Interesting Stuff Thread

Bannasidhe

Sarky wrote: »

Wouldn't a nostril be a bit, um, tight?

How the hell would I know?

Did you forget that not only do I not have a micky to sticky in any kind of orifice, I also cannot afford a fake micky and we still haven't had a ruling as to whether I exist or not. *





* which is giving me a bit of a God complex to be honest. :cool:

legspin

Jernal wrote: »

Pretty much most of Zillah's.

A well-worded Zillah broadside is positively cathartic. He's been told to mind his p's and q's though I think.

Nodin

"The earliest unambiguous evidence for modern human behaviour has been discovered by an international team of researchers in a South African cave.

The finds provide early evidence for the origin of modern human behaviour 44,000 years ago, over 20,000 years before other findings.

The artefacts are near identical to modern-day tools of the indigenous African San bush people."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19069560

or 'Scientists lie again', if you're of the other inclination.

Dades

Jernal wrote: »

Still think Robin is the cooler and more hip mod. :cool:

*Someone* has never been to an A&A beers...

Sonics2k

Dades wrote: »

*Someone* has never been to an A&A beers...

Speaking of which, I do believe you were supposed to set that up sometime ago :pac:

Sarky

Beers?

I like beers...

Delirium

Humble bug plugs gap in fossil record

One day 370 million years ago, a tiny larva came to a sticky end when it plunged into a shrimp-infested swamp and drowned.

Unearthed in modern-day Belgium, the humble bug now looks set to plug a giant gap in the fossil record.

Named Strudiella devonica, the eight-millimetre invertebrate -- while in far from mint condition -- is thought by researchers who published their findings in Nature on Wednesday to be the world's oldest complete insect fossil.

"It has everything an insect should have: the legs, the antennae, the thorax and the abdomen," said Andre Nel of France's National History Museum, one of the authors of the study.

Scientists until now had few if any confirmed insect fossils from between 385 and 325 million years ago, a period known as the Hexapoda Gap, William A. Shear of Hampden-Sydney College wrote in a comment that accompanied the study.

Genghiz Cohen

The Higgs Boson particle is up to 5.9 Sigma.

Gregor Samsa

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

The Higgs Boson particle is up to 5.9 Sigma.

So it nearly has its Green Belt. :pac:

robindch

A small study suggests that praying-away-the-gay might only work as part of a broader foetus-level gene-therapy solution, and that it's mother's fault anyway.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120613/10287/homosexuality-gene-mother-reproduction-evolution.htm

Medical Daily wrote:

Male homosexuality is inborn and may be triggered by a gene carried by mothers, new findings suggest.

Evolutionarily speaking, homosexuality as a trait would not last because it discourages reproductive sex with women and therefore procreation. However a new study, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, found a correlation between gay men and their mothers and maternal aunts, who are prone to have significantly more children compared to the maternal relatives of straight men.

Researchers led by Andrea Camperio Ciani, from the University of Padova in Italy, say that the findings of the link between homosexuality and female fertility strongly support the "balancing selection hypothesis," which suggests that a gene which causes homosexuality also leads to high fecundity or reproduction among their female relatives. The team noted that the "gay man gene" may not get passed down directly, but instead survive through the generations through future generations making their male inheritors gay. Researchers analyzed the personality and fecundity of 61 females who were either mothers or maternal aunts of homosexual men to 100 females who were mothers or aunts of heterosexual men.

Originally the team thought the reason why women who inherited the "gay man gene" might have more babies is simply because it increased androphilia, or attraction to men, thus making the male inheritors homosexual and the female inheritors more promiscuous.

However, after analyzing the personal characteristics of 161 female maternal relatives of homosexual and heterosexual men, researchers changed their hypothesis and suggested that rather than making the women more attracted to men and therefore more promiscuous, the "gay man gene" appears to make female inheritors more attractive to men.

"High fecundity, that means having more babies, is not about pleasure in sex, nor is it about promiscuity. The androphilic pattern that we found is about females who increase their reproductive value to attract the best males," Camperio Ciani told Life's Little Mysteries. The team found that the gene appeared to make women more fertile, have fewer gynecological disorders and fewer pregnancy complications. The findings also suggest that gene led to women who were funnier, happier, more extroverted and more relaxed, leading them to have fewer family problems and social anxieties.

"If sexually antagonistic genetic factors that induce homosexuality in males exist, the factors might be maintained in the population by contributing to increased fecundity greater reproductive health, extraversion, and a generally relaxed attitude toward family and social values in females of the maternal line of homosexual men," researchers wrote.

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

A small study suggests that praying-away-the-gay might only work as part of a broader foetus-level gene-therapy solution, and that it's mother's fault anyway.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120613/10287/homosexuality-gene-mother-reproduction-evolution.htm

Male homosexuality is inborn and may be triggered by a gene carried by mothers, new findings suggest

*Deep Sigh* Hello? Can anybody hear me? Hello??? I'm over here!! I exist - I really do. Honest.

If Mother's are responsible for male homosexuality - are Father's responsible for lesbianism?

My OH is a bit confused as she has a gay brother and a straight brother and would like to know how the hell that happened seeing as there is only 3 of them (hardly fecund) and they have the same parents and there is only just over 4 years difference in the ages of the eldest and the youngest....

Turtwig

Bannasidhe wrote: »

*Deep Sigh* Hello? Can anybody hear me? Hello??? I'm over here!! I exist - I really do. Honest.

If Mother's are responsible for male homosexuality - are Father's responsible for lesbianism?

My OH is a bit confused as she has a gay brother and a straight brother and would like to know how the hell that happened seeing as there is only 3 of them (hardly fecund) and they have the same parents and there is only just over 4 years difference in the ages of the eldest and the youngest....

Fathers might be. Who knows? But the focus of this paper was male homosexuals and mothers. Genes are inherently complicated things, trade-offs between one effect for another are not uncommon. Also, genes aren't everything. I posted this a while back on this forum, but if you haven't read it, it might be of interest to you.

robindch

Bannasidhe wrote: »

*Deep Sigh* Hello? Can anybody hear me? Hello??? I'm over here!! I exist - I really do. Honest.

Yeah, I'm still fascinated, even in simply a platonic sense, to understand why lesbianism is generally ignored by the anti-gay crew, openly available for rent (or used to be) in the nation's video scuttier video shops, and probably one of the lesser life aims of every boy older than about 13.

As before, sometime this week, a few mildly plausible reasons suggest themselves, but nothing that's simple and convincing.

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

Yeah, I'm still fascinated, even in simply a platonic sense, to understand why lesbianism is generally ignored by the anti-gay crew, openly available for rent (or used to be) in the nation's video scuttier video shops, and probably one of the lesser life aims of every boy older than about 13.

As before, sometime this week, a few mildly plausible reasons suggest themselves, but nothing that's simple and convincing.

I recall having a discussion with a colleague on this - her area of expertise is Victorian era UK - and she told me that contrary to popular belief that the reason lesbianism wasn't outlawed along with male homosexuality wasn't because Victoria didn't believe such a thing was possible (Made no difference what Vic believed - she had no actual power to decide anything) but because the powers that be (male to a man) were worried that if they outlawed it, women would realise it was possible.

The idea that women might get the idea that they didn't need men scared the bejazus out of them. The relevant documents, I have been told, are freely available to the public in the British Library.

Bannasidhe

Jernal wrote: »

Fathers might be. Who knows? But the focus of this paper was male homosexuals and mothers. Genes are inherently complicated things, trade-offs between one effect for another are not uncommon. Also, genes aren't everything. I posted this a while back on this forum, but if you haven't read it, it might be of interest to you.

The whole homosexuality is male thing is just bugging me.

magicbastarder

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2012/aug/02/1

Bannasidhe

Bannasidhe wrote: »

The whole homosexuality is male thing is just bugging me.

Governor: I believe that I might have come up with a compromise to this whole problem that will make everyone happy! People in the gay community want the same rights as married couples, but dissenters don't want the word "marriage" corrupted. So how about we let gay people get married, but call it something else?
[everyone listens quietly]
Governor: You homosexuals will have all the exact same rights as married couples, but, instead of referring to you as "married", you can be... butt buddies.
[long silence]
Governor: Instead of being "man and wife", you'll be... butt buddies. You won't be "betrothed", you'll be...
[makes quote with his fingers]
Governor: ...butt buddies. Get it? Instead of a "bride and groom", you'd be...
[makes quote with his fingers again]
Governor: ...butt buddies.
Mr. Slave: We wanna be treated equally!
Governor: You *are* equal. It's just that, instead of getting engaged, you would be... butt buddies. And everyone is happy!
Woman: [from the lesbian crowd] Well, what about lesbians?
Governor: Well, like anyone cares about f**kin' dykes!

Hotblack Desiato

magicbastarder wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2012/aug/02/1

But... confectionery does contain an active ingredient (as any parent of a 3-year-old will know)

muppeteer

magicbastarder wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2012/aug/02/1

Homeopathic Kits being marketed to practitioners - the Basic kit, Basic Plus kit, Accident & Emergency kit (!), Child Birth kit (!!) and Travellers Kit

recedite

Bannasidhe wrote: »

*Deep Sigh* Hello? Can anybody hear me? Hello??? I'm over here!! I exist - I really do. Honest.

Why not take up beach volleyball? Spare a thought for those magnificent olympians, the male volleyballists.

CerebralCortex

For anybody who's interested we're attempting an informal meetup of lesswrong Ireland.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/dqc/meetup_dublin_ireland_meetup/

recedite

Nasa's rover the "Curiosity" will land on Mars tomorrow (Monday) morning... or else crash & burn. The plan is to lower it on ropes to the planet's surface from a rocket-propelled "Sky Crane" hovering just above.

After a journey from Earth of more than 567 million km (350 million miles), engineers said they were hopeful the rover, the size of a small sports car, will land precisely as planned near the foot of a tall mountain rising from the floor of Gale Crater in Mars's southern hemisphere.
Flight controllers anticipate clear and calm conditions for touchdown, slated to occur in the Martian late afternoon. There may be some haze in the planet's pink skies from ice clouds, typical for this time of year, with temperatures at about 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

source

5uspect

This is a genetic algorithm that uses facial detection software as it's selection criterion.
http://iobound.com/pareidoloop/

Creepy!

18AD

recedite wrote: »

Nasa's rover the "Curiosity" will land on Mars tomorrow (Monday) morning... or else crash & burn. The plan is to lower it on ropes to the planet's surface from a rocket-propelled "Sky Crane" hovering just above.
source

Epic!:

fitz0

We can watch the livestream of the Mars landing here.

fitz0

The first pictures are in!





http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

shizz

Does anyone else think it's amazing that about ten minutes after the JPL team received the first images from Mars I could print one off if I wanted to?

fitz0

Yeah it's all kinds of amazing. An image from a robot several million kilometres away sends an image as it's landing on an alien planet and not only can we hear about it in real time, we can see the images it takes within a minute of it taking them.

It makes me appreciate technology all over again.

Kivaro

A mysterious blotch that appeared along the horizon in a photo from the surface of Mars stirred speculation about what it might be, as two hours later it was gone.

Here is the pic:


What is it?

Some guesses from Yahoo News are:
Megatron lives.
It's a Wal-Mart Super Center.
The National Enquirer will inform us as to what it is.
That looks a lot like the silhouette of Jimmy Hoffa.
Thats kenny from south park.
Bigfoot.

seamus

It's very clearly the human-controlled player in Space Invaders, protecting the rover from the Martians.

http://www.actionpants.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Space-Invaders.jpg

Uncanny, you can even see the last two shots it fired as it moved left.