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Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere more than a billion years before the Earth, say scientists. An examination of meteorites and rocks on the planet suggests that oxygen was affecting the Martian surface four billion years ago. On Earth, oxygen did not build up to appreciable quantities in the atmosphere for at least another 1.5bn years

On Theory and Science Generally in Connection with the Fleischmann-Pons Experiment Peter L. Hagelstein 6 INFINITE ENERGY • ISSUE 108 • MARCH/APRIL 2013 I was encouraged to contribute to an editorial generally on the topic of theory in science, in connection with publication of a paper focused on some recent ideas that Ed Storms has put forth regarding a model for how excess heat works in the Fleischmann-Pons experiment. Such a project would compete for my time with other commitments, including teaching, research and family-related commitments; so I was reluctant to take it on. On the other hand I...

Coherent Oscillations in an Exciton-Polariton Josephson Junction K. G. Lagoudakis1, B. Pietka1, M. Wouters2, R. André3, B. Deveaud-Plédran1 1ICMP, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne(EPFL),1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. 2ITP, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne(EPFL),1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. 3Institut Néel, CNRS, Grenoble, France. Abstract: We report on the observation of spontaneous coherent oscillations in a microcavity polariton bosonic Josephson junction. The condensation of exciton polaritons takes place under incoherent excitation in a disordered environment, where double potential wells tend to appear in the disordered landscape. Coherent oscillations set on at an excitation power well above the condensation threshold. The time resolved population and phase...

In the March 25 issue of The Weekly Standard, the lead article entitled "The Heretic" deals with philosopher Thomas Nagel, who has abandoned his long-held perspective on philosophy and religion. This has caused consternation and alarm among contemporary philosophy professors, the great majority of whom are strongly committed to an atheistic world-view. A recurring assertion by members of that profession is that they are being very scientific, because science disproves religion. The question arises, "Where did the idea come from that science disproves religion?" It didn't come from within science; rather, it's the province of non-scientists making statements about science....

s there a greater gesture of intellectual contempt than the notion that a tweet constitutes an adequate intervention in a serious discussion? But when Thomas Nagel’s formidable book Mind and Cosmos recently appeared, in which he has the impudence to suggest that “the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false,” and to offer thoughtful reasons to believe that the non-material dimensions of life—consciousness, reason, moral value, subjective experience—cannot be reduced to, or explained as having evolved tidily from, its material dimensions, Steven Pinker took to Twitter and haughtily ruled that it was “the shoddy reasoning of a once-great...

You hear a lot about the politicization of science, but the real problem is the moralization of science. The New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt has made a compelling case that moral differences drive partisan debates over scientific issues. Dan Kahan and others at the Yale Cultural Cognition Project have identified cultural differences that bias how people assimilate information. Together, Haidt and Kahan’s research suggests that what you believe about a scientific debate signals to like-minded people that you are on their side and are therefore a good and trustworthy person. Unfortunately, this means that the factual accuracy of beliefs...

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ (33 A.D.) is the most attested historical fact of the ancient world. In addition to the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it is also widely attested by Greco-Roman and Jewish writers. Closely related, history also confirms that the tomb of Jesus Christ on that first Easter morning was indeed empty. Every vested party knew where Jesus was buried after he died. Yet on Easter, the tomb was found empty, and nobody has ever been recovered ...

“If you have to believe in something,” said a wise old uncle, “believe in science. But only if you have to believe.” Science isn’t all it is cracked up to be since many shady shamans pose as scientists in order to pluck money from someone’s pocket (typically taxpayer purses). Their magic trick is trade upon scientism, one definition of which is “the uncritical belief that scientific or quasi-scientific methods expose indisputable facts.” Political pitchpeople peddle such prattle knowing that the majority of non-scientific neighbors will accept as gospel conclusions published by seemingly sane institutions. Yet much of it is buncombe....

Trolls win: Rude blog comments dim the allure of science online February 14, 2013 http://phys.org/news/2013-02-trolls-rude-blog-comments-dim.html The trolls are winning. Pick a story about some aspect of science, any story, scroll down to the blog comments and let the bashing begin. "Wonder how much taxpayer cash went into this 'deep' study?” “I think you can take all these studies by pointy headed scientists, 99 percent of whom are socialists and communists, and stick them where the sun don't shine.” “Yawn. Climate change myth wackos at it again.” “This article is 100 percent propaganda crapola.” “Speaking of dolts, if you were around...

////////“Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition…. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be bearers of an objective, immortal truth… then there is nothing more relativistic than fascistic attitudes and activity…. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.” Mussolini, Diuturna pp. 374-77, quoted in A Refutation of...

Most people seem to assume that the universe is chock full of intelligent life. But what if we ARE alone in the Universe? So far all SETI searches have shown no evidence of other civilizations out there. If you have devoted your life to searching for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, you are probably wasting your time. The more I study about the formation of the earth, the more convinced I am that the earth is pretty much a freak occurrence whose conditions for life or intelligent life exits nowhere else. So what are the theological implications of this?...

When I decided on a scientific career, one of the things that appealed to me about science was the modesty of its practitioners. The typical scientist seemed to be a person who knew one small corner of the natural world and knew it very well, better than most other human beings living and better even than most who had ever lived. But outside of their circumscribed areas of expertise, scientists would hesitate to express an authoritative opinion. This attitude was attractive precisely because it stood in sharp contrast to the arrogance of the philosophers of the positivist tradition, who claimed...

Athanor 2.0: The Hydrotron ECat World ^ | July 28, 2012 | Frank Acland Posted on Monday, July 30, 2012 11:11:01 AM by Kevmo Athanor 2.0: The Hydrotron High School kids who have replicated a cold fusion cell. http://www.e-catworld.com/2012/07/athanor-2-0-the-hydrotron/ [Update: Video Posted] July 28, 2012 It has not been very easy to find out what has been happening with the Pirelli High School’s cold fusion reactor (named the Athanor) which was introduced earlier this year — at least English language sources discussing it have been hard to find. A comment today from Ugo Abundo, the professor who leads the research,...

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered the oldest known spiral galaxy, a 10.7-billion-year-old anomaly that by all rights shouldn't exist. The galaxy was present in the early universe, about 3 billion years after the Big Bang, at a time when galaxies were still forming and normally looked clumpy and irregular. … In fact, it is a so-called grand design spiral galaxy, which has prominent, well-formed spiral arms. "The fact that this galaxy exists is astounding," Law said. "Current wisdom holds that such grand design spiral galaxies didn't exist at such an early time in the history of the...

Oregon State University chemistry professor Nicholas Drapela was fired without warning three weeks ago and has still been given no reason for the university’s decision to “not renew his contract.” Drapela, an outspoken critic of man-made climate change, worked at the university for 10 years. In the early years of his career, he published a number of textbooks, received a promotion to senior instructor and, in 2004, received a Loyd F. Carter award for outstanding and inspirational teacher. In 2007, Drapela began giving talks on his own climate change skepticism. He often and openly questioned the science behind man-made global...

The sky is falling! Many interest groups and journalists raced to tell that to the public when a modest but important bill became law in Tennessee early in April. The law instructs teachers and administrators to "create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues." What's not to like? The law, similar to one in Louisiana, also protects teachers who help students (I'm quoting from the official legislative summary) "understand, analyze, critique, and...

WEDNESDAY, May 25 (HealthDay News) -- Older adults who say they've had a life-changing religious experience are more likely to have a greater decrease in size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain critical to learning and memory, new research finds. ...or conversely, those who had no religious affiliation, had more hippocampal shrinkage (or "atrophy") compared to people who identified themselves as Protestants, but not born-again. ...SOURCE: Duke University, news release, May 19, 2011

(AP) NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has landed robotic explorers on the surface of Mars, sent probes to outer planets and operates a worldwide network of antennas that communicates with interplanetary spacecraft. Its latest mission is defending itself in a workplace lawsuit filed by a former computer specialist who claims he was demoted and then let go for promoting his views on intelligent design, the belief that a higher power must have had a hand in creation because life is too complex to have developed through evolution alone.

Dallas Theological Seminary professor Daniel B. Wallace has said that newly discovered fragments from the Gospel of Mark could be the oldest New Testament artifacts ever found and date from the first century A.D., or during the time of eyewitnesses of Jesus' resurrection. Wallace announced his findings at UNC Chapel Hill on Feb. 1, 2012, during a debate in front of 1,000 people, where he unveiled that seven New Testament papyri had recently been discovered – six of them he said were probably from the second century, and one of them, the Gospel of Mark, probably from the first. The...

"...What is the difference between right and wrong, good and bad? There is no moral difference between them. Why should I be moral? Because it makes you feel better than being immoral. Is abortion, euthanasia, suicide, paying taxes, foreign aid, or anything else you don’t like forbidden, permissible, or sometimes obligatory? Anything goes. What is love, and how can I find it? Love is the solution to a strategic interaction problem. Don’t look for it; it will find you when you need it. Does history have any meaning or purpose?It’s full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.” I take...