Under the Radar: October 2007

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

How the internet has changed in just the last 10 years

The BBC started its website 10 years ago. Take a look at the graphic showing the number of views going from about a million a month to a thousand times that.

This is a good example of how explosive progress can be... and most progress that is dependent on computing is advancing like this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/7057140.stm

Saturday, October 13, 2007

H R Pufnstuff

If you don't recognize that, this won't mean anything to you.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=J86X4D_gem8

What?!?!?!

Sometimes you come across a story that makes you say "Hmm, is it April 1?". Then you realize it isn't, and you say WHATTTTT?!?!?!

Here is one of them.

If you take the toner cartridge of an inkject printer, clean it out, sterilize it, and fill it with living cells in a carrier fluid, you can use the inkjet printer to print 3D living tissue! 95% of the cells survive being shot out of the inkjet and hitting the target!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15231206

The world changes: Kodak's Olympic sponsorship ending

After more than a century, the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing will mark the end of Kodak sponsorship.

Everything is going digital. While film still has its inimitable qualities, the economics of digital photography are becoming overwhelming, and even Kodak realizes that most photography will be digital.

Patients cannot remember which medications they are taking

Half of patients taking antihypertensive drugs were unable to remember a single one of the medications they were taking. Since someone could easily be confused or unconscious when taken to an emergency room, it would be useful to keep a list of medications and dosages in your purse or wallet.

Minor transient strokes need to be treated as emergencies

By the time we reach our 80s, we typically have hundreds of small strokes. Most of these produce no symptoms.

However, if you live long enough, it is very likely you will experience at least a few transient strokes. The symptoms can be very strange (faces may disappear, speech may be unintelligible, confusion), may or may not involve paralysis, and may pass in a few hours. However, these are signs that a much more serious stroke may be coming in the next few days, weeks, or months. Going to the emergency room and treating such a mild transient stroke will reduce the later risk of a major stroke by 80%!

Here are some symptoms of strokes.

http://www.stroke.org.uk/information/what_is_a_stroke/common_symptoms.html

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/85062.php

Friday, October 12, 2007

Sukiyaki (上を向いて歩こう I look up when I walk (so the tears won't fall))

The real title of this song is Ue o muite arukou. The name Sukiyaki doesn't mean anything in the context of the song. It was renamed in English because the Japanese title was too difficult.

The song begins
I look upward when I walk
So the tears won't fall
Remembering happy days in spring
For tonight I am all alone

The singer, Kyu Sakamoto, was killed in a plane crash in 1985.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xcHysLbSk4&mode=related&search=

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukiyaki_%28song%29

http://www.japanorama.com/kyuchan.html

Thursday, October 11, 2007

We may know whether life exists on Mars by next summer!

The Phoenix Mars Lander will, if everything goes according to plan, land on Mars in May of 2008 and dig under the surface and perform experiments to determine whether life has existed or currently exists there.

I would bet everything there are living cells there now... and on some of the moons of Jupiter and maybe other outer planets as well.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6926880.stm

First Radio Telescope Dedicated to Searching for Extraterrestrails Begins Operations

The first part of the Allen Telescope Array has started operations.

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12771-new-radio-telescope-begins-search-for-alien-signals.html

There will soon be a flood of data requiring analysis, so if you leave your computer on all the time anyway, you could join SETI at Home to hunt for alien technological civilizations.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Camelot

With clips from the original with Julie Andrews, Richard Burton, and Robert Goulet!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1GqoxJngBI

The funniest joke

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go on a camping trip. After a good dinner, they retire for the night, and go to sleep.

Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

"I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes" replies Watson.

"And what do you deduce from that?"

Watson ponders for a minute.

"Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?"

Holmes is silent for a moment. "Watson, you idiot!" he says. "Someone has stolen our tent!"

Is that all there is

Peggy Lee. Is that all there is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-hiDMpcN9Y

Saturday, October 6, 2007

How to use Skype

I am sick and tired of explaining this same damn thing over and over, so watch the damn video, and download the damn Skype software... NOW!

ISBN-13: 978-0295985350

みなしご元禄津波
The Orphan Tsunami of 1700

One winter's night in the year 1700, a mysterious tsunami flooded fields and washed away houses in Japan. It arrived without the warning that a nearby earthquake usually provides. Samurai, merchants, and villagers recorded the event, but nearly three centuries would pass before discoveries in North America revealed the tsunami's source.

The Orphan Tsunami of 1700 tells this scientific detective story through clues from both sides of the Pacific. The evidence uncovered tells of a [magnitude 9 earthquake off the coast of the Pacific Northwest] a century before Lewis and Clark...

You can see a summary at
http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/

http://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Tsunami-1700-Japanese-Earthquake/dp/0295985356/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204357404&sr=1-1

Video simulation of the megaquake.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=72698052150208427&q=pacific+northwest+megaquake&total=1&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Map of simulation of the megaquake.
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/supercomputer/02-08Virtual90Megaquake.asp

A tsunami is unlike any "wave" you have ever seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jixyBvjJZQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl8giZ66j7o

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design)

Liberal, optimistic, exhilarating. The most spectacular lectures you will ever see.

www.ted.com

Try these to start

The best presentation ever... legendary... your view of the world will change in many ways... and there will be hope...
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92

The World Now Eats (and Dies) Like Americans
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/10

Extremely graphic... even made me queasy... but you cannot understand the light without knowing the darkness...
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/142

The Law of ACCELERTING Returns

You have probably heard of the Law of Diminishing Returns: more effort gets you only marginal increase in reward (for example, if you exercise for half an hour a day, you get most of the health benefits; if you exercise for an hour a day, you get almost all of the health benefits; and exercising for two, three, or four hours a day will give very little added health benefits).

However, there are situations in which reward does not diminish (at least for a long while) and actually speeds up over time. People tend to see progress in technology as proceeding in a linear fashion, so they expect the 21st century (barring something truly unfortunate) to progress something like the way the 20th century did. But according to Ray Kurzweil, the technical progress in the 21st century will be more like 1,000 times that of the 20th century.

Here is an example. Cost to read the DNA of one person
in 1990: 3 billion dollars
in 2005: 2 million dollars
in 2006: 200,000 dollars
target for 2010-2015: 1,000 dollars

Being able to read your DNA will allow medical treatments to be tailored specifically for you, vastly improving outcomes.

This BBC Horizon program is, granted, sensational infotainment, but it is probably the most efficient introduction to this topic.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3882715179234602208&q=human+v2.0&hl=en

The article below is very long, and there may be parts that are difficult to follow, but look over the entire article because it is a map of the world we are already living in, and it shows what looms up the road.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

Step 1: Slow the ageing process

Something that humans have seen only once is about to happen again: functional lifespan will vastly increase.

This happened the first time in the 20th century with improvements in public health, sanitation, nutrition, vaccination, and pharmaceuticals. Someone from the 19th century would not believe how low our risk of death is, how free of disability and pain we are, and how long we live now. Things are hardly perfect, but to all humans who lived before the early 1900s, the world we live in now would be an unbelievable paradise.

In the next leap, we will not only live even longer, but disease and disability will often be delayed by years if not decades. If we can just make it through the next 15 years or so, the interventions will be unbelievable. It is quite possible that many of us, even those in middle age, will live to see the dawn of the 22nd century, looking and feeling like 40. I am not joking.

So, how do we improve our chances of getting there? Doing basic things to take care of your health is obvious, but there are other things that can be done.

We have known for 70 years how to slow the ageing process and delay the onset of the diseases of old age: eat less. Or more exactly, reduce the number of calories while maintaining adequate amounts of protein, fats, vitamins, and other nutrients. The difference is shocking, and it has been shown in animals from ameba to monkeys without exception. Basically, when calories are low, cells turn on genes that fix damage, so you age more slowly. Fasting at least once a month seems to produce most of the desired effect.

If you have not seen this New York Times article, take a look at the monkeys.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/health/nutrition/31agin.html?ex=1163480400&en=193a4a4fe169ec69&ei=5070

The monkeys are both about 25 years old. The one on the right ate a normal diet and is old, frail, gray, scruffy, and has the shrunken skull of an old monkey (like a 90 year old human). The one on the left ate a diet with the same nutrients, but with about 30 percent fewer calories. The contrast is shocking. The monkey that ate fewer calories still looks young and healthy (like a 60 year old human).

So, step one is avoid excess calories, especially from sugar, white bread, white rice, and white potatoes.

But the amount by which you have to reduce calories is quite difficult for most people to maintain. Is there another way we can turn on the damage repair genes? The answer seems to be yes.

Throughout human evolution, we have always eaten plants that were far from perfect. They were drought stressed, attacked by fungi, and attacked by insects. Ironically, this seems to have been good for us. When plants are attacked or do not receive enough water, they produce huge numbers of chemicals to defend themselves. In seasons when there were a lot of these chemicals in plants, animals eating the plants used that as a signal that hard times may be coming, so their cells turned on the damage control genes to protect what the cells already had. We also did not have steady supplies of food, so whenever we didn't eat for a day, again the damage control genes turned on. Specifically, unnecessary molecular tags are removed from the DNA, returning gene expression to the way it was when we were younger. In modern life, all the plants we eat are completely protected from fungi and insects and are watered carefully. All the stress response chemicals that they would normally produce are not there. We never go for a day without eating. Therefore, our damage control genes are never turned on, so the molecular tags on our DNA become more and more different from the way they were when we were young, our gene expression becomes more abnormal, and we age at a high rate.

If we consume chemicals that plants make in response to stress, it turns on the damage control genes, and voila, the effect is the same as caloric restriction, although it is unclear what dose is necessary. One chemical that has been shown to turn on damage control genes is resveratrol, which is found in the skin of grapes, especially when the grape plants are stressed by drought or fungus infection, and is found in many other plants as well. Since people who drink red wine made from grapes harvested and processed in the French way seemed to have extremely low levels of heart disease, researchers tried screening red wines from France to find out if there were compounds which produced the effect. Resveratrol is the most potent found so far. When given to laboratory animals, it slows ageing by 20% and even much more, and it decreases risk of cancer by up to 70%. Further evidence comes from numerous studies showing that consumption of 3 glasses of red wine per week is associated with 70% reduction in colon cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and other cancers.

I have been taking resveratrol for two years now, and I think the effects are apparent. When I stopped for 6 months because I ran out, the skin started to look old and wrinkled. Resveratrol is easily destroyed by exposure to air, heat, and light. I take the one from Longevinex at
http://www.longevinex.com
because it seems to be the most biologically active. It costs about a dollar a day, which is much cheaper than a glass of wine, though much less fun, so I do both.

These results are not obscure, but you may not have heard about them. Do a Google search for any of these topics and you will find thousands of hits.

So, step 1, let's at least do simple basic things to slow the ageing process and delay the onset of serious diseases of old age. You may be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams. 万歳！

Under the Radar