What’s On My Mind

That has got to be the most beautifully drawn molecule I've ever seen. Check out Sci's story behind the tat at Neurotopia.

Washington Times executives are negotiating to sell the newspaper after the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s family cut off most of the annual subsidy of about $35 million that has kept the Unification Church-backed paper afloat, company officials said.

Nicholas Chiaia, a member of the paper’s two-man board of directors and president of the church-owned United Press International wire service, confirmed that the paper is actively on the market.

In April, , a survey of 22,000 people in 22 different countries reported that one in five respondents said they agreed either “strongly or somewhat” that extraterrestrials are already living in their communities, disguised as human beings. That works out to a lot of people presumably with humanoid aliens as neighbours – especially in China and India, where the number of people agreeing with that statement came in at an astonishing 42 and 43 per cent respectively. Canadians were more skeptical at 16 per cent: Which was less than the Americans at 24 per cent, but bigger believers than western European countries such as Denmark, at 8 per cent.

“Were the respondents drunk?” said Susan Clancy, a psychology professor at Harvard University and the author of Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped By Aliens, echoing other sociologists’ doubts.

But surveys over the past few decades have shown an enduring belief in E.T. encounters. A 2005 Gallup poll, for instance, found that 24 per cent of Americans and 21 per cent of Canadians believe that “extraterrestrial beings have visited the Earth at some time in the past.” Believers also include Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who said in 2007 that the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration had covered up UFO visits; Miyki Hatoyama, the first lady of Japan, who insists a UFO carried her to Venus; and a portion of Denver’s citizenry who is pushing for an August vote that would require the city to form a commission to collect evidence that E.T. has already landed.

“There are a lot of people, more than you think, who do believe in impossible things, like aliens and abduction ..., and that [aliens] are here on Earth walking among us,” says Dr. Clancy, whose research included people from every social strata. “We’re exposed to a lot of cultural scripts [movies] that tell us it’s possible ... and most of us want to believe it’s possible.”

You know, when it comes to surveys on all sorts of matters from politics to science to ethics, religion, pseudoscience and the paranormal there seems to be consistently 20% - 40% who hold what can be considered extreme or extraordinary beliefs. Is it possible that 20% represents a sort of lower limit on the number of people who hold beliefs that differ significantly from group norms?

"I'm teaching a class of first-year students," says David E. Meyer, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. "This might well have been the very first class they walked into in their college careers. I handed out a sheet that said, 'Thou shalt have no electronic devices in the classroom.' ... I don't want to see students with their computers out, because you know they're surfing the Web. I don't want to see them taking notes. I want to see them paying attention to me."

Wait a minute. No notes? Does that include pen-and-paper note-taking?

"Yes, I don't want that going on either," Meyer says. "I think with the media that are now available, it makes more sense for the professor to distribute the material that seems absolutely crucial either after the fact or before the fact. Or you can record the lecture and make that available for the students to review. If you want to create the best environment for learning, I think it's best to have students listening to you and to each other in a rapt fashion. If they start taking notes, they're going to miss something you say."

Give Meyer his due. He has done as much as any scholar to explain how and why multitasking degrades performance. In a series of papers a decade ago, he and his colleagues determined that even under optimal conditions, it takes a significant amount of time for the brain to switch from one goal to another, and from one set of rules to another.

"I've done demonstrations in class," Meyer says, "whereby they can see the costs of multitasking as opposed to paying attention diligently to just one stream of input."

He might, for example, ask students to recite the letters A through J as fast as possible, and then the numbers 1 through 10. Each of those tasks typically takes around two seconds. Then he asks them to interweave the two recitations as fast as they can: "A, 1, B, 2," and so on. Does that take four seconds? No, it typically requires 15 to 20 seconds, and even then many students make mistakes.

"This is because there is a switching time cost whenever the subject shifts from the letter-recitation task to the number-recitation task, or vice versa," Meyer says. "And those extra time costs quickly add up."

In a divided ruling, the justices rule that the 1st Amendment calls for ‘accommodation’ of religious displays on public land rather than strict separation of church and state.

This undated photo shows the memorial known as the "Mojave Cross", on an outcrop known as Sunrise Rock in the Mojave National Preserve. (Liberty Legal Institute, Henry and Wanda Sandoz / Associated Press)

The Supreme Court gave its approval Wednesday to displaying a cross on public land to honor fallen soldiers, saying the Constitution "does not require the eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm."

Speaking for a divided court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the 1st Amendment called for a middle-ground "policy of accommodation" toward religious displays on public land, not a strict separation of church and state.

Kennedy disagreed with judges in California who said U.S. National Park Service officials must remove a small Latin cross from the Mojave National Preserve that had stood since 1934 to honor soldiers who died in World War I. The judges said the display of the cross on public land amounted to a government endorsement of religion.

"A Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs," he wrote. "Here, a Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten."

The 5-4 decision told the lower-court judges to reconsider the matter and presumably uphold the display of a cross. Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined Kennedy's opinion, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed separately that the cross can remain on display.

Retiring Justice John Paul Stevens spoke for the dissenters. The government has good reason for "honoring all those who have rendered heroic public service regardless of creed," but it should "avoid endorsement of a particular religious view" in doing so, he said.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor agreed.

Last week, the Cardiff Giant received yet another opportunity for fame and stardom. A production crew from Optomem Productions came to film the Giant and to stage a reenactment of his burial and unearthing. They are producing a show for the Travel Channel called Mysteries of the Museum.  Ok, so the Giant isn't really a mystery any more, but he still makes a great story!

It was quite a full day. The crew arrived at about 9am. We undressed the Giant (well, not really since he is already undressed) by removing all of his exhibition props, labels, fencing bunting, banner and exhibition labels.  Then, we wheeled him out into the center of the entry area for some overhead shots.   

I say my fave hometown fake, because arguably what Cooperstown is most known for, the Baseball Hall of Fame, is only there because of another bit of historical fakery - the Mills Commission. Well, perhaps Cooperstown being the origin of the game of baseball is more of a myth than an outright fake. Kinda depends on your point of view. Anyhow, the Cardiff Giant is a undeniably a fake, and one that people continued to believe in long after it was exposed as a hoax. Nice to see it getting some more national exposure 141 years after it was perpetrated. You can find out more about the Travel Planet show about Cooperstown's most famous piece of rock at The Farmer's Museum blog.

Whoa! What a crazy landing track. I don't think I've ever seen the Shuttle come in like this before. Deorbit burn is scheduled for 6:28am with the Shuttle due to land at KSC at 7:34am.

I'm not sure when we should start looking. The Shuttle is still going really fast even that far into landing. IIRC, on a normal landing it goes subsonic over Texas. So I'm guessing it should start looking around 7:15am, but I'll try to find out more.

Of course, this only applies if the Shuttle meets its 1st window for landing. The ground track will be much different otherwise.

The new, New York license plates are now available, with the old, blue and white plates being replaced by blue and gold plates.

Of course, like many things in New York State, the new plates come with a higher price tag.

The new plates are part of Governor Paterson's proposal to make money and combat the state's multi-billion dollar budget deficit.

The license plate fee is double what it used to be. It will now cost $20 to keep your old license plate number and $25 to get a new one.