Filed under: Art, BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow, Humor, Science, Science Fiction
Particularly for someone with a small kid, this would be brilliant:
A Young Mad Scientist’s First Alphabet Blocks
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Fortunately, we have a solution – a first step, if you will, along the path to mad science proficiency. We are pleased to announce the release of our Young Mad Scientist’s First Alphabet Blocks. These lovely blocks contain many carefully engraved illustrations of the equipment, training, and activities that a budding mad scientist will require, combined with a clever alphabetic introduction to the concept depicted.
More (and images) at the site.
Jim Downey
(Via BoingBoing.)
Ever stand on the bank of a stream and watch a submerged stick oscillate up and down? Or maybe seen something similar happen when you were fishing, and a cork/bobber got pulled underwater, the way it will swing back and forth?
That’s vortex induced vibration. And it is a real problem for all kinds of engineering disciplines – just about any real world application which involves a fluid (or a gas, or even a plasma I suppose).
It could also be the thing which saves us from a carbon-based energy nightmare. Vortex Hydro Energy is a new technology which could supply clean, renewable energy. Professor Michael M. Bernitsas at the University of Michigan has helped pioneer this system. From his University profile:
Current Energy Conversion: Invented, designed, and model-tested for the VIVACE http://www.vortexhydroenergy.com/ (Vortex Induced Vibration Aquatic Clean Energy) energy converter (patent pending UofM#2973). VIVACE is an ocean/river current energy converter based on the idea of enhancing rather than spoiling vortex shedding, increasing rather than suppressing VIV under high damping, and harnessing rather than mitigating VIV energy. VIV was first observed by Leonardo daVinci in 1504AD in the form of “Aeolian Tones”. Since then, engineers have been trying to suppress VIV which damage aero, civil, mechanical, marine, offshore, nuclear engineering structures. The VIVACE Converter takes this destructive force in nature and utilizes for the benefit of mankind. The VIVACE Converter is designed to be in high damping VIV ? thus extracting energy at high efficiency – over the range of current velocity that is of practical interest: 0.25-2.5m/sec (0.5-5.0knots) [79-80]. Testing of the VIVACE Converter in the Low Turbulence Free Surface Water Channel of Ocean Renewable Energy Laboratory at the University of Michigan for high damping resulted in a power harnessing rate of PVIVACE=0.22pwDLU3 for current velocity of only 0.840m/sec (1.63 knots) [80-82].
News of this just broke, and the research is still very much in its early stages. So there is still a lot to be done to assess the potential power generation as well as the downsides of applying the technology. It is likely that placement of the VIVACE system would be critical, so as not to disrupt environmental conditions necessary to the maintenance of a healthy planet. But it strikes me as a potentially elegant solution to the problem of safe power generation with minimal environmental impact, and would avoid many of the issues that such technologies as wind power have.
Fascinating.
Jim Downey
(Via dKos. Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Flu, Guns, Health, Pandemic, Science, Society
Once again, I have a mild cold. Been fighting it all week. It is depressing how many times I have had such minor bugs over the last couple of years. And an indication that my baseline health stats are compromised still from being a care provider. It’s for the birds.
Actually, new evidence suggests that the cold virus is from the birds:
Common Cold Virus Came From Birds About 200 Years Ago, Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2008) — A virus that causes cold-like symptoms in humans originated in birds and may have crossed the species barrier around 200 years ago, according to a new article published in the Journal of General Virology. Scientists hope their findings will help us understand how potentially deadly viruses emerge in humans.
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Human metapneumovirus is related to the respiratory syncytial virus, measles, mumps and parainfluenza viruses. It infects people of all ages but is most common in children under five. Symptoms include runny nose, cough, sore throat and fever. Infection can also lead to more severe illnesses such as bronchitis and pneumonia, which can result in hospitalisation, especially in infants and immunocompromised patients. HMPV infection is most common during the winter and it is believed to cause up to 10% of respiratory illnesses in children.
“HMPV was first discovered in 2001, but studies have shown that the virus has been circulating in humans for at least 50 years,” said Professor Dr Ron Fouchier from ErasmusMC in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. “HMPV is closely related to Avian metapneumovirus C (AMPV-C), which infects birds. Because of the similarity, scientists have suggested that HMPV emerged from a bird virus that crossed the species barrier to infect humans.”
A cautionary tale, and a reason why a lot of scientists and public health officials keep a close eye on Avian Flu (H5N1) around the world for evidence of a new pandemic.
Me, I plan on taking direct action along with my OTC meds. I’m going to get even today, and enjoy eating a turkey. It’s a simple matter of self defense.
Oh, the other thing that has kept me entirely too busy the last few days has been working on the new ballistics site mentioned earlier this month. There are a couple of remaining tweaks to be done, but it is basically ready to go, complete with an associated blog, all the data, all the downloads, and over seventy pop-up graphs. Sometime this weekend we’ll migrate it over to its own domain, but if you want an advanced look, feel free to poke around.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Fermi's Paradox, Marketing, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Space, Survival, Writing stuff
Yeah, I know I said I’d try and get a nice cheery travelogue up next. Oh well. This has more relevance to Communion of Dreams, which is ostensibly the focus for this blog, anyway, right?
Right. So, here: seems that researchers have for the first time clearly determined the extinction of a mammal to have been caused by disease.
In 1899, an English ship stopped at Christmas Island, near Australia. Within nine years, the island’s entire native rat population had gone extinct, and scientists have wondered ever since what exactly happened.Now, researchers led by an Old Dominion University scientist think they have unraveled the mystery – and, they say, the lessons of Christmas Island apply today to issues such as disease, invasive species and the law of unintended consequenceTurns out, says ODU biology professor Alex Greenwood, that a British black rat had stowed away on the ship in a bale of hay. Upon reaching the island, the rat – or several rats – escaped on land and spread a “hyperdisease” among the native population.“Anyone who has ever tried to kill a rat – let alone a whole population – knows how hard that can be,” Greenwood said in an interview Monday. “That’s what made Christmas Island so fascinating for so long. Imagine, a whole species – especially one as tough as a rat – gone within 10 years of exposure!”
OK, for those of us who are non-biologists, this may be something of a surprise: why wouldn’t extinction occur due to disease? But the prevailing theory has long been that it was virtually impossible that a disease would wipe out all members of a species – and that any survivors would pass on their immunity to their descendants, thus continuing the Darwinian arms race. To determine that this has happened – and to a robust and fast-reproducing species such as a rat – is real news.
Which touches on an older item I came across recently:
Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction
Jason G. MathenyAbstract: In this century a number of events could extinguish humanity. The probability of these events may be very low, but the expected value of preventing them could be high, as it represents the value of all future human lives. We review the challenges to studying human extinction risks and, by way of example, estimate the cost effectiveness of preventing extinction-level asteroid impacts.
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3. Estimating the Near-Term Probability of Extinction
It is possible for humanity (or its descendents) to survive a million years or more, but we could succumb to extinction as soon as this century. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. President Kennedy estimated the probability of a nuclear holocaust as “somewhere between one out of three and even” (Kennedy, 1969, p. 110). John von Neumann, as Chairman of the U.S. Air Force Strategic Missiles Evaluation Committee, predicted that it was “absolutely certain (1) that there would be a nuclear war; and (2) that everyone would die in it” (Leslie, 1996, p. 26).
More recent predictions of human extinction are little more optimistic. In their catalogs of extinction risks, Britain’s Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees (2003), gives humanity 50-50 odds on surviving the 21st century; philosopher Nick Bostrom argues that it would be “misguided” to assume that the probability of extinction is less than 25%; and philosopher John Leslie (1996) assigns a 30% probability to extinction during the next five centuries. The “Stern Review” for the U.K. Treasury (2006) assumes that the probability of human extinction during the next century is 10%. And some explanations of the “Fermi Paradox” imply a high probability (close to100%)of extinction among technological civilizations (Pisani, 2006).4
I haven’t spent the time to look up the entire paper and read it, though I have followed this topic in the (popular) scientific news for most of my adult life. It is, in fact, one of the reasons why I decided to write Communion of Dreams – to explore the idea of humanity on the brink of extinction (as well as to examine Fermi’s Paradox, as I have written about previously). Just as most people seem to prefer ignoring their own mortality, we as a species seem to prefer ignoring the possibility of our own extinction. Even the vast majority of Science Fiction (including my own) written with humankind facing the possibility of extinction is resolved with some kind of salvation – it’d just be too bleak for most readers, otherwise.
And that doesn’t sell.
Jim Downey
If you would like a small insight into why I love doing what I do for a living, be sure to check out this delightful feature which was on NPR’s Weekend Edition this morning:
Paging Through History’s Beautiful Science
Listen Now [6 min 13 sec]
What makes something beautiful?
Is it exquisite colors? Elegant form or striking style? Or can something be beautiful simply for the ideas it contains?
The answer to that last question is a resounding “yes,” according Dan Lewis, Dibner senior curator of the History of Science and Technology at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. He’s the man responsible for a new exhibition at the library called “Beautiful Science: Ideas That Changed the World.”
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The exhibition focuses on four areas of science: astronomy, natural history, medicine and light. Some of the books featured are Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica, the book where Newton codified the laws of motion and gravity; Nicolaus Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus, the description of a solar system which had the sun, not the Earth, at its center; and Petrus Apianus’ Astronomicum Caesarium, a collection of strikingly beautiful, hand-illustrated star charts published in 1540.
And be sure to take a few minutes to listen to the audio link embedded there, where you will hear this comment from Lewis:
That’s probably the question I get asked the most: ‘why aren’t you wearing gloves?’ People will gasp audibly when they see that I am handling this stuff. We found that the lack of sensitivity you suddenly get when you’re wearing gloves is is far worse than anything you might have on your hands. Well, almost anything you might have on your hands. It’s always my premise that rare book librarians and archivists and doctors are the people who wash their hands more than anyone else.
I love it. I get this question/response from people all the time. They assume that I must always wear gloves when working on books – and this is exactly what I tell them. I lose count how many times a day I will wash my hands – it’s just automatic that I do so after this or that operation, or between handling books, and certainly after I have eaten or touched any food. It’s not a compulsion, just a job requirement.
Anyway, check out the story, and be sure to look at the different images/multi-media components, as well. Some great stuff there – the sort of things I get to work on and handle regularly!
11/17 UPDATE: Thanks to Lisa, here’s a link to an article from the NYT recently, on the same topic:
Handle This Book!
Jim Downey
I have mentioned a number of times the big ballistics project that I have been working on with a couple of friends over the past year. And it is finally all coming to fruition. There’s still the actual results database to sort out (we have the data, we just need to decide exactly how we want to have it displayed and searchable on the website). But the basic website is now put together, and because you’re a faithful reader of this blog you get a sneak preview:
Do me a favor and take a look, poke around the site a bit. Not everything is finished – as I said, the results are not yet posted, we still need to put in some links to other resources and whatnot, I still need to build a flickr set of photos from the testing, set up a blog related to the project, et cetera – and just offer some feedback. With a little luck we’re only a week or so away from having the site go ‘live’ under its own domain (already reserved), and I’d like to have this as a shakedown period. Consider this the “alpha test” of the site, to see how it works on a variety of browsers and whatnot. Send comments to me – the contact email on that site is not yet active – and I’ll pass it on to my good lady wife who has done all the drudge work of putting the site together.
Thanks! It’s really exciting to have this project almost complete – it has been a lot of work for all of us, and I want it to launch successfully. Your help at this stage is very appreciated.
Jim Downey
Ah, gotta love the advancement of science – soon, you’ll be able to drink beer with the legitimate claim that you are doing it for your health:
Anti-cancer beer under development
NEW YORK: American students have designed a genetically modified yeast that can ferment beer and produces the chemical resveratrol, known to offer some protection against developing cancer.
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The idea for the healthier beer, dubbed ‘Biobeer’, started out as a joke. “You could say that the inspiration for the project came from a student who really enjoys his beer,” said Thomas Segall-Shapiro, a member of the team behind the project.
And from USA Today:
Students are working to modify the yeast with two sets of genes, including one that will allow the yeast to metabolize sugars and produce an intermediate chemical. The second set will convert that chemical to resveratrol.
That should result in a healthier beer, produced at no additional cost, said Stevenson.
Why beer? Stevenson points to the numbers: Americans consumed 20.5 gallons of beer per capita in 2005, but only 2.5 gallons of red wine.
Resveratrol is a popular anti-oxidant thought to play a role in extending life, fighting the development of cancer, and maintaining cardiovascular health. It is a naturally produced chemical, found in high concentrations in a variety of foods, and has been proposed as one of the health benefits of drinking red wines (it is present in grape skins, and red wines are fermented with the skin, leading to a high concentration of resveratrol). Introducing this chemical into beer this way would seem to offer another way to get supplemental protection – though of course, health authorities will caution that excess consumption of alcohol carries risks of its own. Personally, I’ve always figured that alcohol is a good sterilizing agent, and consumption of it in one of my preferred forms was a good way to make sure that I reduced exposure to dangerous germs . . .
Jim Downey
(Hat tip to GvR for the USA Today link. Cross Posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Augmented Reality, Comics, Humor, Paleo-Future, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, tech
An excellent Three Panel Soul strip.
Another travelogue later.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, NASA, National Geographic, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Titan
I’m still playing catch-up, so just found this news item of interest on the National Geographic site – an excerpt:
But a new study reports faint signs of a natural electric field in Titan’s thick cloud cover that are similar to the energy radiated by lightning on Earth.
Lightning is thought to have sparked the chemical reactions that led to the origin of life on our planet.
“As of now, lightning activity has not been observed in Titan’s atmosphere,” said lead author Juan Antonio Morente of the University of Granada in Spain.
But, he said, the signals that have been detected “are an irrefutable proof for the existence of electric activity.”
OK, the piece is actually about how Titan is known to have all the necessary “prebiotic” conditions needed for the beginning of life as we know it, and how electrical activity from lightning on the moon could provide the spark to initiate life.
But I thought it a bit fun to speculate that the electric field detected is actually evidence of the tholin superconducting gel at the heart of Communion of Dreams.
Another travelogue from my recent trip later today, if things come together as I hope.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 