The fizzle continues
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center today posted its monthly update of the ongoing sunspot cycle of the Sun. As I do every month, I am posting this graph, which you can see below the fold.
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Tag: science
New research suggests that — despite its known bad effects — weightlessness might actually slow the aging process.
New research suggests that — despite its known bad effects — weightlessness might actually slow the aging process.
Don’t jump into that spaceship yet! The research was done on worms, and is to put it mildly very preliminary. Moreover, none of the results change anything regarding the serious loss of bone density and the weakening of the muscles and cardiovascular system caused by weightlessness.
New research has apparently disproven the Mono Lake research that suggested that arsenic might replace phosphorus as one of the basic building blocks of life.
A study has found that Americans and Europeans give directions differently.
And now for some important results! A study has found that Americans and Europeans give directions differently.
Americans were far more likely, across all tests, to give navigators a street name or a cardinal direction (i.e. north, east, south, or west). Dutch wayfinders, on the other hand, provided far more landmarks and left-right turn-descriptors.
Scientists can now use neutron detectors at the south pole to warn astronauts on ISS of incoming dangerous radiation.
Scientists can now use neutron detectors at the south pole to warn astronauts on ISS of incoming dangerous radiation.
An Israeli company has developed a medical marijuana strain that doesn’t make you high.
No one’s gotta get stoned: An Israeli company has developed a medical marijuana strain that doesn’t make you high.
I like this factoid, that the company’s research facility is at “an undisclosed location” in northern Israel.
The only program surveying the southern sky for dangerous asteroids has lost its funding and will end this month.
The only program surveying the southern sky for dangerous asteroids has lost its NASA funding and will end this month.
Six patients are suing one of the world’s largest stem cell companies, accusing it of fraud.
Six patients are suing one of the world’s largest stem cell companies, accusing it of fraud.
The patients claim that at RNL workshops they were misled into believing that treatments, still in the experimental stage, had already been proven effective. They allege that Hong told them stem cells would cure all ailments from which they suffered, including diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, back pain and insomnia, and “reverse aging, restore health and virility including sex drive, and rejuvenate their body functions to that of their twenties and thirties.” They all say they have received no benefit from the treatments.
Altogether these patients spent $75,000 for these treatments.
It is very suspicious for any respectable medical institution to charge patients for experimental work. That should have been a red flag from the beginning.
Opportunity’s view from Mars, a panorama taken during the rover’s most recent winter stopover.
Opportunity’s view from Mars, a panorama taken during the rover’s recent winter stopover.
How the Higgs boson explains the universe.
How the Higgs boson explains the universe.
And what it can’t explain:
The discovery [by the existence of the Higgs boson] that nature is beautifully symmetric means we have very little choice in how the elementary particles do their dance – the rules simply “come for free”. Why the universe should be built in such an elegant fashion is not understood yet, but it leaves us with a sense of awe and wonder that we should be privileged to live in such a place.
Science discovers how the universe operates. Philosophy and religion try to explain why. Thus, it is perfectly reasonable in a rational world to consider the existence of God, and why musings about the possibility of intelligent design do not contradict pure science.
And I speak not as a religious person, but as a secular humanist.
Astronomers have found four different binary star systems with the stars orbiting so close to each other that they complete their orbits in less than four hours, orbits that astronomers had previously believed “impossible.”
The uncertainty of science: Astronomers have found four different binary star systems with the stars orbiting so close to each other that they complete their orbits in less than four hours, orbits that astronomers had previously believed “impossible.”
Inexplicably, a dust disk detected around a star about 460 light years away has vanished in the last two years.
The uncertainty of science: Inexplicably, a dust disk detected around a star about 460 light years away has vanished in just two years.