Tag Archives: science

First Video Images Ever Reconstructed From the Human Brain

by Cimaxion

UC Berkeley scientists have recorded the first images ever generated by a human brain. Amazing. They exposed subjects to video images while recording visual activity in their brains. When they played the recorded data back they got images corresponding closely to what the subjects had just seen. What I notice about the images in the video is that faces seem to work the best. That is interesting on many levels. Perhaps facial recognition is so hard-wired into humans that we are able to generate those images more clearly than all others.  This work opens the door to the ability to reconstruct imagery from dreams and memories. It’s a staggering achievement.  Magnificent.  I simply cannot wait to try this sometime.

Thank you to Rob Smart on Facebook.

 

Khan Academy Teaches Math and Science on YouTube

by Editor | 2 Comments

Salman Khan teaches math and science via YouTube video lessons.  It’s called Khan Academy.  He teaches a wide variety of subjects including algebra, calculus, biology, physics, chemistry and statistics.  He thinks everyone should be able to get an education for free and he does not think universities are doing it properly.  The education model needs to be rethought and rebuilt.  Many people think so and that’s why Kahn Academy has so many students and is attracting venture capital money.  He’s getting more viewers than most university web sites.  Here’s a PBS NewsHour piece about him:

Here’s a lesson on adding and subtracting fractions:

Kids Demonstrate BP Oil Disaster Plug Idea

by Editor

This is a good demonstration of an idea for helping in the Gulf BP disaster. I don’t know if the blowout preventer could withstand the downward force exerted upon it by the plug however. But there are certainly adaptations of this idea that might work if the blowout preventer were removed from the equation. The main point though is that kids are engaging in logical thinking about the problem. At this very moment, I would be willing to bet that the complete solution to the BP oil disaster is already available. It has been thought of and put somewhere. For sure. It simply needs to be found now.

Artificial Life Created for the First Time

by Editor

Scientists announced today that they have created the first artificial life form in human history.

The J. Craig Venter Institute has informed the White House of the incredible achievement and the possible environmental and military repercussions are already being debated.

Researchers used computers to create an artificial sequence of DNA.  Then they inserted that DNA into hollowed-out cells which began to grow and replicate.

That’s a new form of life created by human beings.  This may be a far more important development than going to the moon.

Popular Science Magazine Archives Go Online For Free

by Editor | 1 Comment

Popular Science magazine has put its entire 137-year history of issues online for free.  In partnership with Google, the magazine is offering a search tool that will allow you to read anything it ever published.  Here’s an example of a publisher who actually knows what it is doing in the 21st century.  There are very few magazines staffed by people who understand which century they are playing in.  Popular Science is apparently staffed by people who can read, write and tell time.

What’s Wrong with Scientology’s Ideas?

by Editor | 2 Comments

I am impervious to the persuasions of all clubs, organizations and religions.  I’ve read the entire Old Testament and know that god has never spoken a single word to any living human being in history.  I’ve been in terribly close proximity to Catholic priests for extended periods of time, argued with them and sat gritting my teeth through their best attempts at mass.  You can burn all the bushes in my backyard and come down the hill with as many tablets as you like and I’ll know you’re a damned fake.  So I can watch L. Ron Hubbard speak through all six parts of the interview above and have not the slightest fear of showing up in a Scientology storefront with my wallet out.  However, I don’t really see anything terribly wrong with what Hubbard says in the interview.  What’s all the Scientology warfare really about?

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Have a Drink on the Moon

by Editor | 2 Comments

moonwaterIf you’re planning on heading to the moon any time soon, you’ll at least be able to get a drink.  NASA announced today that the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite has discovered water on the moon.  The mission intentionally crashed a rocket stage onto the moon’s surface, creating an enormous plume of ejecta.  When the plume was analyzed by spectrometers on board the satellite, the evidence of water became clear.  In the photograph, you can see the debris plume showing up as the little gray fuzzy area inside the black boxes.

There are many ways the water could have gotten there.  It could have come via solar winds, comets, giant molecular clouds or some kind of internal activity.  Scientists say that it could even have come from Earth.

Panoramic Image of Milky Way Galaxy

by Editor

Two French photographers, Serge Brunier and Frédéric Tapissier, spent weeks in the desert highlands of Chile, and a week in the Canary Islands, taking photos of the stars. Using a Nikon D3 digital camera, they took thousands of photos of the night sky and then stitched the photos together to make a panoramic view of the Milky Way Galaxy as seen from Earth. The pictures are extremely high-resolution because the photographers took them from some of the darkest spots on Earth, giving unsurpassed clarity of view.

You can see an excellent interactive zoomable version of the image at photographer Serge Brunier’s web site.

You can also see a zoomable version of the image at Gigagalaxyzoom.

Eating Meat Contributes Enormously to Global Warming

by Editor

Scientific American published the page of charts on the left.  Click the image to get a high-res version.  It explains how bad for the environment the production and consumption of meat really is.  According to the magazine, the annual beef diet of the average American emits as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as a car driven approximately 1,800 miles.

That’s very bad.  Here’s another statistic: According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.

Public Service: Global Warming Information

by Editor | 5 Comments

What Do We Do Now?

It’s happening.

The earth is getting warmer.

The world’s scientists agree on it.

What does it mean?

What can we do?

When do we start?

It’s Happening
The majority of scientists worldwide agree that the earth is warming up and that human activities are making it worse. The United Nations recently released a report by a group of the world’s leading scientists and it paints a bleak picture of global warming. It states that we are in the midst of a worldwide crisis and that mankind must do something about it immediately or face certain disaster. It’s very simple. You either trust the scientists or you don’t. Candlelight Stories trusts the scientists. They have done the research and studied the evidence. Their data looks at a time period covering thousands of years and leads them to the conclusion that mankind is polluting the atmosphere so badly that the earth’s temperature is rising quickly.

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