Technology timesuck

60-second science from Scientific American explains how a new nanotechnology can help sop up oil spills.

This kills me, because several weeks ago I read an article in Conscious Choice Magazine about the use of human-hair mats to clean up after oil spills. Human hair is efficient at soaking up oil and is a bountiful resource. Hair salons produce plenty of hair "waste" that can be used for the project.

Yet somehow, we act as if only persistent scientific research and technological development is going to save the world. Why not look at the natural resources in front, or in this case, on top of you? Humans don't have to build everything from scratch. There are plenty of ingenious mechanisms at play in nature anyways. All it takes is observation and creativity to use them in novel ways.

Emergence in Astronomy

What happens when astronomers have too much data to sift through? They put it in a Galaxy Zoo.

When you (read: anyone) register to Galaxy Zoo, you can browse through pictures from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and classify individual galaxy types: spiral, elliptical or merging, and the orientation: clockwise or counter-clockwise. So if you're an accountant on your lunch break, why not classify some galaxies in your free time? If you're browsing the internet on your iPhone - classify some galaxies. You might even discover something interesting and end up with your name on it - like Hanny's Voorwerp.

The universe is so mind-boggingly huge that thousands of galaxies can be observed in a tiny swatch of sky. To get a sense of this, extend your arm directly in front of you and hold up your pinky finger. At one arm length, the width of your smallest finger covers about one degree in the sky. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field, shown above, covers about 1% of the area on your pinky nail and contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies. SDSS works on imaging about 25% of the sky - covering an area about 100,000 times the size of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field! It's called ultra deep for a reason; SDSS will not be collecting enough light to peer that deep into the sky. However, it is estimated that at least one million galaxies will be imaged by Sloan.

What a great time to harness the collective power of the internet. Galaxy Zoo recruits people, no matter what profession or creed, to participate in science. The website describes some of the motivation behind this. For me, this process is intriguing with respect to Emergence.* One example of emergence is the curious ability for a large group of people, making individual guesses, to arrive at an average answer that is very close to the precise answer - even when there was no collaboration or discussion among them. Galaxies are not the easiest artifacts to classify. With nondescript distant fuzz balls, how close can you really get? Physical orientation, gravitational lensing, and the simple tendency of nature to defy thin-lined classification schemes can all pose a problem. The most exciting thing is that the powers of emergence can help us move forward in exploring the universe. When you click on a galaxy classification, the scientists don't know the answers beforehand. We have only to trust in the power of emergence to find something close to the truth.

On a lighter note, check out the Galaxy Zoo Blog. According to the project leaders:

At last count, Galaxy Zoo had 141,960 volunteers. Here are some other things that we are bigger than:

- The entire nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines
- Chris’s hometown, twice over
- The entire student population of the Universities of Michigan, Illinois, and Texas, combined
- The Italian Army
- …and 30 American Astronomical Societies.

* Refer to the Emergence episode of Radiolab I mentioned in an earlier post

Minor updates

I finally got around to creating a personal page for myself, added to the links at right. It includes a lot of little life tidbits (such as my reading wish list). Most of all it is intended to chronicle the research I'm doing here at Columbia.

Also added at right is a link to Radiolab.org. Check them out! I highly recommend the episode Emergence as a starting point.

Enjoy!

Having No Opinion

One thing that has always been difficult when people get to know me better is that they have to learn how to deal with some one who exhibits no opinions or just too many opinions that she seems very scattered and naive. I have been criticized and even chastised for my leniency in opinions, in my ability to accept what others say, and my inability to take a definite stance. I've seen some people with the look on their face like they give up, I'm never going to make any sense or be consistent.

I used to give myself a bit of a hard time about it. Sometimes I overcompensate a little by making extreme speeches. Most of the time, I don't communicate my philosophical leanings because people are either not talking about something in which I am intensely interested OR it would take too much time and energy to fully explain the mental journey that led to my current (and often changing) viewpoint. Besides, I like to listen to what other people have to say. Here I'll try to explain my inner workings, because I think it's fairly unique.

My thoughts occupy what I will fondly call an opinion-space. My opinion-space is pretty large, and I've visited many places within it. I hate using "easy" subjects like murder as an example, but since it came up once in a drunken conversation -- embarrassingly -- I'm going to go ahead and use it since I've put some thought into it lately. So try to imagine the opinion-space of a subject like "murder."

When I think about a subject that has many vantage points, I take a little mental journey through my opinion-space. So for murder, my starting point is usually this. "I love life, and I love people, and I don't ever want to kill anybody. Murder spreads pain, anger, and hatred. Those are not things I want to spread, and I have a feeling that most people feel this way, too." This is the opinion I arrive at when I look at the universe with the eyes of love.

Next on my journey, I say to myself, "But wait a minute. I'm sure people find themselves in situations where they feel like they have no other choice. For example, what if they are being threatened by some one else? What if they are murdering some one else because they feel like they had too much to lose? What if they were overcome by anger or rage? Even I might find myself in a situation like that. It's tragic, but I don't condemn people for murder. I feel there is often a situation that has led them into that position, and it could be helpful for all of us to try and understand that position." This is my pragmatic approach to life. I understand that life is not as idealistic as the loving, seemingly naive approach.

Next I might come to something like this. "Death is just a part of life. There is murder in the animal kingdom, and we kill things in order to stay alive. Even genocide may be considered a natural force that is tragic, yet necessary for the unwinding of natural history, the learning of lessons, and a balancing force in nature. With injustice comes the struggle for justice. Without 'crimes against humanity,' how do we define what it is to be a loving human? Even in death and decay there is a certain type of beauty, on a universal scale." This is my cosmic perspective -- the "its all good" sort of attitude that has sometimes caused an accusation of complacency. At this point, my walk around opinion space comes full-circle and I ask myself, "But can we live without murder? I like to imagine that it is so and that I can work on bringing it about."

I can continue to walk around opinion space in this way. There are points in which I prefer to hang out, and when I meet people who also live around my preferred points we connect. When I meet people who occupy other points in my opinion space, I can listen to them and say, "Yes, I understand you," even when it is not a place I prefer the most. At that point, it's hard to argue with them because I genuinely agree. I sometimes try to offer my preferred opinion, but when it comes down to it I believe that an opinion is something you feel. Backing it up requires a certain amount of logic, reasoning, and common sense, but psychologically we often go through tremendous efforts to justify opinions we already have. Since an opinion is brought on and clung to by intuition, I find it hard to believe that I should have to try to convince people of my personal feelings or to lead them astray from their own. I can understand that two people can choose to ask themselves, "What do I feel is correct?" and arrive at opposite conclusions. Our intuitions are intimately tied to our personal experiences.

It is rare for me to meet some one whose thoughts lie outside of my opinion space. When I do, it's very fun! I want to know a lot about them and what experiences and thoughts have led to their own inclinations. I like to imagine myself in the other person's position. Half the time, I assimilate a little of their experience into my opinion space. Another half of the time, I understand their position even when none of my feelings resonate with theirs. At that point I take an internal "agree to disagree" vow. Often times I don't bother to argue because I think there is nothing arguable about it. The other person's leanings just do not mesh with what I feel. How can you argue for or against intuitions?

Perhaps I sound weak because I will sometimes justify other people's opinions for them. If some one says, "Murder is wrong because it violates the ten commandments," I might say, "It's true that religion has these points because murder has very many detrimental consequences." I often try to confirm the common ground and the common understanding that I have with some one. I think that some people would have a knee-jerk reaction of disgust, as if you are merely a sheep for having that viewpoint. Alternatively you may accuse them of hypocrisies -- "Then why do so many people murder in the name of God?" I tend not to do that because I consider that type of disgust and argumentation a form of condescension, an attitude I dislike most. I suppose that if I want to work on my image in the future, I can be more specific. For example, to the original comment I could respond, "I don't think it's wrong because there is somebody is watching from on-high. But murder does have many detrimental effects, and most religions understand this on a metaphysical level, although not always in practice." Sometimes I get lazy, though, because then I will want to explain why no one is watching from on-high. That is yet another multifaceted journey through opinion space, and I don't like resorting to simple labels -- "I'm an atheist" -- because I just don't feel that they fit me.

So in the end, I suppose my inability to argue or the sense that I bow to others' tendencies is part laziness, part philosophy. Honestly, I think there is too much encouragement to compete in conversation. I prefer flexibility to rigidness. I prefer dialog to debate. Dialog is constructive, debate destructive to the losing (i.e. least articulate) person. I've seen too many people argue as if they were boxing each others' shadows -- completely missing the point. I prefer a place of mutual understanding, a platform from which we construct new ways of thinking instead of pitting one opinion against another.

Laughing Mice and Public Mayhem

When Ira Glass introduced one of his favorite radio shows, I should have paid more attention. Months later, I glimpsed an interview with the hosts of the show Radio Lab, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. It inspired me to look them up.

The episode on Laughter had me jumping for joy. They evaluate the human experience of laughter and debate its uniqueness to our species. They interview a psychobiologist* who has recorded what seems to be mouse laughter. The squeaks and "giggles" were recorded using instruments intended to pick up bat noises, which are beyond the human hearing range. The best part, though, is to get the mice to laugh, the biologist just tickles them with his finger. I couldn't help getting silly chills when I was listening to this show. When listening to the little mouse squeaks, I felt a rush of connection with all of earth life. But I'm also a terrible sentimentalist. Listen for yourself!

The episode on the War of the Worlds freak-out phenomena was ear-opening. It delved into factors which made the whole experience more believable for listeners who were not savvy to the story. While the incident in 1938 may be the most remembered, there were actually two other times when the H. G. Wells story, when broadcast over the radio for modern times, deceived people with some fatal consequences. It gave me more to think about with regards to the previous post.

* Some one who analyzes the biology of psychology ... not a mad scientist. =)

Can scientists be trusted?

My obvious answer to this question would be 'yes.' I get tired of suggestions as to the conspiratorial nature of scientists. Scientists include me, my colleagues, and friends. We are people who would be just as excited as the general public if there were certain types of massive discoveries -- ET life, ancient civilizations on Mars, alien visitations, etc. But, as much as some of us try not to be the deciders of life and death in the world, scientists bear a certain amount of responsibility for the public. I don't always think about it this way:

If ET Calls, Would We Be Told?

Even though SETI has a protocol that calls for public dissemination of the information if an alien signal is received, Nancy Atkinson questions Mac Tonnies on what would happen if the signal was news of impending doom.

But wouldn’t governments want the people of the world to know so that intellectual resources could be pooled to try to find a solution to the problem? And what about the concept of an alien message bringing the world together?

“I think uniting the people of the world is the last thing governments want,” said Tonnies. “A rush to counter some cosmic threat is likely to have a war-time character, at least among scientists. And this is assuming that the threat we're being warned about is something that can be acted upon with the technology available to us. If we happen across a generic warning, there's no promise we'll have the savvy to do anything about it given our level of development. If that's the case, why would we expect prompt disclosure?”

Is it the government's job to make sure that what we don't know won't hurt us? I think not. Government secrets tend to hide what is allowed to cause the public harm. I suppose it is to maintain the illusion that everything is under control. This is a lie not worth telling. Misuse of public trust allows us to become increasingly sheepish, benign, and panicky in the face of danger. The public becomes a child. Scientists have no more of a right to keep things secret, as if only they can solve the problem, than a government. However, while I think that candidness is important, I can understand the hesitancy.

People live in such a disparate world that a bad message can be expected to cause some chaos. We are all looking out for ourselves, individually. So what can happen when we start finding community and cooperating with every skill at our disposal? I think only in a world like that will humanity as a whole be ready for a bad message. What can scientists do to help foster this kind of atmosphere? For now, tell the truth.

The astronomical theory we love to hate

In the past few months I've noticed that the Big Bang seems to be the most often dismissed theory among fringe astronomers. I find this particularly frustrating because the Big Bang is probably the most well-supported theory in astrophysics. However, I haven't seen a single astrophysicist address Big Bang doubters. It's either too easy to ignore doubters or not worth the time addressing the complicated theories required to dismiss the Big Bang. If the idea of the Big Bang is difficult to swallow, you're not crazy. When observations of the expanding universe were first discovered, many mainstream scientists were skeptics themselves. There was one major prediction -- the cosmic microwave background (CMB) -- which, once discovered, caused the Big Bang to become a part of cosmological cannon and put viable alternative theories to rest. I am an advocate, however, of questioning everything. If you're a friend of Thomas Kuhn, questioning fundamental assumptions is essential towards the advancement of science. So, my first example of the quest to rid physics of the Big Bang is the recent paper submitted to astro-ph by Soberman & Dubin (S&D).

The big bang hypothesis is widely accepted despite numerous physics conflicts. It rests upon two experimental supports, galactic red shift and the cosmic microwave background. Both are produced by dark matter, shown here to be hydrogen dominated aggregates with a few percent of helium nodules. Scattering from these non-radiating intergalactic masses produce a red shift that normally correlates with distance. Warmed by our galaxy to an Eigenvalue of 2.735 K, drawn near the Earth, these bodies, kept cold by ablation, resonance radiate the Planckian microwave signal. Several tests are proposed that will distinguish between this model and the big bang.

Let's break down this abstract a little. S&D claim that Big Bang theory rests on two experimental supports. This is true. I don't know of any other observational evidence for the Big Bang besides red shift and the CMB. However, other observations can be used to measure properties of the expanding universe, and they converge to the same general values. This includes data from supernova, galaxy clusters, and more.

S&D blames both red shift and the CMB on Dark Matter, which they claim are free floating interstellar meteors, labeled "cosmoids," which were discovered by S&D in 1991. The cosmoids are supposedly made out of frozen hydrogen with some helium, but how this was determined observationally is not addressed or referenced. Their other properties are vague, with a mention of an "impossibly low density," 1/100th the density of liquid water, surrounding the earth. The cosmoids are supposed to be extremely fragile, comet-like, yet orders of magnitude smaller than comets. (This is also vague, which means they can be anywhere between centimeters to a few kilometers.) They reflect very little light, making them ideal candidates for dark matter according to S&D. I am no expert on this subject, so I won't comment on the likelihood of cosmoids being real astrophysical objects. However, the vague language with which cosmoids are described is one of my pet peeves associated with this type of science writing. S&D describe cosmoids, and then immediately assume that these objects will solve the Dark Matter problem without showing how they fit the mold.

To better explain this, imagine scientists' knowledge of the universe as a giant puzzle. In this puzzle, we find that there is a giant gap missing. (Sometimes, before a big discovery is made, we have blind spots and don't even know there are missing pieces.) Once we know a gap exists, we start looking for the piece(s) that will fit the gap. Now suppose, as we are working on other regions of the puzzle, we see a piece that matches the color or looks like it might fit into our dark matter gap. We aren't going to assume that the new piece fits our problem without putting it next to the gap for comparison! But that is exactly what S&D have done. They immediately assume that cosmoids are responsible for Dark Matter (because they're dark) without checking the sizes, weight, and distribution to see if they fit the Dark Matter profile.* S&D's lacking descriptions of cosmoid properties also makes it difficult for others to make this check.

According to S&D, heated cosmoids can explain the temperature of the CMB. I am personally skeptical about this, but I have nit-picky criticisms which would require another page of writing. This idea, however, is at least one point in the paper that I think deserves a little attention from the mainstream. If the microwave background is actually microwave pollution from some surrounding cloud of objects, what would that background look like? I think it's worth a thought, and I'm glad that S&D proposed a few observational tests. Proposing tests for a theory, making it provable or disprovable, is an important part of traditional science.

The major hole in the paper occurs when S&D dismiss cosmological redshift as the effect of light scattering off of cosmoids. This is terribly misguided. Think of why the sky is blue. On the most basic level, sunlight (containing all the visible colors of the rainbow) is scattered off molecules in the atmosphere. The blue light gets scattered easily by these molecules, so you see a generally blue background when you look at the sky away from the sun. During a sunset, the sky around the sun is red, because the majority of the blue light has been scattered away from your line of sight. S&D act as if cosmological redshift is merely a change in color, which can be described by light scattering. This is just not the case. Cosmological redshift** is a Doppler shift, which effects light emitted from objects that are moving towards or away from you at high speeds. Doppler shift can be witnessed because stars and other astronomical objects have absorption lines, a lot like a fingerprint of their composition, at very specific wavelengths. The location of these absorption lines yield a redshift, not the overall color of the galaxy. If you scatter the light, the patterns will still be there. Additionally, when you scatter the light, you might pollute it with other absorption features. Examine the spectrum of light from the sky instead of light directly from the sun, and you'll see signatures of water among other things. If cosmoids scattered light from distant galaxies, the resulting spectrum would be a great way to probe their composition.

At this point I do have to make a disclaimer: I am just a first year graduate student in astronomy, with a background in physics, and have not quite mastered the wide catalog of astronomical knowledge. (Being a first year is a good excuse for everything.) However, if I can poke holes in your theory, it has got a very weak link.

This is not intended as a low-blow to fringe science. I enjoy alternative ideas, but I think in order to bring alternative scientific ideas into the mainstream (and give the glory that fringe scientists seem to crave in developing the next big revolution in science), they need to subject themselves to the same sort of rigor. Many might complain of prejudice or censorship, but much of that prejudice is actually misinterpreted apathy on the part of the mainstream scientific community. This apathy troubles me, because this is not just the problem of a few misguided scientists. They have a tendency to misguide the public as well. The public is not being educated to a point of understanding the basis for the science presented to them. Mainstream science is too often presented as a series of memorizable facts because, quite frankly, it takes a lot of time and effort to explain the supporting evidence. However, it is the scientist's job to make these concepts accessible. Not doing so puts a scientist's work at risk for becoming trivial and mundane, if it hasn't already become so. What is the point of pursuing knowledge for knowledge sake if only a small percentage of the population contains it? How long will the rest of the population allow knowledge to be presented as fact, instead of mutual understanding?

* My priority for the next post will be a Dark Matter primer
** Another high priority for future posts will be Doppler Shift and How We Know The Universe is Expanding

Fringe Science, Pseudoscience, and Traditional Science

Occasionally on astro-ph I am treated to a good smattering of amusing articles. To explain, astro-ph is an online archive of astronomy and astrophysics related papers that are commonly known as "preprints". When a scientist has a result ready for publication, they will often post their paper to astro-ph before it appears several months later in a journal like Astronomy & Astrophysics or The Astrophysical Journal. Each day, the submissions to astro-ph are compiled and listed in the order of first-submitted, first-listed. People who are working in similar fields quickly know what each other are doing, and fast moving fields in astronomy move faster than ever before. Most of the scientific community fosters collaboration,* which astro-ph makes easier.

One downside to astro-ph is that you never know what you might get. The astrophysical journals are peer-reviewed and questioned for scientific rigor. Astro-ph is not. (Remember, though, that the majority of papers submitted are already approved for use in common journals.) Any and all submissions are posted each day, including the few papers that are not peer-reviewed. There are enough crazy sounding ideas among mainstream scientists** that it is pretty fun when you get something outside the norm.

I'm sure that this is going to come up a lot, so I'm just going to take a moment right here to address a few elements of my terminology.

Traditional Science
I refer to traditional science or "mainstream science" as the science which is often done at institutions like universities or science labs. I don't want to sound biased towards the "ivory tower" of higher education, but that is where much of the science I talk about comes from. Generally, mainstream scientists have been through an apprenticeship period and agree on most of the fundamentals in their field. Ideally, experimentalists follow the scientific method. Theorists draw from a fundamental set of ideas concerning simple situations in order to address more complicated situations. Not everyone agrees on everything, but there is a consensus to the validity of the basics, a flexibility in changing ideas when confronted with evidence, and a method of collaboration. (Checking your answers with a friend is a good idea!)

Pseudoscience
I sometimes loathe the word pseudoscience because it can sound demeaning. Nonetheless, I think it is important to make a distinction between this and Fringe Science. Pseudoscience I would call a discipline that relies on some pedagogy but allows for flexible interpretations and methods of execution. For example, astrology is a pseudoscience that contains a canonical set of constellations, planets, and general properties for each. However, the detailed interpretations of astrological patterns are not well-set and are largely up to the astrologer's own intuitions. Other examples of pseudoscience might be home remedies, tarot reading or betting on horse races. Pseudoscience doesn't have to mean "Bad Science" or "Not Science," it just describes a discipline that isn't subject to as stringent requirements as Traditional Science.

Fringe Science
Fringe Science is based on some of the concepts supported by Traditional Science. Sometimes Fringe Scientists seek to overturn a major theory in Traditional Science, while some others are seeking to add different methods and perspectives to Traditional Science. Fringe Scientists have trouble breaking into the mainstream because they often do not have the same background and training as Traditional Scientists. (There are exceptions.) Gaining mainstream scientists to support Fringe Scientists may be difficult because their ideas may violate a fundamentally accepted concept with no experimental evidence. Fringe Science has a tendency to be theoretical with an objective to explain observed phenomena with a single all-encompassing, alternative concept.

I was going to talk about some of the papers I saw on astro-ph today, with fringe science in mind, but this post has gone longer than it should have already. Instead, here's an interesting example of how astro-ph has influenced the field of astronomy, posted of course on astro-ph.

* There are some exceptions and some competitive streaks.
** For example, Dark Matter and the even spookier Dark Energy, along with MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics), CMB Non-Gaussianity, and contemplations on the nature of the void. Some of this will come up later, and hopefully I can convince some people that these ideas came about for important reasons. For now they can induce a wacky knee-jerk reaction.

Spring Cleaning: Nice Shiny New Blog

Ok, so it's not so new and more black than shiny, but I've re-evaluated my blog lately and decided that it should be put to a better use. My first inspiration came from running into a friend-of-a-friend who is a freelance writer. I chatted about my love of science writing and asked him how he got into the field. I explained how after adding a few RSS feeds to my Google homepage, the variety of science articles that greeted me were sorely lacking in content and relevance to the science I felt was important. Oftentimes, the articles focused on something childish like, "Something traveled faster than the speed of light ... Take that, Einstein!" or "Two months ago we blew up a dead satellite with an anti-satellite missile, and it worked! Blew it to bits! Mwahaha!" After expressing this complaint to the friend-of-a-friend, he gave me the best advice you can give to a complainer. Do something about it. Write your own science articles. Three months later, I'm finally cleaning up my act. (So this is already old news ... mwahaha!)

I backed up the previous posts, but I don't suspect they will be missed. My apologies to the last ten people who viewed this blog in recent months. Everyone else: Look forward to my postings on science, life, and generally alternative things that grab my interest.