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Tag Archives: vintage science

Phallic Mushrooms and Fungi Bullying…

20 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by Mike Banerd in Geek Culture, Pics, Science

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Biology, mushrooms, Pics, science, vintage science

Out of all the mostly consumable dank forest dwelling forms of life, Mushrooms have it bad. True they are probably the bet known mostly consumable dank forest life form, but they have long been subject to offensive name calling and bullying due to their apparent phallic looking appearance.

If you’re a mushroom that has been the victim of such hurtful behaviour, you have A Brief History of Mycological Illustrationhttp://www.huh.harvard.edu/libraries/mycology/Myco_illustration.htm to blame. Harvard recently posted the illustrations with a breakdown of their historical significance in the world of scientific research.

For mushroom people, this probably fills in some blanks for you. It doesn’t make the bulling hurt less, but it does provide some closure as to how it started and why. Here’s an example:

20121217-132926.jpg

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Revisit & Review: Cold Fusion…

17 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Mike Banerd in Education, Science

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Tags

clean energy, cold fusion, energy, science, vintage science

Ugh, I know… Cold Fusion has been such a polarized discussion for so many people for a long, that I don’t even like to think about it… Which is sad because it’s an interesting thing to think about. To me, Cold Fusion has been the poster child for the often discombobulated relationship between science and popular media and it has also been a textbook example for young scientists of professionals that skew their credibility by getting more aught up in a theory than in the data that proves otherwise.

… But am I really any better for cringing and avoiding Cold Fusion because of the irritating fanboy-ism it brings to mind? Am I just avoiding the science because I’m avoiding the scientists that avoided the science two decades ago? Probably…

Anyway, It may be time for us to cautiously open our minds to Cold Fusion again… Just a smidgen. If you read last month’s issue of Discover, you probably saw the article Big Idea: Bring Back the Cold Fusion Dream which touched on how the clean energy source has progressed in the last 20 years. There’s nothing completely groundbreaking, but it puts a warmer, more scientifically palpable spotlight on the controversial hypothesis. There is still real research going on in the field and scientists have come a long way. In anticipation of a clearer, data driven explanation of Cold Fusion, we should probably revisit & review the basics care of Wikipedia:

20121216-210347.jpg
Cold fusion is a hypothetical type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature, compared with temperatures in the millions of degrees that is required for “hot” fusion. It was proposed to explain reports of anomalously high energy generation under certain specific laboratory conditions. It has been rejected by the mainstream scientific community because the original experimental results could not be replicated consistently and reliably, and because there is no accepted theoretical model of cold fusion.

Cold fusion gained attention after reports in 1989 by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, then one of the world’s leading electrochemists,[1] that their apparatus had produced anomalous heat (“excess heat”), of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes. They further reported measuring small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, including neutrons and tritium.[2] The small tabletop experiment involved electrolysis of heavy water on the surface of a palladium (Pd) electrode.[3]

The reported results received wide media attention,[3] and raised hopes of a cheap and abundant source of energy.[4] Many scientists tried to replicate the experiment with the few details available. Hopes fell with the large number of negative replications, the withdrawal of many positive replications, the discovery of flaws and sources of experimental error in the original experiment, and finally the discovery that Fleischmann and Pons had not actually detected nuclear reaction byproducts.[5]

By late 1989, most scientists considered cold fusion claims dead,[6][7] and cold fusion subsequently gained a reputation as pathological science.[8][9] In 1989, a review panel organized by the US Department of Energy (DOE) found that the evidence for the discovery of a new nuclear process was not persuasive enough to start a special program, but was “sympathetic toward modest support” for experiments “within the present funding system.” A second DOE review, convened in 2004 to look at new research, reached conclusions similar to the first.[10]

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Revisit & Review: The Bone Wars…

13 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by Mike Banerd in Science

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bone wars, dinosaurs, Edward drinker cope, othniel Charles marsh, palaeontology, science, vintage science

20121210-114917.jpgIn many aspects of intelligent human life, competition can be a real catalyst for expedited growth, development and progress as a whole. Not all is well and good in the world of competition though. Depending on how the competitors decide to remain competitive, the outcome can be completely counterproductive… Even dangerous. Nowhere is this more frustrating and damaging than in the scientific community… (Well possibly the medical community).

Take the Bone Wars in the end of the 19th Century for example. These two buffoons make up one of my favourite stories in science history… mainly because they bankrupted themselves in their attempts to out perform the other with sloppy science. This summary is directly from Wikipedia, and paints a pretty clear picture of the situation:

SIDE NOTE: I’m writing on my iPad right now, so all of the usual Wikipedia links didn’t cut over. Sorry! If you’re looking for a good wiki-wiki-gang-bang, head over to the original entry hither.

The Bone Wars, also known as the “Great Dinosaur Rush”,[1] refers to a period of intense fossil speculation and discovery during the Gilded Age of American history, marked by a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope (of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia) and Othniel Charles Marsh (of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale). Each of the two paleontologists used underhanded methods to try to out-compete the other in the field, resorting to bribery, theft, and destruction of bones. Each scientist also attacked the other in scientific publications, seeking to ruin his credibility and have his funding cut off.

Their search for fossils led them west to rich bone beds in Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. From 1877 to 1892, both paleontologists used their wealth and influence to finance their own expeditions and to procure services and dinosaur bones from fossil hunters. By the end of the Bone Wars, both men had exhausted their funds in the pursuit of paleontological supremacy.
Cope and Marsh were financially and socially ruined by their attempts to disgrace each other, but their contributions to science and the field of paleontology were massive, and provided substantial material for further work—both scientists left behind many unopened boxes of fossils after their deaths. The efforts of the two men led to over 142 new species of dinosaurs being discovered and described. The products of the Bone Wars resulted in an increase in knowledge of prehistoric life, and sparked the public’s interest in dinosaurs, leading to continued fossil excavation in North America in the decades to follow. Several historical books and fictional adaptations have been published about this period of intense fossil-hunting activity.

20121210-115005.jpg Despite their advances, the Bone Wars also had a negative impact not only on the two scientists but their peers and the entire field.[77] The public animosity between Cope and Marsh harmed the reputation of American paleontology in Europe for decades. Furthermore, the reported use of dynamite and sabotage by employees of both men may have destroyed or buried hundreds of potentially critical fossil remains. Joseph Leidy abandoned his more methodical excavations in the West, finding he could not keep up with Cope’s and Marsh’s reckless searching for bones.[4] Leidy also grew tired of the constant squabbling between the two men, with the result that his withdrawal from the field marginalized his own legacy; after his death, Osborn found not a single mention of the man in either of the rivals’ works.[78] In their haste to outdo each other, Cope and Marsh haphazardly assembled the bones of their own discoveries. Their descriptions of new species, based on their reconstructions, led to confusion and misconceptions that lasted for decades after their deaths.

20121210-115713.jpg

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Vintage Science: Illustrations of the Structures of Snowflakes (1863)…

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Mike Banerd in Education, Science

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science, snowflakes, vintage science, weather

This festive bit of retro science goodness comes from Snowflakes: a Chapter from the Book of Nature (1863). According to the book, the sketches are

… representations of individual crystals, actually observed and sketched with the aid of the microscope

I don’t own a copy of this particular book of nature circa 1863, but The Public Domain Review has done a great job of compiling the images.

20121209-230337.jpg

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70’s Mind Control and LSD Experiments…

24 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by Mike Banerd in Science, Videos

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

drugs, experiments, government, lsd, mind control, narcotics, video, vintage science

I tend to be on board with all things vintage and I’m a big fan of the LSD spiderwebs, so this is right up my alley. This video first aired in 1979 as an investigative piece on ABC News, and it’s wacky as hell.

Get back in touch with your inner hallucinogenic-LSD-zombie and check it out:

 

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Vintage Feynman: Science and Chess…

02 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by Mike Banerd in Science, Videos

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Feynman, postaday, science, videos, vintage science

Ingrid Bolsø Berdal

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Darwin’s Creepy-Ass Experiment Is Brought Back From The Dead…

30 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by Mike Banerd in Education, Geek Culture, Science

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darwin, electricity, emotions, evolution, expressions, postaday, social science, vintage science

I like Darwin. I like Darwin a lot. Obviously he had many accomplishments in his lifetime that make him quite likable today, but what I really fancy about Darwin is that he seemed to have a ton of personality. I can’t think of the Beagle without thinking about the “oh shit” moment Captain FitzRoy had when the naturalist he hired as an intelligent companion for the 5 year voyage ended up being an outspoken, impatient and preoccupied conversationalist with regularly opposing views.

Anyway, this is one of Darwin’s lesser known experiments and it is certainly full of personality… and ridiculousness. Here’s the just of it: Darwin prodded a guy in the face with an electrical current and photographed the expressions that were produced. He would then share the creepy-ass pictures with anyone that visited him in 1868, asking them what emotions they saw in the man’s face.

The idea was that he could use the data to identify what our universal core emotions are (if there are any), and what other expressions and emotions are extensions of the core ones. Darwin gathered enough info to write a book about it, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, but the validity of his data fell into question as it lacked consistent materials, a control group, and enough test subjects.

The methodology may have been flawed, but the concept is still intriguing enough for the University of Cambridge to pick up where Darwin left off. The Darwin Correspondence Project uses the same images, but uses a much larger sample: anyone and everyone. You too can participate (I just did) by heading to http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/.

In the meantime, here’s some more of Darwin’s, likely regretful, test subject:




 

http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/st_darwinfaces?pid=3711

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