Gavinsblog.com

Category: Science

  • Dawkins is wrong about religion

    …or so claimed Dr William Reville in last Thursdays Irish Times. (Sub. required) The article has caused a great deal of controversy in the letters pages for the last week, see what you think yourself: Under The Microscope: Europe has become strongly secular, in contrast to the US where religion plays a prominent part, as…

  • Stem cell from umbilical cord blood used to treat paralysis

    Too late for Christopher Reeve – but stem cell technology is promising great dividends. A woman in South Korea who has not even stood up in 19 years is now able to walk. The woman could now walk unassisted, the scientists said. “The stem cell transplantation was performed on Oct. 12 this year and in…

  • Work begins on Hubble's replacement

    Exciting times for the people building the successor to Hubble. Work has begun on the primary for the new telescope. For those who don’t know: The James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to launch in 2011. It will hang in space at the Lagrange-2 point of balance between the gravitational influences of the Earth and…

  • Exclusive: Rules Set for $50 Million 'America's Space Prize'

    A rather ambitious successor to the Ansari X-prize: Anyone who wants to follow in the shoes of Burt Rutan and win the next big space prize will have to build a spacecraft capable of taking a crew of no fewer than five people to an altitude of 400 kilometers and complete two orbits of the…

  • Get it right!

    An interesting interview with philosopher Jamie Whyte, discussing logic, logic and more logic. Thought-provoking to say the least.

  • Global warming to devastate Europe first

    According to a new study: European winters will disappear by 2080 and extreme weather will become more common unless global warming across the continent is slowed, warns a major new report. Europe is warming more quickly than the rest of the world with potentially devastating consequences, including more frequent heatwaves, flooding, rising sea levels and…

  • Language may shape human thought

    New Scientist reporting a curious study: Hunter-gatherers from the Pirahã tribe, whose language only contains words for the numbers one and two, were unable to reliably tell the difference between four objects placed in a row and five in the same configuration, revealed the study. Experts agree that the startling result provides the strongest support…

  • Spirit Hints at Past Water, Opportunity Hits Rock Bottom

    Those two Rovers are at it again. No, not that. They are finding more and more evident of a history of liquid water on Mars. Fascinating stuff. “I would say that this is the most powerful evidence [of water] in the rocks at Gusev Crater,” said Steven Squyres, the rovers’ principal investigator from Cornell University.…

  • Teleportation goes long distance

    The BBC is reporting that physicists have carried out successful teleportation with particles of light over a distance of 600m across the River Danube. Here’s kind of how it works: Researchers from the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Science used an 800m-long optical fibre fed through a public sewer system tunnel to…

  • Nasa to save Hubble telescope

    NASA has finally seen sense: The US space agency has given the go-ahead for a robotic mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, Nasa officials have announced. Nasa chief Sean O’Keefe has asked for a firm mission proposal to be worked up in a year, after which a decision whether to proceed will be made.…