How Humans Invented Themselves | The Intersection

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Here’s an excerpt from my third post at the Techonomy blog–which is on how technology and humanity are “coproduced.” You can read the full post here.

At the official opening plenary session of Techonomy, Kevin Kelly–a co-founder of Wired, and author of the forthcoming book What Technology Wants–made what I considered a pretty profound remark. “The first animal we domesticated was humans,” Kelly said. He went on to describe how we “physically changed ourselves through agriculture, through cooking…we’re both masters of technology and also the children of technology.”

catching-fireKelly sounded, in this statement, as though he’d read a book that I recently recommended and blogged about, and whose author I interviewed for BBC 2’s “The Culture Show”: Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham’s Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. It’s hard to think of a better example than cooking if you want to show how human beings and technology are “co-produced,” which I take to be Kelly’s argument.

In Wrangham’s account, our ancestors discovered fire and cooking at some hard-to-fix point in the past—but farther back than most scientists had previously assumed. At this point, the power of this innovation then dramatically drove human evolution.

Cooking food was a game changer….READ ON.


Biology as a historical parameter | Gene Expression

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In my review of Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Angloworld, 1783-1939 I left one aspect of James Belich’s thesis out of my list of criticisms because it wasn’t relevant to most of the argument. He seems to reject, mostly based on incredulity, the idea that there were massive population collapses in the New World when the natives encountered diseases incubated on the World Island (I say “World Island” because it wasn’t only Eurasian diseases, African slaves brought their own suite of lethal ailments which “cleared out” Amerindians from many lowland zones). He points out, correctly, that the Black Death in Europe is estimated to have resulted in a decrease of only ~1/3 from the total population. How then could it be plausible that there may have been population contractions on the order of a magnitude (i.e., the post-collapse population being only ~10% of the pre-collapse population). The skepticism of extreme population decline on the part of indigenes dovetails with the author’s focus on the particular explosiveness of Anglo natural increase, as well as migratory bursts. Heightening the “contrast effect” at the heart of his central thesis.


I think the author’s incredulity only makes sense in light of biological naivete. To a first approximation moderns tend to assume that all populations are interchangeable in our models. Like the economist ignoring individual differences and fixating on H. economicus for analytical purposes this has some utility, but it does miss much of the picture. The Black Death was only one of many epidemics which swept over Europe, so one can presume that European populations were already somewhat robust in the face of a new strain of infectious disease. The revisionist scholarship, which posits mass population collapse, is thoroughly reviewed in Charles C. Mann’s 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. But even today biological differences matter when it comes to disease, for example in relation to swine flu fatalities.

One of the implicit aspects of Belich’s skepticism is that population crash models in the New World are rooted in inferences, not concrete censuses. But I recently stumbled onto a “test case” for contact between Europeans and indigenous people where we have some good data sets, Tahiti.

tahiti2

The initial data point of ~50,000 in 1767 is a low boundary estimate. But the subsequent data points are more concrete, from missionary surveys, or censuses. Even excluding the estimate the pre-contact population of Tahiti island seems to have dropped by one half in a two generation period. This is greater than the average decrease of the Black Death in Europe.

I think the reason for these massive population collapses when isolated groups meet more cosmopolitan ones is simple: they compress many generations of natural selection and immunity acquisition into just a few. In the historical record we know that the 2nd century A.D. witnessed the outbreak of plagues in the Roman Empire, and the subsequent decline and fall was concomitant with the endemic status of malaria in the Italian lowlands. The great Plague of Justinian in the late 6th century has been fingered as the causal factor behind the rise of Islam, the replacement of Celtic Britons by Anglo-Saxons, and the end of the Classical World more generally. Populations isolated from the grinding pathologies of Malthusian agricultural interlude just experienced it in all its glorious misery in a very short burst.

Source: Urbanization in French Polynesia, RC Schmitt, 1962

Air Force Set to Launch First AEHF Satellite

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CAPE CANVERAL - The U.S. Air Force is preparing to launch the first Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite (AEHF-1) atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket on Aug. 12. The launch window will open at 7:13 a.m. it will close about 20 minutes later at 7:34 a.m. EDT. The launch is scheduled to take place at Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC 41).

AEHF is designed to eventually replace the aging Milstar constellation of satellites and will ensure that military commanders have high-speed communications. This new, jam-proof system is the link between the president and the U.S. forces if there is a nuclear attack. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor to both build the AEHF fleet of satellites and to construct the mission control center where the satellites will be operated from.

A number of U.S. allies are involved with the AEHF program and will be able to use the system once the satellites become operational. These partners include the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Canada.

When the system is complete it will consist of three functioning satellites and one on-orbit spare. These satellites are linked and are able to communicate with one another. They will provide the military with vital communications data such as video, maps and targeting information. When operational, the constellation of satellites will be operated by the 4th Space Operations Squadron, stationed at Schriever Air Force Base, CO.

The satellites will incorporate frequency-hopping technology that will prevent attempts to intercept signals transmitted from the satellite system. The AEHF system promises to provide an information transfer rate of 8.192 Mbit/s for each user. Milstar Low Data Rate (LDR) provided 75-2400 bits per second and Milstar Medium 4.8 Kbit/s - 1.544 Mbit/s. It is estimated that a single AEHF satellite will have greater capabilities than all of the Milstar satellites combined.

The launch was scheduled for July. 30 but was pushed back to Aug. 10 to allow technicians to review potential problems with the Atlas V's fairing. The fairing is a protective cover that shields the rocket's payload as it heads to orbit. The particular component in question controlled the fairing's separation, if it had failed the satellite would have been trapped and the mission would have failed. This launch date was recently pushed back an additional two days to Aug. 12. These slips are not expected to impact other launches that are currently on the range's manifest. Currently Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has a Falcon 9 launch scheduled for September and a ULA Delta IV launch is slated for October.

The second AEHF spacecraft is currently in the middle of its Final Integrated System Test (FIST). This test will check out all of the satellite's capabilities. Meanwhile AEHF-3 is being prepared to undergo acoustic testing. This is one of several tests that will shake out any issues with the spacecraft's design and work to make sure that the vehicle survives the high stresses of launch and the space environment. Both AEHF-2 and 3 are scheduled to be delivered to the U.S. Air Force in 2011.

Campbell University considers establishing an osteapathic medical school – The Apex Herald

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Campbell University considers establishing an osteapathic medical school
The Apex Herald
Currently, 80 North Carolina residents are enrolled in various osteopathic medical schools located throughout the United States. ...
Campbell University explores starting a med schoolFayObserver.com
Campbell eyes creating osteopathic schoolWRAL.com

all 4 news articles »

Where Does a Cell Tower Get Its Coordinates From?

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I know that assisted GPS in cell phones is augmented by the cell tower location data. I was poking around on my Android phone and found the coordinates of each cell tower that it is in communication with. After converting the coords to decimal equivalents, I plotted on Google map and Bing map. I wa

Who’s Ahead, Who’s Behind–And Who’s Missing the Point | The Intersection

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Here’s an excerpt from my second post at the Techonomy blog–which is on the morning’s workshop about the global spread of information and communication technologies. You can read the full post here.

Unlike my fellow blogger Marshall Kirkpatrick, I don’t have anything too astute to say about the opening pre-conference workshop of Techonomy—hosted by the World Economic Forum and entitled “How to measure the impact and transformational power of technology?”

But I do have a remark on how sophisticated conversations like this one often get mashed into meaningless by media coverage–which is why we need ideas-oriented conferences like Techonomy in the first place.

The morning’s workshop centered on a regularly released World Economic Forum report—better described as a brick, really; this thing is massive—entitled the “Global Information Technology Report.” If that sounds wonky, it is. But it’s also a crucial document for tracking just how countries are doing when it comes to getting their citizens online, and upgrading and improving their information and communications technologies.

Whenever the “GITR” comes out, observed its co-author Soumitra Dutta, the press uses its release as an occasion for tech horse race stories—e.g., Sweden ranked # 1 in “networked readiness,” Singapore # 2, and so on. Woo hoo. Journalists cover such data almost like they would a presidential campaign….KEEP READING.


Can a Party Drug Mitigate Bipolar Disorder’s Depression? | 80beats

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drugwaterRecreational drug users call it “Special K.” Large, frequent doses of the anesthetic ketamine can give users vivid hallucinations, but a recently published study hints that the drug may have a medicinal use: temporarily treating depression brought on by bipolar disorder.

The small, proof-of-concept study appears in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry. National Institutes of Health researchers randomly gave 18 depressed patients ketamine or a placebo on two different days, two weeks apart. They used a much smaller dose of the drug than the amount used for recreation or anesthesia, but within 40 minutes 71 percent of the patients who received ketamine showed a significant improvement in mood, which lasted for three days, as measured using a psychiatric depression rating scale.

The quick response time is unusual for the drugs typically used to treat bipolar disorder’s depression, such as lithium or antidepressants like Prozac, and many of the study’s patients had failed to respond to other treatments. On average, the study participants had tried seven antidepressants and 55 percent of participants had failed to respond positively to the extreme measures of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)–seizures brought on by electrical current. Ketamine’s apparent success may have to do with the neurotransmitter, glutamate:

Does the unconventional drug ketamine work better? The best answer is that it works differently. Many antidepressants relieve depression by altering levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. Ketamine dissociates patients from negative thoughts and feelings by preventing another neurotransmitter, glutamate, from interacting with a receptor in the brain that usually processes it. Brain autopsies have suggested that glutamate activity is associated with bipolar disorder, and past studies have shown that severing the glutamate-receptor link can rapidly lift symptoms in people with major depression within two hours. [Time]

Though ketamine’s therapeutic effects were only temporary, scientists hope that with more research they may be able to incorporate the drug into treatments.

Ketamine could improve treatment of bipolar illness and depression in a variety of ways, [coauthor Carlos A.] Zarate said; for example, as a means to jump-start standard drug treatment, or as an anesthetic before ECT. “It’s opened the floodgate of many different directions of research, and all of them are quite encouraging,” said Zarate, who along with a co-author has filed for a patent on the use of ketamine in depression. Those rights would be assigned to his employer, the National Institutes of Health. [Reuters]

Related content:
80beats: A Prompt Dose of Morphine Could Cut PTSD Risk for Wounded Soldiers
80beats: To Help Heroin Addicts, Give Them… Prescription Heroin?
DISCOVER: Peyote on the Brain
DISCOVER: Treating Agony With Ecstasy

Image: flickr / Carly & Art


Auto Rust Protection

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Has anyone had any experience with the electronic rust protection systems available today for motor vehicles? In basic terms how do they work? Are they worth the 800 dollars it would cost to have one installed?

Antivaxxers take note: vaccines stop polio outbreak in Tajikistan | Bad Astronomy

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This is wildly good news! Through Vaccine Central I learned that a major polio outbreak in Tajikistan has been stopped!

How? Through vaccination.

Yup. The first reports of polio were confirmed in April — 413 of them. However, that ended in late June, when no new cases were reported. That is credited to the thousands of doctors and nurses who not only vaccinated at least 97% of the children in each region of the mountainous country, but also flooded the area with multi-lingual informational leaflets, posters, and banners.

And they succeeded! With no new reports, it appears this outbreak was stopped cold.

And with the AVN in Australia getting hammered repeatedly in the press, I can now have some hope that the movement here in the United States, spearheaded by Jenny McCarthy, will die off as well. Vaccinations work, and they save a lot of lives.


Political Commentary Disguised as a Video Game Review

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Why NASA's New Video Game Completely Misses the Point

"Which makes Moonbase Alpha all the more unfortunate. The game serves as an epitaph for what appears to be NASA's lost decade. The agency failed to stay on time or on budget throughout the life of the Constellation program, its highest and most expensive priority. But while manned spaceflight foundered, unmanned exploration thrived. The modern-day equivalent of Aldrin and Armstrong are Spirit and Opportunity, robotic vehicles that survived years longer than expected on the surface of Mars. The rovers uncovered signs of water, and paved the way for the discovery of actual Martian ice by other intrepid bots."

Keith's note: I got an email from an editor at Popular Mechanics asking me to consider posting a link to this article on NASA Watch. I read the article and responded that I thought that the author had used the excuse of reviewing a video game as an opportunity to just dump on NASA, Obama's space policy, etc. Indeed, the bulk of the article seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with the video game it purports to review. Rather it goes on at length about how bad NASA has been. The editor tried again and again to convince me that I was wrong, but in re-reading the article I am now firmly of the opinion I originally voiced.

To be honest I have not played the game since it is not functional on Macs without running windows. So I have no idea if it is as "excruciatingly boring" as the reviewer claims it to be. That said, NASA aimed this game at an audience: students. This review makes no mention as to whether the reviewer is a student or if any students were asked to review the game and provide feedback for inclusion in this "review". So if there is a mismatch between reviewer and intended audience one would expect that the review is inherently flawed, yes?

If Popular Mechanics wants to dump on NASA, by all means, have at it. But trying to cloak political commentary under the guise of a game review is rather misleading to prospective readers.

New NASA Online Game Snubs Macs And Other Operating Systems, earlier post