Science, Technology & Health: January 2005 Archives

I've written about Stephen Meyer and his peer-reviewed article on the theory of intelligent design, and those posts attracted a large number of comments on his ideas, as well as on evolution and science in general. I'm very curious to read what you all think of the recent witch hunt targeting Richard Sternberg, the journal editor who okayed Dr. Meyer's paper for publication in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.

Whatever the article's ultimate merits--beyond the judgment of a layman--it was indeed subject to peer review, the gold standard of academic science. Not that such review saved Mr. Sternberg from infamy. Soon after the article appeared, Hans Sues--the museum's No. 2 senior scientist--denounced it to colleagues and then sent a widely forwarded e-mail calling it "unscientific garbage."

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Zoology Department, Jonathan Coddington, called Mr. Sternberg's supervisor. According to Mr. Sternberg's OSC complaint: "First, he asked whether Sternberg was a religious fundamentalist. She told him no. Coddington then asked if Sternberg was affiliated with or belonged to any religious organization. . . . He then asked where Sternberg stood politically; . . . he asked, 'Is he a right-winger? What is his political affiliation?' " The supervisor (who did not return my phone messages) recounted the conversation to Mr. Sternberg, who also quotes her observing: "There are Christians here, but they keep their heads down."

Worries about being perceived as "religious" spread at the museum. One curator, who generally confirmed the conversation when I spoke to him, told Mr. Sternberg about a gathering where he offered a Jewish prayer for a colleague about to retire. The curator fretted: "So now they're going to think that I'm a religious person, and that's not a good thing at the museum."

In October, as the OSC complaint recounts, Mr. Coddington told Mr. Sternberg to give up his office and turn in his keys to the departmental floor, thus denying him access to the specimen collections he needs. Mr. Sternberg was also assigned to the close oversight of a curator with whom he had professional disagreements unrelated to evolution. "I'm going to be straightforward with you," said Mr. Coddington, according to the complaint. "Yes, you are being singled out." Neither Mr. Coddington nor Mr. Sues returned repeated phone messages asking for their version of events.

Are Mr. Coddington and Mr. Sues acting like scientists, or religious zealots persecuting a heretic?

Does anyone know much about animal mating in the wild? Do wild animals commonly mate with their near relatives? For instance, male fish can't possibly know which eggs in the water are from their mothers or daughters; they must fertilize indiscriminately. What about mammals? Do bull lions mate with their daughters after driving other males away? Lots of mammals operate in groups with a single dominant male that mates with all the females, which must include his own relatives.

Ken at Chicago Boyz makes an excellent observation with regard to flying cars: they aren't meant to operate over cities, they're mean to replace cities.

For all of these purposes, the flying car serves not as a means of traveling within a city, but as a substitute for the city itself! Instead of shortening the distance between people and enterprises by crowding them into a city, the skycar shortens the travel time while allowing the people themselves to live hundreds of miles away from their jobs, their friends, and their favorite shops. A few dozen houses may be clumped together in a single clearing, or a single house may stand on its own, but in either case small neighborhoods and single office buildings/strip malls/large stores will be surrounded by miles of wilderness, and people will spend most of their time endangering nothing but trees or grass if they happen to suffer mechanical failure, and enjoying plenty of space between themselves and the nearest fellow traveler.

He also observes that decentralizing our population will make our country more resistant to terrorist attacks (even nuclear weapons). Not to mention the potential environmental benefits to be had, and the psychological benefits of lower population density. I suspect most people would live in town-sized clusters of 2,000 to 5,000 people, rather than the tiny villages Ken describes, but I agree that the megalopolis may eventually be a thing of the past.

That is, developments in using your mind to control things. There are two great articles about advances in cybernetics that allow paralyzed people to control computers and electronics via brain implants.

I want a Wicked Laser, preferably the 50mW version. Someone buy an ad.

Here's an excellent museum of history's worst weapons. I won't tell you which ones I've worked on.... My favorites are the planes with chainsaws and jousting lances, although the oar-driven submarine was a close contender.

So Airbus has debuted the A380 and everyone is all excited about a giant plane. The images and pictures look pretty cool, but personally I think Boeing is on a better path with its smaller 7E7, but I suppose that's up to the market to ultimately decide... except for the fact that the Europeans have never been too fond of the free market.

The ceremony also provides a great deal of political currency for Europe's four most powerful leaders.

Prime Minister Tony Blair will be there, as will President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso will also attend.

The first prototype of the Airbus A380 observed by plane spotters
Will the A380 provide luxury for the few, or be a coach for families on holiday?

In fact, the presence of the politicians is far from spurious. Without government assistance, the A380 would probably never have been built.

Billions of euros have been handed over in "launch aid loans" in recent years - under generous repayment terms - to assist Airbus's development of the A380.

This has angered the US, which is home to rival aerospace giant Boeing.

It's a fact that America's reluctance to assist Boeing makes it much more difficult for the company to compete on the world stage, and the same goes for America's aircraft operators. I still doubt that the post-9/11 aline bailout was a good idea, but if American companies had gone out of business they may have been replaced by subsidized foreign companies. Subsidies can only go so far and so long, however, because they naturally weaken the country doing the subsidizing. In a sense, if American air travel had been taken over by foreigners we could have free-riden on the European desire for nationalized airlines -- thus transferring money from the Eurpoean taxpayers to ourselves.

Anyway, the main reason I like the Boeing 7E7 better than the Airbus A380 is that I think hubs are a thing of the past. People don't want to fly from where they live to a hub and then on to their destination. Humans aren't packages, and human airlines shouldn't operate like FedEx. People want to fly directly to their destination, which means longer flights with smaller, more efficient planes, and that's what the 7E7 is all about. There will always be a place for giant planes, and for intercontinental travel they certainly make sense, but I expect most people will prefer direct flights when they can get them.

The other factor is safety. Although the measurement methods are somewhat controversial, Airbus tends to have a worse safety record than Boeing. Airplane accidents are measured by flights rather than by distance or hours flown because most accidents happen during take-off and landing. Although there are more accidents with Boeing planes than with Airbus planes, Boeing planes also fly far more than Airbus planes, so the Boeing accident rate is lower. However, this isn't true for all comparable plane models; the Airbus A320 has a lower accident rate than the Boeing 737, for example. In most other classes the Boeing planes are superior. Why? Perhaps they're built better, but it's also likely that the countries who buy Airbus planes don't maintain their fleets as well as countries that buy Boeing planes. It's complicated, as you can see.

Update:
Brian Micklethwait explains how the EU is screwing Thailand by forcing them to buy six A380s, and Dustin Choe elaborates on why the A380 is impractical.

so anyways, i guess i will start off with simple logistics. very few airports in the US can even support the weight of the a380. this will force many airports to upgrade and remodel to accomodate the plane. i am unsure about the condition of foreign airports, some may be able to handle this plane already. there will also be some minor changes made to terminals because it will take 2 to 4 jetways to load and unload the passengers. i have a feeling that if any US airline can even afford the $240 million plane, they will likely be the economized 800+ seats version to decrease the cost per passenger. and as per FAA rules, the plane must be able to be evacuated within 90 seconds and this is something i would like to see.

There's more.

Ok, it doesn't sound like much, but it's still pretty cool to listen to alien wind, recorded by Cassini-Huygens probe that that recently landed on Saturn's moon of Titan. They've got images of Titan as well, which show what may be a methane ocean. Surf's up! Just bring a wetsuit, because it's minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit.

For anyone interested in oil, here's an OSHA document describing petroleum refining processes. It includes a nice overview of the industry, the basics about crude oil, a little bit of chemistry, and lots about the various products we get from petroleum. Not a difficult read.

Newsweek has an article about fighting acne but doesn't mention my own pimple prescription: antibiotic cream.

Am I the only one who has noticed that antibiotic cream (like Neosporin, containing Neomycin sulfate, Polymyxin-B sulfate, and Pramoxine hydrochloride) does wonders for clearing up acne? There must be some sort of side effect to treating pimples with a topical antibiotic, but if so I don't see it. I had a pimple yesterday and I put some neosporin on it in the morning and it was gone by the time I went to bed last night. It worked much more quickly than any of the benzoyl peroxide or erythromycin products I've used (even though they're bactericidal).

I hate any device that takes batteries and requires me to change them more than once a year. (Remote controls are ok, flashlights are not, and remote control cars are straight out.)

Like me, many of you have probably wondered what the deal is with all the different types of batteries -- AA, AAA, C, D, 9V, and so forth. So here's a handy table I stole from Wikipedia's entry on batteries.

Battery capacity is measured in Amp-hours, or more commonly, mAh (milliamp-hours). AAA batteries typically output between 900 and 1,155 mAh at 1.5 volts, and the larger cells in the same series have the same voltage (as shown in the table above) and larger capacities (proportional to their larger volume). (A battery with 1,000 mAh can sustain a current of 10 mA for 100 hours, or 100 mA for 10 hours.)

From what I can find, the capacity of various brands of batteries -- like Duracell, Energizer, Rayovac, Sanyo, or whatever -- is pretty much the same; battery capacity is almost entirely determined by the type of chemical technology used. Here's an excellent chart of capacity and weight comparisons for various types of Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) and Nickel Cadmium (Nicad) rechargables. Here's an article on how batteries work. Here's a history of nonrechargable batteries from the Electrochemistry Encyclopedia. Here's a page that explains why nonrechargable batteries have a much higher capacity than rechargables. Here are datasheets for Duracell and Energizer batteries.

You won't believe the type of nonsense that idiots who take pride in saying "I don't know much about computers!" will type into a search engine. Hello people, Google is not a freaking concierge or a philosopher; it can't understand complex sentences and it doesn't want to hear your life story. Half the hits to my site come from morons who submit queries like "tell me about John Kerry's first marriage" and "what is the funniest joke ever?". Get a clue.

I get tension headaches from time to time, and you probably do, too! Here's some information about tension headaches and what causes them, as well as how to relieve them. One of the most distinctive things is that they routinely occur in the late afternoon -- and that's when I get them! I also scrunch my shoulders sometimes, which is bad posture, looks funny, and also leads to headaches. So relax, people, and get a pretty girl with warm hands to give you a massage. In the immortal words of Governor Arnold: "it's not a tumor!"