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Posts Tagged ‘science’
The Man Who Answers When ET Phones Earth
Sunday, March 7th, 2010
The Guardian has an interesting article on Paul Davies, chair of the SETI Post Detection Task Group. The guy who decides what to if/when aliens contact our humble planet.
Jon Ronson writes:
Seti scientists also [fill their time] by putting protocols in place for what to do on the day a bleep is definitively heard. It is extremely likely they will be the ones to hear it: they’re the ones with the dishes. Should the protocols be followed, they’ll know not to call the media or some government figure. They’ll call the chair of the Post-Detection Task Group. Which is Paul.
The article makes a few other fascinating points such as why Davies would never reveal the location of a signal from another civilization– because then anyone from the US Military to 4Chan could respond with their own independent message from humanity.
Tags: aliens, science, seti, ufo
Posted in Tin Foil Hats | No Comments »
Walter J. Freeman: The Lobotomist
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
I hope you are not hungover. Here’s a fantastic, shocking, and disturbing documentary on Walter J. Freeman–who performed the first lobotomy. Here’s a brief clip and you can watch the entire documentary via PBS. Its quite fascinating but definitely not for a weak stomach.
Tags: Documentary, Lobotomy, Medicine, Neurology, science
Posted in Saturday Morning Video Club | No Comments »
Wonderworks Presents: Konrad
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Spacey Earth mother type receives someone else’s mail. Surprisingly, mail is not a half kilo of uncut yayo but a barrel containing a dessicated lab-grown boy and a packet of nutrient gel. Mom’s bad with instructions, the Factory gets steamed that this mistaken delivery is quirking out their prized specimen, Ned Beatty is somehow involved. Hilarity ensues.
This would be another bit of children’s programming most commonly remembered through the haze of a fever dream, the sort of thing that was always playing on PBS at 2 PM on the day you stayed home sick from school. It bears the Wonderworks stamp, placing it in the company of other book to TV adaptations as the original Chronicles of Narnia and the Hoboken Chicken Emergency. I’m pretty sure this is the first movie I ever snobbishly asserted was better as a book than as a movie. Still, where else are you going to get a good show about unexpectedly finding a kid in a barrel that doesn’t involve a serial killer?
If nothing else, the lead is a kid with the stage name of Huckleberry Fox–with a post-acting IMDB bio to rival that of super genius Mayim Bialik. (Is that the first Blossom reference on here? Won’t be the last.)
After some furious googling, I came up short on a video clip. Damnation. Well, if you’re prepared to drop $20 on a VHS, Amazon has you covered. And if you’ve got your own copy, be a good internet citizen and get a bit of it on YouTube will ya?
And just so you don’t feel stiffed, after the cut is some Hoboken Chicken Emergency.
(more…)
Tags: children's programming, Konrad, pbs, science, video, wonderworks
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Manners are the Weapon
Monday, October 5th, 2009
Last week’s pop science debut of the remains of the early hominid species Ardipithecus ramidus was notable for a variety of reason’s, not the least of which was the secrecy and slow, careful approach of the scientists involved, so different from the half-baked, chuck out speculation for the slavering masses approach of so much of what crops up in my internet drain trap. I particularly liked Carl Zimmer’s summary of the findings, with this paragraph catching my eye:
White and his colleagues found so many teeth of different Ardipithecus individuals that they could compare male and female canines with some confidence. The male teeth turn out to be surprisingly blunted. This result suggests that hominids shifted away from a typical ape social structure early in our ancestry. If this was a result of males forming long-term bonds with females and helping raise young, this shift was able to occur while hominids were still living a very ape-like life. Ardipithecus existed about 2 million years before the oldest evidence of stone tools, suggesting that technology was not the trigger for the evolution of nice hominid guys.
Paleoanthropologists and their ilk can only work with what they dig up and so quite often charting prehistory can be a little too reliant on tracing the minutia of stones tools and other artifacts, reducing our evolution to a technological arms race that sorted out the killer apes with the best kill sticks and honey diggers.
But what fascinates me are the inferences into social structure and group relations which I regard as a type of technology in its own right, even more more important to discerning why humans have been so prosperous in a world they are seemingly physically unprepared to thrive in. A fire can keep you warm but so can rules governing the cooperation of individuals and acceptable norms of contact and exchange.
Social structure should to be regarded as a technology with profound effects on evolutionary adaptation. The way we relate to each other in a group is a construct and one that is passed on intact from generation to generation even as outside pressures prompt innovation in its design. Much as the technique of flint-napping was passed down an refined–yielding meat and defense, fueling population growth and fostering group stability–prodding and bending the ties that bind any two or more humans into a coherent structure that underpins a culture determines the fate of each unit of humanity, both in competition against the elements and against other groups of humans.
In short, some societies work and some don’t. Those poorly configured prototypes of how a band of humans should treat each other reap destruction and stumble off into the cliche of cliches, the dustbin of history. Jared Diamond has a better rap about that than me.
The lesson to take from this is neither conservative nor progressive. Yes, this indicates that our social structure is a vital thing that has brought us very far, protecting us from much uncertainty. So don’t break it, right?
But still, where would we be without innovations to it? In the forest with our highly specialized rituals and mores about picking fleas off each others’ backs. Instead, we’re riding the exponential upstroke of unprecedented connectivity, allowing cultures to meet, mix, exchange and clash like never before. I’m not telling you anything new here. You saw the commercial for this back when they still called it the Information Superhighway.
And so, reading about the ancient teeth of a long-extinct evolutionary cousin has me in awe of what millions of years of figuring out who eats what and when and who sleeps with who has wrought.
It strikes me that this process has never been entirely peaceful or without uncertainty and often our manners and social rules have been born of far more bloodshed than the usually just annoying culture wars we Americans seem to fixate on over who eats what and who sleeps with whom. While the random spots where these conflicts burst into violence and hateful breaches of civility make me recoil in disgust, so far the body count has nothing on, say, the Protestant Reformation or European contact with the inhabitants of the Americas.
What I’m getting at is that while relations between genders, ages, cultures, classes and competing perceptions of reality are artificial constructs, they’re also the code of a society’s operating system. That code is rapidly forking and millions out there are debugging it everyday. Some of these will be dead-ends. (How many versions of Linux are we up to these days?) But certain codes of tolerance, order and patience at the center of modernity have so far kept this exchange thriving. This is the promise of our connected future and something to take pride in as a citizen of the world right now. Be bold, but know what’s worth keeping.
Tags: ardipithecus, history, hominids, Jared Diamond, manners, paleoanthropology, prehistory, science, social networking, society, technology
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
12 Lies Every Douche in a Bar Insists Are True
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
There are many, many lies we all believe. Every douche at a bar will swear these 12 fictoids are true despite science– As everyone know these things to be ‘true’. Here are twelve of the most common that I have heard recently.
Ostriches put their head in sand.
If you have seen it, it’s called “Photoshop” as in the case of a recent Newsweek cover. We can all blame Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) who attempted to catalog all knowledge of the Roman Empire. In Book 10, Chapter 1, he wrote “…they imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of their body is concealed.” Thanks, Pliny. In fairness animals are hard to categorize; for some time it was thought a kangaroo had two heads due to the young baby in tow.
Disney is frozen
Disney maintained an extremely private life leading to rumors that he was a harsh anti-Semite, a puppet of Zionists, a Communist and a Fascist. One confirmed fact is his remains were cremated at Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale, California– much more prosaic than cryogenic suspension. Very few have taken the leap to become a cryonaut, most notably baseball legend Ted Williams, Williams’ son John Henry Williams, and futurist FM-2030.
Sugar causes hyperactivity
Sugar is called empty calories for a clear reason: its just calories without vitamins, proteins, or lipids. Our bodies need calories for energy, but we can find them in every food we consume. Sugar is no different than any food with calories and does not provide any excess energy. Excess amounts of oranges, pork, or even burgers provides the same if not more for bouts of energy.
Every seven years your cells regenerate
Do you remember any event from seven or more years ago? Good, as that means a neuron in your head has survived seven years. Brain cells– among other cells– last longer than seven years. It’s nice to think that every seven year your body gets a refresh but unfortunately that’s not the case. We just get seven years older.
You only use 10% of your brain
The origin of this myth is dubious but perhaps stems from upstate New Yorker Orson Squire Fowler a proponent of the pseudoscience phrenology, life-style pundit, and inventor of the octagon house. Phrenology claimed the brain was divided into neat platonic sections controlling “friendship,” “love,” and “ailments.” It’s a soothing idea to think that 90% of your brain remains untapped of potential. Perhaps one we could utilize that, and realize our dream as a 6 year old of being the greatest person, ever. CAT scans and logic tells us we use that 90% all the time– and you don’t want to part with that 90%.
We lose 90% of heat through our head
So what does that 90% of your brain do? According to suburban mom wisdom it is where 90% of the heat in your body escapes. The ancient Greeks among others thought of the brain as simply a cooling mechanism for the body. For 90% of the heat in your body to escape from your body, 90% would need to be in your head. If you want to do an experiment, walk around with a hat but completely naked in the dead of winter. Chances are you will be arrested and pretty damn cold.
Drink 8 glasses of water a day; coffee causes you to lose hydration
Though not recommended, you can get daily requirements for liquid from daily food intake. Many will insist though that water is a cure-all, able to solve any and all problems. They will also insist that beverages such as coffee, soda, or tea are a diuretic meaning a net-loss of water. Though coffee and soda are not as efficient as water, they do not cause a loss of water. While drinking eight glasses might not be necessary, it is not a requirement.
Lemmings jump off a cliff
Uncle Walt may not wait in cryogenic suspension. His company did force numerous lemmings to die and create the myth of lemming suicide. Lemmings do on occasion fall into the ocean from cliffs, as do people on occasion. However, it is not a habit and not the norm. While filming the nature documentary White Wilderness the set staff pushed the poor critters off a cliff dramatically. Killing the lemmings but a myth was born. [Edit: Let's go to tape on this one: lemmings getting White and Wild]
Tequila worms
Tequila does not have a worm in it. Mezcal, however, does. Tequila, by definition, is made exclusively from blue agave. According to liquor standards in the US and Mexico tequila cannot contain insects or larvae.
More importantly though eating the worm will not provide any additional inebriate, aphrodisiac, or any effects. It’s just a gimmick.
Cow tipping
Cows do not sleep standing up. Period. Nor do they lock their legs. Period. Approaching a field for cow-tipping has simply become a faux right-of-passage for hick high school students in the US. While cows are docile, tipping them is physically impossible.
Purple cloud in a pool when you pee
Many even recall seeing a cloud of purple or red around someone in a public pool indicating that person was urinating. There is no such chemical. Though this discouraged youths from peeing in the pool, this chemical cannot be purchased and does not exist. How often urination in pools happens would require constant draining and refilling of every public pool which is beyond budgets or feasibility. Discouraged from swimming yet?
Water spins in a different direction in the southern hemisphere
The Coriolis effect does have a weak force on objects on Earth. That force is too weak to effect water or any other liquid. Water spins both clockwise and counterclockwise on both sides of the equator. Movement in water from origin will dictate its direction regardless of hemisphere. Try it in your sink by pushing water one way or another. This will not even require a trip across the hemisphere to Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, etc.
Tags: empty promises, lies, science, weird, wtf
Posted in Neat, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
DIY Fix for Global Warming?
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
Russ George: The Man to Save the World?
“Give me half a tanker of iron and I will give you an ice age.” — Russ George
Russ George in the volume 18 issue of Make magazine says he has a solution for global warming. His plan sounds like a deus ex machina solution for our global warming problems: get some iron (0.5 micron hematite), drop it in the ocean, spread at the right times and places, plankton eats iron, plankton grows, and global warming and dying fish go bye-bye. He has also written a Google Knol article (yes, someone uses Google Knol) on the subject as well.
His company, Plantoks Science bills themselves as a “privately held ecorestoration and ocean biotechnology company” though this sounds like “MacGyver style fix to global warming.”
Science to the rescue or psuedo-science fraud?
(more…)
Tags: environment, iron, michael chrichton, plankton, psuedoscience, russ george, science
Posted in Rewire, Tin Foil Hats | 1 Comment »
Apollo Landing Module, Footprints, & Experiment Gear Spotted
Monday, July 20th, 2009
One of the often touted “the Moon landing was a hoax” statements is “how come the Hubble telescope can’t get a picture of the equipment?” When in reality that makes as much sense as using a microscope to take a photo of a friend. Hubble is designed to look deep into space, not on the moon or some chick’s apartment. Different lenses, different uses.
Well, in honor of the 40th anniversary of when man was on the moon NASA released an image from LROC showing not only the hardware left behind from Apollo but experimental gear and even the footprints of astronauts.
So there.
Tags: apollo, astronaut, moon, science, space
Posted in Junk File, Tin Foil Hats | 1 Comment »
Jules the Robot Says Farwell
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
Jules is a robot designed to invoke human-like responses. The robot is not a fully fledged AI and is programmed to state certain responses such as the infamous “will I dream” speech from 2010: The Year We Make Contact. None the less the simulation is interesting:
Jules is designed with a material called Frubber™ which allows human-like expression. Jules borders on the Uncanny Valley a term created by robotocist Masahiro Mori. The uncanny valley refers to how when something looks about “95% human” its often more disturbing that something that looks “30% human.” For example a cartoon figure as a robot seems unthreatening and not disturbing. Yet a human-like robot that is close to human in appearance but has just the slightest irregularities such as not blinking, lack of facial expression, etc. seems more disturbing. That last “5%” is the hardest to replicate.
Tags: ai, robotics, science, video
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
New Sub Species of Monkey: Mura Saddleback Tamarin
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
The small gray and brown tamarin monkey which weighs 213 grams (0.47 pound) guy was named Mura’s saddleback tamarin in honor of the Mura tribe.
Not an alien life form in a sewer, but much cuter.
Read more on the tamarin:
- New long-tailed monkey discovered in Amazon, MSNBC
- New monkey discovered in Brazilian Amazon, Reuters
- Newly Discovered Monkey Threatened by Amazon Development, National Geographic
Tags: cryptozoology, News, science
Posted in News, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tin Foil Hats are Sexy: New Lifeform in Sewer?
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Supposedly this is video from a snakecam in a North Carolina sewer that shows a new (or undiscovered) lifeform.
The video shows what appear to be blobs pulsating and moving. Though many questions remain. Holy crap. At least that’s what I hope it isn’t.
I may not have received my Cryptozoology merit badge in Boy Scouts but I am skeptical. Who took this video? Why was the camera in the sewer? Where is this in North Carolina?
Extraordinary calims require extraordinary evidence. But I do have one more question: what the hell is it?
Update:
Actually its a “bag of worms” or bryozoans according to the News & Observer newspaper. These animals live in colonies so what we see in the video is actually many of them finding food and going on with daily business. They develop an external shell known as a cystid to protect them which we see in the video. Perhaps they have found a new ecological niche in the Raliegh, North Carolina sewer— instead of us finding a new species. Wikipedia has more on these bryozan creatures also known as ‘moss animal’ which do look like they come from outerspace.
Tags: cryptozoology, science, video, weird
Posted in Tin Foil Hats | 2 Comments »