Heaving Dead Cats » wow

Liquid Glass Is Groovy!

Neece — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:03:13 +0000

Happy Darwin Day everyone! Today is Darwin’s birthday and in honor of him, I thought I’d post this article about Liquid Glass, which could possibly be the coolest nanotech material I’ve seen in some time. I think it’s so cool mainly because of its versatility and the fact that it’s already in use in Germany, the UK and Turkey.

Why am I talking about nanotech on Darwin’s birthday? If you think about it, without evolution, we wouldn’t be able to manipulate our world so deftly and with such finesse. About 195,000 years ago homo sapiens first appeared in the fossil record. We started leaving Africa about 70,000 years ago, and migrated as far as the Americas 14,500 years ago.

A mere 10,000 years ago, we were mostly hunter-gatherers in nomadic groups. The first proto-states were developed only 6,000 years ago. Think of that! Look how far we’ve come in such a short time!

Think of how we lived just 100 years ago in 1910.

By 1910 many suburban homes were wired up with power and new electronic gadgets.
Vacuum cleaners and washing machines had just become commercially available, though still expensive for middle class folks
The telephone was new, and millions of American homes were connected by manual switchboard
People relied on the paper for their news, but radio technology was in its infancy
The age of the airship was in full swing. Only 7 years previously, the Wright brothers had flown at Kitty Hawk
Henry Ford introduced the Model T 2 years before and sold about 10,000 of them this year
Advances in the use of gases meant the first electric refrigerators and air conditioning units.
Neon lighting was debuted in Paris
Inventions included: escalators, teabags, cellophane, instant coffee and disposable razor blades
Women still had another 3 years of corsets

Things they didn’t have in 1910:

stainless steel
zippers
the modern bra
the modern band-aid
the pop-up toaster
sliced bread

But let’s get back to Liquid Glass. You spray it on. It’s transparent, non-toxic and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat and bacterial infections. It’s flexible and breathable, which means it can be used on all kinds of products.

The liquid glass spray (technically termed “SiO2 ultra-thin layering”) consists of almost pure silicon dioxide (silica, the normal compound in glass) extracted from quartz sand. Water or ethanol is added, depending on the type of surface to be coated. There are no additives, and the nano-scale glass coating bonds to the surface because of the quantum forces involved. According to the manufacturers, liquid glass has a long-lasting antibacterial effect because microbes landing on the surface cannot divide or replicate easily.

Liquid glass was invented in Turkey and the patent is held by Nanopool, a family-owned German company. Research on the product was carried out at the Saarbrücken Institute for New Materials. Nanopool is already in negotiations in the UK with a number of companies and with the National Health Service, with a view to its widespread adoption.

The liquid glass spray produces a water-resistant coating only around 100 nanometers (15-30 molecules) thick. On this nanoscale the glass is highly flexible and breathable. The coating is environmentally harmless and non-toxic, and easy to clean using only water or a simple wipe with a damp cloth. It repels bacteria, water and dirt, and resists heat, UV light and even acids. UK project manager with Nanopool, Neil McClelland, said soon almost every product you purchase will be coated with liquid glass.

Food processing companies in Germany have already carried out trials of the spray, and found sterile surfaces that usually needed to be cleaned with strong bleach to keep them sterile needed only a hot water rinse if they were coated with liquid glass. The levels of sterility were higher for the glass-coated surfaces, and the surfaces remained sterile for months.

Other organizations, such as a train company and a hotel chain in the UK, and a hamburger chain in Germany, are also testing liquid glass for a wide range of uses. A year-long trial of the spray in a Lancashire hospital also produced “very promising” results for a range of applications including coatings for equipment, medical implants, catheters, sutures and bandages. The war graves association in the UK is investigating using the spray to treat stone monuments and grave stones, since trials have shown the coating protects against weathering and graffiti. Trials in Turkey are testing the product on monuments such as the Ataturk Mausoleum in Ankara.

The liquid glass coating is breathable, which means it can be used on plants and seeds. Trials in vineyards have found spraying vines increases their resistance to fungal diseases, while other tests have shown sprayed seeds germinate and grow faster than untreated seeds, and coated wood is not attacked by termites. Other vineyard applications include coating corks with liquid glass to prevent “corking” and contamination of wine. The spray cannot be seen by the naked eye, which means it could also be used to treat clothing and other materials to make them stain-resistant. McClelland said you can “pour a bottle of wine over an expensive silk shirt and it will come right off”.

In the home, spray-on glass would eliminate the need for scrubbing and make most cleaning products obsolete. Since it is available in both water-based and alcohol-based solutions, it can be used in the oven, in bathrooms, tiles, sinks, and almost every other surface in the home, and one spray is said to last a year.

Liquid glass spray is perhaps the most important nanotechnology product to emerge to date. It will be available in DIY stores in Britain soon, with prices starting at around £5 ($8 US). Other outlets, such as many supermarkets, may be unwilling to stock the products because they make enormous profits from cleaning products that need to be replaced regularly, and liquid glass would make virtually all of them obsolete.

Thanks, PhysOrg

A bit more info on it:

The flexible and breathable glass coating is approximately 100 nanometres thick (500 times thinner than a human hair), and so it is completely undetectable. It is food safe, environmentally friendly (winner of the Green Apple Award) and it can be applied to almost any surface within seconds . When coated, all surfaces become easy to clean and anti-microbially protected (Winner of the NHS Smart Solutions Award ). Houses, cars, ovens, wedding dress or any other protected surface become stain resistant and can be easily cleaned with water ; no cleaning chemicals are required. Amazingly a 30 second DIY application to a sink unit will last for a year or years, depending on how often it is used. But it does not stop there – the coatings are now also recognised as being suitable for agricultural and in-vivo application. Vines coated with SiO2 don’t suffer from mildew, and coated seeds grow more rapidly without the need for anti-fungal chemicals. This will result in farmers in enjoying massively increased yields.

…The really clever part is that there are no added nano-particles , resins or additives- the coatings form and bond due to quantum forces. Our research informs us that in all probability, we offer the most versatile coating in the world. This technology is now available for domestic use in Germany. Full scale retail availability in the UK will commence in early 2010.

Nanopool

A Wild Ride With Robert Sapolsky

Neece — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:50:18 +0000

My friend Brent sent me a link to a page on the web. It’s a conversation with Robert Sapolsky, a quiet, funny, apparently brilliant professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and of neurology at Stanford’s School of Medicine. Professor Sapolsky has written several books such as:

The link Brent sent me was called TOXO and he suggested it to me because our book club is reading The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture, by Daniel W Ray. Now the video on that page was Robert Sapolsky talking about a most interesting parasite called Toxoplasma. This is what pregnant women need to worry about, and why they avoid cats and cat feces. It can wreak havoc on their unborn baby’s nervous system.

If you read The God Virus, which talks about parasites and viruses as an analogy for religion, I highly recommend watching this video. If you aren’t going to read the book I still recommend the video. The transcript is underneath it too, which will make it even more accessible for you. But the video is longer than the transcript. So take 25 minutes and enjoy it. Here’s another link to the video. I’m telling you, it’s fascinating. As I mentioned, the video is longer than the transcript. He goes into telemeres and molecular age, which I heard a study about recently confirming what he is explaining.

What he’s talking about touches on evolution, common ancestors, parasites and how they go about getting where they need to be, motorcyclists and speed freaks, and schizophrenics, as well as the government’s interest in this parasite. A wild ride indeed!

Of course, as a skeptic, I thought I’d just look around a bit and see who this Sapolsky guy is, since I’d never heard of him. I found his books (linked to above), his Wikipedia page, and a very cool speech he gave to Stanford students about to graduate. It’s about the uniqueness of humans. Here is the Stanford speech:

TED likes him too. Here’s his bio page .

“If a rat is a good model for your emotional life, you’re in big trouble.” Robert Sapolsky

I guess it’s no surprise that he’s an “unbudgeable atheist“. Did I mention he was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant? But if you watch the videos, you’ll find that he’s fairly easy to understand, so he’s able to teach what he knows, which is awesome.

Oh, and the connection between toxoplasma and schizophrenia? Science Daily has a few studies that I could find:

Cross-posted from Morgantown Atheists

A Symphony of Science

Neece — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:51:47 +0000

I have some videos to share with you today. All three are created by John Boswell and are different, interesting, inspiring and thought provoking. You can find the videos with the lyrics and downloads of the songs in different formats at his site: The Symphony of Science. Here’s what the site says:

“The Symphony of Science is a musical project by John Boswell designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form. Here you can watch music videos, download songs, read lyrics and find links relating to the messages conveyed by the music.”

The first time I heard A Glorious Dawn was on the Reasonable Doubts podcast. I didn’t care for it for the first few seconds but it grew on me very quickly. When I watched the videos I was inspired. Basically Carl Sagan and other awesome scientists are singing in a synthesized way. There’s a special program that does this, but I can’t think of what it’s called at the moment. Ozzie and Cher have both put out albums using this same technique to save their sagging voices. But here John Boswell turns speech into music.

All three are awesome. I hope you try them out. Go to the website to download the music. A Glorious Dawn is also available on iTunes!

A Glorious Dawn

Symphony of Science – Carl Sagan – “A Glorious Dawn”, featuring Stephen Hawking

[Sagan]
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch
You must first invent the universe

Space is filled with a network of wormholes
You might emerge somewhere else in space
Some when-else in time

The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars

A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the milky way

The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths
Of exquisite interrelationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature

I believe our future depends powerfully
On how well we understand this cosmos
In which we float like a mote of dust
In the morning sky

But the brain does much more than just recollect
It inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes
it generates abstractions

The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning
The brain has its own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world

[Hawking]
For thousands of years
People have wondered about the universe
Did it stretch out forever
Or was there a limit

From the big bang to black holes
From dark matter to a possible big crunch
Our image of the universe today
Is full of strange sounding ideas

[Sagan]
How lucky we are to live in this time
The first moment in human history
When we are in fact visiting other worlds

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean
Recently we’ve waded a little way out
And the water seems inviting

We Are All Connected

Symphony of Science – We Are All Connected
featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye

[deGrasse Tyson]
We are all connected;
To each other, biologically
To the earth, chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically

[Feynman]
I think nature’s imagination
Is so much greater than man’s
She’s never going to let us relax

[Sagan]
We live in an in-between universe
Where things change all right
But according to patterns, rules,
Or as we call them, laws of nature

[Nye]
I’m this guy standing on a planet
Really I’m just a speck
Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck
To think about all of this
To think about the vast emptiness of space
There’s billions and billions of stars
Billions and billions of specks

[Sagan]
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
But the way those atoms are put together
The cosmos is also within us
We’re made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself

Across the sea of space
The stars are other suns
We have traveled this way before
And there is much to be learned

I find it elevating and exhilarating
To discover that we live in a universe
Which permits the evolution of molecular machines
As intricate and subtle as we

[deGrasse Tyson]
I know that the molecules in my body are traceable
To phenomena in the cosmos
That makes me want to grab people in the street
And say, have you heard this??

(Richard Feynman on hand drums and chanting)

[Feynman]
There’s this tremendous mess
Of waves all over in space
Which is the light bouncing around the room
And going from one thing to the other

And it’s all really there
But you gotta stop and think about it
About the complexity to really get the pleasure
And it’s all really there
The inconceivable nature of nature

Our Place in the Cosmos

Symphony of Science – Our Place in the Cosmos
featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Michio Kaku and Robert Jastrow
[Narrator]
With every century
Our eyes on the universe have been opened anew
We are witness
To the very brink of time and space

[Robert Jastrow]
We must ask ourselves
We who are so proud of our accomplishments
What is our place in the cosmic perspective of life?

[Carl Sagan]
The exploration of the cosmos
Is a voyage of self discovery
As long as there have been humans
We have searched for our place in the cosmos

[Richard Dawkins]
Are there things about the universe
That will be forever beyond our grasp?
Are there things about the universe that are
Ungraspable?

[Sagan]
One of the great revelations of space exploration
Is the image of the earth, finite and lonely
Bearing the entire human species
Through the oceans of space and time

[Dawkins]
Matter flows from place to place
And momentarily comes together to be you
Some people find that thought disturbing
I find the reality thrilling

[Sagan]
As the ancient mythmakers knew
We’re children equally of the earth and the sky
In our tenure on this planet, we’ve accumulated
Dangerous evolutionary baggage

We’ve also acquired compassion for others,
Love for our children,
And a great soaring passionate intelligence
The clear tools for our continued survival

[Michio Kaku]
We could be in the middle
Of an inter-galactic conversation
And we wouldn’t even know

[Sagan]
We’ve begun at last
To wonder about our origins
Star stuff contemplating the stars
Tracing that long path

Our obligation to survive and flourish
Is owed not just to ourselves
But also to that cosmos
Ancient and vast, from which we spring

Dumb As A Stump!

Neece — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:32:02 +0000

Oh for christ’s sake! Some people in Sacramento have seen an image of Whacko Jacko show up in a stump in their front yard the day he died. It’s a miracle! I wonder if it heals people and molests little boys? I wonder if it does the moon walk?

Now, you’ve got to feel for the local reporter doing this stupid story. Unless he asked them leading questions which were beyond stupid. Because if you watch the related video of the magical stump story, the people are exceedingly moronic.

When asked why MJ would show up, specifically to these people, and not some other celebrity or religious figure, this is what one idiot said: “Because Michael Jackson was an icon to us,” said one neighbor. “To Stockton, Michael Jackson meant more to us than Jesus, to some people. I think they’re both about even.”

So pareidolia be damned. That’s just a stupid psychological phenomenon where a vague, random stimulus (like an image or a sound) is perceived as significant. That’s so boring compared to imagining a knot in a stump is something magical and exciting. Let’s all start worshiping the magic michael stump!

Hell, I can’t see anything. I guess I’m doomed to suffer in a lake of hair on fire or something.

Oh Lordy, Kill My Oppressors, Please!

Neece — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:40:24 +0000

Wiley Drake, a southern baptist preacher in California went on Fox News Radio’s Alan Colmes show on June 2nd and said he’s praying for god to kill President Obama. Drake used to be the 2nd vice president of the southern baptist convention.

Apparently there’s a special kind of prayer from psalms where you ask god to kill people for you, to vindicate your innocence and relieve you of your oppressors. It’s called imprecatory prayer.

Imprecate: To call down by prayer, as something hurtful or calamitous. To invoke evil upon; curse.

Drake prayed to his god for the death of Dr. George Tiller, who was murdered in his church on May 31st. Drake called his death an answer to prayer.

(emphasis of the following quotes are mine, with my comments interspersed)

“Imprecatory prayer is agreeing with God, and if people don’t like that, they need to talk to God,” Drake told syndicated talk-show host Alan Colmes. “God said it, I didn’t. I was just agreeing with God.”

Lame! Cop-out! ‘Don’t blame me, it’s god’s responsibility! I just pestered him till he did what i demanded!’

Asked if there are others for whom Drake is praying “imprecatory prayer,” Drake hesitated before answering that there are several. “The usurper that is in the White House is one, B. Hussein Obama,” he said.

Later in the interview, Colmes returned to Drake’s answer to make sure he heard him right.

“Are you praying for his death?” Colmes asked.

“Yes,” Drake replied.

“So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States?”

“Yes.”

Colmes asked Drake if he was concerned that by saying that he might be placed on a Secret Service or FBI watch list, and if he believed it appropriate to talk or pray that way.

At least he’s just praying, which we know to be completely ineffectual.

“I think it’s appropriate to pray the Word of God,” Drake said. “I’m not saying anything. What I am doing is repeating what God is saying, and if that puts me on somebody’s list, then I’ll just have to be on their list.”

“You would like for the president of the United States to die?” Colmes asked once more.

“If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct.”

Uh, Obama’s a christian, Wiley. He prays at every state funded prayer service at the White House and at different functions. Admit it, he’s just not your brand of christian. Hatemonger.

Most of the half-hour interview on “The Alan Colmes Show” is premium programming available by paid subscription, but a five-minute clip appeared as a “top video” on the Fox News Radio website.

Drake said he didn’t pray for Tiller to be murdered — only that God would take his life by some method — but that he “absolutely” believed that God wanted the doctor dead.

But, god couldn’t just strike Dr. Tiller with a bolt of lightning before he ever performed his first abortion, if that was such a heinous crime against humanity? Wiley’s god is so powerless he needs Wiley himself to pray fervently for certain things so that god knows what to do? Maybe god just isn’t a self-starter. Maybe god needs to be told what to do repeatedly because he tends to procrastinate and has no motivation. That would explain a lot, if there was a god.

“I believe the whole Bible, Alan,” he explained. “I don’t just preach part of it. I don’t just preach the soft, fuzzy, warm stuff where we’re supposed to be nice to everybody. I preach the whole Bible.”

Here is the only thing this slimeball said that I have to begrudgingly agree with. I don’t think christians should just pick out the warm fuzzy bits of the bible. But if they really read the whole thing, they’d probably end up atheists, like me and others who’ve studied it. Between the overabundance of hate and bigotry and violence against the innocent, and the huge inconsistencies and constant contradictions, it is a pretty sorry kind of book, lacking any kind of holiness.

Part of the Bible, Drake claimed, is imprecatory prayer — words of judgment in the Psalms prayed back to God — a practice he said the church has lost.

Drake fielded calls from a few listeners, including one identifying himself as a lifelong Southern Baptist who said he was saddened to hear a minister would pray for someone to die.

“This whole concept that we’re always to pray little, nice, soft, fluffy, prayers — that we’re not to pray imprecatory prayer — has been something that just, in all honesty, that Southern Baptists have lost, and we need to regain imprecatory prayer,” Drake said. “It is in the Bible, and we are proud to say as Southern Baptists that we believe the Book. You’ve got to believe the whole Book, brother, or you don’t believe any of it.”

Asked if he thinks there might be other people praying imprecatory prayers for him that might be successful, Drake said, “Well, that’s certainly possible, but that’s in God’s hands, not in mine.”

Asked if he claimed to know God’s will, Drake replied: “In some cases I do. Not in all cases. I know this, that if I do die right now, I’ll go to heaven when I die because I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s why I’ll go to heaven and not to hell. And the reason George Tiller went to hell when he died was not because he killed babies, as terrible as that was. If he went to hell, and I think he did — that’s God’s judgment and not mine — but if he did go to hell it’s because he did not accept Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.”

Uh, once again, WTF is wrong with this dude? Dr. Tiller was IN CHURCH when he was murdered in cold blood. He was in church, actually helping his congregation by being an usher. Where is there any sense that he didn’t think he had a personal relationship with Jesus? But somehow god could tell that it wasn’t a good relationship with Jesus so he answered Wiley’s prayer and made some made pro-life christian go shoot him, in god’s own house of worship? Why would a sane god do that? Why would god need to do that? This is all so far beyond stupid. Seriously.

Drake said he did not believe Tiller’s accused killer is a pro-life Christian.

“I’m of the opinion — and now everybody’s going to say ‘There goes Wiley down the conspiracy-theory road,’ I’m of the opinion that somebody in the Obama camp had this guy killed.”

OMFG. This guy is way off the deep end. Never mind. He’s a complete nutter. Still, is he a dangerous nutter though?

“Who benefits the most from this man killing a doctor?” Drake asked. “We certainly don’t. Pro-life people certainly don’t. It hurts us. It damages us, but Obama will indeed advance it. This will be one of those crises to take advantage of, and he’s already done that.”

Drake said he had no evidence and admitted his opinion for now is “pure speculation.”

“Everybody said [Lee Harvey] Oswald was a lone gunman, et cetera, et cetera, too,” he said. “But I think we’re going to find there was somebody else involved.”

Drake said Tiller’s murder would be a setback for pro-life Christians seeking to end abortion by legal and proper means. He said he also expects to see answers to other imprecatory prayers in the days ahead.

“God says very clearly in his Word that we are to continue to pray and he will answer our prayers,” Drake said.

(From the apb news) via the BEattitude

I can’t think of anything else to add. I think my brain froze up from the complete shock of lack of reality from the whole story. I need to calm down and go take a nap or something.

Life Is Good. Cinnamon Life Is Better!

Neece — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:47:33 +0000

You probably have to be American to get the joke in the title. Do other countries have Life cereal? I have no idea. That’s a phrase of my husband Butch’s anyway. I personally think the original Life cereal is the best, not the fancy versions that they also make, like cinnamon, chocolate oat crunch, etc.

Anyhoo, this is a roundup post in which I cover several topics that are tenuously connected at best. Here’s what I’m rambling on about:

I’m a citizen scientist now! WOOT!
- Encyclopedia of Life!
- My Flickr
Moving the body affects how we think – a study
Prayer and meditation may reshape the brain – a study

First, I want to talk about a ScienceDaily report: Massive Online ‘Macroscopic Observatory’ Of Earth’s Biodiversity To Be Created. “Wanted (soon): observations from environment-minded citizens that will allow science to study biodiversity at a planetary level in a massive, comprehensive virtual observatory of historic importance.”

This guy, Edward O. Wilson, created a website, Encyclopedia of Life (eol). His dream: “Imagine an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth…” and they are starting to do just that. A page for every species. If you read the ScienceDaily article, it will be amazing. You’ll be able to get information from the Deep Web from images, maps, classification, common and scientific names, links to research and papers, etc.

It’s already there now, and growing all the time. In the future you’ll also be able to get genome sequences and much much more. Basically anything you want to know about a species will be there, at your fingertips, all on one page, for free. My scientific geekiness is giggling with delight!

And here’s where I get to finally call myself a scientist! Uh, well, a citizen scientist, which is still cool. eol wants people to submit their pictures. I’m a photographer, and I love taking pictures of nature, but I’ve never been able to do much with them. Now I can help with this project! Can you say WOOT!? I can. Woot WOOT! (Sorry, uber-geek moment there).

So what you do, what I did, was to open a Flickr account. I’m ZeNeeceC on Flickr now. I got some older pictures posted yesterday. Then here’s the tough part. You need to machine tag them with their scientific names. This is so that when you send them to the eol Flickr group, eol’s computer can get those images and put them on the right pages.

My friend Jeff said that eol sounded like a Wikipedia kind of thing for science. In a way, he’s right, because we get to contribute our images. But eol is serious about science, so the images will get authenticated. Until that time, they have a yellow box around them so people can see that they are contributed but might not be scientifically accurate like the rest of the info on the page.

Even further, though, if you just want high end science info, eol lets you set that up so that you don’t even see the citizen science stuff. It’s a very well done site.

Anyway, I am having trouble finding out what things are called. Flickr has a group called ID Please, which I joined. And I joined BugGuide.net as ZeNeece to help me ID bugs. But the flowers and plants, I will need to find an online source to identify those more readily.

So that’s that. I wanted to share it with you because it’s so exciting to me, but also in case you or someone you know might be interested as well.

Onto some studies!

Our Bodies, Our Brains: a recent study shows that moving your body in certain ways can improve your ability to think. Published in Psychological Science.

Working with 38 subjects, the scientists confirmed that either a step forward (a typically positive movement) or a step backward (usually negative) significantly changed one’s ability to perform a mental task.

Taking four steps back improved a subject’s accuracy and timing on the task, whereas taking four steps forward led to longer processing times and more errors.

How cool is that? Now, if you follow the link, you’ll see that this was on 60 second science on Scientific American, so there are no links to studies. But they list the publication, Psychological Science, if you want to look into it further.

Prayer May Reshape Your Brain… And Your Reality: This is interesting. I’ve told you about some studies (see below) in the past in this field, which this article calls “neurotheology”. The article from NPR is about Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist at University of Pennsylvania who has written several books and studies very religious people and their brains. Newberg says: “The more you focus on something — whether that’s math or auto racing or football or God — the more that becomes your reality, the more it becomes written into the neural connections of your brain.”

He also tested a doctor who meditates for an hour a day. He had him meditate in a brain scanner.

As expected, his frontal lobes lit up on the screen: Meditation is sheer concentration, after all. But what fascinated Newberg was that Baime’s parietal lobes went dark. Newberg said, “This is an area that normally takes our sensory information, tries to create for us a sense of ourselves and orient that self in the world,” he explains. “When people lose their sense of self, feel a sense of oneness, a blurring of the boundary between self and other, we have found decreases in activity in that area.”

The article goes on to suggest that you can benefit from meditation and prayer as well, even if you don’t devote 1 or 2 hours a day to it. I find this interesting and compelling, and it goes along with the other studies listed below. I would have liked some studies referenced and linked to in the article, but I guess I’m not that lucky.

Here are the other posts I’ve done about other relevant brain and mind studies recently:

Church: No brain activity required- study showed how experiencing transcendence basically shut down the right parietal lobe.
More differences in the brains of believers and non-believers: A recent study that found religious people were less anxious about mistakes they made than non-believers.
Knowledge and Beliefs are stored differently in the brain: this wasn’t a specific study. Dr. Steven Novella mentioned it in passing on his podcast.
Religion is the path of least resistance: This was about an article in New Scientist where people are born believers. I strongly suspect the way they conducted the studies mentioned.
Superstitious? It could be your lack of control: This was a neat study about people who were basically put into a situation where they felt a lack of control found patterns more readily in random information.

Young Earth Invasion

Neece — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:10:05 +0000

Recently, a friend of mine went to the Center For Inquiry in his hometown. There was a book discussion about “50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a god“. This is part of his email to me about it:

The guy who leads the Scientific Evaluation of Religion things for this location has done a pretty good job the two times I have gone. I really have to give him credit and say I was impressed at how he handled this meeting since IT GOT HIJACKED BY A GROUP OF YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISTS! That’s right, you heard me. It was pretty interesting for me to see first hand their pulling out all the old cliché arguments for Christianity. They got started when there was a chapter summary that mentioned that most religious people are skeptical of other peoples faiths but not their own, they took issue with that statement and then proceeded to confirm its accuracy with their actions.

One creationist gave everyone a four-page handout entitled “Evolution, Science or Religion?” which my friend sent me a few days later. Here it is as he sent it to me: (BEGIN LOGICAL FALLACY DRINKING GAME NOW)

Evolution, Science or Religion?

Operational Science by definition uses observable, repeatable, and verifiable experiments to try to discover truth.

Origin Science relies on presuppositions, interpretations, and theory based on artifacts and remains. Origin Science tries to determine the past. This in not real science for it is neither observable, repeatable, or verifiable. Origin Science are interpretations based on operational science.

Scientific Fact Observed- 85% of the world’s rock is sedimentary and is found all over the world.

Belief #1 – This rock took billions of years to form through wind and water erosion.

Belief #2 – This rock was formed by a worldwide flood.

Both are beliefs, interpretations of the facts. The question is: which best explains the facts?

Which of these beliefs better explains polystrate fossils? Fossilized trees that go through multiple rock layers? Did those layers form around ther trees over millions of years or was it rapid sedimentation that occurred? What belief better explains this fact?

Which of those beliefs better explain that there are fossilized clams that have been found on the top of Mount Everest?

Have you ever taken a look at Burlingame Canyon? It took 6 days for this canyon to form… it is verifyable.

Scientific Fact Observed- the moon is drifting away from the earth slowly.

Belief #1- The Universe is billions of years old.

Belief #2 – The Universe is only thousands of years old. Because if you trace the drifting of the moon back for millions of years the moon would be on top of the earth. If you trace it back even less than that the moon would be so much closer to the earth that our tides would be out of control.

Which of these beliefs best fit the Science that we observe?

Scientific Fact Observed – Neptune is a very active planet that is still producing heat, has winds that reach over 1300 MPH and it gives off over twice the amount of energy than what it receives from the sun.

Belief #1- The Universe is billions of years old.

Belief #2 – The Universe is only several thousand years old. If it were millions or billions of years old Neptune would have cooled off and become inactive by now because of its distance from the sun. But if it is only thousands of years old then it would still be cooling off.

Use your reason… Assuming man evolved over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years, using an average life span of 43 years per generation and a family producing an average of 2.5 children, accounting for natural depletion by wars, famines, and plagues, our world should be populated by trillions of people. If this is true, where are they and where are the mountains of skeletons they would have generated?

Scientific Fact Observed – Birds give birth to Birds, dogs give birth to dogs, monkeys give birth to monkeys, humans give birth to humans etc.

Belief #1- All living things have a common ancestor. Over a long period of time sea creatures mutated into reptiles, reptiles mutated into birds which eventually led to every living creature we have today. (This is oversimplified but you get the general idea.)

Belief #2- All creatures were created fully functional and give birth after their own kind.

Which belief better fits what we observe?

Scientific fact observed – There has never been a mutation that has ever produced an increase or addition of information to the genetic code.

Belief #1 – Mutations are the engine that has brought about the evolution of all living creatures from single celled organism into all the creatures we see today.

Belief #2 – Mutations do occur. Mutations occor within kinds. There is no way mutation can change a simpler organism into a more complex organism because they do not produce new genetic information. Felines change into different kinds of felines, canines into different kinds of canines, but never felines into canines or any other transition between kinds.

Scientific fact observed - Geological research shows no transitional fossils.

Belief #1 – It’s not that they never existed, it’s that the geological record isn’t complete. “The explanation lies, however, in the extreme imperfection of the geologic record” – Charles Darwin

Belief #2 – Transitions between kinds has never occurred.

“I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossils or living, certainly I would have included it… I will lay it on the line. There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument”. – Dr. Colin Patterson, Director of the British Museum of Natural History. Well Respected evolutionist and author, Letter to Luther D Sunderland

When talking about transitional fossils Charles Darwin said, “Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic change, and this is perhaps the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory”

As stated above Darwin attributed this to the incompleteness of the exploration of the fossil record at the time. But today, well over a century after that time with thousands of tons of fossils from all over the world the lack of transitional fossils is still a problem.

Evolutionist David Raup reviews the evidence from us. He has been the curator of the famous Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. That museum houses 20% of all fossil species known, so Raup is in a position to speak with considerable knowledge about fossil evidence. He says:

“Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded… Ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time. By this I mean some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information.”

Which belief better fits the facts?

Scientific Fact observed- everything which has a beginning has a cause (Law of Cause and effect)

Belief #1- In the Beginning the universe caused itself.

Belief #2- In the Beginning God created the universe

If matter had a beginning, then belief number 1 cannot be true, the law of cause and effect shows that everything that has a beginning has a cause. Therefore one must conclude one of two things: either matter had no beginning or it had a cause.

Scientific Fact Observed – The 2nd Law of thermodynamics: The amount of energy available for work is running out, or entropy is increasing to a maximum.

Belief #1 – Matter had no beginning. The universe caused itself.

Belief #2 – Matter had a beginning, it was created by God.

If matter had no beginning then how can the 2nd law of thermodynamics be true? If the total amount of mass-energy is limited, and the amount of usable energy is decreasing, then the universe cannot have existed forever, otherwise it would already have exhausted all usable energy. Therefore if the universe has a beginning, it must have a cause (Law of cause and effect)

Which belief fits the facts? The universe had no cause, or God caused the universe?

One might ask “Well what/who caused God?”. Well that’s a good question. First I would say that logic demands that there be something which had no cause, something that is eternal. Because if I would answer who/what caused God, you would say “well who/what caused that?” and it would be an endless cycle. There had to have been something which had no beginning, and had no cause. These past two scientific facts prove that matter itself cannot be that which had no beginning or cause. Logic demands there must be something eternal, Science proves matter can’t be eternal, the Bible describes God as eternal. God is outside of time/space, He is eternal.

Scientific fact observed- Nonliving matter cannot produce living creatures. (Law of Biogenisis/Pasteur’s Law)

Belief #1- Life was spontaneously generated from nonliving matter, not from a Creator.

Belief #2- Life was created by God

Which answer best explains the facts? Science says spontaneous generation can’t happen, without God the first living organism would have had to have come from nonliving matter. But this is scientifically impossible.

Sir Ernest Chain, co-holder of the Nobel Prize for developing penicillin said this, “To postulate that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutations seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts. These classical evolutionary theories are a gross over-simplification of an immensely complex and intricate mass of facts, and it amazes me that they are swallowed so uncritically and readily, and for such a long time, by so many scientists without a murmur of protest.”

Nobel Prize winning evolutionist and Harvard professor Dr George Wald answered this question when he said, “There are only two possible explanations as to how life arose. Spontaneous generation arising into evolution or the supernatural creative act of a God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation, however, was scientifically disproved by Louis Pasteur and others. Therefore, that leaves only one possibility as to how life arose, that it was a supernatural creative act of a God. However, I choose not to believe this, because I do not want to believe in a God. Therefore I choose to believe that which I know is scientifically impossible.”

Why would Dr Wald, a man smart enough to win a Nobel prize, believe and teach something he considered to be scientifically impossible? Because he said he didn’t want to believe in a God. Why didn’t he want to believe in a God? Because if God is real then we will be accountable to Him one day.

If God is real you will stand in front of Him one day as well, how will you do? Here is a quick test: Have you ever lied? Have you ever stolen something? Jesus said ” If you have looked with lust you’ve committed adultery in your heart” Have you looked with lust? Have you ever murdered someone? Keep in mind Jesus said if you hate your brother or call your brother a fool you will be judged as a murderer. Have you ever taken God’s name in vain? This is called blasphemy. This is like taking God’s holy name, throwing it into the mud and stomping on it. Imagine if I took your mother’s name and used it in place of a 4 letter word. You’d be very offended wouldn’t you?… So how will you do? This is only four of the Ten Commandments, which is God’s standard of righteousness. When you stand before God will you be innocent or guilty? Will you be deserving of Heaven or Hell? Listen to your conscience, God gave you His moral code and a conscience so that you would know you are in need of Him.

Psalm 53:1 “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.” When you look around and see design, order, art, and creation it is axiomatic that there is a designer, an orderer, an artist, and a creator behind it. We know there is design in something like a chair or an automobile. We know because the object itself is the evidence. You would not have to convince me that someone designed an automobile, I just know. Why then do we try to postulate (based on no facts, just guesses) that there is no designer or creator to nature, plants, animals, and humans?

If your conscience is telling you that you are guilty of breaking God’s commands that is a good thing. Listen to your conscience and understand that there is something wrong. Breaking God’s law will condemn you to Hell. Once you understand this you will understand that it is not God’s will to send anyone to Hell. Jesus Christ came to this earth (a historical fact that only extreme scoffers try to deny). Jesus said, “I am th way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” You see punishment that we all deserve for breaking God’s law was poured out on Christ. God loved us so much that He chose to cruch His own Son for our sake. The Bible tells us that Jesus became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. There is no other belief, idea, person, religion, or anything that can save us from our sins. We must repent (turn from our sins) and believe the gospel. Don’t rely on blind faith any longer. Check out the claims of Christ and the Bible for yourself. Remember this story, many people came to Jesus and had objections to His message. He replied to them and said, “Unless you repent you will likewise perish.” Please do not be the kind of person that looks for any excuse to reject the message of salvation. Repent and believe the gospel today.

If you started the Logical Fallacy Drinking Game at the top, you are totally sloshed now, so you’re probably not even able to focus on the text anymore. Go pray to the white porcelain god for a bit then come back and tell us what you think.

My friend (who I am not naming because I didn’t ask his permission) says he’s going to go through and refute each point. Honestly this kind of dreck just makes me tired. I am posting it without comment for now. Feel free to pick it apart in the comments and maybe we can tackle different parts in different posts.

EDIT: I forgot that my friend (sorry, I really should have asked him if I could use his name, sorry) wrote a little creation story in response:

It’s obvious to anyone who looks at the evidence without some preconceived idea.
I mean we know for a fact that Odin, Vili and Ve killed Ymir, and his blood flooded the world and drowned all of the jötunn, except two.
But jötnar grew again in numbers and soon there were as many as before Ymir’s death.
Then the gods created seven more worlds using Ymir’s flesh for dirt, his blood for the Oceans, rivers and lakes, his bones for stone, his brain as the clouds, his skull for the heavens.
We know this because we see that the the earth is made from only a few “elements”. Just use your logic and the wisdom that comes from the all father, Odin.
Also “seven more worlds” right? 1 + 7 = 8 and now that we got the Pluto thing settled there are 8 planets in our solar system. Or should I say “Ymir’s left over body soup system” Slam dunk! Norse creation FTW! Jesus PWNED!
Sparks from Muspelheim flew up and became stars.
Sparks, am I right? We know stars are big burny things. That’s science people!
One day when the gods were walking they found two tree trunks. They transformed them into the shape of humans. We know this for a fact! Odin gave them life, Vili gave them mind and Ve gave them the ability to hear, see, and speak.
The gods named them Ask and Embla and built the kingdom of Middle-earth for them; and, to keep out the jötnar, the gods placed a gigantic fence made of Ymir’s eyelashes around Middle-earth.
Again, that is just science. Look down at your descended from tree truck people bodies and give thanks that we still have eyelashes keeping the jötnar at bay.

All hail the magic giant eyelash fence! WOOT! This is such a brilliant response. It makes way more sense though. LOL

Back to the creationist handout bullshit: I thought about removing the blatant proselytizing at the end, but then I figured you’re big people, you can handle it. Your comments are welcome and encouraged.

What’s your favorite bit that you find totally insanely stupid? Which fallacy does it commit? Why does it drive you mad?

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Scientific Fact Observed- 85% of the world’s rock is sedimentary and is found all over the world.

Scientific Fact Observed- the moon is drifting away from the earth slowly.

Scientific Fact Observed – Neptune is a very active planet that is still producing heat, has winds that reach over 1300 MPH and it gives off over twice the amount of energy than what it receives from the sun.

Scientific Fact Observed – Birds give birth to Birds, dogs give birth to dogs, monkeys give birth to monkeys, humans give birth to humans etc.

Scientific fact observed – There has never been a mutation that has ever produced an increase or addition of information to the genetic code.

Scientific fact observed - Geological research shows no transitional fossils.

Scientific Fact observed- everything which has a beginning has a cause (Law of Cause and effect)

Scientific Fact Observed – The 2nd Law of thermodynamics: The amount of energy available for work is running out, or entropy is increasing to a maximum.

Scientific fact observed- Nonliving matter cannot produce living creatures. (Law of Biogenisis/Pasteur’s Law)

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