ideonexus.com

Virginia Living Museum Mammals Outdoors

ideonexus — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 05:00:22 +0000

There were a lot of neat miscellanous exhibits at the VLM, including an indoor bee hive, fossilized dinosaur tracks, and this nifty display of a snake’s fangs opening and closing:

Fangs

I finally managed to get some photos of a river otter. These are the most playful animals of the all, always hamming it up for vistors. The only problem is that they are so spastic, it’s impossible to get a photograph of them. I usually come home with lots of blurs on my camera. I got three photos of this one, nothing spectacular, but it was nice to have something since this was my fourth attempt photographing this animal:

River Otter

Check out the complete flickr set here and here.

Science Etcetera, Saturnday 20090704

ideonexus — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:00:12 +0000

Advances in Eco-friendly fireworks are good news for pyrotechnicians, who are exposed to unnatural levels of toxic metals.

Fireworks in a Storm Cloud
Credit: Stuck in Customs

Britsh Petroleum became “Beyond Petroleum” in a greenwashing effort that was at least supported by some eco-friendly measures, now the company has shut down it’s alternative energy headquarters in London and is slashing its alternative energy budget by 64 percent. This sucks because I still have to buy from BP gas stations because they still suck slightly less than the other companies.

With American’s returning to the habit of saving money, should the media and policy makers stop referring to them as “consumers?” There’s a similar debate about calling people “Citizens” vice “Taxpayers.”

With 500 left in the wild, the Amur Tiger, the world’s largest cat, has been reduced to an effective population of 35, which is based on the specie’s genetic diversity.

Although the energy required to compress the air doesn’t seem ecologically sound, the car that runs on air, the MDI AIRPod is being priced and scheduled for release.

MID AIRpod

Data from the Japanese Kaguya spacecraft, which crashed into the Moon June 10, has found conclusive evidence of Uranium on our natural satellite.

350 miles above the Earth, Bigelow Aerospace has a prototype space hotel, which the company hopes to offer tourists month-long stays in orbit for $15 million.

Malcom Gladwell does a convincing job of arguing why the future of things on the Internet isn’t “free” (as in beer), using psychological and examples from current business models.

The Thermatron Flame Controlled Synthesizer

Science Etcetera, Venusday 20090703

ideonexus — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:00:49 +0000

Metallography is a type of scientific microimaging that involves mirror-polishing metal surfaces and then etching them with various reagents to reveal their microstructures” and it looks pretty darn cool too.

Metallografischer Anschliff einer Glockenbronze
Credit: Eisenbeisser

Mark Miodownik’s Materials Library is a collection of over 900 fantastic materials, including aerogel, the world’s lightest solid, and aluminium nitride, an amazingly effective conductor.

Among the Supreme Court’s lesser-publicized final rulings this year was one allowing a mining company to dump more than 4.5 million tones of slurry in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest’s Lower Slate Lake. Why do we bother having a Clean Water Act?

Vegans have 5 percent less bone density on average compared with non-vegans; however, this does not translate into more bone fractures, as vegans tend to be more health conscious.

A couple of names I didn’t recognize in New Scientist’s user-voted most inspirational women of science, but all are worth entries.

Hypatia of Alexandria
(Mathematician (370-415), murdered by a Christian Mob)

More reasons to stay away from plastics 3 and 7, as studies on animals find bisphenol A causes irreversible damage to fertility regulatory genes, as well as fetal developmental problems.

For healthy sperm, men should ejaculate daily (No problem.), according to a study that observed the sperm quality of men with higher than average DNA damaged sperm and had some of them practice onanism.

Scotland’s Soay sheep are 5 percent smaller than 24 years ago as climate change has made grass more abundant, meaning the sheep don’t have to put on as much weight to survive the winter.

Rocketboom: The Computer History Museum

Science Etcetera, Jupiterday 20090702

ideonexus — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:00:56 +0000

Vicky is hosting the 37th Edition of the Festival of Trees blog carnival, which has a slew of fantastic stories about survivor trees, magnificent trees that have recovered from cyclones, tornadoes, fires, having tunnels carved through them big enough to drive a car through, and the atomic bomb.

Chandelier Drive through Tree
Leggett California
Credit: The Wata

At the Dalai Lama’s prompting, Tibetan monks and nuns are getting educated in modern science through the Emory Tibet Science Initiative, resulting in many cultural shifts for the traditional Tibetan scholars. The Dalai Lama has said that when Buddhism and science conflict, Buddhists should go with science.

Chinese researchers observing the country’s “Grain-to-Green” program, which pays farmers to convert their fields to forests, found that social norms played an important part in people’s participation in the program. People are more likely to be environmentally-friendly, if the neighbors are environmentally-friendly too.

Getting old isn’t as bad as younger generations think it is, a survey comparing perceptions with the reality of getting old finds 79 percent of seniors having sex, 86 percent still driving, and 75 percent still with a sharp mind.

Photogallery to “Ohhh…” and “Ahhh…” at: Best Astrophotography of the Last 35 Years

A Ring of Light Around the Sun
Credit: Miloslav Druckmuller

Boo-Ya!!! The EPA has finally returned state’s rights to regulate carbon emissions, allowing California, 13 other states, and DC to adopt stricter regulations of vehicle emissions after the Bush administration blocked such regulations in 2008, which had been in court battles for eight years prior to that.

Cells at the end of a severed salamander’s limb dont’ have to revert to as immature a state as was previously thought, providing more insights into how to implement stem cell therapies without causing cancer.

With just two-hours a day of practice, in two-weeks you could be echolocating just like dolphins and bats! Plus, with your eyes closed, you won’t have to see all the weird looks people give you for clicking and squeaking your way around town!

Effects of High Blood Pressure on your Body

Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s “Unscientific America”

ideonexus — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:00:05 +0000

Unscientific America

Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future is a worthwhile survey of the cultural, academic, entertainment, and political aspects of science in America, and how they all contribute to the steady decline of science primacy in our country. Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s writing benefits from their immersion in the Science Blogging culture, where they are on the frontlines of the debate about how to best communicate science and bring it into the public eye (Note: Because I’m already tired of writing the names “Mooney and Kirshenbaum,” I will heretofore refer to them as “the authors” or “Moonenbaum.”). Moonenbaum does well in expanding the scope of their book to include, not just the division between the scientifically literate and illiterate, but the divide between experts in specialized fields of science, and the differences of opinion between scientists concerning what is acceptable science coverage in the media.

For instance, the author’s mention Larry Moran of The Sandwalk blog, who I have mocked in the past with a great deal of emotional immaturity and who argues that it is fine for science journalism to die because he thinks it error-ridden and worthless. At the 2007 Science Blogging Conference I saw him take some representatives of the Science News Hour to task for not knowing the journal sources backing up the stories they were covering. Dr. Moran is pedantic and elitist, which is fine for a professor, who must guard the gates of his academic profession to make sure only those who will contribute to its integrity get in. There is a place for his writing, which takes the media to task for calling a fossil a “missing link” when the term is silly, for running a sensationalist article title that misrepresents the science content, and that science media outlets and even journals all pretty much FAIL.

Of course, if we got rid of all these aspects of popular science journalism, there would be no need for science sections in newspapers, documentary channels on cable tv, or ideonexuses (ideonexi?) on the Internet. This site thrives on “Gee Whiz” 30-seconds-or-less science news. I get enough hardcore science at work, and I want foo-foo science when I get home. Carl Sagan, Moonenbaum aptly notes, was the greatest foo-foo science popularizer of them all (I think their term was “Science Ambassador” or “Proponent”), and he was skewered by the scientific community for bringing science to the everyday person:

…Sagan was punished by the scientific community for his public endeavors… Harvard University denied him tenure. Nobel laureate Harold Urey, a chemist who had previously served as one of Sagan’s mentors, helped quash his chances with a nasty letter objecting to Sagan’s budding media and outreach efforts.

This is so tragic considering Sagan delivered that unique sense of wonder to the masses that comes from understanding the world a little better. Even if some of the details are out of context, we’re still benefiting from it. So I’m with Sagan and Moonenbaum in that I don’t want science news to die. I want people tuning into science programs all day long, science radio while they work, I want them talking science at the coffee shops like they did during the Enlightenment. I don’t care if they’re getting the details wrong or are talking about some discovery out of context or over-emphasizing the significance of a finding that really isn’t a big deal. I want people rejoicing in science daily, appreciating it the way they appreciate reality television shows or summer blockbusters.

So when Moonenbaum takes on science in Hollywood films, I was surprised to find myself falling on the side of being a little more lenient in my appraisals. For instance, the authors take the film The Core to task for its admittedly ridiculous premise, but ignore the fact that all of the film’s heroes were scientists, and that the film’s climax involved a physics solution scientists should appreciate. John Rogers, one of the six screenwriters on the film, explained his intent:

When I came on, I set out to make one of the 50’s/60’s “science hero” movies that inspired me to go into physics (it was those movies and Lucifer’s Hammer actually, that led me to my field). I probably should have told Paramount that’s what I was up to, but it’s more likely for the best they had no idea what I was up tp. The Core is an explicit rejection of the “scientists bad, blue collar/soldier boys good” ethos that seems to have taken over current cinematic science fiction… If one kid sees physicists saving the day with wave-interference formulas fer chrissake, as in our big finale, and thinks it’s cool, we did okay. [sic]

No matter what you think of The Core as a film, it did kick off an epic debate between David Brin and John Rogers about communicating science in film and the originality of ideas in Hollywood. Just like even though it misrepresented black holes, blood boiling in a vacuum, and the destructive force of supernovas, the new Star Trek was still a movie that made scientists the heroes. I got a near-sexual chill down my spine from the scene where Kirk tells Captain Pike, “I read your thesis.” Anything that provokes discussion about science is a good thing in my book.

I challenge any scientist to write an even halfway decent Science Fiction story with rock-solid science. I don’t care if the author spends an dissertation-length exposition on astrobiology explaining the metabolism of silicon-based extraterrestrials, I guarantee you a physics scientist is going to write a blog post making fun of the alien’s mode of space travel. This is exactly the reason why author Jo Walton quickly abandoned her attempts to write science fiction, because building a plausible SF world involves too much research and too much explaining details within details. Screw it, was her conclusion, it’s easier to write fantasy. That’s a writer scared off to the dark side by scientists the same way my gaggle of Dungeons and Dragons geeks will scared away the girls.

The point is that science fiction movies, even bad science fiction movies, provide teachable moments, a way to ride a little bit of science education onto a blockbuster movie’s coat tails. Moonenbaum points out how Phil Plait regularly does this on his Bad Astronomy blog (referenced in the above ST link), and he does it well, acknowledging that no science fiction story is going to get it all right and that storytelling trumps realism… until doing so violates the audience’s suspension of disbelief. Then they should be properly flamed, like 10,000 BC or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Science Debate 2008

The topic of flaming brings me to Moonenbaum’s research on science in politics, where they have much to be proud of through their involvement with Science Debate 2008, a movement that continues to be active (and a movement of which the Larry Moran’s of the world disapprove). They note how politicians are actually afraid to debate science because they don’t want to appear ignorant on the subject. Surveying the blogosphere’s opinions of politicians, how could they win? Even if they answered 90 percent of questions thoughtfully, they’d get burned for the one fact they got wrong.

But consider the alternative:

Representative Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), one of three physicists in Congress, describes having to rush to the floor to prevent fellow members from killing science programs they haven’t understood–assuming, for instance, that “game theory” research involves sports.

Scientists would rather abandon the control of public policy to this kind of ignorance rather than engage in public debate? If scientists represent the truth, what do they have to lose? As we can see in the author’s example, we have everything to lose by not debating.

Overall, Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s book is a fantastic survey of the many dimensions to consider when tackling the issue of waning interest in science for Americans. My concern for Unscientific America is that the book has a narrow audience. Non-scientists will pass it by, while scientists appear apathetic. I greatly appreciated the book despite much of it being old-news to me, and hope to see more books tackling the issue of bringing science back to the forefront of American imaginations once again.

Additional Thought

The authors bring up the debate over Pluto’s planetary status as an example of Science stirring up strong emotions in the public, and this was an incredible event. It continues to be so. Unfortunately, Moonenbaum’s treatment of the subject wasn’t in depth enough for my satisfaction. It seemed like there were some great insights to be obtained from the story that Unscientific America didn’t delve into.

Science Etcetera, Mercuryday 20090701

ideonexus — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:00:04 +0000

Happy anniversary Evolution!

The harlequin ladybird (”ladybug” here in the colonies) is an invasive species from China introduced to Europe for pest control and is now a threat to over 1,000 species in the UK, including other ladybugs; however, parasites, like wasps, are adapting to prey on them. Yum. Yum.

Harlequin Ladybird on Vapourer Moth eggs
Credit: nutmeg66

Vendors of medical marijuana in Oakland California support higher taxes on their business, which already contributes a million dollars a year in taxes to the state. It’s estimated the taxes on legalized marijuana use would top $1.5 billion for the state.

A study by Trojan Condom maker finds 50 percent of Americans using vibrators, including men, lending credence to the argument that a vibrator is not a replacement for male genitals, but more of a “team mate.”

What would be the evolutionary explanation for women hammering with more accuracy under well-lighted conditions than men, with men hammering with more accuracy in darker conditions? Why did someone thing to perform this experiment?

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry and NASA have released the most complete terrain map of the Earth ever, covering 99 percent of the Earth’s surface, tracking elevation points every 30 meters (which makes me wonder if buildings screw up the results), and it’s available for download.

ASTER Global Digital Elevation Map
Credti: METI/NASA

BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos is the name of a team that has come up with an algorithm to improve Netflix’s DVD recommendations by 10.05 percent using anonymized data from half a million users of the service, which, if no one bests that improvement in one month, will earn the team a $1 million prize.

Contrary to critics’ assertions, the Climate bill is not a “jobs Killer” but a jobs shifter, moving American’s to work with more advanced technologies that could spawn an Energy Revolution.

The numerous Planetary Boundaries that we measure to gauge the Earth’s ability to support us include carbon dioxide levels, ocean acidity, fish populations, ozone levels, and others are all key factors for social stability and quality of life. If any one of them goes too far, civilization destabilizes, and they are all trending toward unsustainability.

Vanishing Head Illusion (Best viewed in fullscreen (HT Kristina)).

Science Etcetera, Marsday 20090630

ideonexus — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:00:12 +0000

Happy Meteor Day, the 101st anniversary of the Tunguska Event. Don’t celebrate by watching Armageddon.

A nice, quick introduction to emergent patterns, which are found in flocking animals, zebra skins, termite colonies, and elsewhere in nature.

Red Cabbage Pattern
Credit: joellybaby

Survey finds that bloggers have an unwritten code of ethics that stresses attribution, fair-use, and doing no harm… obviously didn’t include ideonexus.

Science to the rescue! Australian researchers have developed a vaccine for the Swine Flu two weeks after receiving a sample of the virus, and are manufacturing it with a new technique that will produce even an even greater immune response than traditional methods. The vaccine must go through clinical trials before it can save the world.

Does language affect thought? Consider how English phrases things in tense, but Indonesian doesn’t, while Russian phrases things by gender, while Turkish requires including where you got the information–I bet our politicians would love this last one.

Sylvilagus palustris hefneri is a rabbit named after Hugh Hefner, and, with less than 300 left, USC experts are racing to save them from extinction.

Marsh Rabbit (Not Sylvilagus palustris hefneri)
Credit: Tomfriedel

The Climate Bill heading to the American Senate is an important first step, but it is a bundle of harsh compromises, which will be made even weaker after passing through the Senate.

A final salute to the Ulysses Solar Probe, which has been broadcasting data about our Sun since 1990, far longer than anyone imagined it would operate, will be turned off July 1 marking 19 years and 5.8 billion miles of operation.

A study of the brains of seniors finds those who exercise have younger brains with fewer twists in their blood vessels.

First 3 1/2 minutes of Food Inc.

EPA Suppresses Report Disproving Global Warming

ideonexus — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:00:49 +0000

This is outrageous. I can’t believe that, with the house passing the Climate Change Bill on Friday, which will seek to curb CO₂ emissions, it has just come out that the EPA crushed a dissenting report on the supposed dangers of “Global Warming.” The report, titled Proposed NCEE Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act (PDF), contains a full 98 double-spaced, 12-point-font pages minus 13 blank pages of scathing evidence disproving Global Warming. As we can clearly see from this selection of internal e-mails exchanged on the matter, the EPA suppressed this report, which could have extended debate on the Climate Change Bill, and by extension, inaction on Climate Change, just a little bit longer.

From the e-mails we can see the EPA had concerns about the report’s references, which one of the author’s, Alan Carlin, attempted to mitigate:

The authorship is clearly indicated on the last page. Actually, much of the non-observable material (ie. statements that do not involve interpretation of existing data) is actually in peer-reviewed literature somewhere and I have tried to reference everything.

If the fascist overlords at the EPA had only bothered to actually look at the report, they would have found references to the illustrious Friends of Science (FoS), who, thanks to massive funding from our paternal benefactors in the oil industry, is able to provide completely unbiased reporting on how wrong wrong wrong scientists are about Global Warming, especially about any attempt to get people to stop consuming so much oil. Compare this to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who must serve everyone in the world, making them far more biased in their findings. FoS only has to answer to one organization, IPCC has to answer to everyone; if we count the oil industry as one person, as American Corporate law does, then the IPCC is 6.9 Billion times as biased as the FoS.

Additionally, the report references the blog What’s Up With That?, which argues that this is all because of fluctuations in the Sun, and also counts as a peer-reviewed journal, since it is a journaling medium and the commenters are peers because they have the same lack of credentials as the blog’s author. Even more additionally, the author’s reference Theodore Landscheidt, who’s research has attributed the recent warming trend to solar cycles, and whose breakthrough work in the field of Astrology determined that the rise of Hitler and Stalin were also the result of a “fractal pattern in the Sun’s dynamics.” How many astrologers does the IPCC reference? Zero. Zilch. Nada. None. That’s because they are fascists just like Hitler, who, unlike Hitler, don’t consult astrologers, palm and tea leaf readers in making their predictions. Buncha Jerks.

But let’s just deal with facts by themselves, which is the best evidence for why Global Warming is a sham. As we can see in the below graphic, which the report references with an APA citation that reads: “Source?”¹ and is referenced in numerous articles all over the Interwebs (See here, here, and here.), we can see a clear cooling trend over the last decade:

Global Cooling Graph

While many websites refer to this data as “a decade,”² this report exhibits a sophisticated level of scientific scrupulosity by referring to the dataset as “the 2000s,” which, as everyone knows, does not include the year 2000 itself, because we start counting at the number 1, not 0, and does not include the year 2001 just because. Meanwhile, the enviro-psychos try to swamp ordinary Americans with their cherry-picked data, just like how they cherry-picked the data to include the last 150 years of temperature measurements to show a warming trend. You can clearly see just how the enviro-fanatics are trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes by overloading them with data in the below graph:

Warming Trend Based on Cherry-Picked Data

I’ve highlighted the selection of data showing the 2002 to 2008 measurements, which clearly shows a cooling trend. 2000 and 2001 are highlighted blue. Academics and bookworm losers who want us to include those two years are trying to manipulate the data to show a warming trend because they’re so dishonest and stuff:

Global Warming Detail

But you know what? Our data comes from the article Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley in Volume 37, No.3 publication of Physics & Society, July 2008, a peer-reviewed journal. Got that? All you science-focused, enviro-fascists can suck it. Although Alan Carlin wasn’t able to find the peer-reviewed journal sources, I was, and the journal even mentions just how peer-reviewed this article is in bright red text just above its title³:

This article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.

Isn’t that just like the oppressive elitist Academic regime to write something so hurtful? Academia likes to pick on people who are different. That kid who used to beat you up on the playground and kick sand in your face at the beach? He grew up to be a climate scientist. Are we going to let these eggheads dictate American public policy? Or are we going to stand up to them, do what’s right, and base public policy on emotive appeals, logical fallacies, and a complete lack of empirical evidence?

¹ See page 53 of the PDF.

² Some of you may wonder why a decade of global cooling evidence only includes 6.5 years of data. That’s just because some of you don’t understand basic math and the concept of rounding. People who use this graph are applying the technique of rounding to the number of years of data so that it simplifies to the nearest ~~whole number~~ power of ten, and thus, 6.5 years becomes 10 years so that the average American, who doesn’t understand the immense complexity of ~~decimal places~~ one’s places

³ In all fairness, the final version of the publication had much less damning language; although, it said essentially the same thing.

Note: For a legitimate and more mature debunking of this absolute joke of a report, please see RealClimate’s article Bubkes.

Science Etcetera, Moonday 20090629

ideonexus — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:00:14 +0000

The Union of Concerned Scientists has put up an interactive book: Thoreau’s Legacy: American Stories about Global Warming, which does not include my submission, but includes some pretty good content nonetheless… I guess.

Thoreau’s Legacy: American Stories about Global Warming
Credit: UCSUSA

Good news everybody! The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) introduced last week will force several federal agencies to publish their research results online in a timely manner. No mention of it in the article, but hopefully this will benefit data.gov.

Bad news everybody! President Obama has issued a signing statement on the $106 Billion war bill saying it will disregard legislation to compel the White House to put pressure on the World Bank to strengthen labor and environmental standards.

The evolution of mammals speeds up in the tropics, where it was previously thought that only plants and cold-blooded species evolved at a faster rate, now it appears that all evolution increases with temperature. Someone tell Steve Milloy so he can add this to his list of good things that will result from Global Warming (HT Mom).

The reason we know so little about the Mayan history and culture despite it being one of the most influential Empires in the America’s in ancient history is because a single Catholic priest, Diego de Landa, waged a decades-long campaign to wipe out all traces of the Mayan language and culture. Whatta jerk. (HT Clint).

Tulum - Mayan Pyramid
Credit: joiseyshowaa

Apollo 12 astronauts took soft porn to the moon, as NASA pranksters slipped photos of pinup girls into their checklists with captions like, “Seen any interesting hills and valleys?” (HT Clint)

Looking at a 1941 Biology Exam shows how our understanding of evolution has evolved, with questions about evolution that do not include questions about DNA and use the word “primitive” to describe older fossils, a term that has fallen out of favor since it implies evolution is a process of continuous improvement.

While there is much scientific evidence lacking to support the claim, it is interesting that Pope Benedict announced that carbon dating lends evidence to the hypothesis that a sarcophagus contains the remains of the Apostle Paul, because this puts the Catholic Church at odds with evangelists who say carbon dating is a crock.

Coin shrinking with high voltage in slow motion (Details about this here)

Virginia’s Mountains and World of Darkness

ideonexus — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 05:00:22 +0000

Eastern Newt

The Virginia Living Museum, like zoos and other natural history museums, recreates many different ecological niches indoors, where visitors can get up close and admire the biology in detail. There’s a sense of wonder in admiring the uniqueness of life without it being able to run away and hide.

Hermit Crab

As nice as it is taking in these details, there’s still nothing like encountering life outside, in its natural environment. There’s a little jump in your heart when you catch a glimpse of something scurrying away or diving below the surface. Seeing life in a museum or zoo is fascinating, seeing it in the natural world is exciting.

Check out the complete flickr set here and here.

Science Etcetera, Saturnday 20090627

ideonexus — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:00:15 +0000

A virtual hospital in Second Life is being used for testing the medium as a means of giving learning disabled patients the information needed to provide informed consent, by walking them through the treatments they will receive virtually.

National Health Service (UK) in Second Life
Credit: rosefirerising

British senior citizens have less disease than American senior citizens, but American seniors are smarter, and, interestingly enough, the gap would be greater if British seniors didn’t drink so much (moderate alcohol consumption is linked to less cognitive decline according to this article).

If East Asian Elephants go extinct, so will the frogs that take refuge in their dung during the dry season in Sri Lanka.

Falling grains of sand form “droplets” held together by an ultra-low surface tension.

11-billion-year-old space blobs appear to be galaxies in formation.

Space Blob, Galaxy in Formation
Credit: NASA

Engineers have rebuilt Hitler’s Horton 2-29 aircraft, which was developed too late in the war to go into production, and it looks like the modern B-2 Stealth Bomber, a design that apparently did give it some stealth capabilities. Would it have made a difference if Hitler had gotten it earlier in the war?

Research seems to find that people who have a strong sense of moral worth in one area of their lives have a tendency to slip into immorality in another aspect of life, which would explain politicians who are very upright and moral in general, but have affairs or hire prostitutes.

An extensive article covering the hypothesis that specialization in the two brain hemispheres emerged in vertebrates 500 million years ago, with the left hemisphere specializing in top-down control, self-motivated behaviors, and the right hemisphere a bottom-up force, emotional reactions to external stimuli.

Rare Isotope Rap:

Questions About “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”

ideonexus — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:00:13 +0000

The profundity of the film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has left my mind swirling with deep, philosophical, scientific, and political questions. Maybe someone could help me with them:

What was the sociological explanation for incredibly-advanced extraterrestrials adopting stereotypical “gansta” lingo as their primary means of social discourse, as we saw with the twin robots Skids and Mudflap? Was their emotional immaturity, juvenile taunting, violent behavior, big ears, lips, and gold teeth the result of adopting the “gansta” persona, or are robots with these personality and physical characteristics drawn to humanity’s “thug” lifestyle? One measure of this might be to find out if these twin robots, who dwarf the human race with their awesome technological superiority, were illiterate before or after they started using vulgarities and threatening to “Bust a cap in that ass.”

Skids and Mudflap, Gangsta Robots

Rush Limbaugh has been very fond of bringing science fiction writer Michael Crighton on his show in the past to debunk Global Warming. The author’s chief credential is writing a book about the Sierra Club funding ecoterrorists to build a weather-changing machine to destroy the world. Will Limbaugh have director Michael Bay on his show soon to debunk Obama’s foreign policy, which, in the film, included attempting to appease the evil Decepticons through diplomacy? Will Obama’s “Soft on Decepticons” fictional stance provide fuel for Faux News commentators and his Republican detractors in 2012?

What kind of treaty does the United States have with the Chinese government allowing our soldier to battle evil robots on their territory? Or do the Chinese let American soldiers blow up blocks and blocks worth of their city-streets because they are overwhelmed by our sheer awesomeness? The fact that there were no Chinese officials overseeing combat operations would support the latter hypothesis. Is there any friction resulting from the fact that all transformers turn into American-made cars that could translate into trade restrictions? Or are the Chinese relying on the collapse of the American auto-industry to take care of the Earth’s transformer infestation?

I have many many other questions about the film, like the fact that transformers appear to reproduce asexually, but will hump someone’s leg as a sign of affection. Is that a “When in Rome” sort of thing? As the film was a three-hour long Army commercial, will the American armed forces start giving away transformers toys to further incentivize new recruits? What cultural attributes would a Toyota Prius take on if it was a transformer? Or does the Prius have too much dignity for that?

Science Etcetera, Venusday 20090626

ideonexus — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Seagulls in Argentina have begun attacking Whales, by landing on their backs and pecking away the skin and blubber, presenting a new threat to the species (slide show).

A Gull Attacks a Whale
Credit: Mariano Sironi, Instituto de Conservacion de Ballenas

Eritherium azzouzorum is a rabbit-sized mammal that lived 60-million years ago, and has proto-tusks, two teeth that jut a fraction of an inch from its jaw, making it an ancestor of the modern elephant.

Observing the plume from a space shuttle launch has found the noctilucent clouds it creates match those seen after the 1908 Tunguska explosion, which leveled a large section of Siberian forest, indicating the event was caused by a comet exploding in the atmosphere, leaving science with a physics question about how the water vapor traveled as far as Britain to light up the night skies within days of the explosion.

Bone flutes made of vulture bones and mammoth tusks were the first musical instruments, going back 35k-40k years (with audio).

Odysseus is the concept-stage answer to Darpa’s challenge to come up with a plane that can fly for decades without stopping, a solar-powered wing that can change shape to maximize the sunlight hitting it throughout the day.

Odysseus Solar-Powered Plane Concept

Wired has an interview with America’s CIO Vivek Kundra on his efforts to put all Government data online transparently and easily searchable.

A collection of activists have come up with a Declaration of Health Data Rights, where citizens should be allowed easy access to their health records in an effort to encourage participatory health care.

10 facts about “Cash for Clunkers”, the federal program providing cash to citizens who trade in their 18MPG or less vehicle for one with better MPG, includes the fact that the improved MPG was lowered to make sure American-made cars would be purchasable through the program.

Japan’s Satellite Crashes Into the Moon:

The Many Science Factions

ideonexus — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:00:12 +0000

For better or worse, it is the nature of intellectuals to be independent in thought and action. Since the Enlightenment, when coffee-fueled intellectual discussions kicked off an age of accelerating advances in science and technology, academics and geeks have slowly fragmented from being united under the big tent of rationality into tribes that are less effective as political and cultural influences. While America is seeing the influence of science and rationality wane in general, those who subscribe to scientific thought grow more fractionalized.

It all started with The Enlightenment¹, that period of time around about 1600 to 1900, when reason overcame religion as the dominant authority in public life. America’s founders were scholars of the Enlightenment, as is anyone who believes in science and rationality. Many of America’s founders were also Deists, believing in god(s), but that the supernatural thing(s) did not interfere with human life and that our purpose can be determined purely through the study of the natural world.

This principle of relying strictly on the observable, measurable, and reproducible aspects of the world to define reality comes out most strongly in the philosophy of empiricism, with all scientists being empiricists, asserting that our only source of knowledge in life is experience. This is different from naturalism, which does not appear to rule out other ways of knowing, but also emphasizes understanding through observations of the natural world. At the empirical extreme is scientism², which maintains that the absolute best means of understanding reality is through science.

This shared emphasis on observable reality as the best means to find truth is what gives way to principle of political Secularism, which prohibits factoring supernatural speculations into the reasoning behind public policies. In theological dimensions, scientifically minded people express these values in atheism, the belief that there is no supernatural force behind the natural world or influencing human life, and agnosticism, which takes no stance on religious possibilities at all. More recently has emerged the concept of ionian enchantment, which focuses on the sense of wonder that comes from understanding the unification of the sciences, and spiritual naturalism, which is similar to agnosticism, but takes the position that we should actively rejoice in the natural world.

In the realm of ethics, the loss of religion is seen in traditional thought as leaving us bereft of a reason for moral living. In response, Humanism, the philosophy of being good to one another for its own sake, emerged. Secular Humanism was a response to Humanism, because of the many branches that were emerging specific to different religions, such as Christian or Jewish Humanism. The American Humanist Association represents the secular branch of this philosophy.

There are the many other variations on these themes. Ockhamism, based on Ockham’s Razor, Pastafarianism, from the cult of the Flying Spaghetti Monster–a satire on other religious faiths, and Skepticism, which focuses on disproving religious systems of belief and modern-day pseudo-science. This does not take into account the many divisions between realms of scientific inquiry, like biology, chemistry, physics, and others at the top, each with their own highly-specialized sub-domains, like microbiology, organic chemistry, and quantum physics, with terminology so specialized that even the branches of the sciences are having difficulty communicating with each other.

Then there are the myriad organizations attempting to represent these innumerable communities. Originally the Federation of American Scientists was prominent, with the very important primary goal of monitoring the world’s nuclear capabilities. The Union of Concerned Scientists takes a more generalist approach, including many environmental and scientific integrity lobbying efforts. While my new favorite Science Debate 2008 has become a powerful active political force, with the basic goal of bring science into public political discourse.

Despite the differences between all of the above listed organizations, philosophical and ontological schools of thought, and attitudes with which they approach reality, we all subscribe to a testable and rational understanding of the Cosmos. We believe in education, human improvability, and that arguments derived from our shared, observable reality should shape public policy. Because of the complex nature of reality, there will always be quibbles and differing understandings of what opinions we develop from it. These quibbles build walls between the sciences and but also make their members stronger in their specializations and more effective within their domains.

¹ Actually, it all started with Greek philosophy, but all that died out in the Dark Ages.

² Not to be confused with the pejorative Scientific imperialism.