Dr. Robert Oppenheimer's optimism fell at the first hurdle

Dr. Robert Oppenheimer was the father of the nuclear bomb and tittle comes from a song by British folk artist Billy Bragg.  

Hello everybody.

I bring you a special blogpost today, on the 30 year anniversary of the Chernobyl accident which occurred when the fourth reactor let out steam that turned to fire and then caused a nuclear reaction. This sad occasion has been lost in all the other news, like the crumbling of the British health care service and the rise and fall of Trump.  

It'd be great if I could say we have learned from our mistakes, but we haven't. It could so easily have been America, or England or France that had this accident. Take a moment, if you will, to think back and then think forward. In an alternate universe, it might have been Idaho, where small accidents occurred in 1956 and 1961, that had suffered.

Reading this article, it just brings home how brutal our environmental history is.  We are a cancer, a blight on the world. According to Bill Gates and his foundation, Mosquitoes kill the most humans, though indirectly. If you took into consideration the killing of all life, it wouldn't even be a contest.

On the night of April 26, 1986, Soviet Union engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant conducted a safety test at the plant’s No. 4 reactor.

As the article says, “In a matter of seconds, power inside the uranium-and-graphite core of the reactor surged out of control, setting off a steam explosion that was followed by a fire that spewed radioactive particles into the atmosphere. “

Fire-fighters went into the blaze knowing they would die, as did plant workers. Thousands more were poisoned and the ground rendered severely toxic. Nowadays access within the 18-mile exclusion zone, which includes the ghost town of Pripyat, is prohibited. But now we have some progress. An arched shelter designed to enclose the radioactive remains of the destroyed reactor is almost finished.

The arch, called the New Safe Confinement, is being built at a cost of over a billion dollars. It is designed to last 100 years. Dehumidified air will be used to prevent rust affecting the stainless steel structured. 

It has been constructed close to the fallen reactor, and will soon be ready to slide over the ruins. It will be used as a defence against the final weapon the nuclear power station has left. If the structure collapses, as it is likely to do, it could, according to the New York Times, “raise a cloud of radioactive dust and spread more contamination across Ukraine and into Western Europe.”

Watch this gruesome video about the toxicity elements if you dare.

They are also going to employ a crane inside the metal structure to help remove the fuel, the 195 estimated tons of it. When it first blew, sand, lead and other raw materials were poured on it as a last-ditch attempt to stop the fire or at least slow it. Unfortunately, it all combined together into a deadly lava-like substance that infiltrated the structure then solidified.

Ukraine alone is going to foot the bill. Russia should assist, but the chances of that happening are slim to none.

We should look back and think, think about the terrible events and be thankful it did not happen to us. We have wreaked so much havoc on this ecosystem and have no remorse. Greed and aggression have led us down some dark paths. 

We should have used Chernobyl as a terrible warning, but we did not. We should all hope it is not a vision of the future, but a remnant of the past. Let us hope that in thirty years we can loo back with less shame and look forward with more positivity. 

Galileo  

Science journalism- Beauty and the Beast?

Hello Readers

There are certain things that do not mix. Oil and water, Derrick Rose and good health and Trump and good behaviour are just a few examples. But science and journalism should not be one of those things. After reading this article I had to really stop and think. It is shocking that only 1 per cent of news stories is to do with science. Disclaimer; yes, this article is from last year but any news story from three years previous can be considered recent. The Seahawks crushing the Broncos feels recent and that was several Superbowls ago.

First off the fact that America is ignorant should surprise nobody. Take a little comfort in the fact that you are not alone in that. It also makes sense that people would not necessarily link the abstract art of journalism with the material, factual world of science. But they are the perfect partners in many ways. For example, journalists can show a lot of angles on a certain fact or paper.

Journalists can look a story many different ways and together can come up with a story. It is like the five blind men touching an elephant. They each touched something different but when they came together they had an elephant. Just one angle never gives the whole picture, but five do. That’s why journalism can be so useful.

Science articles can also clearly explain some of the trickier concepts. In this day and age it needs to. Scientists and those in the know can be condescending and also explain in terms people don’t understand.

Statistics is a good example- they often struggle to write well and are often, though not always, glorified math writers. Science writers are more important than they are, more crucial. And yet in many circles stat writers are seen as the future. Why? They only show, they do not explain and do not give solutions. There should be a lot more jobs than there currently are.

The problem is that science journalism is new, emerging. Will it be Peyton Manning or Johnny Manziel? Nobody can tell yet. It may well be something that could help give back some vitality to our field. Journalists themselves do not know these jobs exist.

Furthermore, when the article says “To their credit, both institutions were eager to participate, keen to interact with the journalists they seldom see.” It shows that science institutions like New York’s Museum of Natural History and Washington’s Smithsonian are up for interactions with journalisms. It doesn't get bigger, perhaps even world-wide, than those two learning centres.

Basically the key to this right now is development. Make sure science journalism is common knowledge, is on people’s radar and we can begin to give it an increasingly key role. Museums and journalists are happy to partner up and people need to be aware. All these things fit together perfectly. Let’s make it happen.

That’s all folks.

Galileo 

Zika virus- worthy worrying about?

Hello Readers

Well, you knew it was coming. Like Golden State winning the NBA again and spring finally arriving with a limp flourish, we’d eventually have to dive into the Zika virus. We’ve all read articles, we’ve all got our opinions, so now here is mine.

First of all, there is no reason to panic. This is not the Spanish flu of 1919, which wiped out some of my family, nor is it the AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s. Nor is it even close to being as deadly as dengue or yellow fever, though the mosquito carries those as well as the Zika. No, this is probably going to go the way of bird flu and swine flu; relegated to the annals of history.

It is important to know that it is not the mosquito’s fault. They live off blood, like leeches, and that’s a hard life. The virus is in them, but they are immune and do not feel it. The mosquito is like any other insect, but it receives an enormous amount of hatred. It is an ignorant vessel and should be treated as such. In fact, it is a good thing so large an animal, in comparison to bacteria and mites for example, carries this disease. It’s easier to stop.

Like Malaria and yellow fever, Zika can be found on either side of Africa. It can also be found in Indonesia and that region of South Asia. Recently it spread to Brazil and Mexico. Typically the Western world begins to worry only when it is in danger. It is named after the Zika forest in Uganda which is where it was discovered, way back in 1947. It is the Aedes genus you want to watch out for. It also carried, involuntarily remember, yellow fever.

It can be transmitted sexually, though the nitty gritty has yet to be determined. It can cause infants to have a small head, which negatively impacts them as they develop.

I agree with the government. They only have the right to tell women what they can do with their bodies in certain circumstances. Abortion is not one of those, but this is. There is no current vaccine and having a mentally deficient child being born can cause mothers a lot of upset. So, this time they need to listen to the experts and respect them.

There are enough stories about how unprepared America is to fill a circular. The news that Miami is no prepared should come as no great surprised. When is America ever prepared? Obama tried to put through a 1.8 billion funding request through but congress stalled it. Bureaucrats and those who believe a position of authority makes them a demi-god are slowing down the process. Already in Miami the battle is heating up. It’s discouraging how little is being done to help the people.

Destroying mosquitoes is difficult too. Sabrina Tavernise, a science reporter, says the following:

“We have more than 3,000 species to deal with. Think of it like trying to eliminate birds or butterflies. Mosquitoes dominate a wide range of habitats and hosts. There are more than 1000 other species of Aedes and nearly 1000 species of other Culex. Most of them grow in pools on the ground, seasonally flooded by rainfall or high tides. To eliminate them would require removal of all pools and containers of water. Impossible.”

And she is correct. It’s almost impossible to wipe out a species such as the mosquito. Another solution is to encourage the spider, but you try getting that one past people.

Of course you are likely safe from this for now. The funniest thing about this is that by the time congress approve funding, Zika may well have disappeared.

Well that’s it from me.

Thanks all, Galileo

How big is your brain?

 Hi All

Intelligence is cognitive ability, a mixture of what you learn and your natural abilities. It has nothing to do with common sense. Some of our brightest minds have no common sense. That is my belief, but you may believe different. Yes, today we are looking at intelligence. The mind and its workings have long baffled humans. So let’s jump in and have a poke around the frontal lobes.

 First let’s look at what smarter people than you or I think. Here’s Stephen Fry on ignorance, the lack of which plays into intelligence.

But what does the world’s best brain say on the subject? Stephen Hawking is a rare thing in this world; He is famous for being intelligent. We readily reward people with no talents immense fame, but so rarely do we celebrate true brilliance. 

I think that’s an issue which needs to be rectified.

Marilyn vos Savant, who has recorded a record-breaking IQ of 228, said “to acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

So after listening to some of our brightest minds, let us turn to the first of two articles on the matter. This article is all about theories regarding intelligence. 

Charles Spearman had some good ideas, but his theories have aged poorly. They are archaic and dates in these days of more advanced testing. People who do well on one cognitive test do not necessarily perform strongly on another.

Louis Thurstone lacks evidence and it just sounds off. Colloquially speaking, it sounds like the kind of theory he might come up with in the pub with his colleagues.

As we get more recent the theories become stronger. Howard Gardner’s theories are easier to determine though they do sound a little new-age. I think some of these are just skills people have and not necessarily key to intelligence. Logical-mathematical intelligence is something you either have or you don’t. Having a good brain for math is something that cannot be taught.

Robert Sternberg reflects my mind best. I think the fact he so strongly recognized creative intelligence is excellent. His thoughts on Gardner’s work are also correct.

The questions at the bottom are interesting. I think intelligence involves an assortment of multiple skills and abilities. This is a no-brainer. Furthermore, intelligence is a mix of factors. No one factor is everything, though some do affect a person more heavily than other.

Intelligence test should not be biased, but this means that they certainly are. Frankly, intelligence scores are as accurate in predictions as crystal balls and star-gazing.

And as for the second article, well it is an interesting article on I.Q. My I.Q is usually somewhere in-between 125-135. The average, however, sits in-between 95-105. As the article points out I.Q’s are rising. In some ways this makes sense. Information is at our fingertips and schooling quality has gone up in certain regards.

I agree that race definitely plays a role. No school in a rough neighbourhood will have the resources to compete with one in the Hamptons. I find it no surprise that Asian’s do more with their lower I.Q as they are very efficient.

Charles Murray said “Starting in the nineteen-seventies, to put it very crudely, you had a higher proportion of black kids being born to really dumb mothers.” This quote shocked me. It is a mass-generalization and is offensive too. It made me flinch.

The moderator of the argument had it right when she said that the IQ’s were rising in the black community. I think that as the generation gets wiser and realizes the value of school they will increase their IQ.

I think it is your environment that most impacts your IQ and we’ve improved, especially in the developed western world, living conditions and lifestyles for a lot of underprivileged people. The massive wealth gap still remains, but people do have more opportunities. And of course the role scholarships play is immense.  

Well that's what I think about intelligence. What do you think? 

Galileo

Wall street's toxins seep into our water

Hullo dear reader

Stephen King used to always open his books thusly, so why not take a leaf out of America’s best writer of the last fifty years.

Science has so many different areas and it covers such a wide base of topics from bone marrow to Neptune to why the brain seems to fail at exam time. Once more the focus is on drought and water. I have read this article and thought about it.

The first conclusion to be draws is that the media elements in it are good. The running water and the pictures are a nice accompaniment. Their use of facts and statistics is also clever. But the writing is dull and the article too lengthy to keep the attention span of the average reader.

Also, Wall Street does not operate to help humans. If it does that, it is only incidental. Broker Disque Deane Jr. is just another corporate suit looking to profit off human misfortune. Wall Street feeds of despair and misery, it is like a leech. It funds a huge chunk of the world but at a cost. So the fact that a rich broker, with no grasp on the reality of poverty, named after his rich father decides to buy this property with plenty of water actually makes one feel a little nauseous.

Environmentally speaking, we should be ashamed. We have dug our own grave here. The planet has so many resources, so much to give, but we are greedy, we are selfish. We shouldn’t have these problems that we have to fix. We made all of our problems with our greed and now it is too late.

This article is too heavy with economics and money. Who cares? The environment and clean water are far more important. Without water town disappear and communities are ripped apart. The west needs to conserve water so that they do not need to find more.

The article mentions Australia. The water restriction laws there are infamously tight. A country that uses up the most water in the world per capita should take a verdant green leaf out of Australia’s brook. Conserve not create. Also tied in, as always, is politics. America is a consumer country, a capitalist country. It breeds gluttony and the USA, where one in three young adults is too fat to serve in its beloved military, is eating itself to death.

Whew.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otm4RusESNU

On that cheery note, I bid you adieu. Till next time dear reader.

But what is a Science Journalist when it's at home?

Hello Readers

I have read an interesting excerpt on science journalism and I think it is about time we discussed it. See, a regular reporter is the chameleon, the jack of all trades. But sometimes you don’t need a hammer, a tool I believe can solve any problem, sometimes you need a flathead screwdriver or a drill. Sports writers and science journalists are these kind of specialists. You don’t go to the religion writers to talk about the Yankees players. We don’t need confirmation that they’re all going to hell anyway. Furthermore you would never give the Bruins correspondent something environmental to cover. But you know this; it’s obvious.

Now let’s talk about something less obvious- Science writers. Science writers are perhaps the most unique tool in the box. What they write about is dark, mysterious and goes bump in the night. They know why the universe does what it does and they know what a quark is. They’re the kind of people who ruin movies with facts- that one guy who points out why Jaws couldn’t happen in real life and the technology discrepancies in the film Alien, he is a science journalist.  

But they do an important and age old job others can’t do. They track weather patterns, read complex journals and know what NASA are doing. As Paul Rogers says, “While the science beat is old—dating back to even before Sputnik—the approach we take is new. “ And I agree. Science writing is old, very old and has been around for time immemorial. My namesake wrote about science and so did popular media of his day. It will always have its own special niche. And that’s why learning even the basics is going to be so useful. The readings have shown me that this is a storied art and there different ways to go about it.

The other thing I learned is that experts are not the only people who can write about such things. The Guardian had experts run blogs on different areas of science, but that is not always necessary. Sometimes you need somebody equally as ignorant as the readers to relay the facts. What better person to tell the public than one of them?

As Phoebe Buffay said in 1995, “Wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the world was flat? And, up until like what, 50 years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess of crap came out.”

She’s correct- science is always changing and that means it is even harder to keep up. Especially if you aren’t in the know.

 I learned a lot from these articles, about how one article can change and affect the world. I also learned that one can learn on the job. Perfection is not required right away.

Science journalism, like peace journalism and Ringo Starr, is often left at the back of the room while their more talent-filled and attractive affiliates take centre stage. But this isn’t fair on peace and science journalism. In fact, it is a compliment because they are so much harder to master. There are more angles to journalism than one could ever anticipate.

And that’s my two cents

Galileo S.W

Forever ambitious, rarely successful

The articles I read are here

http://niemanreports.org/articles/category/the-beat-the-science-angle/

A kind of Magic

Hullo Again Everyone

Scientists, researchers and the like have been investigating what effect magic has on our muggle brains. It can show how people see things, how they remember and react. Study on the brain is very difficult and equally as important. Reading into this has been intriguing. Articles like this one give one an idea of why such things need to be researched.

Magic has been in our culture as humans from the start. From ancient Greece to today, from voodoo to the ‘Wizard of Oz’. We even have college courses involving magic and how it affects us. It’s in our songs, from The Police to Queen to Glen Miller and it’s in our books and movies too. Look at Matilda, at the Harry Potter series. Sabrina, Buffy the Vampire slayer and others have a cult following. We all know a 30-something man, probably living in his mother’s basement, who is still obsessed with Buffy.

That there is a link between science and magic should surprise nobody. Reading up on this, is an awakening. Of course it should come as no surprise the two are linked and magic affects us mentally. Magic is about altering our perception and perception is very ‘science-y’ indeed.

Of course they cannot reveal all their secrets, but being told that they can affect what should be our free choice seems to be more than a little spooky. Magic is about people and how they do things. The quote that best sums up the point magicians are trying to get across is this.

“A lot of the demonstrations that I do, when I get inside people’s minds, is understanding human behaviour and understanding how people think and getting their patterns down,” famed illusionist Criss Angel told Parade magazine in 2007. “Many people say I’m really a student of humanity.”

When neurologists began to make these connections, it soon became obvious they were more than just mere connections. The brain, magic and the choices we make were inexorably linked. Which card we choose from a deck can be influenced. A study of consciousness team did a research paper, collaborating with Las Vegas magicians and it was a very successful one.

It would go a long way to explaining human vulnerabilities. We are easily trackable as a species and finding out why could help with animal research too. I personally think this could be another angle with which to study autism. It certainly opens doors and options to many other fields of research and study. 

Well thank you all for reading, Galileo