Telescope ‘to find’ space origin
“A major UK-built radio telescope has been launched in Hampshire to help astronomers detect when the first stars in the universe were formed. The European Low Frequency Array (Lofar) telescope involves 96 radio antennae erected in a field at the Chilbolton Observatory near Andover.
The telescope, which works on a low FM frequency, will collect data to help astronomers with their research. A further 5,000 antennae are set to be positioned across Europe. Some have already been installed in the Netherlands and Germany and more are planned in France, Sweden and Poland.
The project, which has included contributions from scientists at universities in Portsmouth, Southampton and Oxford, will combine the signals received from the antennae to make images of the sky, using a “super-computer” based in the Netherlands.”
Read more at BBC News
Lie detectors: the truth and nothing but?
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a machine that could tell you whether someone was telling the truth? It would, of course, be really useful – but more than that, it would represent the ultimate triumph of technology. The utterly private world of our consciousness would be private, and sacred, no more.
Given how fascinating the idea is, then, it’s no surprise that there have been plenty of attempts to design technological lie detectors, and no shortage of people willing to pay for the chance to use them. All of them have worked, in theory. But that doesn’t mean they work.
A group of Scottish neuroscientists recently warned against the seductions of the latest approach – the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to detect deception. A number of commercial enterprises, such as the US-based No Lie MRI now offer fMRI lie detection, and fMRI evidence has been submitted to courts of law in the US several times, although it has never yet been accepted as admissible evidence.
The judge’s conservativism is well placed. To be sure, fMRI is an incredible technology. Scientists use it to probe the workings of the brain, and doctors use it to work out which parts of the brain do what, so they can avoid damaging the important bits during brain surgery. But it’s just not capable of detecting lies with the kind of certainty that could stand up in court. ”
Read more at The Guardian
Carlisle edinburgh and Manchester
After a couple of splendid weeks abroad, we resumed the tour in Carlisle. I was all fresh and brown and relaxed; my only concern that I wouldn’t be able to remember my lines. It’s odd to return to a show after such a break: it really feels as if the tour must be over, that it’s surely done and dusted. As it turned out, thIs slight apprehension helped infuse the show with a freshness which is always welcome, and Carlisle was a good gig. The Sands Centre is a multi-purpose hall, and sometimes the atmosphere of a theatre can be sorely missed. But the Sands is a pleasure to play: the audience responses can be heard and enjoyed, which was a huge relief. Those big halls have a habit of sucking up all sounds of enjoyment and can leave the performer feeling like he’s playing to an empty house. So we built the stage, did the show, and packed it all back up again feeling it was well worth it. And, I have to say, Carlisle boasted a particularly attractive audience. The city seems to be Hottie Central. Whodathunkit.
Next, Edinburgh. This city is famous amongst performers for it’s great audiences (though I would expand that in fairness to a list including Bristol and Dublin), and our last stint there a few weeks ago was a real treat. It’s amazing to think that some 12,000 people in total will have come to see it in that city alone. As expected, the crowd was wildly responsive and the Playhouse itself is a delight. I met with the ever-lovely Richard Wiseman and we mooched around the modern art galleries and through the lush, verdant elegance of the rainy city. On our final afternoon I took a cab up to Fishers in Leith, my favourite restaurant in the city, and had their trademark fish soup, which is to die for, and then the most astounding monkfish and prawn skewers, which were to be reborn for, only to die for again even more violently than the first time. The rain not letting up, I had first visited the unfamiliar surround of a camping shop (titter ye not) and secured waterproof trainers, a suitable jacket and a scarfy thing to protect the old throatingtons. Thus, and equipped with a brolly from the hotel, I embarked upon the walk along the Water of Leith back into Edinburgh. As it turned out, the weather improved and the tree-lined walk rendered most of the rain protection redundant, so I carried the umbrella, undid the jacket and arrived rather sweaty and flustered at the end of the hour walk. I considered dumping the umbrella to ease the burden but couldn’t bring myself…
After Edinburgh, I am now at the end of a run in Salford. Wednesday’s audience was perhaps a little quiet, but then again anything after Edinburgh would sound subdued. As the week moved on the crowd has warmed up considerably. Either way, they’ve been great shows and the Lowry is always a tart to visit. We’ve also got to meet up with Andy, our lovely tech genius from the previous tours who works at the theatre. After Thursday’s show we headed out into Chinatown to take Andy to dinner and had a wonderful night. Last night continued the late-night theme with a crew visit to the famous Canal St, where your blogger uncharacteristically shook his booty on the dance floors of some (perfectly reputable) homosexual establishments. Much cross-gender fun was had by all. We think Coops may have briefly kissed a man. I certainly had my arm around a fabulous drag queen DJ at one point. Jen was dancing with the ladeez and Iain and Jonas were twin kings of the dance stages. All in all it was a fun and daft evening, and not the sort of thing I ever find myself doing.
Awoke, not surprisingly, at 12.30 and am all rested and refreshed for the show. If I can just get Erasure out of my head…
How Albert Einstein’s Brain Worked
In his last years of life, Albert Einstein knew he was ill and refused operations that would save his life. He made his wishes clear: “I want to be cremated so people won’t come to worship at my bones” [source: Paterniti]. Einstein died on April 18, 1955, at the age of 76 of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurism, and he got his wish as far as his bones were concerned; his ashes were scattered in an undisclosed location. But Einstein’s brain was a different matter.
During the autopsy, conducted at Princeton Hospital, a pathologist named Thomas Harvey removed Einstein’s brain — the brain that had given the world such revolutionary thoughts as E=mc2, the theory of relativity, an understanding of the speed of light and the idea that led to the completion of the atomic bomb. Harvey held the brain that produced those thoughts in his hands. And then he took it.
Depending on whom you believe, Harvey either did a wonderful thing for science that day, or he’s no better than a common grave robber. Einstein had participated in studies during his lifetime to ascertain what might have made his brain different, and at least one biographer claims that Einstein wished for his gray matter to be studied after death [source: Altman].
Full story at How Stuff Works
Neil Degrasse Tyson debunks 2012
We understand that there may be a few malingerers still digging their fallout bunkers in anticipation of the End Of The World which has been rescheduled for 2012. For that reason, here is a video snippet of astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson talking to attendees at the 2010 World Science Festival about where he stands on the issue and why we might want to stand in the same spot:
Relaxed people ‘heal twice as quickly’
“Laid-back people can heal up to twice as rapidly as those who are very stressed, research indicates. Scientists inflicted small ”punch” wounds on healthy volunteers whose levels of life stress were assessed using a standard questionnaire. Changes in levels of the stress hormone cortisol reflected the differences in healing speed.
A similar pattern emerged from an analysis of pooled data from 22 studies by different research groups examining stress and wound healing. Professor John Weinman, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, presented the findings at the Cheltenham Science Festival.
Previously, he showed that wound healing can be enhanced by psychological help aimed at addressing emotional stress.
Prof Weinman said: ”My overall research interests are focused on investigating and assessing how patients perceive illness and treatment, and how this affects the way they respond to and recover from a range of physical health problems. ”These studies focus specifically on how the life stresses people experience can impact on their ability to recover from different types of wound, such as those caused by surgical procedures and by different medical conditions, including venous leg ulcers. ”I hope that these findings can now be used to identify psychological interventions to help speed up the recovery and healing process.””
Read more at The Telegraph (Thanks Katie)
Do Toddlers Pick Up Gender Roles During Play?
“The differences in mothers’ and fathers’ interactions with their children, particularly in play situations, may influence toddlers’ associations of specific behaviors with male and female genders. According to Eric Lindsey from Penn State Berks in the US, and his colleagues, context, gender of the parent and gender of the child combine in a complex pattern to shape parent-child interaction.
They found that the quality of verbal interactions between parents and their toddlers was dependent on the context. In the snack situation, the focus of the interaction was on parent authority and management of the child’s behavior i.e. it was a parent-centered context. In contrast, the play context was much more child-centered with more equal interactions between parents and their toddlers.
When it came to comparing boys’ and girls’ verbal communication behaviors, the authors found very little difference between the two sexes. Children seemed to pick up cues and adapt their behavior according to the situation, irrespective of their gender. In play situations, the children were more involved in determining the direction of the interaction whereas they accepted that parents were in charge during the snack situation.
Perhaps most significantly, mothers’ and fathers’ behaviors differed more in the play context than in the snack context. During play, fathers were more assertive whereas mothers displayed more facilitative and cooperative behaviors; in the caregiving situation their behaviors were much more similar. The authors suggest that children may pick up on these different behaviors and associate them with gender roles in the family i.e. males are more assertive whereas females are more compliant and flexible.
The authors conclude: “It would appear that children in the same family have different experiences in their play interactions with their mothers and fathers. Such differences may teach children indirect lessons about gender roles and reinforced gender typed patterns of behavior that they then carry into contexts outside of the family.”"
Read more at Science Daily
Stephen Hawking on Religion: ‘Science Will Win’
“Celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking knows more about the universe than almost any other person ever to walk the planet, but some answers still escape even him.
When asked by ABC News’ Diane Sawyer about the biggest mystery he’d like solved, he said, “I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing.”
Hawking, who was honored last week at the World Science Festival in New York, is famous for probing the deepest questions of the cosmos.
Until he stepped down last fall , he held the post of Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, a position once held by Sir Isaac Newton, the “father of physics” himself.”
Read more at ABC News
The Umbilical Brothers
The Umbilical Brothers’ crazy act. Enjoy!
Nuclear Physicist Describes Vast UFO Cover-Up
“”Some UFOs are intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft, and this is the biggest story of the millennium.” These words are not the rantings of a deranged individual looking for attention or a comfortable straitjacket. Stanton Friedman is a maverick of sorts.cEmployed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist for companies like General Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse and Aerojet General Nucleonics, he worked on highly classified programs involving nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets.
In 1958, UFOs caught his attention, and Friedman has since lectured about this subject at more than 700 colleges and professional groups in all 50 states and around the world. “After 53 years of investigation, I’m convinced we’re dealing here with a cosmic Watergate,” he told AOL News. “That means a few people within major governments have known since at least 1947 that some UFOs are alien spacecraft.”
In Friedman’s new book, “Science Was Wrong,” co-authored with Kathleen Marden, he wrote, “There’s been no shortage of strong, negative proclamations from debunking groups and individuals who refuse to examine the evidence … to support the notion that some UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin.”"
Read more at AOL News
