Quo Vadis Homo Sapiens?

Ironically, even among us, the only intelligent being on earth, according to our own standards, aggressiveness and competitive behaviour hold the key for success, not intelligence. A strong dumb people can always crush a weaker but more intelligent one. And does it. It’s a pity. We would know enough now to guarantee a happy life for every being on this planet. But humans are selected for aggressiveness, and we can’t jump over our own genetic shadow. Evolution can’t restart an organism from scratch. We can’t change human nature. And if we don’t change we won’t make it for much longer. Another ten thousand years? Highly improbable, considering the damage we have caused in only the last one hundred years. It’s obvious, it’s silly, we all know what humanity would need to do; but we don’t. We know it and we don’t. And there will always be war, and there will always be someone cutting the last tree and fishing the last fish. That’s the hard limit of our type of intelligence. That’s where the primate grins. And so be it; Homo sapiens sapiens, creation’s self-nominated crowing glory, and the last representative of the genus Homo, will not even have delved on earth for half a million years. An extremely short-lived evolutionary flop. After all, it really wasn’t a good idea to make this brain just that little bit bigger. Just a little bigger.
(Taken from BLT: 'This Monkey's Gone To Heaven')

Geopolitical Minimiser

As I write these lines, many die and suffer in Gaza (and elsewhere in our happy world), to satisfy the political and personal interests of a few. Again, without surprise, the UN did not come to a conclusion about concrete actions. Facing human incapability for intelligent and 'humane' decision making, I wonder if one couldn't just program a 'Geopolitical Minimiser'. Feed it all data concerning a particular conflictual region, and let it find a solution that minimises all constraints (available surface area, access to resources, ethnical compatibility, necessary displacements of persons, etc...). And accept the solution!
However, I fear that the intelligent objectivity will be smashed in pieces by human stupidity and drive for power and money. Quo vadis Homo sapiens?

Scientific Stream of Conscience II

In an initial RNA world, Protein would have tended to gather around RNA. Nucleic acid binding as one of the oldest traits of proteins. Going over to more protein-based function, did evolution proceed by create proteins that substituted for central RNA/DNA. Scaffolding proteins as replacement? Protein signalling complexes evolved from protein-Nuc. acid complexes? Look for similarities in Nuc. acid binding features and protein-protein interactions. Maybe it's not directly linear in evolution, but more as a derived feature, using already existing traits. Signallosomes as loose ribyzymes?

Scientific Stream of Conscience I

Cellular networks share characteristics with social networks. Use social simulation program to test hypothesis on cellular networks. Use character traits (Sticks moderatly to many, sticks specifically to one, attracts many non-specifically, inhibits actions (fatigue), stimulates actions (alcohol)). Use floating, gaussian distribution of strengths of traits. Allow mutations, and combination of traits (or combining single characters). Allow for parallel, overlapping actions. Is there any computer game that could be used? Auto-Sims? For deterministic History, could removal of persons be compared with removal of nodes in protein interaction network? Hitler as a GPCR? Einstein as p53?

Efficient Research Focus

In the last century alone, Homo sapiens has killed through war about 190 Million of his own species. First, that's not 'sapiens', that's stupid. Second, given that AIDS has worldwide caused 'only' 25 Million deaths, I guess many scientists of the biomedical research areas should change their focus, and rather ask for funds to cure war. Or stupidity?

A World of Justice

Wish you a phantasmagorgical New 2009!!
May Nutella be with you!

Hey, If you are a brave guy, and want to help obtaining some justice in 2009 with a simple email, visit this page and take action!
Cheers!
BLT

Fault Tolerance Added

[from wikipedia] "The power law distribution highly influences the network topology. It turns out that the major hubs are closely followed by smaller ones. These ones, in turn, are followed by other nodes with an even smaller degree and so on. This hierarchy allows for a fault tolerant behavior. Since failures occur at random and the vast majority of nodes are those with small degree, the likelihood that a hub would be affected is almost negligible. Even if such event occurs, the network will not lose its connectedness, which is guaranteed by the remaining hubs. On the other hand, if we choose a few major hubs and take them out of the network, it simply falls apart and is turned into a set of rather isolated graphs. Thus hubs are both the strength of scale-free networks and their Achilles' heel." What happens if one adds a hub? That's what many pathogens do... ?

INRI?

Jesus said he'd be the messiah for all the Jews. After 2000 years, millions and millions of people believe in him and his message, except all the Jews...

Museum of Forced Tolerance

In October, the Israeli Supreme Court decided to allow building the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem. In doing so, it overrun legal protests from Palestinian families, attempting to halt the construction because a major ancient Muslim cemetery was found on the site of the building.

Durragham Saif, the lawyer who brought the Islamic Court petition on behalf of three Palestinian families, Al Dijani, Nusseibeh and Bader Elzain, all of whom have members buried at the cemetery, said: "It's unbelievable, it's immoral. You cannot build a museum of tolerance on the graves of other people. Imagine this kind of thing in the [United] States or England. And this is the Middle East where events are sensitive. If this goes ahead in this way it is going to cause the opposite thing to tolerance."(paragraph taken from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-plans-to-build-museum-of-tolerance-on-muslim-graves-466028.html)

Happy Christmas, World, and good luck for 2009

Real and Reciprocal Constraints

During evolution, vertebrates can develop some morphological features (e.g. lose digits, reassign function to building blocks) but not others (grow a second head, or a third arm). Re-dimension and re-shape is ok, but not to add. This however is not true for DNA and protein, where bits and regions can be changed, added, multiplied. Nevertheless, I wonder if the morphological limitations can be translated into constraints for DNA/protein evolution. A bit like solvent flattening for crystallographic phases. Yes, maybe this is a circular argument.

Dino-waves

Have just invented a wave-mechanic-based new theory to explain the extinction of dinosaurs. Now I just need a Jurassic park to test it.

Mind-surfing

I have just developed a new method to stop insomnia, or at least to stop boredom during sleepless nights (or public transport...). It's mind surfing.
Place yourself in your mind on a surfboard, and position yourself on the surfboard in some attractive place (say the top of the Eiffel Tower). Then start surfing (e.g; down the slope of the tower). Use all attacking thoughts (about unpaid bills, reports to finish, things to repair) as waves that propulse you into another direction. Doesn't necessarily make you fall asleep, but at least it's good fun!

Darwin and Car Evolution

Went jogging and there was that little dog, black and white, quite young. It wanted to be my friend, and wanted to run with me each round. It's name: Darwin. So I guess I should write something about evolution. Here it comes. It's about evolution of cars. There was this car, silly look, and too expensive. But it's so small that you can squeeze it into any sort of parking space, which is very useful. So they called it the SMART car. Then there came new generations of this car, still the same silly look, but somewhat more expensive, and unfortunately too big, so you can't park them anymore anywhere. Should these cars be called the DUMB cars?

Dreams

In dreams, a certain type of questions are absent. I wonder what that means concerning the generation and influence of dreams.

Party Signalling II

... cont: but if cellular signalling events are like parties, then maybe one could use parties to describe and learn about signalling events. Choose the right descriptors, record party, match party descriptors to characteristics of known signalling events, identify best matching signalling event, and then use party dynamics to learn about best matching signalling event (complete, extrapolate, test hypothesis). "After the third drink, Sue sat on the couch to chill; this attracted quickly Pete, Jo and Matt. Sue would have preferred to chat with the cute Ben, but he was off wiggling his bum to impress Amy. But Pete was quite funny tonight, so she sat down for a while and listened; Matt thought some more drinks might help getting things going, and went off to fetch some from the fridge. This however perturbed the starting love affair between Jean and Nelly; Nelly had to leave just thereafter, and went to Singapore next day without exchanging email addresses with Jean. As a result they did not get married, her son Kevin was not born and could not save London from a fatal bio-gas attack forty years later." Maybe this matches to T cell receptor signalling? I guess we will learn to appreciate the importance of the unspectacular parties, and signalling events, to keep up criticallity.

blinded by the Light

Why is it that all sorts of night-active insects fly straight into light sources? Being programmed to be active at night, attraction to light does not make any sense. If they strive for light, they could just fly during the day. And wouldn't there be the danger of just trying to fly straight into the full moon on a clear night? Is that a hint that nocturnal insects have evolved from diurnal ones? And why has no insectivorous species developed light sources - like deep-see fish - to easily capture all these badly programmed prey?

Car fusion

It was shown that a mean human face (i.e. where all measures between and for facial features are the set to those corresponding to the average values of human populations) is beautiful. If one averages the 20 % of the most beautiful faces, then the average top20% beautiful face is perceived as being even more beautiful than just the average face. If one then calculates the vectorial distance between the 'average' and the 'top20% average' face, and uses the same vector to 'exaggerate' the top20% average, then the top20% + average face is even more beautiful than the top20% face. All this to say that one should use the same algorithm to conceive car profiles, and built the most beautiful vehicle of all - very simply. If that works for car profiles, then maybe other objects could be tackled, too.

Party Signalling

Cellular signal transduction was initially viewed as a kind of chinese whisper. A talks to B who goes off to talk to C who switches on the light. Others are not concerned. I guess however signal transduction it's more like a party. Who ever is there will talk. Duration of the interaction will depend on compatibility and personal predisposition. If by chance there is THE FUNNY GUY, or THE PERFECT GIRL, then people will congregate. If not, then someone else will tell jokes or be pulled, however only moderately, depending on how much alcohol. An evening with three moderately funny guys might still be very enjoyable. Most parties finish in a rather unspectacular way. The likeliness for a spectacular outcome (e.g. Gilles dancing naked on the table) will depend on the sum of all attractions plus personal predisposition plus some energetic fluctuations. It's about functional redundancy and compensation, criticallity.

Top Score

The saddest species of all: 70+ year old poor Caucasians.

Random Hacking

Having said this, I have never really tried, so let's go:
diosqsokdf qsd zpzei vfdsidijhrtnzscqbbq olzd zer csdqsqdoihze sqdoihr sdfzezownbvvbnzqp^sdk poffezearesaqrit mlsdvxsor qsf te ar enfdsqio mdiogz elfiojq zqf goot aiodf bbsdeioropa sdfg poiuicerea oirea sfdz p tezhsioc pojz lishe as froa shu.
... well maybe not this time, unless it means something awfully beautiful in wolof. However, I guess it just shows how long 1 million years are.