MemeFlux

A future form of recreational travel? Like a leisurely train-trip taken to three dimensions, here’s a nice dream from BBC - cruising from London to Rome in 24 hours while enjoying the sights along the way at 450m altitude, wining, dining and sleeping well along the way.

Airships have been out of fashion since the Hindenburg, which is rather sad considering that they are a very safe and comfortable way of traveling.

Some companies produce airships today - The Zeppelin NT flown in the article above being the most accessible recreational option. Another prototype airship is Dynalifter, which is slightly heavier than air and intended for cargo loads of 160 tons with a speed of over 150 km/h.

Size matters, and with continuous improvements in materials technology, building larger, lighter and stable structures becomes cheaper over time (and while we’re at it, let’s cover them in solar panels) and while airplanes will still take care of the most time sensitive travel, it is not at all impossible that a new generation airships may mark the skies in the not too distant future. The cruise-in-the-sky idea is really more about marketing as the technology has been here for more then 100 years, so where is the first billionaire to grow tired of building brains, sailing 47-meter raido controlled boats, or the ol’ stop AIDS or play RL Championship Manager, to come help us all live the dream?

Pamela Melroy (46) commands the Space Shuttle mission that lifted off today, and when docking with the International Space Station she will be greeted by a crew which is led by Peggy Whitson (47) - the first time women lead both the manned space programs. Melroy is on her third shuttle flight while Whitson is on her second assignment to the space station.

Go space babes

Hehe

For those of us who still didn’t know that the Lord of the Rings director has changed a bit:

Then

Now

Wikipedia says: ‘According to the British Daily Telegraph he attributes his weight loss to his diet. He said, “I just got tired of being overweight and unfit, so I changed my diet from hamburgers to yogurt and muesli and it seems to work.”‘

Global warming is all the rage nowadays. No trouble finding anything to scare the bejeebers out of you in both tabloid and news-with-context-sources. The polar bears are dying, disease ridden insects will flourish and the most important thing we can do is adhere to Kyoto.

Not really topics for an up-beat conversation, but if you read the book listed on the left of this blog (at the time of posting); Bjørn Lomborg’s excellent Cool It, you can be prepared for the next cocktail party to dis polar bears(1), ridicule the Kyoto Protocol(2) or make cunning remarks about why arguing that global warming causes malaria is about 1/60 000th of an argument(3) and should hence be replaced by a very small shell script of retorts. Now, just to make it clear: I have absolutely no doubt that our dear marble is heating up, and that humanity is to blame. But with the combination of ET-syndrome and shock-therapy with a holy grail to name-drop, chances are we’ll spend a lot of energy and money on doing the exactly wrong things, so again, read the book. (It’s good.)

However, we cannot always put our faith in quoting obscure facts about how hopeless it all is; if what we are doing is wrong and things only seem to get worse anyway, then where shall we direct our efforts (and rage)? Thankfully, MemeFlux has the answer.

Cows.

All this really started (as often does) with some wine-induced debate & Wikipedia here the other day, where our all favorite source of more-or-less-correct information could disclose two interesting facts:

• There are approximately 1.3 billion cows on the planet.
• Cattle contribute to around 18% of greenhouse gas emissions- due to their greedy 4 stomachs and methane-rich flatulence.

(also, the article continues to make the points that “Cattle are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.”)So, applying the “cowboy scientific method” (combining data dubious comparability to make a cheap point) and a favorite pedagogical method (small words and visual aids), we can show two charts:

A headcount of cows and humans to get a CowMan population of 8 billion:

We can draw conclusion #1 - cows represent about 16% of the total population of polluting bastards.

Visualising the second fact of environmental impact:

We can see that this 16% of the population actually harm the environment more than all the other stuff caused by by humans; your average cow pollutes more than the average human. So if you want to make a difference, going veggie is not enough; you know what to do… (average being a point here, if you live in the western world you should probably aim for - pardon the pun - more than one cow).

So, happy hunting, but beware Cows with Guns.

Hat tip to Kim

1) most populations are in fact increasing, the ones decreasing are in places where average temperature has gone down in the last years
2) postpones effects of global warming about 5 years
3) the money spent to save one life by preventing global warming and thus the spread of malaria mosquitoes would save 60 000 by regular prevention and disease control

The Guardian reports on upcoming news about the first synthetic chromosome, which can be equated to creating a simple life form:

Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.

The chromosome, however is not designed from scratch:

Using lab-made chemicals, they have painstakingly stitched together a chromosome that is 381 genes long and contains 580,000 base pairs of genetic code.The DNA sequence is based on the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium which the team pared down to the bare essentials needed to support life, removing a fifth of its genetic make-up.

M. genitalium (yes, it may be considered causing an STD) has a relatively short genome — only about 580000 base pairs (you know; A+T or G+C), compared to around 3 billion (10^9) pairs in the human genome, making it ideal for studies of this sort.

So, is this big news? The tabloids will surely pick this up with poorly-hidden references to Dr. Frankenstein and whatnots, everyone from the religious right to deepest socialist greens will go head over heels to condemn the work as meddling with God’s/Nature’s work, claiming that it is “unnatural” and immoral. So, for a moment, let’s consider what Mr. Venter’s team most likely have done:

They have taken the shortest genome known at the time they started the work, and have through a technique called gene knockout debugged all of it to find out which parts of it are actually needed to sustain life (in this context a self-replicating chromosome). Having also sequenced the genome, the team has painstakingly assembled all the parts needed from individual proteins. What is big news about this is that it 1) is an extraordinary engineering feat, and 2) proves what has long been assumed amongst biologists: there is nothing magic to life, it is only a matter of assembling the right components. Venter and his team are neither immoral nor is what they are doing unnatural, they are just pioneers on the very frontiers of science, and their discoveries and techniques will have profound impacts on genetic therapy and medical treatment of all of us in a few years’ time.

As a last point; take a moment to check out the database info for M. Genitalium; think about the amounts of information and knowledge that is hidden in data like these– one day you will have your own genome stored as a file, which can be used for diagnostics, getting tailor-made medicines that will actually work, make you know your deep historic genetic origins.