ideonexus

Category: Ionian Enchantment

  • Edge Question: What are You Optimistic About?

    Every year Edge sends out a question to all the world’s greatest minds. This year, the question was “What are You Optimistic About?, somehow, my invitation to answer the question got lost in the mail, and Edge forgot to post the response I so helpfully e-mailed them, so I guess I’ll just post it here…

  • The Aquatic Ape Theory

    Leah, a gorilla, uses a stick to test the depth of water while wading through it Photo by Thomas Breuer/WCS/PLoS Biology Like Humans, dolphins, whales, and porpoises are mammals. They are warm-blooded, breath through lungs, and give birth to live offspring; however, they also have fins like fish and live in the sea. The skeletons…

  • The Top 10 Human Genes

    As the purposes for various genes are identified on a weekly basis in the news, this list will be obsolete in a few months, but I wanted to post this. There aren’t enough plain-English reviews of human genes out there. I apologize if I bullox up something. My criteria was based on the importance of…

  • One of a Kind

    If you are reading this, then you are a member of the human race. You are a member of Kingdom Animalia, meaning you are multicellular, but, unlike plants, your cells do not have a cell wall. You are a member of Phylum Chordata, meaning you have a central nervous system, and Subphylum Vertebrata, meaning you…

  • Let the Phytoremediation Begin!

    The Environmental Compliance Division at the Coast Guard base where I work is tasked with cleaning up decades worth of environmental problem areas on base and instituting sustainable operating procedures in the way the Coast Guard serves America. According to ARSC’s newsletter, we “recycled (kept out of landfills) 1330 pounds of toner cartridges in 2007”…

  • R.L. A.I.

    Charles Rosen’s Shakey was an early AI that could move withot bumping into things Science Fiction is rife with intelligent machines. C-3PO in “Star Wars,” the HAL 9000 in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” KITT from “Knight Rider,” Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” the Terminator, Sonny from “I, Robot,” the agents from “The Matrix,”…

  • Otherness

    Alien… Weird… Foreign… Alterity… Strange… Xeno… Other. Scientists and philosophers have had a field day with the issues raised by communicating with aliens. Consider the Problems of Interplanetary and Interstellar Trade. When we finally do meet the aliens, at least we can rest assured that they’ll speak geek. Nothing compares to the otherness found in…

  • The Mathematics of Cooperation

    Bees Forsake Their Own Reproduction for the Benefit of the Hive Photo by Todd Huffman Humans are funny animals. We cooperate at a level of sophistication seen nowhere else on planet Earth. Teachers, food servicers, law enforcement, medical workers, farmers, entertainers, engineers, truck drivers, and a bazillion other specialized laborers make our survival in its…

  • Human Memory Prosthesis

    Cave Paintings became writing, photography, and film, sundials became clocks, the abacus became the calculator, and all of these other tools supplementing human cognition gave way to the computer. We are as smart as our technological brain-extensions allow us to reach beyond our grasp. Mathematician Von Neumann estimated the total memory storage for a human…

  • An Endangered Cephalopod

    Can you spot the rare and magnificent endangered species in the photo below? Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus Photo by TGAW The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is not officially on the endangered species list; however, this extremely rare and biologically unique cephalopod inhabits a very small area in the coniferous Olympic rainforests west of Seattle, an…

  • “Theoretically” is a Meaningless Word to Scientists

    It’s time we stopped using the word “theoretically,” the word is an oxymoron unto itself, at least in the way we use it: “Is it theoretically possible for science to someday create a real lightsaber? (source)” “Antimatter galaxies theoretically possible, but unlikely (source)” “Critics say the White House’s theoretical arguments may fly in the face…

  • The Scientific Virtue of Being Wrong

    Every year Green Sea Turtles travel 1,300 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from their nesting grounds in the middle of the South Atlantic to their feeding grounds on the Brazilian Coast. Why do the turtles undertake this incredibly taxing journey each year? 135 million years ago, South America and Africa were a single super-continent called…