Unfortunately it's rarely on TV more than once every four years, but I have to say I've really gotten to curling. Not only is it interesting to watch, it looks like it's actually a sport that could be played for fun at the beginning level. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of curling in Texas for some reason, so I have to content myself with watching. And thinking about the physics.

The goal in curling is to end each round with your stones closest to the center of the ring. From the release point to the center of the ring is about 97 feet or so. Friction with the ice brings the stone to a stop in that period. Why not estimate the amount of friction of the ice against the stone?

Friction is intrinsically a very complicated phenomenon, but it's frequently a good approximation to say that it's a force in the opposite direction of the motion, with a magnitude proportional to the force holding the moving object against the surface - gravity, in this case. We generally call this latter force the "normal" force, because normal in this context means "perpendicular", and the force is perpendicular to the surface. The ratio of those two forces (frictional force and the normal force) is the coefficient of friction.

So we can write the equation describing the frictional force:

Where Greek mu is the coefficient of friction, and the mass m of the stone times the gravitational acceleration g is the normal force. We also know, because we've used them so many times, that an object in 1d accelerated motion obeys the standard equations of accelerated motion:

and

Here d is the distance the stone travels, t is the time it takes for to stone to complete its travel, a is the acceleration due to friction, v0 is the initial velocity. When the stone completes its travel the velocity will be 0, hence the 0 for the final velocity in the last equation. We know that force is equal to mass times acceleration, so the accleration due to friction will be the frictional force divided by mass: a = -?*g.

But we don't know the initial velocity. We have no way of measuring it. But we do have the total time of travel. If I understand the announcers, 24 seconds or so is a typical "hog line to tee line" time. From that, we can algebraically manipulate the equations to eliminate the initial velocity and solve for the coefficient of friction:


As expected, the longer a stone takes to travel a given distance, the lower the friction. Curling tends to use English units, so with g = 32 feet/s^2, d = 97 feet, and t = 24 seconds, plugging in I get ? = 0.011. This is a terribly tiny amount of friction, smaller than teflon on teflon. It could be that the particular approximation we're using for friction isn't so great here, or it could be that granite on vigorously swept ice simply has a very tiny coefficient of friction.

Either way, best of luck to the Olympians as the curl their hearts out. Team USA needs all the luck they can get!

Clemson University researchers have developed a hands-free alternative to cell phone texting while driving.

"If you can't keep people from doing it, make it safer," said Juan Gilbert, professor and chairman of the human-centered computing division of Clemson's School of Computing.

He said one problem with banning texting while driving is that people are likely to continue doing it. He said it will be difficult for police to enforce a ban unless they actually see someone in the act. Gilbert said evidence of texting while driving often surfaces only after an accident.

Gilbert's team developed an application, called VoiceTEXT, that allows drivers to speak text messages and keep their eyes on the road at the same time. Drivers using VoiceTEXT put their cell phones in Bluetooth mode and connect it to their car.

"Through the car's speaker system or through the driver's own Bluetooth headset, drivers can give a voice command that delivers a text message," Gilbert said. "So you can speak to your phone and tell it to send a message to an individual. The recipient's phone recognizes the voice as a text message and the other person is able to respond appropriately."

Gilbert and his researchers are conducting a survey on the use of VoiceTEXT at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DC6S5X7. The survey opens with a video demonstration of VoiceTEXT, followed by three multiple-choice questions and space for comments.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration reports that 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involve driver distraction. Cell phone use is among the reasons for driver distraction, the agency says.

Barnes & Noble's new Nook e-reader has a simple task: Win over the die-hard tree killers. The Nook must convince e-book skeptics that this is the time to start moving from Gutenberg to gigabytes.

The device itself, introduced yesterday, will do a lot of the work. The Nook is gorgeous, as our slide show demonstrates. I'd rather see a $199 price--or $50 in free books included with every $259 purchase--but the lower pricing will arrive, perhaps next year.

The Nook is exciting in ways Amazon's Kindle 2 e-reader, the previous device to beat, fails to ignite people's interest. For me, the Nook is a Kindle killer and I think the market will react the same way.

Why?

Snazzier design -- The color multi-touch screen, below the main reading screen, helps solve the "dull and uninteresting" display problem that Kindle suffers. There are other important differences, but this is the most outstanding. Overall, the Nook is just a better spec-ed device. But, we will have to see how production units compare to our imaginations.

Brick-and-Mortar -- Yes, all those storefronts may someday be the death of B&N. In the meantime, however, the ubiquitous B&N at the mall makes it easy for people to try-and-buy a Nook. And, when you return to the store, the Nook uses special software to detect the store network and display coupons and content appropriate to your visit.

Enough "There" for the Masses -- Yes, the Nook has "enough there there" to be interesting. It crosses the line between consumer electronics curiosity and mainstream device. It also drags the Kindle 2 over the line with it, though the next devices to watch are likely to be from Sony.

Android -- Most people won't care which OS their e-readers run, but the choice of Google's Android makes the Nook hackable and opens the door to third-party applications.

The "Loan" Feature -- This is the big win, the ability for Nook users to loan books they own to other Nook users, as well as to Mac, PC, BlackBerry, iPhone, and iPod touch users.

Will the Nook convince people to start switching from paper books to e-books? It will be slow and never complete. Well, "never" anytime soon. But, the Kindle started to process and the Nook will accelerate it.

The New York Times, quoting a publishing consultant, says about 945,000 Amazon Kindle e-readers have been sold, as well as about 525,000 Sony devices.

That sounds like 1.5 million total devices, but something makes me think that at least half those units were upgrades or replacements, so maybe 700,000 customers exist. Of whom, maybe half use their e-reader on a weekly basis.

While that is a guess on my part, I suspect an estimate of 350,000 frequent e-reader users is right and may even be a stretch.

It won't happen before Christmas, but B&N could sell a significant number of Nooks over the next 12 months. I suspect the upgrade cycle will eventually become every Oct.-Nov., for holiday sales.

With a million e-books to sell, 500,000 to give away (courtesy of Google), a snazzy device, and a great way to get it in front of customers, B&N has advantages that Amazon lacks.

When people get a Nook in their hands and start reading in the stores, I expect many will find the Nook to their liking and make a purchase, even if the price is still too high for a truly mass market to develop.

I have avoided e-readers until now--call me a dead-tree snob--but what I know about the Nook today makes me a likely purchaser next month, when the device arrives at the B&N in local mall.

Goodbye, Gutenberg and hello, gigabytes!

The UK should plough £2bn ($3.3bn) into crop research to help stave off world hunger, says the Royal Society.

It says the world's growing population means food production will have to rise by about 50% in 40 years and the UK can lead the research needed.

Approaches it endorses include genetic modification, improved irrigation and systems of growing crops together that reduce the impact of diseases.

It says that rising yields have brought "complacency" over food supplies.

Earlier in the year, the G8 pledged to spend $20bn (£12bn) improving food security for the developing world.


Professor Sir David Baulcombe: ''We have to look at all the options that we have''
The Royal Society's report, Reaping the Benefits: Science and the Sustainable Intensification of Global Agriculture, concludes that science has to have a significant role if the food supply is to be maintained in 2050, when the world population may have reached nine billion.

The Green Revolution that created new high-yielding strains of crops such as rice and maize in the 1950s and 60s reduced hunger and improved food security, it says, but a new push is needed quickly.

"We need to take action now to stave off food shortages," said Professor Sir David Baulcombe from Cambridge University who chaired the study.

"If we wait even five to 10 years, it may be too late.

"In the UK we have the potential to come up with viable scientific solutions for feeding a growing population, and we have a responsibility to realise this potential."

GM divide

In June, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said there were now one billion hungry people in the world - "the first time in history" there had been so many.


Celebrities such as Sir Paul McCartney have embraced the anti-GM cause
Although it said rising unemployment and lower incomes were to blame for recent increases in the number of hungry people, investment in science to increase the supply of food was also needed.

The Royal Society says the UK should spend £200m per year for the next 10 years on food-oriented research.

Short-term plans could involve improving irrigation so water is used more efficiently, and promoting management patterns where plants are grown together for the benefit of crops.

Techniques include growing plants around the edges of agricultural fields that attract predators of insect pests.

Investment should also go into advanced plant-breeding technologies, including genetic modification.

Although acknowledging the approach can lead to problems such as the unwanted spread of inserted genes into neighbouring wild plants, it says the genetic modification can in principle produce crop strains resistant to disease, drought, salinity, heat and toxic heavy metals.

Experimental strains resistant to drought and salinity are showing promise, it says - conclusions that were welcomed by the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC), the UK group representing companies in the field.

"Food security is one of the biggest challenges we currently face," said ABC's chairman Julian Little.

"Advanced crop breeding using biotechnology and GM methods... are already being used by more than 13 million farmers around the world and helping to deliver higher and more reliable crop yields while mitigating major threats to crop production, such as damaging effects of pests, diseases and droughts."

But environmental groups were less enthusiastic.

"The bottom line is that governments have made the wrong R&D investments, focusing research on unrealised biotech solutions, rather than on the needs of poorer farmers", said Becky Price, a researcher with GeneWatch UK.

"The use of transgenics is often described as a powerful tool. However to date, the only widely used traits developed by genetic modification are herbicide tolerance and Bt insect resistance."

Herbicide tolerant crops are made resistant to a proprietary weedkiller, while Bt crops include genes that produce an insect-killing toxin.

The Royal Society also said that climate change is likely to increase the scale of the "challenge" ahead, by decreasing crop yields in most parts of the world.

IanTS1098714 wrote:
I believe the OP is simply looking for humorous examples of when we (as scientists) hear non-scientists speak with false authority. The majority of times I hear this the person to whom I am talking does not, in fact, want my opinion. They intend to lecture from ignorance under the false assumption that any point of view has equal weight in a (scientific) argument. It patently does not. This absurdity is irritating, yet also simply naive. Most scientists nowadays spend a great deal of time trying to engage the public and to educate.

When it doesn't work are we allowed no recourse to humour? Or must we sit in silence, fuming and bitter?

MILAN, Italy (AFP) – Italian power company Enel said Friday that it had started up a ground-breaking hydrogen-powered electricity plant producing no greenhouse gases.

Enel said the 12 megawatt plant, at Fusina in Venice's industrial zone of Porto Marghera, was the first of its kind in the world to operate on such a scale.

Powered by hydrogen by-products from local petrochemical industries such as the Eni group's Polimeri Europa factory, it can meet the needs of 20,000 families, while saving emissions equivalent to more than 17,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, according to Enel.

The power station forms part of a project dubbed Hydrogen Park, which is backed by the Venice region and Italy's environment minister to the tune of four million euros (5.6 million dollars).

The project aims to develop research into the uses of hydrogen, a clean gas which produces only water when it burns.

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean prosecutors told a Seoul court on Monday they wanted a four-year prison term for disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, whose research team has been linked to major fraud in its once-celebrated stem cell studies.

Hwang, once a scientist with rock-star like status in South Korea for his research that brought the country to the forefront of stem cell studies, is facing trial on charges of fraud, misusing 2.8 billion won ($2.25 million) in state funds and violating bioethics laws.

Prosecutors said Hwang brought shame to the country and harm to scientific research in South Korea.

"The disappointment felt by the (Korean) people is enormous," one of the team of prosecutors told the court.

Hwang, who has apologized for fraud in his team's work, has denied any wrongdoing and said he was duped by junior researchers into believing the landmark results

Lee Bong-gu, a lawyer for Hwang, said: "These people, including the prosecutors are trying to tear apart Hwang's precious scientific evidence."

Hwang's trial at a nondescript Seoul court has been going on for about three years, and could stretch into a fourth, legal experts said. It has been bogged down in the technical testimony from scores of scientists about the research done by his team.

His supporters have staged emotional rallies over the years and filled the court for each of what are typically monthly hearings, saying Hwang is a scientific savior who should be given a second chance.

Hwang's team was thought to have made two major breakthroughs in the field by cloning stem cells and tailoring them to a specific patient, which raised hopes of generating genetically specific tissue to repair damaged organs or treat diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Stem cells are the body's master cells, giving rise to all the tissues, organs and blood. Embryonic stem cells are considered the most powerful kinds of stem cells, as they have the potential to give rise to any type of tissue.

An investigation team at Seoul National University, where Hwang once worked, said in late 2005 that Hwang's team deliberately fabricated vital data in the two papers on human embryonic stem cells.

It did verify, however, that Hwang's team produced the world's first cloned dog, an Afghan hound named Snuppy.

"Hwang's fall discouraged the government from supporting stem cell studies. It also meant that researchers in the field were the objects of scorn," said Oh Il-hwan, a Catholic University Medical school professor specializing in bioethics.

With major financial backing from his supporters, Hwang went on to form Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in 2006, which specializes in animal cloning and has produced cloned dogs.

RonnyTS1071645 wrote:
I`d rather go invent something that'll help the enviroment instead of giving away free abortions.

ElizabethTS1079048 wrote:Nice, but given 2001: A Space Odyssey, I sure wish they'd chosen a slightly different acronym.

With the nation's $46 billion biological drug market at stake, the war between makers of the pricey biotech medicines and their would-be generic competitors has involved millions of dollars in lobbying, thousands in campaign contributions and uncounted visits to members of Congress. And one noteworthy letter.

The note from the private National Health Council, sent to House leaders drafting health overhaul legislation, said the plea was on behalf of "the more than 133 million Americans living with chronic diseases and disabilities and their family caregivers." It urged lawmakers to protect the makers of high-technology biological medicines against early competition from lower-cost generic copycats.

The letter did not mention that nearly $1.2 million of the council's $2.3 million budget in 2007 came from the pharmaceutical industry's chief trade group and 16 companies that sell or are developing the brand-name biotech drugs.

The July 20 letter is an example of a favored lobbying tactic — special interests quietly financing private groups that may take their side as respected, seemingly independent allies without obvious financial interests in the outcome. It also underscores how both sides are using every weapon at their disposal as they battle over an issue that will affect millions of Americans but has been overshadowed by Congress' larger struggle over reshaping the nation's health care system.

Biotech drugs, made from living cells that treat diseases from cancer to psoriasis, can cost a patient tens of thousands of dollars per year. Amgen Inc. and the other companies that make them want their products protected from generic products for at least 12 years, and have won early congressional votes on the issue, due in part to a lopsided edge in lobbying resources. Their generic rivals want to cut that waiting period to five years.

In its letter to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and other leading legislators, the council argued for at least 10 years of exclusivity, saying the longer protection would encourage biotech companies to keep developing products. The generic drug industry sees that as supporting the biotech companies, but council vice president Marc Boutin says its position is a balance of the views of the 50 patient advocacy groups, like the March of Dimes, that comprise the heart of his organization.

"The sponsors have no control or input" into council projects, Boutin said.

Manufacturers say they need the longer protection to earn a profit on biotech drugs, which can take over $1 billion and a decade to bring to market. Generic companies say waiting that long would discourage them from developing competing products and would keep drug prices high — just when President Barack Obama is trying to lower medical costs as part of his reshaping of health care.

The White House has proposed seven years of protected marketing for brand-name drug makers.

The health council's letter lists its board members, which include the drug makers Amgen and Pfizer Inc., along with patient groups and other companies and medical industry organizations. The council's Web site lists many of the contributions it receives from these groups, another rarity.

"Is all their work bad? No," Steven Findlay, health analyst for Consumers Union, which backs the shorter five-year period, said of the council and other patients' groups that accept medical companies' financing. "But when it comes to health care reform and biogenerics, are they going to oppose the industry on that? No."

Billy Tauzin, president of the industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which gave the health council $290,000 in 2007, called them "a great organization" with unchallenged credibility.

"We'll stand by them whether or not they agree with us, any day," said Tauzin, who is also on the council's board.

The lobbying battle has so far been one-sided. The Senate health committee voted 16-7 for a 12-year protection period last month, while Waxman's House energy panel voted 47-11 for 12 years of protection last Friday on an amendment by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who has numerous biotech firms in or near her Silicon Valley district.

That dominance is partly due to a huge disparity in money, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics and the Senate Office of Public Records.

Representing biotech companies, the Biotechnology Industry Organization has spent $3.7 million lobbying so far this year. Their ally, Tauzin's association of drug makers, has spent $13.1 million — the second most of any group that lobbies in Washington.

The main group opposing them, the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, has spent $1.1 million lobbying this year. Another group, a coalition of generic drug companies, insurers and large employers, has spent another $180,000, though most of its members — like AARP and the General Motors Corp. — are more focused on the overall bill and are devoting few resources to the generic fight.

Individual biotech companies like Amgen are also easily outspending their generic rivals such as Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc.

The one-sidedness extends to campaign contributions, too. The biotech organization contributed $192,000 to federal candidates in the two-year 2008 election cycle, the pharmaceutical association $155,000. The generic association: $51,000.

All that money has let the biotech industry launch a lobbying blitz, with targets including lawmakers from biotech-heavy states like California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and North Carolina.

The biotech organization has brought its CEOs to Washington, and has run print and radio ads in the states of pivotal lawmakers. The pharmaceutical association has helped organize lobbying by universities that conduct biotech research and venture capitalists who invest in such firms, and paid for a Duke University study that concluded biotech firms need 12 to 16 years of protection from generic competitors to break even.

With Democrats controlling Congress, doctor and former national Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean has spoken out for the biotechs — though initially he did not reveal he worked for a law firm advising the biotechnology organization. Former Rep. Ron Klink, D-Pa., and Charles Brain, a former top House Democratic health aide, are lobbying on the biotech side.

"They don't do one thing, they do everything," said a frustrated Katie Huffard, a GOP lobbyist leading the generic coalition. "They are a very formidable, powerful presence."

Other big pharmaceutical contributors to the health council included Pfizer, $184,000; Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, $141,000; and Eli Lilly and Co., $131,000.

For people who are looking for ways to reduce their "carbon footprint," here's one radical idea that could have a big long-term impact, some scientists say: Have fewer kids.

A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environment-friendly practices people might employ during their entire lives - things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.

"In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime," said study team member Paul Murtaugh. "Those are important issues and it's essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources."

Reproductive choices haven't gained as much attention in the consideration of human impact to the Earth, Murtaugh said. When an individual produces a child - and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future - the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime.

A child's impact

Under current conditions in the United States, for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent - about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.

The impact doesn't only come through increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases - larger populations also generate more waste and tax water supplies.

Other offbeat environmental impacts have been in the news recently:


One 2007 study found that divorce squanders resources, because people who once shared resources such as energy now use twice as much under two roofs.
The current obesity epidemic may also be hurting the climate, because food production is a major contributor to global warming.


The impact of having children differs between countries. While some developing nations have much higher populations and rates of population growth than the United States, their overall impact on the global carbon equation is often reduced by shorter life spans and less consumption. The long-term impact of a child born to a family in China is less than one-fifth the impact of a child born in the United States, the study found.

However, as the developing world increases both its population and consumption levels, this equation may even out.

"China and India right now are steadily increasing their carbon emissions and industrial development, and other developing nations may also continue to increase as they seek higher standards of living," Murtaugh said.

Not advocating law

The researchers note that they are not advocating government controls or intervention on population issues, but say they simply want to make people aware of the environmental consequences of their reproductive choices.

"Many people are unaware of the power of exponential population growth," Murtaugh said. "Future growth amplifies the consequences of people's reproductive choices today, the same way that compound interest amplifies a bank balance."

Murtaugh's findings are detailed in a 2009 issue of the journal Global Environmental Change.

Genetically modified crops are being grown in Britain for the first time in 12 months after controversial trials were resumed without alerting the public, a newspaper reported Monday.

Cultivation of a field of potatoes designed to be resistant to pests was abandoned more than a year ago when environmental protesters ripped up the crop, the Daily Telegraph said.

But, without alerting the public, the project near Tadcaster in northern England has been restarted, prompting warnings from green groups that local farms and residents could be put at risk, the newspaper said.

One group accused the government of trying to "slip it under the radar."

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the potatoes would be grown in a safe environment, where there is no risk of contamination. They would not be used for human or animal consumption, it said.

The trial, run by Leeds University, is looking at potatoes that are resistant to a parasite worm that costs British farmers millions of pounds a year in lost and damaged crops.

Genetically-modified crops have a gene, or genes, inserted into them in the lab so that they acquire traits that are useful to farmers.

They are widely grown in North America, South America and China.

But in Europe they have run into fierce resistance, led by green groups who say the crops carry risks through cross-pollination, potentially creating "super-weeds" that are impervious to herbicides.

Only a handful of genetically modified crops have been approved for cultivation in the European Union, but of them only MON810, approved in 1998, is so far being grown.

France this month rejected a report by the European Union's food safety watchdog that said a controversial strain of genetically-modified corn was safe.