WORMHOLES
I feel like this is a bigger deal than just some Collgehumor video.
Electronic Tattoo Display runs on Blood
Remember getting your mind really blown by new technology?
Clive Thompson on Science Fiction
"If you want to read books that tackle profound philosophical questions, then the best — and perhaps only — place to turn these days is sci-fi. Science fiction is the last great literature of ideas."
Have you ever wondered what space smells like? Yeah, me neither.
NASA beams the Beatles into space
NASA broadcast "Across The Universe" into outer space using the Deep Space Network. Asked to comment, Paul McCartney wisely noted, "Amazing! Well done, NASA! Send my love to the aliens."
The Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer (ENDURANCE) is a $2.3 million project funded by NASA's Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets Program. It's autonomous underwater vehicle designed to swim untethered under ice, creating three-dimensional maps of underwater environments, and ostensibly is a test for exploring Europa, the icy Jovian moon that just might harbor life.
The Archive of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences: as amazing as it sounds.
Literally!
I love it when the New York Times gets all tripped out on science stuff.
Hugest Black Hole Ever Discovered
18 billion times the size of our sun!
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August 2006 Archives
Pluto was born with its moons
Archived From August 24, 2006 (10) Comments
2:34 PM | Permalink | (10) Comments
Pluto's OK, We're OK
Archived From August 20, 2006 (2) Comments
A lot of people, sweetly, have been asking for the Universe(TM) perspective on this "new planets" issue. I've written about itonce before, of course, around the time that the latest new planet discovery really brought the question out into the astronomical limelight. This is, however, a long-standing issue.
For those of you who aren't abreast on this development: the increasingly frequent discovery of astronomical objects larger than Pluto (most of which reside in a belt of icy rocks outside Neptune called the Kuiper Belt) has put into serious question the status of Pluto as a planet. The International Astronomical Union, which convenes regularly to discuss nerd space issues, has, in the midst of its 26th General Assembly, proposed a new definition of the word "planet" which would open up the 9-buddy system to a whole new crew of planets. The new definition is as follows:
A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet.
Immediately, this would mean that Pluto's "moon," Charon, would be granted planet status, establishing the pair as the first ever (nominal) double-planet system. The asteroid Ceres and something called UB313 will also join the ranks if this new definition, slated for the General Assembly's vote on the 24th, is approved. Although most astronomers are relieved by this definition, it's probably going rattle everyone a whole lot.
I am, of course, thrilled. Why?
A) A non-governmental, autonomous body of brilliant astronomers convening in one place to discuss and vote on the issue of planets seems to be both kind of "old world" and very progressive.
B) The Solar System -- which has long been just that, a system -- is purely a symbolic entity designed to give us humans a feeling of mastery over the alienating cosmos. It's about time we grew up and dealt with how horrible and huge the universe is. It's totally scary not have the "old boys club" of nine planets around anymore, but it's also exciting. Dr. Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, pointed in a recent NY Times article on the subject that "nature is much richer than our imagination. Life is tough, life is complicated. Get over it."
C) People have always thought of the planets as being somehow separate from Earth, something that I find maddening. Perhaps with this widening of planetary standards we will come to realize our place within the definition. The stars in our night sky are just other suns with other planets around them -- from the point of view of rocks light years away, our sun is just a star. I know everyone knows this, but really: think about it.
D) What an epic time for astrology.
1:34 PM | Permalink | (2) Comments
Add it up
Archived From August 19, 2006 (2) Comments
For effect, I'm just going to say something here, something that your outer skeptic -- nay, even your inner skeptic -- might immediately buck against. Don't worry; I'm not going to start talking about the healing power of Lemurian Seed Crystals. I will only present you with this deceptively simple idea:
"The world is a better place than it was before."
Or, alternately: "The world, on the whole, is improving."
You may, very rightly, protest: they did kill the electric car, after all. Global warming is probably going to melt the Internet, and we are in a state of constant and meaningless war. Popular culture is an amalgamation of insipid garbage, and gay marriage is still illegal. This Lemurian Healing Crystal is doing nothing! The world's going down the tubes! Just look around!
Let's, however, tune in, drop out, and simplify the question. What defines the quality of life of the world? Is it the population? The amount of wealth per capita? Literacy? Disease prevention? Spiritual crystal vibes?
Has life gotten better on Earth recently, or what? It's a simple question, but the answer seems more elusive than Nirvana.
However, according to the statisticians and software programmers at the Malmo, Sweden-based nonprofit organization Gapminder.com, the variables that go into understanding the quality of life on a global level are diverse and scattered -- but they are far from unknown.
The UN, for example, has been collecting precise global statistics of a staggering range, about everything from Internet literacy to HIV rates, since the mid-1960s. This data is incredibly rich and could potentially tell us a great deal about how the world has changed since the crystalline 60s; unfortunately, however, it is banished to unbelievably esoteric and dusty volumes that are generally inaccessible and boring. Statistics, right? Long the dread of adolescents, long bastardized by useless USA Today "Info-Graphics," and long expatriated to the cobwebbed rhetoric of phrases like -- yawn -- "see Fig. 2.5"
Statisticians, however, have an essential role to play in our blossoming world, in that they present a great deal of complex information to skilled and unskilled audiences alike. If they do badly by us, we end up feeling alienated by information. If they do well, on the other hand, laypeople become able to understand intricate images of the world in which they live, which has a huge effect on how they live and treat others.
Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Ronnlund, co-founders of Gapminder, wisely observed that, "many statisticians are like musicians standing up in front of the audience showing the sheet music instead of playing it." The global UN data is no exception: it's about as efficient as a tone-deaf person trying to read a Rachmaninoff symphony using a Russian phrase book.
What Gapminder does, which doesn't exactly seem revolutionary, is make this information accessible and understandable to anyone that wants to tackle it. They make free software that overhauls the dusty UN data, makes it interactive, and shows global changes over time. It lets you choose the variables, if you like. Most of all, it makes the state of the world pretty comprehensible.
Understanding the state of the world, they figure, will help us to define humanity's problems, and will point us to the places where action would be the most effective. This much is clear.
What is really revolutionary, however, is how fruitfully optimistic their graphics are. Across the board, Gapminder's presentations of UN statistics show us a world that, despite its pockmarks and setbacks, is definitely on the up-and-up.
One breathtaking animated graphic shows the changes in child mortality in every country of the world since 1962; each country, represented by a color-coded bubble (or "bubbel," as these Swedes have it), totters across a grid whose axes represent the percentage of child deaths pitted against the number of children per average woman. As the years peel by, the bubbles of developing countries move away from the danger zone incredibly quickly -- in a mere forty years, high infant mortality rates are almost eliminated. Life everywhere on Earth, if these variables are considered, is better.
Of course, children still die sometimes, and in some countries more than others. On a long-term scale, however, the human race is doing a remarkable job of taking care of its kind. Fewer babies are being born, we are living longer, we are more literate, and the gap between rich and poor is getting smaller. It takes a lot to make a dent in this juggernaut of human progress: looking at these statistics, you realize that even the Vietnam War only momentarily stunted the drastic reduction of child mortality in the history of the country.
If we look at our immediate surroundings, things will always look bad. The human race, however, has been on this planet for a hell of a long time, and things have often looked bad. For once, we should give ourselves some credit; at least in the grand scheme of things, the world is getting better.
7:00 PM | Permalink | (2) Comments
My Computer Has Eyes
Archived From August 4, 2006 (4) Comments
The Internet has long been a playground for deluded sociopaths. This is why the wise among us roundly deny Myspace.com friend requests from strangers, why paranoid parents install content filters on their children's computers, and why I just trashed an email with the subject heading "Will you be my foreign business associate?"
We all know that, like the actual world, the digital world can be the "site" of plenty of dubious activity. There are no spatial limitations, nor standardized restrictions of content, to impede your standard misinformed lunatic from carving out their own hazardous section of the cybersphere. In our habitual browsing, we are never more than one accidental click away from some crazy bullshit: anyone who has ever experienced the dreaded feedback loop of pornographic pop-up windows knows what I'm talking about.
However, the reverse situation is rarely considered. Sure, anyone with twenty minutes of web-surfing under their belt is aware that crazy people pretty much run the internet, but few are aware that the widespread public availability of the internet has brought about significant changes in the nature of delusion in psychiatric patients. This is a recent phenomenon: the web isn't just an outlet for the deluded anymore, but also a cause of delusion.
A recent study in the psychiatric journal Psychopathology suggests that psychotic delusions increasingly concern the internet. By presenting a series of impressive case studies of patients who had deluded themselves into believing, for example, that websites contain a hidden "darker side" used by secret organizations, or that internet-controlled "beams of light" are capable of illegal surveillance, the study warns that cultural issues and media can influence delusional beliefs.
One woman profiled had become convinced that she was being personally targeted by the authorities because she had stumbled on an Al-Queda terrorist network while using a search engine to find information about an ingredient on a chewing gum package. Had she not had access to the internet, the study suggests, she may have formatted her paranoia differently; these technology-related delusions have become common as the habitual use of high-technology becomes standard.
Although "technology" delusions have been common in psychiatry since the 1970s -- it's very common for schizophrenic patients, for example, to project their paranoia onto television, radio, and other media -- internet-related delusions are relatively new. They were never reported until the internet began to be ubiquitous in cultural parlance and discussed frequently in national publications, suggesting, this study says, "that a level of cultural salience (or perhaps social concern) has to be achieved before such a concept can become incorporated into paranoid or psychotic experiences."
Of course, cultural salience does not clear understanding make; in fact, few people seem to actually know or care how the internet works. The great Arthur C. Clarke famously noted that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," especially for those who do not understand it. The mentally ill have long experienced or blamed the presence of hostile "magical" forces for their psychosis; Clarke's citation usefully implies that high-technology -- in this case, the internet -- can emulate the role of the magical in psychotic delusion.
It's not surprising, then, that an effective treatment of internet-related delusion is, simply, education. For patients who believe the internet operates through energy, secret governmental mechanisms, or beams of light, a little concentrated study about the history of the internet goes a long way. When a therapist used a popular book about the world wide web to educate him, one 19 year old schizophrenic patient cited in the Psychopathology article reduced his certainty that the internet was somehow related to his persecution to zero. Technology-related delusions can more easily be tested against reality, and in this case the source of and the solution to the problem came from the same place. Perhaps we can all learn from this.
Among other things, the existence of web-based psychological disorder somewhat humanizes the internet, signaling that it has been around long enough to have irreversibly wheedled its way into the human consciousness. No longer an upstart technology understood by a relative few, the internet is now a pervasive enough form that even people prone to psychotic episode are aware of it. The web is here to stay. Further, this manmade maelstrom of information has snowballed into something strong enough to have an adverse effect on the very people that created it, a model of growth which we must absolutely remain aware of as we launch headlong into a rapidly developing digital culture.
1:52 PM | Permalink | (4) Comments