Science News
Just another science blog
Who exactly are the clients who would take your business to the next level? Wouldn’t it be nice if your perfect prospects had a big C hovering over their heads at an event so you’d know who to approach, or [Perfect Prospect] leading the subject lines of their emails?
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. The good news is that psychology has developed scientific measurements that can predict who would be your best client-people you love to work with AND who will receive maximum benefit from your help. Called psychometrics, these studies are exact and the results are predictable.
So, who is your perfect prospect? Think of your current clientele and the individuals you enjoy working with. Certain names will immediately pop to the surface. Those are the personalities you resonate with and who also resonate with you. “Yes,” you might say, “those are the people who need what I do.” But this concept goes so much further than that. Your favorite clients have fears and desires, goals and needs. They are complete personalities, not cardboard figures. Getting a complete picture of who they are will give you tremendous insights into the prospects you are truly looking for.
For example, if your perfect prospect is a leader, she will need certain input from you-concise descriptions, fast action, tight organization, and prompt customer service. If your perfect prospect is a healer, she will gravitate toward a heartfelt approach with personalized care and flexibility. Take the cold corporate approach, and the healer will likely find someone who has warm connection instead.
What you are offering is a complete business-front end, back end, and delivery-not just training or coaching. Your perfect prospect is also a complete person-with emotions, goals, and the day-to-day frustrations we all live with. One dimensional marketing leaves 80% of your prospects’ motivational drive untapped.
Still need help nailing down who your prospect is? Get your free assessment at http://LetsGetRealmarketing.com
Rosey Dow is a casting director. She casts the perfect clients who would take your business to the next level. http://LetsGetRealmarketing.com
A large dinosaur graveyard has been unearthed near Hanksville, Utah. Dinosaur experts have characterised the new find as “really amazing”. As recently reported by National Geographic News, paleontologists have found at least two carnivorous or meat-eating dinosaurs, a dinosaur with armored plates that is probably a Stegosaurus, and four sauropods or huge dinosaurs with long necks and tails. The sauropods were some of the largest land creatures that ever lived on earth. They could be over 130 feet (40 meters) long. Like the Stegosaurus, they were herbivorous, i.e. they ate plants.
The size of the graveyard came as a complete surprise to scientists from the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, Illinois, who were digging at the site. In addition to scattered bones they also found partial and complete dinosaur skeletons, freshwater clams and petrified trees. While they did not find any new species of dinosaurs, they hope to discover more about the ones they have previously found.
The Hanksville-Burbee Quarry, as the site is now called, is on high ground but scientists believe the fossils were “washed down during high-water events over several centuries.” The emphasis should be on the word “believe” as there is no way of making sure that the graveyard was not formed in a single watery catastrophe, such as the biblical flood described in Genesis, which by no means was a tranquil little flood but a disastrous global catastrophe that could be expected to form fossil graveyards.
The new graveyard is just one of many similar mass burial sites found all over the world. Many if not all have signs of being caused by a watery cataclysm.
Joel Kontinen is a translator and novelist currently living in Finland. His background includes an MA in translation studies and a BA in Bible and Theology. He likes to keep up-to-date on science news and often comments on creation/evolution and origins issues.
Whereas the concept for shielding astronauts and their space vehicles from the extremes of reentry heat for the first vehicles in space, Mercury and Apollo, was “overkill” assurance, an excess of ablatable fiberglass and resin to insure safety – for the envisaged Space Transportation System, the designation “Space Shuttle” described the objective – a quick turnaround, with minimum refurbishment of primary subsystems. To insulate the Orbiter from the searing heat of reentry, the idealized solution is a “vacuum”, which blocks all heat transference. The vacuum would be encased in a thin glass-wall box-like container – internal stabilization support of the thin, flat glass surfaces would be by quartz filaments (non-thermally conductive and light in weight) “scrunched” into the glass “box”, which would then be vacuumized and sealed. Idealizing again, this “package” (tile – containing all functioning elements to achieve optimized thermal insulation) would be as thin as practical (and small in horizontal dimensions). This would accommodate Orbiter surface curvatures – necessary to achieve an overall aerodynamic shape so as to “fly” during the landing phase of a mission. Finally, the tile would be bonded (the cool – insulated bottom) to the vehicle’s basic aluminum structure.
To achieve the insulation properties desired, vacuum processing would be essential (actually, a double vacuum became part of the production manufacturing process, developed by NASA and Lockheed Corporation). As every aspect theoretically feasible, the challenge was the smallest practical tile size that was producible in volume. The standard black (high-temperature-exposure) tile is extremely light, six by six inches in size and about an inch and three-quarters in height. The tiles are bonded to the Orbiter structure by standard RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanizing) adhesive.
Square and close-fitting to eliminate even narrow gaps between tiles, thus to preclude pockets of heated air, quartz-fabric “gap-fillers” are stuffed between tiles – a painstakingly tedious job. There are 30,000 black tiles (seen in all photos of a Space Shuttle). The end result was clearly worth the effort – including the monumental cost. The TPS tile system has proved its reliability, taming reentry heat (temperatures of from 2200 to 3000 degrees Fahrenheit).
The reentry heat develops from the compression of atmospheric gas caused by the Orbiter’s speed, as it descends from the vacuum of outer space – it is not the result of friction. As the Orbiter speeds down (18,000 mph) into Earth’s atmosphere, air molecules are impacted by the Orbiter, causing tiny pulses of heat and drag; this causes wing leading-edge temperatures to rise to from 2200°F to 3000°F (depending upon reentry angle) – during approximately a six minute speed-altitude transition period, and gradually slows the Orbiter down, eventually reaching ground level and landing speeds of a typical aircraft.
The TPS system made the Space Shuttle program possible.
The voice over the loudspeaker was concluding, “So congratulations to all of us on the Shuttle team, STS-2 appears to have been a great success, and – “, Another voice abruptly cut in, “Rockwell Space, Will Mr. (my name) please call Moser (my NASA counterpart) at the Cape.”
At mention of my name, I rose from the conference table, looking at my boss, Chief Engineer, and his boss, president of Rockwell Space Division. The president signaled me, then pointed to the door to his office, which was open, his secretary standing in the doorway. She nodded to me and pointed to a phone. I made the call, the operator at the Cape was waiting, and promptly connected me. Our greetings were terse – Moser spoke for about five minutes, I asked a few questions. Then he said, “Cris Kraft is at Edwards, he wants you to drive up now, maybe we can get a head-start on what happened before they ferry Columbia back to the Cape.” I said I’d be up at Edwards (Air Force Base) in about two hours.
Back in the conference room, I summarized the call, “Some tile damage was noted on the walk-around-inspection after landing. No indication of a TPS malfunction during reentry, but the tile damage looks unusual – Dr. Kraft (Director, Johnson Space Center at Houston) is up there – they want me to drive up now.” The Chief Engineer nodded. “My secretary will call your wife.”
I drove automatically, knowing well the freeway route – my mind reviewing what I’d been told. NASA had taken pictures of the damaged tiles on the walk-around – NASA wanted a knowledgeable “eyeball” look before the ferry flight home. The damage looked like chunks of the tile’s insides, an inch or two, was missing. And all such damaged tiles seemed to be along the left wing leading edge, at varying distances apart. There was also other typical tile damage, the pits and break-throughs of the thin black glass, as after the STS-1 flight – undoubtedly due to stray bits of gravel, churned up from the concrete launch pad (despite careful vacuuming before each flight). The number of damaged tiles was apparently not too worrisome – however, anything untoward about tiles (Thermal Protective System) had to be thoroughly understood. The cost of the TPS was almost unbelievable, but their function, protecting against fiery reentry, as well as their compactness, permitting the Orbiter to function like an airplane – was what made viable the potential of the Space Shuttle program.
As I drove, I thought of Dr. Chris Kraft and the near-disaster of Apollo 13. His was the voice of calm authority that had buoyed up America and the desperate astronauts aboard, during the hectic days when no-one knew whether the damaged capsule could be “jerry-rigged” for a safe return to Earth. There was a degree of satisfaction in his asking for me – but then NASA had given me the chore of presenting the TPS briefings at all NASA Flight Readiness Reviews for two years. As Assistant Chief Engineer, my responsibility was the Orbiter vehicle structure, everything but the engines and electronic systems: Design, Stress, Aero, Thermo, Dynamics, Weights, and Materials and Processes, which included the tiles.
I turned into Edwards Air Force Base, parked my car, then saw a jeep speeding towards me. The driver was an engineer I recognized, and a security guard. I climbed in and we took off. The Orbiter was where it had landed, roped off, with a half-dozen security people standing guard. I got out of the jeep and walked quickly to it. The sun was bright and I quickly saw what had been described, the line of damaged tiles – six by six inches of pure white, the compressed quartz fibers looking like Styrofoam – in the midst of solid arrays of black tiles.
“So, what do you think?” The voice was familiar. I turned and said, “Hi, Dr. Kraft” We shook hands.
“Never saw anything like it,” I said, “nothing like it in all our tests – it’s as if a chunk of the quartz filaments broke away from the inside.” The engineer handed me a set of photos of the damaged tiles. Together we walked along the wing, then ducked under the ropes to look beneath the wing-fuselage – an almost flat, huge expanse of solid black, not a single damaged tile. As we walked around the vehicle seeing whatever else looked unusual, Dr. Kraft said, “We’ve got to make an official report to the Administrator, Congress and the press, but I want an engineering analysis first. Send us a top tile engineer to be at the Cape day after tomorrow – we’ll get a NASA man also, then, plus you and Moser, I want an internal layout of possible causes in a week.”
That’s what happened. The investigation became a “detective” scenario, puzzling out clues, conjecturing what could have happened, verification by test. A key factor was the photos of the Shuttle on the launch pad with its adjacent work platform – the night before launch, as a rainstorm drenched platform and Shuttle.
A week later, a briefing was given to the NASA Base Directors and Administrator:
- The rainstorm was from a direction which caused a platform on the work-assembly structure to spill overflowing rain-water onto the left wing – Columbia standing vertically in the launch mode. Rainwater, therefore, would have run along the leading edge of the left wing.
- Occasionally hairline cracks were known to develop through the thin glass outer (black) coating of the tiles: either during manufacture; during the bonding process of attaching each tile to the airframe structure; when stuffing “gap-fillers”; or possibly even during the prior STS-1 flight (close packing of tiles causing occasional excess pressure on the thin glass walls during the vibration of landing).
- If, therefore, some of the running rainwater encountered a tile with a hairline crack – during the rainy night, some water therefore entered the tile.
- During the flight mission, the left wing was pointed to deep outer space for many hours, the temperatures of the wing tiles therefore dropping to extremely low values, approaching absolute zero. Water in a tile would therefore hard-freeze into ice, becoming a clump of filamentary quartz – as the ice formed from liquid water, the volumetric expansion would cause internal pressure to be exerted upon the encasing of thin glass.
- The ice-filamentary clump could therefore crack the glass casing and be ejected from the tile – occurring during one of the following events: upon freezing due to the significant volumetric expansion from fluid to ice; during reentry, when the ice began to melt, becoming a gas, the drastic volume increase bursting the glass casing; when the vehicle went through the sonic boom, the surface jolt of air pressure causing any remaining chunk of solidified filaments to be ejected from the top of the tile; or when the vehicle landed, the vibration shaking any remaining ice-quartz chunks loose.
- Conclusion: this unusual set of circumstances caused unique damage to a small number of tiles – however, the “thermal protection” function was not compromised, in fact the continued functionality of the damaged tiles adds confidence to the reliability of the overall STS program.
- Recommendation: when rain precedes a launch, a tarpaulin should be used to protect the tiles.
Aaron Kolom qualifies as a “rocket scientist” with over 50 years aerospace engineering: Stress Analyst to Chief of Structural Sciences on numerous military aircraft, to Corp. Director Structures and Materials, Asst. Chief Engineer Space Shuttle Program through first three flights (awarded NASA Public Service Medal), Rockwell International Corp.; Program Manager Concorde SST, VP Engineering TRE Corp.; Aerospace Consultant.
Aaron L. Kolom – from Brainwashed* and Miracles**
* The Perceived Mind-Set of the Secular Elite re Darwin Evolutionism!
** To Believe in Them – Have Faith – In Science and Logic!
Visit website at http://www.brainwashedandmiracles.com to learn a bit about Science vs the Bible, from conflict to confirmation.
A new study suggests that the hobbits, a diminutive people whose remains were found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 and 2004, were real humans after all. They were originally classified as Homo floresiensis, a species distinct from Homo sapiens but the dispute about their status has never abated.
Named after J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth heroes, they became known all over the world after scientific journals published a drawing by Peter Schouten that describes a tiny ape-like man carrying a furry animal on his shoulder.
Many researchers think that the hobbits’ small stature (one meter or just over three feet) and small head were the result of microcephaly, a neurological disorder that still causes some individuals to have an abnormally small head. They maintain that it is not justified to classify them as a distinct species. For instance, in 2006 Pennsylvania State University published a study stating that the small head of Homo floresiensis was due to microcephaly.
As reported by ScienceNow, a new study conducted by Peter Obendorf and Benjamin Kefford of the RMIT University of Melbourne and Charles Oxnard of the University of Western Australia at Crawley concluded that the small stature of the Homo floresiensis was not the result of genetic defects. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that the hobbits’ size was caused by a condition known as cretinism. This is due to a lack of iodine. Comparing the pituitary flossa in a hobbit skull with individuals suffering from cretinism, they found a significant match and thus suggested a new theory.
The remains of twelve hobbits were originally found in a cave in Liang Bua. Obendorf stated that it is an area where people still suffer from goiters that results from iodine deficiency. The new study even mentions that local myths include stories of tiny people who lived in caves.
While it may be too early to discard the microcephaly hypothesis altogether, the case for hobbits being real humans is much stronger than before. We should probably do well to forget the image of an ape-like man carrying a furry animal on his shoulder and start describing hobbits as real people. It seems that the distinction between hobbits and humans is found only in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth but not on this earth.
Joel Kontinen is a translator and novelist currently living in Finland. His background includes an MA in translation studies and a BA in Bible and Theology. He likes to keep up-to-date on science news and often comments on creation/evolution and origins issues.
Ideas for solar system experiments, projects and experiments can come from numerous different sources. You can get ideas from science news headlines, from science magazines or from your own science text book. However, you can also find ideas for experiments from science kits.
The solar system is a broad subject that will need to be narrowed before you will be able to come up with a hypothesis to test with your science fair project. There are a lot of great subtopics that you can explore that relate to the solar system. For example, you can explore the properties of gases, you can explore the properties of gravity or you can explore the properties of vacuums.
If you are looking for very interesting ideas for your experiments then you may want to consider working on magnetometer high school science fair projects. A magnetometer is a special tool that is used to examine magnetic fields. The magnetometer not only helps you to identify where magnetic fields are, but they also help you to determine what direction the magnetic field is going and what its orientation is.
Magnetometer high school science fair projects can be used to explore the relationship between several different variables. First they can be used to compare the relationship between the orientation of a magnet and its attractiveness to different metals, next they can be used to compare the effect a magnet has on electrons. While you may not think that these experiments have anything to do with the solar system, both of these comparisons look at relationships found in it.
If you are having a difficult time coming up with an idea for your experiment you can start by researching specific components that make up this stellar body. For example, you can examine solar winds, solar storms, solar flares, gravitational pull of the moon, the creation of the planets, the Big Bang Theory and vacuums in space. You can also research more advanced topics like black holes, white holes and the space time continuum.
Develop magnetometer high school science fair projects and stand out from the crowd. Find more information about this subject at Super Science Fair Projects
It Is Normal For A Muslim In Any Western Society
(By Western I Also Mean Any Non-Muslim Society)
To Feel Isolated In One Way Or Another…
After All Islam Is A Way Of Life!
Islam Affects Every Aspect Of Our Life
From Day To Day Activities…
To The Way We Dress!
To The Kind Of Food We Eat!
And Even The Way We Talk And Interact With Other People!
Being a minority in any society is quite overwhelming, and it is our basic instinct to try and assimilate and adapt. In any society, it is much easier to conform with the rest of the majority, instead of being different and attracting attention to yourself.
Certainly In The Past Decade
People’s Perception Of Islam Has Changed…
Unfortunately For The Worse!
So When Caught In A Society That Is Non-Muslim,
It Is Much Easier To Talk, Dress And Socialize
The Way The Majority Of People Do!
It Is Often That A Person…
Who Dresses Modestly, Eats Halal Food, Avoids Alcohol
And Abstains From Physical Relationships Outside Marriage
Is Viewed As Being Weird, Different…
May be A Bit Odd!
Many people think that Muslims do not have a choice, so for example, when someone wears the hijab, many non Muslims think she does so because she is forced into it. In fact, it is a common perception in Western society to pity Muslims because we apparently don’t have freedom to do what we want.
Let Us Not However Forget!
We May Have Been Born As Muslims
Some Of Us May Have Accepted Islam Later In Our Lives
But For Each Day That We Are Muslim
We Do It Because It Is Our Choice To Remain Muslim!
Every Time We Make Salat…
We Are Confirming And Reaffirming Our Shahada!
We Are Confirming Our Choice…
To Be And Remain Muslims!!!
We practice that choice every day. No one in society will punish us if we choose to eat non-halal meat, no one is forcing us to wear certain types of clothes, no one is forcing us to abstain from alcohol or illicit relationships. No one in society is there to punish us if we miss salat or Ramadhan fasts. No one will penalize us if we don’t pay zakat. In fact, it is actually very easy to cheat on these things and no one will know. In a Western society, it is even easier to get away with not observing Islamic principles.
So Why Do We Still Observe The Principles Of Islam?
Answer…
Not Because We Are Forced By Society!
It Is Because We…
Out Of Our Own Free Will,
Choose To!
So Let Us Remember This…
Every Time We Decline An Invitation
To Go To Gatherings Which Are Forbidden By Islam…
“We Are Exercising Our Choice!”
Every Time We Refuse An Offer For An Alcoholic Drink
“We Are Exercising Our Choice!!”
Every Time We Make The Salat Or Offer Our Fast During Ramadhan
“We Are Exercising Our Choice!!!”
Every Time We Turn Away From Gambling
Using Credit Cards, Or Taking Or Giving Interest
“We Are Exercising Our Choice!!!!”
Every Time We Reject A Societal Value
That Is Incompatible With Islam
“WE ARE MAKING OUR CHOICE”
In short, every time we do something halal (as in, something permitted under Islam) we are making a choice.Every time we avoid from doing something haram (as in, something forbidden under Islam) we are making a choice.
So, What Is That Choice?
It is remaining to be Muslim, and in doing so, choosing to do things which please Allah, and to refrain things which anger Allah. Not because we are forced to, not because we are afraid of being punished by our family or society, but because, with each and every one of these actions, we are choosing to walk in the path of Islam.
We Exercise Our Choice
Because We Want Allah’s Pleasure And Mercy
Not Allah’s Anger!
Not all choices that we make are the easier options. And yet, we do them anyway. Because, in accepting Islam, we also accept that we will ultimately be accountable for our actions to Allah.
Like All Free People,
We Are Merely Exercising Our Choice…
To Dress, Talk, Act, Eat, Worship And Conduct Ourselves
In The Manner That We Choose!
And We Have Chosen Islam And To Be Good Muslims!
So, ask ourselves and our friends who pity us, what is there to be pitied? We have made our choice, we are proud to do so, and we will keep on making the same choices again and again!
So, let us consider this scenario (which is very common in a Western society): A Muslim pressured by his friends or colleagues on when he will start drinking alcohol. He says never, because religion forces him not to. His friends laugh and think that Islam is an oppressive religion.
Or worse, the Muslim then feels pressured and succumbs! How different it would be if he could instead say that he does not drink, by choice. That he is a Muslim by choice. That even though there is no one to stop him, he refrains from drinking alcohol by choice in order to be a good Muslim. Imagine how the questioner will react to that kind of answer. From my personal experience, it is a very effective answer…!
So Let Us From Now On
Actively Remember!
We Have Been Granted By Allah
A Free Will And The Capacity To Make Choices And Decisions!
“What A Powerful Gift That Is”
May We Exercise This Power In A Way That Pleases Allah
And May We Have The Strength To Make The Right Choices
In Everything That We Do!
Human beings have evolved as pattern-seeking animals. We perceive sequences of events and we see shapes and objects seemingly organized in particular ways, and we tend to want to find a reason for that often-apparent level of organization. We see random sequences around us, and we have devised mental mechanisms that allow us to see them organized in patterns. This mechanism helped our ancestors better cope with their natural surroundings and potential dangers such as a pair of menacing eyes staring from within the foliage, but did not equip them with the tools to discern when a pattern actually exists and when those patterns just seem to exist. Thus, we think we see faces on Mars, dogs and dragons in the night sky, or the image of the Virgin Mary on the glass windows of an office building reflecting a distorted image of a nearby tree.
The individuals that learned how to cope with their environment were the ones that survived long enough to reproduce. That way, they managed to pass along important and useful information to their offspring in the form of orally transmitted tales. As a consequence of this, we have evolved as story-telling animals that pass along our perception of reality to our offspring. We tend to create myths to weave together these apparently purposely created shapes, patterns or sequences of unexplained phenomena in an effort to assign meaning to them. We have evolved a belief engine which has given us the tools to look at nature and find explanations for everything, ranging from why the sun seemingly rises every morning and apparently revolves around us, to why it rains, where we come from and where we go to after we die. These beliefs-and many more-are grounded on a long tradition and history in which generation after generation passed them along to their offspring. They gave people comfort and sometimes helped them survive by making other people aware of dangerous animals or places. Most importantly, they created a sense of community for those people that shared the same beliefs, thus making them stronger as a group in the face of a hostile environment.
The beliefs held by those people better adapted to stay alive until they had offspring were the beliefs that in turn survived. Since people like to tell and hear stories, they told them to other people around the fire and taught them to their offspring, who in turn told them to their own offspring. Some of those beliefs were instrumental in their survival. The collective set of practical ideas together with beliefs in the supernatural in these primitive societies in time turned into organized religions.
A religion is nothing more than a collective, self-perpetuating delusion. It is the sum of a large array of self-replicating ideas called memes. A meme, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary is “An element of a culture or a system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic means, especially imitation.” To this definition we should add inculcation, as memes are transmitted and propagated by imitation as well as inculcation. A group of memes that “work together” towards a “common” goal, such as a religion, a constitution or a set of social norms such as the “rules” of courtship is called a memeplex. Memes are a form of thought contagion because they change our conventional understanding of human beings as capable of creating original ideas and/or acquiring them, to the notion that ideas acquire people. Because of the pernicious effects of religions, as well as their memetic makeup, they can be considered a virus of the mind.
In order for a meme to be successful it needs to replicate. Thus, a successful meme does not have to be good or useful; just like a gene, it just needs to be passed along to the next generation. Similarly, a meme is considered to be successful if and when it acquires a new mind. This can be achieved by “convincing” the host to propagate the meme because by doing so something nice is going to happen, whereas by not propagating the meme something terrible will happen.
Additionally, the meme can protect itself from critical thought and reason by claiming the superiority of faith over reason. It can ensure propagation by claiming to be of divine origin (and therefore be absolute truth), and by carrying the instructions to help people infected by the meme and attack those who do not. The two self-referential concepts “Propagate me” and “I am the only truth” are thus the driving forces that enable religious memes to infect new hosts. The mechanisms by which a meme replicates are therefore by ensuring it takes long-term residence in its host and by creating the conditions for it to spread.
A successful religious meme needs to use some or all of the following mechanisms in order to acquire a host:
1. Promise heaven in exchange for belief.
2. Threaten eternal punishment in hell for disbelief.
3. Position the believer as superior to those who believe in other, “false” memes (“the chosen people”, “the true religion”, etc.).
4. Create an immune response to contradicting memes by claiming that faith is superior to reason, thus disabling the faculties of disbelief.
5. Establish itself unequivocally as the “One True Meme”. Some sort of “holy” book accomplishes this. The book contains a circular self-referential argument in which the book’s authority comes from a higher source of universal truth that established that meme as the “One True Meme”. Because the meme contains statements that the source of universal truth has approved that meme we can therefore conclude that what the meme says is true.
After a meme has acquired the mind of its host, it needs to propagate. It can achieve this by using some or all of the following strategies:
1. Convert or kill all unbelievers by means of a (holy) war.
2. Threaten and discriminate against unbelievers by intimidation and terrorism.
3. Enforce social isolation or even death to apostates. Since apostasy within the community of believers might encourage meme-resistance in others it is especially dangerous to the meme.
4. Encourage true believers to breed faster than believers in false memes.
5. Prevent rival memes from reaching potential hosts by curtailing freedom of thought, freedom of speech and by using censorship.
6. Spread lies about rival memes by use of disinformation. Lies are more likely to be believed the higher the level of disinformation is, the more other memes are demonized, and the bigger those lies are.
If we were to make a comparative analysis of different religions we would find the aforementioned mechanisms and strategies used in different degrees. The religions with the greatest number of infected hosts are those that have used the most of those strategies.
Religion has been, and still is, a driving force in society and the source of much cruelty and abuse. It has been, and still is, the “opium of the masses”. But not every religion is pernicious to the same degree, and not everything in a religious memeplex has a negative or pernicious consequence. Religion tends to teach ethics and morals, which of course is a good thing, but they can also be taught outside of Religion. Historically religions have conflicted with science, with democracy, and with any other form of free thought. Given the fact that it is unrealistic to eradicate religions by outlawing them, as evidenced by the experiment in the former Soviet Union, it is imperative to find other means by which people can be turned away from belief in the supernatural and dogmatic religions.
The solution is a paradigm shift in education. It is imperative to use education in a greatly improved form, assisted by the use of the science of memes. Education today, and in particular early age education is misguided because the system is focused on knowledge and not on brain development and on learning how to think. The current education system fails because it generally allows children to develop their rational capabilities in a haphazard way, if at all. It relies entirely on parents to teach children how to think, which is a mistake as parents are rarely equipped to teach that and seldom if ever they attempt to do so. It also leaves the child’s mental development to the vagaries of parental mechanical meme transmission, or worse, by religious indoctrination from an early age when a child is most vulnerable as they have not yet come out of their “magical thinking” stage. A child that has not been protected or immunized against religious memes-and most children will be mercilessly exposed to them-will be infected by them and in most cases will be for life. This type of early-age exposure to religious indoctrination is a form of mental abuse.
The education system needs to be radically altered in order to prevent this from happening and to create a better society. The system needs to be focused in the early brain development phase on teaching children how to think and to make rational and critical thinking an automatic process. By the use of games a child’s brain needs to be “molded” to automatically use inductive and deductive reasoning. As the child grows they need to learn how to think critically. Asking questions and approaching presented positions skeptically should also be an automatic process. As they mature they need to be exposed to an epidemiology of ideas to learn how memes propagate as outlined above, so they will know how to identify pernicious thought contagions and be prepared to reject them. A child has to be exposed to mathematics from an early age in an entertaining manner so as to prevent the much too prevalent math aversion and ignorance so common today. They also need to be exposed to nature and they need to be taught in entertaining and natural ways how the world around them works. We need to instill a sense of wonder in them at the complexity and beauty of nature. It’s important to teach science, and to teach how science works and why it is the best epistemological tool we currently have to learn and understand the natural world. Children need to know that there is never a need to invoke a supreme being or gods to explain the seemingly unexplainable natural phenomena around them. They need to understand there is no evidence of the existence of anything beyond the natural universe, and that there is no purpose and meaning to their lives beyond passing on their genes to their offspring, and that there’s nothing wrong with that. Eventually they need to learn to cope with the reality that their consciousness is nothing but an epic battleground of memes fighting out an enormous battle for supremacy. They need to understand that science provides a cognitive framework that can explain natural phenomena, and they need to accept that science has not explained everything yet. Equally as important, they also need to understand that it’s all right if there are some things science cannot explain.
Lastly, children need to learn the pernicious effects of beliefs in gods, superstitions, pseudo-science and other things of dubious nature. We need to equip them with the tools to identify these things as bad and as leading to many pitfalls. Education should put more emphasis on history, as only through a thorough knowledge and understanding of the causes and reasons for various historical events can we as a society avoid repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Children need to be taught how organized religions, shrouded by a mantle of moral authority, have brought terrible despair and cruelty to non-believers or believers in other religions. They need to learn how organized religions tend to be autocratic and dogmatic, and how they cannot correct themselves to reflect the natural world or changing social conditions. They need to understand how theocratic rule has brought, and still brings, misery to man. They also need to be shown how and why religions clash with science and democratic rule. They need to see that both science and democracy bring new light into man’s life, and they need to be shown how the progression from the old autocratic and dogmatic theocracies to the enlightened democracies in which science is no longer silenced has made life for man incomparably better.
Gabriel Wilensky
Author
Six Million Crucifixions:
How Christian Teachings About Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust
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Pharmaceutical engineering together with biomedical science are making remarkable contributions in the province of pharmaceuticals. Both of these technologies are making news in medical world. Biomedical science mainly deals with providing effective pharmaceutical solutions that includes the development of various tools and techniques used in handling several medical treatments and therapies. They are focused on reliable delivery of medical products and development of different diagnostic equipments to provide better work option and effective treatment methods to patients. Also they aim at providing safer work environments to workers engaged in manufacturing of all types of pharmaceutical products and special heed is given towards the hazardous drugs. Pharmaceutical engineering mainly deals with analysis of drugs, uses of drugs, related substances and endogenous compounds and their development.
Many Pharmaceutical plants are designed that includes chemical engineering and related procedures to develop medicines. These pharmaceutical plants design the planning schedules for the production of pharmaceutical products. A Particular team is allotted which plans the desired clean rooms, clean media supply and ventilation systems. Due to active involvement of various interdisciplinary cooperation and contributions made by medical technocrats and process engineers, desired planning for industrial layouts have been made possible. These departments also focus on automation and instrumentation of pharmaceutical plants to make these plants updated with latest technologies and to develop better pharmaceutical products.
Thus we can say pharmaceutical engineering has changed the present scenario of medical world. With the aid of latest tools and techniques, it has blessed the mankind with innumerable medicines that can effectively fight with deadly diseases and make this world a disease free world.
For more information on Pharmaceutical engineering and the benefits of Pharmaceutical plants please visit the mentioned website
This expose on computer science distance education is intentionally written for any person that wishes to be relevant in this computer era and do not want to abandon their career in order to go back to school to be taught about it. It is no longer startling that any employment out there is closely tied with the application of computer. Moreover, moving up in the business ladder has much to do with how much you know about and how you can use the computer. Going for computer science distance education is extremely suggested if you desire to get a good career, keep your job and receive a fat wage.
The good news about this topic is that there are numerous educational institutions out there offering computer science distance education. The classes are structured to have room for the busy executives who can’t afford to leave their employment in order to go back to school. This depict that you can discover the latest computer subjects from the comfort of your house or your place of work. This makes it possible for you to join studies with your employment. You do not have to sacrifice one for the other.
Requirements for computer science distance education vary from one institution to another. Although some will require some simple knowledge of computer before you can be accepted for the major course, there are others out there that only want you to be able to read and write. The latter institutions think that when you can read and write, it is quite feasible for you to know about computer.
Even though there are many schools out there that you can attend for computer science distance education, you need to be very alert of diploma mills. This is what I have in mind. You must make sure that you go to only accredited schools. Stay away from schools that suggest short cuts. They will not do your profession any good. Accreditation status of the school is very principal. What’s more, make certain that the school has all the necessary amenities to impart computer education. I advocate you to visit education forums online and ask individuals for their judgment regarding the school you want to attend.
Ras Reed has spent many years online giving free advice and info like distance education in India as well as distance education university on his website.
With all of the technology that is being continuously introduced and used, it would only seem logical in our quest for a green world to apply some of the renewable energy efforts to this spectrum. That is exactly what some scientists are looking into with their research on how nanotechnology can be used with lithium batteries.
According to Science News, a report that will be published in International Journal of Nanomanufacturing asserts that “carbon nanotubes can prevent such batteries from losing their charge capacity over time.” The batteries they are speaking of are the lithium-based batteries that are found in commonly used devices such as MP3 players, laptop computers, and cell phones.
As any of us who partake of these various technologies are quite aware of, with continued use, the battery power just seems to lose its life. As the news story reports, elements such as hot and cold temperatures help this reduction process along even more. Scientists have been researching this degradation process for awhile, and have looked into silicon to replace the universally used lithium-ion batteries. However, due to the fast rate that silicon also degrades, they have had to search even further.
This is where nanotechnology comes into play. As Science News states, “Shengyang’s Hui-Ming Cheng and colleagues have turned to carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to help them use silicon (Si) as the battery anode but avoid the problem of large volume change during alloying and de-alloying.” By introducing the carbon nanotubes to the silicon, they seem to be solving some of the problems that previously existed.
The whole process is quite amazing. “The researchers grew carbon nanotubes on the surface of tiny particles of silicon using a technique known as chemical vapor deposition in which a carbon-containing vapor decomposes and then condenses on the surface of the silicon particles forming the nanoscopic tubes. They then coated these particles with carbon released from sugar at a high temperature in a vacuum. A separate batch of silicon particles produced using sugar but without the CNTs was also prepared.”
The scientists used these two diverse batches and compared them. What they found was remarkable – the batch using the carbon produced a discharge capacity twice that of the one which only contained the silicon particles.
There seems to be many reasons that have prompted research into better material used to create batteries. Reports of fires found to be ignited by lithium-ion batteries, although rare, seem to have caused much attention to be placed on safer materials. The general complaint many have regarding the increased reduction of device batteries after continued use is likely another reason that prompted the research. Whatever the likely combination was, this new research could be monumental in how users of technological devices power up their gadgets.
Nanotechnology is not the only material researchers are using in their quest for a better battery, but it does seem to be one of the options that show much promise.
David Tanguay is dedicated to providing research, reviews & helpful information to consumers and businesses. For more information related to Green Energy and Alternative Energy please visit http://greenenergyonline.org.