Interesting Stuff Thread

robindch · 12-07-2017 8:07pm

Intelligence - as measured by IQ tests - is positively-correlated with lower incidences of a range of life-threatening illnesses. In Scotland at least. Genetics may be to blame.

https://www.ft.com/content/2f60e7ae-6158-11e7-8814-0ac7eb84e5f1
http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2708

BMJ article, conclusion wrote:

In a whole national population year of birth cohort followed over the life course from age 11 to age 79, higher scores on a well validated childhood intelligence test were associated with lower risk of mortality ascribed to coronary heart disease and stroke, cancers related to smoking (particularly lung and stomach), respiratory diseases, digestive diseases, injury, and dementia.

recedite · 12-07-2017 9:58pm

"a latent trait of optimal bodily functioning”

heh heh! Well who knows, it might be true. I suspect it was written by a geek though, (not exactly known for their great bodies)
I see they adjusted for childhood socio-economic situation, but not adult. Fair enough I suppose.

smacl · 13-07-2017 1:14pm

Interesting article on using DNA for general purpose storage; https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608268/scientists-used-crispr-to-put-a-gif-inside-living-dna/

recedite · 13-07-2017 2:12pm

smacl wrote: »

Interesting article on using DNA for general purpose storage

Mehh... I think that is about as useful as making human ear grow on a mouse's back. Amusingly grotesque, but not much more.

Meanwhile, the Chinese have managed to beam some particles from Earth up to a satellite.
Its all part of their plans for a quantum entanglement super-computer internet. That's where the data storage and transfer will really happen.

Samaris · 17-07-2017 7:27pm

recedite wrote: »

Mehh... I think that is about as useful as making human ear grow on a mouse's back. Amusingly grotesque, but not much more.

Meanwhile, the Chinese have managed to beam some particles from Earth up to a satellite.
Its all part of their plans for a quantum entanglement super-computer internet. That's where the data storage and transfer will really happen.

The point of growing ears on mouse backs is not so much for the sake of having a particularly earie mouse, but rather that the ear can be allowed to grow, the growth is..uh...harvested (don't ask me if the mouse survives this, I doubt it) and can be grafted to a human with no ear, afaik.

Harika · 18-07-2017 3:40pm

We had here or in the religion forum a discussion about creationist scientists not allowed to publish their papers in scientific papers. One of my favourite youtubers made a great video about peer reviewed papers and also talks about the case with creationist not being able to publish in scientific papers and the reasoning why.

approx at 7:15 it starts, but the time before is well worth watching.

CabanSail · 20-07-2017 12:26am

Samaris wrote: »

The point of growing ears on mouse backs is not so much for the sake of having a particularly earie mouse, but rather that the ear can be allowed to grow, the growth is..uh...harvested (don't ask me if the mouse survives this, I doubt it) and can be grafted to a human with no ear, afaik.

Not quite my understanding. The goal would be that organs can be regrown when required, not on a host (in this case a mouse) but instead on the person requiring the organ. This would avoid the requirements of antirejection drugs.

The actual mouse in the photo's was part of an experiment about implanted cartilage being able to grow. Information about the Vacanti Mouse

recedite · 20-07-2017 4:30pm

The problem with growing cow's cartilage on an immuno-supressed mouse is that it would be rejected if transferred onto a human. Or even a normal mouse.
The Chinese (who else!) have managed to grow an ear on a man's arm, which seems a lot more useful. I have no idea whether any of the 20 year old eary (or eerie) mouse research helped them in this endeavour, but I doubt it.

Hotblack Desiato · 20-07-2017 10:16pm

Behold,
the Pizza Trieste:

Gorgonzola cheese and, yes, apple.

robindch · 21-07-2017 2:43pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Behold, the Pizza Trieste:

First 'e' should be removed from 'Trieste'.

Samaris · 21-07-2017 3:18pm

Yeah, I'd be pretty triste if I had to eat that.

swampgas · 21-07-2017 3:21pm

Samaris wrote: »

Yeah, I'd be pretty triste if I had to eat that.

It would be even more delicious if you added a bit of pineapple on top ...

Harika · 21-07-2017 3:44pm

Lucien Greaves, Satantic Temple, was guest at Tucker Carlson at Fox News.

recedite · 21-07-2017 4:03pm

The look on Carlson's face at the end is priceless, after he asks what he thinks is his bombshell/impossible question and Greaves calmly proceeds to answer it

Samaris · 22-07-2017 12:00am

swampgas wrote: »

It would be even more delicious if you added a bit of pineapple on top ...

There's already apple on it, may as well add a whole fruit salad!

Hotblack Desiato · 22-07-2017 12:15am

robindch wrote: »

First 'e' should be removed from 'Trieste'.

This isn't some GermanGreek dude in Canada sticking a random fruit on a pizza and calling it after a place thousands of miles away. This is Italian. Italians, the inventors of pizza. We are not qualified to judge what is and is not canonical pizza - not when up against Italians, anyway.

I'm a lover of blue cheese (for, oh, a few months now

- sometimes when you challenge your assumptions you discover that something 'horrible' is actually great) so I'm totally sold on the gorgonzola - the apple part might depend on where they are along the Granny Smith (sour, challenging, but a taste) - Golden Delicious (sweet but near tasteless) scale. I do admit I find it hard to accept a pizza with no meat on it, never mind no tomato...

The one in the back of the pic does look tasty

and anchovies evolved specifically for the purpose of being dried out and sprinkled onto pizzas. Thanks guys.

recedite wrote: »

The look on Carlson's face at the end is priceless, after he asks what he thinks is his bombshell/impossible question and Greaves calmly proceeds to answer it

I can only describe his look as 'constipated'

And if you're constipated, you're full of....

Samaris · 22-07-2017 11:42am

Harika wrote: »

Lucien Greaves, Satantic Temple, was guest at Tucker Carlson at Fox News.

Oh my god, shut up Carlson and let the man speak! Also, that is some resting-constipated face.

I see his point though. I don't really approve of the name "Satanic Temple" either, unless there's some link to the concept of Lucifer as the Morning Star and Enlightenment (Greaves didn't really get a chance to explain the exact reasoning). But it does seem like the name was picked purely to rile Christians, since they're choosing the name of Christianity's main villain. And there's at least some symbols that have specific meanings to Christianity and Judaism (from that clip) that are being twisted to represent this church, the name of which suggests a twisted form of Christianity or Judaism. Basically, would they even exist without those religions? (The same argument could be made in the 5thC for Islam, ofc, and "age of the religion" isn't really a fair point to judge it on).

I suspect I agree with their general aim, just "Church of Satan" does seem to be a shock tactic to get negative attention to draw attention to their aims. "Church of Humanism" I could actually get behind a lot more.

looksee · 22-07-2017 11:49am

I can't say that I was impressed with either of them, I actually kinda agreed with Carlson, and I didn't think that Greaves made a very serious attempt to answer his questions. Even though I support the general ideas of the group I do think they are going about it in the wrong way, especially using children's books and classes to make their point. I agree it is all designed to be shock tactics, which is fine in the short term but a bit ineffective in the long term.

recedite · 23-07-2017 8:15pm

Samaris wrote: »

"Church of Humanism" I could actually get behind a lot more.

Nobody would even notice it then. The whole point is to challenge religious paraphenalia creeping into the public/secular/state realm under the guise of charity/good works.

For example their use of children's books was only to highlight the cynical way that certain religious groups had placed children's books in state schools while claiming it was some sort of charitable donation.

This latest enterprise involves a memorial installed by the Satanic temple, not to honour themselves but to honour local "veterans" :pac:
"Veterans" in the US is a bit like "mom and apple pie", nobody can really object to it.
Obviously then people are going to think "Why can't we have this memorial to honour the veterans, but without the satanic reference/sponsorship".
And that is exactly the point.

BTW, did anyone notice after that Grenfell Tower disaster in London, the local mosque had a high profile team on site organising the distribution of "aid" to victims. Possibly soup. The local council was getting nothing but abuse for its attempts to help, but the mosque's operation was getting high praise from both locals and the national media.
Its an old trick, mixing charity work with proselytising. However, it would not be right to ban it. But when the charity is targeted at public schools, or results in permanent structures/monuments being erected in publicly owned spaces, then that is crossing the line.

These satanic guys just highlight these latter kinds of practices, which might otherwise slip through unnoticed by the general public.

Peregrinus · 24-07-2017 4:39am

recedite wrote: »

BTW, did anyone notice after that Grenfell Tower disaster in London, the local mosque had a high profile team on site organising the distribution of "aid" to victims. Possibly soup. The local council was getting nothing but abuse for its attempts to help, but the mosque's operation was getting high praise from both locals and the national media.
Its an old trick, mixing charity work with proselytising.

It's an old trick, describing charity as proselytism, when in fact you haven't produce any evidence at all that there was any proselytising involved. And the scare quotes around "aid" are not exactly new either.

Samaris · 24-07-2017 8:14am

recedite wrote: »

Nobody would even notice it then. The whole point is to challenge religious paraphenalia creeping into the public/secular/state realm under the guise of charity/good works.
-
Obviously then people are going to think "Why can't we have this memorial to honour the veterans, but without the satanic reference/sponsorship".
And that is exactly the point.

Okay, so far as that goes, fair enough.

recedite wrote: »

BTW, did anyone notice after that Grenfell Tower disaster in London, the local mosque had a high profile team on site organising the distribution of "aid" to victims. Possibly soup. The local council was getting nothing but abuse for its attempts to help, but the mosque's operation was getting high praise from both locals and the national media.
Its an old trick, mixing charity work with proselytising. However, it would not be right to ban it. But when the charity is targeted at public schools, or results in permanent structures/monuments being erected in publicly owned spaces, then that is crossing the line.

These satanic guys just highlight these latter kinds of practices, which might otherwise slip through unnoticed by the general public.

I do not agree with the Grenfell response being the same thing though. With Grenfell, this was a local charity who saw it happening and many of those involved may well have known people inside (amongst which there were a fair number of Muslims). That looked like basic humanity responding. Didn't see or hear of any stories that anyone was refused aid unless they quoted a Muslim prayer or anything of that ilk either. They helped Muslims and Christians, much as a local Catholic Meals on Wheels might have opened their doors to feed the dispossessed and the relief workers would probably not have refused food or water to someone because they looked Muslim.

Disaster relief is generally called upon so suddenly that the majority of well-meaning people just react as neighbours. Groups that plan out going to a vulnerable area to proselytise and only give aid to those that accept the preaching*, that's a nastier situation. But I saw no evidence that this group did that.

*Often in countries where people have no recourse to help and have to choose to at least pretend to convert or risk starvation, disease or death by exposure. And I'm sure there are those that would argue that since they're bringing aid, they get to choose who to aid. /rolleyes

recedite · 24-07-2017 6:33pm

Samaris wrote: »

Didn't see or hear of any stories that anyone was refused aid unless they quoted a Muslim prayer or anything of that ilk either

That's rarely how it works. Its usually a subtle association of the aid with the religion. Like the way a coca cola TV advert associates happy people with their product. If it didn't work, why would coca cola spend the money on the adverts?
We all noticed that it was the mosque organising the aid, because they made sure we would notice. That's how advertising works.

As I mentioned, I am not against this old tactic per se, and there would be no case for banning it. I merely remarked that it was on display recently.

The US satanic temple campaigns are different. They only kick in when a particular line has been crossed; the line between church and state.

looksee · 24-07-2017 6:54pm

That is a rather sour interpretation of the community spirit shown by the Grenfell neighourhood. Would you have commented on it if it has been a Christian church that turned out to help? There are a lot of Muslims in the area, apparently there is a mosque, why would it be exceptional that they acted quickly and charitably? At the end of the day they are just people, with emotions and empathy and they reacted on those feelings.

recedite · 24-07-2017 11:32pm

looksee wrote: »

Would you have commented on it if it has been a Christian church that turned out to help?

Yes, probably.
Its not much different to the perception that churches have given in this country that "they were there for the people" providing schools and hospitals when the state failed to do it. Reality is different though. The state was providing funding for those religious institutions all along.

In the Grenfell situation, the perception now is that the mosque saved the day, and public services failed to deliver. In reality though, that religiously wrapped aid was just a flash in the pan. A tiny, tiny % of what it takes to support those people. Considering that most of the survivors/victims are more or less entirely dependent on social welfare for housing, income, medical etc.. not just for two weeks, but for their whole lives, long after the cameras have gone.

Peregrinus · 25-07-2017 2:42am

looksee wrote: »

That is a rather sour interpretation of the community spirit shown by the Grenfell neighourhood. Would you have commented on it if it has been a Christian church that turned out to help?

recedite wrote: »

Yes, probably.

Christian churches did turn out to help, and yet you did not comment on that.

robindch · 25-07-2017 6:22am

Ever wondered why the queue outside the ladies is so much longer?

Wonder no more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFj1oU-BMEc

kylith · 28-07-2017 4:15pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Behold,
the Pizza Trieste:

Gorgonzola cheese and, yes, apple.

A place in Dublin used to do a pizza that had mandarin on it, and it was lush. I'm a fan of sweet mixed with savoury.

recedite · 30-07-2017 8:21pm

Worlds nerdiest fight.

Tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have entered into a public squabble about artificial intelligence in which Musk described the Facebook CEO’s knowledge of the field as “limited”.

I'm with Elon Musk on this one.
2367.jpg?w=460&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&

silverharp · 09-08-2017 4:56pm

havnt watched yet but hopefully interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p59TDk8nOkc

robindch · 10-08-2017 1:01am

Trash media was, and remains, responsible for large amounts of bullshit seen flying about on the major social networks.

A large analysis of how bullshit propagated during the 2016 US presidential election suggests that social media bots - essentially, automated social media accounts run from a central control facility by a small number of people - are responsible for much of the propagation, especially early on, and that the social networks can curb much of this by restricting bot accounts.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.07592

Hotblack Desiato · 15-08-2017 1:11am

Joe O'Toole: Where did it all go wrong for Irish atheists?

Can't figure out what on earth the headline writer was thinking, but can't for the life of me figure out why the IT would even consider printing this pile of scutter in the first place.

Some lowlights:

In the course of a few decades in which our nation has swopped conservatism for liberalism we have segued from oppressive, authoritarian Catholicism to the totalitarianism of proselytising atheism.

Theists considered all the available evidence and found God. Atheists looking at the same book of evidence came to the opposite conclusion. The rest of us, the agnostics, sat on the fence around the borders of logic. All would be tolerable were it not for the attempts by various groups to have their beliefs permeate the practices, laws and constitution of our democracy.

He also claims that we have made advances in regard to abortion and religious education. I'd like to know, precisely, just what advances he thinks exist, because POLDPA and a smattering of ETs certainly don't cut it.

recedite · 16-08-2017 10:40am

Poor Joe is very confused by it all. The article misunderstands the secularist ideals of Wolfe Tone who was a fan (and an officer) of the French system.

Ascension Day is designated as a state public holiday in France. It seems to be more of a tradition there than in some other countries. Its possible in a secular state for religious holidays to be designated as state holidays when there is a long cultural tradition of taking a holiday at that time. Like Christmas day I suppose.

Some Christians in France may attend special church services to mark the ascension of Jesus to heaven. For other people, Ascension Day is an opportunity to spend time with family and friends or to enjoy the spring weather.

https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/france/ascension-day
Anyway its a spring holiday, so the topic is a bit out of date. Did it take Joe the three months to write that article? :pac:

robindch · 28-08-2017 11:18am

Some people did more prep than others for last week's eclipse - here's a photo of the international space station (right-most splotch) transiting the face of the sun from right to left during the event.

The full-size photo is here and there is a video of the transit here.

Hotblack Desiato · 06-09-2017 1:13pm

How to get away with murder in small-town India

After a villager battered his wife to death, 'he got another one. So why would he be sad?'

Michael OBrien · 07-09-2017 1:16pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

How to get away with murder in small-town India

thats a heartbreaking story but does highlight how different a culture can be in terms of how they process morality. Group vs individual.

robindch · 28-09-2017 10:31am

robindch wrote: »

[...] the SSPX movement in modern-day catholicism which rejects the Vatican-II reforms.

Earlier in the summer, the SSPX fired a shot across the Vatican bows by issuing a Filial Correction - a document which essentially puts Pope Frank on notice that he's propagating a heresy, and is presumably therefore a heretic himself. A user-level breakdown is here. The full Correction is here:

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/group-of-clergy-and-laity-issue-filial-correction-of-pope-francis

Filial Correction wrote:

Most Holy Father, the Petrine ministry has not been entrusted to you that you might impose strange doctrines on the faithful [...]

etc, etc.

recedite · 28-09-2017 11:15am

Essentially, they think The Pope has become too protestant.
Is there a certain irony in them protesting this?

In particular, they say the Pope has advocated the belief that obedience to God’s moral law can be impossible or undesirable, and that Catholics should sometimes accept adultery as compatible with being a follower of Christ. In the third part, the signatories highlight two causes of this crisis: modernism and the influence of Martin Luther. They argue that the embrace of modernism, which they define as the belief that God has not delivered definite truths to the Church which she must continue to teach in exactly the same sense until the end of time, means that faith and morals become “provisional and subject to revision.” Such thinking, they point out, was condemned by Pope St Pius X. Regarding Martin Luther, they show how some of the Pope’s ideas on marriage, divorce, forgiveness, and divine law correspond to those of the German Reformation monk, and draw attention to the “explicit and unprecedented praise” the Pope has given the 16th century heresiarch.

Hotblack Desiato · 29-09-2017 12:20am

It all started when they replaced Paul VI with an impostor!

Years ago this topic was one of the first Channel 4 clips of US public access TV I ever saw, and I thought it was the stupidest thing ever. Little did I know

http://www.tldm.org/Directives/d50.htm

Harika · 30-09-2017 9:34pm

Lucien Greaves again at Tucker Carlson

Some notes about it I found here
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/09/30/tucker-carlson-to-triumphant-satanist-go-crawl-back-into-your-hole/

Hotblack Desiato · 30-10-2017 10:36pm

It's a bit much that the Church of Ireland is playing the poor mouth over 70k to restore that church which hardly anyone uses and is hardly ever open.

Didn't they have enough centuries of sucking tithes out of the impoverished non-CoI population of this island? I don't know about the CoI's wealth but I doubt they're stuck for a few bob. The CoE is worth tens of billions.

kylith · 31-10-2017 11:34am

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

It's a bit much that the Church of Ireland is playing the poor mouth over 70k to restore that church which hardly anyone uses and is hardly ever open.

Didn't they have enough centuries of sucking tithes out of the impoverished non-CoI population of this island? I don't know about the CoI's wealth but I doubt they're stuck for a few bob. The CoE is worth tens of billions.

Tis always thus. My parents' church has been begging for money to fix the roof for years and meanwhile the Vatican has gold chairs in storage.

sbsquarepants · 01-11-2017 2:33pm

I reckon it's the church equivalent of the Harvey Norman sale. No matter how much money is collected they just can't get enough to fix that damn leaky roof!

Hotblack Desiato · 08-11-2017 1:50am

An extract from John McGahern's memoir, on his church-ordered dismissal from his teaching post:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/sep/03/featuresreviews.guardianreview16

smacl · 08-11-2017 9:15am

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

An extract from John McGahern's memoir, on his church-ordered dismissal from his teaching post:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/sep/03/featuresreviews.guardianreview16

Great article, must pick up a copy of the book.

recedite · 08-11-2017 5:15pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/sep/03/featuresreviews.guardianreview16

"If it was just the auld book, maybe - maybe - we might have been able to do something for you, but with marrying this foreign woman you have turned yourself into a hopeless case entirely," he said. "And what anyhow entered your head to go and marry this foreign woman when there are hundreds of thousands of Irish girls going around with their tongues out for a husband?"

It seems a strange thing for the General Secretary of a union to say. He wasn't getting much support from the socialists anyway.

magicbastarder · 08-11-2017 5:49pm

smacl wrote: »

Great article, must pick up a copy of the book.

"the leavetaking" - a novel about a teacher fired from his job for marrying the wrong sort of woman - is just superb.

Hotblack Desiato · 09-11-2017 1:25am

recedite wrote: »

It seems a strange thing for the General Secretary of a union to say.

Not really, given how complicit they were (and still are) in implementing religious control of our education system. Even in the 80s they did nothing for that teacher who was sacked for getting pregnant.

If all the teachers who'd rather not teach religion as fact in school just stopped doing so, then the system of indoctrination would die on its arse in the morning.