This page includes my views on science, and links to other sites.
My writings are in black. Plagiarized text is in maroon, sometimes highlighted by me in red.
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. . . Links: Angiogenesis and cancer ___ Links: Genealogy ___ Links: various
Nuclear green -- Prospect Magazine: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/highlights/nuclear_green/index.html March 1999
My comments:
A very mistaken approach to the overall challenge of meeting increasing energy requirements while minimizing atmospheric pollution is underway -- and by those countries which are, ironically, those best suited to rationally meeting that challenge. Germany is at the forefront of "green party" influences that are on the verge of abolishing nuclear power. The following essay aptly demonstrates why we need to increase substantially our use of nuclear power, and presents rational reasons why we should do so.
The opponents of nuclear power use irrational beliefs to oppose nuclear power based on several major myths. That such irrational thinking should have appealed to so much of the public is very sad in my view, but it should perhaps not be surprising. Most people have religious beliefs which, by definition, are irrational. That Germany should be at the forefront of such irrational opposition to nuclear power should not surprise us perhaps, considering that it was in that very religious country that the holocaust occurred, with the support of the German people, and made possible in very large part by hatred of the Jews inculcated as a matter of religious faith by the Protestant and Catholic churches for four centuries in Germany and other modern countries. A sad consequence of the Concordat of 1933 between Hitler and the Vatican is still in effect to this day -- the collection by the government of Germany of state-imposed taxes upon the public to support churches. Germany today also supports censorship and the support of religious discrimination against minority religious groups (in particular, the Church of Scientology) to an extent that would be intolerable in the USA.
Has Germany learned nothing from its enthusiastic and irrational semi-religious support of Hitler's Reich? Now, equally irrational beliefs are on the ascendant there to abolish nuclear power.
In my view it is an absolute shame that in Canada (and the USA) nuclear power supplies only about 20% of the energy needs. Canada invented the CANDU power reactor system -- arguably the safest in the world. It is doubly ironic, therefore that France has the foresight to supply 75% of its energy needs through nuclear means. Why? Because it is safer than all other forms (except the burning of natural gas), cleaner, and cheaper. It also lessens its dependence on foreign oil -- a lesson that the USA has not yet learned, much to its expense (the cost of the Gulf War ($3 billion?) being among them).
Extracts:
Nuclear energy is the only technology capable of meeting the world’s expanding needs safely, without contributing to global warming. But misplaced fears about weapons proliferation, nuclear waste and another "Chernobyl" are preventing politicians from plain speaking
The nuclear age has produced one serious accident but air pollution from fossil fuels kills millions each year.
The challenge of climate protection arises because it is fossil fuel consumption, not nuclear power, which presents an insoluble waste problem.
MY THESIS IS SIMPLE: in the next century mankind must harness the nuclear genie if our energy needs are to be met and our security preserved. We have made great progress towards this end in nuclear diplomacy and nuclear technology, but politics lags far behind. Nowhere is this disparity more visible than in the anti-nuclear stance of the new German government.
In the industrial democracies, those most concerned about the potentially cataclysmic effect of pouring billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are essentially the same as those most opposed to nuclear energy. Throughout the world (with the notable exception of France) "progressive" politics tends to be "anti-nuclear" politics.
There are understandable historical reasons for this alliance, but it survives in disregard of two profoundly important nuclear success stories. The first is the progress made in establishing an effective regime of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and in starting to destroy the terrifying nuclear arsenals built up during the cold war. The second is the progress made in making nuclear energy a safe, clean and efficient means of meeting the globe’s expanding energy needs–needs which cannot be met by any other non-carbon-based technology, despite the appeal of wind, solar power and other "renewables."
The word "nuclear" covers three distinct groups of technologies. The first are those required to yield a nuclear explosion. Second are those used to heat water in a reactor, and thereby power an electricity-producing turbine. These technologies have in common the use of uranium and plutonium–fissile material–and the splitting of the atom to release energy. The third group–sometimes called "nuclear applications"–includes technologies which depend on the positive effects of radiation. Although little known to the public, these technologies are dazzling in their diversity and are having a dramatic impact on every aspect of human life. . . .
We have never been in a better position to use nuclear energy safely, and we have never been in greater need of doing so. And yet public understanding of nuclear power remains shrouded in myths and fears quite disproportionate to the facts. My aim is to challenge those myths and offer some facts that bear on future global policy.
TODAY, OF THE world’s 6 billion people, 2 billion have no access to electricity. In the next 25 years, the world’s population is expected to grow by 2 billion. We must assume that these 4 billion people–and billions more who today consume very little energy–will exert enormous pressure for higher standards of living and increased global energy consumption. . . .
No larger question faces humanity than whether and how this energy demand will be met. Already, at present levels of consumption, we are releasing greenhouse gases–primarily carbon dioxide–at a rate which will cause the total atmospheric accumulation, some time in the 21st century, to almost double from pre-industrial levels.
The greenhouse effect itself is beyond dispute. . . .
The Kyoto Protocol–with its targets for emission reduction and "flexibility" mechanisms for meeting those targets–represents an admirable, if limited, start to our efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. . . .
The reductions required in the industrialised world –not just to meet the Kyoto targets of slightly reduced emissions, but to achieve the deeper reductions which would stabilise the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases–seem to exceed, by far, the potential contribution of the means being considered.
Great attention is quite properly focused on energy conservation; this can yield real gains at the margin. But the hopes being attached to renewables–solar and wind power, geothermal energy, biomass and hydroelectric–are quite fantastic in the light of realistic assessments of the role they can play. The potential of the most effective renewable–hydroelectric–has already been heavily exploited and now provides 6 per cent of global energy. But the remaining renewables, which now yield under 1 per cent, offer only limited promise. . . . even with heavy research support and subsidies, these renewables can provide no more than 3-6 per cent of energy supply by 2020. Meanwhile nuclear power, which supplies 6 per cent of global energy (about 17 per cent of global electricity), and remains the one available technology able to meet rising base-load energy needs with negligible greenhouse emissions, is subject to a widespread political taboo.
Even the UN development programme, in its "Energy After Rio" report, dismissed nuclear power as an energy option, citing "public concerns." But political leaders abdicate responsibility if they simply yield to "public concerns" about nuclear power, in attempting to draw up a balanced appraisal of real risks and options. Answering deeply rooted public concerns about nuclear energy means challenging three widespread myths: that nuclear energy fosters nuclear weapons proliferation; that nuclear energy use risks another Chernobyl; and that nuclear waste represents an environmental time bomb.
THE FIRST MYTH the first myth–that nuclear reactors are likely to breed weapons–has little foundation in experience. Each of the five nuclear weapon states built the bomb before moving to civilian power production; technically, power reactors were not a necessary intermediate step.
Furthermore, people seldom recognise our success in controlling nuclear weapons proliferation. The core of all nuclear arms control is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which, after three decades of diplomacy, is now nearly universal and rigorously enforced. . . . we have capped the number at eight: the five nuclear weapon states on the UN Security Council, who are obliged to engage in good faith disarmament; and the three states–India, Pakistan and Israel–which for their own national security reasons have declined to accept NPT obligations. Apart from these eight countries, every other country in the world is now legally committed–an obligation rigorously overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)–to abstain from nuclear-weapon development. . . .
The NPT’s status as a bulwark of international security depends on reliable verification to ensure compliance. . . .
Even more fundamentally, the fear of nuclear proliferation is simply misplaced in the global warming debate. Most current carbon consumption is in countries which already have nuclear weapons or which can be relied on as good-faith parties to the NPT. And the largest growth markets in energy consumption are China and India, both of which already have weapons capabilities. In short, almost everywhere the reduction in carbon emissions could yield important benefits for climate protection, proliferation is not even an issue.
THE SECOND MYTH, which exercises a powerful hold on the public mind, is that a nuclear power plant itself constitutes a kind of bomb–likely, in case of accident, to explode or to release massively fatal doses of radiation. This myth is embodied in collective memory by the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The power of those two images far exceeds what is warranted by the facts.
At Three Mile Island in 1979, the simple truth is that public health was not endangered. Despite a series of mistakes which seriously damaged the reactor, the only outside effect was an inconsequential release of radiation–negligible when compared to natural radiation in the atmosphere. The citizens of the Three Mile Island area would have received more radiation by taking a flight from New York to Miami or standing for a few minutes amid the granite of Grand Central Station. The protective barriers in the reactor’s design worked.
By contrast, the accident at Chernobyl in 1986 was a tragedy with serious human and environmental consequences. . . .
A conference sponsored by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the disaster’s tenth anniversary issued a report based on intensive study of the 1.1m people most directly exposed to the fallout. The main finding was a sharp increase in thyroid cancer among children; 800 cases of the disease had been observed, from which three children had died, with several thousand more cases projected. The report also predicted 3,500 radiation-induced cancer deaths, mainly late in life.
These statistics do not minimise the gravity of what happened at Chernobyl, but they place that singular event in perspective. The nuclear age has now produced more than 8,000 reactor-years of operational time–and one serious accident. Meanwhile, the production and consumption of fossil fuel yields a constant flow of accidents and disease, in addition to greenhouse gases. In the years since Chernobyl, many thousands have died in the production of coal, oil and gas; and millions each year are afflicted with pollution-induced disease resulting from the use of carbon fuels to produce energy which could be produced by nuclear power. According to the WHO, 3m people die each year due to air pollution from a global energy system dominated by fossil fuels. . . .
For the total of some 440 power reactors (half in Europe) operating in 31 countries, and producing 17 per cent of the world’s electricity, only one large safety problem remains: in three countries of the former Soviet empire some 15 plants of the Chernobyl type are still in use. . . .
. . . designers believe that the newest plants would experience such an environmentally harmless event no more than once in every 100,000 reactor-years of operation. Advanced plants now under development will have even less risk of internal damage.
THE FACT THAT modern reactors are immensely safe shifts attention to the question of nuclear waste. The myth is that, regardless of reactor safety, the resulting waste is an insoluble problem–a permanent and accumulating environmental hazard. The reality is that, of all energy forms capable of meeting the world’s expanding needs, nuclear power yields the least and most easily managed waste.
The challenge of climate protection arises precisely because it is fossil fuel consumption, not nuclear power, which presents an insoluble waste problem. The problem has two aspects: the huge volume of waste products, primarily gases and particulates; and the method of disposal, which is dispersion into the atmosphere. Neither seems subject to amelioration through technology.
In contrast, nuclear waste is small in volume and subject to sound management. Most nuclear waste consists of relatively short-lived, low and intermediate level waste –annually, some 800 tonnes from an average reactor. Such waste can be handled safely through standard techniques of controlled burial or storage in near-surface facilities. Half of such waste comes from industrial and medical activities rather than from power production.
High level waste consists of spent fuel or the liquid waste which remains after spent fuel is reprocessed to recover uranium or plutonium for further use. The annual global volume of spent fuel from all reactors is 12,000 tonnes. This amount–tiny in comparison to the billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases and many thousands of tonnes of toxic pollutants being discharged annually–can be stored above or below ground. Moreover, the volume decreases considerably if the fuel is reprocessed. The 30 tonnes of spent fuel coming from the average reactor yield a volume of liquid waste of only 10 cubic metres per year.
Even with twice today’s number of reactors, the annual global volume of liquid waste, if spent fuel were reprocessed, would be only 9,000 cubic metres–the space occupied by a 2-metre high structure built on a soccer field. Liquid waste from reprocessing can be vitrified into a glass which is chemically stable and subject to a variety of remarkably safe storage techniques. Indeed, the use of those techniques in long-term storage is now more a political than a technical question.
So far, as a result of political obstacles, nations employ various methods of interim storage because no long-term disposal site has been licensed in any country. . . .
The choice is between the reckless dispersal of horrendous volumes of fossil fuel emissions and the careful containment of comparatively limited quantities of spent nuclear fuel. To give a stark example: if Europe today were to eliminate nuclear generated electricity and revert to traditional fossil fuel power, the extra greenhouse gases created would be the equivalent of doubling the number of cars on the road. . . .
John Ritch is US ambassador to the United Nations Organisation in Vienna, which includes the International Atomic Energy Agency. The views expressed are his own, but are consistent with US policy and draw on a speech he recently gave to the Nato Parliamentary Assembly.
All material copyright Prospect 2000. Reproduction by any means is strictly forbidden.
Breaking the sound barrier. What does it look like?
Did you ever wonder what those jet jockies leave behind when they hit Mach 1? UFOs -- that's what. Take a look at some nifty photos. The first such image that I came across was too big to fit onto my 17-inch screen. Here are some alternative URLs via which you can find the same and similar photos, with various image sizes and direct access to thumbnail pictures only. You can then click on or near that thumbnail to download the full image. In general, you should also be able to right-click on an image to get its Image and Hyperlink properties, from which you can get its size and Hyperlink URL.
AltaVista - Image Search: http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&stype=simage. Search on the exact phrase "breaking the sound barrier" to get thumbnails pointing to jpg images of the following sizes: 1400 x 1000 (67 KB), 800 x 600 (42 KB), 221 x 101 (10 KB), 476 x 394 (12 KB), 88 x 72 (1 KB), 550 x 438 (15 KB), 100 x 80 (6 KB). And that's only on the first page of many. There are other sources of news photos in general listed on the page News photos.
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Cancer warrior: Lateral thinking and the cure for cancer
I watched a fascinating program entitled Cancer Warrior on TV last night (27 Feb 01), although I missed the first several minutes. As stated on the PBS NOVA Web site listed below:
The program follows the extraordinary odyssey of surgeon-turned-researcher Dr. Judah Folkman, who, together with colleagues at Children's Hospital in Boston, has spent over 30 years searching for ways to curb cancer by cutting off blood flow to tumors
It was fascinating for several reasons:
(a) It was very well produced and illustrated, with informative interviews with those directly involved, and with photography and animated graphics well designed to promote understanding.
(b) It revealed, in commentary and interviews with the prime scientist, Dr. Judah Folkman, a man of brilliance in his thought processes, and of overwhelming dedication over the course of over thirty years in striving toward the goal of understanding and curing cancer -- at least for some forms of cancer.
(c) It revealed that here was a man who, it appears to me, used not only the logical and reasoned arguments of the traditional scientific method, but some lateral thinking processes, in which one cannot, at least initially, fill in all of the necessary steps in logic and observation to fully substantiate a proposed theory.
He and his colleagues designed experiments to determine not only whether some expected things do happen as a result of a particular protocol, but whether some things of great significance do not happen. In this instance, the interest lies in the following: the growth of blood vessels to support the growth of tumors; the apparent initial suppression of growth of secondary tumors that have arisen through metastasis; why these tumors suddenly start growing again upon the removal of the main tumor; the process of angiogenesis (growth of new blood vessels and capillaries); and, angiostatin and endostatin -- molecules signalling the suppression of the growth of new vessels, and hence the supply of nutrients for tumours -- and how they all relate to each other in a thoroughly logical fashion -- at least in hindsight.
In a wonderful instance of serendipity, it reveals an instance in which a very observant post-doctoral student kept for observation a dish of sample in which an unexpected effect of fungal growth had appeared. Against strict laboratory protocol which called for the immediate trashing of such samples (because of the many thousands involved, presumably), he kept the dish for further examination. The knowledge gained from that maverick action led to a very imnportant insight.
The program is entitled Cancer Warrior. It is available for viewing on the Net at the following site. More details about it and related programs and books of interest are available at the following subsite of PBS TV:
NOVA Online Cancer Warrior: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/cancer/ This site has links to the movie and to a wide range of resources, links, and background sources. Among the books referred to on the program and on the site is the following: Dr. Folkman's War: Angiogenesis and the Struggle to Defeat Cancer. By Robert Cooke (a veteran science writer). New York: Random House, 2001.
I cannot praise this program too highly! Even if one is not the least bit interested in cancer, the program and the work of this very dedicated scientist are a supreme demonstration of the scientific method and related thought processes and influences.
The home page of PBS is at: PBS Online: http://www.pbs.org
For additional detailed links, click on: Links: Angiogenesis and cancer
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See also Genealogy, for search engines.
Online Genealogy Data Sparks Fear of Identity Theft: Extract from Netsurfer Digest, Vol. 07, Issue 41. Dec. 6, 2001.
The existence of a database of 24 million California birth records on a genealogical Web site has led to concerns that the data could be used for nefarious purposes . . . California sells the database on CD-ROM for about $900, and at least two online companies, the RootsWeb genealogy site and the PeopleSearch background search company, have bought a copy and allow access to it online. After the San Jose Mercury News revealed that this data is online, people reportedly flooded RootsWeb with requests to be removed from the database. CNET reports RootsWeb has removed the entire database from any online access.
RootsWeb.com Home Page: http://www.rootsweb.com/
PeopleSearch.com People Search Find Locate Missing, Lost Person Friends Family: http://www.peoplesearch.com/
Privacy concerns lead Web site to delete birth data by request (11-29-2001): http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/hottopics/security/priv113001.htm San Jose Mercury News.
Identity crisis Birth records online - Tech News - CNET.com: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8055175.html
The Scientist - Ancient Ancestry: http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2001/dec/hollon_p1_011210.html By Tom Hollon. The Scientist 15[24]:1, Dec. 10, 2001. Biotech genealogy company grafts Paleolithic roots to family trees.
Your ancestors didn't travel to the New World on the Mayflower? Not listed in Burke's Peerage and Baronetage? No worries, mate. For a couple of hundred bucks, Oxford Ancestors, a new British biotech company, will add cachet to your lineage by extending it back at least 10,000 years. . . .
Take commoner Bryan Sykes, for instance, who is professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford and founder of Oxford Ancestors. Sykes has discovered he is related to Nicholas II, last Tsar of Russia. And now the mitochondrial DNA analysis Sykes applies to his own family tree is available to everyone. Building on Sykes' research on the genetic origins of human populations, Oxford Ancestors is the world's first company to place mitochondrial DNA analysis in the service of genealogy. . . .
Human mitochondrial DNA ultimately traces back to a single woman living in Africa about 150,000 years ago. . . . She has been called Mitochondrial Eve. During the thousands of years humans took to migrate across and then out of Africa, mutations arose in Mitochondrial Eve's DNA. Surveys cluster those mutations into just a handful of clans, each stemming from one woman living thousands of years ago.
Sykes' mission has been to follow Eve's descendants. For more than 10 years he has studied thousands of mitochondrial sequences from people around the world. . . .
Daughters of Eve
In Africa, 13 mitochondrial clans descend from Mitochondrial Eve. According to Sykes, humanity's migration out of Africa is the journey of just one of them. He speculates that the founder, "the Mitochondrial Eve of the rest of the world," came from Kenya or Ethiopia. Around 100,000 years ago . . .
his discovery that 95 percent of Europeans belong to one of seven mitochondrial clans, for the first time the thought reached him emotionally that each clan inevitably began with just one woman, someone who would have been alive at the time the clan is dated. "And so I began to think of them as individuals . . . "
That was when he gave them names: Helena, Jasmine, Katrine, Tara, Ursula, Velda, and Xenia. They lived in Neolithic and Paleolithic Europe between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago. Thinking about them motivated Sykes to research what their lives might have been like, when and where they had lived. "As a literary device," he says, "this transformed what was a rather dry, academic work into something with much deeper meaning." He tells their story and other mitochondrial adventures in a book, The Seven Daughters of Eve (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001) [ Amazon.com buying info The Seven Daughters of Eve The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry:
. . . In 1995, Sykes proposed a radical revision of the European prehistory that had been built on blood group studies. Sykes claimed that no more than 20 percent of Europeans have Middle-Eastern origins . . .
See Oxford Ancestors below.
Oxford Ancestors - putting the Genes in Genealogy: http://www.oxfordancestors.com/ Discover if one of your ancestors was a Viking! Oxford Ancestors is the world's first company to harness the power and precision of modern DNA-based genetics for use in genealogy. . . .
Links : various
American Scientist: http://www.amsci.org/amsci/amsci.html.
Baloney.Com: http://baloney.yi.org/ (Added 9 Jan 01.)
Julian Barbour: http://216.92.126.230/ " . . . time is an illusion. The phenomena from which we deduce its existence are real, but we interpret them wrongly. My arguments are presented in The End of Time." (Added 9 Jan 01.)
Canadian Association of Physicists: http://www.cap.ca/english.html (Added 9 Jan 01.)
Complexity and the universe; Organization and Emergence in the Universe: (Added 9 Jan 01.) http://www.physics.pdx.edu/~semuraj/complex1.htm Many links in many fields of complexity, including:
. . . Central Sites, Genomics, Fractals and Chaos, Biological Computation, Neural Computation, Evolutionary Computation, Connectivity, Computation: Quantum/ Reversible/ Historical, Nanotechnology, Cognitive Science, Consciousness, People, Life and Evolution, Artificial Life, Life in the Universe (Astrobiology/ Exobiology), Science in General, Evaluating Web References.
Computing, One Atom at a Time: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/27/science/27QUAN.html NY Times, 27 Mar 01. Los Alamos, NM. By using radio waves to manipulate atoms like so many quantum abacus beads, the Los Alamos scientists will coax a molecule called crotonic acid into executing a simple computer program.
Last year they set a record, carrying out a calculation involving seven atoms. This year they are shooting for 10. That may not sound like many.
Each atom can be thought of as a little switch, a register that holds a 1 or a 0, and the latest Pentium chip contains 42 million such devices. But the paradoxical laws of quantum mechanics confer a powerful advantage: a single atom can do two calculations at once. Two atoms can do four, three atoms can do eight.
By the time you reach 10, doubling and doubling and doubling along the way, you have an invisibly tiny computer that can carry out 1,024 (210) calculations at the same time.
If scientists can find ways to leverage this achievement to embrace 20 atoms, they will be able to execute a million simultaneous calculations. Double that again to 40 atoms, and 10 trillion calculations can be done in tandem.
Cornell Theory Center Math and Science Gateway: http://www.tc.cornell.edu/Edu/MathSciGateway/index.html Provides links to resources in mathematics and science for educators and students in grades 9-12, although teachers of other levels may find these materials helpful.
Digital Sundial Patent: http://www.middlebury.edu/~schar/sundial/patent.html A digital sundial displays the current solar time in digits, words, or pictures. This device, although mathematically plausible, can not be realized in practice for several reasons. Fractals have infinitesimally small structure, which would impede manufacturing of the device; furthermore, the theorem does not yield a method of constructing such a fractal. . . (Added 9 Jan 01.)
Discover Magazine: http://www.discover.com/.
Dr. Dobb's Technetcast: http://www.technetcast.com/. A repository of software technology related streaming media material.Tune in and participate on codebytes, an audio talk show. Get technical with recurse, featuring in-depth presentations from the most qualified names. Or catch up on some of those conferences you missed in the events archive.
Earthpulse.com: http://www.earthpulse.com/ Project HAARP, and books . . . Earth Rising The Revolution
Toward a Thousand Years of Peace by Dr. Nick Begich and Jim Roderick: Peace is about technology and its impact on humanity. This book is about the basis of freedom, human dignity, sovereign individuality, and self-determination. The material will be shocking to all. This is an expose on technological advances which may reshape the destiny of mankind in the next millennium. . . . 304 Pages ISBN:0-89529-713-2 $17.95. Heard interview with Begich on CFRA radio 3 Apr 01, about 4:30 am, from Alaska. See also:. . . Earth Rising Now!: http://www.lightparty.com/Economic/EarthRisingNow.html Silently yet quickly encroaching on our personal freedoms, unchecked technology is being used by governments and research groups placing us all as unwitting subjects for control and experimentation.
. . . Earth Rising -- the Revolution: http://www.consumerhealthbooks.com/ctlg/1209.html Canadian source for the book. ISBN 1-890693-43-X $ 27.00.
Edge: http://www.edge.org/. Edge Foundation, Inc. Dedicated to the Memory of Heinz R. Pagels (1939 - 1988). Science as discussed by leading researchers and writers.
EurakAlert!: http://www.eurekalert.org/ Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science.
FEEDMagazine: http://www.feedmag.com/index.html.
JOURNAL OF IRREPRODUCIBLE RESULTS: http://www.jir.com/. The Ig Nobel Prizes were instituted by the Journal of Irreproducible Results in 1968 and have continued since then with the awards of Ig Nobel Prizes for irreproducible achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced. For example, the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and awarded the Ig Nobel Prize to Vice President Dan Quayle, junk-bond king Michael Milliken, and physicist Edward Teller. At the time, each awardee received a small frying pan-shaped medal that screams when shaken and parking passes valid in Cambridge, Massachusetts, between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on the day after Christmas. "I recommend a regular dose of the Journal of Irreproducible Results, the funniest magazine I know." - Toronto Globe And Mail. " The Journal of Irreproducible Results is our favorite magazine." - New Scientist.
Junkscience.com: http://www.junkscience.com/ "All the junk that's fit to debunk". (Added 9 Jan 01.)
Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/.
Nature Genome Information Centre: http://www.nature.com/genomics/ Nature presents this online publication and full analysis of the initial sequencing of the human genome. Many links.
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physics: Come on feel the noise: http://www.nature.com/nsu/010215/010215-12.html Nature Science Update 13 Feb 01. Bad reception on your TV screen? One way to fix it could be to add more interference. Adding more noise to noise can actually quieten things down, new research suggests. (Original source: Vilar, J. M. G. & Rubí, J. M. Noise suppression by noise. Physical Review Letters -- Feb 5, 2001 -- Vol 86, Issue 6 pp. 950-953:
http://ojps.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PRLTAO000086000006000950000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes and http://publish.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v86/p950 )
"For a long time," say Jose Vilar of Princeton University in New Jersey and J. M. Rubí of the University of Barcelona, Spain, "noise was considered to be only a source of disorder, a nuisance to be avoided." Not any longer.
Vilar and Rubi have developed a mathematical model, based on how nerve impulses pass between cells, which suggests that adding more random variation to an incoming signal can even out the emergent signal. . . .
"It is basically an interplay of nonlinearities," he suggests. A nonlinear effect does not simply increase in proportion to its cause, but may instead have unpredictable consequences. In this case, a scrambled signal going in might not be simply 'shaking' a system more but might allow it to access completely new kinds of behaviour.
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NRC Research Press Home: http://www.nrc.ca/cisti/journals/rp2_home_e.html
Paradigm Shift: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/paradigm.html In Thomas Kuhn's landmark book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he argued that scientific research and thought are defined by "paradigms," or conceptual world-views, that consist of formal theories, classic experiments, and trusted methods. Scientists typically accept a prevailing paradigm and try to extend its scope . . .
Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions: http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/kuhn.htm The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (1962) IX. The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: http://www.tiac.net/users/cri/kuhn.html The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd edition, Thomas S. Kuhn, 1996, paperback, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-45088-3. . . . In summary Kuhn's thesis is interesting and suggestive but it is far too simplistic and facile.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: http://molly.open.ac.uk/Personal-pages/Pubs/Essays/kuhn.htm Thomas Kuhn's Revolution. Commentary by a systems-cientise- journalist.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: http://cogsci.umn.edu/millennium/1129011330.html While not specifically directed at Cognitive Psychology, this book first articulated the concept of "paradigm" and "paradigm shift" and has influenced generations of scientific researchers. Jim Jenkins used to recommend it to all his students.
Pentagon Develops Non-Lethal Energy Weapon: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/pentagon010301.html ABCNEWS.com, 1 Mar 01. . . . weapon technology that projects a high energy beam to stun, incapacitate, disorient or stop, but not kill enemies. . . . heats up the skin . . . no harmful effects, because low-energy levels are used, and the rays only penetrate less than 1/64 of an inch into the skin. How reassuring!
pickover.com Clifford Pickover home page.
Quantum Physics: http://atheism.about.com/religion/atheism/msub_science_quantum.htm Many links, including:
. . . Mystical Physics: Has Science Found the Path to the Ultimate? Victor J. Stenger To be published in Free Inquiry, Winter 1995-96. http://atheism.about.com/religion/atheism/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.phys.hawaii.edu%2Fvjs%2Fwww%2Fmystic.txt Most experts remain unconvinced by Penrose's assertion that the human mind cannot be simulated by a machine. Virtually every learned commentary on his books disagrees with most or all of his conclusions.I believe it is fair to say that Penrose has not achieved a consensus for his claims in any of a number of communities, from artificial intelligence to quantum computation and neurobiology.
. . . The Myth of Quantum Consciousness: The Myth of Quantum Consciousness. Victor J. Stenger Published in The Humanist, May/June 1992, Vol. 53, Number 3, pp. 13-15. http://atheism.about.com/religion/atheism/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.phys.hawaii.edu%2Fvjs%2Fwww%2Fqmyth.txt A new myth is burrowing its way into modern thinking. The notion is spreading that the principles embodied in quantum mechanics imply a central role for the human mind in determining the very nature of the universe. Not surprisingly, this idea can be found in New Age periodicals and in many books on the metaphysical shelves of book stores. But it also can appear where you least expect it, even on the pages of that bastion of rational thinking, The Humanist. In an article in the November/December 1992 issue entitled "The Wise Silence," Robert Lanza says that, according to the current quantum mechanical view of reality, "We are all the ephemeral forms of a consciousness greater than ourselves." The myth of quantum consciousness should take its place along with gods, unicorns, and dragons as yet another product of the fantasies of people unwilling to accept what science, reason, and their own eyes tell them about the world.
Radiation Information Network: http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/index.html Idaho State University.A goldmine of links, including:
. . . Radiation and Risk: http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/risk.htm
. . . Risks of Nuclear Power: http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/np-risk.htm . . . (Added 9 Jan 01.) "probabilistic risk analysis" (PRA). A PRA must be done separately for each power plant (at a cost of $5 million) but we give typical results here: A fuel melt-down might be expected once in 20,000 years of reactor operation. In 2 out of 3 melt-downs there would be no deaths, in 1 out of 5 there would be over 1000 deaths, and in 1 out of 100,000 there would be 50,000 deaths. The average for all meltdowns would be 400 deaths. Since air pollution from coal burning is estimated to be causing 10,000 deaths per year, there would have to be 25 melt-downs each year for nuclear power to be as dangerous as coal burning. . . .
Radiation and Your Environment: http://www.fipr.state.fl.us/fipr036.htm Florida Institute of Phosphate Research, 1986.
ScienceDaily: http://www.ScienceDaily.com. ScienceDaily is unique in that the magazine's articles are selected from news releases submitted by leading universities and other research organizations.
Science Magazine: http://www.sciencemag.org/ Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science
Science Now: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/ Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science
Science Resources on the Web (via About.com): http://websearch.about.com/internet/websearch/msub20.htm. Hundreds of links, more than 500 in Chemistry alone.
Science Tracer Bullets Online: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/sctb/. Library of Congress Science Tracers Bullet series is comprised of bibliographic guides designed to help persons locate published materials on a particular subject in the field of science and technology about which they have only a general knowledge.
Scientific American: http://www.sciam.com/.
SciSeek.com: http://www.sciseek.com. News and science by categories.
SciQuest.com: http://www.sciquest.com. Review of SciCentral (a part of SciQuest.com) by The Lancet . Formidable and Timely Science Resource: SciCentral is an easy-to-navigate metasite that is a gateway to thousands of online resources grouped by science area -- e.g., biological, health, physical and chemical, policy and ethics, earth and space, and engineering. In addition, it offers an excellent array of links to sources of breaking science news, research highlights, and special reports from the websites of -- among others -- BBC News, New Scientist, American Physical Society, NASA, Discovery Online, and the American Psychological Association. Special features include resources for teaching science in schools, links to academic programmes and institution locators, and a Media Room that provides selected audio/video broadcasts related to science and technology. A free, weekly E-mail update service allows users to select from over 120 topics, including a wide range of medical specialties. - Marilynn Larkin, August 1999 - It also has news from Nature.
Skeptical Inquirer: http://www.csicop.org/si/. The Magazine for Science and Reason.
Space.com: http://www.space.com. Space exploration. News, searches, and images.
UniSci News Net: http://unisci.com/. UniSci was the first science daily news site on the Web, and remains the only one that selects stories based on their scientific importance. As a result, UniSci counts many laboratory scientists among its readers. UniSci is also the only science news site with a fast, convenient search engine built in. As of this writing, there are just over 2,500 searchable articles archived. Could add to Desktop.
UpsideToday: http://www.upside.com/. The tech insider. Upside covers key business issues and trends affecting high-tech companies in computing, software, telecommunications, and e-commerce.
The World of Richard Dawkins: http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/ Evolution, science and reason. This web site is unofficial, and Richard Dawkins is NOT associated with it. It is useful to click on the editorial philosophy of this excellent site (or click http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/philosophy.htm ).
www.100.com: http://www.100.com/. The 100 Top Network. Top 100 sites in each of more than 60 categories, including:
. . . 100 Top Science Sites (via www.100.com): http://www.100.com/Top/Science. From the 100 Top Network, Top 100 sites in Science.
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You can e-mail me at waynerp@sympatico.ca