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
The concept of nothing is as old as zero itself. How do we grapple with the concept of nothing? From the best laboratory vacuums on Earth to the vacuum of space to what lies beyond, the idea of nothing continues to intrigue professionals and the public alike.
Join moderator and Hayden Planetarium Director Neil deGrasse Tyson as he leads a spirited discussion with a group of physicists, philosophers and journalists about the existence of nothing. The event, which was streamed live to the web, took place at the American Museum of Natural History on March 20, 2013.
[more inside]
posted by lazaruslong
on Mar 25, 2013 -
32 comments
Allegations of flawed research techniques at an NIH-funded medical lab at Johns Hopkins get notice in a
Washington Post article. Interesting piece on a scientific dispute, the accuser's loss of his job at Hopkins, and the suicide of one researcher from the lab whose analysis, published in
Nature, came into question.
posted by smrtsch
on Mar 12, 2013 -
22 comments
The Bronx Zoo is managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which boasts of running more than 500 projects in sixty-five countries through global field offices whose employees work to advance sustainable development; address issues of global climate change, health and well-being, and natural-resource use; and pursue other noble-sounding objectives that attest to the totality of man’s dominion over the lesser beasts.
[more inside]
posted by latkes
on Jan 20, 2013 -
30 comments
Frost Flowers: "...they are made of such thin sheets of ice, they will melt away as the sun rises higher in the sky. You may get frost flowers again the following day, but unless the conditions are just right the chances are your first glimpse may be your last."
posted by OmieWise
on Dec 18, 2012 -
30 comments
The Nature of Computation -
Intellects Vast and Warm and Sympathetic: "I hand you a network or graph, and ask whether there is a path through the network that crosses each edge exactly once, returning to its starting point. (That is, I ask whether there is a 'Eulerian' cycle.) Then I hand you another network, and ask whether there is a path which visits each node exactly once. (That is, I ask whether there is a 'Hamiltonian' cycle.) How hard is it to answer me?" (
via)
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posted by kliuless
on Dec 1, 2012 -
19 comments
So, uh, apparently
Jet Boards are a thing. Maybe you knew this? I did not. At first I just thought that video was kinda neat, and the idea was interesting. Then I looked at their website and found a
ton of amazing photos, a lot more
SCIENCE! explanations of
stuff than I would have expected, and finally this
promovideo which features both an
endearingly cheesy original themesong, as well as lightning and explosions
(GIF!). Soooooooooo yeah. Jet Boards. Apparently invented as early as
1965. Pretty sweet.
posted by lazaruslong
on Sep 7, 2012 -
24 comments
The Anternet is always up. On the surface, ants and the Internet don't seem to have much in common. But two Stanford researchers have discovered that a species of harvester ants determine how many foragers to send out of the nest in much the same way that Internet protocols discover how much bandwidth is available for the transfer of data. [more inside]
posted by jquinby
on Aug 29, 2012 -
19 comments
First Evidence Found for Photosynthesis in Insects: [nature.com] "The biology of aphids is bizarre: they can be born pregnant and males sometimes lack mouths, causing them to die not long after mating. In an addition to their list of anomalies, work published this week indicates that they may also capture sunlight and use the energy for metabolic purposes."
posted by Fizz
on Aug 18, 2012 -
26 comments
"I stood staring at the enemy's trophy, the familiar impotent rage rising. But the impulse to fall to my knees, gnash my teeth, and howl at the gods was stayed this time by a resolution I'd made earlier that spring. The squirrels may take my tomatoes and spit them back, but they would not go unanswered.
The time had come to close the circle of life." (
via)
posted by vidur
on Aug 16, 2012 -
59 comments
Using spare chemicals, a laser bought on eBay and angst from a late-night argument, physicists have got the world's first room-temperature microwave laser
working.
[more inside]
posted by ancillary
on Aug 15, 2012 -
49 comments
North Americans may have noticed that
U-Haul trucks and trailers are emblazoned with colorful
SuperGraphics. First created in 1988 (
previously), the mobile gallery now comprises 206 images. Most U.S states and Canadian territories and provinces are now honored by multiple designs, as are
the U.S. armed forces and 9/11. The classic
America and Canada's Moving Adventure series, seen on trucks and
trailers, features an iconic image for each state, province and territory. The
Venture Across America and Canada series, begun in 1997, presents
"carefully researched rare findings, little-known facts and mysteries," exploring science and nature, technology and history. At the U-Haul website, the "Learn More" link on each Venture SuperGraphic page leads to a surprisingly exhaustive discussion of the subject of each graphic.
[more inside]
posted by BrashTech
on Jul 22, 2012 -
30 comments
Morton and Vicary on the Categorified Heisenberg Algebra - "In quantum mechanics, position times momentum does not equal momentum times position! This sounds weird, but it's connected to a very simple fact. Suppose you have a box with some balls in it, and you have the magical ability to create and annihilate balls. Then there's one more way to create a ball and then annihilate one, than to annihilate one and then create one. Huh? Yes: if there are, say, 3 balls in the box to start with, there are 4 balls you can choose to annihilate after you've created one but only 3 before you create one..."
[more inside]
posted by kliuless
on Jul 21, 2012 -
78 comments
"A pod of orcas, or killer whales, cooperate to wash a Weddell seal off an ice floe.
This sequence, filmed for Frozen Planet, marks the first complete filming of killer whale "wave washing" behavior."
[more inside]
posted by vidur
on Jun 26, 2012 -
73 comments
"Adrian Owen still gets animated when he talks about patient 23. The patient was only 24 years old when his life was devastated by a car accident. Alive but unresponsive, he had been languishing in what neurologists refer to as a vegetative state for five years, when Owen, a neuro-scientist then at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his colleagues at the University of Liège in Belgium, put him into a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine and started asking him questions. Incredibly, he provided answers."
posted by jquinby
on Jun 15, 2012 -
31 comments
