And they call me an Engineer

Wouldn’t it be great if all politics could be this light-hearted.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Another one of those, “Wow! Science is cool,” moments just happened in California.  In Berkley to be more precise.

Researchers as the University of California, Berkeley have for the first time demonstrated the ability to cloak three dimensional objects!  Cool!

I mentioned this before, but didn’t think it would become a reality so soon.

The science involved here is amazing.  This is just another example of science finally catching up with Science Fiction writers.

The findings of the research will soon be available in the journals, Nature and Science.

Some that know me well (especially my wife) can attest to the fact that I don’t have a great deal of patience in showing empathy or sympathy (yes, there is a difference).

So when I saw this article from CNN about EDD (Empathy Deficit Disorder), I finally realized that I can’t help it either.

I’m afflicted with a disorder.  A disease that I can’t control.  EDD is rampant among Americans, so that makes me more comfortable knowing that I’m in a large group of people who “just can’t” show empathy.  It’s not our fault, we have a disease.

The psychologist who “identified” this disorder credits it with creating most conflict in this world.  From war to divorce, it’s all because of EDD.  It destroys lives and causes political strife.

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When Dwight D Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, in 1958, I wonder if he had any inkling of what kind of an impact that action would have on the world. Not only did the act create the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), but also DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency).

DARPA later went on to contribute significantly to the creation of the Internet and several other technologies we use each day (like GPS), but let’s focus on what came from NASA research.  Everyone knows the many accomplishments of NASA in regards to space exploration; Apollo Missions, Moon Landing, International Space Station, etc.  But what about all the other technologies we use that have come from NASA research?

From HowStuffWorks.com comes a countdown of the top 10 daily used products that have come from NASA research.

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While flipping through channels today, I noticed a miniseries by The History Channel called “Life After People.“  They had been running some ads over the past several weeks with an interesting line that went something like this… Welcome to Earth: Population 0.

It intrigued me and so I flipped to it. After just a few minutes into it, I realized that the show wasn’t all scientific, but was almost all political.  And it was just a human race bash.  I didn’t watch much, but the 10 minutes I did watch were rather disappointing and more to the point — disturbing.

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You know the feeling.  You’re right in the middle of something important on your laptop.  You’re in deep concentration and nothing should interrupt you. Then all the sudden… [BEEP].  That dang battery warning. It seems like you just barely charged the thing.

Laptop batteries are what make laptops so amazing.  But at the same time, they seem to be the first thing to degrade on your brand new laptop.  Even if you forked out the extra money for a 12 cell battery and you can work for a full 4 hours without a charge, it never seems like enough.

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Scientist recently studied mitochondrial DNA to determine ancestry at a large scale level.  Their objective was to  determine lineage across today’s major racial groups.  They took 147 individuals from these groups and analyzed the DNA to determine their parentage.  The results are quite astounding.

… the geneticists concluded that every person on Earth right now can trace his or her lineage back to a single common female ancestor who lived around 200,000 years ago.

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You all remember the R.O.U.S.’s  from Princess Bride.

Buttercup: Westley, what about the R.O.U.S.’s?
Westley: Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.

[Immediately, an R.O.U.S. attacks him]

Well, scientists have found one of seriously unusual size:  an estimated 1-ton!  The skeletal remains of this amazing find are in Uruguay and were for centuries encapsulated in a bolder. Check out the CNN article for more details.

And for your pleasure: Princess Bride Quotes

I subscribe to CNN’s “Breaking News” email alerts. This morning, I was “alerted” to the fact that Al Gore was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Can someone please explain this one to me? What does Climate Change have to do with peace? Am I misunderstanding the word “peace” or “climate change?”

Sure, the prize has always been a little controversial, but let’s look at some of the recipients of the past:

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Recently, a well know scientist suggested that Mars is a perfect terraforming target. Lowell Wood, a noted physicist and a former employee of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said, “I suggest that the near-term outlook is that Mars will be terraformed.”

Notice that he didn’t say eventually or someday. He said “near-term.” He explains that he believes the terraforming could be seriously underway by the middle of this century and completed by the end of the 21st century. Interestingly, he claims that humans have been terraforming Earth for centuries (see the definition of terraforming linked above for more understanding). Of course this is on a much smaller scale as Earth is already habitable.

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