Good Science
 

HIV researchers solve a key puzzle

good science and pure determination :)

I guess it was left up to hard work and science, since no religious person would pray to a god for understanding that would help save the homos.

National Science and Engineering Week- here in the UK

Thanks, yes, very interesting and heartening.

That was very interesting, diva. Thanks!

That one irks the shit out of me like nothing else. If anything HIGH self-esteem is the biggest fucking psychological problem bar none if you ask me. Way too many self aggrandizing jerks are allowed to be in charge of things they shouldn't.

coming from forensics as i do it also is the one that pisses me off the most- some of the most dangerous and mentally unstable people I assessed were full of themselves and arrogant- generally low self-esteem leads to self-harm not other-harm.

Awesome! As for #1....(Psychodiva) how come you can have your temporal lobe cut out and still be fine? Two people I know had this done for epilepsy, and both are fine. One is completing his PhD at a university in town, and the other is in a class I am taking (and doing well in a college course).

If he is fine after having his temporal lobe cut out, then he is clearly superhuman. He wouldn't be able to make out conversations or relate to music or sounds in general. At least that's what i think. I may be wrong brain science updates itself quicker than I can keep up lol.

LHC webcast :D

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8593780.stm

Diva have you read this book?

It includes a 'mythbusting kit', i.e., the ten causes of myth:

1. word-of-mouth
2. desire for easy answers and quick fixes
3. selective perception and memory
4. inferring causation from correlation
5. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning
6. exposure to a biased sample
7. reasoning by representativeness
8. misleading film and media portrayals
9. exaggeration of a kernel of truth
10. terminological confusion

(Aren't items four and five the same?)

The book also includes "Ten Psychological Findings that Are Difficult to Believe but True." For example: Patients who've experienced strokes in their brain's left frontal lobes, which result in severe language loss, are better at spotting lies than people without brain damage.

(I haven't read the book; it's reviewed in Skeptical Inquirer.)

link?

It's not online but a fellow of uncertain ethics may have posted it here.

no I haven't read it- may well do so once I finish the latest Freud ;)

this is cool :)

Wildcat mimics monkey calls

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

never gets old

couple of interesting titbits

Encoding of memories

Creativity and schizophrenia

Mods- would it be too cheeky of me to ask that any bullshit posted by Cal about the above articles please be removed to the bingo thread so that this thread remains unpolluted?

I believe there's a subtle difference in that correlation does not need to be chronological in order, whereas post hoc, ergor propter hoc deals with things that are successive in chronology.

Someone correct me if wrong.

More good science :)

yes :)

Some good research here about that old tenet of rights-deniers that abortion leads to depression

That little old gorilla experiment went and grewed up into a book :) Think I'll be getting this one

I would recommend this book to a certain person on this forum but I know he would just read the blurb on the back and find a penis in it somewhere so I won't bother

Science and religion don't mix

Re creativity and schizophrenia - I had wondered about this, I had noticed what seemed like a disproportionate number of depressed/schizophrenic artists and poets. But it's never easy to be sure you're not subconsciously counting the hits and ignoring the misses, we're all subject to our own biases. Thanks for sharing :)

Slightly interesting article about memory formation- some good research going on

(mods please if Cal interjects on this duff him up :) )

The science of falling in love :)

I did watch a documentary about some college kids making a very attractive woman on their computers. She came to life and helped them through some odd and troubling times.

:D

but that's not good science.
that's just weird....

:rolleyes:
:lol:

Just a plug for a somewhat decent book - as long as you have an open mind that is- I think fundie theists might not like it :D

http://www.psychotherapyarena.com/re...-9781606238899

Psychodiva, in ref to the article on schizophrenia: is there any correlation b/w schizophrenia and math skills? It seems like I have heard somewhere of engineers developing this disease in a higher proportion than the normal population.

I haven't seen any research on it lately but i doubt there is a clear correlation - there may be an anecdotal and assumed one only

anecdotal and assumed are enough for cal.

Are you kidding? He is happy with stuff that clearly contradicts him, as long as he can pick out some key words, arrange them out of context, read between the lines to figure out what the author is secretly saying, and thereby connect his dots.

That sounds like sevens.

nah- sevenses is just mad - Cal is a disgusting old wanker

Are you telling me that you don't think there's anything mentally wrong with Cal?

personality wise yes- actual mental illness- probably not- but I couldn't tell from just the internet

Arsenic- the stuff of life?

I just made a thread out of a post.... er a new building block for forums ?

lol and I just pointed it out to you- cross posting!!!!!! :D

THIS!!!! is worth a listen

This seems like a good thread for this little work of art :

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs7/i/200...Baleshadow.jpg

:rock:

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Winning genes commonly act as team-players.
Their winning plays are salvations of an aliveness of which they are a part.
A fraction of genes are parasitic (they parasitize teams).

Cool! Where did you get this?

Not sure if this fits in with "good science", but...

fucking magnets!

Kind of like zombies????? Wow 28 days later really was a premoniotion.

Woohoo! Now I can have all the bad girls I want! :)

Aliveness Teams
 

Winning genes commonly act as team-players.
Their winning plays are salvations of an aliveness of which they are a part.
A fraction of genes are parasitic (they parasitize teams).

Thank you!
I am glad you like it! That’s me talking! :D
Still, the space-constraints of the “signature box” did make me be a tad simplistic.
If I had more space, I’d say >>

Vital genes act as a team,
which sustains the aliveness of which they are a part.

Beneficial genes act as part of that team,
helping the alivenesses of which they are a part.

All these genes are teamish!

They are team-players, and their winning-plays are salvations and/or promotions of the alivenesses of which they are a part.

Detrimental genes act against such a team of aliveness-sustaining genes, and damage (or damage the chances of) the aliveness which is sustaining them. They may damage it so much that the aliveness dies, and they too are lost!

Neutral genes neither help nor harm.

Parasitic genes, such as jumping-genes, parasitize an organism’s team of genes.

Viral genes are themselves members of a team – the viral genome.

Even kin-killing genetic elements (which some call “selfish genes” ‡), that target and kill siblings which lack that genetic element, are teamish in the sense that they aid the teams of genes which contain copies of them.



The reason beneficial genes are teamish, is that one gene can accomplish very little on its own.

Aliveness is a team effort!

An organism's genes survive via aliveness
(or “viability” in the case of viruses, and seeds, etc).

Dawkins says that we are “gene-survival machines”.
But this is a myopic, blinkered view of aliveness.
The truth is :
aliveness acts as an aliveness-sustaining “machine”



Aliveness is a multi-reactant physico-chemical chain-reaction
which (with a dash of luck!) sustains itself!



A human child holds neither all the genes of its mother, nor all the genes of its father.
So much for gene survival!
But it *is* a continuation and salvation of both their alivenesses.


Biology, is (surprisingly for some!) about ...
LIFE ! :-)



‡ I am well aware that many apply this phrase more widely that that.

Pantheist, I am going to take this to my intro genetics class professor, if you don't mind, thanks!

Capitalization is never enough!
 

I don't mind at all. It's a public forum after all!
Just watch your A's and B's, hey?
PanAtheist. :nanner:

He's not gonna take it any more!

also a bit of Pharyngula

remind you of anybody?

I've been fucking modded again!!! - it was just a post about research !!

Another one of those 'tunnel vision' scientists who is an expert in their field talks about how good it is to be an expert in a field

In defense of elites

It happened again :( I'll wait for it to be unlocked :(

Yeah, I've had that happen for some of my heroically-long posts, at which point I regret not having saved them somewhere before trying to post.

lol- at least mine aren't long :)

It just happened to me today (or was it yesterday?).

It was a very profound observation, too. Sad, really!

mine aren't profound either dammit!

although they could be said to be full of profundity :rolleyes:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/8/828.full.pdf

Uh oh...

:o You expect me to pay?! - Sod that.

Oh that's weird... I guess it's because I'm on my university's campus that that doesn't even come up.

Oh well, I downloaded and uploaded the PDF so you guys can access it =)
"Effects of Cell Phone Radiofrequency Signal
Exposure on Brain Glucose Metabolism"
http://www.mediafire.com/?1v3w2b1etkbumns

News story
http://news.discovery.com/tech/cell-...sm-110223.html

Gosh!
Perhaps we'd all better stop talking - it's so much more dangerous than using mobile phones!

It's 43% more dangerous to talk!

We'll see about that next time I evaporate when someone's cell goes off.

Bit of a quandary regarding whether this should go in Shit or Good science as it is good science talking about shit science- anyhoo- made an abitrary decision to put it here :)

PZ trounces another creationist

(the creationist version of 'science' and reading of Wolpert kinda reminds me of a certain 'self-taught' neurologist lol)

A small inroad into the quackery market at last comes under some sort of control.
Won't it be heartbreaking if some of the scumbags providing uncontrolled crap are forced out of business.

useful site telling the truth about 'alternative' and 'complementary' stuff

and this short video by Ben Goldacre about Homeocrapathy

Team Claims It Has Found Oldest Fossils

A team of Australian and British geologists have discovered fossilized, single-cell organisms that are 3.4 billion years old and that the scientists say are the oldest known fossils on earth.

Their assertion, if sustained, confirms the view that life evolved on earth surprisingly soon after the Late Heavy Bombardment, a reign of destruction in which waves of asteroids slammed into the primitive planet, heating the surface to molten rock and boiling the oceans into an incandescent mist. The bombardment, which ended around 3.85 billion years ago, would have sterilized the earth’s surface of any incipient life.

Isn't that when the Scientologists arrived? ;)

Not sure if this is the right place for this or wether its been mentioned before.

But it is GOOD SCIENCE "Life before dinosaurs" :cool:

tis cool :)

I have a collection of coral inherited from my dad and obtained by him when he lived in Bahrain and Egypt - I want to go check it out now but it is packed away :(

It was his age that threw me, not to mention his taste in British prog rock.

Save the coral for a rainy day......

s'England- is always a rainy day!!!!!

and this is interesting- to me anyway- the rest of you can sod off :D

oh- and this :)

oooo, subtle, I like subtle :bop:

Very crisp & clean.
I look forward to Ken Ham and the Twatican's considered responses.
Fuck it - no I don't.

Astrophysicists report first simulation to create a Milky Way-like galaxy.

Eris Simulation

:lol:

They say that the simulation would take 570 years on a personal computer. I've already done it in my bathtub, and I did it when I was six years old! :P

Quite frankly I'm disgusted at the title of this thread, it's much like a thread entitled bad religion

Me too, the word "good" just makes me vomit and the word "science" causes my boner to droop. When you put those words together, I vomit all over my limp dick.

Hmm. I think you might have finally made a coherent point here, Jerry.

Congratulations. :thumbsup:

I mean, "good" is inherently implied when we define something as being confirmed by scientific means. "Bad" science is, basically, not science at all. The fact that it's bad negates its value as anything scientific.

As for "good" religion, well, I don't, personally, see the value in permanently wedding one's self to suppositions that can't be tested but, of course, there are many others who do claim to see the value in it. I guess those folks abhor an unsolved mystery.

Quite Frankly I don't give a damn

A cool little list of 10 Unsolved Problems in Physics. A very interesting read.

Indeed, some interesting stuff - but I recall with titters the Choobus proclamations of old, that the likes of the stringy stuff, branes and associated M 'theory' were little more than mental masturbation for those with too much time on their glands.

Have things developed to produce more concrete ideas that could be tested or become useful in engineering fields? I suspect much of it will remain in the realm of the mind tossers for the foreseeable future - but I'd love to be wrong.

No, a lot of theoretical physics is still just mental masturbation. We have no where near the technology to test for some of this stuff. Some of it does come with predictions, and if they get some of the problems sorted out it will narrow down what to look for in the experiments that can be done.

What every happened to that ol' Mighty Atheist, Choob?

We know nothing.
Boredom? Too much work?
Lucrative porn career?
A sad loss, but the heathen scumbag brotherhood battles on regardless.

A cool little article of artists imagining worlds outside our solar system. (via David Brin's Facebook page)

cool :) reminds me of the old scifi magazines :)

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Photojournal website, where you can search by body and NASA mission for images. Awesome.

I just watched a program on National Geographic channel called Brain Games, which basically illustrates how the brain cuts corners, fills in missing data, and, generally, can be quite unreliable. Fascinating stuff!

I've only watched the first episode (Watch This!), but I've set up a series recording. I hope the following episodes are as cool as the first one.

I've heard good things about this program, I'll have to set up a recording to catch it in the future. I should see if old episodes are On Demand.