Via Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ab7yn/maybe_this_is_the_reason_people_are_scared_of_the/

Magazine.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html

This explains a lot about a 4yr olds behavior. If I give her 2 choices and she chooses one, she will be much happier than if I give her every possible choice.

How can I apply these limits to myself? Some are already applied for me, but I wonder how I can seek to apply them on purpose for my own well being.

Science is cool.

GoGreen18′s yahoo account was suspended after she was featured on PZ Meyer’s blog. Apparently a lot of haters out there monitor PZ. She is now back and ranting again.

I especially like her plea to all atheists out there that they should stand up and fight for their rights.

The three latest objects were all spotted first by the Mount Lemmon Survey, which searches for asteroids with a renovated 1.5-metre telescope in Arizona. Two asteroids were only a few metres in diameter, and the smallest was only about a meter, making spotting and tracking the objects in space an impressive achievement.

I would love to have seen the fireball from the one that entered the atmospere over Sudan. I bet it was awesome!

The good news is that bigger, more dangerous asteroids are brighter and easier to follow in the sky, so most of their orbits are known too well for them to surprise us by coming from out of the Sun. Next year, Canada will launch a small satellite that developers hope can spot asteroids inside the Earth’s orbit. US astronomers have proposed orbiting a satellite around Venus to hunt for such asteroids. But can we ever completely eliminate the danger of unknown objects?

So stop worrying about the LHC and worry about real threat from the skies!

It is devastatingly sad that he cannot answer this question immediately.

It should be stated, in conclusion, that these black holes are not dangerous and do not threaten to swallow up our already much-abused planet. The theoretical arguments and the obvious harmlessness of any black holes that, according to these models, would have to be formed from the interaction of cosmic rays with celestial bodies, mean that we can regard them with perfect equanimity.

Thanks science geeks. I feel so much better. I totally appreciate you allaying my fears about black holes by writing 2 whole sentences after you just went on and on and on for 10 pages about them. No wonder people are scared about the earth being swallowed by black holes.

And my least favorite is the Funny or Die video. While I am not such a loser that I cannot laugh at myself or science geekyness in general,  I kind of feel the same way as Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy does about other, satirical, end of the world type videos.  I posted about his article Uncritical Thinking Skills before but I think it deserves another mention.

I am not saying that it is not silly, I just think that it is not so funny to some people because they really are afraid of the LHC.    Bonus topics for discussion: What can be done to help these people? Do we have a responsibilty to educate them? Are they even interested?