Posts

February 28, 2013

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5:00 PM | I’ll Have Mine With Butter Please.

Mmmmmmm, lobster. Add a little butter and life is good. Actually, you may need a lot of butter for this lobster. Lobster nebula, not lobster newburg. But still, life might be good in the vast star forming region (NGC 6357) about 8,000 light years from Earth in the southern constellation Scorpius. The nebula has massive, … Continue reading »

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12:11 AM | The Clinical Neuropsychologist previously published a case study...

The Clinical Neuropsychologist previously published a case study about KT, a serial killer who murdered at least 5 people in order to shed light on the still poorly understood “characteristics and scientific markers of serial murdering”. Researchers measured impairment and social/emotional cognitive deficits of KT using a battery of neuro/psych tests. KT exhibited a striking dissociation between a high level of emotional detachment and a low score on the antisocial behavior scale on […]

February 27, 2013

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11:00 PM | Slow Down There Big Boys!

Apple and Samsung have been ordered by U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh to narrow their patent-infringement lawsuit case scheduled for trial in 2014. The Judge told lawyers from both companies that they must “focus and streamline” their cases to 25 patent claims, or elements of the patents at issue, and 25 accused products. Koh stated that … Continue reading »

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7:31 PM | Classifying Serial Sexual Murder/Murderers.

Classifying Serial Sexual Murder/Murderers.: Keppel and Walter designed a typology system to...

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6:00 AM | Tips on how to photograph the Northern Lights by David Shaw

Reblogged from ExploreDreamDiscover Talks: The Aurora is, let’s face it, just plain weird. It only occurs in the far north or south, and looks like someone hung enormous translucent green curtains in the upper atmosphere. They curl and wave back and forth in an astral breeze, split and rejoin in bands and waves and swirls. … Continue reading »

February 26, 2013

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10:44 PM | "The idea of fMRI’s “seductive allure” is supported by two widely cited studies. Upon closer analysis..."

“The idea of fMRI’s “seductive allure” is supported by two widely cited studies. Upon closer...

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10:30 PM | “A neurolaw perspective on psychiatric assessments of...

“A neurolaw perspective on psychiatric assessments of criminal responsibility: Decision-making, mental disorder, and the brain” From the abstract: In some criminal law cases, the defendant is assessed by a forensic psychiatrist or psychologist within the context of an insanity defense. In this article I argue that specific neuroscientific research can be helpful in improving the quality of such a forensic psychiatric evaluation. This will be clarified in two ways. Firstly, we shall adopt […]

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5:00 PM | A New Conspiracy Theory!

Yeah! Just when you thought all the good conspiracy theories were taken, here comes a new one. According to the interweb, NASA is either intentionally blocking out portions of the image below, or there is a non-natural structure on the surface of Mercury. Can you see it? Just to the right of Victoria Rupes Cliffs … Continue reading »

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12:58 AM | Standards and Codes for forensic scientists

A short blog post, this one. The US Department of Justice is setting up a commission that will establish standards, a professional code and educational requirements for forensic scientists. Presumably this would mean that a Bachelors degree in forensic science and European film won’t make the muster (a degree which has apparently been offered in (read more)

February 25, 2013

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10:59 PM | Mexico is now part of the Mardrid Protocol.

Mexico has signed on to the Mardrid Protocol. The Madrid Protocol is one of two treaties comprising the Madrid System for international registration of trademarks. The protocol is a filing treaty and not a substantive harmonization treaty. The protocol provides, in some cases, a cost-effective and efficient way for trademark holders to get protection for … Continue reading »

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5:00 PM | We’re The Smallest!

The smallest space telescopes to ever be place in orbit, that is. The twin Bright Target Explorer (BRITE) nanosatellites look like little cubes and will blast off atop an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle today from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India. Other nanosatellites have been launched into space, and near space, before, … Continue reading »

February 22, 2013

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11:00 PM | No Routine Copyrights.

At least no copyrights for a Yoga Routine. A sequence of yoga poses is not eligible for copyright protection, according to new guidance provided by the U.S. Copyright Office. The policy statement was required following a series of legal decisions and erroneously awarded copyrights. It also acknowledged that the question of whether a sequence of … Continue reading »

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9:57 PM | So you’d like to communicate science: You guys, I was just...

So you’d like to communicate science: You guys, I was just about to present a paper with my brilliant co-author at West Point Military Academy next month, but “as a result of the (potential) upcoming sequestration, and the related budgetary uncertainty” the entire conference (surely the best one of our lives ever) has been cancelled and we are sad. The point is we were selected and that’s a comfort, Да?

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5:00 PM | Yesterday’s Anniversary

This week I seem to be late on all my anniversary dates. Yesterday was marked the death of George Ellery Hale. As a local resident of Pasadena, I would be reticent to not mention something about this extraordinary man. Hale founded a number of significant astronomical observatories, including the Yerkes Observatory, Mount Wilson Observatory, Palomar … Continue reading »

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4:07 AM | The Brain is Not Computable

The Brain is Not Computable: emergentfutures: A leading neuroscientist says Kurzweil’s Singularity...

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3:19 AM | Risk Assessment is a License to Kill

(c) Copyright 2001-2013 David j Dilworth “Risk Assessment” is actually a highly disguised political choice to do harm. It actually answers the question “How much environmental damage or human harm can get away with?” – though never stated that clearly. … Continue reading →

February 21, 2013

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11:00 PM | Unibrow Trademark Battle.

The NBA’s number one draft pick is a smart guy, both on and off the court. Even before being drafted by the New Orleans Hornets, Anthony Davis, famous for his connected eyebrows, filed trademark applications for the phrases “Fear The Brow” and “Raise The Brow.” “I don’t want anyone to try to grow a unibrow … Continue reading »

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5:00 PM | Pluto’s Anniversay

I would be remiss in my support of my favorite planet if I did not remember the anniversary of its discovery. Clyde Tombaugh, newly arrived at the Lowell Observatory, systematically reviewed images of the night sky in pairs of photographs taken two weeks apart using a blink comparator, He rapidly shifted back and forth between … Continue reading »

February 20, 2013

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11:00 PM | Are Patent Trolls Costing Tech Companies And Consumers?

I get asked a lot of questions about so called patent trolls. The term brings to mind connotations of evil lurking where no one can see it and then springing out to catch people unawares. So what is a patent troll? One definition is that patent trolls are “non-practicing entities” (NPEs) that do not directly … Continue reading »

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5:05 PM | There Is No Intelligent Life Out There.

At least none that the people at SETI have been able to find. Since 1963 there have been people looking to the heavens searching for ET. The only nibble came from the Ohio State University SETI program on August 15, 1977 when project volunteer Jerry Ehman saw a strong signal received by the telescope. This … Continue reading »

February 19, 2013

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11:00 PM | Will the real Durantula please rock a three pointer.

Sports stars continue to be magnets for intellectual property lawsuits. Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma Thunder is in an ongoing trademark infringement lawsuit. A heavy-metal musician named Mark Durante claims the basketball player is illegally using his nickname, “Durantula.” The lawsuit, filed in the federal court for the Northern District of Illinois, names both Durant … Continue reading »

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10:32 PM | Juvenile Arrest Data Quality in New York State’s Incident Based...

Juvenile Arrest Data Quality in New York State’s Incident Based Reporting System, Final Report When an IBR (Incident-Based Reporting) participating agency closes a reported incident with an arrest of a juvenile, a release status is reported for each arrestee. The release status provides information on what type of police action was taken against the arrestee after he/she was identified as the offender. New York State IBR has three release statuses: Diverted to Counseling/Treatment […]

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8:16 PM | Missed one: false confessions. Most of us are familiar with...

Missed one: false confessions. Most of us are familiar with certain legal, psychologically coercive interrogation techniques that elicit false confessions - like bold face lies from detectives (“we found your DNA on the knife”), as well as ones that fall under police misconduct like lengthy interrogations without food or water, pursuing custodial interviews with juveniles without an interested guardian present or physical abuse, but we shouldn’t let uneducated juries slip under the […]

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5:00 PM | Not Another Rerun!

A new model of cosmology has emerged that supports the theory that the Universe recreates itself every trillion years or so. The cyclic model proposed by Dr. Paul Frampton, Louis J. Rubin Jr. distinguished professor of physics at UNC’s College of Arts & Sciences proposes four parts to the Universe: expansion, turnaround, contraction and bounce. … Continue reading »

February 18, 2013

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5:26 PM | How Can I Find Genuine Pesticide-Free Food?

(c) Copyright 2001-2013 David Dilworth Pesticides are explicitly intended, designed, manufactured, and applied as deadly killing poisons. Pesticides have been intentionally applied abundantly to most food we consume in the United States since the late 1940s when man-made chemical pesticides … Continue reading →

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5:01 PM | LHC To Shutdown.

For maintenance and upgrades. Over the next two years, the largest accelerator in the world will be worked on to do bigger experiments. It turns out that in order to find newer and stranger particles, like the Higgs Bosson, you need to add more energy. A lot more energy. So, the team is shutting down … Continue reading »

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12:01 AM | You might think that your brain is the most amazingly fascinating, mysterious and powerful bunch of cells ever constructed by the intricate forces of nature . . .

jtotheizzoe: … but that’s just what it wants you to think. Great Minds trick alike.

February 15, 2013

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7:59 PM | GOPY

GOPY

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7:34 PM | Trailer Parks and Siberia.

It is an ongoing joke in the United States that trailer parks are tornado magnets. There was even a scientific study done, but the real cause was the fact that F1 and F2 tornadoes will destroy a trailer, but not homes. This has actually led to the improvement in the building standards required for trailers, … Continue reading »

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1:12 AM | Re: Nichey nicheness. Since some of my work will now involve...

Re: Nichey nicheness. Since some of my work will now involve conflict studies relating to neuropsychology, you can expect to find more posts in this area. Most of you already know about this, so I feel dropping a few bread crumbs about what the hell I’m up to, might be fun. To that end, the February 11th ed. of Time Magazine has a decent introductory overview on drones and manages to squeeze in a few words that cut into a specific research interest of mine: Drones bring that […]