Science!

[Mongrel]

And now for some particularly sinister science news: Proof of concept app uses 23andme data to restrict access based on genetic info.

[zaratustra]

1) Solid-state gel fridge

Though wouldn't you get all kinds of crap in there eventually? You know, the way silly putty or gelpads or such pick up hairs and lint and bits of dust and debris?

It's a concept design. So, magical unicorn farts take care of all that.

[Mothra]

[Sharkey]

Woz and a bunch of other schmott guys think maybe we shouldn't use fucking Daleks for wars.

The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.

[Romosome]

Hey, the military isn't for "experimentation", Sharkey, it's for killing people and breaking things. Get your science out of here and pick up a rock like a real man.

And I mean man, don't pick up that rock if you're a lady or a queer, we don't want you killing people and breaking things then

[Sharkey]

Nyder, execute the insubordinate explodog.

[Kazz]

they're cominggg

[Thad]

The Reg had one of those smug, condescending strawman op-eds that remind me why I don't usually read the Reg: Hawking, Musk, Woz (and Riley): ROBOTS will KILL US ALL, the thrust of which is "We've had cruise missiles for decades; how come Stephen Hawking is so dumb he didn't know that?"

[Mongrel]

The launch of the clinicaltrials.gov registry in 2000 seems to have had a striking impact on reported trial results, according to a PLoS ONE study1 that many researchers have been talking about online in the past week.

A 1997 US law mandated the registry’s creation, requiring researchers from 2000 to record their trial methods and outcome measures before collecting data. The study found that in a sample of 55 large trials testing heart-disease treatments, 57% of those published before 2000 reported positive effects from the treatments. But that figure plunged to just 8% in studies that were conducted after 2000. Study author Veronica Irvin, a health scientist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, says this suggests that registering clinical studies is leading to more rigorous research. Writing on his NeuroLogica Blog, neurologist Steven Novella of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, called the study “encouraging” but also “a bit frightening” because it casts doubt on previous positive results.

Irvin and her co-author Robert Kaplan, chief science officer at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in Rockville, Maryland, focused on human randomized controlled trials that were funded by the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The authors conclude that registration of trials seemed to be the dominant driver of the drastic change in study results. They found no evidence that the trend could be explained by shifting levels of industry sponsorship or by changes in trial methodologies.

Irvin says that by having to state their methods and measurements before starting their trial, researchers cannot then cherry-pick data to find an effect once the study is over. “It’s more difficult for investigators to selectively report some outcomes and exclude others,” she says.

http://www.nature.com/news/registered-c ... NatureNews

That drop is MASSIVE.

[Mongrel]

One of these is Jupiter's moon Europa, the rest are frying pans

[Thad]

Attempt no landings there.

[Büge]

First column, second row. I'd know those lines anywhere.

[Mothra]

Tesla unveils home battery, a "wall-mounted energy-storage unit that can hold 10 kilowatt hours of electric energy, and deliver it at an average of 2 kilowatts, all for $3,500."

[Cthulhu-chan]

On the one hand cool beans.

On the other hand, somebody's house is going to spontaneously combust.

[zaratustra]

that article confuses energy GENERATION with energy STORAGE, but yeah, cool

[Classic]

I haven't read the article, so it is possible Zara is entirely right, but the reason Fossil Fuels are such a big deal is that they're energy dense and "easy" to store and transport. It's the sweet spot of all of those features. The weakness of most "renewables" is that they're not nearly so energy dense or easy to store, which is a problem because they also tend to be unreliable unless you're averaging energy harvest across days or weeks rather than the minute-to-minute steady supply our grid is set up to accommodate.

[zaratustra]

What i mean is that these sentences are fucking incoherent:

a wall-mounted energy-storage unit that can hold 10 kilowatt hours of electric energy, and deliver it at an average of 2 kilowatts, all for $3,500.

That translates into an electricity price (taking into account installation costs and inverters) of around US$500 per kWh[...]

That translates into delivered energy at around $0.06 per kWh for the householder, meaning that a domestic system plus storage would still come out ahead of coal-fired power delivered through the conventional grid.

"electricity price of US$500 per kWh" is like saying your toilet has a "water price of $10 per liter".

Then it says 'domestic system'. Domestic system of what? Cows? Let's assume solar panels. Here's a solar panel sales site that is not sure whether Powerwall will work with their system:

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/tesla

And if you read the website, here is the main problem this thing solves:

Without a home battery, excess solar energy is often sold to the power company and purchased back in the evening. This mismatch adds demand on power plants and increases carbon emissions.

Note that neither of these affirmations has a backing study.

[Mongrel]

[Mongrel]

Wildlife scientists are having a #Junkoff contest on twitter to post the best animal tackle

uh... NSFW?

[Mongrel]

Simply Walking Into Mordor: How Much Lembas Would The Fellowship Have Required?