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Predictions for 2011!!! How Did We Do Predicting Last Year? What Do We Predict For 2011? And, Much More…
Show Notes:
Sense About Science yearly review of celebrity missteps
Predictions from 2010 in Review!!!
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Predictions for 2011!
Kirsten predicts:
– The LHC will make some amazing discoveries this year, but it will not find the Higgs Boson. Fermi Lab will be given an extended run-time.
– Efforts to curb government spending will lead to major attacks on NIH and NSF grants… “Joe the Plumber” will play the main prosecutor.
– Results of human hESC trials in cases of macular degeneration and spinal column damage will show positive therapeutic results.
– We will see pluripotent stem cells produced from blood in a cheap, easy manner: draw blood, immerse blood cells in RNA cocktail, get stem cells. How will this – affect garage biotech experimentation???
– NASA will permanently retire the space shuttles, but not before at least two more flight delays and an additional mission is added at the end of the year. But, the Mars Science Laboratory Mission will launch without a hitch.
– Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo will launch and fly safely taking us one step closer to commercial space flights.
– From last year: We will see $1000 genome sequencing this year. And, I’m betting $100 sequencing before the end of the year… maybe not results within 24 hours, but the price will come down significantly.
– Genetic cancer screening will be introduced. And, tests for chromosomal disorders in unborn babies will no longer require probabilities or invesive tests, as research from 2010 into screening the mother’s blood for cells from her baby will lead to the development of a new, simple blood test.
– While many question the existence of dark matter due to sparse and indirect evidence, we will see more concrete evidence of the stuff before the end of the year. One such experiment, IceCube, in the South Pole will enable high energy neutrino detection that could provide evidence of dark matter particles interacting with the sun.
– A computer will make a major scientific discovery this year.
– More planets… not just “earthlike”, but a good replacement, will be found.
– 2011 will be a bad year for bees and bats.
– I will produce a human child.
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I'm the host of this little science show. 
I heard the words “paradigm shift” a lot, and I really don’t know what you mean, Justin.
It sounds like you still misunderstand both the Standard Model and General Relativity.
In the standard model, we need something like the Higgs to explain weak symmetry breaking. The nice thing about the Higgs mechanism is that it also provides a means for conferring mass to the Fermions (mater particles). If the Higgs is there, it’s mass is very likely within the range detectable by the LHC operating at full power, which has not happened yet!
I’ll state my prediction here that the LHC at full power WILL find the Higgs. 🙂
This Higgs business has NOTHING to do with gravitation!
The LHC has zero tests searching for gravitational waves. None.
How will you know when we enter a “new paradigm in our understanding of gravity”?
Which predictions of General Relativity will “come up goose egg”?
When we observe the next solar eclipse, do you expect the stars not to parallax in accordance with Einstein?
Do you expect to find the orbit of Mercury has somehow been confused, and disagrees with Einstein?
Will we build better atomic clocks that are sufficiently accurate so as to maintain the same time, after the one has gone on a few jet flights around the world and back?
Will our GPS systems begin to malfunction because the satellites orbiting the Earth change velocity relative to the LUMINIFEROUS ETHER?
I love how you said “the old theories come up goose egg”.
The “old theories” in this case, is actually ONE SINGLE theory: General Relativity.
It’s predictions have never been contradicted despite being finely tested every time you place a cell phone call.
In order to compete with GR, a paradigm shifting idea must make unique predictions.
My prediction is that asymptotic safety: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_fixed_point
Will continue to be interesting, but fail to pan out.
The non sequitur about dark matter, I must confess, makes no sense to me.
If we find dark matter constituents (WIMPS) at the LHC, it will have no impact on the predictions (and therefore, the compliance with experiment, and thus the validity of) GR. All cosmological observations support GR as it is currently understood. If WIMPS aren’t the constituents of dark matter, maybe it’s something else entirely. Whatever it is certainly doesn’t prevent us from observing the bending of space in response to mass/energy! It also certainly does nothing to prevent us from attempting unification of GR with the Standard Model. Any such unification MUST include Justin’s hated graviton. 🙂
Who does the intermission music? I love the song.
1 We are still coming out of a ice age, thus we have global warming,and this perfectly natural and expected event is called global warming
2 anthropogenic global warming, if things are getting hotter, then this is undeniable proof that it is real
3 anthropogenic global warming, if things are getting cooler, then this is meaningless data
I wonder why there is growing scepticism ?
I afraid that I have to take a few issues with some of the points in the Sense About Science‘s yearly review of celebrity missteps.
Dr. Melita Gordon, consultant gastroenterologist at Royal Liverpool University hospital said:
Oops, sorry about not closing the blockquote. 🙁
I afraid that I have to take a few issues with some of the points in the Sense About Science‘s yearly review of celebrity missteps.
Dr. Melita Gordon, consultant gastroenterologist at Royal Liverpool University hospital said: “Your body makes all the enzymes you need, in the right place, at the right time.”
If I eat a bean burrito, those around will be very unhappy if I don’t supplement my enzyme supply with some extra alpha galactosidase. Perhaps I don’t absolutely “need”more of that enzyme, but I and those around me will sure appreciate it if I add some to my meal. There have been several studies that have show that adding the enzyme does reduce gas production: , and . (However, it should be noted that there was one study that found that it might interfere with diabetic medication: )
In addition to that enzyme, there are some people with adult-type hypolactasia, (lactose intolerance) who don’t produce enough of their own lactase-phlorizin hydrolase. There are studies that have shown that with those individuals, supplementing or adding the enzyme can relieve some of the problems with lacking the normal production of the enzyme: , and .
Those studies show that there can be a health benefit, and sometimes a social benefit, to some enzyme supplementation.
Also in that yearly review, Dr. Helen Lock, imumunologist said that while the immune system can be damaged by various things, it cannot be improved. If I recall correctly, TWIS recently covered one or more stories about how recent research seems to indicate that our gut flora has an active role in participating in our immune defense systems. Are there any tests that would help me determine what is an optimum bacteria balance in my system? If so, I’d love to know about it.
When I take some types of antibiotics, my doctor prescribes eating extra yogurt to restore some of what may be killed by the antibiotics.
It makes me wonder: If I can’t be told what is the best bacterial load for me via any tests, how would I or anyone else test this claim that my immune system can’t be “bootesd”?
Further in this topic, there is a story in February 2001 Scientific American: “They Like Your Guts”. It is subtitled: “Intestinal parasites my offer protection from colitis, asthma and other common ailments”.
With all this information, it seems the statements from Dr. Gordon and Dr. Lock are either two narrow, or they are premature.
BTW: Thanks for the show. 🙂
James in Dallas, Tuesday, January 18, 2011
OK. I’ll stop now.
I’m confused about Dr. Aplin’s response to Alex Reid that sperm cannot be reabsorbed after forming in the testes. My understanding is that men are constantly producing sperm. If the sperm don’t come out of the body (during an extended period of abstinence, for example) and they aren’t reabsorbed, where do they go?
Gendou
By paradigm shift, I don’t mean a new physics that overturns General Relativity…. though it may take the standard models lunch money and not give it back.
I mean a perspective shift in what space is, what gravity is.
“…do you expect the stars not to parallax in accordance with Einstein?
Do you expect to find the orbit of Mercury has somehow been confused, and disagrees with Einstein?”
It’s a whole other argument, but the universe does not operate in accordance with Einstein, it’s the other way around. He worked problems from observation backward and the mathematic outward until they reached each other in a sensible reality…
That Einstein is thought to have known nothing of an observed parallax, Mercury’s wobble, and never heard of the Michelson-Morley experiment has I think more to do with his time at the patent office than any real lack of fore knowledge. He liked to have his work seen as independently achieved without reference to other work as though that prior knowledge would infringe on a copyright… it’s interesting that he felt compelled to frame it this way, and interesting that it is seen as a greater confirmation of theory not to have been observed first… and General Relativity has made many predictions without observation, but it wasn’t derived entirely without observation or experiment coming first.
I don’t think physics is wrong. Physics works.
It’s the predictions of what Gravity is that I disagree with. This is what current theory is coming up goose egg in defining, and this is what I believe current theory has wrong.
My predictions:
Dark matter won’t be WIPMS… it won’t be a hidden form of matter at all. I think it’s just warped space which produces gravitational lensing.
The Higgs Boson… science says 95% chance… I’m sticking with zero.
Also, black holes don’t trap light. They are point source emitters of all light that enters.
No gravitons needed for gravity. No waves to detect either.
And the universe may not be accelerating or expanding.
“And the universe may not be accelerating or expanding.”
Haha get a telescope.