A science blog with Eric Berger

Linkpost | 6.28.12

  • What happens to consciousness when we die: The hypothesis that the brain creates consciousness, however, has vastly more evidence for it than the hypothesis that consciousness creates the brain. (Scientific American)
  • Electric bikes growing in popularity: The concept of electric bicycles, whose riders can cruise up hills on battery power when they are tired of pedaling, is slowly catching on in cities around the world. (New York Times)
Categories: Linkposts
Eric Berger

14 Responses

  1. Lou says:

    Marble road in Greece is only 2000 years old. Interesting but not as interesting as much harder Granite objects across the world that may be 10,000-15,000 years old. Very difficult to work on. Google what we have to use these days to create something like Rameses statues from Egypt. Archaeologists seem to be clueless over this.

    I don’t know about UFO (as in ET) but a few years ago, I was looking at the sky at night and happened to notice this “star” moving and changing direction. I thought it was strange to see a “star” moving like that. Apparently, some people saw the same thing as I did. Keep it in mind that Military sometimes have secret projects that could look like UFOs. I believe they kept F-117 Nighthawk in secret for 10 years before we found out about it. Who knows what’s out there these days?

    Mysterious radiation spike? That article reminded me of this article by Dr. Schoch’s article – Of course, there’s always ancient atomic warfare… Google it if you’re interested… Not that I believe it but interesting indeed esp over glass rocks…

  2. JohnD says:

    80 million Americans are certain UFOs exist

    I know that there are unidentified flying objects; many people report seeing them. What I do not know is if there is (A) life elsewhere (though Drake suggests, Fermi rebuts) and (B) if any of it is visiting us.

    What the record for the most natural-born children by a single woman?

    I am astonished that she didn’t smother her husband at some point, just to stop the madness.

    A few extra links:

    Proof that we went to the Moon – thank you, Eric, for letting me post this one…

    Puffin on the Maine coast – a live stream in HD of a puffin colony

    The Shipstone revealed – or just an interesting new battery. You decide!

    • Bill in Houston says:

      I remember the Edison Battery from a high school chemistry class. We had a handout on how batteries worked and different types of dry and wet cell batteries. That was about it (1976). Interesting article. I’ll have to look up more about this.

  3. Brenda says:

    “What the record for the most natural-born children by a single woman?”

    That makes Mrs. Duggar and Mrs. Sparrow look positively sane in comparison!

  4. Jim says:

    Re: UFO’s It’s possible, sure. But to be certain of something for which
    there is no concrete evidence? Hmm… (USA Today)

    In a barren desert you can draw a 5 mile circle, do the field work,
    and claim there is no concrete evidence for concrete.

    I’ll have to walk you through this.
    A UFO is an unidentified flying object. If you see anything flying that
    you cannot identify, it is an unidentified flying object. This can get
    technical. For example, is it a 727 or a German F-100?
    But generally the question is, was it a plane or not?
    Was it a helicopter or not? Was it a rocket or not?
    Was it car lights near Marfa or not?
    Was it an insect or not? Was it a bird or not?
    Was it a meteor or not?
    Was it a balloon or not, etc.?

    If you are convinced that the answer is NOT,
    then you have seen a UFO.

    I wasted 2 weeks reading a 1995 Plasma Physics book.
    They spent an amazing amount of time proving dozens
    of equations equaled zero.

    You could infer that if just about everything in Plasma Physics
    is equal to zero then it does not exist.

    If you are interested in centuries of humanoid sightings try Albert Rosales’

    The Viktor Schauberger “Repulsin”:

    A military disk in Kansas:

    I am often reminded of the German professor whose student
    brought him a data set that contradicted his pet theory.
    And the professor said, “I don’t care what the data says.
    My theory is correct.”

  5. Ann says:

    I am 100% certain that UFOs exist. I am less certain that spacecraft piloted by intelligent beings from other planets exist, however.

    There will always be objects that we can’t identify or explain, even years later (assuming they were really there at all). That doesn’t make them Martians.

  6. Bill in Houston says:

    Electric bikes? You mean the kids toy from back in the 60s? You’d bolt on a kit to a single speed bike like a Schwinn. An older neighbor had one. It had about a two mile range and a top speed of nearly 20. I remember Jimmy riding it to our elementary school (about a mile away), with half the neighborhood kids chasing him on their bikes, and coming back. Then he recharged.

  7. Independent_Texan says:

    “It’s possible, sure. But to be certain of something for which there is no concrete evidence? Hmm…”

    Signed – Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc, etc…

  8. IANVS says:

    re: “What Happens to Consciousness When We Die”

    No doubt, that depends on our daily Vitamin D dosage.

  9. IANVS says:

    re: “A third of Earthlings believe in UFOs, would befriend aliens”

    They’re he-re!

    But a third doesn’t hold a candle to what two-thirds would befriend.

    “Nearly seven-in-ten Americans (68%) believe that angels and demons are active in the world.”

  10. Someone says:

    Official Air Force Aircraft ID Chart

    Guaranteed to resolve any questions about UFOs

  11. Meiczyslaw says:

    Reading the most-children story, I noticed mention of fruit flies, and that triggered an association:

    It turns out that the big fruit fly study that claims that males are inherently promiscuous (the one everyone cites) was just determined to be ridiculously flawed.

    Only took them sixty-odd years to figure it out.