TopoLog

I know where I can find some...

2009-03-13T08:45:00.001+02:00

It's about time they find something useful for pyrite to do. Lemme see, can we open a mine near Cape St Francis? clipped from metamodern.comA new paper in the journal Environmental Science & Technology assesses the requirements for scaling solar photovoltaic systems to the terawatt levels needed to supply electric

Engineering the post-humans

2007-08-17T08:53:00.000+02:00

The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering - Michael J. Sandel - Books - Review - New York Times Annotated This is the real problem with self-engineering. It seizes control of humanity so radically that humanity can no longer judge it. We can’t be certain it’s diminishing us. But we can’t be certain it’s perfecting us, either. Sandel got it half right, which ain’t bad.

T.rex vision

2006-07-07T18:46:00.000+02:00

Sight for 'Saur Eyes: T. rex vision was among nature's best: Science News Online, July 1, 2006:T. rex had a binocular range of 55�, which is wider than that of modern hawks, Stevens reports in the summer Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Moreover, over the millennia, T. rex evolved features that improved its vision: Its snout grew lower and narrower, cheek grooves cleared its sight lines, and

The Political Brain

2006-06-26T09:31:00.000+02:00

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: The Political Brain -- A recent brain-imaging study shows that our political predilections are a product of unconscious confirmation bias: "We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," Westen is quoted as saying in an Emory University press release. "What we saw instead was a network of

Quantum Ontology: Minds, Brains & Catalysis

2006-06-07T12:07:00.000+02:00

Quantum Ontology: Minds, Brains & Catalysis: Actually just a link to more info on the muscle contraction and quantum tunneling (also known as Rooney's foot) topic referred to in the previous blog. An early application of solitons in biology was proposed by Davydov (1982). He suggested that they may play a role in the process of muscle contraction and relaxation (Also Pang, 2001, dealing with the

Johnjoe McFadden: The power in Rooney's foot

2006-06-07T09:29:00.000+02:00

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Johnjoe McFadden: The power in Rooney's foot:Enzymes capture light's energy from the sun, power our cells, break down our food and synthesise all the proteins, DNA, fats and other biomolecules of living cells. They do all these jobs by speeding up chemical reactions, so that they occur on biological, rather than geological timescales. But the source of this

Spinosaurus as the biggest carnivorous dinosaur

2006-03-02T09:45:00.000+02:00

The Biggest Carnivore: Dinosaur History Rewritten: Now Cristiano Dal Sasso of the Civil Natural History Museum in Milan says Giganotosaurus has been dethroned based on estimates from a new Spinosaurus skull. I think Thomas will be upset about this. Tyrannosaurus isn't Rex anymore, it would seem. Still, these measurements were made on fragments of a Spinosaurus skull, so, T, there's hope.

Email Et(h)iquette

2006-02-16T14:59:00.000+02:00

The Secret Cause of Flame Wars: The reason for this is egocentrism, or the difficulty some people have detaching themselves from their own perspective, says Epley. In other words, people aren't that good at imagining how a message might be understood from another person's perspective. Every mailinglist, forum and newsgroup should post a link to the article. According to recent research

DNA from crushed bones and fossils

2006-02-10T09:14:00.000+02:00

Bone Crystal's Treasure:This method holds much promise for the future analysis of ancient DNA in bones in yielding more reliable and authentic results than has previously been possible, and may help in unearthing the mysteries of our ancestral past. Not quite Jurassic Park yet, but they're getting there. Technorati tags: genetics, paleontology

T.rex's Opa

2006-02-08T20:55:00.000+02:00

For Thomas - they suspect this find to be an early ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex and other tyrannosaurs. Scientists find earliest known ancestor of T. rex: A two-legged meat-eater, the beast was far smaller than T. rex, measuring about 10 feet from its snout to the tip of its tail and standing about 3 feet tall at the hip. It also sported relatively long, three-fingered arms, rather than the

A scientific leap, but without the faith

2006-02-05T12:05:00.000+02:00

I don't want to get into the Intelligent Design vs Science debate on this blog. Really, I don't. But, damn!, this is just such an excellent piece: Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/05/2006 | A scientific leap, but without the faith: In the Dover courtroom, proponents of intelligent design could be heard repeating their mantra: "Evolution is just a theory. It's not a fact." Scientists would then point

Discovery could lead...

2006-01-27T13:06:00.000+02:00

David Brin said in some interview the URL of which I can't find just now, something to the effect of "Science has become a spectator sport...". He said this in context of the internet and all the science news sites (and blogs, I'm sure). And it certainly seems true. Even Topolog is a commentator on this new "sport". Now, my idea on this post was not so much to discuss this philosophical concept

Duckbill dinosaur mystery finally solved

2006-01-25T15:19:00.000+02:00

One for Thomas the tyrannosaur... Duckbill dinosaur mystery finally solved:"From the brain case, there's no indication that the nerves curled upward into the crest, as we would expect if the crest was used for the sense of smell," Evans says. "It appears the brain changed very little from their non-crested dinosaur ancestors, and the primary region of the sense of smell was located right in front

Politics and reasoning

2006-01-25T15:10:00.000+02:00

Emory study reveals the political brain:"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory who led the study. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up. Nothing new, really, but nice to have a scientific basis for my understanding of politics, to have my

Title 1 of 3

2006-01-25T09:07:00.000+02:00

I have no idea why, all of a sudden (geologically speaking), I get three titles to each entry. All in different styles and colours. I only type the title in once...really...

First Impressions Of Beauty May Demonstrate Why The Pretty Prosper

2006-01-25T09:05:00.000+02:00

First Impressions Of Beauty May Demonstrate Why The Pretty Prosper:"Research has demonstrated time and again that there are tremendous social and economic benefits to being attractive," Olson said. "Attractive people are paid more, are judged more intelligent and will receive more attention in most facets of life. "This favoritism, while poorly understood, seems to be innate and cross-cultural.

Social and cultural evolution

2006-01-23T14:28:00.000+02:00

Just a thought on cultural evolution (completely unrehearsed and with no quotable or linkable evidence): Evolutionary list one of two: Approximately 300+ million years ago (please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these details, but it's not overly important just yet) amphibians were the dominant organisms on earth. Somewhere in the late Triassic dinosaurs came to prominence and "ruled" for, say

Machines and objects to overtake humans on the Internet: ITU

2006-01-21T14:05:00.000+02:00

BREITBART.COM - Machines and objects to overtake humans on the Internet: ITU In a report entitled "Internet of Things", the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) outlined the expected next stage in the technological revolution where humans, electronic devices, inanimate objects and databases are linked by a radically transformed Internet. Technorati tags: science, science fiction,

Light is slowing down. E doesn't equal MC square

2006-01-20T11:32:00.000+02:00

Treading the light fantastic: Einstein challenged - Science - Specials Thought I'd start the year with something fundamental: He believes that not long after the Big Bang light hit a "speed bump" and is, in fact, slowing down. And I'll tell you what, if it had hit any of the speed bumps here in Grahamstown you can bet it'd be standing still. Which, come to think of it, time is certainly

2005-10-10T10:35:00.000+02:00

Reuters | Stanford team clinches top spot in robot desert race So they did it! In a Volkswagen, nogal. Or should I say, with a Volkswagen, since no-one was actually driving it. No-one I know, anyway. Well done! Damn, last time these guys couldn't get beyond 10km and now they did 132 miles (what's that in real units?) in 7 hours. Go to Grand Challenge and click on the Win webcast. Very

2005-10-04T21:06:00.000+02:00

'Miracle mouse' can grow back lost limbs - Health news - Times Online Original date of this post: August 28, 2005 A fascinating development (something I'm sure you'll find is quite common on this blog). Scientists have created a self-healing mouse. The things they did to this mouse! And yet, it regenerated limbs, organs, it healed holes, perforated ears and who knows what else. It came through

2005-10-04T10:35:00.000+02:00

Stem Cells Repair Damaged Spinal Cords in Mice Similar to the previous post. The things they do to these mice! In this case they are looking at regenerating spinal cord neural cells. Injecting human stem cells into mice, after damaging the mice' spinal cords. The human stem cells develop into neural cells (of various types) and establish connections, such that the damage is reversed. "We show

2005-10-01T07:57:00.000+02:00

Photos: Robot racers tune up for Darpa Challenge | CNET News.com A couple of photos of the challengers. I like the motorbike entry, but I'm not sure if it's in the 20 that will take part. Technorati tags: robotics, artificial intelligence

2005-09-26T11:12:00.000+02:00

AP Wire | 09/25/2005 | Robots to face off for $2M Pentagon prize Things are starting to happen, and this time it sounds like they may even break that 8 mile barrier... Newcomers have joined a handful of last year's teams to form a motley mix of garage tinkerers, academia and corporations. All hope that their machines - fitted with the latest sensors, cameras and computers - have aged a

2005-09-26T10:16:00.000+02:00

Nanogirl Dermal Display Windows getting under your skin. 'Pixel bots' and 'programmable dermal display'. On the back of your hand. Perhaps this will be the future of cell phones. Or tattoos? Animated tattoos, perhaps. Anyway, your health first... Technorati tags: nanotechnology, medicine

2005-09-23T11:17:00.000+02:00

BBC NEWS | Technology | Deadly plague hits Warcraft world An virtual plague devastating a virtual world. This is just so cool. Science fiction is charging down this way from somewhere in the future. Many online discussion sites were buzzing with reports from the disaster zones with some describing seeing "hundreds" of bodies lying in the virtual streets of the online towns and cities.

2005-09-13T09:27:00.000+02:00

SPACE.com -- Astronotes | Space Elevator Gets FAA Lift They are actually doing something. I'm obviously too cynical and narrow-minded (insular would also be a reasonable word to use here, I think). Still, like the man said, it's a 'trillion-dollar moneymaker'. Come to think of it, what would a trillion-dollars look like in Rand? The lifters are early prototypes of the technology that the

2005-09-09T12:08:00.000+02:00

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Flying reptiles just got bigger This entry is for Thomas (the mammal, but also the tyrannosaurus and, recently, the velociraptor). This beautiful picture is from the BBC website in the heading above. Hopefully, they'll let me keep it on the page. New findings in the Americas (they mention Mexico and Brazil) show that some of these creatures had wingspans of over 18m

2005-09-01T22:12:00.000+02:00

EETimes.com - Hitachi claims Cambridge qubit silicon success Another step. At this rate I'll definitely be heading to the wikipedia page soon. The problem is that someone needs to fill in the years between 2001 and 2005... Actually, I was going to write 'Another small step...', imagining myself being fiendishly clever with the play on quantum and small and all that, but then I thought that

2005-09-01T16:15:00.000+02:00

Trading Rockets for Space Elevators We all know what a space elevator is, right? We've all read Arthur C. Clarke's Fountains of Paradise. Well, I read it many many years ago, and can actually only remember that it mentioned a space elevator. Okay, but the space elevator idea isn't new, and it has left the realms of science fiction. NASA, starting somewhere in 2000, has been looking at this as an

2005-08-31T09:58:00.000+02:00

Stoping light in quantum leap Perhaps not 'stoping' so much as slowing it down. Again, I am amazed. Who would've thought you can slow light down? Naturally, it's not that simple. Nothing is simple, or common sense, in the quantum world. It seems they use a vocabulary that's similar to our normal day-to-day language (be that english or south eastern mongolian, I suspect), but differs from it in

2005-08-22T14:05:00.000+02:00

USATODAY.com - Nanotech researchers report big breakthrough They've finally come up with sheets of nanotubes: The team has developed an automated process that produced 2 ¾-inch-wide strips of nanotubes at a rate of about 47 feet per minute. Other methods take much longer to create nanotube sheets. And what's important: "The technique is most elegant and the applications they've shown are quite

2005-08-17T15:13:00.000+02:00

Common Sense vs Uncommon Sense I'm not going to add anything to this. Just read Horgan's thesis and then further down the page Susskind's counter argument.

2005-08-11T20:14:00.000+02:00

Boffins create zombie dogs | The Other Side | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (27-06-2005) The dogs are rendered comatose by replacing their blood with a cold saline solution. In this state the dogs are considered dead as they don't breathe and have no heart or brain activity. Then, three hours later, they are revived by replacing the solution in their veins with their blood and giving them an

2005-07-18T21:25:00.000+02:00

SPACE.com -- The Biggest Starquake Ever The resulting flash of energy -- which lasted only a tenth of a second -- released more energy than the Sun emits in 150,000 years. A magnetar has an...well, I suppose it's a 'magnetar quake' then...and the energy released is so much that a 'tenth of a second' blast will blow back the hair of even the most hardened astrophysicist (wildly assuming he has

2005-07-16T14:34:00.000+02:00

Is bubble fusion back? (July 2005) - News - PhysicsWeb And some more on what is now obviously known as 'bubble fusion'.

2005-07-16T14:31:00.000+02:00

Realistic Time Machine? New design could forgo exotic ingredient: Science News Online, July 16, 2005 A bit more information...

2005-07-12T14:53:00.000+02:00

A New Class of Time Machine Not much is said on this 'physorg' page - an abstract is quoted. I assume no-one has read the actual paper yet.

2005-07-07T10:33:00.000+02:00

Some recent dinosaur discoveries (for Thomas, the mammal): Dinosaur reclassified as crocodile June 23, 2005 The find suggests that, rather than rising together, meat-eating theropods such as Tyrannosaurus rex existed long before the plant-eating ornithischians, researchers said in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences. Traditionally these teeth were thought to belong

2005-07-07T00:09:00.000+02:00

BBC NEWS | Health | Brain cells are matured in lab An article from Tuesday, 14 June, 2005 which does my sense of being not much good either. Nobody told me the mature brain can produce brain cells. A little more than a decade ago, scientists came to realise that the brain continues to produce small amounts of new cells even in adulthood. They also neglected to mention that braincells have been

2005-06-10T10:27:00.000+02:00

American Scientist Online - An interview with Michael Gazzaniga Author of "The Ethical Brain", which I haven't read yet, but the interview is very interesting and worth having a look at.

2005-06-07T09:51:00.000+02:00

DARPA picks 40 robot hopefuls for $2m race | The Register It sounds like this time things are going to be different. Can't wait. "It is truly remarkable how much progress the Grand Challenge teams have made in a relatively short period of time,” said program manager Ron Kurjanowicz. “The (qualification event) will be very exciting and we will see autonomous vehicle performance that was not

2005-05-17T10:04:00.000+02:00

Researchers find way to produce very large diamonds very fast A while back they discovered diamond stars, and now they're making them in blocks: The standard growth rate is 100 micrometers per hour for the Carnegie process, but growth rates in excess of 300 micrometers per hour have been reached, and 1 millimeter per hour may be possible. With the colorless diamond produced at ever higher

2005-05-12T11:10:00.000+02:00

Beam Me to Mars :: Astrobiology Magazine :: Search for Life in the Universe This is just so fiendish: A typical Mars mission would begin as Earth and Mars are approaching the point of closest alignment as they progress in their orbits, with the Earth slightly behind Mars. A conventional rocket first launches the target spacecraft into orbit around Earth. The Magbeam station would fire a plasma

2005-05-06T20:29:00.000+02:00

PhysOrg: Carnegie Mellon robot will run time trials to enter $2 million desert race Just a reminder that this race is happening in October. I think my first post to this blog concerned this race (I seem to remember that the 'winner' of the race last year only managed something like 7km out of 150km...).

2005-05-04T09:48:00.000+02:00

Economist.com | Cold fusion Not yet a precursor to a starship engine, perhaps, but maybe an ancestor of Dr McCoy's portable diagnosis machine. Creating fusion using a crystal. As opposed to, for instance, bubbles and rock and roll?

2005-04-27T09:23:00.000+02:00

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | First synthetic virus created: That was 11 July, 2002: Scientists have assembled the first synthetic virus. To construct the virus, the researchers say they followed a recipe they downloaded from the internet and used gene sequences from a mail-order supplier. The animals were paralysed and then died. The more dangerous smallpox virus would be complex and

2005-04-12T12:50:00.000+02:00

1. Hang in There: The 25-Year Wait for Immortality and 2. Inventor sets his sights on immortality From 1.: By then, people will start lives that could last 1,000 years or more. Our human genomes will be modified to include the genetic material of microorganisms that live in the soil, enabling us to break down the junk proteins that our cells amass over time and which they can’t digest on their

2005-03-25T19:03:00.000+02:00

Interpretation and Philosophical Foundation of Quantum Mechanics The situation is quite different in the case of quantum theory [as opposed to the theory of relativity], where we do not have such a generally accepted principle which can serve as the foundation of the theory. Indeed, I would suggest that this is the very reason makes it possible that a variety of different interpretations - in the

2005-03-23T15:02:00.000+02:00

Starlab research: Christopher Altman Look at this... Last summer I held a research fellowship working with the Starlab CAM Brain group in studies designing and evolving artifical neural networks directly in silico. The project combines evolvable hardware and genetic algorithms in a novel approach towards the design and implementation of large-scale neural networks. Science fiction, or what?

2005-03-23T14:46:00.000+02:00

PCWorld.com - World's Most Powerful Computer Doubles in Size It's the size of half a tennis court. And that's the compact version.

2005-03-23T14:25:00.000+02:00

Scientists lighten up on dark energy | The Register I'm still on about the quantum computer and artificial neural networks, but I've discovered as I waded through the mangrove swamps of information google has virtualised all around me, that it's not all as simple as I thought. In fact...well, you can imagine. Nothing about 'quantum' was ever going to be simple. But I'll keep looking. In the

2005-03-22T15:40:00.000+02:00

NewsFactor Network - Innovation - From October 2002, some more on quantum computers...

2005-03-22T08:47:00.000+02:00

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Ask the Experts: Computer Science: What makes a quantum computer so different (and so much faster) than a conventional computer? This is the article I've been looking for.

2005-03-20T10:45:00.000+02:00

generation5 - Simple neural network as robot brain and Genetic Algorithms and Lego I don't have time to go into this, but let's keep these two articles in mind. Especially if you have a Lego Mindstorms kit...

2005-03-19T17:00:00.000+02:00

Just checking... Can you see the picture?

2005-03-19T14:48:00.000+02:00

KK emission On my wandering through the quantum computing world I discovered the animated image... I have to figure out how to get images on this blog...

2005-03-19T14:09:00.000+02:00

Quantum computing FAQ The interesting bit on that page is: interesting speculation on combining quantum computers with neural networks Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 09:38:36 +0100 (MET) Some time ago I read a very good article on quantum computers, explaining in fairly simple terms how they should eventually work. I'll post the link somewhere on this blog when I find it again. As I was reading it I

2005-03-18T20:57:00.000+02:00

neural network - Webopedia.com Strictly speaking, a neural network implies a non-digital computer, but neural networks can be simulated on digital computers. Neural networks are currently used prominently in voice recognition systems, image recognition systems, industrial robotics, medical imaging, data mining and aerospace applications. Some more introductory sites on neural networks: An

2005-03-18T20:26:00.000+02:00

India would become leader in nano-technology in 5 yrs How many people in India now? Last time I checked it was 700 million, but that was in the eighties.Here are some numbers: The population in India as at 0:00 hours on 1st March 2001 stood at 1,027,015,247 persons. With this, India became only the second country in the world after China to cross the one billionmark. India's population rose by

2005-03-18T14:55:00.000+02:00

First evidence for entanglement of three macroscopic objects has been seen in a superconducting circuit Now what on earth is entanglement again? Entanglement: A phenomenon in quantum mechanics in which set of (more than one)particles do not individually have a definite state but exist as an intermediate form of multiple “superposed” states. Each of these states describes each particle in a

2005-03-16T14:44:00.000+02:00

Warming Up to a Martian Carcass :: Astrobiology Magazine :: Search for Life in the Universe or Search for Oil on Mars? Sounds to me more like thinly disguised effort to get funding from the oil companies... I've read a few science fiction stories...and I've read a few science fiction stories with Mars as the backdrop. Often there's mining going on. Can't remember exactly what they're usually

2004-07-17T16:42:00.000+02:00

TopoLog Yep, this very blog. I'm still new at this, so hang in there. Let me try and explain what this will be all about. I'm a GIS specialist, and Topology is a big thing among GIS specialists. The definition of topology under the title, Topolog, above is very mathematical. In GIS it's all to do with features on a map being related to each other spatially (by being, for instance, next to

2004-07-17T15:43:00.000+02:00

Wired 12.05: START The future of robotics, perhaps? The DARPA challenge = 142 mile desert race. The best team managed 7.4 miles. This page at Wired is a great summary. Next year the prize money is $2 million. Hope they get those bugs sorted out. I'm obviously not an expert on robotics, but some of these attempts could perhaps have done with some testing beforehand? Or is that not allowed in