Science and Technology Thread

[tifosi77]

Elon Musk's Next Game-Changer Is A Battery Called The "Powerwall"

The problem with existing batteries is that they suck.

True, indeed. So I'm not sure why a battery-based solution is the way forward.

Whoever invents a better way to store electricity is going become awfully rich.

[columbia]

I like the idea of a Tesla motorcycle (as has been speculated).

[Sam's Drunk Dog]

Nasa tests 'WARP DRIVE' engine that could carry passengers to the moon in just four hours

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... light.html

[columbia]

Scientists have paper on gender bias rejected because they're both women
http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-vi ... l_facebook

[tifosi77]

I saw that gender bias story this afternoon and was like

[PFiDC]

I hear the editor of the journal was writing a paper on irony.

[count2infinity]

That's the thing about the review process. It's largely anonymous and they just say whatever the hell they want. I've had some papers reviewed where one reviewer completely rips the paper apart and another praised it for the good work. Luckily there is an appeal process in pretty much any journal that consists of just writing a letter to the editor of the journal, saying the review was very unfair, and typically (if it's warranted like this example) the editor will send it out to a different reviewer. If the paper contained data and interviews from males in the field as a way to compare make and female experiences, that should be enough, they shouldn't need a male coauthor.

[Shyster]

A communications satellite for the Mexican government, which was being launched on a Russian Proton rocket, did not go to space today:

http://spacenews.com/ils-proton-rocket- ... r-liftoff/

This means that the last two Russian launches, of two completely different launch vehicles, both failed. In both cases, it looks like the failure was on an upper stage. This bodes not well for the Russian space industry. The Soyuz (which failed to launch a Progress cargo vehicle to the ISS) and the Proton are some of the most-launched rockets in history--both of them have been in use in one form or another for more than 40 years. They're not failing due to design flaws; the bugs were all worked out decades ago. The only reason for failures in such mature technology would be due to bad quality control.

[tifosi77]

The Russians have poor quality control. You don't say.

[obhave]

That's the thing about the review process. It's largely anonymous and they just say whatever the hell they want. I've had some papers reviewed where one reviewer completely rips the paper apart and another praised it for the good work. Luckily there is an appeal process in pretty much any journal that consists of just writing a letter to the editor of the journal, saying the review was very unfair, and typically (if it's warranted like this example) the editor will send it out to a different reviewer. If the paper contained data and interviews from males in the field as a way to compare make and female experiences, that should be enough, they shouldn't need a male coauthor.

I fully believe reviewers should not be given names in the review process. This way it avoids gender bias. And it avoids people thinking anything a big name says is gospel and not fully reviewing (another problem).

The reviewers and authors should both be anonymous. Then it would only come down to any bias by the editors.

[count2infinity]

Agreed... there are scientists that can smear fecal matter on a paper, turn it in, and it'd get accepted. Be much better with anonymous authors and reviewers.

[Avyran]

Are there any more articles like this one? I've never heard of the thought before & it's intriguing to me - the idea of emotional/social pain being received similarly to physical pain.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” goes the playground rhyme that’s supposed to help children endure taunts from classmates. But a new study suggests that there’s more going on inside our brains when someone snubs us – and that the brain may have its own way of easing social pain.

The findings, recently published in Molecular Psychiatry by a University of Michigan Medical School team, show that the brain’s natural painkiller system responds to social rejection – not just physical injury.

What’s more, people who score high on a personality trait called resilience – the ability to adjust to environmental change – had the highest amount of natural painkiller activation.

[Shyster]

The Russians have poor quality control. You don't say.

Ha. I don't give a crap about the Proton, but problems with the Soyuz are disturbing when that's still the only way to get astronauts to the ISS.

[tifosi77]

The Russians have poor quality control. You don't say.

Ha. I don't give a crap about the Proton, but problems with the Soyuz are disturbing when that's still the only way to get astronauts to the ISS.

And presumably back home.

[Shyster]

The Russians have poor quality control. You don't say.

Ha. I don't give a crap about the Proton, but problems with the Soyuz are disturbing when that's still the only way to get astronauts to the ISS.

And presumably back home.

That as well, although the Soyuz spacecraft hasn't had any problems recently. There is some ambiguity in the term "Soyuz," since it is used to refer both to the Soyuz spacecraft and to the carrier rocket used to launch that spacecraft. The Soyuz spacecraft always launches on a Soyuz rocket, but the Soyuz rocket is used for other missions such as launching LEO satellites and launching the unmanned Progress cargo vehicles (which are based on the Soyuz spacecraft). The current Soyuz carrier rocket is nothing more than an evolved version of the original Soviet R-7 Semyorka ICBM, which was also the rocket that launched Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1 mission. The R-7 turned out to be a mediocre ICBM but a good expendable launch system.

[redwill]

I always wondered why when a pot of water or soup was boiling or near-boiling, very little steam came off. But when the heat is turned off, it starts steaming a lot.

To Google!

Steam you can see is not really steam, but in reality very hot water vapor with very small droplets of liquid water. When water is boiling a steady state of water turning into steam turning into visible "steam" is established. When heat is removed the system is no longer in a steady state and shifts quickly to a new steady state, that of water turning into less hot steam, which cools more quickly to form more visible "steam". Thus in the process of shifting to a new steady state a lot of steam will condense more rapidly to form steam clouds than before.

http://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-that-whe ... -shoots-up

What did we do before the internets when we needed an answer to such an important question as this? I guess most people would run right down to the library and read an entire book on thermodynamics. Ah, life was simpler back in the day.

[tifosi77]

New Alzheimer’s treatment fully restores memory function

Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques - structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients.

If the therapy can be made to work on humans, it will be amazing. This disease is actually my biggest fear about growing old; it scares the absolute crap outta me thinking that my brain may deteriorate to the point of no longer recognizing Mrs Tif, or knowing my own name.

[columbia]

New Alzheimer’s treatment fully restores memory function

Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques - structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients.

If the therapy can be made to work on humans, it will be amazing. This disease is actually my biggest fear about growing old; it scares the absolute crap outta me thinking that my brain may deteriorate to the point of no longer recognizing Mrs Tif, or knowing my own name.

That opens the question: whom would they try this out on?
Would you give a hear transplant to someone who can't reasonably consent to having one?

I honestly don't know how that stuff works....

[tifosi77]

That's where living wills come into play. Put your wishes on record when you are of sound mind and body.

[shmenguin]

between this thread and the one at the old board, i feel like there have been a ton of links to groundbreaking research on awful diseases...and then nothing.

it's a combination of false alarm and "these things take time", but color me skeptical when i hear stuff like this.

[count2infinity]

Keep in mind that these scientists need funding to do their research (and make a living for that matter). They need to sell their stuff as the next big, awesome, great thing even if it's just a tiny little twig added to an eventual nest to get the dough to keep doing research.

Take this article for instance: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/14 ... to-clothes

That was my group that did that work... my boss got a phone call from some fashion designer asking for a partnership so they can get some solar thread for her next line of clothing. He had to explain that it was merely a proof of concept sort of idea and it wasn't anywhere close to marketable yet. And where has that research in our group gone since then? No where... it died. The person working on it got a job, and left. It's all about getting money. I'm sure that eventually we'll have clothes that have solar energy capabilities in them and yes, they'll likely give credit to my boss for "inventing" the solar thread, but that's a long time down the road. He just needed to sell it in a way to get a grant to keep doing research, and he got that.

[shafnutz05]

tl;nr, c2i is lobbying for more money.

but seriously though, I understand both sides of the coin. I completely understand shmenguin's point about seeing all these possible cures (HIV, cancer, Alzheimer's etc) and then you don't hear a peep after the initial study.

[Avyran]

In case you need a reminder as to why not to throw water on an oil fire (science + slow-mo technology). Good stuff starts around 1:15.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbgdRR4yj8Y

[obhave]

between this thread and the one at the old board, i feel like there have been a ton of links to groundbreaking research on awful diseases...and then nothing.

it's a combination of false alarm and "these things take time", but color me skeptical when i hear stuff like this.

As c2i said, its all about selling your research to get more grant money to complete the research. But research like this could be a decade away from impacting anyone. Especially when its in the health field, where you have so many steps before something can be done for patients.

You can have scientists being really excited by something happening in a field, but it might only be a small thing towards a major goal. The media then taking that to mean we are close to a cure. You often have interviews where scientists will say something is 10 years away, at least, but the pop science articles never actually mention that.

[Algernon]

http://www.spectroscopyonline.com/mass- ... ll-biology

A novel adaptation to inductively coupled plasma–mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS), mass cytometry provides researchers with a tool to study the complexity of biology at the single-cell level. New insights into the interrogation of high dimensional data systems using unsupervised data networking algorithms are enabling the application of mass cytometry to the study of the diversity of cell subsets, as well as to determine cellular functions such as apoptosis, cell signaling pathways, the cell cycle, and DNA damage.

Mass cytometry uses reporter molecules (typically antibodies) tagged with transition-metal isotopes to label cells from blood, tissues, or cell cultures. The metal-tagged antibodies specifically bind to their target proteins, and the mass cytometer measures the expression of these biomarkers in each individual cell according to the type and amount of each metal detected. The current instrument configuration provides users with more than 120 detection channels at an acquisition rate of up to 1000 cells per second.