Next-Gen Tech

So normally I don't post anything about genetics but this video by C0nc0rdance (see a prior post about him here) is worth the watch to see how quickly our technology in genetics has grown.



The point he makes at the end is a good one and I agree with him completely. Part of the reason why I say stuff against creationists etc is because of the dangers that they pose to the real world.

What to do?

So we all know that this time of year, aka the holidays, bring families together. It has been nice being home and getting to see my family. Over the last few days I have my parent's have had one of my aunts and her son over to visit. And it is nice to see them since I haven't seen them in at least 2 years. My aunt is for the most part conservative but then again so is most of my family but at the same time we are far from religious, although apparently my grandfather is very liberal which made for an interesting situation yesterday when we went to go visit him but that is another story all together. I love my aunt I think she is funny but tonight she said something that disappointed me.

We were watching the TV show The Big Bang Theory, Monday's at 9:30 on CBS, and the intro song mentions human evolution. My aunt said, "I don't believe in human evolution." There was the silence where no one knew what to say or do. One thing is for certain as much as my parent's might not completely understand science they have at least tried and they tend to accept most of the theories, sometimes a little too much against my advising but it has never hurt them. That maybe why both my sister and I have always been interested in science. Anyway this silence lasted for what seems like a couple of minutes but was probably only a few seconds until the next cheesy commercial came on. I will admit I didn't say anything and I probably should have but I tried to make my annoyance known.

So now my question is this: If you were put in the same situation what would you have done? Would you have sat their quietly like my whole family did or would you have said something challenged her or heck maybe you have some sort of middle ground. I just didn't know what to do at the time and just let it slide, since for most things we have very similar thought processes and I don't get to see her very often. I don't know how many people follow this blog but I figured I would ask that question to see if anyone who does read has any suggestions for next time.

Why we must tread carefully with climate refrom

So I just finished up my work for the semester and made it home yesterday so I might have some free time over the next few weeks to put some posts together, assuming I can come up with some topics.

This week wrapped up the Copenhagen climate conference in which only very little was accomplished. But I don't really want to discuss what happened there to be honest you will never get most of the developing countries to support something like that until you make it cheaper than just dumping the trash in the ocean, so to speak, and for this reason I think the US needs to take the lead in this attempt to clean up our actions. We have done this before when polluting of water was a major problem and now most countries realize it is wrong it just isn't something they can easily change. We need to set the example!

But, you might be saying that is not what you have as your title to this post. You would be correct and that is because of the economic problems we will face with a sudden drastic change in the way we produce power/drive/etc. The US transport and power industry is currently based on oil/gas and coal if we all of a sudden said no you can't use those any more because it is destroying the world well we will destroy our economy in the process it is currently too expensive to buy the alternative energy sources. I often think that many scientist forget about this cost and that is really too bad but I think most humans tend not to care as much about those who aren't us, so I don't think it is just a scientist thing but I know we do it and think that it should be easy to change things.

So what do I suggest we do, since it is one thing to say something is wrong but we should always be able to provide solutions to the problems we point out? Well we should start by funding alternative energy solutions. The current government subsidies go almost exclusively to oil/gas and coal. Why not scale back a little on that funding, thereby increasing cost and making it less desirable to the average person, and send that change towards alternative options. The strides that have been made in solar and tidal etc have been slowed by lack of money but yet they have occurred.

But the government shouldn't be the only one we as consumer's should demand cleaner resources etc. Vote with your wallet, drive less and walk more, turn off lights when you leave a room, (in honor of the massive snow storm on the east coast) shovel your own snow you don't need a snow blower, all of those things that we have been preached at to do we should. Yes it won't always be easy but it can be done but I do realize that you can never please everyone:

Human's the social species.

So anyone who tells you that the final stretch of a semester in graduate school is easy, well that person is lying to you I should be working now but I am taking a break between projects so you get a blog post.

Tonight's post I actually got the idea from the 7/6c episode of Bones on TNT, and yes I am not making any money off of this. Anyway toward the end of the Episode Bones and Booth are talking about the human condition and about how we are in fact always alone as a species. I disagree with this as we will see in a few minutes but I also want to credit another source of the idea for this it is this post by a friend of mine's blog, the main blog can be found here. Toward the end of the post he says this:

Maybe I'm crazy for thinking everyone just wants you to step in line and shut up.

[...]

Meanwhile, I'm going to make this world better than the way it was when I was born. You can either stand up and follow me, or you can stay in line. Your call.

Now most of the rest of his post has nothing really to do with what I want to say here. They question I want to ask is why do humans seem to care so much about what other people think? Why do we care about fashion and other aspects that cause us to "fit in"?

This is where I want to refer back to the Bones episode. Yes each of us is our own person but we are shaped by those around us in fact we care more about their opinion than we do what we think of ourselves most of the time. When my friend argues that he wants people to follow him he is, probably unknowingly, saying that he does not want to be alone. None of us do! We are a social species we evolved that necessity. When we were evolving and living in the wild we did not have the physical ability to defend for ourselves we are very vulnerable. Look at yourself in the mirror sometime you don't have any killer claws, no extremely sharp teeth and for our size we are extremely weak.

So what does all this have to do with fashion? Well if in the wild everyone was moving out to a new location to look for food you would probably follow because everyone else was going not knowing that you are really going to use them as a form of protection. So the extension to fashion is that since everyone else is doing it we don't want to be left out from what the masses are doing in order to allow for "protection" of ourselves, after all we wouldn't want to be "eaten".

So next time someone tells you that each person is an individual think long and hard. Do you think the way you think because it just popped in there or did what people say/teach you cause you to think the way you did. All of our experiences change the way we think and our actions. And every person is effected by everyone they meet whether it is for good or for bad.

Please feel free to rip me a new one for my blindless conjecture, yes I have no supporting evidence and normally I am big on this but I will admit that I am just making conjecture here, or you can agree with me. I welcome all.

The Dose Makes the Poison

So I have been subscribed to C0nc0rdance for some time now and while I appreciate his videos I normally don't feel the need to post them here. Then I saw this series today entitled The Dose Makes the Poison and in light of the current outrage over the new flu vaccine, and just vaccines in general, I figured I would pass it along. I want to say from the outset that his statements are based on real science and evidence unlike many of those who are against vaccination...anyway enjoy.

The Dose Makes the Poison Part 1


The Dose Makes the Poison Part 2


I recommend watching his other videos and subscribing to him, his channel can be found here.

40 years ago today

While I am sure that most people reading this already know this I figured since I was a science blog I had to say something about it. Well here it is today is the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon. In my opinion this is probably the greatest scientific achievement ever accomplished by the human race at least as of right now, that is until we put a man another another planet. So to honor those brave men and now women who serve/ed/or will serve in the space program I figured I would post this:



Raise your drink twice tonight one for the past and one for the future.

On a couple of unrelated notes I wanted to post these two videos, the first one because it is very educational and should help anybody who has ever had any long conversation with a creationist debunk much of what they have to say:



This last one because I am a big fan of thinking and it is interesting to see what these famous thinking men, and Homer Simpson, had to say about God:



Final thing I came across this last night but it made me more ready for the football season than before. They are backgrounds for your computer that have the VT football schedule on them so take a look:
http://www.cruhland.com/desktops/downloads.html

As always if you come across anything let me know and remember,