stats about our universe

Stats about our universe (in 199 words – didn’t make sense to split):

there are 200 billion stars in Milky Way;
age of universe between now and Big Bang is about 100 billion dog years;
universe was very smooth in the distant past;
entropy is the number of ways we can rearrange the constituents of a system so that it looks the same macroscopically;
entropy increases (2nd law of thermodynamics) because there are many more ways to be high entropy than to be low entropy;
every difference between past and future is because of increased entropy: that we can remember past but not future;
380.000 years after Big Bang, hydrogen and helium nuclei captured electrons to form stable atoms;
gravity started compacting helium and hydrogen clouds, and once temperatures exceeded 10 million degrees, protons started fusing -there was a huge release of energy – the first star was born;
from about 200 million years after the Big Bang, stars started appearing through the universe.
when large stars die, they create temperatures so high that protons start fusing into all sorts of combinations creating new types of atoms.
Goldilocks’ conditions of life: right amount of energy, diverse chemical elements, liquids (water).
1 billion years ago, first multicellular organism appeared.

10 things you didn’t know about orgasm

main points:

you don’t need genitals to stimulate orgasm (stroke of eyebrow; knee orgasm; one woman had orgasm (from Greek οργασμός orgasmos, organ to mature/swell) each time brushing her teeth)
you can have orgasm when you are dead (brain-dead, kept alive on respirator)
orgasm can cause bad breath (a slight semenal odor can be detected on a breadth of a woman an hour after an intercourse)
orgasms cure hiccups
doctors once prescribed orgasm for fertility (Hippocrates believed orgasm was essential for conception)
pig farmers still do (upsuck theory)

More orgasm jazz here.

honey, pinocembrin and explosives

Honey is the only food including all substances necessary to sustain life, including enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water; and it’s the only food, containing pinocembrin, an antioxidant associated with improved brain functioning.

Bees are the only insects that produce food that humans eat.

Like ants, honey bees communicate with one another by “dancing.”

Like rats, bees use their advanced olfactory, stamina and flying abilities to detect explosives. A hive of 40,000-65,000 bees costs USD $100 and can be trained in two hours. Bees can also signal environmental anomalies, and bee-hive samples (wax, honey, pollen) can highlight environmental contaminants in an area.

gamers find HIV enzyme structure

FoldIt is a fun-for-purpose video game developed in 2008 by Uni Washington. In it gamers divide into competing groups and try to solve scientific puzzles using online tools.

They figured out the 3D structure of a monomeric protease enzyme, an essential protein in construction/replication of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV. Finding 3D structures of proteins allows to understand causes and potential cures of viruses.

Foldit creator Seth Cooper explained the success of gamers by saying:

People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at.

Until then only a 2D structure was known using microscopes.

rats, landmines and tuberculosis

Colorblind, sociable, strong, smart, fast (from meetup to hookup to breakup lasts two seconds), a rat can go longer than a camel without water and fall 15 meters without being injured. Rats have the most developed olfaction of all mammals.

In Western cultures, rats stand for dishonesty and cunning, but in Eastern cultures, rats are associated with honesty, hard work, intelligence and good luck. Rats are very clean. In Eastern spirituality, the Year of the Rat is the first year of the Chinese zodiac.

These talents of rats are now put in good cause. APOPO trains rats to detect landmines, tuberculosis,…

mozart inspired einstein

At 5, Einstein began violin lessons but soon found drills trying, once throwing a chair at his teacher. At 13, he discovered Mozart‘s sonatas.

Einstein thought that Mozart’s music “was so pure that it seemed to have been ever-present in the universe, waiting to be discovered by the master.” According to him, laws of nature (relativity theory) were waiting to be plucked out of the cosmos by someone with a sympathetic ear.

Passionate/accomplished violinist, Einstein often performed at musical evenings.

Mozart helped laying groundwork for Romanticism. Similarly, Einstein’s relativity completed the era of classical physics and paved the way for atomic physics.

what physics can teach about marketing

TED talk by Dan Cobley

Summary:

a=F/m (Anderson launched Accenture; Hoover is more than vacuum cleaner; why P&G keeps separate brands).
Δx Δh ≥ 1/2 (McDonalds sells millions, while mothers talk about healthy life to their kids).
You cannot prove a hypothesis through observation, you can only disprove it (scientific method) – BP spent millions building environment-friendly image and than one accident ruined it all; Toyota perceived as reliable and one big recall changed that image; Tiger Woods.
Increasing entropy (2^nd law of thermodynamics) – your brand is more and more dispersed; you can’t fight it; embrace it.

goedel vs escher vs bach – life and self

This isn’t a review of Goedel Escher Bach (GEB) but a vivid recommendation for all polymaths/curious types.

The book not only details interesting life episodes of Kurt Goedel, M.C. Escher, and J.S. Bach, but also exposes the unifying framework of mathematics, art and music, while attempting to contextualize the “self” as a result of a strange loop.

Is “This sentence is false” true or false?

All chapters start with dialogues of Achilles and the tortoise and “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles“, so interwoven as to feature musical pieces, mathematical theories or art.

More GEB resources here and here.

mind and learning – from trenches of science and buddhism

How does our mind/brains recognize objects?

Neuroscientists retrained monkey brains to blur the distinction between two objects — a Dalmatian dog image and a rhinoceros image – via the learning process temporal contiguity. The mind usually assumes that images appearing rapidly one after another belong to the same source/group/entity.

Science loves/attracts those with attachment to/obsessions for objects; Buddhism despises attachment/obsession.

As Saint Manora, 22nd patriarch of Zen Buddhism, said:

Mind turns along with myriad situations,
Its turning point is truly recondite,
When you recognize nature and accord with its flow,
There is no more elation,
And no more sorrow.

science fails – again and again

Science is the way we surprise God.

Indeed, our most significant way of surprising God.

LHC considers discarding the supersymmetry theory (last 20 years of one of the biggest science “investments” bites the dust).

Recently, NASA Glory satellite crashed – $424 million fail.

Science is trying – and failing – to find exhaustive answers to pressing matters it set out to tackle. Tetraneutrons, placebo effect, eocene enigma, hybrid sea-squirts, etc, etc.

Human curiosity and arrogance are well reflected in thoughts about future of science. Nanobot armies (physics), no aging (biology), virtual families (computing).

Keep dosing yourself with more b***shit.