You Have *GOT* To Be Kidding
Stupid is as stupid does. --Mrs. Gump
As I'm often wont to do, I was watching The Discovery Channel the other evening, specifically an episode of the series Discovery Project Earth. The series bills itself as "eight crazy experiments bold enough to change the world". The experiments are ways to reduce or reverse the effects of global warming.
So, what are these bold, world-altering experiments? Well, I've seen three of the experiments so far.
- Save the glaciers. The scientists running this experiment propose to save glaciers from accelerated melting -- due to global warming -- by wrapping glaciers with a reflective plastic. The experiment was performed on a glacier in Greenland that was tagged as being endangered by global warming. The glacier actually had a large meltwater lake in the middle of it -- something I had never seen before. To be honest though, I'm not sure how saving glaciers was supposed to reduce or reverse the effects of global warming.
- Create more clouds. Clouds are much more reflective than water or land. So this proposal is to create automated fleets of ships that will atomize sea water, spraying the mist high into the air to form clouds. The computer simulations of this experiment showed this being performed off the west coast of Africa. In theory, a 10% increase in clouds would cool the Earth to pre-industrial levels.
- Diffract part of the sunlight that reaches Earth. This was, by far, the boldest idea. The proposal is to launch billions of refractive lenses into space between the Sun and Earth so that a portion of the sunlight that currently reaches Earth will instead be diffracted into space. A reduction of sunlight as small as 1-2% would cool the Earth to pre-industrial levels.
As I'm listening to each of these proposals, I was immediately struck by how amazingly stupid and ill-advised each one is. Not a single one of the ideas suggested discovering and addressing the root causes of global warming.
I know that the popular theory of the cause of global warming is a dramatic increase of CO2 levels in the atmosphere. And that might be true. 
But it's not proven. Yes, CO2 levels have increased along with global temperatures, but correlation does not imply causation. An alternative, tongue-in-cheek, yet statistically valid theory shows an inverse relationship between the population of swashbuckling pirates and global temperatures. Specifically, that a decrease in the pirate population has caused a rapid increase in global temperatures.
I'm not saying the alarming increase of atmospheric CO2 is not the cause of global warming. I'm saying that it appears to be a promising theory with a strong correlation, but we still don't know. The Earth has experienced temperature fluctuations before that were not caused by CO2. Are we sure this trend isn't one of those flucuations? I think these experiments should have been directed at finding the root cause of global warming and not these absurd ideas.
After all, wrapping a glacier in plastic is such a stupid idea that I can't believe it was even discussed -- so, I'm not going to.
As for creating more clouds, let's ask the survivors of Katrina whether pumping warm water vapor into the air off the west coast of Africa sounds like a good idea to them. Our understanding of climatic systems is embryonic, at best, so why even contemplate creating 10% more clouds? How can we possibly predict the global environmental impact?
And diffracting some of the Sun's energy away from Earth? Let me think about that. Hmmm...every bit of the energy used on Earth comes from the Sun. And now we're discussing decreasing that energy source? By spending trillions of dollars to manufacture, launch, position, and maintain billions of strategically positioned lenses? Riiiiggghhhtt.
I have a couple of ideas to reduce global warming that would fit right into this TV series. What if we paint all the cities white! That will greatly reduce the heat absorption of all that pavement. Not to mention stimulating the economy by employing all the painters in the world.
Here's another "great" idea. A person breathing at the average rate of 12 breaths per minute, exhales 1.3 grams of CO2 every minute. What if everyone breathed slower? If every person would cut off 2 breaths per minute, their respiratory contribution to atmospheric CO2 would be reduced annually by over 116 kilograms. If everyone participated, the amount becomes 697,422,960 metric tons (1 metric ton = 1000 kgs)! The average American automobile annually spews 4.5 metric tons of C02 into the atmosphere. So merely by breathing a bit slower, we can effectively remove 154,982,880 automobiles from the road -- that's well over half the number of cars in the United States.
Thank you. You've been a great audience. I'll be here all week.
There Must Be Something In The Water
Like a lot of people, I've been watching a fair amount of the Olympic games this week. Quick question: with all of the cable channels nowadays, why don't I have the opportunity to watch any sport I wish? Instead, I'm being force-fed a diet of gymnastics, beach volleyball, and swimming. Not that I don't like these sports (OK, the only thing I like about beach volleyball is athletic women in bikinis), but I would like to be able to watch judo, fencing, and even trampoline. Did you know that trampoline was an Olympic sport? Neither did I. But karate, a sport that has millions of practioners, is not an Olympic sport. Go figure. 
Anyway, while watching swimming events, I've been struck by how many world records are being broken. A couple of days ago I watched a heat of the women's 200m freestyle in which the world record was shattered by Federica Pellegrini of Italy. Two days later, she won a semi-final race in the same event by breaking the world record she just set two days ago. Most shocking was that the next two finishers also finished faster than the record time set just two days before. As of 9:40 EDT this morning, 18 world records have been set in swimming events at the Beijing Olympics! That's 10 more than in the Athens 2004 Olympics and four more than in the Sydney 2000 Olympics. And the Beijing Olympics are far from over. So what's causing all of the world record times? A quick Google search reveals four main theories.
- The widespread use of the new Speedo swimsuit, the LZR Racer. The suit is made of a low-drag polyurethane fabric that repels water and uses compression to further reduce drag and maximize muscle performance. Some critics claim it increases buoyancy, a direct violation of Olympic rules. Athletes wearing the suit have broken four dozen world records since its introduction six months ago.
More financial support for athletes. Today's athletes are allowed to have endorsement contracts and are better able to support themselves and their families. After winning 7 gold medals in 1972, Mark Spitz had to retire from competitive Olympic-level swimming in order to support himself in an era when amateur athletes were forbidden endorsement deals. Athletes today can compete longer, into their peak athletic years, and therefore have more opportunity to maximize their potential. If Michael Phelps breaks Spitz's record of seven gold medals in one Olympics, he will receive a $1 million bonus from Speedo, the manufacturer of the LZR Racer suit that Phelps will be wearing.- The pool at Beijing is configured to maximize a swimmer's speed. Still water is fast water. The Beijing pool is deeper and wider to reduce turbulence.
Doping. Admit it, that was your first thought. In sports where big money is at stake and millimeters and/or hundredths of a second make the difference between winning and losing, there will always be rampant use of performance enhancing drugs. Every sport has been plagued by athletes who resort to using drugs to enhance performance, e.g. cycling's Tour De France winner who was stripped of his title, and an Olympic 100m gold medal sprinter who was stripped of his title, and baseball's home run king who should be stripped of his title.
I certainly have no problems with the first three theories. Sports have always evolved with technology. Baseball players benefit from better gloves, bats, uniforms, and shoes. Football equipment has certainly improved over the decades. Pole vaulters do it with better poles. 
And everyone should have the opportunity to make a living while pursuing their dreams. I don't believe athletes should be paid for competing in the Olympics, but they also shouldn't be denied the possibility of endorsement deals. But please, please, please don't let this sudden assault on world records be the result of doping. I don't want to hear in a couple of months that Michael Phelps has tested positive for a banned substance. I'm already cynical enough.
To Boldly Go…
I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. --President John F. Kennedy to a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961
On this date 39 years ago, the national goal set to us by Kennedy was accomplished when Apollo 11, carrying Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean. Over eight years of singularly focused scientific and engineering discovery was realized in this achievement. Many people say it's still the greatest achievement of mankind.
Kennedy's challenge to the nation became a calling for a Cause and fired our national imagination. It forged the will within the nation such that nothing could stop the Cause. 
Not the daunting technical challenges. Not the tragic deaths of the Apollo 1 crew in a capsule fire during testing. Not the naysayers who cried the project was too expensive. Not the turbulent social upheaval of the 1960's. Not the Cuban Missile Crisis. Not the Vietnam War. Not the murder of John F. Kennedy, nor Martin Luther King, nor Robert Kennedy.
World War II was unquestionably the greatest focal period of the nation's collective spirit during the 20th century, but the Apollo program of the 1960's was surely the second. 
And at least during WWII, the need of singular focus on winning the war was obvious. And while the Apollo program was partially driven by Russianphobia, the benefits were certainly less nebulous than winning a war against the Axis Powers.
And the costs! According to Project Apollo article on Wikipedia, the final cost of the project was about $23 Billion in 1969 dollars ($135 Billion in 2005 dollars)! Again, other than war, when has any country committed itself to such an endeavor?
Kennedy knew the magnitude of the task he was setting, but as he said in his famous speech at Rice University:
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
Setting such a bold goal for the country was a sign of great leadership. Somehow inspiring the public imagination and national will to actually accomplish the single greatest peacetime achievement in history, is, most assuredly, leadership truly worthy of being called presidential.
Something to think about in this election year.
Politics Happens
In a recent article, Faux Fox News disclosed that political activists planning to protest at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Denver will have to contend with the Crap Cannon, a sonic weapon that generates an infrasound frequency causing victims to involuntarily defecate! Supposedly, this weapon generates a brown note, a low frequency sound that causes people to lose control of their bowels due to resonance.
According to Faux Fox News, some activists are scared shitless concerned that the Denver police department is armed with such a diabolical device.
We know this weapon and weapons like it have been used at other large protests before. --Mark Cohen, co-founder of the activist group Re-create 68
There's just one small fly in their, er, ointment; the existence of the brown note has never been scientifically proven. In fact, this urban myth has even been recently busted on the popular Discovery Channel show Mythbusters.
Still, the concept of such a weapon has seeped into popular culture and has been featured in an episode of Southpark as a sound played in a world wide recorder concert that caused the entire population of Earth to suddenly defecate. In the popular comic strip Transmetropolitan, the main character, Spider Jerusalem, totes a pistol-shaped "Bowel Disruptor" used to defeat and otherwise humiliate his enemies.
It's almost as if we want the brown note myth to be true.
But what has me rumbling is that Faux Fox News published this story at all. Given their right-wing conservativism and well-known pandering to the lowest common societal denominator, I suppose it's no wonder they're gushing over the opportunity to spin a story so that the evil Democrats will be using a defecation weapon on brave protesters. I think their editors are combining their metaphors, throwing something at a fan to see what sticks on the wall.
And it smells like doody.
What Was Your Name Again?
Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food. -- Austin O'Malley
I have an erratic memory. On second thought, erratic is the wrong word; I have a very selective memory. My problem is that I don't get to select what I remember.
If I'm asked to pick up three things from the store on the way home, I'm lucky to remember to stop at the store. If I do stop, I won't be able to recall at least one of the items. If I borrow an item, I'll place it next to the door so that I'll remember to return it; it will still be there a month later. I don't recall what I had for lunch yesterday, nor the name of the movie I saw last week. If you introduce yourself to me, it's guaranteed that I'll forget your name within 30 seconds.
On the other hand, I will remember your face forever. I retain almost every joke I ever hear. My recall of useless trivia is near legendary. Van Gogh cut off his left ear (he was right-handed). Neville Chamberlain was the British prime minister whose policy of appeasing Hitler was supposed to ensure "peace in our time". There are 63 known moons orbiting Jupiter.
I can tell you immediately that the first 12 digits of pi are 3.14159265359. The first 12 digits of the natural log e? Why, it's 2.71828182845. Avogadro's number is 6.0221415 x 1023. And, of course, the speed of light is 186,282.397 miles/second. Doesn't everyone know these constants off the top of their head?
I recently watched an episode of "The Human Mind" on the Science Channel in which the 2003 World Memory Champion (yes, there apparently is such a contest) was featured.
Of course, I can't recall his name.
The man was given 10 shuffled decks of cards which he memorized in order. He was then asked to name the 103rd card...the 17th card... the 484th card, etc. He correctly named the card every time! In fact, he then named all 520 cards in sequence!
How did he do it? He used what was termed a "location" technique. He lives in London and before demonstrations, he takes a ritualized walk through the city -- always the same path, visiting the same sites. As he examined the decks of cards, he married the sequence of cards into his memorized walk. In addition, he uses imagery for each card; the two of clubs becomes a teddy bear, a 10 of diamonds becomes a saw. So, if those were the first two cards and he began his walk at Big Ben, he would visualize a teddy bear with a saw at Big Ben.
I was discussing this technique with my business partner and he mentioned that in the Hannibal Lecter series of books, Lecter describes his "memory mansion" which he decorates with treasured memories -- another location technique.
In the same episode, an Oxford University study was profiled in which grade school children were given a daily pill for several months. Most of the students experienced a marked increase in their academic abilities, concentration, imagination, and memory. What was the magic pill? An Omega-3 supplement.
So, if you meet me in the near future and feel that I'm eyeing you in an odd manner, it's probably because I'm picturing you as an octopus at Starbucks. And that smell? It's because I've overdosed on Omega-3 laden fish oil.
If you're trying to remember a happy memory, don't think back to a time when you were ALSO thinking of a happy memory, because man, how long does this go on?! --Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
Now you see it…
File this entry under "what I learned today".
From the show Understanding on the Science Channel:
If you were to represent the entire electromagnetic spectrum (from radio waves to gamma rays) as a 2500 mile long roll of movie film, the section of visible light would be one frame of film. Amazingly, most of the electromagnetic radiation emitted by stars falls within that one frame.
The Quiet Pools
I'm reading a sci-fi novel titled The Quiet Pools by Michael P. Kube-McDowell. The story started a bit slow, but now has my complete attention; it's an extremely well-written story with multiple threads of conflict. And the story touches on many themes ranging from marital and parental relationships, to the psychology of mob violence, to humans as Von Neuman universal constructors.
The plot revolves around Project Diaspora, the building and staffing of a colonizing starship sent to seed the universe with mankind. Much of the conflict occurs between the two camps of humanity that support or oppose the project. However, the twist that has really grabbed my imagination is the selection process for the 10,000 colonists. The colonists are subjected to DNA testing and are secretly screened for the "Chi sequence", a genetic sequence of three genes A-B-C where A controls Ambition, B controls Breeding instinct, and C controls the Call. The three genes create 8 combinations that determine the type of person.
| A | B | C | Attributes |
| Y | N | N | Adventurers. Restless explorers. Examples of Sir Edmund Hillary, Amelia Earhart. |
| N | Y | N | Breeders and nestmakers. Resistant to change. |
| N | N | Y | Dreamers. Pure faith, pure reason, pure art. Priests, physicists, philosophers. |
| Y | Y | N | Ambition + nestmaking = kings and tycoons. |
| Y | N | Y | Ambition + dreamer = a creator. An artist or inventor. |
| N | Y | Y | Nestmaker + call = good citizens. The Call expresses itself as duty and allegiance so BC's make good workers and soldiers. |
| Y | Y | Y | Statesmen, saints. Wise, altruistic leaders. The rarest combination. |
| N | N | N |
To quote the book:
|
Of course, a reader's immediate thought is to stock the ship with people who have all the genes, the so-called Chi-positives. But no, the author argues that would be impossible, that Chi-positives are difficult. They are the glue, and have you ever tried to build something from glue alone? A large part of the project is dedicated to determining an optimal genetic mix on the ship; the only group completely excluded are the Chi-negatives -- the empty people. The population mix is described as:
[the ship] needs a core of stable, loyal, dedicated people who know their plac in the plan. It needs a leavening of creative types to keep the vision alive and deal with the unexpected. And it needs wise, unselfish leadership.
From the table above, this equates to a mix of BCs, ACs and Chi-positives. But when the ship arrives at a world suitable for colonization, it will need kings and adventurers and nestmakers to build empires, explore, and make homes. Since these people will not be needed during the trip, they will be carried in gamete banks -- egg and sperm banks, to be "created" as needed.
As you can undoubtedly see, this is a cool and disturbing concept, fraught with promise and peril. What a great fulcrum for conflict.
I haven't finished this book and I already highly recommend it. I've already given away one of the big ideas/twists of the book, so I'll wind up this post before giving away any more.
Starstruck
I recently viewed an exhibit about the Hubble Space Telescope at the S.C. State Museum. I've always been fascinated with astronomy, physics, and science in general. To be honest, though, I found the exhibit shallow and disappointing; however, the exhibit did impress upon me, once again, the sheer enormity of space.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah", you're thinking, "we all know space is big. DUH!" And you're right. Everyone does know the distances are huge, but I don't think they really comprehend the size. For instance, Alpha Centauri is the nearest neighboring star to our Sun at only 4.3 light years away. Only 4.3 light years equates to 25,265,838,509,316.77 miles! That's 25 trillion miles! Then again, somehow the concept of a trillion doesn't convey the magnitude (pun intended) of the number. Imagine a stack of paper 25 trillion sheets high. Any idea how tall that stack would be? A sheet of standard copier paper is 0.0038" thick so a stack of 25 trillion sheets would be 1,499,368 miles high -- or a little over 6 times the distance to the moon!
As I said, it's 25 trillion miles (4.3 light years) to the nearest star other than the Sun, 
but this is a mere speck compared to the size of our galaxy. The Milky Way is 100,000 light years in diameter, over 23,000 times the distance from the Sun to Alpha Centauri -- 587,577,639,751,552,790 miles. Now that corresponding stack of paper is 34,485,464,000 (34 billion) miles high, roughly 7.5 times the radius of our solar system!
The farthest astronomical object yet discovered is a galaxy estimated to be 13 billion light years distant. That distance is 130,000 times greater than the diameter of the Milky Way. Now the corresponding stack of paper is 4,483,110,320,000,000 miles high -- over 177 times the distance to Alpha Centauri!
It's not just distances that are mind-boggling. It's estimated that the Milky Way contains 200 billion stars. And the Milky Way is just one of an estimated 125 billion galaxies! In all, the estimated number of stars in the known universe is 1021 -- that's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. Interestingly, depending on whose estimate you use, that's roughly equivalent to the number of grains of sand on Earth.
...as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore... --Genesis 22:17
Ant Supercolony
The Argentine ant is one of the most invasive species in the world. Normally a very aggressive insect, this ant has formed supercolonies in various parts of the world. A supercolony is a group of nests where individuals from different nests do not view each other as invaders and instead actually tolerate and aid each other.
The definition of a supercolony as a "group of nests" is an unbelievable understatement. The largest of these supercolonies is in Southern Europe and stretches for over 6,000 kilometers! Another 600-mile long supercolony exists in California. And yet another 100km supercolony has been discovered under Melbourne Australia.
And the Argentine ant is not the only ant that forms supercolonies. Apparently the yellow crazy ant (yes, that's the real name) has invaded the Christmas Islands and is forming supercolonies that are decimating the famous native migrating red crabs.
Scientists "discover" these supercolonies by collecting ants from different areas and pitting the ants against each other in a miniature version of a gladiatorial arena. If the ants tolerate each other, they're exhibiting the same behavior as ants from the same colony; therefore, scientists classify the ants as belonging to a supercolony.
At first, scientists speculated that supercolonies were largely due to a lack of genetic diversity; ants invade a new area with no predators and lots of food and spread like crazy, so all of the ants would share a common colony lineage. At least, that's the idea.
As it turns out though, the ants do vary genetically. Scientists now speculate that when the ants invaded and found no competition, they lost the diversity in the genes that are involved in recognition and thus don't recognize each other as different.
As someone who lives in the South, I pray fire ants don't learn this trick.
Nuclear Peace
I'm an avid watcher of the History Channel. On a recent show about the Manhattan Project, the claim was made that the
world's death rate from war dropped dramatically with the creation of nuclear weapons. Before then, the rate had been on a continuous (and even exponential in the 20th century) rise throughout history. But that with the advent of nuclear weapons the war death rate dropped dramatically and has stayed at a (relatively) low level ever since. The unstated conclusion being that the threat of nuclear weapons has imposed some type of restraint on humankind's propensity for war making.
How interesting! As someone who grew up during the nuclear age with the Cold War doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction preventing the US and Russia from engaging in major military conflict, I had never thought of the Bomb as a lifesaving device. Nuclear arsenals as a boon to mankind. What a concept! Our doom as our salvation.
Legend has it that J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Manhattan Project, guessed this effect and named the first atomic test Trinity after being moved by the poetry of John Donne.
If you're interested, a quick trip to Google revealed this paper by Alex Roland, a professor at Duke University, in which he discusses the relationship between technology and war. His paper provides some of the statistics supporting the death rate argument.
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