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POPSEarth would be heading to a freeze without CO2 emissions The chill would induce a long, stable period of glaciation in the mid-latitudes, smothering Europe, Asia and North America to about 45-50 degrees latitude with a thick sheet of ice. However, there is now so much CO2 in the air, as a result of fossil-fuel burning and deforestation, that this adds a heat-trapping greenhouse effect that will offset the cooling impacts of orbital shift, said Crowley. "Even the level that we have there now is more than sufficient to reach that critical state seen in the model," he said. "If we cut back some, that would probably still be enough." In September, a scientific research consortium called the Global Carbon Project (GCP) said that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 reached 383 parts per million (ppm) in 2007, or 37 percent above pre-industrial levels. Present concentrations are "the highest during the last 650,000 years and probably during the last 20 million years," the report said.
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POPSMachu Pichu A journey to legendary city of Machu Pichu, Peru. Here is the most well-known and intriguing places of Peru.
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POPSThe Conservative Blogosphere on Obama's Win This is a fascinating article. What follows the part I clipped is an amazing cross-section of conservative blogs. Please compare them in your mind with the unhinged rage on the left after Bush won in 2004. This election may have been the best possible thing for true conservatism.
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POPSYiddish revival creates rift with Hebrew speakers I find it intriguing the way people seem to be able to avoid the future, and the commitment required to ensure it actually happens, in favour of trivia. Guess we weren't the same when tigers wandered through our villages 500000 ago.
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POPSNearby Solar System Looks Like Our Own at Time Life Formed Right now, Epsilon Eridani is surrounded by three asteroid rings that scientists believe are held in formation by large planets, the first of which is theorized to sit about half the distance from Mars to Jupiter. In the new paper, two other large planets, slightly farther from their star than Uranus and Neptune are from the sun, are proposed to explain the shape of the outer belts. It will take more sensitive instruments — perhaps like the next-generation of planet-hunting telescopes — to determine whether any would-be Earths lurk inside the habitable zone near the star.
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POPSThe real X files are revealed... Clarke said the papers showed the government could not conceal anything and that people were not going to find "that elusive bit of evidence that proves we're being visited by aliens". I am not sure that we are, yet if we do, how would humanity describe itself best?
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POPSArtificial memory storage this is amazing. if it works it can be used not only for the sick, why not having an external hard drive to store memories, and new information, or to download some existing one, making space to newer? sounds intriguing, and yes it woulkd change human identity. But hey, why not?
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POPSDan Gilbert: Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy? Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned. Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong -- a premise he supports with intriguing research, and explains in his accessible and unexpectedly
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POPSWas the Real Jihad Against US Economic? And did we lose? Article from a conservative site, suggesting that perhaps the real war against the US was economic and we played right into it. Some partisan crap, but an intriguing idea. See full article for more..
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POPSFreakiest (Lab) Animals The last one is Humanzee: It reads "Ok, so this one doesn't actually exist." But could have... The one I find most intriguing is The spider/goats: A private biotechnology company in Canada has managed to breed goats whose milk contains spider silk, the same things the eight-legged insects use to make webs and considered one of the strongest fibers occurring in nature. The silk is compatible with the human body and can be used to repair tissues and create replacement ligaments. No word on whether the goats are able to climb buildings or rescue damsels-in-distress. About the smart mice: Scientists managed to implant a few of the little rodents with human brain cells amounting to about one percent of their total grey matter. The same group has plans to produce mice with one hundred percent human brain cells, which they have permission to do unless the mice start exhibiting human traits. What, like banding together to escape?
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POPSA Brief History of the Twenty-first Century This seems plausible enough. Oct. 2, 2051 is an intriguing point, but misses the key strategy that one could hold all of North America by only defending Alaska, Greenland and Mexico. After holding this for a short while you could take all of South America, swapping Mexico for Brazil as your only souther border. At this point, world domination is only a matter of time.
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POPSWhy Is Barney Franks Gay Lover/Fannie Mae Exec Not Germane? (HT: Ace) See also: The 12 ways the government contributed to the financial crisis. http://www.openmarket.org/2008/10/03/bash-the-bailout-government-is-not-the-answer/ Update: Also via Ace, Fox digs up the intriguing nugget that Barney "There Is No Crisis at Fannie and Freddie" Frank's partner is an executive at... wait for it..
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POPSBatman For Governor! Val Kilmer might run for the New Mexico Governorship. A bison-raising environmentalist, this looks like a good thing despite his being an actor. Hey, come to think of it, Eastwood did okay.
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POPSMirror Neuron - Almost everything you wanted to know Very interesting and educative read: Based on context, mirror neurons can distinguish intention. The activity of the observer’s mirror neurons is greatest for the neat scenario—almost double the amount in the messy one—because drinking is a more fundamental intention than cleaning up.
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POPSDo Our Political Beliefs Have a Biological Basis? It's a golden rule of democracy that people are free thinkers. There's just one problem: we aren't wired that way—not, at least, according to a new study that probes past the rational mind in search of a biological basis for our political beliefs. The results seem to suggest that our ideas about the world are shaped by deep, involuntary reactions to the things we see.
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POPSFermilab Looks for Visitors from Another Dimension The prospect of extra dimensions is fascinating. ET might already be here in a neighbour dimension. :-) Estimated to cost about $15 million, the MicroBooNE tank would be located near the MiniBooNE detector at Fermilab so that it could observe the same beam of neutrinos. This past June the lab’s physics advisory committee approved the design phase for the project; if all goes well, the detector could begin operating as soon as 2011.
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