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Can we learn to love uncertainty?

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:25:42 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: "... Yet they are all defined in terms of the unsettling lack of something positive or better. It is perhaps for that reason that the stories of those who discovered these uncertainties have been largely overlooked. This is why I made Dangerous Knowledge for BBC television: to champion the incomplete, the uncomputable and the uncertain."

Clip Source: autismdiva.blogspot.com

Here's a newish New Scientist article, by David Malone, it's titled:

Can we learn to love uncertainty?

(Also titled, Are we addicted to certainty?

You might think that no one could argue with the value of certainty. It has the air of one of those indisputably good things, like world peace or motherhood. But I would argue that the pursuit of certainty has become a dangerous addiction.

Few notions have become as deeply embedded in our culture as the belief that there is a perfect certainty to be had - and the desire to have it.

Even as science squeezed out belief in God and scriptural certainties, a perfect law-governed creation remained; it was just under new management

Science has become, in the minds of many, the new guarantor that there is certainty and that we can attain it.

The very word "uncertainty", along with "incompleteness" and "uncomputability", encapsulates one of the three of the most profound theories in 20th-century science and mathematics.

Tags: uncertainty, incompleteness, uncomputability

Possible 'Sleep Gene' Identified

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:15:37 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: When closed, the channel shuts down and the fly sleeps. The insomniac fruit flies had less of the Sleepless-produced protein.

The lack of sleep didn't come without consequences. The Sleepless fruit flies lived about half as long as fruit flies that did not carry the mutation. They also experience impaired coordination and restlessness in their few hours of sleep.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

While scientists and physicians know what happens if you don't get six to eight hours of shut-eye a night, investigators have long been puzzled about what controls the actual need for sleep.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine might have an answer, at least in fruit flies. In a recent study of fruit flies, they identified a gene that controls sleep.

The idea that so much time is spent in sleep is intriguing. Also, sleep deprivation has serious health consequences and impairs cognitive function.

Fruit flies typically sleep 12 hours a day

Sehgal and her team studied 3,500 fruit flies and found mutants that survived on little to no sleep

The sleepless flies had a mutation of a gene that Sehgal and her team have named Sleepless.

They believe the Sleepless gene encodes a protein that affects whether potassium ion channels in the brain stay open or closed. When the channels are open, the brain is connected and working – the fly is awake.

Tags: genetics, sleep, brain

They're Putting Anti-Aging Enzymes in the Water

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:42:41 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: io9.com

Within about 10 years, you might be drinking anti-aging enzymes with your bottled water. California biochemists have a plan to keep the world younger and healthier by using nanotech to deliver an enzyme called CoQ10 to our drinking water. This coenzyme is naturally produced by the body, but in smaller and smaller amounts as we age. And yet it's vital for the body's basic functioning, as it helps our cells convert sugars to energy. Perhaps if we boost its presence in our bodies as we age, our organs will remain productive and healthy for much longer.

Chemists like UC Santa Barbara's Bruce Lipshutz, who studies CoQ10, hope that in the future we will also accept the idea that CoQ10 comes in drinking water, perhaps along with several other vital vitamins and enzymes. So even if you want to grow old and die in the old-fashioned way, you may not be able to — at least, if you plan to drink water.

Nanotechnology Adds Vital Enzyme to Drinking Water [via ZDNet]

Tags: anti-aging, enzymes, water

McCain AWOL from Senate; may lose home state

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:33:08 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Has missed 400 votes, more than any other Senator;
111 - The number of days since McCain last attended a committee hearing (of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on April 9).

25% - How many full SASC hearings McCain has attended during the 110th Congress.

89% - How many full SASC hearings McCain has skipped since April 2007 (32 out of the last 36 hearings).

2007 - The last year in which McCain attended any Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee hearings or subcommittee hearings.

Clip Source: www.dailykos.com

John McCain's Arizona problem

Although little noticed by the traditional media, John McCain has a problem with his day job: He's not doing it.

Any way you measure it, McCain's performance in the Senate during the last year has been abysmal. He has missed 400 votes, far more than any other Senator (including Tim Johnson, who's recuperating from a brain hemorrhage).

Earlier this month he was the only Senator to skip the vote on the Medicare bill.

63% - How many votes in the Senate McCain has skipped during the 110th Congress

96 - The number of Senate votes McCain has missed since his last recorded vote on April 8.

The League of Conservation Voters noted in February that McCain has skipped every one of the 15 Senate votes on environmental issues that it deemed critical during this Congress.

Obama generally has not been absent from the Senate for any more than a couple weeks at a time.

McCain has all but checked out of his Senate job for all of 2008 and indeed for most of 2007 as well

Tags: mccain

"Taking Leave of Life. An Intimate Portrait"

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:14:38 GMT

clipped by: Fast T friend
clipper's remarks: Link to interactive Gallery (can't clip) http://www.oge-gallery.com/

Clip Source: www.wellcomecollection.org

Life Before Death, 9 April-18 May 2008

Nothing teaches us more about life than death itself. Journalist Beate Lakotta and photographer Walter Schels asked 24 terminally ill people if they could accompany them during their last weeks and days. From these vigils came a series of insightful descriptions and photographic portraits taken before and after death.

Far from being gloomy, these intimate concerns of the dying reveal the preciousness and transience of life, and make us question what we often take for granted.

24 sets of photographs taken before and after death

Maria Hai-Anh Tuyet Cao, age 52

“Death is nothing. I embrace death. It is not eternal. Afterwards, when we meet God, we become beautiful.”

Tags: life, death, photography, exhibition, beate lakotta, walter schels

Cool Futuristic/Concept Gadgets That Really Inspire

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:58:52 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: some of these we may have already seen, others are new, most importantly , it appears that most of these are on the way to production

Clip Source: www.hongkiat.com

About 10 years ago, we didn’t really expect the 1.4mb 3.5 inch floppy to evolve into flash drives 10x smaller with storage capacity as big as 32gb. The interesting thing about technology is; it’s just going to get more and more high-end but the size, is just going to get smaller and slimmer.

B-membrane Laptop/Desktop

Concept computer designed by Korean designer Won-Seok Lee. No bulky monitors, just a UFO shape system that displays screen like a projector. [via yankodesign]

Nokia Aeon Full Screen Concept Phone

The most prominent design feature of aeon is a touchscreen that stretches over the full surface area of the phone. [via engadget mobile]

Napkin PC

Cellphone Code

Virtual Goggles

New dSLR?

Future Internet Search

Sunshine Pillow

Capsule Radio Clock

Info-Live Watch

Jive for the elderly

LifeMap

Microsoft Arc Mouse

Pebble Key Port

Pixel Perfect Hour Glass

Calliper Style Radio

Tags: cool, futuristic, concept, gadgets

A Walk In The Park

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:57:53 GMT

clipped by: shandora
clipper's remarks:

Clip Source: www.thelondonpaper.com

Doughnut firm Krispy Kreme has created the world's first grass flip-flops to bring summer magic to the city. The al fresco flip-flops take up to three weeks to grow and each shoe is covered with over 5,000 blades of grass.

If watered regularly, the unique footwear can remain in season for over four months, meaning they are the perfect, head-turning summer-accessory for stressed-out men and women.

Krispy Kreme's Katie McDermott said: "What better way to escape the concrete jungle than by slipping on a pair of grass flip-flops and walking around in your own mobile meadow?

"We cheer people up every day with our one-of-a-kind doughnuts. But hopefully, by providing them with their own part of park life, we'll be able to bring a sense of natural calm to stressed-out workers."

Tags: fashion, green, london

NEW: NASA image gallery

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:00:50 GMT

clipped by: willhelm

Clip Source: www.nasaimages.org

Universe

Solar System

Earth

Astronauts

iPod-size microscope could become lifesaving gadget

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:22:15 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: technology.newscientist.com

Optical microscopes used to be bulky instruments. The lenses and lights normally needed to illuminate, magnify and focus an image take up a lot of space, and are fragile and expensive to boot.

Not any more. Researchers have squeezed a powerful microscope onto a single image-sensing chip and removed the need for lenses.

The cheap, portable device could be just what medics in the developing world need to diagnose diseases such as malaria, its inventors suggest.

"Because the image processing that's needed is trivial in computing terms, we could build the microscope into an iPod-sized device with an LCD display,

"The $10 chip would be a disposable, like an inkjet cartridge, and the whole thing would fit into a clinicians' back pocket," he says, adding that a disposable sensor would reduce the risk of contamination between samples.

Tags: microscope, technology

Buzzzzzzz Kill

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:40:07 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Something is killing the bees, though. Some scientists suspect a virus; others mites, even cellphones. (Bees are not known to use phones, though, having their own communications system -- a dance called the "waggle.")

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

It's likely that most people have never heard of Gaucho. And no, it's not a South American cowboy. I'm talking about a pesticide.

There is increasing reason to believe that Gaucho and other members of a family of highly toxic chemicals -- neonicotinoids -- may be responsible for the deaths of billions of honeybees worldwide

So why did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 grant an "emergency" exemption allowing increased use of Gaucho -- typically invoked during a major infestation --

Therein lies a tale

Most pesticides, we're told, are safe.

In 2006, Gaucho sales topped $746 million.

No independent government testing is required before a pesticide is registered for use.

"Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we now have acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is part of nature, and his war is inevitably a war against himself."

Blue whale and depth

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:00:54 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Whales’ Lower-Pitch Sound Has Experts Guessing

The song of the blue whale, one of the eeriest sounds in the ocean, has mysteriously grown deeper.

The calls have been steadily dropping in frequency for seven populations of blue whales around the world over the past 40 years

Scientists cannot explain why blue whales from places as disparate as the northern Pacific and the Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica, would drop the pitch of their songs.

Each blue whale population has a distinct tempo and tone set to its vocals.

the drop might signal a rebound in the population of blue whales since commercial whaling bans began to take effect in the 1970s.

Scientists believe that only male blue whales sing. Female blue whales choose their mates based on size, a selection process that has fostered the species’ gargantuan proportions. And deeper might signal bigger.

Blue whale populations could be growing by 5 percent each year

numbers are hard to come by

because blue whales

are elusive

Tags: marine biology, blue whale

Intelligent Robots will Explore Milky Way by 2020

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:45:48 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: If we will succeed to create intelligent robots to explore space, will we consider them as our emissaries or just information relaying machines?

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Before the year 2020, scientists are expected to launch intelligent space robots that will venture out to explore the universe for us.

"Robotic exploration probably will always be the trail blazer for human exploration of far space," said Wolfgang Fink, physicist and researcher at Caltech. "We haven't yet landed a human being on Mars but we have a robot there now.

While Fink is encouraged by the progress made by missions such as Phoenix and its robotic arm, he emphasizes that the link between human and robot needs to be eliminated, allowing robots to make their own decisions on what science needs to be carried out.

The physicist said he envisions a time when humans send out intelligent probes to explore the far reaches of the universe and send information back to Earth - without having to send people on excruciatingly long and dangerous space missions.

The main question is will robotic missions trump our basic human desire to explore space via manned missions?

Tags: space exploration, robotics