Topic: ¡Science! (Read 65099 times)

Büge · « **Reply #560 on:** June 09, 2012, 08:21:16 AM »

Two odd things:

A chunk of dock from Japan washes up in Oregon.

NASA is having a bake sale.

NexAdruin · « **Reply #561 on:** June 19, 2012, 06:18:04 PM »

http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jul-aug/06-humans-with-super-human-vision/article_view?b_start%3Aint=0&-C

Most people can see about 100^3 colors.

Some people, known as Tetrachromats, can see 100^4.

Büge · « **Reply #562 on:** June 19, 2012, 06:32:18 PM »

So they'd be able to see octarine?

Royal☭ · « **Reply #563 on:** June 20, 2012, 05:12:11 AM »

Can't decide a good place to put this, so I'll dump it here for now:

Man attempts to save dead mouse from a stray cat, is rewarded with the black plague

What surprised me about this article, aside from some guy thinking it's a good idea to take a mouse from a cat, is that the black plague is apparently affecting about 7 people in the US annually. The mortality rate has severely declined from the time it nearly wiped out humanity, but it's still interesting to see it's still tooling around America, at least in the southwest.

François · « **Reply #564 on:** June 20, 2012, 05:52:50 AM »

From the comments:

Quote

First of all this is my father. The dead mouse was long dead and mummified .the cat was choking to death on it and he tried to save it. It was his pet.

Well, if that's true then it makes a bit more sense at least.

NexAdruin · « **Reply #565 on:** June 27, 2012, 05:33:03 PM »

Particles that give you oxygen without the need of breathing

Mongrel · « **Reply #566 on:** June 27, 2012, 06:29:07 PM »

Take that, science fiction!

Büge · « **Reply #567 on:** June 27, 2012, 06:38:30 PM »

So it's like that pink fluid from The Abyss?

Brentai · « **Reply #568 on:** June 27, 2012, 06:41:28 PM »

Injection only, 15-30 minutes max, and probably only at minimum life capacity.

Still though, that's pretty damned huge in the field of medical application, as the article points out. Otoh I can also see a number of horrible uses for this sort of technology... poisons, abusable drugs, and of course standard gross misapplications like:

Quote

But what about getting a shot for diving?

Yes let us inject concentrated gas containers into our bloodstream and then jump into a pressurized environment do you know what the fucking bends even are???

Mongrel · « **Reply #569 on:** June 27, 2012, 07:39:50 PM »

So uh, someone just pointed out that this may way work as a performance-enhancing drug for sports.

Man, if that actually works, good fucking luck testing for the presence of extra OXYGEN.

François · « **Reply #570 on:** June 27, 2012, 08:29:10 PM »

Maybe the lipid container will leave detectable traces, if it's a specific type of fat that isn't absorbed or degraded or otherwise exuded by the body too fast.

Cthulhu-chan · « **Reply #571 on:** June 28, 2012, 01:09:57 AM »

Quote from: Brentai on June 27, 2012, 06:41:28 PM

Injection only, 15-30 minutes max, and probably only at minimum life capacity.

Still though, that's pretty damned huge in the field of medical application, as the article points out. Otoh I can also see a number of horrible uses for this sort of technology... poisons, abusable drugs, and of course standard gross misapplications like:

Quote
But what about getting a shot for diving?

Yes let us inject concentrated gas containers into our bloodstream and then jump into a pressurized environment do you know what the fucking bends even are???

The bends are caused by excess compressed nitrogen in the blood, so I don't think lipid bubbles full of oxygen will be an issue.

That aside, I don't think direct blood oxygenation is terribly practical for diving, except perhaps in emergency situations. But shit, I'm no scientician, what the fuck do I know?

Mongrel · « **Reply #572 on:** June 28, 2012, 04:34:21 AM »

Technically speaking, The bends is caused by any amount of gas bubbles in the blood, not just compressed nitrogen.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #573 on:** July 04, 2012, 04:48:56 AM »

Higgs Boson discovered

Mongrel · « **Reply #574 on:** July 04, 2012, 05:59:02 AM »

Caveat: the threshold for "Not an Error" in particle physics is "beyond a 1 in 1,700,000 chance of being a statistical error". Because this discovery is only beyond a 1 in 16,000 chance of being an error, it has an asterisk stating that they've discovered A Higgs Boson, not necessarily THE Higgs Boson.

But I think like most folks, they figured that a 1 in 16,000 chance is close enough to ironclad to at least make a press release and have a little cake.

Smiler · « **Reply #575 on:** July 04, 2012, 07:07:28 AM »

I was kind of hoping for an old guy to get on stage and yell "EVERYTHING WE THOUGHT WAS WRONG!" as he got sucked into a black hole because suddenly there was no reason for anything to have mass.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #576 on:** July 04, 2012, 08:07:52 AM »

Quote from: Mongrel on July 04, 2012, 05:59:02 AM

Caveat: the threshold for "Not an Error" in particle physics is "beyond a 1 in 1,700,000 chance of being a statistical error". Because this discovery is only beyond a 1 in 16,000 chance of being an error, it has an asterisk stating that they've discovered A Higgs Boson, not necessarily THE Higgs Boson.

But I think like most folks, they figured that a 1 in 16,000 chance is close enough to ironclad to at least make a press release and have a little cake.

I'm more inclined to think it's of the "We're on the right track please supply us with more money" variety.

Cait · « **Reply #577 on:** July 04, 2012, 07:22:12 PM »

Quote from: Mongrel on July 04, 2012, 05:59:02 AM

Caveat: the threshold for "Not an Error" in particle physics is "beyond a 1 in 1,700,000 chance of being a statistical error". Because this discovery is only beyond a 1 in 16,000 chance of being an error, it has an asterisk stating that they've discovered A Higgs Boson, not necessarily THE Higgs Boson.

But I think like most folks, they figured that a 1 in 16,000 chance is close enough to ironclad to at least make a press release and have a little cake.

The linked article, as well as others extant, indicate that the aggregate data provides a 5-sigma result, which is the aforementioned 1 in roughly 1.7 million.

Mongrel · « **Reply #578 on:** July 04, 2012, 07:28:39 PM »

Oh keen. The ones I'd read earlier about the impending press release specifically stated they weren't 5-sigma. I guess the actual press release updated that.

Cait · « **Reply #579 on:** July 04, 2012, 07:42:44 PM »

Quote from: Mongrel on July 04, 2012, 07:28:39 PM

Oh keen. The ones I'd read earlier about the impending press release specifically stated they weren't 5-sigma. I guess the actual press release updated that.

Of the two detectors at LHC, they released information from CMS first. CMS had data for the two major types of expected decays (two gammas or four leptons). The gamma decay was 4.2 sigma, and the lepton was 3.2 sigma; combining the two with the lesser decays gave 4.9 sigma.

The other detector, ATLAS, independently reached 5.0 sigma on the merits of its own data; Combining the data from CMS and ATLAS apparently reaches 6 sigma.

News:

Author Topic: ¡Science! (Read 65099 times)