Null-e

In this TED talk from A. Garrett Lisi, he describes a unique new unified field theory. He barely scratches the surface and appeals to no formulae whatever, nonetheless, a great deal of his talk is completely incomprehensible to the layperson of no familiarity with quantum physics. In spite of this, it is clear that his theory is one of profound eloquence in that it is grounded in pure geometry. The graphic representation of his model suffices to explain how Lisi intends to unify quantum field theory and general relativity through differential geometry. The points and charges of all elementary particles fully realized as well as those posited by his theory work within the framework of E8 symmetries (figure shown below). All of the interactions between known particles and their charges have fit into Lisi's model of a single field through the four dimensions of spacetime. The use of E8 symmetry leads him to posit 22 new bosonic particles.

In the 1960s, Murray Gell-Mann's model for the quark was based in mathematical symmetries of group theory and may be a precedent giving credence to this contemporary venture. The Large Hadron Collider is to resume operations in the Spring, (after a hiatus to fix a Helium II leak) upon which hopefully some of this will come to light, beginning with the Higgs boson.

The Great Stalacpipe Organ

Over the course of three years, Leland Sprinkle, a mathematician at the Pentagon, spent seeking out, shaving down, and shaping stalactites in the 64 acre Luray Caverns of Virginia. The stalactites were known to have a particular musical quality and Sprinkle was creating the worlds largest lithophone (spreading throughout three and a half acres of the caverns). With a constructed organ console, Sprinkle wired solenoid actuators which would cause rubber mallets to strike stalactites he had specifically chosen for their pitch.



Check out the previous post about unique homemade instruments here.

Through the looking "glass"

I posted about an interactive mirror a few weeks ago. A WebUrbanist article features some particularly cool novelty mirrors. Be sure to check out the quicktime movie of Daniel Rozin's wooden mirror (seen below).

It's a nice time to become a mortician

An unwavering truism about our present world demographic: there are more people now than ever before. Human life has come to dominate the biosphere not only in the exponential population explosion we've witnessed in the past century, but further to include the primacy of domesticated plants and animals to sustain us. These factors have set the stage for the dilemmas of our time.

In Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, author Jared Diamond takes a tour of societal failures - those realized, those avoided, and the potential for those to come. While societal collapses are replete with particularities to the given circumstances, Diamond finds commonalities which thread them all together. Extensive historical comparative analysis as well as modern examples of collapse are examined under the five-point framework Diamond ultimately sees as determining the success or failure of a society:

1. environmental impact
2. climate change
3. hostile neighbors (war)
4. friendly neighbors (trade)
5. response to problems

Diamond's proposition stands in stark contrast to previous works of the sort which argue for societal collapse as an inevitable stage inherent in the cyclical nature evident in the evolution of a culture. This archaic view seems to disregard the cognizance of a culture and its ability to respond to the social pathology of which it ails. Diamond explains that a society may fail anywhere along three steps: the society must first perceive their situation, choose to take action and a course of action to solve the problem, and lastly to succeed in that course. Aside from when the problem is not perceived, often dilemmas arise where short term and long term consequences are not adequately evaluated to inform the process or long-held values distort the decision.

The takeaway Jared Diamond provides is that although past societies have failed to transform a large percent of the time, some have managed to succeed such as the deforestation of Tokugawa Japan and the agricultural issues of New Guinea. In light of what we face in our present day, the stakes are higher. The global economy intertwines all societies such that the failure of one could create a domino effect for the rest. Further, there are so many issues that we face, it would be devastating to prioritize a single threat to our livelihood; there are at least a dozen of serious threats which need to be dealt with on the same scale and with the same degree of subtlety.

To mention a few of the issues Diamond highlights: deforestation, arable land and soil fertility, competition between introduced and native species, poaching, water management, environmental toxins, energy shortages, and of course climate change. Since Diamond among others have graciously identified the issues, it is up to us to decide our course of action. Geneticists have already arrived at successes in developing modified plants that are: aluminum tolerant, saline tolerant, drought tolerant, and flood tolerant. Mycologists have discovered fungi that can break down environmental contaminants, and others which are able to produce hydrocarbon chains not unlike that of diesel fuel. We need to take the steps to ensure these fields of scientific research have permanence. In the end, we will reap just what we sow.

Zen for Youtube

Human fuel efficiency

Considerable breakthroughs have been on-going in research attempts to understand the aging process. First, it is necessary to place some emphasis on the aging process and how we might define it. Largely, aging has a great amount to do with hereditary factors tied to an individual's genetic material in each cell nuclei. However, the effects of aging are manifest in another part of the cell, mitochondria. Mitochondria are the gas-tanks, so to speak, of our cells and convert glucose into ATP (adenosine-5'-triphosphate) to power cellular functions. ATP is a form of intracellular chemical energy as various enzymes "feed" off of it in a number of processes. Most of these processes include aspects of the cell cycle including its growth, differentiation, and death. As mitochondria perform these tasks, a by-product of the chemical reactions are molecules with unpaired electrons called free-radicals. Free-radical Theory suggests that these molecules when oxidized can cause damage to the cell and lead to their atrophic demise (antioxidants are molecules which prevent the free-radicals from oxidizing). Aside from genetics, this cellular death can be understood on a more readily observable level as tissue degeneration.

So, the question is, how are we to stop or at least delay cellular death? Leading the research on this question, or at least at the forefront of the media seems to be research from Sirtris Pharmaceuticals. Published last year in NATURE, studies dating back some years found that the natural compound resveratrol caused life-prolonging and disease resistant effects in animal test subjects. More recently, tests in caloric restriction on lab animals has shown a similar reaction at the cellular level. Cells go into a defensive state and become more efficient with the fuel they have when less is coming in. Caloric restriction places less biological stress on cells by reducing the reactions to produce ATP. A reduction in these reactions therefore limits the amount of free-radicals and their oxidized cell-killers. As far as similarities go, both resveratrol and caloric restriction activate the same enzyme, namely SIRT-1. SIRT-1 is a sirtuin, a family of enzymes which regulate cellular function. The SIRT-1 enzyme is believed to rejuvenate damaged mitochondria and unraveling DNA where other cell-repair proteins fail.

Other cellular regulators such as the gene IGF-1 have been tested for their ability to increase lifespans with limited success. While simpler organisms like yeast lived an amazing 10 times longer, complex organisms could have serious growth defects such as the presence of Laron Syndrome in an Ecuadorean population with a naturally occurring mutation to the gene.

From the published successes of Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, nearly all large pharmaceutical companies are now working to develop mitochondria directed treatments. This could reach milestones in the prevention and treating of age-related illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and others. It is only a matter of time and money before a substantiated breakthrough ends up on the market. In the meantime, for any human guinea pigs, while I'm no dietitian as opposed to the self-imposed starvation of calorie restricted diets, I'd recommend a diet with plenty of antioxidants and more grape leaves, a known plentiful source of resveratrol.

Derrida

Jacques Derrida is deconstructing you and this film from his grave.

Pleistocene Park

Not Jurassic Park, Pleistocene. For some time now, there has been considerable attention placed on the possibility of resurrecting Ice Age animals, particularly the woolly mammoth via the Mammoth Creation Project. Comprised of a group of Japanese researchers, the project would like to fulfill the dream of a Siberian reserve for cloned extinct Ice Age species. The group has made considerable headway from its initial goal of impregnating an elephant with the frozen sperm of a mammoth (nh). There are believed to be anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of mammoths encased and preserved in ice across the globe.

While stumbling upon frozen mammoth sperm seems like a shot in the dark let alone a rather unorthodox way of going about cloning, some recent developments may present new avenues. Stem cell research has faced limitations in the delicacies of the DNA, always requiring the material from live animals. Dead tissue, and particularly frozen tissue, irreparably damaged the genetic material. Or so we thought. In Kobe, Japan at Riken Center for Developmental Biology, successful experiments have cloned mice dead and frozen for 16 years. Researchers were able to create stem cell lines from the cloned embryos made with nucleic transfer, that is, healthy egg cells were injected with nuclei extracted from ruptured brain cells of the dead mice. Further, the cloned mice were successful progenitors.

Of course, while the breakthrough presents better chances of ushering ideas such as the Mammoth Creation Project to fruition, ethical questions will loom over these practices. Is it irresponsible to introduce extinct species to an environment inexorably unnatural to them?