Interesting Stuff Thread

Sarky

YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THAT

Delirium

Tactile robot finger outperforms humans in identifying textures

We’ve seen the development of a number of technologies that could be used to provide robots with a sense of touch, such as proximity and temperature sensing hexagonal plates and artificial skin constructed from semiconductor nanowires. However, perhaps none are as impressive as a tactile sensor developed by researchers at the University of California’s Viterbi School of Engineering. The group’s BioTac sensor was built to mimic a human fingertip and can outperform humans in identifying a wide range of materials, offering potential use for the technology in robotics and prostheses.

darjeeling

Radio 4's In Our Time this morning looked at the life of Annie Besant, campaigner for atheism from the 1870s in Britain.

I hadn't really heard of her before, but she was a remarkable figure. Educated and independent, she separated from her Anglican minister husband and forged a career as a radical activist. She was linked with Charles Bradlaugh, founder of the National Secular Society. Bradlaugh was far more notorious as an atheist than Richard Dawkins today, yet was repeatedly elected an MP, even though he couldn't take his seat without swearing a Christian oath. As well as advocating atheism, the two also promoted birth control, Irish and Indian home rule and other radical social causes.

Listen here, or via iTunes.

robindch

darjeeling wrote: »

Radio 4's In Our Time [...]

mmmm.... delicious.

Does anybody else here listen to Radio 4?

swampgas

robindch wrote: »

mmmm.... delicious.

Does anybody else here listen to Radio 4?

Multiple internet radios in the house - mostly tuned (if that's the right word) to BBC Radio 4 or Radio 4 Extra, although RTE Radio 1 and Newstalk get the occasional outing.

I guess all those years living in the UK have ruined me for Irish radio

The Mad Hatter

robindch wrote: »

mmmm.... delicious.

Does anybody else here listen to Radio 4?

Only In Our Time, which I love. I get the podcast.

darjeeling

robindch wrote: »

mmmm.... delicious.

Does anybody else here listen to Radio 4?

I grew up listening to Radio 4 (which is weird given that the average age of the audience is 50-something) and I'm always trying to make new converts.

On In Our Time, one of the strange charms is the non-sequitur when Melvyn gets to the end of 45 minutes chewing over the fall of the Roman Empire, and says, 'Well thankyou very much! Next week we're talking about the Higgs boson'. But with the full back archive now on-line, you can now follow a thread through history if you've a day or so to spare.

The Mad Hatter

darjeeling wrote: »

robindch wrote: »

mmmm.... delicious.

Does anybody else here listen to Radio 4?

I grew up listening to Radio 4 (which is weird given that the average age of the audience is 50-something) and I'm always trying to make new converts.

On In Our Time, one of the strange charms is the non-sequitur when Melvyn gets to the end of 45 minutes chewing over the fall of the Roman Empire, and says, 'Well thankyou very much! Next week we're talking about the Higgs boson'. But with the full back archive now on-line, you can now follow a thread through history if you've a day or so to spare.

A few weeks ago he was doing a programme on Benjamin Franklin, and he finished with "and next week - in a rare instance of joined-up programming - we'll be talking about super-conductive materials. I don't think that's ever happened before."

robindch

darjeeling wrote: »

I grew up listening to Radio 4 (which is weird given that the average age of the audience is 50-something) and I'm always trying to make new converts.

Yes, there's something strangely quasi-religious about that impulse to convert... I started listening occasionally in the late 70's, then pretty much every day since the mid-80's.

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Only In Our Time, which I love. I get the podcast.

Likewise. Start the Week and Thinking Allowed can be pretty good too, and then of course, there's the News Quiz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfGZzqUUEX8

Jeremy Hardy, Andy Hamilton, Sandy Toksvig and the rest of the crew -- on form, they're almost an acceptable substitute for sex(*).

(*) well, sex on one's own anyway.

Dades

I just went to the shops and listened to Radio 4 for possibly the first time in my life.

swampgas

Dades wrote: »

I just went to the shops and listened to Radio 4 for possibly the first time in my life.

They do have their equivalent of the angelus - Thought For The Day - which is a cultural institution in its own right. I usually manage to hit the mute button before my gag reflex kicks in.

robindch

Dades wrote: »

I just went to the shops and listened to Radio 4 for possibly the first time in my life.

Thoughts?

Dades

robindch wrote: »

Thoughts?

Listened on the way home too. Really enjoyed some comedy sketches on the Simon Davis or someone show. I lol'ed in Marks & Spensors, in fact!

Have added it as a favourite on my Tunein App.

robindch

^^^ A convert!! Praise be!

darjeeling

robindch wrote: »

^^^ A convert!! Praise be!

Amen.

Sarky

robindch wrote: »

^^^ A convert!! Praise be!

That'll be another 72 filthy-minded bisexual f*ck buddies in Atheist Heaven, you jammy devil.

Dades

Actually this morning it was boring.

I put on Sky Classical instead.

ShooterSF

Dades wrote: »

Actually this morning it was boring.

I put on Sky Classical instead.

Apostasy! Get him!!

robindch

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

swampgas

Dades wrote: »

Actually this morning it was boring.

I put on Sky Classical instead.

You do have to pick and choose - there are some Radio 4 programmes that are pure torture for me. Unfortunately my other half is addicted to The Archers, so I have to leave the room for 20 minutes ...

Sarky

Pfft, a la carte Radio 4-ists, just picking out the bits they like...

legspin

Sarky wrote: »

Pfft, a la carte Radio 4-ists, just picking out the bits they like...

I've kinda stopped listening since they switched Test Match Special to Radio 5 live. I keep missing the Shipping forcast 'coz of this.

shizz

I thought that this was a great piece of writing.

It's a forward that the "Bad Astronomer" wrote for the book "50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True"

No one is born a skeptic.

Kids are natural scientists, though. They love to soak up knowledge, explore, experiment, name things (I can still remember my very young daughter, all those years ago, asking me to name the stars in the sky, one after another).

I suppose not all of that is really science, though. Memorization and categorization are important, and the foundation of being able to understand relationships between objects, but they’re not science. The basic property that makes science science is that it’s self-checking. You don’t just make an assumption; you test it. You see if it works the next time you use it. And you don’t assume that just because it did, it always will.

And the most important thing, the one aspect of science that sets it apart from all other methods of knowing, is that science isn’t loyal. You can rely on an idea for years, decades, but if something comes along that proves the idea wrong, boom! It gets chucked out like moldy cheese.

Well, not always. The other thing about science is that it builds on previous knowledge. If you learn something works pretty well, and then something else comes along that does better, a lot of the time you find out the second thing is just a modification of the first. Einstein didn’t trash Newton; relativity updated Newton’s mechanics, made it work better when objects are traveling near the speed of light, or where there’s lots of gravity.

It was the accumulation of knowledge, of fact, that modified Newton’s ideas. Hard-won, too, with experiments that contradicted centuries of "common wisdom". But that knowledge, when it’s correct, builds over time. It all has to work, like a tapestry. And it does.

Still, it’s hard to let go of an idea even when you know it’s wrong. Sometimes the idea is stubborn (or its holder is). Sometimes it’s comforting to have a warm, fuzzy idea. I bet that most of the time, though, it’s ego, pure and simple. We identify with the ideas we keep, and if that idea is wrong, then that means some part of us is wrong. That’s a difficult issue to deal with.

And that’s why kids can be natural born scientists, but terrible skeptics. And that’s OK; sometimes kids need to just do stuff "because I said so", and you don’t want them always questioning you. The real problem comes when they grow up and don’t let go of that characteristic.

We all do it. Believing is easy. Being skeptical is hard. It’s the road less traveled, rough-hewn and difficult. There are pitfalls everywhere, scary dark places, things that would be so much easier just to wish away when we close our eyes.

But reality, as author Philip K. Dick said, is what doesn’t go away when we stop believing in it.

Reality doesn’t care what you believe, what you do, for whom you vote. It just keeps on keeping it real. And since that’s the case, isn’t it better to see it for what it is? When you believe in something that’s wrong, other beliefs glom onto it, getting more complicated, getting harder and harder to balance and reconcile, like a pyramid built upside down. You build up more and more nonsense until the contradictions get so glaringly obvious your only choice is to either completely ignore them, compartmentalizing your beliefs, or to let it all come crashing down.

You have to face reality.

In this book you will read about many such heels-over-head pyramids. Aliens. The Moon hoax. Bigfoot. Some are larks, fun little tidbits of silliness that on their own don’t do much harm.

Others are dangerous. "Alternative" medicines that not only don’t help, but keep people from seeking real medicine, making them sicker. Intercessory prayer, which is proven not to do anything, but which people sometimes employ instead of seeking real help. Self-proclaimed "psychics" who prey on the bereaved and grieving. And of course creationism, which shuts down curiosity and turns a blind eye to the true, and very ancient, nature of the world.

Science kicks over that pyramid, and sets it on its stable base. The best thing about science – and its mulitpurpose toolkit, skepticism – is that they show you how the Universe really is. Yes, it can be scary, dark, and impersonal. But that’s OK because it’s also complex, deep, marvelous, profound, wondrous, magnificent… and above all, beautiful.

That beauty is out there. All you have to do is stop believing in it, and start understanding it.

Apologies if the quote is too big.

Bannasidhe

:mad:

Turtwig

TV3 have been airing this dodgy as hell psychic show. Observant boardsie notices something interesting.

fitz0

Jernal wrote: »

TV3 have been airing this dodgy as hell physic show. Observant boardsie notices something interesting.

That's pretty disgusting. Even their fakes are fakes!

Internet - 1 : Psychics - 0

CerebralCortex

Jernal wrote: »

TV3 have been airing this dodgy as hell physic show. Observant boardsie notices something interesting.

Tweeted and FB'd

MagicMarker

Jernal wrote: »

TV3 have been airing this dodgy as hell physic show. Observant boardsie notices something interesting.

How is it legal?

kylith

If it comes from a stock photo website en you subscribe to the site and can use any of their pics for a yearly fee.

Bannasidhe

kylith wrote: »

If it comes from a stock photo website en you subscribe to the site and can use any of their pics for a yearly fee.

Maybe the model in question has a gig as a psychic...it could happen.

Bannasidhe

I just love science

New Energy Technologies has announced an improvement in manufacturing see-through solar cells generating electricity on glass.
US solar company New Energy Technologies collaborated with the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on developing low-cost materials and an application technique to optimise the movement of electrons within the ultra-thin solar cells.

This should increase the amount of electricity produced when New Energy’s see-through SolarWindow prototype is exposed to natural or artificial light.

“Over the past few months, our researchers have unveiled a virtually invisible conductive wiring system, which collects and transports electricity on SolarWindow prototypes,” said John Conklin, President and CEO of New Energy Technologies.

“They have fabricated a large area working module, which is more than 14-times larger than previous organic photovoltaic devices fabricated at NREL.”

The improved process can be carried out at ambient pressure and low temperatures.

This means researchers can avoid using materials that must be deposited using high temperature vacuum deposition, which is expensive and time-consuming, and therefore not practical for high speed and large-scale applications.

“Earlier, we developed our first-ever working SolarWindow prototype using a faster, rapid scale-up process for applying solution-based coatings,” said Conklin.

“Together, these achievements have moved us closer to our manufacturing, scale-up, durability, and power production goals – all important factors to advancing our SolarWindow technology towards commercial launch.”

New Energy Technologies said the innovation promotes low processing temperatures, enabling high-speed roll-to-roll (R2R) and sheet-to-sheet (S2S) manufacturing.

This large-area, R2R and S2S fabrication capability and improved durability of SolarWindow technology are crucial for production of market-ready electricity-generating coatings on see-through glass and plastic.

To generate electricity on SolarWindow prototypes, researchers creatively layer and arrange unique, ultra-thin see-through solar cells onto glass.

Each of these cells is arranged in a network and interconnected by way of a virtually invisible grid-like wiring system.

Within these ultra-thin solar cells, the light-induced movement of electrons generates electricity.

http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2012/jun/solarwindow-technology.cfm#.T-m9QKLAjnw.facebook

Turtwig

More desktop background fodder.:)

robindch

^^^ wonder what people would be like, and what religions would be around, if the earth had that sky at night.

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

^^^ wonder what people would be like, and what religions would be around, if the earth had that sky at night.

Is it sad that I just spent 5 minutes looking for the Tardis?

robindch

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I just love science

http://www.facebook.com/scienceisawesome

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Is it sad that I just spent 5 minutes looking for the Tardis?

Insanely, though not as bad as seeing it and thinking of the Krikkit Wars.

Sonics2k

That FB page is great

recedite

If you intercept the light passing through a window and convert it into electricity, it kind of defeats the purpose of having the window. Methinks solar panels are probably best kept on the roof.
"It has developed a method for spraying tiny organic solar cells onto windows in a see-through coating that lets in 40 to 80 percent of sunlight, absorbing the rest".

Genghiz Cohen

recedite wrote: »

If you intercept the light passing through a window and convert it into electricity, it kind of defeats the purpose of having the window. Methinks solar panels are probably best kept on the roof.
"It has developed a method for spraying tiny organic solar cells onto windows in a see-through coating that lets in 40 to 80 percent of sunlight, absorbing the rest".

Makes about as much sense as the electricity generating speed-bumps. Just cut out the middle man and use a diesel generator!

Delirium

Atom Crash Produces Hottest Man-Made Temperature Ever

An atom-smasher called the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) has just snagged a Guinness World Record for reaching the hottest man-made temperature ever—250,000 times hotter than the center of the sun.

The face-melting temperature was achieved when gold nuclei—the part of the atom made of protons and neutrons that has a positive charge—were set zipping around an underground racetrack near light speed until they slammed into one another. NASCAR for particle scientists, except instead of a champagne shower you're left with a soupy mix of quarks and gluons.

Delirium

Probing an 'Invisible' Exoplanet's Atmosphere

To study the atmospheres of planets beyond the solar system, astronomers have had two choices: pick one that flies across the face of its parent star relative to Earth's perspective (an event known as a transit), or wait for a new generation of more sensitive space telescopes that can directly capture the planet's faint light.

Now, there's a third option.

Using a cryogenically-cooled infrared detector on a telescope in Chile, astronomers ferreted out beams of light coming directly from Tau Boötis b, a massive planet about 50 light-years from Earth.

Delirium

Date of Earliest Animal Life Reset by 30 Million Years

University of Alberta researchers have uncovered physical proof that animals existed 585 million years ago -- 30 million years earlier than previous records show.

The discovery was made by U of A geologists Ernesto Pecoits and Natalie Aubet in Uruguay. They found fossilized tracks a centimeter-long, slug-like animal left behind 585 million years ago in silty, shallow-water sediment.

A team of U of A researchers determined that the tracks were made by a primitive animal called a bilaterian, which is distinguished from other non-animal, simple life forms by its symmetry -- its top side is distinguishable from its bottom side -- and a unique set of "footprints."

joseph brand

The best sleeves to wear when approached by religious preachers.

shizz

I dunno if we can embed vimeo videos here, so I'll just post the link.

The Future is Ours

Brilliant inspiring video.

robindch

Peter Higgs has been invited to CERN tomorrow for an announcement -- have they found his boson?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2167188/God-particle-Scientists-Cern-expected-announce-Higgs-boson-particle-discovered-Wednesday.html

recedite

joseph brand wrote: »

The best sleeves to wear when approached by religious preachers.

Tattoo Artist; "Sir looks so much smarter now with his new esoteric tattoo".

Client Chav; "Er, thanks. I'll just take a photo of myself scratching my scrotum before I leave".

Delirium

Spray-on Rechargeable Batteries Could Store Energy Anywhere

A team of mechanical engineers has published a paper demonstrating its latest invention — spray-on rechargeable batteries that could be combined with solar cells to create self-sufficient, energy conversion-storage devices.

The paper, published in Nature Scientific Reports, explains that by breaking down the different components of a battery — the electrodes, separator, electrolyte and current collectors — and rendering them into liquid form, we could revolutionize the way we power our devices. Rather than being tied to fixed shapes and sizes, batteries could one day take on practically any form, and be applied almost anywhere.

robindch

Atheists on the up and up :~)

Atheist Clubs Spring Up In High Schools Across The Country With Help From The Secular Student Alliance

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/29/with-help-from-the-secula_n_1638950.html

HuffPo wrote:

With help from the Secular Student Alliance -- a national organization of more than 300 college-based clubs for freethinking students -- high school atheists clubs are springing up across the country, the Religion News Service reports.

JT Eberhard, director of SSA’s high school program, says he hopes that both atheist and religious students having clubs will help foster a dialogue.

“I also hope it will let the atheist students know that you can be an atheist and its okay," Eberhard told Religion News Service. "You are still a good person. We want to say: Here is a place where you can feel that."

There were about a dozen clubs of this ilk at the beginning of the 2011-12 academic year -- a number that increased to 39 in 17 states by the start of summer break. The clubs are student-led, and SSA only provides information and guidance upon a student’s request.

Some clubs exist in states that have large numbers of people who claim no religious affiliation, such as New York, Washington and California. Others are located in more religion-centered states, with North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas all claiming at least one high school with a club for atheists. Since January of this year, students representing 73 different high schools have requested “starter kits,” according to SSA.

Some students have no issue launching an atheist club assuming they meet their school’s criteria, which usually entails obtaining a faculty sponsor and demonstrating student interest.

Others are met with administrative resistance, like at Melbourne High School in Melbourne, Fla., where administrators rejected an atheist club on the basis that it was “too controversial.” Students at another Florida high school were told that no religious clubs were permitted, even though there was a school Christian club in existence. The principal of Houston’s La Porte High School denied students the use of the word “atheist” due to the fact “it could disrupt the educational process.”

In such instances, Eberhard usually intervenes, reminding administrators that the Equal Access Act grants students the right to form a club.

Earlier this month, Chelsea Stanton, a senior and atheist at Collingswood High School in New Jersey, also used the law to her advantage in defending her refusal to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

“That’s the beauty of America -- that you don’t have to follow the same religion the majority does,” she said.

In Rhode Island, Cranston High School West student Jessica Ahlquist objected to a prayer banner the school had on display. The 16-year-old brought the case to court, receiving a January mandate for the school prayer banner to be brought down because it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Ahlquist has also received a $40,000 scholarship fund from the American Humanist Association.

Ahlquist was also honored with the Humanist Pioneer Award at this year's annual American Humanist Association in New Orleans, the Christian Post reported.

pauldla

robindch wrote: »

Peter Higgs has been invited to CERN tomorrow for an announcement -- have they found his boson?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2167188/God-particle-Scientists-Cern-expected-announce-Higgs-boson-particle-discovered-Wednesday.html

Looks like it!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0704/1224319342554.html

This is a great age to be alive, folks.

Dades

pauldla wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0704/1224319342554.html

Irish Times wrote:

World waits for revelation of 'God particle' by Cern today

...

Scientists at Cern, the European centre for nuclear research, are expected to announce the discovery of the Higgs boson – what people can’t resist calling the “God particle”.

Like some numnut in the Irish Times it seems.

magicbastarder

pauldla wrote: »

This is a great age to be alive, folks.

i was kinda hoping they wouldn't find it. would have made things a lot more interesting.