"A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic."
- George Bernard Shaw
According to a US Geological Survey study, as this Reuters report mentions, over two thirds of the world’s polar bear population (which is around 16,000) could be lost due to melting sea ice by 2050. That is less than 43 years from now. I hope we all remember this while turning on the air conditioners in our cars and homes.
This is an image of a snowflake, at 1860x zoom as seen under a Scanning Electron Microscope. Here’s a low-temperature SEM magnification series for the snow crystal, between 93x and 3600x zoom.
A compilation of the hundred greatest theorems the world has seen. This list was presented at a mathematics conference in July, 1999. Of course, there is no sane method of ranking these theorems around each other, so list preparers Paul and Jack Abad followed the following criteria: “the place the theorem holds in the literature, the quality of the proof, and the unexpectedness of the result.”
The list, however, is constrained only to theses developed circa 17th century Europe and later. Mathematical treatises authored between 1000 BC and 1000 AD in India would probably merit their own class of lists.
China launched the first seed-breeding satellite of its kind from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center today, carrying 215 kilograms of seeds of plants and fungus, the largest-ever such payload since 1987. The mission is part of a plan to help develop space-enhanced produce to feed the country’s 1.3 billion people. The country has been researching the effects of cosmic radiation and microgravity on seeds for many years, giving rise to the theory that fruit, vegetables, and grains such as rice and wheat cultivated from seeds exposed to space offer increased yields. A rapid decline in farmland due to industrialization is a significant problem in India as well, which increases the importance of following the findings from this research effort even more closely. While food irradiation as a method of preservation has been adopted for a long time now, the potential health risks that might be associated with vegetables treated with cosmic radiation need to be strongly investigated.
It seems certain that in the not too distant future, Earthgrains will witness a completely different breed of competitors (Spacegrains?) lining the shelves at Wal-mart.
I stumbled upon this ~13 minute video of Rube Goldberg machines designed as part of a contest for a Japanese game show. I’ve always been fascinated by these well-designed and accurately coordinated, yet highly counterproductive complex machines. For those who don’t know, a Rube Goldberg machine or device is any exceedingly complex pataphysical apparatus that performs a very simple task in a very indirect and convoluted way (via Wikipedia).
(Update) I was meaning to also add a link to the famous Honda commercial that uses Honda parts to create a nice Rube Goldberg machine (and the link to a parody as well), but forgot :P. Thanks Sean!
On a side note, watching this video sequence reminded me of a beautiful quote in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1972 movie Bawarchi.
“It is simple to be happy but so difficult to be simple…”
- Anon.
Jack Ganssle’s Embedded Muse newsletter had a very interesting link that describes a difference engine of a different sort, which I thought I’d write about as well. Andy Carol has built a Difference Engine similar to the one built by Charles Babbage, entirely from Lego blocks! In Andy’s words, “Babbage’s design could evaluate 7th order polynomials to 31 digits of accuracy. I set out to build a working Difference Engine using LEGO parts which could compute 2nd or 3rd order polynomials to 3 or 4 digits.”
The process of building the gargantuan number cruncher is nicely illustrated with pictures, along with a nice and concise explanation of the math and mechanics that combine to form a difference engine. Amazing, Andy!
Andy’s website is hosted on Steve Wozniak’s website.
An interesting study by a research team at Syracuse University has found that in bat species where the females are promiscuous, the males boasting the largest testicles also had the smallest brains. Conversely, where the females were faithful, the males had smaller testes and larger brains.
In species with monogamous females, males had testes starting at 0.11 percent of their body weight and ranging up to 1.4 percent.
But in species where the females had a large number of mates, the study found testes ranged from 0.6 percent to 8.5 percent of the males’ mass (in the Rafinesque’s big-eared bat).
Large brains being metabolically costly to develop and maintain, have to be traded off in this evolutionary process that chooses balls over brains. In more monogamous bat species, the average male brain size was about 2.6 percent of body weight, while in promiscuous species, the average size dipped to 1.9 percent.
CNN.com - When it comes to bats, size matters - Jan 24, 2006
