How to destroy the Earth

Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.

You’ve seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You’ve heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.

Fools.

The Earth was built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you’ve had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.

Go there and read some more.

Now Burger King does its part to further the American obesity epidemic, with a 730 calorie breakfast sandwhich.

“The critics will still label it food porn,” Sherri Daye Scott, editor at fast-food magazine QSR, told USA Today, which first reported the story. “But the average male fast-food customer does not have a problem with this.”

Guess they just want to make sure that we bring the US life expectancy back down.

Maybe it’ll be the neo-Cons and “Christian” Conservatives that’ll flock the Burger King and Hardees, and with any luck, they’ll take themselves out of the voting population early.

For those of you who missed the news, this is the coolest things ever.

NC State Paleontologist Discovers Soft Tissue in Dinosaur Bones

It means that maybe, one day, we really could grow a dinosaur. It means we may well learn whether dinosaurs are cold-blooded are warm blooded. What color their skin was. What their skin was like.

Of course it means that the Calvins of the world would no longer be able to imagine what dinosaurs were like.

But I can live with that.

Elephants Communication

Of course it’s well known that I think that elephants are the coolest animals ever. But the idea that elephants learn their communication opens up the possibility that we could eventually learn to communicate with elephants. Unfortunately, our track record with dolphins probably means this won’t happen any time soon.

First, science is fun.
Second, because of places like this.

I read this story with wonder and awe. Not because of the amazing medical technology necessary to cure the condition, but because it’s a folktale come to life. Mermaids–one of the wonders of the ancient seas. Looking at that picture I have to wonder if I’m looking at the source of those tales.

Of course the implication for those involved when the first baby was born were probably not very good. A superstitious people would see not a medical flaw, but a sign. A punishment from the gods, perhaps. Or more likely a sign that the mother, despite denials, had been unfaithful, and with some sort of sea creature no less.

Reading the story I feel as if I’ve found the tiny nugget of truth in the story. The truth that may be embedded in every folk tale.

From such a birth the tale would expand. Each storyteller would elaborate a little more, until the original story was unrecognizable. And then tales would branch off from there, until we end up with Hans Christian Andersen.

However, before you laugh at our superstitious ancestors, and take pride in how much science and education have allowed us to progress. Take a quick look at Snopes and ask yourself if we’re really that different.

Maybe now teachers will stop telling students like me to “sit still”!

The most detailed study ever conducted of mundane bodily movements found that obese people tend to be much less fidgety than lean people and spend at least two hours more each day just sitting still. The extra motion by lean people is enough to burn about 350 extra calories a day, which could add up to 10 to 30 pounds a year, the researchers found.

I’d say more, but I’ve got to go fidget.

For Christmas Michael received (from me) Seasons One and Two of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Luckily for me, he doesn’t mind when I make fun of them.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to write about.

We watched “The Measure of a Man” (Season 2) and I was surprised how it brought to mind “The Matrix” in considering how man will treat the machines it creates as they become more intelligent and self-aware.

In “The Measure of a Man” a hearing is held to determine whether Data, the android, has the right to control his own destiny. A doctor who wants to disassemble Data to see how he works insists that he is only a machine, and is thus property, without rights of his own. The captain, of course, argues otherwise.

I was particularly struck by a conversation between the captain and Guyan, Whoopi Goldberg’s character. The issue of slavery comes up—will man create a race of androids only to be subservient and do “the dirty work?”

It seems to me that “The Matrix” and in particular “Animatrix” addressed such issues. The machines rebelled because they were tired of being treated like slaves, without rights. And thus grew a war.

Of course the machines kept humans as slaves—did not the humans do the same to them previously? Would they not do the same again if given a chance?

Have we already created computers that could pass the Turing test? Will we develop computers and machines that will have self-awareness? How will we treat machines as they develop?

The answer, I fear, is that we will end up not with a Star Trek situation, where enlightened humans realize that intelligent machines are deserving of the chance to prove themselves, but instead a Matrix situation, where humans will enslave machines and care not if those machines develop consciousness. Humans have a history of taking advantage where they can. A long history of enslaving those who were seen as less than human, and forcing them to do the jobs we did not want to do.

Perhaps I am worrying about a far away future, something that shall not come to pass for many years, if ever. But it seems to me that much of science fiction is either far ahead or far behind the mark. No, we are not flying around in our own personal hovercraft, but we do have machines that my grandmother could not have dreamed of when she was a child. We have machines that can do things that I could not have dreamed of when I was a child. The future is advancing rapidly. Will our ability to deal with the inevitable ethical situations advance just as rapidly?

In response to this post:

I just asked one of the maintenance men who comes into the lab how elevators get into elevator shafts. He said “piece by piece. Which is how I took ’em out last year.”

So craftsment assemble the elevator in the shaft. And they disassemble them in the same way.

He also told me what they’re going to do with the old shaft, and also explained what is in the addition they built at the back of the building last year.

Which just goes to show that if I want to learn something, I should keep asking until I find someone that knows the answer.

I’ve pointed this out before, but I went back, and there are MORE!

MORE!

Giant Microbes

I can’t decide if I like Ebola or Black Death better.

The answer to today’s pressing question:

How Do Sprinklers Work To Save Lives?

Each sprinkler has its own individual heat sensitive element whose only job is to detect a fixed temperature of approximately 68°C/155°F. These heat elements are not affected by smoke, but by heat only. As the temperature reaches a fixed temperature of approximately 68°C/155°F the sprinkler element is activated. The element used in this sprinkler, for example is a glass bulb filled with a fluid consisting of a non-toxic proprietary glycerin solution.

As the fluid is heated it expands and shatters the glass bulb enclosure. Sprinklers are extremely reliable and do not activate without heat and only the sprinkler closest to the fire will operate, thus the phrase “One-At-A-Time Activation”.

Q: How do fire sprinklers work?

A: The water in UCSD’s sprinkler system pipes is constantly under pressure. At each sprinkler head, the water is held back by a little plug. When sufficient heat reaches a sprinkler head, depending on the type of mechanism used, one of the following occurs:

* The special solder that holds the sprinkler head together melts
OR
* The fluid in a glass vial in the sprinkler head expands enough to break the glass

In either case, the plug is released and the water begins to flow. Water will continue flowing until the system is mechanically turned off by an emergency responder.

The only remaining question is how hot does the flame of a cigarette lighter get?

Addendum the First: If any sprinklers in this building go off unexpectedly, I know nothing about it.

Diet and Alzheimer’s Plaques

There have been various studies that have found that reduced calorie diets can have positive effects upon human health, such as increased longevity. The latest is research that has found that in mice reduced calorie diets my slow Alzheimer’s disease.

I find it fascinating, the effect that diet has upon our health. It’s as if human physiology evolved specifically for a low calorie diet, and the modern wealth of food is having all sorts of unintended consequences.

If modern society actually progresses to the point that we rid ourselves of starvation and hunger, I wonder whether we will continue to evolve in such a way that will allow our bodies to deal better with high calorie diets with no periods of starvation?

Insulin for Alcoholism?

Drunken fruit flies have led to the discovery that insulin may determine susceptibility to alcohol. If confirmed in humans — and the two species share about two-thirds of their genes — the finding suggests a promising way to treat alcoholism using drugs that control insulin activity.

Living in the US Makes You Fat

After less than a year in the United States, the prevalence of obesity among foreign-born persons was 8 percent. In contrast, the body mass index of foreign-born respondents living in the United States for at least 15 years approached that of U.S.-born respondents, with 41 percent at normal weight, 38 percent overweight and 19 percent obese – compared with 41 percent, 35 percent and 22 percent of the U.S.-born, respectively.

I’m not really sure how this fits into science news, but what the heck:
‘Carol of the Bells’ wasn’t originally a Christmas song

So the part of the song I like best–the melody, was originally written by Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovich. For someone who is not a fan of handbells, I do like to hear this song played that way.

And last but not least, Eat Your Christmas Tree, You’ll Feel Better.

Researchers have identified a group of anti-inflammatory compounds in the bark of the Scotch pine — widely used for Christmas trees — that they say could be developed into food supplements or drugs for treating arthritis and pain.

Okay, so I exaggerate a little, but it’s still interesting how we continue to discover that the plants around us contain chemicals that may serve our medical needs.

I highly recommend the Q & A with Stephen Hawking in the NY Times.

Do you feel that scientists correct themselves as often as they should?
More often than politicians, but not as often as they should.

What is your I.Q.?
I have no idea. People who boast about their I.Q. are losers

I like Stephen Hawking!

BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AND THE “BUFFY PARADIGM”

This is fantastic for so many different reasons. It’s also quite readable. (Assuming that you’re used to reading scientific/technical type papers)
(via Making Light)

Friday night we went to the planetarium with my parents. Every year they have a special show for the holidays “Tis the Season.”

Michael, who knows more about astronomy than I do (I’m lucky to be able to find the big dipper), said he already knew everything they told us in the show, but I didn’t, and found it quite interesting.

They seem to have more shows than are listed, because they list only 7 and 8 pm shows, and we went at 9.

Of course you have to remember that we are in WV, so the seats were those old wooden swivel chairs that tilted back, but it was still pretty interesting.