Archive for the ‘Science & Space’ Category
34% of American College Grads Stupid
A Newsweek poll reports that 34% of college graduates surveyed believe that “the Biblical account of creation” is a fact.
Other poll results:
On Religion:
- 48% of Americans surveyed reject the theory of evolution.
- 73% of Evangelical Protestants believe that God created humans less than 10,000 years ago. 39% of non-Evangelicals and 41% of Catholics agree.
- 10% of Americans have “no religion”, but only 6% don’t believe in any god at all. 3% admit to being atheist.
- 62% of voters wouldn’t vote for an atheist candidate (so much for there not being a religious test for candidates).
- 32% of respondents believe that organized religion plays too large a role in politics. 31% disagree so it’s pretty much split.
If the survey is accurate on a larger scale, if it is representative of all Americans, the evolution statistic is pretty discouraging.
On Bush and Iraq:
- 57% of respondents support the Democrat’s plan of setting a “goal” for withdrawal of troops in the recently passed supplemental spending bills.
- President Bush’s approval on Iraq is at 28%. His overall approval rating is at 33%.
- 66% of respondents are “dissatisfied” with the direction in which our country is headed.
Poll finds 90% believe in God – Newsweek Beliefs – MSNBC.com
Underwear snobbery, Gore v. Lohan, and a big rock hits Norway
Al Gore tickles Jay Leno’s funny bone.
“It’s not all fun,” Gore remarked. “For instance, I have this huge thing with Lindsay Lohan now. When Leno asked how the feud started, Gore responded, “she knows what she did.”
The Raw Story | Gore: Lindsay Lohan ‘knows what she did’
A record-setting meteorite slammed into Norway on Wednesday. It’s presumed to be the largest to hit Norway at “considerably larger” than 198 lbs.
As Wednesday morning dawned, northern Norway was hit with an impact comparable to the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima.
At around 2:05 a.m. on Wednesday, residents of the northern part of Troms and the western areas of Finnmark could clearly see a ball of fire taking several seconds to travel across the sky.
A few minutes later an impact could be heard and geophysics and seismology research foundation NORSAR registered a powerful sound and seismic disturbances at 02:13.25 a.m. at their station in Karasjok.
Record meteorite hit Norway – Aftenposten.no
And Slate has posted “an underpants manifesto”.
It’s come to my attention that there are some men out there—even a few friends of mine—who’ve not yet switched to boxer briefs. These are otherwise intelligent fellows who, either through ignorance or recalcitrance, begin each day by pulling on (shudder) traditional boxers or (double-shudder) briefs. I feel great pity for these men. Because the irrefutable truth is that boxer briefs—a knit, mid-thigh-length compromise between boxer and brief—are the ultimate male netherwear. The sooner you accept this, the happier your crotch will be.
Vatican scientist: Creationism "a kind of paganism"
BELIEVING that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.
Brother Consolmagno said a “destructive myth” had developed in modern society that religion and science were competing ideologies.
He described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a “kind of paganism” because it harked back to the days of “nature gods” who were responsible for natural events.
A comet falls apart and RI plans massive wireless network
TIME.com: Eye on Science – Science Blog Archives – Death of a Comet
73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 was first discovered in 1930, then lost and rediscovered in 1979. In 1995, it started to fragment, and now it’s in at least 33 major pieces, and still disintegrating.
Reuters: Rhode Island embarks on statewide wireless network
America’s smallest state is seeking to become its first to offer a wireless broadband network from border to border.
Backers of Rhode Island’s $20 million project say it would improve services and make the state a testing ground for new business technologies.
Free roaming quarks
New Scientist SPACE – Breaking News – ‘Starquake’ explosion rips neutron star open
Astronomers have measured the thickness of the crust of a neutron star for the first time. The technique, which involves studying how the dense stellar corpse reverberates during a “starquake”, may one day reveal the nature of the exotic matter thought to lie at the star’s core.
“We think this explosion, the biggest of its kind ever observed, really jolted the star and literally started it ringing like a bell,” says Strohmayer. “The vibrations created in the explosion, although faint, provide very specific clues about what makes up these bizarre objects.”
Big, meat-eating dinosaurs
In 2000, scientists in Argentina found the fossils of several large, carnivorous dinosaurs. ABC News is running an AP story about a new article about it in the scientific journal Geodiversitas.
The discovery of Mapusaurus included bones from at least seven to nine of the beasts, suggesting the previously unknown animal may have lived and hunted in groups. That hunting strategy might have allowed it to attack even bigger beasts, huge plant-eating dinosaurs.
ABC News: Details Revealed About Huge Dinosaurs
Also: USATODAY.com – Huge meat-eating dinosaurs roamed in groups in Argentina, scientists say
‘Quantum computer works best switched off’
How very fascinating:
Even for the crazy world of quantum mechanics, this one is twisted. A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running.
The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a “superposition”, a state in which it is both running and not running. It is as if you asked Schrödinger’s cat to hit “Run”.
Insect Borg for the US military
How fun! The Pentagon is searching for a few good…bugs*. Bugs that they can control, completely, and that can relay data back to their controllers.
The Pentagon is seeking applications from researchers to help them develop technology that can be implanted into living insects to control their movement and transmit video or other sensory data back to their handlers.
The solicitation envisages the implanted device as a “platform” onto which “various microsystem payloads can be mounted … with the goal of controlling insect locomotion, sens(ing) local environment, and scaveng(ing) power.”
Hopefully this will go better than their honeybee training experiments which, after $3 million, “didn’t work out”.
U.S. military plans to make insect cyborgs | UPI
*Yes, I know that not all insects are bugs.
Shuttle launch postponed :(
NASA’s May launch of Discovery has been postponed so that they can replace some fuel sensors. This means that the next viable window for launch is in July.
Discovery first flew in 1984 and is the oldest shuttle currently in service.
NASA scrubs May shuttle launch | CNN.com
Shuttle Orbital Discovery | NASA.gov
Partially related: That silly queen…
When worlds collide? Try galaxies.
Think of it: A massive collection of gas, dust, stars and planets traveling at over 1,000,000 miles per hour and slamming into another massive collection of gas, dust, stars and planets.
Quite amazing.
Stephen’s Quintet is a cluster of five galaxies located about 300 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.
But it wasn’t until they used Spitzer’s Infrared Spectrograph on the galaxy cluster that they could make out the details of what was happening.
They discovered that one of the galaxies, called NGC7318b, is currently falling toward three of the others at a very high speed and generating a giant shock wave, or “bow shock,” in front of it. A bow shock is akin to the ripple raised by a boat’s bow as it moves through the water.
NGC7318b is estimated to be moving at more than 540 miles per second (873 kms) and generating a colossal shockwave larger than our own Milky Way Galaxy.
