Tagg: vitskap 83

/via The Browser

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21690024-generator-runs-vocal-cords-may-improve-efficacy

The Economist:

For obvious reasons, surgeons do not like opening heads up unless it is strictly necessary. Sometimes, therefore, the battery packs that power head implants are put in the wearer’s chest. But this means running a wire up through the patient’s neck, from the one to the other, which is scarcely satisfactory either. A way to power such implants without replacing their batteries at all would thus be welcome. And Hyuck Choo of the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues think they have one. They plan to scavenge the necessary energy from the vibrations of the vocal cords that occur when someone is talking

Oversikt over kor langt antibiotikaresistensen har kome, frå Information is Beautifull.

Klikk for større bilde.

In 10 days here a person would be exposed to as much background radiation as a typical resident of the United States receives from all sources in a year.

… evidence of radiation’s toll: higher frequencies of tumors and physical abnormalities like deformed beaks among birds compared with those from uncontaminated areas, for example, and a decline in the populations of insects and spiders with increasing radiation intensity.

Some bird species, they reported in the journal Functional Ecology, appear to have adapted to the radioactive environment by producing higher levels of protective antioxidants, with correspondingly less genetic damage. For these birds, Dr. Mousseau said, chronic exposure to radiation appears to be a kind of “unnatural selection” driving evolutionary change.

At Chernobyl, Hints of Nature’s Adaptation

/via NRK

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/04/science/space/a-moon-of-saturn-has-a-sea-scientists-say.html

Cassini has no instruments that can directly detect water beneath the surface, but three flybys in the years 2010-12 were devoted to producing a map of the gravity field, noting where the pull was stronger or weaker. During the flybys, lasting just a few minutes, radio telescopes that are part of NASA’s Deep Space Network broadcast a signal to the spacecraft, which echoed it back to Earth. As the pull of Enceladus’s gravity sped and then slowed the spacecraft, the frequency of the radio signal shifted, just as the pitch of a train whistle rises and falls as it passes by a listener.

Using atomic clocks on Earth, the scientists measured the radio frequency with enough precision that they could discern changes in the velocity of Cassini, hundreds of millions of miles away, as minuscule as 14 inches an hour.

Vitskapen leverer.

via informationisbeautiful.net

via xkcd.com

The Guardian har laget en fin oversikt:

via guardian.co.uk

via flickr.com

(klikk for stort bilde)

via informationisbeautiful.net

(Klikk for stort bilde) Her har du det, alt på en plass. Nå er du opplyst.

Kilde: David McCandless (Klikk pa bildet for en klarere versjon)

David McCandless har ogsa lassevis med andre flotte visualiseringer, ta en titt.

Before smallpox was eradicated with a vaccine, it killed an estimated 500 million people. And just 60 years ago, polio paralyzed 16,000 Americans every year, while rubella caused birth defects and mental retardation in as many as 20,000 newborns. Measles infected 4 million children, killing 3,000 annually, and a bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae type b caused Hib meningitis in more than 15,000 children, leaving many with permanent brain damage. Infant mortality and abbreviated life spans – now regarded as a third world problem – were a first world reality.

Today, because the looming risk of childhood death is out of sight, it is also largely out of mind, leading a growing number of Americans to worry about what is in fact a much lesser risk: the ill effects of vaccines. If your newborn gets pertussis, for example, there is a 1 percent chance that the baby will die of pulmonary hypertension or other complications. The risk of dying from the pertussis vaccine, by contrast, is practically nonexistent – in fact, no study has linked DTaP (the three-in-one immunization that protects against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) to death in children. Nobody in the pro-vaccine camp asserts that vaccines are risk-free, but the risks are minute in comparison to the alternative.

Still, despite peer-reviewed evidence, many parents ignore the math and agonize about whether to vaccinate. Why? For starters, the human brain has a natural tendency to pattern-match – to ignore the old dictum “correlation does not imply causation” and stubbornly persist in associating proximate phenomena. If two things coexist, the brain often tells us, they must be related. Some parents of autistic children noticed that their child’s condition began to appear shortly after a vaccination. The conclusion: “The vaccine must have caused the autism.” Sounds reasonable, even though, as many scientists have noted, it has long been known that autism and other neurological impairments often become evident at or around the age of 18 to 24 months, which just happens to be the same time children receive multiple vaccinations. Correlation, perhaps. But not causation, as studies have shown.

via wired.com

Lang, god og viktig artikkel i Wired om vaksinering og motstand mot vaksinering. Les den!

via Adam Crowe på flickr.com

via apod.nasa.gov

Fra Nasa sitt “Astronomy Picture of the Day”.

Jorden bruker 365,2422 dager rundt solen. Vi runder det ned til 365 dager og kaller det et år, men da har vi jo 0.2422 dager til overs hvert år. Hvert fjerde år så tar vi en dag ekstra den 29. februar. Men 0,2422 * 4 = 0,9688, så det går fremdeles ikke opp. Innimellom må vi derfor plusse på ett sekund (skuddsekund?), og det gjør vi på nyttårsaften i år. Hva skal du bruke ditt ekstra sekund til?

Live Science har flere detaljer.

“Phoenix” har landet på Mars i dag. Du kan lese om det på hjemmesiden, men det som er nesten enda kjekkere er å følge med på hyppige oppdateringer på Twitter. Det er noe barnslig fascinerende med romfart…

“What You Should Do to Prepare for and Respond to Chemical, Radiological, Nuclear, and Biological Terrorist Attacks - Pocket Edition Survival Guide”

Av og til så er tittelen på en bok så fantastisk at jeg bare må ha den, selv om jeg ikke har noen umiddelbare planer om å lese den. Og gleden var stor da jeg oppdaget at alt jeg trenger å vite får plass på et dobbelt A4 ark og kan lastes ned gratis. Dette er ikke noe å stusse på en gang. Du finner den her.

Disse flotte folkene som har laget denne brosjyren har også drevet og forsket på terrorisme i 30 år og blant annet oversatt alle taler og uttalelser fra jihadister til engelsk. I forrige uke fant de ut at de skulle gjøre alt dette tilgjengelig for offentligheten. Så hvis du lurer litt på hvordan verdensbildet til Osama egentlig er eller hvordan han ordlegger seg, så er det bare å søke og lese her: RAND Voices of Jihad Database