What's In Their Names Is In Spica And Pork Chops

Jan 28 2013 | 2 comment(s)

Since all matter including people consist of elements, it's nice to see proper names entirely composed of elemental symbols, like

, or if you recall the actress who played the part of a sultry James Bond villain,

, or if we stick to chemistry

. In the English language alone, there are also thousands of improper nouns with such properties (27192, to be exact), and of course someone wrote a program to generate an exhaustive list.

Novel Colors Against Physicalism

Jan 28 2013 | 38 comment(s)

Light which triggers predominantly the so called L-cones, which are photoreceptors for long (L) wavelengths, trigger us to experience red color. In this sense, some people hold the color red to be physical and “out there” in “reality”.

Improved Upper Limits On Rare B_s Decays By DZERO

Jan 25 2013 | 1 comment(s)

The DZERO collaboration has released last week the result of their search for the rare decay of B_s mesons into muon pairs, based on the full statistics of proton-antiproton collisions acquired during Run II - a total of 10.4 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity.

The Muddled Debate About Pesticide And GM Crops

Jan 25 2013 | 5 comment(s)

All Minds Are Real-Time Control Systems

Jan 25 2013 | 18 comment(s)

I conjecture that all minds are real-time control systems.

In this post I will explain what that means and why it seems to be true.

Creatures and Real-Time Systems

Consider, if you will, artificial creatures that exist in either the real world or some model thereof. These [ro]bots do not know the environment beforehand, at least not all of it. Sure they may know and learn some universal traits of the environment. But there will always be changes.

Why People Sometimes Believe In Magic

Jan 24 2013 | 29 comment(s)

Some people believe in magic. In Science Left Behind, in the process of debunking claims that one American political party is overwhelmingly pro-science and one is anti-science, we put a handy chart on page 213 itemizing the various anti-science positions of registered voters. Sure, evolution and climate change was higher on one side but the list of anti-science beliefs by the other side was as long as your arm - astrology, psychics, ghosts, UFOs, homeopathy, you name it and that global-warming-accepting party is more anti-science - they just have better public relations.

Turning Popper Around To Make Everett An Appendix To Einstein

Jan 23 2013 | 5 comment(s)

A century ago, “past” and “future”, previously strictly apart, mixed up and merged. Temporal terminology improved. Today, not actualized quantum states, that is merely “possible” alternatives, objectively “exist” (are real) when they interfere. Again, two previously strictly immiscible realms mix.

Another Just-So Story, This Time About Fists

Jan 21 2013 | 1 comment(s)

“It is demonstrable,” said he, “that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles. The legs are visibly designed for stockings, accordingly we wear stockings.”
- Candide by Voltaire

Humans are unique among the great apes (of which we are one) in various ways. One of them is our possession of a very long Achilles tendon, which is quite short in chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.

Microbial Power For Schools

Jan 18 2013 | 4 comment(s)

Going round the exhibition of the Association for Science Education always leaves me with a few small challenges, such as “how much can I really take in of what an exhibitor is telling me?” and “how much school science do I really understand?” For example, on the same table as the Toilet Roll Fungus, part of the NBCE exhibit, I came upon two fuel cells. I’ve had to think quite hard before writing this one up

Why Does It Get Dark?

Jan 17 2013 | 6 comment(s)

In a comment on You, Andromeda, And The Largest Structure In The Universe, Mike Crow posted a picture of Andromeda, made from 40 hours of his exposure, 5 minutes at time, in his driveway.

Weighted Averages "A' La PDG"

Jan 17 2013 | 4 comment(s)

The new PDG - a full-size copy of the glorious "Review of Particle Properties"- is on my desk since its arrival a few weeks ago, but only today did I get some time to browse it.

It is always awesome to observe how much information is contained in it. It is 1526 pages long, and I wonder how many typos and mistakes are contained in the data-thick pages... Probably much fewer than an ordinary book. Some of the review articles are of exceptionally good quality, because they have been passed from hand to hand in the last few dozen years, and constantly improved. If you want an example, for instance, go to the "Statistics" section - you will find a lot of new material which, along with the old one, still meets the highest standards.

New Mechanism Discovery: How A Parasite Causes Cancer

Jan 16 2013 | 0 comment(s)

About 200 million people across 75 of the poorest countries in the world are now infected by the blood parasite Schistosoma haematobium (S. haematobium). The infection causes severe urogenital disease, but also causes bladder cancer in a number of patients and why this occurs is not clear.

You, Andromeda, And The Largest Structure In The Universe

Jan 15 2013 | 9 comment(s)

Gravity is an amazing force. It can grow enormous structures in the universe. If you ever find yourself under a dark night sky at a spot far away from city light, have a look at the constellation Andromeda. With bare eyes you should just be able to spot a tiny smudge in this constellation. You need good eyes that are well adapted to the dark, and the moon with its overwhelming brightness needs to be out of sight. And it definitely helps if you happen to carry with you a pair of binoculars.

Did Aaron Swartz Commit Rational Suicide?

Jan 15 2013 | 7 comment(s)

Aaron H. Swartz was one of the most outspoken and hands-on activists for the transparency movement, which I largely support. He was especially active with open access issues and copyright reform. He was part of the team that built an early version of Reddit and the widely-used RSS protocol, which he worked on at age 14, and there is more to his name inspite of his young age. But he committed suicide in New York last Friday.

The Plot Of The Week - SUSY After The Higgs Discovery

Jan 15 2013 | 9 comment(s)

I may have been unattentive to recent papers on Supersymmetry, but I got the impression that during the last few months the majority of SUSY phenomenologists have been keen on speculating on the few apparently non-standard features of the recently discovered Higgs boson, as published last June (such as the alleged copious decay of photon pairs, or the dearth of decays to tau lepton pairs or b-quark pairs - note: all are mostly back to what the standard model predicts, after the analysis of more data following the discovery announcements), but rather improductive on the front of taking the new signal as a pivot point for new global fits.

The Great Wrinkled Finger Debate

Jan 14 2013 | 6 comment(s)

This past May, I was fortunate enough to take part in a conference in Venice, Italy, which was a retrospective on the legacy of famous paleontologist and author Stephen Jay Gould 10 years after his death. The choice of Venice as the conference venue was a nod to one of Gould’s most famous and influential papers, “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme“, which he co-authored with Richard Lewontin in 1979.

What's Wrong With Superrationality?

Jan 12 2013 | 31 comment(s)

Regulars to this blog know I am partial to game theory. The very idea that mathematical reasoning can teach us a thing or two about the strategies we deploy in social interactions, is most intriguing. Game theory recognizes that humans do possess rational and selfish characteristics, and builds models describing human decisions based on no more than these two characteristics. This minimalistic approach teaches us a lot about the character of economic behavior and the emergence of strategies build on cooperation, retaliation, etc.

E=mc^2...In Spaaaace

Jan 12 2013 | 76 comment(s)

The only thing that might have saved a sequel like "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, Jr."(1) was putting it in space. If you put ":In Space" at the end of anything, it gains instant credibility it might otherwise not have. (see The Muppets)(2)

But some people, like Abraham Lincoln, don't need more credibility, they are already heroic. So making Lincoln a Vampire Hunter is just showing off. And Albert Einstein doesn't need to go into space - but maybe his iconic formula, E=mc^2, does.

Unleaded Foot On The Gas Pedal

Jan 09 2013 | 22 comment(s)

People on highways interpret speed limits as a minimum velocity. On certain stretches of the Florida interstate 95, the speed limit is 70 miles per hour or 113 kilometers per hour (31 m/s). But several times, except for the odd truck carrying a herd of elephants, we were the only ones actually moving at 70 mph.

The gaps between us and other cars kept increasing. Yes, the lanes are wide and numerous. The road is flat and likely to be free of ice for at least 364 of 365 days. It's also not a good idea to lag too far behind the rest of traffic. But none of this makes driving fast rational.

1. Why do People Drive Fast?

Are Emotional Structures The Foundation Of Intelligence?

Jan 09 2013 | 33 comment(s)

It seems like all human babies go through the exact same intelligence growth program. Like clockwork. A lot of people have assumed that it really is a perfect program which is defined by genetics.

Obviously something happens when a child grows. But surely that consists of minor environmental queues to the genetic program. Or does it?

Consider if the "something happens as a child grows" might in fact be critical. And not just critical, but the major source of information. What exactly is that "nurture" part of nature vs. nurture?

What if the nurturing is in fact the source of all conceptual knowledge, language, sense of self, and sense of reality?

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