Forward Biased (Less-than-current Events)

This is news...?

The University of CA at Irvine has discovered a woman with apparently perfect memory, and has slated a series of tests to try to discover how she does it.

She's certainly not a savant, extraordinarily proficient in one area but mostly deficient in others.  The's a "fully funtioning person," they say.

James McGaugh is one of the world's leading experts on how the human memory system works. But these days, he admits he's stumped.

McGaugh's journey through an intellectual purgatory began six years ago when a woman now known only as AJ wrote him a letter detailing her astonishing ability to remember with remarkable clarity even trivial events that happened decades ago.

Give her any date, she said, and she could recall the day of the week, usually what the weather was like on that day, personal details of her life at that time, and major news events that occurred on that date.

Like any good scientist, McGaugh was initially skeptical. But not anymore.

"This is real," he says.

...[H]e asked her out of the blue if she knew who Bing Crosby was.

"I wasn't sure she would know, because she's 40 and wasn't of the Bing Crosby era," he says.

But she did.

"Do you know where he died?" McGaugh asked.

"Oh yes, he died on a golf course in Spain," she answered, and provided the day of the week and the date when the crooner died.

When the researchers asked her to list the dates when they had interviewed her, she "just reeled them off, bang, bang, bang."

And then...

She also told McGaugh that on the day after a particular interview, which took place several years ago, he flew to Germany.

"I said what? I went to Germany? I couldn't even remember what year I had gone to Germany," he says.

Shucks, people—this is nothing new.  I've been married to a woman with perfect memory for nearly 30 years.  Scout's honor.

And yes, I have our anniversary date tattooed on my forearm.  (Ok, just kidding about that last thing.  But I have been known to set my personal event alarm for 17 Apr, just in case.  And I have a secret stash of terrifically mushy anniversary cards for emergencies...)

(Hat tip to Ralph Bristol.)

New science site

After checking out World Science, a new (to me) science and technology news site, I've added it to the blogroll.  Check it out—it features several exclusive stories not found on other such sites.

For example, they cover biology (dolphin's games may be more than just child's play, rats seem to sigh with relief), sociology (social inequity seems to date back to the Stone Age rather than being a product of civilization), new findings in aging research, psychology (some people have extreme déjà vu), and astronomy (surprise, surprise—"dark energy" might not exist after all).  Lotsa good stuff besides that, of course, such as a controversial (and, to me, somewhat implausible) theory that a family in Turkey has undergone "reverse evolution" in the span of a single generation.

It seems to be a great site.  Go check it out.

Magnetic chips

One of the constant issues involved when talking about promising new technologies is the hope that something will come along allowing us to progress beyond using electricity as the basic technology that makes something work.  (Electronics is a subset of electrical devices, involving active devices such as transistors.)  Almost all new technologies, when reduced to their basics, still use electricity flowing through wires and junctions to perform its functions.

One alternative possibility has always been optics.  Another has been biological.  Quantum computing involves even more exotic technology, almost indescribable in terms of everyday language.  Now its seems that we're developing magnetic logic elements.  (Also via GeekPress.)

For the first time, researchers have created a working prototype of a radical new chip design based on magnetism instead of electrical transistors.

As transistor-based microchips hit the limits of Moore's Law, a group of electrical engineers at the University of Notre Dame has fabricated a chip that uses nanoscale magnetic "islands" to juggle the ones and zeroes of binary code.

Wolfgang Porod and his colleagues turned to the process of magnetic patterning (.pdf) to produce a new chip that uses arrays of separate magnetic domains. Each island maintains its own magnetic field.

Because the chip has no wires, its device density and processing power may eventually be much higher than transistor-based devices. And it won't be nearly as power-hungry, which will translate to less heat emission and a cooler future for portable hardware like laptops.

Computers using the magnetic chips would boot up almost instantly. The magnetic chip's memory is nonvolatile, making it impervious to power interruptions, and it retains its data when the device is switched off.

...The magnetic architecture of the chip can be reprogrammed on the fly and its adaptability could make it very popular with manufacturers of special-purpose computing hardware, from video-game platforms to medical diagnostic equipment.

"The value of magnetic patterning in storage devices such as hard drives has been known for a long time," said Porod, Freimann professor of electrical engineering at the University of Notre Dame. "What is unique here is that we've applied the patterning concept to the actual processing."

The chip's nanomagnets -- on the order of 110 nanometers wide -- can be assembled into arrays that mirror the function of transistor-based logic gates in addition to storing information. These logic gates are the building blocks of computer technology, giving microchips the power to process the endless rivers of binary code.

And speaking of cold fusion...

Chalk one up for the optimists, folks.  Now I have to find a new name for cold fusion syndrome, because cold fusion is now a reality.

Paul at GeekPress links to this story at Physorg.com:

Tabletop nuclear fusion device developed

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a tabletop accelerator that produces nuclear fusion at room temperature, providing confirmation of an earlier experiment conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), while offering substantial improvements over the original design.

The device, which uses two opposing crystals to generate a powerful electric field, could potentially lead to a portable, battery-operated neutron generator for a variety of applications, from non-destructive testing to detecting explosives and scanning luggage at airports. The new results are described in the Feb. 10 issue of Physical Review Letters.

"Our study shows that ‘crystal fusion’ is a mature technology with considerable commercial potential,” says Yaron Danon, associate professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering at Rensselaer. “This new device is simpler and less expensive than the previous version, and it has the potential to produce even more neutrons.”

The device is essentially a tabletop particle accelerator. At its heart are two opposing “pyroelectric” crystals that create a strong electric field when heated or cooled. The device is filled with deuterium gas — a more massive cousin of hydrogen with an extra neutron in its nucleus. The electric field rips electrons from the gas, creating deuterium ions and accelerating them into a deuterium target on one of the crystals. When the particles smash into the target, neutrons are emitted, which is the telltale sign that nuclear fusion has occurred, according to Danon.

This hasn't produced a net energy surplus yet, but it's a fantastic step forward.  Now I know what I want for my birthday:  a portable, battery-powered neutron generator for causing random genetic mutations and detecting small, crudely-built enriched Uranium 235 fission bombs that might show up in a train or somewhere (by detonating them).  Great for laughs at parties.  Now you can grow extra fingers and eyes and stuff like that whenever you want.  Or, you know, die.

No, really, this is great, as long as they don't show up in the Penney's catalog or something.  What do you want to bet Edmund Scientific will be carrying them within a couple of years...

Warp one!

This is the sort of story that creates two contradictory feelings inside me:  I become excited, and at the same time, highly skeptical.  Call it "cold fusion syndrome."  I want to believe, but I'm afraid of feeling like a fool later.

It seems that

...noted physicist Dr. Franklin Felber will present his new exact solution of Einstein's 90-year-old gravitational field equation to the Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF) in Albuquerque. The solution is the first that accounts for masses moving near the speed of light.

Felber's antigravity discovery solves the two greatest engineering challenges to space travel near the speed of light: identifying an energy source capable of producing the acceleration and limiting stresses on humans and equipment during rapid acceleration.

"Dr. Felber's research will revolutionize space flight mechanics by offering an entirely new way to send spacecraft into flight," said Dr. Eric Davis, Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin and STAIF peer reviewer of Felber's work. "His rigorously tested and truly unique thinking has taken us a huge step forward in making near-speed-of-light space travel safe, possible, and much less costly."

The field equation of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity has never before been solved to calculate the gravitational field of a mass moving close to the speed of light. Felber's research shows that any mass moving faster than 57.7 percent of the speed of light will gravitationally repel other masses lying within a narrow 'antigravity beam' in front of it. The closer a mass gets to the speed of light, the stronger its 'antigravity beam' becomes.

If he's right, this is as revolutionary as Relativity was 100 years ago.  Those of you familiar with Relativity theory know that as any object's speed approaches the speed of light (c) its mass approaches infinity, hence its gravity (and the space curvature around the object) also approaches infinity.  Unfortunately, so does the amount of energy required to accelerate the object.

In addition, the other main obstacle to near-light-speed travel is the lethally immense g-forces created while accelerating.  In order to avoid this we would have to accelerate so slowly as to negate much of the advantage of traveling that fast in the first place.  This is why Star Trek writers had to invent "inertial dampers" so that the occupants of a starship wouldn't be turned into blotches of organic matter on the rear bulkheads whenever they went to warp speed.

Felber's theory would mean that the very thing that was once considered an obstacle to near-light-speed travel now becomes the means by which it can be accomplished.

This seems almost to good to be true.  Thank goodness for peer review--I have no doubt that we will shortly know whether this theory is truly plausible or simply the product of one man's overenthusiasm.

And if he's right, we will indeed soon be traveling to the stars.

Keep it simple, stupid...

First of all, sorry (again) about the length of time between posts lately.  There's a good, and fortunately temporary, reason for this which I will address shortly because I really want to post this first.

Many of you are familiar with Cecil Adams' The Straight Dope, and with the message boards (forum) associated therewith.

This week's Straight Dope newsletter addressed a sort of brain teaser or puzzle which has apparently been making the rounds on the internet lately, although I haven't seen it anywhere else yet.  It goes like this:

An airplane taxies in one direction on a moving conveyor belt going the opposite direction. Can the plane take off?

Dear Cecil:

Please, please, please settle this question. The discussion has been going on for ages, and any time someone mentions the words "airplane" or "conveyor belt" everyone starts right back up. Here's the original problem essentially as it was posed to us: "A plane is standing on a runway that can move (some sort of band conveyer). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyer moves in the opposite direction. This conveyer has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyer to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?"

There are some difficulties with the wording of the problem, specifically regarding how we define speed, but the spirit of the situation is clear. The solution is also clear to me (and many others), but a staunch group of unbelievers won't accept it. My conclusion is that the plane does take off. Planes, whether jet or propeller, work by pulling [or pushing] themselves through the air. The rotation of their tires results from this forward movement, and has no bearing on the behavior of a plane during takeoff. I claim the only difference between a regular plane and one on a conveyor belt is that the conveyor belt plane's wheels will spin twice as fast during takeoff. Please, Cecil, show us that it's not only theoretically possible (with frictionless wheels) but it's actually possible too. --Berj A. Doudian, via e-mail

Now, rather than quote "Unca Cecil's" answer, I'll cut to the chase and state that, of course the plane takes off.  It seems odd to me that there should even be a debate about that.

But what's even more incredible is that this column spawned a forum thread that, as of this writing, already has 409 posts, with more being added even as we speak.  This, to me, is incredible.

One characteristic of the SDMB is the (mostly) consistent level of thoughtfulness and intelligence amongst the posters.  With a few exceptions, these boards are not populated by many of those who do not think carefully about what they are saying or who simply don't know what they're talking about, which makes this thread all the more unusual.

There are not only those who have taken both sides of this issue, this is, the plane either can or cannot take off, but there are a few who have started out in the "can't take off" camp but were converted along the way.  Incredibly, though, there's at least one poster who went from "can take off" to "I'm no longer so sure."  And, to make matters worse, some posters in both camps use obviously faulty arguments to make their cases.

Most of the trouble comes from the strong temptation to make the problem seem way more complicated than it is.  In addition, many folks can't get past the idea that, since a car rolling along the same conveyor belt would indeed have a net speed of zero, an airplane will have no difficulty attaining sufficient forward velocity to take off, since, unlike an automobile, an airplane's forward momentum is not imparted by its wheels.  The plane does not move forward because its wheels are rotating.  Its wheels rotate because it's moving.  The plane's engines do not "push against" the ground in order to move, so it really doesn't care what the conveyor belt is doing (except for a relatively small amount of reverse force imparted to the plane via the friction of the wheel bearings).

Read Cecil's column and let me know if you think there is any ambiguity in it.  Several posters have stated that his answer, while correct, is poorly worded, which, while perhaps true, seems to me to be mostly a cop-out.  The puzzle, as stated, can be answered without a lot of physics and technobabble.

At any rate, tell me if you think I'm wrong here, but I think the whole issue is pretty obvious.

Looky here, folks

Every now and then, in the course of human events (at least when surfing the net) I'll come across a site that's both new to me and that I think is a real gem.  I always delight in sharing these with you folks.

The EvC Forum is one of those gems.  It's not a blog, but a message board/web forum devoted to the issue of Evolution vs Creation.  After spending a couple of hours perusing several threads and topics on this board, I can say that it is truly a rare find in the midst of hundreds of message boards/blogs that are mostly echo chambers for the views of the founder.

This one, most certainly, is not an echo chamber.  Oh, no.

The founder is, from what I can tell, both a Christian and a Creationist, but this does NOT significantly bias the board in that direction.  And sure, you'll find a few cases of people who have no interest in really debating anything, only trying to press forth their own views.  But they are quite in the minority.

For starters, try taking a look at this thread.  I would personally be proud to have built and administered this forum, considering the quality of most of the posts there.  Sure, there's some "name-calling and feces-flinging," as one reader once said, but the quantity and quality of the good posts—on both sides of this issue—far, far outweigh anything like that.

By the way, the way I discovered this site was by checking my refer logs, particularly those refers that come from search engines.  One of these days I've got to write a post on the search terms that bring people here.  Most are predictable, but a few are really bizarre.  And mostly, if I do say so myself, it's gratifying to know that I actually show up high enough in these search engines that people actually can find me that way.

"Get over it."

Dan Melson's Sunday post up at Searchlight Crusade has several interesting items that are worthy of your attention, but its leading item really got me to thinking.  A lot.

Here's the website: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Here's the news story: Couple Sues Operators of Evolution Site

Three words: Get. Over. It.

Evolution may not be scientific fact, but it is a scientific theory supported by as much evidence as relativity or quantum mechanics. It was formulated based upon observed evidence. It can be debunked at any time by facts which actually contradict it. We just don't know of any. It is true that it is only the best idea we have so far and that it is possible that we'll come up with something better some day. But thus far subsequent discoveries (in multiple disciplines, yet! Engineering. Mathematics. Physics. Genetics.) have strengthened and reinforced evolutionary theory and our understanding of it. The fershluggin' Catholic Church, of all the world famous stick in the mud institutions, accepts evolutionary theory as the explanation which best fits observed facts.

Get. Over. It.

(The fourth sentence, "Evolution may not be scientific fact," even understates Dan's case.  Actually, there is an aspect of evolution that is a fact.  Evolutionary changes occur in nature.  Period.  What the Theory of Evolution does is put together how these changes have worked together over the ages to produce what we see today, and this theory cannot yet explain every observation that is made.  But there aren't a lot of such "holes" in the theory, and anyway, "holes" hardly invalidate a theory.  Falsification does, and we know of no observed facts which contradict this Theory.)

Now, this is the sort of thing that I hesitate to say, because I have some very good friends who disagree with me, but I call 'em as I see 'em, and if I didn't, you'd have no respect for me at all.  Creationists and I.D. ("In Denial") proponents remind me, in two important ways, of political leftists:  they interpret facts and observations in such a way as to promote their beliefs, to the point of ignoring and attempting to hide facts which are difficult to fit into their worldview, and they (amongst themselves) repeat the same untruths over and over, long past the point where these untruths were disproved, until they are believed to be fact by most adherents and even convince some outsiders.  Examples:  "Bush lied us into war," and "the Second Law of Thermodynamics contradicts evolution."

I am beginning to think that the Second Law of Thermodynamics (pseudo) argument will never be let go by some people.  Ever.  It matters not that their own argument would prove (if it were true) that reproduction would be impossible, even life itself.  I guess they just don't think that far—they go as far as is necessary to make the point they want to make and seem to stop there.  William A. Dembski, in his "law of conservation of information," basically recasts this old argument in new "information age" terms in support of I.D. 

I.D.ers will claim, as they have for years, that evolution is "only a theory," that "random chance" could never have produced what we see today, that there is precious little real oberved evidence that supports evolution, that no, or at most very few, "transitional" fossils exist, that speciation has never been observed, that evolution is not falsifiable, that it is an "atheistic" belief system or philosophy that is corrupting our society, and that non-evolutionists have been given "short shrift" in scientific journals through a system of prejudicial discrimination.  It's easy to debunk these statements, but they keep coming right back to them over and over again, recycling these until some new "scientific" discovery is made which they then co-opt as their newest rallying cry.

Rob and I have had some terrific debates over this issue, but I never have to make any point that others haven't made over and over again.

Now, please note carefully:  I said that Creation/I.D. proponents remind me of leftists in two ways only, not that they are similar to leftists, or that they are in any way leftists.  Actually, if I'm honest with myself, I could find instances where I've fallen into the same traps, if only because they're easy ones to fall into.  But there are people who occasionally fall into a trap, and then there are people who seem to live there. 

Also, I have a great deal of sympathy (or something like that) for Creationists/I.D.ers, because I was one of them until recently, and I hardly morphed from an "ignorant moron" into a "paragon of intelligence and reason" overnight.  This is why I don't really believe that all, or even most, supporters of Creation/I.D. are merely ignorant fools.  But that's another post.

Warp drive patented

Courtesy of Paul Hsieh I've "discovered" what seems to be a pretty good blog by someone who understands physics and its associated math better than I do, called rdv live from tokyo.

I saw several good posts illustrating his grasp of the current state-of-the-art concerning quantum computing (and QM in general), as well as one amusing anecdote from his youth, when he attempted to build his first perpetual motion machine.

But this was pretty fascinating, too:

Topic of patent #6,960,975? "Space Vehicle Propelled by the Pressure of Inflationary Vacuum State". A warp drive. Use 10,000 Tesla magnets and a 5meter shell of superconducting material, and you, too, can warp space and time, and travel at "a speed possibly approaching a local light-speed, the local light-speed which may be substantially higher than the light-speed in the ambient space"!

Every time I think I understand what is and isn't patentable something comes along that challenges my thinking.  I was under the impression that, in order to be eligible for a patent, any technology used must be demonstrable.  Evidently not.  It seems that I could patent a Star-Trek-style transporter using whatever esoteric technology I can dream up, if I wanted to.

When evaluating new blogs for possible inclusion on my blogroll, one of the things I do is look over the new blog's blogroll.  It can be quite revealing to see who he thinks is worth linking to.  Interestingly, rdv live doesn't have a blogroll at all.

GeekPress linked with "Has someone patented the warp drive?"

Can you "see" what you can't see?

Here's an interesting article in World Science about "blindsight."

Researchers have reported inducing temporary “blindsight” in healthy volunteers—a condition in which people think they can’t see anything, but can.

Blindsight occurs when a part of their brain called the primary visual cortex is deactivated. This region deals with visual perception, and when it doesn’t work, people report no awareness of objects in their field of vision.

Yet people with blindsight, which normally results from certain kinds of damage to the brain, can still “sense” these unseen objects. Pressed into taking a guess at an object’s location, for instance, they give the right answer much of the time, even though they insist they can’t see anything.

The story links to this "test" to see if you exhibit the characteristics of blindsight.  I took it 24 times (the instructions say to take it at least 20 times), and I'd be interested to know how some of you folks did.

Either I have extraordinary eyesight, or this test is not designed well.  The first step is to tell the Java Applet when you can no longer see a small "target" flashed on the screen.  I had to adjust the contrast and radius parameters to absolute minimum, and the speed parameter to next-to-minimum, before I could no longer see the test target.  Even then, my score not only was 100%, but the results were clustered within a radius about a third of the "cursor circle's" radius.  And I was always quite sure I had seen the target.  No doubt.

Either I'm some kind of phenomenon, or some of you will report similar results.