| the porpoise has a purpose |
[Jun. 27th, 2008|11:06 am] |
life on mars possible. the flaming lips were maybe onto something (har har, christmas on mars). of course, they haven't found any organic carbon yet so that pretty much negates all the other great stuff they have found. can't have life without carbon. (and hydrogen and oxygen.)
also, all the neysayers in the comments on this article about a new magnetic treatment for migraines are pissing me off. ignorance does not equal knowledge so i think they should all get down off of their soapboxes and high horses. transcranial stimulation has already been tested and found to be a decent treatment for drug resistant depression, similar to ECT (which yes, is still done and yes, still does work in most cases though it is shorter term) but without all of the nasty side effects. as much as i hate to admit it, the reason this works is explained by physics. as some of the ignoramouses proposed in the comments, it does not work by "realigning ferromagnetic particles" in the brain. i hope that guy did a little reading and is now thoroughly embarrassed for even posting such stupidity. it works, basically, because magnets can induce a current and nerves in the body also sent signals through currents so it basically induces currents in the brain which somehow affect the pain caused by migraines. i think it's neat. i agree, however, that this particularl study may not have been the best proof... if 39% of the experimental group and 22% of the placebo group felt an effect. but i don't care enough to look up the actual study or crunch the numbers myself so i can't be sure. i assume it's at least statistically significant because it was published but maybe it was only a modest improvement overall.
so yeah, interesting stuff going on in science lately. i also read, for my french independent study, some articles on planets that look like they might be able to sustain life and how certain peeps in europe recommend kids under 12 not to use cell phones because of the possibility of cancer and radiation and such over long-term use. it would be interesting to jump ahead twenty years and see if there is any truth to that business because cell phones are pretty commonplace already. hell, i never use my home phone.
whoever reads this may have noticed a huge decline in my posting lately (at least the people who aren't part of livejournal). this is because a lot of what i've been writing about - working in the lab, personal crap - is well, personal and gives out too many details so it's been privatized so only my LJ friends who i know in real life can read it. sorry, folks. if you are really that interested, you can sign up for LJ and email me to be my friend. but i swear it's not that interesting. |
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| science bits and weekend bliss |
[Jul. 2nd, 2007|08:39 am] |
rubber ducky's washing up on britain's shores seems like a cute little story until they get to the part where there is a gigantic part of the ocean where plastic outnumbers plankton six to one. if you've ever taken a biology class, you know that plankton are very small and there can be thousands in just a little bit of water and yet the plastic crap falling out of shipping containers outnumbers six to one. god we humans suck.
this morning i overheard a co-worker talking to another about an email he passed on about margerine and it's unhealthiness. yeah, margarines made with trans fats definitely are more unhealthy than butter but what he went on and on about though was the "fact" that margarine is only one molecule away from plastic. oh fucking seriously people, did no one take high school chemistry?* does no one understand how molecules work? changing just one molecule - which is made up of multiple atoms - changes the whole chemical structure of something. it's a moot point. having something one molecule away from plastic doesn't mean that it's any closer to being plastic.
okay, stepping off my bitch pedestal i'd like to say that i actually had an awesomely relaxing weekend. i knit, i watched movies, i cooked, i got ALL of the laundry done. it was great. and i get wednesday off from work for the fourth so this week should go pretty quickly.
here's my opinion on the movies i watched since i'm not quite ready to get back into work yet:
harry and the henderson's - with kurt, of course. hmm, i don't remember this movie being quite so pointless. they find harry and bring him home, turns out he's alive, they decide to bring him back to the forest but he takes off and the rest of the movie is spent looking for him and the dad realizing how much he actually cares for him. dude, it really kind of sucked but as a kid i LOVED it.
eyes wide shut - this movie sucked ass. what the hell was the point? am i just completely missing something? nothing ever happened and we never find out why the giant sex parties are such a big secret deal.
water - fantastic. a movie about how widows in india used to be forced to leave home and live out their days in mourning with other widows... no matter how young they were when widowed. it's a movie about seven-year-old chuyia, a widow, but it's also about gandhi and another young widow who wants to remarry. i won't give the story away but see it if you have the chance.
also, so far matt ruff's fool on the hill isn't too impressive. i can't even believe that this is the same guy who wrote sewer, gas, and electric.
*incidentally, i didn't but i've obviously had a little since then. |
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