Fun Stuff

[hummingwolf]

According to the BBC, New model 'permits time travel': "If you went back in time and met your teenage parents, you could not split them up and prevent your birth - even if you wanted to, a new quantum model has stated."

"The European Space Agency... has developed a nine-ingredient menu designed to keep the space-farers healthy - in body and mind." The ingredients: "rice, onions, tomatoes, soya, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, wheat and a protein-rich alga called spirulina" which will be "organic, GM-free and grown onsite by the astronauts themselves." A show of hands, please: Who here would be willing to live in a world without chocolate?

Common cat parasite may alter your personality.

Infected men, suggests one new study, tend to become more aggressive, scruffy, antisocial and are less attractive. Women, on the other hand, appear to exhibit the “sex kitten” effect, becoming less trustworthy, more desirable, fun- loving and possibly more promiscuous.

Interestingly, for those who draw glib conclusions about national stereotypes, the number of people infected in France is much higher than in the UK.

That story's from 2003, but apparently is still exciting amusementinterest among certain folks. mind_hacks also provides a link to a PDF of this related Scientific American article. Meow.

In non-newsy stuff: Joshua Ellingson has some great pictures. I love the one of Dethbot & Mr. Skittles.

Finally, for those curious about such things: Ben & Jerry's Gobfather ice cream ("the flavor you can't refuse") tastes good with frozen blackberries.

Comments

[allisburning.livejournal.com]

- "The European Space Agency... has developed a nine-ingredient menu designed to keep the space-farers healthy - in body and mind."

I emailed them a while back asking if recipes were available and didn't get an answer.

I do think that fans and geeks would buy a cookbook.

- "rice, onions, tomatoes, soya, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, wheat and a protein-rich alga called spirulina"

-- I don't see a sweetener in there. People are going to miss that.

Why lettuce? Why not broccoli or cabbage?

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[allisburning.livejournal.com]

-> "According to the BBC, New model 'permits time travel'"

I suspect that the writer of this article thinks that Star Wars is pretty cutting-edge stuff.

-- "you can pop back in time and have a look around, but you cannot do anything that will alter the present you left behind."

This is tautological: Either

(A) Everything that you do is going to affect the present you left behind.

or

(B) Nothing that you do is going to affect the present you left behind (the Universe already "knows" that you "been there and done that", and its all been figured in already.)


- "Clearly, the present never is changed by mischievous time-travellers: people don't suddenly fade into the ether because a rerun of events has prevented their births - that much is obvious."

This seems naive in the extreme. Obviously, if someone's birth was prevented in the past, then they don't exist now to "fade away".

(The birth of your twin brother Ernie was prevented by mischievous time travellers, which is why he never existed and you've never heard of him.)

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[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

BBC science reporters in general seem to be naive in the extreme. Some people have come up with interesting theories as to why this might be the case.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that it could also be possible to have some actions affect the present you left behind, and others not. All it would require is a theory of temporal inertia, where a timeline tends to try to lead to the same ends despite minor interference but can, with sufficient effort, be altered.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Since the model depends on what the time-traveler knows, and since most people don't know as much as they think they know, it seems to me there are plenty of ways to change the timeline without being entirely sure that you had.