This is over an hour long but worth it - recommended. Smith is the guy that New Scientist writer Michael Le Page referred to, in a comments section on this very blog, when he wrote:

“The actual examples all seem pretty dubious, to say the least, but let’s assume they are true for the sake of argument. If so, there is clearly a failure of the testing and regulatory system supposed to make sure GM food is safe - but this is not an argument against GM crops per se. You don’t ban all medical drugs because some turn out to be harmful, any more than you would ban all conventional crops because some turn out to be harmful (look up the lenape potato).

“As for the idea that GM is inherently dangerous, genetic studies have revealed that the genomes of all species are constantly being ‘genetically engineered’. Hundreds of mutations can occur in each new individual, jumping genes (transposons) can cause havoc, viruses insert foreign DNA all over the place, etc, etc. If you think these processes pose a risk to food safety then all crops need better safety testing, not just GM crops.”

Smith destroys Le Page’s arguments in this video.

Of course we’ve also done so ourselves.

Was doing a wee bit of research for a fiction piece and came across this macbre bit of disaster porn:

“In the space of an instant, the boiler began to split along its bottom. As the steam found an exit, the split widened, pushing and bending the walls of the cylinder outward, snapping the great wheels from their hubs, breaking the boiler from its carriage and launching the multi-ton cylinder skyward. Accompanying it were hundreds of pieces of engine accouterments, pipes, levers, rods, plate iron, grates, etc.

The pressure wave, moving outward from what had been the engine then struck the shops filled with working men. Buildings, structures and people on the ground in the immediate area of the engine were blown to pieces or if closer to the engine, simply disintegrated. As the pressure wave moved outward it carried away heavy equipment and structure walls causing the building roofs to collapse. This surface wave, carrying iron parts, splintered wood, human body parts and other debris, continued outwards from the railroad yard and through the surrounding neighborhoods, uprooting trees, snapping limbs, blasting out windows, and punching holes in residences.”

More about the incident here.

Dude is buried in the snow for 4 mins 28 secs - terrifying.

Some fun stats: Gonzo Science is currently #1 when you google:

“animal sex facts” and

“when is the next apocalypse“.

We are #2 for:

“Mothman Minnesota” and

“giant african spiders“.

A short while ago we were like #4 for “Cameron Lake Monster“, but since then we’ve fallen to #13.

Currently #8 for “Chappaquiddick conspiracy” and

“cordless phones brain tumors“. 

We saw all of these GMO-related articles today at the Organic Consumers Association in which:

-a scientist states his objections to GMOs. I guess this guy doesn’t know New Scientist magazine says it’s irrational to draw a distinction.

-the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility says the ruling on GM sugarbeets calls into question the approval of GM corn. Ya think?

-a scientist wrote a career-destroying paper critical of GMOs. Solution: publish no more critical papers, because anything other than boosterism is irrational

-a scientist says a corporation suppressed inconvenient data showing environmental harm from their GMO corn, and so it got approved for planting. Good thing New Scientist already knows it’s safe.

One of the many features I enjoy about Wikipedia is its selection of lists of fictional things, like an archaeology of the imagination. Here is Wikipedia’s list of fictional elements, materials, isotopes and particles, an exquisite waste of time.

…Related, also scavenged from the Wikipedia: the documented use of the elements of the Periodic Table in comic books.

Ten year study links cell phone use and brain tumors. But since this is impossible there’s no reason to even click the link.

Walking Timberjack harvester. That forest is toast!

More importantly, who would win, this or the Rescue Robot below? (My money’s on the Rescue Robot.)

Tmsuk T-52 Rescue Robot featuring remote controlled giant arms.

Another day at the office for Gonzo Science.

Real-life mecha.

Could maybe use an upgrade of alien overtechnology.

Unfortunately, I did not hear about this fellow until his untimely death. From what I have watched, listened and read about him, he seems like a very rational, yet exploratory person into possible realities of the UFO phenomenon.

Mac Tonnies is the man here. He presents an idea I have pondered, backing it up with very interesting circumstantial reasoning and evidence.

Plus, you guys will dig it because it proposes the UFO as an entirely Earth based phenomenon. I marked this one heresies because the terrestrial explanation is seen as an enemy to the more “fundamental” UFOlogists.

Two more short clips here and here.

I must add that I always found the notion that the “ET’s” cared about us a little absurd. From a purely evolutionary standpoint, why would any advanced race want to ensure our survival, especially given our present planetary state of values, emotion, irrationality and destructive tendencies? Granted, they may be the most empathetic beings in the universe, and perhaps they were like us once. I am drifting too far off topic.

A large majority of abduction cases, most abduction studies, even Rick Strassmans DMT induced encounters, seem to present the case that abductee’s are being shown/given reasons not to destroy ourselves, be it through environmental or nuclear destruction. Just sayin…

One more teeny clip here. Thank you edit button.

Interesting, but no surprises here.

“One approached the corpse, gently pecked at it, just as an elephant would nose the carcase of another elephant, and stepped back. Another magpie did the same thing, ” he said.

“Next, one of the magpies flew off, brought back some grass and laid it by the corpse. Another magpie did the same. Then all four stood vigil for a few seconds and one by one flew off.”

…
Those who see emotions in animals have been accused of anthropomorphism – the attribution of human characteristics to animals.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Animals other than ourselves are mindless drones here for our plundering. Check.

Seriously, the mindlessness of some some scientists should be the topic up for debate.

Another salvo in the war between soil biologists and soil chemists: Tim LaSalle, PhD. of the Rodale Institute: Organic agriculture sequesters more carbon (powerpoint)

via the OCA

The end is near.

Some more Sagan goodness.

The “Symphony of Science” featuring Carl Sagan, Richarn Feynman, Niel degrasse Tyson and Bill Nye.

I see your cardboard, and I raise you one kick ass graffiti animation.

Time travelling Higgs sabotages Large Hadron Collider

A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan, put this idea forward in a series of papers…

Of course they are getting a violent backlash from the rest of the scientific community. Man, when have I heard of this happening before? Oh yeah, all the freakin time.

Now I am not arguing the merit of the idea, I am pointing out the closed mindedness of the mainstream science death-by-firing-squad-to-new-ideas collective mentality. We need more people like this producing new ideas. Where would science be if some people hadn’t taken “crazy” leaps, withstanding harsh and sometimes violent criticism, and even ejection from the Church of Scientific Truth, where new ideas are burned at the stake.

As Niels Bohr, Dr. Nielsen’s late countryman and one of the founders of quantum theory, once told a colleague: “We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.”

Dr. Nielsen is well-qualified in this tradition. He is known in physics as one of the founders of string theory and a deep and original thinker, “one of those extremely smart people that is willing to chase crazy ideas pretty far,” in the words of Sean Carroll, a Caltech physicist and author of a coming book about time, “From Eternity to Here.”

Good for him! At least he is a respectable physicist putting this out there, which makes watching the immediate naysayers squirming all the more pleasant.

And finally,

“For those of us who believe in physics,” Einstein once wrote to a friend, “this separation between past, present and future is only an illusion.”

Word.

I must say, I am all for the LHC, because I have a strong hunch that it may reveal something outstanding that will humble, excite and drive forth more exploration into the unknown than we see right now. Blast to their predictions, lets see what this baby can do!

I didn’t think that those words were allowed to be used by the mainstream science community? What ever is going on here?

Physicists at Yale University have made the first definitive measurements of “persistent current,” a small but perpetual electric current that flows naturally through tiny rings of metal wire even without an external power source.

“Yet these currents will flow forever, even in the absence of an applied voltage.”

No sure about the applicability of this as a power source. Definitely going to keep an eye out for follow ups on this.

Jim, where is that electromagnetism category!? Maybe a Plasma Physics as well?

Sonya at Plain Living and High Thinking notes that the new Spirit Mountain superslide project will have an environmental downside, and is not deterred after being thrown to the wolves by the Duluth News Tribune:

…I was not anticipating it being posted on the newspaper’s gossip blog, and I resent being thrown to the wolves like that. Besides, I think they’ve all already made up their mind that I am an evil liberal hellbent on destroying the American way of life (and proud of it!) so it’s not like anything I could say would change their minds about me or the proposed Alpine Coaster at Spirit Mountain.

But I will say this: This is how habitat destruction happens. It’s not all big land grabs, it’s not selling Gooseberry Falls and building Mall of America #2 in its place, it is an incremental series of losses.

Meanwhile, the Great lakes Blogger is pretty pissed at the Army Corps of Engineers for fucking up the fight against Asian Carp:

…which federal agency has been in charge of the fight?  Why, the Army Corps of Engineers, which stands to reap tens of millions in new Great Lakes restoration money. Give ‘em none, and split up their allotment among agencies and organizations that have proven competence.

All of it music to our ears!

Nurses win restraining order against mandatory vaccination of health care workers instituted by NY state health commissioner:

“These are not libertarians, they are not lefties, they are not right-wing lunatics,” Mr. Kindlon said of his clients in a phone interview on Friday. “They are health care professionals, and they think the vaccination is not going to be good for them. They have no confidence that either the seasonal flu vaccine or H1N1 vaccine is going to do any good for them.”

In other news: health care professionals are being poisoned by their proximity to chemicals associated with health care:

Study participant George Lundgren, M.D., a family practice physician from Minneapolis Minnesota said upon learning his results “When you do find out some of the specific unnatural chemicals in your body it is hard to deny, minimize, rationalize or justify their presence. It is disturbing to know the only body I have is permanently contaminated.”

It’s odd there even have to be organizations like Health Care Without Harm.

Pterosaur fossil “provides the first real evidence” for the “modular evolution” theory that whole groups of traits evolve at once - this would mean things evolve at a faster clip than if their traits changed one at a time.

It may be the first “real” evidence but we’ve been tracking the developing “fast evolution” story around here for a while (links to past fast evolution posts, incl. this one).

The shape of the heliosphere is defying all attempts at analysis:

Ibex was launched nearly one year ago to map the heliosphere, the region of space defined by the extent of our Sun’s solar wind.

Ibex’s first glimpses show that the heliosphere is not shaped as many astronomers have believed.

….But the exact shape, and the forces that cause it, are still a matter of debate between the teams.

In other words, these are all wrong.

UPDATE: The “Electric Universe” crowd has claimed this anomaly proves what they’ve been saying all along.

A delightful find from the Wooster Collective.I appreciate cardboard-based art since I’ve worked in the medium once or twice myself.

Fun with slo-mo.

About a month old, but a good, straightforward article nonetheless.

Wondering what the unintended consequences of this may be.

Scientists prevented age-related changes in the hearts of mice and preserved heart function by suppressing a form of the PI3K gene, in a study reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Guess that means I can freely eat all the bacon fat deep fried twinkies dipped in mayo I want!

“The heart failure epidemic in the United States and many other countries is due, in part, to our aging population,” said Mariell Jessup, M.D., an American Heart Association spokesperson and professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

Oh, yeah, and way to many bacon cheeseburgers.

Leave it to science to jump the gun in a rush of excitement, proclaim new discoveries, then when actually thought about a bit, sheepishly retracted. Claims that approximately 1/3 of dinosaur species are probably just juveniles of other species. Whoops.