We're Born With It

Looks like we might very well be born with an understanding of math:

One sign that this skill truly is innate: Children enter the world with a head for numbers. Veronique Izard, a cognitive psychologist at Harvard University, demonstrated this in a recent study of newborns. She and her colleagues played cooing sounds to babies, with varying numbers of sounds in each trial. The babies were then shown a set of shapes on a computer screen, and the scientists measured how long the babies gazed at it. (The length of time a baby spends looking at an object reflects its interest.) Newborns consistently looked longer at the screen when the number of shapes matched the number of sounds they had just heard. For example, a baby who heard “tuuu, tuuu, tuuu, tuuu” would look the longest at four shapes, less at eight, and still less at twelve. Izard’s study suggests that newborns already have a basic understanding of numbers. Moreover, their concept of numbers is abstract; they can transfer it across the senses from sounds to pictures.

Read the whole article here.

Metal Minerals Scarcity and the Elements of Hope

This presentation is worth a read. In a nutshell, the problem of peak oil applies just the same to a bunch of metal minerals. Think of copper today, it's already getting more expensive, not drastically, but enough the folks steal wiring out of houses...

Anyway, check it out:

If policy does not change, the ongoing growth in global consumption of metals will cause shortages, aggravate energy scarcity and obstruct the transition towards a sustainable economy.

Technology alone is not going to save us. A holistic approach to the vast underlying problem of exponential growth and overconsumption requires involvement of various disciplines. “Using less” requires nothing less than some form of managed austerity and involves disciplines like psychology, philosophy, law, finance, economics, system dynamics and politics. Nate Hagens has explained during the discussion after this presentation that we need to understand and implement all that we know about human behaviour for any solution to stand a chance of becoming viable (see the recent excellent work by Nate Hagens).

It does make me think, perhaps we should be taking all those vacations and doing all the things we take for granted now, because life may change pretty drastically in the next 10-20 years.

The Last Psychiatrist: To The Brain, God Is Just Another Guy

I remember hearing the NPR story about the research that concluded God is just another guy. I remember being a little skeptical (anything sciency relating to God raises a red flag for me). But the conclusion didn't seem outlandish, so I accepted it.

I appreciate The Last Psychiatrist.com's analysis:

In other words, the study emphatically does not show that 'to the brain, God is just another guy.' At best, it shows that American 30-somethings are not able to see God as anything other than just another guy; but who knows how 3rd century Romans saw God?

Philip Zimbardo shows how people become monsters ... or heroes | Video on TED.com

Remember the infamous psychology study done at Stanford, where college kids were divided into jailors and jailees? That was Philip Zimbardo's study.

He has a very interesting talk about that, and how it relates to Gitmo.

Philip Zimbardo shows how people become monsters ... or heroes | Video on TED.com

Ethanol Thoughts

For some reason, I've been thinking of ethanol fuel lately. Perhaps I heard Obama or McCain mention it, or maybe I saw a car w/a bumper sticker.

Either way, I started thinking about it - and what struck me was the question of where the biomass (corn/soy/switch-grass) was going to come from.

Ignore for a minute the fact that even if we turned all the corn/soy we grew into fuel - we still wouldn't have enough gas to run our vehicles. Ignore for a minute the fact that nobody has come up with a cost-effective (and efficient) method of converting biomass into fuel.

Where is this biomass coming from?

Farms/forests/grasslands.

Ok. Fine.

What do all farmers know? They know that to get something out of the ground you need: water, light, seed, and nutrients. After a few generations of anything, you need to feed the soil. Where is the fertilizer going to come from? You can't compost - you just turned all the biomass into fuel. You need fertilizer - and that's going to increase the cost. People talk about using switchgrass - and that it is responsible for the fertile soil in the Midwest. Yes, it's how we got such fertile soil - by having switchgrass grow there for generations - not by harvesting it twice every year.

Yes, stuff grows in the ground, but it's not an unlimited bank account. This is something everyone knew before the industrial revolution. But now ... people think you only have to harvest/harvest/harvest.

Sigh...

Also, to get an idea of the scale of the problem, I was reading this article: The Oil Drum | Cutting Through the Coskata Cellulosic Ethanol Hype, and it breaks down an analysis of a particular company's claims. The part I found most interesting was the quantity of biomass required:

In Coskata's case, they promise 100 gallons (+) per ton. How much biomass then to run a 100 million gallon per year facility? A million tons per year. How much biomass is this? If we return to the Douglas fir example, it is the biomass equivalent of around 1.2 million mature Douglas firs per year.
[...]
To put in the context of rail cars, the coal cars lined up outside of a coal-fired power plant are a familiar site. According to this, each car carries about 100 tons of coal. For a million tons of coal a year, you would have to have 1 million/(100 tons per car) = 10,000 cars per year coming into and leaving the plant. That's more than a car an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And of course coal is quite a bit denser than biomass, so more cars would be required in the case of biomass.

Wow, a train car every hour, every day, to produce ... 100 million gallons of ethanol. That's a lot of biomass. But 100 million gallons is a lot, isn't it? No: we use 390 million gallons of gas per day. And, that's ignoring the fact that ethanol only has 2/3 the energy of gasoline.

How are you going to solve the logistics of getting that much biomass shipped around? To cover all the gas we use in vehicles we'd need nearly 1500 such ethanol plants, each requiring at minimum - one train car full of biomass every hour.

The numbers are simply staggering.

Shroom Class

On Sunday I did the field trip portion of my mushroom class. The instructor (again) made a comment about how he didn't sign up to teach the 30+ people, the class was supposed to be limited to 20. I agree that the class was too large to get good exposure to the instructor - hopefully the parks and rec will enforce the class limits they set up next time.

That being said, I had a good time. The class split into two groups that each headed down different roads on Mary' s Peak. I joined the smaller group, which had the two "assistants" leading it. We all had a great time looking for mushrooms and sharing our findings with each other. I had the typical knack to find LBMs (little brown mushrooms) and initially had trouble finding anything but the LBMs. But I did end up finding two Chanterelles on my own, as well as a couple of Lobster mushrooms. Unfortunately, Lobster mushrooms are very popular with a number of insects so you have to find them before the insects.

I plan on going out to look for mushrooms in the future - it was a hoot.

A bunch of Chanterelles, some Lobster, and a very pretty purple shroom

My first Chanterelle

A collection of some of the mushrooms our group found

A jelly tooth mushroom in it's infant stage - the feel like gummy bears

No idea what mushroom this is, but one of few the non-LBMs I found

A fungi forest

My second Chanterelle

Cute little LBM

One of the many choral mushroom varieties

How reliable is DNA in identifying suspects? - Los Angeles Times

Interesting article showing how DNA is not the panacea we've been led to believe it is.

How reliable is DNA in identifying suspects?

Study: Teachers not being taught math properly - Yahoo! News

Study: Teachers not being taught math properly:

Author Julie Greenberg said education students should be taking courses that give them a deeper understanding of arithmetic and multiplication. She said the courses should explain how math concepts build upon each other and why certain ideas need to be emphasized in the classroom.

Sadly, this matches my limited experience with the math education students I met at Cornell. I won't rehash my .999 = 1 story, but let me summarize it by saying the education students appeared to be woefully lacking rigorous math knowledge.

Math is the basis for all science... everyone should really understand the basics.

Interesting Summary Of Weight Loss Studies

Joe Friel wrote the book I'm using to help guide me in training for triathlons, he has an interesting round-up of weight loss studies: Weight Loss

His conclusion:

So what's the bottom line? It appears that when calories are reduced to lose weight, which is more effective than increasing workload, the protein content of the diet must be kept at near normal levels.

Only 2 weeks left in fit-bowl '08.

The organisation of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism - Environmental Politics

Just saw this paper. No, I didn't read the whole thing. The conclusion is simply amazing, 90% of the environmentally skeptical books are funded by conservative think tanks. Yet another example of how just because there are two "sides" to every story doesn't mean they have equal weight.

The organisation of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism - Environmental Politics:

"Environmental scepticism denies the seriousness of environmental problems, and self-professed 'sceptics' claim to be unbiased analysts combating 'junk science'. This study quantitatively analyses 141 English-language environmentally sceptical books published between 1972 and 2005. We find that over 92 per cent of these books, most published in the US since 1992, are linked to conservative think tanks (CTTs). Further, we analyse CTTs involved with environmental issues and find that 90 per cent of them espouse environmental scepticism. We conclude that scepticism is a tactic of an elite-driven counter-movement designed to combat environmentalism, and that the successful use of this tactic has contributed to the weakening of US commitment to environmental protection."

How It All Ends

Global warming, risk management breakdown. A thoughtful analysis of the meta-argument we should all be having. Oh, and bonus, he's a sports racer.

YouTube - How It All Ends

GM Crops Yield Less

I've been chatting with a friend off and on about farming, organics, GMO, and other related topics. One question he had was about yields, and I didn't know if GM crops had better yields or not, but figured Mansanto (and other seed companies) would have marketed them as having higher yields. But I would obviously question what Mansanto said since they are trying to sell their own product.

Turns out, GM crops yield less: Exposed: the great GM crops myth - Green Living, Environment - The Independent

Water and Fire

Slow motion water and fire.



Hat Tip: Ze

Peak Oil Is Here

A write up on The Oil Drum: ...To Grandmother's House We Go: Peak Oil Is Here. Not a doomsday story (well, not until the last three paragraphs) but a well written analysis of what has just happened and what it will start to mean.

Duck!

Bad news for my grand kids (or perhaps their kids).

July 16, 1862: This Comet Has
Earth Written All Over It

Don't forget to duck come August 14th, 2126.

An Overview of Peak Oil

I pay attention to a blog named "The Oil Drum" - it has very well written articles on energy - usually oil, but also ethanol, wind, solar, coal, etc. This was a nice overview of peak oil.

The Oil Drum | Peak Oil Overview - June 2007

Sadly, It's Not A Parody

I was led to this post and I thought it was funny, until I realized he was serious.

A choice quote:

“Based on genetics, I think Adam’s chest hair needs to be short, like Sean Connery’s.”

The post in full is here: Meeting Scientists Behind Closed Doors - Answers in Genesis

The Top 10 Bizarro Environmental Stories

A short list of the most bizarre environmental stories. My "favorites" are America Outsourcing its Pollution to China, and Eskimos Buying Air Conditioners. There are of course the obligatory nods to the Bush administration in the list.

Slime Molds

I'd read about slime molds before, and the first part of this article gives a good description of how they sometimes behave like individual amoebea, but in times of scarcity, they group together and behave as a more complex ogranism that generates "spoors". Neat stuff.

The article goes on further to discuss details about the complexities in these complex organisms which you may or may not find interesting (I did), but the first part is definitely worth reading.

Us and Them Among the Slime Molds

The environmental costs of green energy: Biofuels | The Green Geek

The Green Geek has a good article on The environmental costs of green energy: Biofuels. I thought the most telling portion was the following:

It’s known that photosynthesis has an efficiency of around 16 percent. Even if the entire mass of the plant was converted to usable energy, this is already less efficient than using the sunlight directly via photovoltaic panels or concentrated solar power systems, and that’s not even factoring in energy losses during processing and distribution, or thermal and mechanical losses in a vehicle.

In part, this shows how amazing the energy concentration is in our fossil fuels, and how we really need to think of something more than replacing our oil/coal consumption with a "green" substitute.