Archive for August, 2008

23AugVaccinate your kids!

Ok people, I know that Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey are telling you not to vaccinate your kids. I know that they’re famous and Jenny has an autistic son, but that does not make either of them a medical professional. Granted I’m no doctor either, but here’s plenty of data from real doctors about the subject.

I know that autism is scary. I’m a parent and any time Mannix does something slighty weird, I’m half convinced he’s got something. Unfortunately, this fear is misplaced. Vaccinations do not cause autism, but they do save lives. Measles outbreaks are already on the rise and it’s not good.

Measles has killed hundreds of children. Millions of children have died from completely preventable diseases. Please don’t let paranoia from a few celebrities scare your into endangering your children; listen to reason.

in Medicine. 5 Comments

20AugI’ll pass on the electric car

In the ongoing debate about our energy issues, transportation is one the most frequent points of debate. In this month’s issue of WIRED, there was an extensive article about a plan for electric cars. The plan involved an on board computer that planned routes and calculated efficiency, automated charging ports in parking lots and battery switching stations. There also a boatload of articles about getting 500 miles worth of driving from a 5 minute charge.

Unfortunately, both of the plans (and most electric cars in general) pose some problems. Using a battery swapping infrastructure sounds nice, but would have it’s own set of environmental problems. These batteries aren’t exactly eco-friendly to produce or dispose of, so creating a system that makes them more disposable probably isn’t so great. The 5 minute charge is a nice idea, but most of the current technology has yielded less than 50 miles per charge or used the power equivalent of an entire office building. The big benefit of gas is that it provides a full ‘recharge’ in just a few minutes.

Some day we may have the technology to make electric cars useful, but with current and near future technology, I don’t see how it will work.

Instead of focusing on electric cars, plug-in hybrids seem like a better course of action. You get the short range benefit of an electric car, but don’t prevent the occasional road trip. It provides a useful platform to test and refine technology for use in electric cars in the future and unlike bio-diesel, electric and fuel cells, it doesn’t require massive infrastructure changes.

When it comes to living green, it’s always exciting to make giant leaps, but sometimes the baby steps make a lot more sense. Millions of people taking a small step together makes a lot more impact than a few making a big leap.

in Energy. 2 Comments

18AugCreationists make me laugh, and so does evolution

A handful of the people I interact with on a regular basis seem to be convinced that every scientific theory is part of a consipiracy against god. A frequent topic that comes up is creationism, which is probably the most commonly accepted complete falsehood I know of. Many of the proponents of creationism and/or intelligent design point to aspects of humans and animals that couldn’t have evolved. The complex eye, human brain and even the platypus have all been cited as too complex or strange to have evolved. However, I recently heard of a new one that is my new favorite. Laughter.

I can see how laughter could initially seem like a useless feature. How could such a frivilous little feature some how sneak through the process of natural selection? Does the ability to tell a good joke make somebody less likely to be eaten by a tiger? In reality, laughter has a very important role and the pre-cursors to humor are common in primates.

To explain why laughter and humor are an evoluationary advatage, they have to be broken down to their simplest form. In humans, even young infants laugh. The most common example of infant humor is peek-a-boo. A parent or adult unexpectedly appears and re-appears causing the baby to laugh. This element of the unexpected is continued later on. My 3 year old son thinks it’s hillarious to take an object and try to convince us it’s something else.

This basic humor is what makes laughter important. Say a group of chimps is deep in the jungle and startled by an approaching noise. The chimps begin to panic and adreniline starts to pump. Finally a baby chimp bursts out of the bushes and one of the chimps laughs. This laughter at the unexpected baby chimp notfies the rest of the troop that everything is ok. It acts kind of like a big cancel button for the fight or flight response.

To me, it seems like a vauable tool in our survival toolbox and yet another pointless arguement for fundamentalist anti-science.

in Biology. 0 Comments

17AugRussia may be in Georgia, but Bigfoot isn’t

If you watch any of the major news networks, you’ve likely heard about the Bigfoot found in Georgia. Over at http://searchingforbigfoot.com/ they’ve got some photos of the “Bigfoot” stuck in a freezer. The company promoting the find promised a press conference on the 15th, during which they would provide photographs, DNA evidence and other proof. Needless to say, the press conference never happened and no proof has been provided.

Cryptozoology is tough to tackle. While most of it is obviously bullshit, such as the Chupacabra, every once in a while something turns out to be true. The white orca, giant squid and saola are all real and were mostly discovered due to efforts from people who claim to cryptozoologists. A few success stories have made people think that every imaginary creature could be real.

Since these myths do occasionally turn out to be true, here are a few reasons why Bigfoot isn’t.

First of all, primates aren’t native to North America, so any large primate would have to have migrated over with humans. The Sasquatch would have to be pretty widespread and likely exist in northern Asia and most of North America. To survive this long, there would likely have to be a substantial population. We’re not talking about a small population in a localized area, this would be a large population spread across the entire continent. The chances of thousands of 7 foot tall primates going unnoticed for thousands of years on a continent with half a billion people is pretty slim.

Some people have said that the reason we haven’t found a sasquatch is because they’re really good at hiding. Unfortunately, no dead animal is good at hiding, so we probably would’ve found a least a bone or two. Even if they are good at hiding, omnivorous mammals, like bears and raccoons, have a penchant for human trash. Logic would say that any grocery store’s dumpster would be a sasquatch’s dream buffet, and catching a glimpse of one would be as easy as taking a trip to your local Piggly Wiggly after dark.

With all this in mind, the complete and total lack of evidence seals the bigfoot’s fate. It’s fake. Sorry. If you need a pick me up, go watch Harry and the Hendersons; just keep your cryptid garbage out of my news. This includes you Montauk!

in Biology. 0 Comments

16AugVulcans aren’t real

I’m a big fan of science fiction, and like many geeks the Star Trek franchise has held a special place in my heart. They’ve consistently produced quality shows and have done a reasonably good job maintaining a consistent fictional universe. Unfortunately, like almost every sci-fi series, they make 2 big mistakes with aliens: there are lots of them and they all look like humans.

There’s a chance that there maybe a dozen or so intelligent species around right now in our galaxy (Hey Mr. Drake!). Consertive estimates of the formula show that there are likely at lease one or two other intelligent species around. Unfortunately, the galaxy is really friggin big. Even if we could explore the whole quarter of the galaxy and the optimistic versions of the drake equation are true, we would only meet 3 or 4 alien species.  Life on other planets may be fairly common, but expect to find bacteria not klingons.

If we do find aliens, they will at least look like us. Right? Based on most science fiction, they will just have pointy ears or blue skin and otherwise look just like us. Unfortunately, the aliens are based primarly on the fact that most actors here on Earth are human. If an alien spaceship landed on Earth and pointy eared humans walked out, just about every scientist on Earth would be dumbfounded. Think about the billions of mutations and changes that have resulted in modern homo sapiens. Does is it really seem reasonable that the same process of billions of mutations on another planet with a different environment would also result in humans?

If we survive long enough to find another intelligent alien species, expect some weird stuff.

in Space. 1 Comment

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