Political "Science"

President Bush announced earlier this week that he is now preparing a "swift veto" of the new Stem Cell bill currently under debate in the senate. This decision flies rather boldly in the face of the President's recent statements including those made in his last State of the Union speech. Double-speak surrounding difficult policy issues has become troublingly commonplace when they touch on scientific results that call political and religious positions into question. None of my friends were able to correctly attribute the following quotation:

“Science, like any field of endeavor, relies on freedom of inquiry; and one of the hallmarks of that freedom is objectivity. Now more than ever, on issues ranging from climate change to AIDS research to genetic engineering to food additives, government relies on the impartial perspective of science for guidance.”

These words actually came out of the mouth of President George H.W. Bush in 1990 and are sadly about as for from the actual science policy of the current administration as anyone could possibly imagine. Despite recent initiatives to expand science and technology education, a more genuine quote representative of the current administration's actual position was heard recently from the Whitehouse Spokesman, Scott Maclellan:

“This administration looks at the facts, and reviews the best available science based on what's right for the American people”

This is a chilling reminder that though there is lip-service to expanding science and technology competitiveness, there is no true understanding of what constitutes real science, or how it should be applied in our society.


If you are inclined to listen to several of the most respected scientists in the US, a rather scary picture of consistently politicized decisions to neglect actual scientific results for "moral or religious" reasons emerges. But as my old grad school advisor at MIT, Tom Knight, used to say, "Scientific truth is what remains whether you believe in it or not." Were it to persist, the long term consequences to this nation of such negligent decision-making will be profound.


In the case of Stem cells, Dr. Shirley Tilghman and Dr. David Baltimore (Nobel price recipient) tell us that human reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning to produce stem cells that might be used for research are completely different biological investigations and that a wholesale ban on cloning designed to stop efforts to produce the former would have dire consequences for important biological research on the latter in this country.


But the Bush administration fails to note the distinction, and moves forward with a blanket veto. The result is a massive wave of departure across the elite biology research community so that they may continue this leading avenue of investigation in other more rational countries. See here for other related resignations.



Combine this sort of lamentable policy work and its broad application across issues ranging from Global Warming, Aids and Condom use, Environmental Protection, and most importantly, financial support for key fundamental scientific research, and the result is a recipe for long-term economic ruin.


Let me close with a couple of my favorite quotes from the Union of Concerned Scientists' report. After all, how wrong could 5000 scientists, 48 Nobel Laureates, 62 National Medal of Science Winners, and 127 members of the National Academy of Sciences be?

"There is a well-established pattern of suppression and distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking Bush administration political appointees across numerous federal agencies. Those actions have consequences for human health, public safety, and community well-being."

"There is strong documentation of a wide-ranging effort to manipulate the government's scientific advisory system to prevent the appearance of advice that might run counter to the administration's political agenda."

"There is evidence that the administration often imposes restrictions on what the government scientists can say or write about "sensitive" topics"

Is anyone surprised that there was absolutely no response by the administration to this report or several follow ups? To really warm the cockles of your heart, check out the Union of Concerned Scientists web site.




For a truly bone-chilling collection of evidence to support these concerns, check out Lawrence Kraus' page. There's enough there to get anyone going even if you don't share his political leanings. This Powerpoint presentation on scientific integrity in the current administration will give you some of the flavor.




I just feel dirty right now.

Real Astronomy for the Masses

One of the real challenges of approaching the "hobby" of astronomy, is that in today's increasingly urban and light-polluted environment, the cost of equipment necessary to generate even a passable image of the type that you might find in say, Astronomy or Sky and Telescope Magazines, is typically beyond the financial reach of even a committed student.

A good precision optical instrument, a stable mount with precise tracking of the celestial sphere, and a decent CCD imaging setup plus the computer to drive it can run as much as a few thousand dollars. And of course we are all teased in the process by the glorious Hubble Telescope images afforded by a NASA-sized budget.

Well, I am here to report that there is hope for the intrepid who set their sights on the starts. Ahem. As with so many other things these days, the Internet is here to save us. There are now several VERY nice connected observatories, each of which has several high-end telescopes and imaging systems accessible and controllable via a simple web browser.

My favorite is the "Astronomy Bed and Breakfast" called New Mexico Skies. They combine friendly service with some of the darkest and clearest skies in North America and some fine instruments including a RCOS 20" Ritchey-Chretien scope. For the price of any old boring bed and breakfast, you can spend the day spelunking in Carlsbad Caverns and hiking in the White Sands national monument, and then pass the wee hours of the night playing with a fantastic set of toys.

I would encourage any interested student old enough to look up and say "wow" to go run and bug your parents, teachers, or significant others without rest until they relent and agree to take you there.

For those of you with underdeveloped wheedling skills fear not. The NMS folks run a facility where they host a fleet of net-connected scopes that can be purchased outright and run on a contract basis, or even rented on an hourly basis.

The proprietors conduct regular classes in almost every aspect of astronomy from introductory binocular tours to advanced imaging and astrometry. The kind of pictures even beginners can take are astounding. Here is one from John Setle's Web site of the Magnitude 8.4 Whirlpool Galaxy, M51 in Canes Venatici.

Note that he took this image on his FIRST NIGHT! A little more practice with exposure control and a little work with filters and a PC for some Photoshop image processing and he will be capable of selling magazine-quality astronomical images. Check out his web site (towards the bottom of the above link), or Google "New Mexico Skies Images" and see what can be done there and remotely.

Here's one more picture of the same galaxy taken by a more experienced imager, Ron Wodaski, the author of a fantastic book entitled "The New CCD Astronomy."

And here's yet one more link to the amazing images attainable at NMS. A couple of other interesting similar services are Slooh, and The Harvard Smithsonian-sponsored Micro-observatories.

Now for the truly eager to learn, yet financially challenged, I recommend another course in parallel. Go out and find a local ATM club. No, not bank machine lovers. Amateur Telescope Makers. With absolutely no experience at all and a little bit of non-profit type guidance, it is possible to make your own telescope, mirror, mounting, and all. The raw materials are quite inexpensive compared to what a commercial scope of similar quality would cost. And while the labor, particularly on the mirror grinding, polishing, and figuring side, will add up, the learning experience is almost unparalleled. I have evolved to the opinion that no student should be allowed to graduate from high school without having made a telescope of their very own.

Here is a link to the telescope makers' club I have frequented here at the Chabot Space and Science Center in the Oakland California hills. I've personally seen, and in a couple of cases, helped 12 year-olds build fantastic instruments that they treasured for years and later passed down to other amateur astronomers. More on Amateur telescope making in future posts.

If you are doubtful about whether this particular affliction is your thing, check out a local Star Party. Google your town and "star party" to find the nearest shindig of eager amateures. You don't even really need to bring anything, but do read up on the etiquette before you show up, i.e. show up early while it is still light, take some steps to make your car lighting "night-vision friendly," don't bring white flashlights (tiny red LED lights are the rule), etc...

Clear Skies!

The Statistics of Worry

Or, "What should we REALLY be worrying about?"

A friend of mine from MobiTV was telling me about the growing stress levels in Haifa, were his sister and several relatives were freaking out getting increasingly worried about tens of thousands of rockets that Hezbollah was starting to lob over the Lebanese border in what can best be described as a hopeful random walk.

My first thought was, "yeah...that's a pretty good reason to freak out."

But then I recalled my buddy's recent description of the staggering death rates per-capita on Israeli highways due to "loose" driving statutes and limited investments in road safety. And, of course, I began to wonder what the real relative risks were, and what the people should really be worrying about.

I was able to find the war casualty statistics here, and the auto fatality statistics here. Lo and behold, all the frenzy among the populous about the war was a little misplaced. The chart below compares the death and injury rates over the first several months of 2006 for both auto incidents and terror/warfare attrition.


The bottom line is that across the Israeli population, you are over 13 times more likely to die if you get in a car to drive somewhere than you are to be killed by a rocket or bomb. And you are about 4 times more likely to be injured in a car than by a rocket.

If you look at military vs. road infrastructure spending in Israel, their $9.7B military budget is several orders of magnitude higher than their infrastructure spending.

So in the short run, they would be better off investing in road improvements, and people should just ignore the bombs and concentrate on not colliding with other cars.

M vs. W

I Couldn't resist. from Cliff Pickover.

The difference between men and women:

High-Cool Science Projects On-the-cheap!

Okay, here I am ranting again about how you can do really interesting science with the right insight and guidance even if you don't have any money. Anyone who still doubts this idea after my last post, just sally forth to Sci-toys. Simon Quellen Field (Doesn't the name just conjure visions of Newtonian excellence?) runs a great site with a host of very accessible experiments and projects that can be conducted primarily with items found around the household.

And if you happen to find the larder a little shy of rare-earth magnets or something, he offers some nifty kits with almost no mark-up. Even without the kits, the parts lists are simple enough that anyone with enough neural interconnects to rub two sticks together can get ahold of all the critical peices. Check out a few of my favorites:


The Gauss Rifle Magnetic Linear Accelerator:



The ten-minute electric motor:



A simple crystal radio



A Three-penny radio

If you are more inclined to sniff binding glue rather than click mouse buttons, you can get your gadget groove on with his books:

Gonzo Gizmos, and Return of Gonzo Gizmos

Have fun!
-P

Release Your Inner Scientist

Many of you have probably heard me rant from time to time about the fact that science education in the US has become an exercise in endurance to survive boring history of science lectures and rote repetition of cookie-cutter "experiments." I'd even go so far as to call many of them little more than advanced games of Simon Says. "Simon says, now place the loop at the top of the ramp...hey, look at that! It did exactly what the workbook said it would do!"

It is no wonder that US high school science literacy has fallen to the 20th percentile of industrialized nations. (2003 study, 2005 study, a REALLY scary 2006 report with graphs plotted below, and another summary of the same report.)

The solution to this problem, in my mind, is to make real tools, projects, parts, guidance and inspiration available to students in both supervised and unsupervised open access laboratories, for them to perform their own experiments, and build their own projects. In essence, we need to get our students to innovate themselves rather than strand them reading about how other people innovated. And the process needs to start early, in pre-school, through elementary and Jr. high, with increasing complexity and depth throught high school.

One of my favorite sources of inspiration for this type of explorations was the monthly "Amature Scientist" column that used to be a regular feature of Scientific American. Despite their recent decision to eliminated that column, you can still find the whole archive and a whole set of new projects from the fellow who wrote the column for the last six years here at Dr. Shaw's web page entitled, "The Best Tail-Kicking Science Projects Anywhere."



A couple of my favorites that just jumped off the page included:

• Photograph an ant's brain and nervous system
• Convert an old kitchen blender into a working centrifuge
• Experiment with films only one molecule thick
• Use a hot wire to study the crystal structure of steel
• Measure the electric charge on raindrops
• Study fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field
• Build a video microscope for about $10
• Learn all the secrets of grinding and testing telescope mirrors
• Build, mount and use research-quality telescopes at home
• Search for titanic galactic explosions
• Learn six different ways to fabricate a laser at home
• Make soap bubbles that last for months (or even years!)
• Measure the energy drain on your car

The list just goes on and on. I think I'm going to purchase the latest set myself.

Of course it will help if we can somehow help teachers to become guides and mentors in exploration rather than just lecturers. More on that in later posts.

Some Nice Judo Ukemi Video

This is some nice video of a Korean Judo team demonstrating basic Judo techniques starting with Ukemi for a warm-up. It shows a wide range of skills across the team, with some of the advanced rank-holders showing decent technique. They are probably not as crisp in terms of technique as the more anal Japanese-style practitioners (some body positioning out of place, toes not pointed so power is limited, more lifting than timing...etc.) but there are great camera angles despite the hand-held aspects to show the protective power of Ukemi. For a point of reference, judging from the relative skills demonstrated, the more advanced students in this video probably have about 10-15 years of practice under their belts (so-to-speak), while the newer students go all the way down to about 1 year or so.

Physics in Martial Arts: Ukemi ("Accepting Falls")

After over 30 years of studying Judo with some Karate, Tae-Kwan-Do, and Aikido thrown in from time to time, I have finally come to conclude that I have never seen a decent technical description of the physical principles surrounding the very specialized and effective techniques that martial arts have evolved over the centuries to protect people from injury when falling. Many practitioners are quite expert in the practice, and can teach the techniques quite effectively, but traditionally do not speak in any real detail on the scientific aspects. Frankly, I have found that this is a good thing, as the technical descriptions, even to MIT undergrads, have little impact on student improvement. But the study of different refinements and variations across different martial arts could be instructive. So I guess I'll write it myself and invite comment.

In the interest of reaching the broadest possible audience, I will restrict this discourse to fundamental physical principles without any real mathematics, though possible later posts might go into specific numerical examples. In order to understand this discussion, readers should be, or make themselves, familiar with the basic physics surrounding velocity, acceleration, linear and angular momentum (and conservation thereof), work, energy (kinetic and potential), impulse, pressure, levers and leverage, springs, and collisions.

The very name Ukemi is often mistranslated as falling. A more correct translation takes into account the etymology of the root word Uke, or receiver. In Judo ( The Art or Way of Gentleness ) techniques are generally executed by Tori or the Giver and taken by the receiver, Uke. In that sense, a person who receives a technique must accept, and protect themselves from any attack or incident. The fundamental precept of Judo is: Maximum efficiency with minimum effort, for the mutual welfare and benefit of all. So the techniques surrounding the receipt of any technique is never to meet force with a directly opposing force, but rather to go with the incoming force, accept its energy to move in concert with it, and then deflect it in a more useful direction without harm to either party. By extension, Ukemi extends these same principles to protect a person physically from even brutal impacts with the ground. The basic goal, of course, is to be able to fall without injury, even under extreme conditions otherwise out of a person's control.

The efficacy of these techniques is truly awesome. They are, by far, the most useful and often-used aspects derived from my many years of martial arts training, and have helped me survive some potentially serious injuries. One particular incident comes to mind from when I was about 12 or 13 years old, with around 6 years of Judo training behind me at that point, when I was pushed off of a 3-meter diving board head first onto the concrete pool deck. You know, one of those "saved your life" kind of jokes gone bad. Net result was a slight road rash on one shoulder, but the look on the guy's face when I just dove of the board and rolled to my feet was priceless. Other examples in sports, and on Ithaca, NY ice are just too numerous to count. I just have absolutely no fear of falling anymore, and that is a very empowering thing.

The basic principals that can be used to describe the minute refinements that give Judo Ukemi its incredible protective power turn out to cover a very wide range of mechanisms.

1. The area of the body impacting the ground in the instant when sensitive body parts strike is maximized in order to minimize the absolute force felt by any one part of the body.
   
   
   
2. The duration of impact is maximized, so that the momentary impulse or force felt at any one instant is minimized.
   
   
   
3. Tensioned, but not stiff or locked, muscles are used as springs, to absorb kinetic energy and dissipate it harmlessly, giving, but not breaking.
   
   
   
4. The extension of arms and legs, and even bending of the waist are actively controlled so as to change the angular moments of inertia and thereby vary the rate of rotation of the body and guarantee a landing on a soft part of the body, just as a cat gyrates to land on its feet.
   
   
   
5. The limbs are used to do work, and thereby affect relative rotational and linear velocities so that the body lands in a safe position.
   
   
6. The Body is bent into wheel-like shapes in order to convert linear momentum in a fall, to controlled angular momentum of the body rolling along the ground in a wheel-shape, until the flexible muscles dissipate the energy of the fall with little or no actual impact.
   
   
7. The limbs and joint angles are actively positioned so that no hard bones or joints (skull, knee, elbow, ankle bone, wrist bones) can possibly impact the ground directly, and so that no part of the body can be driven to strike another part of the body (as in one leg crossed over the other to slam together).
   
   
   
8. The head is tucked, chin towards chest, and inside the circle of arms to protect it from any impact.
   
   
   
9. The breath is exhaled smoothly and continuously (traditionally in a Kiai or shout, translated more literally as an expression of energy or self ) so that upon impact there is no sharp increase in blood pressure from the closed bag of water (your body) hitting the ground. (which in specially hard falls, can cause a person to black-out.)
   
   
   
10. Fingers and toes are held together so that in a unit they are stronger than individual fingers that can catch on things and break.
    
    
11. Any contact with the ground, or an attacker that exists at the beginning of a fall or throw, even if Uke is very off-balance, is used as something to push against in order to alter the body's trajectory towards a safer landing position.
    

Part 2 will begin by describing how each of these principals is applied to Mai Mawari Ukemi, or the receipt of Forward-rolling-falls.

If you would like to see some excellent examples of all types of Ukemi in action, check out this video.

One of my Favorite Aikido Demonstrations

One of O-Sensei's students and the current chair of the US Aikido Federation, Yamada sensei, shows flawless technique and timing.

The Difference Between Judo and Aikido Ukemi

The Difference Between Judo and Aikido Ukemi

Here is a nice demonstration of the classic Aikido form of Ukemi. Let me begin my comments with an admission that I am clearly biased, with over 30 years of Judo practice and only about 2 years of cumulative Aikido experience. That said, I have found the precise application of the Judo style to be more protective than that of Aikido. I have observed two fundamental differences, each of which is highlighted by comparing the various demo videos posted on this site.

First of all, the Aikido version has Uke tuck the off-direction leg under the other closer to the buttocks. This has the effect of somewhat facilitating a roll to a standing position, but it fails to protect either the ankle bone, or one leg from impacting the other upon significant impacts. This leg tuck also has the effect of decreasing the angular moment of inertia, and can do nothing to slow the rate of rotation and thus better control the landing position.

The other fundamental difference is that the Aikido style seems to rely on being relatively in control of the fall from the beginning with more use of hands for gentling the falls than does the Judo variation. Ultimately, I have found that the Judo techniques can protect a body from a wider range of falling situations that start out farther from control.

Those very minor details aside, it is clear that the fundamental principles are very similar, and it is very possible that there are larger differences from instructor to instructor than between the two arts.

Cloudy Night Number One.

And probably not the last.

Well gang, this is my innaugural post. For all you astronomy buffs, I've finally begun to get back into the obsession. The last couple of weeks have been taken up with a search for two or three different systems.

1. (immediate) A nice airline-portable grab-and-go rig for our upcoming Maui vacation next week. Mainly for reasons of likely sand and child-induced wear, I ultimately settled on one of the William Optics Zenithstar 80 scopes. I considered some higher-end scopes but ultimately went portable and disposable, just in case.
   
   
2. A not-so-portable high-end refractor on a stable and high-precision mount as a platform for medium to wide-field digital astrophotography. So Far I purchased a used Losmandy G11 mount and added the Gemini go-to system. Leading candidates for the initial scope are the new Takahashi TSA 102 APO, and the yet-to-be-seen William Optics TMB-designed Zenithstar 110 Triplet APO.
   
   
3. A big light-bucket Dobsonian for visual observing excitement. I recently saw one of the new Mead Lightbridge truss Dobs in a local retailer. Frankly, I was really impressed with the mechanical stability, smoothness of the bearings, focusser quality, and overall fit and finish. The jury is still out as far as the optics are concerned. They wanted about $1,200 for the 12" version. More investigation due here.

Software-wise, I've purchased both Starry Nights Pro and The Sky to see which one better integrates with the Gemini system. A little cable hacking will be necessary to couple my notebook's USB port through a USB-to-serial converter, and then through a custom DB9-to-RJ22 cable. I'll keep you posted how the interconnect effort goes.

A Convenient Supposition

Or, how to confuse correlation with causality, part 34,289,767.

Some friends and I went to see Al Gores recent movie "An Inconvenient Truth" a few weeks ago. It was really quite a good show, in marked contrast to his political voice through the failed campaigns.

Let me start my review, lest my yelping liberal wife slay me out of hand, by saying that I DO believe that there should be serious and growing concern regarding global warming. I also believe that there should be more movement in federal policy circles to address these issues sooner rather than later. I also think that Gore put together a very approachable and emotionally effective presentation on why we should all take the global stakes of failing to act on such an awesome threat to our ecosystem much more seriously.

I even saw a news article briefly appear on Yahoo entitled something to the effect of "Gore gets science right in global warming movie." Unfortunately though, the blogosphere dug in over the next few days to discover that the reporter who wrote the article only contacted 35 scientists, only 5 of whom had actually seen the movie, none of whom were climatologists.

To Gore's and the movie producers' credit, they did get me to go and do a little technical research regarding the data presented in the movie. In the process, I had a vaguely familiar feeling that I was able to trace back to my distaste when watching the last round of presidential debates. It was the discomfort that came from only hearing a convenient part of the story while the rest was left out to spin it towards one side or the other.

I found the global warming link at Wikipedia to be very useful, as regardless of your affiliation in this so very politicized issue, all of the recent experimental data was readily accessible through compilations of web links. I found a couple of links to be quite interesting. Probably the biggest "oooh----ahhh" moment of the movie was around Gore's dramatized revelation of the historical atmospheric CO2 concentration data. It looked like a sexed-up version of the following chart:

Now this all looks pretty serious. Gore really hammers the point that nobody really disagrees that the industrialization of the world is causing the rather precipitous CO2 rise. He plots the CO2 levels on a chart just below a similar temperature chart and notes the obviously correlation. He is careful to say that they are correlated and the relationship is complex, but grim looks and head shaking abound. I then goes on to project what might happen to our CO2 rates over the next 100 years and then make some really fantastic predictions about melting ice caps and deluged and disappearing coast lines. All very dramatic, but a little misrepresentative.

When I went to dig in on the actual climatological data, I found that interesting things become apparent when you actually plot the CO2 variations against the temperature on the same chart and time scale.



Note, in particular that time runs backwards, with the present along the y-axis, going back in time towards the right. A closer look at this representation certainly supports the correlation argument. But the causality proposal that our increasing CO2 generation will undoubtedly cause global ruin if unchecked takes a real hit. Note that for most of recorded history, the temperature changes PRECEEDED the CO2 changes. Most likely this variation follows what we see seasonally, that when the temperatures get hotter, flora abounds, and increases CO2 respiration under photosynthesis, and likewise, when the earth cooled through periods of glaciation, flora died, and so did the CO2 respiration that went away as a result.

Also note, that there is clearly some sort of larger limiting effect which causes the temperature to plummet rather drastically even though the CO2 has rising to quite high levels, and then the CO2 levels descend in turn. So there was clearly SOMETHING that was causing the temperature to vary which then affected vegetation growth. A little more research into insolation and solar forcing functions offers the following support.



Note here that the eccentricity, precession, and obliquity of the earth's orbit combine in their effect to change the amount and duty-cycle of sunlight reaching the earth. And when you combine all of these into an effective "solar forcing function" it becomes pretty clear that we have found the zeroth-order temperature regulation mechanism for the Earth's surface which seems to override even the CO2 concentration levels. It's also worth noting that these rather drastic-looking temperature variations are charted in such a way that the approximately 1-2 degree variations around a mean temperature seems rather drastic, and it occurs to me that the likely thermal mass of the ENTIRE EARTH has to a significant damping influence on any atmospheric boundary effects on overall earth cooling.

So in short, yes there is more atmospheric CO2 than there has ever been, and that might actually raise the temperature a bit. But will it be a relevant forcing function relative to the insolation variations? I don't think we really have the foggiest clue. We would need to see the temperature rise to follow the CO2 variations, and meager increases to date are not particularly well correlated to the dramatic sudden and recent increases in greenhouse gasses.

Should we take the problem seriously and even take legislative and regulatory steps despite the uncertainty? Given the potential magnitude of loss in the event there really is a problem, I think we have a moral imperative to act. But let's make sure we keep track of what is causing what, rather than what is correlated with the other.