Misc. Science Topics

[austintorn@aol.com]

Misc. Science Topics

Whatever can be shown or derived from the known that has been shown, whether old, new, or an update; even art, for example, for it can be seen by all.

Can even be about presently not-yet-workable science attempts.

Humor appreciated, plus everyday life, the human condition, whatever, as long as it is of the real world and tied to the positive use of science. Whatever comes up is what the thread could follow.

— New science discoveries, tidbits, updates.

— Science methods and attempts.

— Science not needing its own thread.

— Evolution additions.

— Brain; consciousness.

— Life; ways of living.

— Whatever, having to do with some pro science usage.

Now realistically, the thread may ebb and flow, due to there being not so many TQ members, and because many established members have already put out thousands of well researched scientific postings in specific areas, which is where they still belong.

Social glue is good, too, as all need not be always serious, nor are there always science topics.


Examples and starters:

— Saturn’s moon, Titian, operates at a cold temperature, but this is within the triple point of methane, and so it flows there as a liquid, carving our river channels, rises as moisture and rains down in torrents, even making a lake called the Kracken Mare that has no detectable waves on its surface.

— Attempts to compress hydrogen isotopes to obtain energy from fusion seem to end up with the stuff squirting out all over the place.

— The human condition can improve, such as transcendence from life’s noise, within or without, utilizing cognitive methods, such as detachment.

— How and why “deadly” H2S became of use to humans.

— Chile's massive earthquake has likely altered the distribution of the Earth's overall mass, scientists from NASA say. As a result, the length of a day is now a little shorter than it was before Saturday's magnitude 8.8 earthquake. "The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds [millionths of a second]," Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Bloomberg. "The axis about which the Earth's mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds [about 8 centimeters or 3 inches]." The speed that the Earth rotates also increased slightly in 2004 following the earthquake that struck the off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. That 9.1 earthquake shortened the length of an Earth day by 6.8 microseconds, scientists say.

[austintorn@aol.com]

The Science of Consciousness

We can exist in the world
Being both subjectively self aware
And not subjectively self aware,
Depending on circumstances.

For instance,
Brain injury can permanently remove
Subjective self awareness
But the individual can continue to exist.

Anesthesia can remove awareness for a period of time,
TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) can do the same.
Drugs can either severely impair awareness or heighten it—
Which is to say, the degree of information
That makes its way up to subjective awareness varies greatly.

So, subjective awareness can be turned on and off,
But subconscious being must always be on.
The subconscious systems in the brain
Interpret and process information,
Then selectively feed relevant information
Up to awareness.

It is possible to be alive
And act without subjective awareness,
And in fact we can jerry-rig a system
Into forming a memory in a specific way.

Hypnosis is just such a thing.
When the memory is recalled,
It may bear little resemblance
To the actual experience or event,
And was in effect placed there
By a hypnotist in such a way
As to have exploited the subconscious system.

We then have a subjective experience
Of a fake memory.

This points out that the subject's interpretation
Of the subject's relationship to objects can
And would be different
Under the effects described above.

This tells a few important things —
Our brains process information
In the absence of subjective self awareness,
Especially in brain areas outside the cerebral cortex.

This is the case in infants,
Whose subcortical structures develop first.
These areas create the mental model of the world.

Now to form a memory the brain must
Have some basis for the world
Which it does not have straight out of the womb.

The connections simply have not developed yet.
Master glial cells quickly multiply,
Lay out a scaffolding of sorts
And guide neuron development
To the appropriate areas
Where they will form synapses.

Before this is done
There is no subjective self awareness.

It is possible in extreme cases
For a handful of memories to form very early on,
But these memories have been polluted over time,
Like all memories, by recall,
So the memory we think we formed during this time
Is more of an evolution of a very crude experience.

This is necessarily so
Because the brain hasn't worked out
What things are at that point in development
In order to generate the adequate description
Of them at that point in time—
Ex., what a wire is, what lights are,
What faces are, etc., etc.

The next important point
Is that the brain areas
Associated with implicit structures
Matures before the explicit structures.

The consequence of this
Is that the infant doesn't subjectively know
That it is learning,
But the brain is working to develop
A crude model of the world in the meantime.

The infant is guided by instinct,
Which we now generally refer to
As implicit memory or the implicit system.

It is mandatory that the implicit,
Subcortical structures mature quickly (primacy)
And are working properly
Because they also control breathing, heart rate
Digestion, and other things
Which we don't have to actively think about to do.

During this learning the brain is forming
The explicit, declarative system,
Where glial cells are customizing neuronal connections,
Myelinating axons, and nourishing the neurons.

At a critical point,
The brain connects these systems
In such a way to produce subjective awareness.
The crucial point now
Is that the implicit system
Is communicating with the explicit system—
Making the associations we perceive
At the level of subjective awareness.

Intentionality is then determined
By our history according to these interactions.
In other words, intentionality is a form of decision making
At the subjective level in the context of a self aware being.

A decision will include influences
From the implicit or subconscious systems
And those will be largely undetectable.
Some intentionality is the result of instruction,
For example: I am going to reframe
How I approach my physical pain
Because I heard that positive attitudes
Lead to less severe reports of subjective pain.

This is only a start, for intentionality requires
Further explanation from this perspective
Because it leads to physical changes in the brain.

Meditation is a good example
Of a top down phenomena
That leads to physical changes.

This is still consistent with the theory
That neurons that fire together wire together,
That is, the more a particular thought is thought,
Or memory recalled,
The stronger those connections become,
And this leads to the physical changes we see.

We, like most other animals, are mostly automated—
That is, we can act and exist
Without being subjectively self aware of the actions.

The subjectively self aware self
Then can be turned on and off
(By drugs, anesthesia, injury, TMS, etc.).

This implies that this type of self consciousness
Is dependent on certain connections
And interactions between physical systems,
Perhaps specific types of cells in a certain order
In the implicit and explicit networks.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Hell on Earth

Hydrogen sulfide at 800 ppm leads to death,
Yet, paradoxically, we need it to survive.

We can detect it at even 0.0047 ppm;
It is the smell of rotten eggs.

Some 250 million years ago,
The outlook for life on Earth
Was very grim indeed.

The Permian Era
Was unrelentingly harsh
And the single most devastating
Extinction even was underway.

Carbon dioxide emissions
From massive volcanic eruptions
In Siberia had triggered
A chain of environmental changes
That had left oxygen levels
Dangerously low in the world’s oceans.

This shift in ocean chemistry was bad news
For oxygen-breathing marine species.

What purposeless fates were
To befall life so “unprecious”?

What sulfur fumes
Were to arise from the depths?

Anaerobic organisms such as
Green sulfur bacteria
Thrived and flourished
Under the low oxygen conditions.

Their success made the oceans
All the more inhospitable
To its remaining aerobic inhabitants,
Since the bacteria generated
Vast quantities of hydrogen sulfide (H2S).

The lethal gas then diffused into the air,
Wiping out plants and animals on land.

By the end of the Permian Extinction
95% of marine species
And 70% of the terrestrial ones had perished.

The creatures that survived
This Hellish catastrophe
Were the only ones who could tolerate H2S,
And, in certain cases, even consume it;
Thus, we humans have retained
Some affinity for it.

H2S increases the responsiveness
Of neural circuits,
And even protects stressed neurons.

It dilates blood vessels,
Controlling blood pressure
And protecting the heart.

It regulates contractibility
Of smooth muscle cells in the lungs,
And does the same for the small intestine,
Regulating movement of material
Through the gut.

H2S “hibernation” can even
Protect vital organs from damage
Until energy supply levels
Return to normal,
Such as during trauma,
By helping to maintain
A baseline metabolism.

We arose from Hell,
Once upon a time,
It would seem,
But brought a useful part of it along.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Life Elsewhere?

Is there a way that we could determine
If life flourishes throughout the universe,
Seeing that we can’t really travel to most of it?

Yes, for if we find independent life
Somewhere nearby, say,
On Saturn’s moon, Titan,
Then we’d expect the same everywhere.

[Fredrick]

[CENTER]
— The human condition can improve, such as transcendence from life’s noise, within or without, utilizing cognitive methods, such as detachment.

— Chile's massive earthquake has likely altered the distribution of the Earth's overall mass, scientists from NASA say. As a result, the length of a day is now a little shorter than it was before Saturday's magnitude 8.8 earthquake. "The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds [millionths of a second]," Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Bloomberg. "The axis about which the Earth's mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds [about 8 centimeters or 3 inches]." The speed that the Earth rotates also increased slightly in 2004 following the earthquake that struck the off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. That 9.1 earthquake shortened the length of an Earth day by 6.8 microseconds, scientists say.

I like how you describe humans can improve their conditions while giving an example of detachment. It gives such importance to the phenomenon of nothing or the empty seat (even while the empty seat itself can never be the final goal for a person, we do not have as ideal to become nothing even when that is the final material destination). The verb to develop has a similar ring to it: compare the word to envelop and it is easy to see that the opposite of enveloping is meant for improvement. With developing, an outer layer is taken off an entity and yet instead of considering it smaller, we consider it as having achieved something better — something greater somehow. It is latin, and I know there is an English verb as well stating the same, but I can't remember it right now.

Would you say, Austin, that the 9.1 earthquake near Sumatra helped rotate the planet 6.8 microseconds faster because it was larger or because it was more centrally located on the path of earth's spin than the 8.8 earthquake in Chile that rotated the planet only 1.26 microseconds faster? The scale of Richter is an escalating scale, of course, but that makes it also harder to quickly compare these numbers. Do you think there are earthquakes that slow the earth or do they always speed up (though by fractions of microseconds in general) earth's rotation? With earth slowing over time (I heard that in the very long run earth will have 25 hours to a day), do you think earthquakes may help keep our planet spinning at that 24 hour pace over the long run?

[austintorn@aol.com]

I like how you describe humans can improve their conditions while giving an example of detachment. It gives such importance to the phenomenon of nothing or the empty seat (even while the empty seat itself can never be the final goal for a person, we do not have as ideal to become nothing even when that is the final material destination).

Yes, for one can let the parade of "noise" just go on by without grasping on to it or just let all thoughts calm away. The brain likes to constantly come up with stuff, as that is its job.

Would you say, Austin, that the 9.1 earthquake near Sumatra helped rotate the planet 6.8 microseconds faster because it was larger or because it was more centrally located on the path of earth's spin than the 8.8 earthquake in Chile that rotated the planet only 1.26 microseconds faster?

I'd have to guess that it could go either way, depending on the direction of the pushing plate. Some say there's not enough time in the day as it is, but I don't make much division and don't even wear a watch. Everything just blends together. Now, what would happen if everyone started running a marathon in the same direction?

[racecar]

Soup de jure: Intellectual Soup



From this New Scientist piece: "Stupidity should be cured, says DNA discoverer":

"If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease," says Watson, now president of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, New York. "The lower 10 per cent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what's the cause of it? A lot of people would like to say, 'Well, poverty, things like that.' It probably isn't. So I'd like to get rid of that, to help the lower 10 per cent."

Watson, no stranger to controversy, also suggests that genes influencing beauty could also be engineered. "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."

http://www.dynamicobjects.com/d2r/archives/001755.html

[austintorn@aol.com]

Inanimated to Animated

Perhaps the knowledge of movement
Makes for animated life,
But when did this happen?

How does one draw a clear line
Between organization and not?

When, even, does the night turn to day?

The most interesting and potent things,
From the evolution of the universe to life,
Exist at the blurred boundary
Between order and chaos…

Life perhaps emerging in tide pools—
The shifting edge between land and sea.
.
It is all of the fuzzy realm
In which and where things
Have to be orderly enough to take form,
But not so much frozen that they cannot change.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Hi racecar. Welcome to the thread where no idea is too large or too small for consideration.

Smart Pills…

The DNA guy may be getting, um, old.

While there are no approved smart pills, there are those taken by college students to stay up all night, plus there is always good nutrition. However, consider cigarettes, which allow the brain to better focus.

Indeed, why pay good money for a modern concentration camp when the same can be had from smoking for even more money. Do not worry about any disadvantages such as death. Those smokers dying young just didn’t keep it up long enough. Even George Burns could have kept on going smoking cigars, but he quit just before he died.

[austintorn@aol.com]

The Future Past
And
The Eddies of Time That Fredrick Likes

Atoms of a type are identical,
But one radioactive atom
May decay well before another.

Yet, there is no definitive cause
For the different behaviors,
No way to predict the decay time
By looking at their histories.

What regulates the particles’ behavior?

Not the past.

Where is the information,
If not in the past?

It can only be from the future.

Holy cripes!

Tollaksen and Aharonov designed experiments
In which the outcome was determined
By events occurring after
The experiment was done.

There were three steps:
(1)A “preselection” measurement carried out
On a group of particles,
(2) An intermediate “weak” measurement, and
(3) A subset upon which a final
“Postselection” measurement
Was carried out.

If information flowed from
The future to the past,
Then the effects measured
At the intermediate step
Would be linked to the
Final subset measurement.

A weak intermediate measurement was used,
So as to not disturb the quantum properties:
A motorized mirror whose movement
Could get amplified from the final measurement.

So, when a final measurement was made,
If it was, then it was seen that
The deflection angle of the mirror
Was amplified by more than a 100 times!

Somehow the later decision
To make a final measurement
Appeared to affect the outcome
Of the weak, intermediate measurements,
Even though they were made at an earlier time.

Is the future known?

Yes.

Did the future already occur?

Yes.

How much of it has occurred?

Well, I am not allowed to say,
For that is classified information
That must remain in the TOE Center,
Although Fredrick has access to it.