Rocket Scientist are not as smart as previously thought

[scott1]

"It does require a superior intellect to function as a rocket scientist," the article concedes. "Having said that, though, rocket science is not brain surgery."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20060922/cm_uc_crabox/andy_borowitz20060922;_ylt=ArQ.JDJgidU35Lxh8JWzSqNxFb8C;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM-"

I guess Rocket science is easier then it looks

 

[Curious3141]

It's all in good humor.

 

[Gokul43201]

I made the NASA error yesterday when I was transfering helium into the crystat - did my calculation in inches and looked up the centimeter chart instead. It was about 5 minutes and about 10 liters of lost helium before I figured I had the wrong units!

 

[tribdog]

Was it 5 minutes twiddling your thumbs then going whoops I made a mistake. or was it 5 minutes of "What the hell is going on? Did any of you guys touch this? Damn, I hope I didn't break something."?

 

[scott1]

It's all in good humor.

Well of course it's humor do you think anyone is going to take this seriously:

a spokesperson for the American Society of Rocket Scientists, who blasted the study as "state-of-the-art pro-brain surgeon propaganda."

 

[Gokul43201]

Was it 5 minutes twiddling your thumbs then going whoops I made a mistake. or was it 5 minutes of "What the hell is going on? Did any of you guys touch this? Damn, I hope I didn't break something."?

It was like this:
"Hmm...why don't I have enough pressure in the dewar yet...maybe it's because the flow is a little low...let's give it a minute...hmmm...(twiddle twiddle)...I don't like the look of this...I'm going to turn up the flow a bit...hmmm...still nothing...this makes no sense...let's remeasure the position of the transfer stick...okay it's the right number but it looks a little high... something's wrong...wait...did I...was it...is that. . . supposed to be. . . CENTIMETERS!"

 

[tribdog]

I do everything in tenths and hundredths of a foot, and quite often read the inches side of the tapemeasure. and a tenth of a foot is close enough to an inch that the mistake is easy to overlook, but far enough away to be able to really cause problems if it isn't caught. I can usually blame any damage on the illegal alien laborers though, so it all works out.

 

[tribdog]

It was like this:
"Hmm...why don't I have enough pressure in the dewar yet...maybe it's because the flow is a little low...let's give it a minute...hmmm...(twiddle twiddle)...I don't like the look of this...I'm going to turn up the flow a bit...hmmm...still nothing...this makes no sense...let's remeasure the position of the transfer stick...okay it's the right number but it looks a little high... something's wrong...wait...did I...was it...is that. . . supposed to be. . . CENTIMETERS!"

then 1 minute of acting like nothing is wrong and hoping no one else saw the bonehead move?

 

[Curious3141]

Well of course it's humor do you think anyone is going to take this seriously:

Yes, but there was nothing in your post to show *you* knew it was tongue-in-cheek. For future reference, a smiley (like or ) would be helpful.

 

[scott1]

Yes, but there was nothing in your post to show *you* knew it was tongue-in-cheek. For future reference, a smiley (like or ) would be helpful.

I wanted to see if anyone would take this seorisly. I toke it seorisly when I first read it but then It was obvisouly a joke and saw it the humor section.

 

[Gokul43201]

then 1 minute of acting like nothing is wrong and hoping no one else saw the bonehead move?

Couldn't pull that off after all the high decibel cursing!

 

[Curious3141]

I wanted to see if anyone would take this seorisly. I toke it seorisly when I first read it but then It was obvisouly a joke and saw it the humor section.

Yeah, I got thrown a little too.

 

[tribdog]

Couldn't pull that off after all the high decibel cursing!

high decibel and high pitched? (helium)
I've learned onw or two things here over the years, but the one thing that sticks out more than anything else is about helium. I had always wondered how we were able to get helium to fill our balloons. Since it is a gas that floats away, out of reach. And a noble gas at that, so we couldn't be breaking up helium compounds. And fusion technology just wasn't panning out. So I asked about it here and I've never forgotten how neat the answer was and I feel smarter and happier knowing it. I hear the bullfrogs all the time, but had never known that they use helium to blow up their throats when they croak and that "milking" was the only way to harvest it.

 

[Moonbear]

Having done brain surgery, I usually joke "It's not like it's rocket science." But I think both are prone to the same errors...why can't they make a metric ruler that does NOT have inches on the other side? I can't count how many times I've carefully gotten everything lined up on x-rays, got the ruler perfectly squared up to measure distances to target sites, and then realized I was holding it the wrong way and about to measure in inches.

 

[Gokul43201]

I hear the bullfrogs all the time, but had never known that they use helium to blow up their throats when they croak

Didn't know that!

But I happen to know this little tidbit about sounds. Most animals can determine the direction of source of a sound only when the sounds waves are close to sinusoidal. With square waves, it's essentially impossible for the human ear to discern a bearing. The chirping (or whatever the sound is called) of crickets is almost a pure square wave (presumably evolved as a defense mechanism) which is what makes it seem like they're all around you when you hear them.

 

[tribdog]

Yeah, but who ever heard of milking a cricket? that's just crazy.

I do have a cricket story though and I'd be happy to share it with everyone.
It's true you can't track a cricket by sound, but I have seen a cricket chirp lead directly to it's untimely death and to a nearly broken finger for me. I was reclining on a La-Z-Boy chair once and slowly drifted off to sleep. The sound of a cricket chirping woke me up and I opened my eyes to see the cricket sitting on my chest with those long antennae creeping forward to sample my lips and chin. I panic'd and swept the bug off my chest with such force that it was knocked out against the wall and my follow through nearly broke my hand against a lamp.

 

[Moonbear]

The chirping (or whatever the sound is called) of crickets is almost a pure square wave (presumably evolved as a defense mechanism) which is what makes it seem like they're all around you when you hear them.

Have you ever considered that they really ARE all around you?! At least around here, I don't need echolocation to find them, I can see the buggers hopping everywhere!

Haven't had any problem finding the ones that get into the house either...the problem I have is that just as I start to get close, they stop chirping...until I walk away again and start to get comfortable. There's one in the garage that's driving me batty! (Wait, maybe I need a bat to solve the problem. ) I sit in my living room, and can hear the chirp coming up the stairwell to the ground floor, follow it all the way to the door to the garage, open the door, and suddenly...silence. Ember seems completely uninterested in chasing them out either. Useless kitten! One was sitting on the stairs heading for the top floor, where my bedroom is, and I tried to point it out to Ember, and the little brat decided to try attacking my finger while the cricket happily hopped away.

 

[tribdog]

don't try to point things out to a cat. next time just throw the cat at the cricket.

 

[Yonoz]

did my calculation in inches

They still use those?

 

[Yonoz]

The chirping (or whatever the sound is called) of crickets is almost a pure square wave (presumably evolved as a defense mechanism) which is what makes it seem like they're all around you when you hear them.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn10121-flying-sex-pest-silences-the-crickets.html"

What do you do when your only means of attracting members of the opposite sex also puts your life in jeopardy? For field crickets on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, shutting up seems to work.

According to a new study, rapid evolution in the Kauain population of the oceanic field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus has rendered nine-tenths of the males there incapable of producing their iconic night-time call. The genetic mutation, which changes the shape of the male’s wing to make it silent, means the crickets are better adapted to avoid a deadly parasite.

If only there was such a pest for human females... Imagine 9 tenths of them going mute...

 

[zoobyshoe]

I made the NASA error yesterday when I was transfering helium into the crystat - did my calculation in inches and looked up the centimeter chart instead. It was about 5 minutes and about 10 liters of lost helium before I figured I had the wrong units!

Confusing units is nothing compared to confusing rocket science with brain surgery. I once spent 17 hours installing a de Laval nozzle in the reticular formation of the medulla of a guy who'd come into have a parietal lobe cyst removed.

 

[tribdog]

Confusing units is nothing compared to confusing rocket science with brain surgery. I once spent 17 hours installing a de Laval nozzle in the reticular formation of the medulla of a guy who'd come into have a parietal lobe cyst removed.

haha you idiot. rookie mistake. you need to use a Single Expansion Ramp Nozzle in the reticular formation.

 

[zoobyshoe]

haha you idiot. rookie mistake. you need to use a Single Expansion Ramp Nozzle in the reticular formation.

Likewise I once spent 17 hours stupidly searching for the femoral artery of a space shuttle intending to inject sodium amytal to put the left hemisphere on the onboard computer to sleep.

Needless to say, I am no longer permitted to wear my "I'm a rocket scientist AND a brain surgeon!" t-shirt.

 

[tribdog]

as long as you got to keep your RSBS hat I wouldn't loose any sleep over it.

 

[Curious3141]

Likewise I once spent 17 hours stupidly searching for the femoral artery of a space shuttle intending to inject sodium amytal to put the left hemisphere on the onboard computer to sleep.

If there's even the slightest bit of homology to the mammalian equivalent, the Circle of Willis must be helluva messed up if you can get the left hemisphere to selectively shut off by messing around in the groin.

 

[tribdog]

you obviously haven't done a lot of messing around in the groin have you

 

[zoobyshoe]

If there's even the slightest bit of homology to the mammalian equivalent, the Circle of Willis must be helluva messed up if you can get the left hemisphere to selectively shut off by messing around in the groin.

The Wada Test

http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/surgery_wada.html

The neuroradiologist inserts a catheter (a long, narrow tube) into an artery, usually in the leg. The catheter is directed to the right or left internal carotid artery in the neck, which supplies the brain with blood. Once the catheter is in place, a dye is injected. Some patients report a warm sensation when this happens. The dye can be seen on a special x-ray machine. This machine takes pictures of the dye as it flows through the blood vessels of the brain. Once the angiogram is done, the catheter will stay in place for the Wada.

 

[Curious3141]

The Wada Test

http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/surgery_wada.html

Of course, you can thread a cath through the fem artery. I thought you were talking about injecting the drug straight into the fem artery.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Of course, you can thread a cath through the fem artery. I thought you were talking about injecting the drug straight into the fem artery.

That's something only a rocket scientist would try.

 

[scott1]

That's something only a rocket scientist would try.

Maybe they should see a brain surgent