Showing posts tagged science
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The MinIon is an array of nanopores – 512 to be precise – and circuitry housed in a USB stick. Why a USB stick? “The form factor is determined by the requirements” – as there are no fluidics you don’t need a big machine. There are no fluidics. “Your fluidics is a Gilson”, said Brown. The prototype version has an ugly battery pack attached to it but it will eventually use USB power. The USB stick is disposable. “Why do you need an instrument?” he says.
Oxford Nanopore megaton announcement: “Why do you need a machine?” – exclusive interview for this blog!

lowest note in the known universe is the rumbling of a black hole in the Perseus galaxy.

In musical terms, the pitch of the sound generated by the black hole translates into the note of B flat. But, a human would have no chance of hearing this cosmic performance because the note is 57 octaves lower than middle-C. For comparison, a typical piano contains only about seven octaves. At a frequency over a million billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing, this is the deepest note ever detected from an object in the Universe.

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We are players in a game we don’t understand. Most of our own thinking is below awareness. Fifty years ago, people may have assumed we are captains of our own ships, but, in fact, our behavior is often aroused by context in ways we can’t see. Our biases frequently cause us to want the wrong things. Our perceptions and memories are slippery, especially about our own mental states. Our free will is bounded. We have much less control over ourselves than we thought.
Who You Are - NYTimes.com
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Listening to GOP Presidential candidates talk about science is like listening to children talk about sex: They know it exists, they have strong opinions about what it might mean, but they don’t have a clue what it’s actually about.
/via Debate Reax, Ctd - The Dish

IBM produces first working chips modeled on the human brain

House votes to abolish federal lab that screens produce for deadly pathogens

sciencecenter:

On June 16, the House of Representatives passed its $125.5 billion agriculture plan for 2012. Deep in the bill’s fine print was the elimination of funding for the $4.5 million Microbiological Data Program, which tests vegetables for such diseases as the lethal E. coli strain that’s killed 50 people in western Europe.

The MDP was started in 2001 to help fill gaps in federal and industry safety testing of produce, which has historically received less attention than meat and dairy products.

Run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the program’s agents test some 15,000 market-purchased samples of foreign and domestic alfalfa, spinach, lettuce, cilantro, cherry and plum tomatoes. Results are sent to the Food and Drug Administration, which by comparison tests just 1,000 produce samples in its non-annual surveys.

Moreover, as noted by the Chicago Tribune and food outbreak litigator Bill Marler, the FDA only tests for one pathogenic E. coli strain. The Microbiological Data Program looks for many, including as the virulent new European strain.

According to the FDA, MDP results have led to 19 food recalls in the last two years. But as detailed in notes from a February meeting of the USDA’s Fruit and Vegetable Industry Advisory Committee, the agriculture industry doesn’t like the MDP. They say it creates unnecessary product recalls and damages farmers’ reputations.

Emphasis mine.

(Reblogged from sciencecenter)
/via APOD: 2011 July 2 - Moon and Venus at Dawn View high resolution

/via APOD: 2011 July 2 - Moon and Venus at Dawn

laurahollister: One is a neuron, the other is the structure of the universe. View high resolution

laurahollister:

One is a neuron, the other is the structure of the universe.

(Reblogged from laurahollister)

NeuroDojo: Before you attack science, could you at least learn to use Google?

I don’t assume Coburn is actually ignorant of the background, he’s just playing on the ignorance and fear of voting republicans. What bothers me though is the mentality that people would think they could judge, with no information at all, the implications and uses of someone’s research.

Math Technique Could Spot Planets With Extraterrestrial Trees

really neat!