Can a marathon be run under two hours?

The current world record for the marathon in 2 hours, 2 minutes and 57 seconds set by Kenyan Dennis Kimetto in the 2014 Berlin Marathon. This raises the question of whether a marathon can be run under two hours. Although the current record seems tantalizingly close to the two hour mark, it translates into a distance of six-tenths of a mile in a race and that seems so formidable that some suspect that that barrier will never be broken.
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Why can’t we do with climate change what we did with the ozone layer?

Readers may remember the scare over the hole in the ozone layer that appeared over Antarctica and had been growing at an alarming rate. That layer protected the Earth from dangerous levels of ultraviolet radiation and the danger posed by the hole resulted in concerted action to try and combat it. The 1987 Montreal Protocol targeted the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)that were believed to be the main cause of the rupture and the good news is that those efforts seem to be bearing fruit.
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Tesla autopilot car crash raises questions of responsibility

As self-driving cars become more a reality with multiple companies developing them, the issue of who would be responsible for accidents has become an issue. Sadly, that debate has come to the fore because of the crash of a Tesla car that was in self-driving mode with a tractor-trailer in which the ‘driver’ of the Tesla car was killed. This seems to be the first fatality involving such cars.
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Some good news about helium

Helium is a vital natural resource. Among other valuable uses, it plays an essential role in scientific research because in its liquid form it enables researchers to reach temperatures close to absolute zero on the Kelvin scale. What many people don’t realize is that helium is obtained from underground reserves and that these are finite and thus should be carefully conserved and not wasted on frivolities like balloons, making voices high pitched, and the like.
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Computer cameras as spying devices

My attention was drawn to this newspaper article about how more and more people are covering up the cameras that are in their computers out of concern that other people could, unbeknownst to them, actually turn them on and spy on them. This fact has been known for some time to computer security experts but was given greater publicity by Edward Snowden as part of his expose of how the NSA and other government agencies spy on people.
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Using math puzzles to illustrate the nature of science

(As I mentioned some time ago, I am working on my next book that is tentatively titled The Paradox of Science. From time to time, I will try out ideas from it on the blog, suitably modified to make the blog posts self contained. Readers get the benefit of a sneak preview and I hope to get feedback from readers as to clarity, correctness, style, etc. Note that the book is aimed at the interested layperson and not the many experts who read this blog so put yourself in their shoes when reading. This post is the first of such offerings. Enjoy!)

The website Fivethirtyeight has a weekly feature called The Riddler where puzzles of a mathematical sort are presented and the solution given the following week. Here is one such problem stated in its entirety:

Complete this series:

10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 23, 30, 33, …

I want to use this simple purely mathematical puzzle to illustrate an important insight about science. I will give the solution below the jump and then discuss the relation to science.
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Ethical issues with experimental drug treatments

The US has a pretty strong regimen for getting drugs approved, a system that has great credibility after it kept out the nausea and morning sickness combatting drug thalidomide that in the 1950s wreaked havoc on babies in other countries. The gold standard for new drugs to be allowed to be prescribed is, as I understand it, that they have to show that they do not pose significant risks and also undergo double-blind clinical trials on humans that demonstrate that they work better than a placebo. The process is long and expensive.
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Slowing down lightning

High-speed photography enables us to see the beauty of some of nature’s most spectacular effects, such as lightning strikes. Ningyu Liu at the Geospace Physics Laboratory at the Florida Institute of technology recorded lightning during a storm. He filmed it at 7000 frames per second and with the playback speed reduced to 700 frames per second, the result is quite beautiful.
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