Atheists Advertise on UK Buses

A novel advertising campaign underway in the United Kingdom reads "There's probably no God. Now, stop worrying and enjoy your life." Residents will see it on the sides of buses, and perhaps, on posters, and elsewhere. In addition to the slogan, the adverts will feature the URLs of secular, humanist and atheist websites, so that readers can find out more about atheism as a positive and liberating alternative to religion. There is also an interactive campaign website and Facebook group, so that questions raised by the adverts can be publicly debated. The group British Humanist Association is sponsoring the campaign and is seeking donations. Apparently multimillionaire Richard Dawkins has been matching donations – but only up to a total of £5,500. £11,000 is needed to keep two sets of 30 buses carrying the slogan across Westminster for four weeks. By last night, individuals and organisations had pledged more than £47,900.

Writer Ariane Sherine, who suggested the idea in a Guardian Comment is Free blog last June, said she was surprised by the level of support but was pleased with the extra money, which would finance a more ambitious campaign. "We could go national, we could have tube posters, different slogans, more buses, advertising inside buses. The sky's the limit - except, of course, there's nothing up there."

To donate to the atheist bus campaign, please visit JustGiving.

Hologram Driving Assistant

The first hologram co-driver for your car gives you directions, wakes you if you fall asleep, helps you park and prevents theft. FAQ's: How much does it cost? The price of DAConnect will be announced at its official launch on Oct. 13, 2008 How many types of holograms can be projected? One female and two male figures are available (including the standard security hologram). Holograms reproduce themselves highly accurately. Actually, DAConnect uses "holofims", ie video recordings. Do the projected holograms also speak other languages? Currently the holograms communicate in English. In case of accidents with foreign drivers you can use a pre-recorded phrase in one of five languages (Italian, Spanish, French, German and English). Does DAConnect work even if there is a passenger sitting on the seat on which the hologram is projected? No. Any object between the light beams interrupting the projection of the holographic figure prevents the proper functioning of the system. Can it be used in a convertible? No. The projected hologram is visible only under certain lighting conditions inside a passenger compartment. [DAConnect]

Your Bottled Water is Contaminated

Tests on leading brands of bottled water turned up a variety of contaminants, including cancer-linked chemicals three times higher than California's health standard, according to a study released Wednesday by an environmental advocacy group. The findings challenge the popular impression — and marketing pitch — that bottled water is purer than tap water, the researchers say. However, all the brands met federal health standards for drinking water. And most of the detected contaminants are common in tap water, too. Lab tests detected 38 chemicals in 10 brands, with an average of eight contaminants found in each kind of bottled water. Tests showed coliform bacteria, caffeine, the pain reliever acetaminophen, fertilizer, solvents, plastic-making chemicals and the radioactive element strontium. The two-year study was done by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group, an organization founded by scientists that advocates stricter regulation. It bought bottled water in California, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Researchers tested one batch for each of 10 brands. Eight of those did not have troubling levels of contaminants. But two brands did, so more tests were done and those revealed chlorine byproducts above California's standard. The researchers identified those two brands as Sam's Choice sold by Wal-Mart and Acadia of Giant Food supermarkets. n the Wal-Mart and Giant Food bottled water, the highest concentration of chlorine byproducts, known as trihalomethanes, was over 35 parts per billion. California requires 10 parts per billion or less, and the industry's International Bottled Water Association makes 10 its voluntary guideline. The federal limit is 80. Water researcher Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment of the University at Albany, who had no role in the study, singled out trihalomethanes as the biggest concern because of strong research links to cancer. "These are levels that should not be in bottled water," he said. The researchers also said the Wal-Mart brand exceeded California's limit by five times for a second chlorine byproduct, bromodichloromethane. The Environmental Working Group said it notified California's attorney general of its intent to sue Wal-Mart. The group wants the company to label its bottles in California with a warning of cancer-causing chemicals. Wal-Mart did not respond to a request for comment. The chlorine byproducts, which studies have also linked to birth defects, presumably come from chlorine used as a disinfectant, which ends up in public water systems. Tap water is often repackaged and sold as bottled water, and the researchers say that was true of these two brands. "In some cases, it appears bottled water is no less polluted than tap water and, at 1,900 times the cost, consumers should expect better," said Jane Houlihan, an environmental engineer who co-authored the study. The researchers recommend that people who are worried use a carbon filter for their tap water

Don't Mess With Scientists

If there's one rule in election-year politics, it's this: Don't mess with the science crowd. OK, labor unions and the NRA matter too, but John McCain may want to brush up on his stars and planets after Tuesday night's debate.

In the debate, McCain portrayed Barack Obama as an excessive spender, and he punctuated his attack (twice) with this example:

"[Obama] voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?"

Turns out, a lot of people think we do. This is no ordinary overhead projector from your 5th grade classroom. The blog Cosmic Variance sums it up:

"If you've ever had the pleasure of visiting the Adler Planetarium, you'd probably guess that the 'overhead projector' he's talking about is the spectacular 'Sky Theater' -- one of the most engrossing, gorgeous venues for displaying visuals about space."

The science community is notoriously tight-knit, especially when rallying to a cause, and boy are they are rallying to this one. Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log has a great summary of the uproar:

-"For McCain to use this as a political zinger is insulting..." (Bad Astronomy)

-"Planetariums are Bridges to the Future, and America would be a much better place if all the congressional earmarks went to projects like them." (The Perfect Silence)

-"The logo for Senator John McCain's campaign has a star in the middle. I wonder what his guide star is? It can't be the same one that ten million children have seen at the Adler Planetarium.

Why should anyone want their star to dim?" (Discovery Space)

The Adler Planetarium even issued a statement, noting that the request, ironically, was not even funded:

"To clarify, the Adler Planetarium requested federal support -- which was not funded -- to replace the projector in its historic Sky Theater, the first planetarium theater in the Western Hemisphere.... To remain competitive and ensure national security, it is vital that we educate and inspire the next generation of explorers to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math."

Linking a planetarium to national security may be a bit of a stretch, but the point is clear: McCain probably shouldn't count on the "science vote" this year.

News from Saturn (and JPL)

A quick update on the Cassini mission and the flyby's of Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan.

Loss of Control Can Make You Superstitious

Paranoia, superstitions, and conspiracy theories may result from our need to take control of chaotic moments in our lives. Psychologists Jennifer Whitson and Adam Galinsky proposed in the current issue of Science that "when individuals are unable to gain a sense of control objectively, they will try to gain it perceptually." For example, if your productivity and competence at work are unappreciated and unrewarded, you may feel powerless over the situation. As a result, you might associate random, unrelated events with positive or negative moments at work. You could start seeing nonexistent conspiracy theories against your success, feel paranoia toward your coworkers, and perform good luck rituals to have better days.

In a series of six experiments, Whitson and Galinsky attempted to directly correlate lack of control with illusory perceptions. In the first two, they were able to establish that participants will seek patterns to compensate for unmanageable conditions. To simulate lack-of-control circumstances, they gave volunteers random feedback that was unrelated to their responses. Participants lacking control saw more nonexistent images in pictures and scored higher on the Personal Need for Structure Scale than those who were not treated to random feedback.

Superstitions and good luck rituals may also result from the human need for control. Whitson and Galinsky presented participants three scenarios that each contained two unconnected events, like "knocking on wood before an important meeting and getting one's idea approved." Participants who were asked to remember uncontrolled situations from the past saw more connection between the unrelated events and thought that good luck actions were important in the future.

The relationship between control and false perceptions can be applied to a volatile stock market, as well. Whitson and Galinsky offered two companies to participants after giving them performance statements about each company. The percent of positive statements was the same for both companies, but the total quantity was different. Company A had eight negative and 16 positive statements, while company B had four negative and eight positive statements. Participants were asked to recall how many negative statements there were for each company after making a choice. In an unstable market, 75 percent of participants chose company A over B. They remembered more negativity toward company B because they "overestimated the infrequent type of information (negative) with the infrequently represented group (company B)."

Self-affirmation appears to combat the disorderly feeling from losing control. After lack-of-control conditioning, participants who self-affirmed saw just as few imaginary patterns in pictures as volunteers who were not treated to any type of conditioning.

The next time you feel control sliding away, it may help to remind yourself of all the positive qualities that you possess. Self-affirmation procedures can provide a sense of control that is healthier than illusory pattern seeking. Whitson and Galinsky write that psychological security "reduce the obsessive-compulsive tendencies or sinister attributions engendered by seeing too much meaning and intentions in others' innocuous behaviors."

Who Said Zinc Is Boring?

Coming Soon - Real Working Tricorder

Oh such exciting news! Scientists at the University of California have created a device they are calling a "Universal Detector", but which in effect is a Tricorder (aka Star Trek Tricorder). As Gizmodo put it, "the facts of the matter are clear: You'll be able to point this thing at other things and figure out what they're made of". The idea uses a thin layer of metal drilled with nanoscale holes, laid onto the surface being tested. When the perforated plate is zapped with laser light, the surface plasmons that form emit light with a frequency related to the materials touching the plate. A sensitive light detector is needed to measure the frequency of light given off. The team, led by Kevin Tetz and members of the Ultrafast and Nanoscale Optics Group at the University of California, says the devices will be small and portable. They will work on a range of substances, from bacteria to explosives, and run on low power (green Tricorders!)

What Happens When Cesium (or Caesium) Contacts Water?

How violent is the reaction between Cesium (or Caesium) and water? Why is it so violent? Because Cesium has large atoms, so it requires less energy for the water to remove an electron from the Cesium atom, which allow more energy to be used to generate heat from the reaction. Please vote on this at YouTube if you learned something: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCARhVfeX5U

Why Do They Use Helium at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)?

Will Central Africa's Forest Wildlife Be Eaten into Extinction?

According to Scientific American, elephants, gorillas and other large forest mammals may become extinct in central Africa within 50 years if hunting meat to feed starving populations continues at the current pace. Each year, rural peoples consume some 2.2 billion pounds of so-called bushmeat from wildlife, the equivalent of four million cattle. Nathalie Van Vliet, a researcher at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) based in Indonesia says the problem is "if the people that currently rely on bushmeat as a source of protein in central Africa had to rely on livestock, we would see the same catastrophe that is destroying the Amazon Basin: deforestation for pasture land and livestock raising." Because of the failure of antipoaching programs, CIFOR argues that a hunting ban would not work. But it also says that forest species such as elephants, buffalo and apes that are slow to reproduce need to be protected or they will disappear entirely. CIFOR recommends local agreements that allow hunting of species that can rebound quickly (such as various species of duikers, a type of forest antelope) while not allowing kills of species with long gestation periods (such as elephants who give birth after 22 months). Granting local peoples a limited right to hunt while working actively to manage specific populations of animals in the jungle, may prove the only way to truly conserve, according to CIFOR and experts from the United Nations Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. "The question is conserving for whom?" Van Vliet asks. "For rural people that need to survive as well as for urban people that would love to see our fauna in the future—or just conserving for the sake of it?"

Cool New Robot

I LOVE robots. I love making them, programming them, playing with them (hey, that sounded dirty). I can't get enough. Trossen Robotics is announcing a new project to create an autonomous mapping robot, called T.R.A.M.P. (Trossen Robotics Autonomous Mapping Platform).

The members of the Trossen Robotics Community are at it once again, this time collaborating on a robotics project best described as “a Mars Rover, but for Earth”. This is quite an aggressive project, only made possible by the fact that the development team consists of a range of specialists working together.

The basis behind the project is to create a robot that will be shipped to various members of the Community to explore and log different areas around their house and outdoors. Once it has arrived and is set loose in its new environment it will scan the surroundings using an array of sensors and upload the results to the official Tramp website. Features include:

• The ability to track and log its travel around the world via GPS, displayed via Google Maps.
• Scan its surroundings using cameras, range sensors, and LIDAR.
• Use sensory data to create a 2D and 3D render of the area around it.
• Sample and log the environmental air quality.
• An onboard PC for the main controller.
• Pictures, video, and statistics will be uploaded to the site.

Large Hadron Collider

I'm so excited the LHC is finally coming online. I can't wait to see the results of some of the experiments in the coming months, once everything has been setup and configured. Someone set up a webcam at the LHC. There's not usually much going on, but it's kinda fun just to watch everyone working on the equipment. LHC Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment Webcams

Thinking Makes You Eat More

I knew this from personal experience for quite a well, but now it's official - thinking makes us pig out. According to a study that sheds new light on brain food, intellectual activities make people eat more than when just resting.

Researchers split 14 university student volunteers into three groups for a 45-minute session of either relaxing in a sitting position, reading and summarizing a text, or completing a series of memory, attention, and vigilance tests on the computer. Story continues below ?advertisement The scientists had determined beforehand that the thinking sessions consumed only three calories more than resting. After the sessions, the participants were invited to eat as much as they pleased. Though the study involved a very small number of participants, the results were stark. The students who had done the computer tests downed 253 more calories, or 29.4 percent more than the couch potatoes. Those who had summarized a text consumed 203 more calories than the resting group. Blood samples taken before, during, and after revealed that intellectual work causes much bigger fluctuations in glucose levels than rest periods, perhaps owing to the stress of thinking.

Why do we do this? Glucose is converted by the body from carbohydrates and is supplied to the brain via the bloodstream. The brain cannot make glucose and so needs a constant supply. Brain cells need twice as much energy as other cells in the body. But remember, you must exercise to balance your caloric intake. Thinking only burns a few extra calories (even though you need more glucose), so exercising to burn off the additional consumed calories is important.