MooPig Share the Science Department :: "Familiarize Yourself with the Present Moment"

If only I had an Exotic Brain
Mashed article from mashed NYTimes articles by Pat Darnell, and the Herd  |  Dec 7, 2013 |  Bryan TX

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On my desk sits a Rubric's Cube with dust on it, and unsolved. If I had an exotic brain I would be more like the wise bovine with its special cultural symbiosis. One cow alone does not a Summer make... eh? It takes many diverging carbon based entities to make up a theory about life, the universe, and everything. It also takes a compendium of particles and winking beams, and dark energies to make up everything in the universe. It takes a herd to get through life.

Lately, for the past 50 years, Nobel Prizes in Physics have centered around finding "new particles" in the make up of matter and all things. In 2002:

" ... It was there, in the 1970s, that Raymond Davis Jr. attempted to catch neutrinos, spooky subatomic particles emitted by the sun, in a vat of cleaning fluid a mile underground and for a long time came up empty. For revolutionizing the study of those particles, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002. ( DENNIS OVERBYE. Published: October 30, 2013. LINK) ... "

It sort of has become a melee of particle farming. "If it is out there, we will find it," say the many hopeful, yet frustrated, physicists. Each experiment, to find the elusive dark matter that supposedly makes up 25% of the universe, takes at least a year to complete. And for those who devote themselves to the task, there is seldom joy at the end of the procedure. Lately, experimenters have this to say:

" ... As has become de rigueur for such occasions, the scientists took pride and hope in how clearly they did not see anything. “In 25 years of searching, this is the cleanest signal I've ever seen,” Dr. Gaitskell said in an interview.

That meant, the scientists said, that their detector was working so well that they would easily see a dark matter particle if and when it decided to drop by. (ibid. DENNIS OVERBYE. Published: October 30, 2013.) ... "

What can all this fantaz-morphic research bring to the table of common knowledge? That's a good question, and not easily answered. Safe to say knowledge of our primordial physics does not help us in any knowable way today.
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The math of Higgs-boson is impossible for the layman to understand. High energy physics, H.E.P, is what is called "basis-independent." However, unlocking pre-Big-Bang physics could offer knowledge of particles and their energies that could be used in medicine to heal, or to help read all the band waves that are invisible to humans. It turns out that high energy physics research is open ended research, although fundamental, that will take many generations to find that which it seeks. And, some "basis's are misleading, or too convenient." Nonetheless, it will be the "correlations between deviations in Higgs-boson couplings that will reveal the underlying physics."

Each discovery is tagged by the issuance of a Nobel Prize, as in "... finally, in 2012 — after 48 years, billions of dollars and the work of thousands of talented experimental physicists — we finally saw a tiny bump in data plots obtained at the Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva. That bump, evidence that the collider was producing Higgs boson (SEAN CARROLL. Published: October 8, 2013. LINK ) ... vindicated the work of Mr. Englert and Mr. Higgs years before ... "

Finding the Higgs Leads to More Puzzles - NYTimes.com: EXCERPT  |   " ... As Joseph Lykken, a theorist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and Maria Spiropulu, of the California Institute of Technology, put it in a new paper reviewing the history and future of the Higgs boson: “Taken at face value, the result implies that eventually (in 10^100 years or so) an unlucky quantum fluctuation will produce a bubble of a different vacuum, which will then expand at the speed of light, destroying everything.” The idea is that the Higgs field could someday twitch and drop to a lower energy state, like water freezing into ice, thereby obliterating the workings of reality as we know it. Naturally, we would have no warning. Just blink and it’s over."

"But cheer up. ... You might think that finding the Higgs boson, after 50 years and $10 billion or so, would bring clarity to physics and to the cosmos. But just the opposite is true: they may have found the Higgs boson, but they don’t understand it. (DENNIS OVERBYE. Published: November 4, 2013.) ... "

'via Blog this'

In reference below you will find a slew of NYTimes articles mostly by Dennis Overbye, about multiple universes, dark energy, massive protons, Higgs-Boson, super-symmetry; how does it all go together? Because, "accepting multiple universes means giving up the Einsteinian dream of a single explanation for the cosmos, a painful concession."

We, as a species, are limited by what we can explain.

“Physical science has historically progressed not only by finding precise explanations of natural phenomena, but also by discovering what sorts of things can be precisely explained. These may be fewer than we had thought. (Steven Weinberg,November 7, 2013. LINK) .. ”

CONCLUSION
This mad hatter idea of "Theory of Everything, T.O.E." is a lonesome, undiscovered thing. If it is even out there, it will escape many future explorations. It was a folly to get excited over a T.O.E in the first place; or was it?

" ... Dark matter has teased and tantalized physicists since the 1970s, when it was demonstrated that some invisible material must be providing the gravitational glue to hold galaxies together. Determining what it is would provide insight into particles and forces not described by the Standard Model that now rules physics, not to mention a slew of Nobel Prizes. (ibid. DENNIS OVERBYE. Oct 30, 2013.) ... "

For now, a quarter of the universe is still missing in action. The biggest surprise of discovering the Higgs boson? That there were no surprises; ... in theoretical physics: what if the Higgs field exists in an ultra-dense state that could mean the collapse of all atomic matter? If so, then it explains how fundamentally the universe lives and dies -- and regenerates.

Steve Braun EXCERPT | Comment:

" ... Nov 23 2013: I get a little frustrated when physicists use a cloaked version of the "fine-tuning argument" in their cosmology. You will find many physicists saying that the "how" questions should replace the "why" questions, because "why" begs the question of "purpose" and "who dunnit". We should not conclude that there is anything special about the Higgs mass, anymore than we should conclude there is anything special about the strength of gravity. If you think that the universe must be fine-tuned to support our life, you have started with a conclusion - life, or the length of time we expect to be observers of our universe - and then looked at empirical data and concluded that there is something special because the values for the Higgs field in either state allow us to continue to observer our universe for "a long time". (LINK) ..."

Therefore, in another universe parallel to ours, the alternate me understands the value of Higgs-boson? Now that the quantum vaccuum is "the medium" ... Probably so, but the alternate me might be Ferdinand the Bull.

_________________________Reference
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/finding-the-higgs-leads-to-more-puzzles.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fscience%2Fspace%2Findex.jsonp
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/science/space/dark-matter-experiment-has-found-nothing-scientists-say-proudly.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/finding-the-higgs-leads-to-more-puzzles.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fscience%2Fspace%2Findex.jsonp&_r=0
http://www.ted.com/talks/gian_giudice_why_our_universe_might_exist_on_a_knife_edge.html
http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/lhc-c13/lykken/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/nov/07/physics-what-we-do-and-dont-know/
http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~weintech/weinberg.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/10/08/science/the-higgs-boson.html#/?g=true
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/science/physicists-see-higgs-boson-in-new-particle-but-more-study-is-needed.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/science/englert-and-higgs-win-nobel-physics-prize.html
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/higgs_boson/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/dark_energy_astronomy/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/cern/index.html?inline=nyt-org
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/nobel_prizes/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier
http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/1247466052693/collider-reaches-its-power-goal.html?ref=largehadroncollider

How many people have signed up for health insurance in VA? Who knows? « Watchdog.org

"Many families who are uninsured are middle-class."
Tangled arguments by Pat Darnell | Oct 19, 2013 | BryanTX

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The ACA -- aka OBAMACARE -- is a 900 page document. Do you think anyone has read it? How many pages are in the Bible... around 1900 pages? So, if you are uninsured for medical expenses, you should read the ACA, eh? If you are a sinner maybe you should read the Bible.

If one reads 100 pages a day, about 100 minutes or so, that is 9 days to read the ACA document. Chances are that one will not fully understand the document on his or her first read through.

How many people have signed up for health insurance in VA? Who knows? « Watchdog.org: "Numbers on Obamacare enrollment have been scarce — partly because of the slew of technical problems with healthcare.gov. Robert Gibbs, former press secretary to President Obama, said in a recent interview with MSNBC the first two weeks of open enrollment were “bungled badly” and “excruciatingly embarrassing for the White House and for the Department of Health and Human Services.” Industry analyst Bob Laszewski surveyed health plans last week, reporting that no more than 5,000 individuals and families have signed up for health insurance through healthcare.gov."

'via Blog this'

From an article in 2001 we see the building argument for government regulation of healthcare and phasing out of Free Ridership:

" ... Although it is common to think of the uninsured as having low-incomes, many families who lack insurance are solidly middle class ... . And the largest increase in the number of uninsured in recent years has occurred among higher-income families:

• About one in seven uninsured persons lives in a family with an income between $50,000 and $75,000, and almost one in six earns more than $75,000.
• Further, between 1993 and 1999, the number of uninsured increased by 53 percent in households earning between $50,000 to $75,000 and by 85 percent among households earning $75,000 or more.
• By contrast, in households earning less than $50,000 the number of uninsured decreased approximately 5 percent.

More information about middle-class families who are voluntarily uninsured emerged from a recent California survey of the uninsured with incomes of more than 200 percent of poverty:2

• Forty percent owned their own homes and more than half owned a personal computer.
• Twenty percent worked for an employer that offered health benefits, but half of them (10 percent of the total) declined coverage for which they were eligible.
• However, this group was not opposed to insurance in general, as 90 percent had purchased auto, home or life insurance in the past.
• About 43 percent felt that health insurance was not a good value for the money, and rising insurance premiums will only increase this number. (Monday, April 30, 2001
  by John C. Goodman. LINK) ... "

SUMMARY
Before ACA/ObamaCare I couldn't afford medical expenses. I spent many years in my youth without medical coverage. With kids of my own now, I pay a stiff monthly premium to Blue Cross/ Blue Shield for coverage that has a hefty copay setup. I am being nickel'd and dime'd to death.

Now, after ACA/ObamaCare I still cannot afford hefty medical expenses. Some of my "old age" pills I need would take all my income every month. So without the wonky healthcare insurance, I have through work, we exist above poverty level, and can visit a family doctor, when we find a competent one.

CONCLUSION
Health Care in the USA is dodgy.



_______________________Reference
http://watchdog.org/111247/how-many-people-have-signed-up-for-health-insurance-in-va-who-knows/
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st242?pg=3

Candidate for YOB of the Century

YOBS take Years in the Making
found in the creases by Pat Darnell  |  Mar 9, 2013  |  Bryan TX

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GOP candidate is in favor of the death penalty for kids, cites biblical passages - Detroit liberal | Examiner.com: "Arkansas GOP candidate for state representative Charlie Fuqua published a book where he called for the death penalty to be imposed upon children for religious purposes. The book titled, "God's Law: The Only Political Solution" has multiple disturbing passages where Fuqua advocates for children to be beaten and sometimes killed for disrespecting their parents. Fuqua wrote:"

EXCERPT | " ... A child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deuteronomy 21:18-21.” (Charles Fuqua. no date. LINK)... "

'via Blog this'   .... MEANWHILE ...

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 :: New International Version (NIV) ...  A Rebellious Son

" ... 18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid. (LINK) ... "

COMMENTS from faceBook:

• Fuckin' MORON!!!!
• I'm sharing this ........
• THESE RELIGIOUS IDIOTS ARE MAKING MY TEETH SMOOTH (FROM THE CONSTANT GRINDING).
• I'm Catholic, and we don't allow this BS!!!!..........
• These nuts truly no better than the Islamist fundamentalists.
• I've been calling them Christian Taliban for years.
• Yes!!!!, that is what they are!!!!!!!!!!!!
• What about the death penalty for politicisn who committ crimez?
• Kill this bastard.
• Mother Fuqua must've been really, really hard on young Charlie Fuqua. I wonder if she ever beheaded one of her kids for talking back? Seriously.. what is the difference between what this repugnant religious fanatic says and those that follow Sharia Law? Only the name. This is what happens when religious fanatics are in government.

____________________________Reference
http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-candidate-is-favor-of-the-death-penalty-for-kids-cites-biblical-passages
Mindless Yobs In The News is an invention by Pribek.net ... http://pribek.net/2011/01/19/mindless-yobs-in-the-news-vol-46/
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/10/08/republican-candidate-fuqua-endorses-death-penalty-for-rebellious-children
http://www.godslawforamerica.com/
http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-member-of-house-science-committee-believes-earth-is-only-9-000-years-old

Physicists Anxiously Await News of the ‘God Particle’ - NYTimes.com

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" ... [E]xperimentalists say that a year from now they should have enough data to rule out the existence of the most popular version of the Higgs boson, sending theorists back to their blackboards in search of another explanation of why particles have mass. (Overbie, Dennis, Dec 11, 2011. LINK ) ... "
Physicists Anxiously Await News of the ‘God Particle’ - NYTimes.com:

'via Blog this'


__________________Reference
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/science/physicists-anxiously-await-news-of-the-god-particle.html?src=me&ref=general
http://godparticle.net/

Is PI really PU, for the PC?

BRAIN Industry: New BLACK Berry for the Jangagnga

iLip is a mathematician's dream come true. Don't ask me why I think that. Put the goods in a lip plate and let the brain receive the food for thought, is what MooPig is talking about.


B says: "They live in one of the most isolated area in the world… as i was watching a documentary about the mursi tribe, i was impressed at how the human body can adapt to its environment… The key is progression over time, ( aka evolution )…

"The women in the tribe are able to insert up to 25 cm diameter long lip enlargement plates under their skin… its crazy and ugly, but they can do it… they start with a little one, and go on from there…

A Mursi woman from Southern Ethiopia. Over one shoulder, an AK47. An iPod pressed to one ear. Thrust deep into her lower lip, a large lip plate. Body modded, wired and armed woman of color!

MooPig keeps asking, "Lip plate; Brain wire; Lip plate or Brain wires...?" randomly over and over of himself.


The work of Dean Hamer, a geneticist at the National Cancer Institute, raises the prospect of genetically engineered mystics. Hamer claims to have found a gene associated with "self-transcendence" or "spirituality" in a group of 1,000 subjects who filled out surveys that probed their beliefs in God, ESP, and so on. Hamer calls this gene "the spiritual allele" or, even more dramatically, the "God gene"—which is also the title of the popular book in which he describes his research. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, has called Hamer's claim "wildly overstated."

Spirit TechHow to wire your brain for religious ecstasy. By John Horgan
Posted Thursday, April 26, 2007

Mystical Brain Chips

In the 1950s, Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, while preparing epileptic patients for surgery, stimulated their exposed brains with electrodes. Some patients heard voices or music and saw apparitions when their temporal lobes were stimulated. Upon learning about Penfield's experiments, Aldous Huxley wrote: "Is there, one wonders, some area in the brain from which the probing electrode could elicit Blake's Cherubim?"

One still wonders. A Swiss team recently induced out-of-body experiences in an epileptic patient about to undergo surgery by stimulating her right angular gyrus, which underpins spatial awareness. Other groups have shown that implanted electrodes can trigger euphoria, and in fact they are now being tested as treatments for severe depression (as well as paralysis, tremors, and epilepsy). In principle, implants would provide the most precise, powerful means of inducing religious ecstasy. Indeed, self-described "Wireheads" look forward to the day when these devices will vanquish mental suffering and deliver ecstasy on demand. But for now, this technology—which requires inserting wires into the brain through holes drilled in the skull—remains too risky for all but the most desperate patients.

Interested in some followup? Go to the various links in this retrieve:
Science editor Daniel Engber chatted with readers on washingtonpost.com about the special issue on the brain. John Horgan argued for the legalization of psychedelics and spelled out his problems with Buddhism. Steven Johnson reviewed several options consumers have to monitor their own brain activity, and David Dobbs analyzed the ethical effects of this "self-scanning" trend. Last year, Daniel Engber reviewed an imaging study of speaking in tongues, and in 2005, he listened to the Dalai Lama's lackluster speech to the Society for Neuroscience.

Give me a pill that makes me Perfect!!

MooPig Current Events Department: Resignation is a popular four syllable word in 2008

MooPig Correspondent Jerre Darnell did not have to travel far when asked to reveal her opinion on an editorial about "to E-mail; or not to E-mail, that is the question." Our senior scooper in the field, Jerre, says, "The District Attorney Rosenthal, in Texas, has an as-yet unspecified syndrome that made him stupid and was brought about with something about his therapy. It led him to bad judgment, and he implicitly wrote public announcements to a former niche lover from the 80's, Kerry Stevens."

In the quickened state of imbecile, DA Rosenthal put two and two together and made four big booboo's.

"I will definitely never get email," said our octogenarian correspondent.

1 "Joe Owmby, an assistant Harris County district attorney who is chief of the office’s police integrity division, says Rosenthal notified his staff of his resignation by e-mail hours before the press release was issued..."
Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal Resigns By JOHN COUNCIL, MARY ALICE ROBBINS and BRENDA SAPINO JEFFREYS Texas Lawyer Friday, February 15, 2008

2 February 19, 2008 Texas District Attorney Resigns
In the wake of an e-mail scandal brought on by prescription drug “impairment,” a Texas district attorney steps down from office.

The Texas Lawyer reported today that Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal resigned from office Feb. 15. The decision comes amid a controversy that took place in December when e-mails he sent and received were disclosed as part of discovery in a federal civil rights suit, Ibarra, et al. v. Harris County, Texas, et al.

The e-mails on his office computer included several romantic notes Rosenthal had sent to his executive assistant, Kerry Stevens. As a result, Harris County Republican leaders pressured Rosenthal to remove his name from the party's March 4 primary ballot, which he did on Jan. 2.

Several days later, more e-mails from Rosenthal’s computer were disclosed as part of Ibarra, including messages he sent to assistant prosecutors in his office seeking help arranging a barbecue to kick off his re-election campaign. An act that is illegal under Texas law.
In a press release he sent out the day he resigned, Rosenthal said prescription drugs had impaired his judgment.

3 “Although I have enjoyed excellent medical and pharmacological treatment, I have come to learn that the particular combination of drugs prescribed for me in the past has caused some impairment in my judgment,” Rosenthal wrote. “This position is much too important for anyone to be less than their best. I am currently in a different regimen of therapy from different health care professionals and am looking forward to concentrating on the restoration of my health.”

4 Intrigue in the DA's office...
E-MAILS, I don't think I will ever use email again.... comments on the flava of love:
In a three-day period in July of this year, Rosenthal wrote to Stevens' home email saying, "You saw me looking at new toys yesterday. I could buy one or save the money to take you somewhere."
In another brief email, he says, "Bet I could make you sleep."
And on the Fourth of July, he writes to her, "I love you so much."

comment: Posted by: Royko December 28, 2007 at 07:42 AM
"I guess the Harris County Republican Party's family values are a bust?
No pun intended."