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“There Was A Panel Of Scientists On One Side Of The Studio, With Us On The Other”

September 2, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Maybe everyone except me knew about this? During the first moon walk, Pink Floyd was in studio at the BBC jamming along with the live televised event. From David Gilmour in the Guardian:

“We [Pink Floyd] were in a BBC TV studio jamming to the landing. It was a live broadcast, and there was a panel of scientists on one side of the studio, with us on the other. I was 23.

The programming was a little looser in those days, and if a producer of a late-night programme felt like it, they would do something a bit off the wall. Funnily enough I’ve never really heard it since, but it is on YouTube. They were broadcasting the moon landing and they thought that to provide a bit of a break they would show us jamming. It was only about five minutes long. The song was called Moonhead – it’s a nice, atmospheric, spacey, 12-bar blues.

I also remember at the time being in my flat in London, gazing up at the moon, and thinking, ‘There are actually people standing up there right now.’ It brought it home to me powerfully, that you could be looking up at the moon and there would be people standing on it.”

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“Cowboys And Indians Alike Were In The Wrong Side Of The Barbed Wire Fence”

September 2, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of “Realtechnik, Nausea and Technological Longing,” Venkat Rao’s recent blog post which neatly explains how new inventions, often simple ones, upend accepted orders:

“The story of barbed wire is one of the most instructive ones in the history of technology. The short version is this: barbed wire (developed between 1860 to 1873) helped close the American frontier, carved out the killing fields of World War I, and by spurring the development of the tank as a counter-weapon, created industrial-era land warfare. It also ended the age-old global conflict between pastoral nomads and settled agriculturalists (of animals, vegetables and minerals) and handed a decisive victory to the latter. Cowboys and Indians alike were on the wrong side of the barbed wire fence. Quite a record for a technology that had little deep science or engineering behind it.

Barbed wire is an example of a proximal-cause technology that eventually disturbed multiple human balances of powers, starting with the much-mythologized cowboys-versus-ranchers balance. When things finally stabilized, a new technological world order had emerged, organizing everything from butter to guns differently.  Barbed wire was not a disruptive innovation in the Clayton Christensen sense. It was something far bigger. Its introduction marked what Marshall McLuhan called a break boundary in technological evolution: a rapid, irreversible and wholesale undermining of a prevailing planet-wide technological equilibrium. So ironically, the ultimate boundary-maker of physical geography was a boundary breaker in technology history.”

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“They’ll Be Rewriting What It Means To Be A City In The World”

August 31, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I’m wary of demographic predictions but the premise of Nate Berg’s new piece at the Atlantic, that the world’s least livable cities are growing the fastest, is really solid. What can these emerging but impoverished places learn from tidy, healthy metropolises like Vancouver and Melbourne? Not much, perhaps. An excerpt:

 that roughly 90 percent of the urbanization underway globally is taking place in developing cities like Dhaka and Lagos and in developing countries like Zimbabwe and Papua New Guinea. And between 2009 and 2050, the number of urban dwellers in these developing countries is expected to more than double, to 5.2 billion, according to the World Health Organization. That puts nearly 75 percent of the world’s expected 7 billion urbanites in cities in the developing world.

While Melbourne and Vienna and Vancouver will most certainly continue to grow and evolve, they won’t be undergoing the same speed and intensity of urbanization as cities in the developing world. And as these dramatically changing cities deal with these urban shifts in a very short time span, it is with an equally swift pace that they’ll be rewriting what it means to be a city in the world. The urbanity of London, gradually spreading over centuries, is being overshadowed by the instant skyscraper forests of burgeoning megacities in China and the massively dense urban cores of Dhaka and Lagos. The London model isn’t going anywhere, but the majority of the next major cities will develop more like Shenzhen or Kabul.”

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“The Team Decided That A Mic Would Not Reveal New Facts About Mars’s Habitability”

August 31, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Interesting question I hadn’t though of: Why is the Curiosity sending back visuals of Mars but no audio? An excerpt from the answer at Curiosity Watch:

“So why’s there no mic on board? That’s mainly because MSL is a scientific mission and has a clearly defined objective:

The overall scientific goal of the mission is to explore and quantitatively assess a local region on Mars’ surface as a potential habitat for life, past or present. 

Hence, every instrument has to work toward the overall scientific goal. Maybe there have been discussions about including a microphone in the early planning stages but the team decided that a mic would not reveal new facts about Mars’s habitability.

Also, spaceflight is extremely expensive and every extra gram costs money, so you only bring the things you really need.”

“Each Of You In Your Room Is In Touch With All That You Care For In The World”

August 30, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

E.M. Forster probably isn’t immediately associated with techno-dystopia, but that’s the subgenre of his 1909 short story, “The Machine Stops.” As the title suggests, the tale is concerned with our increasing reliance on technology. This video is the 1966 BBC adaptation.

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“Frustration Definitely Provokes Human Aggression”

August 30, 2012 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

A two-minute clip from “Human Aggression” by Stanley Milgram, author of the controversial 1962 “Obedience” social psychology experiment.

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“Animals Might Also Be Bioengineered To Better Suit Captivity”

August 30, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From Jennifer Abassi’s short, new Discover piece about the mashup of zoos and futurism, which touches on vertical zoos in urban areas and more outré topics:

“Within decades, advances in sequencing genes from ancient tissue could allow scientists to clone extinct dodo birds, saber-toothed cats, and woolly mammoths, says Jeffrey Yule, an evolutionary ecologist at Louisiana Tech University. Researchers in Asia and Europe are working to piece together DNA from mammoth tissue preserved in Siberian permafrost. Someday they might be able to insert it into an elephant egg to produce an embryo that a surrogate elephant would carry. It could fall to zoos to look after these animals.

Animals might also be bioengineered to better suit captivity, says John Fraser, former director of the Wildlife Conservation Society. Altering big cats, for example, to produce more endorphins might make them less aggressive. ‘We’ve spent a lot of time creating what look like barrier-less exhibits, but they still have barriers.'”

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“The Audiences Become The Performer To A Large Extent”

August 29, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Glenn Gould, in 1969, predicting that new technologies would allow for the sampling, remixing and democratization of creativity. Perhaps we’re only at the beginning.

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“Some Researchers Say A Large Crowd Makes It Less Likely That An Individual Hero Will Step Up”

August 29, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Until now, I missed this recent and interesting WSJ piece by Sue Shellenbarger about the psychology of heroism. An excerpt:

“Certain traits make it more likely that a person will make a split-second decision to take a heroic risk. People who like to take charge of situations, who respond sympathetically to others, and who have a strong sense of moral and social responsibility are more likely to intervene than people who lack those traits, research shows. Heroes tend by nature to be hopeful, believing events will turn out well. They consciously try to keep fear from hampering their pursuit of goals, and they tend to block out the possibility of injury or material loss.

People who are otherwise good and caring may still shrink back in a crisis. Their responses depend partly on whether they perceive the situation as an emergency and whether they know how to help; someone who doesn’t know anything about electrical wiring probably won’t rush to save a person tangled in a power line. How you’re feeling that day makes a difference, too; ‘people who are in a good mood are more likely to help,’ says Julie M. Hupp, an assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University in Newark. Context also matters; some researchers say a large crowd makes it less likely that an individual hero will step up.”

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“The Chinese Urban Reckoning Will Be Even More Severe Than America’s”

August 29, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

China is building cities and skyscrapers faster than the West can, but it’s still thus far relying on the same-old intellectual templates: an auto-centric culture and Le Corbusier-style design. From Peter Calthorpe in Foreign Policy:

“The choices China makes in the years ahead will have an immense impact not only on the long-term viability, livability, and energy efficiency of its cities, but also on the health of the entire planet. Unfortunately, much of what China is building is based on outdated Western planning ideas that put its cars at the center of urban life, rather than its people. And the bill will be paid in the form of larger waistlines, reduced quality of life, and choking pollution and congestion. The Chinese may get fat and unhappy before they get rich.

Like the U.S. cities of the 1950s and ’60s, Chinese cities are working to accommodate the explosive growth of automobile travel by building highways, ring roads, and parking lots. But more than any other factor, the rise of the car and the growth of the national highway system hollowed out American cities after World War II. Urban professionals fled to their newly accessible palaces in the suburbs, leaving behind ghettos of poverty and dysfunction. As Jane Jacobs, the great American urbanist, lamented, ‘Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of American communities.’

Only in the last few decades, as urban crime rates have plummeted and the suburbs have become just as congested as the downtowns of old, have Americans returned to revitalize their cities in large numbers, embracing mass transit, walkable communities, and street-level retail. But while America’s yuppies may now take ‘urban’ to mean a delightful new world of cool bars, Whole Foods stores, and bike paths, urbanization in China means something else entirely: gray skies, row after row of drab apartment blocks, and snarling traffic.

If anything, due to China’s high population density, the Chinese urban reckoning will be even more severe than America’s. “

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“It’s Played Entirely By The Position Of The Hands”

August 29, 2012 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

A 1962 episode of I’ve Got a Secret in which Paul Lipman played the theremin.

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“When The Signature Was Required On Top, Only 37 Percent Cheated”

August 28, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The human mind is really good at justification and rationalization and delaying responsibility, so it’s not surprising that a cleverly designed recent study reveals that we’re much more likely to answer printed questions honestly when we’re asked to sign the form at the beginning rather than the end. From John Timmer at Ars Technica:

“Their hypothesis was that ‘signing one’s name before reporting information (rather than at the end) makes morality accessible right before it is most needed, which will consequently promote honest reporting.’

To test this proposal, they designed a series of forms that required self reporting of personal information, either involving performance on a math quiz where higher scores meant higher rewards, or the reimbursable travel expenses involved in getting to the study’s location. The only difference among the forms? Some did not ask for a signature, some put the signature on top, and some placed it in its traditional location, at the end.

In the case of the math quiz, the researchers actually tracked how well the participants had performed. With the signature at the end, a full 79 percent of the participants cheated. Somewhat fewer cheated when no signature was required, though the difference was not statistically significant. But when the signature was required on top, only 37 percent cheated—less than half the rate seen in the signature-at-bottom group.”

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“They See People Not Just As Individuals, But Also As Ecosystems”

August 28, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Since we contain far more bacterial cells than cells from our parents, some medical researchers are beginning to look at the human body as an ecosystem. The opening of a piece on the topic from the Economist:

“WHAT’S a man? Or, indeed, a woman? Biologically, the answer might seem obvious. A human being is an individual who has grown from a fertilised egg which contained genes from both father and mother. A growing band of biologists, however, think this definition incomplete. They see people not just as individuals, but also as ecosystems. In their view, the descendant of the fertilised egg is merely one component of the system. The others are trillions of bacteria, each equally an individual, which are found in a person’s gut, his mouth, his scalp, his skin and all of the crevices and orifices that subtend from his body’s surface.

A healthy adult human harbours some 100 trillion bacteria in his gut alone. That is ten times as many bacterial cells as he has cells descended from the sperm and egg of his parents. These bugs, moreover, are diverse. Egg and sperm provide about 23,000 different genes. The microbiome, as the body’s commensal bacteria are collectively known, is reckoned to have around 3m. Admittedly, many of those millions are variations on common themes, but equally many are not, and even the number of those that are adds something to the body’s genetic mix.

And it really is a system, for evolution has aligned the interests of host and bugs. In exchange for raw materials and shelter the microbes that live in and on people feed and protect their hosts, and are thus integral to that host’s well-being. Neither wishes the other harm. In bad times, though, this alignment of interest can break down. Then, the microbiome may misbehave in ways which cause disease.”

“I Want To Introduce A Man Who Pursued An Avid Interest In The Future Of Outer Space Long, Long Before It Was Fashionable”

August 28, 2012 in Books, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

How cool: Ray Bradbury visits Merv Griffin in 1978 to discuss Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the future of humankind. He also reads one of his poems.

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“It’s Very Odd That It Hasn’t Translated Into Economic Well Being”

August 28, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

During a sparring match with Google’s Eric Schmidt, libertarian Peter Thiel restates his belief that technological progress has largely stalled during the last four decades:

“But I think that when you look at this question of how much technological progress has been happening, we get into all these complicated measurement issues. The one that I cite as the big data point is that if you look at the U.S. say in the last 40 years, 1973 to today, median wages have been stagnant. Maybe the mean wages have gone up maybe a small amount, not very much.  The 40 years before that, 1932 to 1972, they went up by a factor of 6.

So, if you looked at how people did from ’32 to ’72, you had a six-fold improvement, and it was matched by incredible technological progress. Cars got better. You had the aeronautics industry got started. You went from no planes to supersonic jets. You had the computers invented. You had all sorts of incredibly important dimensions in which progress took place.

And so I agree we’ve had certain narrow areas where there’s been significant progress, but it’s very odd that it hasn’t translated into economic well being. And this is not just a problem with capitalist countries, like the U.S.”

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“In The Spy Business, The Dagger Is Replacing The Cloak”

August 27, 2012 in Politics, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

A 1965 NBC special hosted by John Chancellor about the science of Cold War spying. You could argue all the gamesmanship, all the information gathered during U.S.-Soviet stalemate had very little effect on anything.

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“I Didn’t See The Gorilla”

August 27, 2012 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

“It turns out very few people saw the gorilla.” (Image by Kabir Bakie.)

From a Five Books interview at the Browser with behavioral economist Dan Ariely, a passage about The Invisible Gorilla, which demonstrates that we see more with our brains than our eyes and that our brains are often “blind”:

“Let’s go through the books, and you can tell me what’s important about them and why you like them. The first one on your list is The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us, by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons.

These are the guys who did one of the most important pieces of research in social science, which is to show how little we actually see in the world around us. The basic demonstration of this is a movie in which there are two groups playing basketball. One group is wearing white t-shirts and the other group is wearing black t-shirts. They are passing the ball, and the viewer is asked to count how many times the people in white t-shirts pass the ball to each other. What then happens in the background is a gorilla passes through. He stops right in the middle and thumps his chest. When the clip is over, the viewer is asked, “How many times did you see the people in white t-shirts pass the ball?” Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. But when you ask, ‘How many of you saw the gorilla?’ it turns out very few people saw the gorilla.

I didn’t see the gorilla.

There’s also another demonstration in the book that I really like. This involves going up to someone on a campus with a map and saying, ‘Excuse me, can you help me figure out how to get to the student centre?’ They take the map from your hand and start explaining it to you. While they’re explaining, two people in workmen’s clothes come between you with a door. For a moment, they obscure your view. What the person you’ve asked for directions doesn’t know is that you’re going away. You’re walking off with the door and a new person is standing in front of them. The question is, do people notice this change? And the answer is, again, no.

These are findings that are incredibly powerful and important. We think we see with our eyes, but the reality is that we largely see with our brains. Our brain is a master at giving us what we expect to see. It’s all about expectation, and when things violate expectation we are just unaware of them. We go around the world with a sense that we pay attention to lots of things. The reality is that we notice much less than we think. And if we notice so much less than we think, what does that mean about our ability to figure out things around us, to learn and improve? It means we have a serious problem. I think this book has done a tremendous job in showing how even in vision, which is such a good system in general, we are poorly tooled to make good decisions.”

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“You’re Going To See Something Absolutely Amazing”

August 27, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Excellent 1978 BBC doc about the impact of microprocessors and computers.

“We Are Living Through The Most Exciting Period Of Human History”

August 27, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I have great respect for the inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, though I usually think his predictions are very aggressive. In his defense, he is way smarter than I am. From the Sun:

“WE are living through the most exciting period of human history.

Computer technology and our understanding of genes — our body’s software programs — are accelerating at an incredible rate.

I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogramme our bodies’ stone-age software so we can halt, then reverse, ageing. Then nano-technology will let us live for ever.

Already, blood cell-sized submarines called nanobots are being tested in animals. These will soon be used to destroy tumours, unblock clots and perform operations without scars.

Ultimately, nanobots will replace blood cells and do their work thousands of times more effectively.

Within 25 years we will be able to do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath, or go scuba-diving for four hours without oxygen.”

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“My One Ambition Is To Contribute To The Success Of This Program. I’m No Romantic.”

August 26, 2012 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

I don’t think people should be exalted, any of us. No statues should be built. Even the best of us are disappointing–small and petty and vain and vengeful. We often take out our unhappiness on others. Even when being seemingly generous–celebrating our country, our community, our family, our friends–we’re often just celebrating ourselves. And we should never do that. We should remain humble.

Neil Armstrong was just flesh and bones like the rest of us. He had his bad days and his flaws. But it’s amazing that he displayed such humility while accomplishing so much and braving every challenge. Not everyone can afford to be so modest. Some people have so many strikes against them that they have to convince everyone else–even themselves–that they belong. But it’s great that the one of us who went the furthest, and got there first, stayed so down-to-earth. Neil Armstrong was above and beyond, and I’m not only talking about atmosphere and stratosphere. 

From Oriana Fallaci’s 1966 book about the space program, If the Sun Dies:

“The third old man was thirty-four and looked like John Glenn’s young brother: the same freckles, the same fair coloring, the same ease; he had even been born in Ohio. Nevertheless certain things distinguished him from John Glenn–his lack of vivacity, his diplomacy and his shoulders that were extraordinarily rounded for such a strong physique. His mouth was ironical, but an irony full of caution. His voice was quiet, his movement economical. His name was Neil Armstrong and they picked him with the second group. The most interesting piece of information about him, for me, was that he didn’t have a service background. The only astronaut civilian I was to meet. And perhaps because of this he entered like someone visiting the dentist. And I felt indeed like a dentist, I was tempted to ask: Is it a molar that hurts or a canine? I would not have been at all surprised if he had answered: ‘No, Doctor, it’s an incisor.’ Sound track:

‘What a fine thing, Mr. Armstrong! You’re not from the service!’

‘I came from NASA, where I was an electronics engineer and a jet test pilot. It isn’t different. I mean, I’ve got as much discipline as the others and discipline is the main thing you need if you’re going into space. Besides, the reason they pick servicemen isn’t because they’re more suitable than civilians; they pick them because they’ve got them all neatly packaged and pre-selected so it’s easier to dig up the right man. You know everything about a serviceman, including how far you can trust him. But they knew everything about me too: I’ve been with NASA for several years.’

‘However, becoming an astronaut must give you great joy.’

‘I wouldn’t know. Let me think….”

‘Haven’t you thought about it before?’

‘To me it was simply being transferred from one office to another. I was in one office and then they moved me into this one. Well, yes, I suppose I was pleased. It’s always nice to gain in status. But I don’t have any personal ambition. My one ambition is to contribute to the success of this program. I’m no romantic.’

‘Do you mean that you don’t have a taste for adventure?’

‘For heaven’s sake, I loathe danger, especially if it’s useless; danger is the most irritating aspect of our job. How can a perfectly normal technological fact be turned into adventure? And why should steering a spacecraft be risking your life? It would be as illogical as risking your life when you use an electric mixer when making a milkshake. There should be nothing dangerous about making a milkshake and there should be nothing dangerous about steering a spacecraft. Once you’ve granted this concept, you can no longer think in terms of adventure, the urge of going up just for the sake of going up…’

I observed his mouth. Perhaps not the molar, not the canine, nor the incisor. It was probably the wisdom tooth.

‘Mr. Armstrong, I know somebody who would go up even if he knew he wouldn’t come back. Just for the urge to go up.’

‘Among us astronauts?’

‘Among you astronauts.’

‘I rule him out. If you knew him, he’d be a boy, not an adult.’

‘He’s an adult, Mr. Armstrong.’

‘But who?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s talk about you. Leaving aside the milkshake, I suppose you’d be sorry not to go up?’

‘Yes, but I wouldn’t get sick about it. I don’t understand the ones who are so anxious to be the first. It’s all nonsense, kid stuff, just romanticism unworthy of our rational age. I rule out the possibility of agreeing to go up if I thought I might not come back, unless it were technically indispensable. I mean, testing a jet is dangerous but technically indispensable. Dying in space or on the Moon, is not technically indispensable and consequently if I had to choose between death while testing a jet and death on the Moon, I’d choose death while testing a jet. Wouldn’t you?’

No, it wasn’t the wisdom tooth that hurt. That one was healthy. It was something else, Father, a lack of pain, I would say, a good cry such as children have when they want the Moon, no matter if they have to die to get the Moon, that exquisite infancy which stays in us, as a gift, even when we are adults with all our teeth, our prudence.

‘No, confronted with such a dilemma, I’d unhesitatingly choose to die on the Moon: at least I’ll get a look at the Moon.’

‘Kid stuff. Nonsense. Die on the Moon! To get a look at the Moon! If it were a matter of staying there for a year or two…maybe…I don’t know. No, no, it would still be too high a price to pay because it’s senseless.’

‘Did you spend all your young years at NASA, Mr. Armstrong?’

‘I spent them traveling: Europe, Asia, South America. So I saw what there was to see, I understood what there was to understand, and here I am.’

‘Were you in the war, Mr. Armstrong?’

‘Sure, I was in Korea. Seventy-eight combat missions. I’d be lying if I said they’d done me any good.’

‘Do you have any children, Mr. Armstrong?’

‘Sure. One seven and one two. How could I not have children at my age?’

‘Ten minutes,’ said the Bureaucrat. ‘Hurry!’

He stood up. ‘I’d better say goodbye. I have to go in the centrifuge.’

‘I don’t envy you, Mr. Armstrong.’

‘Yes, it’s very disagreeable: perhaps the thing I hate most. But indispensable.’

‘Time’s up! Stop!’

‘Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.'”

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“How Long Do You Want To Live?”

August 26, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The United States ranks 34th in infant mortality rate, but some of us dream of life-extension beyond belief, we dream of an end that never arrives. That’s our strange reality right now, though perhaps the Affordable Care Act will improve those numbers, should it survive one more mad charge in November. From David Ewing Duncan in the New York Times:

“How many years might be added to a life? A few longevity enthusiasts suggest a possible increase of decades. Most others believe in more modest gains. And when will they come? Are we a decade away? Twenty years? Fifty years?

Even without a new high-tech ‘fix’ for aging, the United Nations estimates that life expectancy over the next century will approach 100 years for women in the developed world and over 90 years for women in the developing world. (Men lag behind by three or four years.)

Whatever actually happens, this seems like a good time to ask a very basic question: How long do you want to live?

Over the past three years I have posed this query to nearly 30,000 people at the start of talks and lectures on future trends in bioscience, taking an informal poll as a show of hands. To make it easier to tabulate responses I provided four possible answers: 80 years, currently the average life span in the West; 120 years, close to the maximum anyone has lived; 150 years, which would require a biotech breakthrough; and forever, which rejects the idea that life span has to have any limit at all.”

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“More Mobile, More Capable, And Less Expensive Robots For The Battlefield”

August 24, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Airplanes have been inflatable for decades, but what about robots? DARPA, which loves you to death, has the answer. From Ars Technica: “A DARPA-funded research project at Massachusetts-based iRobot has developed a series of prototype robots with inflatable parts. The robots, developed with researchers from Carnegie-Mellon University and inflatable engineering company ILC Dover, are part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s program to create more mobile, more capable, and less expensive robots for the battlefield.”

“It Creates A Completely New Biology Toward Our Understanding Of How Cells Age”

August 24, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have made a breakthrough in returning cells to pristine form, perhaps making possible an endless summer, a fountain of youth. What will it be like when we have all the time in the world? From the press release:

“Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a reliable method to turn the clock back on blood cells, restoring them to a primitive stem cell state from which they can then develop into any other type of cell in the body.

The work, described in the Aug. 8 issue of the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS), is ‘Chapter Two’ in an ongoing effort to efficiently and consistently convert adult blood cells into stem cells that are highly qualified for clinical and research use in place of human embryonic stem cells, says Elias Zambidis, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of oncology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and the Kimmel Cancer Center.

‘Taking a cell from an adult and converting it all the way back to the way it was when that person was a 6-day-old embryo creates a completely new biology toward our understanding of how cells age and what happens when things go wrong, as in cancer development,’ Zambidis says.”

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“We’re Learning Exciting Things About How We Sense The World Around Us”

August 24, 2012 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Vintage 1968 AT&T film about breakthroughs in computer graphics, filmmaking, etc. The incredible and unsettling score is completely computer-generated.

“You Might Be Able To Grow An Animal That Was Close To The Common Ancestor”

August 23, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Rachel Bilson was busy, so Playboy interviewed Richard Dawkins this month. From a give-and-take about what genetic mapping might mean to us:

“PLAYBOY: You’ve said you expect mankind will have a genetic book of the dead by 2050. How would that be helpful?

DAWKINS: Because we contain within us the genes that have survived through generations, you could theoretically read off a creature’s evolutionary history. ‘Ah, yes, this animal lived in the sea. This is the time when it lived in deserts. This bit shows it must have lived up mountains. And this shows it used to burrow.’

PLAYBOY: Could that help us bring back a dinosaur? You have suggested crossing a bird and a crocodile and maybe putting it in an ostrich egg.

DAWKINS: It would have to be more sophisticated than a cross. It’d have to be a merging.

PLAYBOY: Could we re-create Lucy?

DAWKINS: We already know the human genome and the chimpanzee genome, so you could make a sophisticated guess as to what the genome of the common ancestor might have been like. From that you might be able to grow an animal that was close to the common ancestor. And from that you might split the difference between that ancestral animal you re-created and a modern human and get Lucy.” (Thanks Browser.)

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