Star Trek level technology. But then again, I could be wrong. What are your thoughts?

Freud's theories have largely been destroyed. Even in philosophical circles he is highly questionable, never mind the psychological community. Karl Jung and, well, in fact most of his students and other psychologists, pretty much debunked most of his theories. His theories have been attacked by psychologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers on all fronts, and Karl Popper pretty much made it clear that it was rather unscientific because a lot of it is made to be unfalsifiable through empirical means. He is studied more in a historical context, and some of his ideas were taken and much better refined.