Well, from Michele Redi at RealClearScience: Hints of an unexpected new particle could be confirmed within days—and if it is, the Standard Model could be going down Because? The signal is one of the simplest you can imagine: it represents two high energy photons emerging from the decay of a subatomic particle created in a proton-proton collision. It’s very similar to the signal that led to the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. But this particle is not the Higgs boson: it is six times more massive. Nobody had predicted anything like this. It is shocking to the physicists in the auditorium. People look around, astonished, trying to confirm that their own reactions are reflected in what they see Read More ›

Recently some of our opponents have trotted out the old, long-since debunked, unsupportable universal claim “there is no evidence of God”. Let me illustrate how this is just another emotionally-addicted, rhetorical maxim atheists cling to without any real thought in the matter. Facts, as defined by Merriam-Webster: something that truly exists or happens : something that has actual existence : a true piece of information”. According to Wiki, a scientific fact is: an objective and verifiable observation, in contrast with a hypothesis or theory, which is intended to explain or interpret facts.” Merriam Webster says the evidence is “something which shows that something else exists or is true”. Obviously, “something else” is not directly observable as a fact, or else Read More ›

From Joshua Rothman at the New Yorker: The simulation argument is appealing, in part, because it gives atheists a way to talk about spirituality. The idea that we’re living in only a part of reality, with the whole permanently beyond our reach, can be a source of awe. About our simulators, one can ask the same questions one asks about God: Why did the creators of our world decide to include evil and suffering? (Can they change that setting in the preferences?) Where did the original, non-simulated world come from? In that sense, the simulation argument is a thoughtful and expansive materialist fable that is almost, but not quite, religious. There is, of course, no sanctity or holiness in the Read More ›

It’s unclear how neurons relate to intelligence, exactly. From ScienceDaily: The macaw has a brain the size of an unshelled walnut, while the macaque monkey has a brain about the size of a lemon. Nevertheless, the macaw has more neurons in its forebrain — the portion of the brain associated with intelligent behavior — than the macaque. That is one of the surprising results of the first study to systematically measure the number of neurons in the brains of more than two dozen species of birds ranging in size from the tiny zebra finch to the six-foot-tall emu, which found that they consistently have more neurons packed into their small brains than are stuffed into mammalian or even primate brains Read More ›

From New Scientist: Unconscious biases and data-torturing are weakening our knowledge base – but unlike politicians and bankers, scientists aren’t covering up their failings I started hearing in the mid-90s, about how scientists were going to fix all that stuff, but they didn’t actually do much better than politicians and bankers. Science cannot afford to be complacent. Over the past few years there has been a creeping realisation that while bad apples are few and far between, there is a deeper problem. The barrel itself may be rotten. Take heart! Bad apples are rarely the problem. They rot. It’s the good apples we need to watch. … What about the problem of reliable knowledge? On this front, things might also Read More ›

Another self-referential piece from New Yorker: Science is not a major or a career. It is a commitment to a systematic way of thinking, an allegiance to a way of building knowledge and explaining the universe through testing and factual observation. The thing is, that isn’t a normal way of thinking. It is unnatural and counterintuitive. It has to be learned. Scientific explanation stands in contrast to the wisdom of divinity and experience and common sense. Common sense once told us that the sun moves across the sky and that being out in the cold produced colds. But a scientific mind recognized that these intuitions were only hypotheses. They had to be tested. (Atul Gawande) Rubbish. Science is a normal Read More ›

From BBC: One of the most extreme heterotherms is the Arctic ground squirrel. In a classic paper that made the front cover of Science in 1989, physiologist Brian Barnes of the University of Alaska Fairbanks studied the squirrels during hibernation. He found that they drop their core body temperature below zero, in one instance to -2.9C, without freezing solid. “It’s hard to get much more cold-blooded than that,” says Boyles. More. You’d have to live there. See also: Dino blood cells revive “warm-blooded” controversy Follow UD News at Twitter!

Jason Rosenhouse writes: We certainly do not know a priori that piles of bricks do not form images of imaginary unicorns, and it is not logically impossible that they do. UPDATE: I decided I could not resist adding Example 8,265 from the some post: I do not know how the chemical reactions and electrical firings inside my head lead to mental images, but there is copious evidence that they do and zero evidence that anything non-physical is involved Wow.  How does Rosenhouse deal with all of the evidence contrary to his position?  Easy peasy.  Fiat.  Just declare that it does not exist. Turns out the hard problem of consciousness is not so hard after all.  All David Chalmers needed to Read More ›

From mathematician Jason Rosenhouse: Speaking of the intellectual collapse of ID, its other major blog, the Discovery Institute’s “Evolution News and Views” also seems to have fallen on hard times. How else to explain the presence of this article, by Steve Laufmann? … More. Rosenhouse must mean this article, we think: “Foundational Question: Is Intelligent Design Science?” What is the other “major blog” (us?). What would an intellectual collapse look like? We can barely keep up with all the news now, and we all work for a living elsewhere. But that isn’t an “intellectual” collapse. See also: String theorist thinks universe might be designed. Kaku and Rosenhouse should talk maybe.

Our Earth consists of silicate rocks and an iron core with a thin veneer of water and life. But the first potentially habitable worlds to form might have been very different. New research suggests that planet formation in the early universe might have created carbon planets consisting of graphite, carbides, and diamond. Astronomers might find these diamond worlds by searching a rare class of stars. More. Is it worth pointing out that we don’t know of any planet that has life other than ours? See also: Maybe if we throw enough models at the origin of life… some of them will stick?

It used to be we read the Blue Fairy book for wondrous tales; now one can read New Scientist: From Alex Kasperak: Only a few decades ago scientists thought that humans were the only species to have worked out how to turn objects in their environment into useful tools. We now know all sorts of animals can do the same – but the tools of choice are usually perishable materials like leafs and twigs. It’s hard to know why anyone thought that “all sorts of animals”can’t use materials from their environments as tools. They do but they are limited by their inability to process abstractions. Burmese long-tailed macaques are a rare exception. They are renowned for their use of stone Read More ›

Drudge headline: A bit of background: The club may have attracted terrorist attention. Info re believed shooter. Allegiance to Islamic State Worst mass shooting in US? Islamic State claims responsibility US Prez: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of the victims.“ Sky News: [youtube y60wDzZt8yg] I add, current Wki article intro, as Wiki tends to do a fair job of tracking developing events: >>On June 12, 2016, a gunman killed at least 50 people and wounded 53 others in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The gunman was identified as 29-year-old Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, an American citizen of Afghan descent.[3] The Orlando Police Department are treating the case as Read More ›

From Business Insider: “They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought,” Dr. Hawking said in a talk last year. “If you feel you are trapped in a black hole, don’t give up. There is a way out.” He posted his paper on arXiv, a pre-peer review site, in January. This month, the paper was finally published in the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Letters. Hawking’s assertion that it is, in fact, possible to escape a black hole will not only transform our definition of them, it will also solve a longstanding riddle about what happens to the information that these mysterious space beasts devour. More. See also: Stephen Hawking on the revised end of all things

Did we miss it? From 2015: Does the universe embody beautiful ideas? Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this “beautiful question.” With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek as your guide, embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczek’s groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. In fact, every major advance in his career came from this intuition: to assume that the universe embodies beautiful forms, forms whose hallmarks are symmetry—harmony, balance, proportion—and economy. There are other meanings of “beauty,” but this is the deep logic of the universe—and it is no accident that it is also Read More ›

From Pacific Standard magazine: The results revealed that scientists are perceived as more likely than members of other groups to commit certain, but not all, moral transgressions. Specifically, they were viewed as more likely to engage in serial murder, incest, and necrobestiality, but not more likely to cheat or abuse others. This is best understood in the context of the Moral Foundations Theory, which asserts ethical norms can be categorized into two broad classifications: “individualizing” ones, which prohibit harming others and encourage fairness for all; and “binding” ones, which are based on notions of purity, loyalty, and deference to authority. Broadly speaking, the first set guides liberals’ moral thinking, while the second resonates with social conservatives. The transgressions the scientists Read More ›