Interesting Stuff Thread

sponsoredwalk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfccUe_8ghg

"... and this is the pattern that we roughly see:
As the persons own self-reported labelling goes from strong liberal
to strong conservative, so does the persons expressed, implicit level
of bias, so in this case - greater anti-black bias, greater anti-Arab bias,
greater anti-gay bias as political orientation changes."

cavedave

How your genes can affect your response to religion

Turtwig

http://edge.org/annual-question/what-is-your-favorite-deep-elegant-or-beautiful-explanation

Scientists' greatest pleasure comes from theories that derive the solution to some deep puzzle from a small set of simple principles in a surprising way. These explanations are called "beautiful" or "elegant". Historical examples are Kepler's explanation of complex planetary motions as simple ellipses, Bohr's explanation of the periodic table of the elements in terms of electron shells, and Watson and Crick's double helix. Einstein famously said that he did not need experimental confirmation of his general theory of relativity because it "was so beautiful it had to be true."

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT,
OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION?

Since this question is about explanation, answers may embrace scientific thinking in the broadest sense: as the most reliable way of gaining knowledge about anything, including other fields of inquiry such as philosophy, mathematics, economics, history, political theory, literary theory, or the human spirit. The only requirement is that some simple and non-obvious idea explain some diverse and complicated set of phenomena.

You might need to set aside a week to read all these though. Just picking ones at random is interesting though.:D

Genghiz Cohen

Sauce

Wait, I thought evolution was an interminably slow process requiring millions of years to make any noticeable difference? Apparently not if you're yeast. A research team has just announce that it's figured out how to evolve a single-celled organism into a multicellular animal just like a freakin' Pokemon.

The team, from the University of Minnesota, was able to artificially evolve a culture of brewer's yeast into it's multicellular form basically by overfeeding it. The culture was housed in flasks and bathed in an extremely nutrient-rich medium.

Once a day, researchers would shake the flasks, then harvested the fast-sinking yeast clumps to start new cultures—the equivalent of natural selection. After just a few weeks, the yeast clumped together and after two months, the clumps had merged into multicelled organisms. What's more, the new creatures showed cell specialization, a juvenile stage, and multicellular offspring.

"Multicellularity is the ultimate in cooperation," said evolutionary biologist Michael Travisano, co-author of the study. "Multiple cells make make up an individual that cooperates for the benefit of the whole. Sometimes cells give up their ability to reproduce for the benefit of close kin."

So, there you have it. The evolutionary step that expanded Life beyond amoebas probably wasn't powered as much by some revolutionary genetic variation as it was by the bacterial equivalent of a Las Vegas buffet.

MagicMarker

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Sauce

Delirium

Benny with the magic hat may have to eat his words about condoms with regards to HIV in South Africa.

Condoms are slowing HIV spread in South Africa

Condoms are to thank for falling HIV infection rates in South Africa.

So say Leigh Johnson at the University of Cape Town and colleagues. They fed data from 2000 to 2008 on the country's HIV rates, condom use and the number of people taking antiretroviral therapy (ARTs) - which reduce the chances of passing on the virus - into two computer models of viral transmission and prevalence.

Condom use accounted for the vast majority of the decline in HIV, with only up to 17 per cent due to the natural dynamics of the disease, and up to 10 per cent down to the use of ARTs (Journal of the Royal Society Interface, DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2011.0826).

David Wilson at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, says the results highlight that condoms are "the most effective" way to protect against HIV epidemics. Johnson emphasises that all prevention and treatment programmes should be intensified.

Source

robindch

Astronomy Ireland wrote:

Aurora Alert

Yesterday (Thursday) afternoon, a coronal mass ejection (CME) and a class-M solar flare erupted from the Sun, sending material almost directly towards Earth. This cloud of charged material is expected to arrive at Earth on Saturday night at roughly 10:30pm, but conditions within the cloud and in space can possibly alter this by a number of hours.

When to View
When it arrives, there is a small chance that the aurora borealis (northern lights) will be visible from Ireland. We suggest keeping an eye on the northern sky from 6pm on Saturday evening and throughout the night, into Sunday morning. If it appears, the aurora will have a green and/or red colour, most likely just over the northern horizon.

Where to View
Ideally it is best to watch the aurorae from a location as far north as possible, but depending on the strength of the CME from the Sun, they can be visible further south. We recommend picking anywhere that has a dark sky with a clear northern horizon. This can be a location just outside a town or city, or a dark parkland area.

.

Sarky

All those hours playing Skyrim really makes me want to see an aurora for real.

Turtwig

I'm sorry Man U fans but it appears your team is a damn big influential factor in global warming.

The Mad Hatter

Sarky wrote: »

All those hours playing Skyrim really makes me want to see an aurora for real.

All the times I've read Northern Lights had the same effect on me.

Turtwig

Read this aloud.:)


English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

MagicMarker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBkQE9YitnY

:eek:

The Mad Hatter

MagicMarker wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBkQE9YitnY

:eek:

Cool!

I presume the reason he hides his head like that is so that the silverback won't see his eyes and take it as a challenge?

Broads.ie

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Cool!

I presume the reason he hides his head like that is so that the silverback won't see his eyes and take it as a challenge?

Yep, I also tracked the gorillas in that exact area (Bwindi Impenetrable Forest - cool name eh?) and it's the first rule of Gorilla Club. If the silverback or any large gorilla charges/attacks or seems a bit over excited just crouch, avoid eye contact, be submissive. As far as I know, a Gorilla has never killed a tourist. Not in a long time anyway.

Here's a video of one charging... the guy must have had a death wish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umokxn3Vc38

strobe

Jernal wrote: »

Read this aloud.:)


English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

:eek:

Awesome.

The Mad Hatter

Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, bemoaned the lack of great secular works of art. I thought some here might enjoy this oratorio from the writings of Charles Darwin by the American composer Richard Einhorn, called The Origin.

It's fully a cappella (or at least, the songs featured on the CD release is - I haven't been able to find a recording of the full oratorio), and not dissimilar to Renaissance music in style, but with much more modern and ethnic harmonies and some other vocal sounds (bird cries, ululations, etc.). It's not Beethoven, but it's still beautiful, and very easy to listen to. The words are also crystal clear, if you're into that sort of thing.

CerebralCortex

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WSbcd4zYak

Smart and sexy!

Turtwig

Beautiful! Just Beautiful! Picture of Planet Earth's disc. Be sure to view it in the original 8000x8000 resolution.

Think I may just ask it for some coffee in an elevator someday.

strobe

Jernal wrote: »

Beautiful! Just Beautiful! Picture of Planet Earth's disc. Be sure to view it in the original 8000x8000 resolution.

Beautiful picture Mal... ehh Jernal. (*walks off grumbling under breath about A&A regs changing their usernames)

Think I may just ask it for some coffee in an elevator someday.

I can't believe this has actually become a meme on here. I blame Liamw, he's an awful messer that lad.

Turtwig

strobe wrote: »

Beautiful picture Mal... ehh Jernal. (*walks off grumbling under breath about A&A regs changing their usernames)

I know it makes me a bit of a hypocrite but I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Thanks Beruthiel for being such an angel about it. Stroby, you could always change your name to Neave. Who knows, then changing usernames may just cotton as a meme also?:)

joseph brand

I hope this is the correct tread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFw5TsAi1Mk

Delirium

Spotted the transcript below and thought some of you might be interested in it.

Transcript of a talk by Kenan Malik on blasphemy and the sacred.

I gave a talk called ‘Beyond the sacred’, on the changing character of ideas of the sacred and of blasphemy, at a conference on blasphemy organised this weekend by the Centre for Inquiry at London’s Conway Hall on Saturday. Here is a transcript.

Mark Hamill

Jernal wrote: »

Apologies if this is a repost as it is quite old.

Snake Oil Pic

I would be a little wary of what the makers of this graphic consider to be strong evidence if probiotics are on the top. I made an official complaint a year or two back against actimel ads on RTE and in return, I got sent their supporting data (50 or 60 references, if I remember right) and it was pretty poor evidence, if I do say so myself. There was some good in vitro results, but live results were either mildly positive (when done on sick kids in India) or mildly negative (the largest study on healthy subjects - 400 or so Israeli soldiers - actually showed an increase in throat irritation). One in vitro study specifically showed no interaction between the pro-biotic and intestinal flora (the aim was to show it was safe to eat) which contradicts the notion that it helps it in any way. At best, you could conclude that there was a use for treating mild intestinal issues, but no evidence for preventative measures that they usually claim.

This is in addition to the EU food agency throwing out 180 pro-biotic health claims at around the same time, 170 of which because the pro-biotic itself was not clearly identified (and many more they couldn't examine, because the companies making the claims withdrew them so they couldn't be tested). They've thrown out 80% of 442 health claims (NB antioxidants and other health foods, not just probiotics) last year too.

mikhail

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I would be a little wary of what the makers of this graphic consider to be strong evidence if probiotics are on the top.

Agreed. I remember Ben Goldacre talking about probiotics (I can't find this via google, so I presume he was speaking rather than writing) and saying that basically the evidence amounted to it maybe being slightly useful in cases where you've been quite sick and your gut flora are in a bad way but that in most cases you're just drinking yoghurt.
I also note this quote from the Grauniad about the conclusions of a EFSA study:

Out of hundreds of "probiotic" strains of bacteria under consideration, not one was shown to improve gut health or immunity. Taurine, the amino acid added to energy and sports drinks, was not found to boost energy. Nor was there evidence to support the claim that glucosamine is beneficial for joints, although it is widely marketed as such.

Turtwig

Well, I must be honest I never really looked through that chart.:( Omega 3 deserves to be closer to the bottom as do probiotics and green tea and vitamin D actually I'm sorry that chart isn't accurate at all. I've taken it down. Apologies all.

Turtwig

Well, this is the best I can do to make up for that erroneous post. Please don't resign from A&A just yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH2tHv4hqBY

robindch

^^^ Don't want to diss a man who survived the Hindenburg Disaster, but there are a lot of suspicious edits in that clip

.

Turtwig

robindch wrote: »

^^^ Don't want to diss a man who survived the [http://www.its-behind-you.com/bendova.html]Hindenburg Disaster[/url], but there are a lot of suspicious edits in that clip

Diss away! That's what skeptics are for. Thought the same meself.:)

darjeeling

Jernal wrote: »

Well, I must be honest I never really looked through that chart.:( Omega 3 deserves to be closer to the bottom as do probiotics and green tea and vitamin D actually I'm sorry that chart isn't accurate at all. I've taken it down. Apologies all.

I'm not sure about down-grading Omega 3 and vitamin D. The chart said it graded supplements on whether there were 'tangible health benefits when taken orally by an adult with a healthy diet'. However, the thing is that many adults don't have a fully healthy diet, but rather one that is deficient in both Omega 3 and vitamin D.

Omega 3 fatty acids turn out to be somewhat complex, in that there are multiple forms. Many supplements contain short-chain, plant-derived omega 3 that isn't efficiently converted in humans into the longer, more beneficial forms that we would get directly from eating oily fish. And while many claims have been made for these long-chain omega 3s, one that does seem to stand up is protection against cardiovascular disease.

In the case of vitamin D, repeated studies have shown widespread deficiency in the UK and Ireland, where limited sunlight in the winter months means that people don't produce enough endogenously through UVB irradiation. This wouldn't be a problem if - like people in the Arctic - we consumed foods rich in vitamin D (chiefly oily fish), but the national diet has moved away from such foods.

In consequence, we've seen a resurgence of rickets in the UK, and concern over poor bone density throughout the population. Additionally, there's evidence (both epidemiological and genetic) that multiple sclerosis is caused at least in part by vitamin D deficiency, and hints that low levels may cause other auto-immune disorders such as Crohn's disease. General inflammatory conditions and some infections also seem linked to low vitamin D.

The evidence for the health benefits of vitamin D is now strong enough that, for example, there's serious talk of fortifying Scotland's food supply.

dmw07