zenderbender - Slashdot User

The Greatest Scientific Hoaxes? 496

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday October 27, 2008 @04:34PM from the april-fools-one-of-the-best-holidays dept.

Ponca City, We love you writes "The New Scientist has an amusing story about the seven greatest scientific hoaxes of all time. Of course, there have been serious cases of scientific fraud, such as the stem cell researchers recently found guilty of falsifying data, and the South Korean cloning fraud, but the hoaxes selected point more to human gullibility than malevolence and include the Piltdown Man (constructed from a medieval human cranium); a ten-foot "petrified man" dug up on a small farm in Cardiff; fossils 'found' in Wurzburg, Germany depicting comets, moons and suns, Alan Sokal's paper loaded with nonsensical jargon that was accepted by the journal Social Text; the claim of the Upas tree on the island of Java so poisonous that it killed everything within a 15-mile radius; and Johann Heinrich Cohausen's claim of an elixir produced by collecting the breath of young women in bottles that produced immortality. Our favorite: BBC's broadcast in 1957 about the spaghetti tree in Switzerland that showed a family harvesting pasta that hung from the branches of the tree. After watching the program, hundreds of people phoned in asking how they could grow their own tree but, alas, the program turned out to be an April Fools' Day joke." What massive scientific hoaxes/jokes have other people witnessed?

Bobby Fischer Is Dead At 64 377

Posted by kdawson on Friday January 18, 2008 @11:08AM from the new-kind-of-chess dept.

A number of readers wrote in to make sure we know that former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has died in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he had lived since 2005. No cause of death was given.

Submission + - Study Finds Parents Favor Oldest Offspring

Submitted by

Reservoir Hill

on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @10:49AM

Reservoir Hill writes: "Biologists studying a unique species of beetle that raises and cares for its young have found that parents instinctively favor the oldest offspring. "The burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides has a similar family structure to that of a human family unit in that there are two parents, a number of offspring and interactions between parents and their young," said Dr Per Smiseth who led the research at the University of Manchester. The young beetles are able to feed themselves but they grow more quickly and become larger when fed by their parents. By generating experimental broods comprising two sets of offspring, one set of older grubs and one younger set, the scientists were able to study their development, first with the parents present and then when left to fend for themselves. Senior offspring (early-hatched) grew faster than juniors (late-hatched) when parents were present and could influence the outcome of sibling competition, whereas seniors and juniors grew at similar rates when parents were removed. One explanation is that parents attach more value to the older offspring as their maturity gives them a better chance of survival than their younger siblings. A second explanation is that the older grubs, being stronger, are able to dominate their younger rivals and, in doing so, better attract the attention of the parents when begging for food. "Even if this second theory is true, the parents are still complicit in the bias towards the older siblings," said Dr Smiseth"

Submission + - Unsupervised Children Are More Sociable and Active

Submitted by

Ponca City, We Love You

on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @09:52AM

Ponca City, We Love You writes: "Youngsters who are allowed to leave the house without an adult are more active and enjoy a richer social life than those who are constantly supervised, according to a study conducted at University College London. "We asked children whether they were allowed out without an adult and then looked at where they go and how they behave. In general, children who aren't constantly supervised tend to leave the house more often — exploring their surroundings, playing with other children and using up more calories than their sedentary, house-bound peers," said Professor Roger Mackett. The children completed questionnaires, kept travel diaries, had their movements logged using GPS monitors and wore portable motion sensors to produce activity maps showing animated GPS traces that are linked up with physical activity level information measuring children's speed of travel, changes in direction and the number of 'activity calories' they consumed. "Fears over road safety and 'stranger danger' need to be balanced against soaring levels of childhood obesity and poor health. Letting a child out to play is one of the best things a parent can do for their child's physical health and personal development.""

Submission + - Hail to the 45nm QX9650

Submitted by QuietR10t on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @09:24AM

QuietR10t writes: Anandtech gets their hands on the QX9650 and goes to town on it.

"Intel's QX9650 is just the beginning — breakthroughs happen every day and design improvements will occur. After experiencing just how good 45nm is already, we cannot help but to be excited about what lies in store for us next. Cheaper 45nm processors like the Q9450 are at the top of our list, naturally, but we also eagerly await AMD's response to Intel's latest challenge. Can AMD reach 45nm and gain some similarly startling improvements? We can only hope!"

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3184&p=1

Submission + - No serious linux speech recognition software?

Submitted by wally66 on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @08:54AM

wally66 writes: I was impressed by the quality of some Windows-based speech recognition packages [1,2] in the more recent past. Having successfully and happily moved to Linux for more than a year now, I miss nothing but a decent speech recognition program to relieve me from typing from time to time. The lack of progress for Linux-based applications in this field is stunning. The last entry in the linux speech-reconition HOW-TO is from 2002 and this is not an indication that the field has matured :-) The rest of the hits that you get when searching the net is not much more up-to-date. I know that there are packages for speech recognition in the default repositories of Ubuntu and other distros, but given the state of Windows-based speech recognition software such as ViaVoice or Dragon Naturally Speaking, they are prehistoric. Am I overlooking something?

Submission + - Ulteo OpenOffice Desktop - Beyond Cool

Submitted by ghbpiper on Sunday December 16, 2007 @02:31PM

ghbpiper writes: Desktop linux had an article recently about Ulteo openoffice.org desktop. OpenOffice.org goes online with SAAS version. Seems to me they just blew past both Google and Microsoft, esp in terms of the functionality possible in applications running in the cloud. I wonder how many chairs lost their lives over this in a particular executive's office in Redmond, WA?

Submission + - Canadian Gov't Drop DMCA Plans for 2007

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 13, 2007 @12:28PM

An anonymous reader writes: The Canadian government has backed down on a Canadian DMCA. After days of protests with more than 20,000 people on the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook Group alone, the government has shelved its much hated copyright bill for 2007.

Submission + - Terry Pratchett diagnosed with Alzheimers. (timesonline.co.uk)

Submitted by LoFi on Thursday December 13, 2007 @03:57AM

LoFi writes: The Times is reporting on a statement by Terry Pratchett on Paul Kidby's (his illustrator) website, in which he reveals that he is suffering from a rare form of Alzheimer's Disease. In his typically laconic style, he says this news should be interpreted as "Not Dead Yet", and states "I know it's a very human thing to say "Is there anything I can do", but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.". Buggrit.

Submission + - Terry Pratchett has Alzheimers (smh.com.au) 1

Submitted by Hecatonchires on Wednesday December 12, 2007 @11:27PM

Hecatonchires writes: A blow to discworld fans everywhere. Terry Pratchett has announced he has a rare form of early onset alzheimers.

Submission + - Google to announce online hard drive service

Submitted by

Mike

on Wednesday December 12, 2007 @01:19PM

Mike writes: "According to research firm iSuppli Google is in final stage of launching an online virtual hard drive storage service. The service will allow users to upload files on big G's servers, which will be accessible through their Google account. Google will offer both free (about 50GB) and paid storage accounts. The research firm also estimates that search giant could generate significant returns (approximately $210 million per year) from this free service by placing advertisements on the storage-service website."

Submission + - Cellphone User Shocked by $85,000 CAD Bill (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by

PuNKY^BReWSTeR

on Wednesday December 12, 2007 @01:04PM

PuNKY^BReWSTeR writes: "It is a well known fact that competition and fair prices for decent cellular plans are virtually non-existent in Canada. This one takes the cake however. According to CBC, a Calgary man received an $85,000 cell phone bill from Bell after using us as a modem.

From the article:

"The thing is, they've cut my phone off for being like $100 over. Here, I'm $85,000 over and nobody bothered to give me a call and tell me what was going on." Staniaszek said Bell told him they will adjust his bill to a different plan for people who use their phones for internet purposes. But even after the adjustment, his bill will still be more than $5,000."

Submission + - KDE 4 uses 40% less memory despite 3D eye-candy

Submitted by on Wednesday December 12, 2007 @08:39AM

An anonymous reader writes: Pro-Linux reports that KDE 4, scheduled to be released in January 2008, consumes almost 40% less memory than KDE 3.5, despite the fact that version 4 of the Free and Open Source desktop system includes a composited window manager and a revamped menu and applet interface. KDE developer Will Stephenson showcased KDE 4's 3D eye-candy on a 256Mb laptop with 1Ghz CPU and run-of-the-mill integrated graphics, pointing out that mini-optimizations haven't even yet been started. Will this combination of resource efficiency and consumer appeal make KDE 4 the leader in the booming Linux-based ultra mobile laptop and energy efficient desktop markets?

Submission + - Arctic to be ice-free within FIVE years, not 40

Submitted by OriginalArlen on Wednesday December 12, 2007 @07:09AM

OriginalArlen writes: The BBC is reporting new research into Arctic warming to be presented at the fall American Geophysical Union meeting which describes current models of arctic sea-ice response to warming as far too conservative. The work predicts that albedo feedback, together with a greater heat input from warmer ocean currents, will lead to ice-free summers as early as 2013. This would go a long way to explaining the dramatic and accelerating loss of sea-ice in the summer of 2007, which is merely the latest in a progressively widening gap between modeled and actual sea-ice loss (as well as presenting a nicely testable short-range prediction.)

Whilst sea-ice obviously doesn't raise the sea level when it melts, a similar runaway feedback that lead to significant reductions in the Greenland or Antarctica ice sheets would cause a 6-7m sea-level rise, indisputably catastrophic for human society as well as the polar bears.

Submission + - A&E beaming adverts directly into your head. 2

Submitted by Fantastic Lad on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @09:14PM

Fantastic Lad writes: Hear Voices? It May Be an Ad. New Yorker Alison Wilson was walking down Prince Street in SoHo last week when she heard a woman's voice right in her ear asking, "Who's there? Who's there?" She looked around to find no one in her immediate surroundings. Then the voice said, "It's not your imagination." Indeed it isn't. It's an ad for "Paranormal State," a ghost-themed series premiering on A&E this week. The billboard uses technology manufactured by Holosonic that transmits an "audio spotlight" from a rooftop speaker so that the sound is contained within your cranium.

Slashdot Top Deals