Biotech

Thanks to John Mauldin I've become convinced that the next big boom will be in biotech. Stories like this only further support this hypothesis. If you've ever wished for more hours in a day then your dream might come true - and sooner than you think. A lot of people like to say "we'll never again create something as innovative as electricity or indoor plumbing. Things like Facebook don't even come close." And yes Facebook doesn't come close, but what about reducing your need to sleep by 75%? That sounds pretty revolutionary to me. If 1/3 of your life is spent asleep then it would be the equivalent of living 19 years longer.

http://sociologicalspeculation.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-sleepless-world-one-more-piece-of.html

A comet so bright it can be seen in daylight

In December 2013 a comet will pass near Earth, astronomers are saying it has the potential to be the brightest in hundreds of years - brighter than a full moon!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57561294-1/2013-could-be-the-best-year-for-comet-spotting-in-generations/

Colder Than Average

The world hasn't had a colder than average month in over 27 years:

http://grist.org/news/if-youre-27-or-younger-youve-never-experienced-a-colder-than-average-month/

Coincidentally, the last colder than average month was March 1985. Since I was born in April 1985 the natural conclusion is that the world is a warmer place because I'm here - just don't ask me to test this hypothesis anytime soon! 

Gentlemen, its been a good run

Op-ed in the NYT asks - Men, Who Needs Them? I can't argue with this kind of logic:

If men were cars, who would buy the model that doesn’t last as long, is given to lethal incidents and ends up impounded more often?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/opinion/men-who-needs-them.html

wow wow wow

For those of you not familiar with TED talks (technology, entertainment and design) I would highly recommend either subscribing to them on itunes or checking out the website. The TED conference is put on by a non-profit several times a year all around the world. Leaders from various fields come and give 15-20 minute talks about a subject they're passionate about. I've probably listened to nearly a hundred at this point and there are many excellent ones - but tonight one in particular just blew me away. Jill Taylor, a neurobiologist, had a stroke 16 years ago. She had the opportunity to study her own brain as it was shutting down. Though she survived but it took her 8 years to fully recovery. Hearing her story is equally haunting and uplifting.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

What the world will look like 2500 years from now

Fantastic blog post via Marginal Revolution, if our energy consumption continues to grow at its current rate we will be consuming an entire galaxy's worth of energy in 2500 years. I'm not sure if I should be optimistic or pessimistic about this...

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/04/exponential-economist-meets-physicist.html

Almost Alcoholics

From the Atlantic, some of the warning signs of an almost alcoholic... should I be worried?

• You look forward to drinking
• You drink to maintain a buzz
• You drink to relieve stress

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/are-you-almost-alcoholic-taking-a-new-look-at-an-old-problem/254585/

Death squared

I find this experiment both very fascinating and deeply disturbing. They locked up a bunch of mice in a fixed space and provided their every need. As expected the mouse population exploded, many of the usual constraints didn't apply - there were no predators, no diseases, unlimited food and water. But as space became very constrained the population started to decline - they collectively lost interest in breeding. Very dystopian.

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/42/wiles.php

Makes me never want to live in NYC.

Party animal in a wheelchair

Fascinating stuff about Stephen Hawking that I didn't know before. Apparently his disease only affects "voluntary muscles." Dude's had 3 kids, well done Hawking.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/05/9981931-what-mystifies-dr-hawking-women

Hot snow falls up?

I've been doing a lot of flying recently and I'm still amazed every time the plane successfully lifts off. Then all of a sudden this giant metal tube is flying through the air at 500 miles per hour. Pretty ridiculous. So I decided to do some research, maybe if I understand how this actually works I'd be more comfortable with it:

http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/airflylvl3.htm

All I learned is that the people who design and build airplanes are way smarter than me. I suppose I can take comfort in that fact. But by that argument, Einstein believed in God does that mean I should too?

Fox news makes a good point

Most of the time I view fox news as "news based entertainment" rather than actual journalism. But there was an article today (via google news) that caught my attention. Scientists in the Netherlands created a new strain of the bird flu virus that is more virulent and potentially capable of killing millions if it falls into the right hands. The author suggests that developing a virus like this is not very difficult if you have a basic lab and know how to do it. Compared to the costs of developing a nuclear weapon a virus like this certainly gets you more bang for the buck. This brings up a few questions. First, why was this research performed and should it have been allowed in the first place? Just because science can do something doesn't mean it should. Next, should these results be published? Regardless of whether the research should have been allowed or not, the information for how to do this is a matter of national security. We don't exactly publish specs for ICBMs. And finally, what can we do about this? As information becomes more widespread the people who want to do harm have more means to do so. This problem is the hardest to deal with. Do we become a police state? That seems to be way things are heading. Where do we draw the line? What price is too high to pay for freedom?

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/12/20/scientists-spark-fears-by-creating-highly-contagious-airborne-strain-bird-flu/

Performance enhancing drugs

Forget EPO, cigarette smoking can increase serum hemoglobin and hematocrit levels, increase lung volume and stimulate weight loss. Ken Myers makes a pretty convince case in this paper while demonstrating the dangers of medical review literature.

h.t. Infectious Greed

Time for a new career?

According to physicist Jonathan Carter nearly any model calibrated to real life data will yield awful predictions. Though I'm not sure if he's advocating making predictions based on no data instead?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=finance-why-economic-models-are-always-wrong

Also I wonder if anyone has written an article about "why scientific american articles are always wrong." That might give me some comfort.

How can I get funding for this kind of research??

According to a recent study at University of Missouri:

"It turns out that we still know we are making mistakes when intoxicated. We just don't care."

The whole article is worth a read:

http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/22/7885500-blame-it-on-the-alcohol-maybe-not-study-suggests

Some more info about what alcohol does from lifehacker. This line in particular caught my attention:

"Substances such as cocaine and LSD work like pharmacological scalpels, altering the functioning of only one or a handful of brain circuits. Alcohol is more like a pharmacological hand grenade. It affects practically everything around it."

http://lifehacker.com/5684996/what-alcohol-actually-does-to-your-brain-and-body

I don't know if all this makes me want to drink less or drink more.

Time is never time at all

Its incredible how little we understand about time. Its so fundamental to everything but every time I try to think about it I get hopelessly lost. This guy sums up some interesting "facts" about time:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/09/01/ten-things-everyone-should-know-about-time/

The physics of tennis

As I was reading about the US Open I stumbled across this article on the physics of tennis. I always knew the playing surface mattered but I never knew why, interesting stuff.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6906922/the-physics-grass-clay-cement

DRACO

A group at MIT has developed a new drug that can, in theory, cure any viral infection. So far they've tested it on 15 different viruses in mice with 100% success... wow. Besides the millions of lives potentially saved the best part is the name.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/11/draco-drug-could-cure-almost-any-virus_n_924435.html

Its incredible how we're capable of developing drugs like this when over a billion people still don't have access to clean water. How many lives could we save by getting these people access to clean water? Of course its not as simple as that, lack of clean water is usually symptomatic of other bigger problems. War, oppressive government etc.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats