Month: March 2007

Heavy metal a comfort for the bright child

Heavy metal a comfort for the bright child | Science News | Connected | Telegraph
Intelligent teenagers often listen to heavy metal music to cope with the pressures associated with being talented, according to research.

The results of a study of more than 1,000 of the brightest five per cent of young people will come as relief to parents whose offspring, usually long-haired, are devotees of Iron Maiden, AC/DC and their musical descendants.

Researchers found that, far from being a sign of delinquency and poor academic ability, many adolescent “metalheads” are extremely bright and often use the music to help them deal with the stresses and strains of being gifted social outsiders.

Life Re-Enacting Art

A Danish Painting Inspires a Party Here – March 20, 2007 – The New York Sun
“I am a simple person when it comes to art,” Mr. Oden, who grew up in Texas and comes from a long line of cowboys, said. “I don’t like impressionistic and modern. What I really love is paintings of people. I connect more when there’s something I can see — activity — interesting people, doing interesting things.”

Mr. Oden loved the image of the painting so much that he recently invited a group of friends to his house to re-enact the party that the painting depicts: a centennial celebration hosted by the Danish industrialist Jacob Moresco in honor of his textile business, held at his estate, Adelaide, located in Ordrup, Denmark. Here in present-day New York, Mr. Oden asked his guests to dress in white-tie, as the figures in the painting are dressed. Forwarded by Richard Collier. Photo RJ Mickelson.

Another Inconvenient Truth

Another Inconvenient Truth  Behind the feel-good hype of carbon offsets, some of the deals don’t deliver
More broadly, the proliferation of suspect RECs and offsets may persuade consumers and businesses that preventing climate change comes cheap, says Anja S. Kollmuss, outreach coordinator of the Tufts Climate Initiative, an advocacy group affiliated with Tufts University. “We cannot solve the climate crisis by buying offsets and claiming to be climate-neutral,” she adds. “Nature does not fall for accounting schemes.”

Many people have commented that modern environmentalism is basically a religion. The carbon offsets are the modern equivalent of the Catholic Church selling indulgences.

Russia to Iran: Pay Up

Russia Blog: Russia to Iran: Pay Up
The Islamic Republic of Iran is apparently running short on cash. According to the International Herald Tribune, the Iranian regime has twice failed to pay $25 million in monthly payments to Rosatom, Russia’s atomic energy agency, for work already completed on the Bushehr nuclear reactor.

Rosatom executives have confirmed that the Iranians failed to make their payment in full for the month of January and have not paid at all for this month. As a result, Rosatom has cancelled plans to deliver civilian-grade nuclear fuel to the reactor next month and is threatening to delay work at Bushehr. Russia is not willing to subsidize Iranian energy projects anymore than it was willing to keep subsidizing the former Soviet republics with cheap natural gas.

The Council on Foreign Relations recently released a report describing the decline of Iranian oil and gas production due to mismanagement and a lack of new investment. Last month MSNBC reported that the U.S. has secretly cut a deal with Saudi Arabia to boost Saudi production, thereby decreasing world oil prices and putting more economic pressure on Tehran (it costs the Saudis about half as much to pump a barrel of oil out of the ground as the Iranians). Russia Blog predicted that the U.S. might pursue this strategy to financially squeeze the mullahs in our post The Long War in the Middle East and Russian Oil back in August 2006.

Antarctic Glaciers’ Sloughing Of Ice Has Scientists at a Loss

Antarctic Glaciers’ Sloughing Of Ice Has Scientists at a Loss – washingtonpost.com
Wingham, of University College London, and Andrew Shepherd of the University of Edinburgh said satellite radar readings show that overall, each year the ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica amounts to about 10 percent of the rise in the global sea level, which totals about one-tenth of an inch per year. The net loss of Antarctic ice is estimated to be 25 billion metric tons a year, despite the growth of the ice sheet in East Antarctica.

In Greenland, glaciers appear to be moving more quickly to sea because melting ice has allowed the sheet to slide more easily over the rock and dirt below. In Antarctica, the loss is believed to be associated with the breaking off into seawater of ice deep under the ice sheet with little-understood internal dynamics that put increased pressure on the massive ice streams.

Cell phones safe to use in hospitals

Cell phones safe to use in hospitals: U.S. study
Calls made on cell phones do not affect hospital medical devices, U.S. researchers said on Friday, but store anti-theft alarms might make implanted heart devices misfire.

Tests at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota showed normal use of cell phones, also called mobile phones, caused no noticeable interference with patient care equipment, they said. Dr. David Hayes and colleagues said their tests suggest the ban is unmerited. They tested cell phones using two different technologies from different carriers, switching them on near 192 different medical devices. During 300 tests run over five months, they reported no trouble with the equipment

The Sky Is Falling. Really.

The Sky Is Falling. Really. – New York Times
AMERICANS who read the papers or watch Jay Leno have been aware for some time now that there is a slim but real possibility — about 1 in 45,000 — that an 850-foot-long asteroid called Apophis could strike Earth with catastrophic consequences on April 13, 2036. What few probably realize is that there are thousands of other space objects that could hit us in the next century that could cause severe damage, if not total destruction.

On the promising side, scientists have a good grasp of the risks of a cosmic fender-bender, and have several ideas that could potentially stave off disaster. Unfortunately, the government doesn’t seem to have any clear plan to put this expertise into action.

Meteorite Collision simulation

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Record meteorite hit Norway

High-tech slots could transform gambling

High-tech slots could transform gambling
Roughly half the 835,000 slot machines nationwide have video displays and many are networked, but industry officials acknowledge that most are flops, lacking the visceral “clunk-clunk-clunk” of wheels hitting the payline.

Video slots with an authentic feel are the holy grail for manufacturers.

Ed Rogich, an IGT vice president, said players who tested video display prototypes earlier this year could hardly tell the difference between them and manual reels. That’s a good sign: Many old-school gamblers prefer low-tech slots.