@hrana Doing the Hokey Pokey, are you? Put the left leg in, put the left leg out. Hoping you go in 1 piece in 1 car. ;-)>•<Think on this a little while.>•< 8 hours ago
"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, October 14, 2012
As I had opined earlier, while the the otherwise reputable New York Times headlines him as “daredevil” (and doubtless, there is an element to that), he is much more than a mere thrill-seeker. There is significant, and legitimate science being undertaken in this mission.
Further, so-called “daredevils” rarely prepare 5ive years for their stunts, as did Mr. Baumgartner and his team.
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Before the jump, Mr. Baumgartner went through a checklist with help from Joe Kittinger, 84, the retired Air Force colonel who in 1960 jumped from 102,800 feet, setting records that remained more than half a century later — and that Mr. Baumgartner was hoping to break. – Credit: Balazs Gardi/Red Bull Stratos, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
ROSWELL, N.M. — Felix Baumgartner, the professional daredevil, said he was not thinking about setting records or collecting scientific data in the moments before he jumped from a capsule more than 24 miles high.
He was just thinking about making it back to Earth.
“Trust me, when you stand up there on top of the world, you become so humble. It’s not about breaking records anymore. It’s not about getting scientific data. It’s all about coming home,” Mr. Baumgarter said after returning by helicopter to mission control in Roswell.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Regardless whether global climate change is man-made, or cyclical… it’s going to affect us all, and we would be wise to DO SOMETHING to PRESERVE, PROTECT and DEFEND ourselves NOW!
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Milk-Cow Drought Culling Accelerates as Prices Jump: Commodities
U.S. milk production is headed for the biggest contraction in 12 years as a drought-fueled surge in feed costs drives more cows to slaughter.
Output will drop 0.5 percent to 198.9 billion pounds (90.2 million metric tons) in 2013 as the herd shrinks to an eight- year low, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates. Milk futures rose 45 percent since mid-April and may advance at least another 19 percent to a record $25 per 100 pounds by June, said Shawn Hackett. The president of Boynton Beach, Florida-based Hackett Financial Advisers Inc. correctly predicted the rally in March.
Dairies in California, the top milk-producing state, are filing for bankruptcy, and U.S. cows are being slaughtered at the fastest rate in more than a quarter century. Corn surged to a record in August as the USDA forecast the smallest crop in six years because of drought across the U.S. Global dairy prices tracked by the United Nations rose 6.9 percent last month, the most among the five food groups monitored, and that will probably mean record costs next year, Rabobank estimates.
“Farmers can’t afford to buy as much grain and protein, and that affects milk production,” said Bob Cropp, an economist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison who has been following the industry since 1966. “In California, there’ve been some foreclosures and some sell-off of cows quite heavily. You’re going to see that in other parts of the country.”
Mercantile Exchange
Class III milk, used to make cheese, jumped 22 percent to $21.05 on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange this year. That’s more than 21 of the 24 commodities in the Standard & Poor’s GSCI Spot Index, which rose 1.8 percent. The MSCI All-Country World Index (MXWD) of equities climbed 12 percent, and Treasuries Read the rest of this entry »
Beware The ‘Cave Robber’: New Spider WithVelociraptor-Like Claws Found InOregon
By Roxanne Palmer
A mysterious organism has been found lurking in the caves and forests of the Pacific Northwest. No, it’s not a sasquatch – it’s a six-eyed spider with curved, vicious-looking claws that scientists have dubbed Trogloraptor, or “cave robber.”
In a paper published in the journal Zookeys on Friday, scientists from the arachnology lab at the California Academy of Sciences described the new critter, which is about the size of a half-dollar coin and likes to hang from simple webs on the ceilings of caves. Researchers and citizen scientist have found Trogloraptor in old-growth redwood forests and in caves across Oregon and California.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, July 27, 2012
What if the so-called “medical marijuana” proponents could have their cake, and eat it to?
That is, what if they could have the “benefits” they claim they derive from smoking marijuana, while NOT having its intoxicating effects?
Would they still smoke it?
That would tell the story.
It certainly would.
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What a drag, Israeli firm grows “highless” marijuana
A worker tends to cannabis plants at a plantation near the northern Israeli city of Safed June 11, 2012. REUTERS-Baz Ratner
By Maayan Lubell SAFED, Israel | Tue Jul 3, 2012 9:48am EDT
(Reuters) – They grow in a secret location in northern Israel. A tall fence, security cameras and an armed guard protect them from criminals. A hint of their sweet-scented blossom carries in the air: rows and rows of cannabis plants, as far as the eye can see.
It is here, at a medical marijuana plantation atop the hills of the Galilee, where researchers say they have developed marijuana that can be used to ease the symptoms of some ailments without getting patients high.
A worker tends to cannabis plants at a plantation near the northern Israeli city of Safed June 11, 2012. Credit: REUTERS/Baz Ratner
“Sometimes the high is not always what they need. Sometimes it is an unwanted side effect. For some of the people it’s not even pleasant,” said Zack Klein, head of development at Tikun Olam, the company that developed the plant.
Cannabis has more than 60 constituents called cannabinoids. THC is perhaps the best known of those, less so for its medical benefits and more for its psychoactive properties that give people a “high” feeling.
A worker tends to cannabis plants at a plantation near the northern Israeli city of Safed June 11, 2012. Credit: REUTERS/Baz Ratner
Vice President Biden said, “Now people, when I say that, look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is ‘yes,’ that’s what I’m telling you.”
“And folks look, AARP knows – and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know – that the status quo is simply not acceptable. Its totally unacceptable. And its completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially, Were going to go bankrupt as a nation. Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is ‘yes,’ I’m telling you.”
Of course, Vice President Biden was speaking in context of the Affordable Care Act – also commonly known as “ObamaCare” – which the Government Accountability Office has shown has already demonstrated significant cost savings and proven to be business-stimulating legislation, and that to eliminate it’s protections would cost the federal government even more in the long-term.
Analogously, it’d be like having a fuel inefficient automobile – one that only got about 5 miles/gallon, or less. If you were to purchase even a used vehicle with twice the fuel economy – 10mpg – you could realize significant overall long-term savings. Simply ceasing driving will not solve any problem, but would rather create more problems.
Similarly, could you imagine having an inefficient Heating/Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC) system? You gotta’ stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter – there’s no way around it. And to lower your average monthly utility bills by even 1/3 would be beneficial.
So, here’s a shocker for armchair philosophers, political pundits, amateur economists, Radical Republicans, TEA Party types and more: Government spending – in part – is a significant driver of our nation’s economy. And, spending on economic infrastructure is ALWAYS a most wise investment.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, July 26, 2012
Readers may already know of the legend of an irony of naming Greenland “Greenland,” especially since much of that nation is covered by ice or snow. On the other hand, their nearest national neighbor, Iceland, is green. In fact, some say Iceland’s verdancy is exceeded only the Emerald Isle (that’d be Ireland).
Again, Greenland is snowy/icy, while Iceland is green.
But, thanks to that great myth called “global warming,” Greenland may become green!
It seems the mythical fallacy of “global warming” is causing ice to melt in Greenland.
Yeah.
Must be the hot air from the Great Debate over whether or not “Global Warming” is merely a periodic, or even occasional occurrence, or if it is a cyclical, if not long-term trend.
You know it, the one that says “there is no global warming.”
Extent of surface melt over Greenland’s ice sheet on July 8 (left) and July 12 (right). Measurements from three satellites showed that on July 8, about 40 percent of the ice sheet had undergone thawing at or near the surface. In just a few days, the melting had dramatically accelerated and an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface had thawed by July 12. In the image, the areas classified as “probable melt” (light pink) correspond to those sites where at least one satellite detected surface melting. The areas classified as “melt” (dark pink) correspond to sites where two or three satellites detected surface melting. The satellites are measuring different physical properties at different scales and are passing over Greenland at different times. As a whole, they provide a picture of an extreme melt event about which scientists are very confident. Credit: Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory
Just like the myth that Americans landed on the moon.
Keep it tuned to Faux News!
Just click your heels three times and you’ll be back in Kansas!
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For several days this month, Greenland’s surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, June 24, 2012
Seriously.
They are.
It’s kinda’ like the gun saying, albeit with a peppermint twist:
“When ‘they’ outlaw science, only outlaws will be scientists.”
The whole scientific process means that folks get up and argue about it, and demonstrate their findings, and argue their conclusions, and implications for the same.
This is a prime example of Republican idiocy.
Utter stupidity brought to you by TEApublican TEAvangelical radicals.
After a state report predicts higher ocean levels, based in part on global-warming data, new legislation seeks to all but outlaw such projections. The bill has drawn ridicule, as well as scrutiny of the state’s new political climate.
RALEIGH, N.C. — When scientists at a state commission predicted that North Carolina’s sea levels could rise 39 inches by 2100, coastal business and development leaders weren’t alarmed at the prospect of flooding. They were outraged by the report itself.
They complained to state legislators, saying the projection could trigger regulations costing coastal businesses and homeowners millions of dollars.
Waves lap against Johnnie Mercer’s Pier at Wrightsville Beach in Wilmington, N.C. (Paul Stephen / The Star-News / May 29, 2012)
The result is House Bill 819, a measure that would require sea level forecasts to be based on past patterns and would all but outlaw projections based on climate change data.
The bill, now under discussion by a legislative conference committee, has been ridiculed nationwide. It was mocked by comedian Stephen Colbert and savaged in a Scientific American blog post titled “N.C. Considers Making Sea Rise Illegal.”
It has also focused attention on the political shift in North Carolina, where Republicans in 2010 won control of the state Legislature for the first time in a century. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, June 11, 2012
Bear this in mind as you read the following news item: For the vast majority of workplaces, alcohol consumption during work hours could lead to significantly more than mere dismissal from employment. For those whose work involves human life – such as heavy machinery operators, healthcare professionals, law enforcement officers, and others – it could result in harm or loss of life to individuals.
However, for those who do high-level thinking, or are involved in the creative arts, this could be a boon to their efforts.
To your health!
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Having A Drink Or Two At Work Could Boost Your Productivity
“Being mildly drunk facilitates a divergent, diffuse mode of thought, which is useful for such tasks where the answer requires thinking on a tangent,” says BPS Research Digest.
Something that has DEMONSTRATED SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE – or some hocus pocus baloney baloney which is the equivalent of an old wives tale with utterly NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE to support its specious claims?
Your “bullshit” detectors should be pinging 100% every time you pass by some “herbalist’s” corner.
If for no other reason, consider this: There is NO inspection of any ingredients used in such so-called “medicine.”
So, yeah… you could be ingesting arsenic.
Why?
Because there’s no inspection required.
Good luck!
And besides… are you really gonna’ believe that some root, gall bladder of bear, or powdered horn of an endangered specie will genuinely cure you?
Or, will it only relieve the symptoms of your wallet?
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Logo of Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine ---
Traditional Chinese medicine is enjoying increasing popularity all over the world. But two recently published studies show that the treatments can be harmful. The papers focus attention on the fact that not all of the ingredients in TCM treatments are listed, or even legal, and that some can cause cancer.
Critics have long warned that some mixtures can also contain naturally occurring toxins; contaminants such as heavy metals; added substances such as steroids, which can make them appear more effective; and traces of animals that are endangered and trade-restricted.
Now, researchers in Australia have investigated the issue using modern sequencing technology. The team analyzed 15 TCM samples seized by Australian officials.
“We took these traditional preparations, smashed them to pieces and extracted the DNA from the powder,” explained molecular geneticist Michael Bunce.
Some products contained material from animals classified as vulnerable or critically endangered, such as the Asiatic black bear and the Saiga antelope, just as the producers of the products claimed. But often, the medicine also harbored ingredients not mentioned on the packaging, the team reported online in PLoS Genetics.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
For years, we’ve been told that our brains don’t regenerate, that “it’s all downhill.” However, findings over the years have slowly begun to debunk that myth. Researchers have known that physical activity contributes to decreased depressive symptoms, and can significantly improve one’s outlook and self-esteem.
Now, even more exciting is the news that physical activity – in the form of exercise – actually does improve mental ability!
The value of mental-training games may be speculative, as Dan Hurley writes in his article on the quest to make ourselves smarter, but there is another, easy-to-achieve, scientifically proven way to make yourself smarter. Go for a walk or a swim. For more than a decade, neuroscientists and physiologists have been gathering evidence of the beneficial relationship between exercise and brainpower. But the newest findings make it clear that this isn’t just a relationship; it is the relationship. Using sophisticated technologies to examine the workings of individual neurons — and the makeup of brain matter itself — scientists in just the past few months have discovered that exercise appears to build a brain that resists physical shrinkage and enhance cognitive flexibility. Exercise, the latest neuroscience suggests, does more to bolster thinking than thinking does.
“Follow the money.” As a young journalist on the political left, I often heeded this well-worn advice. If conservatives were denying the science of global warming, I figured, big fossil-fuel companies must be behind it. After all, that was the story with the tobacco industry and the dangers of smoking. Why not here?
And so I covered the attacks on the established scientific knowledge on climate change, evolution and many more issues as a kind of search for the wealthy bad guys behind the curtain. Like many in Washington, I tended to assume that political differences are either about contrasting philosophies or, more cynically, about money and special interests.
There’s just one problem: Mounting scientific evidence suggests that this is a pretty limited way of understanding what divides us. And at a time of unprecedented polarization in America, we need a more convincing explanation for the staggering irrationality of our politics. Especially since we’re now split not just over what we ought to do politically but also over what we consider to be true.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, October 9, 2011
As a kid, I recollect lying in bed one evening and thinking that nothing was something… that there was absolutely no such thing as “no thing” because “thing” was something, and that a void, or chasm were things which also existed because there was something before and after, and which may have surrounded the same void or chasm. I reasoned further, that the existence of a void, or chasm could only be identified first by the presence of another thing which was opposite. Those thoughts I had long before I’d heard of the names of the world’s great philosophers, or even read any of their thoughts. My questioning led me to suppose that, when I met the Almighty – I still aspire to that Beatific Vision – I would ask Him, “Where did you come from?“
For quite some time, I have also shared that we understand the things we do not now understand by comparing them to the things we do understand. We analogize. It was fascinating – indeed exciting – to recently hear a scientific researcher – an astrophysicist – say almost verbatim the exact same thing.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, October 3, 2011
Science, it is often claimed, takes a skeptical perspective on many issues. The accepted scientific “gold standard” in medical science is the double-blind placebo-controlled study. However, in other scientific endeavors, the ability to replicate the experiment and the achieve the same findings or results is the standard. That is to say, is the experiment able to be duplicated exactly by others, whom will also obtain similar results?
Toward that end, in science, the ability of researchers to duplicate their colleagues’ work is paramount to validation.
As the scientific process relates to the issue of Global Warming, there are numerous valid scientific questions about it. For example, if we acknowledge, and give the benefit of the doubt to those whom say that the warming trend the Earth is now experiencing is part of a cycle, what we do not know is how long such cycles have lasted, or will last.
Here are two more studies – one involving 20,000 people with psychotic illness, and another involving 1,923 people ages 14-24 over a period of 10 years.
Dutch researchers led by Jim van Os from Maastricht University conducted the decade-long youth study in Germany and ruled out those that presently smoked marijuana and those with pre-existing psychosis. They found that new marijuana use doubled the risk of new psychotic symptoms, even after accounting for age, sex, socio-economic status, other drug use and other psychiatric disorders.
Dr Matthew Large, from Australia’s University of New South Wale’s School of Psychiatry and Prince of Wales Hospital worked in partnership with Melbourne, Australia’s St. Vincent’s Hospital and the U.S.’s George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, pooled patient data from more than 80 studies which had probed the link between psychotic illness and substance abuse. Previous studies had examined the role of marijuana, alcohol and other psychoactive substances, but this new study examined marijuana alone. They found that most of the schizophrenic patients had been marijuana smokers, and of those who had been, the onset of mental illness occurred 2.7 years earlier.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Smoking marijuana has been linked with an increased risk of mental illness, and now researchers say that when pot smokers do become mentally ill, the disease starts earlier than it would if they didn’t smoke pot. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, April 19, 2010
Since it seems we’re on a roll with this food thing, ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you…
Schizophrenic science!
That’s how I describe the “don’t eat this, that or the other foods” crowd.
First, eggs were evil, because it was discovered they had cholesterol! Then, we discovered there were two kinds of cholesterol. Then, eggs were okay. But afterward, those researchers never revealed they didn’t have all the information to begin with.
Then, wine, liquor, beer and other spiritous beverage was gonna’ kill you. Then researchers said it was some stuff in the skins of grapes, which made red wine okay to drink. Then, it was proanthocyanidins (commonly called Pycnogenol® – see? They have something they wanna’ sell to you! Please refer to my previous entry entitled “Eat me… Drink me… It’ll cure what ails you! (But by law, I can’t guarantee that.)“), which was found in the seeds, later found in pine bark. Then… they later learned it was simply the alcohol itself that was beneficial. So now, it’s okay to have a beer, glass of wine, or mixed drink. “But only in moderation!,” they emphasize.
Next thing, coffee was bad for you. Now, it’s good.
Fatty fish, such as salmon, mackerel, and sardines were next up. Matter of fact, all fat was “evil!” Ban fat! Fat free this, that and the other. “No-cal,” “lo-cal,” all became the bywords of a gullible public. “All the flavor and zero calories!,” boasted some food and drink products. Lite (and less flavorful) beers followed suit. Then SMASH – Salmon, Mackerel, Anchovies, Sardines, Herring – were found to contain omega 3, 6, 9 fatty acids… which are “good for your heart/ heart healthy.” So it was okay to eat fish again.
Then carbs were evil. But it was later discovered that …Continue…
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, April 19, 2010
Image via Wikipedia
Researchers at Princeton University have discovered what farmers have known for many years.
Corn will make you fat.
Corn chips, tortillas, corn meal, grits, hominy, raw corn, corn on the cob, creamed corn, sweet corn, pop corn… there are a veritable host of corn food products.
“But I don’t eat corn!,” you may say.
Sure you do. Just read the ingredients labels of the foods you purchase.
Many, if not most, foods contain “High Fructose Corn Syrup,” which can be found in most unlikely of foods.
Ingredients are listed in order of concentration, from highest to lowest. Often, High Fructose Corn Syrup is …Continue…
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, April 16, 2010
What!?
You can only do one thing at a time?
Welcome to the real world.
With a view toward reality and efficiency, the buzzword “multi-tasking” is on its way out.
In a study to be published this week in “Science,” a scholarly journal, neurological researchers at Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France have discovered the brain’s Medial Frontal Cortex (MFC) divides the brain in half when it comes to performing tasks.
Automatically, that means that consciously or cognitively, our brains can only allow us do two things simultaneously.
Study researcher Etienne Koechlin said, …Continue…
