Kruke's Corner

A Ring of Evolution

2009-03-01T10:57:00.000-08:00

I have been reading The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins. Quite appropriate reading as we are celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. In his book Richard Dawkins trail our ancestors back in time and identify those points where we start sharing ancestors with other current species and life forms. It starts with the recent evolution of the human race and our most recent common ancestors to the apes. I found this quite rich introductory part one of the most interesting parts of the book. And throughout the book it is exciting to realize that there is an broken chain of ancestors going from myself and all the way back to the first ancient bacteria on earth!

On the way back in time Dawkins tells different stories – or tales – to clarify and emphasize various scientific points of evolution theory. One of those tales is ‘the Salamanders tale’. The purpose of the salamanders tale is to show how species evolve and how it can be very difficult to tell when one species turns into another. For instance it is quite common to say that if two populations cannot interbreed they belong to two different species. But in the development through time of a new species there isn’t any one point in time where a child population would be so different from its parent population that inter-breeding would cause any physiological challenge. This is neatly exemplified through the story of the Ensatina salamanders of the Central Valley of California, and through the analogous story of the herring gull and the lesser black-backed gull. Both are examples of so called ring species. The herring gull and the lesser black-backed gull live in my neighborhood, and I would like to share their story with you.

The fact is that in Norway (as in Dawkins England) the herring gull and the lesser black-backed gull live side by side. But they are quite distinctly different species. As can be seen from the picture below they have quite different colors, and though they quite often live side by side they do not interbreed.

But if you follow the population of the herring gull around the world, through North America, Siberia and back to Europe, you will observe that the herring gulls gradually turns more similar to the lesser black-backed gulls until the ring is ended and the herring gull has turned into lesser black-backed gulls and the two 'species' live side by side! All the way around the ring there are no two separate populations but rather interbreeding among populations that gradually changes as you keep going east. Of course you could take the opposite journey starting with the lesser black-backed gull and go west until you end up with the herring gull at the end of the ring.

I think this story shows very neatly how new species can evolve, with the normal time dimension replaced by a geographical dimension. Of course there must have been time involved as well. One of the ‘species’ (or rather its ancestor) came first, and evolved over time as it moved east – or west. Incidentally the herring gull is called “grey gull”, and the lesser black-backed gull is called “herring gull” in Norway. Ignorant of the real facts I am tempted to visualize the British herring gull traveling east and evolving into the Norwegian herring gull as it reached the shores of Norway.

Nanomanufacturing for Energy Efficiency - RD&D Pathway for Industrial Applications

2008-11-04T08:38:00.000-08:00

This figure is taken from the 2007 Nanomanufacturing for Energy Efficiency Workshop Report. It shows a roadmap for R&D towards nanotechnology giving large energy savings.

The full report is available at http://www.bcsmain.com/mlists/files/NanoWorkshop_report.pdf.

I can also recommend the "twine" for Nano Energy at http://www.twine.com/twine/11lg50t8z-bm/nano-energy

Twine - semantic AI begin to crawl

2008-10-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

We haven't seen much of the promised semantic web yet. Some time ago a new internet service was launched that could help change that. Twine combines intelligent software able to pick up meaning from web page entries with a kind of social network where members bookmark interesting web content and tag it to one or more established 'twines'. I have tried it out, and although there is a long way to go, I still think its a step in the right direction. I suggest you try it out!

Robocars

2008-10-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

You know the feeling when you have a question that you don't dare to speak out because you are afraid that everyone will think you are stupid? I had the same feeling regarding robotic cars back in the early 1980's. I was in high school, and had just discovered computers. I had bought a computer called VIC-20 - the predecessor of Commodore 64. I shared the enthusiasm of many sci-fi and artificial intelligence fans in those days, having a lot of confidence in the future of computing power and software sophistication. Never the less, I felt my idea (I really thought this was my own idea) of having autonomous cars driving around was a bit over the top, and I didn't bring the subject up in any serious conversations. Today this topic is becoming more and more mainstream. If you're interested, I recommend this entry point - Brad Templeton's blog entry: http://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/

Progress in medical science

2008-10-25T11:22:00.000-07:00

Enormous progress is being made in myriads of areas in medical science. I would love to follow all of it, but that is clearly not possible. News media are helpful in the way that they are professionals in rating news value, but it is not always easy to set important breakthroughs apart from small incremental progress.

I have a few areas that I try to follow more closely than others. Parkinson's, MS, Ankylosing spondylitis (known as Bechterew's disease), AIDS and Alzheimer's disease for instance. And particularly cancer. Cancer is now the the disease that removes most years from the mean expected life span in Norway, and I expect the same is true in most of developed countries at least. It is also the area with most activity and constant reports on discoveries and breakthroughs.

This weeks biggest story would seem to be about multiple sclerosis (MS). This story even made the norwegian broadcasting's evening news. See http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-10-22-multiple-sclerosis_N.htm?csp=34. This illustrates the difficulty even for professional journalists to sort out what is breaking news and what is not. I have seen many breakthroughs in cancer research that are more important than this one. This doesn't mean that the MS news are unimportant. I have seen MS up close, and I really appreciate any progress in medication and potential cures. But as always the story is not fully told by it's headlines. Stephen Hauser, a University of California-San Francisco neurologist, writes in an editorial that alemtuzumab's "toxic effects … considerably dampen any enthusiasm for its routine use in patients with multiple sclerosis until more is known about its long-term safety and sustained efficacy."

When I look for important breakthroughs I put high value on research that improves our understanding of the problem area, clearifies cause-effect relationships and possibly takes important steps in line with road maps drawn up to permanently solve a problem. The MS story, for all it's promising positives, doesn't quite qualify to get on the list of important breakthroughs all by itself. But maybe further resarch about what makes the medicine work can teach us enough to eliminate adverse effects. That would be truly significant progress.

Solar power

2008-10-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

Solar power is poised to be one of the important power sources of the future. Growth is already substantial, and within the next five years the increase will be nearly five-fold. Solar cells are however still very expensive and not at all very efficient. Both may change within this same time span.

I recently read about a nanotechnology "paint" that was being developed and which could significantly increase the effect of solar cells. Today's solar cells only convert a slim specter of radiation into electricity. This means that much of the sun rays goes unused even when they hit a solar cell. The new paint simply transform some of this radiation into the frequencies that are easily exploited by the solar cells. The technique seems very appealing to me since it can be employed with existing solar cell plants and without expensive production.

I also read that production capacity is now growing faster than the demand for solar cells. This implies that prices for solar cells will drop - as we all know that the market decides the price. Estimates are that in 2009 supply will exceed demand. Together with increased efficiency of solar cells this should mean that solar power is about to get a boost.

Nobel Prize countdown

2008-09-28T05:47:00.000-07:00

Only three weeks to go now until they start announcing this years Nobel Prize winners. Have you placed your bets?

NobelPrize.org

Continually increasing life expectancy

2008-09-28T01:27:00.000-07:00

If I had been born in Norway in the 1850s my life expectancy at birth would have been about 47 years. In 1965, when I was born, my life expectancy was about 71 years. A boy born today is expected to live for 78 year. Today, at 43 years old, my life expectancy is 79 - and growing. It is growing due to two factors. First the fact that I survive another year obviously removes the probability that I die during that year and so increases my life expectancy. Should I reach 79 years my life expectancy will in fact be over 86 years! Second the population is getting healthier and health care is getting better so people are living longer year by year.

In the world as a whole life expectancy at birth is now 65 years. The UN expects this to increase to 76 years in 2050.

Throughout time there has been different factors with huge impact on life expectancy. Around 100 years ago the general improvements in social welfare did the trick. The probability of surviving the first year after birth is commonly used as an indicator for the level of welfare and social development in a country. In the 1850s over 10% of all newly born died without reaching their first birthday. Today this figure is about 0,3%. Better nutrition, less infections and generally better knowledge and general health care explain this trend.

In some periods the death tolls of infectious diseases have played a major role. After WW2 there was a big rise in heart diseases. Today it is cancer that is the major factor removing years from peoples life spans. In principle the fight against infections has been (temporarily?) won. Heart diseases is largely becoming an age correlated problem. But cancer is a growing concern. And this is probably the area where we will see the next big improvement.

The rate of increase in life expectancy now seems to be decreasing in Norway. But this may be only temporary. Almost daily the scientists report breakthroughs in cancer related research. I'm keeping a keen eye on nanotechnology, bioengineering and medical research, and what I see is truly amazing. In the next ten years I think we will have a much clearer picture of what can be achieved in this area in the short to medium term. In the long run I think cancer can be ruled out as a major contributor to death much like we have done with infections. I would certainly like to live to see that.

LHC fires up

2008-09-10T07:01:00.001-07:00

Today the Large Hadron Collider at CERN fires up for the first time. Before Christmas we might have indications on the Higgs particle. Stay tuned. I will!

Kavli prizes

2008-09-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

Today the first Kavli prizes were handed over to proud winners in the categories of Astrophysics, Nanotechnology and Neuroscience. In a way the Kavli prizes can be seen as a supplement, or a renewal, of the Nobel prizes. Astrophysics and neurology are in a way more focused versions of the Nobel prizes in physics and medicine. But you can't really blame Alfred Nobel for not including nanotechnology in his collection of prizes. Nanotechnology as a genuine area of research was defined by Richard Feynman by a speech in 1959, fully 70 years after Nobel's death.

But I don't think Fred Kavli has had any intentions to either supplement or to compete with Alfred Nobel. I think he has a very intense inner drive fueling his keen interest in scientific progress and want to put his money to work for something that fascinate him. These three areas of science evidently tops his fascination, and I can't say I blame him. If I were to personally make a list of my favourite areas of science these three would definitely be among the top five-six. In addition I would have liked to add genetics and artificial intelligence. And then I have a true reverence for mathematics in general and number theory in particular. If mathematics is the "Queen of sciences", like Gauss thought, then number theory is the Queen mother. But that is a different story. I wanted to comment on Kavli's selected areas of science...

Nanotechnology is at the core of a broad range of modern scientific and technology research. Materials technology, medicine, sensors and computer sciences are some typical examples. I'm a member of Forsight Nanotech Institute (www.foresight.org), and they have released a technology roadmap for productive nanosystems that is really interesting reading. It points the directions to be explored towards technology that will transform our world more than most people are able to imagine! The most well known area is perhaps computer science. In the next 20-25 years computers will become one million times faster than today. One million times! And materials with extreme qualities will be available. Imagine a sheet of extremely thin material. We are talking atomic size thin. Put 10 000 sheets on top of each other and you are still much thinner than a hair. Now imagine a sheet of this material stretched over a cup. Then take a pencil and place the sharpened tip on the middle of the sheet and place a *car* on top of the pencil. The sheet is so strong that it would not tear! Now, this material has been made. Only in the tiniest amounts, but it exists.
But it is in the area of medicine that I find the most exciting developments in nanotechnology taking place at the moment. For instance there has been rapid progress in the areas of nanoparticles that can detect cancer, nanoparticles that can 'tag' cancer cells and nanoparticles that can kill cancer cells. In short there are new weapons on its way in the war against cancer!

To me neuroscience is mainly brain science. In reality it is the study of all parts of the nervous system, but let's admit it: It's the brain that is most interesting. New imaging technology, partly thanks to nanotechnology, and other tools as well as an intensely increased research activity is rapidly advancing our understanding of our most precious organ. I have tried to update myself on this area as well, but... Well, it's hard! For one thing the brain is a very complex thing, and all the latin not making it any easier. And I feel so little is known and so many questions are left to answer. But there is a big prize ahead: The re engineering of the brain. Sounds like science fiction? Maybe so, but quite a few people believe it will happen. Soon. If we could do it, many of these people believe we will be able to build intelligence into our computers in the first place, and to "download" and take backups of our own brains in the long run. I'm not so sure, but I do believe that better understanding of how our brain works will help us in the quest to build intelligent machines.

Lastly there is astrophysics. This used to be my main fascination when I was a kid. Even as a young adult I remember reading "Supernova" by Isac Asimov and marvel over the fact that every atom in my body had once been part of a supernova explosion. Besides reading Hawkings (the worlds most popular unread book according to some), string theory and occasionally catching up on the Hubble news, I have slipped a bit. Until I recently watched this video on TED about the state of art in astrophysics. Seems the skies are not what they used to be. As the scientists uncover ever more information about the universe, the open questions just keep getting stranger and stranger. Now the universe is 10% matter, 15% dark matterand 75% dark energy! I know what matter is, to some extent at least. Apparently scientists have teories about dark matter as well. But dark energy is a real stranger! Now they are firing up the large hadron collider (in fact tomorrow morning) as well as a plethora of new space telescopes and other instruments. There might be exciting discoveries ahead in this field as well!

It's hard to stay tuned. And even harder to imagine what the synergies of scientific progress in different areas will be. What is not hard is to predict that we are in for a terrific ride. In a way you have to narrow in your field of interest and leave the rest until it hits the news. I think Fred Kavli has chosen his fields of interest quite well.

Do you want to live forever?

2008-09-10T06:46:00.000-07:00

I've been asking quite a few people this question. Most answer no, and then they laugh as if I was joking. I'm not joking. Although this is a hypothetical question at the moment, I think it will become a realistic option sooner or later. And sooner rather than later, but that is a separate post. What I don't understand is why anyone would not want to live forever? Is life that bad?

Sure, many of those I ask give plausible explanations like "I don't want to be a senile vegetable and a burden to society for years and years". Of course, when I say "live forever" I take it to mean in a youthful way with good health and mental abilities intact. In fact, why stop there? What if you could live forever with regained youth, increased physical and mental capabilities and whatever else you could wish for, including sexual stamina and good looks! Still I get a few no's, but also some more or less reluctant ok's.

I for one would answer yes. If I could press a button today ensuring me good health forever I would not hesitate a second. At the press of a button I would get a life expectancy of around 643 years. You see, the probability of dying from an accident is approximately 1 to 600 per year. Given that I'm not dying from age or bad health this gives me a life expectancy of 600 years. And if I remember right from my statistics classes that would give me an expected life span of (current age) + 600. Meaning that if I survived another year my life expectancy would also increase with one year to 644. Funny thing, statistics. But that is probably a separate post as well.

Now my question to you: If you knew you could live with good health and a youthful attire until an accident finally took you out of play; would you start to behave differently? Would you become more risk adverse? Would you stop driving cars because it has such a high probability of killing you, removing 600 years of your life and not only a few tens of years like now? Or maybe you would seek risks to a greater extent? Would you party more?

Maybe you know yourself better than I do, because I'm not sure what I would do... But I probably would check out my pension plan pretty fast.

New virtual home

2008-09-10T06:43:00.000-07:00

I'm moving to a new virtual home. I have done some blogging in the closed community of my company but feel it's time to spread my wings. I'll re-post my latest posts here, and from now on this is where you'll find me :-)