Resolution of Singularities
Continuing my departure from my usual narrative, I’m going to talk about Resolution of Singularities. This is a very classical topic, and research continues in it to this day. I’ve been interested in singularities for awhile and I’m cu...
~ published: today 04:08 ~ source: Rigorous Trivialities ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Happy Independence Day
Happy holidays to all Americans, the most frequent visitors of this blog, many e-friends, and (hopefully still) the leaders of the civilized world......from Europe....
~ published: Thursday at 22:05 ~ source: The Reference Frame ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Problems with some permalinks
Sorry to those hitting the site from old permalinks ending with a ".w" extension; I'm working on a rewrite rule to handle those now. In the meantime, all these pages are there, with the supported ".html" extension. ...
~ published: Thursday at 21:56 ~ source: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Paleolithic multimedia
Paleolithic multimedia?A trained vocalist was sent through the caves testing different sounds and pitches in various locations. Spots of maximum resonance, or places where the voice was most amplified and clear, were noted in each section and later laid o...
~ published: Thursday at 21:38 ~ source: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Xian-Jin Li: a wrong proof of the Riemann hypothesis
Some readers who are interested in maths may have noticed a preprint by Xian-Jin Li,A proof of the Riemann hypothesis.It looks serious and it had to be a lot of work but it is not infinitely hard to see that it is wrong, especially if top mathematicians h...
~ published: Thursday at 14:16 ~ source: The Reference Frame ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Sewall Wright and migration
DavidB at Gene Expression continues his wonderful series on Sewall Wright with a detailed post on the population genetics of migration. ...
~ published: Thursday at 13:24 ~ source: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Li’s Preprint
Yesterday, everyone was all atwitter over a new preprint by Xian-Jin Li containing a purported proof the Riemann Hypothesis. The optics of it looked good (Li is clearly not a crank), but Terry Tao has identified an apparent error.More at Not Even Wrong....
~ published: Thursday at 12:04 ~ source: Ars Mathematica ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Rubber 'snake' could help wave power get a bite of the energy market
A device consisting of a giant rubber tube may hold the key to producing affordable electricity from the energy in sea waves.read more...
~ published: Thursday at 11:29 ~ source: Science Blog - Think. It's not illegal yet. ~ permalink ~ points: 0
High-pitched voices are most attractive -- with a few exceptions
Have you ever seen Singin' in the Rain? One of the movie's most hilarious moments is when the beautiful silent movie star Lina Lamont is asked to start making "talking pictures." As soon as this gorgeous screen siren opens her mouth, the illusio...
~ published: Thursday at 11:17 ~ source: Cognitive Daily ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Gary Marcus on Jindal, Intelligent Design
Gary Marcus contributes an article to the Huffington Post, reflecting on the new Louisiana creationism law:At this point, 30 years after the Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and his late collaborator Amos Tversky started documenting a rash of fallacies in h...
~ published: Thursday at 11:05 ~ source: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Sherlock Holmes on the nonimportance of theories
R. Ford Denison: In A Study in Scarlet, [Holmes] expresses the opinion that it makes no practical difference whether the sun orbits the earth or vice versa. Yet, in The Musgrave Ritual, it turns out that incorrect theories make incorrect predictions.The ...
~ published: Thursday at 10:37 ~ source: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Resveratrol found to improve health, but not longevity in aging mice on standard diet
Scientists have found that the compound resveratrol slows age-related deterioration and functional decline of mice on a standard diet, but does not increase longevity when started at middle age.read more...
~ published: Thursday at 10:34 ~ source: Science Blog - Think. It's not illegal yet. ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Ajit Varki profile
Reporter Bruce Lieberman profiles geneticist Ajit Varki in this week's Nature. It's a good summary of Varki's work in sialic acid evolution, focusing on one particular change in the N-glycolyl neuraminic acid (Neu5Gc), work that I touched on here around 3...
~ published: Thursday at 08:35 ~ source: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Woman aquires new accent after stroke
A woman in southern Ontario is one of the first cases in Canada of a rare neurological syndrome in which a person starts speaking with a different accent. This time it's Maritime Canadian English.read more...
~ published: Thursday at 08:25 ~ source: Science Blog - Think. It's not illegal yet. ~ permalink ~ points: 0
UAH: June 2008: still negative anomaly
According to UAH MSU, the global temperature anomaly in June 2008 was -0.11 °C, up from -0.18 °C in May 2008.A similar warming from -0.083 °C in May 2008 to +0.035 °C in June 2008 has been reported by RSS MSU, too.But let us focus on UAH MSU. Anomaly-...
~ published: Thursday at 08:19 ~ source: The Reference Frame ~ permalink ~ points: 0
LHC to be cooled down by July 14th
Exactly for 14 years, physicists have been waiting for the powerful 14 TeV machine. Finally, on July 14th, the French national holiday which is less than 14 days from now, the gadget should be cool enough to accelerate protons (or during the week that fol...
~ published: Thursday at 07:46 ~ source: The Reference Frame ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Washington Post covers mold at Lascaux
Molly Moore of the Washington Post turns in a nice report on the problems facing Lascaux, about which I wrote earlier this year:"Microbiologists and geologists say we have to observe and understand what's happening first, that we can't disturb the ca...
~ published: Wednesday at 21:56 ~ source: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Notes of a Japanese soldier in the USSR
The drawings below are by Kiuchi Nobuo, a Japanese soldier captured in Manchuria, who survived capitivity in the USSR. He was transported all the way to a camp in Ukraine. His web site is fascinating -- the sketches depict beautiful Soviet women (officers...
~ published: Wednesday at 19:54 ~ source: Information Processing ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Paisley Caves Jenkins interview
On Monday's "NewsHour", PBS ran an interview with archaeologist Dennis Jenkins, who worked on the Paisley Caves human-DNA-containing scat. DENNIS JENKINS: We were looking and hoping, of course, to find spear points, evidence of their technology....
~ published: Wednesday at 19:31 ~ source: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Missing chimpanzee in LA
That "celebrity chimpanzee" that caused all the trouble three years ago is now on the loose in the hills outside LA. There have been scattered reports of missing chickens and garden hoses turned on in the vicinity of the hunt -- but no solid evi...
~ published: Wednesday at 16:11 ~ source: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Hewlett-Packard: Czechia wins Euro 2008
According to Hewlett-Packard (click),the Czech Republic became the winner of the Euro 2008 tournament. In the final, previously unbeaten Czechia comfortably defeated France.Hewlett-Packard has used a more accurate method to determine the winner of each 90...
~ published: Wednesday at 15:34 ~ source: The Reference Frame ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Proof of the Riemann Hypothesis?
Last night a preprint by Xian-Jin Li appeared on the arXiv, claiming a proof of the Riemann Hypothesis. Preprints claiming such a proof have been pretty common, and always wrong. Most of them are obviously implausible, invoking a few pages of elementary...
~ published: Wednesday at 15:15 ~ source: Not Even Wrong ~ permalink ~ points: 0
The body's own 'cannabis' is good for the skin
Scientists have discovered that our own body not only makes chemical compounds similar to the active ingredient in marijuana (THC), but these play an important part in maintaining healthy skin.read more...
~ published: Wednesday at 14:50 ~ source: Science Blog - Think. It's not illegal yet. ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Communication not language in the brain
Wired's Brandon Keim covers a new study by Susan Goldin-Meadow, which shows a conflict between linguistic and gestural communication strategies:"This may reflect the real thought that comes before language," said study co-author Susan Goldin-Mea...
~ published: Wednesday at 12:56 ~ source: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Big archaeology find in Egypt
A University of Chicago expedition at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt has unearthed a large administration building and silos that provide fresh clues about the emergence of urban life.read more...
~ published: Wednesday at 11:47 ~ source: Science Blog - Think. It's not illegal yet. ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Experimental philosophy movement explores real-life dilemmas
Imagine a business executive who thinks: "I know that this new policy will harm the environment, but I don't care at all about that – I just want to increase profits."read more...
~ published: Wednesday at 10:51 ~ source: Science Blog - Think. It's not illegal yet. ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Proprietary Data in Academic Research?
Should results of experiments on proprietary datasets be in the academic research literature?The arguments I can imagine in the “against” column are: Experiments are not repeatable. Repeatability in experiments is essential to science becaus...
~ published: Wednesday at 10:36 ~ source: Machine Learning (Theory) ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Weight Watchers Versus Fitness Centers
In the first study of its kind, using sophisticated methods to measure body composition, the nationally known commercial weight loss program, Weight Watchers, was compared to gym membership programs to find out which method wins in the game of good health...
~ published: Wednesday at 09:51 ~ source: Science Blog - Think. It's not illegal yet. ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Synthetic molecules emulate enzyme behavior for the first time
When chemists want to produce a lot of a substance -- such as a newly designed drug -- they often turn to catalysts, molecules that speed chemical reactions.read more...
~ published: Wednesday at 09:47 ~ source: Science Blog - Think. It's not illegal yet. ~ permalink ~ points: 0
Quantum Dots Can Penetrate Skin Through Minor Abrasions
Researchers at North Carolina State University have found that quantum dot nanoparticles can penetrate the skin if there is an abrasionread more...
~ published: Wednesday at 08:32 ~ source: Science Blog - Think. It's not illegal yet. ~ permalink ~ points: 0