Flying carpet to Pluto?

Check out "Will a flying carpet take us to Pluto?" in New Scientist. I thought it is yet another solar sail idea with a catchy name, then I realized there is something new. The “flying carpet” is a flexible array of solar-powered ion engines. The presented design doesn't use rigid supports––the carpet is extended by vector-control of the engines. The spacecraft can be carried by space shuttles and then unfurled in orbit. It could reach Pluto in 80 days and to Sedna (the newly found “10th planet”) in 2 years. Sounds cool, but there is no such a carpet and won’t be available for quite a while. Luckily we just need the area enough to cover one end zone of a football field.

What's the problem with China and Google

The New York Times has an article “Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem)” that provides a glimpse of the technology, politics of Chinese Internet censorship. It is interesting to learn Chinese competitors (such as Baidu) took the advantage of censorship to make Chinese government shut down accesses to Google in 2002. Communist party is good at psychology tactic: “American Internet firms expect the government to hand them an official blacklist of sites and words they must censor … The government's preferred method seems to be to leave the companies guessing, then to call up occasionally with angry demands that a Web page be taken down in 24 hours.”

The article also states that Google believes ‘merely by improving access to information in an authoritarian country, it would be doing good’. Indeed, millions of young Chinese are blogging and chatting about their favorite celebrities. Does that mean free speech? I am afraid not. They will recognize a great nation led by perfect leaders through censored information. In the article: ‘A query for "Tiananmen Square" omitted many iconic photos of the protest and the crackdown. Instead, it produced tourism pictures of the square lighted up at night and happy Chinese couples posing before it’. It seems to me Google will soon secure a profitable Chinese market, and Internet won't bring a magical political reform to China.

Remaking Humanity!?

An article on Forbes.com: “Remaking Humanity” says: “… about 600 million years ago, our worm-like ancestors …co-opted the openings and apparatus that they already had handy for excretion to do the job (shedding sperm and eggs). Shedding gametes, shedding feces…similar tasks, right? … What if that worm-like ancestor instead used its other body opening, the mouth, to expel gametes?”

I though I have thought about many “what it” scenarios, but this is the most horrific. I am happy I don't have that thing in my mouth. Otherwise a sneeze of a guy will drive the surrounding gals crazy. In addition, President Clinton will be too busy in his oral, I mean oval office.

Bronze Age New World (was: what if)

There are numerous alternate history websites. I like Bronze Age New World, a collective friction project with an assumption a group of Caribbean Indians had developed Polynesian-type navigational skills, leading to faster technological advances and more intensive communications across the Americas (similar to what Greeks and Phoenicians did in the Mediterranean). They gradually sailed up and down from Delaware to Brazil, raiding, trading, and cross-fertilizing ideas, then eventually reached California via the Pacific Ocean. Europeans arrived on schedule. Comparing to our time line, they find the natives have advanced bronze-age technology, urbanized kingdoms, and American brewed diseases.

Honey, I widened the kids!

Don’t feel bad if you are heavy. It might be your parents’ fault. People have been thinking obesity is genetic. Now scientists have the proof––only the change of one DNA base pair will do it. Yes, one base pair. Easy! No wonder the morning buses get packed so fast. Read “Gene Variant May Boost Obesity Risk” from ScienceNow for more detail. Further research might lead to:

1. Early identification of people with higher risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart diseases;
2. Reduce risk of obesity using gene therapy;
3. Engineering visuses to make people fat. (What a terrible biological weapon!)

Unfortunately, this finding does not mean those who don’t have the fat gene can sit tight. The causes of obesity are very complicated. Don’t rush to McDonald’s yet! (Image from pharyngula.org.)

Martians fight back

Astrobiologist at the Johnson Space Center of NASA claimed they found evidence of microbial life from wormy-looking relics in a Martian meteorite in 1996 (see BBC NEWS | Space rock re-opens Mars debate). It turned out those relics were mostly likely produced on Earth. Now the sequel is on: the same group found more interesting things on another Martian meteorite. BTW, this meteorite has a funny legend––when it fell our planet in Egypt in 1911, it killed a dog, a poor little victim of a Martian attack. The organic matters in the meteorite could be the dog’s final revenge.

What if...

What if JFK had not been murdered? What if Mark Antony had not fell in love with Cleopatra? I think the development of human society is a stable system. If Christopher Columbus had been killed in a storm in the Atlantic Ocean, someone would discover the new world later and history would go back to track. However, there were many occasions (usually have to do with accidents) where the history looks very fragile. For example, what if JFK had escaped the shot by 3 inches?

We can’t experiment history unless there is a Ctrl-Z key or a time machine to undo the critical events. It is possible for us to simulate, or at least to imagine if some historical events had happened in other ways. There is an interesting wiki website: Alternate History Wiki. There are many alternative scenarios such as “All the way with JFK”; In “Florida voted Blue” Gore won the Florida electoral votes; In “Rising Sun”, Japanese Navy won the Battle of Midway in 1942 and forced US to sign a cease-fire treaty; In “ROC circa 1970” the US supported Chinese Nationalist to win the civil war in 1947 so there won’t be PRC, only a short Korea War and no Vietnam War; In “Alexander Empire”, Alexander the Great lived much longer so he conquered Rome and solidified his empire.

So far I don’t see any practical meaning of this “simulation technique”. But it might be helpful for Terminator to execute its mission more efficiently.

Battery electrodes made by viruses

There will be a day when you don’t consider computer viruses bad, because your computer is made by viruses! A group in MIT used a genetically modified viruses to fabricate nanoscale battery electrodes. This type of viruses can line up and coat themselves with metal. The results will be published on Science (Nam et. al.). How wonderful will it be if wacky viruses can assemble transistors for us, and Intel makes CPUs in the way Budweiser makes beer!

"Smart search" of ask.com

Ask.com has a search feature called “smart answer”, that pinpoints the answer of a question such as “who is the most beautiful woman in the world”. Is it smart enough to replace Snow White’s stepmother’s magic mirror? The following are some test results done after lunchtime, as well as my responses:

• the largest ocean [Web Answer] The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean on earth. –– Good answer
• the largest animal [Web Answer] ... The blue whale is the largest animal in the world. –– OK
• highest building in the world [Web Answer] ... The Catherdral of Commerce: The Highest Building in the World, (1916) –– What! 1916?
• the Heaviest animal [Web Answer] The heaviest animal is the tapir which hardly reaches 300 kg in weight. –– Huh??
• the worst Country in the world [Web Answer] The United States is the worst country in the world –– !!
• The most dangerous person in the world [Web Answer] The most dangerous person in the world is the uneducated one. –– Good one
• the most dangerous woman [Web Answer] "(Queen Elizabeth) is the most dangerous woman in Europe." Adolph Hitler. –– Be careful.
• Who Is the best Man in the World [Web Answer] Indiana Jones is the best man in the world, and so is Harrison Ford! –– ???
• the ugliest woman in the world [Web Answer] The ugliest person in the world is Jocelyn Wildenstein. –– Seems right.
• Ugliest woman in the world. [Web Answer] Giving it to Juliet Roberts, ugliest woman in the world. –– Seems ok to me.
• Smartest Person in the World [Web Answer] The smartest person in the world is the Monday morning quarterback. At least Bush has the guts to get in the game. Yes, I do defend Bush. –– I thought the answer is me.
• the most popular search engine in the world [Web Answer] Google is the most popular search engine in the world. –– At least ask.com is honest.

What will happen if I post “ask.com is the dumbest search engine in the world” in the web. Is it going to use this statement as an answer?

Fish has landed, finally

Paleontologists finally found the fossil of an ancient fish crawling to dry land. See “First fossil of fish that crawled onto land discovered” from New Scientists. The extremely well preserved fossil shows wrist-like fins that enabled crawling and supporting body weight in shallow water. The skeleton is very similar to that of a crocodile, suggesting it might want to breath fresh air. The locations of its eyes are to the top of its head, very natural for a shallow-water crocodile-like animal. That is interesting: crocodiles prey on land animals so their eyes are on the top. What did this newfound fish want to see on dry land? There was nothing alive above it. Perhaps it was too curious to see the new world and didn't bother the danger in water. Perhaps it mostly stayed on deeper floor. Details can be found in Nature, v. 440, p. 757 and p. 764.

To eat weeds, or not to

Many people believe once an agricultural civilization appeared, it would not turn back to hunting-gathering. In fact, farmers in southern Sweden reverted to hunting-gathering in 2700 BC, than went back to farming 400 years later (Guns, Germs, and Steel p. 109). It is easy to imagine the difficulty of farming in the prehistoric time, but I was surprised that a matured agricultural civilization, such as the colonial India, suffered such a huge yield fluctuation — according to the report “Early Farming Communities Often Ate Weeds, Other Wild Plants, Archaeologist Finds. Thousands of years after the advent of agriculture, ancient farmers in India routinely foraged for wild plants — even weeds — when times got tough, a UCLA archaeologist has found.”

No wonder throughout the 150k-year modern human history, agriculture appeared only 10k years ago.

Lab-grown bladders

Tailoring lab-grown organs for particular patients is almost reality: (BBC NEWS | Health | Lab-grown bladders 'a milestone'). No stem cells involved so there is no fear of political issues. Bladders are simpler than most other organs though. My question is: could an organ be grown in patient's body? Imaging if the doctors can put in a scaffold with an embedded chip-level device to seed the cells. The device can control the seeding process remotely. If possible, the device can be used to monitor the growth of tissue. When time is ready, just have another surgery to take out the scaffold/device and finalize the "plumbing". Is this approach easier to grow blood vessels and incubate tissue culture?

Not so scientific science

Science magazine is the most prestigious scientific journal on this planet. I missed a letter last August about the possibility of scrapie in ancient China, (Scrapie in Ancient China? -- Wickner 309 (5736): 874b -- Science) until I read the two comments on the recent issue (n. 5769, p.1876). Scrapie is a fatal brain disease for sheep that causes an uncontrollable itching sensation. This disease gets more attention due to the similarity with mad cow disease but can be traced back to 18^th century. Dr. Wickner's argued that the simplified Chinese character itchy is a combination of disease and sheep, so this character might indicate an evidence of scrapie. Because Chinese writing system is more than 2000 years old, scrapie can be traced back to 2000 years ago in China. I respect Dr. Wickner's creativity. I should have looked at my native language in a more creative perspective. However, the evolution of Chinese writing system is not that straightforward. Any person educated in Taiwan or Hong Kong knows the traditional version of this character (癢) is not about a sheep disease.

Looking at the structure of this Chinese character for clue is an interesting idea but has to be dealt with carefully. I am wondering why no one reviewed this letter. Feel like Science looks after interesting stories to sell more copies rather than science.