Even more stuff we didn’t know about

Deep Life
Teeming masses of organisms thrive beneath the seafloor
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/337918/title/Deep_Life

I love this sort of stuff. Sometimes (often) scientists in mature (or thought to be mature) disciplines get all cocking thinking they know everything (or at least know what they don’t know) and then stuff like this gets discovered turning their convictions on their heads. For a very long time, even when it was shown that the sea floor wasn’t the lifeless muddy plain that people thought before they set eyes on it, scientists didn’t think anything interesting happened there. It seems to me that, particularly for those of us interested in the origins of life or astrobiology (is there a distinction?), that the determination that life has basically completely infected the entire crust of the planet and not just one or two forms of life, but likely thousands of wildly different forms of life (of course, still dependent on DNA and most of the amino acids we are familiar with (but how would we recognition them if they weren’t DNA-based or use amino acids?)) shows that once life has arrived on a planet (through Panspermia or native evolution (I favor that life is inevitable, so I expect native evolution is the driving force occasionally salted via Panspermia)) that planet (or moon, or asteroid) is infected forever. Simulations have shown that even the impact that formed the moon, as violent as that was, probably wouldn’t have been enough to totally eliminate life from the Earth, even though the oceans had boiled away and the top few miles of the surface were molten rock (there would have been rafts of non-molten rock, the centers of which would have been cool enough to support some of the extremophiles discovered the last decade or so). Life is tenacious and I expect that if we are finally able to adequately explore just our own solar system we will find life pretty much ubiquitous (would that we could get warp drive and explore the galaxy!).

As if we needed another reason to lay awake at night

Prions more mobile than thought
Disease agents can jump from one species to another
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/337970/title/Prions_more_mobile_than_thought

For those of you who don’t know what prions are, they are protein molecules in the brain (they are in other parts of the body, but ‘infections’ there don’t have such a negative impact) that cause other similar proteins as themselves to spontaneously change form into a useless shape (protein function depends almost exclusively on the location of a few select amino acids within a highly defined three dimensional structure, damage that structure in any way and almost certainly the protein can no longer accomplish its intended function). Prions are not destroyed by cooking (but are by incineration), unlike bacteria, fungi or viral infections. Further, the length of time between being ‘infected’ (infection implies, to me anyway, some sort of reproductive organism, which this ain’t) and evincing symptoms might be years or even decades (somewhat like HIV/AIDS in this). Fortunately, it seems that it is only transmitted by eating ‘infected’ food (and only animal-based food at that), so it would seem that vegans are safe and if we can keep it out of our food chain, we as a population can be safe. Unfortunately, it seems, according the article, that more tissues besides that from brain and nerves can serve as ‘host’ to the ‘infection’ and no one is monitoring those tissues. Also, it would also seem from the article that more organisms are capable of transmitting the disease than initially thought, so we might be in for some deep shit in the future.

So, bottom line: you can’t do a damn thing about it so just ignore this unless you are pining for reasons to lie awake at night worrying about things you can’t change. Besides, we all gonna die anyway, so whats the worry?

This is why the Global Warming camp needs to take a break

Amazon may become greenhouse gas emitter
Rain forest could go from sink to source
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/337827/title/Amazon_may_become_greenhouse_gas_emitter

BTW, here is a link to the peer reviewed paper: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7381/full/nature10717.html

So, as I have mentioned before, blaming climate change exclusively on the burning of fossil fuels and trashing any scientists who dare to suggest otherwise means we might be (likely are, in my mind) focusing on the totally wrong area. This paper suggests (more than suggests in my mind) that deforestation (i.e., converting native lands into agricultural use) has a great impact on CO2 levels. What if, as I have alluded to before, the real measurable impact of humans on climate change (leaving aside, for the moment, that we could very easily just be experiencing normal climatic variations (and further not even delving into the notion that according to the long-range models built to explain the globe’s periods of glaciation have us already in one and our ‘tampering’ with the environment might be keeping us all from experiencing a nuclear winter)) might have bupkus to do with burning oil/coal/gas, but could instead be due to our continual raping of the land and the sea. So, if we were to go with the environmentalists wet dream and overnight stop using fossil fuels (and somehow magically keep our economies from crashing (which is what I think they actually desire) and thus cause the starving death of _billions_ of people (gotta wonder if that isn’t also in their plan)), it might not change a damn thing.

Up to now I had ignored Romney’s Mormonism

Mitt and the White Horse Prophecy
A close look at the roots of Romney’s — and the Mormon church’s — political ambitions
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/29/mitt_and_the_white_horse_prophecy/singleton/

I have more or less ignored Mormonism since I learned the basics of their religious belief (to wit, that an angel ‘Moroni’ guided Smith to de-compress the golden plates into the unbelievably verbose result) and didn’t give a damn that Romney was/is a Mormon. That was, until I read the above article. Presuming it is based on fact (I didn’t do any research, but in my experience Salon’s writers tend to be on the up-and-up) it is quite clear that Romney has been groomed since birth to become the Mormon Presidential candidate (which, I guess, helps explain Huntsman dropping out (of course, his crappy poll numbers could explain that as well)). It seems he is considered the embodiment of their “White Horse Prophecy” that they produced when their original man, Smith, was assassinated during his attempt at the White House. Still, does that even matter? Well, I would say that if he made no bones about the prophecy and talked openly about it (which, I am sure, would have torpedoed his run before it started), then no. However, he (as quoted in the article) has specifically denied any association with the prophecy, including being considered as its embodiment. Since it is totally clear to me that Romney will say whatever it takes to get elected (which, of course, just makes him the same old politician that there ever was; why is it so bad to have principles in US politics?) I am now left questioning is he doing that because he is a soulless politician who will lie, cheat and steal, sell us to special interests and chortle all the way to becoming a billionaire president (in other words, just an ordinary politician) or is he part of a conspiracy within the Mormon church to get him installed in our highest office so they can de-secularize our government and put Mormonism as the official religion (which, if I read what the article’s author said correctly, was what Smith was up to so many years ago).

Maybe I won’t sit idly by during the election as until(if) Romney provides answers that make me feel reassured (which I am having problems envisioning what those could be), I don’t think I would want to see this particular Mormon as our President.

Some cool stuff that could be quite useful

Miracle material graphene can distil booze, says study
Membranes based on the “miracle material” graphene can be used to distil alcohol, according to a new study in Science journal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16747208

Amazing enough that this stuff appears to be an effective shield against helium (few materials are), but 10x more amazing that water migrates through the material at almost the same rate of evaporation! I am sure that it will be investigated for concentration/purification uses, though clearly cost will be a very non-trivial issue. However, if they can find a simple, inexpensive way to produce the material in commercial quantities (I got no ideas), then I can see a huge gain in uses for desalination as current forms of desalination are considered very expensive. Presuming there is a way to realize ethanol from cellulose (thereby putting corn back into the food chain), extracting the ethanol from the water is a very energy intensive process and something like this might make the process vastly less expensive (if, naturally, the price of the materials is low enough).

As a by the by, one of the LinkedIn groups I monitor brought up a research paper where the authors engineered e.coli (our gut bacteria genetic engineering workhorse) to not only digest cellulose, but to use the digested cellulose to produce several different compounds that could be used as gasoline, diesel or jet fuel substitutes. (Note that this research is distinct from work mentioned here.) It would seem to me that the era of the biofuels might be upon us in the next decade or so, nicely picking up as peak (fossil) oil declines. I wish I could motivate myself to work in this area, it looks like a gold mine!

USA, the prison society

The Caging of America
Why do we lock up so many people?
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120130crat_atlarge_gopnik

This is a really long article by ‘net standards, but I suggest that anyone who either doesn’t understand how punitive our incarceratative society is or wants to understand it better to read it in full. There are many excellent statements in there and I found myself wanting to embed quotes from almost the entire thing. I had to force myself to pick just a few in the hopes that by teasing you a bit you will go read the whole article.

For me, this quote is really the key to the whole thing:

No more chilling document exists in recent American life than the 2005 annual report of the biggest of these firms, the Corrections Corporation of America. Here the company (which spends millions lobbying legislators) is obliged to caution its investors about the risk that somehow, somewhere, someone might turn off the spigot of convicted men:

Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities. . . . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.

Scary indeed!

The article pretty well debunks the idea that our astronomical incarceration rate has anything to do with the decrease in crime that has been happening the last couple of decades. Instead, it seems that the solution was the idea that ‘hot spot’ policing and ‘stop-and-frisk’ policy caused a feedback loop that by discouraging crime, crime became less socially acceptable, leading to less crime, etc.:

Curbing crime does not depend on reversing social pathologies or alleviating social grievances; it depends on erecting small, annoying barriers to entry.

As damning evidence for this conclusion…

One fact stands out. While the rest of the country, over the same twenty-year period, saw the growth in incarceration that led to our current astonishing numbers, New York, despite the Rockefeller drug laws, saw a marked decrease in its number of inmates. “New York City, in the midst of a dramatic reduction in crime, is locking up a much smaller number of people, and particularly of young people, than it was at the height of the crime wave,” Zimring observes. Whatever happened to make street crime fall, it had nothing to do with putting more men in prison. The logic is self-evident if we just transfer it to the realm of white-collar crime: we easily accept that there is no net sum of white-collar crime waiting to happen, no inscrutable generation of super-predators produced by Dewar’s-guzzling dads and scaly M.B.A. profs; if you stop an embezzlement scheme here on Third Avenue, another doesn’t naturally start in the next office building. White-collar crime happens through an intersection of pathology and opportunity; getting the S.E.C. busy ending the opportunity is a good way to limit the range of the pathology.

This bit sort of goes with my idea of how prisons should be managed:

Which leads, further, to one piece of radical common sense: since prison plays at best a small role in stopping even violent crime, very few people, rich or poor, should be in prison for a nonviolent crime.

As for recidivism, there is this…

Zimring’s research shows clearly that, if crime drops on the street, criminals coming out of prison stop committing crimes. What matters is the incidence of crime in the world, and the continuity of a culture of crime, not some “lesson learned” in prison.

I have read several articles in the New Yorker in the past and been impressed with the writing and this one is no exception. I like well-written articles that appear to be well researched, I get a chance to feel like I am learning something. While much of the article was in line with what I had already read in the past, the way it was packaged helps to focus things. Go ahead, read the thing. Don’t be such a twitter head that you can’t read articles lasting more than a paragraph or twain!

SOPA, PIPA? Pansies!

If You Thought SOPA Was Bad, Just Wait Until You Meet ACTA
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/23/if-you-thought-sopa-was-bad-just-wait-until-you-meet-acta/

Just like the bla bla bla police state bla bla bla, this is getting tiresome in its repetition. The US uses to be a bastion against the global oligarchy (which has been around for centuries (note that being Jewish has nothing to do with this)), but I guess that was because our country just hadn’t been around long enough for our local oligarchy to have its tentacles in total control of everything like it does now. Until the last 20 years or so, I considered that the US was by far the best place to be an entrepreneur since our society rules, as well as our intellectual property and legal system, applied equally to the big boys as well as the little wannabes. That has steadily eroded over the last several decades and has now pretty much reached the point where without being born to the right parents, attending the right schools and/or marrying the right spouse, any chance of vertical mobility has vanished. This unenviable state is the norm throughout most of the world (there might be a few places left, but I can’t convince my wife to consider emigrating, so haven’t done much research on where to go) and things like ACTA just ensure that this will remain the case. I mention a bit about the next paradigm here, that is presuming that the oligarchy doesn’t block it from happening. There is hope if the oligarchy’s grip can be broken, but I don’t hold out any hope for that.

Just when I start to develop small shreds of hope that things will get better, I get deluged with crap like this!

Yes, it is from the WSJ, but…

No Need to Panic About Global Warming
There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Expecting unbiased discussions on global warming from the Wall Street Journal is sort of like expecting an unbiased review of mortgage-backed securities or financial regulation, so clearly one should read this while sucking on a large chunk of salt. Having said that, I do generally feel that many of the ‘accepted’ ways to deal with the posited negative aspects of global warming lack any sort of economic rigor or cost/benefit analysis and appear to be focused exclusively on the idea that we MUST decrease our use of fossil fuels. Most of my earlier comments can be found here.

I have read (but been unable to find the citation) that the conversion of wild land to cultivation more closely matches the increases in CO2 than that of fossil fuel burning, so if that were to be true then eliminating our use of fossil fuels would have little or no impact on global warming. I have also read some very plausible research papers that suggest there is an increasing amount of cosmic rays impacting our upper atmosphere (no real good understanding of why) and that also tracks really well with global warming. Since the vast amount of voice I hear is about the damage and loss of life due to storms that are presumed to be worse due to global warming, yet no account is take of the fact that populations in general and sea side populations in particular have skyrocketed over time, makes me strongly discount the ‘information’ as blather. There will be winners and losers in any change in our climate, human caused or natural variation, and by only fixating on the bad things that (might) happen without any regard for the good things that (also might) happen the sheeple are left with the impression that those of us that insist on more research before we take steps to plunge our global economy into the stone age are conspiratorial idiots determined to destroy our society. I have read convincing arguments that the conspiracy is actually on the other side and the tree hugging extremist environmentalists are using global warming to bash their way into policy positions with the exclusive intention to eliminate fossil fuel consumption irrespective of any other potential means of addressing the situation.

So, for those of you who think my opinion has any meaning (note that I started to follow the research behind global warming long before it was ‘cool’ (I clearly recall giving a presentation on the topic in a college class over 20 years ago)) I consider the evidence way far from ‘incontrovertible’. I am not convinced that fossil fuels are the exclusive (or indeed even primary) cause of the increased levels of CO2 and while I am quite certain that humans have caused some part of the increase and I am totally convinced that humans are capable of (and are currently doing so) destroying the Earth’s ecosystem, I do not ascribe to the idea that the increase in temps we are seeing are a) significant beyond normal variations in climate, b) part of an irreversible trend and c) the only possible way of addressing them(it?) are to eliminate fossil fuel usage.

Skynet in its infancy

New drone has no pilot anywhere, so who’s accountable?
The Navy is testing an autonomous plane that will land on an aircraft carrier. The prospect of heavily armed aircraft screaming through the skies without direct human control is unnerving to many.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-auto-drone-20120126,0,740306.story

While it is a bit premature to be serious about self-aware robots going on killing sprees, I don’t think it is too premature to think about how these things should be addressed in future planning. While it is _possible_ to build a system that is immune to external takeover (I am not sure I have the confidence that our military could do such a thing), there is absolutely no way to guard against an internal threat taking over such a system. By putting more and more power into fewer and fewer hands it becomes easier and easier for adversaries to take control. The upside to a chaotic system where so damn many people have to be involved in even the most trivial of decisions is that it is very rare for decisions to happen in a vacuum. Turn that dynamic on its head and you can have dangerous situations where a Strangelovian situation arises where one man (or woman, let us not be sexist here) can unilaterally go to war. Unlike scenarios like Fail Safe where there are humans in the loop (unfortunate for the movies mentioned, those humans carried out their duties with robot-like precision, to the detriment of two huge cities and millions of people), once humans have been removed from the decision making loop (or so greatly reduced that one or just a handful of people can implement decisions) then there will be no hope of any sort of callback once a fateful decision has been made. Unless, of course, you have some sort of universal kill switch, which, of course, makes your whole force acutely vulnerable (which I am sure would never make it into production).

Anyway, drones are all operated by humans, just have the same autonomy as a today’s autopilot found on traditional airliners. The plane is not making any sort of decisions, certainly nothing about mission, weapons activation, targets, etc. What is described above is the first steps toward a truly autonomous system that will have to have at least minimal decision making capability. I see this as inevitable due to nothing more that cost cutting and increasing efficiency in our military. Unfortunately, as stupid as it seems to go down this route, it is just as stupid to not to (the only rational path is to do away with the military on this scale all together, not something I think is at all feasible in our current political climate). Just like in the Terminator movies, Armageddon hasn’t been avoided, just delayed.

Now back to the previous hand…

George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/22/george-soros-on-the-coming-u-s-class-war.html

Just a little while ago I posted how there might actually be some hope that the apocalypse might be avoidable after all: Maybe it is so, but maybe it ain’t and then I read the above piece discussing Soros’ opinions. In many respects he outlines the exact same things I am seeing (or, since he is the rich guy, I am seeing the same things he is seeing), but just because he is rich and respected (well, respected by some, which puts him miles above me and my little blog) doesn’t mean he is right. However, I do feel that bad things are likely to happen and it would take a very foresightful person (and Obama is way too deep in the oligarchy’s pocket to be that person (and the GOP candidates such morons they have no chance at all)) to be able to navigate the challenges ahead without triggering a negative feedback loop leading to an apocalypse. Thus, I lean more toward Soros’ point of view regarding the future and much less toward the author mentioned in my previous post.

It sucks when you figure the best-case scenario is when things don’t suck too much!