Longo has analyzed a sample of 200,000 of elliptical galaxies with redshifts Z < 0.2 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. They look round when their spin axes are pointing directly towards us, and like more or less eccentric ellipses otherwise. So, by correlating their observed shapes with their positions in the sky, one can see if their axes tend to point the same way.The author claims that yes, there’s a statistically significant tendency for them to point towards the direction with right ascension α=202 ∘ and declination δ=25 ∘. In fact, he claims the effect is very strong. Interestingly, the quadrupole and octopole moments of the cosmic microwave background radiation (or CMB) seem to pick out roughly similar directions as being important.

http://tinyurl.com/2fgx85

I think this is Walter’s fractal of the week, but who knows?

The rapture is just a way to get rid of the idiots.

“…Once in the tubes, it’s a quick dash for the burritos across San Francisco Bay. Propelled by powerful bursts of compressed air, the burritos speed along the same tunnel as the BART commuter train, whose passengers remain oblivious to the hundreds of delicious cylinders whizzing along overhead. Within twelve minutes, even the remotest burrito has arrived at its final destination, the Alameda Transfer Station, where it will be prepared for its transcontinental journey.

Ever since Isaac Newton first described the laws of gravity in 1687, scientists have known that the quickest route between two points is along a straight line through the Earth’s interior. Through the magic of gravity, any object dropped into such a “chord tunnel” at one end will emerge exactly 42 minutes later at the other end, no matter the distance…” Full Slice

“By short-circuiting the sensory organ that detects the chemical cues mice use to attract mates, a team of…researchers has prompted female mice to behave like male mice in the throes of courtship.

The finding…suggests that the neural circuits that govern gender-specific behaviors, such as aggression and courtship, are similar in the male and female brain. According to the new study, the sexual behaviors of female mice, at least, are ruled by a pheromone-detecting organ that engages a neural circuit that determines whether a mouse shows its feminine side or acts like a male…”The female behaves exactly like the male…In the big picture, it suggests that the female brain has a perfectly functional male behavioral circuit.”…” Full Slice - This is not going to be popular with certain segments of the population

“CSIRO fluids researcher…says the physics of bubble creation in carbonated drinks like beer is complex. “As you pour beer into a glass, you see bubbles appearing on what are called nucleation sites, where the glass isn’t quite smooth…“The bubbles expand to a certain size then rise up in streams to the surface, where they bump into each other and form a raft of foam that floats on the top.”…” Full Slice

Days ago (”a couple,” broadly speaking) I mentioned that I’d try to hypelessly interpret a recent report.

Our Heroes surgically implanted multiple electrodes in monkey brains and muscles in carefully chosen areas. They recorded from the electrodes while a monkey operated a lever, moving it and gripping it more or less tightly (there was a juice reward when the monkey positioned the cursor correctly and squeezed just right). Using a simple linear model, they predicted muscle activity (and thus lever activity) based on brain activity. When they removed the lever, the model was able to make the cursor behave correctly from just the monkey’s thoughts, in real time. After replacing the screen with an actual manipulator arm, the monkeys were able to mind-control it as well.

There’s been plenty of news about bionic arms recently (which you can ogle for yourself) - this report is simply an incremental step on the road to non-invasive, direct brain control (that is, without brain surgery, or wiring the arm into pectoral muscles for the control signal) of prosthetics, or even waldoes or other teleoperational gear.

If SecureCare, et al, didn’t post so much, you would know that I am trying Getting Off Google. In general I am not impressed by other search engines but I am doing my best to keep it up. However, I have decided that Firefox is a toady for Google. In Firefox help is the following:

Firefox allows you to search for words you select within a web page:

1. Select (highlight) any words in a web page.

2. Right-clickPress Ctrl,
click the mouse button, and choose “Search Web for [your selected words]” from the menu.

Firefox opens a new tab and uses your <b>default search engine</b> to search for your selected words.

My default search engine is Live Search from Microsoft. When I follow the instructions above, the search is always executed using Google.

Google is an evil company which doesn’t need any help from Firefox which is most cases is a very excellent browser.

“In what advocates hailed as a major advance for scientific communication, the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved a measure directing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide free public online access to agency-funded research findings within 12 months of their publication in a peer-reviewed journal…The current NIH Public Access Policy, implemented in 2005 as a voluntary measure, has resulted in the deposit of less than 5% of eligible research by individual investigators…” Full Slice - A long overdue move to “…tear down the wall…” (hat tip to Pink Floyd)

Here is an experiment for me. Not using Google for a week. I wonder if Windows Live Search can successfully take its place. I’ve changed my installation of Firefox to use Live.com instead of Google.com. I’ll report back on how it turns out.

Google’s rerouting technology sure is pretty slick though…

The hosting service migration is well underway.  The big switch happens on June 27th.

I hope this gets better over time