Futurismic

In a world replete with frivolous and silly lawsuits, the two guys pressing a lawsuit (in Hawaii) to stop the CERN Large Hadron Collider being turned on are surely leading the pack. They’re allegedly worried that the LHC will create a miniature black hole that will OMG SWALLOW TEH URTH!!1! [image by Spadger]

It appears that their fears are at least partly founded in reality, though. Phil “Bad Astronomy” Plait explains the potential risks of colliding subatomic particles … but he goes on to point out that the scientists in charge of the LHC project have already looked into the possibilities and concluded that the risk is so small as to be negligible.

Of course, they might be wrong. But given the choice of going with either the scientific method or the opinion of two guys who made a beeline for a Hawaiian courtroom, my money’s on the fellows wearing the lab-coats.

*See, Tomas - it’s not just you who can sneak obtuse references to British rock bands into Futurismic posts!

Related posts

• The LHC on track for summer launch (1)
• Speed of light exceeded? Er, probably not. (0)
• Cooking up supernovae in the lab (0)
• CERN brings supergrid internet to the world (4)
• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)

Why is Silicon Valley the way it is today?  Was it inevitable?  Was it something in the water, or the spirit of the people living there that turned it into the technology engine of the world?  More likely, for different reasons a few tech companies set up shop there, and as they grew and broke apart, more and more startups came into being, driving technology, aided by the close proximity to other companies.

That’s the concept Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis is hoping to exploit in his native Brazil.  Nicolelis hopes to create ’science cities’ across the poorest regions of Brazil, that would act as the grain of sand in a pearl, bringing new businesses that would attract professionals, as well as schools that could train the local populace for research jobs.  The idea is that each city would be dedicated to a specific area of research.  Funding has accelerated, from both private donors and the Brazilian government.  A proof-of-concept neuroscience city was started in 2003, which contains research labs and will begin offering science and art classes to local children this year.

While its intriguing and ambitious, I’m rather skeptical that this will work.  We’re a long way off from being able to understand such complex social interactions, let alone being able to manipulate them.  On the other hand, I’d love to be proven wrong and see a string of science pearls spring up across Brazil.

(via SciTechDaily) (image from Scientific American website)

Related posts

• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)
• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)
• Where art meets science - the pickled frog webserver (4)
• Testing panspermia (2)
• Strange sources for marvellous medicines (0)

Here’s one for the writers among our readers. The excellent Jim Van Pelt* has an article at The Fix Online wherein he lists a number of potential sources for the kernel ideas of hard science fiction stories.

“So, do you need a degree in science or math to write hard science fiction? Nope. Numerous hard science fiction authors write their stories without that background. [...] Admittedly, though, the non-science or math authors will have to work a little harder to not write laughable hard science fiction. They need to cheat a bit. They may need help coming up with ideas, and they certainly will need help for the science that is not at their fingertips. Fortunately, the help is no farther away than the nearest bookstore.”

Or your local library, I’d add to that statement (use ‘em or lose ‘em, folks). [Image from Image*After]

And, of course, the internet has its value for the same sort of process, once you know where to look. Jeremy Tolbert thinks it would be good if that process were easier, though:

“Someone with access to the big primary biological sciences literature should post reviews/summaries in laymen’s terms of each issue. Nature, Science, and more. People could volunteer and write in summaries for any primary literature they want. Group blog the literature. Get it out there in the web, in a format that science-interested people can understand.

Because I think there’s a barrier still between that level of academic knowledge and the web population. I’d like to see a gateway giving me a glimpse at what’s going on. I don’t know where the local university’s science library is, and I can’t afford to subscribe to those magazines (who can?).”

Well, we do a sort of low-calorie version of that here at Futurismic, but we’d be happy to run more beefy material. Any volunteers?

[ *I've linked to Jim Van Pelt's writing advice numerous times, both here and on my own blog, and I feel sure I will do so again. The web is full of writing advice, much of it sincere and well-meant, but I have yet to discover a regular source of clear and honest advice that's as reliable and fun to read. Being subscribed to Jim's LJ feed is like having an avuncular writing tutor all of your own. This is not a paid plug, nor is it ass-kissing - I just think the guy deserves recognition and respect. ]

Related posts

• Should science fiction short stories be more optimistic? (7)
• Online publishing: how can we do it right? (2)
• How to be a successful science fiction writer (0)
• “Worldbuilder’s Bible” available for download (1)
• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)

Freakonomics has an excellent quorum of space experts and economists talking about a very interesting question - Is Space Exploration Worth The Cost? There are some interesting points made although all of the participants are in the field of space science, so naturally they all agree it’s a good thing! It would have been nice to have a few dissenting views but even so there are some good quotes here.

G. Scott Hubbard: “We explore space and create important new technologies to advance our economy. It is true that, for every dollar we spend on the space program, the U.S. economy receives about $8 of economic benefit. Space exploration can also serve as a stimulus for children to enter the fields of science and engineering.”

Keith Cowing: “Right now, all of America’s human space flight programs cost around $7 billion a year. That’s pennies per person per day. In 2006, according to the USDA, Americans spent more than $154 billion on alcohol. We spend around $10 billion a month in Iraq. And so on. Are these things more important than human spaceflight because we spend more money on them? Is space exploration less important?”

John M. Logsdon: “In the longer run, I believe that human exploration is needed to answer two questions. One is: “Are there activities in other places in the solar system of such economic value that they justify high costs in performing them?” The other is: “Can humans living away from Earth obtain at least a major portion of what they need to survive from local resources?” If the answer to both questions is “yes,” then I believe that eventually some number of people in the future will establish permanent settlements away from Earth.”

Personally I agree with Charles Stross that living away from Earth has so many things to overcome that it’s unlikely without huge discoveries but the value of space exploration in our lifetimes may be in asteroid mining - with many new technologies like solar cells rapidly using up some of Earth’s more scarce elements.

Related posts

• Testing panspermia (2)
• Space colonisation - Ceres first, Mars second? (4)
• News flash: space germs can kill (0)
• NASA manager opposed to Bush’s lunar plans (1)
• Every month the Earth beats up the Moon with its magnetotail (1)

Via Technology Review:

In the latest issue of Advanced Materials, researchers Christiane Gumera and Yadong Wang from the Georgia Institute of Technology announced that they have triggered the regrowth of nerve cells using a polymer coated with chemical structures that resemble acetylcholine, a common neurotransmitter. The research, which is the first to combine a neurotransmitter and a polymer, could one day lead to treatments for neurodegenerative diseases and spinal-cord injuries.

“Lots of people have done biopolymer work,” says Christine Schmidt, a biomedical engineer at the University of Texas at Austin. “But this demonstrates that a polymer with a neurotransmitter can be used to guide growth in the nervous system.”

Link

Related posts

• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)
• Strange sources for marvellous medicines (0)
• Fighting fire with fire - using phage viruses to defeat bacterial infections (2)
• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)
• Where art meets science - the pickled frog webserver (4)

Straight out of Star Trek comes a potential new breakthrough in medical surgery - being able to operate inside a person without making an incision.  By focusing ultrasound waves - the same used by OB/GYNs in prenatal care - in a way similar to focusing sunlight in magnifying glass, doctors may soon be able to disintegrate tissue several centimeters below the skin.

The new technique, called histotripsy (try saying that three times fast), causes cavitation - an effect that makes Sean Connery playing a Russian believable to American audiences.  It also creates tiny bubbles that grow and collapse, releasing energy that liquefies the tissue at the desired site.  While laser beams can be more powerful, what they cannot do is penetrate the skin without leaving burn marks.

(via SciTechDaily, image from youngdoo)

Related posts

• Robots play drums and perform heart ops (0)
• Lego lifeforms - the progress of synthetic biology (2)
• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)
• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)
• Where art meets science - the pickled frog webserver (4)

The title should say it all: via Warren Ellis (via Paul Di Filippo), I give you SciVee - a video-sharing community site devoted to the dissemination of scientific research.

Related posts

• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)
• Where art meets science - the pickled frog webserver (4)
• Supernova Online (1)
• Battles in cyberspace: Anonymous vs Scientology (15)
• Your five-year internet fast starts now, courtesy of Elton John (4)

Is the emergence of life a localised one-shot fluke, or does it happen all over the place? It’s not a question we can answer with certainty yet, but that’s probably why it’s such a fascinating thing to ponder. Scientists in the latter camp suggest that life may have arisen here on Earth more than once, and according to Scientific American they are engaged in a search for examples of Terran microbial lifeforms which aren’t (or rather weren’t) based on the building blocks of the biology that we’re more accustomed to - which might add evidence in favour of the emergence of extra-terrestrial life. [Via Slashdot] [Image from Wikipedia]

Of course, some of the creatures that have existed on Earth that were based on the familiar biological patterns can still seem pretty alien, if only in the B-movie/pulp magazine manner - 2.5 meter long monster sea scorpion, anyone?

Related posts

• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)
• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)
• Where art meets science - the pickled frog webserver (4)
• Want to use biofuel? There’s oceans of possibilities. (0)
• UK government green-lights hybrid embryo research (0)

In considering anti-virus treatments which go beyond vaccinations, researchers are zapping them with a superfast laser; by pulsing at the same frequency as the virus, it’s possible to destroy its shell without harming the surrounding human cells.

Related posts

• Strange sources for marvellous medicines (0)
• Regenerating Nerves (0)
• Fighting fire with fire - using phage viruses to defeat bacterial infections (2)
• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)
• Where art meets science - the pickled frog webserver (4)

In addition to worries about driving up food prices around the world, especially in developing nations, there comes a study from Nobel Prize-winning scientist Paul Crutzen that biofuel may be even worse for us than fossil fuels.  The team calculates that biofuels can release 50-70% more carbon dioxide than fossil fuels, as well as release roughly twice as much nitrous oxide (N2O) as previously thought.

I think the problem here is that everyone is looking for a way to maintain their current standard of living and not admit that this level of energy usage will have to decrease.  The funny thing is, it’s not all that difficult to reduce the usage, if only just a little.  I think it’s actually more difficult to get your car converted to biodiesel than biking/walking to nearby places and not leaving lights on.  But that’s just me.

(via SciTechDaily) (image from neilsphotoalbum)

Update: Apologies, I misread the news report. I should’ve found the original paper first. It turns out that Dr. Crutzen found that N2O was marketdly increased, and if the environmental effects of N2O were converted into how much cooling CO2 would do, it comes out to be the afore-stated 50-70% increase. Which is a lot. Dr. Crutzen also stated he did not take into account the fossil fuel required to power the agricultural process (plowing, harvesting, etc), not did it take into account any beneficial co-products. He only focused on N2O production. It seems there is also some controversy about the efficacy of the calculations used. Please see the paper here(pdf).

Related posts

• Long-term energy solutions: Is nuclear our best option? (6)
• Good news for solar power, but problems remain (0)
• Engineering plants for fun and profit - and bettering our future (0)
• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)
• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)

From the Department of Science that Scares Me comes this little piece on salmonella sent to space that came back more dangerous than before.  The researchers describe it as a mutation that allowed the bacteria to survive in a certain kind of environment - microgravity - that fortuitously allowed them to be more effective (read: deadly) in organisms.

Thanks for giving me something more to worry about.  Sheesh!

(via DailyTech)

Related posts

• Testing panspermia (2)
• Freakonomics asks - Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost? (1)
• Cooking up supernovae in the lab (0)
• Black holes eat black holes (0)
• Astronomers spot a wet ‘hot Jupiter’ (0)

According to NASA-funded research on drill-cores from Australia, Earth’s atmosphere contained significant amounts of oxygen nearly 2.5 billion years ago, millions of years earlier than previously assumed. Let’s see the Young Earth Creationists spin that one.

Related posts

• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)
• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)
• Where art meets science - the pickled frog webserver (4)
• Testing panspermia (2)
• Strange sources for marvellous medicines (0)

It’s (relatively) common knowledge that black holes consume pretty much anything and everything … and apparently that includes each other, as astronomers speculate that the black hole at the center of our own galaxy may have gobbled up a smaller sibling over 100 million years ago.

While we’re on the subject of astronomy, and just in case you get asked by a curious child and don’t want to get caught on the hop, you may wish to learn why space is dark. [Image by D P Hershman]

Related posts

• Rogue black holes wander the galaxy, seeking whom they may devour (0)
• Astronomers spot a wet ‘hot Jupiter’ (0)
• The monsters at the bottom of black holes! (0)
• Testing panspermia (2)
• Scientists help out SF writers, create list of possible planet types (0)

It sounds like a crazy idea - but then that’s what they said about penicillin. Scientists from the UK are planning to use a close relative of the E. coli virus as a ‘targeted antibacterial agent’ to combat increasingly drug-resistant bacterial infections like the infamous MRSA. I’m sure they know what they’re doing … but I’m guessing doctors will want to keep fairly quiet on the antibiotic’s origins at first. [Image by Justin Baeder]

Related posts

• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)
• Strange sources for marvellous medicines (0)
• Regenerating Nerves (0)
• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)
• WiFi flu (2)

A detailed study of a supernova could tell scientists an awful lot of useful things … but there are obvious reasons why, even if we were able to travel the distances involved, we’d not want to just blast on over to check one out up close and personal. So, we do the next best thing - we recreate a some of the phenomena of a supernova under laboratory conditions.

Related posts

• The monsters at the bottom of black holes! (0)
• Testing panspermia (2)
• Speed of light exceeded? Er, probably not. (0)
• Professor Hawking writes cosmic adventure for kids (0)
• News flash: space germs can kill (0)

We’ve heard about the street finding its own use for things, but here’s an example of the opposite occurring: epidemiological researchers are in discussion with the makers of World of Warcraft to arrange a for a contagious virtual disease to sweep the multiplayer world, so that they can observe how people react to various social countermeasures like quarantining. Brings a whole new meaning to bugs in the code. [Image by Rance Costa]

Related posts

• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)
• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)
• Where art meets science - the pickled frog webserver (4)
• Thought-controlled avatars for Second Life (0)
• The metaverse: bad for marketing, great for terrorism? (2)

Craig Venter had better watch out - he’s got some competition. Experts in the field predict we’ll see the first successful attempts at creating “wet artificial lifeforms” within three to ten years.

Related posts

• Lego lifeforms - the progress of synthetic biology (2)
• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)
• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)
• Where art meets science - the pickled frog webserver (4)
• Testing panspermia (2)

You may have noticed the widely reported story that a team of German scientists have managed to make photons exceed the speed of light in the course of an experiment. Well, let’s just say that’s probably not exactly what happened. [Engadget]

Related posts

• Cooking up supernovae in the lab (0)
• Black holes and litigations* (2)
• You had me at “harmless mucus-like mash of molecules” (0)
• Wolfram’s Magnum Opus Online (1)
• Where art meets science - the pickled frog webserver (4)

Panspermia is the theory that life on Earth may have arrived in a nascent form from outer space, carried through the void as bacteria in comets or asteroids. It’s controversial, certainly, but persistent too (as well as being a classic science fiction trope). A Scottish scientist has decided to test the theory for plausibility by sending a chunk of rock into orbit and back on an ESA spacecraft, to determine whether microbes can survive not just the cold and vacuum of space, but also the violent physics of atmospheric reentry.

Update! This just in: Centauri Dreams pours water, or rather radiation, on the plausibility of panspermia.

Related posts

• News flash: space germs can kill (0)
• Life in cometary clay? (1)
• Freakonomics asks - Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost? (1)
• Cooking up supernovae in the lab (0)
• Black holes eat black holes (0)

Stephen Wolfram’s immense tome “A New Kind of Science” is now available online, for free, in a really sharp, full color format. I won’t even pretend I’m going to read it, but if I ever do get the gumption to tackle it I’ll probably try it out online before I refinance my house to buy the book. [boingboing]

Related posts

• Where art meets science - the pickled frog webserver (4)
• SciVee - YouTube for science research (0)
• Online publishing: how can we do it right? (2)
• Nobel winner writing new novel online - and giving it away for free (0)
• Contest to design a new e-reader (0)