The cool science thread

[Roquefort Raider]

This article jumped out at me partly because an ID proponent claimed the opposite in a recent thread here. I would have thought population growth and ever increasing abilities to travel long distances would have accelerated evolutionary processes but I'm surprised that the research suggests a 100 fold increase compared to pre-agricultural rates.

Just having a larger (MUCH larger, nowadays) population certainly increases the odds that a mutation will appear somewhere. But it's also true that many of our recent habits provided important new crucibles of natural selection : cooked meat, communicating through language, using weapons for defense, having more free time to pursue artistic endeavors... They all provide opportunities for certain genes to suddenly offer an advantage that wasn't there 500 000 years ago.

Let's hear it for evolving mankind!!!

[howyadoin]

Yes! Mutant powers, here we come!

I don't think being able to digest milk will get either of us into the X-Men, though.

Flip a coin. What are the odds that it will land either heads or tails? 50/50?

No. There is a 100% chance that it will land either heads or tails.

It can't land on its edge? Ever?

[Iangould]

For the first time, scientists have a promising "candidate" vaccine for HIV.

Caveats

- The vaccine only gives around a 30% chance of developing immunity. That has to rise to 50% or more. At that level, the transmission rate should drop enough that AIDS should pretty much be wiped out as a widespread disease. Sucks for the 50% of the population if they get exposed though.

- The current trial involved six injections over a six month period, that's going to be really difficult to manage in lots of developing countries especially in Africa.

- The vaccine is a combination of two other vaccines and the researchers aren't sure whether its one of the two or the combination that's working.

[thespianphryne]

Mind-control super killer cyborg monkeys

[Chris N]

Boy does Das know how to convince me to click on a link

[mikekerr3]

I hate that theory. It is wrong. I can prove it's wrong with a simple thought experiment.


Flip a coin. What are the odds that it will land either heads or tails? 50/50?

No. There is a 100% chance that it will land either heads or tails. It is just that there is no way to know which, until you flip that coin and observe the result.

So it is for everything, every so-called random possibility. There is always a 100% chance of something happening. It is just that we don't know what that will be until it happens.

So, even if there are other quantum realities, they will be identical to ours. Nothing will be different. They will be the same right down to the last molecule.

There are countless possibilities on a coin flip it's just that two are most likely

The coin can land on edge, be snatched by some guy walking by, be eaten by a bird, or just disappear when all its particles at a quantum level randomly jump in different directions. Those thing are all possible even if you would need a whole lot of 0's to figure the odds on the last one.

[mikekerr3]

I remember when a gigaflop was fast, how long will this speed take to get into my PDA?

http://www.utk.edu/tntoday/2009/10/0...eak-petascale/

[Iangould]

Here's one of those stories that makes you go "whoa".

The world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), could be used to test the principles behind hyperdrive, a possible future form of spacecraft propulsion that could drive spacecraft at a good fraction of the speed of light.

link

Yeah, yeah.

Hypthetical

Proof of concept experiment

Probably decades or centuries away from reality if its even possible.

Screw that.


HYPERDRIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thespianphryne]

In 2008, Masahiro Hotta of Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, wrote a paper called:
Quantum Energy Teleportation in Spin Chain Systems

In the abstract, he says:
We propose a protocol for quantum energy teleportation which transports energy in spin chains to distant sites only by local operations and classical communication. By utilizing ground-state entanglement and notion of negative energy density region, energy is teleported without breaking any physical laws including causality and local energy conservation. Because not excited physical entity but classical information is transported in the protocol, the dissipation rate of energy in transport is expected to be strongly suppressed.


This article was published in the Journal of the Physical Society of Japan last year. Slowly, the discussion has spread through academic until lay publications are now referring to it. In his paper, Hotta basically proves the theoretical soundness of the teleportation of energy (across an infinite stretch of space), with practically no loss of energy in the transmission. The theory involves Quantum entanglement, and conservation of energy.

Here's the Pop Sci Article about it.

And here's the Discovery News article.

Of course, there's been no approach towards practical applications yet. But imagine the possibilities! We could transport energy from anywhere in the world. It wouldn't matter that one part of the world gets disproportionate sun or tides - we could just move that energy anywhere we wanted. Even better, we could one day have unmanned orbital power stations near the sun sending practically unlimited amounts of energy to the earth.

[howyadoin]

Of course, there's been no approach towards practice applications yet. But imagine the possibilities! We could transport energy from anywhere in the world. It wouldn't matter that one part of the world gets disproportionate sun or tides - we could just move that energy anywhere we wanted.

I'm curious how we'd maintain any kind of balance there, instead of just stirring things up worse. Actions do cause reactions, after all.

[thespianphryne]

I'm curious how we'd maintain any kind of balance there, instead of just stirring things up worse. Actions do cause reactions, after all.

How d'you mean though? As in, will be draining too much energy from the sun. Or can this potentially be a disaster or weapon where you can catastrophically heat up or cool down an area by the the teleportation of energy?

[howyadoin]

How d'you mean though? As in, will be draining too much energy from the sun. Or can this potentially be a disaster or weapon where you can catastrophically heat up or cool down an area by the the teleportation of energy?

I'm thinking that messing with the natural flow of energy and temperature could stir up storms, for one thing.

[Roquefort Raider]

We could transport
Energy from the sun
All over the world and
Power whatever we wish!
One can imagine
Nothing more reassuring!

[Paradox]

**scratches head**

Doesn't massive amounts of energy from the sun transport itself here on its own every day? The problems are in collection and storage, not in transport.

[mikekerr3]

$150 space camera

Bottle of whisky or space camera? Whisky or space camera?

I think I've made my choice.

Wish I could afford a space camera.

I buy my whiskey tax free so It's harder for me. 5 bottles of good whiskey or a Space Camera.... I'll go for the whiskey to