How depressing.
So easy a caveman could do it?
Why Not Bring a Neanderthal to Life? - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.comGeico jokes aside, William Saletan over at Slate did a piece on this exact same question a few weeks ago. The biggest question seems to be consent, but does anyone really consent to being born?
Saletan puts it this way:
"Is the idea repugnant? Absolutely. But that's not because we'd be defacing humanity. It's because we'd be looking at it."
I'll put out the same question as Tierney:
"What do you think? Should we try to resurrect a Neanderthal?"
Holophonics
Grab your headphones, put them on, and listen to the virtual barbershop. It appears that "holophonics" in particular may be nothing special, but binaural recording in general is remarkable and slightly eerie. I vaguely recall that some TV shows have started using a similar technique to make it sound as if a phone is actually ringing in your house. Anyone know more about it?
Seduction. It's not hard to imagine some interesting applications for this technique...
[Thanks to Jaime for the tip!]
Breaking news: Crush on Olivia Judson continues
Op-Ed Contributor - The Origin of Darwin - NYTimes.com
Scientist, writer, public intellectual... Nope, not talking about Darwin. He was great, but the beard just doesn't do it for me. Olivia Judson, on the other hand, should be the new face of evolution: author of Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice To All Creation, an evolutionary biologist with degrees from Stanford and Oxford, and generally drop-dead gorgeous.
Oh, and it's a great article. Read it.
"[Darwin] practiced a kind of ideal, dream-like science. He examined the minutiae of nature — shells of barnacles, pistils of flowers — but worked on grand themes. He corresponded with lofty men of learning, but also with farmers and pigeon breeders. He observed, questioned, experimented, constantly testing his ideas."
Her blog is also fantastic and well worth a read. Anyway, who would you select to share your genetic material with? Judson, naturally.
The iWish, aka the Pomegranate phone
Pomegranate | NS08
Key features:
Projector
Global Voice Translator
Coffee Brewer
Shaver
Harmonica
"Yes, it's finally possible."
No, it isn't. Sorry. It's actually a viral ad campaign for... Nova Scotia!
Dance, Dance, Evolution
2009 AAAS/Science Dance Contest
That's right, a contest to translate your Ph.D. thesis into an interpretive dance. Speaks for itself really-- Geeks getting down. Most of them are pretty bizarre and you'll definitely need the "For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)"" links off the the side. Even after reading them I couldn't tell you what half of it was about.
If you want some real science dancing, TED is the place to be:
Moving on-- Modern Darwins
Modern Darwins — National Geographic Magazine
Celebrate Darwin's brilliance, curiosity, and insight, but let's move on to the fittest scientists of the new generation. That said, this article doesn't do anyone any favors by using religious language to talk about evolution:
" To understand the story of evolution—both its narrative and its mechanism—modern Darwins don't have to guess. They consult genetic scripture."
This goes back to the point made in the NYT op-ed about opening evolution up to a different type of critique by attaching it to one man and using terms and ways of thought that attach too easily to religion. Not that evolution shouldn't be open to critique or skepticism-- that's part of the scientific method-- but I'm coming around to the idea that "Darwinian" evolution might need to be ditched.
Nano Nymphaeaceae
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/nu-wli012909.php
Nymphaeaceae, naturally, are water-lillies. These researchers are looking at the behavior of single-atom sheets of graphite-oxide. By floating them on a pool of water, they can examine how the sheets interact when they bump against each other:
"The effect reminded the researchers of water lilies on a pond, and Huang asked his sister to help to create a Chinese water painting similar to that of Claude Monet's series of paintings "Water Lilies" to demonstrate the idea. The artwork was chosen as one of the first illustrated covers for the 130-year-old journal."
Jive, n.
Oxford English Dictionary jive, n.
1. Talk or conversation; spec. talk that is misleading, untrue, empty, or pretentious; hence, anything false, worthless, or unpleasant; vaguely, ‘stuff’; = JAZZ n. 3a.
2. Jazz, esp. a type of fast, lively jazz; ‘swing’.
b. Lively and uninhibited dancing to dance-music or jazz; spec. ‘jitterbugging’.
3. A variety of American English associated with the Harlem area of New York; slang used by American Blacks, or by jazz musicians and their followers. Also attrib., as jive talk.
when4. Marijuana, or a cigarette containing it.
Form and function-- will all cyborgs look this good?
I'm fasinated by prosthetics, partly because they improve people's lives so dramatically and partly because the engineering is so brilliant. From Oscar Pistorius's 'cheetahs' to Dean Kamen's new "Luke arm," it's really only a matter of time before some athletes and people in specialist occupations (from military to industrial) are voluntarily switching out 'natural' body parts for engineered ones.
It's also a case of reality imitating and inspired by science fiction, with Kamen's prosthetics inspired by those in Lucas's movie. The new design above goes even further though, actively aiming for a non-human aesthetic and emphasizing the fact that it can move in more ways than a 'natural' arm. Bring on the cybogs.
"Let us now kill Darwin"
Darwin-- the name, the beard, the Beagle. They're catchy. He makes a great figurehead. Look at that furrowed brow. He oozes authority and learned wisdom. He looks like a cross between Moses and Socrates.
The point is well-made though:
"Equating evolution with Charles Darwin ignores 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution."
Mendel alone is well worth more attention. MIT has an amazing biology lecture on Mendel that captures the eccentricities of scientific discovery. And his story is just as captivating as Darwin's, even if it doesn't include seafaring:
"Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, discovered that in pea plants inheritance of individual traits followed patterns. Superiors burned his papers posthumously in 1884."
We also have to remember how far the theory of evolution has come since Darwin's time:
"Darwin was an adult before scientists began debating whether germs caused disease and whether physicians should clean their instruments....In 1860 Louis Pasteur performed experiments that eventually disproved “spontaneous generation,” the idea that life continually arose from nonliving things."
By anchoring evolution to Darwin we hold onto an 'ism' that is too easily dismissed as ideology rather than science:
"We don’t call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism.... “Darwinism” implies that biological scientists “believe in” Darwin’s “theory.”"
So maybe we should drop Darwin Day? It's Lincoln's birthday on Thursday anyway, so we can always switch from one venerable beard to another.
Palca on Darwin
Darwin, Britain's Hero, Is Still Controversial In U.S. : NPR
NPR's Joe Palca starts off a week of Darwinian coverage.
""There are actually 34 states in the United States that have passed anti-evolution laws of one kind or another," says Krishtalka, "whether it's stickers in textbooks or warnings that 'Reading this book with be injurious to your mental health," whether it's California or Alabama or Louisiana. For the record, in Kansas, the teaching of evolution in schools never stopped because all of the regulation and rules that the anti-evolution segment of the Kansas City Board of Education tried to get through were never enacted.""
Innovation at NASA: what a joke?
Astronaut's Video Satirizes NASA Bureaucracy : NPR
Heard it on NPR... this morning. It's promising that NASA is open to internal critique. Let's hope they do something about it-- I still want to be an astronaut and the only way that's going to happen is if NASA gets it together and revives the space age.
""That's not the kind of agency you would like to have running rocket programs," says McCurdy. "It might be OK for Social Security check disbursement, but it sure isn't going to be good for rocket science.""
Ask and tell
Op-Ed Contributor - An About-Face on Gay Troops - NYTimes.com
Venturing into politics for the first time. Advances in civil rights often seem to come in fits and starts, with compromises along the way. "Don't ask, don't tell" was a painful compromise that's finally being revistited:
"Last year the principal architects of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” former Gen. Colin Powell and former Senator Sam Nunn, said it was time to “review” the policy.
That’s a polite way of saying they’ve changed their minds. So have many of us who wore the uniform in 1993 and supported a policy that forced some of our fellow troops to live a lie and rejected thousands who told the truth."
I've got the whole world in my hand
Book Search
Google Books goes mobile. A quick scroll through looks promising-- I found Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott right off the bat in the Science & Math section. It's one of my favorites and well worth a read if you have a chance.
More important is what this could promise for developing countries. If the world's store of literature becomes available for free to anyone with a cellphone it suddenly opens new options in rural areas with cell access but without textbooks. Combine it with something like MIT's OpenCourseware initiative and you're really talking about making the best educational material (although not teachers) available for free anywhere in the world.
If only it was actually ON the moon...
Moon station | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
Impressive photo [via Bad Astronomy] of the International Space Station (ISS) passing in front of the Moon. As Phil points out, the perspective is bizarre-- the Moon is over 1000 times farther away than the station, but it looks like it's passing right over.
Darwin Day
Darwin Day Celebration
All this week I'll be posting Darwin/evolution stories. There are going to be a lot-- NPR and all the major science journals have special editions and articles coming out all week. Check in for updates to this evolving story....
Word games
I have a thing for being able to see data. It makes a mass of floating information instantly interesting and comprehensible. It shows relationships and trends and ideas that we might miss otherwise.
Well, here's a new one, applied to this blog:
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