Updates in Science & Tech

First some miscellany. 

Join a podcast where - with the savvy hosts -  I discuss “Machines of Loving Grace.” Richard Brautigan’s poem may be the most optimistic piece of writing ever, in all literary forms and contexts, penned in 1968, a year whose troubles make our own seem pallid, by comparison. 

Of course, this leads to  a deep dive into notions of Artificial Intelligence that (alas) are not being discussed – or even imagined - by the bona-fide geniuses who are bringing this new age upon us, at warp speed. 

(This Monday, I keynote one of the RSA Conference tracks on this very topic.)

The mighty physics-YouTuber and host of Into the Impossible – my friend Brian Keating - says: “Here’s my exciting interview with David Brin" - Your Privacy is Overrated. So is the Government's. 

Try new tactics! Regarding my longtime push for using wagers effectively, one of you offered: “British climate scientist James Annan has been making (and winning) wagers with climate deniers for a couple of decades now:  At "Annan climate bet" and you'll find more examples.”

 I find one particular wager demand always sends denialist cultists fleeing, in panic. No mountain of blather incantations can distract from the pure fact of Ocean Acidification due to human-generated CO2 pollution, poisoning the seas that our children are gonna need. 

Regarding ocean acidification, I really like this article by three oceanographic chemists from New Zealand. It starts out at the level of high school chemistry, but takes you a lot farther into the details than most popular articles do. The basic principles are simple but the details get messy - multiple coupled chemical equilibria in regimes where the standard textbook approximations aren't valid. One thing that surprises a lot of people: the formation of calcium carbonate shells in the ocean is a net source of atmospheric CO2, not a sink. Conversely, weathering of carbonate rocks is a sink for atmospheric CO2.

Still, it boils (almost literally) down to a clear fact that would make any honest person admit: "Okay, we do got a problem, here." 

 Denialists are not honest persons.

== On to science ==

Caltech researchers developed a way to read brain activity using functional ultrasound (fUS), a much less invasive technique than neural link implants and does not require constant recalibration.  Only… um… “Because the skull itself is not permeable to sound waves, using ultrasound for brain imaging requires a transparent “window” to be installed into the skull.” Woof.

Here's a fascinating interview with my friend Roger Penrose, rambling across so many concepts, like an alternative theory of consciousness – a time-jumping, multiverse-killing notion of reality(!) Notable here is the savvy and cogency and understanding of questions by host Andréa Morris, who Roger very clearly enjoys and respects. 

== Industry! ==

Producing iron from iron-oxide ores now requires use of high carbon coke, spewing 8% of the world greenhouse gas, more than all the cars!  A new method for stripping away the oxygen would use sustainable electricity sources feeding into a battery-like anode-cathode system with salt water, making pure iron plus lots of industrially useful chlorine and sodium-hydroxide. The latter of which can suck in CO2 making the process (in theory) carbon negative. 

Wow. Unlikely to work on the moon, alas. But still. Hope it works to scale.

== Bio & Medicine ==

In my novella “Chrysalis” I project where things might lead, if we develop Regenerative Medicine: Regrowing Limbs & Organs. Innovators in this field presented incredible result’s at Peter Diamandis’s Abundance Summit in March, sharing insights about their work on regrowing limbs and organs.

I truly like the show PBS Space Time.  It’s for folks like you and me.  Very informative and in-depth and fascinating. (even the advert at the end is way cool.)  In this case, the topic is one I spoke to, in the classic show Life After People. What traces of our civilization’s tenure on Earth might be detectable in the near, middle and far future eras – after we are gone? And might civilizations ‘clean up’ signs of their presence, in order to make that kind of detection more difficult? 

Perhaps by dumping the ‘dross’ of their cities and other messes into plate-subduction zones, the ultimate recycling system?  As I show in Brightness Reef? (You’d love it! Plug.)

This Orca matriarch feeds her whole family on this Great White. Yipe! 

== Linguistics: save rare languages because… ==

Grammar changes how we see.... “Just 200 years ago at least 300 languages were spoken by people in Australia. Of that enormous group of languages, most belonged to the Pama-Nyungan family, with dozens of branches that descended from a protolanguage probably spoken 6,000 years ago in the northeastern part of the continent. Since colonization began in Australia in 1788, the number of Aboriginal languages still spoken in Indigenous homes in the country has been roughly halved. Of those remaining, only 13 are learned as a first language by children. Murrinhpatha, part of the relatively small group of non-Pama-Nyungan languages, is one of these 13—forming an unbroken thread of dynamic cultural inheritance that extends back many thousands of years. The language's survival is nothing short of astonishing.”  It also has some very unusual traits!

Somewhat related – studies show that humans have among the most precise and subtle awareness of both musical tonality and ‘beat’, or rhythm. Monkeys and apes have some, culminating in the display dances I portrayed in The Uplift War!  Studies further show that newborn infants can heed the beat and notice when it falters, arguing for an evolved biological foundation of beat perception. Hence music – in varied forms pervasive across human cultures may have at some point offered “an evolutionary advantage to our species.”  

== Bio-history ==

And speaking of speaking almost-lost languages… "We believe this is the first such communicative exchange between humans and humpback whales in the humpback 'language.'" Naturally, the headlines imply vastly more 'communication' than actually happened... apparently a friendly exchange of repeated "Howdy" greetings in Humpback-speak. Still, it's a start.

Greek researchers said they spotted a dolphin with fins that appeared to have thumbs — an anomaly scientists claimed they'd never seen.  I’d be very interested whether they observe anything like independent movement of this ‘digit,’ as it does have its own thumb bone. If so, all the Up[lift Institute?  What did I call these in Startide Rising?

New models based on dust kicked up by the dinosaur-killing asteroid impact, 66 million years ago, have revealed that a shutdown of photosynthesis — the process by which plants use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to produce energy and oxygen — was directly linked to the fine dust ejected into the atmosphere that blocked the sun. Based on the Tanis, South Dakota site that reveals spectacular details about the event… like that it happened in the spring.

Biologists checked a theory of ‘fitness landscapes’ by starting with a quarter million specific versions of e coli, each with a different variant of a gene vulnerable to an antibiotic, and watched as mutations caused each type to drift, most often toward antibiotic resistance. Fascinating that they can experiment usefully on such scales, getting strong results.

And if you are one of those folks eager to imagine the Reaper can be beat… the blood pressure drug rilmenidine seems to slow aging in animals. That is, if   "animals" = C. elegans. Good news if you're a roundworm!  ‘The effect seems similar to calorie restriction, so maybe it's applicable to humans.’ More likely… not. For reasons I describe here. 

== Are they like us?==

Much has been said about differences between Chimps and their cousins, bonobos, with much of the press favoring bonobo amicability and (relative) lower levels of violence. Only now along comes a fascinating observation to rattle that tree, so to speak.

Aaaaaaand while on the topic of our simian cousins...

== Final note: what a deal! ==

Open Road will - on Monday the 6th - offer my Hugo-winning novel The Uplift War in a classy e-version on many platforms and sites for just $1.99!

By Grapthor's hammer, what savings!