Category: Science, Engineering & Technology
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That's the conclusion that Stephen Hawking has come to, in his latest book The Grand Design, written in conjunction with Leonard Mlodinow. In his introduction to the book on the amazon.com website: "How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? Over twenty years ago I wrote A Brief History of Time, to…
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August 2010 has been a torrid month in Houston- it is winding down to become the hottest August on record. The high temperatures and humidity have made the days unusually uncomfortable with heat advisories being issued nearly daily. Two days ago the Houston Chronicle ran a mildly amusing editorial named The ugliest August. It described synapses melting in fearsome…
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(Trailer of Gasland) There's a large industrial park close to my home, filled with large buildings and tasteful landscaping. All were empty last year; all are filled this year. They have been leased by companies seeking to drill for natural gas in the remnants of countryside and rolling hills, now crowded out by McMansion subdevelopments…
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Bad Bro vis a vis Big Bro : the perils of the Intertube Age. (Note: the first link is to a humorous situation that I found myself in. I had thoughts about contacting my cell phone carrier to ask about number blocks and such, a genuflection of sorts at the altar of Big Bro, but…
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If this investigating professor is to be believed, it started several weeks before the Deepwater Horizon rig, positioned several miles offshore, drilling in 5000 ft deep ocean, was due to be capped and moved to another location for drilling. Based on his interviews with people who were involved in the rig's operation "There was an…
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Through the cloud of volcanic ash spewed by the Icelandic volcano Eyjafyallajokull, that is. As thousands of flights were canceled over the weekend, desperate travelers sought any possible way out of airport lounge purgatory, driving across countries and paying unprecedented prices for one-way taxi or bus rides. The flights resume, after a few test flights…
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Figurative: Wi-Fi problems "Users who rushed to snap up Apple's iPad are complaining within days of the slate computer's highly anticipated release that they're having trouble connecting it to the Internet. On Apple's technical support Web site, there were 11 pages of comments Tuesday morning on a post saying Wi-Fi connections were weak or kept…
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An interesting story in Thursday's Houston Chronicle about a scientist's decades long wait to patent an invention. There are no details of the exact bureaucratic snarl that held up the application for so long. But I suspect that the back and forth between the physicist and the patent office may have resembled Narayan's experience with Aetna when…
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Meet a composer without arms, legs or human faculties. Emily Howell is the name given to a software program created by David Cope: "With Cope’s help, Emily Howell has written three original opuses of varying length and style, with another trio in development. Although the first recordings won’t be released until February, reactions to live…
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Now the outcry over the Toyota car recalls has gotten to the point where the venerable Edmunds.com is offering a one-million dollar prize to anyone who can "re-create unintended acceleration in a car and then solve that problem and prove the whole thing" to Toyota. What a comedown for a company that has been known…
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Brinjals, or aubergines or eggplant, as they are variously called in different parts of the world, are the center of a major brouhaha over biotech crops and their introduction in India, one of the most lucrative markets for seeds in the world. Bowing to the pressure of numerous activists and at least 10 state governments,…
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First, maybe Tom Cruise does know the history of psychology. Link. Or at least was right that exercise can be as effective as antidepressants for people with mild depression (but not moderate-to-severe depression). Second, locking drug users up in China. Link. Minimum two-year stay, no treatment, ghastly conditions. I'm not sure I buy the popular…
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While recently discussing the precise mechanism of evolution,after viewing "What Darwin Never Knew" on Nova on PBS, there was much argument over whether the 'random' nature of mutation is truly random or conforms loosely to a framework of rules. Evolution in organisms, as we commonly understand, is where random mutations occur, of which the traits…
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