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POPSReligious Hate Speech The view from one of the believers. If you care to wade through this drivel you will be entertained by a multitude of false assertions, straw men, and arguments from ignorance. The depth of illogic is stunning. It's sad that many people who read this sort of crap swallow it as readily as they do the dogma behind it.
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POPSWhy nature can't be reduced to mathematical laws If so, then even perfect knowledge of the physics at one level would be inadequate for understanding organisation at higher levels. This conjecture has been debated ever since. Now Mile Gu at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and colleagues, claim that it may be possible to prove Anderson's idea. They studied a basic mathematical model called the Ising model, which is often used to study how magnetism arises in iron and other materials from the collective organisation of their atoms. Using the model, the team focused on whether the pattern that the atoms adopt under various scenarios, such as a state of lowest energy, could be calculated from knowledge of those forces. They found that in some scenarios, the pattern of atoms could not be calculated from knowledge of the forces - even given unlimited computing power. In mathematical terms, the system is considered "formally undecidable".
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POPSWhat Happens if You Fall Into a Black Hole? If you fell into a large enough black hole, your last moments would be a little bit like being on the inside of a distorted, one-way mirror. No one outside would be able to see you, but you'd have a view of them. Meanwhile, the gravitational pull would bend the light weirdly and distort your last moments of vision
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POPSAlternative Fuels - Dimethylfuran The Future of DMF as a transportation fuel is up in the air. For example, some of its environmental effects are still unknown. However, according to the head of the research done at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Professor Dumesic, this process of production shows that “we can produce a liquid transportation fuel from biomass that has energy density comparable to petrol.”
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POPSExploding chromosomes fuel research about evolution of genetic storage
Dinoflagellates are stuffed at the core with tightly compacted chromosomes, yet these organisms contain neither histones nor nucleosomes. "What takes care of neutralizing DNA, to allow chromosomes to condense?" Levi-Setti asked. "Most biology books do not tell you." Other scientists had already identified positively charged atoms called cations as neutralizing factors. They found that dinoflagellate chromosomes explode upon the removal of calcium and magnesium cations. Levi-Setti has produced the first images of the distribution of these cations in dinoflagellate chromosomes. These images verify that cations, mainly of calcium and magnesium, neutralize DNA's enormous negative charge, and further suggest a critical role in folding the protein as well. The finding raises questions about the evolution of chromosomes, Rizzo said. "Did dinoflagellates once have histones and then lost them? Or did dinoflagellates never have histones and just 'figured out' a different way to fold lar
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POPS'Green' chemistry may get the midas touch I imagined 'green' chemistry would involve copper but...They think the size of the Gold particles may make them reactive due to quantum effects. I wonder how that theory extends to smaller particles or even mono-atomic (single non-metallic atoms powdered or in suspension) gold. I bet we'll find out.They regularly seem to be finding uses for gold, that are completely unlike any use it has had before. Still, all it can take for any element to be used in a revolutionary way is a new approach. Gold just happens to fascinate us so particularly.
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POPSDo subatomic particles have free will? But physicists all the way back to Einstein have been unhappy with this idea. Einstein famously grumped, “God does not play dice.” And indeed, ever since the birth of quantum mechanics, some physicists have offered alternate interpretations of its equations that aim to get rid of this indeterminism. The most famous alternative is attributed to the physicist David Bohm, who argued in the 1950s that the behavior of subatomic particles is entirely determined by “hidden variables” that cannot be observed. Conway and Kochen say this search is hopeless, and they claim to have proven that indeterminacy is inherent in the world itself, rather than just in quantum theory. And to Bohmians and other like-minded physicists, the pair says: Give up determinism, or give up free will. Even the tiniest bit of free will.
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POPSArsenic-eating bacteria rewrite evolutionary history Oremland's team isolated and bred these bacteria in the lab. By growing them with with arsenite as the only possible food source, the researchers showed that the bacteria can indeed thrive. The results suggest that arsenic photosynthesis evolved at the same time, or even before, "normal" photosynthesis. Oremland says a similar mechanism might once have fuelled life on Mars or on Jupiter's moon Europa.
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POPSSurge in Food Nanotechnology Worries Consumers Davies quoted David Rejeski of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, who advocates a U.S. investment of $150 million a year in such research by 2010, to benefit from an industry that will involve “15 percent of globally manufactured goods, worth $2.6 trillion, by 2014.”
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POPSWierd Science Clothes that are dried outside DO smell better because of a process called photolysis. What happens is this: sunlight breaks down compounds in the laundry that cause odor, such as perspiration and body oils. Clouds fly higher during the day than the night. Dirty snow melts faster than clean.
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POPSThe Many Benefits of Hydrogen Peroxide When it comes to hydrogen peroxide therapy there seems to be only two points of view. Supporters consider it one of the greatest healing miracles of all time. Those opposed feel its ingestion is exceptionally dangerous, and only the foolhardy could think of engaging in such behavior. Before either condemning or endorsing hydrogen peroxide, let's take a real close look at what we're dealing with.
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