Observing Venus' transit across the sun

post from Top stories on 01 June 2012 09:13:33 PM. © Top stories

On June 5, 2012 at 6:03 PM EDT, the planet Venus will do something it has done only seven times since the invention of the telescope: cross in front of the sun. This transit is among the rarest of planetary alignments and it has an odd cycle.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/observing-venus-transit-across-sun

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US and Israel initiate cyber war

post from Top stories on 01 June 2012 09:10:05 PM. © Top stories

Story Source

The New York Times reveals today that it is the Obama administration and Israel that launched cyber attacks on Iran via the worm named Stuxnet, and tha

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/us-and-israel-initiate-cyber-war

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Aspirin's 'double hit' on bowel cancer

post from Top stories on 01 June 2012 09:07:42 PM. © Top stories

Story Source

Aspirin kills cancer cells by controlling two key processes that influence energy use in cells and could explain how aspirin can prevent bowel cancer. The research is published in this month?s Gastroenterology.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/aspirins-double-hit-bowel-cancer

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The cell's 'New World'

post from Top stories on 01 June 2012 09:04:30 PM. © Top stories

Story Source

In one of the most famous faux pas of exploration, Columbus set sail for India and instead 'discovered' America.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/cells-new-world

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NCBI ROFL: Allergy to human seminal fluid:
cross-reactivity with dog dander.

post from Discoblog » NCBI ROFL on 01 June 2012 07:00:51 PM. © Discoblog » NCBI ROFL

“BACKGROUND:
Human seminal plasma (HSP) allergy is uncommon, with symptoms ranging from vulvovaginal pruritus to life-threatening anaphylaxis. Although several seminal plasma allergens have been reported and their molecular masses have been estimated to range between 12 and 75 kd, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) has recently been identified as a causative allergen. Given that in a large number of cases symptoms appeared during or after the first intercourse, a cross-reactivity phenomenon might be implicated.
OBJECTIVE:
We sought to assess the presence of IgE cross-reactivity among proteins from dog epithelium and HSP and to attempt to identify the allergens involved.
METHODS:
Forty-one patients with dog epithelium allergy were selected. One of them experienced anaphylaxis in contact with her husband’s seminal plasma. Skin prick tests, serum specific IgE measurements, SDS-PAGE immunoblotting, and inhibition tests were performed to study the pattern of IgE-binding proteins and the potential cross-reactivity between HSP and dog epithelium. Mass spectrometry was carried out to identify the protein involved in allergy reactions.
RESULTS:
Twenty-four percent of the sera from patients with dog epithelium allergy recognized an IgE-binding band of 28 kd in HSP immunoblotting. Mass spectrometry identified this band as ...

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NcbiRofl/~3/vYXF8S0iFfs/

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The Ugly Side of TED talks

post from Physics Buzz on 01 June 2012 05:16:10 PM. © Physics Buzz

TED talks have taken off like wildfire in recent years. Some of them have been indisputably great, with various experts weighing in on everything from creationism to the magic of Google to astronomical doomsday scenarios. Many, many others TED talks are simply tedious. Some are mind-numbingly absurd. Here is the best example of the worst of the TED talks that I know of.

Now, this is not a formal TED talk. It's part of an independent series of talks know as TEDx, licensed through the TED organization in the spirit of TED talks to share ideas worth spreading. Randy Powell is certainly spreading something. (Manure on a farmer's field comes to mind.)

It's nice that TED allows people to share the intellectual joy of the talks with their little licensing scheme, but they are going to have to find a way to vet talks at least a little better. Powell's talk is nothing more than 10 minutes of nonsense, which he claims to have inherited from another crank named Marko Rodin, and subsequently developed over the past twenty years. What a terrible waste of two decades.

I had considered trying to critique this talk point by point. After studying it as carefully as I was able, I am speechless. There is nothing coherent enough to critique. And yet, the crowd seems to be enthralled by the blithering nonsense.

I try to avoid posting about junk science out of the fear that adding one more link, even if it's associated with a negative review, can help in a small way to propagate the junk further. In this case, there's no real danger. This talk is so ridiculous that I'm pretty sure it's harmless, provided you don't mind throwing away ten minutes of your time.

One benefit to posting it is to help you see what sciency gibberish looks like. I hope that readers of this blog will never applaud someone for spouting strings of jargony nonsense, like the poor fools at the Charlotte TEDx talk did.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/physicscentral/PhysicsBuzz/~3/Jrb4y0H7zKM/ugly-sid
e-of-ted-talks.html

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Where Is It for 6/2/12

post from CR4 - Recent Blog Entries on 01 June 2012 05:00:00 PM. © CR4 - Recent Blog Entries

This weeks piece of Architecture:Check back on Tuesday for the answer! Thanks to PWSlack for submitting this image.

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http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/20056/Where-Is-It-for-6-2-12?from_rss=1

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What Is It for 6/2/12

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Astronaut opens up the window to see the Moon
rise

Seriously, who knew the International Space Station had windows that could open?That lovely time lapse video shows the Moon rising over the Earth’s limb. Then, halfway through, the protective covers on the cupola windows get opened, and you can see[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BadAstronomyBlog/~3/IbnXq8Ld_L4/

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Sauber Cuts F1 Car In Half To Show Us What's
Inside

From Autoblog: Looking at the outside of a Formula One race car is all well and fine, but apart from its aerodynamic elements, it really doesn't tell you very much about how it works. The secrets, as with a great many things, are hidden inside. And that's not a place many F1 teams - hard

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http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/20058/Sauber-Cuts-F1-Car-In-Half-To-Show-Us-W
hat-s-Inside?from_rss=1

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