The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

Here's a topic to post links to scientific discoveries, controversies, & milestones.

I've read a couple of books about domestication of plants & animals. They're fascinating, so I always enjoy articles about it. With so many species of both around, we've only domesticated a relative handful generally due to the Anna Karenina principle.

For instance, we've domesticated pecan trees, but not oaks. Breeding for the lack of cyanide in pecans was relatively easy, just one gene change, while breeding acorns to be less bitter or more accessible involves many gene pairs & very long periods of time, so no one ever bothered.

New strides in genetics, such as CRISPR technology, is now giving us opportunities to domesticate even more species of plants faster. It looks like we might be seeing a new fruit available more widely fairly soon.
https://www.popsci.com/groundcherry-c...

You've stopped typing just after intriguing me why :)

Oleksandr wrote: "You've stopped typing just after intriguing me why :)"

I didn't double check my hyperlink & left out a ". Sigh. Sorry about that.

The ground cherry is available in one of our local grocery stores under the name "Cape gooseberry". But that is an amazing and unusual store with more types of produce than I've ever seen together in one place. Oddly, I ate one for the first time in Berlin years ago. I'm not impressed.

Louisiana declared one version of ground cherry illegal because they aren't very scientifically literate there. (I know. I'm from Louisiana.) The fact that there are false rumors that it might be hallucinogenic was enough to make it illegal. (Louisiana State Act 159.) I'm surprised they let bananas in. (There are false rumors about smoking the peels.)

I read a whole book about domestication of the pecan. It went from wild to domesticated in about 100 years, despite some traits that are not friendly for domestication. It produces nuts only on some years, and all the trees in your orchard will synchronize so that you either get a big crop or no crop at all.

Pecan groves were common in Louisiana when I grew up. They are fun to climb. Now they chop them down and name things after them, like the Pecanland Mall.

Many of our domesticated crops would be completely unable to live in the wild, or would revert to very different forms.

I currently work in software related to detecting chromosomal abnormalities in humans. Other people in the company work on products related to plants. Their chromosomes are way more complicated. Breeders over the years have un-intentionally selected for varieties with multiple copies of each chromosome. Humans have 2 of each, but strawberries have 8 of each. This is touched-on at a not-too-complicated level in The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World.

Interesting, Ed. The article says the ground cherry is available in local markets & their changes are to make it more commercially available. I might try the "Botany of Desire" again. I started it & was completely turned off fairly early on.

Ed wrote: "...I read a whole book about domestication of the pecan. It went from wild to domesticated in about 100 years ..."

I read that wheat was also probably domesticated very quickly, a mere century. Originally it lost its seeds easily, but the act of carrying it elsewhere to thresh it changed that since only the seeds that made the journey were stored & replanted.

A century is very rapid given the amount of time typically dealt with, but now they're saying they may be able to have these ground cherries ready in just 2 years. That's impressive, especially since I compare it to the efforts to bring back the American Chestnut.

Decades ago, they began crossbreeding the American Chestnut with the Chinese Chestnut in an effort to create resistance to the blight. They've got one that is about 15/16ths American & doubt they'll get much better than that. Another effort tracked down the exact genes that make the AC vulnerable & changed just those. Now they're going to try to replant them & see how it goes.
https://allianceforscience.cornell.ed...

The idea that the change to a gene can confer disease resistance kind of blows my mind & a lot of others. Earlier this year, the FDA & USDA got into a fight over the definition of a GMO because of pigs. Apparently removing a gene can make pigs more resistant to a typical virus. Since the gene isn't being changed, one of them says it's not a GMO while the other does.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/04/23/...

Interesting times.

Tiny Robots Inspired by Sperm Want to Swim Around Your Body Delivering Drugs:
https://www.livescience.com/63734-spe...

Being able to deliver drugs to specific areas would be a HUGE leap forward for treating all kinds of illnesses. Imagine how much better it would be for cancer patients. They currently have their entire body poisoned in a delicate balance to kill off cancer cells while keeping the host alive.

This is important to me personally. I have a bacterial mass high up in one of my lungs. Even to biopsy it took a day in the hospital with a 30% chance of collapsing my lung. After 2 months of cultures & testing, they decided they didn't know enough about it to be able to give me antibiotics to treat it. If it had been a form of TB, the treatment would have been an antibiotic for a year. A different bacteria would have required 3 antibiotics for a couple of years, but they all have side effects on the rest of the body, so they decided just to let it be for 6 months & see what happens. I'll get another scan & we'll see in a couple of weeks to find out.

If these little swimmers were available, they'd probably have tried treating it. As it is, I've been living in limbo which doesn't mesh well with my personality. I like to deal with stuff immediately & thoroughly, then move on which is impossible in this case. Such is life.

NASA is issuing free posters.
https://www.space.com/42000-free-post...

They have to be downloaded & then printed. Kind of a cool idea, but I'm disappointed in the simplicity. Hopefully someone will edit them to put the facts of each on the poster.

When I was a kid, I had a big poster of the solar system with outsized pictures of all the 9 planets & a lot of information about them. It wasn't too scale, but the bright colors & interesting facts made it a lot of fun to look at over & over. A great learning tool.

Speaking of domestication. Here is a story of monkeys domesticating wolves, or vice-versa.

I've just started reading When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H Pink. The author says there a shelves full of How-to books, but his is a When-to book.

Ed wrote: "Speaking of domestication. Here is a story of monkeys domesticating wolves, or vice-versa."

Symbiosis rather than domestication?

Buck wrote: "I've just started reading When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H Pink. The author says there a shelves full of How-to books, but his is a When-to book."

Interesting blurb & idea. I'll be interested in what you think & will look for it at my library.

Everything is complicated today. Is it really a good idea to spread tailored viruses to food plants? Why use insects? I know what my gut reaction is, but I don't know enough to have an informed opinion, just a real fear.
https://www.livescience.com/63765-dar...

If we're talking not only about 'hard' sciences, but social sciences as well, here is a recent story of how correct words and sophistry allowed to publish hilariously stupid papers:

https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/a...

Oleksandr wrote: "If we're talking not only about 'hard' sciences, but social sciences as well, here is a recent story of how correct words and sophistry allowed to publish hilariously stupid papers:"

I read about a third & will try to read the rest later. Excellent! About time someone did something like this.

Jim wrote: "I read about a third & will try to read the rest later. Excellent! About time someone did something like this. "

I'm glad you've liked it. Another recent hot topic on the border of theoretical physics and gender equality is a recent story of Alessandro Strumia, professor at University of Pisa in Italy and CERN affiliated physicist, who recently made so controversial presentation that CERN plans to dump him.

Here the initial presentation https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c_Ny...

Here are some serious arguments that his analysis is flawed
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018...

and less rigorous data manipulating and more ideology response here https://forbetterscience.com/2018/10/...

when I read through the original presentation I've found at least one manipulation:
Discriminations against men "shall not be considered discrimination" (Istanbul convention article 4). [slide 18]

Actually the convention states "Special measures that are necessary to prevent and protect women from gender‐based violence shall not be considered discrimination under the terms of this Convention."

which is hardly the same

Jim wrote: "Ed wrote: "Speaking of domestication. Here is a story of monkeys domesticating wolves, or vice-versa."

Symbiosis rather than domestication?"

Perhaps. But I imagine it is similar to how humans and dogs learned to live together.

Sorry about your lung issue. I also would be very disturbed to not be sure what is going on.

Jim wrote: "About time someone did something like this...."

It has been done before. Most notably in "The Sokal Hoax" written about here Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science.

I'm uncomfortable with deliberate hoaxes like that. Peer review is not intended to detect deliberate fraud. But I admit the hoaxes are kind-of funny.

I find it more fun to read about ridiculous social science via parody, as in The Pooh Perplex.

I worry about how some people interpret the results. Yes, there are some departments in some universities with professors with crazy extreme positions, usually on the left. Yes, those positions are common in some fields. But, it doesn't mean the whole political left is insane, which is how some people will interpret it in these days of political tribalism.

Ed wrote: "JI worry about how some people interpret the results. Yes, there are some departments in some universities with professors with crazy extreme positions, usually on the left. Yes, those positions are common in some fields. But, it doesn't mean the whole political left is insane, which is how some people will interpret it in these days of political tribalism. "

I guess the political tribalism is eternal, only the issues differ. Definitely, it shouldn't be an attack on a field and true, there are legitimate grievances and discrimination. The authors state as much:

"As liberals, we recognize that you might be resistant to acknowledging that our evidence points to an undeniable problem in academic research on important issues relevant to social justice. The work done in these fields claims to continue the vital work of the civil rights movements, liberal feminism, and Gay Pride. It seeks to address oppression of women and racial and sexual minorities. Surely, you might therefore believe, these bodies of literature must be essentially good and sound, even if you recognize some overreach and silliness.

After having spent a year immersed and becoming recognized experts within these fields, in addition to witnessing the divisive and destructive effects when activists and social media mobs put it to use, we can now state with confidence that it is neither essentially good nor sound. Further, these fields of study do not continue the important and noble liberal work of the civil rights movements; they corrupt it while trading upon their good names to keep pushing a kind of social snake oil onto a public that keeps getting sicker. For us to know anything about injustice in society and be able to show it to those who are unaware or in denial of it, scholarship into it must be rigorous. Currently, it is not, and this enables it, and social justice issues with it, to be dismissed. This is a serious problem of considerable concern, and we must address it."

Ed wrote: "Perhaps. But I imagine it is similar to how humans and dogs learned to live together...."

True, but there's another step involved that they haven't taken yet.

Thanks about the lung. I'm not looking for sympathy, just pointing out how difficult reaching specific points of the body can be. It's a shame to know so much & yet not have the ability to act on it.

I agree with you on the deliberate hoax issue. That is worrisome, a gray line. Still, I'm also very tired of reverse prejudice & plain idiocy in the name of equality.

Here are some great pics of the Falcon 9 launch this past weekend.
https://www.space.com/42058-spacex-sp...

It is so cool that they can land the first stage. It's a dream that I've looked forward to since I first watched "The First Spaceship on Venus", an old B SF movie. The splash downs of the Mercury & Apollo rockets were cool, but just never the same.

I saw it from Monterey. Hadn't been expecting it, so it was a nice surprise.

Neat!

Just because we've been speaking of the soft sciences:
https://daily.jstor.org/sociophysics-..., a new look at interdisciplinary work to make them 'harder.' Oh, and look, a mention of Hari Seldon and psychohistory!
;)

Cheryl wrote: "Just because we've been speaking of the soft sciences:"

My field, economics, is usually assumed the hardest among the soft, up to a point were I may amaze some physicists with my math :)

In the article the long distance calls are mentioned as a case similar to the Newtonian law. In economics gravity model of international trade is widely and successfully used for ages.

At the same time there are opponents, who even invented the term 'physics envy' to describe attempts to apply math to social sciences. For example More Heat Than Light: Economics as Social Physics: Physics as Nature's Economics as one of the critiques. Another, aimed more precisely on statistical methods is The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives

A commentary on 'clean meat'. It makes some good, if obvious, points. I liked the Churchill quote.
https://www.nydailynews.com/sns-tns-b...

Cheryl wrote: "Just because we've been speaking of the soft sciences:..."

That's pretty cool, especially the mention of Seldon. I love it when the real world meets with SF.

Jim wrote: "A commentary on 'clean meat'. "

This year Hugo nominee for best novelette was partially about the clean meat: A Series of Steaks

Oleksandr wrote: "This year Hugo nominee for best novelette was partially about the clean meat: A Series of Steaks"

Thanks, Oleksandr. I found that it is free here:
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prasa...
even an audio version. I got both & will try to read later.

Oleksandr wrote: "I guess the political tribalism is eternal, only the issues differ...."

Yes, but there has been a change in USA over my 51 years of being here. There used to be more overlap in ideas between the two main political parties. Now many more people seem to reflexively reject anything coming from outside their "tribe".

The interesting article that Cheryl posted in #25 speaks to this as a measurable world-wide trend: “A marked dwindling of moderate voices is found,” they write, “with the concomitant rising of extreme opinions…”

Reversing this will be hard.

This article about quantum computing popped-up in my news feed just now. A little hard to understand, but interesting because the woman that the article is about used to live in my building. I just picked-up some mail for her today. I had no idea what she was working on. I wish I had known, because it would have been interesting to talk about.

Ed wrote: "The interesting article that Cheryl posted in #25 speaks to this as a measurable world-wide trend: “A marked dwindling of moderate voices is found,” they write, “with the concomitant rising of extreme opinions…”"

I blame the internet :)
Seriously, there is a clear case of homophilia - preferring to join with the similar[-minded] people, which is greatly simplified by the net. So many people live in a self-created bubble, isolated from alternate opinions

Ed wrote: "The interesting article that Cheryl posted in #25 speaks to this as a measurable world-wide trend: “A marked dwindling of moderate voices is found,” they write, “with the concomitant rising of extreme opinions…”"

A lot of the problem is the world is so complex now & it is beyond our understanding. We evolved to look for fast, simple solutions. (Stranger = enemy, odd movement in grass = jump & run) Sure, we can think things through when we have time, but with all the information coming at us, we often don't have it so we tend to go with snap judgements based on headlines.

Bad news sells so many think the world is more dangerous because we're told about every bad thing that happens around the world. The facts are different - there's never been a safer time to be alive. Overall, deaths by violence, starvation, & disease are way down, but that doesn't make headlines.

Many of these confirmed biases turn into beliefs & examining those is very tough work. The faked MMR study causing the antivax movement is one example. People can't remember when polio, measles, the flu & such ran unchecked causing millions of deaths, but they do remember all the headlines Wakefield got with his bogus study. They don't remember the embarrassed retractions when the truth came out, either. They didn't get many headlines.

So people pick a side & stick to it. They can't make a case for it because they really don't know anything about it, just have a belief. It's very difficult to discuss beliefs as religions have proved for thousands of years. Much easier just to call the other guy an idiot & reject everything else. The Debunking Handbook describes this well. It's short & available free here:
https://skepticalscience.com/docs/Deb...

Jim wrote: "So people pick a side & stick to it. They can't make a case for it because they really don't know anything about it, just have a belief. It's very difficult to discuss beliefs as religions have proved for thousands of years. Much easier just to call the other guy an idiot & reject everything else.."

Yes, these biases are very important. Moreover, like optical illusions, even after one knows about the biases, s/he still has it

Ed wrote: "This article about quantum computing popped-up in my news feed just now. A little hard to understand, but interesting because the woman that the article is about used to live in my building. I just..."

Very cool. I didn't really understand it, but I'm really impressed by her doggedness.

Ed wrote: "Jim wrote: "About time someone did something like this...."

It has been done before. Most notably in "The Sokal Hoax" written about here [book:Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse..."

When I was reminded about Sokal recently I did a bit of digging and discovered that it's possible even in the hardest of sciences to get absolute tripe published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals:

http://mathscholar.org/2017/07/pi-and...

These experiments are thought-provoking I guess. They haven't really answered any questions (yet) but have suggested more specific ones e.g. Do social sciences have a larger proportion of nonsense than other sciences? Is it possible to quantify and measure how easy it is to get a crackpot paper published?

Ed wrote: "This article about quantum computing popped-up in my news feed just now. A little hard to understand, but interesting because the woman that the article is about used to live in my building. I just..."

Quantum info was my field of graduate study. An obtuse, slightly confused exposition is very typical of how pop sci articles tend to describe new discoveries!

I've been out of touch with the area for a while now so don't know much about the result, but it sounds related to the question "how do we know that a computer is really a quantum computer?". For example, the company D-wave are selling off glorified quantum annealing machines for big bucks to big companies and calling them "quantum computers", but you can't use them in a general way to solve the full class of problems you'd expect a quantum computer to solve.

Sabri wrote: "An obtuse, slightly confused exposition is very typical of how pop sci articles tend to describe new discoveries! ..."

Don't I know it! I have a PhD in Physics, so I've been exposed to quite a bit of QM. Even books on the subject by scientists who should know what they are talking about sometimes make me squirm with their odd interpretations, so I don't expect a magazine article to make it all suddenly clear! Articles in Quanta magazine are better than most, though.

Useful Quantum computers are still fiction, but progress is being made. The way I understand it, Urmila's contribution is to help understand whether the device actually solved the problem you asked it to solve.

I wouldn't have posted that particular article except for my surprise at seeing Urmila's name twice in one hour. (First was me picking up some of her stray mail.)

After she moved out, the guy who wrote Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions moved in. I haven't read that, but it looks good.

After he moved out, the owner installed some other people in that unit without telling me, the president of the home-owner's association, about it. Which violates our rules and makes me mad. Are they as illustrious as the former inhabitants? The fact that they put up a Christmas tree in September leads me to think it is more likely that they are insane. But if I mention it, I may be declared to be waging a "War on Christmas". But I digress...

Oleksandr wrote: "I blame the internet :)"

So do I :(

Sabri wrote: "... it's possible even in the hardest of sciences to get absolute tripe published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals..."

The articles mentioned in that article are certainly tripe. But none of them is published in a reputable, peer-reviewed journal. As the article itself points out, those journals are "on Beall’s list of pay-to-publish journals. Many of these journals have acquired a reputation of loose standards of publication, with only a superficial review, in return for charging a fee to authors for having their papers published on the journal’s website."

Perhaps because I have published before I also get spam solicitations to submit articles to pay-to-play journals and conferences. I just delete them.

In math, physics, chemistry, medicine and related fields the most respected journals are much more rigorous, though the do sometimes make bad mistakes. I don't have direct experience with journals in social sciences, mainly hearing only about what I hope are extreme cases, not the norm.

More good rocket news! Sort of...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-...

The had to abort the mission after lift-off, but survived. During the descent, they would have experienced 6.7Gs or acceleration. Yikes!

I read about the aborted space flight. While it was big news in the areas I read in, no one at work seemed to have heard about it. We're getting so blase about this. I remember watching every rocket launch decades ago. In a way, that's kind of cool. It's becoming normal. About time.

Jim wrote: "Buck wrote: "I've just started reading When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H Pink. The author says there a shelves full of How-to books, but his is a When-to book."

Interesting blurb & idea. I'll be interested in what you think & will look for it at my library. "

Jim - I recommend it. It's interesting and full of useful information, if you like scientific stuff. The first segment of chapter 3 should be required reading for school boards. A lot of the book applies to when you should do things if you are part of a team or a work group - which doesn't apply to my situation, but interesting nonetheless. I heard the audio book which is augmented by a PDF Time Hacker's Handbook

Ed wrote: "More good rocket news! Sort of..."

As it has became a sad joke here, the true reason of Soyuz failures can be summarized by this picture:

Humanoid robots have certainly come a long way. Just a few years ago, I was reading how tough it was to make one walk upright & jumping was out of the question. Now the Terminator doesn't seem too far off.
http://fortune.com/2018/10/12/boston-...

Oleksandr wrote: "As it has became a sad joke here, the true reason of Soyuz failures can be summarized by this picture:
"

Wow. That's scary.
:(

Jim wrote: "Humanoid robots have certainly come a long way. "

I agree but I hope for faster introduction of four-legged model because I assume it has a great potential not only for military [as originally intended] but for other civilian uses as well, especially helping people with disabilities.

I know what you mean. They tend to focus on completely different things. There is a 4 legged robot for armies that will carry gear over bad terrain while the nursing robots generally have wide, wheeled platforms & are more concerned with helping move patients. Some are transforming beds, while others just provide company, scheduling, & other electronic tasks. They don't concentrate on moving around an existing home, dealing with stairs & such. Still, the tech is moving fast. It probably won't be too long before they'll be able to do it all.

One of the big issues is the creep factor - the uncanny valley issue. Have you seen some of the attempts at androids? I'm not just talking about the sex dolls, either. Here's an article that shows some:
https://www.inverse.com/article/36745...

I think I'd rather have a robot helping me that looks like a robot. The sex dolls can get really creepy. The Harmony sex doll is mentioned at the end of the above article.
https://realbotix.com/
It's pretty wild how they can be customized. They're now offering an app so that you can program in conversations & such. They can't walk or even move much, but they started out as just sex devices in a silicone shell years ago. The whole idea is fascinating in a weird way. Are they a good thing for lonely, kinky people or do they feed something really ugly? People being what they are, probably some of each.

On Amazon, they sell 'parts' like torsos or heads in the 'Health & Personal Care' department. Some of the ads look like something you'd see at a horror movie crime scene of a serial killer's basement.

A company was trying to open a "adult love dolls rent before you buy service" in Houston, Texas. Sounds icky and unsanitary to me. The city council blocked it.