Once more into the breach: We few, we happy few, we band of kitties; for he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my puss-puss.
Courtesy o205billege
The general holds the binoculars up to his eyes and surveys the battlefield. This will be the first test of the new Coordinated Autonomic Tactical force—C.A.T. for short—an army of robot warriors with electronic brains as complex and powerful as a small mammal’s.
The exercise begins, and all goes exactly to plan. The mechanized warriors sweep across the terrain in formation. Faced with unexpected obstacles, they improvise their own solutions. Soon, they are overwhelming the enemy positions.
Suddenly, a squirrel darts across the field. The entire right flank breaks rank to pursue. Corporal Whiskers beings licking himself. Sergeant Buttercup and Lieutenant Muffy begin hissing at each other. Private Snookums climbs a tree and can’t get down.
The general lowers his binoculars. Staring off into the middle distance, he says to his second-in-command, “We may not have thought this through thoroughly.”
Tags : The day we all die: September 10, 2008
in Earth and Space Science, Physical Science, Structure of Matter, Math, Scientific Enterprise, and Forces of Nature
Ask not...: It tolls for thee, bro, it tolls for thee.
Courtesy carl.jonesJust messin’, y’all!
Only some of us will die on September 10th! And that’s only because we were going to die anyway. There will be sudden heart attacks, tragic car accidents, hilarious full-body prolapses, and possibly some mysterious cases of spontaneous combustion, and none of that will have anything to do with the Large Hadron Collider turning on on the tenth of September.
That’s right, everyone, you can stop holding your breath, and start crossing your fingers, because the LHC now has a date for its first proton collision.
Some people have raised concerns that turning on the LHC could lead to the destruction of the earth in one of several very sciencey ways. Other people have shouted down these jokers, however, because they are very, very, very probably wrong.
And if the world doesn’t end, well, we’ll probably learn all sorts of rad things about the nature of the universe. We might even get some visitors from the future. But I might put a larger bet on the destruction of the solar system (but, you know, fingers crossed).
So, Buzzketeers, on September 10, do your best to protect yourself from the everyday dangers of existence. Wrap your head in packing foam, fill your tummy with starch-based peanuts, and keep yourself wet and/or naked to prevent sparks catching in your clothing and hair, because you probably won’t want to miss what’s coming out of the LHC.
Some fingers: Some fingers down, more fingers up.
Courtesy anna_tResearchers from MIT have found that a tribe in remote northwestern Brazil has no words for specific numbers.
The language of the tribe, of which there are only about 300 members, seems to be unique in that it has no numbers. Counting was thought to have been innate in human cognition. Apparently that isn’t totally the case. Specific numbers weren’t useful to this culture, so they never developed them in their language.
Instead of specific numbers, the group, called the Piraha, has a couple of relative terms, translating to something like “some” and “more.” Piraha math classes, I assume, would be awesome.
Some + some = more (obviously)
Nothing + some = some (duh)
Nothing + more = some (interesting!)
More – some = some (probably)
Some – more = your mind blown (Whoa!)
Something very anthropologically and linguistically crazy is going on here. Something about how even though we think our thoughts shape language, language actually ends up shaping our thoughts. So if you come from a culture whose language has no concept of specific numbers, how does that shape your perception of the world?
Oh, if only I had been a better student.
US missile test: There is nothing wrong with this picture.
Courtesy US Dept. of Defense (not Mark Ryan)Click here and look at the photograph accompanying the story. Agence France-Presse claims the image was obtained from a website of the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The photo makes it look like the Iranians are flexing their military muscle during a recent missile test launch, but in reality they seem to be merely flexing their Clone Stamp Tool in their (probably illegal) copy of Adobe Photoshop.
Now look at the stock photo on the right. This is a minuteman test done by the US military over the Pacific Ocean. I swear to God I have not manipulated this image in any way whatsoever. Not at all. Not one single pixel has been changed in this original photograph. Really.
Well, okay, actually I may have enhanced it just a bit, but only to make a point.
Photo tampering has been around since the earliest days of photography. It was (and still is) a practice used often in advertising, propaganda, magazine covers, and even news (where it is gravely frowned upon). So this kind of thing is nothing new. But advances in digital photography and computer software that allows for pixel-level image manipulation has really created an atmosphere ripe for extreme skepticism of any kind of photograph you see out there nowadays. And the Internet is full of such “real photographs”; stuff like the guy who keeps his dead wife encased in a coffee-table, paratroopers coming in over a lake full of hungry alligators, or president Bush having a good time in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. All lies!!
When I published a composite photo in a magazine some years ago, the publisher credited it as a “photo illustration” rather than photograph. And I had no problem with that. I’ve also sold (as photographs) images that were extensively manipulated by the addition and removal of elements to enhance the composition. Since I wasn’t trying to make any kind of editorial statement, I have no problem doing that. I look at it more as painting with pixels than tampering with photography. But it does raise the issue of photo ethics. Evidently, it’s okay when used in some ways (such as advertising where everybody expects everything to be a lie), but not okay in other ways (such as news photos).
If done correctly, and with a good deal of thought and meticulous attention to detail, a remarkable “photograph” can be created that even the experts will have difficulty determining whether it’s been doctored or not. Such as my fine illustrative example above. If I hadn’t told you otherwise, I’m sure you would have thought it was an actual photograph of multiple launches. People can be so gullible.
So, perhaps you want to join the Photo Tampering Bandwagon and learn the finer points of image manipulation, but you just don’t have the time to invest in reading the manual that came with your copy of Photoshop. Who can blame you? The thing is massive! I don’t even like reading it. But now, fortunately, there’s a wonderful series on YouTube called “You Suck at Photoshop”, which makes learning the ins and outs of what truly is a complicated program both fun and educational (especially if your current relationship is on shaky ground).
And, lastly, for those of you insisting on some sort of “science” angle to these posts, go here for that.
LINKS
More on the ethics of photo manipulation
Snopes Fauxtography site
Opps! There's one!: So I guess it's 17 now.
Courtesy Minnete LayneWell, if you were feeling anxious about there being no more undiscovered sea monsters, chill out. There are still some out there. About 18, to be specific.
See, ever since Science’s parents (Magic and Critical Thought) stopped putting Science’s stuff up on the fridge, Science has really been going out of its way to make sure we all know how special it is.
We get it, Science, you’re great. Take it easy.
As if.
Science, in its latest flailing and pathetic play for attention, has announced that there are indeed more huge, unknown sea creatures out there, and it knows that there are 18 of them.
Okay, Science, whatever you say. Act like you know.
But, no, Science goes on to explain, here’s my reasoning: If we first decide that a body length exceeding 1.8 meters defines a large sea creature (which, by the way, makes JGordon a large sea creature by 3 cm when he goes swimming), we can then look at the rate at which large sea creatures have been discovered in the last 180 years or so. The rate of discovery for large sea creatures remains pretty strong, and if you consider the places large sea creatures could be hiding, deep in the oceans, or under polar ice, say, it’s very likely that there are quite a few of them left to find. Using some flashy statistical modeling, Science predicts that there could be as many as 18 of these large sea creatures still undiscovered.
Science goes on to emphasize that there probably aren’t any monsters hiding out in lakes and lochs, and that accounts of sea serpents and their ilk can probably all be explained by known creatures, like colossal squid, and 30 plus-foot oarfish. Ah, thanks for that, Science.
Still, Science doesn’t hold all the cards. It may know that there are 18 monsters still hiding out there, but I know exactly what they are. Deal with it, Science.
Anguirus
Baragon
Destroyah
Ebirah
Gabara
Ganime
Gigan
Gorosaurus
Kamoebas
King Caesar
King Ghidorah
Kumonga
Megalon
Minilla
Mothra
Rodan
Urkel
Varan
My Geo Metro: 47 miles per gallon
Courtesy Art OglesbyGuess the answer to this word problem before doing the math.
- Car A (a compact) gets 34 mpg
- Car B (a hybrid) gets 54 mpg
- Car C (an S.U.V.) gets 18 mpg
- Car D (a sedan) gets 28 mpg
Which would save more gasoline?
- (a)replacing Car A with Car B
- (b)replacing Car C with Car D
- (c)both would save the same
Can you do the math?
I drive my car about 10,000 miles each year. One way to look at this problem would be to calculate how many gallons of gas each of the four cars would use to go 10,000 miles. Can you do the math? If gas costs $4 per gallon what is the cost for each car to go the 10,000 miles?
Show me your answers in the comments
I will do the math for my Geo Metro as an example. It now has over 100,000 miles on it. Until recently it got 50 miles per gallon. Two gallons would take me 100 miles, 20 gallons would take 1000 miles. 100,000 miles would take 2000 gallons. With $4 gas that 2000 gallons would cost $8000.
Save the world's gas
I once owned a Ford pickup truck. If it got 20 mpg and if I drove it 100,000 miles I would need 5000 gallons which would cost me $20,000. By replacing my pickup with the Metro I use less than half the gas and save over $1000 a year. I used to commute to work and put on 30,000 miles per year. That figures out to a $36,000 saving over 10 years.
A different crop circle: This one was created by confused cattle. Amazing.
Courtesy Alan L. BaughmanWant to blow some minds, Buzzketeers? You’ve got a couple of options.
The first and most obvious route to some serious brain-blasting is to become a motorcycle stunt jumper. I don’t care if you aren’t into engines and broken bones; if you see a man in a cape riding a dirtbike fly over 30 flaming school buses, your brain will ooze out your ear holes (in the most awesome way).
The other option is to learn some math. It doesn’t have to be too much math—a lot of people couldn’t tell trig if it bit them in the calc, and so a little math can go a long way. And if you can combine that math with another skill…minds will be blown.
Take, for example, the latest, greatest crop circle. Now, we all know that crop circles are made by aliens, right? Duh. It’s a case of Occam’s razor—the simplest explanation is the best. So we have unusual patterns battered into fields of crops. What’s the explanation with the fewest assumptions? That beings we have never encountered traveled from a place we know nothing about, and use their very likely highly advanced minds and inter-stellar travel technology to draw circles and things in our food for reasons we can’t fathom.
For the sake of argument and education, however, let’s pretend that crop circles have a much more complex origin—that they come from dudes (and dudettes, undoubtedly) with an artistic bent, and too much time on their hands.
So, back to this particularly mind blowing circle. It appeared on a field near Barbury Castle (which, I’m afraid, isn’t much of a castle), and consists of a ten layered, jagged-looking spiral, with a few circles and dots and things. It looks pretty cool—check out the photograph—but it means nothing to me. Then again, I majored in the liberal arts. When the circle was examined by an astrophysicist (or a “professional cleverboots,” as they are sometimes known), however, something remarkable jumped out of the shape: it’s a mathematical code.
And what secret equation or figure is hidden in this alien thought bubble?
Pi.
“The code is based on 10 angular segments with the radial jumps being the indicator of each segment,” says the astrophysicist on-call. “Starting at the centre and counting the number of one-tenth segments in each section contained by the change in radius clearly shows the values of the first 10 digits in the value of pi (3.141592654). The tenth digit has even been correctly rounded up. The little dot near the centre is the decimal point.”
How about that? I wouldn’t have noticed, but now that I’ve been told, my mind is hissing and steaming out of my tear ducts. Or are those just tears of happiness?
Very clever, crop circle-person, very clever. Consider all minds blown. And you couldn’t have done it without your old pals math and geometry.
Check out this page for ten of the most impressive crop circles to be seen on Google Earth (the new one isn’t on there yet
Sizing up the competition: Capuchin monkeys can be trained to use money, and react to it in surprisingly humanlike ways.
Courtesy Arriving at the horizon
Researchers in Italy have taught capuchin monkeys how to use money to buy food in lab experiments. The monkeys were observed making simple economic decisions.
The study is not yet available on-line, but it sounds an awful lot like this research from Yale, published last year. There, the monkeys not only learned to use money, but to respond to price fluctuations, and even to steal. However, they could not budget and they gambled irrationally – a lot like their hominid cousins.
There was also an incident of flinging feces at fellow monkeys who did not play by the rules – perhaps the most dismal experiment in the history of the dismal science.
Gone fishin': A long-tailed macaque in Thailand demonstrates its unorthodox technique.
Courtesy nittynorn
Meanwhile in Indonesia, industrious long-tailed macaque monkeys aren't waiting for handouts. They are supporting themselves by observed fishing, scooping fish from the water with their bare hands and eating them.
This is the first documented evidence of fishing in this species, though other primates – including baboons, chimps and orangutans – are known to fish. Researchers believe this behavior in macaques is an indication of their flexibility and ability to adapt to new conditions.
More than anything: he just wants you to have good, clean fun.
Courtesy publicinsomniacA Dutch study has shown that, if anything, Friday the 13th is actually a little safer than other days of the year.
So you've got nothing to worry about tomorrow. Except flesh eating bacteria, psychopathic killers, and sour milk. You never know.
Another dismal post about the dismal science.
Today, we look at The Copenhagen Consensus. A group of economists are presented with a thought experiment: let’s say you had $75 billion to spend on solving one of the world’s problems – how would you allocate your funds?
Economists, being the dismal people that they are, take no account of what is “moral” or “right” or what “ought” to be done. They just try to figure out where you get the biggest bang for your buck. Their answer? Micronutirents for kids. Providing vitamin A and zinc to 80 percent of the 140 million children who lack them would provide almost $17 in health benefits for every dollar invested.
Other items in the top ten:
- Micronutirents for kids
- Expanding free trade
- Fortifying foods with iron and salt
- Expanding immunization coverage of children
- Biofortification
- Deworming
- Lowering the price of schooling
- Increasing girls' schooling
- Community-based nutrition promotion
- Support for women's reproductive roles
The majority of the most-efficient solutions deal with health, thus proving the old saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
The least-efficient proposal was a plan to mitigate global warming. Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling noted that that spending $75 billion on cutting greenhouses gases would achieve almost nothing. In fact, the climate change analysis presented to the panel found that spending $800 billion until 2100 would yield just $685 billion in climate change benefits.
Economist Richard Nordhaus, in his book A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies, draws a similar conclusion. Projects to massively reduce greenhouse gases end up costing more than they deliver—in some cases, many trillions of dollars more. OTOH, investing in alternative energy (wind, solar, etc.) and bio-engineering can produce great results for the amount spent on them.
The economists at Copenhagen felt funding research and development of low-carbon energy technologies was worthwhile, and ranked it 14th out of the 30 proposals they considered.
Other items at the bottom of the priorities list are proposals to reduce air pollution by cutting emissions from diesel vehicles; a tobacco tax; improved stoves to reduce indoor air pollution; and extending microfinance. These are not necessarily bad ideas. It’s just that other proposals provide more bang for the 75 billion bucks.
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