More climate change lies!

post from Bioblog: Biology in the News on 24 March 2010 10:34:50 PM. © Bioblog: Biology in the News

Those evil liars who wrote the Climate Change report are caught out again!

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Botanical Wednesday: But I don't believe in
ghosts!

post from Pharyngula on 24 March 2010 09:47:13 PM. © Pharyngula

Epipogium aphyllum

Find out more about the Ghost Orchid.

(Mary bobs a curtsy to SEF for finding this one)

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EXTRATERRESTRIAL CONTACT: PUT A SOCK IN IT

post from Science Ain't So Bad on 24 March 2010 09:32:00 PM. © Science Ain't So Bad

Shh!

SEARCH FOR INTELLIGENCE: An Agreement

THEM

Hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. Hundreds of billions of galaxies. Lots of stars and lots of planets.

Lots .

How many restless alien souls are looking this way, wondering what’s over here?

Meanwhile, we’re looking for planets; we’re listening to signals; and we’re trying to figure out if a planet has life on it from a long, long distance away.

If we keep at it long enough, won’t we come up with something?

IMAGINE

MISTER ScienceAintSoBad knows it’s been a while since we started “the search” (in the 1980’s). One of our first readers, BlaseBoy14 says: “If it were out there, we’d a heard by now. If it was gonna happen, it woulda happened.”

Well, yeah, MISTER ScienceAintSoBad‘ll fall of his chair about the same time you do if we do hear from the pickle brains in the Andromeda Cluster.

But stay with me here. You knew the Red Sox would never win the World Series, didn’t you? You knew an African American would never become President of the United States, right? And you knew those electronic book things would never catch on and replace real books. So let’s SAY you’re wrong this time. Let’s just SAY we get “pinged”. What do we do?

“We’re HERE! We’re HERE! We’re HERE! Whoopee! Oh BOY!

Right?

No reason not. They’re gonna be too far away to hurt us. Plus they’ll be wise and kindly. Maybe they’ll tell us how to end wars.

Nuh uh. We have an agreement. I’m sure you never heard about this, but there’s to be NO talkin’. At least not till we’ve checked around with all concerned parties (which would be, more-or-less, the occupants of this particular rock).

A paper my Michael Michaud, written back in 1991, talks about what’s to be done before answering a signal received from ANY non-Earthians but, basically, it consists of some careful checking around to make sure us Earthians are on the same page about accepting the tiny risk that off-Earthers we’re chatting are the North Koreans of Andromeda.

THE COST OF LOOKING

ROAD SIGN (NEVADA)

Then there this:

We’re wasting money looking for intelligent life “out there” when we should be spending it on our own people right here on earth. At 10 billion dollars a month, this stupid diversion of funds is more expensive than a major war. And what good is it? How’s it going to help us to hear the a-m-a-z-i-n-g opinions of some slithery space creatures? I say close down the programs and concentrate on poverty in this country. - Proud2BeLiberal14

Aw Proud. You should be ashamed. Here’s the cost of war . And, anyway, your numbers are all wrong. Searching for intelligent signals is cheap, cheap, cheap and the funding is private.

———————————-

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Google’s Evil Meter

post from Science Ain't So Bad on 24 March 2010 09:30:00 PM. © Science Ain't So Bad

EVIL METER

GOOGLE’S NEW INDICATOR

Have you been watching the ins and outs, ups and downs, backs and forths of Google/China?

If you have, you know that Google’s modest experiment in self-censorship’s developed a sour magnesium taste for the “Do no harm” guys who don’t like all the ropes ‘n chains ‘n blindfolds that seem to be the cost of doing business in China. So they said – I think the word was.. tryin’ to think here.. I think it was “NO“.

Unless China took the gag off.

And China, always, nimble in these kinds of negotations said “Uh.. Jeez. But we ALWAYS censor.” And stuck to its idiotic guns.

Google’s moving its operations to Hong Kong where it’ll get itself out of the censoring business and back to the search business. And the map business. And the phone business. And.. well.. like that.

MISTER ScienceAintSoBad has no standing here since this is politics. But just in case you want my opinion? I think the huge, powerful, fast growing nation of China will lose and the funny li’l guys with the search engine’ll win.

But it’ll take awhile.

Anyway, now that Google, itself, isn’t censoring (with some temporary exceptions till conracts expire) Google felt it would be useful for its readers to have a visual indicator of how much censoring is being done by the Chinese authorities. So they developed a nice “status page”, called by some, its “Evil Meter”

ScienceAintSoBadRating = 10 (for Google)

ScienceAintSoBadRating = -1 for China

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Merry Christmas from the Mr (and soon Mrs)
Science Show!

post from Where Science Meets Pop Culture on 24 March 2010 09:18:46 PM. © Where Science Meets Pop Culture

Christmas is a time for over-indulgence. But has Santa gone too far?

As Christmas is only two sleeps away, have a listen back to last year's Christmas special on Santa, the fat, diabetic substance abuser (Episode 98). Santa Claus is a ticking time-bomb. Not only does he eat copious amounts of sugar and drink gallons of beer, he is also at risk of altitude sickness, deep-vein thrombosis, jet-lag, zoonotic diseases from exposure to wild reindeer and countless other problems associated with lack of sleep and poor diet. Not to mention all the concerns associated with smoking.

Australian science writer Bianca Nogrady assembled a crack team of health experts to look into the state of the big man, and the prognosis wasn't good. You can read more about the findings of the Santa-team in Bianca's original article for Australian Doctor, Health alert for Christmas visitor.

Listen to this show here:

Continuing the Christmas theme, listen in to some reindeer facts and the problems Santa is having at the North Pole (Episode 95). Due to global warming, and the global financial crisis, in 2008 Santa had to put his North Pole residence up for auction and is currently looking for a new place in Lapland.

Listen to this show here:

My Christmas treat came early - soon there will be a Mrs Science - thanks Euge for saying yes! One of the conditions, however, is that this moustache never returns...

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Nanowire Polymer Film Turns Any Surface into a
Multitouch Interface (video)

post from Singularity Hub on 24 March 2010 08:48:53 PM. © Singularity Hub

Portuguese engineers have taken us one step closer to fusing the digital and physical worlds. Displax, a fledgling tech company in Braga, has developed a device that can read the electrical disturbances in a thin transparent polymer film embedded with nanowires. Any pressure on the film (from a finger, or even from wind) can be [...]

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Nanowire Polymer Film Turns Any Surface into a
Multitouch Interface

post from Singularity Hub on 24 March 2010 08:48:53 PM. © Singularity Hub

Portuguese engineers have taken us one step closer to fusing the digital and physical worlds. Displax, a fledgling tech company in Braga, has developed a device that can read the electrical disturbances in a thin transparent polymer film embedded with nanowires. Any pressure on the film (from a finger, or even from wind) can be [...]

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NCBI ROFL: Oh, snap! You got burned!

Top 4 ridiculous ways to get burned:Bouncy castle burns.“The bouncy castle has become a de rigeur garden accessory for children’s parties. The premise is a simple one, to contain and entertain the masses. A large and sturdy construction of a tough polymer, normally PVC, is inflated by a [...]

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newsflash: most of missing universe found

The universe as we know it is mostly empty, with light years separating most stars and great voids stretching for millions of light years between large galaxies. But there was also a major chunk of the universe missing, a chunk to the tune of 90% which[...]

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My apologies to Canada

We have further information from the University of Ottawa about Coulter's non-appearance last night.

Last night, the organizers themselves decided at 7:50 p.m. to cancel the event and so informed the University's Protection Services staff on site. At that time, a crowd of about one thousand people had peacefully gathered at Marion Hall.

So…no word of violence at all, just a peaceful protest. Ann Coulter simply chickened out, and the decision was entirely hers and the organizations that invited her.

Never mind, there was no infringement of open discussion here, just another example of right wing cowardice.

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