Random links

Submitted by David on Wed, 2012-02-22 22:15
Retweet! Retweet!
I found it amusing...
TV network aims for new viewing audience: dogs
If only this were a hoax: "DogTV, a cable network for dogs, launched in San Diego this past Monday aimed at stay-at-home canines and their workaday owners who want to feel better about time apart. Free at launch, people will eventually pay $4.99 a month for the channel, but that may seem a small for sum for fido's peace of mind."
Tight Ties, Killer Heels: Clothes Make the Fashion Victims
It's not just the silly high-heeled shoes that cause problems: "From tight jeans that cause nerve compression and digestive problems to tight shirt collars that create headaches to tight ties that constrict neck muscles, our clothes are undermining our health."
Light Drinking During Pregnancy: What Recent Studies Do — and Do Not — Tell Us
Survey of a few studies on the effect of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. The most questionable of the studies they examine seems to be the one arguing that alcohol consumption is problematic even in small doses.
Error Undoes Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Results
"the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight and an electronic card in a computer"
The myth of the eight-hour sleep
"In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks."
Switcheroo
Weird yet somewhat amusing...

Comments

Ronik

Thu, 2012-02-23 01:22

I'm pretty sure that nothing's actually been checked yet. If you read the final sentence of the article it says that it requires new data to confirm the hypothesis. This pretty much means that it's simply yet another guess as to what MIGHT have caused an error. I can't see any sources actually saying it's been confirmed to not have happened, or even confirmed an existing error. All things say refer to POTENTIAL errors, not confirmed errors. Faulty GPS setting were another potential source of about 60 nanoseconds worth of disruption, if I recall, as an example.

Again, this may be the cause, but it appears to remain as speculation.

David

Thu, 2012-02-23 15:19

After tightening the connection and then measuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the fiber, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed.

They are, of course, going to do more experimentation, but based on the above quote from the link it does seem to make a 60ns difference in time. It looks like they have at least done some basic checking.

Ronik

Fri, 2012-02-24 23:52

Indeed, it could be, and it does match the facts, but others, as I've mentioned, have found similar possible causes. From an article on the GPS hypothesis - "the total correction is 64 nanoseconds, almost exactly what the OPERA team observes."

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27260/

I sound too skeptical, but hey, I want FTL to be real :)