A Paper April's Fool Moon

While digging through some old magazines, I found a reference to Nature, which reminded me of the old Omni magazine, Insight, and others that wound up in a refuse bin and perhaps in a landfill somewhere.  Now, we have e-mags and nearly instant cross-references, where this becomes that and we spread the news to blogs and pollywogs and frogs and pigtails.  I eat my wasabi peas listening to "Celtic" music thinking about water fleas and ant colonies moving from one potted tree in our house to another and then into the cereus pot (cereus, not serious or Sirius, not serial or cereal, either).

Redbuds blooming, Cornish Rex grooming.

On this day when a group sent me a message via an April Fool's Day joke, which they wanted to imply says what the real reason an ancient library was destroyed (to hide the prehistoric evidence of prehistoric evidence, evidently), I thumb through Harry Moore's Miocene musings called "The Bone Hunters," looking for the real clue to the next adventure our species is about to take.

Beyond automatic colour tracing...

Beyond the quad cube...

How do you demonstrate strength in weakness?

How do you turn play money into real prizes?

How does a wasp make a nest?

In this country, we don't make national heroes out of self-proclaimed martyrs - instead, we honour those who die in selfless service to society in general (police, firefighters, medical workers, military, etc.). 

However, you can't just shove that kind of social status down the throats of those in a different society. 

Figure out how to honour the dead in two opposing societies and you figure out how the living can live together, finally aligning two sets of youth training toward reaching one goal of the greater good for all, allowing dissident voices to argue about spinoff goals that might help us find even better goals one day.

A praying mantis, a spider, a hummingbird and a moth - what does a hawk want with these?  How important is the lichen, moss or mosquito to them?

If you sell chemical fertilizer, you value green lawns with few insects or weeds.  If you sell fruits and vegetables, you value the honeybee.  How do both sellers compromise and agree to a goal of the greater good for all?

Subcultures.  They're everywhere.

Will you be ready when we activate your sleeper cell for the greater good?  Can you see it might be something as simple as asking you to turn on your television set and watch a popular program that your whole family will enjoy?  Can you see it might be something as complex as accepting new job training and moving to a different part of the world where you don't speak the dominant local language?  Would you give up your chemical sales job to become a beekeeper?  Would you give up your vegetable farming to become a chemical engineer?

According to another message I received yesterday (via the arrangement of catfood cans in a pet store), some of you animal breeders will set up a communications network via read/write ID chips embedded in pedigree pets, using the pet owners' own WiFi networks to spy on them and their lifestyle habits in order to strengthen future sales of high-end pets (the strength in weakness demonstration, perhaps?).  Nothing like seeing your customer from your product's (pet's) perspective!

Time to listen to the Great Mother and the Great Father for a while.  They've been bugging me to go deeper into the meaning of life on this planet so I can see the grand vision intended for those who will first communicate with life on another celestial body.  They tell me it has little to do with intelligence as we see it and more to do with chemistry and low-power wavelength alignment.  They also tell me that we will learn to put aside superiourity and respect the sovereignty of unique lifeforms or we will never learn to survive on other worlds.  More after I meditate on what they told me and what others have thought about many times before I arrived here in my temporary cellular form.

And yes, my computer programming friends - Czech, Russian, Chinese, et al - I am looking at the data you put together for me.  Of course, the virtual world is important but it's not the only situation I'm situated in.  There are some offworld issues to assess so I can decide which countries will be toppled in years to come to align the past, present and future in this instant.  Nothing is permanent, my friends, including our valuable friendships - everything transforms.

Holy Elementary!

Makes sense to me:

АМЕРИКАНСКИЕ ФИЗИКИ ПРИШЛИ К СЕНСАЦИОННОМУ ЗАКЛЮЧЕНИЮ

Now, how do we go about using this information for business/technology innovation?  Find out where these microscopic black holes are leading us?  Is dark matter involved?  Are we slipping in and out of multiple universes and somewhere deep down in our thoughts we know we are quickly evaporating and reappearing constantly?

Let's ask Steve Hsu to shed light on the matter: Backreaction, black holes and monsters

Exciting Times Ahead

Large Hadron Collider Triples Its Own Record

•By Alexis Madrigal, March 19, 2010, 2:54 pm
"The Large Hadron Collider set a new record for the creation of energetic particle beams this morning. The particle accelerator, which surpassed Fermilab’s Tevatron* in December as the baddest atom smasher of them all, smashed its own record, charging particles to 3.48 trillion electron volts.

* "So, while the Tevatron, the last great American particle accelerator, may be chugging along at just under a trillion electron-volts, it’s still got an outside shot at finding the Higgs-Boson particle before the LHC can find or exclude it. And that could be a fitting final act before the high-energy physics torch passes wholly from Batavia to Geneva."

News You Can Use: Inferred or Implied

Inferring Signaling Pathway Topologies from Multiple Perturbation Measurements of Specific Biochemical Species

 Abstract: The specification of biological decisions by signaling pathways is encoded by the interplay between activation dynamics and network topologies. Although we can describe complex networks, we cannot easily determine which topology the cell actually uses to transduce a specific signal. Experimental testing of all plausible topologies is infeasible because of the combinatorially large number of experiments required to explore the complete hypothesis space. Here, we demonstrate that Bayesian inference–based modeling provides an approach to explore and constrain this hypothesis space, permitting the rational ranking of pathway models. Our approach can use measurements of a limited number of biochemical species when combined with multiple perturbations. As proof of concept, we examined the activation of the extracellular signal–regulated kinase (ERK) pathway by epidermal growth factor. The predicted and experimentally validated model shows that both Raf-1 and, unexpectedly, B-Raf are needed to fully activate ERK in two different cell lines. Thus, our formal methodology rationally infers evidentially supported pathway topologies even when a limited number of biochemical and kinetic measurements are available.

Benefits and Fringes

After making reservations for this year's An Irish Evening benefiting United Cerebral Palsy, what to do with a recent $100 gift from Amazon?  Buy some stuff to support the economy, of course:

Nothing: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions), by Frank Close
Green Roof Plants: A Resource and Planting Guide, by Edmund C. Snodgrass, Lucie L. Snodgrass
From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, by Sean Carroll
Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls, by Nigel Dunnett, Noël Kingsbury
Wasabi Peas 5 lbs. (80 oz.), Sold by: JR Mushrooms & Specialties

I'll put off purchases of Rejcha, Vranický and Dolly Freed's Possum Living until another day.

For some reason, all of this got me thinking about Karl Haas, a former host of a classical music program, "Adventures in Good Music."  I always wondered what happened to him and just discovered today that he died in 2005.  A great loss.  He often remarked that the variety of lifestyles of his listeners kept him going.  We should all be so lucky, to impact people across the spectrum of living.

Set Theory: Theories Set Boundaries: Theory Set

What is life?  A magazine?  That costs how much?  Seems expensive but you're already stuck with the subscription? That's life, right?  No, maybe not:

A New Theory of Life As A Set

Cedars Falling On Snow

So, here I am again.  And wow, if you only knew where I'd been in the last 12 hours!

Like I say, I don't know much.  I make up the difference between knowledge and intuition by staying in touch with you.

But who are you?

Are you the little elderly lady at the end of the street who has seen less than me but knows more?

Are you the E3, "yes sir," Army soldier just starting your career in the military?

Are you the surgeon who's winding up a career serving on hospital boards throughout the world?

In this case, you're the group of scientists who have figured out how to transfer a person's "personality" from one body to another.  You might call it the ultimate mind trip.

How they do those things they do.  What if your name was Khan?  What if your name was Chow?  What if your name was Linda?  And then what if you had all those names in a span of a few hours?

I'm a writer, right?  Isn't that what I think I am?  Or Who I Was Supposed To Be?

Could I have ever believed my dreams of that childhood story about Merlin transforming Arthur into various animal bodies would come true in the form of changing from one person's body to another?

Honestly, no.  Always hopefully, yes.

And now I understand why some engineers and scientists, friends of mine, have been telling me not to get excited about sending people into space exploration.  Why?  Because we're justthisclose to transferring people's personalities into machines that can safely travel through solar wind and cosmic radiation.

The past few hours were amazing.  <== such a bland sentence, I know, but let me enjoy the memories for a while before I describe them.

It started with a series of brain scans.  Then it led to understanding how to read individual sets of synapses.  From that, experiments were successfully completed in showing one animal's memory set - its personality, if you will - could be "programmed" into the brain/body of a cloned version.  From cloned bodies to twins and then from twins to different species and finally to person-to-person.

To have yourself and that of another person in your thoughts at the same time!  Absolutely incredible!  To carry your thoughts, and those of others with you into another body.  Why, we're justthismuchcloser to having one social body, aren't we?  Get everyone used to the Internet and then BAM! move on to "mind melds," to borrow from science fiction.

You need not be assimilated.  It's already done, some say.  Well, they're right and they're wrong.  Social integration is NOTHING like thought integration.  To have Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin playing referee in your thoughts while your synaptic simulations of Yao Ming and Shaq play ping-pong against Peyton Manning and Margaret Thatcher.  Now that's entertainment!

I never knew that bodies felt skin itches in different ways.  Curious...

Are We Really Upside-Down?

Have you ever used a divining stick?  If not, have you seen one demonstrated?

Back in the hollers of where I grew up, diviners would be called in to help sniff out a good location to dig a water well.  Most of 'em used a forked tree limb that looked something like a petrified stethoscope.  Others'd use their common sense, walking the ground, sighting the hills and valleys and sorting out just where a good, full aquifer hid beneath your feet not too far from your house but plenty distance from your "outdoor plumbing" (what we called an outhouse).

These days, them diviners use the Internet, GIS maps and other modern technology to make sure your backhoe or other drilling equipment hits the sweet spot every time.

Now, there are still those who swear by the divining rod.  If it worked for their pappy and momma, it'll work just fine for them.

What it shows is that it's all about what you know, what you do with what you know and what you believe when you act on what you know.  Not to mention a good sense of humour, a bit of blarney in ya and an excellent sense of timing.

That's why I'm here writing for myself, recording the lives of people all over the world who believe in their ability to use the local version of the divining rod to work magic in the lives of others.  We can spend all day talking about the truth, arguing about what's really real and what's not and all that rot but the truth is only what you believe the truth to be.  We can agree about laws of the universe only because we haven't found something to dispute the current agreed-to set of universal laws (keeping in mind all the previous laws of the universe that have been disputed and refuted).

I'm just a grown-up kid from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.  I think I know a lot but I don't.  I simply believe in the ability of others to carry facts in their hands or have available to them to share with me.  I know who I am and I'm glad to be who I am.

I want us, our species, to seek the higher ground of trust instead of knocking the knees out from one another because of fear and insecurity (often using cleverness as a disguise).  I expect politicians of all nations to act in the best interests of us all, both the majority and the minorities.  I know we aren't perfectly-programmed robots which act on only one principle.  We are more complex than we like to admit to ourselves so we're going to make mistakes in our actions, going against what we think we believe and what we say we believe, contradicting ourselves when we think we aren't.  We act this way as leaders and as followers at the same time.

Most of all, I know we aren't going to change who we are.  We are social beings who adapt quickly or slowly to ensure our survival.  We will thrive as individuals even when our subculture is dying.  We will fall into depressions at the peak of our game.  We are born with afflictions we can do little about.  We are born with afflictions we can do much about but don't.

When it appears the world is falling apart around you, what will you do?  Can you survive almost a month buried under rubble, hanging onto hope by the thinnest of threads?  Could you survive in a detention facility for years with almost no hope for freedom (or knowing you will never be released)?

Right now, the global enterprise named Toyota is facing a quality faux pas.  I remember when my wife and I bought a Toyota Camry years ago.  We were given an initial quality survey to fill out.  We had noticed a few defects with the car and were going to note them on the survey.  The sales manager told us that he really wanted us to check off all perfect/excellent scores on the survey and we told him we couldn't.  He asked if instead of us filling out the survey, would we be willing to give him the survey for a swap of a free carwash and oil change.  We accepted his offer.  From then on, I assumed that most automobile companies pulled the same trick and the ones who were best able to get their customers to mark all perfect scores on the survey or to hand the survey over to the salespersons were the ones getting the best scores bragged about on their adverts with initial quality awards from J.D. Power and others.  Therefore, it is no surprise to me that Toyota has fallen off the quality ladder as reality slowly separated from the false sense of security of happy, #1 survey reports, like a person who unknowingly leans too far over while painting the side of a house.  When you trust your divining rod, make sure you have the data to back it up.

Reminds me of another story.  Stop me if I've told you this one.  A friend of mine...in fact, the one I've previously mentioned whose father was in the U.S. diplomatic corps...his family lived in India for a while.  One of his older half-sisters was going to have some of her friends over for lunch.  Well, my friend told me, in India at that time, it was a matter of immense pride for a certain type of Indian gentleman to get a job as a manservant for diplomatic households (see also "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro for similar thoughts in other cultures).  In fact, a manservant expected himself to perfectly meet the demands of the household, with shame coming upon his family should he fail in his task.  Anyway, the half-sister gave instructions to the manservant about what she wanted for her get-together with her friends.  Included in her instructions was a request for six peanut butter and tuna sandwiches.  As you probably already surmised, the manservant made six, not twelve sandwiches.  Of course, the girls couldn't eat any of the sandwiches - even I, who like to mix foods from the pantry, have not tried a sandwich with both peanut butter and tuna on it.

Simply a matter of semantics, perhaps?  No matter, because the manservant was horrified that he had misinterpreted what the young woman had requested.  He ignored the request of my friend's family to keep managing the household and left because he had shamed his family.  Another divining rod unreality.  We think we have all the data we need to get our job done and fall short when we draw the wrong conclusions from the plotted points.

Same for me now.  Most days, I sit here for several hours, reading books, surveying the world, or writing.  As many of you know, I watch the vehicles that go one way or the other on the road.  In my thoughts, I make up stories why some cars come and go what seem like dozens of times a day, trying to change my thoughtup stories for a variety of humourous images.  Sexual trysts between rich cougars and amateur gigolos in this down economy.  Drug redistribution networking.  Mixing exotic fuels at home and trying them out on the road.  Hypochondriacs running from one doctor to another.  Attending college courses at more than one facility, frantically running from one campus to another.  Operating a home private investigation service and spying on people in nearby neighbourhoods.  Early signs of senility/dementia.  Robots whose programs have gotten caught in a repeating loop.  Bored housewives visiting one another's homes for late breakfast, pre-lunch, lunch, post-lunch, early afternoon tea, afternoon tea, late afternoon tea, and pre-dinner.  A mixture of some of the above (bored hypochondriac cougars delivering illegal drugs while driving vehicles souped up with exotic fuels, private investigators disguised as gigolos visiting senile senior citizens whose robots are taking college courses, etc.).  I imagine the lives of the people who fit into this mixedup stories.  One person may have a facial twitch or partial facial paralysis like Bell's palsy that appeals to another person who is turned off by facial symmetry.  Another person has no preconceived negative notions or taboos about one's body and is helping another person get over frigidity.  Another neighbour is a retired scientist who's madly, frantically working on the next best thing to a perpetual motion machine that has gotten out of control and insists on taking random drives around the country all day (and yes, that refers to both the scientist and the machine (both and either/or)).  Some days, all I can see in my thoughts are other people's creative processes at work, meaning I think of books and movies about neighbourhoods like mine.

In other words, my thoughts settle into a comfort zone of a kind of zeitgeist, feeling at one with the times.  Can I divine anything out of that?  What if I step back a few trillion miles and look at our planetary system?  Which way is north?  Should we be walking on our feet, our hands or our heads?  Why do we think north is up and south is down?  What if east is up?  What if there is no such thing as up or down, just arbitrarily located spheres with gravitational attraction?  What if we found a planetary body that repelled everything, instead?

I'm a kid at heart.  I'm curious about the universe we live in, not caring about people's rules and regulations because there's so much more than us here to get to know.  Since I'm the only one who reads and writes this, I think it's time to step away from this blog and play a while.  Let the people keep being themselves, pretending to have the skills to work a divining rod.  If they need me, they'll call.  Otherwise, I assume they're perfectly happy being themselves without me, their having more knowledge and skills than me for the most part, anyway.

One last thing before I go.  Last night, before I fell asleep, I thought about a situation in this area and I wondered about the effect of mentioning a single name, a name that represents a group of people, and the ripple effect of that name and recent events tied to that name that others would give more significant meaning to, creating imaginary trends, looking at their own groups and wanting to exaggerate the divine rights of their groups over the group associated with that single name and the significant event.  I am a person responsible to all my people, all my groups, every one of us.  I could mention a name but I won't because we don't want to light dry tinder - it's a fire that will (or could) get quickly out of control, especially with so many idle minds out of work and looking for something, paid or unpaid, to occupy them.  No group is divine.  All groups could be charged with and convicted of many heinous crimes throughout history.  Remember that before you start placing sticks on the bonfire of blame.  All is rarely what it seems to be.

That's all for now, folks.  Ain't got time to check this here blog entry for spilling errors or antiquarian grammarian mistakes.  Instead, it's time to pick my teeth and whittle me a divining rod.  There's a well to be dug!

Why Science Is Fun

Hey kids!  Do you have your own ground-to-space-satellite communication system in your bedroom and want to prove to your friends how your antenna works but get so wrapped up in radio wave pattern geekspeak that your friends quickly get bored and want to go back to texting their virtual friends about who-saw-whom-doing-what-where-behind-the-school?

Haven't we all?!

But now there's a fun way to simply show your friends you have power they can't see.  No, you're not auditioning for "Anti-Heroes" or "Last of the Harebenders."  Instead, you've got this supercool way to show how you talk with the satellites circling overhead or even bounce a signal off the moon (your communications with the beings coasting in outer space between here and Alpha Centauri you keep to yourself, of course).

Well, here 'tis:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/seeing_radio_waves_with_a_light_bul.html

Pretty soon you'll have bunches of ways to demonstrate the existence of radio waves around you, adjusting a rainbow of LED light output sources according to signal strength and wavelength.  Then, your friends'll really want to get the party started!  Throw in a theremin for some old school fun and watch the party kick up a notch.  You don't need no DJ Hero 'cause you're the Science Hero who can throw down tracks ain't nobody never heard in this dimension of sight and sound.  The party is the music is the party!  Party on, dude!