Science

Just How Stupid Are The Experts?

Posted on by jccarlton

However you regard the events of the last few years, the pandemic involving
the Covid 19 virus was a disaster that affected millions of lives. That being
said, most of us probably like to believe that no one would be stupid enough to
play with the Covid 19 virus, “to make it better,” that is to make it
more lethal and virulant at the same time. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.

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Harvesting Blue Blood

Posted on by jccarlton

From horseshoe crabs.   Before you complain about how this hurts the crab population, the crabs that have their blood drained are, for the most part returned alive.  Look, before anybody gets concerned about the 30% or so that die, the crab lifecycle expects that 90% of the larvae hatched will not make it to mating.  Followed up with the fact that mated crabs die soon after egg laying.

http://inhabitat.com/every-year-250000-horseshoe-crabs-donate-their-blue-blood-to-save-humans/

I grew up on the water and horseshoe crabs are interesting creatures. They’ve been around since before the dinosaur, essentially unchanged for hundreds of millions of years.  I’m not surprised that horseshoe crabs have excellent disease resistance. It goes along with the very hard shell and the shape that allows the crab to crawl along the bottom.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_crab

A remarkable creature.

Is It Ok To Be Both A Scientist And An Artist?

Posted on by jccarlton

Adam Savage has been having a “Ask Adam Anything” blog on the Tested website.

http://www.tested.com/premium/565709-ask-adam-anything-4-time-management-tips/

One question that came up was this one from “dork daddy”:

Good morning, Adam. This question is from my brilliant, beautiful, precocious 10 year old daughter, Ellie. I certainly know how I would answer it, but I suspect you’d have a pretty unique and eloquent spin of your own. My daughter has passions and interests that range the entire spectrum. She is a gifted writer, a prolific artist, an enthusiastic athlete and a natural-born scientist. She has so many interests she sometimes feels like she can’t keep up. The question she often asks me as she looks to her own future is this:

Is it possible to be an artist and a scientist at the same time?

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If You Are Any Kind Of Maker, You will Want This

Posted on by jccarlton

The complete Amateur Scientist on CD-Rom

http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/m2071.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0970347626/sciencehobbyist/

When I was a kid, Scientific American always had a science project that people could do in their home shops, usually with normal tools and some scrounging.  The quality of these projects was always extremely high.  Scientific American stopped putting those articles out sometime in the 1990’s, here they all are.  There are thousands of pages of useful stuff and projects to fabricate.  This is especially useful for getting info  on obsolete projects and dangerous stuff.

How Do We Know What A GMO Is?

Posted on by jccarlton

The basic thinking behind the opposition to GMO crops is that Genetic manipulation is dangerous because we don’t know what all the consequences will be.  As this article points out, it that’s the issue, then we are In REAL trouble.

http://grist.org/food/mind-bomb-its-practically-impossible-to-define-gmos/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed

I’m not a biologist, but even a light reading of some bio stuff sort of tell you that genes are remarkably fungible. I think that this is life’s protection against a dangerous universe.  And it’s worked for billions of years.  Blending genes to get desired traits is just another way that human being using nature to improve our lives.

What Impact Does Stuff Like This Have On Science?

Posted on by jccarlton

Yet another missive from a puppy kicker.  Now I don’t know the exact circumstances about The Marcy case.  For all I know he could be the biggest horndog out there as well as being a total idiot. . I am sure that if he was NOT aware of the fact that he had to keep constantly alert about his behavior, he was a total idiot.  I do think that it’s telling that the events were not reported for YEARS after they took place when the so called victims were changing careers from astronomy to professional activists and victims.

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I Suspect That Einstein Would Have Loved This

Posted on by jccarlton

Quantum entanglement verified by experiment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/science/quantum-theory-experiment-said-to-prove-spooky-interactions.html?_r=2

The article makes much of how Einstein derided quantum entanglement.  What the Times seems to missed is that it was Einstein who also said that one experiment could prove him wrong.  Which this did.  Which makes for interesting physics, which is after all, the study of the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.

You can make up all the theories you want, but ultimately you have to test the theories against reality.  Which doesn’t care how elegant your math is or how well your theory fits together.  Reality is what is. As a true scientist, Einstein understood that and that’s why he would have loved this experiment.