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Dec_29_2005 A favorite Tolstoy quote of mine is "One of the most obtuse superstitions is the superstition of the scientists who say that man can exist without faith" http://apnews.myway.com//article/20051229/D8EQ47CG0.html As Hwang's frauds are disclosed, I wonder how they ever got past the editors at Science (and Nature? We'll see...). What will this fraud do to the faith of the scientist? If Hwang's article(s) is(are) fraudulent, how many others are too? I think back to a recent PLOS medicine article. Here it is... I put it in my weblog on Aug 29 (http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#FalseResearch-082905), "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False"... http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10%2E1371%2Fjournal%2Epmed%2E0020124 (John P. A. Ioannidis) Instead of just scoring articles based on the prestige of the journal where they're published, maybe someone could also start tracking confidence estimates for how likely the published finding is to be valid. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Hwang-122905 |
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Dec_28_2005 Another -What Scientists Believe but Can't Prove- from UK's Times Online this time (linked by http://www.edge.org, that's how I found it). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8123-1957199,00.html I liked Blackmore, Leroi, Dover and Greenfield. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Believe-Proove=122805 |
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Dec_27_2005 Have you heard? The bird flu is coming... Be quick. Raise taxes! > One of the USA's most important medical stories of the year is a disease > no American has. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-12-27-bird-flu_x.htm?csp=15 I kind of like this article too- http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/bird-flu/mg18625023.100 > Recent cases of H5N1 in northern Vietnam have caused concern because of > signs that the virus is changing. It has become less lethal and is > occurring in larger clusters than past cases. Did I read that right? "...cases ... have caused concern because ... It has become less lethal..." I see. Less lethal. Yes. That is quite concerning. And one more... http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/bird-flu/dn3418 No wonder scientists can't get funding for real science. This thing's been around since 1997 or earlier but the press is still ringing the bell for a call to arms against the bird flu. Hard to pay for cutting-edge science when you've got this imminent bird-flu thing beating down your door. It's a story of the year you know. I wonder how many years they'll be able to keep re-selling the same story of the year. Oh. And of course we must close with a little bit of obligatory sensationalism... > Major pandemics of influenza in 1918, 1957 and 1968 and left many > millions of people dead. (not my grammar) [For context, 1,000,000 people per year are dying from malaria. (http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions&itemid=227&language=1) For context, Less then 600,000 Americans died in all 3 flu pandemics, combined. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic#Pandemics_through_history) For context, 3,000,000 people per year are dying from tobacco use. (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat8.htm#Smoking)] Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#BirdFluAgain-122705 |
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Dec_15_2005 So higher education in the US is doing a little better then we might sometimes think... http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/dec2005/sb20051212_623922.htm Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#EngDegrees121505 |
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Dec_10_2005 OK. I'm thinking most mutations will be of the complexity type. X->] Where X mutates and the line terminates. Of the ones that do not result in termination, most will be from and to equivalent complexities. X->Y The remaining ones will be an increase in complexity. X->X' So at any complexity level, n, it should look more or less like this.. F'<- A'__ B'->E'... etc.. (level n+1) | | D <- A -> B ->C->G]]]]]... etc... (level n) Of course, not 2 dimensions and each member can achieve multiple successful mutations over time. Simpler mutations started first, succeed more then more complex ones and have shorter reproductive cycles, so level n will be broader then level n+1. Adding reductions in complexity... also a possibility, makes level n even broader still. So here's my uninformed opinion about evolution, for today: 1.) In places where theory says evolution looks like a pyramid, it is well-supported by observation, logic and experiment. 2.) Anywhere that evolution supporters tell me it looks like a singular bridge from level n to level n+1, it is suspect. These are still open questions. Asking me to believe in bridges, from non-life to life, from single-cell to plant/animal, without evidence, is equivalent to asking me to believe God did it. It's not predicted by logic. As far as I know, there is no biological or geological evidence supporting existence of these bridges. Evolutionary theorists have succeeded at a smoke-n-mirrors game by linking these bridges, in the theory, to the pyramids we really do see in plant and animal life. Belief in the bridges... Belief in a singular event, appears to me to be a matter of faith, unsupported by the evidence. I'm thinking these two ideas need to be unlinked. Evolution is rock-solid, inside the plant kingdom, inside the animal kingdom and in single celled organisms. I'm not thinking it's so rock solid when explaining the links, if there are any. I'll have to check-over talk.origins and see if they have anything to say about these bridge events. Not today though. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#EvolutionAgain121005 |
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Dec_08_2005 I've been thinking about evolution ever since that Behe guy was in the news. Seems to me evolution should be shaped like a pyramid, not a tree. A wide base with simple organisms and minimal forays into complexity. Narrower middle with success at some level of complexity. Very narrow top with the highest complexity. So how does that square with what we see. I guess I really don't know. Seems to me we have a wide base as I'd expect, but only 3 or so 'bridges' into complexity... plants, animals & molds/fungus. Then each of those bridges launches into their own pyramid on top of the simplest base. Also, I would expect even a wider base of pre-life complexity and numerous transitions from pre-life to life. I don't think we see that? We've got another single bridge from pre-life to life? Very puzzling to me. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#EvolutionTree-120805 |
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Dec_06_2005 Some AI researcher writing about education. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/schank/schank_p1.html http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/q-Ch.9.html Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#SchankAI-120605 |
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Nov_12_2005 Now here's an article that makes me question what I think I know... > Human activities are believed to be responsible for the rise in CO2 > level of the atmosphere. Mankind is moving the carbon in coal, oil, and > natural gas from below ground to the atmosphere and surface, where it is > available for conversion into living things. We are living in an > increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the > CO2 increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with far more plant and > animal life as that with which we now are blessed. This is a wonderful > and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution. http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#GlobalWarming-111205 |
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Nov_11_2005 Just spent a long time looking for this article to forward it to co-workers. Here it is so I'll have it next time I want it. http://www.msu.edu/documents/discovermag.pdf Avida: 'Life' in the computer. A simulation of evolution and selection. Interesting that a biologist runs his e-coli evolution experiments side by side with the computer simulation. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Avida-111105 |
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Oct_26_2005 I didn't trust the junkscience guy, so I thought I'd go look at the one scientist he mentions, Kerry Emanuel. Here's an interview he did. http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=05-P13-00035&segmentID=3 To summarize, the main problem with hurricanes is that we're putting people and money in harm's way and government is subsidizing it (my observation: government does it because private industry is too smart to insure these places. Should that tell us something?). We're in the middle of a natural cycle which will last at least another 5-10 years with or without global warming. If we have the levels of hurricane activity that we had in the '40s or '50s, we're in trouble. On the other hand, he does claim that global warming is making hurricanes 70-80% stronger. Here's the most important excerpt, I think... > Now, what has everybody in my profession so concerned . and we've been > concerned for decades . is the confluence of a huge upsurge in the > coastal population with a natural upswing in the number of storms in the > Atlantic. And maybe global warming, you know, if you wait long enough > will also start to show up in those statistics. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#MoreWarming2-102605 |
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Oct_18_2005 So this Behe guy testifies today about Intelligent Design. It's got me thinking. First, my position. Let them teach it in science class as long as it's packaged as science, not religion or philosophy. It's a hypothesis. Personally, I think it's a complimentary hypothesis to evolution, not exclusionary, but that doesn't matter much as to whether or not it should be taught. We teach string theory in physics. For the most part, that can't be tested. We test for a quality as abstract as consciousness. The Turing test. The mirror test. Scientists believe gorillas and chimpanzees and dolphins are conscious by "the mirror test". They put an oderless dye on an animal and show it a mirror. If it's disturbed by seeing the dye, it's exhibiting self-awareness, which makes it conscious. If we can test for something as subjective and hard to define as consciousness. I see no reason why our students shouldn't think about ways to test for the presence or absence of an intelligent designer. Hell... Scientists have been doing just that, since the beginning of science. Why stop now? Which brings me to my puzzlement of the day. The exclusionary hypothesis with intelligent design is not evolution or natural selection, it's the idea of spontaneous, or accidental, emergence of life. That hypothesis should also be testable. Here's what I'm thinking today. It seems to me that if accidental emergence is correct, we should be able to find it. Not in the geological record, but in the present. This theory, as I understand it, is that during the last, what, 180 million(?) years, life emerged in single celled organisms and those organisms developed into multi-celled organisms and all of the complexity of life came from there, one step at a time. single-cell to multi-cell to fish to bird to dinosaur, wiped out by the asteroid, so then fish to bird to reptile to dinosaur again, wiped out by anther asteroid, then fish to reptile to mammal and eventually humans at the top of this multi-million year evolutionary pyramid. Complex predecessors of humans along the way get wiped out by selection, but somehow fish and reptiles and other gorillas and single-cell organisms don't. During the same 180 million years that dinosaurs evolved and perished and evolved and perished again and then humans evolved, another path of evolution went from the emergent single-cell organisms to... drum roll please... today's single cell organisms. Now another fact is this. Single cell organisms have dramatically shorter reproductive cycles and consequently they evolve much faster. So the claim is that not only have today's single cell organisms evolved markedly less than humans during the same time period, but they've also had uncountably more opportunities to evolve. Something here isn't making sense to me. I'm thinking that if spontaneous emergence is right, it should be happening. Now. Somewhere. We should be able to find life coming from nothing somewhere on the planet. Simple bacteria should have a shorter evolutionary history then more complex organisms. Nothing in nature persists without change Now the spontaneous emergence in antiquity argument, I guess, is this... The bacteria are preserved because by selection because they have a purpose. They accomplish something. They're successful. They're fit. But... What does that mean? If it's all an accident, there is no success, there is no fitness, there is no purpose. Two cell organisms evolve from one cell organisms and compete more effectively for the same resources. When two cell organisms come along, the one cell organisms they compete with should die out the same way the neanderthals did. If the claim is that everything evolved from a predecessor by tiny increments, then every mutation should render either the successor or the predecessor extinct. One will be more effective then the other. The idea that life happened once and only once, completely by accident and conditions "just haven't been right" since then doesn't fly unless or until someone can show me which conditions are right and which ones are wrong and also why the fast evolving bacteria has evolved less in 180 million years then the slow evolving more complex organisms. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#ID-101805 |
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Sep_30_2005 An interesting Op-Ed by Brian Greene (The String Theory guy) on E=mc^2. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/30/opinion/30greene.html?ei=5065&en=46ba1af12b9cd4f7&ex=1128744000&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=all And as long as I'm here, I've been meaning to post this for a few days now too. Almost a year behind the schedule they announced in 2002, but VZ has now become the operator of the nation's largest fuel cell powered facility. VZ -> The green company ; ). http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/business/article.adp?id=20050921120809990012 Here's a 2002 presentation about it. It (the preso) put me to sleep, but it might interest some electrical engineering types... http://www.syska.com/Energy/knowledge/Use_of_Fuel_Cells.pdf Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Relativity+Energy-093005 |
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Sep_16_2005 Glad to see we're getting a good ROI for the money congress set aside for smallpox research a couple years ago. http://cmlsupport.blogspot.com/2005/06/cancer-drug-slows-poxvirus-in-mice.html ; ) Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#NatureMedJune-091605 |
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Sep_16_2005 Another use for deconvolution... http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2005-09-14-black-hole-hostl_x.htm?csp=15 Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Deconvolution-091605 |
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Aug_29_2005 "It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false." Why Most Published Research Findings Are False http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10%2E1371%2Fjournal%2Epmed%2E0020124 Another example of Duffy's Law (OK. Dr. Duffy looks to have a screw or two loose. It's still a thought-provoking "law".) Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#FalseResearch-082905 |
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Aug_01_2005 http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8769619/site/newsweek/ > "...In the United States, the use of ethanol made from corn has surged, > thanks to new clean-air mandates and a fat federal tax credit. > Production is almost as high as Brazil's, doubling since 2001 and > already replacing 3 percent of all transport fuel. The energy bill > passed by the U.S. Congress last week will double ethanol production > again..." Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#BioFuel-080105 |
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Jul_17_2005 http://www.willyoujoinus.com/issues/population/ > "... Yet our known fossil fuel reserves are in decline ..." Is this an acknowledgement, from Chevron, that Peak oil has already come and gone? Not quite, I guess, but awful close. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Chevron-Jul17-2005 |
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Jul_14_2005 I don't know, should this be science or politics? Amazing. If you'd told me that I'm drinking water with industrial waste in it, I would not have believed you. I'd have been wrong. Instead of paying to dispose of fluoride, American industry is selling it to our water utilities so we can drink it? So fluoride is, perhaps, linked to bone cancer in boys. http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050713/D8BAOGD00.html The EPA's own union of scientists opposes fluoride in our drinking water. They say it's linked to lots of bad stuff. http://www.fluoridealert.org/hp-epa.htm http://www.fluoridealert.org/testimony.htm http://www.rvi.net/~fluoride/000052.htm I wonder. If someone came to me today, and said... "We believe that arsenic, in low doses, will prevent skin-cancer in some people with poor hygiene. We want to start adding it to everyone's drinking water to reduce society's risk of skin cancer". Would I support a drive to add arsenic to my drinking water? Not too much different from putting fluoride in the drinking water,is it? Oh. And incidentally, while reading this stuff, I happened to notice that the EPA under Clinton fired one Dr. William Marcus for stating his opinions about the danger of fluoridated drinking water. http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/cancer/ntp/marcus2.html Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#FluorideJuly14-2005 |
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Jul_08_2005 I was seeing how deep in the dark web google goes since I noticed some changes in it's results recently and I happened to land here: http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=3789005&tstart=0 And saw that it was pointed out that I got commutative wrong here: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#MusicRhyme-52705 That was a sloppy mistake. If I ever make time, I'll have to try to figure this out a little more formally (and carefully), starting with a recursive definition of rhyming. I'm not sure how to refer to the man who noticed... I'll say Dr. Talman. Dr. Talman was obviously correct in mentioning that I didn't show commutation. I think I inadvertantly showed association. That's what I get for trying to rush a log entry in at the end of the work day (like I'm doing again now). I'm glad it got caught. Rhetorical thank-you to Dr. Talman. Since I'm sticking to intuitive demonstrations for now, I think it should've gone like this...
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Jul_01_2005 http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020167 > While it is true that people are living longer, with an increase in life > expectancy from 1980 to 1996 of 2.4 years (from 73.7 to 76.1) [7], these > gains are unlikely to be due to advances in hospital medicine. They are > far more likely to be due to the contribution of better public health > and education, including reductions in environmental pollution, altered > eating and smoking habits, and increased exercise. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#DoNoHarm-July1-2005 |
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Jun_23_2005 Just came across this site.. http://junkscience.com/ It has interesting internal and external links here - http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Kyoto_Count_Up.htm for a cost/benefit estimate of the Kyoto treaty and here - http://www.fightingmalaria.org/news.php?ID=456 http://www.fightingmalaria.org/news.php?ID=458 claims that DDT should be available to Africa to halt the spread of Malaria. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#JunkScience-Jun23-2005 |
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Jun_22_2005 They finally posted the June issue of PLOS Computational Biology and I'm on my way out hte door, so I have to read later. Ouch! http://compbiol.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=index-html&issn=1553-7358 Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#PlosCompBiology-Jun22-2005 |
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Jun_21_2005 http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/ Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#SolarSail-Jun21-2005 |
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Jun_21_2005 A "field by field", "rigorous" analyasis leads CERA to the conclusion that peak oil is at least 15 years away and the peak will be a decades-long plateau, not a quick & dramatic drop-off. They also say supply will outpace demand until at least 2010. http://www.cera.com/news/details/1,2318,7453,00.html Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#NoPeakOil-6-21-5 |
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Jun_21_2005 http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4008792 > "...Though the genes in question have yet to be identified, this result > suggests they are too abundant to be there by chance. In other words > they are being kept in the population by natural selection because > psychopathic behaviour confers a selective advantage. If it does, such > an advantage probably pertains only when psychopaths are in the minority > (a state of affairs known to biologists as a balanced polymorphism). But > it does mean that far from being an aberrant behaviour, psychopathy may > be disturbingly normal...." Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#EconomistPsychopath-6-20-5 |
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Jun_20_2005 Read this later too... http://www.nitrd.gov/pitac/reports/20050609_computational/computational.pdf Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#USComputation-June20-2005 |
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Jun_20_2005 Read this, about quantum entanglement. Have to leave now. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/ Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#QuantumEntanglement-Jun20-2005 |
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Jun_16_2005 Aha! April fools joke. http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/zombies.asp Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#AprilFools-June16-2005 |
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Jun_16_2005 Update already - I don't know what's going on, but this http://65.127.124.62/south_asia/4483241.stm.htm is pretty clearly a hoax. 1.) "E-mail this" and "Printable version" links both link to "Syrian troops vacate Lebanese HQ", so it looks like someone took that story and used it as a framework to make the zombie nonsense. 2.) The story is served on 65.127.124.62, but all the links go to news.bbc.co.uk. I should just go back and delete my first entry before someone sees that I got taken-in. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#ZombiesHoax-June16-2005 |
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Jun_16_2005 Is this for real? Cambodian zombies... It looks like a legitimate news server, but I'm having a hard time buying the story. http://65.127.124.62/south_asia/4483241.stm.htm I found it in David Chalmer's weblog... http://fragments.consc.net/ Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Zombies-June16-2005 |
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Jun_15_2005 Along the lines of Penrose. Life, at the molecular level, is chaotic, not orderly. Penrose attributed the chaos to quantum mechanics. This author (Jonah Lehrer) doesn't provide a mechanism for it. Still, the article lends support to the idea that we actually do have free will. IE, our decisions are not predictable. http://www.seedmagazine.com/?p=article&id=100000030&cp=0 Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Chaos-6-15-5 |
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May_31_2005 Pharmaceutical companies "Asking the right questions" to achieve misleading positive test results and burying negative test results? http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/business/31trials.html?ex=1118203200&en=082837d4ee16dd25&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020138 http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020209 Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Pharma-53105 |
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May_27_2005 Interesting article... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7995265/ Studying how music sticks in our minds... Not directly, but indirectly, this ties to what I was thinking about last night and last month. Like music, my mind also likes to hold onto rhyming expressions. A month or two ago, my 3 year old son pointed out to me that rhyming has a reflexive property when he noticed that a word rhymed with itself. That led me to notice that rhyming also has symmetric and transitive properties. Further, if we define the rhyme operation such that it returns just the rhyming phoneme from the rhymed words then rhyming also commutes. For example:
I thought of all that stuff last month, I guess. Although it was fun to think about, it seemed (and still does) mostly useless. A possible use did occur to me last night, though... What if we can make an association from rhyming to some more useful mathematical operation. It might make it easier to perform and/or teach some types of mathematics if we can simply convert from a mathematical expression into phonemes, perform the rhymes, then convert back. Of course, the hard part is left undone. I don't see, yet, any way to set up an association of the type described. Maybe during next month's idle thoughts ;) Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#MusicRhyme-52705 |
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May_24_2005 Here's another article on Peak Oil. Much less pessimistic than most I've read. http://www.energybulletin.net/4883.html It is interesting to note that "The United States also has a 300-year supply of coal, and methods for using coal without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere are being developed." Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#PeakOil-524-05 |
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May_18_2005 Another article to read when I get time. Also, I want to check back here periodically... http://www.seedmagazine.com/?p=3Darticle&n=3Dfeatures&id=3D100000054 http://www.seedmagazine.com/index.php --=20 Thanks, -Steve- Steve Palmer Information Technologist http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps remlaps@gmail.com "The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics." =3D=3D> Johannes Kepler Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#SeedMag-5-18-5 |
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May_18_2005 USGS map showing the probability of 'strong shaking' at any location in CA during the next 24 hours... http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/step/ 30 day ground water level maps for PA http://pa.water.usgs.gov/monitor/gw/index.html Real time ground water level graph for chester county http://waterdata.usgs.gov/pa/nwis/uv?dd_cd=02&format=gif&period=30&site_no=395450075485401 Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#USGS-5-18-5 |
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May_16_2005 Why is it that physicists can't stay out of Biology? Dyson, Penrose, Wolfram... Part way down this page, a physicist delivers what I think is a clear-headed commentary on Darwinism... > Darwin's ideas have absolutely nothing to do with the origin of life on > our planet. They deal with how that life changes over time, and what > happened after its initial creation. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7634363/#050427c Why do people have such an easy time polarizing on issues like evolution or creationism? Could it be that god used evolution to create man? Why is that so hard to swallow if one is inclined to believe in god? I just don't get it... Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Selection-or-ID-5-16-5 |
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May_05_2005 No time now, but I want to read this later. DNA computing solves an NP complete problem... http://bi.snu.ac.kr/Courses/g-ai04/Ref/ouyang97.pdf Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#May5-5 |
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Apr_25_2005 See. This is what I meant. This is the most cost effective way to get science talent in our economy. China paid to educate this guy (except for his PhD I guess), now their investment fuels our economy. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/technology/25phone.html?ex=1115092800&en=8f66df1e747837a1&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY Any policy on science & technology has to include foreign recruiting. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#MSPhones-42505 |
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Apr_22_2005 "Naltrexone for HIV/AIDS, Cancer, and Autoimmune Diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis?" Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) for strengthening the immune system (?) http://www.rxpgnews.com/article_1166.shtml "...This discovery establishes a new paradigm in medical therapy: LDN not only tends to normalize the immune system by elevating the body.s endorphin levels but also accomplishes its results with virtually no side effects or toxicity..." Apparently, in addition to the list in the article's title, it's also being studied for Crohn's disease. Here's another page which discusses a whole list of autoimmune diseases under 'study'. http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/ldn_and_ai.htm Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Naltrexone-Apr22-2005 |
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Apr_19_2005 I've seen this guy on the Science channel. Here is an interesting edge.org article, by John Gottman, about using mathematics to model family relationships. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gottman05/gottman05_index.html > "...We were able to derive a set of nonlinear difference equations for > marital interaction as well as physiology and perception. These > equations provided parameters, that allowed us to predict, with over 90 > percent accuracy, what was going to happen to a relationship over a > three-year period. The main advantage of the math modeling was that > using these parameters, we are not only be able to predict, but now > understand what people are doing when they affected one another...." > > Our study shows that the majority (67%) of couples have a precipitous > drop in relationship happiness in the first 3 years of their first > baby's life. That's tragic in terms of the climate of inter-parental > hostility and depression that the baby grows up in. That affective > climate between parents is the real cradle that holds the baby. And for > the majority of families that cradle is unsafe for babies. > > "...We are now engaged with the nonprofit policy group Mathematica in > the largest randomized clinical trial ever done with couples anywhere in > the world. There will be 10,000 couples in this study..." Mathematica, if I'm not mistaken, is Stephen Wolfram's company... Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#GottmanMathFamily-4-19-5 |
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Apr_18_2005 http://news.com.com/Can+the+U.S.+still+compete/2010-1071_3-5672106.html > "...The astonishing reality is that we've become accustomed to > mediocrity as the norm. Little good will come of that...." Call me crazy, but isn't mediocrity almost the very definition of a 'norm'? Still, the article's point remains. Today's children in America will compete for resources with children in China, India, Japan, Russia and especially the European Union. If we want our children to have a better life then we've had, mediocre is not good enough. If it's not fixed now, it will get worse before it gets better. "Unslumping yourself is not easily done." ==> Dr. Seuss (Oh the Places You'll Go) Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#US-Mediocrity-4-18-5 |
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Apr_16_2005 Toward a robust and adaptable environmental policy with adjustable limits as cost and effect become more clear. Now this makes sense to the centrist in me. The libertarian in me doesn't like it, but I'm leaning centrist on this issue. It's too important to our children to leave it to chance. Recognize uncertainty and use it to our advantage. Both conservative and liberal extremists are undoubtedly wrong about the somewhat-distant future. So is everyone else. Implement a policy that recognizes that we don't know. A flexible policy that performs well over a broad range of possible futures. "Improvise. Adapt. Overcome" -Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge > An adaptive strategy bests them both. Inspired by the complementary > strengths and weaknesses of "Stay the Course" and "Crash Program," we > considered a flexible alternative that imposes rigorous emissions limits > but relaxes them if they cost too much. Such a strategy can be robust. > If the technological optimists are right (the decoupling rate turns out > to be high), the cost threshold is never breached and industry meets the > aggressive environmental goals. If technological pessimists prove > correct (the decoupling rate is low), then tight pollution restrictions > will exceed the agreed-on cost limits, in which case the strategy gives > industry more time to meet the goals. http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000935E5-CCA0-1238-8CA083414B7FFE9F Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#FutureShock-4-16-5 |
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Apr_16_2005 An April Fools day commitment from Scientific American. "...An editorial page is no place for opinions..." http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=2&articleID=000E555C-4387-1237-81CB83414B7FFE9F Speaking of April Fool's, I always get a kick out of this Internet RFC... http://klubkev.org/~ksulliva/rfc-april1/rfc1925.txt And looking for that, I came across this site with a list of all the April 1st RFCs... http://klubkev.org/~ksulliva/rfc-april1/ Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#SA-AprilFools-4-16-5 |
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Apr_12_2005 New PLOS publications coming http://www.ploscompbiol.org/index.html - Computational Biology - 6/2005 http://www.plosgenetics.org/ - Genetics - 7/2005 http://www.plospathogens.org/ - Pathogens - 9/2005 And while I was there, this is an interesting article.. > This shows that engineered DNA self-assembly can be treated as a > Turing-universal biomolecular system, capable of implementing any > desired algorithm for computation or construction tasks. http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/2/12/pdf/10.1371_journal.pbio.0020424-L.pdf So if I understand it, the claim is that any algorithm that can execute on a digital computer can also execute by growing engineered DNA. Hmmm. This looks an awful lot like Wolfram's New Kind of Science (NKS). Wolfram is listed in the references. Not NKS, but a 1986 paper of his. Interesting. Along with Wolfram. Penrose. Tiling of course reminded me of "Penrose tiling" (since I just read Emperor's New Mind and am now reading Shadow's of the Mind, both by Penrose). Penrose is listed in the references too. It's funny to me to see biology papers citing work by physicists... Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Plos-Apr12-2005 |
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Apr_08_2005 Oops. Someone already did repost the discover article. Here it is, in it's entirety... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1377259/posts Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#LaneChange-4-8-5 |
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Apr_08_2005 Wasn't sure whether to put this one in science or politics. An Interview with Joan Feigenbaum of Yale and formerly of AT&T. She goes back and forth from science to politics. This is another one of the scientists who was looking into external memory graph algorithms in the late '90s. It looks to me like AT&T must've lost or cut a good bit of their algorithm research department, since these names keep turning up at private colleges now. Maybe no ones's actively pursuing this topic any more. Anyway, here's the interview... http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2005/040605/VFTHG_Joan_Feigenbaum.html Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Feigenbaum-4-8-5 |
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Apr_08_2005 I really wish I could read this whole article... http://www.discover.com/issues/apr-05/departments/math-of-changing-lanes/ If I post it here, maybe I'll remember to do some web searches for it in a couple months. Maybe someone else will post it. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Fri_Apr__8_16:47:19_EDT_2005.24752 |
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Apr_07_2005 I'm researching right now and got sidetracked. This letter is long, so I'll have to shelve it here and save it to read later. It's a letter from an esteemed comp. sci. researcher (Donald Knuth) to the Journal of Algorithms about how the cost of journals is, in Knuth's opinion, becoming prohibitively expensive for some libraries. Here's the letter: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/joalet.pdf I scanned it and noticed this reference too http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml It's shocking to think that I might be in agreement with Soros on any 'political' issue. ;) Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#KnuthLetter-4-7-5 |
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Mar_30_2005 "...WASHINGTON (AP) - A leading developer of hydrogen fuel cells for automobiles announced a timetable Tuesday for making the technology more feasible by 2010...." ... "...Canadian-based Ballard Power Systems Inc. (BLDP) said it would demonstrate a commercially viable fuel cell "stack," which uses hydrogen fuel to generate electricity in vehicles, in five years...." ... "...General Motors Corp. spokesman Scott Fosgard said the company has spent more than $1 billion on fuel-cell technology and has said it could be commercially viable by 2010...." ... '..."We believe that fuel cell vehicles may begin to be viable in the next 10 to 15 years," said Ford spokesman Ed Lewis....' http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050330/D8958D300.html Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#FuelCell-3-30-5 |
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Mar_25_2005 http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=23103 Looks like good news, but I'm wondering about that old saying... "There's no such thing as a free lunch"? I've been wondering for a while about unintended consequences from 'renewable' energy. Solar first... What are the main contributers to global warming? 1.) Green house gases & 2.) Reflected sunlight, retained as heat. Let's say we suddenly switch to solar energy tomorrow. What are the consequences? 1.) Massive decrease in greenhouse gas production -and- 2.) Massive decrease in reflected sunlight. Greenhouse gases would fall back to their original production. Reflected sunlight would drop (far?) below it's original rate. Consequence- In time, the decrease in warming... should be enough to trigger cooling? How much? Of course, computer models can't even agree about the future of the environment, so all I can do is speculate in a mostly uninformed fashion, but I wonder if a sudden switch to solar energy would be just as dangerous as last century's sudden increase in fuel combustion. Not only would we be undoing the last century's temperature increase, but we might also add an artificial source of temperature decrease. (loss of solar planetary heating). A sudden increase (1900-2050 or so) followed by a sudden decrease (2050-?) sounds scary. Similarly, I wonder about unintended consequences of mass consumption of wind power. Is wind supply really 'infinite' or unlimited or would massive wind consumption lead to average wind slow-downs which in turn would lead to unintended changes in weather patterns? Might these effects be harmful? Why, with wind and solar power, do we suddenly believe in "perpetual motion machines"? "Moderation in all things -- including moderation", Benjamin Franklin Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#RenewableEnergy-3-25-5 |
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Mar_23_2005 An 8 foot, 800 pound wild bore taken in GA. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7264865/ Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#HogZilla-3-23-5 |
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Mar_23_2005 Very interesting... http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050323/D890OLO00.html Plants use genes from grandparent plants to over-ride bad genes from their parents. "...The normal watercress plants with hothead genes appear to have kept a copy of the genetic coding from the grandparent plants and used it as a template to grow normally...." Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Heredity-3-23-5 |
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Mar_17_2005 The ratio of ring-finger/index-finger correlates with aggressive behavior in men. http://aolsvc.health.webmd.aol.com/content/article/101/106273.htm Unfortunately, they don't give me any numbers, so I can't tell if I'm aggressive or not ;) Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#FingerAgression-3-15-5 |
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Mar_11_2005 I got this in e-mail from a friend... http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SAFER_X_RAY?SITE=TXCOR&SECTION=HEALTH&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT It's amazing that it took so long. Moore's law has been found to apply to so many different technologies (capacity can double every 18-24 months, http://www.intel.com/research/silicon/mooreslaw.htm) it's hard to believe it had to take 20 years to get from 400 to 800. I suppose this must've been a market-limit, not a technological one. Interestingly, the development program for this film was 18 months. That fits Moore's law. Here's another link on the same story which estimates that the risk of cancer from an X-Ray will drop from 1 / 350k to 1 / 700k as a result of this improvement. http://www.ajc.com/health/content/health/0305/10xray.html Hmmm... Private innovation :) Of course, one might argue that if it was a market limit as I suppose, the government should've funded this 19 years ago as a matter of public health. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Fri_Mar_11_11:56:31_EST_2005.28202 |
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Mar_11_2005 I saw this link referenced in a blog yesterday... http://www.cato.org/dailys/4-11-97.html The blog expressed concern that this wouldn't work because it ignores how the pharmaceutical companies do business, since their business model is to let the government shoulder the burden of scientific research, then exploit the findings to their own profit. I think, though, that this is exactly their point. Continue doing the same science... Even more, because the private sector can do it more efficiently than the government. First off, and I never imagined this until recently, I think there's nowhere left in 'conservative' private industry that locks women out the way 'liberal' academia still seems to. What benefits could be realized almost immediately simply by increasing the diversity of researchers? I don't think Cato is saying that basic science should stop. I think they're saying that if we remove the private sector dependence on government, competition will force the private sector to do it more efficiently than government can. There would be a shift in funding, not an end to it. There would be more/better science. Look where the most patents go, almost every year. IBM. I think, if the assertions below are true, they tend to demonstrate that drug development, like the other sciences, might be done better by private industry... "...Yet, in practice, companies fund pure science very generously, and government funding displaces private research money. When University of Pennsylvania economist Edwin Mansfield studied the 1960-70 behavior of 16 major American oil and chemical companies, he found that all 16 invested in pure science. The more a firm invested in basic science, the more its productivity grew...." "...When Hiroyuki Odagiri and Naoki Murakimi studied the 10 largest Japanese pharmaceutical companies, which collectively enjoyed $13 billion sales in 1981, they found that on average each company had an annual return of 19 percent on its own investment in research and development. But each company obtained the equivalent of a 33 percent annual return on the R&D done by the other nine companies. Each company was, therefore, apparently free riding on the other nine..." (*Simple rule: What's good for the community is good for me*) I could see an argument that that maybe the government should continue to fund some science of the high risk variety, but only after the private sector has rejected funding the idea. Any science done with my money should be publically available. No one should have a private claim to it. If companies (or schools) want to profit from science, by using restrictive patents, they should be required to do it with their own money and not mine. Randomly testing all possible ideas is provably impossible. Regardless of how much time and money we throw at it. Scientists ride the wave that comes along with seemingly good ideas, regardless of who's footing the bill. Sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong, but everyone wants to answer questions that are important. Of course, there are two things that have to happen first before we monkey with anything else... benefit from our research to help pay for it. There is absolutley no sense making policy decisions about National funding until those two problems are fixed. I already posted this article from the Economist, but it's right on target in conjunction with the Cato article: "....We are so used to patents that we forgot ways to discover drugs in the public domain, and we need to rediscover them...." http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2724420 Weaknesses in the Cato article.
Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#Cato-BScience-3-11-5 |
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Mar_10_2005 This pioneer award, from the NIH, was advertised in the ACM magazine last month. Talk about a glass ceiling! Is there something obvious that last year's winners all have in common? ~ I'm sure it's just a coincidence. ~@ http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/pioneer/Recipients04.aspx Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#PioneerAward-0310 |
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Mar_09_2005 I am presently reading Freeman Dyson, Infinite in All Directions. In it, he argues that committees can be harmful because they invariably return recommendations for grand plans that can't be realized in reasonable time periods. By the time the grand plans are realized, the questions they answer are no longer the important ones. He says that it can be better to plan and implement lots of modest ventures instead of just a few grand ones. Modest/measured ventures enable us to "learn as we go". He was speaking of the space program, in the 1980s, but I think it applies here too. http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050309/D88NFGJ00.html Technology leaders say the US is at risk of losing it's technological edge. The proposed solution is to create a task force. By the time the task force returns a proposal, we'll be closer to losing that edge and the proposal will take time to implement. What about measured ventures that might happen in the mean-time? Oh. Actually.... I guess they do mention some of those too. Here's the issue list from the primary sight. http://www.technet.org/technetissues/ The most concrete is broadband Internet. Expand coverage. Here's an interesting document http://www.technet.org/resources/State_Broadband_Index.pdf. My state, Pennsylvania is ranked 22 over-all. The top 5 are: I was curious about two others, so in case anyone wonders, Georgia is not in the top 25. North Carolina is 19. Oh. Also, speaking of Freeman Dyson.... An aside. I've heard this quote, but didn't know until now that it came from Dyson. "Anger is creative; depression is useless" Dyson Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#TECH_LEADERS_030905 |
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Feb_22_2005 And here's a more concrete vision of open source drug development.... http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0010056 Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#OPEN_SOURCE_IN_PLOS |
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Feb_22_2005 http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2724420 In an article about drug development, I focus on what they have to say about Software Development. "...More broadly, two big questions remain unanswered as the open-source approach starts to colonise disciplines beyond its home ground of software development. The first is whether open-source methods can genuinely foster innovation. In software, all that has been developed are functional equivalents of proprietary software?operating systems, databases, and so on?that are sometimes slightly better and sometimes glaringly worse than their proprietary counterparts. Their main distinction, from users' point of view, is simply that they are available free of charge. Curiously, this matches the complaint levelled against pharmaceutical companies for developing ?me-too? drugs to compete with other firms' most successful product lines ...." Is this true? Open source has not been shown to foster innovation? I don't think so. Counter-examples:
I went looking for an article like this, prompted by today's news about Novartis - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7006643/ I'm wondering if an open source drug development model might be an effective competeive tool for the generic drug manufacturers. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#OPEN_DRUG_DEVELOPMENT |
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Feb_18_2005 http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2005/articles_2005_Avida.html Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#DIGITAL_EVOLUTION_021805 |
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Feb_18_2005 Science News. There's an algorithm that describes many time-spans in terms of an organisms size and temparature. Life span, reproductive cycles, gestation? I forget what else. Wait let me see if the article is available on-line... Yes. Here it is. http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050212/bob9.asp Anyway, that got me wondering about evolution and the survival of the fittest. Let's see if I can put my thoughts into words. A population unchecked, of any species will reproduce and grow until it exhausts the resources in the ecosystem. What causes extinction is not just competition with a more efficient species. For a species to go extinct, there has to also be a limit to available resources such that the efficient species excludes the inefficient species from access to a needed resource. Until now, over billions of years, any species that are surviving have been tournament winners. The best of the best. Other than the disruptive effect of humans, it seems that that most ecosystems would be balanced with predator / prey cycles preventing any population from exhausting limited resources. So what I'm thinking, is it possible that new species are somehow more likely to evolve when this ecosystem balance is threatened (necessity is the mother of invention)? If so, we have a strong incentive to manage our environmental consumption. I think it is not reasonable to assume that we are the ultimate top of the evolutionary design. Evolution continues. Until now, I've been assuming that evolution's next big improvement would be a mutation in humans but that's not necessarily the case, is it? There's no selection pressure to improve people. The selection pressure is on other, threatened, organisms, isn't it? The question is, can evolution work faster than humans? It appears that the answer is no, but isn't it arrogant to think so? Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#EVOLUTION-2_18_05 |
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Tue Feb 8 15:01:21 EST 2005 Look for the current edition of "Creation-Evolution News". http://www.creationsafaris.com/ Personally, I thought this question was already settled in my 1980s religion classes. My PhD theologist professors had no trouble reconciling the bible and evolution. I'm surprised that evolution is receiving so much opposition now, 15-20 years later. It's an entertaining debate. Here is a site where they go through current science headlines and spin them to support the creationist view-point. It's interesting. I hope I remember to keep an eye on this site. My college physics & astronomy professor, Dr. David Bradstreet, a devout Christian, weighed in repeatedly on the side of evolution, saying "I refuse to believe that God is a liar". Anyway, my observation of these creationist sites is that the tend to pick and choose their subject matter. This one in particular. They find open questions from evolution theory and argue against those components as if that were evolution theory in it's entirety, ignoring the pieces that are incontrovertible as if they didn't exist. That's not a valid form of argument to me. To convince me that evolution is wrong, they'll need to 1.) show a counter-example, a life-form which provably bipassed evolutionary mechanisms or else 2.) Demonstrate that evolution is statistically or mathematically impossible in the time frame which has been available. I understand 2.) has been tried, but I don't think it's been done successfully. If so, it might be here. http://www.creationsafaris.com/br_epoi.htm I think I'll read this book if I ever find time. Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#CREATION_SAFARIS |
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Sat Jan 29 16:49:17 EST 2005 Uh oh. Here was my hope of 2 years for eventual independence from foreign oil. Looks like hope is dwindling... Europe might become independent, but not America. I hope that's not what winds up happening to American ingenuity... http://www.fortune.com/fortune/smallbusiness/articles/0,15114,1018747,00.html Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#CWT_IN_TROUBLE |
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Fri Jan 28 14:27:18 EST 2005 "...Imagine, for a moment, a busy downtown intersection with no traffic lights, signs or sidewalks. There are no markers on the ground, no speed bumps, no police officer conducting the flow of vehicles. There's not even a curb. Every element of traffic - pedestrians, bikers and drivers - is left to fend for itself. Sounds like a recipe for chaos, right? Wrong. The implementation in a number of European communities of what some have dubbed 'naked streets' has been hugely successful. Urban planners in Holland, Germany and Denmark have experimented with this free-for-all approach to traffic management and have found it is safer than the traditional model, lowers trip times for drivers and is a boost for the businesses lining the roadway. The idea is that by removing traffic lights, signage and sidewalks, drivers and pedestrians are forced to interact, make eye contact and adapt to the traffic instead of relying blindly on whether that little dot on the horizon is red or green. Planners have found that without the conventional rules and regulations of the road in place, drivers tend to slow down, open their eyes to their environment and develop a 'feel' for their surroundings...." http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1105614487492&call_pageid=970599109774&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#TRAFFIC-2 |
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Fri Jan 21 16:33:54 EST 2005 I like this site. Open access to scientific journals in biology & medicine. http://www.plos.org (The Public Library of Science) Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#PLOS |
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I think this guy is onto something. An observer of traffic jams. His only problem I can see is he ignores the phenomenon of red lights. http://www.amasci.com/amateur/traffic/trafexp.html Link for this entry: http://home.ccil.org/~remlaps/weblog/science_index.html#TRAFIC |