This is a very cool finding which is obvious to everyone who has studied babies. Sometimes it seems as if they are staring at your lips. They are playing with your lips while you are talking. Now, we know what they are doing.
Babies don’t learn to talk just from hearing sounds. New research suggests they’re lip-readers too.
It happens during that magical stage when a baby’s babbling gradually changes from gibberish into syllables and eventually into that first “mama” or “dada.”
Florida scientists discovered that starting around age 6 months, babies begin shifting from the intent eye gaze of early infancy to studying mouths when people talk to them.
“The baby in order to imitate you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound they’re hearing,” explains developmental psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, who led the study being published Monday. “It’s an incredibly complex process.” (more…)
I first learned about this bridge collapse back in college, perhaps maybe even in high school. I was taught that resonance cause the bridge to collapse. Perhaps that was wrong. The gentleman that does the Physics Minute is brilliant. There’s no other way to describe it. His drawings, combined with his scripted dialogue, make every one of his videos captivating and interesting. This is exactly what science/physics should be. Enjoy!
I was kind of surprised that Senator Marco Rubio while talking about the death of dictator Muammar Qaddafi managed to thank British and French troops (warning: this link opens an audio file), but not American troops. I just found that interesting. A Republican thanking foreign troops first – curious.
There seems to be lots of people who are curious about how Muammar Qaddafi died. I’m sorry, maybe I’m just not inquisitive. I simply don’t care. I don’t care if a lightning bolt from Zeus hit him in the head or a sniper took him out at 300 yards with a 10 mile an hour cross breeze. I simply don’t care. From my standpoint, I’m happy for the Libyan people. They needed the dictator either captured or killed so that they could move on. Now they get to the difficult task of trying to make a nation out of Libya. Running a government is a lot harder than overthrowing the government. Running a government that respects all of your people is even harder. By the way, I wasn’t interested in the gruesome photos of Saddam Hussein or the photos of his sons when they were killed. Maybe it’s because I get enough blood and guts and work that I don’t need to see them at home. Maybe it’s because the blood and guts are beside the point.
Charles Blow has been writing some absolutely fabulous articles/op-eds in the New York Times. He has served up another one. This one is about Occupy Wall Street. There are a lot of people who feel a kinship with those who are doing the “occupying.”
Bank failure #84. Yes, there’ve been 84 bank failures so far this year.
According to the Financial Time,s the bondholders of Greek debt are expected to take a 60% loss on their current holdings.
I’ll have a little bit more on this later but I thought I’d start off now. Skeptics of global warming, some curmudgeon scientists, decided to prove once and for all that global warming was nothing but a bunch of hooey. They took a bunch of data than they crunched all the numbers and guess what, they found out what every other climate scientists of any stature has found out, that global warming is for real.
10 years since the anthrax attacks. There have been so many different things going on in the last 10 years, I really have not had a chance to delve into this case. I haven’t looked at the evidence. I know that both Glenn and Jim White have been following this case with more than a passing interest.
There are very few geniuses who actually touch all of our lives the way Steve Jobs has. Off the top my head, I can think of Thomas Edison, Alexander Bell and Einstein. But the neat thing about Steve Jobs was that he did not hide from the public. As a matter of fact, he embraced the public like no CEO did before him. When a new product was introduced, it wasn’t some gorgeous Madison Avenue model, or even that paid spokesman with the impossibly deep voice and perfect enunciation, it was Steve Jobs who took mic in hand and introduced the product. He understood his audience. He knew the best way to connect with his audience was to get up and do it himself. It worked like a charm.
G4
Briefly, I would like to touch on some of the great things that Steve Jobs helped bring to the public. First of all, let me clear the air and say that I’m not really an Apple guy. I’ve never owned an Apple computer. I’ve looked at them really, really closely but have never bought one. There are those among us, and you know the type, who have an Apple computer and will never own another computer. They love it. They don’t just sort of like it. They don’t sort of tolerate it. They love it. They love the way it functions, its reliability, the Apple community. So, in my mind, the first thing that separated Apple from the rest of field was a Macintosh computer. It was light years ahead of its competitors. It was fast. It was easy to use. It was actually practical in a time when computers were clunky and difficult to use and crashed all the time. The Macintosh was a stroke of genius.
Steve Jobs was fired from Apple Computers in 1985. The absolute stupidity and craziness of that decision became more and more evident with Apple’s decline over the next decade. Apple rehired Steve Jobs in 1996. The result of Steve Jobs being back in the driver seat was the iMac. This was followed by the G4, which was classified as a “supercomputer”. Seriously. This computer was such a game changer that it was illegal to take a G4 out of the country for several years. Finally, in 2001, the iPod came out. The iPod, too, was a game changer. Apple had broken out of the mold of catering only to geeks and nerds. Now, anybody can download music and have high quality audio anywhere they went. You just had this little wheel you needed to use. And this is the genius of Steve Jobs. I don’t think that he actually invented any new technology. I could be wrong. Instead, he took existing technology wo that his engineers could repackage it in an attractive user interface and he sold it to the public. It was the interface that was his genius. Think about the iPod for just a second. Sony really had a leg up in personal audio. They’d introduced the Walkman more than a decade earlier. Although the Walkman was a breakthrough for it’s time, it never evolved into something better. Sony completely dropped the ball. There are several other Walkman-like products and devices that were difficult to use and couldn’t really interface with your computer well. They were a pain. The iPod erased all that. A couple years later, Steve Jobs came out with the iPhone. Again, he did not invent the cellular phone. He did make a phone that was more compact. He made a phone that had more features than we could ever imagine. Most importantly, you had the easy user interface. Your grandmother can use an iPhone. That was the genius of Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs was one of those geniuses who touch our lives in a personal way. If you don’t have an iPod or an iPhone then you know somebody who does. He will be sorely missed by all of us.
Update: I found this on GeekBeat.TV. It is funny and touching and true.
The death of Steve Jobs is very sad. I discussed his resignation here and the amazing products that Apple/Steve Jobs developed here.
I found this on youtube. Steve Jobs in 2005 giving the commencement address at Stanford University. He is funny, thoughtful and insightful. He doesn’t spend hours droning on and on. It is almost a perfect commencement address.
When I was in my late teens and felt kind blue I played this tune –
You are just going to have to make the call about what kind of nation we are going to have in the days ahead.
We can live in a nation where the view that cave girls hung out with dinosaurs is the accepted truth, or we can base our views about the Earth and about life on Earth on the scientific facts.
People can decide what they want for our national future, and they can decide how hard they will work for what they believe.
If you read just a little bit about the Great Recession, then you know that whenever one of the big Wall Street firms was in trouble, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and even Morgan Stanley, they all at one time or another called Warren Buffett for an emergency loan. So it is interesting that Bank of America just got an infusion of $5 billion from Warren Buffett. Bank of America is having trouble fending off lawsuits over its Countrywide acquisition. It appears that several parties believe that countrywide acted in a fraudulent manner and continue to sue countrywide for large sums of money, with which Bank of America needs to settle. Warren Buffett’s infusion of cash does help.
Hispanics are currently the largest minority group in college. They have just recently surpassed Blacks. All I can say is that we need more Americans in college. We need more Americans to graduate college. We need more government loans and grants to help pay for the ever-increasing expense that is college.
Ben Bernanke, the Fed Chairman, and the rest of the world’s financial gurus are all gathered at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This is the annual Fed meeting. This is the meeting where you would expect a lot of discussion and then finally a brilliant intervention to fix what is ailing our economy. Don’t expect it. With Republicans mired in reactionary policies which are going to hurt the economy and the Democrats mired in indecision, as usual, the Fed is stuck in molasses.
The US economy is growing, although it is growing at a very slow pace.
One of the few programs that the government has instituted to help homeowners was buried in the Trouble Asset Relief Program. Over $45 billion was set aside to help homeowners fend off foreclosure. Only $2 billion of that has been used. Somehow, that money is going to be rolled back into the treasury in order to pay down the deficit.
Our own obesity is starting to cost us billions of dollars. Estimates that obesity is going to cost us over $66 billion by the year 2030 are hard to swallow (pun intended). As we struggle with our healthcare costs, we’re going to have to address the obesity crisis in the United States.
Jill St. John as Tiffany Case in the James Bond movie – Diamonds Are Forever
A new planet has been found in another galaxy. This planet is made entirely of crystallized carbon – it’s a diamond. How cool is that?
“For the first time, rocks from an asteroid have been shown to power the synthesis of life’s essential chemicals. The asteroid in question fell to Earth on 28 September 1969, landing on the outskirts of the village of Murchison in Victoria, Australia. Tests showed it was laced with amino acids and some of the chemicals found in our genetic material. The discovery suggested that space was not the chemically sterile place it was once thought to be, and that organic chemistry was widespread. It hinted that the molecules life needed to get started could have been produced in space, before dropping to Earth.”
I find this discovery encouraging. Positive–even “creative”— things can happen in an environment as hostile as outer space.
I don’t know about you, but I often feel I must be on the moon or in another galaxy, because surely the crazy and mean-spirited behavior I witness and read about each day cannot be of this Earth.
I’m glad that even in what might seem to be a void, hopeful things can happen.
So when you feel you are in a void of decency because of some barbaric public policy idea, or in an intellectual void because everything you are hearing makes so little sense, just think of all those asteroids flying around brewing up various chemicals and amino acids.
It is almost always possible to make some kind of progress.
Since everyone yawned and fell asleep over my post from yesterday, I’m going to continue my post on Long-Term Capital Management later on today. First, I thought would be interesting to post several of the MacArthur Foundation Fellows.
Abo-Shaeer prepares public high school students for careers in science and mathematics, combing applied physics, engineering and robotics
Little Doe Baird revives the Native American Wopanaak language to provide her community with a new sense of cultural heritage.
Berry creates scientifically accurate visualizations through data from a variety of fields to improve our understanding of a range of biological processes and systems.
Finally, my personal favorite -
Dabiri enhances our understanding of evolutionary adaptation and issues of fluid dynamics, such as blood flow to the heart, by studying the hydrodynamics of jellyfish propulsion.
There have been just a few things that I wanted to cover but that don’tneed separate posts.
From the Economist: ONE IN six adults in the 33 mostly rich countries of the OECD is obese (measured as a body mass index of 30 or more) according to a report published on September 23rd. The fattest countries are the United States and Mexico, where around a third of adults are obese. Britain’s adults are the biggest in Europe. By contrast, Asian OECD countries Japan and South Korea are the leanest. Governments will count the eventual cost: health-care spending on an obese person is 25% more than for someone of average weight. And the problem is not confined to the rich world. In rapidly developing countries such as China, Brazil and India obesity rates, though still low, are growing fast as the dietary habits of the ever-increasing middle classes change. (Ed. Note – The Economist notes that they made an error in these data. The US is the most obese country and NOT Mexico.)
For some reason, there is a buzz around the $100 million that Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is giving to the Newark public school system. He might be trying to clean his image. Really? S, he is the first millionaire billionaire to try to whitewash his image? If you give me $100 million, I’ll hold a press conference and thank you without worrying about your motivations. Arianna has more: So the $100 million donation to Newark’s crumbling public schools is not in and of itself the story? The story is figuring out the motivation behind it? Is this what we have come to? Can you think of anything more ridiculous? I really don’t care why Mark Zuckerberg is donating $100 million of his own money that will make a profound difference to the lives of Newark’s children. I care very much that it’s being done — that one of America’s worst school systems will be getting a massive infusion of funds.
The Republican “Pledge” is one of the biggest pieces of public misinformation in a long time. I’m still laughing at Republicans who now think that their plan will reduce the deficit.
One of the best examples of a non-story is Rep. Steven King being steamed that Stephen Colbert testified on Capitol Hill. I’m sorry, but I don’t care that Rep. King is steamed. He seems to love being on Fox and will say anything to be on the network, again.
Speaking of a media hound, there is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president. He made wildly inaccurate statements during his UN speech yesterday, accusing the US of being behind 9/11. Then again, this is par for the course. He has denied that millions of Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
Finally, on a lighter note, a lost language may have been found.
I love this guy from the Science Channel, Michio Kaku. He may be the Carl Sagan of our time. He has a real science background. Plus, Like Carl, he can communicate his ideas. In the video below, he describes how we can achieve warp speed and how we can make a Star Wars light saber. Enjoy.
Nuclear fusion is what the sun does. The son takes two hydrogen atoms and pushes them together. The resultant reaction generates a new atom called helium and gives off energy. Gravity plays a huge part in containing the energy. Scientists have talked about nuclear fusion for years. This is the definition of clean energy. Unfortunately, the question that has haunted scientists has been how to contain the reaction. As far as I know, we cannot generate the kind of gravitational forces necessary to contain a fusion reaction here on earth. There have been ideas for developing some sort of electromagnetic bubble to contain the reaction. Well, an entrepreneur has come up with a way to make a small nuclear fusion reaction in his basement (he really did it in a warehouse).
Many might be alarmed to learn of a homemade nuclear reactor being built next door. But what if this form of extreme DIY could help solve the world’s energy crisis?
By day, Mark Suppes is a web developer for fashion giant Gucci. By night, he cycles to a New York warehouse and tinkers with his own nuclear fusion reactor.
The warehouse is a non-descript building on a tree-lined Brooklyn street, across the road from blocks of apartments, with a grocery store on one corner. But in reality, it is a lab.
In a hired workshop on the third floor, a high-pitched buzz emanates from a corner dotted with metal scraps and ominous-looking machinery, as Mr Suppes fires up his device and searches for the answer to a question that has eluded some of the finest scientific minds on the planet.
The problem is, no-one has found a way of making fusion reactors produce more energy than they consume to run.
In nuclear fusion, atoms are forcibly joined, releasing energy. It is, say scientists, the “holy grail” of energy production – completely clean and cheap.
The problem is, no-one has found a way of making fusion reactors produce more energy than they consume to run.
Mr Suppes, 32, is part of a growing community of “fusioneers” – amateur science junkies who are building homemade fusion reactors, for fun and with an eye to being part of the solution to that problem.
He is the 38th independent amateur physicist in the world to achieve nuclear fusion from a homemade reactor, according to community site Fusor.net. Others on the list include a 15-year-old from Michigan and a doctoral student in Ohio. (more…)
An archaeological dig in Jerusalem has turned up a 3,700-year-old wall that is the largest and oldest of its kind found in the region, experts say.
The wall is built of enormous boulders, confounding archaeologists as to how ancient peoples built it.
Standing 8 meters (26 feet) high, the wall of huge cut stones is a marvel to archaeologists.
“To build straight walls up 8 meters … I don’t know how to do it today without mechanical equipment,” said the excavation’s director, Ronny Reich. “I don’t think that any engineer today without electrical power [could] do it.”
Archaeologist Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority added, “You see all the big boulders — all the boulders are 4 to 5 tons.” (more…)
There is so much to say about Charles Darwin and evolution that I’m going to try to say as much as I can when I get back (like the fact that religion and science aren’t mutually exclusive). For now, I have a meeting to attend.
Enjoy the video:
Rachel Maddow and her guest point out that Americans have been basically split between believing in evolution and creationism for a long long time. This should come as no surprise to most Americans. Let’s just think about this for a second. Most Americans believe that atoms makeup all matter. But almost no one can describe for you how an atom works. How many Americans can describe adequately what a neutron is? A particle that has mass but no charge. How many Americans can describe the orbit of an electron? This is simple high school physics. Yet, I bet that over 70% of Americans would have problems describing the orbit of electron. Then, take it to the next level, pun intended, could Americans describe the phenomenon of all electrons being in discreet orbits around the nucleus but yet cannot exist anywhere between those orbits? What about subatomic particles, how many Americans could describe quarks and leptons and anti-leptons? This is our problem. We, as Americans, our science deficient. Yet, science is all around us. From the electricity that is running my computer to the chemistry that allows sugar to dissolve in my tea, we are a very science deficient society.
The last thing I will say about Darwin and his 200th birthday is as Matt (see his comment) noted, Charles Darwin wanted to be a minister. Therefore, he had problems resolving what he saw with his understanding of religion. Now, for those of you who believe in religion, let me weave a tale for you. One of the tenets of the Judeo-Christian heritage is that God is all-knowing. Therefore, if God created the universe, he created the laws that the universe is run by. We call these laws – science. Therefore, since God is all-knowing, and he set the laws by which our world works, why wouldn’t he know what the end product was going to be? Yes, the theory of natural selection, evolution, is about survival of the fittest. It is about the species that is most adapted to his environment, surviving. Although we live in an incredibly complex system, wouldn’t God no what the final outcome would be? My answer is yes. Therefore, it is possible to believe in religion and God and also try to understand our world through science.
My two cents. More great stuff on Darwin by Richard Dawkins.
I watched portions of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton‘s confirmation hearing. From what I saw, I thought she performed well. I thought she reflected Obama’s foreign-policy positions extremely well. Senator David Vitter from Louisiana, connected with prostitution both in Washington, DC and in Louisiana, began a lengthy discussion about the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation. Republicans are worried about a conflict of interest. No, seriously. It couldn’t be that Republicans are enjoying the fact that they can kick around Bill Clinton again. Instead, they’re worried about ethics. A few names just popped into my head – Blackwater, Halliburton, Representative Mark Foley, Senator Larry Craig,Alberto Gonzales, John Ashcroft, Guantánamo Bay, Fallujah, Harriet Myers, Scott McClellan, aluminum tubes, the Downing Street memo – and now Republicans are worried about ethics!? Yeah, right (watch the video).
I’m still floored by the fact that multimillionaires want people who are making an average $40,000 a year to finance their stadiums. I don’t understand it. To go one step further, I don’t understand why citizens in New York and Irving, Texas would agree to finance a stadium for two of the richest franchises in pro sports — the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys. Mind-boggling.
New research presented at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggest that humans are having a greater impact on evolution than we originally thought. In the wild, it is the young and weak that are killed off before they can reproduce. Humans target the larger adults, therefore, removing the biggest and the best from the reproductive population. Interesting study.
Carol Bartz, former CEO of Autodesk, has been named as the new CEO of Yahoo. I don’t know if she will be able to save Yahoo from a slow and painful death.
Steven Chu, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, and Barack Obama’s nominee for Energy Secretary, testified on Capitol Hill today. He maneuvered the land mines that were set out by several Republicans. As a scientist, he criticized the idea of clean coal and the cap and trade system for limiting greenhouse gases.
On the other hand, Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury Secretary,Tim Geithner, seems to be laying out his own land mines. He has just paid over $40,000 in back taxes, covering 2001 through 2004. It appears that he had some domestic help whose working papers expired in Geithner’s employ (see the above video).
Arne Duncan had smooth sailing in his confirmation hearing. He has been nominated to be the next Secretary of Education.
Former Australian Prime Minister John Howardreceived the presidential medal of freedom today at the White House. Official guests of the White House stay across the street at the plush Blair House. Barack Obama had asked to stay at the Blair House but was denied because John Howard had agreed to stay there. Barack Obama and his family can move into the Blair House on the 15th of January. Other recipients in today’s ceremony were former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. These were all ardent supporters of George W. Bush’s war on terror and his invasion of Iraq.
Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a pyramid buried in the desert and thought to belong to the mother of a pharaoh who ruled more than 4,000 years ago, Egypt’s antiquities chief said on Tuesday.
The pyramid, found about two months ago in the sand south of Cairo, probably housed the remains of Queen Sesheshet, the mother of King Teti, who ruled from 2323 to 2291 B.C. and founded Egypt’s Sixth Dynasty, Zahi Hawass told reporters.
“The only queen whose pyramid is missing is Shesheshet, which is why I am sure it belonged to her,” Hawass said. “This will enrich our knowledge about the Old Kingdom.” (more… )
It’s more than just a dusty black and white place. That’s been the image of Mercury over the years. Now we know that there is blue stuff (Above) on Mercury and that it was once a volcanic hotbed—
“Astronomers used to dismiss Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, as mere “dead rock,” little more than a target for cosmic collisions that shaped it, said MIT planetary scientist Maria Zuber. “Now, it’s looking a lot more interesting,” said Zuber, who has experiments on the Messenger probe. “It’s an awful lot of volcanic material.” New images of filled-in craters — one the size of the Baltimore-Washington area and filled in with more than a mile deep of cooled lava — show that 3.8 to 4 billion years ago, Mercury was more of a volcanic hotspot than the moon ever was, Zuber said. But it isn’t just filled-in craters. Using special cameras, the probe showed what one scientist called “the mysterious dark blue material.” It was all over the planet. That led Arizona State University geologist Mark Robinson to speculate that the mineral is important but still unknown stuff ejected from Mercury’s large core in the volcanic eruptions.”
Maybe as we learn that Mercury is more than we imagined, there are people in our lives that we need to reconsider. People may have previously unknown talents or insights that we have missed over the years.
Think about somebody you know and give them a new look.
This is crap. This is nothing but intelligent design repackaged. How many times do we have to plow the same field. I guess we, those who want religion taught in church or even in a religion class at school, much get used to plowing these fields every year. In some areas of the country we need to plow these fields several times a year.
Gov. Bobby Jindal attracted national attention and strongly worded advice about how he should deal with the Louisiana Science Education Act.
Jindal ignored those calling for a veto and this week signed the law that will allow local school boards to approve supplemental materials for public school science classes as they discuss evolution, cloning and global warming.
The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will have the power to prohibit materials, though the bill does not spell out how state officials should go about policing local instructional practices.
A subject of considerable debate, but receiving few “nay” votes, in the legislative session that ended Monday, the bill is lauded by its supporters as a great step forward for academic freedom. (more…)
Phobos, the largest Martian, gouged and nearly shattered by a giant impact crater and beaten by thousands of meteorite impacts, is on a collision course with Mars
Phobos, named after a messenger of the Roman god of war, is the larger of Mars’ two moons and 27 by 22 by 18 km in diameter. It orbits Mars three times a day, and is so close to the planet’s surface that in some locations on Mars it cannot always be seen.
Measurements of the day and night sides of Phobos show such extreme temperature variations that the sunlit side of the moon rivals a pleasant winter day in Chicago, while only a few kilometers away, on the dark side of the moon, the climate is more harsh than a night in Antarctica. High temperatures for Phobos were measured at -4 degrees Celsius (25 degrees Fahrenheit) and lows at -112 Celsius (-170 degrees Fahrenheit). This intense heat loss is likely a result of the fine dust on Phobos’ surface, unable to retain heat.
Phobos has no atmosphere. It may be a captured asteroid, but some scientists show evidence that contradicts this theory.
Moral of the story—Though it may look like a rock, it may in fact be a moon.
The article says animals have newly discovered and surprising abilities in ways people once thought as specific to humans.
For example, killer whales have been found to have distinct ways of communicating and hunting depending on if they live in a stable pod or are more transient. This speaks to culture among non-human species.
Some chimps use tools. Many people have seen the pictures of chimps using sticks to fish termites out of the termite mound. This is an example of tool use by animals.
Elephants grieve for dead herd members. Many animals have been noted for apparently emotional reactions. Humans are not the only species that experience emotion.
Beyond culture, tool use and emotion, some animals may possess distinctive personalities, morality, and the ability to understand the mind and intent of another.
They say they don’t need money
They’re living on nuts and berries
They say animals don’t worry
You know animals are hairy?
They think they know what’s best
They’re making a fool of us
They ought to be more careful
They’re setting a bad example
They have untroubled lives
They think everything’s nice
They like to laugh at people
They’re setting a bad example
Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
This is a very cool finding which is obvious to everyone who has studied babies. Sometimes it seems as if they are staring at your lips. They are playing with your lips while you are talking. Now, we know what they are doing.
