France's next president has the chance to reform the country's science
It would be unusual, in most western nations, for all the leading candidates in a national election to turn up at a trade show for farmers. But such is the influence of the French farming community that this is exactly what happened at the Paris Agricultural Show last month when the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, the Socialist Ségoléne Royal and the centre's rising star François Bayrou all put in an appearance.
Science & Technology
Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Monday scientists had found traces of volcanic lava in Sinai dating from about 1500 BC, the time of a massive eruption on the Greek island of Santorini.
Zahi Hawass of the Supreme Antiquities Council said the lava must have come from Santorini and that the discovery indicated that the volcano was responsible for the destruction of several cities on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt and the Levant.
Zahi Hawass of the Supreme Antiquities Council said the lava must have come from Santorini and that the discovery indicated that the volcano was responsible for the destruction of several cities on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt and the Levant.
Researchers using nanotechnology have taken a step toward creating an "optical cloaking" device that could render objects invisible by guiding light around anything placed inside this "cloak."
Where aliens are concerned, Hollywood may have got it wrong. If extraterrestrials really have tried to make contact, they have tried to do so with the French.
Books, movies and other media are full of mistakes about the natural world. Robert P Crease wonders how harmful such errors really are and asks for your examples of "science bloopers"
Phidias, the greatest sculptor of classical Greece, got into trouble while working on his statue of the goddess Athena for the Parthenon. Citizens seeing his work in progress realized its head was disproportionately big, and denounced it. The sculptor asked them to suspend judgment until the statue was complete and they could look up and see it - literally in perspective - mounted high on the temple. When this was eventually accomplished, the citizens appreciated the sculptor's wisdom: Phidias's distortions had indeed been necessary to make the statue look lifelike.
I often think of this tale when I see science mistakes in the media. It is tempting to ridicule science bloopers - or what I would call "science solecisms" - partly because we feel superior for noticing them. But as the Phidias story cautions, not all distortions from reality are bad, and some can even be useful.
Phidias, the greatest sculptor of classical Greece, got into trouble while working on his statue of the goddess Athena for the Parthenon. Citizens seeing his work in progress realized its head was disproportionately big, and denounced it. The sculptor asked them to suspend judgment until the statue was complete and they could look up and see it - literally in perspective - mounted high on the temple. When this was eventually accomplished, the citizens appreciated the sculptor's wisdom: Phidias's distortions had indeed been necessary to make the statue look lifelike.
I often think of this tale when I see science mistakes in the media. It is tempting to ridicule science bloopers - or what I would call "science solecisms" - partly because we feel superior for noticing them. But as the Phidias story cautions, not all distortions from reality are bad, and some can even be useful.
A high-tech villa designed to resist earthquakes by 'self-healing' cracks in its own walls and monitoring vibrations through an intelligent sensor network will be built on a Greek mountainside.
The University of Leeds' NanoManufacturing Institute (NMI) will play a crucial role in the Ј9.5 million European Union-funded project by developing special walls for the house that contain nano polymer particles - these will turn into a liquid when squeezed under pressure, flow into the cracks, and then harden to form a solid material.
NMI chief executive Professor Terry Wilkins said: "What we're trying to achieve here is very exciting; we're looking to use polymers in much tougher situations than ever before on a larger scale."
Nanotechnology involves making things with useful scientific properties on a tiny scale - less than one-hundred thousandth the width of a human hair.
The University of Leeds' NanoManufacturing Institute (NMI) will play a crucial role in the Ј9.5 million European Union-funded project by developing special walls for the house that contain nano polymer particles - these will turn into a liquid when squeezed under pressure, flow into the cracks, and then harden to form a solid material.
NMI chief executive Professor Terry Wilkins said: "What we're trying to achieve here is very exciting; we're looking to use polymers in much tougher situations than ever before on a larger scale."
Nanotechnology involves making things with useful scientific properties on a tiny scale - less than one-hundred thousandth the width of a human hair.
Using relic radiation from the birth of the universe, astrophysicists at the University of Illinois have proposed a new way of measuring the fine-structure constant in the past, and comparing it with today.
By focusing on the absorption of the cosmic microwave background by atoms of neutral hydrogen, the researchers say, they could measure the fine-structure constant during the "dark ages," the time after the Big Bang before the first stars formed, when the universe consisted mostly of neutral hydrogen and helium.
The fine-structure constant characterizes the strength of the electromagnetic force, which is one of the four fundamental forces in physics. But, the fine-structure constant may not be constant. Recent observations of quasars - starlike objects billions of light-years away - have found a slightly different value for the fine-structure constant.
By focusing on the absorption of the cosmic microwave background by atoms of neutral hydrogen, the researchers say, they could measure the fine-structure constant during the "dark ages," the time after the Big Bang before the first stars formed, when the universe consisted mostly of neutral hydrogen and helium.
The fine-structure constant characterizes the strength of the electromagnetic force, which is one of the four fundamental forces in physics. But, the fine-structure constant may not be constant. Recent observations of quasars - starlike objects billions of light-years away - have found a slightly different value for the fine-structure constant.
In Mel Brooks's The Producers--also known as the Enron business plan, as noted in this space in October 2002--Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom conspire to sell 25,000 percent of the Broadway show Springtime for Hitler. In a moment of introspection, Max asks, "How much percentage of a play can there be altogether?" To which Leo gently responds, "You can only sell 100 percent of anything." Until recently, I accepted this statement as fact.
A mathematician, a political scientist and an economist walk into a bar. Wait, that's not right. A mathematician, a political scientist and an economist recently wrote a paper--amazingly, that is right--in which they point out that, under special circumstances, two people can split something up and both feel like they got more than half. No, the entire mirror factory isn't filled with smoke.
A mathematician, a political scientist and an economist walk into a bar. Wait, that's not right. A mathematician, a political scientist and an economist recently wrote a paper--amazingly, that is right--in which they point out that, under special circumstances, two people can split something up and both feel like they got more than half. No, the entire mirror factory isn't filled with smoke.
TAIPEI: After all the hype surrounding its January launch, Microsoft's new Vista operating system has yet to brighten the outlook for PC makers and could even lead to oversupplies for those who had built up inventory.
Top PC makers, such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo, may now have to resort to sales of lower-margin computers in emerging markets such as China, Eastern Europe and Latin America for their growth this year.
Top PC makers, such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo, may now have to resort to sales of lower-margin computers in emerging markets such as China, Eastern Europe and Latin America for their growth this year.
Biologists at New York University have identified how different species use common genes to control their early development and alter how these genes are used to accommodate their own features. The findings, which were discovered by researchers in Professor Claude Desplan's and Steve Small's laboratories in NYU's Center for Developmental Genetics, offer new insight into the workings of developmental pathways across species. The study is published in the latest issue of the journal Science.
Comment: Egyptologists have a really hard time admitting that Thera erupted when it did: 1628 BC. This date has been established using dendrochronology and ice core dating. But the facts throw off the accepted dating of the various Egyptian dynasties, dates which accord with the accepted, and fictional, dates for Biblic events. So the entire structure of Egypotology rests on a fiction: the Bible, and much of modern "civilization" rests upon the same fiction. Therefore the phoney dates must be preserved at all cost.