Technology
cmonforton | June 12, 2012A panel of scientific experts convened by the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded today that diesel engine exhaust is carcinogenic to humans. Previously, the IARC classification for diesel exhaust was "probably carcinogenic to humans," but with the publication of additional epidemiological and toxicological studies over the last 20 years, the expert panel determined there was sufficient evidence to change the compound's cancer designation. The IARC panel wrote:
"The scientific evidence was reviewed thoroughly by the Working Group…
aardvarchaeology | June 11, 2012I had a brief but interesting conversation with a distinguished Chinese art historian the other day. He's my age but has been far more successful than me despite relocating to Sweden. We were talking about science and superstition, because apparently someone had described the Swedish Skeptics that I head to him as “The Swedish Anti-Superstition Society”. Anyway, he told me this (and I paraphrase).
“I'm not sure China is going the right way now with its emphasis on Western science, technology and capitalism. Just look at the environmental degradation and rapid urbanisation. If my country hadn'…
gregladen | May 30, 2012Perhaps.
The project is a collective effort funded by the European Commission, and led by British company Ricardo which develops engines, transmissions, and vehicles systems among other things. Chief among the consortium’s participants is Swedish auto manufacturer Volvo.
Utilizing Volvo’s own automobiles, the project works by stringing together a group of cars in order to form a road train. This train (or caravan if you prefer) allows a group of cars to follow one another along any road autonomously. Guided by a lead truck driven by a professional driver, the group of autonomous autos can…
esiegel | May 27, 2012"Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." -Kyle Reese, the Terminator
Sure, they may look innocent now. Maybe you think they'll even live peacefully with us and create nothing but beauty, as Florence + the Machine might have you believe with their song,
Cosmic Love.
But the apocalypse will soon be upon us. And I think that this cute fella may be just the thing that ushers it in.
NAO robot, courtesy of Aldebaran Robotics,…
denialism | May 25, 2012Today I read about two individuals who decided on political defections over perceived anti-science amongst their former political allies- one due to climate change, the other for anti-GMO. From the right, we have Michael Fumento, who in Salon describes his break with the right, spurred by Heartland's campaign comparing those who believe in climate change with the Unabomber, as well as a general atmosphere of conspiratorial crankery and incivility. And from the left, we have Stephen Sumpter of Latent Existence leaving the Greens over their support for the misguided anti-scientific campaign of…
jdupuis | May 17, 2012My union, the Library chapter of The York University Faculty Association (YUFA) has released a couple of open letters to The Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages in the current Canadian government.
The letters protest the current cuts to staff and programs at Library and Archives Canada. The letters do sketch out the context but you can read more here, here and here.
I completely support these letters. You can consider them to be related to my series on the Canadian War on Science, perhaps under the title of The Canadian War on Library and Archives. In…
oracknows | May 16, 2012I'm sometimes criticized for referring to various people who are "anti-science" as, well, "anti-science." People, for whatever reason, have a hard time believing that anyone is anti-science; so when I point out how much, for example, antivaccinationists, alternative medicine believers, or creationists are anti-science, they have a had time believing it. This is particularly true because, just as antivaccinationists loudly protest that they are not "antivaccine," those who are anti-science equally loudly protest that they are not "anti-science." Such protestations are almost inevitably…
jeure | May 9, 2012With nanotechnology rapidly advancing, the sci-fi dream of a Star Trek replicator becomes increasingly less fantastic. But such radical technology would, in theory, require the kind of subatomic manipulation that far exceeds current capabilities. Scientists lack both the equipment and the fundamental knowledge of quantum mechanics (the Standard Model, for all its elegance, remains incomplete) to build items from the raw stuff of quarks, gluons, and electrons . . . but what about alchemy?
Even Isaac Newton, credited with the dawn of the Age of Reason, felt the mystical draw of alchemy,…
sciencepunk | May 2, 2012(A rant hammered out in bed. Not spellchecked, fact checked, or cross checked.)
So a few weeks ago the world swooned over the latest exciting tech announcement from Google, Project Glass. But I have mixed feelings, which in my time-honored style I am only just now getting down on paper. I watched the video, and I sat there and thought: really? Is that it?
It's perplexing to me that a technology that holds as much potential as Project Glass does should be introduced as nothing more than a glorified smartphone interface welded in front of your face, as if there was some pressing need to furnish…
sastyk | April 30, 2012The Astrophysicist, when he has time, will have something to say about his reading of the physics of the material Tom Whipple sums up.
This situation however seems to be changing following a lengthy interview with a fellow out in Berkeley, California by the name of Robert Godes of Brillouin Energy. He has been working in this field for the last ten years and says that he not only has a reliable heat-producing device, but also understands the physics behind it - which he calls the Quantum Fusion Hypothesis. He says that this theory of just how low-energy nuclear reactions work has allowed…
tfk | April 29, 2012I didn't write about the attacks in Oslo last year because…what is there to say. The bombing and shootings are tragic, the Norwegian people have shown an admirable resilience in the face of terrorism, and wingnuts who initially tried to pin the attack on Muslims have egg on their faces.
I was especially struck recently by the charming protest directed at the confessed author of that tragedy, Anders Breivik. In testimony during his trial for murdering 77 fellow Norwegians last summer, Breivik singled out for criticism the song "Children of the Rainbow," a translation of Pete Seeger's "My…
carlyo | April 27, 2012
The excitement is filling the air at Sneak Peek Friday today as we are gearing up for an amazing weekend! The Festival takes place Saturday from 10-6 and Sunday from 10-4 at the Walter E Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Please visit our "Plan Your Day" section on our website for important information regarding attending this FREE event. Those attending the Festival will be in for quite a treat with over 3,000 hands-on science and engineering activities and over 150 stage shows!
We have had some incredible events leading up to this weekend including our AT&T Sponsored…
carlyo | April 18, 2012
By Larry Bock
Founder and organizer, USA Science & Engineering Festival
Similar to what the legendary Woodstock Festival did in gathering and celebrating the best and the brightest in the world of rock, the 2nd USA Science & Engineering Festival hosted by Lockheed Martin, the nation's largest celebration of science and engineering, has assembled some of the country's top innovators, celebrities and innovations in the realm of science and engineering to wow visitors at the Festival's upcoming Expo celebration.
The Expo -- set for April 28-29 at the Walter E. Washington Convention…
oracknows | April 8, 2012About a year ago, I addressed what might seem to the average reader to be a very simple, albeit clichéd question: If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we cure cancer? As I pointed out at the time, it's a question that I sometimes even ask myself, particularly given that cancer has touched my life. Three years ago, my mother-in-law died of a particularly nasty form of breast cancer. Even though I am a breast cancer surgeon, I still wonder why there was nothing that could save her (and still is nothing that could have saved her if it existed then) from a decline over several months…
oracknows | March 29, 2012Since when did Opposing Views become NaturalNews.com?
Anyone who's read this blog for a while knows that NaturalNews.com is one of the wretchedest hives of scum and quackery anywhere on the Internet, surpassing even The Huffington Post. Indeed, so full of misinformation, pseudoscience, quackery, and outright lies, all spiced up with a heapin' helpin' of pure New World Order, Alex Jones-style winguttery is NaturalNews.com that I'm hard-pressed to think of a website that is more of a black hole of utter nonsense. Whale.to, maybe.
So why do I compare Opposing Views to NaturalNews.com? Is that…
egrossman | March 21, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
His job, the Metalworkers Alliance of the Philippines union leader told us, was assembling the electronics - the wire- or cable-harnesses - that go into cars. The work involved soldering, using flux, along with epoxies, and various degreasers or solvents. He and his co-workers didn't know the actual names of the substances they were working with or what was in those products. They also didn't know if it was a coincidence, but two co-workers had become seriously ill and the union leader and other co-workers had begun to worry that these diseases might have been caused by…
jdupuis | March 20, 2012Knowledge, science, information, common sense, openness?
A whole bunch of things are under attack by various conservatively-minded levels of government here in Canada.
Those of you thinking of moving north to avoid the insanity might want to have a second thought.
It seems that we normally smug and superior Canadians have recently...
Walked away from statistically valid methods of collecting census data
The head of Statistics Canada has delivered an extraordinary rebuke to the Harper government over its plan to scrap the mandatory long-form census, quitting his post in a highly public letter…
gregladen | March 19, 2012Of the first dozen times or so that I ever saw Joel, my then future brother in law, I think we were in a restaurant a good four or five times. This was probably just a chance event, but there were a number of dinners and one lunch with the family that Joel and Alyssa (Amanda's sister) attended. And I noticed something. Joel and Alyssa seemed to be very keen on the idea of consulting over what to eat. Many couples do this, including Amanda and me. For example, if there are two items on the menu that I know I'd be happy with, and Amanda is pretty sure about one but not the other yet wants…
denialism | March 7, 2012Ed Yong demands higher accountability in science journalism and has made me think of how in the last two days I've run across two examples of shoddy reporting. These two articles I think encompass a large part of the problem, the first from the NYT, represents the common failure of science reporters to be critical of correlative results. While lacking egregious factual errors, in accepting the authors' conclusions without vetting the results of the actual paper, the journalist has created a misleading article. The second, from Forbes, represents the worst kind of corporate news hackery,…
milhayser | February 21, 2012
On Dynamics of Cats, Steinn Sigurðsson flags a few foreboding articles on the future of NASA. Sigurðsson says the orbiting telescope Galex, or Galaxy Evolution Explorer, will be shut down later this year despite continuing to function. NASA has withdrawn from the international research mission known as ExoMars, and many other "2011-12 programs appear effectively suspended pending the 2012-13 budget, to the point where an entire funding cycle will be lost for some lines." Meanwhile, Ethan Siegel conjures up an apt scenario on Starts With a Bang, writing "Let's pretend that, for all of our…