 Archive for the 'Science' CategoryCaves discovered on Mars could hide lifeNovember 17th, 2009, 1:22 pm by Jayson Peters
Comic books are too legit kid litNovember 12th, 2009, 10:39 pm by Jayson PetersNewsarama pointed me to recent research publicized by the University of Illinois, in which a library and information science professor named Carol L. Tilley defends comic books as serious children’s literature. Tilley found that children benefit as much from reading comic books as they do from reading other forms of literature. “A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words,” Tilley told the Illinois News Bureau. “Some kids, yes. But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books – that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words.” The research was published in School Library Monthly. Get into the Arizona Science Center for free this weekendOctober 20th, 2009, 3:05 pm by Jayson PetersJust as back in April, Fry’s Food Stores is sponsoring free general admission this weekend (Oct. 24-26) at the Arizona Science Center.
The science center is also hosting a variety of hands-on demonstrations and activities throughout the weekend that include “Stomach This! A Digestion Demonstration,” “Elephants Toothpaste,” “Super Taster,” “Combustion,” “Static Electricity,” “Seeing Inside the Eye” and more. In addition to free admission, guests will be able to try free samples of Fry’s products 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. But be on your best behavior — or not — because recruiters from the TV reality show Supernanny will be on site each day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The real reason behind the Large Hadron Collider’s woes?October 14th, 2009, 5:55 pm by Chris "KeL" Adams
Is the future itself protecting mankind from its own hubris? I’m no physicist, so I have no idea if this is true or even possible, but I REALLY want it to be. The New York Times published an essay discussing a radical theory about why the Large Hadron Collider, with which scientists hope to discover new elementary particles, has had such a troubled road. Physicists Holger Bech Nielsen and Masao Ninomiya have suggested that the existence of the particles the machine is designed to create are so abhorrent to the universe that it is reaching back in time to prevent the machine from ever coming online. As crazy as it sounds, it’s not that much wilder than some other ideas hypothesized by advanced physics. Actually, it’s kind of comforting to think that the universe is looking out for itself. As long as the delays and mishaps the collider has gone through so far don’t escalate into cyborg killing machines sent back to alter mankind’s destiny. Nobel Prize in physics comes down to EarthOctober 6th, 2009, 9:48 pm by Jayson Peters
But this year is different. This year, three Americans are sharing the prize for their roles in creating things that most of us use every day without giving them a second thought: high-speed Internet and digital photography. Read the rest of this entry » Thank God! American audiences safe from Darwin movieSeptember 17th, 2009, 10:37 am by Jayson Peters
Why? Because distributors here don’t think fundamentalist Christians would approve. Read the rest of this entry » Does ‘Super Mario Bros.’ compute?August 17th, 2009, 11:31 am by Jayson Peters
It won’t be quite the same as the Nintendo classic. They’re having to mixing it up with a random level generator because the original levels were deemed too easy for the AI. (Now that’s some content I’d like to see on the Wii’s Virtual Console!) The real test will be whether the computer turns homicidal and destroys humanity when it beats Bowser, only to be told “Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!” Via Discovery News Fire goodAugust 13th, 2009, 1:01 pm by Jayson PetersA report in Friday’s edition of the journal Science, co-authored by an ASU researcher, reveals that early humans somehow learned the secret of making stone tools sturdier by treating them in fire — 45,000 years before such technology was previously thought to exist.  Image: PhotoSpin Curtis Marean, a paleoanthropologist at the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, described the importance of the discovery in a statement to the media, reported by The Associated Press: “Heat treatment technology begins with a genius moment — someone discovers that heating stone makes it easier to flake.” The research, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Hyde Family Trust and ASU, was conducted at an archaeological site in South Africa’s Pinnacle Point, overlooking the Indian Ocean. Jurassic snarkAugust 5th, 2009, 9:57 pm by Jayson PetersApparently, snarky pseudoscience doesn’t pay the bills. That’s what the owners of a young-Earth creationist theme park in Pensacola, Fla., have found out.  Wikipedia Commons Put another way: It doesn’t pay to preach deception. Dinosaur Adventures Land — pictured at left and depicting humans and dinosaurs in pardoxical and scientifically impossible coexistence — is in the process of being seized by the federal government to pay nearly half a million dollars in payroll taxes. The venture’s founder is serving 10 years in prison after nearly two decades of sparring with the IRS and claiming he and his ministers were employed by God and therefore not subject to payroll taxes. Didn’t render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.
Via io9 Moon madness Saturday in TucsonJuly 16th, 2009, 11:06 pm by Jayson Peters NASA If you want to celebrate the 40th anniversary of mankind’s giant leap to the moon, you don’t have to travel the more than 230,000 miles the Apollo 11 astronauts did in 1969. You could just drive to Tucson. That’s where the University of Arizona’s Lunar Planetary Laboratory will be hosting a public celebration packed with lectures, science activities for kids and interaction with UA scientists who worked on many Apollo missions for NASA. Hit the jump for details — and be sure to check EastValleyTribune.com this weekend for exclusive content marking man’s first journey to the moon.
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This has been sitting in my e-mail for a few weeks now. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but my curiosity is always piqued when I get U.S. government correspondence containing the words “life on Mars” in the title — which would be almost never.
Special discounted pricing will be offered on four of the Center’s ticketed experiences, including shows in the Dorrance Planetarium, movies in the IMAX Theater, a ride across the Evans Family SkyCycle and entrance into ROBOTS: The Interactive Exhibition.
Neutrinos … quarks … giant magnetoresistance. The Nobel Prize in physics is often awarded — rightfully so — for work that few of us can actually understand.
A British film about the life of Charles Darwin and the naturalist’s “struggle between faith and reason” will be shown in theaters across the world — but not here in the U.S.
Researchers in Denmark and London are trying to test the limits of artificial intelligence by seeing if a computer can beat the original Super Mario Bros. video game.
