@spivonious: I imagine it will become the norm someday; plus 3D printable OLEDs ... can you imagine the kinds of interfaces? Imagine if they are touch sensitive as well. A smartphone screen that stretches out to twice the size, but somehow maintains aspect ratio without distorting the video. That would be very challenging to create. The device would have to know how much each "thread" of the OLED screen was stretched, and account for curvature if necessary.
In contemplating things further, I realize that the title of the thread is misleading, and that I let it go because I figured that exaggeration was necessary to try to get people to treat the research seriously. However, it seems that it has the opposite effect. The truth is better than exaggerating the claims that the researchers are making. The data and experiment should speak for themselves, and they don't close the book on anything, but hopefully stir up more research into neglected areas.
@Dr.Herbie: I think knowing more will actually help us figure out how to mitigate cosmic rays some day and it's not something we should just accept as being unsolvable.
@AndyC: Not everyone has the same opinion on what constitutes evidence, and apparently what belief means.
@Dr Herbie & @cbae: I agree with you both on a certain level; that this is not conclusive proof one way or another, but I'm trying to emphasize the point of the research: To determine how clouds are formed, and whether the sun has an influence on it, and whether cosmic rays have an influence on it. The conclusion is that cosmic rays do indeed create the seeds needed for cloud formation. Kirkby says it doesn't prove that this has an effect on climate. Ok, it doesn't prove that cloud formation has anything to do with climate, that's true. It also doesn't prove that other factors are or are not involved.
However, who really believes that cloud formation isn't a factor in climate, and likely the biggest factor, aside from the direct effect of sunlight in terms of temperature? Saying that cosmic rays create seeds for cloud formation at such a high rate, but yet saying it doesn't prove that there's any effect on the climate is pushing the boundaries of reason.
As for the director's reported warning to the scientists, it's all political - "sensitive topic" and "politically correct" are basically the same thing. No, I don't have the actual wording Herbie, so I can drop that as an argument.
Actual physical experiments using the most advanced model we have to simulate cloud formation in controlled conditions has proven that cosmic rays create the nuclear seeds required to form water and ice droplets at significantly high rates. Pure physics and chemistry. We now know for a fact that cosmic rays actually create clouds in a lab. The idea that they don't do it in nature is denying the fundamental principle that physics is the same everywhere. The fact that the magnetic field of the sun protects us from cosmic rays is not disputed - AFAIK. The fact that the magnetic field varys with solar activity, such as sunspots and CMEs is not disputed - AFAIK. Data shows that variance in the magnetic field of the sun aligns with the formation of clouds, increasing when the magnetic field is weaker, and decreasing when it decreases. The data mapping is in question, however, and requires more research and testable predictions.
Now can we actually have more research, to answer the remaining questions? That would be great, and to be able to do it without being called an idiot, liberal, conservative, denier, or scammer woulld be even better.
How about this as a headline?
"Idiot Post Links and Thinks That Proved Something"
If this is what the thread has to devolve into, then count me out. The first to start with the personal insults loses, as far as I'm concerned.
I really don't think you guys read the articles or have tried to make any real effort. If you really cared at all and weren't just fixated on maintaining your own beliefs then you'd realize how important it is to actually figure out how the climate works by experiment. Show me the experimental results that back up your side.
Read between the lines. Did you read the articles? Did you read how the director of CERN warned the authors to not say anything too politically incorrect? Did you see how Nature has buried part of the results in the supplementary material?
@W3bbo: What does this have to do with liberals or conservatives? To me, nothing. I don't care what the party lines have decided. I'm more interested in the details that are reported in the articles linked to in the OP. The censorship was blocking the funding and research of Svensmark et al, and taking more than a decade to follow up on a valid hypothesis and research.
"We are still some ways off from having high-performance, really robust, intrinsically stretchable devices," says Bao, but "with this work and those from others, we are getting closer and closer to realizing this kind of sophisticated and multifunctional electronic skin."
@androidi: What are you talking about? A refrigerator?
@Dr Herbie: I've read through a lot of the links ... what they have proven is that cosmic rays ionize particles, creating seeds for water or ice formation (which contradicts your statement, "cosmic rays may have an effect"; this experiment proves they do, unless they are lying). This is what the AGW crowd has been denying and censoring for more than a decade. The critical point is that cosmic rays create the seeds particles required to create clouds, and at rates far beyond what vapours in the lower atmosphere can produce.
It also reveals previously unknown chemistry, including up to 1000x increased seed formation in the presence of ammonia in minute quantities (1 part in 30 billion). This is an actual scientific experiment with actual results that can and should be duplicated.