Science, Technology & Health: October 2006 Archives
Amanda Gefter does a good job explaining black holes, evaporation, and the conservation of information, and her illustration of an elephant caught in a black hole is through-provoking.
Let's say Alice is watching a black hole from a safe distance, and she sees an elephant foolishly headed straight into gravity's grip. As she continues to watch, she will see it get closer and closer to the event horizon, slowing down because of the time-stretching effects of gravity in general relativity. However, she will never see it cross the horizon. Instead she sees it stop just short, where sadly Dumbo is thermalised by Hawking radiation and reduced to a pile of ashes streaming back out. From Alice's point of view, the elephant's information is contained in those ashes. Inside or out?There is a twist to the story. Little did Alice realise that her friend Bob was riding on the elephant's back as it plunged toward the black hole. When Bob crosses the event horizon, though, he doesn't even notice, thanks to relativity. The horizon is not a brick wall in space. It is simply the point beyond which an observer outside the black hole can't see light escaping. To Bob, who is in free fall, it looks like any other place in the universe; even the pull of gravity won't be noticeable for perhaps millions of years. Eventually as he nears the singularity, where the curvature of space-time runs amok, gravity will overpower Bob, and he and his elephant will be torn apart. Until then, he too sees information conserved.
From the perspective of an elephant, spaceship, planet, or solar system falling into a black hole, it will theoretically appear to take millions of years to actually reach the singularity at the center. During this time, could a falling civilization continue, and perhaps discover a way to escape if one exists? If faster-than-light travel is possible, one might expect that a civilization trapped in a black hole for millions of years would be highly motivated to discover it and use it to escape. We know our universe is full of black holes, and if it is also full of other intelligent lifeforms then some of them have probably fallen into a black hole and potentially discovered how to travel faster than light. If not, then either there aren't any other lifeforms, or FTL travel is impossible.
(HT: GeekPress.)
This story about growing a liver in a lab highlights the fact that although stem cell research is incredibly useful, embryonic stem cell research specifically has never led to any significant results.
British scientists have grown the world's first artificial liver from stem cells in a breakthrough that will one day provide entire organs for transplant.The technique that created the 'mini-liver', currently the size of a one pence piece, will be developed to create a full-size functioning liver.
Described as a 'Eureka moment' by the Newcastle University researchers, the tissue was created from blood taken from babies' umbilical cords just a few minutes after birth.
Umbilical cord stem cells and adult stem cells are leading to all sorts of fruitful treatments that do not require the creation and destruction of human beings as does embryonic stem cell research.
My brother pointed me to this article reporting that the Navy's railgun test facility has conducted a successful initial firing.
A significant milestone in the advancement of naval gun technology happened with the successful test and standup of an electromagnetic (EM) railgun facility at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren Division Laboratory, Oct 2.Working for the Office of Naval Research (ONR), engineers at the laboratory fired a low energy shot, the first in a series of tests required to bring the facility online. Using a 90 mm bore launcher with a copper rail and a power plant capable of delivering 8 mega joules (MJ) of muzzle energy, a 2.4 kg projectile was fired at 830 meters per second, yielding an energy of 0.8 MJ.
“We are one step closer to the future of naval weaponry with the standup of this, the largest operational EM [Electro-Magnetic] facility in the Navy,” said Elizabeth D’Andrea, Ph.D., program manager for the Electromagnetic Railgun at ONR. “The recent advances in science and technology are what has made this technology feasible, as well as collaboration of scientists and engineers across government agencies, industry and the branches of service.”
“With the potential to deliver lethal, hypersonic projectiles at ranges in excess of 200 nautical miles within six minutes, a naval railgun offers a transformational solution for volume fires and time-critical strike,” said NSWC Dahlgren Commander, Capt. Joseph McGettigan.
A railgun with a lateral range of 200 nautical miles might possibly be able to hit a target in low earth orbit (124 miles altitude and up).
I've written about environmentalists of the future before, but now they're at it again, advocating and praising poverty rather than science and technology.
Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on Tuesday. ..."For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James Leape said, launching the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report.
"If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us," Leape, an American, said in Beijing.
Of course General Leape leaves out inconvenient facts that undermine his already-dubious calculation of how many earths we need. Since I'm in a list-making mood today:
1. As societies get richer, families have fewer kids. Rural Chinese and Indians aren't going to consume as much as we do until their birthrate goes down.
2. American science and technology is the cleanest in the world. We get the most bang for our pollution buck, largely no-thanks to environmentalist organizations like the WWF. Pollution is waste, and waste costs money. Why doesn't General Leape spend a little time praising American ingenuity, the wealth it creates, and the care we can thereby aford to give our environment?
3. No one who has a choice wants to live in extreme poverty like the vast majority of the third world does. Manual labor, no recreation, no health care, chronic diseases, early death. Sounds sucky.
Instead of longing for more poverty, why doesn't the WWF advocate for greater scientific advancements and more wealth? Those would lead to fewer kids, less pollution, and more happiness for everyone. Plus, maybe we'll be able to get a few more earths at some point, and then we can go wild.
News of an effective anti-cancer virus developed in South Korea is extremely welcome.
When injected into cancerous tumors, the virus quickly multiplies in the cancer cells and kills them, the team said.The new adenovirus can target only cancer cells and does not harm normal cells, the team said.
Existing viral treatments fail to kill off all the cancerous cells.
"I believe we have found a way to overcome one of the great obstacles to finding a genetically altered viral cure for cancer," Yun Chae-Ok, one of the researchers, told AFP on Thursday.
Following three rounds of injections, more than 90 percent of cancer cells in the brains, liver, lungs and womb of mice disappeared within 60 days, the team said.
Human trials are next, and then more years of development, but the research sounds very promising. Unfortunately, a cure for cancer will mostly affect those who are already beyond childbearing age, so although it would cause a percentage increase in population due to longevity, it probably wouldn't increase the birthrate in dwindling Western nations.
It's sometime surprising to consider that even in our society of extreme bounty we may still be suffering from nutritional deficiencies that contribute to our individual and cultural problems. I've written about how lead-tainted Mexican candy is linked with learning disabilities and violence, and now a new study in the UK reaffirms that nutrition is something we all need to take very seriously -- not just by counting calories and watching our weight, but also by ensuring that we get enough of the micronutrients our bodies need.
That Dwight Demar is able to sit in front of us, sober, calm, and employed, is "a miracle", he declares in the cadences of a prayer-meeting sinner. He has been rocking his 6ft 2in bulk to and fro while delivering a confessional account of his past into the middle distance. He wants us to know what has saved him after 20 years on the streets: "My dome is working. They gave me some kind of pill and I changed. Me, myself and I, I changed."Demar has been in and out of prison so many times he has lost count of his convictions. "Being drunk, being disorderly, trespass, assault and battery; you name it, I did it. How many times I been in jail? I don't know, I was locked up so much it was my second home."
Demar has been taking part in a clinical trial at the US government's National Institutes for Health, near Washington. The study is investigating the effects of omega-3 fatty acid supplements on the brain, and the pills that have effected Demar's "miracle" are doses of fish oil.
It appears that omega-3 is necessary for proper brain functioning, and that without enough of it some portion of the population goes haywire. As Claytron Cramer says, these sorts of discoveries can have revolutionary effects on our civilization.
You can really waste some time doing experiments at faceresearch.org.
(HT: GeekPress.)
