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The Science Thread

T

Tigger

New member
Decided to resurrect an old thread idea.

Anyone heard of Gobekli Tepe? Fascinating archaeological find in Turkey (1995) that is turning heads. Carbon dated to around 10,000 bce, the semi unearthed megalithic structures suggest a whole different perspective of what our ancestors were and what they were doing.

The site was intentionally buried around 8,000 bce, no one is sure why.

The structures are circles, Stonehenge-esque, made of sharp edged 10-15 ton monoliths, with bas-relief carvings ( images below ).

The really interesting part to me is that this kind of organized building indicates more than a 'hunter gatherer' society well before most 'established' or 'accepted' time lines.

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gobeklitepe_nov08_2.jpg


To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies.

Next up: Derinkuyu Underground City
 
I'm familiar with this and a few other cases like it.

The ancient aliens theory is pretty popular, the whole think is fascinating to me.

I think perhaps as you say we had a much more advanced society than the hunter gatherer story we've long been led to believe.  If that's the case, perhaps they where subject to an extinction event caused by nature or their own dabbling in technology.
 
Robert Schoch is hypothesizing that the last ice age ended dramatically, in maybe a period of less than 3 years, due to a coronal mass ejection, something that would literally dwarf the Carrington event back in 1859.

Schoch is the PHD geologist ( Yale graduate ) that challenged the accepted age of the Sphinx in the early 90's before Gobekli Tepe was discovered. He suggested water erosion indicated that it was much older and at the time was ridiculed by many who argued 'there's no evidence of a civilization that could have done this'.

Carbon dating at Gobekli ( something unavailable with the Sphinx ) has so far proven otherwise.
 
Graham Hancock also has some pretty interesting stuff on ancient civilizations, you should check out his work, Fingerprints of the Gods especially.
 
WhatIfGodWasALeaf said:
Graham Hancock also has some pretty interesting stuff on ancient civilizations, you should check out his work, Fingerprints of the Gods especially.
Click to expand...

I get his science report once a week! :)

Mostly because I'm lazy and it's usually full of very interesting new stuff/links, and, it's pretty much not about him at all. ( as in, he's not promoting anything but science ).

The last roundup had an interesting article about how the Madagascar colony was started by a small group of Indonesian women 1200 years ago, and a scary one about the Titanoboa ( I think the two hour special is tomorrow on the Smithsonian channel ) supposedly bigger in real life than the absurdly huge Anaconda at the end of that movie. ( though airing a show like that on April 1st gives me pause ;) )

Hancock has an astounding body of work, his work on precession with sites from around the world is pretty interesting stuff.
 
I know I said Derinkuyu would be my next post but this was too startling not to share...

Mind-bending ?psychotronic? guns that can effectively turn people into zombies have been given the go-ahead by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The futuristic weapons ? which will attack the central nervous system of their victims ? are being developed by the country?s scientists.

...

Research into electromagnetic weapons has been secretly carried out in the US and Russia since the Fifties. But now it appears Mr Putin has stolen a march on the Americans. Precise details of the Russian gun have not been revealed. However, previous research has shown that low-frequency waves or beams can affect brain cells, alter psychological states and make it possible to transmit suggestions and commands directly into someone?s thought processes.
 
Anyone a fan of speculative technologies?

http://www.ted.com/talks/ray_kurzweil_on_how_technology_will_transform_us.html

Huge fan of Ray Kurzweil.
 
Transcendent Man was great Bender.  Along these lines Google released a video today, it features glasses that are working on right now that basically replace a smart phone.
 
I think the whole idea of the exponential growth of technology is amazing, and one that I think is an elusive obvious. Every piece of technology that is adopted becomes the backbone for the next innovation until there is a new paradigm shift.

It's interesting that people still talk about some things like they won't see them in their lifetimes. Nobody thought we'd be able to clone an animal in our lifetimes a short while ago - same goes with the genome project.

I think Kurzweil is right, in just 15-20 years I think we'll see an enormous leap in technological advancement.

I find it funny though, that some people are actually bemoaning this (even though it's pretty much inevitable). "Only rich people will benefit" - the stats prove otherwise, there are fewer living in poverty BECAUSE of technology.

"We're going to lose our humanity" - Yeah, well if you're so worried about that then why aren't you living in a forest, hunting and foraging for your food, because thats what the human body was essentially adapting to. And while you're at it, you can have your 25 year life expectancy back.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a futurist geek myself. I'll probably be picking up The Singularity is Near soon :)
 
Bender said:
I think the whole idea of the exponential growth of technology is amazing, and one that I think is an elusive obvious. Every piece of technology that is adopted becomes the backbone for the next innovation until there is a new paradigm shift.

It's interesting that people still talk about some things like they won't see them in their lifetimes. Nobody thought we'd be able to clone an animal in our lifetimes a short while ago - same goes with the genome project.

I think Kurzweil is right, in just 15-20 years I think we'll see an enormous leap in technological advancement.

I find it funny though, that some people are actually bemoaning this (even though it's pretty much inevitable). "Only rich people will benefit" - the stats prove otherwise, there are fewer living in poverty BECAUSE of technology.

"We're going to lose our humanity" - Yeah, well if you're so worried about that then why aren't you living in a forest, hunting and foraging for your food, because thats what the human body was essentially adapting to. And while you're at it, you can have your 25 year life expectancy back.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a futurist geek myself. I'll probably be picking up The Singularity is Near soon :)
Click to expand...

Hey Einstein what are the 7 major modes?  ;p
 
Interesting study shows that carbon dioxide and not changing climatic trends responsible for the demise of the last ice age.  Skeptics who believe that global warming is just a natural part of climatic change occurrences, now cannot ignore the fact that CO2 (chemical symbol for carbon dioxide) may have been more so the culprit in triggering weather circumstances that led to the melting of the last ice age, some 10,000-20,000 years ago.

What does this findings implications have for Earth and the state of our climate?

A significant increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, rather than changes to the Earth's orbit, was likely the main cause of global warming that ended the last ice age, a new study has found.

"It's obviously a significant change for the planet? I think this just provides a very palpable, tangible example of what rising CO2 can mean for the planet over the long term."

The analysis of historic temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide data teased out of 80 ice and sediment cores from around the world also strongly discredits an argument used by some global warming skeptics to support the belief that rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not cause the Earth to warm.

As the ice age came to a close, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose from 180 parts per million to 260 parts per million over around 7,000 years.

Shakun said current carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are around 390 parts per million, and they've risen about 100 parts per million over the last century, comparable to the amount they rose when the last ice age ended. However, he said, it will take centuries to see all the effects of the recent and the continuing increase in carbon dioxide levels, due to the "huge amount of inertia" within the Earth's climate systems.

While the current increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has been caused by human activity, Shakun said it's not clear exactly what caused the rise at the end of the last ice age.

However, the theory is that the changes to the Earth's orbit caused more sunlight to hit the northern hemisphere, melting some of the ice sheets. The influx of freshwater into the North Atlantic disrupted ocean currents, causing the northern hemisphere to cool and the southern hemisphere to warm. The warming in the southern hemisphere may have allowed carbon dioxide to escape from the depths of the southern oceans by melting the sea ice that capped the oceans and kept the carbon dioxide trapped. Higher temperatures may also have strengthened winds that could help pull the carbon dioxide from the water into the atmosphere.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/04/05/environment-climate-co2-ice-age-end.html
 
It's one of the most controversial points in science right now, but that study by Shakun has already had a healthy dose of skepticism, one person even went to the trouble of showing all of the global temperature proxies alongside the rise of CO2 going back to 25k BCE, it's troubling because it shows the proxies are a bit all over the map but it also shows that warming likely preceded the rise of CO2.

nature_shakun_proxies_plus_data.jpg


Something that seems to be entirely missing from Shakuns work is consideration for CO2 contribution from increased volcanism during deglaciation. In the conclusion of Huybers/Langmuir 2009 Harvard paper "Feedback between deglaciation, volcanism and atmospheric CO2" the authors cite an estimated rise of between 20 and 80 ppm during a period of about 5 thousand years. Of course the problem there is that warming had to take effect to melt the ice before that cycle began.

To me, the cause of the end of the last ice age ( actually the 'interglacial', we're still in that ice age ) is still roughly pointing at increased levels of solar radiation.

 
For any that care here's a link to Shakun's paper...

http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/files/shakun-et-al.pdf
 
Shakun does point out that "CO2 was not the cause of initial warming".  And that "the overall correlation and phasing of global temperature and Co2 Are consistent with Co2 being an important driverfg of global warming during the deglaciation, with the centennial-scale lag of temperature behind Co2 being consistent with the thermal inertia of the climate system owing to ocean heat uptake and ice melting".

Earlier, he had said that "the role of Co2 in glacial cycles, however, remains unclear...proxy data have variously interpreted to suggest that Co2 was the primary driver of the ice ages, a more modest feedback on warming, or perhaps, largely a consequence rather than cause of past global change".

One can conclude that there were a number of factors that led to deglaciation/oceanic temperature changes, et al, with Co2 being either a culprit or initiator of conseqental climactic changes. 
 
How's this for getting oneself off of not paying a traffic ticket...(maybe we should all become physicists)...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/physicist-claims-victory-over-traffic-ticket-physics-paper-151808710.html

http://www.physicscentral.com/buzz/blog/index.cfm?postid=4656335810518469535
 
Of quarks and matter....

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/04/27/subatomic-particle-discovered.html

European researchers say they have discovered a new subatomic particle that helps confirm our knowledge about how quarks bind ? one of the basic forces in the shaping of matter.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, said Friday the particle was discovered at one of CERN's two main experiments involving thousands of researchers, in collaboration with the University of Zurich.

Joe Incandela, the physicist in charge of the experiment involved with the discovery, told The Associated Press the particle was predicted long ago but finding it was "really kind of a classic tour de force of experimental work."

 
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