26 Nov, 2022
Phys title: The thinking undead: How dormant bacteria calculate their return to life By: University of California - San Diego Date: 6 October 2022 "Facing starvation and stress conditions, some bacteria enter a dormant state in which life processes stop. Shutting down into a deep dormancy allows these cells, called spores, to withstand punishing extremes of heat,...
9 Sep, 2022
The Universe is expanding. Each year, the (accelerating) distance to our Moon is "increasing at the rate of about 3.8 centimeters (1.5 inches) per year" (source). In the absence of (imaginary) faster than light space travel technology, planets that we can still see now, will then be too far away to visit. Notwithstanding the above, we are still planning new visits...
6 Sep, 2022
Part 1 of this blog didn't mention the attention economy (eg, Atlantic-2016), the epidemic of alarmism (eg, Guardian-2019), or polycrisis (eg, NRC-2022). I didn't even know those words. My blog title only expressed my feelings on this topic. With hindsight, I wondered about the damage to our mind. A December 2019 Forbes magazine article, Why Climate Alarmism Hurts...
5 Sep, 2022
Many articles argue that human societies look a lot like ant colonies. Ants have a caste system which is similar to our job specialization. "The typical colony consists of one or more egg-laying queens, numerous sterile females (workers, soldiers) and, seasonally, many winged sexual males and females." (Wiki) There are much more ants than humans: one million...
18 Aug, 2022
On 21 May 2013, at about 4PM, it felt as if someone pushed a button at the back of my head during a meeting at work. My body then refused to follow my brain's instructions. Anything not work-related was not a problem (eg, driving home). After listening to my story, my doctor did not prescribe medication. On 20 July 2022, University College London published a "major...
14 Jun, 2022
My apartment has relatively high ceilings because it's an old building. The sunlight comes sideways through my windows. If I don't leave my apartment, the world might appear like a big pancake (ie, flat). It's an optical illusion. Several centuries ago, sailors assumed Earth was flat as they didn't experience curves. The latest scientific assumption is that the...
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