Science. It influences our world, but how much do we understand about it? This topic is for the discussion of modern scientific breakthroughs and related discussions. Feel free to post up interesting articles from any branch of science - but comments on these topics are encouraged and welcomed. Friendly debate is allowed, but please remember to treat the views of another with respect, as is the LEV way.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 02:13 pm:

Here's an interesting Article I found on MSN which speaks about an ancient Ape Species discovered in Africa...

A fossil unearthed in Kenya belongs to a new species of ape that lived around the same time as the last common ancestor of gorillas and humans.

The 10-million-year-old jawbone and 11 teeth were discovered in volcanic mud flow deposits in Kenya's Nakali region.

Dubbed Nakalipithecus nakayamai, the new species supports the idea that the ancestors of great apes and humans evolved exclusively in Africa, the researchers say. A competing hypothesis states that the last common ancestor of both groups descended from a repatriated hominid that left Africa around 16.5 million years ago for Europe or Asia, but then returned about 9.5 million years ago.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21761002/?GT1=10547

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Friday, November 16, 2007 - 03:59 pm:

I saw a Humvee-mounted laser on Future Weapons (courtesy of the Military Channel) that is capable of zapping a human-sized target from like 5 miles away. My plans to dominate the universe will soon come to fruition! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!

By Houdini (Houdini) on Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 11:09 am:

Whats that coming out of her nose? Space marines! Oh cr@p! There goes the planet!

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 01:01 pm:

Want to be one of the Highlanders? Well, diet can prolong your life immensely. What to eat - science shows the answer.

http://health.msn.com/dietfitness/dietsforconditionsarticlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100174351&GT1=10603

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 03:07 pm:

Stem Cells created... without destroying Embryos

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/stemcells-0606.html

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 04:19 pm:

And another even more recent article where human skin cells are changed into... well... any cell you can think of:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21886974/

By Houdini (Houdini) on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 01:46 pm:

Cancer resistant mouse ?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=496751&in_page_id=1774

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 04:42 pm:

I read this article after you posted it. It would be amazing if the knowledge gained from observing this small mouse was just what we needed to finally stop a dangerous killer of human beings forever.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 09:17 am:

The next step in Quantum Computers has surfaced here at the University... Ultracold Polar Molecules.

http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3086

By Houdini (Houdini) on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 10:21 am:

Cheaper solar power on the way?

Yessir!

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1846022020071218

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 11:01 am:

Go Solar! I need to upgrade my house with some of these panels!

http://www.nanosolar.com/

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Thursday, January 03, 2008 - 10:20 am:

Yay for sperm! And the story of the nanobot.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22333518/wid/11915829?gt1=10841

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 09:45 am:

Could Electric Cars still be on the road ahead?

http://autoshow.autos.msn.com/autoshow/Detroit2008/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=6009554

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Thursday, April 03, 2008 - 09:33 am:

Who knew? Overweight kids tend to have fewer cavities!

Overweight Kids Have Fewer Cavities
http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3141

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Friday, May 16, 2008 - 09:28 am:

The University of Rochester is at the vanguard of making fusion power a reality for the world, not just in the lab.

http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3160

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, May 16, 2008 - 03:55 pm:

What the h3ll's a Petawatt?

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Monday, May 19, 2008 - 09:41 am:

Don't you mean, "Watt the h3ll?"

A million-billion watts, of course. Or:

1,000,000,000,000,000 watts.

You might also say one quadrillion watts.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, May 19, 2008 - 02:18 pm:

I was actually paraphrasing Marty McFly ;)

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Monday, May 19, 2008 - 03:01 pm:

Ah! Right, smack me in the head and call me Sally!

Remember in 1985 how we used a soft "g" in "gigawatts" as in the word "gigolo?"

Now it is a hard "g" as in "gigabyte" or "gondola."

Back in 85, nobody had even heard of a giga-anything. Now, we're talking about petawatts and terabyte hard drives.

Could a time machine REALLY run on just 1.21 gigawatts of power? Who is to say? I guess only the real Doc Brown knows for sure!

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Monday, May 19, 2008 - 03:03 pm:

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - 10:08 am:

More on the awesome new laser:

http://www.rnews.com/print.cfm?id=61319

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Thursday, May 22, 2008 - 10:04 am:

It is now possible to clone your dead dog - if you have at least $100,000, that is.

Scifi no more... this is real.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080522/ap_on_sc/dog_cloning;_ylt=A0WTcUKWajVIBgkAuwOs0NUE

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Monday, June 16, 2008 - 01:28 pm:

Faster - Stronger - Better

Will it be the Hydrogen Fuel Cell rather than the Solar Panel that will inherit (what's left of) the Earth?

http://green.yahoo.com/news/ap/20080616/ap_on_bi_ge/japan_honda.html

By Houdini (Houdini) on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - 11:06 am:

Tony, you know that and I respect your views. I even like the idea of clean alternative energy sources being developed. However, my reasons are different then "saving the planet". They are economic.

The sooner we can reduce dependance on oil, the sooner we can have less expensive energy costs which will move the economy forward and save me money.

I view the ability to move about freely and the consumption of energy for comfort as a fundemental human right.

I also belive that human activity plays a much less signifcant role in climate then then these "ends justify the means" climate scientists simply trying to secure more grant money for research would lead everyone to belive.

It's not legitimate to over state your data and inflate your estimates just to change human behavior because you think its better for everyone in the long run.

The myth is that there is a agreement among scientists that climate change is occuring and that its caused by human activity.

In reality there are just as many impartial climate scientists who belive it is not occuring or if it is occuring that natural cycles (such as increased solar activity, and volcanic activity) are a much greater contributer to its occurence.

It says alot to me when Al Gore, the champion of climate change refused to accept the challenge of Weather Channel founder (a metorologist) John Coleman to a debate on global climate change. Coward. If the science is good and you have faith in it Mr. Gore, then why not debate?

Here is another thought for your consideration:

If global warming is such an real issue, then why in the 8 years the Democrats had the white house (including Mr. Gore as VEEP) did we not hear anything about it? I'm sure there were people who were talking about it back then, but the democrats certainly didn't care about it. When did they care about it? When those "evil" republicans took the white house. It's politics as usual for those creeps.

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - 02:29 pm:

Is money the most important thing in life? Even assuming that Global Warming is not within a human being's power to stop, air pollution and smog are other reasons to abandon the 100-year old dinosaur called the gasoline car. Respiratory health takes a hit in this sort of environment where most every household is cranking this junk into the air not from one or two controlled locations, but from millions of points all over the continent.

Taking responsibility for the welfare of others as well as for oneself is the mark of a mature person and a mature society. The fact that we may very well be saving all our lives is merely one possible reason for pursuing greener fuel. In a lab environment, it is easily demonstrated that a rise in greenhouse gas emissions (ie CO2) will trap more sunlight and cause a rise in temperature. That's high school science. When we look at the massive amount of warming that has occurred in the past 100 years and then realize that the warming trend coincides with the industrialization of the planet it is not a great leap to look at this as the plausible cause.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/globalghg.html

Now, even if some scientists say it can't be proven conclusively, this does not mean we should do nothing. A lack of action on our part could very well cause the end of civilization as we know it. Already we are experiencing higher temperatures each year which in turn are cranking out stronger and more violent storm systems. Nearly every glacier on the planet is melting and water levels continue to rise the world over. Oil and coal are nature's way of trapping the carbon from eons gone by. Now, this carbon, formerly trapped, is being released at an astonishing rate back into the atmosphere again.

Reducing this trend is a good thing no matter how you look at it. Cleaning up the air we breathe so that all people on the planet (not just the rich) can have clean air is a worthy goal in and of itself. And for those that care to dig a little deeper into the data, the possibility that humans are the cause of global warming is definitely plausible - and according to the IPCC, a distinct likelihood.

http://www.climatehotmap.org/

"Scientists have concluded that human activities are contributing to global warming by adding large amounts of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. Our fossil fuel use is the main source of these gases. Every time we drive a car, use electricity from coal-fired power plants, or heat our homes with oil or natural gas, we release carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the air. The second most important source of greenhouse gases is deforestation, mainly in the tropics, and other land-use changes.

"Since pre-industrial times, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 31 percent. Over the same period, atmospheric methane has risen by 151 percent, mostly from agricultural activities like growing rice and raising cattle."

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/global-warming-faq.html

The problem is not a US problem, but a global problem. It is much larger than politics. As evidence mounts and mounts, we can see that even republicans (such as McCain) can no longer exclude it from his action plan.

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - 04:04 pm:

Other Earths... are out there...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25350155/?GT1=43001

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Thursday, June 26, 2008 - 10:34 am:

The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/washington/25epa.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=science&adxnnlx=1214395357-6H2qcBlwrPXir1CRIQuo9A&oref=slogin

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Thursday, July 10, 2008 - 09:02 am:

More on the most efficient cars:

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/listarticle.aspx?cp-documentid=543544&topart=passenger

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=461090

By Houdini (Houdini) on Monday, August 11, 2008 - 01:11 pm:

We may not get food replicators, synthohol, warp drive, and fully functional matter transporters, but it looks like the science behind a Klingon Bird of Prey cloaking device may actually be possible.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4494440.ece

And unlike the version the star trek version,
you can shoot when your cloaked.

I love it, we can't cure disease, we can't solve our energy problem. But futueristic military tech that will kill people better ! Yep we can do that! Oh and make old people get woodies.

By Houdini (Houdini) on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 - 03:50 pm:

Multicelluar bug survives open vacuum of space.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,419601,00.html

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 09:50 am:

No doubt you've heard about the Large Hadron Collider - that went online today:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24556999/

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 10:17 am:

Another way that the University of Rochester is on the cutting edge of Computer Tech:

The next major advance in computer processors will likely be the move from today's two-dimensional chips to three-dimensional circuits, and the first three-dimensional synchronization circuitry is now running at 1.4 gigahertz at the University of Rochester.

First Functionial 3D Computer Chip
http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3247