In the coldest labs in the universe, bucketfuls of liquid flow uphill and solids pass through one another
FOR centuries, con artists have convinced the masses that it is possible to defy gravity or walk through walls. Victorian audiences gasped at tricks of levitation involving crinolined ladies hovering over tables. Even before then, fraudsters and deluded inventors were proudly displaying perpetual-motion machines that could do impossible things, such as make liquids flow uphill without consuming energy. Today, magicians still make solid rings pass through each other and become interlinked – or so it appears. But these are all cheap tricks compared with what the real world has to offer.
Cool a piece of metal or a bucket of helium to near absolute zero and, in the right conditions, you will see the metal levitating above a magnet, liquid helium flowing up the walls of its container or solids passing through each other. “We love to observe these phenomena in the lab,” says Ed Hinds of Imperial College, London.
This weirdness is not mere entertainment, though. From these strange phenomena we can tease out all of chemistry and biology, find deliverance from our energy crisis and perhaps even unveil the ultimate nature of the universe. Welcome to the world of superstuff.
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Approximately one in three babies in the United States is now delivered by cesarean section. The number of cesarean sections in the U.S. has risen nearly 46% since 1996. – Provided by RandomHistory.com
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The Great Wikipedia Blackout of 2012 has begun.
Reddit, TwitPic, Mozilla, Mojang, and thousands of others will soon follow suit. The Internet is officially on strike! Why? Because the House and Senate are conspiring with the entertainment industry to break the Internet.
Make no mistake: SOPA has not been shelved. And a vote on PIPA is just around the corner. Luckily, hundreds of companies, charities, and notable individuals with strong moral character have joined forces to stop these dangerous Big Brother bills from moving forward.
The fight is far from over, but hopefully today’s blackout will help bring this important matter to the attention of folks who rely on the Internet for entertainment and education, but have so far remained oblivious to SOPA and PIPA and their harmful consequences.
Do your part. Take action. Stop SOPA and PIPA and put an end to threat of Internet censorship.
If you absolutely must scab, here are a few useful links:
- Five ways to survive the Wikipedia Blackout.
- Wikipedia Blackout: Survive with these 12 alternatives.
- #altwiki: A collaborative crowd-sourcing alternative to Wikipedia.
- How to access Wikipedia during the blackout.
In a major victory for the Internet, and major blow to its would-be censors, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), co-sponsor of SOPA’s sister bill PIPA, has officially withdrawn his support for the legislation.
“I have been a co-sponsor of the PROTECT IP Act because I believe it’s important to protect American ingenuity, ideas and jobs from being stolen through Internet piracy, much of it occurring overseas through rogue websites in China,” the Senator wrote in a post on his Facebook page. “However, we must do this while simultaneously promoting an open, dynamic Internet environment that is ripe for innovation and promotes new technologies.”
In addition to withdrawing his support out of “concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet,” Sen. Rubio also urges Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor.”
PIPA is currently slated to be voted on next Tuesday, January 24th.
UPDATE: Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), another PIPA co-sponsor, has withdrawn his support for the bill. Earlier, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), took to Facebook to express reservations over SOPA.
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At a court hearing concerning his manslaughter and ship abandonment charges, embattled Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino claimed he accidentally tripped and fell into a life boatwhile helping to evacuate passengers.
“The passengers were pouring on to the decks, taking the lifeboats by assault,” the Italian newspaper La Repubblica quoted the captain as saying. “Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60-70° angle, I tripped and I ended up in one of the boats. That’s how I found myself in the lifeboat.”
As evidence, Schettino pointed to his lack of a life jacket, which he says he gave to a passenger.
Though he would not admit to abandoning ship, the captain did accept responsibility for the accident, and confirmed media reports that he was sailing close to Giglio in order to salute retired captain Mario Palombo, with whom he was speaking on the phone at the time.
Schettino still maintains that he was not on drugs or drunk, and is willing to submit to a drug test.
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20 Images That Will Change Your Life.
A day’s worth of facts to get you through Wikipedia’s 24-hour blackout.
Copper thieves.
Downtown Dallas job .. They were trying to pull a hot 13,200 volt copper wire out of a conduit. Note the bolt cutter and the copper wire on the ground.
One more nasty picture under the fold. Be forewarned!!! They may be gruesome to some of you.
The link for all of them is here.
Read the rest of this entry…
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Bariatric Surgery Could Improve Heart Health
Weight-loss surgery may reduce the risk of having a heart attack or stroke as well as lower the risk of dying as a result of one. A 15-year study of obese men and women found that those who had bariatric surgery were 33 percent less likely to have a heart attack or stroke than those who opted to forgo surgery, and they were about half as likely to die from one. Interestingly, though the surgical patients were generally more likely to have lost weight during the course of the study, the amount of weight loss was not associated with the risk of heart attack, stroke, or death. More …
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HELP KILL SOPA AND PIPA. Don’t be appeased by recent small changes in the legislation. Congress continues to look at the legislation, and it still contains many provisions which will affect your access to the internet. Only your thousands of voices can reverse the process:
Stop Internet Censorship!
WWII: First Armed Insurgency in Warsaw Ghetto (This Day in 1943)
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish armed resistance that took place in the Warsaw Ghetto of Nazi-occupied Poland during WWII. By July 1942, the Nazis had forced 500,000 Jews into the Warsaw Ghetto. Starvation killed thousands each month and thousands more were transferred to “labor” camps every day. When word reached the ghetto that the destination was actually the gas chambers at Treblinka, the newly formed Jewish insurgency attacked the Nazis. How long did the insurgency last? More…
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I’m thinking a lot about species concepts as applied to humans, about the “Out of Africa” model, and also looking back into Africa itself. I think the idea that modern humans originated in Africa is still a sound concept. Behaviorally and physically, we began our story there, but I’ve come around to thinking that it wasn’t a simple origin. Twenty years ago, I would have argued that our species evolved in one place, maybe in East Africa or South Africa. There was a period of time in just one place where a small population of humans became modern, physically and behaviourally. Isolated and perhaps stressed by climate change, this drove a rapid and punctuational origin for our species. Now I don’t think it was that simple, either within or outside of Africa
MORE.
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Project Avalon – Klaus Dona: The Hidden History of the Human Race
**Ed note: Some transcripts contain words or phrases that are inaudible or difficult to hear and are, therefore, designated in square brackets.**
BILL RYAN (BR): This is Bill Ryan here from Project Camelot and Project Avalon. It’s the 20th of February, 2010, and it’s my great privilege to be meeting again with Klaus Dona. In this video presentation it’s going to be an interview with a difference because I’m going to do very little talking indeed, maybe none at all!
Klaus is going to be doing an audio commentary on one of his extremely special, unusual, and fascinating slide shows about the artifacts and the various phenomena that he has been researching, discovering, investigating personally all over the world relating to what I think you could legitimately call The Hidden History of the Human Race. Would you say that that’s a good summary, Klaus?
KLAUS DONA (KD): That’s a very good summary, yes.
MORE.
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The event is the first of its kind since 1962 and will provide scientists with valuable samples from Mars that no space mission has ever been able to bring back to Earth Photo: AP Photo/Darryl Pitt
By Nick Collins
The rock was seen falling to Earth in a fireball last July but was not found on the ground until December, when collectors began speculating it had come from the red planet.
Tests overseen by a panel of international experts have now confirmed their suspicion – only the fifth time in history scientists have officially recognised a meteorite which people witnessed falling as being Martian.
Even before the official test results museums, universities and NASA scientists were offering dealers vast sums for samples, which are among the rarest items on the planet.
One dealer, who acquired the rocks from the people who found them, said he charges between £7,200 ($11,000) and £15,000 ($22,500) per ounce and has already sold most of his stock.
The prices value the rock at about ten times the worth of gold.
MORE.
Originally posted 2012-01-18 15:30:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter