Category: Science

Bizarre, Science

The Monkey Horror Picture Show

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

scary-monkey-cymbalsFor a bit of a break from this weekend’s topics on troublesome issues we bring you a new dawn in primate research. It is true, monkeys like horror movies.

Researchers in Kyoto, Japan were interested in if chimpanzees and their cousins bonobos could display the trait of long term memory through anticipating and predicting outcomes of two similar situations. To do this, the primates were placed watching a movie with an eye tracking device to gauge their interests and whether they would predict what would happen next. Just like in any human horror movie, when the teenage actor looks to the left, we anticipate the zombie will attack from the right.

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Environment, International, Media, Politics, Science, Society

Rare Earths Mining And Processing Leading To Much Pollution In The East

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Neodymium
Neodymium

The BBC presented an engaging and informative report concerning how the unprecedented demand for rare earth elements is leading to environmental degradation, especially in developing countries. It proposes that one of the ironic tragedies of manufacturing green technologies is that it is leading to concentrations of pollution in specific areas. This also brings forth the importance of having a conversation about advanced, consumer societies needing to engage in much self reflection on the causes of the insatiable appetites consumers have for top of the line electronics.  Of which are designed with quick obsolescence as a business model.

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Science

G Data Software Reports Huge Increase In Malware From Several Chinese Sourced Android Phones

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

gdata-logoAccording to anti-virus and security provider G Data, over one million malware samples have been detected on several Chinese made mobile devices and smart phones. The company does not believe the malicious software was installed by manufacturers of the phones, but rather middlemen entities who distribute or sell the devices on a wholesale basis.

Part of the reason for this stems from unscrupulous middlemen wanting to earn additional revenue beyond wholesaling. They instead install the Android malware for a fee or they derive revenue from spyware providing individual information on the phones’ usage which can be sold to others wishing to retrieve it for other uses. It can also serve unwanted adware to the user. The potential for data breaches affecting government, corporate, and individual users is worrying
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Bizarre, Politics, Science

Politics 405: Yes, You Can Filibuster With One Sentence

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

titin-3d-structureMany politicians are often a detriment to scientific advancement. Now, politicians can use science to the detriment of advancing legislation…using of course a most titanic word. It shows great promise in the realm of filibusters and gridlock. 

The magic word is Titin.

Titin /ˈtaɪtɪn/, also known as connectin, is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the TTN gene. Titin is a giant protein, greater than 1 µm in length, that functions as a molecular spring which is responsible for the passive elasticity of muscle. It is composed of 244 individually folded protein domains connected by unstructured peptide sequences. How can this be a useful tool of politicians? It is only a matter of expansion of Titin to its full chemical name that presents the opportunity to quash most debate. A typical manifestation of what can become a powerful English sentence using this word might be concatenated as follows:

“[Full chemical name for titin], [full chemical name for titin], parting is such sorrow, that I shall say [full chemical name for titin] till it be morrow.”

Of course, one could speak it slowly for “easier understanding” and repeating this until collapse.

What is [Full chemical name for titin]? Well for the purpose of brevity the full chemical name of the human canonical form of titin is most easily described as having 189,819 letters: over 2,372 lines of typing.  It is renowned for being the longest scientific word in the English. Expanding the sentence in the above paragraph using the full chemical name would constitute over half a million letters, and well suited for congressional usage. Prepare yourself, the word is quite a doozy.
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Academia, Science, Society

Italian Study Finds Two-Thirds of People With Gluten Sensitivity Had No Negative Effects From Digesting Gluten

290px-Gluten_SourcesThere has continued to be a great debate over the rising number of people claiming to be gluten sensitive with some experts claiming the trend is based on social rather than scientific sources. Now a study in Italy has found that two-thirds of people claiming gluten sensitivity experiences no adverse side effects when they digested gluten.

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Environment, Politics, Science

MIT Study Finds That Curbing Carbon Emissions Will Reduce Droughts And Save Billions

220px-Factory_in_ChinaEconomist Brent Boehlert and his colleagues at MIT have issued a new report showing that curbing carbon emissions would represent a huge benefit for agriculture and the nation as a whole by reducing the frequency and severity of future crop-parching droughts and saving American farmers billions of dollars annually by 2100. The study is found in the July issue of Weather, Climate and Society. The study is interesting because the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change has been focused on the hard science side of academia. This is a group of economists who are adding an economic analysis supporting emission curbs.

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Bizarre, Science

Urine For A Surprise In San Fran: City Tests New Paint That Causes Public Urination To Splash Back On Violators

Seal_of_San_Franciscono.pee_.urinate.sign_In the movie Naked Gun, one scene showed Detective Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) watching a demonstration of a wall that could protect itself from graffiti by spraying teenagers who try to spray paint its surface. San Francisco has come up with a similar solution for those who urinate on city walls and streets. Public urination continues to be a serious problem in cities, even though New York politicians recently moved to decriminalize the offense. The city is testing a pee-repellant paint on walls in areas with high public urination problems. The specially treated walls cause the urine to spray back onto violators.

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Environment, Science

Smoke From Wildfires Might Lead To Heart Attacks

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

brushfireAn Australian study proposes that wildfires might increase risk for cardiac arrest and other acute heart ailments by nearly seven percent, especially in the elderly.

A time-stratified-case-crossover study looked at cardiovascular health effects of wildfire smoke when combined with ambient air from brushfires surrounding Victoria, Australia in 2006-2007, according to Anjali Haikerwal, MBBS, MPH, of Monash University in Melbourne, and colleagues.

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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Science, Society

Federal Court Orders DNA Testing In Rape Case Over Objections From Obama Administration

200px-US-CourtOfAppeals-9thCircuit-Seal.svgdepartment-of-justice-logo1The Justice Department has lost a major case where it sought to bar efforts to determine if a convicted rapist is in fact innocent. The Obama Administration argued in United States v. Watson that Bill Watson should not be able to use a new DNA test that was not available when he was convicted of a rape in 2006. Despite dozens of cases where convicted individuals were proven innocent, the Obama Administration fought to prevent the use of this test even though the Innocence Project offered to shoulder all of the costs. The position of the Justice Department was inimical to the values of due process and the rule of law, in my view. The United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit rejected the highly technical claims that neither Watson nor the court should knew the true identity of source of key evidence found at the crime scene.

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Bizarre, International, Religion, Science

Hindu Worshippers Rush To Wash Away Their Sins In River. . . And Crush 27 People To Death

800px-Godavari_river_at_Parnashala_BhadrachalamIndia has experienced another massive death count due to a stampeded at a religious festival. The latest tragedy occurred at a Hindu religious bathing festival on the bank of the Godavari River in the Andhra Pradesh state on July 14. It is a predictable (and avoidable) occurrence. Local police and government officials fail to take proper precautions and a massive group overwhelms organizers. In this case, as soon as access to the river was given, thousands stampeded to get to the water to wash away their sins. In doing so, they crushed 27 people (mainly women) to death and injured 40.

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Bizarre, Environment, International, Politics, Science, Society

Denmark Hits 116 Per Cent of Energy Needs With Wind Power . . . Australia Orders Halt To Wind Power Investments

220px-GreenMountainWindFarm_Fluvanna_2004European countries continue to put the rest of the world (including the United States) to shame in amazing reductions of their use of carbon footprints and the use of clean energy. Last week saw a particularly impressive achievement for Denmark which managed to produce 140 per cent of the country’s electricity needs. In the meantime, the vehemently anti-environmental Administration of Tony Abbott in Australia cracked down on wind power to prevent further investments by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

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