The Science Thread

I may have regrets but this would not be one of them.

pibbur who said:

I am of two minds when it comes to posts like this one. It's good that people are engaged in science, and spend time thinking about, like here, the universe. On the other hand, without the mathematics, there's no foundation for what you write and thus it's little more than speculations.

So, while you clearly know a thing or two about cosmology, which is good, I can't see how your speculations can be discussed as more than unqualified guessing. Like it would also be if I came up with a "theory" (which I don't).

I don't want to discourage you, and maybe I shouldn't have written this. Maybe you should read a bit more. I recommend the book "The road to reality" (2004) by Roger Penrose, which is a thorough presentation on modern physics, and also thoroughly presents the mathematics involved (which may make it a bit difficult, and boring for people not interested in math). It's a bit old, still there is lots of useful stuff in there.

pibbur who is reading it at the moment.

PS. I think your English is no worse than mine. Don't know if that is any "comfort". DS.

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Well, okay, I think that I have this syndrome : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordSaladPhilosophy

In the end, however, this is like … "Those who don't have the knowledge should not try to think. Instead, they should bow before those who have the knowledge."
Some discoveries have been made by mere teachers, not scientists.

In a subtext, as right as your answer is, it is the typical answer I'd expect from a scientist : "You don't know about this matter, because you have not studied it, so your thoughts cannot be anything other than wrong."

This is a socieal answer, because it says that there are at least 2 distinct kasts or classes, those who know (have studied things) and those who don't.

What I don't like is this social context : Just imagine how much ancient literature is never reaching the masses, because scientists believe "they are not interested in this." Or just remember that "new" human organs have been found : Scientists and other members of the kaste of knowledge moan, because they had learned that *decades* ago ... YET, they still don't present this knowledge readily to the masses, so that the masses *need* a journalist to transport this piece of knowledge from there to them. A "new discovery" is born. Because some people don't tell it others.

I can agree with much of what you write here, Alrik. As I said, I'm not sure if I should have written what I wrote, and I'm not even sure that I agree with what I wrote (at least not all of it). I have to think about it, and come back to you later.

pibbur who has always been a doubter, but who is no longer so sure

New study suggests tens of thousands of black holes exist in Milky Way's center

https://phys.org/news/2018-04-tens-thousands-black-holes-milky.html

It's quite interesting, and discussed in a book I read recently, that so many of our recent discoveries have served to confirm our theories, rather than pointing to something radically different. It's disappointing to some, as they hoped that some of the more intractable problems might be addressed by a paradigm shift.

Some want to bash science too, and dislike it when non-supernatural predictions are later proven true.

Potentially dangerous chillies.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43699484

This is unfortunate, as I'm very fond of the spicy things. If there is anything wrong with my food, my first thought is usually to see if can be improved by adding some special ghost pepper sauce.

Interesting. However, do we know if drugs were ruled out?

"Vasoactive drug use is found in about 50% of cases.[6] Implicated drugs include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, weight-loss pills such as Hydroxycut, alpha-sympathomimetic decongestants, acute migraine medications, pseudoephedrine, epinephrine, cocaine, and cannabis, among many others."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_cerebral_vasoconstriction_syndrome

Hopefully it's not the chillies, though I could imagine them causing problems. I had a chilli eating contest once. I won, but let's call it a pyrrhic victory...

Yea, I am looking for an out.

They are supposed to be good for colon health!

Some Goal Oriented Tasks or Attention Tasks are Good for Brain Health
Daydreaming and introspection is not. The brain is healthier when we behave like robots. Rats!

"Plots of amyloid-beta, which is thought to cause Alzheimer's disease, show the buildup of the protein is within the DMN.[3] This prompted Randy Buckner and colleagues to propose the high metabolic rate from continuous activation of DMN causes more amyloid-beta protein to accumulate in these DMN areas.[3] These amyloid-beta proteins disrupt the DMN and because the DMN is heavily involved in memory formation and retrieval, this disruption leads to the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease."

"The Default Mode Network (DMN) is most commonly shown to be active when a person is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering. But it is also active when the individual is thinking about others, thinking about themselves, remembering the past, and planning for the future.[3][4] The network activates "by default" when a person is not involved in a task. Though the DMN was originally noticed to be deactivated in certain goal-oriented tasks and is sometimes referred to as the task-negative network,[5] it can be active in other goal-oriented tasks such as social working memory or autobiographical tasks.[6] The DMN has been shown to be negatively correlated with other networks in the brain such as attention networks.Default mode network"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network

Also, meditation may be good for brain health by reducing DMN activity.

Meditation leads to reduced default mode network activity beyond an active task.

More on the Default Mode and why Meditation is thought to be good for you

https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/why-your-mind-is-always-wandering.html

I missed that one. That's interesting stuff. As someone with a somewhat troublesome brain, I had to learn that I was a chaotic creature. I have to use as much structure, routine, and task-based thinking as possible. I also find meditation enormously useful, as a way of developing some detachment from the churn of the mind.

Watched the Insight launch this morning. Could see it from Mullholland drive.

Here's what Hawaii's volcano eruption looks like -- by the numbers

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/07/us/hawaii-volcano-by-the-numbers/index.html

Also, lava eats mustang

Got hold of some of the IQ Key kit, and it's proven to be a big hit.

http://www.iq-key.com/en/intro_en.html

What I really like is that although the concepts can be quite advanced, the actual assembly is very easy and robust, and manageable for little hands. I find that other toys with similar concepts around gears and chains tend to be much more granular and fiddly, and they tend to get bored while trying to find and manage all the little bits and long-winded plans. This stuff lets you get something interesting up and running in minutes, and they can deal with the concepts without getting bogged down in detail.

Infographic on media sites and evidence based science reporting.

Damian said:

Infographic on media sites and evidence based science reporting.

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Although, as a two time recovering academic I can categorically state that Nature and most, if not all, academic journals are very strongly ideologically driven about what gets published, and also what constitutes ”evidence”. Yes, I have concrete examples.

Hurls said:

Although, as a two time recovering academic I can categorically state that Nature and most, if not all, academic journals are very strongly ideologically driven about what gets published, and also what constitutes ”evidence”. Yes, I have concrete examples.

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Can you give some examples?

Thrasher said:

Also, lava eats mustang

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It's The Blob!!!!

pibbur who runs into hiding, screaming.