The first episode is out and can be viewed on bbc.co.uk, although I did find a 720p HDTV download *ahem* unofficially.

Glad to see some fresh faces getting into science popularisation; Cosmos is as old as I am.

The spread of news of this study around the Internet just goes to show that even atheists aren't immune to confirmation bias. It also shows that basic statistics should probably be taught at the high school level.

This comic by Dwayne Godwin, a professor of neurobiology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and Jorge Cham, the former researcher and cartoonist who created PhD Comics, has won first place in the informational graphics category of the 2009 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

The paper regarding cats mentioned in the comic is over here. There's other interesting stuff in it, too.

According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, a moving mass should create another field, called gravitomagnetic field, besides its static gravitational field. This field has now been measured for the first time and to the scientists’ astonishment, it proved to be no less than one hundred million trillion times larger than Einstein’s General Relativity predicts.

This gravitomagnetic field is similar to the magnetic field produced by a moving electric charge (hence the name “gravitomagnetic” analogous to “electromagnetic”). For example, the electric charges moving in a coil produce a magnetic field – such a coil behaves like a magnet. Similarly, the gravitomagnetic field can be produced to be a mass moving in a circle. What the electric charge is for electromagnetism, mass is for gravitation theory (the general theory of relativity).

“We ran more than 250 experiments, improved the facility over 3 years and discussed the validity of the results for 8 months before making this announcement. Now we are confident about the measurement,” says Tajmar. They hope other physicists will now conduct their own versions of the experiment so they could be absolutely certain that they have really measured the gravitomagnetic field and not something else. This may be the first empiric clue for how to merge together quantum mechanics and general theory of relativity in a single unified theory.

I haven't seen anything published in a journal yet, so I will retain judgement until it passes peer review. But if confirmed, it should be cause for celebration, not derision; scientific knowledge has been advanced.

Venice could be saved from sinking into the sea by releasing fat globules similar to olive oil into the water that are ‘programmed’ to form limestone reefs, say architects. The novel solution for the threatened Italian city, built on silty islands on the Adriatic coast, uses experimental technology that they have dubbed “smart salad dressing”. It would work by releasing oil droplets into the water that are chemically programmed to react with carbon dioxide in the water, precipitating an artificial limestone carbonate.

Two British architects at University College, London, are among those behind the Future Venice project. Rachel Armstrong, from UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture, explained the “protocell” technology. She said: “This technology is based on the chemistry of oil and water and has the special property of transforming carbon dioxide into a limestone-like substance.” The globules would form “solid pearls” of artificial limestone that could protect buildings from future damage, she argued.

The government should stop funding homeopathic products because they don't work, a British parliamentary science group says.

The Science and Technology Committee found no evidence that homeopathy, based on herbal medicines, is effective, according to a report published Monday. The department of health says it has no position on homeopathy, but alternative medicines are routinely paid for by Britain's health system.

The government acknowledges there is no proof that homeopathy works, but does not plan to review its policies. Britain's National Health Service spends several million dollars on homeopathic treatments every year.

The parliamentary group also urged the drug regulatory agency not to license homeopathic treatments since they are not medicines.

I'm suddenly very curious to find out if we're funding homeopathy on this side of the pond…

Khalid Mohtaseb was hired to shoot footage in Haiti for two international networks. This is a montage of his personal footage of the aftermath shot during his spare time in and around Port au Prince. Amazing stuff. It was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and the slow pans were made using the Kessler Pocket Dolly.

Sites where you can help and donate to Haitian relief.

Chris Jones' National Magazine Award-winning story from the July 2004 issue of Esquire, about three astronauts stranded on the space station when the shuttle Columbia exploded:

"I have some bad news," Howell says, and because it's Howell who's delivering it, Pettit and Bowersox know exactly how bad before he gets it out: "We've lost the vehicle."

Nine words. That's all.

Chris Jones for Esquire:

Roger Ebert can’t remember the last thing he ate. He can't remember the last thing he drank, either, or the last thing he said. Of course, those things existed; those lasts happened. They just didn't happen with enough warning for him to have bothered committing them to memory — it wasn't as though he sat down, knowingly, to his last supper or last cup of coffee or to whisper a last word into Chaz's ear. The doctors told him they were going to give him back his ability to eat, drink, and talk. But the doctors were wrong, weren't they? On some morning or afternoon or evening, sometime in 2006, Ebert took his last bite and sip, and he spoke his last word.

A moving piece, reminding us that nothing is static; everything is falling apart. The key is finding that bit of grace in life, and it looks as though Mr. Ebert has found just that.

From Ebert's response:

I knew going in that a lot of the article would be about my surgeries and their aftermath. Let's face it. Esquire wouldn't have assigned an article if I were still in good health. Their cover line was the hook: Roger Ebert's Last Words. A good head. Whoever wrote that knew what they were doing. I was a little surprised at the detail the article went into about the nature and extent of my wounds and the realities of my appearance, but what the hell. It was true. I didn't need polite fictions.

This week, the president announced the creation of a panel to look at the federal budget. As such, it seems appropriate to look at the federal budget in detail to get a sense of what's there. All of the information contained in the graphs that follow is available from the CBO. Please click on all images to see a larger image. Also, all data starts in 1970 and goes through fiscal 2009.

The Obama administration has developed a five-year blueprint for rescuing the Great Lakes after more than a century of environmental damage. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the document, which Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, will release at a news conference on Sunday in Washington. It pledges a "zero tolerance policy" toward future invasions by foreign species such as the Asian carp, a huge fish threatening to enter Lake Michigan. Other goals include cleanup of heavily polluted sites, restoring wetlands and other wildlife habitat, and improving water quality in shallow waters where run-off pollution has led to beach closings. The $2.2-billion US plan also promises to measure progress toward restoring the lakes and hold the government accountable for getting results.

Hundreds of people taking Avandia, a controversial diabetes medicine, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure each month, according to confidential government reports that recommend the drug be removed from the market.

The reports, obtained by The New York Times, say that if every diabetic now taking Avandia were instead given a similar pill named Actos, about 500 heart attacks and 300 cases of heart failure would be averted every month because Avandia can hurt the heart. Avandia, intended to treat Type 2 diabetes, is known as rosiglitazone and was linked to 304 deaths during the third quarter of 2009.