Science & TechnologyS


Einstein

Are Jews born smart?

Ashkenazi Jews are genetically intellectually superior to everyone else. This is the conclusion of a recent "scientific" study entitled "Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence" that triggered several articles in popular publications such as New York Magazine, The New York Times and the Economist. In this study, Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy and Henry Harpending of the University Of Utah's anthropology department suggest a genetic explanation to account for this remarkable intellectual achievement.

©The Hebrew University
Jewish physicist Albert Einstein, winner of multiple Nobel prizes.

Better Earth

Young Earth not as hellish as we thought

It's known as the Hadean eon, from the Greek word for hell. But the early Earth probably looked much as it does today.

A study of zircons, the oldest minerals on Earth, suggests that massive amounts of continental crust were formed soon after Earth's creation 4.56 billion years ago.

Mark Harrison at the Australian National University in Canberra and his team looked at the ratio of hafnium isotopes, which change as a result of the radioactive decay of lutetium, to lutetium itself in 100 zircons dating back between 4 billion and 4.37 billion years. The minerals came from the Jack Hills in Western Australia.

Bulb

Exploring the moral maze

Philosophers have long been split into two camps: one arguing that moral judgments arise from rational thought, the other that the roots of morality are emotional. Now, as the subject of morality moves from the philosopher's armchair into the lab, the error of this dichotomy is becoming clear. Researchers looking at the psychological basis of morality are finding that reason and emotion both play a part.

Grey Alien

And on the eighth day - did God create aliens?

My grandfather, a rampant atheist, liked nothing better than savaging the priests that my devout Irish Catholic grandmother invited home in the hope of saving his soul. After laying into them about the dubious credibility of immaculate conceptions and self-replicating loaves and fishes, he'd declaim, with a flourish: “"And what the bloody hell is Genesis chapter six all about, eh?"”

For those not up to speed on the Old Testament, this part of the creation story deals with a category of creatures called “the Nephilim”, a non-human race that apparently inhabited the Earth around the time Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden of Eden. My grandfather would holler: "“What are these things? Little green men from outer space?”" At which point, the deflated priest would be led from the house as my grandmother crossed herself in the face of her husband's wickedness. Even in the 1950s, priests knew that aliens and the Church didn't compute. If there were extraterrestrials out there, their existence could effectively herald the death of God – cutting the ground from beneath key biblical truths, not least of which is the claim that humankind was made in God's image.

Coffee

Swerdlow Controlled via Satellite? or "reductio ad absurdum"

Why do we use Ouija board? To screen out the external disturbance. In particular to make it more difficult for satellites, or other programming signals coming from human and hybrid technology, when and if they come, to affect the message. At least two persons are needed. No rituals. Critical thinking, sometimes, joking, often coffee, fresh minds, loud discussion, and the board.

Thinking in terms of possible quantum physics involved in mind-matter interactions it is clear to me that the methods we use are more likely to be robust and shielded against deliberate bombarding from outside by mind controlling signals.

On the other hand, talking directly to "Mind-God" as Swerdlow does is more susceptible to interference. For example, a weak outside EM signal can be talking directly to a tiny implant in our teeth, and we will take it for an Oversoul....

Coffee

Antarctic Ice Shows Long Period of Lower Greenhouse Gas Levels

A nearly two-mile-long core of ice -- the oldest frozen sample ever drilled from the underbelly of Antarctica -- shows that levels of two greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, have not been as high as they are today for 650,000 years.

The new research, published in Friday's issue of the journal Science, describes the content of the greenhouse gases within the core and shows that carbon dioxide levels today are 27% higher than they have been in the past 650,000 years and levels of methane, an even more powerful greenhouse gas, are 130% higher, said Thomas Stocker, a climate researcher at the University of Bern and senior member of the European ice coring team that wrote two new papers based on the core.

Comment: Read the first paragraph of the above article and ask yourself what would be the most obvious title for this piece from the LA Times. Our guess was:

"Antartic greenhouse gases found to be highest for 650,000 years".

Now read the actual title again.

See how it works? Nice and subtle.


Grey Alien

Scientists, be on guard ... ET might be a malicious hacker

According to a scientific report, planet Earth's computers are wide open to a virus attack from Little Green Men.

As if spotty teenagers releasing computer viruses on to the internet from darkened rooms were not enough of a headache. According to a scientific report, planet Earth's computers are wide open to a virus attack from Little Green Men.

Comment: While we do not advocate the idea that everyone should accept the reality of ET intelligence, it is patently absurd for organisations like SETI and otherwise intelligent astronomers and scientists to persist in repeating the idea that any potential alien intelligence would HAVE to be as ignorant of us and we are of them. Why is it that the idea that an alien intelligence could be vastly superior to us, and could know all about planet earth and its inhabitants, completely and studiously ignored? You would almost think that they were trying to mold public opinion in this direction for some reason or other...


Coffee

Bacteria Can Take Pictures of Themselves

SAN FRANCISCO - The notorious E. coli bug made its film debut Wednesday. That's when researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Texas announced in the journal Nature that they had created photographs of themselves by programming the bacteria — best known for outbreaks of food poisoning to make pictures in much the same way Kodak film produces images.

Info

This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis

Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists. Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions, researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and believe to be true.

Telescope

Polarised light may reveal hidden exoplanets

Scattered starlight may soon reveal the presence of extrasolar planets that cannot be detected by any other means, according to a pair of scientists in India. But some other experts say the method is best suited to studying the properties of known exoplanets – not turning up new discoveries.