Top 10 Science Mistakes

1: The Circulatory System

-You don't have to be a doctor to know how important the heart is...but back in ancient Greece, you could be a doctor and STILL have no idea how important the heart is.

-Back then, doctors like second-century Greek physician Galen believed (no kidding) that the liver (not the heart) circulated blood (along with some bile and phlegm), while the heart (really) circulated "vital spirit"(whatever that is).

-How could they be so wrong? It gets worse.

-Galen hypothesized that the blood moved in a back-and-forth motion and was consumed by the organs as fuel. What's more, these ideas stuck around for a very long time. How long?

-It wasn't until 1628 that English physician William Harvey let us in on our heart's big secret. His "An Anatomical Study of the Motion of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals" took a while to catch on, but a few hundred years later, it seems beyond common sense -- perhaps the ultimate compliment for a scientific idea.

2: The Earth Is the Center of the Universe

 

-Chalk it up to humanity's collectively huge ego. Second-century astronomer Ptolemy's (blatantly wrong) Earth-centered model of the solar system didn't just stay in vogue for 20 or 30 years; it stuck around for a millennium and then some.It wasn't until almost 1,400 years later that Copernicus published his heliocentric (sun-centered) model in 1543. Copernicus wasn't the first to suggest that the we orbited the sun, but his theory was the first to gain traction.Ninety years after its publication, the Catholic Church was still clinging to the idea that we were at the center of it all and duking it out with Galileo over his defense of the Copernican view. Old habits die hard.

3: Germs in Surgery

 

-Laugh or cry (take your pick), but up until the late 19th century, doctors didn't really see the need to wash their hands before picking up a scalpel.The result? A lot of gangrene. Most early-19th century doctors tended to attribute contagion to "bad air" and blamed disease on imbalances of the "four humors" (that's blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile, in case you weren't familiar). "Germ theory" (the revolutionary idea that germs cause disease) had been around for a while, but it wasn't till Louis Pasteur got behind it in the 1860s that people started listening. It took a while, but doctors like Joseph Lister eventually connected the dots and realized that hospitals and doctors had the potential to pass on life-threatening germs to patients. Lister went on to pioneer the idea of actually cleaning wounds and using disinfectant. Remember him next time you reach for the Purell.

4: DNA: Not So Important

 

-DNA was discovered in 1869, but for a long time, it was kind of the unappreciated assistant: doing all the work with none of the credit, always overshadowed by its flashier protein counterparts.Even after experiments in the middle part of the 20th century offered proof that DNA was indeed the genetic material, many scientists held firmly that proteins, not DNA, were the key to heredity. DNA, they thought, was just too simple to carry so much information. It wasn't until Watson and Crick published their all-important double-helical model of the structure of DNA in 1953 that biologists finally started to understand how such a simple molecule could do so much. Perhaps they were confusing simplicity with elegance.

5: The Atom Is the Smallest Particle in Existence

 

-Believe it or not, we weren't actually all that stupid in ancient times. The idea that matter was composed of smaller, individual units (atoms) has been around for thousands of years -- but the idea that there was something smaller than that was a bit harder to come by. It wasn't until the early 20th century, when physicists like J.J. Thompson, Ernest Rutherford, James Chadwick and Neils Bohr came along, that we started to sort out the basics of particle physics: protons, neutrons and electrons and how they make an atom what it is. Since then, we've come a long way: on to charmed quarks and Higgs bosons, anti-electrons and muon neutrinos. Let's hope it doesn't get too much more complicated than that.

6: The Earth Is Only 6,000 Years Old

 

-Once upon a time, the Bible was considered a scientific work. Really. People just kind of assumed it was accurate, even when it didn't make much sense. Take the age of the planet, for example. Back in the 17th century, a religious scholar took a hard look at the Bible and estimated that creation happened around 4004 B.C. (you know, approximately). Add in nearly 2,000 more years to get to the 18th century, when Western, Bible-reading geologists started to realize that the Earth was constantly shifting and changing, and you get about 6,000 years.Hmm ... those biblical scholars may have been a bit off. Current estimates, based on radioactive dating, place the age of the planet at around, oh, 4.5 BILLION years. By the 19th century, geologists started putting the pieces together to realize that if geologic change was happening as slowly as they thought it was, and if this Darwin guy was at all right about evolution (which was also a slow process), the Earth had to be WAY older than they had thought. The emergence of radioactive dating in the early 20th century would eventually prove them right.

7: The Rain Follows the Plow

 

-If only it were so easy. It's actually kind of shocking that humanity held on to the idea that land would become fertile through farming for so long. Didn't anyone look around and see that all this farming of arid land wasn't doing much? So much for observation. In reality, this quite erroneous theory (popular during the American and Australian expansions) may have stayed alive in part because it did sometimes work -- or at least it seemed to work. What we know now is that the plow wasn't actually bringing the rain; long-term weather patterns were. Arid regions (like the American West, for example) go through long-term cyclical droughts, followed by cycles of wetter years. Wait long enough and you'll get a few wet ones. There's just one problem: wait a few more years and all the rain just goes away - only now, you've got a civilization to support.

8: Phlogiston

-What? You've never heard of phlogiston? Well, don't beat yourself up about it, because it's not real.Phlogiston, proposed in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher, was another element to add to the list (earth, water, air, fire and sometimes ether); it wasn't fire itself, but the stuff fire was made of. All combustible objects contained this stuff, Becher insisted, and they released it when they burned.Scientists bought into the theory and used it to explain a few things about fire and burning: why things burned out (must have run out of phlogiston), why fire needed air to burn (air must absorb phlogiston), why we breathe (to get rid of phlogiston in the body). Today, we know that we breathe to get oxygen to support cellular respiration, that objects need oxygen (or an oxidizing agent) to burn and that phlogiston just doesn't exist.

9: Heavier Objects Fall Faster

 

-OK, trick question: do heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones? Today, we all know that they don't, but it's understandable how Aristotle could've gotten this one wrong. It wasn't until Galileo came along in the late 16th century that anyone really tested this out. Though he most likely did not, as legend holds, drop weights from the tower of Pisa, Galileo did perform experiments to back up his theory that gravity accelerated all objects at the same rate. In the 17th century, Isaac Newton took us a step further, describing gravity as the attraction between two objects: on Earth, the most important being the attraction between one very massive object (our planet) and everything on it. A couple of hundred years later, Albert Einstein's work would take us in a whole new direction, viewing gravity as the curvature that objects cause in space-time. And it's not over. To this day, physicists are ironing out the kinks and trying to find a theory that works equally well for the macroscopic, microscopic and even subatomic. Good luck with that.

10: Alchemy

 

-The idea of morphing lead into gold may seem a little crazy these days, but take a step back and pretend you live in ancient or medieval times.Pretend you never took high-school chemistry and know nothing about elements or atomic numbers or the periodic table. What you do know is that you've seen chemical reactions that seemed pretty impressive: substances change colors, spark, explode, evaporate, grow, shrink, make strange smells - all before your eyes.Now, if chemistry can do all that, it seems pretty reasonable that it might be able to turn a dull, drab, gray metal into a bright, shiny yellow one, right? In the hopes of getting that job done, alchemists sought out the mythical "philosopher's stone," a substance that they believed would amplify their alchemical powers.They also spent a lot of time looking for the "elixir of life." Never found that, either.

Walking Speed Could Predict Lifespan in Seniors

Older people who walk quickly tend to live longer than those who slow way down as they age, found a new study.

The findings do not mean that slow walkers are doomed to die early, the researchers warn. Nor will intentionally pushing yourself to hustle keep you young.

Instead, the study suggests that, like blood pressure and cholesterol levels, the pace that you feel comfortable walking at can be a simple sign of your overall health.

In turn, a simple walking test could help doctors and patients make decisions about when to perform certain screening tests -- and when not to.

"We are not saying that if you just go out and walk faster, you will live longer. Absolutely not," said Stephanie Studenski, a geriatrician at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and at the Veteran Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System. "We are saying your body selects a walking speed that is best for you based on the health of all your body systems."

"The best way to live as long and well as you can is to be in the best health you can be," she added. "Walking speed might help you reflect or monitor how healthy you are."

There has long been a sense that slowing down is an ominous sign of aging, and not just in people. As pets get older, they may need more rest stops during their morning walks. Even C. elegans worms that wiggle slowly die sooner than worms of the same age that wiggle more quickly.

"Whether you're conscious of it or not, you may feel like grandpa's doing pretty good because he's got a spring in his step, he's out moving around, and he looks lively. But I'm worried about Aunt Mary because she's slowing down a lot," Studenski said. "The observation that there's something about how well you move that reflects health is almost implicit in human experience."

To test that notion, Studenski and colleagues gathered data from nine large, long-term aging studies that included a total of nearly 35,000 people, ages 65 and up. Each study had collected walking speed measurements and survival rates dating back between six and 21 years.

Next to age and gender, the study found, the time it took a person to walk comfortably down a hall for a few yards was one of the best predictors of whether he or she would be alive five or 10 years later.

In fact, the researchers report today in the Journal of the American Medical Association that walking speed was as good at predicting lifespan -- if not better -- as were more complicated measurements, such as blood pressure, weight, smoking status and markers of heart disease and diabetes.

Based on the data, the researchers created a chart, much like a growth curve, which estimated life expectancy based on a person's age, gender and walking speed.

They found that people who normally ambled at about 2.2 miles per hour (extrapolated from a measured speed of 0.8 meters per second) tended to live the average amount of time expected for someone their age. For every 0.1 meters per second faster they chugged along, their chances of dying in the next decade dropped by 12 percent.

A 70-year-old man, for example, could expect to live anywhere from seven to 23 years. A 70-year-old woman would likely to live another 10 to 30 years. The faster they walked, the more likely they were to land on the longer-living end of the spectrum.

The reason walking speed is such a good predictor of mortality, Studenski suspects, is that so many organ systems are involved in how quickly we move, including the heart, lungs, blood, brain, nervous system, muscles, joints and bones. Still, she warned, the study is based on statistics and chances, and there are bound to be outliers: Slow-walkers who live a long time and fast-walkers who die early.

Given the strong relationship found between walking speed and mortality, the study offers a useful tool for doctors as they help older patients make health-care decisions, said Seth Landefeld, director of the University of California, San Francisco -- Mt. Zion Center on Aging.

Screening tests for cancers and heart disease, for example, are only helpful in people who are going to live for another five or 10 years, he said. A simple walking test could help determine whether it's worth doing those tests or taking other preventative measures. Walking speed can also be a good way to start conversations about expectations for the final years or decades of life.

Everyone slows down as they age, Landefeld added. But there are things people can do to slow down less.
"There is a lot of evidence that people who keep up physical activity as well as social activity do much better in all sorts of ways," he said. "They live longer. They have better health. Their mental health stays sharper. I would say this article reinforces the use-it-or-lose it message. If you keep walking and moving around, that will likely have benefits in terms of survival and overall health."

Plasma Gasification

- Plasma Gasification is a process that converts carbonaceous materials, such as coal, petroleum, biofuel, or biomass, into carbon monoxide and hydrogen by reacting the raw material at high temperatures with a controlled amount of oxygen and/or steam. The resulting gas mixture is called synthesis gas or syngas and is itself a fuel. Gasification is a method for extracting energy from many different types of organic materials. The advantage of plasma gasification is that using the syngas is potentially more efficient than direct combustion of the original fuel because it can be combusted at higher temperatures or even in fuel cells, so that the thermodynamic upper limit to the efficiency defined by Carnot's rule is higher or not applicable. Syngas may be burned directly in internal combustion engines, used to produce methanol and hydrogen, or converted via the Fischer-Tropsch process into synthetic fuel. Gasification can also begin with materials that are not otherwise useful fuels, such as biomass or organic waste. In addition, the high-temperature combustion refines out corrosive ash elements such as chloride and potassium, allowing clean gas production from otherwise problematic fuels. Plasma gasification of fossil fuels is currently widely used on industrial scales to generate electricity. However, almost any type of organic material can be used as the raw material for gasification, such as wood, biomass, or even plastic waste. Plasma gasification relies on chemical processes at elevated temperatures >700°C, which distinguishes it from biological processes such as anaerobic digestion that produce biogas.

Piezoelectricity

Cold Fusion

"Cold fusion" is nuclear fusion that happens under conditions close to room temperature and pressure, in contrast to the more common fusion reactions such as those inside stars and high energy experiments. An experiment was done by Martin Fleischmann, then one of the world's leading electrochemists, and Stanley Pons in March of 1989 where they reported anomalous heat production ("excess heat") of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes. They further reported measuring small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, including neutrons and tritium. The small tabletop experiment involved electrolysis of heavy water on the surface of a palladium (Pd) electrode. The media reported that nuclear fusion was happening inside the electrolysis cells, and these reports raised hopes of a cheap and abundant source of energy. Hopes fell when replication failures were weighed in view of several reasons cold fusion is not likely to occur, the discovery of possible sources of experimental error, and finally the discovery that Fleischmann and Pons had not actually detected nuclear reaction byproducts. By late 1989, most scientists considered cold fusion claims dead, and cold fusion subsequently gained a reputation as pathological science. However, a small community of researches continues to investigate cold fusion claiming to replicate Fleishmann and Pons' results including nuclear reaction byproducts.These claims are largely disbelieved in the mainstream scientific community. In 1989, the majority of a review panel organized by the US Department of Energy (DOE) found that the evidence for the discovery of a new nuclear process was not persuasive. A second DOE review, convened in 2004 to look at new research, reached conclusions similar to the first.

Defn - Signature

1. the name of a person or a mark or sign representing his name, marked by himself or by an authorized deputy
2. the act of signing one's name
3.
a. a distinctive mark, characteristic, etc., that identifies a person or thing
b. (as modifier) a signature fragrance
4. (Music / Classical Music) Music See key signature, time signature
5. (Medicine / Pharmacology) US the part of a medical prescription that instructs a patient how frequently and in what amounts he should take a drug or agent Abbreviations Sig S
6. (Communication Arts / Printing, Lithography & Bookbinding) Printing
a. a sheet of paper printed with several pages that upon folding will become a section or sections of a book
b. such a sheet so folded
c. a mark, esp a letter, printed on the first page of a signature
[from Old French, from Medieval Latin signātura, from Latin signāre to sign]