January 16th Quote
cn | 16 February, 2007 23:02
I never thought I didn't have a card to play.
- Jim Lovell (astronaut)
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Daily fact for Feb. 6, 2007
cn | 07 February, 2007 01:19
Up to the age of six or seven months a child can breathe and swallow at the same time. An adult cannot do this.
source: http://hookedonfacts.com
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Daily Random Fact January 27th
cn | 28 January, 2007 01:10
Saturn's rings are about 500,000 miles in circumference but only about a foot thick.
source: http://hookedonfacts.com
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Random Fact for January 5th
ben | 05 January, 2007 18:06
More than 40,000 parasites and 250 types of bacteria are exchanged during a typical French kiss!
source: http://hookedonfacts.com
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"We can't tell you how the Grand Canyon was created becasue someone might get mad..."
cn | 04 January, 2007 16:00
In a story that's been all over the blogshpere (this from thinkprogress.org)...
Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park.”
This is really just disturbing. The inference here is that if a small group of people threatens this organization enough, the organization (in this case the National Park) will fold. I am, of course, assuming that GCNP would prefer to at least tell the public that visits how the Grand Canyon might have been formed if we assume the scientific hypothesis. But they don't even do that. Why not present both sides, both opinions - the religious and the scientific. I would prefer to just see the scientific in this situation, but I can see the value of both. Yet here it seems that the religion-pushers would rather quash all opposing viewpoints and the world seems to be full of people too afraid to stand up to them or at least people who will demand a dialog.
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Free Documenatry Videos
cn | 19 December, 2006 18:11
From boingboing.net:
Alf LaMont says: "I found that Google Video has full length episodes of Nova, including The Elegant Universe (A Personal Favorite), and Also full length versions of Richard Dawkins' THE GOD DELUSION. Both very powerful pro-science documentaties, and perfectly free." Link
I've only seen a couple of them, but the ones I saw were great.
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Biological Data Intake - Measured!
ben | 26 July, 2006 20:21
Over at boingboing.net I just read a very interesting post about how scientists have been able to measure the actual number of bits of information that a guinea pig eye can transmit to the brain, and based on their findings they estimate that a human retina can transmit about 10 million bits of data per second. The question is, of course, where does all that freakin' data go?!? Here's a clip from the original article cited by boingboing.net:
The researchers found that the electrical spike patterns differed between cell types. For example, the larger, brisk cells fired many spikes per second and their response was highly reproducible. In contrast, the smaller, sluggish cells fired fewer spikes per second and their responses were less reproducible.
But, what's the relationship between these spikes and information being sent? "It's the combinations and patterns of spikes that are sending the information. The patterns have various meanings," says co-author Vijay Balasubramanian, PhD, Professor of Physics at Penn. "We quantify the patterns and work out how much information they convey, measured in bits per second."
Calculating the proportions of each cell type in the retina, the team estimated that about 100,000 guinea pig ganglion cells transmit about 875,000 bits of information per second. Because sluggish cells are more numerous, they account for most of the information. With about 1,000,000 ganglion cells, the human retina would transmit data at roughly the rate of an Ethernet connection, or 10 million bits per second.
I know this stat has been stated elsewhere before, but I've never come across any specific scientific measurement of the eye itself and it's transmission of data.
The original article is here.
The boingboing.net post is here.
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