Scientists working on the world’s biggest machine are being besieged by phone calls and emails from people who fear the world will end next Wednesday, when the gigantic atom smasher starts up….
Such is the angst that the American Nobel prize winning physicist Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has even had death threats, said Prof Brian Cox of Manchester University, adding: “Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a t—.”
Fermilab plans a pajama party to celebrate the start of the experiment.
The results showed that the appropriately trained sexologists were able to correctly infer vaginal orgasm through watching the way the women walked over 80 percent of the time. Further analysis revealed that the sum of stride length and vertebral rotation was greater for the vaginally orgasmic women. “This could reflect the free, unblocked energetic flow from the legs through the pelvis to the spine,” the authors note.
…these gigantic black holes, which accumulate mass by sucking in matter from neighboring gas, dust and stars, seem unable to grow beyond this limit regardless of where – and when – they appear in the universe.
This may affect some of the long term predictions of the future of the universe, as expounded in Stephen Baxter‘s Deep Future, which is well worth a read.
I try to keep partisan stuff out of these posts, but somebody needs to note that Obama has responded at some length to 14 questions on science policy issues posed to him by Sciencedebate 2008, representing a truckload of scientific associations. McCain hasn’t answered yet. NPR has a short item about both candidates’ health policies. And the AAAS just put out a “policy alert” on a few of Gov. Palin’s views on evolution, global warming, and other topics. Not always sexy issues to the media, but something for American voters to think about.
Former FBI agent and current ACLU lawyer Michael German shares some insights into the mentality behind the arrests of journos and other mostly harmless people at some shindig or other that was going on in St. Paul, MN this week.
He cites guidelines issued to the LAPD:
It lists 65 behaviors that they say are behaviors related to terrorism, and the one that pertains here is “takes pictures or video footage.” [The entry on p. 40 reads: “Takes pictures or video footage (with no apparent esthetic value, i.e., camera angles, security equipment, security personnel, traffic lights, building entrances, etc.).”] “No apparent esthetic values?” So apparently they’re going to be sending police officers to art school to understand esthetic values.
But it actually mentions taking video footage of taking video footage of security personnel. So the mere taking of photographs or video footage of law enforcement – even law enforcement doing something improperly – they’ve identified that as a precursor to terrorism. So now you might understand why these police officers are focusing on people with cameras. It’s because it’s actual policy to do so.
When the sun is more active, several sunspots can appear on a daily basis. However, very few have been spotted in 2008. It wasn’t until August 21 and 22 that the Solar Influences Data Analysis reported the glimpse of one dark spot….Experts say the question is not when will the sunspots reappear, but rather how fast will their numbers increase once they start to appear.
It’s not quite pitchfork-bearing mobs, but still.
I try to keep partisan stuff out of these posts, but somebody needs to note that Obama has responded at some length to 14 questions on science policy issues posed to him by 
Former FBI agent and current ACLU lawyer Michael German shares some insights into the mentality behind the arrests of journos and other mostly harmless people at some shindig or other that was going on in St. Paul, MN this week.
They’re scarce this year.