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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 20, 2014 at 7:13am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 20, 2014 at 6:17am

When would people lie? Interesting Question. Phsycologists are trying to learn about it.

Psychologists Shaul Shalvi, Ori Eldar and Yoella Bereby-Meyer tested the hypothesis that people are more likely to lie when they can justify the deception to themselves in a 2013 paper entitled “Honesty Requires Time (and Lack of Justifications),” published in Psychological Science. Subjects rolled a die three times in a setup that blocked the experimenter's view of the outcome and were instructed to report the number that came up in the first roll. (The higher the number, the more money they were paid.) Seeing the outcomes of the second and third rolls gave the participants an opportunity to justify reporting the highest number of the three; because that number had actually come up, it was a justified lie.

Some subjects had to report their answer within 20 seconds, whereas others had an unlimited amount of time. Although both groups lied, those who were given less time were more likely to do so. In a second experiment subjects rolled the die once and reported the outcome. Those who were pressed for time lied; those who had time to think told the truth. The two experiments suggest that people are more likely to lie when time is short, but when time is not a factor they lie only when they have justification to do so.

“By lying, we deny our friends access to reality—and their resulting ignorance often harms them in ways we did not anticipate. Our friends may act on our falsehoods, or fail to solve problems that could have been solved only on the basis of good information.”

A practical solution is to think of a way to tell the truth with tact.

nearly all of us shade the truth just enough to make ourselves or others feel better. By how much do we lie? About 10 percent, says behavioral economist Dan Ariely in his 2012 book The Honest Truth about Dishonesty (Harper).

Lying, Ariely says, is not the result of a cost-benefit analysis. Instead it is a form of self-deception in which small lies allow us to dial up our self-image and still retain the perception of being an honest person. Big lies do not.

More can be found at:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-science-tells-us-abo...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 19, 2014 at 7:07am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 19, 2014 at 6:13am

The Inflation Debate Is the theory at the heart of modern cosmology deeply flawed?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-inflation-summer/

Why I Still Doubt Inflation, in Spite of Gravitational Wave Findings

here is what I’d like to see: First, corroboration of the BICEP2 findings by other groups and observatories. Second, experiments from high-energy physics that provide some sort of corroborating evidence of the driving mechanism of inflation. Third, an explanation of why the Alice’s Restaurant Problem isn’t still a problem. Fourth, an explanation of why only inflation, and not other more conventional physical phenomena, can account for the gravity-wave findings.

When these conditions are met, I’ll be happy to admit I was wrong about inflation. But multiverses? Never!

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2014/03/17/why-i-st...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 18, 2014 at 8:47am

Honey is being used since ages in India to treat burns and various wounds that might harbour microbes that cause infection. Now researchers have found that
HONEY could be the key in the battle against antibiotic resistance. As well as being a tasty treat, honey could be used to help fight infections, they said.
Scientists at Salve Regina University in the US said that honey has a combination of weapons to beat infection including hydrogen peroxide, acidity, high sugar concentration and polyphenols – all of which actively kill bacterial cells.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 18, 2014 at 8:25am

Flowering Plants Need Sugar Transporter SWEET9 For Nectar Production
Nectar secretion requires sucrose phosphate synthases and the sugar transporter SWEET9

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13082...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 18, 2014 at 7:17am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 18, 2014 at 6:50am

Bionic Plants Offer Superpowered Photosynthesis
Rebuilding plants into bionic superpowered energy photosynthesizers ( using nanotechnology)

A team of MIT researchers writing in the journal Nature Materials say they have discovered the first steps in a new field of science known as “plant nanobionics.”

The researchers found that they were able to boost a plant's ability to capture light energy by 30 percent by embedding carbon nanotubes in the chloroplast. They were also able to use another type of carbon nanotube to modify the plants to detect nitric oxide.

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmat3890.html

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 18, 2014 at 6:26am

Cosmic Inflation Theory Confirmed?

Gravitational Waves from Big Bang Detected

A curved signature in the cosmic microwave background light provides proof of inflation and spacetime ripples

Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Almost 14 billion years ago, the universe we inhabit burst into existence in an extraordinary event that initiated the Big Bang. In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of our best telescopes. All this, of course, was just theory. Researchers now announce the first direct evidence for this cosmic inflation. Their data also represent the first images of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time. These waves have been described as the "first tremors of the Big Bang." Finally, the data confirm a deep connection between quantum mechanics and general relativity.

Their data also represents the first images of gravitational waves or ripples in space-time.
"This work offers new insights into some of our most basic questions: Why do we exist? How did the universe begin? These results are not only a smoking gun for inflation, they also tell us when inflation took place and how powerful the process was".

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 17, 2014 at 8:15am

Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science
American science is increasingly becoming a private enterprise. In Washington , budget cuts have left the nation's research complex reeling. Labs are closing. Scientists are being laid off. Yet from Silicon Valley to Wall Street, science philanthropy is hot, as many of the richest Americans seek to reinvent themselves as patrons of social progress through science research.

The super-rich have mounted a private war on disease, with new protocols that break down walls between academia and industry to turn basic discoveries into effective treatments. They have rekindled traditions of scientific exploration by financing hunts for dinosaur bones and giant sea creatures. They are even beginning to challenge Washington in the costly game of big science, with innovative ships, undersea craft and giant telescopes — as well as the first private mission to deep space.

The new philanthropists represent the breadth of American business, people like Michael R Bloomberg, the former New York mayor (and founder of the media company that bears his name), James Simons (hedge funds) and David H Koch (oil and chemicals), among hundreds of wealthy donors. Especially prominent , though, are some of the boldest-face names of the tech world, among them Bill Gates (Microsoft), Eric E Schmidt (Google) and Lawrence J Ellison (Oracle).

This is philanthropy in the age of the new economy — financed with its outsize riches, practised according to its individualistic, entrepreneurial creed. Yet that personal setting of priorities is precisely what troubles some in the science establishment.

Many of the patrons, they say, are ignoring basic research — the kind that investigates the riddles of nature and has produced centuries of breakthroughs — for a jumble of popular, feelgood fields like environmental studies and space exploration.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/science/billionaires-with-big-ide...

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