Diversity and Deviation

In previous blots I have touched on the relationships among Pan Troglodytes (Chimpanzees), Homo Neandertalensis, and Homo Sapiens DNA. The usual numbers cited are that Homo Sapiens has a 0.985 DNA commonality with Pan Troglodytes, and 0.995 with Homo Neandertalensis.

As is, we knew those numbers were a bit of rubbish but, as the saying goes, they are the only game in town. What has never gotten much play here has been the issue of intraspecies variance.

Now some researchers in Great Britain have addressed this.[Link] Its hard to tell from the reportage since not only is it watered down for public consumption, but its rather shy on any maths particulars, which may be a combination of reportage and the biomedical communities fear of maths. They’re claiming a variation of 0.12 but its not clear if that’s the range or the standard deviation? It also appears that they are double sampling in the sense that they are taking samples from both the population of homo sapiens and within the genome thereof.

The neat point here is that we know from experience with our own species that that has to be genetic variance but until now no one has done much worthwhile about measuring it. Now we can at least have a more reliable basis for homo sapiens, and hopefully, eventually, for pan troglodytes. Sadly, we’re limited to only a few specimens for homo neandertalensis.

Introduction to Physics, Chapter 2

As a special Thanksgiving turbulence, here’s the draft of Chapter 2 of the book I am trying to write on introductory physics: intorphysch02.pdf

This is the chapter where there is a graceful transition from the maths overview to physics.

Pot Boil and Cauldron Bubble

When I saw this [Link]

I immediately got a flash of association: Alton Brown [Link]

and Tim Taylor

Since that’s about 3E+04 word-equivalents, I shall leave further deliberation to those of you who want some humorous respite from the holiday turbulence.

Thoughts of the Holiday

In keeping with the holiday, I have been considering the nature of its origins. Courtesy of various seasonal presentations on the higher tone television networks, my appreciation of the holiday has been elevated albeit at an angle and I fear the transition from static to kinetic friction may have been passed.

Regardless of whether we attribute the holiday to Spanish explorers, early Virginia colonists, or the traditional puritans, the common denominator seems to be gratitude for survival after placing oneself at risk for the cause of betterment. In the case of the Spanish explorers and the Virginia colonists it was the pursuit of wealth complicated by the realities of local hostility in the form of both natives and environment. In the case of the puritans it was objecting to the non-separation of church and state and having to run away as a result. Interestingly, in those days it was state directing church rather than the opposite that appertains today. Nonetheless, the local adversity was essentially the same for them – natives unhappy at their presence and an environment largely uncaring of their needs.

Nonetheless, all three groups managed to survive and prosper enough to be thankful of what they achieved. That survival was in no small part due to the intelligence of the individuals as well as to their social heritage and culture. Sadly, as we have so much more to be thankful for in our modern world, one of the things we seem to find wanting is that intelligence. Now, researchers at U Tennessee (Its nice to see a football school make good use of that sports income.) have developed a brain model that explains some of this.[Link]

The article is worth reading but the bottom line is that mate selection today isn’t for survival traits like intelligence but other things like popularity or appearance. So goodbye homo sapiens, hello homo tonsorissimus?

Holiday Turbulence

Today is Thanksgiving and it inaugurates the season of turbulence. I would offer a definition now but evidently the good folks in Oxford find the noun too nerdish yet and render up only a definition of the adjective turbulent, which if now offer:

“turbulent adj.

1. disorderly or confused; not calm or controlled.
2. technical relating to or denoting irregular and disordered flow of fluids.”

The sources of turbulence in this season are manifold but I shall not rest without enumerating those I consider major:

• Family and Friends – both Thanksgiving and Christmas/Chanukkah entail “social” interactions with family and friends many of which are stressful, tense, banal, and/or chaotic – all sources of turbulence;
• Food – this is the season of strange foods, which in my family runs the gamut from egg nog, (spiked) fruit cake, rum balls, and other strange finger food through the traditional Christmas morning breakfast of scrambled brains and eggs. All of which invariable leads to metabolic turbulence; and
• Shopping – the contemporary archetype of the season is gifting and too little of those gifts are made by ourselves. Instead, we go out through turbulent traffic, comprised entirely of ass hats and cell phone talking tempomaniacs, to overcrowded shopping centers clogged with other frustrated shoppers, shortages of meaningful merchandise, and intemperate, often illiterate, store staff – the turbulence of capitalism.

In all of that fun, it is joyous to note that researchers at the Institute of Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics have observed turbulence in the Solar wind that appears to be consistent with the Kolmogorov theory of turbulence.[Link]

Now do your part for science and observe your personal turbulence and see if you can analyze what turbulence theory fits, or come up with your own model. It sure beats polite chit chat avoiding all the social hot topics.

Hairdo Size

Researchers at U Oxford have performed experiments on the sexual partner selection traits of chickens.[Link] Their results indicate that roosters have a preference for hens with larger crests in selecting sex partners.

Now, what might this indicate about Southron women, especially given their penchant for “BIG” hair?

Wonderful

Occasionally, we have to admit to the overwhelming effect of accidental juxtaposition of ether waves in the void, sort of like dark matter peanuts causing the quantum foam to overflow the universe. Such has occurred today.

The first part of this is the observation of two almost simultaneous supernovae in NGC 1316.[Link]

The second part is the news that Louisville will host the International Pumper and Cleaner Environment Expo next year – the worlds biggest exposition of portable toilets.[Link]

Now what do these have to do with Thanksgiving? Think about that old Dennis the Menace cartoon where Dennis is listing what he ate and ends with “Oh yeah, and a gas pill.”

Flatulence: cosmic; environmental; and comic.

Reason to Cheer

The California Supreme Court has ruled that web sites are not liable for posts by others.[Link]

This means that bloggers cannot be held responsible for what their commenters post.

While this only applies in California, the importance of the state both politically and informationally, indicates that the probability the Yankee government will follow is good.

But this doesn’t mean that I don’t reserve the right to delete comment posts I find disagreeable.

Once More

At the risk, gladly accepted, of being considered a technology curmudgeon, I see that an old idea is once more being tried.[Link] The idea is to use some rocket propelled device to intercept or interdict an on-coming missile.

This time the target is RPGs and the company propounding the thing is something called Control Products. Their idea is to tow parachutes behind their rockets that will ensnare the on-coming RPG and disrupt its aerodynamic balance.

Not a new idea! Its in the same genre as the aerial balloon mines used by the British in the Great Patriotic War. I have seen at least six variants of the idea advanced in my short career of 30+ years. The best was smoke rockets to break the laser link between designator and laser guided missile by deploying a phosphorus smoke cloud in “front” of the target that the missile, by virtue of the backscatter from the acidic water droplets, would “home in” to instead of the intended target. The daddy of this bright idea was one Osman Fred Kezer who was one of the most original and imaginative engineers in the Defense community.

Of course such won’t work with RPGs, which are basically Congreve rockets similar to the ones used by the British at Fort McHenry and the Battle of New Orleans, just updated with a bit of modern nineteenth century manufacturing capability.

Incidentally, the rocket part isn’t the primary technical challenge in these ideas. The first hurdle is detecting the on coming missile far enough away to intercept it without damage to the target. This distance also incorporates all of the reaction time, of course. The second technical hurdle is to get the interceptor close enough to the missile to have some effect. The rest is pretty much mechanical art.

Traditionally, the first hurdle is the harder, accounting for the numerous failures of such devices to either work or be useful. The most common cause of autility is a sensor system that is too big, rendering the vehicle carrying it useless militarily. The second is the cumbersomeness of the rockets.

Its all characterized by the old Protection/Lethality/Mobility triad.

Mindenbinder triumphant

The adage “I’ll eat my hat” is so old now that young people have no idea what it means, even those ill mannered hooligans who wear ball caps indoors and especially at table. Of course in those days, hats were made of felt or fur and the statement was largely figurative, usually being satisfied by the ingestion of one bite.

In the novel Catch 22 by Joseph Heller,[Link] the entrepreneur-capitalist Milo Mindenbinder corners the market on Egyptian cotton and then finds he was the market and is, in effect, stuck with a white elephant.[Link] In desperation he tried chocolate coating balls of cotton to no avail.

Now, scientists at Texas A&M U have discovered how to remove the toxin gossypol, which rendered cotton (0.22 protein but not clear what the units of the fraction formation are from the reportage) poisonous. AS a result, cotton is now edible.[Link]

Heretofore, edible clothing has largely been a sexual toy, constructed using some sheet or plasticized sugar or starch mixture. Now however, edible clothing is possible, closing the loop with our hunter-gatherer forebears who only wore the remains of food.

It also gives a whole new meaning to designer clothes.