2005 and All That [Science Tattoo] | The Loom

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Proteomics440Damon writes, “This distribution of ‘isotopic peaks’ on my calf is what a peptide of mass 2,005 Daltons looks like in a high-resolution mass spectrometer. That peak distribution is due to the relative abundance of the different isotopes of the elements that make up peptides, particularly carbon. 2005 is the year I got married and also the year I gave the corporate world the boot in favor of science. I wonder if there are any more proteomics tattoos out there….”

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.


Is geoengineering an existential risk?

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Well, Milan M. ?irkovi? and Richard B. Cathcart think it's a distinct possibility. In fact, it may even (partly) explain the Great Silence. Check out the abstract to their article, "Geo-engineering Gone Awry: A New Partial Solution of Fermi's Paradox":

Technological civilizations arising on such planets will be, at some point of their histories or another, tempted to embark upon massive geo-engineering projects. If, for some reasons only very recently understood, large-scale geo-engineering is in fact much more dangerous than previously thought, the scenario in which at least some of the extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way self destruct in this manner gains plausibility. In addition, we speculate on possible reasons, both physical and culturological, which could make such a threat even more pertinent on an average Galactic terrestrial planet than on Earth.

Be sure to read the entire article (PDF). Learn more about geoengineering. And be sure to read Jamais Cascio's article, "It's Time to Cool the Planet."

There Is More To All Of This. $5.9 Billion More.

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Keith's note: Reliable sources tell me that all of the arm waving and negative stories (many sourced directly from within NASA BTW) that have been flying around do not constitute the entire picture of what NASA is going to get and what it is going to be asked to do. Indeed this is only part of the story. This back and forth is going to continue - all from folks inside NASA - until the actual budget with the full picture is released.

As the picture continues to emerge, not only is the push for commercial crew and cargo to the ISS going to expand in the new budget, but that push for commercialization will cover all aspects of American human spaceflight - LEO and beyond, cargo and capsules, and even the development of HLVs. This will all be done as part of an overall agency budget increase of $5.9 Billion over the next 5 fiscal years.

Notice below that NASA only saw fit to talk with some - but not all - of the media before the budget release while details of the budget are still under Administration embargo. Yet another example of how Morrie Goodman seems to be trying to parse access to the agency by the media. Update: I have now learned that these media briefings were set up directly by the White House - not NASA PAO. Looks like the White House decided to take NASA PAO out of the loop. Not a good sign. Sorry Morrie.

Obama To Abandon Return To Moon, Extend Iss, Florida Today

"President Barack Obama will propose $6 billion in new funding for NASA over the next five years, administration officials said Wednesday. The proposed increase, which will be part of the president's fiscal 2011 budget request on Monday, aims to encourage the use of commercial rockets and extend use of the International Space Station until at least 2020 as the agency switches priorities away from sending astronauts back to the moon."

Obama officials: NASA to get $6 billion for commercial rockets, Orlando Sentinel

"The news teleconference at which the officials and astronaut spoke was organized for reporters at two Florida newspapers in response to the Orlando Sentinel's report on Tuesday, which said the White House budget next week would kill NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon and scrap the rockets being developed to take them there. On the teleconference was an administration official, a NASA official and Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. ... But the NASA official stressed that just because the Constellation program to return humans to the moon and its Ares I and Ares V rockets were going to be canceled did not mean that the Obama administration was abandoning exploration and human spaceflight."

Osama bin Laden still calling the shots from a cave

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By Ron Hart

Osama bin Laden, who makes more disturbing tapes than Paris Hilton and is similarly fighting to remain relevant, reappeared recently taking credit for the Nigerian crotch bomber’s failed mission to Detroit. I predict that in his next missive, Osama will claim responsibility for moving Jay Leno to the 10 P.M. time slot on NBC.

Osama has so many tapes out there that you can now buy them all from a late night commercial, and they will throw in a special spring break video, “Jihad Girls Gone Wild,” for free! Collect the whole set!

First bin Laden sent the bumbling shoe bomber, Richard Reed, and, now this guy. You have to give Osama credit; he somehow convinced these two genius jihadists that they could start out in al Qaeda as suicide bombers and work their way up in the organization. Osama was smarter. I hear he started out in the al Qaeda mail room and worked his way up through Operations.

U.S. “intelligence” says bin Laden is still living in the Pakistan border region. However, that does not mean that he doesn’t like to slip into Afghanistan from time to time for a musical or a concert, or to enjoy an elegant dinner with his wives. Maybe he prefers living in the Pakistan suburbs for the schools and lower taxes. He was recently quoted as saying, “There is less Shiite to put up with out here.”

Osama is reportedly still the wealthiest person in the tribal area. It speaks volumes about their form of capitalism and government when the richest guy lives in a cave. Why are we so scared of these people?

Here is my idea to help our 16 government agencies catch Osama bin Laden. Based on what we know about him (he is 6’5”, has 52 brothers and sisters, and has fathered forty kids with at least five different women all by himself), and he carries guns---so they might want to make sure he is not playing in the NBA. I would suggest checking the LA Clippers, as no one else pays attention to who they have on their team and so he could hide easily.

Ron Hart is a libertarian op-ed humorist whose new book, No Such Thing as a Pretty Good Alligator Wrestler, is available at http://www.RonaldHart.com

Followup on Haiti, Science, Brinstuff and the Enlightenment!

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David Brin is a Sentient Developments guest blogger.

Salon Magazine asked to publish as a main article an updated version of my essay about reconstruction in Haiti, wherein I suggest the establishment of clear corridors for every kind of right-of-way, across the capital city—mass transit, sewer, water, electricity, fiber-optics, even WiFi can go in cheap, if all pathway issues are settled at once—so that the skeleton and sinew and bloodstream of a vibrant city can arise... leaving all the subsequent details to Haitians. Drop in and give the essay traffic! Comment if you like.

And hold on till the end for one of my mini-essays about "The Enlightenment and It's Enemies" !

And on the Transparency front... See the les professional kind of police behaving exactly as predicted in The Transparent Society. “Since the police beating of motorist Rodney King in 1991, men in blue have looked warily at the civilian videotaping of arrests and other police activities. Some cops are so opposed to the practice, they've begun arresting the amateur videographers and charging them criminally.” In fact, nearly all such arrests have been dismissed. The important thing now is to make all police aware of that fact, so that continuing to do this becomes knowing and culpable false arrest.

==== A Holocene Grant Proposal ===

Any educators out there... or folks interested in creative new approaches to interface... here’s something interesting you might browse. "HASTAC and the MacArthur Foundation are excited to launch the third year of the Digital Media and Learning Competition. Today, young people are learning, socializing, and participating in civic life in dramatic new ways and assessing information in ways never before imagined."

I have a small consortium that has submitted an application for a grant to develop breakthrough “collaboration ware” to help students do team projects (a big part of the modern American curriculum) with vastly more efficiency and fun.

And now my request from some of you. Public commenting on the 2010 HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition is now open! Join the conversation. Log in to provide feedback and comments on applications and see how others are reacting to your application. Register to add your comments at: http://dmlcompetition.net/pligg/register.php by creating a user name and password (please note the user name and password you created to submit an application will not work; all users must create new logins). You will receive an activation e-mail, with a link to confirm your address, and can then log in to the system. Take a look at as many of the brief 50-word project descriptions as you can. If something looks interesting, you can either read more (a 300-word description) or save it and come back later for a closer look.Once you’ve taken a look, we encourage you to discuss (post a comment) or tell a friend.

Favorable comments on our “TeamBuilder” proposal are, of course, most welcome!

=== SCIENCE MISC ====

Shaped like a leaf itself, the slug Elysia chlorotica already has a reputation for kidnapping the photosynthesizing organelles and some genes from algae. Now it turns out that the slug has acquired enough stolen goods to make an entire plant chemical-making pathway work inside an animal body. The slugs can manufacture the most common form of chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants that captures energy from sunlight, Pierce reported January 7 at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. Pierce used a radioactive tracer to show that the slugs were making the pigment, called chlorophyll themselves and not simply relying on chlorophyll reserves stolen from the algae the slugs dine on. (BTW... I showed humans doing this in Heart of the Comet.)

Have you heard of Rav Patel? In his book The Value of Nothing, Patel reveals how we inflate the cost of things we can (and often should) live without, while assigning absolutely no value to the resources we all need to survive. Though, of course, there probably is some vegetarian bias in there!

UPDATE on AUDIO BOOKS from audible.com. See these great Brin titles available in audio version to listen-to during your commute!

=== Defending the Enlightenment = a mini-essay ===

See a fascinating review of The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition by Zeev Sternhell, in which the Israeili philosopher covers a vital topic, resonant with many things I’ve been saying about how the progressive Enlightenment is under frenetic attack, by those scheming to restore older, oppressive ways...

... only with an important difference that prompts me to offer up an observation and a cavil. For, when I speak of the “Enlightenment” I am referring to something much more modern and ongoing that what campus academics refer-to, when they use that word. To me, it stands for the great experiment of Western Civilization, the sole time that any post-agricultural society discovered a viable alternative to the age-old human attractor state, the standard pattern that dominated perhaps 99% of cultures since history began -- rule by inherited oligarchy.

Yes, our current experiment evolved out of the French Enlightenment of Voltaire and Rousseau. But what we have today—and must defend against concerted assault—is only related to that drawing room debating society, as a child is to its grandparent.

Indeed, had the Enlightenment depended only upon its French-Idealist wing, whose love of abstraction sometimes borders on the mystical, the movement would long ago have foundered. It is the Anglo-Scot-American offshoot, with its emphasis on pragmatism, reductionist science, “otherness” inclusionism and material progress in the physical world, that truly changed the world. It is this wing that kept the Enlightenment alive, by powerfully resisting and then quelling the fascist and Stalinist empires. It also was responsible for spreading both practical advancement and modernist ideals to all corners of the globe.

This is an important distinction. For, while the French and American branches of the Enlightenment share many values -- a belief in progress, in human improvability, in divided and accountable power, in free argument and in the value of the individual—the more abstract French wing turns about and partakes in a kind of madness that is rooted in bad old habits that stretch all the way back in Plato—the notion that one can logically derive important conclusions about reality, via words alone. Given that Plato turned out to be just about the most anti-enlightenment philosopher of all time, an implacable enemy of democracy and science, this descent of reason should be troubling.

Indeed, the obsession of scholars, associating the Enlightenment with abstract reasoning, runs smack up against what should be considered the Enlightenment’s greatest insight -- that humans are inherently delusional beings, able to talk ourselves into anything at all. The French Idealist branch acknowledged this problem -- and replied that the answer would be found in better reasoning. A well-meaning, but inherently untrustworthy prescription. One that is, in fact, delusional in its own right.

By contrast, the pragmatic-scientific wing said: “Everybody will be deluded, as a matter of basic human nature, and we are terrible at spotting our own errors. Rationality can be just another method for incantatory justification and rationalization. But there is another answer. If we cannot spot our own mistakes, we can often notice each others! Through well-run competitive systems, like democracy, markets, and science, the give and take of reciprocal accountability can edge us ever forward toward the truth.”

Oh, sure, these competitive systems are very hard to set up and maintain. As one of the earliest leaders of the Anglo-American wing, Adam Smith, described, it is hard to arrange circumstance under which competition delivers all its benefits—creativity, innovation, vigor, accountability and error detection—without soon drawing in its own worst enemy, cheaters. As both Smith and Karl Marx pointed out, Capitalism and Democracy can turn into their own worst enemies. These pragmatic tools require endless fine-tuning, a gritty chore that often makes people tempted to turn back to simplistic dogmatism. (e.g. our present “culture war.”)

Still, the Enlightenment needed path away from the trap of essentialism, in which Rousseau and Hobbes railed at one another over flawed, overly simple descriptions of human nature. It was John Locke, founder of the Anglo-American branch, who said: Wait, you are both right and both wrong. Man is both noble and corrupt. We are complex, and we need systems that can harness that complexity, rewarding the noble traits and binding the corrupt ones. Toward this end, abstractions may inspire, they may lift our hearts... but they do not get the job done.

Hence, my conclusion to a garrulous aside. It is wrong for well-meaning scholars like Sternhell to continue calling the abstract-idealist branch of the Enlightenment its defining center. Not when most of the movement’s greatest continuing achievements were attained by the other, pragmatist/materialist branch. Not only does this ignore the Enlightenment’s greatest strengths, at a time when it is under siege by deadly foes, but this old-fashioned fixation seems obdurate, scholastic, and even rather quaint.

(Thanks Michael Rus, for spurring this thread.)

=== AND MORE SCIENCE! ===

Shades of the Crystal Spheres!

What the Ancient Greeks Can Tell Us About Democracy

And more soon......

Drake: Use the Sun as a ‘magnifying glass’ to find ET

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SETI founder Frank Drake wants to take the search for extraterrestrial intelligence to the next level by implementing a process called gravitational microlensing.

Microlensing is based on the gravitational lens effect: massive objects can bend the light of a bright background object. This can generate multiple distorted, magnified, and brightened images of the background source. More specifically, when a distant star or quasar gets sufficiently aligned with a massive compact foreground object, the bending of light due to its gravitational field leads to two distorted unresolved images resulting in an observable magnification. The time-scale of the transient brightening depends on the mass of the foreground object as well as on the relative proper motion between the background 'source' and the foreground 'lens' object.

In other words, Drake is essentially suggesting that we use our Sun as a 'giant magnifying glass' by positioning an observatory at a distance of around 500AU from it. Theoretically, the resultant microlense would be so powerful that we could see alien planets—and even their continents and oceans.

He contends that advanced extraterrestrial civs may have been doing this for millions of years already and we need to get with the program. Moreover, Drake says this isn't just a one-way system—gravitational lensing could be used to transmit signals to other worlds as well. Considering that our civilization's entire communications schema is about to go digital, he argues that this may be our best bet to communicate with our celestial neighbors.

Okay, now the bad news. The primary problem I have with Drake's suggestion, aside from the fact that it would take over a hundred years to set the crafts into position (which is more an issue of patience than a technical concern), is that the exercise would likely result in failure. Yes, such an observatory would undoubtedly help us discover more exoplanets—even those teeming with life. But it's unlikely that we'd receive any kind of communication by using it.

Among other things, the Fermi Paradox suggests that the timescales in question would not just allow for a civ to set-up and use gravitational microlensing, but to seed every solar system in the Galaxy with Bracewell probes. Sure, extraterrestrials could set microlenses up, but if they're capable of that feat then they're not too far from being able to send out swarms of self-replicating Bracewells.

Again, like I've harped on time and time again, if there are advanced civs out there, and they've wanted to communicate with us, they would have done so by now.

I'm not suggesting that we bail on Drake's project. Quite the contrary. Let's do it. Let's set up this microlense and see what we get. A negative data point can be just as useful as a positive one. And maybe it'll help us discover Dyson Spheres or other megastructures. In addition, the astrological benefits of such an observatory would be incalculable, so it wouldn't be a complete waste by any means.

We just need to temper the expectations of the contact optimists out there, of which Frank Drake is one.

How Markets Fail [book]

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It looks like John Cassidy's latest book, How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities, is worth checking out. According to Cassidy, it was blind faith in the markets that caused the recent financial meltdown. He argues that we can avert future calamities via 'reality-based economics'—grappling with market failures, disaster myopia, speculative frenzies, and other economic complexities. In this sense Cassidy can be called a Keynesian; it was John Maynard Keynes, after all, who fathered economic-crisis management.

A quote from the Business Week review:

Cassidy agrees with free-market advocates that the market performs wonders, but he believes its reach is limited. In that spirit, he favors greater government regulation of the financial-services industry. Although he doesn't dwell much on practical ideas for reform, he argues that it's necessary to tame Wall Street now that financiers have learned they can privatize profits during good times and socialize losses in bad. He admires the changes that came out of the Great Depression, such as the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated banking from investment banking. Even if current legislators aren't willing to go that far, banks must be required to keep more capital on hand and be given limits on how much debt they can accumulate, he says. He considers the proposed Financial Product Safety Commission a sensible idea. "The proper role of the financial sector is to support innovation and enterprise elsewhere in the economy," he writes. "But during the past 20 years or so, it has grown into Frankenstein's monster, lumbering around and causing chaos."

Essentially, Cassidy is suggesting that a return to hands-off economics would be a disaster. His views mirror my own, namely the suggestion that, left to its own devices, and without oversight, blind market forces will eventually eat itself.

Strike another victory against the advocates of market libertopianism.

A plea for those in need in Haiti

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I am currently on a few days' break after an intense 90 days at the HODR project in the small village of Sungai Geringging West Sumatra Indonesia and though we have sporadic unreliable internet at the HODR house I haven't been able to watch any TV news from Haiti. Horrifying pictures sad and tragic articles from the net yes but no video. I am now in KL Malaysia relaxing on my guesthouse c

Phnom Penh

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Phnom PenhCambodia one of the few countries in the world where with a fist full of dollars you can blow up a cow with a missile launcher.We knew that over a thousand years ago Cambodia was settled by Indians who had travelled across the sea to live here but leaving our hotel for the first morning we were amazed at how Indian like the people were in appearance. I'd assumed that after a thousan

Thank You To Everyone Who Has Already Responded To My Plea….

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I am surprised and delighted at the numbers of you who have already expressed an interest in making a donation towards whatever it is I can do for the victims of the January 12th Haitian earthquake. I have set up an Pay Pal account in my name Suzi Lee and in two days it should be ready for activation. Some of you have mentioned making a donation and having your work place match that amount. What

Many filters many families…

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Before we go into our travels for today we have to make admit to our naivety at we set out to accomplish by bringing the Katadyn filters with us. We have been filtering water every day for our own use and have come to realize that while the filters are amazing and easy to use the gap between education and understanding of the technology would guarantee that these filters would be completely out

Hands On in West Sumatra Indonesia

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I hope this finds everyone doing well and staying safe. The last blast I sent a few days ago Paradise Found.... took me through near the end of my 5 12 months I spent in Eastern Indonesia. I realize I have so much more to write about but since it is now January 2010 and I left Indo in August of 2009 I had better catch up by just cutting to what I have been doing the past few months.Many of you

Triggerhappy in Ayuthaya Or "Humans and Ants"

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I had to get out of the madness that is Bangkok. Don't misunderstand me I really dig the big ol' city but I felt the need to get into the country and see some more historical sites.Luckily Ayuthaya is only about an hour and a half north by bus. It was great to see the bountiful rice paddies. Did you know that Thailand is the number one exporter of rice worldwide Or that bhat the Thai currenc

Choose Your Favorite Ugg Boots At Wholesale Price

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Cheap Ugg Boots are the most popular on global now but many people think own a pair of discount ugg boots is an illusion regard the ugg boots wholesale as luxury commodity. Wrong we are now for sale cheap calssic uggs at the wholesale price quality assurance fast shipping.In our line storethere are many diferent stytles and colors.Such as Ugg KnightsbridgeUgg Classic CardyUgg Classic Tall

Alibaba Clone Script MULTI LANGUAGE VERSION WITH 30 LANGUAGES B2B Trading Marketplace Website Script

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Alibaba Clone Script MULTI LANGUAGE VERSION WITH 30 LANGUAGES B2B Trading Marketplace Website Script Price US350 only.. If you want to start a B2B Trade Marketplace Website like alibaba.com then my B2B Trade Marketplace website script i have created will be best for you. THIS IS MULTI LANGUAGE VERSION WITH 30 LANGUAGES THAT INCLUDES ENGLISH TURKISH SPANISH HINDI PERSIAN ARABIC FRENCH

Paypal Account Open for Haiti Donations

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To each and every one of you reading this right now. I appreciate all of you who have already written and asked how you can help in the fundraising efforts for Haiti.I have now opened a paypal account so please feel free to give it a go......Thank you again and will keep you posted with stories from the ground.Suzi Leetheladyleegmail.comIF YOU HAVE A PAYPAL ACCTgo to http://www.paypal.comClick on paypa

Cameron Highlands

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Here are a bunch of photos from a weekend road trip to the Cameron Highlands a couple of months ago. It's about a 3 hour drive from KL and has tea plantations strawberry farms and a cool mountain climate that is perfect for escaping the heat. Life is going well over here. So far this year I have moved into a new apartment went on a trip to Indonesia and booked 2 trips to Thailand in Februar