A prototype race car testing self-driving tech for the forthcoming Roborace contest has made its public debut at Donington Park's circuit. The Devbot only completed one lap round the course without a human in control. But the London-based investment fund behind the initiative - Kinetik - hopes to launch a competition featuring autonomous electric-powered cars racing against each other over the coming months.
Well I was going to say that future editions of Top Gear will become a lot less interesting... but the guy in the interview seriously seems to think that people will watch driverless cars racing. For fun. Hint : they won't.
Though I will confess to having watched this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57eXr2WUxWQ
for several minutes, with friends, while drunk.
http://www.bbc.com/news/37214619
Tuesday 30 August 2016
Monday 29 August 2016
Solar power is now cheaper than anything else, apparently.
In last week’s energy auction, Chile accepted a bid from Spanish developer Solarpack Corp. Tecnologica for 120 megawatts of solar at the stunning price of $29.10 per megawatt-hour (2.91 cents per kilowatt-hour or kwh). This beats the 2.99 cents/kwh bid Dubai received recently for 800 megawatts. For context, the average residential price for electricity in the United States is 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Chile is aided by the fact that its Atacama desert is “the region with the highest solar radiation on the planet,” according to the Inter-American Development Bank. So much solar is being built in the high-altitude desert that Northern Chile can’t use it all, and the government is rushing to build new transmission lines.
https://thinkprogress.org/solar-delivers-cheapest-electricity-ever-anywhere-by-any-technology-c2ef759ac33f#.g8ylvvet9
Chile is aided by the fact that its Atacama desert is “the region with the highest solar radiation on the planet,” according to the Inter-American Development Bank. So much solar is being built in the high-altitude desert that Northern Chile can’t use it all, and the government is rushing to build new transmission lines.
https://thinkprogress.org/solar-delivers-cheapest-electricity-ever-anywhere-by-any-technology-c2ef759ac33f#.g8ylvvet9
Sunday 28 August 2016
Why increasing automation means we're working longer
It should be apparent in looking at productivity, that although growing, it appears to be growing more slowly. How can this be the case if more and more people aren’t working and more and more technology is? This question actually has its own name. It’s called the “productivity paradox”, and it is perplexing more than a few very smart and knowledgeable people.
I believe the confusion rests in how we measure our productivity. Productivity is commonly calculated as GDP divided by total hours worked. When GDP grows or hours go down, productivity goes up. When GDP falls or hours go up, productivity goes down.
The combined effects of technology and the globalization enabled by it are eating jobs, but for those left working — because they are by and large earning less — they actually need to work more. Instead of jobs requiring the 5–6 hours of work a day they actually on average now require instead of 8, we clock in more than 8 hours as a matter of survival. Instead of working one full-time job 40 hours a week, we work one full-time job 47 hours a week to make sure to keep it, or multiple part-time jobs even more than 50 hours per week to compensate for the lower pay.
Advancing technology is not being allowed to improve our lives to the degree it could, if we were to make other decisions as a society. Instead, we’re actively forcing ourselves to work a greater number of hours thanks to the effectiveness of the tools we created to require fewer hours. Does this outcome make any real sense? Is all this new and extra work in the labor market truly necessary or are we performing it because a job, however unnecessary is currently necessary to live?
At the same time we’re fully voluntarily creating incredible world-changing value in our free time. Creations like Wikipedia and open-source code are not being counted as part of GDP calculations, meaning productivity is rising invisibly. The numbers aren’t showing it because we’re not even counting it.
https://medium.com/basic-income/our-paradoxical-economy-courtesy-of-technology-and-the-lack-of-basic-income-361f40051de0
I believe the confusion rests in how we measure our productivity. Productivity is commonly calculated as GDP divided by total hours worked. When GDP grows or hours go down, productivity goes up. When GDP falls or hours go up, productivity goes down.
The combined effects of technology and the globalization enabled by it are eating jobs, but for those left working — because they are by and large earning less — they actually need to work more. Instead of jobs requiring the 5–6 hours of work a day they actually on average now require instead of 8, we clock in more than 8 hours as a matter of survival. Instead of working one full-time job 40 hours a week, we work one full-time job 47 hours a week to make sure to keep it, or multiple part-time jobs even more than 50 hours per week to compensate for the lower pay.
Advancing technology is not being allowed to improve our lives to the degree it could, if we were to make other decisions as a society. Instead, we’re actively forcing ourselves to work a greater number of hours thanks to the effectiveness of the tools we created to require fewer hours. Does this outcome make any real sense? Is all this new and extra work in the labor market truly necessary or are we performing it because a job, however unnecessary is currently necessary to live?
At the same time we’re fully voluntarily creating incredible world-changing value in our free time. Creations like Wikipedia and open-source code are not being counted as part of GDP calculations, meaning productivity is rising invisibly. The numbers aren’t showing it because we’re not even counting it.
https://medium.com/basic-income/our-paradoxical-economy-courtesy-of-technology-and-the-lack-of-basic-income-361f40051de0
Saturday 27 August 2016
Slugs that eat baby birds
Ewwwww ewww ewww eww eww ewwwwwwwwwwww !
She and Justyna Chachulska, a colleague at the University of Zielona Góra in Poland, were studying common whitethroat birds near Wroclaw, in Poland, when they spotted a slug of the Arion genus in a nest with newly hatched chicks. The next day, the slug was gone, and the chicks were dead with severe injuries on their bodies that hinted at the slug as the culprit.
“When a slug finds itself inside a nest – probably accidentally, or maybe by actively searching for this type of food – it just starts foraging on the living nestlings using its radula, or tongue covered in tiny teeth,” says Turzańska. “The nestlings are unable to defend themselves and are eaten alive.”
Surprisingly, the birds’ parents don’t seem to defend them, perhaps because such predation does not happen often enough for them to have evolved a defence response. A blackcap was even seen incubating a slug feeding on dead chicks.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2102924-monster-slugs-are-devouring-defenceless-baby-birds-in-nests/?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook&utm_term=Autofeed&cmpid=SOC%257CNSNS%257C2016-Echobox
She and Justyna Chachulska, a colleague at the University of Zielona Góra in Poland, were studying common whitethroat birds near Wroclaw, in Poland, when they spotted a slug of the Arion genus in a nest with newly hatched chicks. The next day, the slug was gone, and the chicks were dead with severe injuries on their bodies that hinted at the slug as the culprit.
“When a slug finds itself inside a nest – probably accidentally, or maybe by actively searching for this type of food – it just starts foraging on the living nestlings using its radula, or tongue covered in tiny teeth,” says Turzańska. “The nestlings are unable to defend themselves and are eaten alive.”
Surprisingly, the birds’ parents don’t seem to defend them, perhaps because such predation does not happen often enough for them to have evolved a defence response. A blackcap was even seen incubating a slug feeding on dead chicks.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2102924-monster-slugs-are-devouring-defenceless-baby-birds-in-nests/?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook&utm_term=Autofeed&cmpid=SOC%257CNSNS%257C2016-Echobox
Friday 26 August 2016
Good. Reason has prevailed.
France's highest administrative court has suspended a ban on full-body "burkini" swimsuits that was imposed in a town on the Mediterranean coast. The ban in Villeneuve-Loubet "seriously and clearly illegally breached fundamental freedoms", it found. The ruling could set a precedent for up to 30 other towns that imposed bans on their beaches, chiefly on the Riviera. At least three mayors have already said they will keep the bans in their towns. The court will make a final decision later on the bans' legality.
Good. Reason has prevailed.
The "burkini bans" actually make no mention of the burkini. The rules simply say beachwear must be respectful of good public manners and the principle of secularism.
Then what in the world is wrong with women who want to cover up on the beach ???? And let's not forget :
https://www.google.com/search?q=victorian+swimming+costume&biw=1446&bih=920&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiSvOaXr9_OAhVEtRQKHccaCjQQ_AUIBygC
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37198479
Good. Reason has prevailed.
The "burkini bans" actually make no mention of the burkini. The rules simply say beachwear must be respectful of good public manners and the principle of secularism.
Then what in the world is wrong with women who want to cover up on the beach ???? And let's not forget :
https://www.google.com/search?q=victorian+swimming+costume&biw=1446&bih=920&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiSvOaXr9_OAhVEtRQKHccaCjQQ_AUIBygC
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37198479
All queens must die
Fantastic read not so much for the bits about the Argentine ants, but why biologists are committing genocide.
On Santa Cruz Island, they killed the cows, sheep, and bees. Now it’s time to finish the job.
There was but one invasive animal remaining, the toughest and hardiest creature of them all. For years, no one had figured out how to kill it. For half a century, no one even knew it was there. But it was, in the millions. And now the conservationists turned to face their most tenacious foe: the Argentine ant.
A colony of ants is a very large family of females. The genetic bond between certain colonies of Argentine ants is particularly strong. It’s so strong that a worker from one colony can be plucked up and deposited into another, hundreds of miles away, and she will act as if she’s right at home, surrounded by family, which, in a way, she is. Throughout California, from San Diego to San Francisco, the Argentine ants form one enormous sisterhood, or colony, or supercolony. The California supercolony is known in scientific literature as "the large supercolony." But recent studies suggest that it is even larger than it was long assumed to be. The lineage of the California colony is the same as colonies along the northern Mediterranean coastline and southern Japan. The large supercolony, it turns out, is a global superpower. Decades ago, it made landfall on Santa Cruz Island.
...I asked her why foxes were considered native but the Argentine ants were not. Was the distinction of native vs. invasive simply one of time? "Where do you draw the line?" I asked her. "Do you go back 100 years? Two hundred?"
"No, no," she said. "Naming dates gets you in a lot of trouble, drawing firm lines like that." The best she could do, both as an employee of The Nature Conservancy and an ecologist, was to value biodiversity above all, right up there with the overall health of the ecosystem. The Argentines presented a threat not simply to several ant species, but other types of flora and fauna as well — the flowers that needed their seeds moved by the harvester ants; the bees that were harassed off of flowers run over by Argentines; or the health of the soil, even.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/25/12608928/santa-cruz-island-argentine-ants-extermination-nature-conservancy
On Santa Cruz Island, they killed the cows, sheep, and bees. Now it’s time to finish the job.
There was but one invasive animal remaining, the toughest and hardiest creature of them all. For years, no one had figured out how to kill it. For half a century, no one even knew it was there. But it was, in the millions. And now the conservationists turned to face their most tenacious foe: the Argentine ant.
A colony of ants is a very large family of females. The genetic bond between certain colonies of Argentine ants is particularly strong. It’s so strong that a worker from one colony can be plucked up and deposited into another, hundreds of miles away, and she will act as if she’s right at home, surrounded by family, which, in a way, she is. Throughout California, from San Diego to San Francisco, the Argentine ants form one enormous sisterhood, or colony, or supercolony. The California supercolony is known in scientific literature as "the large supercolony." But recent studies suggest that it is even larger than it was long assumed to be. The lineage of the California colony is the same as colonies along the northern Mediterranean coastline and southern Japan. The large supercolony, it turns out, is a global superpower. Decades ago, it made landfall on Santa Cruz Island.
...I asked her why foxes were considered native but the Argentine ants were not. Was the distinction of native vs. invasive simply one of time? "Where do you draw the line?" I asked her. "Do you go back 100 years? Two hundred?"
"No, no," she said. "Naming dates gets you in a lot of trouble, drawing firm lines like that." The best she could do, both as an employee of The Nature Conservancy and an ecologist, was to value biodiversity above all, right up there with the overall health of the ecosystem. The Argentines presented a threat not simply to several ant species, but other types of flora and fauna as well — the flowers that needed their seeds moved by the harvester ants; the bees that were harassed off of flowers run over by Argentines; or the health of the soil, even.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/25/12608928/santa-cruz-island-argentine-ants-extermination-nature-conservancy
Lobster versus jellyfish
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Great Mucus Wars between immortal lobsters and immortal jellyfish.
The young lobsters eat their unwilling chauffeurs from bottom to top, which must be something of a bummer for the jellyfish, because they have been shown to be capable of the same reverse aging process as another jelly species, making them seemingly ageless. After the smooth fan lobsters are done with their once-immortal meal, they are presumably forced to either walk for themselves or find another moveable feast.
To fight back, jellyfish fling copious quantities of mucus at the phyllosoma — fire enough mucus, and the lobsters will develop potentially fatal bacterial infections. But in an evolutionary tit-for-tat, these lobsters have a means of counteracting the snotty assault: they use one of their five pairs of legs like windshield wipers to constantly clear the mucus from their bodies.
http://bit.ly/2bmAKxO
The young lobsters eat their unwilling chauffeurs from bottom to top, which must be something of a bummer for the jellyfish, because they have been shown to be capable of the same reverse aging process as another jelly species, making them seemingly ageless. After the smooth fan lobsters are done with their once-immortal meal, they are presumably forced to either walk for themselves or find another moveable feast.
To fight back, jellyfish fling copious quantities of mucus at the phyllosoma — fire enough mucus, and the lobsters will develop potentially fatal bacterial infections. But in an evolutionary tit-for-tat, these lobsters have a means of counteracting the snotty assault: they use one of their five pairs of legs like windshield wipers to constantly clear the mucus from their bodies.
http://bit.ly/2bmAKxO
Wednesday 24 August 2016
No, idiots, using data in science communication isn't fucking "elitist"
Hmmm.
Brian Cox was at it last week, performing a “smackdown” on a climate change denier on the ABC’s Q&A discussion program. He brought graphs! Knockout blow. And yet … it leaves me cold. Is this really what science communication is about? Is this informing, changing minds, winning people over to a better, brighter future?
No, but let's be fair here - this isn't the sum total of what science communication consists of. Debunking is just a small part of it. And when confronted with a politician who denies an extremely strong consensus, it's hard to see how anyone could react differently.
But when these experts tell us how to live our lives – or even worse, what to think – something rebels. Especially when there is even the merest whiff of controversy or uncertainty. Back in your box, we say, and stick to what you’re good at.
Well that's a problem, because science is chock-full of controversies. We really have to get away from the notion that it's all about certainties and facts. Which is precisely why those few issues on which there is a strong consensus need to be taken extremely seriously. It's a bit like watching a group of incredibly angry cats suddenly start behaving as a group : there's a damn good reason why it happens, and it' ain't due to any "false consensus" or "herd mentality" nonsense.
Yet science is also about telling people what to think. That's kindof the whole point : to establish objectively what the world is doing, regardless of what we might like to be true. Findings can be framed in terms of people's values to an extent in order to persuade them, but this doesn't always help. "Vaccines keep people safe" versus "vaccines are dangerous" - where do you go from there ? The answer can only be with the facts.
On the whole, I don’t think people who object to vaccines or GMOs are at heart anti-science. Some are, for sure, and these are the dangerous ones. But most people simply want to know that someone is listening, that someone is taking their worries seriously; that someone cares for them.
Sure, for personal health issues that makes sense. But climate change ? Harder to see. It's not like alternatives to allow people equal quality of life aren't available (unless you're one of those commenters on the BBC website who believe that energy-saving light bulbs are worse than child sacrifice). Pressure as far as climate change goes seems to me to be mostly on governments and industries, not individuals - few people are saying, "give up cars", lots of people are saying, "produce more electric cars". The only groups I've seen saying "let's all go back to the trees" are the kind of hippy nutters who were saying that anyway.
The physicist Sabine Hossenfelder gets this. Between contracts one time, she set up a “talk to a physicist” service. Fifty dollars gets you 20 minutes with a quantum physicist … who will listen to whatever crazy idea you have, and help you understand a little more about the world.
How many science communicators do you know who will take the time to listen to their audience? Who are willing to step outside their cosy little bubble and make an effort to reach people where they are, where they are confused and hurting; where they need?
Oh, quite a few actually. But this is a little self-contradictory. The problem is we're got nutters presenting their ideas as though they were credible and expecting to be taken seriously, e.g. Cox versus climate loony. When someone says something that is not controversial but just plain wrong, it makes absolutely no sense to pander to their "feelings". You have to demonstrate to them why they're wrong (there isn't really any alternative) and there's only so far you can go to appease them. You don't have to shout insults at them, but if presenting "facts" and "graphs" is now elitist, I submit that the problem isn't with the scientists presenting facts and graphs.
Though physics communication is different : anyone who is "hurting" because of their crazy theory about how the universe works is psychologically unbalanced. The Universe doesn't give a damn what you think, deal with it. But I've said it before and I'll say it again : climatology desperately needs more experts doing front-line, public, prominent outreach.
Most science communication isn’t about persuading people; it’s self-affirmation for those already on the inside. Look at us, it says, aren’t we clever? We are exclusive, we are a gang, we are family. That’s not communication. It’s not changing minds and it’s certainly not winning hearts and minds. It’s tribalism.
Telling people the truth is now considered tribalism ? Lordy...
And yet, I partially agree. There are certainly some popular science advocates whose whole attitude reeks of tribalism (but really most science communication ? That is much too strong a statement and needs justification). Answer : fewer advocates, more experts, more "human" stories on science and scientists. Don't present them as aloof, boring old white men, because most of them aren't.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-corner/2016/aug/23/scientists-losing-science-communication-skeptic-cox
Brian Cox was at it last week, performing a “smackdown” on a climate change denier on the ABC’s Q&A discussion program. He brought graphs! Knockout blow. And yet … it leaves me cold. Is this really what science communication is about? Is this informing, changing minds, winning people over to a better, brighter future?
No, but let's be fair here - this isn't the sum total of what science communication consists of. Debunking is just a small part of it. And when confronted with a politician who denies an extremely strong consensus, it's hard to see how anyone could react differently.
But when these experts tell us how to live our lives – or even worse, what to think – something rebels. Especially when there is even the merest whiff of controversy or uncertainty. Back in your box, we say, and stick to what you’re good at.
Well that's a problem, because science is chock-full of controversies. We really have to get away from the notion that it's all about certainties and facts. Which is precisely why those few issues on which there is a strong consensus need to be taken extremely seriously. It's a bit like watching a group of incredibly angry cats suddenly start behaving as a group : there's a damn good reason why it happens, and it' ain't due to any "false consensus" or "herd mentality" nonsense.
Yet science is also about telling people what to think. That's kindof the whole point : to establish objectively what the world is doing, regardless of what we might like to be true. Findings can be framed in terms of people's values to an extent in order to persuade them, but this doesn't always help. "Vaccines keep people safe" versus "vaccines are dangerous" - where do you go from there ? The answer can only be with the facts.
On the whole, I don’t think people who object to vaccines or GMOs are at heart anti-science. Some are, for sure, and these are the dangerous ones. But most people simply want to know that someone is listening, that someone is taking their worries seriously; that someone cares for them.
Sure, for personal health issues that makes sense. But climate change ? Harder to see. It's not like alternatives to allow people equal quality of life aren't available (unless you're one of those commenters on the BBC website who believe that energy-saving light bulbs are worse than child sacrifice). Pressure as far as climate change goes seems to me to be mostly on governments and industries, not individuals - few people are saying, "give up cars", lots of people are saying, "produce more electric cars". The only groups I've seen saying "let's all go back to the trees" are the kind of hippy nutters who were saying that anyway.
The physicist Sabine Hossenfelder gets this. Between contracts one time, she set up a “talk to a physicist” service. Fifty dollars gets you 20 minutes with a quantum physicist … who will listen to whatever crazy idea you have, and help you understand a little more about the world.
How many science communicators do you know who will take the time to listen to their audience? Who are willing to step outside their cosy little bubble and make an effort to reach people where they are, where they are confused and hurting; where they need?
Oh, quite a few actually. But this is a little self-contradictory. The problem is we're got nutters presenting their ideas as though they were credible and expecting to be taken seriously, e.g. Cox versus climate loony. When someone says something that is not controversial but just plain wrong, it makes absolutely no sense to pander to their "feelings". You have to demonstrate to them why they're wrong (there isn't really any alternative) and there's only so far you can go to appease them. You don't have to shout insults at them, but if presenting "facts" and "graphs" is now elitist, I submit that the problem isn't with the scientists presenting facts and graphs.
Though physics communication is different : anyone who is "hurting" because of their crazy theory about how the universe works is psychologically unbalanced. The Universe doesn't give a damn what you think, deal with it. But I've said it before and I'll say it again : climatology desperately needs more experts doing front-line, public, prominent outreach.
Most science communication isn’t about persuading people; it’s self-affirmation for those already on the inside. Look at us, it says, aren’t we clever? We are exclusive, we are a gang, we are family. That’s not communication. It’s not changing minds and it’s certainly not winning hearts and minds. It’s tribalism.
Telling people the truth is now considered tribalism ? Lordy...
And yet, I partially agree. There are certainly some popular science advocates whose whole attitude reeks of tribalism (but really most science communication ? That is much too strong a statement and needs justification). Answer : fewer advocates, more experts, more "human" stories on science and scientists. Don't present them as aloof, boring old white men, because most of them aren't.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-corner/2016/aug/23/scientists-losing-science-communication-skeptic-cox
Tuesday 23 August 2016
There's something rotten in the state of 1970's America...
This graph, I think, may hold much importance in explaining the current state of the world. Yet I am not remotely persuaded by the article's conviction that this change came about because society made a moral choice : society simply does not work like that. It deserves a far better, more sophisticated analysis. If a choice was made, then why was it made, and equally importantly, how was it implemented ? It does no good whatsoever to in effect tell people, "we just need to do better and believe better things".
In the mid-70’s, we traded in our post-World War II social contract for a new one, where “greed is good.” In the new moral narrative I can succeed at your expense. I will take a bigger piece of a smaller pie. Our new heroes are billionaires, hedge fund managers, and CEO’s. In this narrative, they deserve more wealth so they can create more jobs, even as they lay off workers, close factories and invest new capital in low-wage countries. Their values and their interests come first in education, retirement security, and certainly in labour law.
In the new moral view, anyone making “poor choices” is responsible for his or her own ruin. The unfortunate are seen as unworthy moochers and parasites. We disparage teachers, government workers, the long-term unemployed, and immigrants. In this era, popular media figures are spiteful and divisive.
We can start rebuilding our social cohesion when we say all work has dignity. Workers earn a share of the wealth we create. We all do better, when we all do better. My prosperity depends on a prosperous community with opportunity and fairness.
http://www.eoionline.org/blog/x-marks-the-spot-where-inequality-took-root-dig-here
In the mid-70’s, we traded in our post-World War II social contract for a new one, where “greed is good.” In the new moral narrative I can succeed at your expense. I will take a bigger piece of a smaller pie. Our new heroes are billionaires, hedge fund managers, and CEO’s. In this narrative, they deserve more wealth so they can create more jobs, even as they lay off workers, close factories and invest new capital in low-wage countries. Their values and their interests come first in education, retirement security, and certainly in labour law.
In the new moral view, anyone making “poor choices” is responsible for his or her own ruin. The unfortunate are seen as unworthy moochers and parasites. We disparage teachers, government workers, the long-term unemployed, and immigrants. In this era, popular media figures are spiteful and divisive.
We can start rebuilding our social cohesion when we say all work has dignity. Workers earn a share of the wealth we create. We all do better, when we all do better. My prosperity depends on a prosperous community with opportunity and fairness.
http://www.eoionline.org/blog/x-marks-the-spot-where-inequality-took-root-dig-here
The evolution of bullying
Silly embedded picture but a decent article.
Frodo, a large-bodied chimpanzee with a recognisable grey streak, would later become the alpha male of his group in Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park. The primatologist Jane Goodall called him a "real bully". She had even predicted his rise back in 1979, writing: "In about twenty years one of these two brothers probably will become the alpha."
Frodo is an extreme example. In his prime he was a ferocious hunter of monkeys, but also killed several other chimpanzees. He even snatched and killed a human child.
Maestripieri argues that bullying helps dominant animals to intimidate their subordinates, and that this has clear evolutionary benefits. It ensures that the dominant individuals have better access to food and to the opposite sex. "The more a female is bullied by a particular male, the more that male gets to mate her. Sad but true," says Wrangham. "And we know it leads to him having more babies with her."
However, bullying is not the only successful route to the top. Frodo's brother Freud was leader before being ousted by Frodo, and he had a much more peaceful approach to leadership. In particular, Freud would groom others to form coalitions, something Frodo never did.
In 2002, after five years of ruling, he [Frodo] became sick and weak. The cause was unknown. Noticing his reduced strength, the other males immediately attacked him. Frodo spent the subsequent months alone, in exile. When he returned to his group he was demoted to a very low rank. He died in 2013, possibly from violent attack. "In my experience the males who get there by bullying often end very badly," says de Waal. "In captivity they get attacked and we need to take them out. In the wild they get attacked and barely survive, or they get marginalised. The bullies are not very popular."
Nevertheless, from an evolutionary point of view this does not matter. Frodo fathered many offspring, and that means his genes – with whatever predispositions towards bullying they carried – have been passed on.
Evolution sucks.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160822-why-bullying-is-such-a-successful-evolutionary-strategy
Frodo, a large-bodied chimpanzee with a recognisable grey streak, would later become the alpha male of his group in Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park. The primatologist Jane Goodall called him a "real bully". She had even predicted his rise back in 1979, writing: "In about twenty years one of these two brothers probably will become the alpha."
Frodo is an extreme example. In his prime he was a ferocious hunter of monkeys, but also killed several other chimpanzees. He even snatched and killed a human child.
Maestripieri argues that bullying helps dominant animals to intimidate their subordinates, and that this has clear evolutionary benefits. It ensures that the dominant individuals have better access to food and to the opposite sex. "The more a female is bullied by a particular male, the more that male gets to mate her. Sad but true," says Wrangham. "And we know it leads to him having more babies with her."
However, bullying is not the only successful route to the top. Frodo's brother Freud was leader before being ousted by Frodo, and he had a much more peaceful approach to leadership. In particular, Freud would groom others to form coalitions, something Frodo never did.
In 2002, after five years of ruling, he [Frodo] became sick and weak. The cause was unknown. Noticing his reduced strength, the other males immediately attacked him. Frodo spent the subsequent months alone, in exile. When he returned to his group he was demoted to a very low rank. He died in 2013, possibly from violent attack. "In my experience the males who get there by bullying often end very badly," says de Waal. "In captivity they get attacked and we need to take them out. In the wild they get attacked and barely survive, or they get marginalised. The bullies are not very popular."
Nevertheless, from an evolutionary point of view this does not matter. Frodo fathered many offspring, and that means his genes – with whatever predispositions towards bullying they carried – have been passed on.
Evolution sucks.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160822-why-bullying-is-such-a-successful-evolutionary-strategy
Monday 22 August 2016
Franchising ants
TLDR : Argentine ants are a big bunch of bastards. But do read it, because they're fascinating bastards.
To protect territory, Argentine ants will attack other ants, but mostly they starve out other species by consuming resources. Wild summed up their strategy by comparing them to Walmart:
Their colonies are connected over a vast scale, so individual nests can operate for a long time at a loss until they drive competitors out of business. In California, the native ant colonies are local and smaller. Argentine ants are in these sprawling colonies that can import resources from somewhere else. They can operate satellite nests at a loss like these big franchises.
Argentine ants wreck natural ecosystems by pushing out the local ants. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign entomologist Andy Suarez told Ars that native ants provide valuable services to the environment, and when Argentine ants push them out, the effects are felt across several species.
For example, California harvester ants bury seeds deep in the ground and aerate the soil, which is good for trees. But when Argentine ants drive out harvester ants, the soil is less absorbent and trees don't get as much water. Additionally, coastal horned lizards have a lot of harvester ants in their diets. Without harvester ants, these lizards may die back or worse. "Displacement of native species results in cascades in the ecosystem," Suarez explained. Ultimately Argentine ants aren't just killing other ants—they're harming trees and lizards, too. The loss of those trees and lizards will affect other species, and so on, until you're looking at potentially dozens of extinctions caused by one very persistent group of pests."
But spring isn't just about expansion. For Argentine ants, it's also time for their annual sacrifice. Hidden from human eyes, in shallow tunnels beneath tree trunks and underground, the worker ants kill 90 percent of their queens. By one estimate, the queens go from 30 percent of the population to less than five percent. It's hard to say why the workers would do this at the beginning of their mating season; Tsutsui called it "mysterious and bizarre behavior." So far, scientists have not been able to figure out whether this annual sacrifice changes the genetic makeup of the colony. It seems that the queens are killed with little regard for age, fitness, or genetic relatedness to the rest of their sisters.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/meet-the-worst-ants-in-the-world/
To protect territory, Argentine ants will attack other ants, but mostly they starve out other species by consuming resources. Wild summed up their strategy by comparing them to Walmart:
Their colonies are connected over a vast scale, so individual nests can operate for a long time at a loss until they drive competitors out of business. In California, the native ant colonies are local and smaller. Argentine ants are in these sprawling colonies that can import resources from somewhere else. They can operate satellite nests at a loss like these big franchises.
Argentine ants wreck natural ecosystems by pushing out the local ants. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign entomologist Andy Suarez told Ars that native ants provide valuable services to the environment, and when Argentine ants push them out, the effects are felt across several species.
For example, California harvester ants bury seeds deep in the ground and aerate the soil, which is good for trees. But when Argentine ants drive out harvester ants, the soil is less absorbent and trees don't get as much water. Additionally, coastal horned lizards have a lot of harvester ants in their diets. Without harvester ants, these lizards may die back or worse. "Displacement of native species results in cascades in the ecosystem," Suarez explained. Ultimately Argentine ants aren't just killing other ants—they're harming trees and lizards, too. The loss of those trees and lizards will affect other species, and so on, until you're looking at potentially dozens of extinctions caused by one very persistent group of pests."
But spring isn't just about expansion. For Argentine ants, it's also time for their annual sacrifice. Hidden from human eyes, in shallow tunnels beneath tree trunks and underground, the worker ants kill 90 percent of their queens. By one estimate, the queens go from 30 percent of the population to less than five percent. It's hard to say why the workers would do this at the beginning of their mating season; Tsutsui called it "mysterious and bizarre behavior." So far, scientists have not been able to figure out whether this annual sacrifice changes the genetic makeup of the colony. It seems that the queens are killed with little regard for age, fitness, or genetic relatedness to the rest of their sisters.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/meet-the-worst-ants-in-the-world/
Sunday 21 August 2016
Firenadoes need to be in more movies
Firenadoes are known to occur around the world, but are most common in the US and Australia. Most are small, sometimes no more than a few feet across. Those spotted in California this year have been exceptionally large, stretching to as much as 500 ft (152 m) in diameter. As well as reaching temperatures as high as 800 C (1472 F), they can cause a fire to spread by spewing out embers and hot debris.
The real question is, why don't they feature in disaster movies more frequently ?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37134601
The real question is, why don't they feature in disaster movies more frequently ?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37134601
Angry Queens
New York University scholars Oeindrila Dube and S.P. Harish analyzed 28 European queenly reigns from 1480 to 1913 and found a 27 percent increase in wars when a queen was in power, as compared to the reign of a king. “People have this preconceived idea that states that are led by women engage in less conflict,” Dube told Pacific Standard, but her analysis of the data on European queens suggests another story....
Female reigns may have had higher capacity to carry out war since queens often put their spouses in charge of official state matters. This division of labor would then have freed up time and resources for queens to pursue more aggressive war policies. In contrast, kings typically were less inclined to put their spouses in official positions through which they could aid in managing the polity.
The authors emphasize that the increase in wars on a queen’s watch is not likely explained by an attempt by the female leaders to signal their strength. Were that true, you’d expect a spike in war participation earlier in the queens’ careers, and that wasn’t the case according to the data analyzed here. Dube and Harish also argue that the queens were not actively seeking to fight more wars.
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/01/european-queens-waged-more-wars-than-kings.html
Female reigns may have had higher capacity to carry out war since queens often put their spouses in charge of official state matters. This division of labor would then have freed up time and resources for queens to pursue more aggressive war policies. In contrast, kings typically were less inclined to put their spouses in official positions through which they could aid in managing the polity.
The authors emphasize that the increase in wars on a queen’s watch is not likely explained by an attempt by the female leaders to signal their strength. Were that true, you’d expect a spike in war participation earlier in the queens’ careers, and that wasn’t the case according to the data analyzed here. Dube and Harish also argue that the queens were not actively seeking to fight more wars.
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/01/european-queens-waged-more-wars-than-kings.html
Saturday 20 August 2016
Rogue stars in a dark galaxy ? I correct the egregious errors of a press release
"Three bright pulsating stars on the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy could be beacons from an invisible dwarf galaxy that astronomers predicted was there based on its effects of galactic quakes in our galaxy. These galactic quakes, ripples in gas at the outer disk of our galaxy, have puzzled astronomers since they were first revealed by radio observations a decade ago. Now, astronomers believe these stars mark the location of a dark matter-dominated dwarf galaxy far beyond the edge of the Milky Way disk, which terminates at 60,000 light-years.
In 2009, Chakrabarti and Blitz used these techniques to predict the existence of a dwarf satellite galaxy in the direction of the constellation Norma, and last year she and her team used the Gemini South Telescope in Chile and Magellan telescopes to search for stars in that region that might be part of the galaxy. They found three pulsating stars called Cepheid variables, typically used as yardsticks to measure distance, that are at approximately the same distance from the sun: 300,000 light-years.
It's intriguing, but three stars do not a galaxy make. How many stray Cepheids are there in locations where the model didn't predict a galaxy ?
Astronomers discovered the first evidence of mysterious dark galaxies with no starlight in 2005 - VirgoHI 21 - a cloud of hydrogen in the Virgo Cluster 50 million light-years from the Earth was found to be colliding with our galaxy. Virgohi 21 revealed its existence from radio waves from neutral hydrogen coming from a rotating cloud containing enough hydrogen gas to spawn 100 million stars like the sun and fill a small galaxy.
Ouch. VIRGOHI21 wasn't the first dark galaxy candidate and it certainly isn't colliding with our own galaxy - it's 50 million light years (a.k.a. bloody miles) way ! It's apparently interacting with another spiral galaxy, NGC 4254. The hydrogen mass is more like 20 million solar masses, not 100 million, but the size is comparable to a fairly large galaxy.
The rotation of VirgoHI21 is far too fast to be consistent with the gravity of the detected hydrogen. Rather, it implies the presence of a dark matter halo with tens of billions of solar masses. Given the very small number of stars detected, this implies a mass-to-light ratio of about 500, far greater than that of a normal galaxy (which would be around 50). The large gravity of the dark matter halo in this interpretation explains the perturbed nature of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 4254 and the bridge of neutral hydrogen extending between the two entities.
Implies is the operative word. Also, there were no stars detected at all, just upper limits based on the sensitivity of the data. It's entirely possible that the mass to light ratio is infinite because there's no light. But more importantly, a dark galaxy isn't the only explanation for VIRGOHI21 - it's possible, but it could also just be a weird tidal tail.
VirgoHI21 proved to be the first discovery of the dark galaxies anticipated by simulations of dark-matter theories.
No it didn't. Actually very few people were ever convinced by it, even when the evidence seemed pretty good. An alternative model of the gas being a tidal tail seemed to do a decent job of explaining it without a dark galaxy involved. This may or may not be the case, you'll have to wait for my next paper...
Although other dark-galaxy candidates have previously been observed, follow-up observations indicated that these were either very faint ordinary galaxies or tidal tails.
Oh, don't even get me started on that one.
The models Blitz developed in 2014 predict that the universe should contain far more dwarf galaxies than the tiny fraction that astronomers can identify.
Such models have in fact been around since the 1990's, this isn't a new problem.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2016/08/phantoms-of-the-milky-way-galactic-quakes-reveal-hundreds-of-invisible-starless-galaxies-orbiting-ou.html
In 2009, Chakrabarti and Blitz used these techniques to predict the existence of a dwarf satellite galaxy in the direction of the constellation Norma, and last year she and her team used the Gemini South Telescope in Chile and Magellan telescopes to search for stars in that region that might be part of the galaxy. They found three pulsating stars called Cepheid variables, typically used as yardsticks to measure distance, that are at approximately the same distance from the sun: 300,000 light-years.
It's intriguing, but three stars do not a galaxy make. How many stray Cepheids are there in locations where the model didn't predict a galaxy ?
Astronomers discovered the first evidence of mysterious dark galaxies with no starlight in 2005 - VirgoHI 21 - a cloud of hydrogen in the Virgo Cluster 50 million light-years from the Earth was found to be colliding with our galaxy. Virgohi 21 revealed its existence from radio waves from neutral hydrogen coming from a rotating cloud containing enough hydrogen gas to spawn 100 million stars like the sun and fill a small galaxy.
Ouch. VIRGOHI21 wasn't the first dark galaxy candidate and it certainly isn't colliding with our own galaxy - it's 50 million light years (a.k.a. bloody miles) way ! It's apparently interacting with another spiral galaxy, NGC 4254. The hydrogen mass is more like 20 million solar masses, not 100 million, but the size is comparable to a fairly large galaxy.
The rotation of VirgoHI21 is far too fast to be consistent with the gravity of the detected hydrogen. Rather, it implies the presence of a dark matter halo with tens of billions of solar masses. Given the very small number of stars detected, this implies a mass-to-light ratio of about 500, far greater than that of a normal galaxy (which would be around 50). The large gravity of the dark matter halo in this interpretation explains the perturbed nature of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 4254 and the bridge of neutral hydrogen extending between the two entities.
Implies is the operative word. Also, there were no stars detected at all, just upper limits based on the sensitivity of the data. It's entirely possible that the mass to light ratio is infinite because there's no light. But more importantly, a dark galaxy isn't the only explanation for VIRGOHI21 - it's possible, but it could also just be a weird tidal tail.
VirgoHI21 proved to be the first discovery of the dark galaxies anticipated by simulations of dark-matter theories.
No it didn't. Actually very few people were ever convinced by it, even when the evidence seemed pretty good. An alternative model of the gas being a tidal tail seemed to do a decent job of explaining it without a dark galaxy involved. This may or may not be the case, you'll have to wait for my next paper...
Although other dark-galaxy candidates have previously been observed, follow-up observations indicated that these were either very faint ordinary galaxies or tidal tails.
Oh, don't even get me started on that one.
The models Blitz developed in 2014 predict that the universe should contain far more dwarf galaxies than the tiny fraction that astronomers can identify.
Such models have in fact been around since the 1990's, this isn't a new problem.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2016/08/phantoms-of-the-milky-way-galactic-quakes-reveal-hundreds-of-invisible-starless-galaxies-orbiting-ou.html
Magnetic glowing carbon
Second attempt. Forgot the link in the first one for some reason...
Magnetic glowing carbon and a new state of matter, what's not to like ?
In 2015, Jagdish Narayan, and his colleagues at North Carolina State University revealed they had melted a non-crystalline form of carbon known as glassy-carbon with a rapid laser pulse, heating it to 3,700C (6690F) before rapidly cooling it. This cooling, or quenching, step led to the name Q-carbon. What they had produced was a strange, but exceptionally strong amorphous form of carbon. Unlike other forms of carbon it is magnetic and glows when exposed to light.
Dubrovinskaia’s new material is a unique form of carbon known as nanocrystalline diamond balls, and rather than being made from a single crystal lattice of carbon atoms it is made up of lots of tiny individual crystals – each 11,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair – that are bound to each other by a layer of graphene, the Nobel Prize-winning wonder-material made of a carbon layer just one atom thick.
Already Dubrovinskaia and her colleagues have applied this to study osmium, a metal that is among the most resistant to being compressed in the world. They found it could resist compression pressures of over 750 GPa. At this point, the inner electrons, which are normally tightly bound to the nucleus of the metal atom and are highly stable, began to interact with each other. The researchers believe this strange behaviour could lead the metal to change from being a solid into a previously unknown state of matter. They hope to investigate what properties this gives osmium in the future.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160818-the-quest-to-make-a-crystal-harder-than-diamonds
Magnetic glowing carbon and a new state of matter, what's not to like ?
In 2015, Jagdish Narayan, and his colleagues at North Carolina State University revealed they had melted a non-crystalline form of carbon known as glassy-carbon with a rapid laser pulse, heating it to 3,700C (6690F) before rapidly cooling it. This cooling, or quenching, step led to the name Q-carbon. What they had produced was a strange, but exceptionally strong amorphous form of carbon. Unlike other forms of carbon it is magnetic and glows when exposed to light.
Dubrovinskaia’s new material is a unique form of carbon known as nanocrystalline diamond balls, and rather than being made from a single crystal lattice of carbon atoms it is made up of lots of tiny individual crystals – each 11,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair – that are bound to each other by a layer of graphene, the Nobel Prize-winning wonder-material made of a carbon layer just one atom thick.
Already Dubrovinskaia and her colleagues have applied this to study osmium, a metal that is among the most resistant to being compressed in the world. They found it could resist compression pressures of over 750 GPa. At this point, the inner electrons, which are normally tightly bound to the nucleus of the metal atom and are highly stable, began to interact with each other. The researchers believe this strange behaviour could lead the metal to change from being a solid into a previously unknown state of matter. They hope to investigate what properties this gives osmium in the future.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160818-the-quest-to-make-a-crystal-harder-than-diamonds
Clothes made from bark without harming the tree
I did not know this was a thing. The most interesting aspect is the way it's produced without even harming the tree - the outer bark is removed, the inner bark is cut away to be made into fabric, then the outer bark is stuck back on and the tree heals itself.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37134363
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37134363
Thursday 18 August 2016
Uber enters the self-driving market
Starting later this month, Uber will allow customers in downtown Pittsburgh to summon self-driving cars from their phones, crossing an important milestone that no automotive or technology company has yet achieved. Uber’s Pittsburgh fleet, which will be supervised by humans in the driver’s seat for the time being, consists of specially modified Volvo XC90 sport-utility vehicles outfitted with dozens of sensors that use cameras, lasers, radar, and GPS receivers. Volvo Cars has so far delivered a handful of vehicles out of a total of 100 due by the end of the year. The two companies signed a pact earlier this year to spend $300 million to develop a fully autonomous car that will be ready for the road by 2021.
Unlike Google and Tesla, Uber has no intention of mass-producing its own cars, Kalanick says. Instead, the company will strike deals with auto manufacturers, starting with Volvo Cars, and will develop kits for other models. The Otto deal will help; the company makes its own laser detection, or lidar, system, used in many self-driving cars. Kalanick believes that Uber can use the data collected from its app, where human drivers and riders are logging roughly 100 million miles per day, to quickly improve its self-driving mapping and navigation systems. “Nobody has set up software that can reliably drive a car safely without a human,” Kalanick says. “We are focusing on that.”
Uber’s autonomous car briefly turned un-autonomous, while crossing the Allegheny River. A chime sounded, a signal to the driver to take the wheel. A second ding a few seconds later indicated that the car was back under computer control. “Bridges are really hard,” Krikorian says. “And there are like 500 bridges in Pittsburgh.”
Bridges are hard in part because of the way that Uber’s system works. Over the past year and a half, the company has been creating extremely detailed maps that include not just roads and lane markings, but also buildings, potholes, parked cars, fire hydrants, traffic lights, trees, and anything else on Pittsburgh's streets. As the car moves, it collects data, and then using a large, liquid-cooled computer in the trunk, it compares what it sees with the preexisting maps to identify (and avoid) pedestrians, cyclists, stray dogs, and anything else. Bridges, unlike normal streets, offer few environmental cues—there are no buildings, for instance—making it hard for the car to figure out exactly where it is. Uber cars have Global Positioning System sensors, but those are only accurate within about 10 feet; Uber’s systems strive for accuracy down to the inch.
Interesting system. But if the car knows exactly where it is before going under the bridge, sure a reasonable extrapolation can be made ?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-18/uber-s-first-self-driving-fleet-arrives-in-pittsburgh-this-month-is06r7on
Unlike Google and Tesla, Uber has no intention of mass-producing its own cars, Kalanick says. Instead, the company will strike deals with auto manufacturers, starting with Volvo Cars, and will develop kits for other models. The Otto deal will help; the company makes its own laser detection, or lidar, system, used in many self-driving cars. Kalanick believes that Uber can use the data collected from its app, where human drivers and riders are logging roughly 100 million miles per day, to quickly improve its self-driving mapping and navigation systems. “Nobody has set up software that can reliably drive a car safely without a human,” Kalanick says. “We are focusing on that.”
Uber’s autonomous car briefly turned un-autonomous, while crossing the Allegheny River. A chime sounded, a signal to the driver to take the wheel. A second ding a few seconds later indicated that the car was back under computer control. “Bridges are really hard,” Krikorian says. “And there are like 500 bridges in Pittsburgh.”
Bridges are hard in part because of the way that Uber’s system works. Over the past year and a half, the company has been creating extremely detailed maps that include not just roads and lane markings, but also buildings, potholes, parked cars, fire hydrants, traffic lights, trees, and anything else on Pittsburgh's streets. As the car moves, it collects data, and then using a large, liquid-cooled computer in the trunk, it compares what it sees with the preexisting maps to identify (and avoid) pedestrians, cyclists, stray dogs, and anything else. Bridges, unlike normal streets, offer few environmental cues—there are no buildings, for instance—making it hard for the car to figure out exactly where it is. Uber cars have Global Positioning System sensors, but those are only accurate within about 10 feet; Uber’s systems strive for accuracy down to the inch.
Interesting system. But if the car knows exactly where it is before going under the bridge, sure a reasonable extrapolation can be made ?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-18/uber-s-first-self-driving-fleet-arrives-in-pittsburgh-this-month-is06r7on
Car-crushing bites
The largest saltwater crocodiles delivered a crushing 16,414N, more than 3.5 times that of the previous record-holder, the spotted hyena. The crocodile's bite was slightly weaker than that of the great white shark – but the shark's bite was only simulated.
At the other end of the scale, the diminutive South American fish known as piranhas have a reputation for biting sizeable chunks out of their prey. However, in a 2012 study, researchers measured the bite force of the black piranha to be 320N. That is feeble compared to the great white shark, even when you factor in the size difference.
I wonder what the pressure is though. I'd bet piranha teeth are smaller and sharper than crocodile teeth.
The whopping shark known as Carcharodon megalodon went extinct 2.6 million years ago. It may have grown to almost 66ft (20m) long, nearly 3.5 times the length of the biggest great white sharks. The shark bite researchers estimated the megashark's bite to be an "extraordinary" 108,514-182,201N. That is enough to crush a small car.
However, palaeontologists are divided as to whether it could leap high enough out of the water to catch a jumbo jet.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160817-one-creature-had-a-bite-more-powerful-than-any-other
At the other end of the scale, the diminutive South American fish known as piranhas have a reputation for biting sizeable chunks out of their prey. However, in a 2012 study, researchers measured the bite force of the black piranha to be 320N. That is feeble compared to the great white shark, even when you factor in the size difference.
I wonder what the pressure is though. I'd bet piranha teeth are smaller and sharper than crocodile teeth.
The whopping shark known as Carcharodon megalodon went extinct 2.6 million years ago. It may have grown to almost 66ft (20m) long, nearly 3.5 times the length of the biggest great white sharks. The shark bite researchers estimated the megashark's bite to be an "extraordinary" 108,514-182,201N. That is enough to crush a small car.
However, palaeontologists are divided as to whether it could leap high enough out of the water to catch a jumbo jet.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160817-one-creature-had-a-bite-more-powerful-than-any-other
Wednesday 17 August 2016
First flight of the Airlander
She flies ! I expected more of a fanfare than this.
At 92m long and 43.5m wide, this is the world’s largest aircraft, dwarfing heavyweights such as the Airbus A380 “superjumbo”. It is a bit cheaper, too, with a catalogue price of £25m, compared with $375m (£287m) for an A380. It can also carry a 10-tonne payload, comparable with military transport helicopters such as the Boeing CH-47 Chinook, the US Air Force’s workhorse of choice.
Hmmm. So it costs about 10% of an A380 but can carry 10% of the payload... of course it can also do stuff aeroplanes can't :
HAV’s chief executive, Stephen McGlennan, has his eye on a stock market listing toward the end of this year to raise up to £30m. He believes there could be 100 of the airships in the skies within five years and says there is latent demand for around 1,000. Potential uses include tourist pleasure cruises, cargo transport and disaster relief.
The Airlander is already attracting interest from military powers willing to spend where the US was not. “At first, 40 to 50% of its use will be military,” McGlennan predicts. The Airlander can stay airborne for weeks at a time, monitoring activity such as insurgents planting explosives.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/17/airlander-10-is-this-the-dawning-of-a-new-age-of-the-airship
At 92m long and 43.5m wide, this is the world’s largest aircraft, dwarfing heavyweights such as the Airbus A380 “superjumbo”. It is a bit cheaper, too, with a catalogue price of £25m, compared with $375m (£287m) for an A380. It can also carry a 10-tonne payload, comparable with military transport helicopters such as the Boeing CH-47 Chinook, the US Air Force’s workhorse of choice.
Hmmm. So it costs about 10% of an A380 but can carry 10% of the payload... of course it can also do stuff aeroplanes can't :
HAV’s chief executive, Stephen McGlennan, has his eye on a stock market listing toward the end of this year to raise up to £30m. He believes there could be 100 of the airships in the skies within five years and says there is latent demand for around 1,000. Potential uses include tourist pleasure cruises, cargo transport and disaster relief.
The Airlander is already attracting interest from military powers willing to spend where the US was not. “At first, 40 to 50% of its use will be military,” McGlennan predicts. The Airlander can stay airborne for weeks at a time, monitoring activity such as insurgents planting explosives.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/17/airlander-10-is-this-the-dawning-of-a-new-age-of-the-airship
Scientists can be idiots too
I had hoped that this...
https://plus.google.com/+AmineBenaichouche/posts/EYVFjFajfyv
... was due to some hacking or slip on the keyboard that to pressing post before adding essential information (e.g., "here's the stupidest reason to be anti-gay that I could find and here's why it's stupid").
But it isn't.
https://plus.google.com/+AmineBenaichouche/posts/bJbRG5qsHrF
It would make more sense if it wasn't coming from someone who claims to value science and rational thinking.
I'll not quote the entirety of the posts for posterity. These will suffice. At the end of Google Plus, he had over 50,000 followers. Stop making stupid people famous.
As a scientist who takes his positions based on evidence, I've become officially Anti-Gay Homophobic... Gay people should be isolated from society, period. Let's forget about religions, and talk science and philosophy of human nature and ethics. We all know that some homosexuals have a genetic problem, and this kind should be treated in hospitals, but the majority of homosexuals have nothing wrong in their DNA but just like to have sexual intercourse with a male partner, these majority shouldn't have laws and rights to protect them and isolate them until they become straight again... I will politely refuse any handshake with a homosexual, I don't know which bacteria his hand is full of.
My account was not hacked, and instead of refuting my last post or apologize, I confirm again my philosophical, social and scientific position which is Anti-Gay and homophobia. I was an atheist for many years, a Nietzschean, then I told you that I've become agnostic 13 months ago. Agnosticism is a comfortable position for me, it made me more open and critical for different social and philosophical ideas, arguments, positions and schools. I have been working on homosexuality and sexuality in general and related topics for 10 weeks. I've come to a personal conclusion about sex, society and human nature which is Anti-Gay position, and I wrote an essay about it. My conclusion was based on science, psychoanalysis and philosophy, it has nothing to do with any religion.
The "no true scotsman" and ad hominen fallacies notwithstanding, I maintain that there are some viewpoints so stupid that I'd seriously question the critical analysis skills of anyone holding them. He is, apparently, a particle physicist.
People are weird.
https://plus.google.com/+AmineBenaichouche/posts/EYVFjFajfyv
... was due to some hacking or slip on the keyboard that to pressing post before adding essential information (e.g., "here's the stupidest reason to be anti-gay that I could find and here's why it's stupid").
But it isn't.
https://plus.google.com/+AmineBenaichouche/posts/bJbRG5qsHrF
It would make more sense if it wasn't coming from someone who claims to value science and rational thinking.
I'll not quote the entirety of the posts for posterity. These will suffice. At the end of Google Plus, he had over 50,000 followers. Stop making stupid people famous.
As a scientist who takes his positions based on evidence, I've become officially Anti-Gay Homophobic... Gay people should be isolated from society, period. Let's forget about religions, and talk science and philosophy of human nature and ethics. We all know that some homosexuals have a genetic problem, and this kind should be treated in hospitals, but the majority of homosexuals have nothing wrong in their DNA but just like to have sexual intercourse with a male partner, these majority shouldn't have laws and rights to protect them and isolate them until they become straight again... I will politely refuse any handshake with a homosexual, I don't know which bacteria his hand is full of.
My account was not hacked, and instead of refuting my last post or apologize, I confirm again my philosophical, social and scientific position which is Anti-Gay and homophobia. I was an atheist for many years, a Nietzschean, then I told you that I've become agnostic 13 months ago. Agnosticism is a comfortable position for me, it made me more open and critical for different social and philosophical ideas, arguments, positions and schools. I have been working on homosexuality and sexuality in general and related topics for 10 weeks. I've come to a personal conclusion about sex, society and human nature which is Anti-Gay position, and I wrote an essay about it. My conclusion was based on science, psychoanalysis and philosophy, it has nothing to do with any religion.
The "no true scotsman" and ad hominen fallacies notwithstanding, I maintain that there are some viewpoints so stupid that I'd seriously question the critical analysis skills of anyone holding them. He is, apparently, a particle physicist.
People are weird.
Tuesday 16 August 2016
Augmented reality but the other way around
Intel has unveiled a virtual reality headset that allows nearby objects from the real world to be integrated into its computer-generated views. It describes Project Alloy as being a "merged reality" device. One key advantage, Intel says, is that users will be able to see their own hands.
One of the benefits of its approach, he said, was that the headset's RealSense cameras could detect a user's finger movements and allow them to appear in a virtual world and manipulate simulated objects. "[That liberates] you from the controllers and the nunchucks of today's VR systems by immersing your hands - your real-life hands - into your simulated experiences."
In an on-stage demonstration, the hands could be seen only if they were held near to the centre of the user's field of view. When Mr Krzanich's own face appeared within the VR world, it also became apparent that "merged reality" objects only appeared as low resolution graphics, at least for now.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37098764
One of the benefits of its approach, he said, was that the headset's RealSense cameras could detect a user's finger movements and allow them to appear in a virtual world and manipulate simulated objects. "[That liberates] you from the controllers and the nunchucks of today's VR systems by immersing your hands - your real-life hands - into your simulated experiences."
In an on-stage demonstration, the hands could be seen only if they were held near to the centre of the user's field of view. When Mr Krzanich's own face appeared within the VR world, it also became apparent that "merged reality" objects only appeared as low resolution graphics, at least for now.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37098764
Climate change communication should stop using astrophysicsts
OK, without any disrespect intended to Cox - even though I really can't stand his shows I think he's a decent guy - why is a particle physicist being rolled out to counter a climate change denier ? And with arguments like, "it's all a NASA conspiracy", the guy clearly is a denier, and it does massive disservice to true skeptics of all varieties to call him a "skeptic" in the headline. All good scientists are skeptics. None should resort to making up pure BS about conspiracy theories.
It's absurd to treat particle physicists and astrophysicists as though they're generic movie scientists able to understand every problem. This doesn't seem to happen when it comes to botanists or zoologists or geologists. When was the last time you saw an expert in elephant behaviour asked to comment on supernovae feedback ? You never did, so why are prominent astrophysicists asked to comment on climate change ?
OK, the two disciplines aren't that far removed from one another, I'm sure radiation transport is very important in both. Yet the specific knowledge is clearly very different. What do astrophysicists know about ocean convention and salinity and precipitation and the water cycle and the carbon cycle and tree-ring dating and methane hydrates ? Bugger all, that's what.
Now, Cox may well have said nothing but the absolute truth - I'm sure he's fact-checked things thoroughly. But I would infinitely prefer to have a climate scientist talking about climate science. First, there's always a much greater risk when talking about things outside one's specialist area. Insisting that astronomers understand the Earth's climate will lead to other media drawing on experts for advice on things they don't understand, and that's only going to increase the risk of silly mistakes. Second, the rarity of climatologists in the news undermines confidence in the discipline. So confidence in both astrophysicists and climatologists is weakened. Or worse, astrophysics is put on a false pedestal of authority.
I'm not saying that there isn't a place of science advocates. But relying on them as the media do is a terrible idea. The right approach is not to say, "well, he's not an expert in blah" whenever a mistake is made, but get an expert in blah to talk about blah in the first place.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-37091391
It's absurd to treat particle physicists and astrophysicists as though they're generic movie scientists able to understand every problem. This doesn't seem to happen when it comes to botanists or zoologists or geologists. When was the last time you saw an expert in elephant behaviour asked to comment on supernovae feedback ? You never did, so why are prominent astrophysicists asked to comment on climate change ?
OK, the two disciplines aren't that far removed from one another, I'm sure radiation transport is very important in both. Yet the specific knowledge is clearly very different. What do astrophysicists know about ocean convention and salinity and precipitation and the water cycle and the carbon cycle and tree-ring dating and methane hydrates ? Bugger all, that's what.
Now, Cox may well have said nothing but the absolute truth - I'm sure he's fact-checked things thoroughly. But I would infinitely prefer to have a climate scientist talking about climate science. First, there's always a much greater risk when talking about things outside one's specialist area. Insisting that astronomers understand the Earth's climate will lead to other media drawing on experts for advice on things they don't understand, and that's only going to increase the risk of silly mistakes. Second, the rarity of climatologists in the news undermines confidence in the discipline. So confidence in both astrophysicists and climatologists is weakened. Or worse, astrophysics is put on a false pedestal of authority.
I'm not saying that there isn't a place of science advocates. But relying on them as the media do is a terrible idea. The right approach is not to say, "well, he's not an expert in blah" whenever a mistake is made, but get an expert in blah to talk about blah in the first place.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-37091391
Monday 15 August 2016
An example of the wrong things being controversial
The world is a silly place.
On the face of it, the slogan "Girls do not need a prince" doesn't seem that controversial. But when the actress, Kim Jayeon, tweeted a photograph of herself wearing the garment, she generated a storm and lost herself a job. She was the voice of one of the characters in a South Korean online game called "Closers".
Fans of "Closers" inundated Nexon, the company which produced the game, with complaints. Many of the complaints, according to female activists, were offensive and anti-women. Nexon quickly bowed to the protesters and sacked the actress. It told the BBC that she would be paid in full for her work but her voice would not be used on the game. It issued a statement saying it had "recognised the voices of concern amongst the Closers community", adding that "we have suddenly decided to seek a replacement in the role".
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37018916
On the face of it, the slogan "Girls do not need a prince" doesn't seem that controversial. But when the actress, Kim Jayeon, tweeted a photograph of herself wearing the garment, she generated a storm and lost herself a job. She was the voice of one of the characters in a South Korean online game called "Closers".
Fans of "Closers" inundated Nexon, the company which produced the game, with complaints. Many of the complaints, according to female activists, were offensive and anti-women. Nexon quickly bowed to the protesters and sacked the actress. It told the BBC that she would be paid in full for her work but her voice would not be used on the game. It issued a statement saying it had "recognised the voices of concern amongst the Closers community", adding that "we have suddenly decided to seek a replacement in the role".
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37018916
Sunday 14 August 2016
Saturday 13 August 2016
Trump exposes Trump
A short video on Trump exposing his own hypocrisy. It could easily be made a lot longer, not that it would do any good.
https://youtu.be/kSE-XoVKaXg
https://youtu.be/kSE-XoVKaXg
Crackpot Consultancy Service
‘Talk to a physicist. Call me on Skype. $50 per 20 minutes.’
Sounds like a really dodgy hotline when you put it that way, but perhaps I should be charging for those AAAAAAAA posts...
The majority of my callers are the ones who seek advice for an idea they’ve tried to formalise, unsuccessfully, often for a long time. All of them are men.
That last point is interesting. On checking my pseudoscience folder I did in fact come across one woman. I have certainly encountered women who believe in crystal healing, channelling, unspecified mystical forces about "destiny", etc. But female pseudoscientists who've come up with their own physically-motivated but demonstrably wrong idea appear to be very rare indeed. How strange.
After exchanging a few sentences, we can tell if you’re one of us. You can’t fake our community slang any more than you can fake a local accent in a foreign country. My clients know so little about current research in physics, they aren’t even aware they’re in a foreign country. They have no clue how far they are from making themselves understood. Their ideas aren’t bad; they are raw versions of ideas that underlie established research programmes.
Well, some of their ideas are bad. Very, very bad. Others are 99% identical to mainstream ideas that they've invented all by themselves (which is genuinely very impressive), seemingly unaware of what keywords to search for. And then there's a whole spectrum in between.
After our first conversation, they often book another appointment. One of them might even publish a paper soon. Not a proposal for a theory of everything, mind you, but a new way to look at a known effect. A first step on a long journey.
Sweet ! A success story !
Science writers should be more careful to point out when we are using metaphors. My clients read way too much into pictures, measuring every angle, scrutinising every colour, counting every dash. Illustrators should be more careful to point out what is relevant information and what is artistic freedom. But the most important lesson I’ve learned is that journalists are so successful at making physics seem not so complicated that many readers come away with the impression that they can easily do it themselves.
Huh, interesting. As opposed to the journalists/politicians who make scientists out to be an "elite".
I still get the occasional joke from colleagues about my ‘crackpot consultant business’, but I’ve stopped thinking of our clients that way. They are driven by the same desire to understand nature and make a contribution to science as we are.
Ah, well, some people genuinely want to learn and have just happened to get the wrong/outdated/insufficient information. You can reason with these people, they are perfectly sensible. But then there are those who insist that mainstream findings must be wrong because their idea is just so obviously right. Nothing you can ever say with convince them, they will simply shout that you're being dogmatic.
https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists
Sounds like a really dodgy hotline when you put it that way, but perhaps I should be charging for those AAAAAAAA posts...
The majority of my callers are the ones who seek advice for an idea they’ve tried to formalise, unsuccessfully, often for a long time. All of them are men.
That last point is interesting. On checking my pseudoscience folder I did in fact come across one woman. I have certainly encountered women who believe in crystal healing, channelling, unspecified mystical forces about "destiny", etc. But female pseudoscientists who've come up with their own physically-motivated but demonstrably wrong idea appear to be very rare indeed. How strange.
After exchanging a few sentences, we can tell if you’re one of us. You can’t fake our community slang any more than you can fake a local accent in a foreign country. My clients know so little about current research in physics, they aren’t even aware they’re in a foreign country. They have no clue how far they are from making themselves understood. Their ideas aren’t bad; they are raw versions of ideas that underlie established research programmes.
Well, some of their ideas are bad. Very, very bad. Others are 99% identical to mainstream ideas that they've invented all by themselves (which is genuinely very impressive), seemingly unaware of what keywords to search for. And then there's a whole spectrum in between.
After our first conversation, they often book another appointment. One of them might even publish a paper soon. Not a proposal for a theory of everything, mind you, but a new way to look at a known effect. A first step on a long journey.
Sweet ! A success story !
Science writers should be more careful to point out when we are using metaphors. My clients read way too much into pictures, measuring every angle, scrutinising every colour, counting every dash. Illustrators should be more careful to point out what is relevant information and what is artistic freedom. But the most important lesson I’ve learned is that journalists are so successful at making physics seem not so complicated that many readers come away with the impression that they can easily do it themselves.
Huh, interesting. As opposed to the journalists/politicians who make scientists out to be an "elite".
I still get the occasional joke from colleagues about my ‘crackpot consultant business’, but I’ve stopped thinking of our clients that way. They are driven by the same desire to understand nature and make a contribution to science as we are.
Ah, well, some people genuinely want to learn and have just happened to get the wrong/outdated/insufficient information. You can reason with these people, they are perfectly sensible. But then there are those who insist that mainstream findings must be wrong because their idea is just so obviously right. Nothing you can ever say with convince them, they will simply shout that you're being dogmatic.
https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists
Friday 12 August 2016
The equations are not enough : we must interpret them as well
But what about the assumptions, where are they coming from? By deriving them from other assumptions. Good, you see the problem. So, there is always a moment (or even several) in the day of the physicist, when all scientific methods are exhausted, where he scratches his head with a sigh... the most effective solution is to go to the office of his colleague and discuss.
And when the problem is serious, the discussion is of philosophical nature : he tries with his colleague to elaborate concepts with words. Who said that words were not accurate enough to do science? They are not as accurate as equations, but their fuzzy nature is of a lot of help when your mind is trapped by the rigidity of the equations. They give you the room to expand the mind and to discuss with your colleagues. How many scientists discuss only with equations? This is not for nothing that it is asked to reduce the number of equations in a presentation: they are a bad tool for discussion and presentations are an invitation to discussion. The philosophical discussion reduces the accuracy of the ideas but gives more flexibility and opens new areas.
https://thezproject.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/the-philosophical-physicist/
And when the problem is serious, the discussion is of philosophical nature : he tries with his colleague to elaborate concepts with words. Who said that words were not accurate enough to do science? They are not as accurate as equations, but their fuzzy nature is of a lot of help when your mind is trapped by the rigidity of the equations. They give you the room to expand the mind and to discuss with your colleagues. How many scientists discuss only with equations? This is not for nothing that it is asked to reduce the number of equations in a presentation: they are a bad tool for discussion and presentations are an invitation to discussion. The philosophical discussion reduces the accuracy of the ideas but gives more flexibility and opens new areas.
https://thezproject.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/the-philosophical-physicist/
To improve research, improve peer review
I'd suggest that the situation can be improved with a combination of changes to journals, publication and CV culture.
Currently the options for publishing are essentially limited to a main journal or Nature or Science, the latter two being accorded greater prestige. Not sure about Science, but Nature is no longer held in particularly high regard by many astronomers. Still, while the idea of assessing the quality of research is largely trying to quantify the unquantifiable, perhaps we can at least try and quantify things in a better way than in the current system.
Research falls into various different categories. Some studies are purely observational catalogues designed for future work - they present and measure data, but say nothing themselves about what they mean. Other papers are the opposite, using no new data collected by the authors themselves but rely purely on other people's previous work. Many are a mix of the two. Some papers which do try and interpret the data do so from a pure observational perspective while others use nothing but analytic or numerical modelling, while a few use both. And then there are these "replication studies" (not sure that's the best term) which deliberately try and see if the previous conclusions stand up to a repeat analysis - usually using new methods or different data rather than literally replicating exactly what the previous team did.
Currently journals do not distinguish these (or other) different sorts of research in any way. A published paper is a published paper, end-of. OK, many journals also publish letters (short, usually slightly more important/urgent findings) as well as main articles, but that's it. A few journals are slightly more suitable for catalogues as opposed to new theories, but there's no strict demarcation as to which journal to publish different sorts of studies in.
But perhaps there should be - or if an entirely new journal is too much, perhaps there should be different divisions within journals. E.g. there's MNRAS and MNRAS Letters, why not also MNRAS Catalogues, MNRAS Modelling, MNRAS New Ideas I Just Thought Up And Would Very Much Appreciate It If Someone Else Could Test For Me, Thanks. In this way it would be easier to look at an author's CV and determine not just how much research they do, but what sort - are they mainly collecting and cataloguing data, thinking up new interpretations, testing previous research, lots of different things, what ? A wise institute will hire people with a diverse range of skills, not just the ones who publish the most papers of any type. And it will hire some of the extremes - people who only do observations, only simulations - as well as from the more usual middle ground.
Labelling the research won't help without a corresponding change in how research is valued, e.g. how much it matters on your CV. All the different sorts of research is valuable, but a finding which has been replicated is much more significant. Far from being the least important, as in, "let's check just to make sure", it should be subjected to the strictest form of peer review. A paper verified by and independent replication study should be held in much higher regard than one which hasn't (of course some findings can't be practically replicated - e.g. no-one's going to repeat a project that took five years to complete, so let's not go nuts with this).
At the same time, stifling novel ideas should be the last thing anyone wants. A good researcher is probably not one whose every paper is verified - that probably means they just haven't had any interesting ideas. You want a mixture, say, 50%. Vigilance in the peer review system would stop people from gaming it, e.g. by deliberately publishing a mixture of mediocre and crackpot research. However, the notion that only verified findings matter needs to be broken. Yes, if a paper repeatedly fails to stand up to scrutiny that line of inquiry should be abandoned - but that doesn't mean the idea wasn't a good one at the time.
Maybe all this will even help with the silly grant systems which are in place that assess projects based on number of papers. If a project produces five papers which contain new ideas but no actual independently replicated findings, maybe that project isn't as good as one which produced three papers with a mixture of observation, theory and interpretation. Or then again maybe we should just end the silly grant system entirely, because it's silly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42QuXLucH3Q
Currently the options for publishing are essentially limited to a main journal or Nature or Science, the latter two being accorded greater prestige. Not sure about Science, but Nature is no longer held in particularly high regard by many astronomers. Still, while the idea of assessing the quality of research is largely trying to quantify the unquantifiable, perhaps we can at least try and quantify things in a better way than in the current system.
Research falls into various different categories. Some studies are purely observational catalogues designed for future work - they present and measure data, but say nothing themselves about what they mean. Other papers are the opposite, using no new data collected by the authors themselves but rely purely on other people's previous work. Many are a mix of the two. Some papers which do try and interpret the data do so from a pure observational perspective while others use nothing but analytic or numerical modelling, while a few use both. And then there are these "replication studies" (not sure that's the best term) which deliberately try and see if the previous conclusions stand up to a repeat analysis - usually using new methods or different data rather than literally replicating exactly what the previous team did.
Currently journals do not distinguish these (or other) different sorts of research in any way. A published paper is a published paper, end-of. OK, many journals also publish letters (short, usually slightly more important/urgent findings) as well as main articles, but that's it. A few journals are slightly more suitable for catalogues as opposed to new theories, but there's no strict demarcation as to which journal to publish different sorts of studies in.
But perhaps there should be - or if an entirely new journal is too much, perhaps there should be different divisions within journals. E.g. there's MNRAS and MNRAS Letters, why not also MNRAS Catalogues, MNRAS Modelling, MNRAS New Ideas I Just Thought Up And Would Very Much Appreciate It If Someone Else Could Test For Me, Thanks. In this way it would be easier to look at an author's CV and determine not just how much research they do, but what sort - are they mainly collecting and cataloguing data, thinking up new interpretations, testing previous research, lots of different things, what ? A wise institute will hire people with a diverse range of skills, not just the ones who publish the most papers of any type. And it will hire some of the extremes - people who only do observations, only simulations - as well as from the more usual middle ground.
Labelling the research won't help without a corresponding change in how research is valued, e.g. how much it matters on your CV. All the different sorts of research is valuable, but a finding which has been replicated is much more significant. Far from being the least important, as in, "let's check just to make sure", it should be subjected to the strictest form of peer review. A paper verified by and independent replication study should be held in much higher regard than one which hasn't (of course some findings can't be practically replicated - e.g. no-one's going to repeat a project that took five years to complete, so let's not go nuts with this).
At the same time, stifling novel ideas should be the last thing anyone wants. A good researcher is probably not one whose every paper is verified - that probably means they just haven't had any interesting ideas. You want a mixture, say, 50%. Vigilance in the peer review system would stop people from gaming it, e.g. by deliberately publishing a mixture of mediocre and crackpot research. However, the notion that only verified findings matter needs to be broken. Yes, if a paper repeatedly fails to stand up to scrutiny that line of inquiry should be abandoned - but that doesn't mean the idea wasn't a good one at the time.
Maybe all this will even help with the silly grant systems which are in place that assess projects based on number of papers. If a project produces five papers which contain new ideas but no actual independently replicated findings, maybe that project isn't as good as one which produced three papers with a mixture of observation, theory and interpretation. Or then again maybe we should just end the silly grant system entirely, because it's silly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42QuXLucH3Q
Thursday 11 August 2016
Sleeping is important
As I've probably mentioned before, a long-term desire of mine is a luxury reclining chair that can move in such a way as to simulate the motions of a car, train or aeroplane. With many different sliders to adjust the precise frequency of vibration. And a high quality sound system to play the sort of white noise found in said vehicles. Also, it would gradually ease you into a horizontal position, reduce the vibration and lower the volume. The deluxe version would have some kind of cooling system to deal with unpleasant summer stickiness (or a hearing system for unpleasant winter coolness in cold countries).
I like sleeping.
This is pretty close to my vision :
A bed which will rock you to sleep and claims to also improve the quality of your slumbers is being developed by the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab at ETH Zurich. The Somnomat uses specially designed motors which produce smooth movements without making too much noise.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36923115
I like sleeping.
This is pretty close to my vision :
A bed which will rock you to sleep and claims to also improve the quality of your slumbers is being developed by the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab at ETH Zurich. The Somnomat uses specially designed motors which produce smooth movements without making too much noise.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36923115
The oldest vertebrates
Greenland sharks live at least as long as 400 years, and they reach sexual maturity at the age of about 150, a new study reports. The results place Greenland sharks as the longest-lived vertebrates on Earth. The Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) is widely distributed across the North Atlantic, with adults reaching lengths of 400 to 500 centimeters (13 to 16 feet).
http://m.phys.org/news/2016-08-winner-longest-lived-vertebrate-award.html
http://m.phys.org/news/2016-08-winner-longest-lived-vertebrate-award.html
Wednesday 10 August 2016
The world's largest solar power plant is curiously beautiful
It looks like what would happen if an industrial facility crashed into an art installation.
Take 300,000 computer-controlled mirrors, each 7 feet high and 10 feet wide. Control them with computers to focus the Sun's light to the top of 459-foot towers, where water is turned into steam to power turbines. Bingo: you have the world's biggest solar power plant, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System.
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is now operational and delivering solar electricity to California customers. At full capacity, the facility's trio of 450-foot high towers produces a gross total of 392 megawatts (MW) of solar power, enough electricity to provide 140,000 California homes with clean energy and avoid 400,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, equal to removing 72,000 vehicles off the road.
http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-largest-solar-plant-started-creating-electr-1521998493
Take 300,000 computer-controlled mirrors, each 7 feet high and 10 feet wide. Control them with computers to focus the Sun's light to the top of 459-foot towers, where water is turned into steam to power turbines. Bingo: you have the world's biggest solar power plant, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System.
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is now operational and delivering solar electricity to California customers. At full capacity, the facility's trio of 450-foot high towers produces a gross total of 392 megawatts (MW) of solar power, enough electricity to provide 140,000 California homes with clean energy and avoid 400,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, equal to removing 72,000 vehicles off the road.
http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-largest-solar-plant-started-creating-electr-1521998493
The tortoise that gives no fucks
Tortoise don't care. Tortoise don't give a shit, it just takes what it wants
Found on the internet.
Tuesday 9 August 2016
Wizard Mindset
I'd have called it Wizard Mindset, after Discworld.
Originally shared by David Stroe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4RLfVxTGH4&feature=share
Originally shared by David Stroe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4RLfVxTGH4&feature=share
Monday 8 August 2016
Mayan astronomy had too much maths, not enough science
Unfortunately the Mayans had used their exquisite astronomical data within a mythological culture of astrology that rested upon false but mathematically sophisticated theories about the Universe. They collected unprecedented amounts of precise astronomical data... but failed to come up with the breakthrough ideas of Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton.
Popular strategy in funding science currently guides the allocation of most of the Astronomy Division funds at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to major facilities and large scale surveys. The focus is clearly on large team efforts to collect better data within the mainstream paradigms of Astronomy, under the assumption that good science will follow.
As I (and many others) have written before (e.g. http://astrorhysy.blogspot.cz/2015/10/false-consensus.html), an over-emphasis on big science is dangerous. But you do need big projects to answer some questions. So what you want is a mix of big and small groups. Big groups are better at making very precise measurements, or answering very narrow questions with carefully stated assumptions. Smaller groups and individuals are better at innovative thinking but it's harder for them to reach the same level of precision and accuracy. If you have too much of either, you might be in trouble.
I noticed this bias from close distance recently while serving on the PhD thesis committee of a student who was supposed to test whether a particular data set from a large cosmological survey is in line with LCDM; when a discrepancy was found, the goal of the thesis shifted to explaining why the data set is biased and incomplete. How can LCDM be ruled out in such a scientific culture? Observers should strive to present their results in a theory-neutral way rather than aim to reinforce the mainstream view.
Well, observers are going to have their own biases just like everyone else. What you want to do is make the data publically available as much as financially possible - ideally at the raw, unprocessed level, but at least at the level of the reduced, human-readable level. But yeah, if someone goes looking to say, "how does this data support my conclusion ?" rather than "what conclusion does this data support ?" then they're not really doing science at all.
Given the strong sociological trends in the current funding climate of team efforts, how could we reduce the risk of replicating the indoctrinated Mayan astronomy? The answer is simple: by funding multiple approaches to analyzing data and multiple motivations to collecting new data. After all, the standard model of cosmology is merely a precise account of our ignorance: we do not understand the nature of inflation, the nature of dark matter or dark energy. Our model has difficulties accounting for what we see in galaxies (attributed often to complicated “baryonic physics”), while at the same time not being able to see directly what we can easily calculate (dark matter and dark energy). The only way to figure out if we are on the wrong path is to encourage competing interpretations of the known data.
Funding agencies should promote the analysis of data for serendipitous (nonprogrammatic)purposes. When science funding is tight, a special effort should be made to advance not only the mainstream dogma but also its alternatives. To avoid stagnation and nurture a vibrant scientific culture, a research frontier should always maintain at least two ways of interpreting data so that new experiments will aim to select the correct one. A healthy dialogue between different points of view should be fostered through conferences that discuss conceptual issues and not just experimental results and phenomenology, as often is the case currently. These are all simple, off-the-shelf remedies to avoid the scientific misfortune of the otherwise admirable Mayan civilization.
Not sure I'd describe the Mayan's quite so favourably... the difficulty, of course, is promoting a dialogue between points of view which are genuinely controversial (is galaxy formation all due to mergers or something else ?) and those which have already been well and truly refuted (does the Earth really orbit the Sun ?). Too much open-mindedness is as bad as too little (http://astrorhysy.blogspot.cz/2015/10/not-so-open.html). Then again, I'm generally happy with the state of things as they are. In particular I see a lot of senior professors who are all too happy to consider radically different alternatives (dark matter doesn't exist ! it's all baryons ! the universe isn't really expanding !). Conferences which are largely limited to discussing incremental experimental results are in the minority, in my experience.
Disclaimer : Avi is a co-I on my VLA proposal to observe dark HI clouds. We postulate three different models to test, but as I've said before, observations normally tell you something completely different from what you expected. Can't imagine any halfway-decent observer who would say, "these observations don't support my ideas, therefore they must be wrong", although see also http://astrorhysy.blogspot.cz/2016/05/nemesis.html
http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.01731
Popular strategy in funding science currently guides the allocation of most of the Astronomy Division funds at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to major facilities and large scale surveys. The focus is clearly on large team efforts to collect better data within the mainstream paradigms of Astronomy, under the assumption that good science will follow.
As I (and many others) have written before (e.g. http://astrorhysy.blogspot.cz/2015/10/false-consensus.html), an over-emphasis on big science is dangerous. But you do need big projects to answer some questions. So what you want is a mix of big and small groups. Big groups are better at making very precise measurements, or answering very narrow questions with carefully stated assumptions. Smaller groups and individuals are better at innovative thinking but it's harder for them to reach the same level of precision and accuracy. If you have too much of either, you might be in trouble.
I noticed this bias from close distance recently while serving on the PhD thesis committee of a student who was supposed to test whether a particular data set from a large cosmological survey is in line with LCDM; when a discrepancy was found, the goal of the thesis shifted to explaining why the data set is biased and incomplete. How can LCDM be ruled out in such a scientific culture? Observers should strive to present their results in a theory-neutral way rather than aim to reinforce the mainstream view.
Well, observers are going to have their own biases just like everyone else. What you want to do is make the data publically available as much as financially possible - ideally at the raw, unprocessed level, but at least at the level of the reduced, human-readable level. But yeah, if someone goes looking to say, "how does this data support my conclusion ?" rather than "what conclusion does this data support ?" then they're not really doing science at all.
Given the strong sociological trends in the current funding climate of team efforts, how could we reduce the risk of replicating the indoctrinated Mayan astronomy? The answer is simple: by funding multiple approaches to analyzing data and multiple motivations to collecting new data. After all, the standard model of cosmology is merely a precise account of our ignorance: we do not understand the nature of inflation, the nature of dark matter or dark energy. Our model has difficulties accounting for what we see in galaxies (attributed often to complicated “baryonic physics”), while at the same time not being able to see directly what we can easily calculate (dark matter and dark energy). The only way to figure out if we are on the wrong path is to encourage competing interpretations of the known data.
Funding agencies should promote the analysis of data for serendipitous (nonprogrammatic)purposes. When science funding is tight, a special effort should be made to advance not only the mainstream dogma but also its alternatives. To avoid stagnation and nurture a vibrant scientific culture, a research frontier should always maintain at least two ways of interpreting data so that new experiments will aim to select the correct one. A healthy dialogue between different points of view should be fostered through conferences that discuss conceptual issues and not just experimental results and phenomenology, as often is the case currently. These are all simple, off-the-shelf remedies to avoid the scientific misfortune of the otherwise admirable Mayan civilization.
Not sure I'd describe the Mayan's quite so favourably... the difficulty, of course, is promoting a dialogue between points of view which are genuinely controversial (is galaxy formation all due to mergers or something else ?) and those which have already been well and truly refuted (does the Earth really orbit the Sun ?). Too much open-mindedness is as bad as too little (http://astrorhysy.blogspot.cz/2015/10/not-so-open.html). Then again, I'm generally happy with the state of things as they are. In particular I see a lot of senior professors who are all too happy to consider radically different alternatives (dark matter doesn't exist ! it's all baryons ! the universe isn't really expanding !). Conferences which are largely limited to discussing incremental experimental results are in the minority, in my experience.
Disclaimer : Avi is a co-I on my VLA proposal to observe dark HI clouds. We postulate three different models to test, but as I've said before, observations normally tell you something completely different from what you expected. Can't imagine any halfway-decent observer who would say, "these observations don't support my ideas, therefore they must be wrong", although see also http://astrorhysy.blogspot.cz/2016/05/nemesis.html
http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.01731
Sunday 7 August 2016
A silly petition
Oh FFS.
A petition has been launched to remove “all French words” from the cover of post-Brexit British passports. The problem is that passport is itself a French word.
[This got a grand total of 513 signatures and was, I believe, eventually revealed to be a brilliant bit of satire.]
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brexit-british-passports-shouldnt-have-french-words-petition-demands-but-this-has-one-fatal-flaw_uk_57a4e664e4b00be64335e5d5
Review : Marco Polo
No spoilers.
Just finished watching season 2 of Netflix's lavish Marco Polo. I hope the rumours of season 3's demise aren't true, this is a superb show. Granted, if you're a stickler for historical accuracy this wouldn't be for you. Some of the fight scenes have exaggerated feats of martial prowess, though it could be a lot worse. Scraping the barrel for the negatives, the characters have an odd mix of Chinese / Mongolian / American accents.
But who cares about that stuff ? What it's got going for it is a strong cast, a story that if not historical certainly feels historical, an extremely high production value, complex, multi-faceted characters, and beautiful cinematography.
Marco Polo isn't about Marco Polo at all. Like Mad Max, he's a sidekick in his own show, especially in season 2. I would guestimate he's on screen not more than 25% of the time, probably closer to 15%. OK, yes, on occasion he does intervene in some pretty major events, which certainly never took place in reality, but the alterations to Polo's story certainly aren't any greater than for any other character. Overall, he plays a relatively minor role. Even the journey from Venice to Mongolia is quickly glossed over. This show is far more about a much more important historical figure : Kublai Khan.
The show begins with Marco arriving at the court of the Great Khan. It's immediately clear that whatever Marco achieves, he's not remotely comparable to Kublai. Eventually, through long struggle, he wins influence with the Khan but little more than that. They could cut Marco completely and not have too much editing to do. Which is a little strange because Marco's European perspective on China would be an interesting one to examine, but you don't notice that because Benedict Wong's Kublai is damn magnificent.
It's tough to imagine anyone ever playing Kublai better than Wong. He's intelligent, dangerous, ruthless, threatening, compassionate, merciful, tolerant, bigoted, a visionary, confident, insecure, arrogant, inspiring, capricious. In short, he's utterly, genuinely unpredictable, yet Wong makes his every action seem entirely consistent with his character. He deserves gushing praise and lots of awards.
As for the rest, there's not much to dislike about them... but they're all very much playing second fiddle to one of the most powerful men who ever lived. Only his wife Chabi comes close to equalling him. The rest are interesting enough, it's just that they're not Kublai. Still, they work well as an ensemble cast. They all have their moments.
If the rumours are true and season 3 would concentrate on the mythical Prester John and bring Kublai to an early death, it's hard to see this as anything other than a foolish mistake. Thus far the story follows the very broad sweep of Kubali's life, inventing a lot of details and just plain making stuff up quite a lot, but doing it well and consistently. Kublai is firmly established as the character. I want to know what he's going to do next. I want to see him invade Japan...
http://www.movienewsguide.com/marco-polo-season-3-release-date-netflix-unlikely-renew-series-low-ratings/258040
Just finished watching season 2 of Netflix's lavish Marco Polo. I hope the rumours of season 3's demise aren't true, this is a superb show. Granted, if you're a stickler for historical accuracy this wouldn't be for you. Some of the fight scenes have exaggerated feats of martial prowess, though it could be a lot worse. Scraping the barrel for the negatives, the characters have an odd mix of Chinese / Mongolian / American accents.
But who cares about that stuff ? What it's got going for it is a strong cast, a story that if not historical certainly feels historical, an extremely high production value, complex, multi-faceted characters, and beautiful cinematography.
Marco Polo isn't about Marco Polo at all. Like Mad Max, he's a sidekick in his own show, especially in season 2. I would guestimate he's on screen not more than 25% of the time, probably closer to 15%. OK, yes, on occasion he does intervene in some pretty major events, which certainly never took place in reality, but the alterations to Polo's story certainly aren't any greater than for any other character. Overall, he plays a relatively minor role. Even the journey from Venice to Mongolia is quickly glossed over. This show is far more about a much more important historical figure : Kublai Khan.
The show begins with Marco arriving at the court of the Great Khan. It's immediately clear that whatever Marco achieves, he's not remotely comparable to Kublai. Eventually, through long struggle, he wins influence with the Khan but little more than that. They could cut Marco completely and not have too much editing to do. Which is a little strange because Marco's European perspective on China would be an interesting one to examine, but you don't notice that because Benedict Wong's Kublai is damn magnificent.
It's tough to imagine anyone ever playing Kublai better than Wong. He's intelligent, dangerous, ruthless, threatening, compassionate, merciful, tolerant, bigoted, a visionary, confident, insecure, arrogant, inspiring, capricious. In short, he's utterly, genuinely unpredictable, yet Wong makes his every action seem entirely consistent with his character. He deserves gushing praise and lots of awards.
As for the rest, there's not much to dislike about them... but they're all very much playing second fiddle to one of the most powerful men who ever lived. Only his wife Chabi comes close to equalling him. The rest are interesting enough, it's just that they're not Kublai. Still, they work well as an ensemble cast. They all have their moments.
If the rumours are true and season 3 would concentrate on the mythical Prester John and bring Kublai to an early death, it's hard to see this as anything other than a foolish mistake. Thus far the story follows the very broad sweep of Kubali's life, inventing a lot of details and just plain making stuff up quite a lot, but doing it well and consistently. Kublai is firmly established as the character. I want to know what he's going to do next. I want to see him invade Japan...
http://www.movienewsguide.com/marco-polo-season-3-release-date-netflix-unlikely-renew-series-low-ratings/258040
Saturday 6 August 2016
Do you still want to be human ?
Whenever a group of people start thinking they're better than everyone else, the results are always the same.
(Captain Archer, Star Trek Enterprise)
That is, they start seeing everyone else as worse, less than human, and therefore not entitled to the same rights as everyone else. There's a very good reason cyborgs are generally depicted in fiction as negative. And yet...
I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter !
(Cavil, Battlestar Galactica)
I would really like to experience new senses. I think it would be fascinating to directly sense ultrasound and have a 3D "picture" of the world constructed in my brain by echolocation, or to directly sense the magnetic field of the Earth or the electrical fields of other organisms. Or to communicate telepathically. Or to have extra eyes for omnidirectional vision. To have a sense totally distinct from sight, sound, touch, taste and smell...
Replacing humans with robots is one thing. But enhancing humans... that's a whole other kettle of fish.
Majorities of U.S. adults say they would be “very” or “somewhat” worried about gene editing (68%), brain chips (69%) and synthetic blood (63%), while no more than half say they would be enthusiastic about each of these developments. Some people say they would be both enthusiastic and worried, but, overall, concern outpaces excitement.
Majorities say these enhancements could exacerbate the divide between haves and have-nots. For instance, 73% believe inequality will increase if brain chips become available because initially they will be obtainable only by the wealthy. At least seven-in-ten adults predict each of these new technologies will become available before they have been fully tested or understood.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/04/why-americans-are-wary-of-using-technology-to-enhance-humans/
(Captain Archer, Star Trek Enterprise)
That is, they start seeing everyone else as worse, less than human, and therefore not entitled to the same rights as everyone else. There's a very good reason cyborgs are generally depicted in fiction as negative. And yet...
I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter !
(Cavil, Battlestar Galactica)
I would really like to experience new senses. I think it would be fascinating to directly sense ultrasound and have a 3D "picture" of the world constructed in my brain by echolocation, or to directly sense the magnetic field of the Earth or the electrical fields of other organisms. Or to communicate telepathically. Or to have extra eyes for omnidirectional vision. To have a sense totally distinct from sight, sound, touch, taste and smell...
Replacing humans with robots is one thing. But enhancing humans... that's a whole other kettle of fish.
Majorities of U.S. adults say they would be “very” or “somewhat” worried about gene editing (68%), brain chips (69%) and synthetic blood (63%), while no more than half say they would be enthusiastic about each of these developments. Some people say they would be both enthusiastic and worried, but, overall, concern outpaces excitement.
Majorities say these enhancements could exacerbate the divide between haves and have-nots. For instance, 73% believe inequality will increase if brain chips become available because initially they will be obtainable only by the wealthy. At least seven-in-ten adults predict each of these new technologies will become available before they have been fully tested or understood.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/04/why-americans-are-wary-of-using-technology-to-enhance-humans/
AI, like real intelligence, is imperfect but useful
AI is also certain to make wrong diagnoses and thus cause fatalities. This story barely makes the news at all but I'll bet you anything you like the first fatality will make global scaremongering headlines about the dangers of technology. As always, what matters is whether it's better than the alternative.
Reports assert that IBM’s artificial intelligence (AI) system, Watson, just saved the life of a Japanese woman by correctly identifying her disease. This is notable because, for some time, her illness went undetected using conventional methods, and doctors were stumped.
The system looked at the woman’s genetic information and compared it to 20 million clinical oncology studies. After doing so, it determined that the patient had an exceedingly rare form of leukemia.
http://futurism.com/ai-saves-womans-life-by-identifying-her-disease-when-other-methods-humans-failed/
Reports assert that IBM’s artificial intelligence (AI) system, Watson, just saved the life of a Japanese woman by correctly identifying her disease. This is notable because, for some time, her illness went undetected using conventional methods, and doctors were stumped.
The system looked at the woman’s genetic information and compared it to 20 million clinical oncology studies. After doing so, it determined that the patient had an exceedingly rare form of leukemia.
http://futurism.com/ai-saves-womans-life-by-identifying-her-disease-when-other-methods-humans-failed/
Sulphur-eating bacteria in a Romanian cave
"These bacteria get their carbon from carbon dioxide just like plants do," says Boden... "But unlike plants, they obviously can't use photosynthesis as there is no light. They get the energy needed… from chemical reactions: the key ones being the oxidation of sulphide and similar sulphur ions into sulphuric acid, or the oxidation of ammonium found in the groundwaters to nitrate."
"This may all sound very peculiar, and in some ways it is... But according to microbiologist J. Colin Murrell of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, the bacteria in Movile Cave are remarkably simple and not at all unusual. "Methanotrophs are everywhere: the Roman Baths at Bath, the surface of seawater, the mouths of cattle and probably the human mouth and gut," says Boden. "Autotrophic bacteria of the same types we found at Movile are found in almost all soils and on the surface of the skin."
The bacteria's ability to oxidise methane and carbon dioxide is of particular interest. These two greenhouse gases are the biggest culprits for global warming, so researchers are desperate to find efficient ways to remove them from the atmosphere.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150904-the-bizarre-beasts-living-in-romanias-poison-cave
"This may all sound very peculiar, and in some ways it is... But according to microbiologist J. Colin Murrell of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, the bacteria in Movile Cave are remarkably simple and not at all unusual. "Methanotrophs are everywhere: the Roman Baths at Bath, the surface of seawater, the mouths of cattle and probably the human mouth and gut," says Boden. "Autotrophic bacteria of the same types we found at Movile are found in almost all soils and on the surface of the skin."
The bacteria's ability to oxidise methane and carbon dioxide is of particular interest. These two greenhouse gases are the biggest culprits for global warming, so researchers are desperate to find efficient ways to remove them from the atmosphere.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150904-the-bizarre-beasts-living-in-romanias-poison-cave
Friday 5 August 2016
Wealth inequality is a political problem, not a scientific one
WTF ??? I'm kind of disgusted to see Nature writing this.
Yet technological revolutions arising from these policies have contributed to more than 40 years of wealth inequality, disappearing middle-class jobs and eviscerated manufacturing communities in the places where support for Drumpf is strongest.
Having claimed for more than a half a century that science-based innovation would be good for everyone, science advocates and scientists who have benefited so greatly from this line of argument can hardly now say, “Oh, but it’s not our fault, these are problems of trade and labour and economic policy”.
I'd say that's exactly what we can and should say, loudly. Scientists do not make policy. At best they influence it, but certainly no more than any other group. No scientific breakthrough automatically benefits everyone - that is the purview of politicians. Scientists can and should advocate for how technology should be used, but they absolutely cannot and should not be held as ultimately responsible for what the politicians choose to do. Scientists are not and should not be philosopher kings. To claim that the situation of wealth inequality is somehow the fault of scientists is absolutely ludicrous.
Also this : http://astrorhysy.blogspot.cz/2015/11/when-worlds-collide-science-in-society.html
http://www.nature.com/news/donald-trump-s-appeal-should-be-a-call-to-arms-1.20356
Yet technological revolutions arising from these policies have contributed to more than 40 years of wealth inequality, disappearing middle-class jobs and eviscerated manufacturing communities in the places where support for Drumpf is strongest.
Having claimed for more than a half a century that science-based innovation would be good for everyone, science advocates and scientists who have benefited so greatly from this line of argument can hardly now say, “Oh, but it’s not our fault, these are problems of trade and labour and economic policy”.
I'd say that's exactly what we can and should say, loudly. Scientists do not make policy. At best they influence it, but certainly no more than any other group. No scientific breakthrough automatically benefits everyone - that is the purview of politicians. Scientists can and should advocate for how technology should be used, but they absolutely cannot and should not be held as ultimately responsible for what the politicians choose to do. Scientists are not and should not be philosopher kings. To claim that the situation of wealth inequality is somehow the fault of scientists is absolutely ludicrous.
Also this : http://astrorhysy.blogspot.cz/2015/11/when-worlds-collide-science-in-society.html
http://www.nature.com/news/donald-trump-s-appeal-should-be-a-call-to-arms-1.20356
Another lab-grown meat startup
I'm a big fan of these developments. Meat is tasty, but I don't like where it comes from for all sorts of reasons. The sooner is can be replaced with artificial products, the better. What I cannot for the life of me understand is why there is an "ick factor" around cultured meat. Icky as opposed to what, slaughtering animals ? How is growing something in a clean laboratory more icky than an abattoir ?
An Israeli start-up launched earlier this year says they've identified a new way to grow chicken meat that could be commercially viable within just five years, with a chicken burger costing just two dollars.
Unlike Brin's burger, the technology does not use animal serum but instead uses cells. It's based on a revolutionary technology developed by Yaakov Nahmias, a professor at Hebrew University, in 2006. It's actually based on a 3D printing technique Nahmias used to map human liver cells.
However there is still a lot of skepticism over whether cultured meat could get to a commercial scale any time soon. Sergey Brin may be an adventurous investor, but there are few like him. Venture capital funding to companies like SuperMeat has been hard to come by, because investors are skeptical about whether people will really eat meat grown in a lab.
http://www.dw.com/en/is-it-a-bird-no-its-supermeat/a-19442271
An Israeli start-up launched earlier this year says they've identified a new way to grow chicken meat that could be commercially viable within just five years, with a chicken burger costing just two dollars.
Unlike Brin's burger, the technology does not use animal serum but instead uses cells. It's based on a revolutionary technology developed by Yaakov Nahmias, a professor at Hebrew University, in 2006. It's actually based on a 3D printing technique Nahmias used to map human liver cells.
However there is still a lot of skepticism over whether cultured meat could get to a commercial scale any time soon. Sergey Brin may be an adventurous investor, but there are few like him. Venture capital funding to companies like SuperMeat has been hard to come by, because investors are skeptical about whether people will really eat meat grown in a lab.
http://www.dw.com/en/is-it-a-bird-no-its-supermeat/a-19442271
Thursday 4 August 2016
Bird orchestras
How animatronic robot bird corpses revealed that birds conduct little orchestras...
Magpie-larks are one of around 200 species of birds that duet like this. Yet unlike many of these other birds, magpie-larks also produce a strange visual duet at the same time. They simultaneously raise their wings, shrug their shoulders or flick their tails up in the air. This physical element of the performance was baffling, because the magpie-larks did it even when rival birds were not within visual range.
In an attempt to unravel this, Ręk turned to robotics. He took the skins of male and female magpie-larks, which he had found dead, and stuffed them with mechanical skeletons. He was able to programme these "robo-birds" to replicate some of the movements performed by the real birds during their duets, and to coordinate them.
While the wild birds reacted aggressively to the recorded songs, they appeared less bothered by the visual performances alone. This suggests the visual displays do not send any message to rival pairs. Instead, Ręk suggests that it helps the couples coordinate their songs.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160803-the-strange-reason-magpie-larks-dance-when-nobody-is-looking
Magpie-larks are one of around 200 species of birds that duet like this. Yet unlike many of these other birds, magpie-larks also produce a strange visual duet at the same time. They simultaneously raise their wings, shrug their shoulders or flick their tails up in the air. This physical element of the performance was baffling, because the magpie-larks did it even when rival birds were not within visual range.
In an attempt to unravel this, Ręk turned to robotics. He took the skins of male and female magpie-larks, which he had found dead, and stuffed them with mechanical skeletons. He was able to programme these "robo-birds" to replicate some of the movements performed by the real birds during their duets, and to coordinate them.
While the wild birds reacted aggressively to the recorded songs, they appeared less bothered by the visual performances alone. This suggests the visual displays do not send any message to rival pairs. Instead, Ręk suggests that it helps the couples coordinate their songs.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160803-the-strange-reason-magpie-larks-dance-when-nobody-is-looking
Colonial organisms that communicate with light
This article needs to be longer.
Huge free-floating coalitions of marine invertebrates known as pyrosomes have to move together to ensure the colony can feed and move in the right direction. They lack any common nerves to communicate, so they may have a different way to move in time – light signalling.
Pyrosomes are made up of hundreds or thousands of clones called zooids. The entire brightly lit colony sprouts from a single individual, and the zooids mesh themselves together as the colony grows outwards in concentric circles from a closed tip to an ever-widening mouth. When the colony is small it looks rather like a butterfly net. As it lengthens, it becomes more like a giant worm that can reach the length of a sperm whale.
Each zooid sucks in water from outside the colony and blows it out again the other side. This not only feeds them but creates a rudimentary jet engine to give them some control over where they drift to. But because they are made up of so many small zooids, coordinating their actions isn’t easy. Unpublished research from David Bennett then at Bangor University, UK, offers tentative evidence that this is where a pyrosome’s impressive light show comes in.
When a pyrosome is brushed by an external object, it lights up like a Christmas tree – in red or white depending on the species. The signal ripples through the individuals, and they respond by cutting off their engines. Just think of a second world war U-boat film. When the red lights start flashing, it’s time to dive.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27213-zoologger-hollow-marine-monsters-as-big-as-whales
Huge free-floating coalitions of marine invertebrates known as pyrosomes have to move together to ensure the colony can feed and move in the right direction. They lack any common nerves to communicate, so they may have a different way to move in time – light signalling.
Pyrosomes are made up of hundreds or thousands of clones called zooids. The entire brightly lit colony sprouts from a single individual, and the zooids mesh themselves together as the colony grows outwards in concentric circles from a closed tip to an ever-widening mouth. When the colony is small it looks rather like a butterfly net. As it lengthens, it becomes more like a giant worm that can reach the length of a sperm whale.
Each zooid sucks in water from outside the colony and blows it out again the other side. This not only feeds them but creates a rudimentary jet engine to give them some control over where they drift to. But because they are made up of so many small zooids, coordinating their actions isn’t easy. Unpublished research from David Bennett then at Bangor University, UK, offers tentative evidence that this is where a pyrosome’s impressive light show comes in.
When a pyrosome is brushed by an external object, it lights up like a Christmas tree – in red or white depending on the species. The signal ripples through the individuals, and they respond by cutting off their engines. Just think of a second world war U-boat film. When the red lights start flashing, it’s time to dive.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27213-zoologger-hollow-marine-monsters-as-big-as-whales
Wednesday 3 August 2016
Science communication in unexpected places
The World Music Festival, Womad, hosted a science pavilion this year. It's the latest attempt to reach non-scientific audiences by bridging the gap with the arts. But are such initiatives successful ? The pavilion's inauguration follows criticism by some, such as science writer Simon Singh, of the cost and effectiveness of some public science engagement.
From the embedded link :
During his talk, Dr Singh, author of seven books on sciences and maths, said that such a project’s value for money should be compared with the cost of a science teacher.
Mmm, possibly. The difference is that teachers are a long-term solution whereas outreach events like this are generally aimed at adults. Since the tax-paying adults aren't going to go back to school, both are needed to maintain a public interest and engagement in science.
Also from the link :
Dr Singh criticised a number of projects, including a 2005 ballet inspired by the theory of relativity that was launched to celebrate the centenary of Albert Einstein’s most seminal breakthroughs. “People hate physics, they hate ballet; all you’ve done is allowed people to hate things more efficiently,” he told the 2:AM Amsterdam conference about alternative metrics on 7 October.
I'm not a ballet fan but I can't see any reason to provoke ballet enthusiasts, it's not as if they've done anything to me. I rather like the idea of combining science and the arts, for obvious reasons.
"There are a lot of intellectually curious people here, probably not coming to learn about science, but it's a great way of talking to them," says Prof Jones. "Many of them are tax payers who fund what we do and it's important that they understand what their taxes are delivering." "What we do is help people bridge that gap themselves by stimulating them," says Mr Large. "The trick is communication. Music is about communicating emotion. Science is about discovering facts, but if you can't communicate them there is little point in discovering them."
I also think that having science in unexpected places reinforces the often-overlooked fact that the entire freakin' modern world is utterly dependent on scientific discoveries. You don't have to ram this down people's throats, but making it easy for people to go to a science outreach event who wouldn't otherwise do so (a.k.a. "nudge" theory) just sounds like a thoroughly sensible idea to me.
Perhaps the best attended event is the Q and A with Steven Moffat on the science and sc-fi of Doctor Who, with the audience overflowing onto the grass outside the pavilion. Despite this, Moffat, who is the BBC series' head writer and executive producer, says he knows nothing about science.
Ironically, the latest seasons of Doctor Who have had far more of a sci-fi leaning than previously, albeit a certain type of sci-fi. Lots of explorations of "what if ?" concepts, which is at least as essential to sci-fi as the nitty-gritty details of how the spaceships are supposed to work. If not more so : the social impact of technologies and discoveries is often what makes them interesting, not necessarily the science itself.
"Putting science alongside music is the correct and proper way to apprehend science," he tells the BBC. "It's not a separate thing. They're not for different kinds of people. They're for exactly the same kind of people."
Damn straight.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36943937
From the embedded link :
During his talk, Dr Singh, author of seven books on sciences and maths, said that such a project’s value for money should be compared with the cost of a science teacher.
Mmm, possibly. The difference is that teachers are a long-term solution whereas outreach events like this are generally aimed at adults. Since the tax-paying adults aren't going to go back to school, both are needed to maintain a public interest and engagement in science.
Also from the link :
Dr Singh criticised a number of projects, including a 2005 ballet inspired by the theory of relativity that was launched to celebrate the centenary of Albert Einstein’s most seminal breakthroughs. “People hate physics, they hate ballet; all you’ve done is allowed people to hate things more efficiently,” he told the 2:AM Amsterdam conference about alternative metrics on 7 October.
I'm not a ballet fan but I can't see any reason to provoke ballet enthusiasts, it's not as if they've done anything to me. I rather like the idea of combining science and the arts, for obvious reasons.
"There are a lot of intellectually curious people here, probably not coming to learn about science, but it's a great way of talking to them," says Prof Jones. "Many of them are tax payers who fund what we do and it's important that they understand what their taxes are delivering." "What we do is help people bridge that gap themselves by stimulating them," says Mr Large. "The trick is communication. Music is about communicating emotion. Science is about discovering facts, but if you can't communicate them there is little point in discovering them."
I also think that having science in unexpected places reinforces the often-overlooked fact that the entire freakin' modern world is utterly dependent on scientific discoveries. You don't have to ram this down people's throats, but making it easy for people to go to a science outreach event who wouldn't otherwise do so (a.k.a. "nudge" theory) just sounds like a thoroughly sensible idea to me.
Perhaps the best attended event is the Q and A with Steven Moffat on the science and sc-fi of Doctor Who, with the audience overflowing onto the grass outside the pavilion. Despite this, Moffat, who is the BBC series' head writer and executive producer, says he knows nothing about science.
Ironically, the latest seasons of Doctor Who have had far more of a sci-fi leaning than previously, albeit a certain type of sci-fi. Lots of explorations of "what if ?" concepts, which is at least as essential to sci-fi as the nitty-gritty details of how the spaceships are supposed to work. If not more so : the social impact of technologies and discoveries is often what makes them interesting, not necessarily the science itself.
"Putting science alongside music is the correct and proper way to apprehend science," he tells the BBC. "It's not a separate thing. They're not for different kinds of people. They're for exactly the same kind of people."
Damn straight.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36943937
Saving the kakapo
Being the heavyweight of the parrot world means the kakapo is flightless, and preferring its own nocturnal company makes it pretty antisocial too. One aspect the kakapo has in common with some of its airborne cousins is extreme longevity, with certain individuals known to live for 120 years. Befitting a bird that is in it for the long haul they are also notoriously picky breeders, only attempting to reproduce once every three to five years and coinciding with when their favourite food, the fruit of the rimu tree, is in plentiful supply.
With numbers dipping to fewer than 50 in 1990, the conservation klaxon was sounded and a recovery programme was quickly launched. Since then a small and dedicated team using artificial insemination, artificial incubation, and careful nest management of wild birds has slowly but surely increased their population to 123 adults, all contained within three small, predator-free islands.
Following a bumper rimu fruit crop, conservationists predicted this year to be a record-breaking breeding year for kakapo, but the numbers have exceeded all expectations with 36 chicks surviving the perilous first few months of life and delighting the team. To put this figure into context, only six chicks were raised during 2014, making the "Class of 2016" all the more significant.
A few more broods like this and the kakapo could be a major conservation success story. Anyone want to adopt one ?
http://kakaporecovery.org.nz/adopt-a-kakapo/
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160715-baby-boom-for-worlds-rarest-parrot
With numbers dipping to fewer than 50 in 1990, the conservation klaxon was sounded and a recovery programme was quickly launched. Since then a small and dedicated team using artificial insemination, artificial incubation, and careful nest management of wild birds has slowly but surely increased their population to 123 adults, all contained within three small, predator-free islands.
Following a bumper rimu fruit crop, conservationists predicted this year to be a record-breaking breeding year for kakapo, but the numbers have exceeded all expectations with 36 chicks surviving the perilous first few months of life and delighting the team. To put this figure into context, only six chicks were raised during 2014, making the "Class of 2016" all the more significant.
A few more broods like this and the kakapo could be a major conservation success story. Anyone want to adopt one ?
http://kakaporecovery.org.nz/adopt-a-kakapo/
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160715-baby-boom-for-worlds-rarest-parrot
Dead flying drone animals, because that's what the world needs
Apparently it's Bizarre Technology Day. I wish I could use the picture of the shark jet (it's exactly what it sounds like), but it won't let me.
A Dutch inventor has started work on his next project - a cow drone. Bart Jansen is best known for turning his dead cat Orville into a drone. His next flying venture aims to see humans riding on their animals in the sky. "If I'm going to fly, I want to fly in something weird. So we've been thinking about animals that are big enough to fly in. We have a cow at the moment - it's at the tannery right now. It's going to be like a bovine personnel carrier, but airborne."
Mr Jansen, who describes himself as an artist, has turned rats, sharks and ostriches into flying drones and even made a badger submarine.
"Describes himself" is tactful.
"It's not going to look like dear old Ralph or much beloved Pebbles. Orville is not the same cat he was when he was alive. He looks very different."
On account of being dead and turned into a helicopter, methinks.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36954689
A Dutch inventor has started work on his next project - a cow drone. Bart Jansen is best known for turning his dead cat Orville into a drone. His next flying venture aims to see humans riding on their animals in the sky. "If I'm going to fly, I want to fly in something weird. So we've been thinking about animals that are big enough to fly in. We have a cow at the moment - it's at the tannery right now. It's going to be like a bovine personnel carrier, but airborne."
Mr Jansen, who describes himself as an artist, has turned rats, sharks and ostriches into flying drones and even made a badger submarine.
"Describes himself" is tactful.
"It's not going to look like dear old Ralph or much beloved Pebbles. Orville is not the same cat he was when he was alive. He looks very different."
On account of being dead and turned into a helicopter, methinks.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36954689
Science is not about certainty, obviously
Many, many good and provocative things in this, via Adam Synergy.
There hasn’t been a major success in theoretical physics in the last few decades after the standard model, somehow.
That should be "breakthrough", not "success". There have been a great many successes, not least of which are the Higgs Boson and gravitational waves. But are they breakthroughs ? Yes and no. Yes because GW's will help us reveal more about the universe than we could otherwise learn, but no because we haven't yet found the breaking point of the standard model. Theories have been validated, they have success - but that's not always the same as making progress.
If Einstein had gone to school to learn what science is, if he was any one of my colleagues today who are looking for a solution of the big problem of physics today, what would he do? He would say, “OK, the empirical content is the strong part of the theory. The idea in classical mechanics that velocity is relative: forget about it. The Maxwell equations: forget about them. The theories themselves have to be changed, OK? What we keep solid is the data, and we modify the theory so that it makes sense coherently, and coherently with the data.”
To an extent. He would be aware that any new theory had to give results at least as good as the old one where applicable, and/or make predictions in new areas. He would seek something that approximated to the old theory under certain conditions. He certainly wouldn't forget about the old idea or its predictions, but he'd be happy to abandon the old conceptual basis of the model.
That’s not at all what Einstein does. Einstein does the contrary. He takes the theories very seriously. He says, “Look, classical mechanics is so successful that when it says that velocity is relative, we should take it seriously, and we should believe it. And the Maxwell equations are so successful that we should believe the Maxwell equations.” He has so much trust in the theory itself, in the qualitative content of the theory—that qualitative content that Kuhn says changes all the time, that we learned not to take too seriously—and he has so much in that that he’s ready to do what? To force coherence between the two theories by challenging something completely different, which is something that’s in our head, which is how we think about time.
Well, I'm not sure about that. Certainly he believes Maxwell's equations, because they demonstrably work. But Maxwell's underlying concept was some very strange notion about vortices (http://www.clerkmaxwellfoundation.org/DysonFreemanArticle.pdf) which I seem to recall no-one took very seriously. So I am not at all convinced there is such a strong difference between the way Einstein thought and the way modern physicists behave.
Every physicist today is immediately ready to say, “OK, all of our past knowledge about the world is wrong. Let’s randomly pick some new idea.”
No, that's the way of the pseudoscientist, not actual scientists. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone accuse mainstream scientists of being too innovative !
But it’s absurd when everybody jumps and says, “OK, Einstein was wrong,” just because a little anomaly indicates this. It never works like that in science.
Yes - but this is what the media hype is all about. It is absolutely not the case in real science. I'm amazed to hear an actual scientist suggest this is what happens, because it doesn't.
Science is not about certainty. Science is about finding the most reliable way of thinking at the present level of knowledge. Science is extremely reliable; it’s not certain. In fact, not only is it not certain, but it’s the lack of certainty that grounds it. Scientific ideas are credible not because they are sure but because they’re the ones that have survived all the possible past critiques, and they’re the most credible because they were put on the table for everybody’s criticism.
The very expression “scientifically proven” is a contradiction in terms. There’s nothing that is scientifically proven.... If we’ve learned that the Earth is not flat, there will be no theory in the future in which the Earth is flat. If we have learned that the Earth is not at the center of the universe, that’s forever. We’re not going to go back on this. If you’ve learned that simultaneity is relative, with Einstein, we’re not going back to absolute simultaneity, like many people think.... I seem to be saying two things that contradict each other.
That's because you are. You cannot say, "we're not going to go back on this" and, "nothing is ever proven with certainty". The two ideas are mutually exclusive. Some things - a few, rare things - are known with what we should approximate to certainty. The Earth isn't flat - the only way that could ever be the case is if the Universe was all a simulation or run by a capricious deity. Those ideas are possible, but they aren't science. You can't do science without assuming an objective, measurable reality. But this level of certainty is a rare thing indeed, and of course that's not what science is largely about.
The question is, Why can't we live happily together and why can’t people pray to their gods and study the universe without this continual clash? This continual clash is a little unavoidable, for the opposite reason from the one often presented. It’s unavoidable not because science pretends to know the answers. It’s the other way around, because scientific thinking is a constant reminder to us that we don’t know the answers. In religious thinking, this is often unacceptable.
Only if you take the stereotype of religious thinking, and actually science does claim to know things, or at least it knows them well enough to rule out some claims. Earth created in six days ? Nope. That didn't happen, end-of. Entire Universe run be a supernatural deity ? Totally unprovable and well beyond the remit of science.
The scientists who say “I don't care about philosophy” —it’s not true that they don’t care about philosophy, because they have a philosophy. They’re using a philosophy of science. They’re applying a methodology. They have a head full of ideas about what philosophy they’re using; they’re just not aware of them and they take them for granted, as if this were obvious and clear, when it’s far from obvious and clear. They’re taking a position without knowing that there are many other possibilities around that might work much better and might be more interesting for them.
On this I completely agree.
https://newrepublic.com/article/118655/theoretical-phyisicist-explains-why-science-not-about-certainty?
There hasn’t been a major success in theoretical physics in the last few decades after the standard model, somehow.
That should be "breakthrough", not "success". There have been a great many successes, not least of which are the Higgs Boson and gravitational waves. But are they breakthroughs ? Yes and no. Yes because GW's will help us reveal more about the universe than we could otherwise learn, but no because we haven't yet found the breaking point of the standard model. Theories have been validated, they have success - but that's not always the same as making progress.
If Einstein had gone to school to learn what science is, if he was any one of my colleagues today who are looking for a solution of the big problem of physics today, what would he do? He would say, “OK, the empirical content is the strong part of the theory. The idea in classical mechanics that velocity is relative: forget about it. The Maxwell equations: forget about them. The theories themselves have to be changed, OK? What we keep solid is the data, and we modify the theory so that it makes sense coherently, and coherently with the data.”
To an extent. He would be aware that any new theory had to give results at least as good as the old one where applicable, and/or make predictions in new areas. He would seek something that approximated to the old theory under certain conditions. He certainly wouldn't forget about the old idea or its predictions, but he'd be happy to abandon the old conceptual basis of the model.
That’s not at all what Einstein does. Einstein does the contrary. He takes the theories very seriously. He says, “Look, classical mechanics is so successful that when it says that velocity is relative, we should take it seriously, and we should believe it. And the Maxwell equations are so successful that we should believe the Maxwell equations.” He has so much trust in the theory itself, in the qualitative content of the theory—that qualitative content that Kuhn says changes all the time, that we learned not to take too seriously—and he has so much in that that he’s ready to do what? To force coherence between the two theories by challenging something completely different, which is something that’s in our head, which is how we think about time.
Well, I'm not sure about that. Certainly he believes Maxwell's equations, because they demonstrably work. But Maxwell's underlying concept was some very strange notion about vortices (http://www.clerkmaxwellfoundation.org/DysonFreemanArticle.pdf) which I seem to recall no-one took very seriously. So I am not at all convinced there is such a strong difference between the way Einstein thought and the way modern physicists behave.
Every physicist today is immediately ready to say, “OK, all of our past knowledge about the world is wrong. Let’s randomly pick some new idea.”
No, that's the way of the pseudoscientist, not actual scientists. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone accuse mainstream scientists of being too innovative !
But it’s absurd when everybody jumps and says, “OK, Einstein was wrong,” just because a little anomaly indicates this. It never works like that in science.
Yes - but this is what the media hype is all about. It is absolutely not the case in real science. I'm amazed to hear an actual scientist suggest this is what happens, because it doesn't.
Science is not about certainty. Science is about finding the most reliable way of thinking at the present level of knowledge. Science is extremely reliable; it’s not certain. In fact, not only is it not certain, but it’s the lack of certainty that grounds it. Scientific ideas are credible not because they are sure but because they’re the ones that have survived all the possible past critiques, and they’re the most credible because they were put on the table for everybody’s criticism.
The very expression “scientifically proven” is a contradiction in terms. There’s nothing that is scientifically proven.... If we’ve learned that the Earth is not flat, there will be no theory in the future in which the Earth is flat. If we have learned that the Earth is not at the center of the universe, that’s forever. We’re not going to go back on this. If you’ve learned that simultaneity is relative, with Einstein, we’re not going back to absolute simultaneity, like many people think.... I seem to be saying two things that contradict each other.
That's because you are. You cannot say, "we're not going to go back on this" and, "nothing is ever proven with certainty". The two ideas are mutually exclusive. Some things - a few, rare things - are known with what we should approximate to certainty. The Earth isn't flat - the only way that could ever be the case is if the Universe was all a simulation or run by a capricious deity. Those ideas are possible, but they aren't science. You can't do science without assuming an objective, measurable reality. But this level of certainty is a rare thing indeed, and of course that's not what science is largely about.
The question is, Why can't we live happily together and why can’t people pray to their gods and study the universe without this continual clash? This continual clash is a little unavoidable, for the opposite reason from the one often presented. It’s unavoidable not because science pretends to know the answers. It’s the other way around, because scientific thinking is a constant reminder to us that we don’t know the answers. In religious thinking, this is often unacceptable.
Only if you take the stereotype of religious thinking, and actually science does claim to know things, or at least it knows them well enough to rule out some claims. Earth created in six days ? Nope. That didn't happen, end-of. Entire Universe run be a supernatural deity ? Totally unprovable and well beyond the remit of science.
The scientists who say “I don't care about philosophy” —it’s not true that they don’t care about philosophy, because they have a philosophy. They’re using a philosophy of science. They’re applying a methodology. They have a head full of ideas about what philosophy they’re using; they’re just not aware of them and they take them for granted, as if this were obvious and clear, when it’s far from obvious and clear. They’re taking a position without knowing that there are many other possibilities around that might work much better and might be more interesting for them.
On this I completely agree.
https://newrepublic.com/article/118655/theoretical-phyisicist-explains-why-science-not-about-certainty?
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