Science 2.0

Medicine is not going to be enough. That was the first lesson that the world learned when Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) raged across cultures in the 1980s. Though its cause was learned to be Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) its transmission was social. In some undeveloped countries, unprotected sex, infidelity, and sometimes even rape were points of pride. In wealthier nations, risky behavior in sub-cultures was touted as freedom.

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Which corporation lets executives commute to work on emissions-belching airplanes, damages native landmarks while putting up advertising, speculates on international bank trade while saddling consumers with their losses, and writes policies for its customers that it then defies in its own practices?

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The United States, and other countries with modern science and technology regulations, have enjoyed terrific boosts in yields, so great that food has become a cheap commodity, which has allowed for alternative processes (organic, shade tree, natural, etc.) to flourish by charging a premium.

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The answer is, yes approximately that snowman shape, but it would have to be spinning fast enough to be in gravitational equilibrium. Ultima Thule isn’t quite in equilibrium - it is spinning four or five times too slowly for that..

Here is a stereo image of Ultima Thule, alternating between two images which help if you don’t have 3D Anaglyph glasses.

Dubbed “the snowman”

After all Pluto and Charon are similar to this, two round objects that rotate around their common barycenter, and keep the same face towards each other all the time

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Lacking clairvoyant technology as in "The Minority Report", predicting teen rape is impossible, but there are risk factors that can be warning signs. 

A group of sociologists conducted interviews with victims from their university, a two-year college and community sites serving low-income young women, including a county health clinic and a transitional living program, totaling 148 college-aged women between the ages of 18 and 24 who experienced partner violence in at least one prior relationship.

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Cells along the brain's cavities are equipped with tiny hair-like protrusions called cilia but relative to their importance, we know little about them. Unless they are not doing their job. People with ciliary defects can develop neurological conditions like hydrocephalus and scoliosis.

New research in Current Biology shows that cilia are essential for the brain to develop normally and gives us more insight into how cilia work and why they are so important to our brains.

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The Environmental Protection Agency has requested comments on proposed ad hoc participants on the Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals, which inside EPA will analyze compounds as needed by the Toxic Substances Control Act. At the bottom is my official statement.

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Though mitochondria, the energy factories of our cells, are the root of numerous diseases, including thousands in children each year, funding for such diseases is scant compared to heart or breast cancers or other medical issues.

That may be because it is hard to understand. But progress is being made. A group of researchers from the Andalusian Centre for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine (CABIMER) has revealed new ways to understand the molecular basis of some human diseases that are stem from poor functioning of the mitochondria and, in this way, allow for the development of therapies against these diseases.

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Every year most of us make New Year’s resolutions. Eat healthier. Exercise regularly. Invest more in valued relationships. Learn a language. And so on. Often they are the same resolutions as last year.

Why do our resolutions often so swiftly wither away?

A prime culprit in this annual roller coaster of optimism and disappointment is overconfidence in the power of our intentions.

The excitement of a new year (and perhaps the fruit of celebrating a little too hard) cloud remembering a hard fact of life: good intentions readily evaporate without a trace in the face of everyday experiences such as exhaustion, temptation and long-standing habits.

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The year 2018 began much like every year does, full of promise and hope. And it ended like almost every year does, jaded and weakened by compromise. 

Though a budget shutdown is in the news, hyperbolic claims about science being left behind are just political spin by mainstream science media; the real science and health crimes were committed by many of those same journalists.

Since you clearly prefer science to hype, here are three manufactured health scares you can leave in 2018.



1. Cleaning your kitchen will make your kid fat.

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[Disclaimer: due to my being on vacation, and completely in lazy-bum mode, the numerous links that should be provided in the text below have so far been omitted. I think the readers of this blog can anyway easily find any web resource they need and know the existence of, so I am not feeling guilty at all. Among the resources: you probably want to check one of the last posts at Backreaction, as well as the video I recently posted of the CepC project, the Amazon site if you wish to buy Sabine's new book (money very well spent if you ask me), and a couple of blog posts I wrote in the past concerning my $1000 bet on the absence of new physics at reach of the LHC....]

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European scientific decision-making is often overtly political and that can lead to decisions which defy common sense.

Case in point; disposing of food waste.

In some countries they want food waste separated into its own garbage can but people can't use plastic bags, even if modern science has created a plastic that is just as compostable as the food.

In some countries they can.

There is no way for science to Brexit so companies, researchers and even pro-science politicians remain stymied in parliament-style governments, which must cater to numerous constituencies, often in conflict with each other. 

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As useless as this post may be, I wish to write here a few impressions from my trip to the island of Bali, Indonesia. Why, this is my blog, not a newsletter. So it makes perfect sense to use it as a receptacle of my free-wandering thoughts and experiences, every now and then. 
I took a British flight on December 23, which brought me from Venice to Heathrow, and from there to Doha and finally Denpasar, the largest city in Bali, located in its southern tip. About the trip I can report the following bits:

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Supersymmetry (SUSY) is a possible extension of the Standard Model (SM), the currently accepted theory of subnuclear physics. SUSY has the potential to "explain away" some of the  problematic features of the SM, by introducing a new symmetry between fermions (the stuff that matter is made of) and bosons (the vectors of the forces that hold matter together). Introduced in the seventies, SUSY was tested with increasingly stringent tests in higher- and higher-energy collisions at particle accelerators, but all searches for its particles have returned empty-handed. In particular, many physicists thought that the turn-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) eight years ago would result in heaps of new discoveries of SUSY particles, which unfortunately weren't. 

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With the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rightly cracking down on sales of vaping devices to minors and U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams making a recent statement of concern, media are again repeating claims of an epidemic of vaping among children.

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Our job at The Conversation is to work with scholars to publish analysis that helps readers make sense of the world. And if we demolish a few popularly held – but erroneous or misplaced – ideas and assumptions in the process, that makes me especially happy.

Hence my list, here, of stories from 2018 that use facts to interrogate popular wisdom – and the ideas they proved wrong:

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Few Christmas carols evoke the season of peace and goodwill as readily as Silent Night. Two popular stories contribute to its appeal: one concerning the circumstances of its composition in Oberndorf, near Salzburg in Austria, and the other its role in the Christmas Truce of 1914 when the opposing forces walked out of their trenches to greet their enemies and share food and drink.

But its lyrical and musical content are also important factors in understanding its enduring popularity, and Christmas Eve 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of its performance.

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As the West becomes more and more secular, and the discoveries of evolutionary biology and cosmology shrink the boundaries of faith, the claims that science and religion are compatible grow louder. If you’re a believer who doesn’t want to seem anti-science, what can you do? You must argue that your faith – or any faith – is perfectly compatible with science.

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Let’s be honest – environment news isn’t always the jolliest, and 2018 was no exception. From climate change, to recycling, to energy policy, at times it has felt like we’ve been lurching from one crisis to the next.

So here are ten upbeat environmental stories from this year that prove it’s not all doom and gloom.

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Researchers have studied the effectiveness of new antimicrobial systems based on the use of essential oils extracted from plants such as thyme or cinnamon to improve the preservation of foods and found them suitable - with no smell or taste.

As the developed world becomes wealthier, people are more demanding about the processes used in the foods they eat, even if it means contradictions. Some distrust the science that goes into preservation, like additives. while insisting they are concerned about rampant food waste - which is most often spoilage.

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