Starship Asterisk*

Cambridge University Library has announced visionary plans to become a digital library for the world - following a £1.5m lead gift pledged by Dr Leonard Polonsky.

Home to more than seven million books and some of the greatest collections in existence, including those of Newton and Darwin, the Library will begin digitising its priceless treasures to launch its Digital Library for the 21st Century.

University Librarian Anne Jarvis said: "Our library contains evidence of some of the greatest ideas and discoveries over two millennia. We want to make it accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world with an internet connection and a thirst for knowledge. This will not only make our collections available to the world; it will also initiate a global conversation about them.

"At the click of a mouse, students or scholars of divinity or politics, history, physics, medieval languages or the history of medicine, will be able to plunge into the worlds of Mediterranean Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities of the 11th Century, or into the minds of Isaac Newton and his contemporaries."

makc wrote:what value do these materials have now, except for "historic interest"? the fact that they are going to put them up online for free just may be the answer :) there's a reason all new papers PDFs that are published right now are sold over internet - it's because they have non-zero value.

Chris Peterson wrote:The world is full of things that have great value in non-monetary terms.

Chris Peterson wrote:Whether they are sold or given away seems to have little to do with any intrinsic value.

makc wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:The world is full of things that have great value in non-monetary terms.

Natural side effect of individual differences in values. But overlapping area is pretty much covered by money.

makc wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:Whether they are sold or given away seems to have little to do with any intrinsic value.

ok, I can see that valuable papers can be offered for free (either by mistake or by somebody's good will), but does it happen other way around? I kinda thought that market should weed them out - because people will stop buying subscriptions to shіtty articles, editors will get fired and it all will come to senses. kind of like natural selection of good goods (not only paid subscriptions but, in fact, everything - down to food and toilet paper).

Chris Peterson wrote:Many of the things that people value the most have no monetary value.

makc wrote:Important papers tend to get distributed outside publishers' sale systems.

It’s received both tremendous praise and endless scorn. The president’s science adviser and the National Science Teachers Association extol it. The New Atheists loathe it and have repeatedly attacked it.

And today, after a whirlwind first year in print, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future officially debuts in paperback! Already over at Amazon.com, there are only two paperbacks now left in stock…but we’re assured more are on the way.

The paperback edition contains a new preface, addressing some of the questions and criticisms that earlier editions received. Without giving too much away:

• We consider the latest data on science and the U.S. public.
• We consider the impact of “ClimateGate” on the book’s broader argument about science communication.
• We stand by and defend our “Chapter 8,” about the New Atheism.
• We identify the sector–guess which–where the most positive changes are occurring to bring science and the public into better relations.
• We propose new initiatives–and one in particular that seems to really inspire people–to further advance this goal.

In addition, with the added perspective that a year in print makes possible, it is clear that Unscientific America emerged in the summer of 2009 at the front of a larger incoming wave in the scientific world–which was all about reconsidering and improving scientists’ relations with the public. Thus, although it is very different from these books in many ways, Unscientific America really must be considered alongside other books on science communication that came out in the same year, such as Randy Olson’s Don’t Be Such a Scientist and Cornelia Dean’s Am I Making Myself Clear?

And those books, too, are only the beginning. Not only are more like them coming, but all of these works collectively resonate with another, even larger initiative that Chris has become involved in–as he will soon announce. Suffice it to say that we’re not the only ones putting new onus on scientists to reconnect with the media and public….

Climate change, the energy crisis, nuclear proliferation—many of the most urgent problems of the twenty-first century require scientific solutions, yet America is paying less and less attention to scientists. For every five hours of cable news, less than one minute is devoted to science, and the number of newspapers with science sections has shrunk from ninety-five to thirty-three in the last twenty years. In Unscientific America, journalist and best-selling author Chris Mooney and scientist Sheril Kirshenbaum explain this dangerous state of affairs, proposing a broad array of initiatives that could reverse the current trend.

An impassioned call to arms, Unscientific America exhorts Americans to reintegrate science into public discourse—before it is too late

Mooney, author of the bestselling The Republican War on Science, and Kirshenbaum, a marine scientist at Duke and former congressional science fellow, argue that the public ruckus caused when astronomers stripped Pluto of its planetary status demonstrates the disconnect between scientists and the general public, who share only a sense of mutual distrust. The authors place the blame for this squarely on both sides, as well as on the media (TV shows that misrepresent medical science and films that portray scientists as evil or nerdy), and plead for an improved level of discourse. But their repeated assertion that science and religion are compatible will not convince anyone who believes otherwise. Mooney showed his ideological colors in The Republican War on Science, and with their attacks on President Bush, he and his coauthor can't be accused of being nonpartisan here, despite their call for less partisan, nonideological debate. Some readers may also balk at paying $25 for a book nearly a third of which consists of notes and documentation. Nevertheless, Mooney and Kirshenbaum make valid arguments that can only help to further the public debate about these important issues. (July)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

makc wrote:if there's anything to learn from 4 billions years of earth history, it is that nature solves its problems itself. a scientist sitting in his office writing clever papers cannot solve a problem of industry that he isn't even involved with. you can analyze global temperature trends all you want, but underlying problem is that burning fossils is cheap, has an infrastructure in place and provides source of income for millions of people. you don't need scientists to solve that, it will come to end and thus will be self-resolved naturally. for example, when we will run out of fossils. or something else happens. and all by itself. sit back and enjoy the ride.

makc wrote:dont be acting like it was not obvious what I meant.

but, any way, what would be "right social structures" ? scientist-o-cracy?

makc wrote:hardly, I would think very rich people who happen to control the world much more than scientists, dont really lack education or critical thinking, and are very rational

Albert Einstein once asked, does the moon exist when no one is looking at it? Such questions had been the preserve of philosophers, but with the discovery of quantum mechanics in the 1920s they became legitimate queries for physicists, too.

Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, did not believe that science grants us access to an objective reality and insisted that the task of physics was not to find out "how nature is" but only "what we can say about nature". Einstein, on the other hand, maintained an unshakeable belief in a reality that exists out there. Otherwise, he said, "I simply cannot see what it is that physics is meant to describe".

Einstein based his view of quantum mechanics on his belief in an independent reality - the moon does exist when no one is looking at it. In contrast, Bohr used the theory to construct and underpin his belief that the atomic realm has no independent reality. The two agreed on the equations but disagreed on what they meant.

"Scientists, like everyone else, have beliefs," writes distinguished mathematician E. Brian Davies in Why Beliefs Matter. He is not only referring to religious beliefs but to philosophical ones, too. While religious beliefs can be easy to leave at the laboratory door, philosophical beliefs are much harder to sideline.

Some mathematicians, for instance, subscribe to a Platonic view in which theorems are true statements about timeless entities that exist independent of human minds. Others believe that mathematics is a human enterprise invented to describe the regularities seen in nature. The very idea that nature has such regularities which render it comprehensible is itself a belief, as is the idea that the world we perceive is not some sort of delusion or practical joke.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/13/AR2010081302475.html?hpid=opinionsbox1 wrote:
How do astronauts go to the bathroom in zero gravity?
By Peter Carlson Sunday, August 15, 2010

PACKING FOR MARS
The Curious Science of Life in the Void
By Mary Roach Norton. 334 pp. $25.95

Between the belly laughs, you learn a lot of surprising stuff in Mary Roach's "Packing for Mars" -- the kind of delightfully useless facts that will amaze your friends at parties. Facts like these:

-- During a week in space, with no gravity tugging at their spines, astronauts grow two inches taller.

-- Researchers requiring a vomit-like substance for scientific studies use Progresso vegetable soup.

-- A V-2 rocket launched in New Mexico in 1947 zoomed wildly off course and crashed three miles from downtown Juarez, Mexico.

-- In 1965, astronaut John Young smuggled a corned-beef sandwich aboard the Gemini III capsule and into space.

-- During the 1969 Apollo 10 mission, astronaut Thomas Stafford noticed an unpleasantly post-digestive object floating through the weightless cabin, and the official mission transcript recorded this conversation:

"Who did it?" Stafford asked.

"I didn't do it," Young said. "It ain't one of mine."

"I don't think it's one of mine," Eugene Cernan said.

And so on.

Roach is America's funniest science writer. She has made a career of revealing just how weird the world of science can get. Her first book, "Stiff," was a darkly comic history of scientific studies involving human corpses. Her second book, "Spook," explored scientific and quasi-scientific studies of the afterlife. Her third, "Bonk," chronicled the wacky history of sex research. Now, in "Packing for Mars," she has written a comic survey of space science, with emphasis on the absurd, the bizarre and the gross.

"What drew me to the topic of space exploration was not the heroics and adventure stories," she explains, "but the very human and sometimes absurd struggles behind them."

To research the book, Roach traveled to Japan, where prospective astronauts are forced to fold 1,000 sheets of paper into origami birds, which are then analyzed by psychiatrists. She also went to Russia, where a retired cosmonaut grumbled about the mind-numbing boredom of life on the space station. "I wanted to hang myself," he said. "Of course, it's impossible because of weightlessness."

In the United States, Roach observed a NASA study of the physical effects of remaining motionless for weeks, which is what astronauts would have to do on a voyage to Mars. Subjects were paid to lie in bed 24 hours a day for three months, which is tougher than it sounds. One subject was fired when a surveillance camera caught him committing the unforgivable sin of sitting, instead of lying, on his bedpan.

But Roach really shows her reportorial grit by using a NASA contraption to filter her urine and then drink it. "Urine," she reports, "is a restorative and surprisingly drinkable lunchtime beverage."

Obviously, she is not afraid of the icky. In fact, her book is packed with the kind of delightfully disgusting details that bring joy to the hearts of 12-year-old boys -- and to the 12-year-old boy that lurks inside the average adult male. There's a whole chapter on the history and physiology of vomiting in space. Also a chapter on how horrendously dirty and smelly astronauts get after a few weeks without bathing. And a truly bizarre chapter on the unhappy effects of weightlessness on an astronaut's ability to eliminate waste products.
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That chapter contains a classic Roach footnote -- she's a maestro of the footnote -- revealing that NASA maintains a collection of Apollo astronaut waste products in a freezer in Houston. Alas, nobody has checked the specimens lately. "Forty years of freezing, with occasional thaws due to power outages during hurricanes," a NASA official told her, "may have reduced them to mere vestiges of their former glory."

Needless to say, there's also a chapter on sex in space. Roach reports that rats have engaged in space copulation, but she isn't so sure about humans. "Dozens of astronauts have flown on coed crews," she writes. "It's hard to imagine that all these men and women, without exception, have resisted temptation." But thus far, even in our loose-lipped culture, no astronauts have regaled us with tales of weightless hanky-panky.

Roach ends the book with an oddly backhanded endorsement of spending the $500 billion it would cost to send astronauts to the Red Planet: Government money "is always squandered," she writes. "Let's squander some on Mars."

If we do, NASA should take Roach along for the ride. That way she could write a sequel to this erudite, entertaining and very funny book.>>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_%28The_Simpsons%29 wrote:
<<The name Snowball refers to five fictional cats that have been owned by the Simpson family in the TV show The Simpsons.
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Snowball, also known as Snowball I, was the Simpsons' first cat. Her death is never seen in the actual series, since it occurred "before" the show's continuity began. She was first mentioned in the series premiere in a Christmas letter Marge is writing where she explains that Snowball I had died that year. Snowball was so-named due to her white-colored fur, though in a few occasions in the series Snowball I is pictured similar to Snowball II. In "Treehouse of Horror III", a picture of Snowball I (as a black cat) is shown with the words "1988-90" underneath and Lisa says "she died four years ago tonight" (although that particular episode aired in 1992). In a song Homer wrote for Lisa, he says her cat died on Christmas Eve. Snowball was, according to Lisa in a poem, run over by a Chrysler. At a later point it emerged that Snowball was run over by Mayor Quimby's beer swilling brother, Clovis. Although the Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Albright, tells Lisa that Snowball cannot go to Heaven, this proves to be wrong as Snowball has been seen in heaven by characters who have undergone near-death experiences, including Bart, and sometimes in flashback sequences. Due to election forgery, Snowball was listed as posthumously voting for Sideshow Bob. Snowball also appears in "Bart gets hit by a car" where Snowball is run over by a car. She is briefly mentioned in "Treehouse of Horror XIV" when Homer kills Death in revenge for her death as well as that of John F. Kennedy.
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Snowball II was the Simpson family's second cat. Snowball II was named after Snowball I. Though Snowball I had white fur, which inspired her name, Snowball II had black fur. She first appeared in "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", where it is explained that Snowball I had died the previous year and they had gotten Snowball II. Snowball II received little attention in the series, although she has appeared in many episodes. Snowball II and Santa's Little Helper have always been shown as having a good relationship; usually they are seen sleeping near each other. In the "Fly Vs. Fly" segment of "Treehouse of Horror VIII", Santa's Little Helper chases Snowball II into a transport device and their DNA gets mixed. Two different animals emerge: Santa's Little Helper emerged with both pets' heads, Snowball II with their back sides. Snowball II also found a love interest in Scratchy in the "Terror of Tiny Toon" segment of "Treehouse of Horror IX". Her largest role was in the fourteenth season episode "Old Yeller Belly", in which Snowball II saves Homer from a burning treehouse built by the Amish after Santa's Little Helper runs away. She also had minor roles in "Bart Gets an Elephant", where she tries to get attention; in "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds", in which she is scared by the many puppies; and in "Make Room for Lisa", in which Lisa has a hallucination where she becomes Snowball II. In the episode "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot", Snowball II was hit and killed by Dr. Hibbert's Mercedes-Benz G500. After numerous fleeting replacements for Snowball II, the fifth (and last surviving) Snowball was named Snowball II to avoid future confusion and having to spend more money on a new bowl.
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Snowball III was the third cat owned by The Simpsons. Snowball III was a ginger male cat. In I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot, Lisa adopts him from an animal shelter shortly after the death of Snowball II. She passes over a skunk, a siamese cat, and a cat with an eye infection before finally deciding upon Snowball III. He drowns trying to catch a goldfish in an aquarium while Lisa is preparing his cat food in the kitchen for the first time. He was voiced by Dan Castellaneta.
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Coltrane, also known as Snowball IV, was the Simpsons' fourth cat, adopted from an animal shelter shortly after the death of Snowball III. Originally, Lisa is not certain she wants another cat, but Coltrane's name wins her over due to its resemblance to that of the jazz musician John Coltrane. Upon bringing Coltrane home, Lisa decides to play him some of John Coltrane's music on her saxophone, but the noise frightens him and he jumps out the window to his death. He was voiced by Dan Castellaneta. Coltrane was the Simpsons' only cat since Snowball I to have been white; this was ironic, as he was the only one not to be named Snowball. However, Lisa evidently considers him as part of the Snowball lineage, as she names her next cat Snowball V, implying that Coltrane was Snowball IV.
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Snowball V, renamed "Snowball II", is the Simpsons' fifth cat and is almost identical in appearance to Snowball II. In "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot", the Crazy Cat Lady throws a cat at Lisa while she is mourning the death of her other three cats that are killed in the episode. Lisa then tells the cat to leave, because any cat that she owns is unlucky and is certain to be killed. As the cat starts to cross Evergreen Terrace, a car driven by Gil drives past. Gil swerves; his car hits a tree and bursts into flames, thereby giving Gil insurance compensation for his meals. Since the cat is unhurt, Lisa takes it as a sign of good luck and adopts her. Lisa renames Snowball V "Snowball II" at the end of the episode, in her words "to save money on a new dish", also vowing to pretend the whole thing never happened. Most viewers recognize this as the writers making a subtle self-jab at The Simpsons' often-forced tradition of maintaining a status quo continuity in the series. Principal Skinner, who happens to be walking by, asks "That's really a cheat, isn't it?" to which Lisa replies, "I guess it is, Principal Tamzarian." (a reference to "The Principal and the Pauper", another episode with a similar continuity gag at the end.) Snowball V also was the focus of a subplot in the sixteenth season episode "The Seven-Beer Snitch", in which she becomes overweight after abandoning the Simpsons for brief periods to visit a different family. Here she is taught tricks and given the name "Smokey" by the new family.
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owlice wrote:
The past couple of years, the tall child's holiday book haul has been in the areas of math and linguistics. Now it's time for something different, and since he recently asked me to buy him solder and electrical tape and to borrow my wire strippers (hmmm... I wonder whether I should be concerned about this), a book on basic electronics might be a good idea. If anyone has suggestions for a book on this subject suitable for a bright 17-year-old, I would be very grateful for them. TIA!