Category: Science

Punching People in the Face Less Effective Then It Used to Be

Evolution is a fascinating thing to study. Looking at the way species developed over time you can get a small understanding of what potential difficulties they encountered and what adaption best suited them to overcome them. The Guardian has a piece about how our faces have evolved overtime to better take hits:

Five million years of slugging it out with fists has left its mark on the human face, scientists believe. Evidence suggests it evolved to minimise damage from altercations after our ancient ancestors learned how to throw a punch.

Researchers studied the bone structure of australopiths, ape-like bipeds living 4m to 5m years ago which predated the modern human primate family Homo. They found that australopith faces and jaws were strongest in just those areas most likely to receive a blow from a fist.

Granted the face is still a good target if you’re looking to strike somebody in a way that will quickly end the fight. There are just too many small, fragile bones in the face. But it’s interesting to see that evolution has apparently made us less susceptible to strikes in the face and even with that we still often focus on striking the face.

Personally I prefer grappling over striking because it allows more control over the situation. More control allows one to resolve a situation with less violence in most cases. But striking appears to be popular enough amongst our species to change the way we’ve developed and that’s kind of cool.

Science, How Does That Work

One of my pet peeves are agenda pieces pushed as scientific research. As the political climate in the United States becomes more toxic the propensity for individuals to create agenda pieces and attempt to pass them off as scientific research seems to be increasing, which isn’t surprising. Most of you who have read this far probably think I’m going to go into a tirade about global warming. I’m sorry to disappoint you but that’s not happening. No the subject of this post is a link that I’ve been seeing make the rounds in the social justice warrior circles. In their pursuit to be offended they have found a supposed research paper that demonstrates without a doubt that we’re all a bunch of sexist fucks:

ople don’t take hurricanes as seriously if they have a feminine name and the consequences are deadly, finds a new groundbreaking study.

Female-named storms have historically killed more because people neither consider them as risky nor take the same precautions, the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes.

Well isn’t that something our societal sexism is literally kill us. Except, you know, it probably isn’t. A minor snag in the paper’s claim is accidentally mentioned in the article:

Hurricanes have been named since 1950. Originally, only female names were used; male names were introduced into the mix in 1979.

For the first 29 years of the hurricane naming system all hurricanes have been given female names. Now this may not seem significant in relation to the paper but it is. If you look a figure 10 on page 6 of this research paper [PDF], titled Deaths and Death Rates from
Extreme Weather Events: 1900-2008, you will see a rather interesting trend:

hurricane-deaths-between-1900-and-2008

Will you look at that, it’s a noticeably downward trend! This shouldn’t be surprising. As our technology has improved, especially in regards to computer modeling, we’ve developed a better understanding of hurricanes. We can more accurately predict when, where, and how hard a hurricane is going to hit, which has allowed us to reduce the number of lives lost. Since for the first 29 years hurricanes had exclusively female names and since hurricane deaths have been steadily declining since 1900 it’s pretty easy to deduce that the reason more deaths have been caused by hurricanes with female names is because more hurricanes had female names when hurricanes were killing more people on average.

If we gave every hurricane a male name from here on it would likely be quite some time before the number of deaths caused by hurricanes with male names exceeded the number of deaths caused by hurricanes with female names. You know, because of that overall downward trend thingy.

I actually hypothesize that the gender of a hurricanes’ name has no bearing whatsoever on the number of deaths it causes. This is because most sane people probably don’t put any bearing into a hurricane’s name. If it’s predicted to be a category 5 hurricane, for example, most people are going to get the fuck out of its way or find some serious shelter. That’s because the category, not the name, is what most people are going to base their course of action on. As much as the social justice warriors hate to hear it most people aren’t actually so petty as to risk their life on things as pointless as the gender of the name of a hurricane.

Sorry social justice warriors, I usually try to avoid involving myself in your wars. But when you claim to have scientific proof that society is made up of sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic men I’m going to look at the research and see if the conclusion is plausible or if there’s another possible explanation. If the conclusion isn’t plausible and there is a much more scientific explanation I am going to call you on your bugshit craziness.

Solar Power That Doesn’t Suck

Renewable energy is the buzzword used by any company or non-profit organization that wants a big fat grant from the federal government. One of the big categories of renewable energy is solar. Solar sounds nice on paper since it produces energy from the sun and if the sun stops providing energy we will have much larger issues to worry about that electricity. But solar panels can also be unreliable. At night or when there is cloud cover solar panels produce nothing. The atmosphere, by design, also greatly diminishes solar energy before it gets to Earth’s surface. These factors make terrestrial solar panels less than idea for power production. But that doesn’t mean solar energy is nonviable, it merely means solar collectors need to be placed in space:

It’s been the subject of many previous studies and the stuff of sci-fi for decades, but space-based solar power could at last become a reality—and within 25 years, according to a proposal from researchers at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The agency, which leads the world in research on space-based solar power systems, now has a technology road map that suggests a series of ground and orbital demonstrations leading to the development in the 2030s of a 1-gigawatt commercial system—about the same output as a typical nuclear power plant.

This is research into solar energy that actually matters. Unlike the shit research produced here in the United States, research into space-based solar collectors could actually create a viable source of energy for our increasingly energy-hungry society.

Obviously the technology isn’t without danger. If energy is being beamed from orbit the beam will most likely carry a rather high damage potential. But wind farms and terrestrial solar collectors don’t have a flawless safety record either. Anything that generates enough electrical energy to matter is almost certainly going to have some tradeoffs. The only question becomes one of tradeoff. Here in the United States we’ve basically decided that the risk of nuclear meltdown is too great for the amount of power produced. Will we decide that the risk of a point on land being incinerated is low enough for the amount of power produced? I hope so because space-based solar panels will likely be the only renewable energy source that can produced what our species needs.

Writing Circuits

File this under awesome geeky shit:

Good-bye, breadboard. Scientists at the University of Illinois have come up with a conductive, water-based ink that lets you draw working circuits on an ordinary piece of paper. They’ve packaged the product into a rollerball pen, called Circuit Scribe, and if you want to be one of the first to get hold of one, the team is crowdfunding the project on Kickstarter right now.

A pen that can draw working circuit pathways? That’s pretty damn cool. In fact I can think of several practical jokes involving conductive ink. On a less nefarious note, these things would have been a ton of fun in my college electronic classes.

Bad Science Leads to Bad Results

I’m sure you’ve seen the stories floating around that say scientists of proven that Oreo cookies are just as addictive as cocaine. At first this story gave me hope. I’ve eaten Oreo cookies but have never become addicted to them. If the research was correct that would indicate I could do cocaine without getting addicted. I admit, there are times when caffeine isn’t enough to keep me awake and it would be nice to know a nonaddictive, strong alternative exists for those times when I absolutely must stay awake. Sadly my hopes have been dashed. As it turns out, the research was bupkis:

Fox News reported that a “College study finds Oreo cookies are as addictive as drugs,” Forbes explained “Why Your Brain Treats Oreos Like a Drug,” and a ton of other sites ran with the story as well.

Here’s how the experiment, which has not been peer reviewed and has not been presented yet, went down. Mice were placed in a maze, with one end holding an Oreo and the other end holding a rice cake. The mice, without fail, decided to eat the Oreo over the rice cake, proving once and for all that mice like cookies better than tasteless discs with a styrofoamy texture.

“Just like humans, rats don’t seem to get much pleasure out of eating them,” one of the researchers said in a press release, the same press release that says “Connecticut College students and a professor of neuroscience have found ‘America’s favorite cookie’ is just as addictive as cocaine.”

Bad science leads to bad results. Granted, this story set off my bullshit detector right away. Because of my suspicious nature I assumed that the research was performed by an anti-obesity group looking to demonize popular junk foods or by a competitor to Oreo cookies (probably from a company that offers healthier alternatives). As gun control groups have taught us, the results you want can be obtained so long as you right the criteria properly. But it turns out that this research wasn’t the result of some anti-obesity group or an Oreo competitor (that we know of), it was the result of a bad experiment. All the experiment demonstrated was that mice don’t care for rice cakes. I don’t blame them, I find them to be flavorless and unfilling as well.

Unfortunately, I’ll almost certainly see claims that Oreo cookies are as addictive as cocaine on Facebook for weeks to come. Incorrect information seems to disseminate faster than correct information. That’s probably because correct information is seldom makes for as good of a story as incorrect information.

Rising CO2 Levels Causing Deserts to Green

Some interesting research has come out of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) that shows deserts have actually begun to green because of the rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere:

In findings based on satellite observations, CSIRO, in collaboration with the Australian National University (ANU), found that this CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa, according to CSIRO research scientist, Dr Randall Donohue.

Many proponents of global warming have been claiming that the rising CO2 levels have lead to an increased in temperature, which has lead to an increasing rate of desertification. Others have been claiming that the Earth is in a state of CO2 starvation, which has cause a decrease in plant life. If CSIRO’s research pans out the latter group could be proven correct if deserts continue to green as CO2 level increase.

The most interesting aspect of this research, in my opinion, is it demonstrates how little our species knows about the consequences of various planetary changes. This is an important lesson because many people become so enamored with certain ideas that they become willing to use force to propagate them. Such zealotry should be avoided as our species is discovering new data every day that stands to change our previous conclusions. At one time many people thought the Earth was flat but today we know it is roughly spherical. Today a majority of people believe global warming is a man made phenomenon but in the future we could learn that it’s being caused by an extraplanetary phenomenon. Because of this I believe it would be prudent to avoid using force to coerce individuals into reducing CO2 output. As time goes on we may even learn that increased CO2 levels are beneficial if it leads to a reversal of desertification.

Without the State Purely Scientific Research Wouldn’t Receive Funding

Many people believe that the state is necessary to fund scientific research, especially pure scientific research. In fact a common rebuttal statists make when I advocate anarchism is that we need the state to fund scientific research that isn’t likely to turn a profit. These people believe that private funding for scientific research only happens when the research is like to make a profit. Quite the opposite is true as Jack Horner, one of the most famous paleontologists in the world, explained during his interview on Slashdot:

How will science be funded in the US next?
by damn_registrars

For a long time the primary source of money for scientific research has been the federal granting agencies (NIH, NSF, DOE in particular). All three of them are facing either budget cuts, budget stalls, or increases in their budgets that do not match inflation. This does not seem to fare well for new scientists or established ones who are looking to further their careers. Where do you see research money coming from next? Alternately, are we looking ahead to a time where fewer people will be doing science because the funding just won’t exist to pay even their meager wages any more?

Horner: Like most researchers in the early part of their careers, I relied on writing grants to NSF, but as these government agencies became more stringent and stingy with funding for dinosaurs and other purely scientific endeavors, I moved away from government funding to private funding, and I think this is where most all research funds for dinosaurs will eventually come from. Private people who have the financial where-with-all and interest in the field currently fund most of the dinosaur collecting, research and exhibitions in the United States. It is up to us paleontologists to make sure we engage the public in all venues, and keep their interest high, if we expect to continue these kinds of studies. The government is much more interested in practical sciences (renewable energy, climate change, medical) these days, a trend I would expect to continue for quite some time.

When it comes to purely scientific research the state has little interest in providing funding. Instead scientists wanting to perform purely scientific research, such as paleontology, have to seek funding in the private sector. What many statists fail to realize is that there are people out there that have a deep interest in purely scientific research and are willing to donate money to its cause.

Appreciating Human Achievement

Humans are awesome. I know this goes against the misanthropes who view humanity as some kind of plague that should be destroyed for the sake of Mother Gaia but I’m not a misanthrope. In fact let me state the following: fuck misanthropes. If you do any research into the achievements of humanity you can only walk away awed. I feel the best way to truly gain an understanding of humanity is to research the mundane things we take for granted today. My love of wristwatches has lead me to lightly study horology, the art and science of measuring time. Measuring time is something people take for granted today as every DVD player, cell phone, computer, microwave, car, and GPS unit has a build in way of measuring time (usually referred to as a clock). Heck most of these devices don’t even have to be set anymore, instead they automatically sync with various atomic clocks built around the world. This hasn’t always been the case though, measuring the passage of time used to be quite a feat.

I’ve started reading Shaping the Day: A History of Timekeeping in England and Wales 1300-1800. The first chapter talks about the scientific achievements of Galileo Galilei (I hope to Odin that everybody knows who Galileo is and that my link to his Wikipedia page is entirely pointless). During the last 1500s and early 1600s Galileo was studying motion. In order to study motion he needed a way to measure the passage of time, unfortunately accurate clocks didn’t exist at that time. What’s a man to do? In the case of Galileo he used two methods: measuring the passage of time by the beating of his heart and by using a song with a repeating beat. Most scientists today would call such methodology unscientific but they have the benefit of highly accurate clocks that measure the passage of time based on the transition frequency of atoms. It’s easy to claim something is unscientific when you’ve enjoyed 400 years of scientific advancement.

Time brings up the though of hours, minutes, and seconds for most people. If you study horology you learn quickly learn that those measures of time, like all measures of time, are arbitrary. Why does one second need to take, well, one second? It doesn’t. The primary thing you need when measuring the passage of time is repetitiveness. Beats in songs are repetitive and thus can be used to measure the passage of time in a useful manner. Your heart rate, although far less accurate as it’s susceptible to variances based on bodily conditions, can also be used to measure the passage of time. Speaking of accuracy, it’s another thing that’s subjective. In the case of Galileo’s experiments the accurate of song beats was plenty for what the needed to do. On the other hand computers need to measure time in the span of microseconds so using the beats of songs, with the possible exception of extremely fast metal, isn’t going to cut it. To get around this we developed other methods of measuring time including the back and forth oscillation of a spring-loaded wheel, vibration of a quartz crystal that is subjective to a minor electrical current, and the aforementioned transition frequency of an atom.

The amount of ingenuity involve in telling time is phenomenal. Studying things we take for granted today really helps you appreciate what humans are capable of and what we have overcome in a short time in this universe. In roughly two million years we’ve gone from barely being able to harness fire to harnessing the power of nuclear energy. We’ve gone from a species whose only transportation was our two feet to landing on the moon. Humanity is awesome and you really need to look at the history of achievements we find entirely mundane today to appreciate that fact. Instead of trying to surpress human ability we need to let is flourish. We need to appreciate what our species can accomplish.

Innovation Trumps Government Regulation Once Again

Most people have likely heard about the shortage of electromagnetic spectrum. For those who haven’t there exists a finite amount of spectrum that can be used for the transmission of wireless signals and people have recently been stating that we’ve run into a barrier: we’re fast running out of spectrum for new innovations.

To regulate this spectrum the United States established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), who auction off spectrum to the highest bidders. The result of this is that multi-billion dollar companies are the only ones who can actually afford to license spectrum and therefore small competitors are kept from entering the market, which is exactly how the big money players like it. Effectively the FCC has wiped out competition for AT&T, Verizon, and other holders of electromagnetic spectrum.

Looking at the electromagnetic spectrum demonstrates a stark difference between how government busybodies attempt to solve problems and actual intelligent individuals attempt to solve problems. The government saw a potential shortage, stepped in, and gave themselves a monopoly on determining who can and can’t use spectrum. Innovators saw a potential shortage and began to work on ways to bypass the problem, a goal that they’ve made some great strides in:

A striking demonstration of a means to boost the information-carrying capacity of radio waves has taken place across the lagoon in Venice, Italy.

The technique exploits what is called the “orbital angular momentum” of the waves – imparting them with a “twist”.

Varying this twist permits many data streams to fit in the frequency spread currently used for just one.

The research paper can be found here. I’d be a liar if I claimed to understand what they’re doing on any technical level but their conclusion leaves me with hope:

5. Conclusions

Our experimental findings that EM OAM can be used for increasing radio transmission capacity without increasing bandwidth is likely to open up new perspectives on wireless communications and radio-based science. History tells us that Marconi invented the wireless telegraph and from that the communication world spread its branches in all directions [1]. All current radio communication services are based on various forms of phase, frequency and/or amplitude modulation of the EM radiation in the form of EM linear momentum (i.e. integrated Poynting vector or energy flux). In order that many different broadcasting stations are able to transmit simultaneously without overlapping their radio signals, Marconi suggested that the total available spectrum of radio frequencies be divided into many non-overlapping frequency subbands [23]. Now, the wide use of wireless communication has unavoidably led to the saturation of all available frequency bands, even after the adoption of artificial techniques that increase band capacity. We have experimentally shown that by using helicoidal parabolic antennae, the use of OAM states might dramatically increase the capacity of any frequency band, allowing the use of dense coding techniques in each of these new vortex radio channels. This might represent a concrete proposal for a possible solution to the band saturation problem.

Moreover, our experimental findings demonstrate that the spatial phase signature was preserved even in the far-field region and for incoherent non-monochromatic wave beams. These results open up new perspectives not only for wireless communication but also for physics and astronomy, including the possible detection of Kerr black holes in the test general relativity [21].

We can effectively increase what we’re capable of doing with wireless spectrum without having to obtain more of it. Innovation is the only hope we have of solving problems and innovation is something the state never attempts. Since the state enjoys monopoly control of whatever it desires it has no reason to innovate, instead preferring to sit on its laurels. Free competition is the solution to humanity’s problems, not government regulations.

More Evidence Against the Necessity of the State

According to Thomas Hobbes humans are evil bastards that must be controlled by a coercive entity we call the state. Hobbes’s beliefs can are demonstrably false by the simple fact that a species of inherently bad individuals would be unable to cooperate well enough to establish societies. Such reasoning is ignored by statists though so other evidence must be brought to the table such as this recent study that demonstrates people, in general, act socially “well” even without established rules:

Millions of human interactions were assessed during the study which included actions such as communication, founding and ending friendships, trading goods, sleeping, moving, however also starting hostilities, attacks and punishment. The game does not suggest any rules and everyone can live with their avatar (i.e. with their “game character” in the virtual world) as they choose. “And the result of this is not anarchy,” says Thurner. “The participants organise themselves as a social group with good intents. Almost all the actions are positive.”

The entire paper can be read here. What I find most fascinating is the fact that these results were obtained through simulation as simulations, virtual worlds existing without real consequences, are where people like to act out their darker desires. You can put somebody in front of a copy of The Sims for very long until they start burning and or drowning the various sims in their household. Yet even in a simulated environment where people have ample opportunity to be assholes to one another in general people were acting positively instead of negatively.

The study also demonstrated that the golden rule certainly applies are positive actions were usually replied to with positive actions while negative actions were usually replied to with negative actions. In other words people are generally good and the rule of “don’t be a dick” applies.