illuminating science

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, as of about 30 minutes ago, Illuminating Science reached the grand total of 30,000 hits since I started the blog about 18 months ago, August 2004. Thanks to BrettW for picking this up at 29,994! Amazingly, the timing of the email was just right so that I viewed the site at 30,000, becoming the 30,001th visitor, when SiteMeter updated a minute or two later!

It’s been great fun so far, and my hits are slowly but steadily increasing. It’s particularly cool looking at Google Analytics and seeing that there are over a hundred people with more than 200 visits just since the start of December! (Great program, btw - absolutely a must for any website owner!)

So thanks for your support and readership - I hope this year will be just as successful as the last!

I don’t know if this has quite the status of urban legend, but it’s sometimes said that engaging in sex is a good way to relax before a big event, like giving a speech. Turns out, there really is some truth in that! In a rather personal study, participants were asked to keep a diary of their sexual activity, then subjected to various stress tests, like public speaking. Those who had participated in full intercourse were least stressed, and their blood pressure went down the fastest, compared to those who engaged in other types of sex, or none at all. I haven’t actually read the original article, and it was a relatively small sample size, but it’s likely there really is some effect there.

And to head off any discussion, it’s purely coincidental that this follows straight after my post on how well my talk went…

Well, the conference is nearly over - just the last few speakers to go. We just had Michael Nielsen, who always gives good talks, and this was no exception. He was talking about “cluster state quantum computation”, which is a really cool way of building a quantum computer where making measurements on your computer actually does the computation for you. It sounds kind of strange, but that’s the quantum world I don’t completely understand it, of course, but Michael’s talk was really comprehensible, even for someone with little experience in quantum computing like me, and I do now feel like I understand the principles if not the details. So that’s a good result!

Just lunch to go and then we head home - I’ve remarkably tired given that I’ve just been sitting in talks all week. Incidentally, my talk went really well. I spent a lot of time preparing it, revamping it completely from my previous versions, and trying to make it as both accessible to those who aren’t really in my field but also informative to those who are. I got lots of positive feedback, which was very welcome - I really was quite nervous going up there! Then again, I’m always nervous before doing a talk, show, etc, and I think that’s actually a good thing. Anyone who isn’t at least a little nervous is probably overconfident!

Anyway, that’s it for this conference. Ciao for now!

This afternoon we had a “panel session” where several of the leading experts in the field talked about several interesting topics. To be experimental, I’m writing this as I listen to the panel, so if it doesn’t flow quite as well as it might, you’ll know why - but you’ll also get a first hand account, posted the moment the session is done!

The first was what is the definition of nanoscience, nanotechnology and “quantum nanoscience”, the actual topic of this conference. The view was that it’s importance to have a clear and accessible defintion of what nanoscience is so that it couldn’t be distorted and get a bad brand name as has happened to terms such as “nuclear” and “genetic engineering”. Apparently, when the media reported on this conference, all the reporters wanted to talk about was how likely it was for an army of self replicating nanomachines to take over the world!

Although there was some disagreement (a lot of which comes down to semantics, in my opinion) the general concensus is that nanoscience is the control and manipulation of objects (e.g., atoms!) on the nanoscale, meaning around 1 billionth of a metre. (For comparison, an atom is typically around a 10th of a nanometre.) The importance of this particular defintion is that it distinguishes between simply making small things (like biology does, making molecules) and actually being able to control them and use them. Hence, things like nanomachines that might heal our body or repair the space shuttle are all applications of nanoscience.

Quantum nanoscience, then, is a subset of this where quantum effects come into play and we can’t use “classical” models to explain what happens. One interesting thought, though, was that part of the role of a quantum nanoscientist might not just be to try and make ever smaller objects, but to try and make larger objects that still need to be explained by quantum mechanics, hence showing we really live in a quantum world (and, hopefully, making some useful devices in the process).

The next question was regarding the “Big Questions” in quantum nanoscience. Discussions included:

• the difficulties in mass producing large numbers of these devices, to the point where we’re combining them in the same way that we combine transistors to form a pentium chip
• the need to understand and control decoherence (the washing out of quantum by the environment) so that we can control when we have a quantum nanodevice and a classical nanodevice
• whether we can build a quantum nanoscale device that actually violates some prediction of quantum mechanics…and then explain it!

Finally, they asked what the big social and ethical issues are regarding quantum mechanics. Again, the issue of public perception of nanoscience was brought up, particularly with news reports on new “nanomachines” and bad science fiction movies. (Did anyone read Michael Crichton’s Prey? Pretty ridiculous, really!) One of the chemists on the panel pointed out that biology already does much of this - it creates highly efficient nanomachines that can detect light, convert sunlight into plant food, and more. Why should it be any different here?

One good point was the issues with health dangers of nanoparticles - if you breath in nanoparticles, could it have reprecussions 20 years down the track? It’s therefore important to have very open and very thorough testing, and that we don’t just say “It’s fine!” and expect everyone to take our word. They cited several examples of medicines or chemicals that were “shown” to be safe, but which later turned out to be harmful or even deadly. I agree, but I’d like to hope that we now have a more rigorous testing procedure, and I’d be concerned about being too vocal about it - I think it is important that people do trust the experts of a field, rather than one lone crackpot who thinks that a microwave oven causes you to grow a second head.

Finally there was an interseting discussion on the implications of developing technology that might be used for “evil” (I’m paraphrasing Ultimately, we (scientists) don’t control the technology we develop - governments, industries and even the voting public will ultimately decide how or if the technology is applied. It’s therefore important for us to do outreach and education, and make sure that everyone can make an informed decision on how this technology should be used. It was also suggested that thought should be given to possible applications of nanotechnology to major world issues - water shortage, global warming, etc. - and perhaps taking a more global view on where the field should be heading. Another speaker expressed a slightly pessimistic, but perhaps realistic, view that nanotechnology wouldn’t go towards benefiting everyone, but would instead by focussed towards extending the lives of the richest people, and increasing the divide between have and have-nots.

Will nanotechnology produce the same revolution as microtechnology, which lead to microchips, computers and the internet? Perhaps not, but judging by the research discussed this week it’s going to be interesting. On that note, I’m going to wrap up this “coverage”. It’s remarkably hard to type and listen at the same time, so apologies if this wasn’t as coherent as it could have been (there’s a pun there for the quantum physicists amongst you…)

Off to the conference dinner now!

So, I went to buy some camoflauge pants on the weekend, but I couldn’t find any…

Ba-dam-ching!

In great news for us clowns out there everywhere, it seems that women really do go for funny guys. Although this does kind of seem to be a “Well, duh” kind of research project, they showed men and women photos which had either a neutral or funny quote under them. Women rated men in the funny quote photos as being more attractive, making better partners, etc. Men, on the other hand, didn’t particularly mind - but in a separate study, revealed that they would rather have a partner who laughs at their jokes than was funny herself. (I’m not sure which I’d pick there - probably both! Someone who just laughs but had the wit of a mullet wouldn’t be much fun, but neither would someone who didn’t at least grin at my brilliant one liners. As it is, I think I’ve done okay

Their (very tentative!) suggestion is that being witty and funny reflects a healthy active brain, and sexual selection might evolve this preference in women. On the other hand, it might simply be that funny people are entertaining…!

Anyway, it’s a bit of a slow morning here at the conference, so I’ll leave you with one of my (many) favourite jokes:

Q: What did the fish say when it swam into the wall?
A: Dam.

(And remember, a groan is as good as a laugh!)

So, I’m sitting by the pool at Noosa Blue Resort (on the Sunshine coast, not the Gold Coast like I posted on Saturday - I think I was lacking a little sleep!) The sun is finally shining (intermittently, anyway) after raining all day yesterday, and it’s reasonably warm (enough so that several people have gone to the beach - whether they make it back before the start of the next session remains to be seen…)

The talks this morning were all reasonably good. (I’m going to describe a few of them briefly over the next few days, and so my posts might be slightly more technical that usual. Hopefully, though, they’ll still be interesting to read!) The first talk was by the conference organiser Philip Stamp, who works on different ways of modelling the effect of the environment on molecules (quite similar to my project, actually!) He was particularly interested in the differences between large scale “delocalised” effects (e.g., motion of water around a molecule of interest) compared to the effect from something specific nearby (e.g., the magnetic field from a single nearby molecule). It was quite interesting, although it lost me after the first 10-15 minutes!

The most interesting talk of the day (for me, anyway) was from a guy who has been studying organic magnets, which are organic (carbon, etc) molecules which have a magnetic moment (just a technical way of saying that they’re affected by magnetic fields). What’s really cool is that you can have groups of these molecules all with the same magnetic moment which can then quantum tunnel so that their magnetic moment points in the opposite direction, which you’d expect couldn’t happen “classically”. There’s lots that isn’t understood about this - how they do it, why it happens with the speed it does, and other more technical effects which I didn’t completely understand. Some of it looked very relevant to my project, so hopefully I’ll get the chance to talk to him about it before the conference is over.

Anyway, I’ve got to go and make some minor changes and fixes to my talk, so I don’t double up or ignore what the speakers have said today. Tonight there’s swimming and dinner by the pool, then the Poster Session, where people put up posters about their research, and we interrogate, er, I mean, talk to them, about their work. Since I’m giving a talk I don’t have to do a poster this time, which is quite a relief!

So, the last few days I’ve been a little busy preparing for a conference that’s on next week. It’s at Noosa (the Gold Coast!) orgainsed by my supervisor and others. It’s on Quantum Nanoscience, which covers all applications of quantum mechanics on the nanoscale - that’s much bigger than atoms, but still much smaller than an integrated circuit, say. The reason why this is such an interesting area is that at this size, it’s not always clear how, or even if, quantum mechanics will be important (i.e., to describe a single atom it’s essential, but to describe a cricket ball it’s irrelevant - what happens in between?)

I’m giving a talk at the conference about quantum mechanics and its role in biology, and in particular some work that I’ve been doing on making “minimal models”, the simplest possible models, for the effect of surrounding proteins and water on certain molecules of interest. We’ve shown that a certain type of mathematical model that’s widely used in more conventional quantum applications (the “spin-boson model) applies also to collections of coupled biomolecules (e.g., chlorophyll molecules that are involved in photosynthesis, and couple together to move energy around). What’s really neat is that it’s (comparatively) easy to change all the parameters, just by choosing different molecules, changing your solvent, heating it up or cooling it down, or even using genetic engineering to make very specific changes. That means we should be able to explore all sorts of interesting predictions made by the model, and hopefully learn more about biology and physics.

At least, that’s what I’m going to try and convince everyone! I’m ever so slightly nervous, as I haven’t ever given a talk for “experts” before. For other physicsists, yes, but not for a whole room of people who are quite familiar with the material, and will probably know if I say something not quite right!

Anyway, I’ll hopefully have access to the internet while I’m there and I’ll give some tidbits about what transpires. Till then, have a good weekend!

As many news services are today reporting, the Stardust spacecraft today arrived back on Earth after a seven year and three billion kilometre trip investigating the origins of our solar system. Its key project was to photograph comet Wild 2 (not because it’s crazy, but because of its discover Paul Wild, pronounced “vilt“!) and collect samples of its coma (the bright tail) and from the general solar system too. The tiny particles collected will give us clues as to the origin of our solar system, which in turn will help us better understand the galaxy and even where we might find more planets or life. Obviously those goals are a long way off, but if Stardust pays off, we’ll be one step closer.

Why do you run when you want to move fast? Or, conversely, why do you walk instead of run if you’re only going slowly?

These are just two of the questions that are being considered by a group of robotics researchers at Cornell.
Rather than trying to make detailed models of real people, these guys have gone the other way and are trying to determine the simplest possible models of a person that can be used to understand movement. Some of the questions they wanted to answer were:

• Are walking and running the most energy efficient ways of moving at their respective speeds?
• What (if any) other possible motions are there?
• Why do people not walk or run smoothly? (Like if you were carrying a cup of coffee!)

This is work that was recently published in Nature, which describes their analysis of a minimal model for movement. I’ll try and summarise their paper and results here, although the actual paper is quite readable.

In their model, the person’s body is treated as a just a point, with all their mass concentrated at the top of their legs. The legs themselves are massless, and so it requires no energy to start or stop them. And instead of bending knees, the legs are able to expand or contract just like a telescope.

This might sounds pretty extreme, but it does have a realistic basis - legs are light when compared to our body, and I suspect that a key purpose of knees is to enable us to effectively retract or expand our leg. Also, they still allow for the leg to push off at an angle, which is of course essential. Finally, they put constraints on how long the leg can extend to, and how small a step you can take, which grounds the theory in reality. If you’re still skeptical, you’re probably right to be! When designing minimal models you try use intelligent guesses to strip your system down to the bare bones (so to speak). It’s possible,though, to go too far, and the only way you’ll know for sure that your model is right is if it gives you useful and believable results at the end of the day.

What this group did was to they consider the two functions which will determine how this strange creature walks: the length of its leg, and the force that its leg is exerting (through the ability to change length), as a function of time. They’ve then used numerical techniques to explore “all” (see paper for details) the possible functions you could choose, and to see which results in the least energy cost per metre of travel.

From this, they’ve found quite a few really neat things. Firstly, and very importantly, they re-discovered walking and running (e.g., running being where you push off the ground and are airborne for a few moments). They found that these are the most efficient forms of movement at low and high speeds respectively, and that the cross-over point in their simulations occurs at roughly the same speed as in real life! They also found that walking smoothly, where your head always stays the same height, always takes more energy regardless of what speed you’re moving at. Which explains why I always spill my drink unless I’m concentrating!

Even cooler, they discovered a new type of motion, which they’ve called a “pendular run”, which you can see demonstrated (along with walking, running and level walking) in a video on their site. Apparently, even though it’s the most efficient motiorarely used by humans. The next step, then, is to slowly add features to the model to explain human behaviour.

The upshot of all this is that we now know that the basics of motion don’t depend on anything more than what’s included in this model. Sure, knees, heavy legs, ankles and so forth are going to modify things, such as the pendular-running motion, but they’re not the key details. Hopefully, this study can be used to not just design better robots, but to better understand human physiology.

It’s Friday, so that means I’m posting something a little strange. This has got to be the absolute weirdest way of learning calculus that I’ve ever seen. Direct from Google Videos to you: the “How-To-Do-Girls” show us Bikini Calculus. What is it? I’m afraid it’s exactly what the name suggests - girls in bikinis…teach calculus (derivatives, integrals, etc). I haven’t been through it all, mainly because my office mates have started to give me strange looks about what I’m watching on the computer. It is “work safe”, so long as you explain to your colleagues that you’re doing serious research/on the job training/studing for your exams…They may or may not believe you!

I think that it’s not really serious - their site is down, with only Google’s cache revealing that it existed. It seems like they planned to do several videos, spoofing various documentary/”how-to” style TV shows. Apparently, I could buy a DVD of all the Calculus videos - who knows? According to this video, the model doing the (intelligent) talking actually has a degree in “nuclear engineering” from MIT, and is working on a PhD! Interesting way to combine your skills!

Its only true rival is The Britney Spears Guide to Semiconductor Physics, which gives a remarkably accurate and thorough introduction to semiconductor physics. (Semiconductors are materials that are somewhere between conductors and insulators, and are used to make transistors which are a fundamental component of computers and electronics.) It shows Britney explaining various concepts, and includes some rather creative contour plots, if my memory serves. Why am I relying on my memory? My University has blocked this highly educational page - classing it with other, more nefarious, Britney Spears sites!

Oh well - guess it means I’ll get back to work! Have a good weekend!

If you’re concerned about climate change and the long term impact from burning fossil fuels, then you probably don’t want to know about the outcomes from this week’s Asia-Pacific climate change meeting. The group announced that they have no plans to cut back on coal usage, instead looking towards technological means of reducing polution. The CSIRO (the main non-academic scientific research group in Australia) chief scientist says that the technologies suggested are not currently available, but expects that “a number” of them may be available in 5-10 years time. You’ll forgive me if I’m a little skeptical.

The response seems generally to be pretty negative, particularly (but not unsurprisingly) amongst climate change bodies. It seems that most of the seats at the table were taken, not by climate change experts or representatives of renewable energy projects but by representatives from teh coal industry, etc.

It’s kind of depressing, but unsurprising. I know, however, that Jenny will be either depressed, outraged or some combination of the above when she hears about it.

But again, probably not surprised.

A meeting today on climate change (global warming,etc) in the Asia-Pacific region has come up with this brilliant solution for preserving our environment - invest money in cleaner coal burning. Who suggested this? Why, the US representative. What a surprise…

Yes, it would be much better to be able to burn coal cleaner, but even if it could reduce pollution output to zero, should we really be investing money in a fuel source that could run out, for all practical purposes, within 10-20 years? Even if it lasts 50 years, surely we should be looking at conserving our fossil fuels for those situations and places where we can’t use anything else?

Instead of agreeing to lower carbon dioxide output, and working towards developing environmentally and economically sustainable energy production, I can’t help but agree with the Green’s (Australia’s environmental lobby political party) that this is a move motivated by politics rather than a genuine interest in doing what’s best for everyone.

You’ve got to wonder…

Last year, a South Korean research group claimed to have created the world’s first cloned human embryos - which shocked scienticists, ethical research bodies and the general public, but possibly for quite different reasons! However, according to a recent inquiry this data was faked, and in fact their only real achievement (which is still not to be sneezed at!) was cloning a dog, a world first. (No doubt well received by all the misguided people out there who have frozen Fluffy at great cost in the hopes of recreating him in the future.)

That means that, for better or worse, the challenge is still out on the table to create the world’s first human clone. (It did occur to me that this could be a conspiracy to cover up and discredit work that the Government ™ doesn’t want known. But we’ll put that down to too many X-File episodes…)

Of course, I’m not convinced that this is research that should be pursued. But then again, the reality is that someone is going to do it, sooner or later - I think we’ve pretty much established that if it can be done, it will be, one way or the other. And maybe it’s ethically wrong to clone a human, but perhaps under certain situations we’re realise that it would a very handy thing to be able to do. Or, perhaps this research will lead to new techniques or medical technologies we haven’t thought of. Regardless, I would be surprised if we don’t hear a similar announcement in 2006 - true or otherwise!

(Yes, that’s an awful lot of fence sitting. I don’t really have a clear opinion on this one, in case you haven’t realised!)

And highlight of my day? The university Ice Creamery has reintroduced their deluxe range of icecreams, including the divine Oreo Cookie Icecream. Mmmm…

When this came up over dinner on the weekend, I was sure it was another example of an urban legend, or at least miscommunication, and I was keen to get into Uni and debunk it. But to my utmost surprise, it’s actually real, legitimate and may be part of our lives before too long. What am I talking about? Basically, X-Ray vision for use in airport security!

Normal X-rays, like a doctor takes, work by shooting a blast of X-rays (a form of light with a much shorter wavelength than ordinary, visible light - hence much more powerful) at your body, and looking at what comes out the other side. Your bones block out more of the X-rays than do your soft tissues, and so we can see the structure inside your body. It’s exactly like shining a torch through paper, say, and looking at the shadow you get out the other side. Back in the old days, X-ray machines were even used in shoe shops to measure your foot size - kids loved looking at the bones in their feet! Unfortunately, this fell out of fashion when it was realised that large doses of X-rays can cause cancer.

These days, our techniques are more refined, so we use smaller doses and get better resolution to boot, giving us virtually no chance of getting cancer from the number of X-rays we have in our life. Of course, a doctor who might take 20 or more x-rays a day always leaves the room - just in case the odds catch up with them.

Anyway, I digress. But the most interesting refinement recently is a technique called backscatter x-ray, where instead of looking at the shadow the X-rays make, we look at the X-rays that are reflected. By using only small doses of X-rays, we can get very little backscattering of soft material - like clothes - but lots of backscattering off hard things, like metal, plastic - and skin. The result is a new technology for airports that basically creates a “naked image” of you - removes your clothes, and reveals any hidden objects like knives or explosives that you might have concealed on your person. The downside is that without your clothes, the images don’t leave a lot to the imagination - you really are naked, albeit in a black-and-white, kind of blurry sense. There’s conflicting information about whether the image will actually be stored, but I can’t see any benefit in doing so. In the U.S., the system has been banned until the designers can come up with a way of masking out the, er, interesting bits from the image.

I’m not sure quite how I feel about it - if the images are deleted immediately, then no-one but the screener will see them. And in many ways, it’s far less intrusive than a medical examination - particularly a mammogram or a pap smear if you’re a woman! But there we’re talking about necessary, medical procedures, conducted by trained professionals. Security guards don’t really fill me with the same sense of…security.

Beyond airports, though, there’s talk of using this to scan trucks for illegal immigrants, contraband and drugs. Check out some sample pics - the technology is pretty amazing!

My final (honestly!) comment is simply that this kind of technique really does give some credence to Superman’s X-ray vision. Sure, we’re not going to see full colour pictures, but maybe we can someday get close! So you nay-sayers who said Superman was just fiction, there you go!

For more information, check out stories here and here.

This really doesn’t have anything directly to do with science, but I tell you what - it makes you wonder. After much bidding, two of Australia’s free-to-air TV stations won the rights to screen the AFL (Australian Football League) matches over the next five years. This cost them $780 million, $280 million more than the previous agreement. That’s an awful lot of money for a sport… Now the bit I love: let’s hear what the Chief Executive of the Players Association, Brendon Gale, has to say:

…the game is a product and players should receive higher salaries in 2007 and 2008 for their contribution.

Mr Gale says people should not be critical that AFL players can be earning $180,000 a year after four years.

“80,000 people don’t come and watch those people work and don’t scrutinise every aspect of their work to the nth degree, and when they make mistakes discuss them on the back pages of major national newspapers or major TV broadcasts and deal with the incredible scrutiny and expectations that playing in AFL football expects of players,” he said.

Mr Gale says the current $180,000 average salary does not reflect the players’ big contributions and short career lifespan.

The players’ “big contribution”, hey? Nothing compared to the contribution from the scientists who discovered how to cure stomach ulcers, including infecting themselves to prove their cure worked. (Yes, they eventually did win a Nobel Prize, but still…) Or the contributions from people who do aid work in Africa? Or policeman protecting our streets?

As for “scrutinising every aspect of their work”, perhaps Mr Gale should check out the paperwork required when a policeman shoots his gun. He’s right - they’re not scrutinised on the back page of the paper. It’s on the front. In big font. Or try being a doctor - he doesn’t think that people scrutinise their work? Sure, maybe a brain surgeon earns more than that - but it takes them 20 years of study to get there. Even a PhD student has been studying for about 8 years - 10, if you include Year 11 and 12, which is probably not a prerequisite for a football player… Heck, if you want scrutiny of your work - try filling in a grant application or applying for promotion at a University.

I know that football is popular - far more popular than searching for a cure for cancer. But I personally think it’s ridiculous that football players, movie stars, etc, etc, should earn more than professionals who are generally working towards projects a lot more important than “Bridged Jones’ Diary”…

This is (one of) my pet rant(s), so you’ll have to cut me a little slack. But arrogant football players…not what I need on my weekend.

Afterthought: There is some truth in their “short lifespan” comment - a teacher might work for 50 years, whereas a football player might only work for 10. But perhaps this is telling you that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in the one basket, and that football isn’t really a sustainable career! Do they really expect to be able to take the next 40 years off?!

The New Year has ushered out one of the best publicity years for physics, the World Year of Physics celebrating the hundredth anniversary of Einstein’s revolutionary theories on special relativity and quantum mechanics. And what better way to finish the year than with the most thorough experimental confirmation to date of his famous equation, E=mc²?

This equation says that matter and energy can be freely converted from one to the other, with the amount of energy stored in a block of matter equal to its mass (m) times the speed of light (c) squared. By doing very careful experiments measuring all the energy absorbed and emitted as an atom captures an extra neutron, they were able to show that the equation was true to about one part in 2 million - meaning it’s pretty darn certain that Einstein was right.

Isn’t it nice when everything just works?

Well, I’m finally back from holidays - hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Years. Most of my presents revolved around my kitchen, and I’ve had a fantastic break cooking up all sorts of goodies (my sour cherry pie turned out brilliantly - I finally made the perfect pastry!)

To start the New Year off, here something from the Edge Foundation, which promotes inquiry and questioning of the key issues in society. In particular, they run the World Question Centre, which each year asks leading researchers and other key figures a deep question, and collates their responses. This year, the question was “What is your dangerous idea?” The answers ranged from an interesting take on global warming from Paul Davies, the possibility that we’re living in the Matrix (this guy, Clifford Pickover, has written some great books on black holes, time travel, etc which are well worth a read), and the possibility that we’re simply not capable of understanding the world around us. There’s some slightly weird ones (I don’t really understand Anderson’s point (and he’s a very famous physicist in my field…) and there’s at least one response that worries about science muzzling God, and feels (to my mind) dangerously close to a rant.) - but it’s all still interesting.

I haven’t had time to read everyone’s responses, so if you find an interesting article - post it in the comments to receive glory, fame^* and a comment with your name on it!

Also, what would your dangerous idea be? I don’t know what I think - global warming has got to be pretty close to the top, with the dangerous idea being that it’s already too late to do anything about it. Another one, which I’m not sure really counts since it’s less of an idea and more of a “It would be terrible if…”, would be that fanaticism, whether from Mulsims, Christians, political supporters or even environmental groups (e.g., opposing GM food, nuclear power, etc), might lead towards major problems - war, disruption of science and the scientific method, a breakdown of society, etc. I don’t actually think this actually going to happen, but fanatics, which in this context I mean people who believe dogmatically without being open to reason (the foundation of science!) really do scare the bejeezes out of me.

It’s a cool idea asking these big, open ended questions, and hopefully it inspires much interesting discussion and perhaps moves us further towards a better future.

(*) No guarantee of glory or fame.