Just unbelievable

This is the type of knowledge I would love to discover some day...

Most scientists have believed that the instant a quantum object was measured it would "collapse" from being in all the locations it could be, to just one location like a classical object. Jordan proposed that it would be possible to weakly measure the particle continuously, partially collapsing the quantum state, and then "unmeasure" it, causing the particle to revert back to its original quantum form, before it collapsed.

EurekAlert.com

Who wants to go camping on June 28th? C'mon Now!

Great American Backyard Campout June 28

"Last year over 42,000 people from around the country participated in the Great American Backyard Campout. You don't need to go to Yosemite National Park to experience the great outdoors and the wonders it has to offer. Just open up your backdoor! June has been officially designated Great Outdoors Month by the White House and more than half of America's governors and what better way to celebrate."


Now, instead of just getting all goofy because of going outside and camping, lets think about a personal benefit of joining in with nature -

Scenes of nature trump technology in reducing low-level stress

"The researchers found that participants with the plasma screen actually looked at it just as often as did those who had the window. However, the window held the students' attention significantly longer than the plasma screen did. When participants spent more time looking at the window, their heart rates decreased faster than on tasks when they spent less time looking at the window. This was not true with the plasma screen."


So, again, and seriously - anyone wanna go camping?
--
Anyone can be struck by lightning,
But not everyone can conduct electricity!

Visible Magnetic Fields

Beautiful! The magnetism that surrounds all of us, our planet and is part of the basic fundamentals of the universe are amazing thing that we are still just barely beginning to describe. From magnetism will probably come things like levitation and invisibility. Science fiction in reality. A group of NASA scientists have decided to make a video of these magnetic fields. The results are beautiful

Magnetic wonderfulness!

Human Evolution...

Now that we have a thought based upon research (see a previous post) about human cranial size relating to the climate. And cranial size has been associated in various studies with greater intelligence. Brain size follows along. Moving into the nether regions of the world in a colder climate will lead to a need to depend on others in harsher landscapes. Can we assume that human evolution is greatly influenced by the symbiotic relationship of a pair of people raising a child? A recent discussion with a friend now makes me believe that the emotion we term love is a by product of the need to raise and develop a human child. Social ties expand and deepen as two care for each other and the child. The child takes longer and longer to grow and learn. The care between two people gets greater. A pretty long circle. It seems chilren are staying with their parents even longer now a days. Human life is getting longer. Generations are wider. Mothers having children later. Staying in the work force longer. Children going through education for longer periods of time. Children living at home longer. Children (young adults) moving out into a world of debt.

There is a subtle shift. I guess it is continual and the observation of it is of no real significance. I leads to me wonder though...will the societies with a greater social bond and a higher degree of altruism grow larger? The Greek city states did well because of their ability to bond together when a powerful neighbor attached. Economic Socialism has yet to truly take form in the world (as neither has Capitalism). Will China rule the world because it has the largest families? Darwinism upon Socialism upon layers upon layers.

Natural Isotopes Counter Free Radicals

Eurek Alert! - Meat and two neutrons -- the key to a longer life

A while back I read an article from a crazy looking guy talking about the coming immortality. One of his thoughts was that we would learn how to counter free radicals in our body and extend, incrementally our life span. Looks like someone has hit on a slight piece of things...

The most interesting thing is that the same gentlemen from above is quoted in the story and he seems to be the pessimist...I guess being a well educated person in a certain field and understanding the complexities of the human body might make you a cynic.


Ageing experts are impressed with the isotopic approach. Aubrey de Grey, the Cambridge-based gerontologist, says it could be very relevant to the rates of several chemical and enzymatic processes relevant to ageing 'It is a highly novel idea,' he says. 'But it remains to be seen whether it can be the source of practicable therapies, but it is a prospect that certainly cannot be ruled out.'

Charles Cantor, a professor of biomechanical engineering at Boston University, said: 'Preliminary data indicates that this approach can potentially increase lifespan without adverse side effects. If this is borne out by further experiments the implications are profound.'

"Elsie - mother of the modern loaf"

Elsie - mother of the modern loaf - BBC.Com

Very interesting article.

"Elsie Widdowson and her scientific partner, Robert McCance, oversaw the first compulsory addition of a substance to food in the early 1940s, when calcium was introduced to bread.

They were also responsible for formulating war-time rationing - some experts say that under their diet of mainly bread, vegetables and potatoes, that was when Britain was at its healthiest."

Very interesting tidbit at the end...

"She studied children at a German orphanage where one group was scolded as they ate - and found these children did not thrive as well as other orphanage children fed the same diet."

The Brain as We See It

Albany.edu - The Higher Primate's Brain and Climate

Please don't use knowledge to confirm your foolish beliefs of genetic superiority...we have intermixed among ourselves so much those benefits have fallen away (do take notice of your socialization though...). However, do take notice that as we move about in a world that is always changing our bodies and our abilities to live within it change.

In addition to the impact of global cooling, "By paying close attention to the geographic origin of each of the fossilized skulls," said Gallup, "it became clear that seasonal variation in climate may also have been an important selective force behind the evolution of human cranial capacity. Specifically, we found that as the distance from the equator increased, north or south, so did brain size."

Get your kids AWAY from the damn television!

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6081

Do not use the TV as an educator.
Do not use the TV as a babysitter.
Do not allow the TV to impart morals and values.
Do not yourself become a victim to the vice of sloth.

There are many mediums to receive knowledge.
There are many way to entertain oneself.

TV may not be the bane of society, but it can change us.

They didn't think it far out enough...

http://www.livescience.com/history/070215_fewer_children.html

A. Children are more expensive.

B. Lifetimes are longer, thus an individual is relatively, from a simple
economic standpoint, more valuable.

C. Tied to the lifetime differences, the number of people who lived through
first birth, then infancy and teenager hood, and so on, is greater and
greater every year. This itself is merely an observation...

D. Mothers are having children later, children are reaching level of social
maturity later (getting into the work force, finishing education and then
starting their family).

E. The time alive per generation (TAG) will not drop as much as the relative
drop in the absolute number of individuals which, from a genetic standpoint,
would seem to say something very important, and that has to do with the
success of the genetics.

F. Due to the lower number of children and the greater economic needs to
develop one properly, those individual children are valued greater as the
relationships from an emotional level would become greater. The individual
child means more emotionally to lose than one of 10, none of whom you were
able to get amazingly close to (other than the eldest or youngest of
children). Each child has greater value, which would again create a greater
value per generation than would be expected with the significant drop off in
absolute numbers.

G. The economic necessity of children is lesser as individuals are able to
better to hedge against their future and are no longer dependent upon
children to support them in their old age.

As we look all the way down in nature we find that the number of young born
continually drops the more valuable the off spring is...why does this
surprise us? Come on now...

Civility among "animals"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16094301/

Bshary and his colleagues followed fish around by snorkeling. They found groupers often visited giant morays resting in their crevices and rapidly shook their heads an inch or so from the eels to recruit them in a joint hunt. At times this call took place after a grouper failed in its hunt because prey escaped into a crevice the grouper could not get into but a giant moray might.