Even More Science

Frontiers of Research

Oxford to Study... Faith?
Yeah.

University of Oxford researchers will spend nearly $4 million to study why mankind embraces God. The grant to the Ian Ramsey Center for Science and Religion will bring anthropologists, theologians, philosophers and other academics together for three years to study whether belief in a divine being is a basic part of mankind's makeup.

Let's see. About ten percent, maybe as high as fifteen percent, of Americans are atheists.

This country hates Atheists more than any other social/ethnic group, even teh gays.

So... I'm guessing, if there are still that many self-described godless heathens, then the answer is no.

Source: Raw Story

Load of Blarney

The authenticity of the Blarney Stone, kissed by about 400,000 tourists a year, has been questioned by Mark Samuel, an archaeologist and architectural historian, and Kate Hamlyn in a new book.

According to legend, kissing the stone at Blarney Castle, near Cork, endows the kisser with the gift of gab or great eloquence and skill at flattery.

...

Blarney Castle dismisses the theory that the current stone is not the one with the claimed magical powers.

Marketing manager John Fogarty told AFP the Blarney Stone is a piece of the Stone of Scone or "Stone of Destiny", on which the kings of Scotland were crowned.

One legend says the Scone Stone is supposed to be the pillow stone said to have been used by the Biblical Jacob.

...

"McCarthy heard of the powers of the stone from a woman who was saved from drowning in Blarney Lake behind the castle. She told him he would get the gift of eloquence by kissing it," Fogarty said.

Wait, you mean an alleged magical rock found in a lake by a crazy woman might not, in fact, be magical? Or for that matter, the right 'magic' rock?

My faith in Scot-Irish sobriety and seriousness is forever shaken to the core!

Source: Raw Story

Self-Healing Rubber
Some French boffins have come up with a synthetic rubber that mends itself after cuts or damage at room temperature.

French chemists on Wednesday announced they had created rubber that heals itself after it has been cut, a breakthrough that could lead to clothes that self-mend if torn and toys that repair themselves if damaged by a tot.

The molecular concoction -- described by other scientists as having "a touch of magic about it" -- can self-heal at room temperature in around 15 minutes by simply pressing the damaged pieces together, they report in the British weekly science journal Nature.

Nifty. I hate it when my rubber clothes tear and have to be mended.

Err. (I presume they mean things like shoe soles here).

Oh, and there's a nifty bit at the end for anybody sick of hearing the 'ignorant Aztecs thought the Spanish were gods' story.

In a commentary also published by Nature, synthetic materials scientists Justin Mynar and Takuzo Aida noted that when the Spanish conquistadores first witnessed the Aztecs playing a game with a bouncing rubber ball, they thought such balls must be possessed by evil spirits.

"Imagine their reaction if, on cutting the ball in half, it was made as good as new simply by pressing the two halves together," they write.

"Even today, such a feat would have a touch of magic about it. But this is what (has been) achieved."

What was it Arthur C. Clarke said? Any sufficiently advanced technology would appear to be magic?

Yeah. So it would appear.

Source: Raw Story

Spreadsheet Science
Sometimes all you need to excel is Excel.

Ha, ha, yeah. Sue me.

It took just a couple of hours using data available on the internet for University of Sydney scientists to discover that the Milky Way is twice as wide as previously thought.


Astrophysicist Professor Bryan Gaensler led a team that has found that our galaxy - a flattened spiral about 100,000 light years across - is 12,000 light years thick, not the 6,000 light years that had been previously thought.


Proving not all science requires big, expensive apparatus, Professor Gaensler and colleagues, Dr Greg Madsen, Dr Shami Chatterjee and PhD student Ann Mao, downloaded data from the internet and analysed it in a spreadsheet.

Ahh, astronomy. The only science where a 1 in 10 accuracy rate is considered the norm.

Source: University of Sydney

Gravity Lamp
An architect type boffin at a Virginia school has come up with a design for a gravity powered lamp. It works something like the ancient greek programmable robot; you raise a lead weight and its descent provides stored energy to perform a task.

Neat.

Concept illustrations of Gravia depict an acrylic column a little over four feet high. The entire column glows when activated. The electricity is generated by the slow fall of a mass that spins a rotor. The resulting energy powers 10 high-output LEDs that fire into the acrylic lens, creating a diffuse light. The operation is silent and the housing is elegant and cord free -- completely independent of electrical infrastructure.

The light output will be 600-800 lumens - roughly equal to a 40-watt incandescent bulb over a period of four hours.

To "turn on" the lamp, the user moves weights from the bottom to the top of the lamp. An hour glass-like mechanism is turned over and the weights are placed in the mass sled near the top of the lamp. The sled begins its gentle glide back down and, within a few seconds, the LEDs come on and light the lamp, Moulton said. "It's more complicated than flipping a switch but can be an acceptable, even enjoyable routine, like winding a beautiful clock or making good coffee," he said.

It doesn't say how long the lamp stays lit on a charge though, that I notice. Hopefully it will be quite a while. Having to constantly turn your light back on would make reading an annoying task.

Source: Virginia Tech News