Interesting Stuff Thread

magicbastarder · 19-10-2012 1:40pm

kylith wrote: »

I really don't see the point of doing this; petrol is one of the things that got us into this mess to start with; what good would making more of it do?

if you make it using atmospheric carbon, it would not contribute a net increase to atmospheric CO2.

kylith · 19-10-2012 2:35pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

if you make it using atmospheric carbon, it would not contribute a net increase to atmospheric CO2.

Surely it'd be better to remove the carbon from the atmosphere completely rather than to remove it only to pump it back in again? This synthetic petrol really doesn't do anything to help the environmental predicament other than to make it look like something's being done.

kiffer · 19-10-2012 3:00pm

Hydrogen is hard to transport and handle.

The energy needed for the process has to be more than you get out of burning the resulting product.
You can't just pull power off the national grid for this as that would just be a waste. You'd be burning fossil fuels to make man made fuel and you'd lose a lot of energy in the process.

What might work is using this to ship energy from solar plants near the equator.

It's probably highly inefficient if it works at all but you could probably make plastics out of it which would actively lock up some carbon while a the fuel would at least not add more carbon to the atmosphere with out using up loads of farmland like bio fuels.

Hotblack Desiato · 19-10-2012 9:32pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

In fairness, he does say down the article that the goal is to move to using renewables. I'd say* that they used the national grid for now as it was cheaper to run and refine the process.

It's still possible to waste renewables. That energy could probably be better used elsewhere. And if you want synthetic liquid fuels it's easier to make them from coal, much of the German WWII effort depended on it and the South Africans did it in the 70s/80s when under sanctions.

If you want vehicle fuel from electricity then hydrogen (although hard to handle) from nuclear seems the obvious way to go. Keep the nukes burning 24/7 and use the excess power at night to split water (or run a desalination plant. Or pumped storage...)

kiffer · 20-10-2012 8:02am

ninja900 wrote: »

It's still possible to waste renewables. That energy could probably be better used elsewhere. And if you want synthetic liquid fuels it's easier to make them from coal, much of the German WWII effort depended on it and the South Africans did it in the 70s/80s when under sanctions.

If you want vehicle fuel from electricity then hydrogen (although hard to handle) from nuclear seems the obvious way to go. Keep the nukes burning 24/7 and use the excess power at night to split water (or run a desalination plant. Or pumped storage...)

Until we hit peak uranium production... demand currently out strips supply. There is a roughly 50% shortfall. We really need to be working harder on renewable sources. Nukes are a stopgap measure.
They're better than fossil fuels but we want to ween off them aswell eventually.

Hotblack Desiato · 20-10-2012 10:13am

There was a uranium price bubble in 2007, if what you say is correct then prices would have remained high.

We probably have good uranium reserves here, but prospecting for it is illegal :rolleyes:

Most estimates of the lifetime of current high grade reserves are about 100 years. That's before you get into lower grade reserves, undiscovered reserves, thorium, seawater extraction of uranium, breeder reactors, or reactors that can burn up 'waste'. Estimates for these range between thousands and billions of years.

Sulla Felix · 20-10-2012 10:18pm

I was poking around on coursera.org and spotted two courses in particular that the regular denizens here might like.

https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain How to Reason and Argue :cool::pac:

https://www.coursera.org/course/geneticsevolution Introduction to Genetics and Evolution

The genetics one has already started but, since you don't pay for the course, there's really nothing to fear about starting it anyway. I had a look through the first couple weeks worth of material and it's basic enough.

kiffer · 21-10-2012 10:19am

ninja900 wrote: »

There was a uranium price bubble in 2007, if what you say is correct then prices would have remained high.

Well... the after the bubble burst in 2007 prices where about many times higher then they had been for the previous 10 years... so I'm tempted to say prices did remain high. That said I'm not well versed enough in economics to really make a judgement on that.

We probably have good uranium reserves here, but prospecting for it is illegal :rolleyes:

Most estimates of the lifetime of current high grade reserves are about 100 years. That's before you get into lower grade reserves, undiscovered reserves, thorium, seawater extraction of uranium, breeder reactors, or reactors that can burn up 'waste'. Estimates for these range between thousands and billions of years.

It's not about how much is left though, it's about rates of production.
Nuclear is great, I am all for new nuclear tech being developed, I especially love the thorium powered cars people are talking about... but in many ways we're moving from heroin to methadone.

EDIT: Fixed img tag

joseph brand · 22-10-2012 3:09pm

Interesting video from the Hubble channel on YouTube, explaining infrared light and telescopes. Explained in simple terms, so it's suitable for kids. In fact, it's interesting for big kids too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0unmfkTlG8

Sulla Felix · 22-10-2012 10:35pm

Very disturbing case from Italy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20025626

Six Italian scientists and an ex-government official have been sentenced to six years in prison over the 2009 deadly earthquake in L'Aquila.
A regional court found them guilty of multiple manslaughter.
Prosecutors said the defendants gave a falsely reassuring statement before the quake, while the defence maintained there was no way to predict major quakes.

Double you tea eff. This is why a basic grounding in the sciences should be required for all students. There's no way the Judge, who took only four hours to decide the verdict could have any understanding of geologic forces to be able to prosecute these men. Nor for that matter the public prosecutor who brought the case in the first place.

Sarky · 22-10-2012 11:12pm

I... That's actually f*cking retarded. The prosecution, judge and jury should be ashamed of themselves for being so bloody stupid.

Sulla Felix · 22-10-2012 11:28pm

No jury, just a single judge going by the article at least. Not sure why, not familiar at all with continental justice systems. A bit of wiki'ing shows that there's a couple of trial types that just use a single professional judge, others that use two professionals and 6 lay judges and so on. No juries as we understand them.

Bannasidhe · 22-10-2012 11:37pm

Sulla Felix wrote: »

No jury, just a single judge going by the article at least. Not sure why, not familiar at all with continental justice systems. A bit of wiki'ing shows that there's a couple of trial types that just use a single professional judge, others that use two professionals and 6 lay judges and so on. No juries as we understand them.

If I understand what I heard on the radio today apparently there are 3 layers to the Italian system so it's an automatic appeal next, if that fails there is another appeal. Seemingly the end sentence - should one happen - if often vastly different from the first.

Turtwig · 22-10-2012 11:52pm

Seismology is heavily based on statistics. Statistics tend to be very counter intuitive. Juries and Judges, in general, suck with interpreting statistics. Gotta feel for the scientists. Although the guy who said that the small shocks were reducing seismic stresses wasn't exactly being wise.

pauldla · 23-10-2012 6:12am

Talking whale named Noc is revealed

A Beluga whale named Noc learned to warble in a human voice that was so convincing it fooled a diver into thinking someone was shouting at him to get out of the water, US researchers have revealed.

After four years of copying people, Noc reached maturity and apparently either lost the capacity to make human noise or lost interest in doing so. He went back to sounding like a whale, emitting high-pitched noises, and died five years ago.

"Let me out....Please, after all these years, let me out...! Oh, what's the use....."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/23/talking-whale-named-noc-revealed?newsfeed=true

kylith · 23-10-2012 8:48am

pauldla wrote: »

Talking whale named Noc is revealed

"Let me out....Please, after all these years, let me out...! Oh, what's the use....."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/23/talking-whale-named-noc-revealed?newsfeed=true

Sounds like The Swedish Chef.

Delirium · 23-10-2012 10:07am

Breakthrough in world's oldest undeciphered writing

The world's oldest undeciphered writing system, which has so far defied attempts to uncover its 5,000-year-old secrets, could be about to be decoded by Oxford University academics.

This international research project is already casting light on a lost bronze age middle eastern society where enslaved workers lived on rations close to the starvation level.

"I think we are finally on the point of making a breakthrough," says Jacob Dahl, fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford and director of the Ancient World Research Cluster.

Dr Dahl's secret weapon is being able to see this writing more clearly than ever before.

Sarky · 23-10-2012 2:39pm

I bet it says "and Jesus whipped the slaves, saying 'work harder you lazy f*cks, this brothel palace celebrating my glory won't sodding build itself!' And the slaves did roll their eyes and lament for the 99th time Jesus' heroin problem..."

Hotblack Desiato · 24-10-2012 6:11pm

Sarky wrote: »

I bet it says "this gay brothel palace and abortionplex celebrating my glory won't sodding build itself!

FYP

legspin · 25-10-2012 12:30am

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/11/physicists-may-have-evide_n_1957777.html

Hmm, I'm half expecting Rincewind to come sprinting through any minute now...

joseph brand · 25-10-2012 6:52pm

Ever wondered how the T-Rex ate a Triceratops?

Mmmmmmmmm. . . . delicious neck meat.

joseph brand · 25-10-2012 7:02pm

legspin wrote: »

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/11/physicists-may-have-evide_n_1957777.html

Hmm, I'm half expecting Rincewind to come sprinting through any minute now...

Physicists say they may have evidence that the universe is a computer simulation.

Mildly unsettling. Are we 'The Sims'?

Mark Hamill · 25-10-2012 7:31pm

joseph brand wrote: »

Ever wondered how the T-Rex ate a Triceratops?

Mmmmmmmmm. . . . delicious neck meat.

It's nice that evolution gave the T-Rex a pull tab on its meat, that it can use despite having tiny arms

Hotblack Desiato · 26-10-2012 12:01am

joseph brand wrote: »

Mildly unsettling. Are we 'The Sims'?

If life is a fake, you need never accuse your wife/partner of faking it

see there's always an upside.

magicbastarder · 26-10-2012 12:36am

kylith wrote: »

Surely it'd be better to remove the carbon from the atmosphere completely rather than to remove it only to pump it back in again? This synthetic petrol really doesn't do anything to help the environmental predicament other than to make it look like something's being done.

only just saw this now. yes, it would be. but who will pay for it?
petrol will still be needed. if this is a viable solution, it's the best source for petrol, rather than using this as carbon capture and continuing to burn 'normal' petrol. or other petroleum products.

joseph brand · 26-10-2012 4:22am

Mormon polygamists shared the flaws of the fruit fly.

In Utah, women used to marry young. In particular they married Brigham Young, leader of the Mormon Church. The religious leader had 55 wives by whom he had 56 children before he died, aged 76, in 1877. His followers had similar polygamous marriages.

But scientists have now uncovered an odd fact about 19th-century Mormons: the more women in a household, the lower the average birthrate. In other words, the more sister-wives a Mormon woman had, the fewer children she was likely to produce.

"Although it is great in terms of numbers of children for successful males to have harems, the data show that, for every new woman added to a male's household, the number of children that each wife produced goes down by one," said biologist Dr Michael Wade, of Indiana University.
Neither was polygamy a great deal for males. For every man who had multiple wives, there were many who had none. "For every male that has three mates, there must be two who have none," said Wade. "If a male has even more mates, then the disparity among male reproductive haves and have-nots can become quite high."

There's an interesting comment under this article:

Women are fertile for a period every month. It has been observed that in convents the menstrual cycles converge so possible this happens in polygamous marriages. So Brigham's 55 wives would all have been at their most fertile simultaneously - which might be a contributory factor.

Could all those woman have been 'in sync'?

Why does the line in bold, remind me of the very wealthy, tax avoiding, Myth Romney?

robindch · 26-10-2012 10:22am

joseph brand wrote: »

Could all those woman have been 'in sync'?

Not sure, but one or other of the CBS documentaries on the FLDS outpost in Bountiful, Canada showed a collection of what are effectively rutting charts for the local bishop's many wives. I think it's this documentary.

Or it could be the earlier one named "Bishop of Bountiful" which doesn't seem to be available to view on the internet any more, though an extract of the transcript is available (Hana is the presenter, Debbie is a former "wife"):

CBS wrote:

Hana Gartner: Is life in Bountiful about sex or salvation?

Debbie Palmer: It's all about sex, it really is. There is great pretence that it's a very moral sort of back to basics family fundamentalist type of community but there's sex everywhere.

Hana Gartner: What are the logistics of intercourse? How does it work? Does somebody keep a big chart and say - Oh Betty, you're ovulating - Thursday is your night.

Debbie Palmer: I know in the larger families, they do, do that, they have to.

Hana Gartner: Really?

Debbie Palmer: Well like I mean in a good size dairy, you have to know when a cows going to come around so she can be serviced properly by the bull, or you don't have calves and you don't have your cows freshened properly and if you've got very many wives in your family then somebody needs to keep track of that...one of the really horrific things about some of the inbreeding that has happened in the polygamist communities is that most of the men that have been in positions of control that have instigated these marriages are men that have studied breeding stock in animals."

Hana Gartner: This is all based on animal husbandry?

Debbie Palmer: Yes it is.

Gbear · 27-10-2012 1:03pm

Not particularly surprising:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/six-french-science-academies-dismiss-study-finding-gm-corn-harmed-rats/

Six French Science Academies Dismiss Study Finding GM Corn Harmed Rats

An intensively promoted and controversial French study claiming to find high tumor rates and early mortality in rats fed genetically modified corn and “safe” levels of the herbicide Roundup has been dismissed in a rare joint statement from France’s six scientific academies. Here’s a link to the statement (in French). [*Here's an English translation.] Here’s an excerpt from coverage of the academies’ statement by Agence France-Presse: .

“This work does not enable any reliable conclusion to be drawn,” they said, adding bluntly that the affair helped “spread fear among the public.”

Just spotted it's a week old so soz if it's already been posted.:o

joseph brand · 27-10-2012 2:19pm

2012 PHOTOMICROGRAPHY COMPETITION.

Science gets all psychedelic.

Here's a fruit fly's eye. Notice how it's been carefully 'designed' to spot a newspaper hurtling towards it.

Dave! · 28-10-2012 2:24pm

FYI Steven Pinker was on 'Futureproof' on Newstalk yesterday evening (27th). You should be able to listen back.

Nothing too different from his other interviews plugging his latest book, but good to have him on Irish radio anyway.

Interesting Stuff Thread

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