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Apr 24, 2006
Psychiatry a Science? Not a Chance
Posted at 10:45 pm by reboot Permalink
Apr 15, 2006
We've just been studying about gravity lenses in my Relativity class. These are some seriously cool phenomena. A strong gravitational field can bend a light ray. Of course, it takes a very strong gravitational field to do so. Galaxies do have strong gravitational fields, and so if you look in a telescope, you can find galaxies that are "lensing" luminous objects beyond. That is, a luminous object on the other side of the lensing galaxy can be seen in two or more spots in the sky around the lensing galaxy. Is that not cool or what?
Posted at 05:14 pm by reboot Permalink
Mar 31, 2006
I just read Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton. What a wonderful
book! It covers the spice trace in a pseudo-novelistic format,
yet the history is solid. In fact, it is downright scholarly, yet
it is just as gripping as a Ludlum novel ... well, almost.
My favorite part is the first hand view you get of 'leife in the Indian
see witheout moderne shipes or amenitie" (Yes, he really used
quotes from actual journals and they read like that -- even though I
made that one up and any English scholar can probably tell!)
Posted at 10:34 pm by reboot Permalink
Jan 12, 2006
If you didn't already know, you can bring Stardust to your home, or more specifically, your desktop.
Due to the large quantity of samples that will be retrieved by Stardust, the Space Sciences Lab at UC Berkeley created a "virtual" microscope that will allow average volunteers around the world to participate in sifting through the data to find micro-meteorites.
You can find out more at http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/.
By the way, as of 9:30 Pacific, more than 18,000 have pre-registered. Wohoo!
Posted at 11:03 pm by reboot Permalink
Jan 4, 2006
Real cause behind cancer from smoking!
This is a real cause! This has been known since the 60’s so what baffles me is why is this not broadly known?
Drumroll...
Tobacco is radioactive. Smoking 1 ½ packs per day for a year is equivalent to 300 chest X-rays. You do the math. I found this out today while reading the MSDS (material safety data sheet) for Polonium-210 which is the material we use to eliminate static on our micrometeorites. It turns out that Po-210 is a decay product from Uranium; it is included in the Earth’s crust, and finds its way into fertilizer. The tobacco plant, for whatever biological reason concentrates the Po-210 and so when you smoke it you’re getting a concentrated dose of Po-210.
Now that makes sense as to a REAL reason for why smoking can cause cancer, specifically, lung cancer. It’s not the smoke at all. It’s the polonium. Incidentally, polonium is an alpha emitter, which is the most physically damaging sort of radiation only if you ingest it. This is because even a very thin layer of material can stop alpha particles dead in their tracks. For example, a few centimeters of air is enough to stop them, and so is the layer of dead skin cells on the outside of your body. But if an “alpha emitter” is ingested into your body, then the layer that stops the alpha particles consists of live cells and you have a big problem.
American Spirits goes through some effort to use fertilizer that does not have radioactive compounds. I don’t know to what degree they’ve succeeded.
Here’s a user-friendly link giving the facts:
http://www.acsa2000.net/HealthAlert/radioactive_tobacco.html
More detailed technical info is available from the NIH.
Posted at 10:40 pm by reboot Permalink
Oct 27, 2005
Posted at 11:07 pm by reboot Permalink
Jul 19, 2005
Bioglyphs are a seriously cool art idea:
Some art students joined up with some biology folks, and made some art out of pasting petri dishes loaded with bioluminescent bacteria on the wall. By patterning the bacteria in the petri dish's agar*, and by positioning the dishes relative to one another, they create wonderful images.
My favorite is:
http://www.erc.montana.edu/Bioglyphs/Bioglyphs_01/Gallery09.htm
Posted at 08:53 am by reboot Permalink
Jul 9, 2005
Science or Pseudo-science
Being a science geek, I'm naturally constantly interested in all things scientific. So, naturally, when Tom Cruise said on the Today Show that psychiatry is a pseudoscience, my reaction was one of hilarity. He's right you know! The psychology and psychiatry departments at major universities have always been the laughing stock and bane of the scientific community. Nothing in psychiatry or psychology is a based on scientific experiments with reproducable results. Did you know that most of Pavlov's dogs could not be trained to salivate when the bell rang, but bit the feeder instead? That actual results showed that only a small percent of the dogs salivated on demand. Really! Go read Pavlov's original works! The field is simply an excuse to create jobs for chemists to synthesize new chemicals to pass off as drugs and then sell to the public. I have nothing against chemists, heck my wife is one! For that matter, look at what nuclear physics brought us. However, many scientists really do have good intentions for a better society, though a little misplaced. Psychiatry on the other hand is not a science. It's a joke. Read more about it: " Psychiatry is a Pseudo-Science"
Posted at 12:25 pm by reboot Permalink
Jul 2, 2005
Posted at 10:48 pm by reboot Permalink
Jun 10, 2005
I just put up a new student homepage on Berkeley. Check it out! Click Here.
Posted at 10:11 am by reboot Permalink
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