Transcendent man.
Whatever you think about Ray Kurzweil, this documentary looks to be pretty interesting.
“Transcendent Man introduces the life and ideas of Ray Kurzweil, the renowned futurist who journeys the world offering his vision of a future in which we will merge with our machines, can live forever, and are billions of times more intelligent…all within the next thirty years.”
A Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition will be stopping at the Duluth Art Institute this summer. Called “Beyond: Visions of Planetary Landscapes”, the show is composed of photographs from throughout the solar system, and will feature astronomy lectures throughout the show’s stay to accompany it. The Art Institute invited us to take part, and we will be giving a 45 minute presentation on Tuesday, August 4th, at 5:30pm. The title of our talk is “Astronomical Heresies: A Survey of Weird and Fantastic Ideas About the Solar System.”
Astronomers claim to have found some seriously far-away water.
The water emission is seen as a maser, where molecules in the gas amplify and emit beams of microwave radiation in much the same way as a laser emits beams of light. The faint signal is only detectable by using a technique called gravitational lensing, where the gravity of a massive galaxy in the foreground acts as a cosmic telescope, bending and magnifying light from the distant galaxy to make a clover-leaf pattern of four images of MG J0414+0534. The water maser was only detectable in the brightest two of these images.
Flu viruses are named after the two main proteins on their surfaces, abbreviated H and N. They are also differentiated by what animal they usually infect. The H in the new virus comes from pigs, but some of its other genes come from bird and human flu viruses, a mixture that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls “very unusual”.
Not merely unusual but “very” unusual. Last one without swine flu is a rotten egg.
Research shows ants are “better than humans” at making “rational” “assessments” when house-hunting.
…adding that even as bacteria display cognition (pdf), this is largely about the actions of the collective superorganism. But still, this means that in some contexts, an ant colony may be more capable of acting rationally than an individual human being, or a human colony.
I’m with Jim. Vaccines have good and bad sides, and you can’t just ignore the bad. And even if you are 100% pro-vaccine, maybe they could make them without toxic preservatives and things like monkey pus in them. Demand green vaccines.
Mr Nyaumbe bit the snake on the tip of the tail during the exhausting battle in the village of Sabaki.
Police rescued Mr Nyaumbe and captured the 13ft (4m) reptile, before taking it to a sanctuary, but it later escaped.
The victim told police he managed to reach his mobile phone from his pocket to raise the alarm when the python momentarily eased its grip after hauling him up a tree on Saturday evening.
Missing vials of a potentially dangerous virus have prompted an Army investigation into the disappearance from a lab in Maryland.
Nothing to see here, move along.
By way of Dkos , behold this compilation of media coverage about the effects of plastic waste in the world’s oceans.
Saw this on Kos - a “civil war in the right-wing blogosphere” (such as it is):
Johnson worries, in conversation and on his blog, that his old allies have been duped by far-right European political parties and have bought into wild attacks on the president that discredit their own causes.
“I don’t think there is an anti-jihadist movement anymore,” Johnson said. “It’s all a bunch of kooks. I’ve watch some people who I thought were reputable, and who I trusted, hook up with racists and Nazis. I see a lot of them promoting stories and causes that I think are completely nuts.”
Hm.
Only 15 of the worlds largest cargo ships.
Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that just 15 of the world’s biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world’s 760m cars. Low-grade ship bunker fuel (or fuel oil) has up to 2,000 times the sulphur content of diesel fuel used in US and European automobiles.
Author J.G. Ballard has died at 78. He was much admired and respected here at Gonzo Science.
Ballard would eventually be deemed worthy of his own adjective, “Ballardian,” defined by the Collins English Dictionary as “resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in Ballard’s novels & stories, esp. dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes & the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments.”
He will be missed.
Kinda loosely-defined “tool use” I guess, but they’re National Geographic’s words, not mine. This article examines evidence that the long-extinct sea scorpion was the first creature we know of that used other sea creatures’ empty shells for protection when crawling ashore:
The odd drag marks could have been from the coiled shells of snails or similar critters, which the ocean-dwelling scorpions stuffed their tails into so they could venture above water, the researchers suggest.
Humid air trapped inside the shells might have protected the sea scorpions’ gills from drying out during brief forays into the open air—like reverse scuba gear.
“Instead of an aqualung, like you have with human divers, you have the reverse: an aerolung,” Hagadorn said.
Sounds pretty sophisticated. So let me get this straight: sea scorpions invented the aerolung?
Sounds funny to put it that way, but ever since reading this paper about bacterial cognition (pdf), nothing surprises me any more.
The new scientific paradigm regarding animal cognition seems to be: heretofore unthinkable levels of cognition are now recognized everywhere on the animal family tree.
Our action suits protect us even from scorching volcanic activity.
Gonzo Science Action Squad Danger Force. Allen’s mastery of the slide whistle captivates the crowd while Jim delivers big science-based laughs. The drumsticks are the result of a recent 5th dimensional mishap- always remember to check your beard for flecks of egg salad before using the teleporter!
While hosting the Gonzo Gong Show at Geek Prom 2009, Jim Richardson of Gonzo Science has a bit of fun at the glibertarians’ expense.
Research: Class of Herbicides Persist in Environment Longer Than Previously Believed. The triazine weedkillers atrazine and simazine are more persistent than previously believed, outdating current guidelines for their use. File under “nobody could have predicted” (Warning: sarcasm).
Also: EPA to Test 67 Pesticides for Endocrine Disruption For the First Time. (Psst: Test them in combination too, unless chemical compounds have suddenly become impossible somehow)
Jim posting as Allen here. It’s Andrew Vachss day at Gonzo Science. Allen forwarded me a link to this Vachss video cache on youtube, and I have hoovered up the ones that interest me most. For those who don’t know, Vachss is the Batman of child advocacy, attorney by day, hard-boiled novelist by night, with the sole mission of combatting child abuse. He wears dark glasses throughout these videos instead of his traditional eyepatch; one of his eyes was severely damaged in a fight, as I understand the story (I guess he is actually more like Daredevil overall - not to minimize him by comparing him to superheroes; but more to understand him by identifying some of the complex of archetypes he expresses).
In this video, Vachss (pronounced Vax) discusses what is essentially his (VERY DISTURBING) origin story - that of being a federal STD investigator who, by accidentally discovering the rape of a baby, stumbles into the underground world of child rapists. (Trust me, skip this video if you are faint of heart.) He has been fighting them ever since, and as he says at one point in these excerpts, “We are surrounded.”
Here is his homepage, which we link to under “Politics”; we also have a link to his anti child abuse resource section in our sidebar. Andrew Vachss is the toughest, angriest man alive, a war machine against child abuse. Forward his links around, donate to his site, do whatever it takes to support him and his work. A real-life superhero in his own right.
Vachss on child protection court cases, which he explains have higher stakes than death penalty cases. He also debunks the “bad seed” myth of evil, arguing that if Ted Bundy had been raised by a not-abusive family, he would not have been a monster.
It’s ugly.
This Saturday at the Duluth Aquarium, Gonzo Science will perform its annual duty of hosting the Gonzo Gong Show at Geek Prom. Anybody know any science jokes?
Gonzo blogger Matt pointed this out to me, increasing his street cred enormously, writing, “Yep, that’s yours truly’s comment in the #1 voted spot on Obama’s online forum. Just saw it last night browsing for a factoid about the War on Drugs.” Matt’s #1 rated idea? A science-based approach to the war on drugs.
Congrats to Matt - seriously, nice work. From your pen to Obama’s ears.
Basically reporting what we already knew, but their indictment of the technology is a bludgeon to proponents of GE technology.
“A hard-nosed assessment of this expensive technology’s achievements to date gives little confidence that it will play a major role in helping the world feed itself in the forseeable future,” said the report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
It found that corn and soybeans that were genetically modified to increase their tolerance to herbicides “have not increased operational yields, whether on a per acre or national basis, compared to conventional methods that rely on other available herbicides.”
Maybe thats because they were never meant to increase yields! Now as for herbicide company profits….
“Overall, corn and soybean yields have risen substantially over the last 15 years, but largely not as a result of the GE traits,” the report said. “Most of the gains are due to traditional breeding or improvement of other agricultural practices.”
New finding: earthquakes can trigger other earthquakes far away and distant in time.
This is something anticipated by Dr. Michael Persinger’s theory that tectonic strain fields, sometimes aggravated by far away earthquakes, can cause outbreaks of piezoelectric phenomena that are then misidentified as UFOs, ghosts, or the Virgin Mary. (Among other things, Persinger correlated the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Zeitoun Egypt with seismic activity 400 kilometers away.)
Persinger’s theory (and the whole Earth Lights theory connected with it) has been strengthened by this finding. Which is to say, this finding is not surprising to Michael Persinger at all, and his theory just got bolstered pretty good. No more whining about the long distances involved - seismic effects are now understood to have a global reach.
Just to prove a point I found yet another example of why the great museums of the world need to be treated like archaeological digs and excavated - what will be found next, the Ark of the Covenant?
A specimen collected by Darwin has been found almost 200 years later in a museum basement. I’m going to start tracking these sorts of “discoveries.” As of now I have added an “Excavate the Museums“ category. We don’t even know what’s in our own museums - let’s get that sorted out. Might answer a few questions.
Wild male chimps share meat with the ladies to boost their mating success.
The fact that the chimp males also shared meat with females not in heat could also add new fire to the debate about chimpanzees’ cognitive abilities, experts add. That’s because the research might suggest that chimps can anticipate future interactions or remember interactions they had in the past.
“Yeah, she’ll remember me when that ass gets all red and inflamed.”
