Philip Spooner

That clip of the World War II veteran speaking out for the civil rights of his gay son is not new. In fact, it dates from last April. But the Dish's re-posting on October 21 gave it a second life. From the Dish (1.27 pm) to HuffPo (8.26 pm) to Boing Boing (10.57 pm) and then back to Maine's own evening news, the Youtube has now passed the half million viewer mark.

Quantum to Cosmos Festival

I went Saturday for two lectures... Great experience, and even went back to the Black Hole Bistro for a beer or two.

Just a reminder that all these lectures are online for viewing (fast and great quality) here: http://www.q2cfestival.com/program.

Playing the part

On a great recommendation by Angela I saw F for Fake by Orson Welles.

"A friend, another friend, once showed a Picasso, to Picasso, who said no, it was a fake. The same friend from yet another source showed another would-be Picasso and Picasso said that too was a fake. Then yet another from another source; also fake, said Picasso. "But Pablo" said his friend, "I watched you paint that with my own eyes."

"Haha", said Picasso. "I can paint false Picasso's as well as anybody."

The editing is fantastic.. quick, tightly shot, with some great pausing; visually engaging. Great commentary on expertise too.. and shot and told in the way that you actually have to question everything... even if Elmyr himself actually existed! Great story telling. Confusing at first, but really fucking cool once you wrap your head around it....

It comes into question, at least to me now, that if simply playing the part, just doing it, going through the motions; can it be considered faking? Let me rephrase a bit. Is it based on the psychological situation? The human weakness to want to believe? (as suggested in the film.. ) Is simply going through the motions enough? This could be why con men are so successful. Are we like the black box; all that matters is what goes in and what comes out, without any consideration of its internal operations?



"Our works in stone, in paint, in print are spared, some of them for a few decades, or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war, or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash. The triumphs, and the frauds. The treasures and the fakes. A fact of life. We're going to die.

Be of good heart, cry the dead artists, out of the living past. Our songs will all be silenced. But what of it?

Go on singing. Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much."



More Orson Welles! More Orson Welles!



This movie, these thoughts, really clean up what I was quite poorly struggling with in the previous post, and goes a few steps further. Sharing ideas is awesome!



Thanks again Angela!

Download torrent here.

Good basic review here.

Walrus Torontohenge contest

(http://www.heathermorton.ca/blog/?p=3669)

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/2009/10/21/photography-contest-torontohenge/

Since at least 2002, when astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson gave it a name, photographers in New York City have observed the passing of Manhattanhenge, which happens when the rising or setting sun perfectly aligns with east-west streets that follow the island’s 1811 planning grid. The phenomenon occurs in every metropolis with a similar plan, and is coming soon to Canada’s city of skyscrapers. According to The Photographer’s Ephemeris, a free application developed by landscape photographer Stephen Trainor, the next Torontohenge is due to illuminate T.O.’s downtown thoroughfares on the evenings of October 24–25.

The Walrus invites local photographers to send us your best photos of Saturday and Sunday’s Torontohenge effect. Bree Seeley, our picture editor, will choose her favourite images for a gallery to be published on walrusmagazine.com. The overall winner will receive a gift bag from Drawn and Quarterly; two runners-up will each receive a pair of tickets to The Walrus events at the International Festival of Authors. All three winners will also receive a complimentary one-year subscription to The Walrus.

Keychains, wtf?

I've been thinking about keychains lately... no, not really. But, I really never understood the point of them, unless they could be of some use. I suppose it depends on your trade. Here are three I actually like.

“The Bullet” bicycle valve adapter.


http://www.chariandconyc.net/blog/new-arrival-the-bullet

Also, an earplug keychain I got at some CMW years ago.



Other than that, are there any other useful keyhains? Maybe an adapter for your phone?..


I am now officially procrastinating.

The secret magic of... Photosynthesis, Chlorophyll, The Electron Dance, and Quantum Physics

So, back on this topic of leaves ('tis the season); what about the magic of chlorophyll? The thing that really blows me away about photosynthesis and chlorophyll is the efficiency of energy transfer. Typical power lines lose 80% of their energy transfer in heat loss and resistance. Our most efficient (experimental non-commercial) solar panels may reach 40% sunlight conversion efficiency. A plant can absorb, transmit and store (as sugars) up to 99% of the suns light.

SO, why the huge discrepancy?

The quantum yield of a light harvesting system is typically very high. It is given by a near unit probability, as most every photon absorbed by the chlorophyll network results in an electron transfer.

...

Directly from here, here and here:

One of the most significant quantum observations in the life sciences comes from Fleming and his collaborators. Their study of photosynthesis in green sulfur bacteria, published in 2007 in Nature, tracked the detailed chemical steps that allow plants to harness sunlight and use it to convert simple raw materials into the oxygen we breathe and the carbohydrates we eat. Specifically, the team examined the protein scaffold connecting the bacteria’s external solar collectors, called the chlorosome, to reaction centers deep inside the cells. Unlike electric power lines, which lose as much as 20 percent of energy in transmission, these bacteria transmit energy at a staggering efficiency rate of 95 percent or better.

The secret, Fleming and his colleagues found, is quantum physics.

...

Electrons moving through a leaf or a green sulfur bacterial bloom are effectively performing a quantum “random walk”—a sort of primitive quantum computation—to seek out the optimum transmission route for the solar energy they carry. “We have shown that this quantum random-walk stuff really exists,” Fleming says. “Have we absolutely demonstrated that it improves the efficiency? Not yet. But that’s our conjecture. And a lot of people agree with it.”


(which electron path is the most efficient - random walk trial)

...

Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist and director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, argues that the highest function of life—consciousness—is likely a quantum phenomenon too. This is illustrated, he says, through anesthetics. The brain of a patient under anesthesia continues to operate actively, but without a conscious mind at work. What enables anesthetics such as xenon or isoflurane gas to switch off the conscious mind?

Hameroff speculates that anesthetics “interrupt a delicate quantum process” within the neurons of the brain.

...

Ok. This is pretty ground-breaking quantum science. Or, evolution research. Well, both really.

Evolutionarily, it seems there was a single initial pathway to the creation of photosynthesis, started over a billion years ago. The pathway diverted from the original cyanobacteria (usually mono-cellular water creatures) to the plant pathway. There are many similiarities and many differences - ie. some things were kept/unchanged in a billion years, some things were added/adapted). Both photosynthetic pathways are highly efficient; the plant one only slightly more efficient with added complexity. Why?:

"We suggest, therefore, that constraints other than excitation transfer, such as ligation of chlorophylls, electron transfer, photoprotection of chlorophylls by carotenoids, spectral composition of pigments, and the requirements of assembly, and possibly repair, are likely to play determining roles in shaping the evolution of a light-harvesting system. The apparent lack of optimality of the geometry of the peripheral chlorophyll network suggests then that the aforementioned issues display a higher priority for the fitness of the system than the excitation transfer process" (via here).

...

Anyway, where does this leave us? Well, we obviously have a lot to learn. Chlorophyll is certainly a major player, and we are experimenting with it a bit, from chewing gum (acts as a very mild odour eater) to night vision.

There's even progress in the use of chlorophyll to aid in a photoshynthetic transfer within solar panels. If you can't beat'em, join them? We obviously have a long way to go.



http://www.cramscience.ca/drcram.php?a=54
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/sep/04-forget-goggles-chlorophyll-eye-drops-give-night-vision/?searchterm=chlorophyll
http://discovermagazine.com/search?SearchableText=chlorophyll&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7137/abs/nature05678.html
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/43147/title/Living_physics
http://www.mcc.uiuc.edu/research/nsfnuggets/2006-2007/0325939_07_Johnson_GA.html
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/psres/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090225161420.htm (plants in photo cells)
http://notmysecondopinion.blogspot.com/2009/02/quantum-thought-mechanics.html

Posts

Lately I've been on this kick where I just research the shit out of a topic, learn about it, get too busy to write about it, and never end up doing anything with it. I have a backlog of items that I wanna talk about, record here and get feedback on.. and not all of the science influence either...

I also have a bit of a surprise coming up(!), but that's gonna have to wait a bit... Maybe a week, if that (I hope!) Just starting up the hype machine!

I'm in the middle of finishing up law school apps. Once that's done, I hope to catch up here a bit, especially with the music and art, as that takes more care than just reading, copying and pasting science interests. At least for me. I'm not the type of person who can work and listen to music at the same time;

Anyway, here's a pretty cool and simple post from Kottke.org. A three year old's view of the NYC subway system.



A Toronto version would be a great Christmas gift idea...

UPDATE: like this:

So, why do leaves change colour?

If you, like me, said 'chlorophyll, something, something... ', read on.

http://ksnn.larc.nasa.gov/webtext.cfm?unit=leaves

Many people think deciduous trees lose their leaves because of cold weather and frost, a common misconception (umm.. my misconception), but actually the length of the day seems to be what determines when trees begin the process of changing colours and dropping leaves. During the shortened days of autumn there is not enough sunlight to outweigh the costs of chlorophyll maintenance and production, and the tree goes into hibernation mode. Once chlorophyll has stopped being produced, the red, golden and brown colours are "unmasked"; these colours are actually the natural colour of the leaves without the chlorophyll.

So's, why are the two pigments (carotene (responsible for yellow, orange and brown) and anthocyanins (red)) there in the first place? I mean, what is the evolutionary benefit of a leaf having these pigments? What is the benefit of having them show up there in the fall? It obviously just can't be a ho-hum, whateves decision on nature's part.

The pigments that produce yellow and orange leaves in the fall are present year-round, and help protect chlorophyll, the molecule at the heart of photosynthesis, from sunlight damage; when chlorophyll is broken down in the autumn those yellows and oranges become visible. In contrast, the red anthocyanins are produced only in the fall. It is a costly job of molecule building for the plant and an enigma to scientists, since the leaves will at that point soon be dropped entirely [BBC News]. (via discovermag)

Apparently no one knows why yet.

Possibly, the red colour could be a signal to insects that the leaves, and tree, are malnourished or have a built in chemical defense. This was postulated based on a single certain insect (aphids) that were less likely to grow to maturity living on red leaves rather than yellow or green leaves... this seems plausible, but yeah, where is the benefit to the tree?

Another possibility? David Wilkinson, an environmental scientist at Liverpool John Moores University who has published on the leaf colour debate, says that the work is not proof positive of the co-evolution theory (of insects and trees).

"I think the most likely explanation is that these [anthocyanins] are effectively sunscreens that allow the photosynthesis to continue as the machinery of photosynthesis is broken apart in the autumn.

"The idea of, as it were, 'the trees are talking to the insects', is wild and wacky and it would be rather nice if it were true.

"But I still have not seen anything that convinces me of the signaling."

(photo from Sarah used totally without permission - UPDATE: Now with permission!)

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/04/16/the-red-of-autumns-leaves-may-be-a-warning-to-pests/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2008/09/22/the-science-of-autumn-colors/

This goes under the wait until next year pile, as experiments can only be done at specific times... maybe we'll get an update soon.

Way more than you've even wanted to know about sperm whales

So, why are they called sperm whales?

Got into an extremely short discussion about this last night... and no one seemed to know the answer.

"Sperm whale" is an apocopation of Spermaceti Whale. Spermaceti is the semi-liquid, waxy substance found in the animal's head. Spermaceti is found in the spermaceti organ or case in front of and above the skull of the whale and also in the junk, the area below the spermaceti organ and just above the upper jaw.^[3] The case consists of a soft white, waxy substance saturated with spermaceti oil. The junk is composed of cavities filled with the same wax and spermaceti oil and intervening connective tissue.

The spermaceti organs may help in diving by adjusting the whale's buoyancy. Before diving, cold water is brought through the organ and the wax is solidified.^[28][36] The increase in specific density generates a down force of about 40 kilograms (88 lb) and allows the whale to dive with minimal effort. During the chase in deep levels (max. 3,000 m) the stored oxygen is consumed and excess heat melts the spermaceti. Now only hydrodynamic forces generated by swimming keep the whale down, and it can surface without effort.

some more facts about sperm whales..

- Sperm whales can live 70 years or more.
- The sperm whale is among the most cosmopolitan species in the world, as it is relatively abundant from polar waters to the equator, and is found in all the oceans and the Mediterranean Sea.
- A single calf is born after a gestation period of 14 to 16 months.
- The brain of the sperm whale is the largest known of any modern or extinct animal, weighing on average about 8 kilograms (18 lb).^[33][34] However, it is not particularly large in proportion to its body size. For example, the sperm whale has a lower encephalization quotient than many other whale and dolphin species, lower than that of non-human anthropoid apes and much lower than humans'.


Straight from wikipedia...

The art of forgeries

Errol Morris wrote a 7-part series in the NYTimes on the art of forgery.

Why do people believe in imaginary returns, frauds and fakes?

Bernard Madoff, A.I.G. , W.M.D.’s … How did this happen? Do we believe things because it is in our self-interest? Or is it because we can be manipulated by others? And, if so, under what circumstances?

Last year, two different books on that subject appeared within months of each other. Not only did both tackle the question of fakery, they were both about the same man: Han van Meegeren, arguably the most successful art forger of all time.

...

The charge on which Van Meegeren was arraigned specified that he sold works bearing the spurious signatures of famous artists. It was not a simple case of forgery, inasmuch as the defendant created the works after the style of the seventeenth century masters, without actually copying any of their canvases…

How did he do it? Why did he do it? Newspapers reveal the thinking and confusions of their time, but they don’t necessarily provide answers. Was Van Meegeren a collaborator or an artist? Or both? And if he was a genius, what was his genius? His ability to trick people? Or was he able to trick people because he was an artist of genius? Who was Van Meegeren? A con man or Nazi? Did he forge paintings solely for monetary reward or was something more sinister involved?

...

EDWARD DOLNICK: You would think a close copy would be the goal of a forger, but it might not be a smart way to go. If you were a brilliant technician it might be an acceptable strategy, but my forger, Van Meegeren, is not as good as that. So if he’s going to try to pass himself off as Vermeer, he isn’t going to do it by painting “The Girl With Two Pearl Earrings.” [3] He’s going to get in trouble, because that’s asking for a side-by-side comparison, and he’s not good enough to get away with that.

It wasn’t going to be about how “you can’t tell the difference,” because you could. It would be, “How could people look at these things which are manifestly so different and not see what’s going on?” It became a story about how experts can get it wrong, and in fact, how expert knowledge, instead of helping, can be a hindrance. On the surface it seemed to be a story about art and history, but really, it’s a story about psychology.

...

The Uncanny Valley is a concept developed by the Japanese robot scientist Masahiro Mori. It concerns the design of humanoid robots. Mori’s theory is relatively simple. We tend to reject robots that look too much like people. Slight discrepancies and incongruities between what we look like and what they look like disturb us. The closer a robot resembles a human, the more critical we become, the more sensitive to slight discrepancies, variations, imperfections. However, if we go far enough away from the humanoid, then we much more readily accept the robot as being like us

...

ERROL MORRIS: The question of this book of his watercolors and drawings that was found in Hitler’s library. What is your feeling about that whole deal?

EDWARD DOLNICK: Well, there are a lot of elements to that. One is that that book of drawings could have given the game away; the forgery, I mean, if anybody said, “Look, be-cause there’s a remarkably similarity between the crazy, heavy eye-lidded figures that he drew and the figures in his biblical Vermeers.” To look at those, you think right away, “Boy, these Van Meegerens and these newfound million-dollar Vermeers look awfully similar!”



Parts 1 and 2 are really, really great... along with part 6. Solid questions, good explanations, very well researched. Impressive article. The imitation of art and life, and the eventual mixture of the two really fascinates me. Where do you draw the line?; why did you draw the line? What makes a great copy - it isn't necessarily the closest match! More on this a bit later.. hopefully today.

Sloan at the Dakota

The Lines You Amend, Believe In Me, A Side Wins, Autobiography, The Rest of My Life, I Can Feel It, Keep On Thinkin'. Big win for One Chord to Another.

Deeper than Beauty would have been the kicker. Ugh... good show.

Deeper than Beauty:



Deeper Than Beauty lyrics

I suppose I've seen you three times now
And I guess that I'm wondering how
You keep the boys at bay
I have a feeling that they are wondering too
I've seen you with your hair down
At least five times, I've always wondered
What makes a man commit crimes
But even I would sometimes
If it weren't for the likes of you
And your glasses your hideous glasses
When you remove them I would rather
Skip my classes and be caught
Then to entertain the thought
That someday you'll just put them on again
But I can make the best of it until then
Still I know you go deeper than your beauty
You go well above and beyond tha call of
Duty to your country and your school
But I grew up too cool
I'm like the rest of them
With our thumbs up our asses
If you call I will come but
I'm about as quick as molasses
When I dream of you your not
Wearing any glasses

Either way, I just heard it...

More audio from this show to follow...