Category Archives: Current Events

Biohackers

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A recent article in the WSJ solemnly described several amateur biologists who were doing simple molecular biology experiments in their homes. Naturally, this has not escaped the attention of certain authorities and certain deeply conservative establishment news corporations.

What is distressing is the reflexive conclusion that their activity is automatically dangerous and likely to be symptomatic of malevolent intent.  It is common for those in power to look over their ramparts and view the world as a spectrum of threats. And so it is in this case that distrust has arisen and reporters are using the words “weapons of mass destruction” or “ebola virus”. 

Could it not be that some people outside of the heavily in-bred fields of science have a genuine and scholarly interest in molecular biology but no interest in grad school?

The entrance to scientific activity is highly formalized with layers of degree requirements, preferred pedigree, institutional infrastructure, regulatory complications, and a mafia-like oligarchy that disperses the resources and opportunity that is so necessary for buoyancy in science.

How does a creative amateur scientist get to take a jouney of discovery in a field that is institutionally inaccessible to them? And how does an interested individual who is clever enough to conduct experiments deal with a government whose reflex is to see WMD and terrorists behind every lilac bush? There are serious civil liberties problems here that pit the brain stem against the frontal cortex.

It is in the nature of some people to be distrustful and find threats behind every shrub. It has been my observation that people who default into a distrustful posture are very often not trustworthy themselves. The distrustful often invoke slippery slope arguments as rhetorical devices to block their opponents move into new conceptual turf. What the distrustful and paranoid fail to see is that we live every minute of every day on multiple slippery slopes, yet we somehow survive and thrive.

Libertarians and Epidemics

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If the USA were more substantially libertarian in construction and demeanor, how would we respond to the arrival of an epidemic or pandemic of some nasty pathogen like swine flu? If the USA were decentralized into quanta of individual market units, each responsible for his/her own well being, how could the spread of contagion be averted?

Would a libertarian republic be philosophically opposed to collectivist activity like combining resources to marshal a defense against a virus. Or, would the Austrian-school economists brush off the event as nothing more than a Malthusian disturbance in the direction of a much needed equilibrium between resources and population? If you cannot afford to protect yourself, then you are lazy or sadly unlucky. In any case, you’re on your own.

Would a Libertarian system first act to protect property and guns? Would libertarian economists issue a statement condemning collectivism and promoting the rights of individuals to buy as much Lysol, duct tape, plastic drop cloths, and surgical masks as the market will allow? Perhaps a Libertarian President (whatever that means) would put a team of economists on a pandemic, or better yet, the lowest bidding epidemiologists available from Craigs list?

Libertarians make a good deal of noise about the horrors of taxation and their unflinching admiration for the genius of the marketplace, property, and the right to stockpile guns and ammo.  I agree, we’re paying too much in taxes. Government is way too big. And the dynamics of the market do provide lots of cool stuff for better living. True enough.

But the market is like a stomach (I had a better analogy, but it was rather unwholesome). It only knows that it is hungry. The stomach has no brain. The stomach only wants more. The stomach did not invent antibiotics, polyethylene, Buicks, antacid, jet engines, or bikinis. But the stomach did facilitate the invention of each of these items. We need a market mentality, but we also need an overarching sense of direction. We need a market that can sense and avoid driving off a Malthusian cliff.

Civilization is about infrastructure. And part of the infrastructure that the country as a whole can provide is biotechnology.  Biotechnology was not developed by Warren Buffett or Ronald Reagan or the legions of celebrated MBA’s. It was slowly developed by publically financed university institutions over many years of apparently irrelevant research projects. University educated scientists were hired by private and public corporations who began to find ways of marketing biomedical technology.  It evolved into molecular biology and medicine and eventually commercialized as a result of front funding by millions of skeptical and myopic taxpayers over several generations. Yes, the market has a big part in this in terms of the rational distribution of goods.

As a result of all of the initial “collectivism” through publically funded science, we have a first class infrastructure (the CDC) that is capable of monitoring the onset and progress of contagious diseases. This system funded originally by the public is able to mobilize vaccines and small molecule medicines to prevent suffering and the spread of disease.  It is able to coordinate efforts and resources to benefit even the chronically irritable Libertarians.

Liptonian Symbolism

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Never one to allow reason to interfere with sentimentality, my blackened heart is softened somewhat by the recent shipment of Lipton Tea bags delivered to Th’ Gaussling from an online admirer via the US Postal Service. 

The tea in this gift shall be symbolically applied to the local waterway, but not before being used to formulate some refreshing iced beverage via aqueous extraction.  A vessel filled with aqueous goodness (OPE-Our Pure Essence) will be charged with the anthocyanin and alkaloid laden forest litter for extended exposure to solar radiation. Brownian motion will be relied upon to disperse the colloidal value away from the biomass.

Once so processed, the fortifying beverage will be passed through a pair of kidneys as a symbol of my dark contempt for the IRS. This nephro-raffinate will be discharged into the municipal fluid collection system for a kind of Nicene rectification that will provide further philosophical processing of the symbolic gesture. Finally, after the Liptonian fluids have been subjected to Libertarian aeration and Calvinist filtration, the clarified symbol will be discharged into the river for its turbulent hero’s journey to the drinking water inlets of New Orleans and beyond.

Tuesday’s Select Linkography

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Juan Enriquez talks about Homo evolutis. This is a TED video.

ARR Inc., is offering its Suparator (R) technology for separating an upper oil phase from water by means of a cleverly designed staged weir system. According to the product literature, the passive device collects, concentrates, and separates oil from flowing water. This widget uses Bernoulli effects to draw water from collection zones and top the upper phase over a final weir for isolation.

Admittedly, I have not kept up with the progress of wier technology, but to a non-engineer like myself, this seems pretty clever.

Suparator Diagram

Suparator Diagram

GOP Apparachiki Rattling Sticks in Bucket of Swill

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It certainly seems as though the GOP is orchestrating a pageant of contrived television events meant to draw in followers who may have gone astray. Tea parties and theatrical outrage over alerts issued from homeland security. Broadcasters find this kind of thing irresistable and, like stray cats, are drawn to lap up footage from a saucer of engineered controversy.

Tejas Governor Perry will probably have to eat his words about independence. If he is smart, he’ll realize that crow is best eaten while still warm.

What is striking about post-election GOP behavior is the magnitude of the mean spiritedness and the heat of the invective spewing from the right. These people are pissed off about their role as the minority party.

The fact of power is the act of power.  What is so telling about the character of the GOP core is that despite the mandate of the last election, GOP soldiers continue to vociferously spout expired doctrine despite the will of the majority of voters. Contrary to the interest of voting citizens, these people are gaming every rule, squirting glue in all the locks, and dropping flaming bags of political shit on every doorstep they can find.

This is a valuable insight into the party of “character and values”. Instead, they have betrayed themselves as the party of “win at all costs and take no prisoners”.

Was Abe Lincoln Wrong?

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When I hear the  snide comments of Gingrich and Limbaugh or witness the rebirth of Tom DeLay, I begin to wonder if President Abraham Lincoln wasn’t mistaken in trying to keep the Union together. Southern Conservatism with its fanatical Baptist dominionist wingnut demographic has even perverted basic conservative values of thrift and small government. It’s expensive military fetish and its efficient marshaling of extreme nationalism have cast precious little light on the complex problems of our time, just a devisive heat.

The epoch of the “Bush II Wild-Assed Excursion in American Civilization” has lead to the present disintegration of the GOP from the Grand Old Party to the Confederate Splintered Old Party of serial filibustering demagogues.

Perhaps we should set aside a few states for the Southern Conservatives to set up a Confederacy where lassaiz faire and the Southern Baptist Convention can run unfettered in the shady green pastures of God’s marketplace. Hell, throw in Texas for good measure- except for Houston. Houston would be a independent city-state a la Hong Kong. Newt can be the new Jeff Davis of the Confederacy of Theocratic States.

Let the southern conservatives luv each other up in their own country. They can preach their sticky doctrine to a ready made choir all day long. It would be worth having a Republican Homeland seccession if it will shut the bastards up.

Thoughts on the Panic of 2008

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While the congress and the various media are grinding their battle axes and taking swings at each other, I hope that we all remember that the absence of suitable regulations on the financial markets is really not the cause of the Panic of 2008. The cause of this trainwreck can be found in the practices and mindsets of certain elite players in the market. This is a pathology of the marketplace, our culture, and ultimately, of human behavior.  

Blaming government for the excesses of the market is like blaming your doctor for your riotous and drunken merrymaking.  In the end, the participants in this orgiastic financial frenzy should be called to account for themselves in front of something like an angry mob. The rest of the herd needs to cull the troublesome members, either through the courts or through social stigma like excommunication or shame.

Obviously, the government was asleep at the wheel in its regulatory duties. But to some extent it was plainly maneuvered out of the way of Wall Street.  While we are hurling epithets at congress, we should not forget that the boards of directors and executives of the troubled corporations have neglected their fiduciary responsibilities to the shareholders. These are the same smug bastards who will hammer you if you miss a mortgage payment. Surely they should be held to a similar accountability as a mortgagee.

As long as we are considering accountability, the show business component of this is the broadcast media (the Fourth Estate). The commercialization and show business aspect of news reporting can only lead to structural biases that favor the needs of the corporation. If news and commentary is regarded as entertainment (ie., Mad Money, Rush Limbaugh, etc), then it is inevitable that it will be conducted like any other carnival enterprise- it becomes a traveling freakshow meant to attract the eyes of a gawking but uncritical public.

It is not in the nature of corporate governance to accept divisions that are not profitable. Important but dry news will be replaced with anything that meets the definition of “compelling”.  Panem et circenses. Celebrity becomes a credential and the drama of controversy becomes more important than the particulars of the case.

If the information feedback loop to other members of the marketplace is filtered by self-serving players, then the equilibrium is fundamentally shifted in favor of the owners of the filter. Inescapably, the broadcast media are part of this whole Panic phenomenon.

Pi Day 3-14

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Another magic day is before us- Pi Day on Saturday, March 14 (that’s 3-14). Lets hope that the celebration does not lead to jail time or excessive brain damage. Pi to a million decimal places, a partial listing of which is below-

3.
1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209 7494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651 3282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102 7019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461 2847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432 6648213393607260249141273724587006606315588174881520920 9628292540917153643678925903600113305305488204665213841…

In the interest of preserving bandwidth, I’ve deleted most of the first 50 thousand or so numbers.

…5115448491268584126869589917414913382057849280069825519 5740201818105641297250836070356851055331787840829000041 5525118657794539633175385320921497205266078312602819611 6485809868458752512999740409279768317663991465538610893

Bronx Cheer for National Geographic

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After supper last night I parked in front of the tubule and switched on the Discovery Channel. There was an intriguing program on the Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) in Mexico. The Naica mine has become famous for its gigantic selenite crystals (calcium sulfate). National Geographic filmed a program on these wondrous crystals and it has been broadcast on the Discovery Channel.

What has raised my ire on this is not the production value. As usual, the cimematography was superb. What is disappointing is the story they chose to tell.

What I have noticed in the public science programming world is a particular weakness that quietly infects writers, directors, and producers. The weakness has to do with the fear of boring their audience. Rather than risk a pandemic of somnolence, writers kick up the script a notch with undercurrents of intrigue and a suggestion of danger for the intrepid parties crawling in the muck or harassing gators.

That’s fine. It never hurts to plan for short attention spans in the audience. But what suffers is a sense of proportion. When the focus shifts from the subject of the expedition to the members of the expedition, the program crosses the line into the tawdry world of show business.

Yes, it is quite hot in the cave. Yes, heatstroke is an issue to be wary of. But, what about the crystals?? What are they made of? Where is the water from which they were precipitated from? How does crystallization work?

And, where is the chemist on the team? National Geographic brought together a geologist, a planetary astronomer, a nuclear physicist, a biologist, and a few others who were not identified. This is a common omission on the part of people outside of the chemical sciences. Nobody knows what the hell we do!

For the showbiz effect, they brought in a planetary astronomer, Dr. Chris McKay, to examine the cave for possible implications on Martian exploration and the Evolution of Life. To media people, science equals- 1) Space Science, 2) Medicine, 3) Computer Science, and 4) oh, did I say Space Science?

It turns out I used to know Chris McKay. He was a TA in an astronomy course I took at the University of Colorado ca 1978. He was a geat guy and, unlike other misfits misanthropes bed wetters grad students in the astro/geophysics program, an attentive and caring instructor. He was (and is) a true believer in space exploration. We spent a long and chilly evening together in the Sommers Bosch Observtory at CU manually guiding the 24 inch telescope on a guide star for some lengthy time exposures of a string of galaxies. We used 3×5 Tri-X plates hypered in H2.

This showbiz reflex is a chronic condition and I am sorry to see National Geographic succumb to it.

Static in the Attic

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Some scattered thoughts and links, each too small for a single post-

Given that we are near planting season for 2009, I wonder how the loan picture is for farmers wanting to borrow money for the upcoming crop. It’d be a form of catastrophy if money was too tight for farmers to buy seed, fertilizer, and diesel.

One of my favorite reference books is by Francis X. McConville, The Pilot Plant Real Book, 2nd Edition, FXM Engineering and Design, 2007;  ISBN 0-9721769-2-6.

Glass blowing supplies are available here. Here is some coursework.

The Very Large Array (VLA) sits 50 or so miles west of Socorro, NM, just south of Hwy 60. A few hours east on Hwy 60, across White Sands, is Roswell, NM.

Atomic tourists should know that the Trinity site is open only twice per year: once in April and once in October.

Godwins Law.

A new POS (warning- really bad language!).