When did probiotics become trendy? When did they become legitimate science and medicine? How do we differentiate between the pseudoscience of “raw food” movements and the clinical science of potential treatments for diseases from Alzheimer’s to ALS?
Private Matters
What separates human beings from other animals? What makes us distinct, different, unique, what traits do we alone have who have done things that no other species has on Earth? For that matter, what is different between a person hunting for subsistence and a person settling the Fertile Crescent?
Back and Forth on Pacing
My recent reading of Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy set me to thinking about pacing in a more rigorous way than I have before.
Moon to Mars Public Comment Opportunity
There is a public comment period open from now until May 31st for NASA's defined objectives in the Moon to Mars program, which can all be found here: Moon to Mars Objectives. NASA has some details about the public comment period here: NASA Seeks Input. To make comments, go here: Feedback on the draft.
Description Omission
I’ve recently begun reading Bleak House, a Charles Dickens novel. While I almost always enjoy Dickens novels, with the partial exception of A Tale of Two Cities, the funny thing is that I don’t really read his books for the stories.
No Silver Bullets
Humans are lazy, short-sighted creatures, and that makes perfect evolutionary sense. When you’re starving to death in an unfamiliar forest, you don’t have time or energy to make plans for ten years later, or to waste on superfluous activities. In evolutionary terms, laziness is just another word for efficiency. Long term planning and the capacity for delayed gratification came with the development of the higher reasoning cortex and the capacity for complex thought, and our brains have a constant battle between the impulsive, instinctual brain and the reasoned, thoughtful brain. It’s no surprise, then, that we are always looking for silver bullets.
Saturday Article: Reinvigorating Economic Governance
To me, the problem with this essay is not in the content. Where I think the problem lies in this particular piece, and many similar pieces, is what is not included.
The Fallacy of Regret
Queue swirling lights and rushing sound effects as we go back in time to stop regretting things and make our lives go how we wish they could have gone, with all of the wisdom and hindsight of our later years. After an arbitrary passage through time and space, we find our former self, and we say something like “hey, don’t invest your money there, use it to start the business you’ve always dreamt of.” Then, ignoring all considerations of paradox, physics, entropy, and causality, we zip back to the present time to see how much better our life us now that we made the choice we always wished we had.
New Carbon Nanotube Technology
The research paper is “Versatile acid solvents for pristine carbon nanotube assembly,” and it describes a new acid solvent system that does not feature the extremely challenging types of acids traditionally used in carbon nanotube production.
What is Life?
This might sound like a philosophical question, but I intend it more like a scientific question. We’ve discussed this somewhat before, like in our post about the universe’s habitable zone, but I want to focus in a little closer on what life really is, on what makes one thing alive and one thing not alive, how we might go about defining the difference, and whether what we call life deserves the distinction we have hitherto applied.
IGC Publishing 