n2doc
n2doc's JournalCould This Have Been The World's First Computer?
One of 250 drawings made by Charles Babbage of his 'analytical engine.' © Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library
Timelines of computer history usually take us back to the early 20th century and no further. But believe it or not, a tinkerer named Charles Babbage got close enough to creating the world’s first computer in 1837. Babbage called his machine the “analytical engine” and it would have been the size of a small locomotive, powered by steam. He wrote thousands of pages of notes and 250 drawings, but it never got close to being built — until now.
Today a few of his modern-day contemporaries are raising money to work off Babbage’s original plans and build his “analytical engine,” using tools and processes from the time he was alive. That was a good century before Alan Turing kicked off what we now call the computer age.
more
http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/10/24/could-this-have-been-the-worlds-first-computer/
Cold, but not Fusion
by Mark Anderson
In 1989 Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann made a sensational claim that would have changed the world—had it been true. They said they had achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature using a simple tabletop device, thus creating a revolutionary clean energy source they called “cold fusion.”
Unfortunately for the University of Utah chemists, multiple attempts to replicate their experiment over ensuing months failed. Cold fusion was considered debunked, and it has lived beyond the fringe of mainstream science ever since.
Yet quietly, more than 20 years later, two of the world’s largest mainstream scientific institutions—NASA and the European physics research center CERN—have revisited the controversial energy-generating experiment. A growing cadre of scientists now suspect that Pons and Fleischmann’s observations were the result not of fusion but of more plausible physical processes. Some are even cautiously optimistic that those processes could be exploited to generate abundant amounts of clean energy. “There’s enough evidence that says we need to look at this,” says Joseph Zawodny, a physicist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.
The man most responsible for the change of thinking is a technology and energy consultant with a background in physics named Lewis Larsen. In 1989 he was paying attention when Pons and Fleischmann described how a set of palladium rods, connected to an electric current and immersed in lithium-enriched water, churned out more energy in the form of heat than it received in electricity. He followed along as subsequent experiments achieved mixed results. Some seemed to produce a lot of heat, others little or none. Yet a nagging question persisted: If the contraptions really were putting out more energy than they took in, what could be responsible?
more
http://discovermagazine.com/2012/nov/27-big-idea-bring-back-the-cold-fusion-dream/
The most accurate model of a Neanderthal yet — and he looks just like Chuck Norris
Anthropologists in the UK have constructed a remarkably life-like model of a Neanderthal man from a 70,000 year-old skeleton that was discovered in France over a century ago.
In 1909, scientists discovered the remains of a group of Neanderthals at La Ferrassie cave in the Dordogne region. One of the Neanderthals, which they named La Ferrassie 1, had a skeleton that was particularly well preserved — and it was this skeleton that served as the template for the reconstruction. The missing parts — the thorax, ribs, pelvis and some spinal pieces — were replaced by the bones of a Neanderthal discovered at Kebara Cave in Israel in 1982.
What makes LF1's remains particularly unique is that it features the largest and most complete Neanderthal skull ever found. His leg and foot bones were a revelation to anthropologists at the time as it proved that these hominids walked upright. The skeletal remains also revealed that they were stocky, had strong arms and hands, and they had large skulls that were longer and lower than ours — including a sloping forehead and virtually non-existent chin.
The reconstruction itself was performed by a multi-disciplinal team that was comprised of both anthropologists and model makers. And as the BBC reports, the attention to detail was second to none:
They concluded that they would have repeatedly stabbed their prey - the woolly mammoth - with spears, but that the really intense work would have been making garments to survive the cold climate.
A Neanderthal would have needed a new garment every year, which would have been made up of approximately five or six hides. They would have needed to scrape each hide for eight hours to make it wearable.
On the basis of this evidence La Ferrassie 1's muscles, including those in the strong right arm, were reconstructed accordingly and layered on in clay.
more
http://io9.com/5954078/scientists-construct-the-most-accurate-model-of-a-neanderthal-yet--including-all-the-naughty-parts
explains a lot of things...
Wednesday Toon Roundup 4- The Rest
Food
Giants
California
Armstrong
Rights
Pumpkins
RIP
Buying the Vote on G.M.O.’s
by Mark Bittman
Supporters of ingredients derived from “genetically modified foods,” which hereafter I’ll call G.M.O.’s — genetically modified organisms — are mostly the chemical companies who make them or other people who make money from them. They assert that a) there’s no proof that G.M.O.’s are harmful to humans, and b) studies demonstrating that they might be are largely flawed [1]. Point B might even be true, although since the chemical companies largely control the research, it’s hard to tell.
But even if there were a way to guarantee that food produced with G.M.O. ingredients is not directly bad for you, it remains clear that such food is in general bad for all of us, based on the collateral damage from producing it.
What most genetically engineered crops have in common is that they’re bred to be super-resistant to chemical herbicides or pesticides, chemicals that will kill pretty much everything except the specified crop. And as the weeds that those chemicals are meant to kill adapt and grow bigger and stronger, more and stronger chemicals are needed to try to deal with them.
At times these super-applications are successful, and at times they’re not. Some weeds in G.M.O. fields not only aren’t killed by the recommended chemicals, but they also have to be controlled — using an advanced technology called “the machete.”
more
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/buying-the-vote-on-g-m-o-s/
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayMember since: Tue Feb 10, 2004, 01:08 PM
Number of posts: 47,953
