Mars

Thanks, NASA! (More at the link.)

What Space Exploration and P*rn Have in Common:

. . . always pushing the tech envelope.



(Thanks, Ben!) The comments on YouTube are worth a look.

Wind Map

The still at right is from Mar. 21, 2012. Here's a real-time animation of the wind as of right now.

NASA Video of Solar Flare March 7

"The sun erupted with one of the largest solar flares of this solar cycle on March 6, 2012 at 7PM EST. This flare was categorized as an X5.4, making it the second largest flare . . . since the sun’s activity segued into a period of relatively low activity called solar minimum in early 2007."

The grid did not fry, this time. More info re- the flare at NASA.

Re- Apple

I'm enjoying Walter Isaacson's eponymous biography of Steve Jobs. One thing it lacks that Jobs might have appreciated: an illustrated catalogue of Apple's products. You can see many of them here.

I had one of the powerbooks below.

The Logic of Nonviolence

"Erica Chenoweth has developed a dataset and analyzed the historical record. Below the fold are slides summarizing the results of her study of 323
 non-violent and violent campaigns 
from
 1900‐2006." Lots more at naked capitalism.

(In other words,

Hatred never ceases by hatred;
But by love alone is healed.
This is an ancient and eternal law.

Dhammapada, Ch. 1, the Twin Verses 5, as quoted by Maha Ghosananda.)

Kissmission

Via Oddity Central (thanks Ben!)

Excavated Ant Megalopolis

Can't resist re-blogging this.



Via Boing Boing (thanks, Ben!)

Update Re- Genetically-Modified Foods

As explained in a 2009 post and by others before me, "insect-resistent" GM plants have in fact been engineered to produce food that's literally full of poison.

Lately I'm hearing stories on public radio (the only traditional-media news product I regularly consume) about "good" GM – how spider genes have enabled silkworms to create stronger silk, and how sunflower seeds have been engineered to produce more cooking oil.

I hope this surfacing of the GM discussion results from an independent, journalistic initiative on the part of public radio – that seems possible, since I believe I also heard mention that the use of environmentally-hazardous pesticides or other chemicals has actually increased with the use of GM crops. Alternatively, the coverage may arise from a p.r. initiative on the part of the GM industry.

Regardless, I welcome the discussion, since I think genetic engineering is here to stay and does in fact offer the potential to help us build a better world quicker than natural selection might otherwise do.

But for purposes of the discussion, it would seem useful to distinguish between GMOs that deploy different kinds of strategies – e.g., for starters, to distinguish between poisonous and non-poisonous GMOs (since creating organisms that produce intrinsically poisonous food would seem more obviously likely to give rise to undesirable consequences).

To do that, we need new, clear terms – and we should expect that any terms the industry might propose will not be clear.

So let's propose some ourselves. Here's an initial attempt:

"Poisonous GMO": a GMO engineered to cause death or illness in any living organism, or to impair or inhibit the reproductivity or functioning of otherwise healthy, normal or typical living organisms.

"Non-Poisonous GMO": a GMO which is not a Poisonous GMO, as defined above.

Alternative or additional suggestions welcome.

Timelapse of Earth

Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a special low-light 4K-camera by the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station, 2011. Edited by Michael König; more details here. (Thanks, Robin!)

Final Mandelbrot Set

Benoît Mandelbrot, inventor of fractal geometry – the branch of mathematics that describes the hidden order in nature and in seemingly chaotic systems – died this last Thursday.

More here.

One of the coolest things I've seen lately

The Dymaxion

First built in 1934, Buckminster Fuller's aerodynamically efficient vehicle could transport 11 passengers at 36 mpg.

Norman Foster, who worked with Fuller before the latter's death and recently rebuilt the car, writes, “ . . . Fuller drew attention to the ecological issues of today when he referred to ‘spaceship earth’ and the fragility of the planet; as such, his work and observations are even more important now than they were in his lifetime.”

More photos and info at gizmag here and here (thanks, Ben!)

"Cassini Mission"

By Chris Abbas, using NASA footage.



(Thanks, JP!)

"Broadcast" Your Brain Waves

"The 'necomimi' . . . hair band . . . features sensors that pick up on brain signals and convert them into visible actions . . . by wiggling the cat ears. . . . [W]hen you concentrate, the ears point upwards . . . when you relax the ears flop down and forwards." More at Wired and Japan Trends; via Gizmodo. (Thanks Ben!)

Projected, Potential Distribution of Radiation from Japan

(Gif below right from EURAD.)

Japan Quake Triggered by Solar Flare?

On Wed., March 9, at 5:23 pm CST, a Class X1.5 solar flare erupted, "one of the most powerful types of flares," "letting loose a wave of charged particles . . . aimed straight at Earth" (Yahoo News).

On Thurs., at 12:30 am CST, the coronal mass ejection hit Earth's magnetic field (NASA). Thurs. night, Northern Lights were visible in Canada and the Northern US (I'm not sure about elsewhere) (id.; image right taken near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada by Zoltan Kenwell; click on it for a beautifully bigger version).

On Fri., at 11:46 am CST, an 8.9 earthquake struck near Japan (nola.com). It is Japan's largest quake and the 6th largest in the world since seismic records began (British Geological Survey).

NASA has previously stated that "they have found a close link between electrical disturbances on the edge of our atmosphere and impending quakes on the ground below" (BBC) (see also this abstract of an article in the American Geophysical Union).

Brainbows

Four years ago, Harvard scientists devised a way to make mouse neurons glow in a breathtaking array of colors, a technique dubbed “Brainbow.” This allowed scientists to trace neurons’ long arms, known as the dendrites and axons, through the brain with incredible ease, revealing a map of neuron connections.

Using a clever trick of genetic engineering, in which genes for three or more different fluorescent proteins were combined like paints to generate different hues, researchers created a system to make each neuron glow one of 100 different colors.

. . . . This is the first time that scientists have converted the technique to work in fruit flies, and because these organisms have a very sophisticated set of existing genetic tools, researchers can exert even greater control over when and where the fluorescent proteins are expressed . . . . Researchers have traditionally had to stain just one or two neurons in each sample, painstakingly compiling data from many brains to build a map.

More at technology review.

The Commons that Was the Internet, & Why the Creative Explosion It Gave Us May Soon Be Over

Lawrence Lessig has a new article at Foreign Policy summarizing important factors behind the explosive growth of the Internet, and the imminent threats that could end it:

A “commons” is a resource to which everyone within a relevant community has equal access. It is a resource that is not, in an important sense, “controlled.” Private or state-owned property is a controlled resource; only as the owner specifies may that property be used. But a commons is not subject to this sort of control. Neutral or equal restrictions may apply to it (an entrance fee to a park, for example) but not the restrictions of an owner. A commons, in this sense, leaves its resources “free.”

. . . . But within American intellectual culture, commons are treated as imperfect resources. They are the object of “tragedy,” as ecologist Garrett Hardin famously described. Wherever a commons exists, the aim is to enclose it. . . .

For most resources, for most of the time, the bias against commons makes good sense. When resources are left in common, individuals may be driven to overconsume, and therefore deplete, them. But . . . . [s]ome resources are not subject to the “tragedy of the commons” because some resources cannot be “depleted.” . . . For these resources, the challenge is to induce provision, not to avoid depletion. The problems of provision are very different from the problems of depletion—confusing the two only leads to misguided policies.

* * * * *
. . . . [T]he Internet was born at a time when a different philosophy was taking shape within computer science. This philosophy ranked humility above omniscience and anticipated that network designers would have no clear idea about all the ways the network could be used. It therefore counseled a design that built little into the network itself, leaving the network free to develop as the ends (the applications) wanted.

The motivation for this new design was flexibility. The consequence was innovation. Because innovators needed no permission from the network owner before different applications or content got served across the network, innovators were freer to develop new modes of connection. . . . Since the network was not optimized for any single application or service, the Internet remained open to new innovation. . . .

* * * * *
Every significant innovation on the Internet has emerged outside of traditional providers. . . . This trend teaches the value of leaving the platform open for innovation. Unfortunately, that platform is now under siege. Every technological disruption creates winners and losers. The losers have an interest in avoiding that disruption if they can. This was the lesson Machiavelli taught, and it is the experience with every important technological change over time. It is also what we are now seeing with the Internet. The innovation commons of the Internet threatens important and powerful pre-Internet interests. During the past five years, those interests have mobilized to launch a counterrevolution that is now having a global impact.

The article's not super-long but contains much more that's well worth reading.

UPDATE: Great audio of Lessig here discussing the policy considerations underlying copyright law and some reforms we might consider that could actually afford greater compensation to artists while de-criminalizing non-commercial re-mixing and other uses.

Sara Krugman at Flux Factory

Exhibition Jan. 14 - 21.

(Left, Pump Skin series, #1. Pig and human skin, Animas Ping insulin pump (2010).)