Monthly Archives: October 2005

It’s the Flea’s Knees

In today’s Guardian:

A type of rubbery material based on the protein that helps fleas jump could be used to repair damaged arteries, Nature reports today.

But it gets better. Kurzweil AI spins it like this:

Future versions of the material could be used to make resilient human spare parts, including spinal discs and artificial arteries.

How about giving us knees that would allow us to jump distances proportional to what fleas do? If I had a set of those, I could jump to work every day. Okay, maybe it would take three or four hops, but still.

Carnival of Tomorrow 11.0

Welcome to the Fuel and Brains edition of the Carnival of Tomorrow. All entries in this edition of the carnival will have something to do with:

1. Alternate fuels/energy sources

2. New discoveries and technologies related to the brain

3. Both of these

4. Neither of them

(That last option is just to show that, hey — we may have a theme going, but we’re not married to it, for crying out loud.)

carnival11.jpg

So what’s the point in looking at futuristic blog posts about two seemingly unrelated topics? Well, first off, it gives us twice as many posts to find than we would have if we were looking at just one topic. So that would be a practical consideration. But beyond that, it’s a test. So many forecasts and predictions focus in on a single area of interest. That is arguably the most logical way to approach the future — one topic at a time. But maybe it’s a liitle flat.

What can we learn about the future by adding a dimension, triangulating our view just a bit?

We thought it would be interesting to give it a try. Let’s find out.

J. Random American, host of Carnival of Tomorrow #10, enters the alternate energy sweepstakes with his piece on cat diesel. When you hear that phrase “cat diesel” you immediately think that the word “cat” must be an acronym or possibly an abbreviation for “catalyzed” or something along those lines, but alas…no.

As J explains it:

Back on Sept. 13th I linked to a news article about a German group that invented a way to turn dead cats into diesel fuel. The article reports being able to get 2.5 liters (0.016 bbl) of diesel per cat at a cost of only $0.30 per liter ($1.14/gal). Since we use about 1 billion barrels of diesel* a year, that means we’d need 62.5 billion cats a year to meet our present rate of diesel consumption. There are only about 70 million cats in the United States.

This is an excellent start. Certainly better than our own feeble KFC diesel idea. Still, we’re disappointed that J didn’t come right out with a way of making an alternate fuel source out of cat brains, thus hitting both themes at once.

Vlerian at Health Life, Articles and Tips has the scoop on a new molecular brain cancer treatment:

The drugs themselves are highly selective in that they target only the cancer cells. IL13-PE38QQR contains a tumor-targeting molecule called IL-13 that docks on the surface of cancer cells. Then the drug releases a toxin (Pseudomonas Exotoxin or PE) inside the cell. The toxin interferes with the cancer cell’s protein production and immediately causes its demise.

Green Car Congress has the scoop on DaimlerChrysler’s new hydrogen fuel-cell hybrid.

Reason at Fight Aging! provides an important disclaimer that should be attached to any warning about the inevitable failure of our brains (and bodies!) predicated on a linear extrapolation of data.

Mark at Curmudgeons Corner points us to an article about Water Mills, the aquatic counterpart to windmills:

Just as wind mills tap the power of wind currents to generate electricity, there is a kind of water mill technology under development that promises to tap the flow of water in rivers, streams, and tidal basins with the same amount of efficiency. It could be a new form of clean, renewable, and unobtrusive energy.

Mark also links to a detailed backgrounder on nuclear fusion energy. Finally, he points us to an article on cryonics, which at core is really the art of freezing and carefully thawing out brains.

FuturePundit Randall Parker has a couple recent pieces on energy. First there was the observation that energy prices are making conservation “cool” again. Then there was this surprising development: Tony Blair Privately For More Nuclear Plants In UK. But will he go public?

Randall also featured two very interesting recent pieces about the human brain. First, how eating fish helps the brain. Next, how liars’ brains are different from everyone else’s. Randall makes some chilling observations:

A significant portion of the human race are predatory liars and con artists. On top of that there are rapists, murders, and assorted other criminals and psychopaths as well. Think about that next time someone speaks about humanity and the human future in lofty terms.

One of the reasons why I’m not particularly sanguine about our transhumanist future is that human ethical constraints are in large part a product of genetic coding. I do not buy the argument that rational self interest by itself provides enough basis to maintain a civilized society. Well, once biotechnology provides ways to enhance the ability to lie and the ability to feel less remorse or guilt won’t some people opt to use this technology? Mightn’t there even be a sort of mental arms race where people find it necessary to enhance their ability to deceive in order to protect themselves from other deceivers?

Scary stuff.

Paul Hsieh of GeekPress directs us to an article about an unexpected (to say the least) energy source.

On the subject of self-induced brain damage, Paul directs us to the Mind Molester. (Actually, after further reading that looks more like deliberately induced brain damage on others, you know — friends, loved ones, that sort of thing.)

Speaking of fiddling with brains, Good Morning Silicon Valley links to the story of a dolphin which has had something…really unusual impressed upon it’s no-doubt otherwise highly functional cetacean brain.

Could teaching defenseless animals catchy themes songs from bad 1960′s TV shows be considered abusive? Possibly. But it’s not nearly as bad as what was done to the brains of these (possibly apocryphal) dolphins.

In addition to providing an assessment as to whether the armed dolphin story is true, Technovelgy directs us to yet another offbeat energy source.

Jon Goff of Selenian Boondocks has some thoughts on nano-particle-enhanced rocket fuel.

Harry Chen’s Homepage directs us to The Whole Brain Atlas, “a web site that shows a collection of comprehensive neuroimages,” assembled by two doctors at the Harvard Medical School. Cool!

Boing Boing links to a story that raises an interesting question: will we ever get alternate fuels from someplace as cool as this?

Mike treder of Responsible Nanotechnology links to a Slashdot entry recommending that we give our brains a rewind.

By the way, big Carnival of Tomorrow congratulations to Mike and the whole CRN gang for making the Blog 100. Way to go!

Energy Outlook reports that Europe is switching to diesel fuel of the…er, non-feline variety.

When we finally get alternative fuels for our cars, will human brains steer? We have doubts.

Herbie: coming soon to your driveway.

Brain Sprinkles notes that a debate is brewing as to whether Homo Florensis (popularly known as the Indonesian Hobbits)were a separate species or simply ancient dwarfs. The determining factor may be the size of their tiny brains.

Beth at Wide-Eyed and Laughing suggests we all take the Brain Pattern Test. One of the Speculists’ results are shown below.


Your Brain’s Pattern


You have a dreamy mind, full of fancy and fantasy.
You have the ability to stay forever entertained with your thoughts.
People may say you’re hard to read, but that’s because you’re so internally focused.
But when you do share what you’re thinking, people are impressed with your imagination.

Finally, a story about neither alternate energy sources nor brain technology, but something much simpler and more humble: the flying car. Classical Values gives us The Other Flying Car.

If you would like to host or contribute to the next edition of the Carnival of Tomorrow, please write:

mrstg87 {@ symbol} yahoo {dot} com

or

bowermaster {@ symbol} gmail {dot} com

Live to see it!

Name Wanted

Well, I didn’t get the huge surge of support I was hoping that Spiker would garner as the hip replacement term for Singularitarian. Only Joel from the newly blogrolled FerrousWheel came forth with an outright endorsement. As I noted, my co-bloggers, Stephen and Mike, were less than 100% enthused.

Two friends from the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence were good enough to e-mail me on the subject. Advocacy Director Michael Anissimov pulled no punches:

I saw the entry on Singularitarianism. Unfortunately, I don’t like “Spiker”. For several reasons… first is that it misconveys the Singularity as a spike in technological progress rather than a qualitative change in intelligence – making this distinction is immensely important (see here for an example of someone who really “gets it”). I feel that a single biggest problem in Singularity discussions is that people fail to see the difference between changes created through new technology (happened before, easy to discuss) and smarter-than-human intelligence (never happened before, inherently difficult/impossible to imagine.

Executive Director Tyler Emerson went a little easier on me:

Spiker” is kind of catchy. Nice word length.

I tend to never use “Singularitarian” and “Singularitarianism” unless talking with Singularitarians) since they’re obviously unwieldy and odd sounding to nearly everyone.

Just to be clear: I wouldn’t endorse “Spiker” as a replacement. It’s too strange on its own, reminiscent of “spiking a drink” and Spike from Buffy.

But then Tyler had an idea…

Maybe you should put out a broader call for name recommendations in your attempt to find a Singularity Aware-equivalent of “blogger,” “hacker,” or “geek.”

Excellent suggestion, Tyler. The floor is now open for nominations. Please leave your clever nickname for “Singularitarian” in the comments.

UPDATE: Per the comments, Micah Glasser (who votes in favor of “Spiker”) had some additional thoughts over at Event Horizon.

I Want Weather Control…

…and I want it now.

Six inches of snow on the ground this morning, and the leaves on the trees haven’t even all changed color yet, much less fallen off. This means hundreds of pounds of snow weighing down the branches of the maple tree out front, with some limbs cracking and falling off. I shook the snow off the low-hanging branches two hours before taking this picture. There’s no keeping up, plus I can’t possibly reach the upper branches, from which I have already lost two big limbs.

tree.jpg

I was commenting to my daughter as I drove her through the slush to school: “There ought to be a law against having a snowstorm so early.” But then, there’s really no point having a law until we have the means to enforce it.

Of course, come to think of it, both the technology and the regulation will probably be applied initially to hurricanes, where it’s much more needed, not annoying early snowstorms.

Required Reading

Check out Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines by Robert Freitas and Ralph Merkle. Summary:

This book offers a general review of the voluminous theoretical and experimental literature pertaining to physical self-replicating systems. The principal focus here is on self-replicating machine systems. Most importantly, we are concerned with kinematic self-replicating machines: systems in which actual physical objects, not mere patterns of information, undertake their own replication. Following a brief burst of activity in the 1950s and 1980s, the field of kinematic replicating systems design received new interest in the 1990s with the emerging recognition of the feasibility of molecular nanotechnology. The field has experienced a renaissance of research activity since 1999 as researchers have come to recognize that replicating systems are simple enough to permit experimental laboratory demonstrations of working devices.

KSRMThumb.jpg

Via Fight Aging!

Hard Math

Getting back to non-conventional fuel sources, the argument is often made that ethanol can’t really work as a fuel source, seeing as ethanol fuel in the U.S. is actually produced at a net loss of energy. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Brazil.

Maybe sugar provides more robust alochol production than grain does. Or Maybe the Brazlians know something we don’t?

ID on Tech Central Station

In his update to my Meet the Designer entry, Stephen provides links to two pieces currently running on TCS that have some interesting things to say about the Intelligent Design debate. I have some thoughts on both of these pieces. Let’s begin with…

An Open e-mail to Sallie Baliunas

Hi Sallie –

Very much enjoyed your piece on Tech Central Station re: Intelligent Design. Regarding this provocative passage:

There is one logical exception to this. It would be a hypothetical, advanced alien who designed life on earth and left it here to incubate, perhaps meddling with it now and then, with methods not yet known to the human state of scientific knowledge. That alien intelligence would hold an incredible technological control over matter, far beyond sci-fi imaginings like the Technomages in the television novel Babylon 5 . However, the hypothetical, intelligent alien would be a material creature and would work in advanced ways with matter and energy; ergo such scientific concepts would ultimately be knowable. We close this unlikely option for lack of any scientific evidence.

As you may know, there are (serious) variations on this idea that have more to do with the origin of the universe than they do with the origin of life on Earth, offered up by scientists who have no interest in religion. The amazing set of “coincidences” that account for the existence of our universe in just the right configuration to allow for the time spans, the chemistry, and physics to support life are handled tautologically via the weak anthropic principle — the universe had to be this way or we wouldn’t be here to discuss it, end of disucssion — but some theorists don’t see this as a particularly satisfying answer to the puzzle. Another possible answer is that our universe is the end product of a process — either a completely naturalistic one in which our universe evolved from previous, less life-friendly universes, or an “artificial” process in which highly involved intelligences from a previous version of the universe planned and designed this universe to support life.

Obviously, such views are seen as highly speculative by the scientific community and are subject to appropriate criticism. But the fact that teaching ID in biology classrooms has become a contentious political issue, and that many of those promoting ID really are creationists in disguise, does not mean that all ID thinking is religious in nature.

A good summary of this argument can be found here. I’ve recently done some writing on this subject myself on my blog, where I also intend to publish this message.

Cheers,

Phil Bowermaster

Neander.jpg

I’ll provide updates if I get any kind of response. Next let’s take a look at…

Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win

Doug Kern writes an accessible and thought-provoking essay on why ID is destined to win out as the origin of life theory taught in schools. It’s a fun read, and contains one passage that I thought was especially insightful:

Vitriol, condescension, and endless accusations of bad faith all characterize far too much of the standard pro-Darwinian response to criticism. A reasonable observer might note that many ID advocates appear exceptionally well-educated, reasonable, and articulate; they might also note that ID advocates have pointed out many problems with the Darwinist catechism that even pro-Darwin scientists have been known to concede, when they think the Jesus-kissing crowd isn’t listening. And yet, even in the face of a sober, thoughtful ID position, the pro-Darwin crowd insists on the same phooey-to-the-boobgeois shtick that was tiresome in Mencken’s day.

Nicely put. I think the Darwinian argument would be much better made without the sneer. But then, I’m old fashioned. I think arguments in general should be heavy on substance and light on sneering at the other side.

However, being old fashioned, I really can’t buy into the thrust of Kern’s argument. It’s that opening paragraph. He loses me at hello:

It doesn’t matter if you like it or not. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s true or not. Intelligent Design theory is destined to supplant Darwinism as the primary scientific explanation for the origin of human life. ID will be taught in public schools as a matter of course.

Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But it most certainly matters whether you think it’s true or not, because it matters whether it is true or not. If ID is wrong and it “wins,” that’s, um…what’s the word I’m looking for?

Bad.

Likewise, if it has some merit — or some variations of it do — and it’s fully excluded both from the schools and from serious public discourse, that’s bad, too. I think the whole “win-lose” paradigm has really got to go.