Pakistan to battle fundamentalism with science - opinion - 13 March 2009 - New Scientist

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War is a broad term.  World War.  Cold War.  War on Drugs.  Turf War.  Of all of the different type of wars, this has to be my favorite.  The War on “Brain Drain”…

This is why I was so heartened recently when I met my friend Bob Jaffe, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He told me about a remarkable experiment in Pakistan that he is a part of, in which a unique combination of private money, government support and intellectual leadership is helping to build the first private research school for science and engineering in that country, the School of Science and Engineering (SSE), part of the Lahore University of Management Sciences.Developments so far have been encouraging. More than $53 million in support has come in from individuals, government and industry - and world-class faculty are returning to Pakistan to participate in the new institution. Admission is merit-based and open to all, independent of gender and social or religious background, providing opportunities to outstanding students who need financial aid to make a new life.As Jaffe says in a brochure about the new institution: "Access to world-class education opens the door to economic prosperity and personal creativity. Our vision is to bring transformational science and engineering education to Pakistan. Our goal is to ignite development at a fundamental level by educating the most promising young people of all backgrounds. We hope to end Pakistan’s disastrous "brain drain" by expanding the national market for superbly trained scientists and engineers. SSE will seek out the best-prepared, most motivated students from all social and economic backgrounds. We will educate them and provide them the skills and experience to succeed in the world… We believe that this is the most effective and positive way we can impact Pakistan’s economic future."

Pakistan to battle fundamentalism with science - opinion - 13 March 2009 - New Scientist

Boozy films and ads make viewers drink more - health - 04 March 2009 - New Scientist

I know it is anecdotal at best, but based on personal experience, I believe this 100%.  Not only does it make me instantly crave a drink on many occasions, what I crave depends on what the actor or actress is drinking.  Last evening was a perfect example.  My wife and I were watching Becoming Jane when the male lead sat in a pub with a mug of beer.  My taste buds instantly lit up.  If it wasn’t for the Strawberry Nestle Quick I had just downed, I may have given in to temptation.

If you find yourself craving a beer next time you’re watching someone do the same on your TV, you won’t be alone.

Two studies suggest that people drink more when viewing drinking behaviour in films and advertisements. The results strengthen calls for tighter regulations on how and when alcohol is portrayed in movies and commercials.

"Although we do not argue for banning alcohol portrayals in movies, it might be an idea to explicitly warn people, especially parents, that movies contain such scenes, and that these affect drinking directly," says lead researcher, Rutger Engels of Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Boozy films and ads make viewers drink more - health - 04 March 2009 - New Scientist

The secret to a beating heart revealed - Romance vs. Science

It was February 14, 2009, Valentine’s Day.  The chill was finally wearing off of Dave after coming in from the 12 degree weather and twenty mile-an-hour winds.  The restaurant was nice, and the filet mignon and pinot noir was always something to look forward too, not-t0-mention, his beautiful wife, Laura, across the table from him.

Valentine’s Day really wasn’t his thing.  Romance as a whole was probably his weakest attribute.  He was a scientist, and wasting mental energy on such nonsense was a tragic waste of his brain’s resources.  Yet, when he stared in to his wife’s wide, passionate eyes, with the faint mood-lighting glistening it’s way through her amber hair, dancing off of her suductively smooth skin, science quickly became the lowest of priorities.  But romance?  It’s just not Dave’s thing.

He forked some filet, lifting it to his mouth, never breaking eye-contact with his wife as she swallowed a little bite of salad and said, “I love you honey.  You complete me.  You make my heart beat.”

Dave was shocked.  It was the worse thing she could have said, and what followed was a long period of awkward silence.  He sat back in his chair, clearly exasperated, no longer enjoying the flavor of the mignon melting in his mouth.

Laura was worried.  “Honey?  Are you ok?  Are you choking?”

Dave reached for his napkin, chewed the rest of his meat, and wiped the corners of his mouth.

“Elle,” as he liked to call her when he was about to give her an education.  “Listen.  You know better than that.  I don’t make your heart beat.  According to the January, 2009 issue of New Scientist, ‘each (Heart) beat is triggered by a surge of calcium ions that causes millions of overlapping filaments in a heart cell to pull against each other and contract. These filaments are made of two proteins called actin and myosin.’”

It was not more than two or three seconds before Dave’s head was complete soaked in wine and salad, which made it even colder when that twenty mile-an-hour wind swept through the restaraunt on Laura’s swift exit.

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US Defense Intelligence Agency wastes taxpayer money with “gravity weapons nonsense”

Question for the fiscally conservative reader…is government waste only government waste when it is money and resources wasted on liberal causes?

Fiscal conservatism and fiscal prudence have come to mean two different things to me.  Fiscal conservatism has evolved in to a phrase applied to any kind of spending that does not take place on what a political conservative would consider to be a liberal or progressive cause.  (Which is hogwash.)  Fiscal prudence, on the other-hand, sufficiently describes transparent and financially sound expenditures, regardless of political ideology.

I think it is necessary to differentiate between the two because of government waste like that which is listed here by New Scientist magazine.  Typically, this line-item would fall under ‘defense’ spending, which would usually satisfy a fiscally conservative (but not necessarily a libertarian) expenditure.

As the article states, the military could have asked any astrophysicist if this was possible and probably saved enormous sums of taxpayer money.  Instead, we have to chalk this one up to government waste, or fiscal imprudence.  (Because I am sure that fiscal conservatives will not want to take any of the credit for it.)

US investigation into gravity weapons ‘nonsense’ - tech - 19 December 2008 - New Scientist

If you think the idea of gravitational waves propelling interplanetary spacecraft sounds like science fiction, you’re in good company - any astrophysicist will rubbish the idea out of hand.

However, that didn’t stop the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from commissioning a report to investigate whether the elusive waves could pose a threat to US security.

The JASON Defense Advisory Group were also asked to judge whether high-frequency gravitational waves could image the centre of the Earth, or be used for telecommunications.

Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time caused by the movement of an extremely large mass, such as a very dense star.

Yet even those from huge stellar events have been too weak to trip the most sensitive detectors. The best evidence is indirect, coming from observations of how superdense, binary neutron stars lose energy.

Should life end in 100 years or 500 million years? - You pick.

Some scientists say that if we let nature take it’s course, all life on Earth will cease to exist in 500 million years, which is roughly 7.5 billion years before the Sun eats the Earth.  However, being the self-destructive, scarcity-based people that we are, we also could cause most life on Earth to vanish over the next century.  What A.C. Grayling proposes in this issue of New Scientist magazine is to not treat the “zero-based” scenerios below as simply unlikely, but to make a repository of “what-if” solutions, or ideas, and be as prepared as possible with how to deal with them as they are happening.  (And hopefully to prevent them.)

Commentary: Ideas that could save humanity - science-in-society - 17 December 2008 - New Scientist

Rees itemises, in sober terms, the risks that humankind and the planet we inhabit now face from “error and terror” and natural disaster. The latter category encompasses collisions with asteroids and catastrophic earthquakes. The former includes devastating human-made viruses and other genetically modified organisms, super-intelligent computers, self-replicating nanotechnologies, nuclear war, climate change and more.

Both types of event are sometimes called “zero-infinity” scenarios: the chance they will happen is tiny; but if they do the scale of the disaster will be immense. The “zero” part of the equation might make them seem discountable, were it not for the fact that there is a new risk in the mix: a few screwball individuals, or even just one, can make the zero inflate to infinity by, say, creating and releasing a virus against which human life is powerless.

That chilling possibility is one worth remembering. I suggest building a Repository of Good Insights which should be brought out and aired at regular intervals, lest we forget. If any of them should be needed, whether for speculative or for practical reasons, it would save time not to have to reinvent them - and in the latter kind of case it might save our skins, too.

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Watch for a really big moon tonight - Biggest in 15 years

Send pictures to karlfrankjr@gmail.com and we can post an album.

Tonight’s Moon is biggest in 15 years - space - 12 December 2008 - New Scientist

The full Moon will loom larger in the sky on Friday than it has since 1993, as it will be nearly as close as it ever comes to Earth in its orbit.

The Moon does not orbit Earth in a perfect circle. Instead, it follows an elliptical path that brings it 50,000 kilometres closer to our planet on one side of its orbit (called perigee) than the other (apogee).

On 12 December, the Moon will enter its full phase, when its disc appears completely illuminated by the Sun, just four hours after reaching its closest point to Earth. This will make it 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full Moons in 2008, though the difference will be hard to distinguish by eye (see the difference in the full Moon’s size in 2004).

Empirical evidence found! Dad matters!

I first saw this on the Geek Dad blog from Wired.com.  The article itself is from New Scientist: Life.  It is really a common sense article, but it is good to see some empirical data to back it up.  The key is that it is not enough to be the father, but the type of father you are matters as well.

Time with dad is time well spent - life - 08 December 2008 - New Scientist

When picking out that perfect Father’s Day gift next year, sons and daughters might want to look to their own accomplishments before deciding between a gaudy polyester tie or splurging on a new set of golf clubs.

The more effort a father invests in his children, the smarter they are as kids and more successful as adults, new research shows. And highly educated fathers make even more of a difference than less educated dads, all things being equal.

“It’s not [just] about having dad around, it’s about what kind of dad he is,” says Daniel Nettle, a psychologist at the University of Newcastle, UK, who led the new analysis, based on surveys of more than 10,000 children over half a century.