I'm With the Scientists!

Interesting Pew Research Center poll published this week.  I am not sure if this is as much disagreement based on knowledge, or just another reflection of the fact that most adult Americans are unbelievably uninformed/dense/stupid about science and science matters. I turn off "entertainment news" entirely on any news site I visit regularly, but crank up the science settings.  For our competitive future in the "real" flat world, more Americans should do the same. Maybe we should be doing more of this: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/skip-fairy-tales-tell-daughter-science-bedtime-stories/

Here is a very readable PBS summary: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/study-reveals-wide-opinion-differences-scientists-general-public/

And here is the original Pew poll - seeing the areas of agreement juxtaposed with the areas of disagreement is quite jarring.  Americans see science and generally a 'good' thing and worthy of some investment, but the disagreement areas make me ask -- were they really paying attention at all, or glued to their favorite Hollywood or sports hero's Tweets?    

And Now For Something Completely Different

Sometimes I think Thomas Friedman gets to have all the fun!

A Look At the Unseen World

An excellent and enjoyable TED Talk. 

Throw Out Your Physics Texts

Well...maybe not quite yet, but as theoretical physicist Allan Adams explains in this 'improvised' TED Talk, you need to be ready to accept some pretty radical ideas if you are a true thinker!  Depending on where this discovery goes, it is not only very important (and mind-boggling), but it could obsolete more than a few textbooks....



(Sorry religions of the world...science has left most of you behind long ago.  The Pope better get to work on whether the Earth MIGHT just be older than 6000 years after all....).

Do You Think Facebook and Twitter are Examples of Innovation That Matters? Think Again!

Watch, learn what innovation and the human intellect can do.  (And do NOT stop before the end!).

Out There

If you have not run into his work previously, Chris Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut who fulfilled his childhood dream with two shuttle missions and has the talent and more importantly the personal insight to share with us what it is like.  If you are not among the 21 million plus viewers, here is his cover of David  Bowie's Space Oddity - it was filmed on a shuttle mission, then the music track added after he returned.



There is another video though that shows his real thoughts and values to us.  It is a TED Talk and he goes into a lot of what it is like to perform this unnatural act of space flight, enjoy the unusual splendor of it all  --- and then have a potentially catastrophic event happen "up there".

I dare you not to get chills during the launch sequence at 3:10, or to not think just a bit differently about things (like the universe) when he describes "looking down at the rest of everything" at 7:40.

The Beginning...No I Mean the REAL Beginning!

This is getting close to some pretty incredible stuff.  One of the basic problems/quests of astrophysics has been to discover evidence of the theorized "Big Bang" birth of the universe.  It looks like now they are a big step closer (sorry any Bible-thumping "the world is only 6000 years old and probably flat" types):




If you have seen "Close Encounters of The Third Kind"...yes, this is also evidence that Einstein was "one of them".

Wow...Just Wow!

If you are 22 years old, you can spend your life posting meaningless crap to Facebook (or mercifully short but equally meaningless crap to Twitter), or you can spend your time doing something like this.  Scroll down slowly...it goes from "that's kinda cool" at the top to "holy s__t" near the bottom. 

Needless to say he has attracted a bit of attention.

Thank Your Chef For Your Intelligence!

One of the things about being something of a "polymath wannabe" is that your mind is free to wander among all your interests and see what is new or strikes your fancy at the moment.  Sometimes you happen upon a truly engrossing and fascinating item about one of those areas.  This TED Talk by  Suzana Herculano-Houzel is one of those. 

Of all the sciences, I am probably less attracted to the 'green squishy sciences' like biology, zoology, etc. but there is one area in which I do maintain a fascination and that is the human brain.  It is in many ways still the most unexplored, unknown part of the human experience and it is easy to see how we might begin to feel it is 'special'.  There is no denying that humans have accomplished some astonishing things (like surviving) for a long time, going into space, questioning their own origins and those of the universe, etc. which I am pretty sure the average dog or lab rat does not. 

Suzana's talk addresses this, in a very informative (and scientific) way, and I found it fascinating, humbling, and thought-provoking all at the same time.  Happy thinking!!!



   

Technology That Matters

It seems like those of us who work in the technology sector only hear about the bad side of our labors.  NSA, identity theft, anonymous bullying, distracted driving, Facebook lies, Twitter bulimia, etc..  

Every once in awhile it is nice to realize that yes, technology has and does move our lives forward in a positive way.

Trash Talkin'

Another interesting TED Talk - this time on trash/garbage whatever you call it.  The talk is actually more about "What I Discovered About New York City Trash", but it is interesting and well presented.

Ms. Nagle saves the best for the end,  but I won't spoil the surprise.  Let's just say garbage doesn't necessarily come from where you might think or expect.....
 

Math is Fun Too!

My last post talked about the "War on Math and Physics" in the US according to a book I am reading.  These (and their close siblings) just happen to be some of my favorite subjects.  I am fascinated by physics, astrophysics and particle physics and try to keep up on the latest developments as well as I can considering I don't have a degree in any of them - just a rabid interest.  

Math on the other hand I use, mostly in indirect ways in my work with computer software, but a good understanding of mathematical principles and techniques is behind a lot of what I do and think about every day, and leads directly to the related fields of logic and reasoning (another of my favorite areas of endeavor).

Here is a TED Talk concentrating on just one aspect of math - the Fibonacci numbers.  This is a good reintroduction to the magic of math if you have been away for awhile, and it is just plain .. fun!

Somebody Whupped This Thing WIth a Big Ugly Stick!

Odd fish have been showing up in Puget Sound (west side of our state) lately...but this is one of the odder ones.

http://seattletimes.com/ABPub/zoom/html/2022158324.html

It is estimated to be 325 to 350 pounds. 

I have seen no science yet to indicate if the radiation released by Japan in the earthquake or global climate change is involved but something weird is going on.

The Myth of GMOs

We seem to be in a run of very-expensive initiatives in our state, and continuing what for me has been a forty+ year run of stupid initiatives that I always vote against.   I wrote earlier about the 'recreational marijuana' initiative and true to prediction it has turned into an unholy mess.  In the end of this travesty it looks like the slightly-more-legitimate medical marijuana industry is going to in all probability be destroyed completely.  The stringent and goofy rules regulating the 'recreational' marijuana industry (a hodge-podge of items to try and keep the Feds at bay and act like the state is in control) will probably have the effect of making sure that no one can make a living growing the stuff...so its easier to just go see the dealer you have been going to for years.

This year's version of stupid is a very expensive campaign for and against the labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs).  What is interesting about this expensive campaign is that neither side has addressed in any meaningful way whether or not it is even a good and necessary idea.  The ads are all about imagined costs and getting either poor farmers or surrogates of corporate farmers (much more in the majority) to bleat about horrendous costs, etc.

The simple fact is that there is no (that is no, as in none) science that says GMOs are bad. The closest anyone can  come is 'inconclusive' evidence.  A lot of the GMO work done to date is on crops to make them pest-resistant, particularly corn and cotton.  One estimate is that an 80% reduction in the use of insecticides (about 123 million pounds) is due to the introduction of these pest resistant modified crops.  On the other hand, some attempts to use GMO on plants has apparently resulted in the evolution of resistant weeds that are proving hard to get rid of. 

(Anyone else thinking of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park right now..."nature will find a way"?).

The point is, the science has not shown any harm to humans or even potential harm and in fact the first directly genetically-modified meats or fish have not even been produced yet except for one strain of salmon and it is in testing now. 

So...from a thinker's standpoint...this is all a big, expensive campaign that is much ado about no science!  Unfortunately I think it says a lot more about the incredible ignorance of the American public than anything else.

The Martians Are Shooting At Us!

Well...not really, but the thought did come to mind when I read this from NASA JPL.  It is a good example of how indirect evidence sometimes clears up unrelated mysteries in science. 

If you haven't been following the escapades of this mission, you are missing out on some very interesting science occurring in our lifetime...even if it is somewhat 'out of this world'.

Mother Nature and Iran

This is a very interesting column by Tom Friedman about the challenges Iran is facing (specifically environmental) that don't make the sound-byte TV news or the headlines. 

One of the many things I enjoy about Mr. Friedman's analyses is that he has a keen eye for the complexities of a truly global world (even if US politicians still largely think the world is flat and the US solely occupies the "top" side).  He frequently looks in the 'odd corner' or for other underlying factors that the blonde TV bimbos tend to either miss entirely or gloss over.

Happy Thinking!

Elizabeth Loftus - False Memories

An interesting TED Talk for you thinkers.  The human mind is believe it or not one of the great largely unknown areas of science.  This specifically deals with the issue of false identifications of criminal suspects...and why law enforcement in general frequently has a healthy distrust of eyewitness identifications, no matter how "sure" they are.

The Pursuit of Ignorance

"Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science."

- James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)

This is one of the best TED Talks I have send on the subject of science...what it actually is, and why we are teaching it all wrong (and perhaps why we have such an ignorant populace in the US in things scientific).  Scientific knowledge properly acquired should generate more questions...or else it is not science. 

Dogmatic institutions like politics and religions constantly "dead-end" themselves by declaring "truths" -- at least as they see them to their advantage at the moment.  True science follows the truth wherever it may lead, and is constantly pushing the frontier of inquiry forward while the dogmatic approach is constantly building or shoring up old stone walls around whatever they have chosen to be "truth".  

 

I particularly like his comment at the end about "bulimic education" --- this is one of the major flaws in our current education system that has to be rectified if we are ever going to join the "flat world" that we all live in. 
 

Hope for Research

The US (particularly Washington DC) seems to be intent on proving the maxim that we are a country "designed by geniuses so it can be run by idiots".  

Thomas Friedman says there is hope however, you just have to look for it....get away from the mindless drivel of Twitter and the banality of most of the Internet and really look for it.  There is a lot of 'hope research' going on in the world.  Not just the US, but the world.  The nature of how things work and even 'work' itself is changing -- the world really is flat, and my only hope is that we clear out the idiots in Washington and their 1930s mindset soon enough so that we can join in as partners, or we will for sure be left behind.  

Old McDonald's Farm is Getting Crowded!

I have been doing some research on this subject since I first heard about it a few months ago.  The simple statement of the problem is that there is not enough space on earth or resources left to support the number of farm animals required to support the earth's likely population in just a couple of decades.  It is partly driven by population growth, but also as societies around the world raise the standards of living and prosperity of their people, more people want to add meat to their diets.  (You don't think people eat rice-dominated diets by choice, do you???).

None other than Bill Gates has taken this up as one of his philanthropic causes, a natural fit since many of the Gates Foundation's efforts are in developing countries.  Here is an interesting interactive that explains his concern and offers the basic facts surrounding and defining the problem. 

Here is a TED Talk from someone who is advocating a high-tech, evolutionary approach to the problem.





I don't know what the final answer will be (but I hope to be around long enough to watch it evolve!).  I know I am not willing yet to give up my occasional 'treat' of a nice cut of prime rib or choice steak, but I have already moved away from the "red meats every night of the week" approach of my childhood and if enough of us do that maybe we can give the smart people working on the problem time to figure something out. 

I particularly like the tone of the comments at the end of Andras' talk -- maybe this is just the next step of mankind evolving and adapting to the environment and available resources.