Todd Terwilliger » science

New ‘This Date in History’ Entry Found

Todd — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:05:00 +0000

Cue Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home”.

Using clues from star and sun positions mentioned by the ancient Greek poet Homer, scholars think they have determined the date when King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War and slaughtered a group of suitors who had been pressing his wife to marry one of them.

It was on April 16, 1178 B.C. that the great warrior struck with arrows, swords and spears, killing those who sought to replace him, a pair of researchers say in Monday’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Source: dsc.discovery.com

Just two days after my birthday too.

He Was the Walrus

Todd — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:05:00 +0000

I don’t know precisely why, but this bummed me out:

The New York Aquarium is mourning the loss of a Pacific walrus named Ayveq. Ayveq was about 14. He died Sunday after a short illness.

Source: “Death of a Coney Walrus” from Gowanus Lounge

I almost went to the aquarium after watching the Mermaid Parade… but I didn’t. Oh well.

A melancholy goo-goo-ga-choo to you too.

MiniBlackHole Won’t Swallow Earth, Same Can’t Be Said For Artie Lange

Todd — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:57:00 +0000

I know I can rest easy now… well, easier.

Our planet is not at risk from the world’s most powerful particle physics experiment, a report has concluded.

…Critics have previously raised concerns that the production of weird hypothetical particles called strangelets… could trigger the mass conversion of nuclei in ordinary atoms into more strange matter – transforming the Earth into a hot, dead lump.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Hot dead lump – sounds t-t-t-tasty!

Now that we’ve checked that one off the list, can we start working on polution, global thermal nuclear war, and reality TV? Please? …Please?

Neanderthals Smart, Savvy, Still Dead

Todd — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:23:00 +0000

Extinction: it’s not just for the dumb. Let this be a lesson to all of us.

Britain’s last Neanderthals had sophisticated weapons and lived in strategic spots, demonstrating impressive command of their territory.

Source: dsc.discovery.com

So, next time somebody calls you a Neaderthal, you can take comfort in the fact that they were “in complete command of both landscape and natural raw materials with a flourishing technology”… right before they collectively tripped on a banana peel, lost balance, windmilled their arms, and fell smack, face-down, into oblivion.

Looking For Life in All the Wrong Places

Todd — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:14:00 +0000

Japanese astronomers are honing in on a single star hoping to find proof of life (not the bad Russell Crowe movie). Here’s hoping, if they find something, it’s not King Ghidorah.

Japan’s biggest astronomical observatories are teaming up for an unprecedented quest to find out whether there is life in outer space.

The project, led by Japanese astronomers, will bring together a dozen or more observatories from all over the country to study one star that researchers see as a potential home to an extraterrestrial civilization.

Source: “Life in outer space? Astronomers hunt aliens” by Reuters

The odds of this actually finding anything have got to be the cosmic equivalent of picking the proverbial needle from the haystack but I wish them luck!

Lopan: There are many mysteries, many unanswerable questions, even in a life as short as yours.

Jack Burton: Yeah, well, the way I see it, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask.

(Big Trouble in Little China)

Remember Me?

Todd — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:01:00 +0000

Anytime I watch Monster Quest, UFO Hunter, or any of the other paranormal investigation type programs, the weight of their evidence always lies heaviest on eyewitness testimony. Whether it’s bigfoot, the greys, or men-in-black, the sum of the “evidence” tends to be what somebody saw or heard. Or at least what somebody thought they saw or heard. If there were any doubts that this is fundamentally unreliable, here’s another nail in the coffin. According to a report by Prof. Martin Conway of Leeds University:

Memories are essentially a construct from a variety of sources and experiences, Prof Conway says. They are not necessarily a factual account of what happened.

What’s more, a significant proportion of people seem to be highly suggestible and will quite readily change what they remember if given appropriate cues.

Source: “What do you remember?” by Rebecca Fordham

I’d wonder why there is still such a reliance on eyewitnesses in these types of studies when we know that they are ultimately unreliable but the answer is obvious: without the eyewitnesses, there is nothing to study. No study means no program. Or, a very, very short program. Plus, what would they do with all those eyewitness reenactors?

Nibiru! Nibiru!

Todd — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:37:00 +0000

Oh, that naughty Planet X. Why can’t we quit you? According to SPACE.com (via LiveScience), computer models are now predicting the existence of a hidden planet to explain some strange happenings in the Kuiper Belt.

An icy, unknown world might lurk in the distant reaches of our solar system beyond the orbit of Pluto, according to a new computer model.

The hidden world — thought to be much bigger than Pluto based on the model — could explain unusual features of the Kuiper Belt, a region of space beyond Neptune littered with icy and rocky bodies.

Source: “Large ‘Planet X’ May Lurk Beyond Pluto” by Ker Than

Time to welcome our new Annunaki overlords?

Don’t blame me, I voted for Upnapishtim!

Silent Boom!

Todd — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:26:00 +0000

We are closing in on the elusive cone of silence. Cue the science!

Scientists have shown off the blueprint for an “acoustic cloak”, which could make objects impervious to sound waves.

The technology, outlined in the New Journal of Physics, could be used to build sound-proof homes, advanced concert halls or stealth warships.

Is it too much to ask for a conversion of this technology into gun form? There are quite a few people I’m exposed to that I’d love to zap with some silent justice… or just silence… or both.

Say Goodbye to Bluff Creek

Todd — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Unless you follow the bigfoot research community and its attendant blogosphere satellites, you may have missed the brouhaha over a new theory (I use the term very lightly here) concerning the famous Patterson-Gimlin bigfoot video (the bigfoot video). The theory, to put it bluntly, suggests that a bigfoot massacre took place in Bluff Creek during the trip in which the famous footage was shot (pun!).

What evidence for this theory is there? Exactly none. But it hasn’t stopped the in-fighting that has, to lend the tussle some dramatic flare, shaken the community to its core. Well, if not that, then at least ripped at certain factions within the bigfoot community (the people not the cryptids… in case you weren’t sure).

As someone who has purely participated passively in the community- I read the literature and theories though I am not, strictly speaking, a believer- I have found the hunt for the hairy humanoid to be a fascinating subject. However, this time, things have gotten too far. It’s time for the community to do the difficult thing. Difficult, but the right thing: retire the Patterson-Gimlin film.

The relationship has turned sour, incestuous, Oedipal even. The film has done what it can. It’s time to send it out to pasture. It’s subject, called “Patty” to give it Care-Bear sweetness, cannot be proven beyond doubt to be genuine. Given that, there is no point to continually poring over every grainy shot, looking for some magic detail that will somehow force bigfoot acceptance into existence. No bulge, no suggestive shadow, no distinctive walk will ever, ever do it. To spend time now, after forty years, is to waste it. The battle is out there, in the deep woods, in the mist-laden mountains, in the field. Not at a computer station playing with virtual knobs and dials to squeeze things that may be or create things that never were from something that has nothing more to tell. The film is spent, let it go.

No film is ever going to convince science. Deep inside, everyone knows that. They must know that. Science demands remains: a body or, at the very least, bits of a body enough to verify identity beyond doubt. This is what makes the massacre idea so loony. If Patterson, Gimlin, or the shooter on the grassy knoll, had multiple bodies to bring home, they would have done it in a heartbeat. We may be squeemish now but, back then, that was an acceptable result. But instead we are to believe that they buried the bodies and hitched their wagons to the star of a grainy, inconclusive video when irrefutable proof was underneath their feet? C’mon now.

The underlying problem is that the bigfoot community has no self-government. There is no procedure of peer-review, controlled theoretical publications, or codes of conduct. For every scientist or genuine enthusiast, there’s a business man, a huckster, and a conman. As long as the community is riven into competing motley gangs, as long as there is no control, no organization, there will be more massacres. Only it’s not the beast being driven into the ground, it’s the search, it’s the community, it’s the reputation of the cause. If this is the fruit of the Patterson-Gimlin film, it’s time to say goodbye, and walk away.

Look, It’s a Super Earth!

Todd — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:50:00 +0000

Not just one, in fact, but three:

Astronomers have identified a trio of so-called “super-Earths” – rocky planets between two and 10 times the mass of Earth.

The three new planets were detected using the Harps instrument at the La Silla Observatory in central Chile.

The star they circle is slightly smaller than our Sun, and is located 42 light-years away near the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

As far as we can tell, none of these three earths was Third Earth. We’re still safe from the Mumm-Ra menace.