Archive for the 'Science' Category

Turning Salt Water Into Fuel?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Energy, Science, Technology

Sounds crazy, but just read…
SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. — A Florida man may have accidentally invented a machine that could solve the gasoline and energy crisis plaguing the U.S., WPBF News 25 reported.
Sanibel Island resident John Kanzius is a former broadcast executive from Pennsylvania who wondered if his background in physics and radio could come in [...]

May 28th, 2007 | Permalink| 70 Comments »

War Is Hell

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science, War

An interesting post over at The Moderate Voice caught my attention today. It’s about the scars that war leaves behind…the scars that nobody can see.
From Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés:
You hear it a lot: Men and women soldiers went to war. When they came home, they would not often speak of what they’d done and seen.
Many [...]

May 28th, 2007 | Permalink| No Comments »

Storing Data In Bacteria DNA?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science, Technology

Yes, organic storage. This has the potential to be huge but there’s still a long, long, long way to go yet.
From the AP:
The four characters that represent the genetic coding in DNA work much like digital data. Character combinations can stand for specific letters and symbols � so codes in genomes can be translated, or [...]

May 17th, 2007 | Permalink| No Comments »

More On Dichloroacetate, Potential Cancer Cure

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Drugs, Science

We’ve written about dichloroacetate before, but I thought I’d point it out again because it’s a wonder why we’re not hearing about it the media at large.
From the University of Alberta:
DCA is an odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule. And researchers at the University of Alberta believe it may soon be used as an [...]

May 14th, 2007 | Permalink| No Comments »

Cancer Vaccine Blocked By Religious Right

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Bad Decisions, Religion, Science, Sexuality

Okay, see, this is why we’re going to witness the downfall of the religious right. They really can’t see the forest for the trees. Because instead of giving millions of girls almost 100% certain protection against cervical cancer, they’re against it because they think it would promote promiscuity.
So let’s see here…cancer or more sex…cancer or [...]

May 14th, 2007 | Permalink| 17 Comments »

Video: The Mysterious Space Rock

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science, Video

They say it’s space junk.
I think it looks like a petrified alien turd.

May 13th, 2007 | Permalink| No Comments »

Habitable Planet Found?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science

The temperature could be just right for liquid water. And where there’s liquid water, there could be life.
From Malaysia Sun:
An international team of astronomers from Switzerland, France and Portugal have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date.
The planet has a radius only 50 percent larger than Earth and is very likely [...]

April 24th, 2007 | Permalink| 13 Comments »

Time To Rethink Nuclear Power?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Environment, Science, Technology

France embraced it long ago, and it’s paying big dividends…
Because nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases, France has the cleanest air in the industrialized world, and because the price of oil is now around $60 a barrel, it has the lowest electric bills in Europe. In fact, France has so much cheap electricity, it exports [...]

April 9th, 2007 | Permalink| 13 Comments »

Can Faith And Reason Coexist?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Discuss, Religion, Science

There’s a good conversation going on in our “God Or No God?” post about just that.
Check it out and add your thoughts.

April 6th, 2007 | Permalink| No Comments »

Heart Valves Grown From Stem Cells

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science

Big breakthrough since heart valves involve many different types of cells.
From the Guardian:
Sir Magdi Yacoub, a professor of cardiac surgery at Imperial College London, has worked on ways to tackle the shortage of donated hearts for transplant for more than a decade. His team at the heart science centre at Harefield hospital have grown tissue [...]

April 4th, 2007 | Permalink| 4 Comments »

God Or No God?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Religion, Science

MSNBC has a great debate between a Christian and an Atheist. The whole thing is well worth the read, but I wonder if many Christians can agree with this summation…
I believe in both faith and reason. The more we learn about God, the more we understand how magnificent this universe is. There is no contradiction [...]

April 2nd, 2007 | Permalink| 34 Comments »

Now We’re All Type O

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Health Care, Science

Researchers have discovered a way to turn any blood type into type O, that being the blood that can be used in any transfusion. This is huge.
How’d they do it? From BBC:
The new technique works by using bacterial enzymes to cut sugar molecules from the surface of red blood cells.
After a search of 2,500 fungi [...]

April 2nd, 2007 | Permalink| 4 Comments »

Wireless Electricity A Reality With Powercast

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science, Technology

There’s always been stray electricity bouncing invisibly and silently here and there all around us. But until now, we’ve never been able to capture it and power devices.
One company has cracked the code…
Picture your cell phone charging up the second you sit down at your desk, and you start to get a sense of [...]

March 31st, 2007 | Permalink| 2 Comments »

Which Drugs Are The Most Toxic?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Drugs, Science

(h/t: Sully)

March 25th, 2007 | Permalink| 5 Comments »

McCain’s Troubling HIV Answer

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Dumb Things Said By Smart People, Money, Science, Sexuality, Social Programs, The World

He was on his bus answering a question about whether our government should spend money to provide condoms in Africa. And then the reporter asked him an excruciatingly simple question.
You will be amazed…
Q: Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?�
Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.�
Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably [...]

March 18th, 2007 | Permalink| 28 Comments »

The evolution of religion

By Sean Aqui | Related entries in News, Religion, Science, The Plame Game

As a follow-up of sorts to my genetics of altruism post, The New York Times magazine had a fascinating, thought-provoking piece on the evolutionary advantages of belief.
Turns out that some scientists have been studying religion from an evolutionary perspective, trying to figure out why religion is universal when it is seemingly maladaptive to survival: usually, [...]

March 6th, 2007 | Permalink| 7 Comments »

The genetics of altruism

By Sean Aqui | Related entries in Ideas, News, Religion, Science

Are humans innately good, or innately selfish?
That’s a fundamental question when it comes to discussing morality, law and society. If humans are innately selfish, then the only way society functions is by the majority forcing everyone to behave, through tools of social control like government, religion and culture. Without such control, the argument goes, society [...]

February 20th, 2007 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

The Cure For Cancer

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science

…which the drug companies won’t test because they can’t make any money off of it? Hmmm…
From the New Scientist:
It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality�. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic [...]

January 17th, 2007 | Permalink| 16 Comments »

An Electric Car Recharges In 10 Minutes?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Environment, Money, Science

That’s the claim for this pretty cool looking “Sport Utility Truck.” And you can go 130 miles on that single charge. Not too shabby.
From TechEBlog:
Powered by the revolutionary Altairnano NanoSafe™ battery pack, Phoenix Motorcars’ zero-emission, all-electric Sport Utility Truck (SUT) can cruise on the freeway at up to 95 m.p.h. while carrying five passengers and [...]

December 27th, 2006 | Permalink| 14 Comments »

Why Are Snowflakes Symmetrical?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science

A little holiday science…
Snowflakes are symmetrical because they reflect the internal order of the water molecules as they arrange themselves in the solid state (the process of crystallization). Water molecules in the solid state, such as in ice and snow, form weak bonds (called hydrogen bonds) to one another. These ordered arrangements result in the [...]

December 26th, 2006 | Permalink| 2 Comments »