Friday, January 29, 2010

Spirit, the Mars Rover is just a machine but tugs on our heartstrings nonetheless

This wonderful xkcd cartoon

http://xkcd.com/695/

illustrates perfectly how we can get anthropomorphise non-living things. We have this "plucky" little rover "fighting" on against all the odds and now she's stuck. Yeah, yeah, I know, I've picked up on Emily Lakdawalla (she of Planetary Society blog fame)'s habit of referring to Spirit as a "she", something that makes "her" even more endearing. NASA and the JPL have decided after a year of unsuccessful attempts to free her that she no longer be a rover. She is now a Stationary Research Platform, à la Viking. She may survive the Martian winter, but her solar panels will eventually get covered in dust, Spirit will finally power down and, effectively, die.

Why do we do this to ourselves? I use words like "die" sometimes in my daily work when I talk about hard disks or old PCs or whatver that pack in: they die. Big deal. I can rationalise that Spirit is a fabulously engineered machine that has performed well above and beyond the original mission specification, and nothing more. Yet cartoons like this one definitely push my emotional buttons. It could be that there's a fundamental human fear in play here, that of dying alone in a strange place, having been abandoned by everyone. Any takers on this one?

But maybe that's just me getting sappy. It's just a machine.

Isn't it....?

Guys?

GUYS...?!

 

Links:

http://xkcd.com/695/

Planetary Society blog: http://www.planetary.org/blog/

JPL Mars Rovers site: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Nasa Rovers site:http://www.nasa.gov/rovers

 

 

 

Posted via web from John's posterous

Monday, January 25, 2010

Homeopathic "Overdose" Prediction

Ok, so I'm biased.

I'm sure that we won't see skeptics dropping by the dozen on Saturday following the planned "overdose". But I'm curious as to how the homeopathic community will react. What will the special pleadings be? I'm guessing it'll be a combination of the following:

  • You weren't sick so it didn't have any effect;
  • You took too much so the law of infinitesimals doesn't apply;
  • Some kind of quantum-physicsy-sounding hocus-pocus explanation;

...and finally, I'm predicting that someone will come out with a really wicked, convoluted explanation that's totally out of left field.

This is going to be fun to watch as it unfolds :)

Posted via email from John's posterous

New Solar Observatory Launching Feb 9 2010

The Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is nearing readiness for the planned launch date. More info here:

http://tinyurl.com/y878la7

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Thursday, January 21, 2010

iPhone keeps buried earthquake victim alive for three days

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/21/iphone_medical_aid/

This one's making headlines around da intertoobs today. Pretty cool, I have to say, though I do wonder how he managed to keep it running all that time....mine usually needs daily charging. I guess he had the presence of mind to turn off all the battery-hungry bells and whistles?

Still though, this shows that in fact there are useful apps that can have real, practical uses out here in meat-space.

But lets not overhype it. Yeah, that means you, iphone fanboy :)

Posted via email from John's posterous

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

What is Homeopathy?

I've heard a lot about this homeopathy stuff. It's for sale in almost every pharmacy here in Paris, but just what is it? Is it effective? Must be if it's for sale in a pharmacy, right?

Let's take a look at how the British Society of Homeopaths describes it - from the horses mouth, as it were. Here's their "what is" page:

http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/

"Homeopathy is a system of medicine which is based on treating the individual with highly diluted substances given in mainly tablet form, which triggers the body’s natural system of healing."

Hmm. Not much information there, but ok....let's read on further.

"Scientifically it can not yet be explained precisely how it works, but new research in biochemistry and quantum physics is going some way towards shedding light on the process."

How it works can't be explained, yet with an appeal to quantum physics. Curious.

"Homeopathy has been used in the UK for over two hundred years. It was Samuel Hahnemann, a brilliant doctor working in 1796 who developed the scientific and philosophical foundations of this gentler way of healing. These scientific principles form the basis of successful homeopathic practice today."

OK. First things first: Just because something lasts a long time doesn't mean it's right. Look at the Ptolemaic model of the solar system. That lasted for thousands of years until Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo came along and upset the applecart.
Next: During Hahnemann's time, when blood-letting, leeching and other sorts of prescientific medical practices were being used, just about anything non-invasive would've been gentler. This was before we knew anything about the germ theory of disease, before anesthetics, before antibiotics. A time when few children reached adulthood because of disease, and childbirth was each and every time a very serious risk to the lives of both mother and baby. In other words, medical prehistory. Since then we've learned a lot about biology, anatomy, biochemistry and pharmacology. We've learned that leeches and bloodletting don't work, but on the other hand we've held on to some of the ancient wisdom that works. For example, it's been known for millenia that the bark of the willow tree can sooth pain and from that we developed aspirin. This is how medicine, and science in general, evolves. If it works it stays, if it doesn't it gets tossed out with the leeches. To paraphrase Tim Minchin from his poem Storm: alternative medicine that works is known as medicine."

"How are the remedies made?
The raw extracts (from plants or animals) or triturations (from minerals and salts) are made into a ‘tincture’ with alcohol which forms the basis of the dilution procedure. Dilutions are made up to either 1 part tincture to 10 parts water (1x) or 1 part tincture to 100 parts water (1c). Repeated dilution results in the familiar 6x, 6c or 30c potencies that can be bought over the counter: the 30c represents an infinitessimal part of the original substance."

No information on how the "tincture" is prepared, but this is, after all, an outline. So let's do the math. 1C is a dilution of 1 part per 100 in water. 30C is 1C repeated 30 times. So I dilute it down 1:100. Then I take a part of this and dilute THAT down 1:100. Repeat 30 times. Robert L. Park, Ph.D., executive director of The American Physical Society, has noted that since the least amount of a substance in a solution is one molecule, a 30C solution would have to have at least one molecule of the original substance dissolved in a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10^20) molecules of water. It would require a container more than 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth to be certain of containing 1 molecule of active ingredient at this dilution!

(source: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/homeo.html)

So in reality, we're left with a container of water. Wow. How could it possibly work if it's only water?


After each dilution the mixture is vigorously agitated in a machine that delivers a calibrated amount of shaking. This is called succussion. It is thought that this process leaves an energetic imprint of the medicinal substance throughout the body of water .

Here's another alarm bell. An "energetic imprint". Some mysterious energy, undetectable by science, gets imprinted in the water. In physics when we speak of energy, we refer to the ability to do work, ie to make things happen. We can talk broadly about kinetic and potential energy, and we can drill down into each type, delving into into various subtypes such as chemical, nuclear, gravitational energy and so forth. They can be converted from one to the other and back again. We understand these forms of energy quite well. But invoking the word energy like this, in the same way as invoking quantum physics, always sets off my woometer.

We also know quite a bit about H_{2} O (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Properties_of_water). We know its chemical composition and behaviour. We also know a lot about how the atoms in a water molecule bind together. Imprinting "energy", or anything else for that matter, on water molecules is something that the laws of physics and chemistry as we currently understand them simply can't happen. These laws have been verified experimentally on many different occasions and not found wanting. They explain the observable universe quite well. There are Nobel prizes aplenty for anyone who can demonstrate the mechanism by which homeopathy allegedly works, placebo effects aside.

Science and technology have moved on enormously since Hahnemann's development of these ideas, but homeopathy has not. These same ideas have been propagated for over two centuries with little or no modification. It's as if we still bled hospital patients. Homeopathy may be less messy and relatively harmless in wealthy countries, but when you have snake-oil salesmen pitching homeopathic remedies for big killers like AIDS, malaria, and cancer in the place of proven science-based medication, then it's time to come down, and to come down hard. What's the harm, you ask? Look here: http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

It's the second decade of the 21st century. It's time for this pseudo-scientific twaddle to go the way of leeching and bloodletting.

Let's send it on its way.

Posted via email from John's posterous

What is Homeopathy?

I've heard a lot about this homeopathy stuff. It's for sale in almost every pharmacy here in Paris, but just what is it? Is it effective? Must be if it's for sale in a pharmacy, right?

Let's take a look at how the British Society of Homeopaths describes it - from the horses mouth, as it were. Here's their "what is" page:

http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/

"Homeopathy is a system of medicine which is based on treating the individual with highly diluted substances given in mainly tablet form, which triggers the body’s natural system of healing."

Hmm. Not much information there, but ok....let's read on further.

"Scientifically it can not yet be explained precisely how it works, but new research in biochemistry and quantum physics is going some way towards shedding light on the process."

How it works can't be explained, yet with an appeal to quantum physics. Curious.

"Homeopathy has been used in the UK for over two hundred years. It was Samuel Hahnemann, a brilliant doctor working in 1796 who developed the scientific and philosophical foundations of this gentler way of healing. These scientific principles form the basis of successful homeopathic practice today."

OK. First things first: Just because something lasts a long time doesn't mean it's right. Look at the Ptolemaic model of the solar system. That lasted for thousands of years until Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo came along and upset the applecart.
Next: During Hahnemann's time, when blood-letting, leeching and other sorts of prescientific medical practices were being used, just about anything non-invasive would've been gentler. This was before we knew anything about the germ theory of disease, before anesthetics, before antibiotics. A time when few children reached adulthood because of disease, and childbirth was each and every time a very serious risk to the lives of both mother and baby. In other words, medical prehistory. Since then we've learned a lot about biology, anatomy, biochemistry and pharmacology. We've learned that leeches and bloodletting don't work, but on the other hand we've held on to some of the ancient wisdom that works. For example, it's been known for millenia that the bark of the willow tree can sooth pain and from that we developed aspirin. This is how medicine, and science in general, evolves. If it works it stays, if it doesn't it gets tossed out with the leeches. To paraphrase Tim Minchin from his poem Storm: alternative medicine that works is known as medicine."

"How are the remedies made?
The raw extracts (from plants or animals) or triturations (from minerals and salts) are made into a ‘tincture’ with alcohol which forms the basis of the dilution procedure. Dilutions are made up to either 1 part tincture to 10 parts water (1x) or 1 part tincture to 100 parts water (1c). Repeated dilution results in the familiar 6x, 6c or 30c potencies that can be bought over the counter: the 30c represents an infinitessimal part of the original substance."

No information on how the "tincture" is prepared, but this is, after all, an outline. So let's do the math. 1C is a dilution of 1 part per 100 in water. 30C is 1C repeated 30 times. So I dilute it down 1:100. Then I take a part of this and dilute THAT down 1:100. Repeat 30 times. Robert L. Park, Ph.D., executive director of The American Physical Society, has noted that since the least amount of a substance in a solution is one molecule, a 30C solution would have to have at least one molecule of the original substance dissolved in a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10^20) molecules of water. It would require a container more than 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth to be certain of containing 1 molecule of active ingredient at this dilution!

(source: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/homeo.html)

So in reality, we're left with a container of water. Wow. How could it possibly work if it's only water?


After each dilution the mixture is vigorously agitated in a machine that delivers a calibrated amount of shaking. This is called succussion. It is thought that this process leaves an energetic imprint of the medicinal substance throughout the body of water .

Here's another alarm bell. An "energetic imprint". Some mysterious energy, undetectable by science, gets imprinted in the water. In physics when we speak of energy, we refer to the ability to do work, ie to make things happen. We can talk broadly about kinetic and potential energy, and we can drill down into each type, delving into into various subtypes such as chemical, nuclear, gravitational energy and so forth. They can be converted from one to the other and back again. We understand these forms of energy quite well. But invoking the word energy like this, in the same way as invoking quantum physics, always sets off my woometer.

We also know quite a bit about H_{2} O (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Properties_of_water). We know its chemical composition and behaviour. We also know a lot about how the atoms in a water molecule bind together. Imprinting "energy", or anything else for that matter, on water molecules is something that the laws of physics and chemistry as we currently understand them simply can't happen. These laws have been verified experimentally on many different occasions and not found wanting. They explain the observable universe quite well. There are Nobel prizes aplenty for anyone who can demonstrate the mechanism by which homeopathy allegedly works, placebo effects aside.

Science and technology have moved on enormously since Hahnemann's development of these ideas, but homeopathy has not. These same ideas have been propagated for over two centuries with little or no modification. It's as if we still bled hospital patients. Homeopathy may be less messy and relatively harmless in wealthy countries, but when you have snake-oil salesmen pitching homeopathic remedies for big killers like AIDS, malaria, and cancer in the place of proven science-based medication, then it's time to come down, and to come down hard. What's the harm, you ask? Look here: http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

It's the second decade of the 21st century. It's time for this pseudo-scientific twaddle to go the way of leeching and bloodletting.

Let's send it on its way.

Posted via email from John's posterous

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Terrorism is extremely rare, so refuse to be terrorised!

 

Great article by the Register concerning the rarity of terrorism and why you shouldn't be terrorised.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/08/mutallab_comment/

If we react to any incident with fear and panic, then the instigators will have achieved their aims.Their goals are to disrupt of our way of life, actually killing people is just a means to that end and is a very secondary goal. So even if their attempts to commit mass-murder fail, they still achieve their goals if we overreact, which we inevitably do - every single time. We close the stable door after the horse has bolted, we crank up the colour coded alerts and a hysterical media frenzy whips everyone into a state of, um, well, TERROR! We, (the media, governments and public at large) collectively, are doing their work for them! They must be laughing their arses off when they see how we react on the extremely rare occasion that one of them tries to blow up a plane, even when he screws it up royally.

Via Bruce Schneier

 

Posted via web from John's posterous

Dark matter's effect on planetary orbits

Interesting story on how dark matter being swept up by the sun appears to be affecting the orbits of the planets in our solar system. Yes, Earth too.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24663/

Posted via web from John's posterous

Monday, January 11, 2010

Martian Avalanches caused by springtime on the red planet

Fantastically coolesome images of Martian avalaches taken by HiRISE - details, with customary dry, only-the-facts-ma'am delivery ;-)  from the BA:

http://tinyurl.com/y9gzqhf

Posted via email from John's posterous

Tim Minchin - this is the business!

Just discovered this bloke....brilliant!

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Friday, January 8, 2010

Typical French governement "solution" to anything....tax it!

Any time there's something needs fixing, or becomes a pain, or is just plain different, you could bet your bottom dollar that the gouvernement du jour, no matter what side of the political spectrum they might be found on, will react in the same way: they'll invent a new tax for it.

And I'm sorry, but these so-called creative industries aren't very creative if they can't come up with a way to thrive in the digital age.That's just a stupid argument, there are plenty of ways for them to make money online, look at iTunes, for crying out loud. This is just plain, old-fashioned  protectionism at work again.

PC world article:

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/331699

Posted via web from John's posterous

This is spectacular....a Transparent Laptop screen

Have a look at this: still in R&D but in a few years, it'll will be in the wild. So freakin' cool, I want one, now!

http://tinyurl.com/ydtxlxq

Posted via web from John's posterous

Britain under snow....amazing picture

Check this out: amazing picture, like something from "The Day After"! Isn't it amazing we can take pictures like this?

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Thursday, January 7, 2010

Top 10 NASA Photos of all time (so far!)

Some amazing sights in here:

http://www.airspacemag.com/multimedia/photos/?c=y&articleID=28246359&page=1

Posted via web from John's posterous

Richard Feynman and the Tao of "WHY"

Simply wonderful.

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The Saturn System, in all its glory, thanks to Cassini

Feast your eyes on beautiful Saturn. There are some heartbreakingly gorgeous images here, but be warned: you might end up staying for a while, so make sure you have adequate time!

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/?start=1&category=1

Posted via email from John's posterous

gotta tell ya - I'm 95% agreed with this guy!

Posted via email from John's posterous

Cognitive biases

Think you're immune to making mistakes? Are you supremely rational? No, you're not :)

Read on and see if you've fallen prey to any of the following recently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

The good news: we all have, 'cos we're we're only human, but awareness of these is a great way to learn how to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.

Posted via email from John's posterous

WISE is calibrating and already releasing images!

WISE is being calibrated and has released this preliminary image:
http://tinyurl.com/yh5afuc

Here's the BA's take:
http://tinyurl.com/yefpbxo

Here's the press release:
http://tinyurl.com/yar36gr

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Wednesday, January 6, 2010

http://xkcd.com/685/

Following all the recent g-spot hooplah (here: http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1428 and here: http://www.drpetra.co.uk/blog/where-have-all-the-g-spots-gone/)
xkcd makes a point in its own inimitable style! http://xkcd.com/685/

Posted via email from John's posterous

Our Galaxy, a squished beach ball and dark matter

Using inferences from all sky observations of out nearest galactic neighbours, researchers at UCLA have hypothesised a shape for our galaxy that's not at all expected.....more here: http://www.universetoday.com/2010/01/06/milky-way-has-a-squashed-beachball-shaped-dark-matter-halo/

Posted via email from John's posterous

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Update on previous post

Bruce Schneier has a great take on my (and, it seems, every other person's out there) El-Al thinking - it doesn't scale.


http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/adopting_the_is.html

I wonder if there isn't a happy medium between the two, though? Hmm.

My original post:
http://jmahony.posterous.com/attempted-airline-bombing-security-theatre-fr

Posted via email from John's posterous

We need this kind of thing in France!

http://www.1023.org.uk/ Even at 35%, it's outrageous that the Secu reimburses magic "medicine". Might as well put Lourdes holy water on the list of approved medication!

Posted via email from John's posterous

The hubble hits just keep on coming!

Check out this latest image from Hubble: http://tinyurl.com/ykt547o  Just think, each little speck is a galaxy, with hundreds of billions of stars...mindblowing! You can actually see the oldest ones in the bigger picture. They're the red blobs, displaying that famous red-shifting, and - get this - we're seeing them as they were up to 13 billion years ago!  The image was created by combining several different images, taken in ultraviolet, visible light and near-infrared. (bigger image here:  http://tinyurl.com/ya3h3vp)

We are so small.......

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Monday, January 4, 2010

Dark Energy and the Casimir Effect

It's a weird, weird universe, at the quantum level, with implications for the eventual fate of the universe....probably a Big Fizzle.

Check out the APOD:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100103.html

Posted via email from John's posterous