Interesting Stuff Thread

robindch wrote: »

Meanwhile, from PNAS, comes news of CD47, a protein that blocks the immune response in fighting tumor and cancer cells.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/20/1121623109

God, as usual, was unavailable for comment.

Looks like Rituximab(antiCD20) has a brother.

And he strong

Calibos wrote: »

Can't wait for 'The Cure' to arrive hopefully within my lifetime to batter the anti science religionists over the head with. I'd also like to batter the Anti 'Big-Pharma' Alt-Med loopers with it as well

Cures.

About 200 would do

koth wrote: »

This may have been posted when the article originally appeared.

Scientist creates lifelike cells out of metal

:eek::eek::eek:

There's a blog devoted to reposting George Orwell's diaries day by day +70 years that I've been following since before WWII broke out for its unique left-wing, socially conscious, ex-soldier, current propagandist, man on the ground point of view. Part a note in today's entry is interesting for folks here:

The Vatican is exchanging diplomatic representatives with Tokio. The Vatican now has diplomatic relations with all the Axis powers and – I think – with none of the Allies. A bad sign and yet in a sense a good one, in that this last step means that they have now definitely decided that the Axis and not we stand for the more reactionary policy.

http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/27-3-42/

Professor who led the infamous 'faster-than-light' neutrino experiment resigns:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0330/breaking58.html

Now that I think about it, the answer to a theist who asks, what would it take to convince you of the existance of a God would be something like this. I would likely put down any visual or auditory apparition in myself or others as a hallucination. However one couldn't argue with the math (even if I don't understand the math myself. ie. Its a totally different propostion to put faith in what a preacher/priest/theologian/pope says than put 'faith in what a peer reviewed panel of mathematicians/scientists say)

However, this 'Proof' would at most make me a deist because as far as I am concerned it lends no more credence to human religions' plethora of Gods. ie Confirmation of a creator of the universe 'God' does not allow me to connect the 13 billion years of dots to the ramblings of bronze age Goat Herders from the eastern Medditerrainian circa 3000 years ago no more than it allows me to connect the dots to the ramblings of 12th century Llama Herders on an eastern Pacific Coast in Peru.

To my mind, this is the only way Dawkins conviction that science could explain the creation of the universe some day could come to pass. Its not that science can ever 'see' 'outside' the universe or 'before' the universe because science is part of the universe, but if science can find hints like this written into the fabric of the universe then although it doesn't help science to see outside or before the universe, its a pretty big clue that there must be something outside or before.

Not convinced of any of this yet though. Is this not a case of finding error correction code within a theory, but a theory that is nowhere close to being proved yet. ie. the theory could be wrong so what then does an error correction code within mean? Could it simply be a self generating property of the math and does that mean anything philosophically? Or was it unconciously written in by the mathemeticians so the math would work. Then it simply becomes an interesting neurological question. ie. The subconcious can do very high level math

Interestingly, this kind of code written into the fabric of the universe was the premise for the short lived Stargate Universe TV series.

I am also reminded of a fictional book called Pi

Basically it was discovered that a picture was coded into the numbers after the decimal point in Pi.

It was a picture of a Circle :eek:

http://www.zmescience.com

The most complex object on Earth is the human brain. However, even though it’s intertwined by billions of nerve fibers almost in a chaotic fashion, scientists who have used sophisticated mathematical analysis of advanced imaging data found that the neural pathways that carry electrical signals through the brain are arranged in a very simple manner, resembling a grid. This counter-intuitive finding suggests that the neural structure is extremely simple, underlying the complexity of the brain.

“We found the brain is built from parallel and perpendicular fibers that cross each other in an orderly fashion. Finding this kind of simple organization in the forebrain of higher animals was completely unsuspected,” says Van Wedeen, MD, of the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, who led the study. “Knowing there is a simple plan that, modified by evolution and development, gives rise to all brains has implications for researchers working to build an atlas of brain connections, for pursuing investigation of how the brain develops and for expanding theories of how the brain works.”

muppeteer wrote: »

And something more worrying.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R12P20120328

Not at all surprising. Lots of peer reviewed papers published are in fact rubbish.

Dades wrote: »

That sounds oddly like the reveal at the end of another fantastic book by a favourite writer around these parts that I won't mention.

Odd!

Given that it is supposed to be infinite then all possible pictures would be encoded too, no?


And if that end reveal is from the favourite writer I'm thinking of and currently reading then,

mikhail wrote: »

There's a blog devoted to reposting George Orwell's diaries day by day +70 years that I've been following since before WWII broke out for its unique left-wing, socially conscious, ex-soldier, current propagandist, man on the ground point of view. Part a note in today's entry is interesting for folks here:

http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/27-3-42/

*subscribes*

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

*subscribes*

Sadly, it runs out some time this year.