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Students Visit Creation Museum

Raigen says...

I present two articles for your perusual:

New Scientist: Why Doesn't America Believe in Evolution?

CBS: Poll - Majority Reject Evolution (from 2005, but still... that's only two three years ago).

I don't think anyone has generalized that ALL Christians don't believe in Evolution, however, the majority appear to not accept (belief is a word not suited for evolution, for it is fact, it should be accepted, not "believed") that all creatures great and small have evolved over time.

Oh, and to the "World without God", I'm pretty sure it would look, oh I don't know, JUST AS IT DOES RIGHT THIS MINUTE. Of course, should homo sapiens have evolved not ever thinking there were Gods, there might be some nicer things to hear about here and there in the world.

Edit: In regards to my previous comment I was being slightly sarcastic. While there might be an overwhelming Christian presence in my country of Canada, of course not all of them believe in Christ's return, or a 6,000 year old earth/universe. My uncle is a Presbyterian and fully accepts evolution as fact, and he's probably my most favourite relative, very knowledgeable and funny as hell. No pun intended.

Shockwave traffic jam recreated by Japanese traffic research

Krupo says...

Some quotes:

"Traffic that grinds to a halt and then restarts for no apparent reason is one of the biggest causes of frustration for drivers. Now a team of Japanese researchers has recreated the phenomenon on a test-track for the first time.

The mathematical theory behind these so-called "shockwave" jams was developed more than 15 years ago using models that show jams appear from nowhere on roads carrying their maximum capacity of free-flowing traffic – typically triggered by a single driver slowing down.

After that first vehicle brakes, the driver behind must also slow, and a shockwave jam of bunching cars appears, travelling backwards through the traffic."

They go on to say they've done this on computers, but did in person as seen above.

"They asked drivers to cruise steadily at 30 kilometres per hour, and at first the traffic moved freely. But small fluctuations soon appeared in distances between cars, breaking down the free flow, until finally a cluster of several vehicles was forced to stop completely for a moment.

That cluster spread backwards through the traffic like a shockwave. Every time a vehicle at the front of the cluster was able to escape at up to 40 km/h, another vehicle joined the back of the jam.

The shockwave jam travelled backwards through the ring of vehicles at roughly 20 km/h, which is the same as the speed of the shockwave jams observed on roads in real life, says lead researcher Yuki Sugiyama, a physicist in the department of complex systems at Nagoya University.

"Although the emerging jam in our experiment is small, its behaviour is not different from large ones on highways," he told New Scientist.

...
Pinpointing the causes of shockwave jams is an exercise in psychology more than anything else. "If they had set up an experiment with robots driving in a perfect circle, flow breakdown would not have occurred. Human error is needed to cause the fluctuations in behaviour," says Rees."

So our humanity is to blame. But of course.

Single Young Men and Females (Femme Talk Post)

Eklek says...

@J-Rova/Jonny/Farhad/Thylan
Yes the author is extrapolating/categorizing but touches upon recent developments that are a reality.
Birth control/having children does have an impact on women and men: pregnancy, giving birth and rearing a child results into hormonal and brain changes, as recent research (on other mammals (especially mammals where the father is involved in the upbringing of the child)) seems to indicate.

-Fatherhood boosts male brains (25 July 2006, New Scientist Magazine)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125615.400-fatherhood-boosts-male-brains.html

-Having children alters the brain (12 June 2007, NewScientist.com news service)
Roxanne Khamsi
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12043-having-children-alters-the-brain.html

-Stretch Marks for Dads: What fatherhood does to the body and the brain.
By Emily Anthes (June 14, 2007)
http://www.slate.com/id/2168389/

History Channel Admits Anthrax Attacks are an Inside Job

rembar says...

Okay you're right, it's way deep and this video is very alarmist.
Yes I am, yes it is, and yes it is.

Rembar could you tell us if it's true that they concluded it was all the Ames type, and if in fact this is "almost" entirely controlled by the pentagon?
It was the Ames strain (not type), although that's poor reporting on this video's part by implying that it is one of many. Although this is true, basically any lab worth its salt doing research on anthrax pathology uses the Ames strain, so that tells people precious little. And no, it is not almost entirely controlled by the Pentagon. It is under national regulation, and not anybody can get their hands on it, but it's a BSL-3 agent, not BSL-4. And that doesn't even cover the samples not held in the US.

People forget that anthrax is a bacteria. Unlike nuclear and chemical weapons, new samples of pathogenic bacteria can be grown from a small sample, and how exactly do you keep inventory of that?

The new work also shows that substantial genetic differences can emerge in two samples of an anthrax culture separated for only three years. This means the attacker's anthrax was not separated from its ancestors at USAMRIID for many generations.'(9 May 2002, New Scientist)
So it wasn't "on the street" for long.

That's what it seems like at first glance, but that conclusion is faulty. Three years of cultivation is a long, long time, especially if you're only collecting material to use in an attack, rather than trying to improve the strain's lethality or resistance to antibiotics or anything in that vein. In certain forms and methods, anthrax can be properly stored in stasis for decades, without necessity of reproduction. Thus, you could keep a sample viable for close to a century, but genetically your strain will be the same generation. In effect, this knowledge instead points to somebody doing a grow-and-throw - in simplified terms, acquiring the anthrax sample, storing it for however long, then growing some, collecting spores, and sending them, then rinsing and repeating as necessary. This means it was not specifically weaponized, contrary to what the newspapers love to tell you, nor would the actual process require very high-level knowledge of microbiology or anthrax in order to perform.

And lol, Constitutional_Patriot, cry more. I'll gladly put a silly video about breast-watching (which is both entertaining and healthy, as the video demonstrates) into my channel over something that's factually inaccurate, something you don't seem to understand as you've demonstrated a number of times that you wouldn't know real science if it bit you in the ass. Don't try to take it out on me with your little passive-aggressive downvoting. Sack up.

History Channel Admits Anthrax Attacks are an Inside Job

schmawy says...

Rembar could you tell us if it's true that they concluded it was all the Ames type, and if in fact this is "almost" entirely controlled by the pentagon? Is there even such thing as an Ames strain? Is he the guy they c...never mind I'm going to sound stupid if I keep asking questions so I'll go look at wikipedia.

Okay you're right, it's way deep and this video is very alarmist.

First this...

"Although the anthrax preparations were of different grades, all of the material derived from the same bacterial strain. Known as the Ames strain, it was first researched at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, Maryland. The Ames strain was then distributed to at least fifteen bio-research labs within the U.S. and six locations overseas."

So, anybody could have it by now.

And then this...

...The new work also shows that substantial genetic differences can emerge in two samples of an anthrax culture separated for only three years. This means the attacker's anthrax was not separated from its ancestors at USAMRIID for many generations.' (9 May 2002, New Scientist)

So it wasn't "on the street" for long.

Personally, I remember thinking it was an attack by the Pro-life (Anti-choice). I had googled who was attacked in the Senate and it came back that they were all part of a Pro-choice (Anti-life) committee or initiative or something.

Rubber Hand Illusion

UF Student tasered at John Kerry Speech

johnald128 says...

From issue 2623 of New Scientist magazine, 29 September 2007, page 3:

'IS IT safe to use Tasers to restrain people? The debate has been growing as more and more police forces have started using the electro-stun weapon. The latest research appears to show that while tasering does increase heart and breathing rates, it has few if any long-term effects (see "Taser studies begin to address health concerns"). End of story? Not at all.

Whether a weapon is safe to use is not the only question police officers should be asking. Just as relevant is whether it is appropriate or necessary. A Taser causes severe pain and muscle contractions, and temporary paralysis. Using it is unquestionably a violent act.

Granted, it can save lives: where it is used in place of lethal force, for example, or to prevent someone committing suicide. But a guarantee that it is safe should not be a ticket for police to use it indiscriminately. Like all tools of violence, it should remain a weapon of last resort.'

Cat Falls out of 18th Story Window and Lives

Baqueta says...

This isn't as uncommon as you might think. I remember reading about a study which found that cats tend to survive more often when falling from great heights than when falling from around 6-8 stories (which, to be fair, is still pretty far).

This is the best link a quick search on google turned up:
http://www.drownacat.com/high_rise_syndrome.htm

I'm pretty sure this is where I originally read the story, but you need a subscription to New Scientist to view the whole thing:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17824006.700-the-last-word.html



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