dog condemned to stoning story and confirmation bias

so the story about the dog that was stoned in jerusalem was made up after all. this thing went viral... and i linked to it on facebook as well, as i avoid posting news that i can't adequately fact-check on my blog.

this link offers an image of the apology in hebrew. i cannot read it directly, and i have to trust the source that it says what it's reported as saying.


click image to source

as humans, we are all guilty at some time or another of confirmation bias. it's important to own up to it when we realize our mistake. for me, it wasn't the first time, and this time i was influenced by BBC news, which made the item seem... credible (here's the link to BBC on june 18th). cross-checking becomes especially difficult when the original is in another language.

i can say to myself that i'm not a news service, i'm a person interested in the world... but still, i feel badly about rashly reposting.  if you reported this as well, i humbly suggest reposting the updated information... if we're ever going to exist in a reasonable world, we have support the best information we have.

hat tip to richard dawkins.

harvard scientists reverse the ageing process in mice

on the guardian:

'scientists claim to be a step closer to reversing the ageing process after rejuvenating worn out organs in elderly mice. the experimental treatment developed by researchers at the dana-farber cancer institute, harvard medical school, turned weak and feeble old mice into healthy animals by regenerating their aged bodies.

the surprise recovery of the animals has raised hopes among scientists that it may be possible to achieve a similar feat in humans – or at least to slow down the ageing process.'


more...

bioprinting!

on wired:


click image to source
'say goodbye to donor lists and organ shortages. a biotech firm has created a printer that prints veins using a patients’ own cells. the device could potentially create whole organs in the future.'

images and info here.

in other news...

president obama orders an end to christmas and god said it's ok to beat you

new hubble ultra deep field

hubble's deepest view of universe unveils never-before-seen galaxies:


click image to source
'NASA's hubble space telescope has made the deepest image of the universe ever taken in near-infrared light. the faintest and reddest objects in the image are galaxies that formed 600 million years after the big bang. no galaxies have been seen before at such early times. the new deep view also provides insights into how galaxies grew in their formative years early in the universe's history.

the image was taken in the same region as the hubble ultra deep field (HUDF), which was taken in 2004 and is the deepest visible-light image of the universe. hubble's newly installed wide field camera 3 (WFC3) collects light from near-infrared wavelengths and therefore looks even deeper into the universe, because the light from very distant galaxies is stretched out of the ultraviolet and visible regions of the spectrum into near-infrared wavelengths by the expansion of the universe.'

more information and image downloads here.

gasp.

martian meteorite surrenders new secrets of possible life

on spaceflight now:


click pic to source
'compelling new data that chemical and fossil evidence of ancient microbial life on mars was carried to earth in a martian meteorite is being elevated to a higher plane by the same NASA team which made the initial discovery 13 years ago.

sources tell spaceflight now that the new data are providing a powerful new case for the allen hills meteorite to have carried strong evidence of martian life to earth -- evidence that is increasingly standing up to scrutiny as new analytical tools are used to examine the specimen.'

continue reading...

scientists reproduce a building block of life in laboratory

NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory:

'NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. they discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life.

pyrimidine is a ring-shaped molecule made up of carbon and nitrogen and is the basic structure for uracil, part of a genetic code found in ribonucleic acid(RNA). RNA is central to protein synthesis, but has many other roles.

"we have demonstrated for the first time that we can make uracil, a component of RNA, non-biologically in a laboratory under conditions found in space," said michel nuevo, research scientist at NASA's ames research center, moffett field, calif. "we are showing that these laboratory processes, which simulate occurrences in outer space, can make a fundamental building block used by living organisms on earth."'

...read on at physorg...

a massive ring around saturn

click pic to source
'NASA's spitzer space telescope has discovered an enormous ring around saturn -- by far the largest of the giant planet's many rings.

the new belt lies at the far reaches of the saturnian system, with an orbit tilted 27 degrees from the main ring plane. the bulk of its material starts about six million kilometers (3.7 million miles) away from the planet and extends outward roughly another 12 million kilometers (7.4 million miles). one of saturn's farthest moons, phoebe, circles within the newfound ring, and is likely the source of its material.'

read on...

image of a molecule

click to source at BBC news
'the detailed chemical structure of a single molecule has been imaged for the first time, say researchers.'
read up on it...

science is in the details

sam harris discusses the recent nomination of francis collins to be the next director of the national institutes of health in the united states.

'as someone who believes that our understanding of human nature can be derived from neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science and behavioral economics, among others, i am troubled by dr. collins’s line of thinking. i also believe it would seriously undercut fields like neuroscience and our growing understanding of the human mind. if we must look to religion to explain our moral sense, what should we make of the deficits of moral reasoning associated with conditions like frontal lobe syndrome and psychopathy? are these disorders best addressed by theology?

dr. collins has written that “science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence” and that “the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.”

one can only hope that these convictions will not affect his judgment at the institutes of health. after all, understanding human well-being at the level of the brain might very well offer some “answers to the most pressing questions of human existence” — questions like, why do we suffer? or, indeed, is it possible to love one’s neighbor as oneself? and wouldn’t any effort to explain human nature without reference to a soul, and to explain morality without reference to god, necessarily constitute “atheistic materialism”?

francis collins is an accomplished scientist and a man who is sincere in his beliefs. and that is precisely what makes me so uncomfortable about his nomination. must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the united states to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?'

the entire piece is here.

females right-pawed, males left-pawed

'female domestic cats tend to preferentially use their right front paw while male cats more often rely upon their left front paw, according to a new study that suggests the sex of a cat determines how its brain will be wired.

the findings also add to a growing body of evidence that male animals tend to be left-handed, or in this case left-pawed, more often than females. while 90 percent of all humans are right-handed, of the remaining southpaws, more tend to be men.

the differences are even clearer among cats.'

read the rest on discovery news.

collision on jupiter

amateur astronomer anthony wesley found a new scar on jupiter:


click pic to source on apod

and gemini shoots the heat:


click pic to source at gemini observatory

(via the bad astronomer)

saturnian moon shows evidence of ammonia

via JPL and reposted in full:

'data collected during two close flybys of saturn's moon enceladus by NASA's cassini spacecraft add more fuel to the fire about the saturnian ice world containing sub-surface liquid water. the data collected by cassini's ion and neutral mass spectrometer during enceladus flybys in july and oct. 2008, were released in the july 23 issue of the journal nature.

"when cassini flew through the plume erupting from enceladus on october 8 of last year, our spectrometer was able to sniff out many complex chemicals, including organic ones, in the vapor and icy particles," said hunter waite, the cassini ion and neutral mass spectrometer lead scientist from the southwest research institute in san antonio, texas. "one of the chemicals definitively identified was ammonia."

on earth, the presence of ammonia means the potential for sparkling clean floors and counter tops. in space, the presence of ammonia provides strong evidence for the existence of at least some liquid water.

how could ammonia equate to liquid water inside an ice-covered moon in one of the chillier neighborhoods of our solar system? as many a homeowner interested in keeping their abodes spick and span know, ammonia promptly dissolves in water. but what many people do not realize is that ammonia acts as antifreeze, keeping water liquid at lower temperatures than would otherwise be possible. with the presence of ammonia, water can exist in a liquid state to temperatures as low as 176 degrees kelvin (-143 degrees fahrenheit).

"given that temperatures in excess of 180 kelvin (-136 degrees fahrenheit) have been measured near the fractures on enceladus where the jets emanate, we think we have an excellent argument for a liquid water interior," said waite.

cassini discovered water vapor and particles spewing from enceladus in 2005. since then, scientists have been trying to determine if the plume originates from a liquid source inside the moon or is due to other causes.

"ammonia is sort of a holy grail for icy volcanism," said william mckinnon, a scientist from washington university in saint louis, missouri. "this is the first time we've found it for sure on an icy satellite of a giant planet. it is probably everywhere in the saturn system."

just how much water is contained within enceladus' icy interior is still up for debate. so far, cassini has made five flybys of enceladus, one of the chief targets for cassini's extended mission. two close flybys are scheduled for november of this year, and two more close flybys are scheduled for april and may or 2010. data collected during these future flybys may help settle the debate.

"where liquid water and organics exist, is there life?" asked jonathan lunine a cassini scientist from the university of arizona, tucson. "such is the case for earth; what was found on enceladus bolsters this moon's promise for containing potential habitable environments."

the cassini-huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the european space agency and the italian space agency. the cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at jpl. jpl manages the mission for the science mission directorate at NASA headquarters in washington.'

also here and here

goodbye, walter cronkite

i watched the apollo missions. walter cronkite showed them to me and we were excited together.

...and that's the way it is...

VOTD: Iran.

Since there is a slew of information regarding Iran all over the web presently, I am not going to reiterate what you have already seen by twisting someone else's words to become another talking head. I am not also going to feed into any trends that will ultimately just be wasting time. What I WILL DO, is pass along video that my friend, Maz, who is Iranian, sent me.

Maz Jobrani intially was a Political Science major who then became a hilarious, brilliant comedian and actor. His AXIS OF EVIL comedy tour, which aimed at breaking stereo types of middle eastern folk, may be seen and streamed on Netflix and of course a slew of not so legal methods of streaming too.

Below is the first clip he sent and please note the excerpt of translation I pulled from the page on youtube, located beneath it.



An excerpt of what she says:
"...Where is this where weve been imprisoned so innocently?
Where is this where no one gives us a helping hand?!
Where is this place, where we are getting our voices heard worldwide through our silence?
Where is this place where the blood of its young people is shed on the streets..., where people stand and pray on their blood?
Where is this place where its people are named Gangsters & Thugs?!
Where is this?
This is Iran. This is my land and yours!
This is Iran"

Here is a longer piece with news:



And lastly a song from Revolution of The Mind, called "Death Of The Ayotollahs" Go to link for mp3

Current Music: Trentemøller - Vamp (Live Edit)

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lluc

at science daily:


click pic to source
'researchers have discovered a fossilized face and jaw from a previously unknown hominoid primate genus in spain dating to the middle miocene era, roughly 12 million years ago. nicknamed "lluc," the male bears a strikingly "modern" facial appearance with a flat face, rather than a protruding one. the finding sheds important new light on the evolutionary development of hominids, including orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and humans.'

jesus & mo: cars and athens

click pic to read it properly at jesus&mo.
for an overview of events, visit this is not my country.

for me, it's sad that the outrage is ignited following an incident over a religious symbol instead of the difficult conditions immigrants face.

ida

from bbc news:



'the beautifully preserved remains of a 47-million-year-old lemur-like creature have been unveiled in the us.

the preservation is so good, it is possible to see the outline of its fur and even traces of its last meal.

the fossil, nicknamed ida, is claimed to be a "missing link" between today's higher primates - monkeys, apes and humans - and more distant relatives.'

full article

i do have to laugh at the term 'missing link'... it's an archaic term... there is no such thing.

there's a great whole website with information on ida at revealing the link.

our common ancestor

at the wall street journal:

'in what could prove to be a landmark discovery, a leading paleontologist said scientists have dug up the 47 million-year-old fossil of an ancient primate whose features suggest it could be the common ancestor of all later monkeys, apes and humans.

anthropologists have long believed that humans evolved from ancient ape-like ancestors. some 50 million years ago, two ape-like groups walked the earth. one is known as the tarsidae, a precursor of the tarsier, a tiny, large-eyed creature that lives in asia. another group is known as the adapidae, a precursor of today's lemurs in madagascar.

based on previously limited fossil evidence, one big debate had been whether the tarsidae or adapidae group gave rise to monkeys, apes and humans. the latest discovery bolsters the less common position that our ancient ape-like ancestor was an adapid, the believed precursor of lemurs.'

read on...
via RD

SETI's regular laser pulse

has astrophysicist ragbir bhathal, who works with SETI, found a signal from an extraterrestrial signal?

at the australian:

'after you've spent more than 20 years hunting for an alien signal, you think you'd be celebrating if you noticed a mysterious pulse suddenly rising up on your computer readouts. a regular pulse, amid the random clatter of the cosmos, suggests that someone very smart at the other end is sending a message.

but when ragbir bhathal, an astrophysicist at the university of western sydney, who teaches the only university-based course on SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) in australia, detected the suspicious signal on a clear night last december, he knew better than to crack open the special bottle of champagne he has tucked away for the history-making occasion.

instead, he's spent the past few months meticulously investigating whether the unrecognised signature was caused by a glitch in his instrumentation, a rogue astrophysical phenomenon, or some unknown random noise.'

read on...