Are you down with Real Science?
[Watch the Video]
(Source: comaniddy, via thescienceofreality)
78,000 apply to leave Earth forever to live on Mars
See on Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future
By Mike WallSpace.com Huge numbers of people on Earth are keen to leave the planet forever and seek a new life homesteading on Mars.
Wow.
(via justm1m1nd)
Fossils, Taxonomy and Debate: Is fossil classification fundamentally flawed?
- Guest post by Winston Zack, Department of Geography (University of North Texas)
Linnaeus improved the organization of taxa into related groups, but this is still fundamentally a flawed system of organizing biology given that the foundations of evolutionary principles are a continuum of constant genetic changes and mutations. Therefore, there is no such thing as a ‘static’ taxon or species; rather these animals are always evolving and always show anatomical variations. Therefore, when it comes to classifying fossils, especially those of early hominids (e.g., early genus Homo), I find these debates to be unnecessarily complicated. Archaeology should consider that we have only just scratched the surface when understanding our early human past and not try to hurry and classify fossils or get bogged down about classifying an unusual hominin fossil as a ‘new species’. We still have much to learn about how early human fossils relate to each other. Our sample sizes of early hominin fossils are extremely small as well and come from millions of years of history and across thousands of miles of earth. Different populations, especially if ‘isolated’ for long-periods of time, should show increased biological/anatomical variations from contemporaneous species found elsewhere. A case in point is the Dmanisi fossils, which after 20+ years since they have been discovered, a consensus as to where they fall into the hominin family tree (i.e., their species) has not been formally classified and the debate continues. I personally feel the Dmanisi team is taking very good and cautionary measures before settling upon which ‘species’ is at Dmanisi; although in journals and other published works the Dmanisi team has labeled these hominin fossils to many different species over the years, including but not limited to: Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, Homo georgicus; the first three species listed all lived at the same time while the last species, Homo georgicus, is a potentially new species classification.
So, is the Linnaean taxonomic system flawed?
Personally, such a characterization of biology distinct from the Linnaean system would call every individual a unique taxon because we all have slightly different physical characteristics which make us all unique. The Linnaean system will not go away and may very likely stay here forever. But for fossil classification, when we lack populations of individuals that were recovered from the same area from about the same time, it is difficult to understand how a few fossils may relate to the greater scheme of evolution. All archaeologists and paleoanthropologists, and anyone else trying to interpret the past from fossil evidence should use as much caution as possible prior to classifying fossils…and many of these professionals do this.
Author Biography:
Winston Zack is a geoarchaeologist and graduate student at University of North Texas. His work has thus far primarily been conducted on Plio-Pleistocene and Pleistocene sites such as Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia and several hominid fossil-bearing sites in Spain. He begins work in Germany on several Pleistocene sites this summer. Much of his research has focused on archaeological sediments and stratigraphy, artefact densities and what these analyses can tell us about hominid procurement, transport and provisioning behaviours. He is currently in the process of coauthoring an article for Quaternary Science Reviews, which will be published in the near future.
Image Sources:
- Larick, R, Ciochon RL, Zaim Y. 2004. “Homo erectus and the Emergence of the Sunda in the Tethys Realm: Contributions of Potassium-based chronology in the Sangiran dome, Central Java,” Athena Review 4(1) (bottom image)
- Don’s Maps (top image)
(via raw-r-evolution)
Wringing out a washcloth in space
(Source: fencehopping, via kingsize-queen)
In 1980, Lake Peigneu, Louisiana disappeared into an underground vortex of doom. Actually, the accident was due to a math error, which resulted in one of the strangest oil drilling and salt mining accidents in U.S. history.
The Diamond Salt company had a huge salt mining operation under the lake. Meanwhile, Texaco Oil was drilling for oil from shallow platforms, which were built on the lake. Texaco roughnecks set a new drill a few hundred feet down, through the lake, through the lake bed, and into the earth. The drill bit hit one of the salt mine shafts, and the above disaster happened.
Just when you think it couldn’t possibly get worse, it does. The entire lake was sucked into the mine. The drill hole was originally 14 inches, but the force of the water expanded it to hundreds of feet across. At one point, a reverse water fall of 150 feet was formed because the Gulf of Mexico drained backwards (north!) into the lake. Watch the event unfold disaster on top of disaster. It is incredible. Via BoingBoing.
(via silas216)
Take our 13-question quiz and test your knowledge of scientific concepts and recent scientific findings and events. Then see how you did in comparison with the 1,006 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a national poll conducted by the Pew Research Center and Smithsonian magazine.
NEW QUIZ: Do you know more about science and technology than the average American? Take our 13-question quiz and compare yourself with our national sample.
We suck at science
and it looks like we also suck at engaging women in science education, as women on average scored lower than men in most questions
I got 12 out of 13.
Neil deGrasse Tyson Connects with Rapper The GZA
Have you seen the episode of StarTalk on the Nerdist Channel where Neil interviews GZA from the Wu-Tang Clan? If not, you can watch it below.
In case you didn’t know it, Neil is not a Hip Hop fan. No, Neil is into the Blues, in a big way. And so he didn’t know much about GZA going into the interview. I watched as our producer and a Hip Hop aficionado (who also happened to be a postdoctoral researcher in physics at MIT) briefed Neil on “The Genius.”
Then GZA came in to the studio, and I watched him and Neil get to know each other. On paper, the two don’t appear to have much in common, and at the start of the afternoon, it wasn’t certain that they’d end up that way, either.
But then they got into the studio and the interview began. Slowly, GZA got comfortable with Neil, and they started to connect. And it turns out that they both have one very powerful thing in common: the universe is their muse.
Listening to two people who have influence over others – who inspire those they touch to learn, to explore, to question – who are so very different in some ways, watching them come to understand and respect each other was a powerful experience, and I think it comes across in the video. I know everyone in the studio felt it that day.
At one point Neil asks GZA how science factors into his creativity and what scientific idea is most intriguing. And GZA answers, “How everything is connected.”
Clearly, one of the things that connects Neil and GZA is their love and awe for science. But there is something else that connects them, something that GZA puts best in the interview:
“That’s one of the unique things about being an artist. That you have a voice that people hear and listen to, so it’s important to say something that’s important.”
Omg. The look on Tyson’s face at 7:19 when GZA is rapping about the universe is PRICELESS. Lol!! That need’s to be a gif.
Bicycle Phone Changer
In Tanzania, the majority of people live without electricity, yet a third of the country uses mobile phones. Bernard Kiwia, a trained electrician and vocational-school instructor, collaborated with the for-profit social enterprise Global Cycle Solutions (GCS) to design a phone charger from scrap bike and radio parts. Made from spokes, brake tubes, clamps, motors, and capacitors, the device generates power when its roller comes in contact with the bike’s spinning wheel as one rides it
(via chichiwho)
“Music moves people of all cultures, in a way that doesn’t seem to happen with other animals. Nobody really understands why listening to music — which, unlike sex or food, has no intrinsic value — can trigger such profoundly rewarding experiences. Salimpoor and other neuroscientists are trying to figure it out with the help of brain scanners.
Yesterday, for example, researchers from Stanford reported that when listening to a new piece of classical music, different people show the same patterns of synchronized activity in several brain areas, suggesting some level of universal experience. But obviously no one’s experience is exactly the same. In today’s issue of Science, Salimpoor’s group reports that when you listen to a song for the first time, the strength of certain neural connections can predict how much you like the music, and that these preferences are guided by what you’ve heard and enjoyed in the past. […]
A few years ago, Salimpoor and Zatorre performed another type of brain scanning experiment in which participants listened to music that gave them goosebumps or chills. The researchers then injected them with a radioactive tracer that binds to the receptors of dopamine, a chemical that’s involved in motivation and reward. With this technique, called positron emission tomography or PET, the researchers showed that 15 minutes after participants listened to their favorite song, their brains flooded with dopamine.
The dopamine system is old, evolutionarily speaking, and is active in many animals during sex and eating. ‘But animals don’t get intense pleasures to music,’ Salimpoor says. ‘So we knew there had to be a lot more to it.’”
(via scinerds)
![melanatedcontributions:
Dr. Shirley JacksonTelecommunications InventionsDr. Shirley Jackson, a theoretical physicist and famous black inventor, has been credited with making many advances in science. She first developed an interest in science and mathematics during her childhood and conducted experiments and studies, such as those on the eating habits of honeybees. She followed this interest to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she received a bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree, all in the field of physics. In doing so she became the first African-American woman to acquire a Ph.D. from MIT.Jackson started to conduct successful experiments in theoretical physics and then started to use her knowledge in physics to start making advances in telecommunications while working at Bell Laboratories. These inventions include developments in the portable fax, touch tone telephone, solar cell, and the fiber optic cables used to provide clarity in overseas telephone calls. She has also helped make possible Caller ID and Call Waiting.Currently, Jackson is the president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, recently ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation’s top 50 universities. The mission of the Rensselaer Plan calls for “apply[ing] science to the common purposes of life.” Dr. Jackson’s goal for Rensselaer is “to achieve prominence in the 21st century as a top-tier world-class technological research university, with global reach and global impact.”
“So now, I go to MIT, boom. And I’m going because it’s my great chance to be with people really like me, that loved math and science. And I’m just really ready to get into it and have people I can talk to all the time and (humph), I get there, and they don’t even wanna talk to me, you know, don’t sit next to me, don’t eat with me, don’t do problem sets. They had their study groups. I was never in them, so alone, alone, alone. … But all this time, the Civil Rights Movement is going on…. They’re doing all kinds of things, and I’m sitting up here in Boston [Massachusetts] not being particularly well treated, in fact, being horribly treated at some points. One time I was mistaken for the elevator operator at MIT. And a faculty member got on the elevator and told me to press the floor. And I said, excuse me? He says, I want, I told you to press 3. And I said, if you want to go to the floor, you do it yourself, and I, you know, got off the elevator on that floor. So I had all these kind of incidents. And I really, don’t need to talk about the rest of it. You asked me what was remarkable about my junior year. It was less about what was going on at MIT because that was kind of a continuation, but there were things happening in Boston. And I got, you know, had things happen to me in Boston, spit on and shot at and chased”
Watch the rest of her History Makers intereview](http://24.media.tumblr.com/ed44b371e19248d113401cc7d19c2f75/tumblr_mkus37UYK31s5pjs6o1_400.jpg)
Dr. Shirley Jackson
Telecommunications Inventions
Dr. Shirley Jackson, a theoretical physicist and famous black inventor, has been credited with making many advances in science. She first developed an interest in science and mathematics during her childhood and conducted experiments and studies, such as those on the eating habits of honeybees. She followed this interest to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she received a bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree, all in the field of physics. In doing so she became the first African-American woman to acquire a Ph.D. from MIT.
Jackson started to conduct successful experiments in theoretical physics and then started to use her knowledge in physics to start making advances in telecommunications while working at Bell Laboratories. These inventions include developments in the portable fax, touch tone telephone, solar cell, and the fiber optic cables used to provide clarity in overseas telephone calls. She has also helped make possible Caller ID and Call Waiting.
Currently, Jackson is the president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, recently ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation’s top 50 universities. The mission of the Rensselaer Plan calls for “apply[ing] science to the common purposes of life.” Dr. Jackson’s goal for Rensselaer is “to achieve prominence in the 21st century as a top-tier world-class technological research university, with global reach and global impact.”
“So now, I go to MIT, boom. And I’m going because it’s my great chance to be with people really like me, that loved math and science. And I’m just really ready to get into it and have people I can talk to all the time and (humph), I get there, and they don’t even wanna talk to me, you know, don’t sit next to me, don’t eat with me, don’t do problem sets. They had their study groups. I was never in them, so alone, alone, alone. … But all this time, the Civil Rights Movement is going on…. They’re doing all kinds of things, and I’m sitting up here in Boston [Massachusetts] not being particularly well treated, in fact, being horribly treated at some points. One time I was mistaken for the elevator operator at MIT. And a faculty member got on the elevator and told me to press the floor. And I said, excuse me? He says, I want, I told you to press 3. And I said, if you want to go to the floor, you do it yourself, and I, you know, got off the elevator on that floor. So I had all these kind of incidents. And I really, don’t need to talk about the rest of it. You asked me what was remarkable about my junior year. It was less about what was going on at MIT because that was kind of a continuation, but there were things happening in Boston. And I got, you know, had things happen to me in Boston, spit on and shot at and chased”
Watch the rest of her History Makers intereview
