It’s nothing fancy graphically, but the intricacies of the motion make it gorgeous. I’ve never seen a screen saver that was more interesting to me.

In real life, these collisions do occur. They aren’t a quick dance like on the screen. When you factor in the incredible distances involved and the scope of the masses interacting the cosmic fender benders take millions if not billions of years to play out.

The beauty becomes decidedly darker when you think of the implications. I’m one that doesn’t doubt the existence of life on worlds other than our own. Imagine for a moment just a single stray star going along it’s merry way through the universe, shot off on a path that brushes close to our own star. The interplay of gravity on that level has the potential to rip planets out of orbit. At best, that would completely change what life could exist and how it gets by on a world. It is much more likely it would just sterilize the world completely either through freezing, collision, or melting. A slight change in orbit makes a drastic difference in climate.

Now think of that on a galactic scale. Millions of stars being shifted about, never mind all the planets, asteroids, comets, etc. How many species erased in one event? How much potential?

In perspective it’s really not that dark, considering the timescales involved, species could rise and fall many times in the process. And of course, the newly shifted systems that exist after the collision may now harbor life that was not possible before.

I was reminded of all these thoughts this morning by a post on Bad Astronomy Blog. Check out Bad Astronomy’s write up of some great Hubble shots of galactic collisions and interactions. As you’re looking at the pretty pictures, think of all that’s actually going on, and all that implies to make this eye candy.

Blogger finds Y2K bug in NASA Climate Study

Check out the article. After correcting the problem, we now find that warmest year on record was (drumroll)

1934

As opposed to 1998, which the study previously stated.

I really don’t even care if a lot of the results aren’t credible. It’s good entertainment either way. There’s just something so alluring about unsolved mysteries, the more questions and hints, the better. I think that’s partially the same allure that the mixed reality games like ILoveBees and Year Zero have.

Now excuse me, I’m going to see if I can solve the mystery of Mel’s hole.

NASA can’t afford looking for killer asteroids.

So what’s top on your list, America? A few more bucks in your pocket so you can eat out a few more times this year at your favourite fast food restaurant, or the continued survival of the human race? Sometimes I wonder if we should survive when I consider how idiotic we can be, but I’m not so cynical that I entertain those thoughts very often

I’m not at all denying that we have had an impact. Certainly we have. Indeed, I think we’ve done some vast and horrible things. I do infact think that we have helped cause, or at least speed, climate change. Is that bad? Well, yes, it likely is, not because of the change itself but because of how we react to it, and how little we understand it.

The problem is we don’t know what we’re doing.

We spend most of our time on this matter arguing about who’s fault it is and how to fix it. It’s quite a problem, because we don’t know how many factors are involved, nor do we know the weight to put on the factors we do know about. I equate our flailing and bickering to the process of gluing together a china teapot that’s been broken… except we’re doing it in a dark room only by touch. I know it’s arrogant of me to make such a judgement on a world community of scientists, but it’s not like I’m wrong on the matter. There’s no consensus on causes, and even less on fixes.

Do we need to “fix” anything?

Recent evidence shows that we’re not alone in this problem. Mars is also warming up, despite the fact they don’t have a bunch of troublesome humans belching out greenhouse gasses. This is currently being attributed to the current solar cycle, and of course that’s pretty obvious. The sun is the main factor that affects absolutely anything in our solar system, so naturally it is one of the first places to look for cause of changes. Of course, it’s not anywhere near the only factor, but it’s good to have a bit of validation on my thoughts that we haven’t fully grasped the problem.

How often do you try to solve a problem without understanding it first? I’m guilty of it from time to time. I will readily admit that if I don’t have a firm grasp of the problem before attempting a fix, I most often fail to solve it. I don’t see how it should be any different on a professional scientific scale.

We’re going about this wrong.

I don’t think it’s a bad idea to reduce emissions. I actually think it’s great. I would love to go Solar, or Wind power. I like being ecologically friendly when I can. I think we’re putting the wrong priority on it. Historically we’ve been terrible at trying to “fix” nature. There are may instances where we’ve had great intentions of helping nature but not seen the big picture and failed utterly. The global climate is far more complex than regional ecosystems, yet we spend a lot of time bickering about it and making sweeping generalizations about the need to fix it, and how.

When you’re sick, and you don’t know what’s wrong what do you do? You treat the symptoms so you can continue getting on about your life as well as possible. You keep trying to figure out what’s wrong, but you don’t let yourself be crippled in the meantime. That’s what we should be primarily focused on at this point. We’re busy making predictions of catastrophe, some of which are in fact likely to come about. We’re busy laying about blame for things that are sometimes no one’s fault, or everyone’s fault. We should instead be acknowledging the change, and working to adjust to it.

Pragmatism is more helpful than being reactionary or sensational

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for minimizing our impact on other species. If I had my way I’d live in a solar house, with an electric car out on a lake surrounded by forest, growing my own vegetables and frolicking with the other woodland creatures. That’s not a likely scenario for me or most other people any time soon. Until that becomes more plausible I’ll be going about my daily life as I was.

In a world where we’re likely to see weather patterns we’re not accustomed to we need to acknowledge their power and unpredictability, while preparing as best we can. If you live where hurricanes hit, for the love of all that’s holy be sure not to be in a flood plain, or below sea level. Don’t live in a trailer or other unsound structure. If you live where there could be tornados, keep a weather radio and know how and when to take cover. If it gets hot, be sure to have water and a way to help cool yourself down should the power go out. If you live where you can be snowed in, keep supplies. There’s too much human tragedy happening due to ignorance and simple arrogance/lack of preparation.

This world has been around much longer than we have, and unless we get our act together it will be here long after we’ve passed. To it, we’re a minor annoyance at best. Thousands, probably millions, of species have come along and gone past in the life of earth, we are no exception. We do not have to be as ignorant, but it seems we often choose to be.

First we had stone tablets and walls. Great longevity, easy to read, but not very portable and there’s only so much you can fit on a wall.

Then we started using skins and paper. Excellent portability, good longevity if it’s stored well. Initially the price was quite high but soon the economies of scale caught up and it was somewhat accessible to a large portion of the population. Finally the printing press made it cheap and easy for everyone.

Now in the information age we have information at our fingertips, instantly available from across the globe. The problem is we have no good way to store it. We rely on the delicate balance of electrical charges, magnetism, and microscopic slices in degradeable surfaces. Even our most carefully preserved digital archives are only expected to last 100 years. It’s a constant shuffle to keep from losing data. What good is progress if we forget about it?

We may be close to the solution: Using bacteria to store date for thousands of years.

With this sort of method we are paving our road to long term species memory and survival. Sure, we may have been fine without it as far as surviving, but the potential for loss was tremendous. Imagine if you will humans established and living in another solar system. Communications between there and earth would take years, decades even. With convential digital data stores, if the colony loses a blueprint for their power generator, there’s no hope of getting a new copy in time. Without records that last far flung human settlements could potentially lose and forget the history of earth. It’s a common theme in science fiction, set far enough in the future human factions splinter and separate enough so that our homeworld is little more than a myth. For the first time it looks like that is a future we can avoid.

Have a cat? You could be infected with a bacteria that alters some of your instinctual or personality traits. The bacteria in question, Toxoplasma Gondii, in it’s normal life cycle affects the behaviors of small mammals that eat cat poo. The change is so that the mammals become less fearful so that they are more likely to be eaten by larger mammals, thus begining the cycle over again and spreading the parasite.

In cats it works kind of like a symbiote, in that when it’s working as it should it makes normal cat prey more easily catchable by cats. The study linked above is looking for correlations on overall cultural attitudes in populations with large infection rates.

This strikes very close to a lot of theories on how various bacteria can drastically affect not only our physical health, but mental as well. One of my favourite authors, Greg Bear, wrote a sci-fi book on this exact concept.

In late 2003, there was an alternatively produced soy sauce named “Hongshuai Soy Sauce “ in China. The soy sauce was marketed as “blended using latest bioengineering technology” by a food seasoning manufacturer, suggesting that the soy sauce was not generated in a traditional way using soy and wheat.

Q: What’s the secret ingredient?
A: Amino Acid Syrup (or powder).

Q: Where do you get that?
A: Human hair.

Original Article

http://www.livescience.com/othernews/060124_political_decisions.html

Wow.  I mean really, how sad can you get?  This isn’t uncommon or anything, happens outside of politics.  Religion, family, just take anything that has a strong emotional response and watch the reasoning areas of the brain shut down.

Article

That’s right. Makes sense doesn’t it? Suddenly we have a smaller percentage of youths growing up in poverty, or without their parents, or maybe just without their father… and the crime rate drops correspondingly.

Interesting. Kind of obvious in retrospect.