The Cool Science Stuff Thread

[islandman]

Literotica's repository for scientific musings, articles, programs, thoughts, incoherent ramblings, etc.

- - - - - - -
Check out PBS' Nova Science Now web-series. Tonight's show is about the human brain and its inner workings. Subject matter touches perception, time, magnets and odd brain farts.

Episode should be up by morning. Check out out here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/

[Phelia]

Originally Posted by islandman

Literotica's repository for scientific musings, articles, programs, thoughts, incoherent ramblings, etc.

- - - - - - -
Check out PBS' Nova Science Now web-series. Tonight's show is about the human brain and its inner workings. Subject matter touches perception, time, magnets and odd brain farts.

Episode should be up by morning. Check out out here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/

I love Nova. I love brains. Win. I'm in.

Off the top of my head, I don't have anything fantastic to offer, but I do like this youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/nucleusanimation

[Sinny]

Best math comic series, ever: xkcd.

Read this: http://xkcd.com/852/

[HB1965]

My Cool Science stuff for today:
Spencer Wells' Journey of Man

[islandman]

By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press – Wed Feb 2, 6:25 pm ET
HIRBET MADRAS, Israel – Israeli archaeologists presented a newly uncovered 1,500-year-old church in the Judean hills on Wednesday, including an unusually well-preserved mosaic floor with images of lions, foxes, fish and peacocks.
The Byzantine church located southwest of Jerusalem, excavated over the last two months, will be visible only for another week before archaeologists cover it again with soil for its own protection.
The small basilica with an exquisitely decorated floor was active between the fifth and seventh centuries A.D., said the dig's leader, Amir Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority. He said the floor was "one of the most beautiful mosaics to be uncovered in Israel in recent years."
"It is unique in its craftsmanship and level of preservation," he said.
Archaeologists began digging at the site, known as Hirbet Madras, in December. The Antiquities Authority discovered several months earlier that antiquities thieves had begun plundering the ruins, which sit on an uninhabited hill not far from an Israeli farming community.
Though an initial survey suggested the building was a synagogue, the excavation revealed stones carved with crosses, identifying it as a church. The building had been built atop another structure around 500 years older, dating to Roman times, when scholars believe the settlement was inhabited by Jews.
Hewn into the rock underneath that structure is a network of tunnels that archaeologists believe were used by Jewish rebels fighting Roman armies in the second century A.D.
Stone steps lead down from the floor of church to a small burial cave, which scholars suggest might have been venerated as the burial place of the Old Testament prophet Zecharia.
Ganor said the church would remain covered until funding was obtained to open it as a tourist site.
Israel boasts an exceptionally high concentration of archaeological sites, including Crusader, Islamic, Byzantine, Roman, ancient Jewish and prehistoric ruins.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110202/...AwLXllYXItb2w-

[islandman]

Originally Posted by Phelia

I love Nova. I love brains. Win. I'm in.

Off the top of my head, I don't have anything fantastic to offer, but I do like this youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/nucleusanimation

Originally Posted by SinInsatiable

Best math comic series, ever: xkcd.

Read this: http://xkcd.com/852/

Originally Posted by HB1965

My Cool Science stuff for today:
Spencer Wells' Journey of Man

I'll look into these.

Many thanks!

[trysail]

If you are going to make the assertion that runaway global warming is caused by man’s release of CO2 and positive feedbacks, you must have evidence showing that it cannot be caused by some other source and that feedbacks must be positive. How do you decouple CO2 emissions, changes in land use, natural variability, cloud effects, etc? No one has answered this question. The problems with feedback mechanisms is they are used to bring about a much greater rate of warming than is either observed or can be accounted for.

Conjecture does not form scientific evidence. Models without understanding how feedbacks work are dubious. This is the problem with arguing consensus as it is based on feelings rather than facts.

-"Ronald"

"…although this, too, shall pass, when La Nina goes away."
-Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D.

[atmas]

Originally Posted by islandman

Literotica's repository for scientific musings, articles, programs, thoughts, incoherent ramblings, etc.

- - - - - - -
Check out PBS' Nova Science Now web-series. Tonight's show is about the human brain and its inner workings. Subject matter touches perception, time, magnets and odd brain farts.

Episode should be up by morning. Check out out here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/

I caught the local broadcast of this Nova tonight and it was, as ever, riveting even though some of the discussion of synaesthesia is a few years old.
I have nothing to offer this thread: I spend all day worrying about the parts per million moisture content in lithium ion cathodes so when I get home it is all about porn.
Though I could link Fisher Scientific or Cole-Parmer. But that would be dull.

[HB1965]

Originally Posted by islandman

By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press – Wed Feb 2, 6:25 pm ET
HIRBET MADRAS, Israel – Israeli archaeologists presented a newly uncovered 1,500-year-old church in the Judean hills on Wednesday, including an unusually well-preserved mosaic floor with images of lions, foxes, fish and peacocks.
The Byzantine church located southwest of Jerusalem, excavated over the last two months, will be visible only for another week before archaeologists cover it again with soil for its own protection.
The small basilica with an exquisitely decorated floor was active between the fifth and seventh centuries A.D., said the dig's leader, Amir Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority. He said the floor was "one of the most beautiful mosaics to be uncovered in Israel in recent years."
"It is unique in its craftsmanship and level of preservation," he said.
Archaeologists began digging at the site, known as Hirbet Madras, in December. The Antiquities Authority discovered several months earlier that antiquities thieves had begun plundering the ruins, which sit on an uninhabited hill not far from an Israeli farming community.
Though an initial survey suggested the building was a synagogue, the excavation revealed stones carved with crosses, identifying it as a church. The building had been built atop another structure around 500 years older, dating to Roman times, when scholars believe the settlement was inhabited by Jews.
Hewn into the rock underneath that structure is a network of tunnels that archaeologists believe were used by Jewish rebels fighting Roman armies in the second century A.D.
Stone steps lead down from the floor of church to a small burial cave, which scholars suggest might have been venerated as the burial place of the Old Testament prophet Zecharia.
Ganor said the church would remain covered until funding was obtained to open it as a tourist site.
Israel boasts an exceptionally high concentration of archaeological sites, including Crusader, Islamic, Byzantine, Roman, ancient Jewish and prehistoric ruins.

I would love to see that in person.

[islandman]

Originally Posted by atmas

<SNIP>I have nothing to offer this thread.</SNIP>

Contribute whatever it is you find interesting. We'll partake of what we want.

Originally Posted by HB1965

I would love to see that in person.

To be part of the complete excavation if and when it happens...

[HB1965]

Originally Posted by islandman

To be part of the complete excavation if and when it happens...

That would be a dream come true. I would love to know more about early Christianity.

[atmas]

This has been around a while, but is nevertheless truly remarkable.

Using a Bose-Einstein Condensate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2...ein_condensate),
scientists have been able to slow light down from something that takes less than two seconds to go from the Earth to the Moon, to something that would have trouble merging on the freeway and which travels at 38 miles an hour

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/....18/light.html

[atmas]

Originally Posted by HB1965

I would love to see that in person.

Curious, since the Byzantine rite of the church has traditionally alluded to the eastern ends on the Roman Empire, such as Greece Armenia and Turkey, whereas Israel is seen as the focus of orthodox Catholicism.

[HB1965]

Originally Posted by atmas

Curious, since the Byzantine rite of the church has traditionally alluded to the eastern ends on the Roman Empire, such as Greece Armenia and Turkey, whereas Israel is seen as the focus of orthodox Catholicism.

You would probably know more about this than I as you are Catholic and a student of religion but I thought the Byzantine version of the church had been THE version of the church there since the 1st century AD. I always thought that the Latin influence was confined to Europe and the Greek in the Middle East and parts of the Mediterranean.

[redheadedtxn]

Well, I know the rapture hasn't happened cause my mama is still here. Scientifically speaking, of course.

[atmas]

Originally Posted by HB1965

You would probably know more about this than I as you are Catholic and a student of religion but I thought the Byzantine version of the church had been THE version of the church there since the 1st century AD. I always thought that the Latin influence was confined to Europe and the Greek in the Middle East and parts of the Mediterranean.

As an adjective Byzantine describes the Greek-speaking eastern end of the Roman Empire.

[HB1965]

Originally Posted by atmas

As an adjective Byzantine describes the Greek-speaking eastern end of the Roman Empire.

Yes exactly so I don't know that it's so curious, and the church they are talking about is from the 4th or 5th century AD. So I think it begs the question of which is actually the more orthodox, the Latin or the Byzantine if those in Jerusalem went with the Byzantine. The history of the church though is not something I have a lot of knowledge about.

[atmas]

Originally Posted by HB1965

Yes exactly so I don't know that it's so curious, and the church they are talking about is from the 4th or 5th century AD. So I think it begs the question of which is actually the more orthodox, the Latin or the Byzantine if those in Jerusalem went with the Byzantine. The history of the church though is not something I have a lot of knowledge about.

Byzantine is a more modern means of classifying, but it can be thought to describe things from about the time that Constantine moved the seat of the church. And it never really extended to Jerusalem. In fact, a secondary contemporaneous meaning describes a state of development within Christianity, one in which the church had been established and in many ways codified (the council of Nicea had already taken place).

[HB1965]

Originally Posted by atmas

Byzantine is a more modern means of classifying, but it can be thought to describe things from about the time that Constantine moved the seat of the church. And it never really extended to Jerusalem. In fact, a secondary contemporaneous meaning describes a state of development within Christianity, one in which the church had been established and in many ways codified (the council of Nicea had already taken place).

Ah I see. If you can recommend some good works from the history of the church then I'd like to read them. There is a lot I don't know that I'd like to know. I'd like to understand when the schism in the church took place and what the reasons were for it.

[richard_daily]

"I don't want to listen to a scientist, motherfuckers lyin' and making me pissed"
~Insane Clown Posse

[atmas]

Originally Posted by HB1965

Ah I see. If you can recommend some good works from the history of the church then I'd like to read them. There is a lot I don't know that I'd like to know. I'd like to understand when the schism in the church took place and what the reasons were for it.

This portion of the history of the church is better expressed by historians than theologians or philosophers.

[HB1965]

Originally Posted by atmas

This portion of the history of the church is better expressed by historians than theologians or philosophers.

OK, if you can recommend a historian that you think does a good job of explaining it I would be interested in looking up his works.

[richard_daily]

You people are so stupid... All of that stuff that you think is explained by "science" are really just miracles put here by god.

Dinosaur fossils are just angel bones.

Duh.

[redheadedtxn]

Originally Posted by richard_daily

You people are so stupid... All of that stuff that you think is explained by "science" are really just miracles put here by god.

Dinosaur fossils are just angel bones.

Duh.

What's the scientific explanation for the mental reasoning that I wanna bite you?

[richard_daily]

Originally Posted by redheadedtxn

What's the scientific explanation for the mental reasoning that I wanna bite you?

I'm very bitable...

It's all part of god's plan.