Tag Archives: Science

Poems

Ready, Set, Go!

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The news from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Large Hadron Collider near Geneva and the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy that they have measured particles traveling faster than the speed of light is certainly exciting, puzzling news. We’re not sure exactly what position Einstein is in right now, but he might be turned on his head. The thought that something, anything, could travel faster than light, opens up a new frontier, which somehow got me thinking about one of my favorite sing-song poets, a bard of the vast unexplored spaces, Robert W. Service.

I looked over The Cremation of Sam McGee and The Shooting of Dan McGraw to get that rhythm in my head, and wondered what Service might do with the latest scientific scuttlebutt.

In the Gran Sasso, below rock and snow
that’s where scientists discern
measurements of speed as they keep a bead
on the stuff that’s launched from CERN.

The monotony generates ennui
in the physics racing game.
When the flag goes down they bestow their crown
on one candidate. The same.

It is always light that takes home the bright
shiny trophy they bestow.
Light is faster than any beast or man.
Light to win, to place, to show.

That’s the racing line set by Al Einstein,
who gauged E and MC’s burst
The result, said he, with great certainty
is that light MUST finish first.

Still the races ran with nary a fan
for each time just like the last
When results were shown, ‘twas already known
‘twas the light, by far, most fast.

Then one darkling day down along the way
came a stranger small but game
As he whizzed around it was quickly found
That Neutrino was his name

When he challenged light to a race that night
oh, the merriment was thick.
But when all was said the speed meters read
‘twas Neutrino, by a tic.

Oh, the hew and cry. The Italian sky
was vibrating with the din.
For no one could say what it meant the day
when light raced, but did not win.

In what area are you unbeatable?

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Ask Dr. Babooner

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

Yesterday my mom told me she was taking me out for ice cream.

I got kind of excited about that but instead of going to Jake’s we wound up at some thing in a parking lot where all these geeky people were standing around talking and waiting in line to meet this one guy who looked like he just walked out of a magazine picture.

Somebody said he’s the Governor of Texas and I thought ‘What’s he doing here in New Hampshire?’ I know from school that Texas is a pretty big state, so you’d think whoever was Governor of it would have to be watching it pretty much all the time or he’d miss something.

Anyway, my mom told me we were going to wait in line and meet this guy no matter how long it took, and I said, ‘What about my ice cream?’

And she said I would get my ice cream after I talked to him and asked him how old the Earth is.

Beats me why she wanted me to ask the Governor of Texas how old the Earth is. What I learned in school is that people from Texas don’t care about much that isn’t all about Texas, and last time I heard, most of the Earth wasn’t, so why would HE know how old it is?

I don’t really care how old the Earth is either. But I do care about ice cream, so I said I would do it if it meant I could have a waffle cone.

And then she said if I asked about Evolution I could have a slice of cake also! Man! What sweet deal!
Or so I thought! But you’ll see in the video that I didn’t even get to ask that question.

With mom feeding questions into my ear like that, it got to be real hard to concentrate on what was going on around me. I got confused and didn’t even ask him why he didn’t believe in science like mom told me to. And then she said we weren’t going for ice cream ’cause I hadn’t earned it!

Dr. Babooner, is it fair to get punished like that for not asking questions that weren’t even your questions to begin with? I hear all those big TV anchors have something in their ear where somebody is always talking to them, and if this is what it’s like, I guess I don’t want to be Brian Williams or Wolf Blitzer anymore. It’s just too tough to concentrate! If I had been allowed to ask what I wanted, I would have asked to see a horse, or if he didn’t have one of those, a gun, because I hear that everybody from Texas carries one.

But instead I got all this whispering and arm squeezing, a real snootful of the Governor of Texas and his after shave, and no ice cream and no cake. Not even a candy bar or a bag of Peanut M & M’s. And definitely no horse.

Should I have done something differently? I feel cheated!

Respectfully,
Mom’s Mouthpiece

I told Mom’s Mouth that he had every right to feel cheated. His mom went back on her word because if I read the story properly, there were no conditions applied to the initial idea of going out for ice cream.
To add qualifying events as a trigger for the ice cream AFTER the arrangement has been proposed and agreed to is unethical, and your Mom should be told to stop manipulating you that way.

Next time your mom offers to take you out for a special dessert, get it in writing first, and be sure to read the fine print in case there are any weird conditions or expectations.

After all, learning from previous mistakes is what evolution is all about!

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

The Baboon Congress

Punctuated Equilibrium or Stephen Jay Gould #2

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Today’s guest post is from Clyde.

I used to work for a superintendent whom everyone called “Ballpark” because he could not get out a sentence without a sports metaphor. He had a half-dozen uses for the term “ballpark.”

Similarly because of my constant use of science metaphors and science parallels to what we were reading, my students used to wonder if I was an English teacher or a science teacher. At this stage in my life two of my favorite science metaphors, which I had to carefully explain in class, are very useful descriptive terms.

The first is ENTROPY, which is a concept from Newton’s second law of thermodynamics. I bet all baboons know the concept. In pure science, it is much more complicated than as used in my metaphor or common usage. Entropy is the tendency for systems to proceed to disorder, chaos, or randomness. Complex structures will eventually break down to their constituent parts (such as my body). It was an effective way for students to understand “Lord of the Flies.”

Old age is certainly a battle against entropy. A friend of ours says that when she is a senile wreck in a nursing home that she wants someone to tie her knees together every morning before she is put in a wheelchair and rolled out into the common area. A pastor we know has been dealing with a mother and daughter who were both in long-term care, the mother for old age and dementia and the daughter for a degenerative disorder. When the daughter died, every few minutes the mother would find out her daughter had died and grieve freshly all over again, including several times at the funeral.

The other metaphor, PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM, is from S. J. Gould. For a long time the unassailable rule of geology and evolution was that all change occurs at a constant and slow rate. Various scientists in different fields fought this rule for much of the last century and finally won. For instance a region of eastern Washington called the Scablands is now believed to have been created in a few days, not millennia, as if Lake Erie has suddenly decided to empty over Ohio in a three days. A similar but less dramatic event occurred along the Minnesota River valley.

Biological and geological change are now believed to have had long periods of stasis or very slow change and briefer periods of intense change. Of course, “briefer period” can also mean thousands of years or more as opposed to millions of years or more. Gould and a couple of other people developed the term “punctuated equilibrium” to describe this concept, which seems to me more widely applicable. (In its root meaning, “punctuate” means break in or interrupt, as in “puncture.”)

For instance, geo-politcal/social/economic/technological equilibrium was “punctuated” in so many astounding ways in the 1990’s it should have been overwhelming, but we all just kept motoring along. Humans are so very adaptive. I wonder if the punctuation will ever cease.

How much are entropy and punctuated equilibrium metaphors for your life and times?

The Baboon Congress

A Lilipadlian Life, or Stephen Jay Gould #1

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Today’s guest post is from Clyde.

At 6 a.m. I rode the Sakatah Trail to a bridge across a narrowing in Eagle Lake, a fun place to watch wildlife, such as beaver, egrets, herons, swans, eagles. This morning below the bridge was a swarm of a few hundred 3-6 inch catfish, most about 5 inches. They were feeding on water bugs, or perhaps their larva on the surface of the shallow water in a circle about 8 feet across.

After a bit I saw a pattern to their movements. Four to six catfish would make a group and swim abreast across the area of feeding. At the edge of the circle they would disband and swim back into the circle, soon joining another band. In the 20 minutes I watched I guess about 150 such groups formed, swam, and then disbanded at the edge. The few three-inch fish were never part of a group.

The question, of course, is, in the language of the evolutionists, what advantage is there to such behavior? The answer is obvious; improved feeding. A group can sweep up the larva and/or bugs more efficiently. When the larva/bugs try to swim out of their way, the ones at the edge catch them. I wonder two things: 1) is there more advantage to being in the middle or at the ends? 2) are some fish dominant, as in wolf packs, and always get the more advantageous position?

Can you tell I read a lot about nature and evolution. I believe Stephen Jay Gould is one of the great essayists, a match for Montaigne, Addison, Steele, Pepys, Emerson and the like. Thoreau I would still place above all of them. Perhaps it seems odd that as a former pastor I read about evolution. But I see no conflict; I believe reading about nature and evolution has a strong worshipful aspect. I admire the mind of the creator, in the design of both species and processes/systems. I have on occasion quoted Gould from the pulpit, but not his evolutionary thinking as such. Gould’s nature essays covered vast ground, including one of the finest and also one the stupidest essays ever on baseball. I did have one church member who knew who he was, and we enjoyed our inside joke.

The fish behavior I observed raises one of the most difficult questions for evolution, one that still perplexed Darwin at his death: how do cooperative behaviors develop? Survival of the fittest is a fully competitive model in which each individual is trying to protect its DNA and pass it on at the expense of other species and individuals.

How in a very competitive world do cooperative and even community behaviors develop? In some non-human species community roles have developed, such as foster parenting. How does one explain the vast community/cooperative behaviors of humans in evolutionary terms? A theory of an altruistic gene has developed to explain such behavior, which really only raises deeper questions. One man believes he has identified a gene for religion, thereby disproving the existence of God, which again only goes deeper because, of course, God could have made that gene.

It is a fascinating and complex issue. I do recognize both competitive and cooperative behaviors in myself and think to some extent they are instinctual. I have a visceral competitive response every now and then, damn it. I also think that in general men are more competitive and women more cooperative, but that may be learned in socialization. Lots can be said, but:

Where do you fall on the competition/cooperative continuum? Where would you like to fall?

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The Bucket Test

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Thanks to everyone who sent their best wishes on the start of my new job with KFAI-FM. I’ve had a great first week and have made many new friends. Like anyone stepping into an unfamiliar environment, I’ve felt overwhelmed at times, but I’m confident that my duties will begin to feel manageable before long. I’ve already had lots of help. Being willing to offer and accept assistance is an important part of the deal. After all, they call it “community radio” for a reason! Check out “Taste of KFAI” today (Saturday) at the Ukrainian Center in NE Minneapolis from noon to six pm. Great music and food too! I plan to be there in the early part of the afternoon.

All jobs have their benefits and drawbacks. Sometimes I wonder if it would be fun to plan scientific studies. I know at first blush the work seems dry, but there are hidden creative opportunities and even occasional chances to do comedy.

Don’t believe me? Witness the University of Florida’s Canine Attention Study, which was written up by Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times “Well” blog.

Basically, the researchers wanted to find out how closely dogs watch us, and if their perception of us changes their behavior.

First the animals (a selection of domestic dogs, shelter animals and tame gray wolves) were taught that the humans had tasty treats to give.

Then the creatures were presented with a choice. They were called by two treat-bearing humans who were standing twenty feet apart – one human was making eye contact with the animals and other one wasn’t. Researchers tracked which human the animals begged from most often.

Here’s a problem for the study planner to solve – how do you indicate to a dog or a wolf that a treat bearing human who is calling him is not really engaged in the task?

Four techniques were used.

In one test, the oblivious human had her back turned to the animals.
In another, she had a camera to her face.
In yet another, she was reading a book.
And finally, (here comes the comedy), she had a bucket over her head.

Yes, please, Ms. Grad Student. Please phone your parents and tell them you’ve been standing out in our yard, calling wolves to come eat SPAM cubes out of your hand while wearing a bucket over your head.

The findings?

Grad students will do anything for a little cash.

How much does your pet know about you?

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That Special Something

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What is it in a great musical performance that touches our emotions?

Dunno. Something special. Costumes? Smoke bombs?

That’s the full extent of my personal scholarship on this matter, and one of the reasons I find it very difficult to write about music. Fortunately there are scientists who can’t shrug at a mystery. Some of them have taken a closer look, trying to understand what makes music expressive.

It’s an important question, especially in the age of auto-tune, when so much attention is paid to whatever Lady Gaga is wearing on the latest awards show.

I know people who cringe at the thought of scientific investigations into the fundamentals of art, worried that the process of picking apart a beautiful thing essentially kills it, and that we’ve got more than enough technology being applied to music as it is.

Maybe so, but it’s a great relief to hear, after laboratory-based manipulation of recordings, detailed surveys, exhaustive experiments and thorough brain scans, that the machines have indeed detected something significant.

It’s the human element that makes all the difference.

Variations, limitations and “imperfections” matter greatly, and a machine can’t improve the power of a skilled pianist’s performance. Some of the most interesting research is described in Pam Belluck’s article in the New York Times. The piece is lengthy but well worth the time.

The story includes some great quotes from Paul Simon about the mechanics of a song, which led me to this video made in Zimbabwe more than 20 years ago, when Simon (who will play in Minneapolis on May 2nd) performed “Diamonds On The Soles of Her Shoes” with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. There’s great spirit and choreography from the South African vocal ensemble, and watching it cleansed all that scientific thinking from my mind.

What’s the best performance you’ve seen?

Poems

Watson Hears A Hallooo

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This is the anniversary of the day in 1876 when Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson conducted a significant experiment in Boston.

Technology has advanced so much since then, you can now sit in your pajamas and with a computer and some phone wire, read an account of the historic events as written in Bell’s own hand. Amazing. But each time I’ve heard this story, there has been one particular aspect that troubles my Midwestern sensibility.

It’s a small detail, and it seems trite to bring it up. Such a big advance and such a tiny complaint!

Fortunately, by running Bell’s notebook through the Seussifier, I was able to distill my problem down to three verses.

On the tenth day of March in a lab by the bay,
Mr. Bell said a First in the History of Say.
When he called his assistant as scientists do:
“Mr. Watson come here – I want to see you!”

Mr. Watson came running to be seen, of course.
Both to help Mr. Bell and upset Mr. Morse.
For the call that he answered went not through the air
but through vibrating wires as thin as your hair.

So hats off to Bell, so inventive and bold
And Watson, who did everything he was told.
But good children know that in times such as these
One should never say ‘come here’ without saying ‘please’!

Would it have been terribly difficult to say “Watson, PLEASE come here. I want to see you, if it’s not too much trouble”? They say brilliant people lack social skills. Maybe so.

Jim Ed Poole always likes to point out that Alexander Graham Bell’s idea for how we would answer this new invention was NOT to say “Hello”, but rather, “Ahoy”, as they do at sea. Too bad it never caught on. Maybe in recognition of the importance of this anniversary we should all answer our calls with “Ahoy” today.

It might even sound better than “hello”, especially if you answer the phone for a business that sells comforting, egg shaped playthings made from impure metals.

Ahoy! Boyd’s Ovoid Alloyed Toys! Avoid being paranoid. Enjoy an ovoid toy today! How may I help you?

When has an unlikely personal experiment succeeded?

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Space Shot

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As we enjoy our first weekend shivering through the frozen month of March, 2011, I thought it would be appropriate to visit a old friend who is considerably colder than we are, but apparently unfazed – the Cassini spacecraft, continuing to orbit Saturn.

I check every now and then to see the latest shots from the Cassini camera. If you like the sight of lumpy moons and massive, sharp, razor thin rings set against the perfect blackness of space, there’s lots to love at the Cassini site. And then there’s this:

Cassini is looking past the southern edge of the moon Rhea to see the moon Dione, which appears to be rolling along the outer rings.

Photographers know you sometimes have to wait for things to line up before you can take that perfect shot. The Cassini orbiter was launched in October of 1997, so it took more than 13 years of patience to wait for the elements in this image to compose themselves just so. That’s a lot of time to spend with the flash charged up and your finger on the button!

Forget Watson winning at Jeopardy! Patience is the area where machines will put us to shame!

What have you had to wait for?

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A Show of Hands

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How many hands have you got?

Individual results may vary, but for most people, the answer is 2. You probably didn’t have to check the ends of your arms to come up with that answer – your brain already knew it. And your brain is always right, right?

Yesterday, Beth-Ann sent a link to an interesting New York Times blog about an experiment conducted in Sweden that has provided a fresh variation on the “traditional rubber hand illusion.” I admit I did not know rubber hand illusions had a tradition.
I guess the world is full of ancient and exotic rituals.

In the “traditional” rubber hand illusion, a subject places one hand on the table while their opposite hand is hidden. A rubber hand is then put on the table in front of the subject in the spot where the hidden hand would have been, had they not withheld it. An experimenter then strokes both the hidden real hand and the exposed fake hand with a brush, and before long the subject begins to associate this sensation with the false hand they can see, rather than the real hand, which they cannot.

That’s sufficiently weird, but some people can’t stop messing with tradition.

In this new wrinkle, the real hand and the rubber hand sit side by side on the table in front of the subject. A sheet is draped over the arm so it’s not clear which appendage is actually connected to the body. As in the “traditional” illusion, both hands are stroked with a brush, and an unexpected thing happens. The subject takes ownership of both hands, feels sensations in both hands, and flinches when both hands are threatened with a knife.

It took me a while to understand the importance of this: Apparently our brains are big gullible goofballs.

If you’ve lived your entire life with only one right hand and then all it takes to confound you on that topic is a rubber duplicate, a paint brush and a sheet, that doesn’t speak very well for your innate sense of the world. How could your brain do this, the traitor? Accepting another, squishier right arm as your own, even though your perfectly good and historically loyal right arm is sitting right there in front of you? Scoundrel!

Suddenly it’s easier to understand the fruitless chase for WMD in Iraq and the epidemic of older men running off with younger, bouncier women. Brains don’t need a lot of convincing to buy into an obviously ludicrous idea. The elastic brain re-configures its wiring to create a reality that matches what it sees. Or what it thinks it sees. The internal dialog must go something like this:

“That pert young co-ed finds a paunchy, bald, wrinkled up prune of a U.S. Senator like me far more attractive than handsome, fit, energetic men her own age? Love is funny that way, I guess!”

“Hmm. It appears I have inexplicably grown a second right hand. Finally, a use for that orphaned winter glove! No wonder she loves me! She’s really into three handed men!”

Amazing. Science has proven what I already know. Brains are easily duped.

Or did I simply WANT to believe that?

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Cell Phone Study Mixes Up Brains

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It feels like Technology week. Yesterday we talked about blogging being “over” as discouraged writers tire of nobody reading their carefully crafted words and they switch to the rapid fire expression of Facebook and Twitter.

Today we discover a new study that shows the transmitters in cell phones are jangling our brains. Results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, but the meaning of it all is entirely up for grabs.

Of course it drew the attention of marketing visionary and dealmaker Spin Williams, who sent this newsletter from The Meeting That Never Ends:

Great news about cellphones!

Researchers found out there IS an effect on the brain when you hold a cell phone up to the side of your head! That’s amazing!

Researchers had subjects undergo PET scans – one of those claustrophobic medical nightmares where they put you inside a massive, humming tube that’s so close you feel like you’re a Kentucky farmer stranded in a cave with spiders all around and the water rising from an overnight storm.

And then they tell you to relax.

The people who went into these tubes had two cell phones fixed to their heads – one on the right and one on the left. The phones had to be fixed there because there’s no way you can put your arm up alongside your head when you’re in one of those crazy-making PET scanners.

Then they had the machine look at the brain’s chemistry. They did it with no phones on, and with one phone on. Why they didn’t do it with BOTH phones on is a mystery to me, because that’s how I spend the bulk of my day!

Anyway, they found out when one cell phone was on, it was doing SOMETHING in the area closest to the phone’s antenna. Was it a spike in the “why-did-I-agree-to-be-in-this-stupid-study” lobe? We don’t know, but for some people, any undefined increase in activity anywhere in their brain is a huge step forward!

The brain tumor worrywarts have started in with their “I told you so’s”, but here’s the biggest news I take away from this landmark study.

We can make stuff happen inside people’s brains without having to cut a hatchway!

From a marketing perspective, that’s huge, because we already know at least two things about Americans and the quest for knowledge:

We hate book learning and smug smartypants professors.
We like feeling more intelligent than everyone else.
We love doing things with remote control.

OK, three things. Which leads to the next question:

How can we get smarter without any effort? No idea. But maybe this study reveals one way to start. Since we don’t know what cell phone radiation does to the brain, it’s still possible that it makes you brilliant!

Why not assume the best? If we can talk our way past the Chinese, education-wise, let’s trash the school system and buy unlimited weekday minutes for everyone!

Maybe someday we’ll be able to use cell phone transmitters to pipe information directly into the brain with no need to go through the ear mechanism, which is unreliable and prone to waxy build up! And once we can transmit information, why not secret instructions targeted to specific areas? I predict Behavior Modification Hats! And there’s a commercial side, of course. As a marketer, I want to know how I can use a radio wave gun hidden above a convenience store ceiling to tickle that one section of the brain that controls cheese ball cravings.

Brain science was always interesting, but it just got better! I can’t wait to add “Harvard Business School Phd” to my cell phone plan!

Leave it to Spin to jump a few lengths down the track on this, though so much of marketing is about trying to get inside people’s heads, how can I blame him for wanting to rush through a freshly opened doorway?

Which of your brain functions could use an electro magnetic boost?