Archive for Science - page 4

In case you’re new here, welcome!  And here are a few ins and outs of how my blog operates.  First off, I’m Mike, the sole proprietor.  Pleased to meet you.  This blog is my peronal communication platform, and posts here reflect only my personal opinions.  I claim no expertise in anything.  In other words, if I write about Law, do not use that as legal advice.  If I write about medicine, do not take that as medical advice.  Get the picture?  OK, good.  Since there is no “official” theme to this blog, you will find posts about many different subjects here which may (or may not) fall loosely into one of several “categories” which you will find listed in the right hand sidebar just under the “recent posts”.  If you want the unfiltered blog, that is to see all posts regardless of category, simply start at the top and keep scrolling down.  Newest posts are at the top, and as you scroll down you go back in time.  If you wish to view only posts in a certain category, then find the category you want in the sidebar and click on it.  Voila!  Only posts in that category will be displayed.  Also in the sidebar are listed “popular posts” and “recent posts”.  Popular posts are those most viewed – not neccessarily the best, but most viewed.  For whatever reason.  And recent posts are just that…the most recent posts.  At any time you can click on the “home” button at the top right to bring you back to the top of the front page.

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When I say that we still don’t even know what we don’t know, I mean that we are discovering new things all the time that we didn’t know existed and therefore didn’t know that we didn’t know them.

You’d think we’d know all there is to know about the oceans, especially the surface and currents, since man has been sailing the oceans since the dawn of time.  But now scientists have discovered enormous votices (plural of “vortex”) of water called mesoscale eddies that swirl their way across the oceans, each one a 60 mile wide and 3,000 foot deep mountain of water that will persist for months or even years.  These are different from the large circular ocean currents known as “gyres”.  The discovery will likely change atmospheric modeling methods.  Huh.  I thought the science was settled.

call me “Eddie”

This reminds me of some years ago when scientists were surprised to find eddies in the rings of Saturn.  Read more about it here – Wired.com: Giant Ocean Vortices Seen From Space Could Change Climate Models

Cross posted at Men Out of Work Blog

I have not written a post about the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 since May 18th  because there have been no new developments.  Yesterday, however it was reported in the Wall Street Journal that Australian Authorities have announced a new search area and are seeking bids from private contractors to search that area.

Since the plane disappeared on March 8th, thousands of square miles of the Indian Ocean west of Australia have been searched, but have yielded no trace of the missing plane.  The new search area was deduced using a combination of known facts and educated guesswork.  The current assumption is that the plane’s autopilot was switched on (it could not have been accidentally engaged) after the plane deviated from it’s assigned course, and that the plane flew on it’s own for several hours after the crew was disabled, possibly from hypoxia or oxygen depletion.

This is a mystery that may never be solved.  The search area is immense and in arguably the most remote and unfriendly ocean in the world.  Even if the wreck is found it may not hold all the answers to what happened and why.  The investigation continues…

WSJ: Australian Report Postulates Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Lost Oxygen

Our Search for Extraterrestrial Bretheren could be “insanely risky” says at least one senior scientist associated with NASA and SETI.  

I have written before here and here about the search for earth like planets orbiting stars in our galaxy and others, and many of you already know about SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence programs to “listen” for signs of extraterrestrial civilizations.  Apparently, according to this article at the UK Daily Mail, the boffins have begun a new program called Active SETI or METI where instead of just listening for signs of neighboring civilizations, signals are actively sent out at high power toward likely targets in an attempt to establish communication with any civilizations that may be within “earshot”.  (“boffins” are “experts”.  I have always wanted to use that word and couldn’t pass up the chance)

Not all scientists think this is such a great idea.  According to the article:

“Not all scientists are sanguine about this, however. One has even called it ‘insanely risky, given the dearth of information we have about the nature of Extra-terrestrial Intelligence’.

John Billingham, a senior figure at SETI and Nasa, even called for a global moratorium on such programmes because of the potential risk to humanity’s future.”

To be calling for a note of caution seems reasonable given the fact that we essentially don’t know a darn thing about the universe around us.  Is it all rainbows and unicorns?  Or might there be snakes in the grass?  Of course our scientists operate on the assumption that since we mean no harm, that any contactees would interact with us in a peaceful way, or that if there are advanced civilizations then they would have evolved past any agressive or warlike tendencies.  But that is simply guessing and is just as likely guessing wrong as guessing right.  It is completely possible that we live in a very dangerous neighborhood, and calling attention to our presence might be ill-advised.  

What is most likely correct is that whatever or whoever we find will be so fundamentally different from us that we will have no way of understanding their logic, emotions or morals if they indeed have any at all.  They might just be very hungry and we might look very tasty.  We cannot assume that we will always be the apex predator.

I am fond of saying the fact that I am paranoid does not mean no one’s out to get me.  So I would also like to tell these scientists:  just because you are not paranoid, that also does not mean no one’s out to get you.  Let’s err on the side of caution here.  

Cross posted at Men Out of Work Blog

Found this video via Althouse.  I have improvised the dialog:

Bumblebee in web:  Bro, do me a solid? (friend, can  you do me a favor, help me out?)

Other Bumblebee: Damn Skippy! (Yes!)

Those sly devils at NASA have been working quietly behind the scenes perfecting their design for a faster than light starship.  According to this article in the UK Daily Mail, NASA reveals warp drive spacecraft designs!  The most important research hurdles have been cleared, and therefore we may be traveling to interstellar destinations in only  a few hundred years.

It has been theorized that faster than light travel is impossible in much the same way it was believed that the sound barrier was impenetrable, but recent breakthroughs have completely changed how the public and journalists view the likelihood of achieving this goal;  We now know that important breakthroughs have brought this accomplishment to the very brink of realization.  The first step toward making this dream a reality was drawing a picture of the proposed spaceship.  Scientists must have said “how can we create warp drive if we don’t have a drawing of a cool spaceship?” Crossing this threshold was such an important first step, artist Mark Rademaker was chosen to complete the task.

Only with this accomplished could the next logical progression  take place, which was to make a movie about interstellar travel.  Not just any movie about how interstellar travel is possible.  A movie showing that interstellar travel is imperative!  To Save Mankind!  With this achievement within reach, only one barrier remains – the discovery of an energy source for the ship.  Scientists are hard at work and have already eliminated some candidates such as Unobtainium and Doesntexistium as not feasible due to their imaginary nature.  After exhausting the search for illusory energy sources, researchers zeroed on on things that actually exist – space and time.  And though there is no process for rendering them into energy, they have achieved the important first step of giving the process a name: “switching on the field”.  This name was chosen for it’s speculative smooth acceleration curve, which also would yield the benefit of allowing the craft to be without seatbelts in order to save precious weight:

“The process of going to warp is also one that is smooth, rather than using a massive amount of acceleration in a short amount of time.  ‘When you turn the field on, everybody doesn’t go slamming against the bulkhead, which would be a very short and sad trip,’ Dr White said.”

Now at last mankind is poised to leap into the great unknown and spread our wisdom, entertainment media and advertising to the farthest reaches of the cosmos!  But can we afford to wait several decades or more to ensure our survival against all those bad things humans have done that will surely wipe us out?  Is it wise to just sit back and hope we make it before Gaia unleashes her certain and terrible revenge upon us?  We have no choice but to wait and find out.

Cross Posted at Men Out Of Work Blog

When I read the headline The Dawn of a Robot Revolution as Army of Machines Escape the  Factory, I confess that  my imagination took me back in time to this:

That’s me. No, not the robot. The robot karate dude

I imagined hordes of malevolent robots escaping their factories, bent on revenge and mayhem against their creator-oppressors.  But in reading the story, it turns out that the revolution is in how and where robotics are used instead of human labor.  A more accurate headline might have been something like “Increasing number of benign machines make cost effective replacement of human labor with robotics more commonplace outside of traditional industrial factory settings”.  However…that loses a little of it’s ooomph…the revised headline could possibly be used to sedate a large animal.  How about you?  Still awake?  Good.

As I like to say, just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me.  And so the robot conspiracy may yet be underway regardless.  I have heard that robots are a patient lot.  I’d keep an eye on that Automatic Cow Milking Machine if I were you.

Oh..and since it’s Music Friday:

…or a fad.  This movement has been evolving for centuries.

For many people, myself included, the concept of wearable technology – wearables for short – is taking things a little too far.  Do we really need “smart” watches so we can post to social media at any second?  Is Google Glass essential to function in business or socially?  Today, I say “NO”.  But what will be my answer in 2,3,5 or 10 years from now?

For some proper context, let’s go back in time (no pun intended) and look at the early, if not the first wearables: pocket watches.  Precise timekeeping was not commonplace before the medieval period, and I’m sure people got along just fine by observing the position of the sun.  But as clocks became  more and more prevalent, so did timekeeping assume a more predominant role in aiding commerce and organizing a growing and more complex society.  As society progressed, punctuality became not just desirable but inceasingly essential and the pocket watch evolved into the wristwatch.  A person wearing a wristwatch was making a statement that they were a serious, modern, productive person.  Perhaps even a moral person.

So the question may be, does a need drive the technology, or does the advent of the technology reveal a need?  Or indeed create a need?  Certainly in the middle ages when the first bells tolled to mark the hours, someone said “what do we need that for?”.  Then, “why could anyone possibly need to carry (later wear) a watch?” Now fast forward – I know that when cellular phones began to be common in the 1990s, I was a doubter.  Yet today everyone including our children view them as a neccessity.  And so it will likely be with smartwatches and wearable computers.

But didn’t we become slaves to the clock?  Many have argued so.  Have our smartphones evolved from capable servants to unrelenting masters?  The epidemic of people unable to ignore the devices even for a few minutes to concentrate on important tasks such as driving suggest it may be true.  Then what of our newest “toys”?  What hell do they have in store for us?  And what about future as yet undreamed of technology?  What price will we pay for them?

So the new fad isn’t a fad or so new either.  And though I find myself once again skeptical of the new technology, I will no doubt be sporting it myself in a few years.  But must we be damned to losing another little slice of our soul to each succeeding generation of technology?  Sadly, I think this is one question to which I can answer “yes”.

Cross posted at Men Out of Work Blog

…that is, How Do You Get a Train Moving?  Interesting article at wired.com if you need to know the physics involved.  The answer?  Back up first.  Click the link to see why.  Hint: there is a reason why the couplings between cars have some space between them.  I was going to say some “slop” but…wait…I guess I said it anyway.

Of course, this would be an exception

What I’d like to know is: How do you stop a (bullet) train?  Or more precisely, how do you kill a (bullet) train?  Because we got one needs killin’. In My Opinion.

Cross Posted at Men Out Of Work Blog

Obviously, it’s just a bunch of machines, right?  I mean, what else could it be?  Here’s an article at Wired.com with some pictures of the inside of a large data center in Spain and…yep.  A bunch of machines.  I feel kind of ripped off.  Like the feeling I have when I realize the jet packs and flying cars I so looked forward to when I was a child not only don’t exist, but probably won’t in my lifetime.  Rrripped off.

Of course, I suppose a bunch of machines and wires is better than what might be in store for us if the movies are any predictor of the future.  These hollywood machines run the gamut from murder and mayhem to simple senility and incompetence.  Kind of like me on a Monday.  Let’s look at a few shall we? *Mike levels the .38 and pulls the hammer back*

There’s HAL 9000, the red-eyed murdering monster that knows better than you from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  

2001!!  Were they wrong!  In 2001 I had a Packard Bell PC with a 500MB hard drive and a dot matrix printer.  I could easily have kicked it’s ass.  But I digress…In Rollerball we have the less malevolent but rather disorganized and forgetful Computer Zero, where the Corporations that rule the world of the future have hoarded All The Information:

Yeah..try calling Tech Support when that thing springs a leak.  More recently from I, Robot we have VIKI, another violence prone misunderstood do-gooder who (which? that? whom?  Never mind) could be much more efficient if there weren’t so many bothersome humans around:

Probably just angry since she isn’t taken seriously because she’s been given a female name.  *Mike sets the .38 down on the desk*  So I guess we are safe..for now.  But you have been warned!  For in the future…Xbox Kinect plays YOU!