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thinkahol *

Quantum magic trick shows reality is what you make it - physics-math - 22 June 2011 - N... - 2 views

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    In 1967, Simon Kochen and Ernst Specker proved mathematically that even for a single quantum object, where entanglement is not possible, the values that you obtain when you measure its properties depend on the context. So the value of property A, say, depends on whether you chose to measure it with property B, or with property C. In other words, there is no reality independent of the choice of measurement. It wasn't until 2008, however, that Alexander Klyachko of Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, and colleagues devised a feasible test for this prediction. They calculated that if you repeatedly measured five different pairs of properties of a quantum particle that was in a superposition of three states, the results would differ for the quantum system compared with a classical system with hidden variables. That's because quantum properties are not fixed, but vary depending on the choice of measurements, which skews the statistics. "This was a very clever idea," says Anton Zeilinger of the Institute for Quantum Optics, Quantum Nanophysics and Quantum Information in Vienna, Austria. "The question was how to realise this in an experiment." Now he, Radek Lapkiewicz and colleagues have realised the idea experimentally. They used photons, each in a superposition in which they simultaneously took three paths. Then they repeated a sequence of five pairs of measurements on various properties of the photons, such as their polarisations, tens of thousands of times. A beautiful experiment They found that the resulting statistics could only be explained if the combination of properties that was tested was affecting the value of the property being measured. "There is no sense in assuming that what we do not measure about a system has [an independent] reality," Zeilinger concludes.
David Haow

Intercropping of maize and climbing bean: fodder yield, quality and nutrient compositio... - 1 views

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    A study was conducted to examine fodder yield and silage quality of maize (Zea mays L.) and climbing bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) intercropping with different planting structure. Maize was cultivated alone and intercropped with climbing bean as follows;1 row maize to 1 row climbing bean (1M1K), 1 row maize to 2 rows climbing bean (1M2K) and 2 rows maize to 1 row climbing bean (2M1K). The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with four treatments and three replications. The crops were harvested when the maize reached at milk stage and climbing bean at R7 stage. The results indicated significant increase in fresh biomass and dry matter production of maize fodder alone as compared to maize intercropped with climbing bean fodder. However, no difference (p>0.05) was observed in ether extract (EE), and ash (%) of nutrient composition of fodder among the four treatments After 45 days of ensiling period, silage samples were analysed for pH, organic acids (lactic, acetic, and butyric), ammonia-N(NH3-N), dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), ether extract (EE), neutral detergent fibre (NDF), acid detergent fibre (ADF), water soluble carbohydrate (WSC), calcium (Ca), sodium (Na) and potassium (K). All intercropped silages had higher CP values (1M1K, 12.0%; 1M2K, 12.3%; 2M1K, 11.1%) than the monocrop maize (SM, 8.9%) silage. Higher organic acids and ammonia-N (p<0.05) were produced in the 1M2K silages as compared to others silages. The study showed that among all intercropped silages the 1M2K (1 row maize to 2 rows climbing bean) was preferable according to nutrient composition than other intercropped silages. This research work has been done by Maw Ni Soe Htet1, Rab Nawaz Soomro 2,Hai Jiang bo under College of Agronomy, Northwest A & F University, Yangling Shaanxi, P.R China and College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A & F University, Yangling Shaanxi, P.R. China.
Skeptical Debunker

It's official: An asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs - Yahoo! News - 0 views

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    A giant asteroid smashing into Earth is the only plausible explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs, a global scientific team said on Thursday, hoping to settle a row that has divided experts for decades. A panel of 41 scientists from across the world reviewed 20 years' worth of research to try to confirm the cause of the so-called Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction, which created a "hellish environment" around 65 million years ago and wiped out more than half of all species on the planet. Scientific opinion was split over whether the extinction was caused by an asteroid or by volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps in what is now India, where there were a series of super volcanic eruptions that lasted around 1.5 million years. The new study, conducted by scientists from Europe, the United States, Mexico, Canada and Japan and published in the journal Science, found that a 15-kilometre (9 miles) wide asteroid slamming into Earth at Chicxulub in what is now Mexico was the culprit. "We now have great confidence that an asteroid was the cause of the KT extinction. This triggered large-scale fires, earthquakes measuring more than 10 on the Richter scale, and continental landslides, which created tsunamis," said Joanna Morgan of Imperial College London, a co-author of the review.
thinkahol *

Does sexual equality change porn? - Pornography - Salon.com - 0 views

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    In what may feel like a flashback to the porn wars of the '60s, a new study investigates the link between a country's relative gender equality and the degree of female "empowerment" in the X-rated entertainment it consumes. Researchers at the University of Hawaii focused on three countries in particular: Norway, the United States and Japan, which are respectively ranked 1st, 15th and (yikes) 54th on the United Nations' Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). To simplify their analysis, their library of smut was limited to explicit photographs of women "from mainstream pornographic magazines and Internet websites, as well as from the portfolios of the most popular porn stars from each nation." Then they set out to evaluate each image on both a disempowerment and an empowerment scale, using respective measures like whether the woman is "bound and dominated" by "leashes, collars, gags, or handcuffs" or "whether she has a natural looking body." Their hypothesis was that societies with greater gender equity will consume pornography that has more representations of "empowered women" and less of "disempowered women." It turned out the former was true, but, contradictory as it may sound, the latter was not. "While Norwegian pornography offers a wider variety of body types -- conforming less to a societal ideal that is disempowering to the average woman -- there are still many images that do not promote a healthy respect for women," the researchers explain. In other words, Norwegian porn showed more signs of female empowerment, but X-rated images in all three countries equally depicted women in demeaning positions and scenarios. This, the researchers surmise, "suggests that empowerment and disempowerment within pornography are potentially different constructs." So, gender equality is accompanied by sexual interest in a broader range of beauty types but not a decrease in porn's infantilization of females, use of dominating fetish gear on women or any of the other characteristics th
Skeptical Debunker

Scientists reveal driving force behind evolution - 0 views

  • The team observed viruses as they evolved over hundreds of generations to infect bacteria. They found that when the bacteria could evolve defences, the viruses evolved at a quicker rate and generated greater diversity, compared to situations where the bacteria were unable to adapt to the viral infection. The study shows, for the first time, that the American evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen was correct in his 'Red Queen Hypothesis'. The theory, first put forward in the 1970s, was named after a passage in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass in which the Red Queen tells Alice, 'It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place'. This suggested that species were in a constant race for survival and have to continue to evolve new ways of defending themselves throughout time. Dr Steve Paterson, from the University's School of Biosciences, explains: "Historically, it was assumed that most evolution was driven by a need to adapt to the environment or habitat. The Red Queen Hypothesis challenged this by pointing out that actually most natural selection will arise from co-evolutionary interactions with other species, not from interactions with the environment. "This suggested that evolutionary change was created by 'tit-for-tat' adaptations by species in constant combat. This theory is widely accepted in the science community, but this is the first time we have been able to show evidence of it in an experiment with living things." Dr Michael Brockhurst said: "We used fast-evolving viruses so that we could observe hundreds of generations of evolution. We found that for every viral strategy of attack, the bacteria would adapt to defend itself, which triggered an endless cycle of co-evolutionary change. We compared this with evolution against a fixed target, by disabling the bacteria's ability to adapt to the virus. "These experiments showed us that co-evolutionary interactions between species result in more genetically diverse populations, compared to instances where the host was not able to adapt to the parasite. The virus was also able to evolve twice as quickly when the bacteria were allowed to evolve alongside it."
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    Scientists at the University of Liverpool have provided the first experimental evidence that shows that evolution is driven most powerfully by interactions between species, rather than adaptation to the environment.
anonymous

Illustrate The Process Applied On Organic Agriculture - 2 views

Organic agriculture is an essential emerging trend with farming and gardening. Nowadays it is getting very unpleasant, due to using chemical compounds for gardening and for that reason the fertilit...

mango production how to increase fruit organic sustainable agriculture farming trivedi science research

started by anonymous on 19 Dec 14 no follow-up yet
Erich Feldmeier

Do-it-yourself biotech: Ellen Jorgensen at TEDGlobal 2012 - 0 views

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    "t turns out that all over the world there were people trying to do similar things - opening biohacker spaces. Three years later, this is a thriving global community. Each lab has a flavor of where it was created - people work together or alone, in big cities or small villages, they build things and take them apart, and do much, much more. The spirit is open. But what about the dark side? What about biosafety, biosecurity? The minute Genspace opened their doors, journalists called. And the only question they wanted to ask was, "Would this lab create the next Frankenstein?" The press was overestimating their capabilities - and underestimating their ethic"
Erich Feldmeier

Science: It's a Girl Thing ! - YouTube - 0 views

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    "This Disgraceful video was published by the European Commission for a campaign designed to attract more women to a career in science. The commission said that the video had to "speak their language to get their attention" and that it was intended to be "fun, catchy" and strike a chord with young people. "I would encourage everyone to have a look at the wider campaign and the many videos already online of female researchers talking about their jobs and lives," The original video was taken down after it received so many negative comments. "
Erich Feldmeier

@biogarage Bernhard Kegel: Epigenetik-wie Erfahrungen vererbt werden - 0 views

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    "Die Geschichte, die aus Överkalix zu erzählen ist, hat mit Nahrung zu tun, genauer gesagt, mit einem zu viel oder zu wenig an Nahrung. Was wir essen, ist Privatsache und kommt nur uns selbst zu Gute. Denken wir zumindest. Wer sich ausreichend und gesund ernährt oder ernähren kann, profitiert davon. Wer Hunger leiden muss oder sich überfrisst, wer zuviel Fett oder Süßes zu sich nimmt, wer säuft und raucht, hat die gesundheitlichen Folgen selbst zu tragen. Die einzige Ausnahme sind die schwangeren und stillenden Mütter. Sie sind nicht nur für sich, sondern auch für ihre Kinder verantwortlich. Was aber wäre, wenn Ähnliches für alle Menschen gelten würde, ob Mann oder Frau, wenn der Glauben, Qualität und Quantität unserer Nahrung habe nur Konsequenzen für uns selbst, auf Sand gebaut wäre, wenn das, was wir zu uns nehmen, nicht nur Folgen für uns und unsere Kinder, sondern sogar für unsere Enkel hätte? Mit welchem Gefühl würden wir dann die Pommes in die Majonäse tunken? Normalerweise hatten Menschen, die vor hundert oder hundertfünfzig Jahren im äußersten Norden Europas das Licht der Welt erblickten, kaum Chancen in die Historie einzugehen. Dem Jahrgang 1905 ist dies jedoch in gewisser Weise gelungen, denn die Hälfte der 199 Menschen, die in diesem Jahr in der Gemeinde Överkalix geboren wurden, gelangten posthum in eine Zufallsstichprobe der Sozialmediziner Lars Olov Bygren und Gunnar Kaati, die Erstaunliches zu Tage beförderte und weit über Norrbotten hinaus Aufmerksamkeit erregte."
Erich Feldmeier

How to break into science writing using your blog and social media (#sci4hels) | The SA... - 0 views

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    "It is important to be aware that 20th century media ecosystem is a very unusual aberration in the way people communicated throughout history. Means of production were expensive. Very few people could afford to own printing presses, radio and TV studios, etc. Running all that complicated equipment required technical expertise and professional training. Thus media became locked up in silos, hierarchical, broadcast-only with little-to-none (and then again centrally controlled) means for feedback. There was a wealthy, vocal minority that determined what was news, and how to frame it, and the vast majority was consuming the news in silence"
Skeptical Debunker

Giant Snake Ate Baby Dinosaurs | LiveScience - 0 views

  • The site that yielded the snake — dubbed Sanajeh indicus, or "ancient-gaped one from India" — was located near a village in Gujarat in western India. It was a rich nesting ground for sauropods known as titanosaurs, with evidence for hundreds of egg clutches, each containing about six to 12 round, spherical eggs. Two other instances of fossil snakes found with these clutches suggest the newly described serpent species made its living plundering nests for young dinosaurs. "It would have been a smorgasbord," said researcher Jason Head, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto at Mississauga. "Hundreds or thousands of defenseless baby sauropods could have supported an ecosystem of predators during the hatching season." The dinosaur eggs likely were laid along the sandy banks of a small, quiet tributary and covered afterward by the mother with a thin layer of sediment. These dinosaurs did not seem to look after their young — no evidence for adults has been found at the site. The fact the bones and delicate structures, such as eggshells and the snake's skull, are arranged in anatomical order (as they would appear in real life) points to quick entombment of a serpent caught in the act, as opposed to them all getting washed together after they died. "Burial was rapid and deep," said researcher Shanan Peters, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin. "Probably a pulse of slushy sand and mud released during a storm."
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    The last thing hatchling dinosaurs might have seen were giant snakes, researchers say. Scientists found the nearly complete remains of an 11-foot-long, 67-million-year-old serpent coiled around a crushed dinosaur egg right next to a hatchling in the nest of a sauropod dinosaur, the largest animals to have ever walked the Earth. "We think that the hatchling had just exited its egg, and that activity attracted the snake," explained researcher Dhananjay Mohabey, a paleontologist at the Geological Survey of India. "It was such a thrill to discover such a portentous moment frozen in time."
Barry mahfood

Watch Nanotechnology Take Off - 0 views

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    I was a bit disappointed when I learned that the PBS documentary Nanotechnology Takes Off was not going to be aired in my neck of the woods back in March. OK, I was more than a bit disappointed. This was something I was deeply interested in, and I couldn't watch it. Well, it turns out I shouldn't have been so faithless, because it's now available for viewing online.

    The Price of Rice!
Skeptical Debunker

Top home-school texts dismiss Darwin, evolution - Yahoo! News - 1 views

  • Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth's creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83 percent of home-schooling parents want to give their children "religious or moral instruction." "The majority of home-schoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians," said Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. "Most home-schoolers will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home-school program." Those who don't, however, often feel isolated and frustrated from trying to find a textbook that fits their beliefs. Two of the best-selling biology textbooks stack the deck against evolution, said some science educators who reviewed sections of the books at the request of The Associated Press. "I feel fairly strongly about this. These books are promulgating lies to kids," said Jerry Coyne, an ecology and evolution professor at the University of Chicago. The textbook publishers defend their books as well-rounded lessons on evolution and its shortcomings. One of the books doesn't attempt to mask disdain for Darwin and evolutionary science. "Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God will find many points in this book puzzling," says the introduction to "Biology: Third Edition" from Bob Jones University Press. "This book was not written for them." The textbook delivers a religious ultimatum to young readers and parents, warning in its "History of Life" chapter that a "Christian worldview ... is the only correct view of reality; anyone who rejects it will not only fail to reach heaven but also fail to see the world as it truly is."
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    Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn't taken a friend's advice and tried a textbook from a popular Christian publisher for her 10-year-old's biology lessons. Mule's precocious daughter Elizabeth excels at science and has been studying tarantulas since she was 5. But she watched Elizabeth's excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin's theory. "I thought she was going to have a coronary," Mule said of her daughter, who is now 16 and taking college courses in Houston. "She's like, 'This is not true!'"
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    Home Fooling.
Skeptical Debunker

Exotic Antimatter Created on Earth - Yahoo! News - 0 views

  • Among the many particles that resulted from this crash were bizarre objects called anti-hypertritons. Not only are these things antimatter, but they're also what's called strange matter. Where normal atomic nuclei are made of protons and neutrons (which are made of "up" quarks and "down" quarks), strange nuclei also have so-called Lambda particles that contain another flavor of quark called "strange" as well. These Lambda particles orbit around the protons and neutrons. If all that is a little much to straighten out, just think of anti-hypertritons as several kinds of weird. Though they normally don't exist on Earth, these particles may be hiding in the universe in very hot, dense places like the centers of some stars, and most likely were around when the universe was extremely young and energetic, and all the matter was packed into a very small, sweltering space. "This is the first time they've ever been created in a laboratory or a situation where they can be studied," said researcher Carl Gagliardi of Texas A&amp;M University. "We don't have anti-nuclei sitting around on a shelf that we can use to put anti-strangeness into. Only a few anti-nuclei have been observed so far." These particles weren't around for too long, though – in fact, they didn't last long enough to collide with normal matter and annihilate. Instead they just decayed after a fraction of a billionth of a second. "That sounds like a really short time, but in fact on the nuclear clock it's actually a long time," Gagliardi told SPACE.com. "In that fraction of a billionth of a second that Lambda particle has already gone around the nucleus as many times as the Earth has gone around the sun since the solar system was created."
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    Scientists have created a never-before seen type of exotic matter that is thought to have been present at the earliest stages of the universe, right after the Big Bang. The new matter is a particularly weird form of antimatter, which is like a mirror-image of regular matter. Every normal particle is thought to have an antimatter partner, and if the two come into contact, they annihilate. The recent feat of matter-tinkering was accomplished by smashing charged gold atoms at each other at super-high speeds in a particle accelerator called the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y.
anonymous

Learn More About Dairy Farming - 1 views

There is so much about dairy farming that is not known by the common public. With the majority of people going back to organic farming and natural products, this kind of dairy products has a lot of...

organic farming dairy Mahendra The Effect science research trivedi

started by anonymous on 22 Dec 14 no follow-up yet
Erich Feldmeier

Meaghan Christian: Family meals can help children reach their 5 A Day: a cross-sectiona... - 0 views

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    "The CADET tool found that children consumed on average 293 g F&V (95% CI 287 to 303) per day. Clustered (by school) multilevel regression models with total F&V as the primary outcome were conducted to explore how the home environment affects children's F&V intake. Children of families who reported 'always' eating a family meal together at a table had 125 g (95% CI 92 to 157; p=
Erich Feldmeier

Official SCIENCE*: HIGH HEELS make you SEXY (Ladies) * The Register - 0 views

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    "There is a strong contemporary association between high heels and female sexuality. We investigated the hypothesis that one motivation for women wearing high heels is that it artificially increases the femininity of gait. Biomechanical analyses revealed that wearing high heels led to increased femininity of gait including reduced stride length and increased rotation and tilt of the hips. This groundbreaking study was published this month in the scientific journal Evolution and Human Behavior. It was written by Paul H. Morris, Jenny White, Edward R. Morrison and Kayleigh Fisher"
Erich Feldmeier

Ben Young Landis How Twitter Amplifies Your Reach: Example from the "School o... - 0 views

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    "My link was shared by Bora Zivkovic, whose network is immense. And in turn, the link was shared by Twitter users in Greece, Germany, Belgium and throughout the United States. In the end, the blogpost wound up with 109 readers on January 22nd - with about 50 via Twitter, 26 via Facebook, and others via LinkedIn and elsewhere. When each person shared the link with her or his network, the momentum is carried forward, pushing out to new networks and new degrees of separation. Social sharing is a bit like the emails you would get forwarded by your relatives (you know, those emails). The deeper you scroll down the thread, the less sender names you recognize. But with Twitter, and using analytics like WordPress or Google, you can actually trace how a little link travels through different social networks, and eventually back to your website. Also, because many people embed a small bio or website link in their Twitter profile, I can quickly see who has retweeted and read my link. I can read their tweets to get an idea of their profession and passions,"
Erich Feldmeier

H. Takahashi et al. Think that's not fair? Your serotonin must be high. | The Scicuriou... - 0 views

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    "What they found here was a negative correlation. The MORE serotonin transporters you had, the less likely you were to reject unfair offers. The authors interpret this to mean that people with lower levels of serotonin transporter had a harsher sense of "fairness", than those with higher levels of serotonin transporter, and were more inclined to reject unfair offers. Why could this be the case? The authors looked at the personalities of the individuals. You might think that people with more aggressive personalities (or at least a tendency to get offended) might be more likely to reject unfair offers, but it turned out that this wasn't the case. Instead, it was people with more peaceful personalities, but stronger measures of trust, were more likely to reject the unfair offers. The authors believe that the people with higher trustfulness had higher standards of behavior, and thus were more likely to reject unfair offers, even if the rejected ended up badly for them"
Janos Haits

Starry Messenger - 0 views

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    The Starry Messenger is Phase I of the Electronic History of Astronomy developed in the Whipple Museum of the History of Science and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science. This phase was directed by Dr Sachiko Kusukawa and Dr Liba Taub, and supported by funding from Trinity College, Cambridge. Dr David Chart was the Project Manager.
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