Don’t assume that what we currently think is out there is the full story. Go after the dark matter, in whatever field you choose to explore.” (Nathan Wolfe)
… Ambassador Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4—with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground—collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4.
In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced.
Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi site, nearly all, which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity.
About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the U.S.
Read more @ Akiomatsumura.com
Dutch article [via] here @ hln.be
Taking a chemical that helps mothers bond with their babies may not immediately strike you as the best way to improve a man’s libido. But oxytocin, the so-called ‘cuddle hormone’, can dramatically improve male sexual performance, researchers have found – producing results on a par with Viagra. (..) One of the scientists behind the discovery and development of Viagra was so impressed that he described an oxytocin-based treatment as having ‘blockbuster potential’
Read more
Let’s wait for the new kind of spam in our mail folders..
Some 30 days ago, Lake Vostok was officially penetrated after 14 million years being untouched from any contact from above, by the Russians. According to many researchers penetration was done in a dirty (contaminated) fashion. Awareness of the dangers of contamination with micro life-forms, has made this an unique opportunity where Nasa can test their innovative tools for the benefit of earth sciences. See the brilliant Horizon documentary below to gain more insight in why this excites the community that much.
In most cases, your profile photo on Facebook tells viewers what they need to know to form an impression of you – no words are necessary, new research suggests.
College students who viewed a Facebook photo of a fellow student having fun with friends rated that person as extraverted – even if his profile said he was “not a big people-person.”
“Photos seem to be the primary way we make impressions of people on social networking sites,” said Brandon Van Der Heide, lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.
The exception is when a photo is out of the ordinary or shows someone in a negative light. In that case, people do use profile text to help interpret what kind of person is shown in the profile.
‘We have normalized the idea of debt, turned it into morality. We assume that morality is paying debts, rather than the ability to make promises as free people.- David Graeber, antropoloog
Tegenlicht puts the morality of the debt economy in focus.
Mikko Hypponen gives a neat 1 hour summary of all major computer viruses. Much humor and a nice view of where we’re heading. Notice the music industry role in this evolution. That’s quite unique, isn’t it.
In the list of supporters of SOPA and PIPA, we earlier found academic publishers Elsevier, Macmillan and McGrawHill.
We noted before that particular Education seems to become less open.
“The academic publisher Elsevier has attracted controversy for its high prices, the practice of bundling journals for sale to libraries and its support for legislation such as SOPA and the Research Works Act. Fields medal-winning mathematician Tim Gowers decided to go public with a blog post describing how he’ll no longer have anything to do with Elsevier journals, and suggesting that a public website where mathematicians and scientists could register their support for an Elsevier boycott would further the cause. Such a website now exists, with hundreds of academics signing-up so far. John Baez has a nice write-up of the problem and possible solutions.”(via)
ACTA, SOPA and PIPA also try to kill off already open initiatives in which Universities participate.. excuse me? Again it can be much more open.
As mentioned at the first day this year, this year it will be 100 years ago that Alan Turing was born.
Instead of waiting till the media bandwagon will start in June, giving us the information overload, why not spread it a little bit? Why is Turing relevant?
Alan Turing counts, because he lay pretty much the scientific foundations of Artificial Intelligence and Computers, helped win World War 2 for the Allies by cracking the Enigma code and is seen as a famous gay martyr.
Besides that, Turing is fascinating because his cutting edge theories were directly related to his cutting edge practical applications, which he was building. That’s hip!
Go watch the Hollywood movies made about him.
Breaking the Code (Movie)
Next post more on the technical side of Alan.
Ever wondered how diseased cells kill them selves in protection of the rest? Here’s the mechanics. Already 5 years old, but enjoy.
Because we like drawings, why not draw in 4 minutes a fastrack of economic theory & economic change.
Computerworld – IBM announced Thursday that after five years of work, its researchers have been able to reduce from about one million to 12 the number of atoms required to create a bit of data.
The breakthrough may someday allow data storage hardware manufacturers to produce products with capacities that are orders of magnitude greater than today’s hard disk and flash drives.
“Looking at this conservatively … instead of 1TB on a device you’d have 100TB to 150TB. Instead of being able to store all your songs on a drive, you’d be able to have all your videos on the device,” said Andreas Heinrich, IBM Research Staff Member and lead investigator on this project.
Via. Respects!
Thomas Sargent en Christopher Sims. Sargent (New York University) en Sims (Princeton) won the economic nobel prize for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy. Like 17 others before them they have a very specific view on the current economic crisis and the European Banking crisis in particular. The video above is a compilation of their press conference at Princeton. While at first they acted dumb, having no opinion, later they clearly critized the EU.
Notice that they see politics, not economic theory as the foremost barrier for the solution.
A discussion about science, society, and the universe with Stephen Colbert and Niel deGrasse Tyson, who is out of character, at the Kimberley Academy in Montclair, New Jersey. [via]
Architect of Fukushima Daiichi Reactor 3, Uehara Haruo, the former president of Saga University had an interview on 11/17/2011. In this interview, he admitted Tepco’s explanation does not make sense, and that the China syndrome is inevitable. He stated that considering 8 months have passed since 311 without any improvement, it is inevitable that melted fuel went out of the container vessel and sank underground, which is called China syndrome.
Theoretisch fysicus Lawrence Krauss geeft een geestige en indringende lezing over de staat van de natuurkundige kennis. De lezing is opgezet door evolutiebioloog en atheïst Richard Dawkins en dat zet de toon. (via)
