science

creating “Inorganic life” – first tentative steps have now been taken

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Now this is interesting, really interesting … lets start with five key bullet points  … Scientists at the University of Glasgow say they have taken their first tentative steps towards creating ‘life’ from inorganic chemicals If they really do construct complex chemical cells with life-like properties, it could help us understand how life emerged (but … Read more

Bot tricks people into thinking it is human – Artifical Intelligence at last? Nope, I’m skeptical

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I’ve tripped over an interesting little snippet in New Scientist where there is a claim that some software called Cleverbot has passed one of the key tests of artificial intelligence: the Turing test. Now before we proceed, lets clarify what this test actually is. It was introduced by Alan Turing (hence the name) in his … Read more

Debating Evolution with the crazies – Hints and Tips

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If, like me, you engage in on-line discussions with theist crazies, then you will know that at some point Evolution will pop up. It is usually unexpected (but not always), for example yesterday when engaged in a debate with an Islamic fanatic about the existence of God (which is usually a claim that is some variation of one of the three famous arguments, the Cosmological, the Teleological, or the Ontological) we suddenly take a left-hand turn and Darwin pops up which then leaves all the non-believers thinking, “WTF, where did that come from?“, and soon we were buried in heaps of anti-evolution quotes.

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Encyclopedia of Life catalogues more than one-third of Earth’s species

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Now this is cool, more than one-third of all the known species of life on the planet have now been cataloged … the total they have (as I write this) is 753,315. Just before we launch into the article lets clarify those numbers. It is estimated that there are probably around 8.7 million species in total. That is just a finger in the air, so it is within a couple of million either side of that. OK, just so that you understand that number, what in actually means is that an astonishing 86% of all plants and animals on land and 91% of those in the seas have yet to be named and catalogued. Ah but hang on a moment, those sums don’t add up, one-third of 8.7 million is not 753,315, so what is the story here? Easy, we only know about 1.9 species, the rest have yet to be discovered, so it now has more than one third of the known species cataloged.

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The Diamond Planet

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Now this is cool … University of Manchester astronomers think they’ve found a once-massive star that’s been transformed into a small planet made of diamond.

The researchers first detected a pulsar using the Parkes radio telescope of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

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The Homeopathic poll – Justifying how you should vote.

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The UK’s Guardian is running a homeopathic poll in which they ask you to vote “yes” or “no” in response to the question, “Should homeopathic treatments be available on the National Health Service?”.  Perhaps you have already had this pointed out and have been encourage to vote “no”, but have you really thought about it?

Hey it’s an easy question, the answer is obvious … or is it? (Don’t panic, it is, I just want you to think through the arguments and to also explain why the NHS still has it on offer)

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