December 24, 2016

Speed of light calculated in your kitchen..with Peeps

Keep the Peeps from your Christmass stockings and use them to measure the speed of light with your kitchen microwave.

The speed is calculated if you know the frequency, from your microwave's information label (or manual), and you find out the wavelength.  Because the wavelength is typically much shorter  than a pyrex baking dish filled with Peeps, you can measure it. See how in this video.

Clever.

Merry Christmass and happy holidays, all of them.

Yes.... after the Peeps cool down you can eat them. ;)

https://youtu.be/HwREvdUWSKE

November 28, 2016

The Faked Paper that started autism vaccination fears in 1988

This is the faked paper published in the journal Lancet in 1988 that started the irrational fear of autism and vaccination that persists today. It was retracted from the journal because investigation found the authors had made unsubstantiated claims not supported by any scientific investigation.

Ohio state shooting alert.

At Least 9 Injured Amid Reports Of Active Shooter At Ohio State University

http://n.pr/2gzGuqU

November 26, 2016

Internet Wizard's Chess: weapons, economics, now Russia scores with Google/Facebook

Are we living now in the world of  "Internet Wizard's Chess"?

Ah. The game of the cold war, east versus west. CIA, James Bond movies and the KGB.
Nuclear arsenals, and submarines, fighter jets and moon landings and aircraft carriers. That was the fighting competition from the 50's into the 80's.

Then, economics caught up to a false Russian economy, and corruption, when Afghanistan and trying to keep up with NATO technology required money that Russia did not have.
The CCCP (USSR) lost out in an economic fashion, not from any traditional combat. Competition, was no longer  just about who has the biggest bombs. Turmoil, and still quite a bit of corruption in the modern Russian economy, lingers from the new ruling class that got hold of Russia's resources, in particular oil and gas.

But President Putin, a former KGB man, already knew a lot about the power of mis-information. The game of internet wizard's chess? Patience. Russians have been very good at this for decades. The art of planting tempting seeds and letting the West water them into real growing plants.
Very clever. Why build expensive weapons of the past, or worry about actually being behind the US on some technical front?

Sputnik floated around in orbit, a simple radio signal. The West imagined and feared space weapons. The first man in space, Yuri, was quite brave. He did not have a real fully functional pressure suit and his capsule had a single layer hull. Skip the technology, take a gamble, and first human in space was from Russia.

The Russian incursion into the Ukraine was full of denial and information manipulation, and now President Putin has had the last laugh and used social media, the Internet, the most modern part of the new American economy to sow fake news and to mess with American's trust in their own democratic institutions. No weapons required, just feed a Western audience social media and conspiracy theory news, add some embarrassing computer hacks (on one side of the political fence). Suddenly, down home, main street, Americans start to fight each other in an almost civil internet-war. Each side representing the extremes of liberals and conservatives and they start to fear each other. Everyone forgets about any problem from outside the USA.

Mr. Putin and Russia's version of 60 Minutes, are giggling now about how two-million more Americans can cast a vote for Clinton but Mr Trump becomes president.

Check out a very thoughtful article on this Russian influence from the Washington Post. Maybe, just maybe, liberals and conservatives share one thing in common. They just lost the latest game of internet Wizard's chess with Russia, and it happened right through their own iPhones and Android devices. Harry Potter or Harry Putin? :)

Planet Earth Planet Home...new playlist

Listen to Planet Earth Planet Home by kpmitton #np on #SoundCloud

https://soundcloud.com/kpmitton/sets/planet-earth-planet-home

November 20, 2016

Hour 1 Science Friday 11.11.2016: Volcanoes, Werner Herzog

Hour 1: News Roundup, Political Hangovers, Werner Herzog Science Friday 11.11.16

http://www.sciencefriday.com/podcast-download/35917/hr1-news-roundup-political-hangovers-werner-herzog.mp3

Filmmaker Werner Herzog talks about his new documentary “Into the Inferno,” about the devastating power of volcanoes. Plus, fighting your stress with ....stress...but the right kind of stress.

Subscribe the podcast
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510221

----
Sent from Public Radio & Podcast 2.14.3

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nprpodcastplayer.app

November 13, 2016

Ebola Virus Changes Fast, Trump Presidency & Science, and More.

Listen to Quirks and Clarks, from CBC Radio.....

What Will A Trump Presidency Mean For Science?

Plus,
Talking To Aliens,
A Blood Test For Concussions,
and more - 2016/11/12.

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/quirksaio_20161112_28166.mp3.

A Trump Presidency And Science, How Ebola Became More Contagious, Talking To Aliens, Chicken Bones R.... Sent from Public Radio & Podcast.

November 10, 2016

Cohen has died at 82

Leonard Cohen dies at 82

Say no more......

What science is this that attracts so many minds?

Ponder and listen to the man from Montreal.

Suzanne

https://youtu.be/tIssqxixYp0

September 19, 2016

August 20, 2016

Tiny Sports Info App and No Banner Ads!

Want a tiny #sports info App that does NOT have banner Ads? #Rio2016 & more. World Sports Navigator on Google Play! https://t.co/UrI4mb14IO https://twitter.com/olympicnav/status/766993069744988160 Share this post with more networks: http://ow.ly/5JFp100hCtw

July 31, 2016

Still My Free Ap for Sports News of all Kinds.

 

Free sports information App for Android based phones and tablets, including Kindle Fires, Samsung etc. 

I make and provide this App for free. It will link you to sports information of all kinds including for the Olympic games but also for Special Olympics and Paralympics and even local kids sports of many kinds. 

If your phone memory is pressed for space, I have also left this App simple enough to keep it low memory. Its a relatively small App file. 

I have made sure that my App has NO POP UP Ads and NO BANNER Ads.

If you would like to see a menu item added for a sports information website, you can always comment here or email me with your suggestion. 

This App has always been one of my little free social connection experiments. So please repost this information in your own blogs or facebook, tweet it. And if you do  so....

THANK YOU.

Check out World Sports Navigator on Google Play:

Remember, make Love, Sports, and not war.


Ken Mitton
A Professor and vision scientist at Oakland University.

July 28, 2016

Vision Science Student Research at the ERI

Read in OU News online.

Summer Undergraduate Research in labs funded by the National Eye Institute / National Institutes of Health, the Vision Research ROPARD Foundation, and OU's Center for Biomedical Research.

Read here: SUPER Program

July 25, 2016

Last Flight Solar Impulse NOW

Last solar charge on the Round-the-World for @solarimpulse before the expected landing at 22:00UTC.

That is 18:00 US Eastern Standard Time. (Detroit, Montreal, New York, Atlanta, Miami). 15:00 US Pacific Time. (Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, LA)

I have followed this team and aircraft for many months as one of the community sponsors of a solar cell on its port wing. Cell #3668.

#futureisclean:

You can monitor the final linking flight here..
https://t.co/KgYd1gsBFA

https://twitter.com/kpmitton/status/757423768474161153

Share this post with more networks: http://ow.ly/fMYv100fsVD

Its time to be good to the land, water and air if not for us, then for our Children's Children. It has to be done with our generation now.

Ken Mitton, PhD FARVO
Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences
Eye Research Institute
Oakland University
Rochester MI
USA

July 23, 2016

Around the World Flight by Solar Power

Our sponsored solarcell #3668 last leg "Solar Impulse Airplane - Bertrand Piccard's takeoff from Cairo" on YouTube https://t.co/ZhiISmO3DR

https://twitter.com/olympicnav/status/757032518302437376

July 12, 2016

Solar Impulse Aircraft on the Way to Egypt Now

#SolarImpulse is the16th Leg from Spain to Egypt. First flight morning over the sea.  Our little sponsored Solar
Cell is on its second last flight leg around the world.

See the Solar Impulse website:

http://ow.ly/4ENR100ekZz

July 6, 2016

Simple Tech.

No power needed lab recipes. Good buffers just need to be mixed correctly. Eye, courtesy Dr Mitton's Sister.

No power needed lab recipes. Good buffers just need to be mixed correctly. Eye, courtesy Dr Mitton's Sister.

https://t.co/gN6i7i2fAD

https://twitter.com/kpmitton/status/750736276308058112

Share this post with more networks:
http://ow.ly/OU9K100dBU1

July 3, 2016

Updated: World Sports Navigator July 3 2016

The free ap to follow all sports information is still free and still free of pop up ads.

Check out World Sports Navigator on Google Play!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.andromo.dev47852.app100136

May 28, 2016

Unequal Funding of Schools in Kansas Unconstitutional

Kansas Supreme Court Rejects Lawmakers' Bid To Fix Education with unequal funding.

Funding http://n.pr/20MifXd

April 24, 2016

Falling state aid, not rising university costs, is indeed the reason for higher tuitions.

I read yet another conservative think tank article this week (Michigan based) trying to make it look like Michigan's public universities are arbitrarily increasing student's tuition rates for no reason and that the tuition increases have nothing to do with less state support. Not only is the article wrong in what its title asserts, it has several flaws. This article is found in The Bridge, dated April 22, 2016 and titled:

Rising university costs, not falling state aid, is the real reason for lack of affordability


What I find amazing, is that the authors displayed a graph that cleary shows a DECREASING state appropriations cost and try to say that this has no effect on why Universities have had to increase tuition. The authors also point out that University revenue has increased modestly since 2006 when adjusted for inflation, like that is a bad thing. Of course revenue is up in 2006, we have more students in 2016 than ten years ago! For example, my employer (Oakland University) has almost doubled the number of students it had since I joined the Faculty in 2001. We have also increased the amount of external funds we have won from research funding and education grant competitions. I have brought a couple million $$ of external funding into OU just myself as a vision scientist. Many of my colleagues hired around the same time have done the same. We also have several new buildings on campus full of more students in Nursing, Health Sciences, Engineering and Computer Science. Most built since 2006. Of course University total revenue is up since 2006.

The fatal flaw in the Bridge article is that nothin is analyzed in terms of education cost per student. Another flaw is that the analysis only looks back to 2006 and leaves out preceding years where most of the State's divestment in the State's share of a student's education had already transpired.  

Read the Bridge article and then read this information below if you want to know how public universities set a student's tuition (student's share of education cost).

First - Not all state appropriations are available to apply to student education-costs. When my University gets 40-million to construct 50% of a new engineering or health science center, we do not get to spend that on a student's yearly operational education cost.

Second- You need to take the time line way back to see how the State's share has changed. Like back to 1980?

Third - Since 1980 the national accumulated inflation rate is just over 185%. The cost of educating a student at many public universities has increased just a bit over that rate, because some costs like computing technology and research compliance management are additional since 1980. However, the education cost in 1980 of about $4500 per student has increased with the accumulated US inflation rate of just over 185%. That would place student education costs to almost $14,000. (There are many calculator websites you can use to check inflation effects such as :  www.usinflationcalculator.com) My own $1,200 per year tuition in 1980 would now be $3,400 per year based on this rate of inflation. SO, why are my own kid's tuitions well over $10,000 per year now? (They both attend public university in Michigan.) Simple, because the percentage of their education-cost provided by the State has decreased dramatically since 1980.

Forth- Many State's have dramatically decreased their contribution to the percentage of a student's education cost. In 1980 my share of my education-cost (TUITION) was $1,200, which represented about 25% of my education-cost and many States provided the other 75%. This year, at many public universities, the State contribution to a student's education cost is less than 20%. At the university where I work, we are getting a only %16 of the student's education-cost in 2016.

Fifth- I am a university professor. Are professor salaries too high? No. Salaries are all public data and they show that the average full-time professor at Michigan's public universities makes between $60- to $80-thousand dollars per year, which is accounted for by the US inflation rate since 1980 salaries. I drive a Toyota to work every day, not a BMW. I clearly did not become a professor and medical researcher to get rich quick. Nor did most of my colleagues.

Sixth - Michigan is not alone in its divestment in our Kid's college education costs. Many States  have divested their percentage contribution to our student's education-costs since 1980. What is sad, in my opinion, is that these legislative decisions have been made by people around my age, who were also able to make their next year's tuition simply by working two months in the Summer preceding the next school year. We then had the joy of graduating debt-free from our first 4-year degrees, especially if we went to school near the Family home.


Is it smart for us as a State, as a community, to be divesting and not investing in our own Kid's education and training? I do not think so. Just my opinion, but I think many Michigan Parents and GrandParents have the same opinion.

March 20, 2016

When Politicians Hide Science: bad stuff happens

Flint’s legacy may include dramatic expansion of public records law.

Read about a bipartisan effort in the Michigan state gov't. Will it go anywhere?

https://t.co/dyVO9CwsSr

via @BridgeMichigan

Officials in the Michigan Governor's office sent emails to each other literally noting in the message that they were not copying to the MDEQ ( Michigan Department of Environmental Quality) because MDEQ email was subject to the Freedom of Information Act. (FOIA) But only two States of our Union currently exempt the Governor's office from FOIA requests. You guessed it, Michigan is one of them.

Ah. Science reality. Like gravity is gravity, lead in your Kid's drinking water is lead in your Kid's brain.

Time to stop being yellow and stop burying heads in the sand if you want the trust of the people? Keeping gravity a secret would not have stopped Newton from getting "beaned by the apple good" as REM sang.

Its time for transparency in Michigan.

February 28, 2016

The Who...Sound Science for a Scientist.

These fellows got me through high school. Guitars turned out to be my drug of choice, and I figured a tiny guy like me better keep and use his brain to get somewhere. So, very scientific choice for a future scientist. I mostly discovered the who in junior high, helping file records away in the CHCL 1450AM record library, where Mom and Dad were volunteer DJs. Cold Lake, Grand Centre, Alberta.

There was a wall bin unit in the 45 library with a stack of 100 singles for each year since the late 50s. Over a the next year, i listened to every one. One year at a time. In early 60s, i put My Generation on the library turntable, headphones on. Those big ones that enclose your ears.

Later The Kids Are Alright movie came out too, and I had my parents order the soundtrack. Radio stations could see lists of release dates and order vinyl weeks before a store in the big city (Edmonton) would get them.

Awesome. The science of sound.

Dr Mitton listening to #TheWho ... Behind Blue @eyeresearchers. ;) @OaklandU https://t.co/skgEXjsFIv https://twitter.com/kpmitton/status/703824562157260800

February 1, 2016

Depression and Stress in College Students is Common: Its not just you.

Read a bit about depression in college students in my other blog at Wordpress. Over 50% of college students experience depression or problems from stress in their first few years of college. If that is you, it was me too, and you are not alone.

Read more here at the blog on my website at KenMitton.com :