Clipmarks | Kore7's 'science' clips

No Shortcuts to First-World Wealth

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 14:26:10 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: New cluster-analysis of the world's product export space reveals the differences in connectivity and diversity between nations' production capacities as well as the very sizable developmental gaps in this network that keep poorer countries on the industrial fringes.

The rich countries of the industrialized world tend to have broad portfolios of industries, and accordingly occupy large areas of the product space, usually including much of the network's core. Fast-growing developing countries such as China, Thailand, and Hungary are strong in some of those central, well-connected regions. The poorest countries, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, tend to specialize in a few of the peripheral products—such as oil for Nigeria and copper for Zambia.

EDIT:My first title was too generic ("Mapping the Wealth of Nations.")

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

A country's competitive edge can spread industry to industry, like a disease

The economies of poor and developing countries often depend almost exclusively on a single product—perhaps timber or coffee—or on a handful of products at most.

HIDDEN LINKS. In the product space network above, nodes represent products. The more closely products are linked, the more likely they are to be produced and exported by the same countries. Each node's size represents the total world trade in that product, and the nodes' colors follow an older classification of products.
Hidalgo/Science

REGIONAL DIFFERENCES. In these illustrations, black squares mark products successfully exported. The industrialized countries' products (left) occupy the highly connected core of world trade. Goods from Southeast Asia and the Pacific region (center) cluster in the garment industry and in electronics, while sub-Saharan Africa's products (right) are mostly peripheral.
Hidalgo/Science

Tags: map, network, wealth, poverty, exports, industry, math, economics, countries, world

Atheists Need to Chill

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 04:05:26 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Michael Shermer makes a point that needs to be made. Atheists need to remember what they stand for, not merely what they are against. Ridicule and contempt have no place in science, and haters should not tarnish its reputation by association.

In the words of the greatest consciousness raiser of the 20th century, Martin Luther King, Jr., in his epic "I Have a Dream" speech: "In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline."

If atheists do not want theists to prejudge them in a negative light, then they must not do unto theists the same.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Anti-something movements by themselves will fail.

Atheists cannot simply define themselves by what they do not believe.

Positive assertions are necessary.

Champion science and reason, as Charles Darwin suggested: “It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public

Rational is as rational does.

It is irrational to take a hostile or condescending attitude toward religion because by doing so we virtually guarantee that religious people will respond in kind.

The golden rule is symmetrical.

If atheists do not want theists to prejudge them in a negative light, then they must not do unto theists the same.

Promote freedom of belief and disbelief.

As long as religion does not threaten science and freedom, we should be respectful and tolerant because our freedom to disbelieve is inextricably bound to the freedom of others to believe.

Tags: atheists, atheism, secular, humanism, science, religion, civility, extremism, freedom, belief

Who's Minding the Mind?

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:37:31 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

New studies have found that people tidy up more thoroughly when there’s a faint tang of cleaning liquid in the air; they become more competitive if there’s a briefcase in sight, or more cooperative if they glimpse words like “dependable” and “support” — all without being aware of the change, or what prompted it.

In describing my own research or cognitive science in general to people, the most difficult obstacle I would eventually encounter was the stubborn human belief that there was a independent entity — a free will — in charge of everything important that goes on in their brain. While science has been steadily dismantling this understandable misconception for decades, recent studies on subconscious social priming like these would have helped me demonstrate my point.

To be fair, it's more than a little disconcerting to realize what a messy mix of competing, semi-independent, multi-layered neural modules are responsible for producing our daily behavior.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Who’s Minding the Mind?

In a recent experiment, psychologists at Yale altered people’s judgments of a stranger by handing them a cup of coffee.

The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee — and asked for a hand with the cup.

That was all it took: The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java.

Findings like this one, as improbable as they seem, have poured forth in psychological research over the last few years.

Tags: mind, brain, cognitive science, consciousness, identity, psychology, behavior, priming, science, free will

Stunning Photo of Saturn Backlit By the Sun

Mon, 21 May 2007 04:40:51 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: With our sun behind it, Saturn carves out a majestic silhouette against the vastness of space. And the tiny speck peeking through the rings? That's us!

Click on images for full-size.

(Transmitted by the Cassini probe looking back at the Earth from a billion-mile-out vantage point. Background behind the image's creation.)

Clip Source: www.edge.org

SATURN BACKLIT BY THE SUN
Steven Pinker

One of these days, Edge may want to run this photo, which planetary scientist Carolyn Porco, leader of the Imaging Team for the Cassini mission to Saturn, showed us at the TED Conference: Saturn backlit by the sun, with the Earth appearing as a tiny dot in upper left (shown in the inset blowup). It is not only perhaps the most stunning photograph ever taken, but the fact that it has not appeared on the cover of Time, New York Times, etc., is a sign of our culture's indifference to science. This is truly awe-inspiring — not just visually beautiful, but a mind-boggling technical achievement, and a way to depict the finiteness and fragility of the planet in a way that we haven’t experienced since the famous "Earthrise" photo from the Apollo program in the late 1960s. — Steve Pinker

Tags: saturn, rings, sun, earth, cassini, nasa, space, image, beautiful, science

Stunning Photo of Saturn Backlit By the Sun

Mon, 21 May 2007 04:33:57 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: With our sun behind it, Saturn carves out a majestic silhouette against the vastness of space. And the tiny speck peeking through the rings? That's us!

Should be seen full-size: 1, 2.

(Transmitted by the Cassini probe looking back at the Earth from a billion-mile-out vantage point. Background behind the image's creation.)

Clip Source: www.edge.org

Tags: saturn, rings, sun, earth, cassini, nasa, space, image, beautiful, science

80-Year-Old Indian Math Mystery Solved

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 18:54:26 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: A few months into 2007 and already another long-standing mathematical mystery has been more-or-less put to rest. It will be hard to top Perelman's stunning proof of the legendary Poincaré Conjecture from last year, but in math and science, you never know when the next breakthrough will come.

(If you haven't already, read up on some of the incredible anecdotes about the life of the Indian genius, Ramanujan. He was truly one of a kind.)

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

A pair of mathematicians has solved a problem that had tantalized number-theory researchers for more than 8 decades. It is the so-called final problem of the legendary Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan.

"The mock theta functions are like beautiful butterflies that Ramanujan happened to find," says Freeman Dyson, an emeritus professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. "But if you're a scientist, you want more—you want a theory of evolution, a framework of ideas to fit the butterflies in."

"I didn't really hope to see someone actually do this," says George Andrews of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, who had called the description of the mock theta functions one of the hardest math problems for the new millennium. Ono and Bringmann's accomplishment is "absolutely stunning," he concludes.

Tags: ramanujan, srinivasa ramanujan, 1729, math, mathematics, number theory, problem, mystery, mock theta, function, science, indian

Math Behind Ancient Islamic Tile Patterns Decoded

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 15:15:32 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

When Peter J. Lu traveled to Uzbekistan, he had no idea of the mathematical journey that he was about to embark on as well.

See the full research article as published in Science. It's a wonderful example of original, multidisciplinary academic research bridging history and mathematics that happens to force us to re-think the sophistication of ancient geometrical knowledge.

When Lu looked at photographs of Islamic buildings, he found that he could break the patterns on their surfaces up into the same shapes, even though the shapes often weren't immediately visible. "I couldn't sleep for days," he said. "I skipped Christmas break to work on it."

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

Archway from the Darb-i Imam shrine in Isfahan, Iran, which was built in 1453 C.E. The larger pentagons outlined in pale blue were constructed using a large-scale girih tile pattern, and the small white pentagons were constructed using a small-scale girih tile pattern.
Image courtesy of K. Dudley and M. Elliff.

Kite and dart Penrose tiles.
Wikipedia

A Penrose tiling made up of fat and skinny diamonds.
Wikipedia

A 15th-century Timurid-Turkmen scroll now held by the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul. The faint reddish lines outline the shapes of the underlying tiles. One example of each shape has been shaded in the picture.
Peter J. Lu

The five decorated shapes.
Peter J. Lu

An archway in the Sultan's Lodge in the Green Mosque in Bursa, Turkey from 1424.
Image courtesy of W.B. Denny

Although the underlying shapes aren't obvious in the final design, this diagram shows how the pattern from the Sultan's Lodge archway was constructed using girih tiles.
Image courtesy of W.B. Denny

Tags: art, tile, tiles, tiling, shape, islamic, islam, turkey, uzbekistan, patterns, pattern, symmetry, geometry, math, mathematics, penrose, girih, history, ancient, research, discovery, science

Giant Bioluminescent Squid Captured on Video for First Time!

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 18:22:14 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Terrifying! The YouTube link is OK, but see the full-size, high-frame-rate Quicktime version on nature.com to see this rare animal in all its lit-up glory. Like something out of a James Cameron movie....

Remains of Taningia danae often show up in the stomachs of sperm whales. The squid's flabby flesh led experts to think that it floats in the water column like a neutrally buoyant scuba diver. But the new footage shows it can reach speeds of up to 9 kilometres per hour.

When presented with bait, the squid attacked, flashing its luminescent spots, or 'photophores', which contain glowing bacteria. It produced longer glows when faced with the bait rig's lights, suggesting that it was performing some sort of mating dance.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Clip Source: www.nature.com

Japanese researchers have gained an insight into the behaviour of the elusive Taningia danae, one of the world's largest squid species, thanks to the first footage of the deep-sea creature. The video reveals that the animal is a speedy swimmer — not, as was thought, a lazy drifter.

The footage also shows that the squid, which can grow to 2.3 metres long, apparently uses luminescent spots on its arms to confuse prey, and may also use the glowing dots in courtship.

The video was made off Japan's Ogasawara Islands, using an underwater high-definition camera, by Tsunemi Kubodera of the National Science Museum in Tokyo, together with colleagues from the Japan Broadcasting Corporation and the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association. They describe their observations in Proceedings of the Royal Society B¹.

Tags: squid, animal, taningia danae, sea, deep sea, ocean, bioluminescent, bioluminescence, blue, light, biology, science, japan, video, cool

Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 02:12:47 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: One author's mostly optimistic prediction of the ideas that will come to define our collective future. Nicely done.

Open Source: This is a term that most people are familiar with, but it’s worth re-stating. The open source revolution, where information is freely distributed and editable, is already reshaping a number of industries and upsetting traditional economic and intellectual property models. Wikipedia has very quickly become the world’s largest repository of encyclopedic information. Linux and other open source software continue to rival the big players. And looking further down the line, there’s the potential for open source science, culture, and the disturbing potential for open source warfare.

Clip Source: ieet.org

Accelerating Change: That the pace of technological development is accelerating is now undeniable. The steady onslaught of Moore’s Law and its eerie regularity is the most profound example. As thinkers like Ray Kurzweil and others have shown, the onslaught of accelerating change throws commonly held time-frames out the window. And that this rate of change is exponential implies radical social disruption around the mid-point of the 21st Century.

Existential Risks: The development of nuclear weapons marked a disturbing turning point for the human species: we are increasingly coming into the possession of apocalyptic technologies. Soon to join the list are such problems as a malevolent superintelligence, deliberate or accidental misuse of nanotech, runaway global warming, a killer artificial virus, an antimatter holocaust, or a particle accelerator disaster. Read more here and here. Adding insult to injury is the Doomsday Argument.

Fermi Paradox: The FP is the disturbing realization that, given the extreme age of the galaxy and the radical potential for post-Singularity intelligences (including their ability to disseminate Von Neumann replicators), our galaxy should be saturated with advanced civilizations and megaprojects by now. Yet, we see no signs of ETI’s. Consequently, any predictions about the future of human intelligence must seek to reconcile this observation. Key theories to date include the Great Filter hypothesis, the migration hypothesis (pdf), and the transcension hypothesis (the idea of inward migration into increasingly sophisticated and complex MEST space (Matter, Energy, Space, and Time)).

Tags: terms, ideas, 21st century, intellectual, intellectuals, future, futurism, modernism, prediction, science, technology, society, humanity

What Did Descartes Really Know? (Book Review)

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:03:19 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Great review of two new Descartes biographies that set some of the records straight on the great naturalist's works.

Despite his current reputation, the man himself seems to have been less interested in metaphysics than in applying algebra to geometry and delving into the innards of cows. He turned to philosophy relatively late in life, and out of fear that the Catholic Church would condemn his science. He would have been surprised at how he is remembered.

Most of all, he would have been aghast at the way in which “I think, therefore I am” has been ripped from its context, inflated into a one-sentence summary of his ideas, and turned into something absurd. The rot set in at the start of the nineteenth century, when Hegel made heavy weather of “I think, therefore I am” and took it to mean that thought and being are fundamentally the same thing.

Clip Source: www.newyorker.com

THINK AGAIN

What did Descartes really know?

by ANTHONY GOTTLIEB

Issue of 2006-11-20

Posted 2006-11-13

In “Descartes: A Biography” (Cambridge; $40), Desmond Clarke, a leading Descartes scholar at the National University of Ireland, Cork, argues that Descartes’s philosophy is distorted if it is not seen in the context of his wider scientific enterprise. Descartes certainly played down his own purely philosophical writings. In a letter to his friend Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, in June, 1643, and again in a conversation with a theology student, Frans Burman, who interviewed him in April, 1648, Descartes warned against paying too much attention to his metaphysics. Read it once, he said, and move on. His “Discourse,” with the famous slogan, was published merely as a preface to a collection of treatises on optics, meteorology, and geometry. Clarke reminds us that Descartes’s philosophical works were intended to establish credentials for his system of nature, and to make it theologically acceptable. The “Meditations” originally bore the subtitle “in which are demonstrated the existence of God and the immortality of the soul.” Indeed, Clarke’s most distinctive claim is that Descartes’s account of the mind as an immaterial substance—his famous “dualism” of the mental and the physical, sometimes known as the doctrine of “the ghost in the machine”—is at best a provisional theory, aimed at providing support for the Catholic doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and sits uneasily with many other things that he wrote.

Tags: descartes, rene descartes, grayling, desmond clarke, philosophy, thinking, existence, metaphysics, science, nature, math, mathematics, history, biography, review, dualism, theology

How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic (FAQ)

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 21:49:11 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: More common questions and myths answered at the source, thoroughly cross-referenced and conveniently categorized and sub-categorized by type of argument:

Stages of Denial

Scientific Topics

Types of Argument

Levels of Sophistication

A nice reference that's updated with fresh comments. Many "skeptics" often are unaware (by choice or by circumstance) that their common questions have already been addressed by scientists long ago.

Clip Source: gristmill.grist.org

Stages of Denial

There's nothing happening

Inadequate evidence

Contradictory evidence

No consensus

We don't know why it's happening

Models don't work

Prediction is impossible

We can't be sure

Tags: climate, global, global warming, climate change, environment, skeptic, skeptics, climatology, atmosphere, earth, science, debate, argument, faq, questions, answers, c02, glaciers, temperature, myths

The Myth of Prodigy and Why it Matters

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 02:54:28 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Science writer, Malcolm Gladwell, debates the worth of placing so much attention on childhood prodigies and whether the notion of childhood prodigy hasn't been romanticized beyond it's importance.

Our romanticized view of precociousness matters. When certain kids are singled out as gifted or talented, Gladwell suggested, it creates an environment that may be subtly discouraging to those who are just average. “In singling out people like me at age 13 for special treatment, we discouraged other kids from ever taking up running at all. And we will never know how many kids who might have been great milers had they been encouraged and not discouraged from joining running, might have ended up as being very successful 10 years down the road.”

Clip Source: www.psychologicalscience.org

“I think we take it as an article of faith in our society that great ability in any given field is invariably manifested early on, that to be precocious at something is important because it’s a predictor of future success,” Gladwell said. “But is that really true? And what is the evidence for it? And what exactly is the meaning and value of mastering a particular skill very early on in your life?”

Tags: gladwell, malcolm gladwell, prodigy, myth, children, childhood, running, psychology, sociology, science, gifted, talent, dedication, learning, mozart, precocious, success, life

Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse: Science, Religion, and the Slippery Slope

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 23:27:10 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

In the wake of the scandal of former Congressman Mark Foley’s inappropriate behavior involving teenage male pages, a number of conservative commentators and organizations are reviving an old charge that homosexuals are more likely to sexually abuse children.

But, as the author points out, this research has been debunked for decades now and is only being resurrected again for campaigning purposes.

The numerous citations of the scientific literature by social conservatives initially look impressive. However, when one examines the original studies that have been cited, one finds that the conclusions of the original studies are contrary to the claims made by those citing the studies. Most significantly, while social conservatives claim that all the cases of sexual molestation of young boys by adult males are committed by homosexuals, the scientists whom they cite explicitly reject this assertion. Let us examine the actual claims of the scientists, one by one.

Clip Source: www.internationalorder.org

Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse:

Science, Religion, and the Slippery Slope

Mark E. Pietrzyk*

Executive Summary

In response to the scandal involving former Congressman Mark Foley, a number of conservative religious groups have claimed that homosexuals pose a substantially greater risk of committing sexual abuse against children than heterosexuals, and have issued papers citing a number of scientific studies to support these claims. However, when one examines the studies cited in these papers, one finds that the religious right has engaged in some serious distortion of the works of others. The scientists who authored the studies made no such claim about homosexuals posing a greater threat to children, and in fact in many cases argued the opposite.

In addition, many in the religious right have employed a version of the “slippery slope” argument, charging that the gay rights movement has led inevitably to tolerance for pedophilia by eroding all traditional norms of sexual behavior. However, the “slippery slope” argument is based on the false premise that the protection of children from sexual activity is a long-standing part of the Judeo-Christian ethic, which has only recently come under assault as a result of the gay rights movement. In fact, throughout most of history, the Judeo-Christian tradition tolerated and even approved of sexual relations between adult males and girls of twelve years of age or even younger. The contemporary taboo against sex between adults and minors developed only in the late nineteenth century, as societies became increasingly committed to the ideals of individual rights and personal autonomy, which led to concern about the possibility of coercion and exploitation in adult-minor relationships.

Tags: science, sociology, society, culture, homosexuality, homosexuals, gay, gay marriage, mark foley, foley, pietrzyk, family research council, timothy dailey, pat robertson, focus on the family, study, abuse, sexual, children, politics, religion

"Spore": The Long Zoom

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 03:40:31 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Great article about what looks to be an incredible online, massively-multiplayer game (from the creator of the Sims and SimCity series) where "players" master the entire phenomenon of life; from ecology, to atmospheric science, to anatomy, to evolution, to civilization, to planetary politics, and on to galactic diplomacy.

If anyone can pull it off, it’s Will Wright. This is the guy who made the urban planning simulation SimCity into one of the all-time top-selling games in history. There is probably no one alive who has a comparable track record of combining arcane scientific theories and compulsively addictive entertainment.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

By STEVEN JOHNSON

Published: October 8, 2006

Spore has progressed mightily over the past six years — an eternity in game-development time — though an official start date has yet to be set by its producer, Electronic Arts, the world’s largest game maker. “What you’re doing in Spore is layer by layer creating an entire world that at the end of the day is entirely yours: the creatures, the vehicles, the cities, the planets,” Wright explained. Those layers map onto different spatial scales that you advance through as you play: cell, creature, tribe, city, civilization and space. (As in most traditional games, once you have completed a level, you can always go back to it. A skilled gamer might be able to reach the highest level after 30 hours of play, but like all of Wright’s creations, the game has no definite ending.) As you begin playing Spore, you take on the role of a single-celled organism, swimming in a sea of nutrients and tiny predators. This part of the game has a streamlined, 2-D look that harks back to classic games from the 80’s like PacMan. Once you have accumulated enough “DNA points” or “evolutionary credits,” you acquire the use of a feature called the “creature editor,” and things start to get really interesting. You assemble a new life form to represent yourself using an almost comically intuitive tool. If you have the technical chops to assemble a Mr. Potato Head, you can build a creature in Spore. You start with a basic body type wrapped around a standard skeleton, and then you can pretty much do whatever you want to it: stretch it out, condense it, add seven asymmetrical legs and one pincer, give it eyes on both sides of its head or wrap a polka-dot skin texture around it. I’ve seen creatures designed as exact replicas of the Care Bears, and I’ve seen creatures that look like H.R. Giger’s sketches for “Alien.”

Tags: game, video game, ecology, evolution, science, atmosphere, politics, diplomacy, galaxies, civilization, spore, will wright

Illustration Winners - 2006 Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 01:45:01 GMT

clipped by: Kore7

Clip Source: www.nsf.gov

#64 - Still Life: Five Glass Surfaces on a Tabletop
Credit: Richard Palais, University of California – Irvine; Luc Benard

Innumerable surfaces that we cannot touch or see or even know can be seen my mathematicians. They have long relied on their powers of imagination to picture abstract surfaces. Richard Palais of the University of California, Irvine, and graphic artist Luc Benard used the magic of computer graphics to recreate these abstract surfaces in familiar yet intriguing settings.

Clip Source: www.nsf.gov

A DaVinci Blackboard Lesson in Multi-Conceptual Anatomy
Credit: Caryn Babaian, Bucks County Community College, Newton, PA

Some things never grow old. Biology teacher Caryn Babaian of Bucks County Community College in Newtown, Pennsylvania used the iconic Leonardo da Vinci Vitruvian Man to illustrate rotation, transparency and transverse section in her anatomy class. Babaian requires her students to draw the image in their notebooks as they watch it take shape on the blackboard.

Clip Source: www.nsf.gov

The Handwritten Letter "e," Visualized as a Canyon with Frost in the Lowlands

Credit: Curtis T. DuBois

This landscape of gorges began as an effort to aid handwriting analysists. This handwritten letter “e” depicts a unique pattern of pressure points converted into shades of grey in a digitally scanned image.

Tags: illustration, illustrations, images, visualization, visualizations, science, engineering, challenge, nsf