Dwell On It » Science

Spare a thought

Tateru Nino — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 02:33:52 +0000

How would you feel if someone called you a liar and a godless charlatan? If they suggested that you were engaged in a long-term campaign of deception, and they tried to make sure that you got less money to do what you do, so that they could get more?

How would that make you feel?


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Memory, virtual environments and endless variation

Tateru Nino — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:45:22 +0000

The brain records conjunctions of details and events in what are sometimes termed convergence/divergence zones. Disparate elements of an event, or of a conversation, or of a passage from something you are reading are mixed in with sounds, and diverse visual and sensory data, much of which you may be unaware of at the time.

Each little detail, whether you are consciously aware of that detail or not, is also reinforced by repetition. The actual mechanisms of memory, however, are not smart and do not discriminate between – what we might consider – unessential details, and essential details.

When it comes to the memory aspect of learning, therefore, we’re almost always doing it wrong. That’s why it seems so hard much of the time.


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More than just average

Tateru Nino — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:58:11 +0000

By special reader request, a quick discussion of averages, since I usually whiz past them pretty quickly. If your school-teachers were on-the-ball, you’ve probably heard all of this before, but a short refresher is always nice for those of us that don’t work with them routinely – or if you’re trying to tell how badly a political candidate might be lying to you to score your vote.

There are actually three things called an ‘average’. They are the mean, the median and the mode.

Alice and Bob seek for the truth

Tateru Nino — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:20:02 +0000

The truth is an annoyingly slippery thing. It’s hard, perhaps even impossible to achieve, because facts first must pass through human perception.

Self-awareness

Tateru Nino — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:29:00 +0000

One of the largest barriers to our own understanding of ourselves is that we don’t actually understand what we are. The human brain is – at once – a ferociously complex, and an extremely simple thing. We understand how all the parts function individually, but that helps us understand the brain about as much as understanding a transistor helps you build a colour television.

Seeking Experienced Washington, D.C. Region Second Life Volunteers for Compensated Participation in Virtual World Research

Tateru Nino — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 20:11:46 +0000

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and Georgia Institute of Technology are seeking volunteers with at least 50 hours experience in Second Life virtual world to participate in exciting new research that will focus on the association between real world personality and avatar behavior.


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It’s so you

Tateru Nino — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:41:00 +0000

Seems that if we’re left to ourselves and free to customise, our avatars reflect our personalities.

Play it now — Cellcraft

Tateru Nino — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 10:52:29 +0000

Ever wanted to know a little bit more about cellular mechanics? Ever wish someone would build a browser-based casual game that would teach you the basics of cell biology while you relaxed and had some fun?

That would be… let’s see… about five of you. The rest of you are missing out. Cell biology is fun!


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Spirit

Tateru Nino — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:40:12 +0000

The “Spirit” rover on Mars was designed to last just 90 days in some of the harshest conditions we’ve ever dumped equipment into. After 2,213 days Spirit has finally had to be declared as a stationary research station, and is expected to maybe last a few more months until the accretion of sand prevents it getting power from its solar panels.

It’s both a sad and a proud moment.


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Size matters

Tateru Nino — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:38:17 +0000

I thought this was kind of cool, actually.

Just grab the slider below the image and drag it along.

Top marks to the University of Utah for giving such a neat display of sizes.

It takes work

Tateru Nino — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:36:18 +0000

Looking back over human history, rationality has been the anomaly. Being rational takes work, education, and a sober determination to avoid making hasty inferences, even when they appear to make perfect sense. – Wired.com, An Epidemic Read more ...
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Everybody knows: Columbus sailed West to prove the world was round

Tateru Nino — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 07:04:35 +0000

And to establish a new trade-route to Asia. The part about the trade-route is correct, but it is commonly held that Columbus had difficulty securing funding for his famous voyage because he had difficulty convincing people that the Earth was round.
Actually, very few educated people believed that the Earth was flat since before the birth of Christ. Indeed, the science of navigation by Columbus’ day had long since relied on the fact that the Earth was round. The tools and techniques used were different to those that would have been used if the Earth had been thought to be flat.
Read more ...
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Virtual Environment Sickness

Tateru Nino — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 06:26:26 +0000

Virtual Environment Sickness (sometimes referred to as VES or as Simulation Sickness) was first officially researched by the United States Air Force back in the 1990s after the unexpected deaths of two experienced Air Force pilots.
It was determined to affect between 20 and 30% of the general population, and is more commonly experienced these days in assorted video games, though not usually with any deadly consequences.
Read more ...
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Where do you begin? Where do you end?

Tateru Nino — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:00:15 +0000

Human physiology and psychology is endlessly fascinating. We hold the notion that there’s a clean distinction between the mind and the body, when no such division seems to exist while at the same time we hold some fairly fuzzy notions about selfhood and how we think it’s tangled up with aspects of the body that aren’t really all that relevant.
Read more ...
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Let’s BOINC!

Tateru Nino — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 03:48:46 +0000

Once upon a time there was SETI@Home, then there was Folding@Home. Now, there’s BOINC (the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), into which all sorts of network computing projects have been folded.
A hundredth of a second between keystrokes may seem like hardly any time at all to you, but to your PC (Mac, Linux or Windows) or to your Playstation 3, a hundredth of a second is an opportunity to get a lot of work done.
Read more ...
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Talking about virtual environments just limps along

Tateru Nino — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:13:18 +0000

Wagner James Au once told me, “Never start an article with a definition.” Actually, that’s generally pretty good advice for writers in general, I’m told. The problem is that I need to try to sneak my definitions in somewhere and when I leave them until later occasionally they get missed, or worse, misinterpreted.
You see, talk about virtual environments goes in all directions at once. No sooner do you get a conversation saddled up than it gallops towards pretty much every point of the horizon. The essential problem is that none of us know what anyone’s really talking about more than half the time.
Read more ...
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Illusions of the senses

Tateru Nino — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:03:48 +0000

“Seeing is believing” they say.
They also say “Pinch me, I must be dreaming” and “I can’t believe my eyes.”
Actually, most of your senses aren’t to be trusted to give you objective absolutes.
Read more ...
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Empire of the ants!

Tateru Nino — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:18:28 +0000

Ants are generally highly territorial. Any two ant colonies even a few metres away from each-other will usually war until one is exterminated, or until the end of time.
Except in this case.
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Orbital magnificence

Tateru Nino — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:16:01 +0000

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Good science versus junk science

Tateru Nino — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:23:54 +0000

The word science, simply means knowledge. These days the word is used to mean a systematic and organized method of acquiring knowledge.
The thing is, though, that there’s a whole lot of so-called junk-science out there. There is, however, an easy way to tell if what you’re reading about is good science (that is science that is properly performed) or junk-science.
Read more ...
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