<![CDATA[Canadian Content - Science & Environment]]>

<![CDATA[Canadian Content - Science & Environment]]> http://forums.canadiancontent.net Science and Environmental issues; Kyoto, global warming, breakthroughs. en Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:26:38 GMT vBulletin 60 http://forums.canadiancontent.net/images/styles/cancon/misc/rss.jpg <![CDATA[Canadian Content - Science & Environment]]> http://forums.canadiancontent.net Apollo 14 astronaut claims aliens HAVE made contact - but it has been covered up for http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75721 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:46:34 GMT *Apollo 14 astronaut claims aliens HAVE made contact - but it has been covered up for 60 years* Aliens have contacted humans several times but... Apollo 14 astronaut claims aliens HAVE made contact - but it has been covered up for 60 years

Aliens have contacted humans several times but governments have hidden the truth for 60 years, the sixth man to walk on the moon has claimed.

Apollo 14 astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell, said he was aware of many UFO visits to Earth during his career with NASA but each one was covered up.

Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'

He said supposedly real-life ET's were similar to the traditional image of a small frame, large eyes and head.
Chillingly, he claimed our technology is 'not nearly as sophisticated' as theirs and "had they been hostile", he warned 'we would be been gone by now'.

Dr Mitchell, along with with Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard, holds the record for the longest ever moon walk, at nine hours and 17 minutes following their 1971 mission.

'I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real,' Dr Mitchell said.

'It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it.

'I've been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes - we have been visited. Reading the papers recently, it's been happening quite a bit.'

Dr Mitchell, who has a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering and a Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics claimed Roswell was real and similar alien visits continue to be investigated.

He told the astonished Kerrang! radio host Nick Margerrison: "This is really starting to open up. I think we're headed for real disclosure and some serious organisations are moving in that direction.'

Mr Margerrison said: 'I thought I'd stumbled on some sort of astronaut humour but he was absolutely serious that aliens are definitely out there and there's no debating it.'
Officials from NASA, however, were quick to play the comments down.

In a statement, a spokesman said: "NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe.

'Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue.'

Source

Huh? WTF? ]]> Scott Free http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75721 Whale Power Fundemental Discovery http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75694 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:50:36 GMT Home (http://www.whalepower.com/drupal/) *Whalepower Tubercle Technology* Image:... Home

Whalepower Tubercle Technology

A FUNDAMENTAL ADVANCE
Inspired by the flippers of Humpback Whales, WhalePower has developed something truly remarkable – Tubercle Technology – which takes its name from the bumps on the leading edge of the whale’s flippers.
THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY … AND RIGHT ON TIME

Tubercle Technology is more than just another blade design: It is a fundamental advance in fluid dynamics which will transform a host of machines built on that challenging science. Just when the world needs it most, Tubercle Technology offers new options. Turbines, compressors, pumps and fans will never be the same again.
Standby! The Whale is about to break through conventional limitations.

BACKGROUND
Tubercle Technology began with WhalePower President, Dr. Frank E. Fish solving one of Nature's mysteries: How was it possible for Humpback Whales to be so astonishingly agile? The answer: those strange bumps produce the “tubercle effect” which was first described by Dr. Fish. WhalePower, building on the science, adds precisely formed versions of those bumps to the leading edges of the blades or rotors at the heart of almost any machine designed to work with any fluid whether air, water, steam or oil.
NEW SCIENCE YIELDS NEW POSSIBILITIES
In wind tunnel and water tunnel studies, tubercle blades easily overcome fluid dynamic “limitations” that were once considered unavoidable laws by engineers, technicians and scientists.

Tubercle Technology wind turbines will be more efficient and more reliable.
Tubercle Technology hydroelectric turbines will open up vast new opportunities in power generation.
Tubercle Technology pumps will deliver enhanced efficiency for everything from municipal water systems to farm irrigation.
And last - but certainly not least - Tubercle Technology will truly revolutionize fans. Everything from ceiling fans to HVAC fans to large scale ventilation fans will need less power and will be quieter as well.

A Million Years Of Field Tests

Apair of little videoswww.whalepower.com/drupal/?q=node/3 ]]> darkbeaver http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75694 New element discovered http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75650 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:58:59 GMT A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science. The new element has been named... A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Bushcronium."

Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311. These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

The symbol for Bushcronium is "W". Bushcronium's mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements in the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons in a Bushcronium molecule, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Bushcronium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass".

When catalyzed with money, Bushcronium activates Foxnewsium, an element that radiates orders of magnitude more [COLOR=#3976c1! important][COLOR=#3976c1! important]energy[/color][/color], albeit as incoherent noise, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons. ]]> L Gilbert http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75650 The Natural History Museum: a natural wonder http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75637 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:16:01 GMT Here are some photographs of some of the hidden treasures of London's Natural History Museum, one of the world's great museums and Britain's most popular cultural tourist attraction....

Natural History Museum: natural wonder

19/07/2008
The Telegraph

Few people get to glimpse the treasures hidden behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum, but the photographer Gautier Deblonde was granted rare access to its secret corridors and store rooms. The palaeontologist Richard Fortey, who spent more than three decades working at the museum, takes us on a guided tour

Most great museums have treasures hidden away behind the public galleries, but the Natural History Museum must belong in a class of its own. Beyond the familiar dinosaur displays lies a secret warren of galleries and store rooms, stuffed with millions of specimens.

I spent more than three decades working in the museum, so was able to explore its odd corners, hidden rooms and twisting staircases more than most. I was still discovering secret redoubts occupied by curators until my last day.

Mammals outgrew the South Kensington site and were moved to a new store in Wandsworth

When I took the writer Bill Bryson behind the scenes recently, we went in a small and ancient lift to an upper floor only to have the automatic gate open on to a solid brick wall. He took pleasure in my astonished response: 'That's odd, the last time I came here there was a door.'

When you do find a door that opens you are likely to come face to face with an aardvark or a zebu, or anything in between. The collections in South Kensington grow all the time, as more specimens are added from around the world. They are a global archive for all the species of animals and plants on the planet, a reference collection for scientists and naturalists everywhere.

Specimens include stuffed sea lions, deer, monkeys and gorillas

People like me, who are privileged to work behind the scenes, can wander through the whole of nature, from microbe to mammoth. It is all there in cupboards, catalogued and arranged according to the latest classification. Or we can handle some of the great masterpieces of natural history, like the first edition of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Only the rooms containing gold and diamonds require a special pass.

Organisms that cannot be stored as dried examples are pickled in spirit in the Darwin Centre, adjacent to the main Waterhouse building. The fish alone would make Damien Hirst green with envy: sharks, sunfish, sprats, sad-looking monsters from the deep sea with eyes like saucers and covered in warts. There is floor after floor of jars and tanks with faces of lizards or lumpfish staring at you.

The zoology area of the Natural History Museum's warehouse

Mammals have outgrown the South Kensington site and have been carried off to a new store in Wandsworth. This is a big-game hunter's fantasy come alive; endless ranks of antlers and wildebeest, of meerkats and mandrills. In Imperial times, a knowledgeable crack-shot might readily have been recruited to the ranks of zoologists. Specimens lined up on parade like so many trophies were indeed bagged by sahibs or bwanas on safari. The gifts of Empire are still preserved, and rightly, because game will never be as prolific again, and is it not better to preserve an archive of a richness that has vanished in the wild?

Then there are exhibits that have themselves become extinct, now hidden away. In 1902 people flocked to London to see the stuffed okapi, which had only recently been recognised by science. The archives have many such exhibits, outflanked by time and fashion. There is something rather poignant about a stuffed gorilla in a glass case. We are so accustomed to seeing them full of vigour in wildlife films.

The warehouse currently houses more than 12,000 specimens covering 1,200 species, including seals, deer and kangaroos

The oldest exhibit on display in the galleries is a mounted series of jewel-like hummingbirds, which still attracts cries of admiration in the era of interactive exhibits. The time of the stuffed gorilla may yet come again.

The model of the blue whale was completed in 1938 and has been on permanent display since (it was buffed up again in 2007). The sheer bulk of the world's largest creature continues to astonish. Naturally, it is hollow inside. During the Second World War it is supposed to have housed an illicit still. The museum formerly received stranded whales in a great shed at the back of the building.

Guy the gorilla is from London Zoo

It was here that the museum's whale man, Peter Purves, pioneered methods for ageing the mammals by counting waxy growth rings inside their inner ears. Purves was an inveterate drinker, and much less adept at his work when sober. The smell of a ripe whale is noxious and it could be argued that alcohol was necessary to help him survive in the whale room. (It was said that he kept half-bottles of Bushmills tucked away in the blubber.)

For all that the museum was once a conservative, hierarchical place, staff were free to be naughty. The bird gallery is the last of the old-style galleries: crammed with stuffed specimens, left behind to show how things used to be done. It contains a fine dodo, decked out in whitish feathers. It is a bogus bird from the 1950s, since no perfect specimens survive, and is largely based on a painting. It was decided that swan feathers were just what was needed to make the model look convincing.

Rows of deer skeletons

The trouble is, Thames swans belong to the Queen and should not be harmed. This didn't deter Barney Newman, another of the museum's distinguished topers who, with an accomplice, grabbed a large cygnet from under Hammersmith bridge when nobody was looking, and stuffed it into a bag.

Museums rarely throw things away. Formerly, there was a 6ft-long model of the large plant- eating dinosaur diplodocus on display in the Main Hall. This was in the days when diplodocus was portrayed with a drooping tail, somewhat like a giant lizard, rather than with the perky, whiplash tail of modern versions. It became outmoded and was taken off the gallery. I discovered the model again recently, lying on top of a cupboard in a remote part of the collection, like a forgotten toy.

All the collections have to be constantly maintained. The specimens preserved in spirit must be 'topped up'. If unchecked, specialised insects will make a hearty meal of skins and feathers. The original British Museum, founded by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753, included mammal specimens, nearly all of which had been consumed by carpet beetle and moths by the beginning of the 19th century. But his dry plants survive today in a special herbarium. If they are kept carefully, pressed plants are as enduring as oil paintings.

An elephant seal skeleton and a stuffed black-maned lion of the Cape, a subspecies of lion that is now extinct in the wild

The hidden priesthood of the museum is becoming less of a closed order. It is already possible to take a tour into the Darwin Centre to see the great collections of animals preserved in spirit.

The green agenda means that the cataloguers of the natural world are recognised as being on the side of the angels. The collections of the Natural History Museum may yet prove to be the conscience for the world. What is preserved carefully in the collections in the vaults may have been foolishly extinguished by our own greedy species in the great outdoors.

Richard Fortey is the author of 'Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum' (£20, HarperPress). Order a copy for £18 plus £1.25 p&p from Telegraph Books (0870-428 4112; books.telegraph.co.uk). Natural History Museum: 020-7942 5000; nhm.ac.uk

telegraph.co.uk ]]> Blackleaf http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75637 New species of insect is discovered in London http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75510 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:39:52 GMT *A new species of slug has just been discovered in Britain that has razor-sharp teeth and eats worms.* *Now another new species of bug has been... A new species of slug has just been discovered in Britain that has razor-sharp teeth and eats worms.

Now another new species of bug has been discovered in Britain - an insect caught scuttling around London's grand Natural History Museum.

By the looks of things, if you wish to discover a new species of creepy-crawly, Britain is the place to be...

Natural History Museum experts baffled by new bug found in their own back garden

15th July 2008
Daily Mail

The new species of insect was discovered scuttling around the grounds of the Natural History Museum

Experts at the Natural History Museum pride themselves on being able to classify and display millions of species but they are baffled about the identity of a tiny red-and-black bug that has appeared in the London museum's own gardens.

The almond-shaped insect is about the size of a grain of rice.

Bug's life: The red-and-black insect thought to be a new species that was discovered in London

The museum's collections manager, Max Barclay, said that it was first seen in March 2007 on some of the plane trees that grow on the grounds of the 19th-century museum.

He said that within three months, it had become the most common insect in the garden, and had also been spotted in other central London parks.

The museum has more than 28million insect species in its collection, but none is an exact match for this insect.

'I don't expect to find a new species in the gardens of a museum," Mr Barclay said.

'Deep inside a tropical rainforest yes, but not in central London.'

The bug resembles the Arocatus roeselii, which is usually found in central Europe but is a brighter red and lives on alder trees.

Entomologists suspect the new bug could be a version of the roeselii that has adapted to live on plane trees, but acknowledged it could be an entirely new species.

Either way, it appears the museum's tiny visitor, which appears harmless, is here to stay.

'We waited to see if the insect would survive the British winter,' Barclay said.

'It did and it's thriving, so now we had better figure out what it is.'

dailymail.co.uk ]]> Blackleaf http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75510 <![CDATA[Saturn's moon may host an ocean]]> http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75482 Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:01:52 GMT The Cassini spacecraft has found what may be the strongest evidence yet that Saturn’s tiny moon Enceladus has an ocean beneath its icy surface. If... The Cassini spacecraft has found what may be the strongest evidence yet that Saturn’s tiny moon Enceladus has an ocean beneath its icy surface. If the liquid water finding is confirmed, it would suggest that the moon may be one of the most promising places in the solar system to search for signs of past or present extraterrestrial life.

Enceladus is already known to vent geysers of water-ice and vapor that contain complex organic compounds. The new evidence for an underground ocean comes from the detection of sodium in Saturn’s E ring, the extensive band of ice particles believed to be fed and replenished by Enceladus.

Cassini’s cosmic dust detector has recorded sodium in concentrations of about one part in 100,000 within the ring, Sascha Kempf of the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, reported last month at a Cassini project science group meeting in Rome.

Although Kempf and his colleagues were initially concerned that some of the sodium might simply be a contaminant on their instrument’s detectors, his team is now confident that all the measured sodium is from the E ring, Kempf told Science News.

An ocean beneath the surface of Enceladus is the best way to account for the sodium, says Jonathan Lunine of the University of Arizona in Tucson, a Cassini researcher not part of Kempf’s team. Sodium resides in rock, he notes. It has been detected in regions of the solar system where charged particles from the solar wind or radiation bombard rocky surfaces, sputtering off the sodium.

Although Enceladus is mostly rock, the moon’s surface is icy, preventing much sodium from escaping via solar wind or radiation, Lunine says. Instead, the only way sodium can exit Enceladus is for the element to escape from the moon’s interior. And for that to happen, liquid water is required, he asserts.

“A liquid water layer or pocket in contact with the rock, which is deep below Enceladus' surface, will acquire sodium from the rock — essentially leaching the rock,” he says. If the source of Enceladus’ south polar geysers, discovered by Cassini in 2005, is indeed liquid water, then the geysers will transport the dissolved sodium into space. As the geysers reach Enceladus’ frigid surface, the water freezes and some of the sodium remains trapped within the newly formed ice crystals. Like a frozen ocean spray, the geysers spread the salty ice particles into Saturn’s E ring.

Cassini researcher Roger Yelle of the University of Arizona has a different view. "The surface of Enceladus is not pure water ice. We just don't have a good idea of what the other components are," he notes. "There could be a small amount of sodium in the minerals in the surface layer." The sodium detected in the E ring could have come from that material on the moon's surface, rather than from its interior. "I don’t believe that you can say that the detection of sodium [in the E ring] implies that it came from a sub-surface ocean" on Enceladus, Yelle says. "So, let’s not run around crazy-like claiming the likely detection of life because sodium was found in dust particles in the Saturn system.”

Another complicating factor is that studies from Earth, using large telescopes such as the Keck Observatory atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, have not found any sign of sodium in the E ring. Nick Schneider of the University of Colorado at Boulder reported the lack of sodium last December in San Francisco during a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

But such studies, notes Kempf, can only detect sodium in its gaseous form, not the solid sodium in the frozen ice particles. He maintains that the bulk of the sodium in the E ring lies in the solid phase recorded by Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer.

But depending on which of two competing processes dominates in the E ring, Schneider’s nondetection might still pose a problem, says theorist Andy Ingersoll of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Over time, he notes, the ice particles in the E ring will exit, pushed out by the pressure exerted by radiation or by collisions between particles. If this happens quickly enough, the solid sodium would never vaporize but would stay embedded in the ice even as it exits. It would be replenished by new material from Enceladus’ plumes.

However, it’s possible that charged particles bombarding ice crystals in the E ring could liberate some of the solid sodium, turning it into vapor, before the crystals have a chance to exit. In that case, Schneider’s team ought to have detected gaseous sodium. “It’s controversial which of these processes wins out,” says Ingersoll.

For now, says Lunine, “one just has to acknowledge that the two observations potentially might be in conflict.” The missing link, he adds, “is whether the sodium in the E-ring particles really came from Enceladus.”

It would be a stronger argument, Lunine says, had Cassini’s ion and neutral mass spectrometer found sodium when it flew through the plumes this past March. The instrument, which looked for sodium only during short intervals of the flyby, did identify an array of organic compounds in the plumes that could support life. The spectrometer will look again for sodium when it flies through the plumes on October 9, says Hunter Waite of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene..._host_an_ocean ]]> ShintoMale http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75482 New species of slug - with razor-sharp teeth - has been discovered in Britain http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75374 Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:02:48 GMT A complete new species of slug has been discovered in Britain.

The white creature - dubbed "Ghost Slug" - was discovered in a garden in Caerphilly, Wales. This slug has sharp teeth and eats worms.

The only other places were similar creatures are found are Turkey and the eastern European nation of Georgia.

This new spcies has been given the scientific name Selenochlamys ysbryda. "Ysbryd" is the Welsh word for "ghost."

'Alien' killer slug with razor-sharp teeth slithering round gardens in the UK

By Niall Firth
11th July 2008
Daily Mail

Blind, deathly white and with a full set of razor-sharp teeth it is like a creature from a B movie horror film.

But for gardeners in Wales the albino ghost slug, which devours worms and sucks them up like spaghetti, is all too real.

The bizarre creature, which is similar to a species found lurking in caves in Turkey and Georgia, is completely white and has no eyes.

Creepy: The carnivorous Ghost Slug, which has just been discovered in Britain, sucks worms in 'like spaghetti'. Part of its scientific name is "ysbryda", which derives from the Welsh word for "ghost."

According to biologists, the slug has never been seen before in Western Europe, biologists say, and they are amazed that it has turned up in a garden in Caerphilly, north Wales.

Bill Symondson, an ecologist at Cardiff University, said: 'The lack of eyes and body colour could indicate the species evolved in a cave system.

'It was probably introduced to Britain in plant pots, making it an 'alien' species, although we can't be certain. We're concerned that it might become a pest, but we need to find out more about it first.'

Gardeners and garden centres are being urged to to inspect plants and pots to stop the slugs escaping and breeding.

There are fears it could hit the eco-system because it feeds on earthworms, which are vital for the well-being of soil.

A spokeswoman for the National Museum in Cardiff said it's a mystery how the slug got to Britain.

She added "Unlike most slugs, the ghost slug is carnivorous and kills earthworms at night with powerful, blade-like teeth, sucking them in like spaghetti.

'It has no eyes, is completely white, and lives underground, squeezing its flexible body into cracks to get at the worms.'

Ben Rowson, a biologist at the National Museum in Cardiff, said ' 'We had to thumb through lots of old publications in Russian and German to find anything like them" but then discovered they were something entirely new.They may well eat other slugs too.'

After examining the ghost slug biologists discovered that it is a completely new species.

They decided to name the creature Selenochlamys ysbryda, partly from the Welsh word ysbryd meaning ghost.

dailymail.co.uk ]]> Blackleaf http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75374 Dung Flies and Bugs http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75355 Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:01:32 GMT I had some free time today for nature observations while I was at work. I sat on an upturned plastic oil bucket and watched a day old dog turd for... I had some free time today for nature observations while I was at work. I sat on an upturned plastic oil bucket and watched a day old dog turd for signs of life. Very near the beginning of my observations I was delighted to witness the bronze blow fly lite on the manure (dog turd) followed by two or three others. They seemed to be examining the turd closely all over for some mysterious feature. They were joined by a larger striped fly who agressively tried to boot them off the find, later still a black articulating beetle showed up and a small dragonfly which as far as I could tell was waiting for a suitably sized fly to sieze. I'm always amazed at the number and variety of **** lovers that show up for that priceless commodity. Life is different than I was earlier made to think. The life in a hundred square centimeter piece of soil is exciting and beautiful. We can take nature vacations in very small areas. ]]> darkbeaver http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75355 Incentives against energy efficiency http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75327 Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:49:35 GMT Energy efficiency, the low hanging fruit of our polluting ways. Business often likes efficiency. It helps the bottom line. That is unless you make... Energy efficiency, the low hanging fruit of our polluting ways. Business often likes efficiency. It helps the bottom line. That is unless you make money by hiking rates. That's your utility industry in a nutshell, minus a few standouts They are just one of the players trying to sell you the idea that cleaning up has to be punitive.

So, here's a historic take on the barriers in the utility industry, from Forbes.

Quote:

The Most Efficient Power Plants

Quote:

Joshua Zumbrun

In your standard fossil-fuel power plant, the inefficiency begins when the coal or gas ignites. In some plants, as little as 30% of the energy created ends up in the power grid. The rest, in the form of heat, blows out the smokestacks. If one could build power plants that used 80% of the energy instead, everyone would be rushing to do so, right?

Not so fast. Yes, such plants exist, but advocates say potential customers are staying away. Why? Utilities and regulators are scaring them off.

The 80% efficiency seen in combined heat and power plants, known as cogeneration plants, is ideally suited for large institutions--universities, hospitals, airports--that have extensive electricity and thermal energy demand in a concentrated area. Rather than letting the heat escape, a cogeneration plant uses the excess energy to power a heating and cooling system.

But what a university sees as a no-brainer cost reduction, a utility often sees as a threat to sales. "It's not uncommon for utilities, when they hear 'cogeneration,' to bring out the white blood cells to inoculate it from happening," says Rob Thornton, president of the International District Energy Association.

Take the case of MIT, which spent years researching and developing a 22-megawatt cogeneration plant for its campus. Some $40 million later, the plant was ready in 1995. Instead of being welcomed, however, MIT's utility, the no longer in existence CELCo, hit the university with a $6 million charge.

CELCo said it developed its system to meet the power needs of MIT--its second-largest client--and the charge was needed to cover the loss. Under regulations then in place, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities agreed with CELCo. The charge was knocked down to $4.5 million, but still represented more than 10% of the cost of the plant. The legal wrangling continued.

MIT finally prevailed three years later, and only after a change in state law nullified the utility's ability to charge the fees. CELCo was swallowed away in a merger.

These skirmishes continue. Thornton describes a regional hospital whose attempt to build a cogeneration project was beset for years by a "hostile utility." It took "almost a Sisyphean effort on the part of the project principals with the hospital" to persevere with the project, Thornton said.

The hospital doesn't want to publicly discuss the issue. Yes, it was rough, and yes, they are proud to have persevered. But they still have to deal with that utility. They declined Forbes.com's requests for an interview.

"It's one thing to absorb regulatory or legal review or another round of process on a five- or six-megawatt project," says Thornton. "But to have that same process applied to a one-megawatt project? The benefits don't outweigh. … Not when the utilities can do this rope-a-dope."

The potential efficiency savings from such projects are immense, says Neal Elliott, an expert on combined heat and power (CHP) systems with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. "Quads of energy savings could be realized by fully deploying this across the country," Elliott says. To put that in perspective, the Energy Information Agency, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, estimates the country annually consumes 100 quads (lingo for quadrillion British thermal units)y. By that same EIA data, the sum total of all hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, wind and biomass power, for the entire country, was only 6.8 quads in 2007.

Utilities that want to can often hit projects with repeated delays. Elliott describes the sort of scenarios he's seen. "Require an interconnection study, takes 60 days, present the study, 60 days to do that, the utility takes 90 days to review that, then if they have any questions, you have another 30 days. … When it adds up, it may take a year or two or three. And time is money." Some time and money are, of course, needed to ensure that the system integrates properly, Elliott says, but gratuitous delays have "killed more CHP projects than anything else," he says.

Not all utilities are hostile to the plants, and many are jockeying to be the ones that build CHP plants for their clients. "Every utility is regulated mostly by its state," says Ed Legge, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, the Washington lobbying group that represents the utility industry. "Whether it can recover costs for efficiency programs is regulated by the states."
On peak days in the summer, when suddenly everyone cranks up their air conditioners full blast, fossil fuel generators that can be fired up on a moment's notice will be needed into the foreseeable future, Legge says. But as input costs rise, the utilities grow more aggressive in seeking efficiency gains. Legge notes that newer fossil fuel plants use the heat that was once wasted to turn an extra steam turbine, a process known as combined cycle. Under a cap and trade system, incentives toward efficiency would be even stronger.

"There are enlightened utilities and regulators who see carbon trading … and energy efficiency as part of the new mix going forward," Thornton says. "But I'm not ready to say we're one big happy family and everyone is kumbaya."

source ]]> Tonington http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75327 <![CDATA[Think we'll be around in about 30 yrs?]]> http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75310 Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:01:55 GMT I musta missed this one.Was probably interested in some other branch of science at the time. ---Quote--- In Egyptian myth, Apophis was the ancient... I musta missed this one.Was probably interested in some other branch of science at the time.

Quote:

In Egyptian myth, Apophis was the ancient spirit of evil and destruction, a demon that was determined to plunge the world into eternal darkness.
A fitting name, astronomers reasoned, for a menace now hurtling towards Earth from outerspace. Scientists are monitoring the progress of a 390-metre wide asteroid discovered last year that is potentially on a collision course with the planet, and are imploring governments to decide on a strategy for dealing with it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...ation.research ]]> L Gilbert http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75310 8 top industrialized countries acknowledge that global warming is a problem http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75288 Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:16:07 GMT *One would think that this would put an end to all the nonsensical moaning that global warming is somehow a scam that we should ignore, but I doubt... One would think that this would put an end to all the nonsensical moaning that global warming is somehow a scam that we should ignore, but I doubt it.

The Group of Eight industrialized nations on Tuesday endorsed halving global emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 in a declaration praised by the Canadian government.
Environmentalists, however, expressed concerns that the statement does not mention a global baseline year for tracking greenhouse gas emission cuts or lay out any international midterm goals, except to mention a need for individual countries to develop their own plans.
But Prime Minister Stephen Harper said getting the stamp of approval for long-term carbon cuts from two previous holdouts — the United States and Russia — signals a major breakthrough.
"This is the first time either of those countries have conceded the necessity of having a long-term, mandatory goal for reduction," he said in an interview from northern Japan.
"There's also now a firm recognition of all countries that to make these objectives effective, even in the long term, we have got to have mandatory participation by all major economies, by all major emitters."
Leaders of the Group of Eight countries — Canada, U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Russia — gathered Tuesday for the second day of a three-day summit in Toyako, a resort town on the northern island of Hokkaido.
"We haven't solved the world's problems here but we've taken big steps forward," federal Environment Minister John Baird told CBC Newsworld Tuesday in an interview from Japan.
Consensus achieved: Baird

The agreement marks "substantial progress" since last year's summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, Baird said.
At that time, G8 leaders agreed to "consider seriously" decisions by the European Union, Japan and Canada to at least halve emissions by 2050 in setting goals for cuts in greenhouse gases.
Baird said that leaders of the eight industrialized nations also agreed to "ambitious" short-term targets for 2020.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/07/08/g8-cnd.html ]]> #juan http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75288 Why Canada is the best haven from climate change http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75199 Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:29:01 GMT **Why Canada is the best haven from climate change** A group of islands with the potential to develop into a tourist paradise has been named as the... Why Canada is the best haven from climate change

A group of islands with the potential to develop into a tourist paradise has been named as the country least equipped to withstand the effects of climate change.
The Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean, between Mozambique and Madagascar, are a small nation of sparkling blue lagoons and picture-postcard beaches. But the country is politically unstable and a report published today says it is the world's most vulnerable country to the future impacts of global warming such as increased storms, rising sea levels and agricultural failure.
At the other end of the scale, Canada is the best place to move to if you want to be a climate change survivor in the decades ahead (although Britain is also a good place to be as a warming atmosphere takes hold).
The best-to-worst rankings are revealed in the first-ever climate change vulnerability index, produced by Maplecroft, a British consultancy which specialises in the mapping of risk. Its study, The Climate Change Risk Report, looks in great detail at global warming risks in 168 countries.
Africa is the most vulnerable region, and eight of the 10 most vulnerable countries are African, with the Comoros Islands followed by Somalia and Burundi in second and third places. Only five non-African countries are in the 20 most vulnerable. They are Yemen, Afghanistan, Haiti, Pakistan and Nepal.
As might be expected, developed nations score best. Canada is top, followed by Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. The United Kingdom is in 12th position, just behind the US. The surprise in the top 20 is Uruguay, which is listed ninth, and the only well-placed nation not to be in the club of countries which are rich, or Western (and usually both).
The originality of the new study is that it does not predict global warming's impacts, from increased droughts to rising sea levels, which has been done for the past two decades by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Instead, it looks at how countries are fitted to meet them. "We're not saying anything about the changing climate," said Andy Thow, one of the report's authors. "We're saying, what's the situation on the ground in terms of vulnerability? If there were an impact, how vulnerable would the country be?"
Vulnerability is examined by the study across six different sectors – the economy; natural resources and ecosystems; poverty, development and health; agriculture; population, settlement and infrastructure; and institutions, governance and social capital. Eventually a figure is arrived at on the scale of one to 10, with one being the most vulnerable, and 10 the most secure. The Comoros score is 1.21; Canada's score is 8.81. (The UK scores 8.06.)
"The simple reason that Comoros is most vulnerable overall is that it scores poorly across all parts of the index," Dr Thow said.
"The combination of all these factors is worse than for any other country. It scores particularly poorly in the agriculture and natural resources and ecosystems components.
This reflects a situation in which pressure on natural resources is extremely high and there is very limited capacity to adapt to the impacts of changes in climate. That capacity is limited by factors such as poor land quality, low crop production and yields and water stress, combined with a growing population.
"Canada, on the other hand, is extremely well equipped to adapt to changes in climate. It scores well across all aspects of the index. This is because of the low pressure on natural resources resulting from a low population density and large land area, combined with high agricultural capacity, a healthy economy, few development and health challenges and excellent public institutions."
But Dr Thow pointed out that while Maplecroft's work showed Canada was well placed to manage the impacts of climate change on people and society, its wildlife was likely to be seriously affected by the expected magnitude of changes to climate in the Arctic region.
The Comoros also scores lowest in the world (jointly with Chad) on the report's index of emissions of carbon dioxide, which means that the country likely to suffer most from global warming has done the least to cause it.

Source

Some good news for a change. ]]> Scott Free http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75199 Forget GW even Recycling is BS! http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75137 Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:48:07 GMT Recycling is Bull $hit

So, apparently popular consensus can be wrong. :roll: ]]> Scott Free http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75137 Toothpaste technician turned rocket engineer could help cross the final frontier http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75119 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:16:52 GMT A rocket scientist at Salford University in Greater Manchester hopes that his rocket, the Nova 2, Britain's biggest-ever space rocket, will help Britain to cross the final frontier in 2013....

Toothpaste technician turned rocket engineer could help UK cross the final frontier

By Fiona Macrae
01st July 2008
Daily Mail

It may not quite meet NASA's exacting specifications, but this homemade rocket could help Britain cross the final frontier.

Nova 2's inventor Steve Bennett, a toothpaste technician turned rocket scientist, believes it holds the key to blasting tourists into space within just five years.

Not only that, but the Salford scientist is quietly confident of winning the race to launch the first space tourism business - beating off a host of billionaire rivals including Sir Richard Branson.

Enlarge

'The Nova 2' at the University of Salford, Greater Manchester, on Monday. Inventor Steve Bennett hopes to blast off next year

He said: 'They have got more money than us - but we have got the experience in launching rockets.

'I think we can just about do it. It is not about what you spend, it is how you spend it.'

Nova 2 can reach 120,000ft in just three minutes, and the next generation will aim to reach the 62mile border between atmosphere and space

Competition is not the only hurdle to be crossed before Mr Bennett, a lecturer in physics and space technology, takes a leap into the unknown.

For one, he is in desperate need of funding, being £7million short of the £11million needed for his space mission.

Then there is the small matter of a launching pad, with a proposed purpose-built 'spaceport' in the US still little more than a building site.

The 43-year-old father-of-two also has to overcome his critics, who dismissed him as an eccentric dreamer when one of his devices set Dartmoor ablaze on crashing just seconds after lift-off in 1998.

For now, he will concentrate his efforts on Nova 2, which became Britain's largest space rocket when it was unveiled at Salford University on Tuesday.

Nova 2 is said to be capable of shooting to 120, 000ft - around three times the cruising altitude of an aeroplane - in just over three minutes.

Weighing in at just over one tonne and 57 foot long, the rocket is due to make its first test flight - an unmanned voyage which will focus on safety - in September next year.

Likely venues include the otherworldly Morecambe Bay in the north-west of England.

Mr Bennett said: 'There's open space, it is inaccessible, so you don't have people walking about.

'And the tide comes in twice a day, so if something burns, the water will soon put it out.'

If the launch is successful, a more powerful daughter rocket could be blasting tourists into space by 2013.

Enlarge

If all goes well, Steve Bennett hopes to reach space in 2013

Designed to fly at 3,500mph, the 17-tonne Thunderstar will take 23 minutes to travel 62miles (100km) - the point at which space begins - and return to Earth.

The three-seater capsule will fall back to Earth with the aid of nothing more sophisticated than a pair of giant parachutes.

Two Britons have already signed up for what could be the first amateur space flight, paying £250,000 for the voyage which will include a brief taste of weightlessness.

The mission will be piloted by Mr Bennett, whose interest in space travel was fired in boyhood by the Thunderbirds TV series and the moon landings.

He said: 'We will go straight up and straight down.

'It will be like a roller coaster ride, except a little bit more powerful.

'You will see the curvature of the Earth and the blackness of space and we are looking at about four minutes of weightlessness.

'For many years, it was just a dream. But every day I get a little bit closer.'

dailymail.co.uk ]]> Blackleaf http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75119 thoughts on 2012 and the Mayn Calendar http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75050 Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:56:54 GMT am interested on peoples thoughts on the year 2012 and the Mayan Calendar. Will 2012 be just another yr or will we be fighting to survive natural... am interested on peoples thoughts on the year 2012 and the Mayan Calendar.
Will 2012 be just another yr or will we be fighting to survive natural extinction events? ]]> Stretch http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75050 After all my complaining, we have a mini-heat wave http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75041 Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:41:00 GMT I see that Nanaimo is going to see 32 degrees today( That's just a hair under 90 degrees) and Lytton will see 40 degrees(104 degrees F.) "It's about bloody time" is all I can say...:lol: ]]> #juan http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75041 First inhabited island lost to global warming. http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75039 Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:28:51 GMT *Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island* For the first time, an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas.... Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island

For the first time, an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas. Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean reports

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.
As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.
Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.
It has been officially recorded in a six-year study of the Sunderbans by researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University. So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures.
Two-thirds of nearby populated island Ghoramara has also been permanently inundated. Dr Sugata Hazra, director of the university's School of Oceanographic Studies, says "it is only a matter of some years" before it is swallowed up too. Dr Hazra says there are now a dozen "vanishing islands" in India's part of the delta. The area's 400 tigers are also in danger.
Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years' time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction.
Human cost of global warming: Rising seas will soon make 70,000 people homeless
Refugees from the vanished Lohachara island and the disappearing Ghoramara island have fled to Sagar, but this island has already lost 7,500 acres of land to the sea. In all, a dozen islands, home to 70,000 people, are in danger of being submerged by the rising seas.

http://tinyurl.com/2q5ama ]]> #juan http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75039 This summer may see first ice-free North Pole http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75016 Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:43:13 GMT *This summer may see first ice-free North Pole * ... This summer may see first ice-free North Pole

SETH BORENSTEIN
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON A leading ice scientist says there's a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history.
He says the weather and ocean conditions in the next couple of weeks will determine how much of the sea ice will melt, and early signs are not good.
Mark Serreze is a senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo. He says the chances for a total meltdown at the pole are higher than ever because the layer of ice coating the sea is thinner than ever.
Mr. Serreze says there is nothing scientifically significant about the North Pole, but there is a cultural and symbolic importance.
Last August, the Northwest Passage was open to navigation for the first time in memory.
Preliminary February and March data from a NASA satellite shows that the circle of ice surrounding the North Pole is considerably thinner than scientists have seen during the five years the satellite has been taking pictures, NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally said Friday. He thinks there is slightly less than a 50-50 chance the North Pole will be ice-free.
Last year was a record year for ice melt all over the Arctic and the ice band surrounding the North Pole is even thinner now.
A large area at the North Pole and surrounding the North Pole is first-year ice, Mr. Serreze said. That's the stuff that tends to melt out in the summer because it's thin.
A more conservative ice scientist, Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington, put the odds of a North Pole without ice closer to 1-in-4. Even that is far worse than climate models had predicted, which was 1-in-70 some time in the next decade, she said.
But both she and Mr. Serreze agree it's just a matter of time.
I would guess within the next 10 years it would happen at least once, Ms. Bitz said.
Already, figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center show sea ice in the Arctic as a whole at about the same level now as it was at its low point last year in late June and early July.
The explanation is a warming climate and a weather phenomenon, scientists said.
For the last couple of decades, there has been a steady melt of Arctic sea ice, which covers only the ocean and which thins during summer and refreezes in winter. In recent years, it has gradually become thinner because more of it has been melting as the Earth's temperature rises.
Then, this past winter, there was a natural weather shift called the Arctic Oscillation, sort of a cold weather cousin to El Nino. That oscillation caused a change in winds and ocean that accelerated a normal flushing of sea ice in the Arctic. That pushed the older thicker sea ice that had been over the North Pole south toward Greenland and eventually out of the Arctic, Mr. Serreze said. That left just a thin one-year layer of ice that previously covered part of Siberia. ]]> sanctus http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=75016 Post your Cool Space Pics: http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74986 Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:40:43 GMT Just wondering if anybody has come across some interesting shots from space, be that planets, stars, moons, whatever. Please supply some information... Just wondering if anybody has come across some interesting shots from space, be that planets, stars, moons, whatever. Please supply some information on what it is that you are showing us.

I figured I would start a thread like this for two reasons:

1 - The thread I made with shots of Mar's Craters got me interested

2 - Nobody's firggin posting in here, WTF?

Get it in Gear People! :angryfire::-P

Stickney Crater, the largest crater on the martian moon Phobos, is named for Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, mathematician and wife of astronomer Asaph Hall. Asaph Hall discovered both the Red Planet's moons in 1877. Over 9 kilometers across, Stickney is nearly half the diameter of Phobos itself, so large that the impact that blasted out the crater likely came close to shattering the tiny moon. This stunning, enhanced-color image of Stickney and surroundings was recorded by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it passed within some six thousand kilometers of Phobos last month. Even though the surface gravity of asteroid-like Phobos is less than 1/1000th Earth's gravity, streaks suggest loose material has slid down inside the crater walls over time. Light bluish regions near the crater's rim could indicate a relatively freshly exposed surface. The origin of the curious grooves along the surface is mysterious but may be related to the crater-forming impact.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080410.html

Two separate images of Jupiter and its moon, Io, combine here to make this striking picture. Instruments onboard the New Horizons spacecraft recorded the image data when it flew past Jupiter in early 2007.

In the picture of Jupiter, the near-infrared imaging spectrometer highlights variations in the Jovian clouds, rendering the Great Red Spot (the prominent oval) in a bluish-white shade. The observation was manipulated in order to correct distortion introduced by the rotation of the planet during the scan.

The Io image is an approximately true-color composite which shows an eruption in progress on Io's night side, at the northern volcano Tvashtar. Lava glows red beneath a high volcanic plume, illuminated by sunlight. The plume appears blue due to scattering of light by small particles within.

http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/i...ay_071010.html

Why are bullets of gas shooting out of the Orion Nebula? Nobody is yet sure. First discovered in 1983, each bullet is actually about the size of our Solar System, and moving at about 400 km/sec from a central source dubbed IRc2. The age of the bullets, which can be found from their speed and distance from IRc2, is very young -- typically less than 1,000 years. As the bullets rip through the interior of the Orion Nebula, a small percentage of iron gas causes the tip of each bullet to glow blue, while each bullet leaves a tubular pillar that glows by the light of heated hydrogen gas. Pictured above, the Orion bullets were captured in unprecedented detail by the adaptive optics technology of the Gemini North telescope. M42, the Orion Nebula, is the closest major star forming region to us and filled with changing dust, gas, and bright stars. The Orion Nebula, is located about 1,500 light years away and can be seen with the unaided eye toward the constellation of Orion.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070326.html

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble -- maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. This suggestively shaped reflection nebula is associated with the bright star Rigel in the constellation Orion. More formally known as IC 2118, the Witch Head Nebula glows primarily by light reflected from bright star Rigel, located just off the upper right edge of the full image. Fine dust in the nebula reflects the light. The blue color is caused not only by Rigel's blue color but because the dust grains reflect blue light more efficiently than red. The same physical process causes Earth's daytime sky to appear blue, although the scatterers in Earth's atmosphere are molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. The nebula lies about 1000 light-years away.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061211.html ]]> Praxius http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74986 GW Kills Science http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74959 Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:20:29 GMT The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

"All models are wrong, but some are useful."
So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we have? Only models, from cosmological equations to theories of human behavior, seemed to be able to consistently, if imperfectly, explain the world around us. Until now. Today companies like Google, which have grown up in an era of massively abundant data, don't have to settle for wrong models. Indeed, they don't have to settle for models at all.
Sixty years ago, digital computers made information readable. Twenty years ago, the Internet made it reachable. Ten years ago, the first search engine crawlers made it a single database. Now Google and like-minded companies are sifting through the most measured age in history, treating this massive corpus as a laboratory of the human condition. They are the children of the Petabyte Age.
The Petabyte Age is different because more is different. Kilobytes were stored on floppy disks. Megabytes were stored on hard disks. Terabytes were stored in disk arrays. Petabytes are stored in the cloud. As we moved along that progression, we went from the folder analogy to the file cabinet analogy to the library analogy to — well, at petabytes we ran out of organizational analogies.
At the petabyte scale, information is not a matter of simple three- and four-dimensional taxonomy and order but of dimensionally agnostic statistics. It calls for an entirely different approach, one that requires us to lose the tether of data as something that can be visualized in its totality. It forces us to view data mathematically first and establish a context for it later. For instance, Google conquered the advertising world with nothing more than applied mathematics. It didn't pretend to know anything about the culture and conventions of advertising — it just assumed that better data, with better analytical tools, would win the day. And Google was right.
Google's founding philosophy is that we don't know why this page is better than that one: If the statistics of incoming links say it is, that's good enough. No semantic or causal analysis is required. That's why Google can translate languages without actually "knowing" them (given equal corpus data, Google can translate Klingon into Farsi as easily as it can translate French into German). And why it can match ads to content without any knowledge or assumptions about the ads or the content.
Speaking at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference this past March, Peter Norvig, Google's research director, offered an update to George Box's maxim: "All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them."
This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.
The big target here isn't advertising, though. It's science. The scientific method is built around testable hypotheses. These models, for the most part, are systems visualized in the minds of scientists. The models are then tested, and experiments confirm or falsify theoretical models of how the world works. This is the way science has worked for hundreds of years.
Scientists are trained to recognize that correlation is not causation, that no conclusions should be drawn simply on the basis of correlation between X and Y (it could just be a coincidence). Instead, you must understand the underlying mechanisms that connect the two. Once you have a model, you can connect the data sets with confidence. Data without a model is just noise.
But faced with massive data, this approach to science — hypothesize, model, test — is becoming obsolete. Consider physics: Newtonian models were crude approximations of the truth (wrong at the atomic level, but still useful). A hundred years ago, statistically based quantum mechanics offered a better picture — but quantum mechanics is yet another model, and as such it, too, is flawed, no doubt a caricature of a more complex underlying reality. The reason physics has drifted into theoretical speculation about n-dimensional grand unified models over the past few decades (the "beautiful story" phase of a discipline starved of data) is that we don't know how to run the experiments that would falsify the hypotheses — the energies are too high, the accelerators too expensive, and so on.
Now biology is heading in the same direction. The models we were taught in school about "dominant" and "recessive" genes steering a strictly Mendelian process have turned out to be an even greater simplification of reality than Newton's laws. The discovery of gene-protein interactions and other aspects of epigenetics has challenged the view of DNA as destiny and even introduced evidence that environment can influence inheritable traits, something once considered a genetic impossibility.
In short, the more we learn about biology, the further we find ourselves from a model that can explain it.
There is now a better way. Petabytes allow us to say: "Correlation is enough." We can stop looking for models. We can analyze the data without hypotheses about what it might show. We can throw the numbers into the biggest computing clusters the world has ever seen and let statistical algorithms find patterns where science cannot.
The best practical example of this is the shotgun gene sequencing by J. Craig Venter. Enabled by high-speed sequencers and supercomputers that statistically analyze the data they produce, Venter went from sequencing individual organisms to sequencing entire ecosystems. In 2003, he started sequencing much of the ocean, retracing the voyage of Captain Cook. And in 2005 he started sequencing the air. In the process, he discovered thousands of previously unknown species of bacteria and other life-forms.
If the words "discover a new species" call to mind Darwin and drawings of finches, you may be stuck in the old way of doing science. Venter can tell you almost nothing about the species he found. He doesn't know what they look like, how they live, or much of anything else about their morphology. He doesn't even have their entire genome. All he has is a statistical blip — a unique sequence that, being unlike any other sequence in the database, must represent a new species.
This sequence may correlate with other sequences that resemble those of species we do know more about. In that case, Venter can make some guesses about the animals — that they convert sunlight into energy in a particular way, or that they descended from a common ancestor. But besides that, he has no better model of this species than Google has of your MySpace page. It's just data. By analyzing it with Google-quality computing resources, though, Venter has advanced biology more than anyone else of his generation.
This kind of thinking is poised to go mainstream. In February, the National Science Foundation announced the Cluster Exploratory, a program that funds research designed to run on a large-scale distributed computing platform developed by Google and IBM in conjunction with six pilot universities. The cluster will consist of 1,600 processors, several terabytes of memory, and hundreds of terabytes of storage, along with the software, including Google File System, IBM's Tivoli, and an open source version of Google's MapReduce. Early CluE projects will include simulations of the brain and the nervous system and other biological research that lies somewhere between wetware and software.
Learning to use a "computer" of this scale may be challenging. But the opportunity is great: The new availability of huge amounts of data, along with the statistical tools to crunch these numbers, offers a whole new way of understanding the world. Correlation supersedes causation, and science can advance even without coherent models, unified theories, or really any mechanistic explanation at all.
There's no reason to cling to our old ways. It's time to ask: What can science learn from Google?
Source

It looks like the need to justify global warming by carbon might really be the death of science!!!!!

Who needs the scientific method when we can just guess at whats going on? I guess for the GW hippie fanatics its enough. I hope the scientific community can weather this storm (pun intended).

I see a new dark age approaching. Seriously I do. ]]> Scott Free http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74959 Are comets gods? http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74957 Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:21:34 GMT ---Quote--- An ambitious new NASA research project aims to answer perhaps the most vexing and profound of scientific mysteries: How did life on Earth...

Quote:

An ambitious new NASA research project aims to answer perhaps the most vexing and profound of scientific mysteries: How did life on Earth begin?
The multimillion-dollar undertaking, led by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, brings together an interdisciplinary team of scientists from around the world to study how organic molecules are created in interstellar clouds and delivered to planets as they form.The research will focus on the role of comets. Many scientists believe there is increasing evidence that comets supplied at least part of the raw material for the origin of life on Earth. The theory is changing the way scientists think about life in the universe and raises the possibility of alien worlds.

-
Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News

October 2, 2003
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...ometstudy.html

From 1999:
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/lin....html&edu=high

From 2007:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-cpr081407.php ]]> L Gilbert http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74957 <![CDATA[Mercedes & Smart to go electric by 2010]]> http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74904 Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:45:46 GMT Image: http://gas2.org/files/2008/06/wikimedia-smart-fortwo.jpg (http://gas2.org/files/2008/06/wikimedia-smart-fortwo.jpg) *Over the last few...

Over the last few months, several big car makers, including Nissan, Subaru and Mitsubishi, have announced plans to produce all-electric cars before the end of the decade, or soon after. Now Daimler has announced that it to plans to jump on the growing EV bandwagon, with plans to roll-out a Mercedes-Benz electric car in 2010. According to Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche, the company also plans to offer an electric Smart car in the same year.
At this stage, it’s unclear whether the cars will be based on an existing model, or on a completely new platform. If the former, it’s likely that the Mercedes EV will be based on either an A-Class or B-Class, as is the case with their fuel-cell prototype (pictured below).

As far as the Smart model goes, there is currently a fleet of 100 first-generation Smart electric cars running in London, and it’s a fair bet that the new cars will be at least roughly based on these.
No decision has been made regarding the price for the EV models. According to Zetsche, “That depends on whether we sell the batteries with the car or lease them. The willingness (on the part of consumers) to pay more is limited.”
The company is also in talks with Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place regarding his plans to introduce large scale EV recharging infrastructures at several locations across the world.

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This is good news in my opinion! So far we've had little options and stuck with mainly Asian models. ]]> Andem http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74904 Is anything not caused by GW? http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74809 Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:39:22 GMT New research compiled by Australian scientist Dr. Tom Chalko shows that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was... New research compiled by Australian scientist Dr. Tom Chalko shows that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago.

The research proves that destructive ability of earthquakes on Earth increases alarmingly fast and that this trend is set to continue, unless the problem of "global warming" is comprehensively and urgently addressed.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...n4191556.shtml

On a related note...

All mackerel are fish. All fish live under water. Ergo, all fish are mackeral.

I think I'm starting to get it now. ]]> thomaska http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74809 Gay men, straight women share brain detail-report http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74737 Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:19:59 GMT This of course I already knew, but now we have the proof: ... This of course I already knew, but now we have the proof:

http://www.canada.com/globaltv/natio...5-dc62d3233375

Quote:

LONDON - Gay men and straight women share some characteristics in the area of the brain responsible foremotion, mood and anxiety, researchers said on Monday in a study highlighting the potential biological underpinning of sexuality.

Brain scans also showed the same symmetry among lesbians and straight men, the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The observations cannot be easily attributed to perception or behaviour," the researchers from Sweden's Karolinska Institute wrote. "Whether they may relate to processes laid down during the fetal or postnatal development is an open question."

A number of studies have looked at the roles genetic, biological and environmental factors play in sexual orientation but little evidence exists that any plays an all-important role.

Many scientists believe both nature and nurture play a part.

Brain scans of 90 volunteers showed that the brains of heterosexual men and homosexual women were slightly asymmetric with the right hemisphere slightly larger than the left, Ivanka Savic and Pers Lindstrom wrote. The brains of gay men and heterosexual women were not.

Then they measured blood flow to the amygdala -- the area key for the "fight-or-flight" response -- and found it was wired in a similar fashion in gay men and heterosexual women as well as lesbians and heterosexual men.

The researchers added that the study cannot say whether the differences in brain shape are inherited or due to to exposure to hormones such as testosterone in the womb and if they are responsible for sexual orientation.

But this is something they plan to look at in a further study of newborn babies to see if it can help predict futuresexual orientation.

"These observations motivate more extensive investigations of larger study groups and prompt for a better understanding of the neurobiology of homosexuality," they wrote.

]]> Praxius http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74737 Coffee drinkers have slightly lower death rates http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74731 Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:17:15 GMT Image: http://images.ctv.ca/archives/CTVNews/img2/20080616/450_coffee_080616.jpg A new study has found regularly drinking coffee may reduce death...

A new study has found regularly drinking coffee may reduce death from heart disease.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...0616?hub=World

Quote:

A new study has found regularly drinking coffee does not increase a person's risk of dying sooner, and may actually reduce death from heart disease.

The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that regular coffee drinking (up to 6 cups per day) is not associated with increased death rates in either men or women.

In addition, drinking both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee was associated with a lower rate of death from heart disease.

Study co-author Esther Lopez-Garcia says, "We found the consumption of coffee, even in high amounts ... six cups per day ... was associated with a lower risk of all cause mortality."

Some numbers:

Women who drank two to three cups of caffeinated coffee per day had a 25 per cent lower risk of death from heart disease
That same group of women had an 18 per cent lower risk of death caused by something other than cancer or heart disease.
In men, the same amount of coffee had no impact on risk of death during the follow-up years from 1986 to 2004.

Lopez-Garcia noted that the survey population was a healthy group of people. "We have to be cautious with our interpretation," she said. "We don't know how (coffee) affects other diseases."

Participants filled out questionnaires every two to four years, including questions about coffee drinking, dietary habits, smoking and other health conditions, and death from any cause, from heart disease and from cancer were compared.

Taking into account risk factors like body size, smoking, diet and specific diseases, people who drank more coffee were found to be less likely to die, mainly because of lower risk of heart disease deaths among coffee drinkers.

No association between drinking coffee and cancer death rates was found.

However, researchers say that caffeine doesn't seem to be associated with lower death rates, as people who drank decaffeinated coffee also had lower death rates.

According to Lopez-Garcia, "In coffee there are many other molecules and it may counterbalance the negative effets."

Researchers advise that while coffee may have a beneficial effect on health, people with chronic conditions like heart disease should speak to their doctor.

]]> Praxius http://forums.canadiancontent.net/showthread.php?t=74731