Richard Dawkins eloquently explains his philosophy of science to Neil deGrasse Tyson…
(Andre)
Most people in the world today use the Gregorian calendar, which came into effect in 1582 AD. Before that, Jesus’s contemporaries would have used the Julian calendar, which began in 45 BC. But what was the year number (or name) when Jesus was born?
The section on year numbering here sort of explains how it works, but I’m still none the wiser…
Any idea?
(Update 07 Jan 2008: might be Roman Year 753)
Richard Dawkins opens the Atheist Alliance Conference 2007, calls for atheists to speak out, and responds to critics of “modern atheism”. 45 minutes, but worth it. Includes a funny routine from Marcus Brigstocke at the end.
More videos from the conference here…
Sherri Shepherd, co-host of American chatshow “The View” explains how she’d never really thought about whether the Earth was flat or round.
The end is nigh, it really is.
The circumference of the Earth was first calculated around 240 BC, by Greek philosopher Eratosthenes
Apparently (but can’t find a link to the story) 20 of the climate protestors at Heathrow airport flew in from Dublin!
That’s like driving to a WeightWatchers meeting!
While enjoying this long, hot, sunny summer - I overheard my neighbour discussing with his wife the best way to kill slugs. Upon hearing his wife ask, “But why does salt kill slugs?” - I instantly sprang into action.
“Dear neighbour”, I replied, “the answer is quite obvious - it is due to a simple biological phenomenon – osmosis! The process of ‘osmosis’ is the passage of water from a region of high water concentration through a semi-permeable membrane to a region of low water concentration. Upon putting salt onto the slug, the process of osmosis is triggered, resulting in the rapid depreciation of the slug’s life expectancy - to a couple of seconds.
The reason is that slugs (and snails for that matter) have a higher percentage of their bodyweight made up of water than other animals. Also, their skin is much more permeable than other animals. Upon the application of salt to the unfortunate (or deserving) slug 
(who belong to the animal classification ‘Phylum Mollusca’, commonly called molluscs; class ‘Gastropoda’) this decreases the water concentration outside the slug/snail.
As osmosis is the aforementioned process of the movement of water from an area of high water concentration through a semi-permeable membrane to an area of lower water concentration - the water inside the slug moves outside the slug, in order to reach an equilibrium concentration on both sides of the skin. Why is osmosis triggered? It is because salt is a desiccant, it removes water from things.
Unfortunately, this means that the slug is now much drier then it can tolerate. It literally dies of dehydration. The thick goo you see on the slug after salt is put on the body is actually the fluid or blood of a slug that rushes to the skin’s surface to dilute the salt.”
My neighbour’s wife thanked me and they both hurried indoors. I haven’t seen them since……
So there’s this project called the RepRap, which sounds pretty impressive according to it’s entry in Wikipedia:
The RepRap Project is a project aimed at creating a self-replicating machine… a 3D printer that is able to fabricate three dimensional artifacts from a computer-based model. Due to the replicating ability of the machine, authors envision the possibility to cheaply distribute RepRap units to people and communities, enabling them to create (or download from the internet) complex products and artifacts without the need for expensive industrial infrastructure. They further speculate that the RepRap will eventually demonstrate evolution in this process as well as being able to increase in number exponentially.
Even the prototype (shown above) looks pretty intriguing…
But then I saw this video demonstrating one of the parts - The Bendy Extruder.
That has to be the singlemost impressive thing I’ve EVER seen. I might have to have those immortal words tattooed onto my FACE, to remind me of this moment of epiphany:
This is the Bendy Extruder to get things straight. It has a peice of steel hawser between the motor and the drive screw, which allows you to put a straight rod down the extruder without it being bent, as it has to go into the part where the screw thread is. The hawser transmits the torque very successfully through a corner, and indeed the windings of the hawser are such that the predominant direction of the screw thread is tending to tighten the wires in the hawser.
(Amanda)
After the old woman had gradually regained regained consciousness, she told me that she had gone off the idea of fruit salad and would just make do with a light snack - perhaps a bag of mixed nuts.
“Old lady,” I said, “I imagine you are probably referring to hazlenuts, unless what you are really after are seeds, legumes or drupes rather than nuts.”
When she said that what she really wanted were some nuts such as peanuts and cashew nuts, I really has to put her straight on a few things…
Nut in botany is a simple dry fruit with one seed (rarely two) in which the ovary wall becomes very hard (stony or woody) at maturity, and where the seed remains unattached or unfused with the ovary wall. Most nuts come from pistils with inferior ovaries (without functional anthers and pistils) and all are indehiscent (not opening at maturity). True nuts are produced - for example - by some plants-families of the order Fagales. 
Note that not all true nuts are edible; some (e.g. birch, alder, hornbeam, wingnut) are too small to be worth eating. Others, like the tanoak (Lithocarpus densiflorus), are bitter due to tannins and require extensive leaching before they are edible.
A nut in cuisine is a much less restrictive category than a nut in botany, the term being (mis)applied to many seeds that are not true nuts. Any large, oily kernel found within a shell and used in food may be regarded as a nut. Because nuts generally have a high oil content, they are a highly prized food and energy source. A large number of seeds are edible by humans and used in cooking, eaten raw, sprouted, or roasted as a snack food, or pressed for oil that is used in cookery and cosmetics. By the same token, nuts (or seeds generally) are a significant source of nutrition for wildlife. This is particularly true in temperate climates where animals such as jays and squirrels store acorns and other nuts during the autumn to keep them from starving during the winter and early spring.
Some fruits and seeds are nuts in the culinary sense but not in the botanical sense:
- Almond is the edible seed of a drupe - the leathery “flesh” is removed at harvest.
- Brazil nut is the seed from a capsule.
- Candlenut (used for oil) is a seed.
- Cashew nut is a seed.
- Coconut is a dry, fibrous drupe.
- Horse-chestnut is an inedible capsule.
- Macadamia nut is a creamy white kernel (Macadamia integrifolia).
- Peanut is a legume and a seed.
- Pine nut is the seed of several species of pine (coniferous trees).
- Pistachio nut is the seed of a thin-shelled drupe.
Nuts versus seeds
As mentioned previously, the term nut is sometimes used on seeds, but nuts and seeds are not the same thing. A nut is a seed, but not all seeds are nuts. A seed comes from fruit and can be removed from the fruit. A nut is a compound ovary that is both the seed and the fruit, which cannot be separated.
Besides seeds, others that are mislabelled as nuts include legume (separate hard seeds), drupe (contains endocarp which contains seeds) and capsule (dried fruit that splits to release seeds).
After learning the true defination of nuts, she let out an audible scream and the security guards asked that I never come back……….
