Is Psychometric g a Myth? - "As an online discussion about IQ or general intelligence grows longer, the probability of someone linking to statistician Cosma Shalizi's essay
g, a Statistical Myth approaches 1. Usually the link is accompanied by an assertion to the effect that Shalizi offers a definitive refutation of the concept of general mental ability, or psychometric
g."
[more inside]
posted by kliuless
on Apr 11, 2013 -
113 comments
"Using four photons, we can actively delay the choice of measurement on two of the photons into the time-like future of the registration of the other two photons. This effectively projects the two already registered photons onto one of two mutually exclusive quantum states in which the photons are either entangled (quantum correlations) or separable (classical correlations). This can also be viewed as ‘quantum steering into the past’." (
arXiv,
Nature Physics,
Ars Technica)
posted by jeffburdges
on Apr 25, 2012 -
80 comments
Weightless Cats and other fun experiments. An excerpt from from coverage of
research at the Aerospace Medical Division Hq 657Oth Aerospace Medical Research Laboratories including scenes of F-104 seat ejection; drop tests from C-130 and ejection from F-106; effects of weightlessness on cats and pigeons in a C-131; test subjects in water tank, on centrifuge, in heat chamber and on complex coordinator. Also, scenes of vertical deceleration tower, incline impact test facility, vertical accelerator, equilibrium chair and vibration platform. More videos can be found at
Airboyd.tv:
Accident Animations,
Aviation Films,
Military Flight Training Films, and
Space Shuttle Vidoes.
posted by Fizz
on Jan 15, 2011 -
32 comments
The Department of Veterans Affairs has reported that military scientists tested hundreds of chemical and biological substances on them, including VX, tabun, soman, sarin, cyanide, LSD, PCP, and World War I-era blister agents like phosgene and mustard. The full scope of the tests, however, may never be known. As a CIA official explained to the GAO, referring to the agency's infamous MKULTRA mind-control experiments, "The names of those involved in the tests are not available because names were not recorded or the records were subsequently destroyed." Besides, said the official, some of the tests involving LSD and other psychochemical drugs "were administered to an undetermined number of people without their knowledge."
posted by Joe Beese
on May 19, 2009 -
42 comments
Frederick...made linguistic experiments on the vile bodies of hapless infants, "bidding foster-mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the children, but in no wise to prattle or speak with them; for he would have learnt whether they would speak the Hebrew language (which had been the first), or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perchance the tongue of their parents of whom they had been born. But he laboured in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures, and gladness of countenance, and blandishments." [more inside]
posted by voltairemodern
on Aug 4, 2008 -
27 comments
One piece of paper. "It was an experiment to see how long it could last. Draw a comic, rub it off, and draw another over the top. Once it had finished, a second experiment was started on another piece of paper. Current data - one piece of paper can survive an average of 65 cartoons being drawn on it" [via
mefi projects]
posted by mathowie
on Apr 14, 2006 -
29 comments
images embedded in music by aphex twin can be viewed on certain tracks using a spectograph. What initially was thought to be a hidden
demon face, turned out to actually be Richard D James' trademark, his
unnerving grinning visage. (
other examples are interesting). The images were embedded in the music using a program called
metasynth which allows you to do cool things like 'paint sound'. The secret images even inspired a reasonably interesting article at
wired.
The most remarkable thing to me is how the generally abrasive result of this process was blended so well into the tracks. I have listened to these many times myself and never sensed something off or odd about the sections with these embedded images in them (other than the usual odd sounds that make up the tracks themselves).
Wikipedia has a pretty good
article for those unfamiliar with the artist.
previously on mefl
here, but the content is old and that link dead so I thought it was worth another post.
posted by crunchywelch
on Apr 4, 2006 -
29 comments
Beyond the science fair. Behind a veneer of shoddy web-design lies a brilliant idea: getting grade- and high-school students to do actual scientific work. For example, "10 students from New York, Texas and Virginia joined three World War II veterans and a retired railroader from Virginia" and discovered a way to make walls
self-sterilize. The guy behind it is
Carl Vermeulen.
posted by greatgefilte
on Jun 7, 2005 -
6 comments
Adopt an Ex-Lab Experiment Monkey The
BUAV (British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection) is sponsoring an adoption program to help care for some 50 macaques that had been owned by a lab in Thailand to be used for scientific experiments. After some publicity, they were pressured into releasing the little monkeys just prior to their last experiment that would have killed them all.
posted by fenriq
on Nov 16, 2004 -
33 comments
Robotic Scientist - Scientists created a closed, automated system to conduct simple labor intensive scientific experiments in molecular genetics. The robot creates hypothesis and tests them. Supposedly it works more efficiently (picks less expensive experiments, and fewer of them) then its human counterparts (graduate students in biology and comp sci.). More detailed article in Nature
here (institutional access / subscription required). I for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
posted by nads
on Jan 15, 2004 -
5 comments
Hunkin's Experiments. 'Cool cartoons that will have you experimenting with food, light, sound, clothes, and a whole lot more! Hundreds of cartoon experiments from cartoonist, broadcaster and engineer Tim Hunkin.'
These 'rudiments of wisdom' first appeared in the Observer newspaper in
the 1970s and 1980s.
posted by plep
on Dec 22, 2003 -
8 comments
Stuttering In 1937, Professor Wendell Johnson, a stutterer, designed an experiment to induce stuttering in a group of normal youngsters. Things didn't quite work out as planned. An interesting longish read from the NY Times magazine.
posted by dydecker
on Mar 15, 2003 -
15 comments
The Mars Gravity Biosatellite Project is an unmatched international effort that pools top-notch technical talent from MIT, the University of Washington in Seattle, and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. The mission is nothing short of groundbreaking. The plan is to build a spacecraft capable of housing a small crew of mice, including pregnant females, which will simulate the gravity of Mars to determine its effects on mammalian development.
posted by David Dark
on Sep 18, 2002 -
9 comments
Mice and Martians! Mice sent to Mars, first all-rodent space crew. I like the article's style:
"The crew will have no exercise wheels, however. Their motion would interfere with the centrifugal force inside the spacecraft."
posted by agregoli
on Aug 6, 2002 -
3 comments
From NPR (The MetaFilter giveth, the MetaFilter taketh away...)
Remembering Tuskegee
600 low-income African-American males, 400 infected with syphilis are monitored for 40 years. Even though a proven cure (penicillin) became available in the 1950s, the study continues until 1972 with participants denied treatment. Perhaps as many as 100 died of syphilis during the study (Allen, 1978).
Additional resources.Thirty years ago is not that long a time.
posted by y2karl
on Jul 25, 2002 -
27 comments
New book claims the Peppered Moth, natural selection's poster boy, may be a fraud. In the 1970s, the American lepidopterist Ted Sargent highlighted serious problems with Kettlewell's experiment. But no one wanted to know: his research was ignored by the scientific community and his career stymied. The peppered moth experiment was "sacred"; critics were "demonised", their views dismissed as "heresy". But the evidence grew and in 1998 a prominent biologist, reviewing it in Nature , said his shock at the extent of the doubts was like discovering as a child "that it was my father and not Santa who brought the presents on Christmas eve".
posted by skallas
on May 21, 2002 -
41 comments
Robot Rats!Excellent, now i can take over the WORLD!!
Please add, Predator like optics and Universal Soilder healing abilities - I expect to see them on
thinkGeek by the end of the month, thank you.
Although a little cruel, scientist have managed to put implants in rats brains, effectivley given them god like controls of the little vermin.
posted by monkeyJuice
on May 2, 2002 -
16 comments
