Video of Milky Way traversing South Dakota sky

Pretty.

At wired science.

 

Bees, Cell Phones, and … the Maya?

First let me mention my favorite lunch time blog cruising site, Science Blogging Aggregated.  The start of the trail to many a post.

And thus the interesting post at scientopia, about the relationship between cell phones and bees.   Namely how one experiment suggests communicating cell phones in the vicinity of a hive causes hive stress, and other studies suggest over extended periods, it can cause hive collapse.  Not saying it is the cause, but hive collapse, where worker bees just abandon the Queen and larvae, is a serious syndrome in the honey bee’s increasing disappearance from the landscape.

More science to do, but it appears the magnetite in each honey bee, that is presumed to help bee navigation and foraging by allowing them to sense and align with the earth’s electromagnetic fields, is affected by cell phone / tower fields.

The mention of magnetite within each bee reminded me of the similar configuration of sea turtles that are presumed to navigate their long distances by similar processes.

And that put me in mind of the Maya, who among other intentional use of magnetic material in their statues (say in the temporal area of some statues heads), also intentionally included magnetic material in the nose of sea turtle figurines, long before any concept of magnetism’s role in some species navigational systems.

Which, of course, got me speculating on parallels between sudden and unexplained hive collapse where the bees just abandon a prosperous hive, and the Mayan’s unexplained sudden abandoning of highly developed cities.

All non-productive speculation as it turns out, but perhaps in those speculative accounts of unexplained ancient activity, say like the nazca lines, there was some electro-magnetic force at play then as well.

or not, but perhaps at least the basis for some clever sci-fi?

Migraines, arrhythmias, and panic attacks

Lunchtime blog cruising, I came across this article on what a migraine is like.  As an occasional sufferer, I guess we are all unique,  it is just mildly similar to my low intensity experiences.

But it also called to mind a pet theory I’ve had for sometime.  Very unscientific, but I think it is likely that, for some folks, not all, the complaints of Migraines, Arrhythmias (particularly the non-life threatening Atrial Fib), and Panic Attacks all spring from some common cause.  I just know too many people that exhibit all three syndromes, in intermittent non-disabling ways, to consider it a coincidence.  In my own case, while it’s been decades since my last panic attack, I remember enough to recall a similar discomforted feeling prior to any of the three occurring.

So, just putting it out there, maybe someone with skills can pursue it…  For what it’s worth, my speculation is the common thread will be a cause or effect of diminished blood flow to the brain.

I Ching in the modern age

Lose the ego, embrace balance and equanimity, and truly profound things do happen.  I’ve seen it work in my own life.  Wish I’d discovered it earlier.  To me, the I Ching, Tao te Ching and other chinese tradition works of wisdom, are not unlike the messages one gets from “Jesus in his own words” (no middleman, like Paul) or the “Gospel of Thomas” which is basically words directly attributed to Jesus.   The answers are within, as we are all made in the image of God, however you name him.

We’ll if you can stand the possible irony of combining old wisdom with modern technology, that some fear contributes as much to our decay as our advancement, there truly is an app for that.

As others have said,

At life’s turning points, when the wisdom of the I Ching is sought with sincerity and sensitivity, this ancient Chinese oracle impart balance and perspective to your life. Its lasting popularity lies in the profound lessons it teaches about how reliance on one’s higher qualities leads to life’s greatest rewards: prosperity, understanding, and peace of mind.

Brian Browne Walker is the author of contemporary translations of the I Ching, Tao te Ching, Hua hu Ching, and Art of War which are published by Harper and St. Martin’s Press and translated into over a dozen languages around the world. His “I Ching, or Book of Changes”, long beloved for its clarity and accessibility, has been highly reviewed on Amazon consistently for over a decade.

Now in app form, iPhone: http://is.gd/RKdg7l   Android: http://is.gd/OJ4vV6

Chimps are self-aware

Early tests amounted to seeing whether chimps, while looking in a mirror, realized that marks on their faces (placed there without their knowledge) were on “them”.  That is, did they try to wipe marks off the mirror face or their own faces.

http://news.discovery.com/animals/chimpanzees-self-awareness-110504.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1

Time and technology march on.  Now they use the chimps awareness of which of two cursors on a computer screen are controlled (if at all) by them.  The chimps had an over 90% success rate, determining which cursor they controlled, or, if their trackball was actually doing nothing, that their gestures were irrelevant to the cursor movement.  Given my poor performance on first-person shooter games , ie controlling where i was aiming my weapon, i’m not certain i could have passed this test.

It seems, so far, that only certain apes and dolphins have been demonstrated to have what once was considered a human only trait, self-awareness and higher order consciousness.

While not being able to recognize themselves in mirrors, although one recognized other dogs on TV, or even control a cursor, i’d like to devise a test for most of my dogs.  They certainly seem aware of their impact on their environment, not to mention their owner.

But interesting stuff, none-the-less.  Self-awareness is kin to self-reference, being able to conceive of an I, and evaluate that I as though observing it from afar, seems like a fundamental aspect of what makes our universe tick.  Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, and Bach (and sequels) made the case pretty effectively.  Everything changes once an entity can refer to itself.

Be interesting how the quantum guys with suspicions about consciousness being in a strong loop-link with our world would consider chimp’s and dolphins contributions to our reality.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Chauvet Cave is the subject of Werner Herzog’s latest documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams.  In 3D.   The cave is closed to the public so this is your chance to see this amazing piece of human history.

Awesome Solar System Animation

A little hard to pick up the control widgets (dark on black background) but move your mouse around and you’ll see them.

http://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/orrery_2006.swf

I really love the ability to see either a  Copernican or Tychonian view of the celestial movements.

Intelligent Elephants can be conniving

Actually a generally cool story.  Elephants can learn to cooperate to reach a goal — in this case pulling on a rope to get food.  And at least one can also figure out how to make the other one do all the work   Noble beasts.

NPR story for details.

I’ve seen similar experiments with chimpanzees and bonobos, those mild mannered chimpanzees to the uninformed like myself.

Of the three, only the bonobos appear to routinely just cooperate, even waiting for their partners to get their share,  and in one case, where the partner helped pull the rope, but was prevented from reaching the food, the other bonobo carried some food to them.

Chimpanzees not only cheated if they could, once the food was within reach they often fought over it.   And when the experiment was altered to have fighting result in less for both, they’d continue to fight anyway.

Presuming chimpanzees and/or bonobos are part of our family tree, it is interesting to identify in our human behavior aspects of both.

Cell life

i always think of cells as, well sorta active, i know they split and all, but rarely think about their normal internal activities.  Like proteins.  Yeah, fat, carbohydrates and proteins are all necessary for building and energizing cells.  But it just fascinates me when they put together short little videos like the one in the link below, showing how a protein actually walks around within a cell, to get where it’s needed.

go to the third video on this page –

   http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=flexible-proteins-web-extra

 

that’s going on all the time in all the (estimates vary from)  50 million to 100 trillion cells in your body.  No wonder i’m tired

How it looks from here

Space-Time continuum.  We don’t exist in a three dimensional space, but a four dimensional space-time.  Using relativity as a guide, lots of weird stuff starts to happen when you introduce objects into space time.

Even weirder stuff happens if the objects are self-aware and able to detect and observe each other.  Insane stuff happens if the two objects are in motion relative to each other.  Bends the mind.

That is, if we are the observer.

If we are the observed, our world is pretty neat and tidy, and generally Newtonian.  In fact we might be traveling at the speed of light ourselves right now.  In relation to some observer out there that is.  So what, eh?  All that strange stuff is only apparent to that unknown observer out there.  As far as we’re concerned, all’s a-one, normal, to spec.  We’re not infinitely massive, nor infinitesimally shortened.  Time isn’t moving v-e-r-y  s-l-o-w-l-y or come to a stop.  Speaking of which is time stopping the same as timeless?

What does it all mean?  Perhaps, it just means, when considering some “other”, in our frame of reference, things get distorted.  That is they are not “really” as they appear.  As one would expect, quite naturally.  At least for those of us who have finally accepted that we are not, in fact, the center of the universe.

View them in their frame of reference and all’s sensible.

Now relativity is useful when forced to deal with the effects of motion, beyond some certain speed, on other objects of interest.  Say GPS satellites.  That time dilation, due to space shortening (or vice versa) is important to account for.

But you can, if you choose, just look at it like a noise-reduction filter.  It accounts for the distortion in our observation, it does not in any way describe how that object appears to itself.