A Curious Statistical Anomaly

I say “Watch the sky!” not in a The Thing or Independence Day kind of way. I’m not expecting an alien invasion any time soon. No, I’m saying it because 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy — with all sorts of events planned throughout the world.

The International Year of Astronomy website has lots of information about what they’re planning for the year. And here’s their general spiel about it:

The International Year of Astronomy 2009 is a global effort initiated by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO to help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night-time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery.

High ideals and I don’t know how that can be accomplished but I will try to watch the sky more myself and I hope you will too.

New Years’ Eve, we worked until after midnight getting the zines up. Then, a bit wired, we decided to walk down to the mailbox (1/4 mile away). It was cold and windy so we really bundled up. Woo hoo it was cold. But all bundled up it wasn’t back except for the bits without covering like my eyes and cheeks. Yeah, I grew up in Maine, but I’ve lived in Maryland enough years to make me a cold-weather wimp.

What I remember most, other than the cold, is that after we came out of the trees on our property, our neighbor has trees on one side of the dirt road and big fields and her house on the other side. The sky was pitch black with no clouds at all — might have been wisps but I didn’t notice them. Orion was so bright and sharp you could easily follow his belt stars up to the Seven Sisters. Hyperion picked out constellations for me and I swear with the naked eye you could see the difference between a blue and a red star. Jupiter was so bright that at first I thought it might be the North Star. We stood and just marveled how beautiful the sky was and wasn’t it too bad that the best viewing was so late at night when all the ambient lights of houses, cars, whatever are out. It’s a sight I won’t forget — it’s one of those moments in life that make a memory to be cherished.

So that’s why a saw “Watch the Sky!” Make your own memories of beautiful star-filled skies. Perhaps you might want to wait until it’s a bit warmer — but still — look up in wonder now and then. Find a book and learn one or two of the constellations. Make it a family project. Or just enjoy a quite moment of contemplation.

I ran into this extremely interesting article on Scientific American online called, One World, Many Minds: Intelligence in the Animal Kingdom by Paul Patton. Scientists, or rather neuroscientists and psychologists, believed that the brain developed over time and as life forms became more complex and sophisticated the brain got more sophisticated also — that’s an extremely gross exaggeration but just about right. In other words, humans were the top of the ladder and that’s just the way things were. There was also the side idea that somehow we still had all the other lower levels of development but just added to them to get our wonderful brain and cognition and intelligence and all the other materials for right thinking.

The article basically says:

# The brains of other animals are not merely previous stages that led directly to human intelligence.
# Instead—as is the case with many traits—complex brains and sophisticated cognition have arisen multiple times in independent lineages of animals during the earth’s evolutionary history.
# With this new understanding comes a new appreciation for intelligence in its many forms. So-called lower animals, such as fish, reptiles and birds, display a startling array of cognitive capabilities. Goldfish, for instance, have shown they can negotiate watery mazes similar to the way rats do in intelligence tests in the lab.

Now this is something, that I find myself thinking — it’s about time. When I was taking neurology, I often thought that some of the basic premises didn’t make sense. And over the years, I’ve noticed that the basic list of skills required to be called sentient seems to change every times some scientific discovery shows that an animal of whatever species or description possess one of the criteria for intelligence — the criteria gets changed. For example: tool using used to be one of the criteria for intelligence. Then when it turned out that quite a few animals, and even some birds use tools (some even make them to be used), that criteria bit the dust.

I found the entire article just fascinating especially the information about octopuses:

Behavioral studies show that octopuses can distinguish and classify objects based on size and shape, much as rats do. They can learn to navigate simple mazes and to solve problems, such as removing a tasty food item from a sealed container. In 1992 two Italian neuroscientists, Graziano Fiorito of the Dohrn Zoological Station in Naples and Pietro Scotto, then at the University of Reggio Calabria in Catanzaro, published surprising evidence that an octopus can learn to accomplish a task by watching another octopus perform it. They trained octopuses to choose between a red ball and a white ball. If the octopus opted for the correct ball, it got a piece of fish as reward. If it selected incorrectly, it received a mild electric shock as punishment.

Once the training was completed, the investigators let an untrained octopus watch a trained animal perform the task from behind a glass barrier. The untrained animals did monitor the trained animals, as indicated by movements of their head and eyes. When allowed to select between the two balls themselves, the observer octopuses then made correct choices, which they could only have learned by watching. The ability to learn by studying others has been regarded as closely related to conceptual thought.

Maybe more research into the area of comparative neuroanatomy will show that while we may not be able to converse with an octopus, whale, dolphin, goldfish, ape, or bird — they may not be as “lower” class in the conceptual thought processes as we once thought. However, this also raises some very interesting philosophical questions if we learn that inhabitants of this planet (not humans) are capable of conceptual thought and cognitive abilities.  Do we have the right to experiment on them or … eat them?

Think about it for a minute. If some super-intelligent being came from out of nowhere and decided because our brains didn’t work like theirs that we were not worth bothering with except as pets, food, or work animals — we wouldn’t like it very much. Do we have the right to do the same to those creatures on our planet?

We’re starting to move off our little planet and there is the chance, even though it is considered minuscule, that we could meet intelligent life out there. However, if every time we find evidence of intelligence in something “not us” here on Earth we change the definitions to eliminate all the “not us” creatures — how can we truly be open-minded enough to recognize that intelligence if we find it.

I’m not about to turn vegetarian — or at least not completely — but these are the sorts of questions that I think about. And, I think more people should be thinking about these issues too. Our technology and science is getting to the point where the ethics of whether we should do something is going to be as important as can we do something. But, I’m not talking about the knee-jerk ethical babblings we seems to be having now, but true discourse on the issues discussing the ramifications for us, our society, our laws, and our humanity.

When Gayle talked about aliens appearing, it made me think. Isn’t that the exact plot line to an untold number of science fiction moves? Aliens arrive and treat us like animals. And so we have to fight back against these “monsters”, to teach them that we’re worthy of respect. Now, whether we’re talking about gorillas, dolphins, octopi, or whatever, we’ve now got a lot of evidence suggesting that these animals are not dumb. What is it about humanity that refuses to accept that there can be more choices in the world than just Animal and Human? Of course the cynic in me says that there are still plenty of humans that refuse to accept other humans as equals. This superiority complex seems to be built in at a pretty basic level. I think that’s all the more reason to expose it to the light of scrutiny and get people to at least acknowledge that the situation exists.

Remember my post awhile ago about the connection between Earth and the Sun that occurs every eight minutes, well looks like more can happen during that connection than scientists first thought. NASA today released an interesting article about a recent discovery by the THEMIS project. It seems that during the connection, while THEMIS was actually watching, the Earth’s magnetic field was breached and solar energy flowed though, charging our magnetosphere. This loads up the Earth’s magnetosphere with charged particles and that can mean more powerful geomagnetic storms — cell phone disruption, prettier Auroras, and other related events.

That they found this as the sun is going into Solar Cycle 24, with more frequent and stronger solar events, may add to the fun here on Earth. [Hyperion: Each Cycle is approximately 11 years long, measuring from Solar Minimum to Solar Minimum, with Solar Maximum hitting at the midway point, or 2012-2013 in this case.]

The really interesting bit is that scientists were convince this just couldn’t happen. But, it did. They have the data and it can’t be denied. It happened. So, now they have to deal with this new information and change their existing theories and check out the ones that they develop to take the place of the old one that was just proven wrong. You just got to love science — it’s so, so practical, the way that new data means throwing out the old way of thinking and start over and everyone just shrugs their shoulders and moves on. Wish that happened more often in the daily life.

I read today a short quote from Oscar Wilde:

, “A school should be the most beautiful place in every town and village – so beautiful that the punishments for undutiful children should be that they should be debarred from going to school the following day.”

I checked to see that he’d said it and found the quote listed in “The Schooldays of Oscar Wilde”
by David Robertson, Portora Archivist. It seems Oscar Wilde’s school didn’t live up to his belief that schools should be beautiful.

I went to school in the usual picture book schoolhouse — looking a bit like you’d expect a church to look actually. It was a small school with grades kindergarten through sixth grade. Then it was on to junior high (the first year in that school) and then high school (the last class to graduate from that building).

I was an okay student. Looking back I believe I could have been a much better student but I was more interested in learning in general than in learning just what was taught. If I found something interesting in an assignment, I was likely to go to the library or to our set of encyclopedias and look up more information and read on that topic until my interest got caught by something else. So, homework got a lick and a promise, but luckily in such small school I was still a A-B student.

Then came college. That’s when lots of things changed. You see I thought that college was the time to explore, learn, expand my horizons, and check out new areas of study. It took nearly flunking out to make me realize that that’s not what colleges are for. College is to polish the edges of what you already know and add depth to the knowledge that you already have. Taking a subject you know nothing about and studying like crazy and ending up knowing a lot but not as much as the students who came into it already knowing the basics and building on that knowledge usually left you at the C or D level, and that’s not how you graduate. So, eventually, I learned that college was not for learning and settled down to polish my edges and got a degree. I even did most of the studying for a MS before I decided I just couldn’t take the politics and rules for rules sake that made little to no sense to me.

However, looking at school now and talking to teens and younger children — schools are prisons now. There’s guards and police officers. In some schools students go through metal scanners similar to the ones in airports. Their belongings can be searched at any time. Some schools have won cases in court and banned students or punished them for things they did outside of school hours and off school grounds. With budget cuts and a worsening economy text books are getting older and older and more out of date. The buildings are decaying. Many classes are held in trailers set up next to the schools.

I honestly can’t think of an environment that is less likely to encourage learning. Then you add in the unfunded No Child Left Behind which translates into you will learn to pass the tests because we can’t do anything else with our budget. The bullying that children suffer from, that teachers can and will do nothing about — because Zero Tolerance means the victim is victimized twice, once by the bully and again by getting the same punishment as the bully if it’s reported. Zero Tolerance means that the letter not the spirit of all the rules is followed and that lowers students respect for and belief in fairness, justice, and authority.

Schools now-a-days seem more about not offending anyone anywhere rather than teaching facts, skills, logic, science, and how-to find out about a topic. To me it is a wonder that anyone learns anything in schools now-a-days and from some of the studies that show up showing that most American’s think the Sun goes around the Earth, that can’t name the states of the US (or even half of them), and can’t find countries on a labeled map. [Hyperion: Or my own pet peeve: That still think global warming and/or evolution are hoaxes.]

Our schools need help and we need to encourage learning. Schools are not supposed to be just places where sports occur at regular intervals with pep rallies. Schools are supposed to be where learning occurs. Where students open their minds to learn about new ideas, new thoughts, and new ways of putting those ideas and thoughts together to form hypotheses, and to gain skills to help them find jobs and work that will be satisfying to them.

Schools should be beautiful places of learning, knowledge, and exciting ideas. Punishment should be denying us the ability to attend schools. Of course, right now your economic ability to pay impacts your ability to attend school more than any other factor. Education should rest on ability to learn not ability to pay.

Just some thoughts…

I was pointed to a website with an example of genetic programming where the result was a pretty darn good approximation of the Mona Lisa.

Roger Alsing had done the programming to just have some fun, try out some code — and I presume stretch a bit in a different direction than he usually got to try. He also put up an FAQ about the project. The FAQ says that he’s cleaning up the code he hacked together and “may” make it available if he manages to get it like he wants it. The FAQ also give his reasons for believing that it’s actually genetic programming — I happen to agree with him on this.  I’d never really seen this applied to art before at least not that I remember so if I did, it probably wasn’t this impressive.

I’m actually just intrigued with the approximation he got the original. His website has the series of photos that show how the program steadily got a better and better looking approximation of the painting. Here’s the last of the images.

I find it amazing that a simple program could just tool along for three hours and get so close to the original. It really makes you think about how decisions made at points based on just what’s around you can make a world of difference to what happens overall.

I’m just saying that, whether it’s DNA, programming, or people making choices based on the information they have available, we make patterns. As each individual choice effects those around them until your have picture or a pattern or an effect.

It’s amazing the power that we have to create our own world view, actions, and environment.

Really, visit his website and read about the process and the result — it’s truly fascinating.

True evolution isn’t driven by a desire for beauty, or anything else other than simple survivability. I.E. if I make more offspring (and my offspring make more offspring) than my competitors, I must be fitter.  The problem is that Roger didn’t have millions of years to wait for something pretty to come out of his experiment.  So he cheated a bit with the fitness function, making it: Do I look like the Mona Lisa.   But this doesn’t change the fact that the polygons mutate and survive based on a fitness function, and it is therefore, in my opinion, an accurate, though severly simplified simulation of evolution through genetic selection.  If you read through the comments on Rogers’ site, the disrespect and meanness is truly disheartening.  Mostly though, they’re completely irrelevant to the point Roger was trying to make.  If I show you a snowball I’ve made, then telling me it’s nothing like a glacier, while true, is rather pointless, and only serves to make you look like a gormless git with “anonymous-internet”itis.

I got bored the other day and found a new time sink. I needed to finish a sweater I was working on and stuff a bear or two — so I wanted something to watch. But, I didn’t want to go to the TV. YouTube videos are usually short. Someone had told me about Hulu.com earlier and I’d checked it out. So, I thought this is perfect.

Hulu has movies and TV shows for free. The catch is that they have commercials but so does TV so what’s the difference. I have a pretty fast connection so thought I’d give it a try. Mostly, I wanted to check out the TV shows. Our TV is in the basement — the very, very cold basement so we don’t watch it much (actually, we don’t watch it at all during the winter). So, I watched Bones. I’d never seen it so started with season one. Luckily, that was the only season they had other than season four, I think. I’m now thinking I’ll need to put the season boxed sets on my Amazon list. I loved them. I’ve scoped out some more shows that I want to watch so I’ll be coming back to Hulu.

Oh, I did finish the sweater and the stuffing. Photos tomorrow probably.

We’d tried to watch the NetFlix online on my husbands computer but the sound was horrible. NetFlix also requires that you use IE (and I hate IE with a passion). Eventually, after several disastrous listening experiences with NetFlix, we desperately wanted to watch something and found my laptop had better sound. Of course, I had to update IE first but finally, NetFlix’s Watch Now works on my laptop with decent sound. So, guess that will be a secondary time sink when I need to find something for my eyes and ears when my hands are busy.

I’ve tried reading and doing crafts but if it’s not a simple ribbing or stockinette stitch, I can’t read. I need to watch something or I get antsy and nervous feeling like I’m cheating by just doing one thing. In fact, I can’t just sit and watch a movie anyway, I have to do something with my hands so socks are a good small project for movie watching.

Anyway, check out Hulu and see what you think. But you have to have a connection fast enough for streaming video. If you can’t do YouTube, you probably can’t do Hulu either.

As more and more data comes back from our research vehicles on and about Mars, we learn that maybe Mars was once very much like home — Earth.

Recently, scientists have learned from the data that Mars periodically has some of its existing atmosphere ripped away by solar winds. Mars’ magnetic field isn’t a bubble that surrounds the planet like ours here on Earth. Mars has magnetic umbrellas. These umbrellas seem to help the solar winds rip out gouts of atmosphere from the planet.

Scientists will need more data to determine the exact mechanism as to how this happens and how often. Hopefully, as more research and data gathering vehicles are sent to Mars the data will be collected that will tell us more.

I’m curious as to how these magnetic umbrellas and the solar winds work to strip the atmosphere. Does this stripping takes place on a schedule or randomly? Why does Mars still have any atmosphere left? How long, at estimated loss due to this ripping of the atmosphere will it take to lose what’s left? And if it should all be gone already — where is the atmosphere coming from? And most importantly of all, could it happen here? Are we just lucky that Earth has a bubble and not umbrellas? Do other planets have bubbles or umbrella? Is a bubble a criteria for life?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Today, I was leafing through a magazine and imagine my surprise to see that a Tylenol ad was actually informative and helpful. Not that I’m saying such ads are never either of these. But, usually they just say something on the order of “if you’re in pain or ill use our product”.

So, what was different? This time the ad said “Increasing the font size on your computer screen can help prevent eye strain and headaches”. Then it listed how to increase the font size depending on whether you used a PC or a MAC.

PC — CTRL, SHIFT, +

Mac– COMMAND, SHIFT, +

Wow, advice on alleviating the pain by eliminating the problem — squinting and straining the eyes. Then suggesting you take their product only for pain you can’t avoid.

I think I like this new advertising campaign. I’m far more likely to remember a company that gives helpful advice that might reduce you reliance on their product and use it when necessary.

I guess my truth in advertising would be that I do use Tylenol extra-strength when I can’t take the pain anymore. It doesn’t help much, but sometimes it takes the edge off enough so I can keep on keeping on without whining. But like any medication — over-the-counter or not — it’s much better to eliminate what’s causing the problem then covering up the symptoms with medication.

So, if you think your headaches are from eye strain, make the font size larger. If it helps then maybe it’s time to get your eyes tested.