Monthly Archives: December 2005

Just Checking

Here’s some interesting research:

The physical constants of the Universe are thought to have remained unchanged since the Big Bang; many predictions made by cosmologists depend on it. An international team of researchers are using the National Science Foundation’s Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to see if things really have gone on unchanged for billions of years. They’re looking to measure two universal constants: the ratio of mass between protons and electrons, and something called the fine structure constant.

If those cosntants have nudged even slightly over the eons, the implications are staggering.

Hat-tip: Posthuman Blues.

That's it for Firefly

Entertainment weekly reports:

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon looks back on 2005, he can take comfort in knowing that his film-directing debut, the sci-fi Western Serenity, resurrected his canceled-too-soon cult classic TV series Firefly, and was also one of the year’s best-reviewed movies. ”I should say I’m above reading reviews,” he says. ”But I would be lying.” Alas, Whedon’s fond memories are also tainted by Serenity’s status as a franchise nonstarter; despite Universal’s best marketing efforts, the film only mustered $25 million. ”In the end, it was what it was: a tough sell,” says Whedon, adding that it appears the Firefly saga has reached its conclusion. He has no regrets — and he’s moving on.

That’s a real shame. I wonder if the failure of Serenity has anything to tell us about the real sway that the blogosphere has? The free screening looked like a Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash, and we all wrote about the film in favorable terms…yet it flopped.

Maybe we’re up to facilitating change in the lesser world of politics, but we’re not quite ready to to take on the big time: popular entertainment.

That’s it for Firefly

Entertainment weekly reports:

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon looks back on 2005, he can take comfort in knowing that his film-directing debut, the sci-fi Western Serenity, resurrected his canceled-too-soon cult classic TV series Firefly, and was also one of the year’s best-reviewed movies. ”I should say I’m above reading reviews,” he says. ”But I would be lying.” Alas, Whedon’s fond memories are also tainted by Serenity’s status as a franchise nonstarter; despite Universal’s best marketing efforts, the film only mustered $25 million. ”In the end, it was what it was: a tough sell,” says Whedon, adding that it appears the Firefly saga has reached its conclusion. He has no regrets — and he’s moving on.

That’s a real shame. I wonder if the failure of Serenity has anything to tell us about the real sway that the blogosphere has? The free screening looked like a Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash, and we all wrote about the film in favorable terms…yet it flopped.

Maybe we’re up to facilitating change in the lesser world of politics, but we’re not quite ready to to take on the big time: popular entertainment.

Et Tu, Fructose?

Sure, we all know that yummy granulated white sugar is bad and and brown sugar is better but it’s still bad and saccharine causes cancer if you eat approximately two oil tankers of it a year and aspartame is not quite as nutra-sweet as we once thought it was, but come on.

This is just too much:

Fructose fruit sugar is not a harmless substitute for glucose.

University of Florida researchers have identified one possible reason for rising obesity rates, and it all starts with fructose, found in fruit, honey, table sugar and other sweeteners, and in many processed foods.

Fructose may trick you into thinking you are hungrier than you should be, say the scientists, whose studies in animals have revealed its role in a biochemical chain reaction that triggers weight gain and other features of metabolic syndrome – the main precursor to type 2 diabetes. In related research, they also prevented rats from packing on the pounds by interrupting the way their bodies processed this simple sugar, even when the animals continued to consume it.

The findings, reported in the December issue of Nature Clinical Practice Nephrology and in this month’s online edition of the American Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology, add to growing evidence implicating fructose in the obesity epidemic and could influence future dietary guidelines. UF researchers are now studying whether the same mechanism is involved in people.

If you read the whole thing you will learn that it may be more of a fructose + uric acid problem than it is a straight-up fructose problem. FuturePundit concludes with a call for help:

So how can one keep uric acid levels down? Anyone know?

Ah, criminy, so now I have to keep track of my uric acid levels and do something to keep them in check? Don’t I have enough to worry about? It’s enough to make me consider doing something really desperate and extreme…like give up sweets altogether.

No, wait. What am I saying? That’s just crazy talk.

UPDATE

El Jefe (a.k.a. Michael Sargent) adds some interesting thoughts:

Uric acid is the primary culprit in gout (something I’m familiar with due to my father’s affliction with same.)

Thus, a diet low in purines (the metabolic precursor of uric acid) might also offset this new-found hazard of fructose.

High purine foods include:

sweetbreads, kidneys, liver, brains, or other offal meats

sardines

anchovies

scallops

alcohol, especially beer because brewer’s yeasts are very rich in purine. (Alcohol is not itself high in purines, but acts as a solvent)

meat extracts, consommés, and gravies

(List from wikipedia.)

This is also beginning to look like “all things in moderation” might be the best advice.

Have You Sent Your Soil Samples Yet?

It’s important:

Researcher John Schloendorn is still looking for soil samples from around the world to screen for useful bacterial enzymes as a part of his work on LysoSENS research. He, and other researchers, are looking for enzymes that can break down age-related by-products that accumulate in and around cells, leading to a range of age-related conditions and general loss of function. If scientists can find a safe way to break down these damaging by-products – such as by using engineered bacterial enzymes – then they will have found a way to repair and prevent one part of age-related degeneration.

Reason has all the details over at Fight Aging! So what are you waiting for?

Carnival of Tomorrow #15

Kong.jpg

From
the fevered swamps of Skull Island to the dazzling skyscrapers of Manhattan,
and all points in between, everybody’s talking about exactly one thing: the
controversial new gay cowboy flick, Brokeback Mountain.

Naw, just kidding. They’re all talking about Kong! Kong is King! Kong
rules! So in honor of everyone’s favorite giant gorilla — and in no way
as some kind of cynical attempt to cash in on a fad — we have asked the big
ape to be our host in this week’s journey into the future. So, let the journey
begin!

Recently Stephen wrote about Gigantopithecus
blackii – a ten foot tall ape that once roamed the Pleistocene. 
Stephen suggested that legends of this animal might have have inspired the American
Sasquatch myths even if the animal never made it to this continent.

Since methods to clone animals from that era are
being perfected, will we one day see a real Kong up close and personal? 
We’re hopeful…just not too close or too personal…please.

Risk-taking aviators need not ponder buzzing the world’s tallest building while
being swatted at by a giant simian: Jay
Manifold reports that attempting to land at Chicago Midway is plenty dangerous
enough, and he’s got numbers to back it up.

We all know ’twas beauty killed the beast, but had Kong hooked up with a Girl
Geek rather than your garden-variety
blonde hottie,
said alternative S.O. might just have figured out a way to avoid that whole tragic
Empire State Building/buzzing biplanes/nasty fall scenario. Melody
tells us all about the women of the future, the aforementioned Girl Geeks, both
at her own blog and at Multiple
Mentality .

Speaking of women of the future, Virginia
Postrel is recommeding a book on the subject of urban
sprawl. The book deals with the evolution and adpation that takes place
in city design over time; reading it we might well find some clues as to what
we can expect cities to look like in the future:

But Bruegmann’s book is grounded in a history lesson–one that finds the
roots of present-day Houston, Atlanta and Los Angeles in Augustan Rome or
Restoration London. People of means, he writes, have always tried to get some
distance from urban centers, often inhabiting villas outside city walls.”

I’m sure you would have found it in the very first city ever established,”
he says. “Living in cities has almost always been unpleasant and unhealthy–not
something most people wanted. If you were in imperial Rome, crowded into dark,
dingy, polluted apartment buildings, it would have been a nightmare. Most
cities I looked at had just crushing density until about the 18th century.”

So cities will probably continue to spread out into clean, safe, sprawling suburbs
that provide everything the residents need. And that are free, we might add,
from those tempting and dangerous skyscrapers.

Whether Kong decides to go for a Geek Girl or stick with the supermodel type,
he needs to focus on getting along okay, especially leading such a high-risk
life. Joshua
Zader at Mudita Journal
has the latest on new research indicating that a marital spat can significantly
reduce the body’s ability to heal :

The stress a married couple experiences during a 30-minute argument can delay
their bodies’ ability to heal a wound by at least a day, according to a new
study.

And if the couples’ relationship endures routine hostility, the delay can
be increased yet further. There could be important implications for people
suffering from chronic wounds, such as skin ulcers.

The Big Guy must down an awful lot of bananas to keep his huge frame moving.
This puts us in mind of the exciting Second
Generation Biofuels recently reported on by Green
Car Congress.

As Kong gets older, he may be concerned, as many of us are, about the loss
of muscle mass. Sci-Tech
Daily points us to some new information indicating that part of the answer
may be to lay off the bananas in
favor of meat .

While we’re on the subject of life extension (sort of) Fight
Aging! reports that our good friend Aubrey
de Grey will be appearing on 60 Minutes in January.

MattG at “Press the buttons”
recalls his childhood love of all things Donkey
Kong.  Lately the character has had cameo appearances in other games,
but…

For all his moonlighting, however, I continue to look forward to his next
traditional adventure.

Mike at TechDirt warns
of a new software trend that may slow the introduction of new Kong adventures,
as well as innovation generally — copy
protection. Meanwhile, BoingBoing
directs us to a report detailing how Congress is working to build copy protection
in at the hardware
level. On the other hand, Lawrence Lessig reports that Sun is trying to
open things up at the hardware level. Open-source
hardware? Apparently.

FuturePundit
reports that power plant operators have decided to take a serious look at nuclear
energy.

[Please redo. Need Kong angle.-- Ed.]

FuturePundit
reports that power plant operators have decided to stop monkeying
around and take a serious look at nuclear energy.

GeekPress directs
us to this New
Scientist article about how neural networks are being used to determine
whether new movies will be a hit.

While the crime rate overall seems to be going down, some crimes are getting
bigger. A lot bigger. The Minstry
of Minor Perfidy , who will be hosting next week’s carnival, reports on
a brazen criminal act of King Kong proportions: grain
silo theft. Could this be the future of crime?

Mark at Curmudgeon’s
Corner , while not explicitly addressing the issue of cloning a gigantopithecus,
directs us to commentary from a noted paleontologist who raises serious questions
about whether a creature such as Kong could ever exist. Then Rand Simberg of
Transterrestrial
Musings joins the fray with these pertinent thoughts:

Even if he could get enough to eat, for a body with that much mass to move
that fast, the heat generated would be much greater than could be radiated
out through the skin (mass goes up as the cube of the major dimension, whereas
surface area only goes up as the square), particularly through that fur coat,
so he’d cook from the inside if he maintained the kind of activity levels
presumably depicted. Also, he wouldn’t be able to maintain his own weight
on those (relatively) spindly legs, once scaled up to that size–they’d splinter
like toothpicks.

No point in seeing the movie, folks–it’s just not realistic…

A devastating analysis. For those who will now skip the Kong movie as it has been
thoroughly debunked, might we recommend a more plausible hit
film from last summer, recently out on DVD?

Carnival of Tomorrow #16 will be hosted by The Ministry of Minor Perfidy.

If you would like to contribute to or host an upcoming Carnival of Tomorrow, please write to:

mrstg87 {@ symbol} yahoo {dot} com

or

bowermaster {@ symbol} gmail {dot} com

Not so Fast

Hmmm, maybe Wikipedia isn’t so reliable after all.

Wikipedia was yesterday described as being as reliable as the Encyclopaedia Britannica despite a sustained attack from vandals intent on further wrecking its reputation for accuracy.

This is despite a surge in the number of spoof articles and vandal attacks which have followed the furore over a biographical Wikipedia article linking John Seigenthaler, a respected retired journalist, with the assassinations of both John F and Robert Kennedy.

In one such fake article, it was suggested today that Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s creator, was shot dead at his home by Siegenthaler’s wife.

This is kind of a breakthrough. Wiwkipedia makes it possible for people with no programming skills to do hacking of a sort and to unleash viruses. (If we can count deliberately false information as memetic viruses of a sort.) Great.

Holiday Reading

Just started this book:

Intriguing premise. I’ll provide a full report when I’ve finished. Here are some more good holiday reading options:

Sounds Interesting

Now here’s a blog that really caught my attention. The name of the blog, Science and Politics, is pretty straightforward. But what I like is the subtitle:

Red-State Serbian Jewish atheist liberal PhD student with Thesis-writing block and severe blogorrhea trying to understand US politics by making strange connections between science, religion, brain, language and sex.

Yeah, that’s what I hate about the blogosphere. It’s always the same stuff over and over.

More Support…

…for the Better All The Time thesis. Nothing like a little historical perspective:

Terrorist attacks, a war in Iraq and natural disasters aren’t so bad compared to other tough times in America’s past, from the Revolutionary War to the Cold War, history professors say.

Asked to compare eight difficult periods of the nation’s history, 46 percent of the 354 professors who responded to a nationwide survey agreed the current era was the least trying. The Civil War, 55 percent said, was the toughest.

None of this is to say that the problems we have today aren’t real. Of course they are. But by and large, life has gotten safer, cleaner, easier.

I wonder what these scholars would say if asked what the future will be like? Would they expect the trend to continue or would they think we’ve peaked?