Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon discussed the future of money with special guest Ivan Kirigin.

Ivan recently left iRobot in Boston, where he worked as a software engineer for their Government & Industrial Division, to found Tipjoy. Tipjoy is a micropayment tipping sys that enables content creators to monetize what otherwise would have been free content.

How will micropayment systems change the way content creators are compensated? And how will the Web continue to transform our thinking about how value is created and transferred?

Click "Continue Reading" for the show notes:

Continue reading "FastForword Radio" »

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Michael votes for this Ted Talk, in which physicist Brian Cox out lines the workings of the Large Hadron Collider. Amazing stuff:

Meanwhile, Harvey recommends this YouTube snippet concerning a shocking display from a recent college girl's softball game:

That's right -- a shocking display of decency and sportsmanship. What is the world coming to, folks? Oh, wait -- I think I have the answer to that. More on the story here.

We'll try this out as a regular feature every Friday. If you have video recommendations, let me know.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

One of the reasons I don't lose sleep over Peak Oil is that there is such a broad range of alternative energy sources under development. The list includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Nuclear Fission
Solar
Concentrated Solar
Ethanol -- from switchgrass, cornstalks, etc.
Ethanol -- from waste
Methanol -- from coal
Synthfuel -- from coal
Synthfuel -- from shale
Synthfuel -- from tar sands
Biodiesel -- from waste
Biodiesel -- from algae
Nuclear Fusion

Progress is being made on all of these fronts. And if oil shoots up to $200, $300, $400 per barrel over the next couple of years, we can expect interest in these (as well as funding applied to them) to skyrocket.

Let's look at just the second and third items on the list, the two major forms of harnessing energy from the sun. What we normally think of as "solar energy" is the application of photovoltaic technology -- turning the sun's power directly into electricity. "Concentrated solar" power, AKA solar thermal energy, involves concentrating and capturing heat from the sun, which is then used to create steam and move an electricity-producing turbine.

We wrote about the tremendous promise of concentrated solar power just a few weeks ago, so I won't rehash all that here. Suffice it to say that, even if photovoltaic technology had hit some kind of peak of its own, meaning that we wouldn't expect much more from it than what we're getting now, concentrated solar would remain as a major potential energy source that we have barely even begun to exploit.

But the truth is that photovoltaic solar energy is far from any peak. Ray Kurzweil has repeatedly stated his assessment that solar energy is on a Moore's-Law-style trajectory of its own, and that all the worlds energy could be supplied by solar in as little as 20 years. So if Moore's Law is leading us to The Singularity, is this acceleration of solar power capability leading us to a solar singularity?

Some probably wouldn't like that term, seeing as it could make the whole question as to what exactly we mean by "singularity" even murkier than it currently is. But it has a ring to it, doesn't it?

Solar Singularity.

Anyhow, if we are going to get to the point where solar really does (or even could) supply all the world's power within a couple of decades, we are obviously going to have to see:

Accelerating progress in solar energy technology culminating in a fundamental shift in how the world's energy needs are met.

And that, then, can be how we define the solar singularity. It seems unlikely that it could be confused with any other kind of singularity, doesn't it?

We talked briefly on the most recent FastForward Radio about how we would know when we've reached the solar singularity. One suggestion was "when solar is cheaper than anything else." Another was "when they don't even bother to drill any more." Those are both good candidates. But how could we ever get to that point?

Continue reading "The (Solar) Singularity is Near" »

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Karl Hallowell comments on Stephen's review of Iron Man:

Hmmm, this is pretty pro-transhumanist. The hero has an awesome robot suit, an interesting gadget built in his chest, and a friendly AI. He also has an intriguing collection of modern and near future technology. All of this is portrayed in a mostly positive light.

One of the played-to-death tropes of future disappointment is the lack of flying cars. I used to trade in that one myself, but I got tired of it. Part of what we do at The Speculist is attempt to develop new future-related tropes. I like to think of myself as a memetician, but I will quickly admit that I don't have any academic credentials in the field. Anyhow, one trope that Stephen and I have been developing for some time is that, in the future, we will all be super-heroes. This started way back in '05 with our second FastForward Radio, wherein I suggested that -- in the future, we will all be Batman.

But it doesn't stop there. As we noted in our most recent FFR, a Japanese company is now working to make us all Iron Man -- or at least make those of us who want or need to be...

Nice! Now some will be happy to start at having a few gadgets (Batman) or maybe access to equipment that gives the impression of having advanced powers (Iron Man), but for others that won't be enough. One of the more obscure comics that I enjoyed in my youth was OMAC: the One-Man Army Corps. Set in the "world thats coming," OMAC definitely played with some transhumanist ideas, as detailed by Wikipedia:

One-Man Army Corps (OMAC) is a superhero comic book created by Jack Kirby and published by DC Comics. Set in the near future ("the world that's coming"), OMAC is a corporate nobody named Buddy Blank who is changed by an A.I. satellite called Brother Eye into the super-powered OMAC.

OMAC works for the Global Peace Agency, a group of faceless people who police the entire world using pacifistic weapons. The world balance is too dangerous for large armies, so OMAC is used as the main field enforcement agent for the Global Peace Agency.

All kinda dumb, and it didn't last, but one thing I remember Kirby writing in an editorial he provided in the first issue of OMAC was the idea that these kinds of things might really be on their way, that one day OMAC might be "just another Joe" and that Superman might be our ultimate dream come true.

So in the future, will we all wear a cape with matching boots? Probably not. I'm not even sure I can see the path forward that would get us to OMAC (much less Superman-level) abilities. I mean, we could probably do some astounding stuff with utility fog, but that would make us more like Green Lantern and his power ring than it would Superman...not that there's anything wrong with that! GL is very cool! But ultimately even the power ring is just an extension of Bruce Wayne's gadgets or Tony Stark's exoskeleton. It is technology external to the individual using it, not a reflection of innate physical ability.

If it is our destiny to be Superman, it is probably not going to happen in this substrate. It's a lot easier to be Superman in a virtual world than it is in this one. And, in fact, in Second Life, everyone can fly -- it is one of the chief means of transportation. It's also interesting to note that in Second Life, there is a functioning Green Lantern Corps -- acting as a kind of virtual Guardian Angels to protect some virtual activities from being disrupted by virtual bad-guys. Nice!

The problem with being superman in the virtual world -- or even up here in meatspace assuming the technology to get us there shows up eventually -- is that it isn't as big a deal if everyone else is Superman.

Continue reading "When I Grow Up..." »

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Breakthroughs in regenerative medicine have received quite a bit of attention on the web recently, with this particular story making the rounds several times. We linked to it back in March after 60 Minutes did a piece on it, although then (and today) our emphasis is more on Wake Forest University's efforts to grow human tissues and organs than the University of Pittsburgh's use of extracellular matrix to regrow body parts. Both are very exciting lines of research, but it was the latter that caught the attention of the BBC and ultimately the Volokh Conspiracy, who subsequently linked to this piece, wherein a "leading plastic surgeon," apparently after carefully viewing the entire 59-second BBC clip -- possibly more than once! -- declared the entire matter "junk science."

This assessment will no doubt come as a shock to the U. S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, who just awarded $42.5 million to Wake Forest and the University of Pittsburgh, in support of a "massive regenerative medicine project aimed at battlefield injuries." Apparently both of these institutions have been working on a number of "junk science" projects with the Department of Defense over the past few years, and the DOD now sees great potential in treating a wide variety of battlefield injuries, including:

Burn repair

Wound healing without scarring

Craniofacial reconstruction

Limb reconstruction, regeneration or transplantation

Compartment syndrome, a condition related to inflammation after surgery or injury that can lead to increased pressure, impaired blood flow, nerve damage and muscle death.

Here's hoping that this research yields significant relief and healing to patients who have suffered traumatic injuries on the battlefield.

Meanwhile, following up on our original piece on this subject, we recently caught up with Dr. Anthony Atala, the director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and got some more information on his team's efforts to grow human tissues and organs, essentially "replacement parts" for the sick and injured. Here he talks about using inkjet printers to literally "print out" new tissues, and addresses the question of whether his research in regenerative medicine has implications for life extension research.

You've been quoted as saying that it is "just a matter of time" before someone grows a human heart. So let's start with the basic question -- how does one grow a heart? We've read how an artificially grown human bladder was recently implanted into a patient: that it was built using layers of tissue attached to a bladder-shaped scaffolding which eventually dissolved, leaving an intact organ in place. Will a human heart be built by similar means? If so, where do these layers of tissue come from? Are they grown from stem cells?

It’s hard to predict which form of regenerative medicine will eventually be used to help patients with damaged heart muscle. There is the possibility of injecting stem cells that will find their way to the damaged tissue as well as the approach of creating patches of the tissue in the lab that can be used to mend a poorly functioning organ. In many cases, you don’t need an entire new heart to dramatically improve the patient’s life. It may be possible to change a patch of non-functional tissue the same way you change a malfunctioning heart valve. Our interest isn’t specifically to build a human heart, but to make patients better – no matter what strategy is used. Not one technology is going to be best for all patients. I foresee a time when we’ll have a boutique of technologies and will select one based on the patient’s needs. Currently, we are attacking this challenge on multiple fronts, including using a modified ink jet technology to “print” a small two-chamber heart.

In attempting to describe the implications of the research you are doing, I wrote: "If this research leads to the ability to grow new kidneys, patients with severe kidney disease will be able to get replacement kidneys without a healthy person having to give one of theirs up. If this research leads to the ability to grow new hearts, patients with severe heart disease will be able to get replacement hearts without someone having to die." Is that an accurate assessment? And, ultimately, will fully compatible replacement organs grown using these kinds of techniques eliminate the need for organ donation, and all of the logistical, ethical, and immunological difficulties associated with that practice?

There are currently almost 99,000 people on the waiting list for an organ transplant and nowhere near enough donors to meet their needs. Our goal is certainly to develop organs and tissues in the laboratory to help solve this shortage. As you know, we have already created bladders in the laboratory that have been successfully implanted in patients. These are grown from a patient’s own cells, so there were no issues with rejection. Similarly, if organs/tissues are grown from stem cells that are a genetic match to a patient, rejection will not be a problem. It is much too soon to predict whether we’ll be successful growing all organs and whether the need for organ donation can eventually be eliminated.

Continue reading "The Man Who Builds Hearts" »

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday night Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon laid out the Speculist Manifesto. What is the shocking truth about the future that the mainstream media and the politicians aren't telling you?

What is at stake? What can we learn by studying possibilities and scenarios? And why do we Speculists spend time blogging and podcasting about this stuff? Do we have a contribution to make?

Click "Continue Reading" for the show notes:

Continue reading "FastForward Radio" »

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It was field day for my older kids today, so they got out of school early. I couldn't let them waste the day, right? I took off and we went and caught a matinée.

This is a great movie. Not just a great comic book movie... its a great movie.

I won't spoil it.

Oh, stay through the credits. You'll be glad you did.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

NASA has put together a neat picture of our solar system, with various space probes contributing the images:

NASA credits the images as follows:

1. The Mercury image was taken by Mariner 10,
2. The Venus image by Magellan,
3. T the Earth image by Galileo,
4. The Mars image by Viking, and
5. The Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were taken images by Voyager.

Pluto is not shown as no spacecraft has yet visited it.

That omission will eventually be rectified. At that point, the NASA folks will face the difficult decision to make as to whether to include Pluto in this picture. You know, seeing as it's no longer considered a planet!

Of course, the moon isn't it a planet, and it made the cut...

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...that it's only been 15 years.

On this date in 1993, Cern made the Worldwide Web public domain and the rest, as they say, is history. Cern had actually developed the technology in the late 80's.

I remember living in a pre-Web world. I used a Mac with a dial-up Internet connection. The service was called Delphi. I used it mostly for chatting, playing games, and accessing files. Gee, that sounds just like the Web! So what was the difference?

It was all 100% text-based.

Wow, what a difference Cern made in pushing the Web out free. I was an avid HyperCard scripter back in those days, and I knew that eventually the Internet would go in a hypertext direction.

And then this thing showed up:

Nothing was ever the same after that!

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 05:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Highlight: we could grow all the fuel the United States needs using 1/10th of the land space of New Mexico.

And by doing this in the desert we wouldn't sacrifice farm land.

H/T Al Fin

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

This is a follow-up to Phil's post, "The Great Filter."

NPR published a great radio segment a couple of weeks ago titled "Lucy's Laugh Enlivens the Solar System." It's about television and radio being broadcast into space. It's 6 minutes long. Have a listen. I'll wait.

...

"I Love Lucy" and other shows of that era were broadcast over 57 years ago. That means that original broadcast has traveled over 57 light years. There are many other star systems in that range, but astronomer Chris Impey points out the Lucy wouldn't be detectable over the cosmic background noise past, say, Pluto. And apparently there's no foreseeable technology out there that could improve on that. If you're thinking that future broadcasts will be stronger, well, it doesn't seem to be going that way. Our planet has gotten quieter cosmically-speaking since the heyday of Lucy.

This would seem to indicate that SETI is likely to fail, but such failure doesn't rule out the existence of other civilizations.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Via GeekPress, Nick Bostrom has a fascinating essay at Technology Review in which he lays out his case for hoping that we don't find evidence that life ever existed on Mars or that it exists elsewhere in the universe. Why would we not want to find evidence of life?

According to Bostrom, the apparent silence of our galaxy -- the lack of even one civilization which has advanced to the galactic colonization stage, which we ought to know about if it ever happened, because they would be here -- is evidence either that there is no life out there or that life is in some way blocked from developing to that level. He talks in terms of a "great filter" that evolving life must pass through on the way to the galactic colonization stage. If life is evolving out there in the galaxy, and no aliens have ever shown up here, that suggests that no life anywhere has ever successfully made it through the filter. And if nobody else ever makes it through the filter, we have very little reason to hope that we ever will.

The filter could take many forms. It could be some stage in biological evolution that is just plain difficult to get through. For example, if life rarely makes it to the stage of producing multicellular organisms, and that's the reason nobody is out there, then we've already passed through the filter and it would seem that we are in the clear.

Woo hoo! Let's start colonizing the galaxy.

Continue reading "The Great Filter" »

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

New Scientist reports:

Red blood cells travel through the bloodstream delivering vital oxygen to body tissues and taking away unwanted carbon dioxide – and they have to squeeze through blood vessels as thin as 3 micrometres across to do it. But in some diseases, such as malaria and sickle cell disease, red blood cells lose this ability to deform.

Because of the small size of red blood cells and the demanding work they do, nobody has succeeded in making artificial versions to help people with such conditions.

Now though Joseph DeSimone, a chemical engineer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US, thinks he knows how.

He has created tiny sacks of the polymer polyethylene glycol just 8 micrometres across – in the range of human red blood cells – that are capable of deforming in a way that allows them to pass through the tiniest capillaries.

Polyethylene glycol is biologically benign, but binds easily with other substances, which makes it ideal for carrying cargo through the blood, says DeSimone.

Artificial blood replacement is likely to be a key biomedical enhancement technology in the near future. Ray Kurzweil frequently talks about the "respirocytes" which will act as supplemental mechanical red blood cells, 1000 times more efficient than their biological counterparts. Those who choose to replace even a small portion of their red blood cells with respiorocytes will be capable of what today could only be viewed as superhuman feats: running at sprinting speed for a quarter of an hour or more without breathing; sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool for hours at a time.

Of course, most of us don't want or need to be able to do such outrageous things. Respirocytes will initially be implemented to address many of the same kinds of conditions that DeSimone's polymer blood-cell substitutes are proposed for.They will also probably be used to give a much-needed boost to those recovering from serious illnesses or who have suffered some kind of major trauma. And speaking of illnesses and trauma, I can imagine respirocytes also serving as a delivery mechanism -- one of many that nanotechnology will provide -- for much more effective, and much less traumatic treatments for diseases such as cancer than anything currently available.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sunday night Phil Bowermaster, Stephen Gordon, and Michael Darling spoke live with author and futurist Jim Elvidge. Elvidge is a Cornell-educated entrepreneur and inventor who holds four patents in digital signal processing. His love of music inspired him to develop one of the first PC-based digital music samplers and to co-found RadioAMP, which was the first private-label online streaming radio company. In recent years he has turned his attention to the ultimate question of existence and, drawing on a broad and eclectic base of knowledge and interests, has come up with a unique explanation for...pretty much everything.

As you might imagine his book, The Universe - Solved, covers a lot of scientific and philosophical ground. A big topic of discussion was whether we live in a computer simulation. If so, are there Easter Eggs in the cosmos?

Click "Continue Reading" for listening options and the show notes:

Continue reading "FastForward Radio" »

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 05:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

They certainly produce more visually pleasant light than compact fluorescents. And you don't have that pesky toxic-cleanup issue if one breaks. But are LED-lightbulbs ready to take on the incandescent bulb?

Lighting Science Group says they are. And to back it up, they're introducing a new line of LED-based lightbulbs that plug into a regular light socket. Check out the bulb shown here.

Looks pretty neat. And as we can see from this page, it can be had for a mere $110.

What the...$110???

For a LIGHT BULB?

Well, hang on. LSG has an answer to that:

At $40 to $110 apiece, the LED "in-screw" bulbs may still seem too pricey for a lot of consumers. But Lighting Science Group's pitch is that a 50 cent Edison bulb will last for 750 to 3,000 hours, while an LED has to be replaced only every 50,000 hours (or 10 to 30 years). The company says the cost savings is almost $740 over a lifetime due to much lower energy consumption.

That's the same argument that's made in favor of the compact fluorescents, but these bulbs last longer and are even easier on the old electric bill.

Plus, I think I already mentioned -- no mercury.

Bring 'em on, I say.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 04:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is a neat site that I've been meaning to recommend -- lots of futuristic goodness from a number of interesting sources. I particularly enjoyed the recent entry on developing a future bias.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:18 AM | Permalink

I especially like how one of them manages to yawn right in the middle of the "routine."

Via GeekPress

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 05:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week we wrote about the coming age of in vitro meat. Here's a major step in that direction, People for the Ethical treatment of Animals (PETA) is offering a $1,000,000 push-prize for the development of vat meat:

PETA Offers $1 Million Reward to First to Make In Vitro Meat

Scientists around the world are researching or seeking the funds to research ways to produce meat in the laboratory—without killing any animals. In vitro meat production would use animal stem cells that would be placed in a medium to grow and reproduce. The result would mimic flesh and could be cooked and eaten. Some promising steps have been made toward this technology, but we're still several years away from having in vitro meat be available to the general public.

PETA is now stepping in and offering a $1 million reward to the first scientist to produce and bring to market in vitro meat.

Why is PETA supporting this new technology? More than 40 billion chickens, fish, pigs, and cows are killed every year for food in the United States in horrific ways. Chickens are drugged to grow so large they often become crippled, mother pigs are confined to metal cages so small they can't move, and fish are hacked apart while still conscious—all to feed America's meat addiction. In vitro meat would spare animals from this suffering. In addition, in vitro meat would dramatically reduce the devastating effects the meat industry has on the environment.

Via InstaPundit, here's a Popular Mechanics piece with more details on this emerging technology.

Whatever you might think about PETA (and I personally have never thought much), they are to be applauded for taking this step. All their accumulated shock messages, sanctimonious political posturing, and obnoxious, not to mention frequently dangerous, behavior over the years have probably had a net effect of making most people less sympathetic to the cause of animal rights (or at least animal well-being) than they would have been. But this is a positive step -- a financial incentive to bring about a new technology that can eliminate animal suffering and end a lot of environmental damage associated with livestock farming.

Continue reading "Meat Factory Update" »

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Here's a shocker of a headline:

You Can't Travel Back in Time, Scientists Say

That has a bit if dog-bites-man quality, doesn't it? However, the same article links to a neat video that allows that time travel might be possible after all.

Traveling to the past sounds like it's more trouble than it's worth. I mean, don't get me wrong -- it would be great to go back and see how things were. And if you're a little on the nutso side, maybe to go back and change things and then rush back ahead to see how things come out differently.

In any case, I doubt that there is really such a thing as traveling back to THE past. If you go back to the past (and your'e from a timeline where you didn't) then it seems all you have really done is travel between parallel universes. You would be able to change "the present," but not the one you came from.

On Sunday's podcast, we talked a little about immersive virtual reality technology. I think that will eventually be a pretty good substitute for time travel. It will certainly be easier to achieve.

Congratulations on your recent purchase of a time machine.
Safety Tip #1 -- choose your landing place carefully.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Jerry Pournelle offers not a defense of Intelligent Design, but a response to some of its harsher critics:

1. while many "Intelligent Design Theorists" are in fact fundamentalist creationists, not all of them are, and some like the late Sir Fred Hoyle are not creationists at all.

2. The panspermia hypothesis, which asserts that life originated on a planet other than Earth and was brought here by either natural or intelligently directed actions, is hardly ludicrous, has at least some unexplained evidence in its favor, and holding it as an hypothesis is hardly evidence of buffoonery. The late Robert Bussard was well known to believe in panspermia. Several of my science fiction novels make use of this hypothesis, and I have yet to see any definitive refutation.

3. Many of those in Dawkins' camp use proof by assertion: they simply say that there are no features that demonstrate "irreducible complexity" and those that seem to are illusions; and while they have not shown the steps that would lead from easily explained conditions to the complex feature, they have great confidence that they will find them, and anyone who doesn't believe that is an idiot.

4. In my judgment, reason and science are not in conflict to those willing to spend the time and effort in genuine study of the apparent irreconcilable differences. I note that I share that view with His Holiness Benedict XVI, who has asserted this all his life, most notably in his Regensburg Speech (Full Text), which is well worth your attention. Do note that the truth or falsity of this point is not definitive regarding my critique of Dawkins. It does, I presume, qualify me as a buffoon in Professor Dawkins' estimation.

I personally think it extremely unlikely that the "irreducible complexity" critique of evolution will pan out, at least in terms of proving that God exists. But it is interesting that (according to Pournelle) current computer models of evolution can't make some of these leaps -- simple light receptor to fully functioning eye -- without a little tinkering in the background. At the very least, the ID critique may prove useful in helping us to improve our computer models of evolution.

Continue reading "Seeking the Designer" »

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sunday night your hosts Phil Bowermaster, Stephen Gordon, and Michael Darling discussed weird ideas about the future... both past-futures that turned out to be bizarrely wrong and very strange futures that may turn out to be right.

Click image to see it larger.

Obviously, predicting the future is difficult. Given the uncertainty, do Futurists still have a role to play in preparing us for the future?

Click "Continue Reading" for listening options and the show notes:

Continue reading "FastForward Radio" »

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 06:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From KurzweilAI.net:

Vitamins 'may shorten your life'

BBC News, April 16, 2008

Copenhagen University research has suggested that certain vitamin supplements do not extend life and could even lead to a premature death.

A review of 67 studies with trials involving 233,000 people found "no convincing evidence" that antioxidant supplements cut the risk of dying," and suggested that vitamins A and E could interfere with the body's natural defences, and that beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E seem to increase mortality.

The researchers linked vitamin A supplements to a 16% increased risk of dying, beta-carotene to a 7% increased risk and vitamin E to a 4% increased risk.

More details here. This sounds kind of like when they figured out that, with trans fatty acids and all, margarine is worse for your heart than butter.

Sheesh. Be careful out there.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Look, I know this is way off topic, and I'm nobody's Lileks or anything, but I just had to share this message that I found in my inbox...

See there? It's a restaurant and they're serving Restaurant Quality pasta!

Pretty bold move. I hope it doesn't come back to bite them. Because from the pictures, it looks more to me like Church-Potluck Quality pasta -- or possibly even Hospital-Cafeteria Quality pasta.

But what do I know? Way to reach for the stars, Pizza Hut!

UPDATE: Instalanche. I'm so inspired by this entry's success that I'm going to try to write several blog-quality posts over the next few days. And today at work, my goal is to make one or two middle-management quality decisions. Fingers crossed!

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I'm an E.T. skeptic. The Fermi Paradox is the reason. The Fermi Paradox asks, reasonably, if intelligent life arises easily and often, then where is everybody? As old as the galaxy is, and considering the possibility of self-replicating Von Neumann probes, we shouldn't be able to swing a cat without hitting a Vulcan - or at least a robotic emissary.

The most likely answer attacks the premise of the paradox. Intelligent life (at least intelligent life that gives rise to interstellar civilizations) doesn't arise easily or often. We're alone. At least in this galaxy.

Some who have accepted this explanation of the Fermi Paradox have posited a depressing reason for E.T.'s absence - perhaps civilizations that reach our level of development tend to self-destruct.

But the great filter for interstellar civilizations doesn't have to be in front of us. There is a good argument that it is behind us.

[According to Professor Watson from the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia] Solar models predict that the brightness of the sun is increasing, while temperature models suggest that because of this the future life span of Earth will be ‘only’ about another billion years, a short time compared to the four billion years since life first appeared on the planet.

“The Earth’s biosphere is now in its old age and this has implications for our understanding of the likelihood of complex life and intelligence arising on any given planet,” said Prof Watson.

“At present, Earth is the only example we have of a planet with life. If we learned the planet would be habitable for a set period and that we had evolved early in this period, then even with a sample of one, we’d suspect that evolution from simple to complex and intelligent life was quite likely to occur. By contrast, we now believe that we evolved late in the habitable period, and this suggests that our evolution is rather unlikely. In fact, the timing of events is consistent with it being very rare indeed.”

We're probably alone, but self destruction doesn't have to be our fate. If we can make it through the next century or so, we stand a fair chance of settling the galaxy.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)