Google Wave

Wow, its already the first of November! I realized this morning that I hadn't blogged in nearly two months; its amazing how little time we have in a day.

To get started this November, I thought I would comment on my new preview version of Google Wave.

For those who do not know anything about Google's new communication software, here's a rundown. What Google basically did was go back and think of what email would be like if it were created today and not forty years ago; what they came up with is called Google wave. Essentially the software allows for instantaneous communication between people from games, to videos, blogs and documents. For example, in the next few months I will be able to blog by writing a "wave", which the name for each new "email". And when someone replies, the reply ends up in the wave. When I reply, it ends up on my blog and so on. Wave also allows a user to add someone to a wave and that person essentially gets two things; one full access to all previous information. This is unlike modern email where I would have to forward all of the emails which becomes a long, cumbersome list of information that I'm unsure anyone wants to look through. Second, the new invite to the "wave" is able to watch a playback of the wave as it formed so he/she knows exactly who said what when where how why.

So, excitingly I watched the intro video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6pgxLaDdQw) and thought of all the neat and fascinating things I could do with such an innovative tool and then promptly signed up for a preview version. Yesterday I was pleased to see my invite in my Gmail account. After a few minutes tinkering with it, learning the ropes and figuring out how the program actually works, I found myself wanting more.

Ok, so let's take a step back and look at the power of a future wave. Sure, the preview is nice even with its glitches, sometimes slow operation and quirks but who cares about the nitty gritty- thats up to the computer engineers at Google. What I care about is how wave can be used to improve our lives and work and how it can stretch our imaginations of the future. I came up with three things that Google wave could revolutionize:

First, Google wave could change the way academic writing works. Google docs and the new Windows Office Online may help to better online document communication but it has one major shortfall; its not in real time. Adobe tried this idea in their Adobe Buzzword but the need to have an Adobe account coupled with the lack of folders made the program difficult to use and not practical in the long run. Imagine being able to sit down anywhere in the world and writing a paper or preparing a presentation together without having to be in the same room. The effects are nearly limitless and could affect nearly every work/academic setting around.

Second, wave can improve the way offices communicate. Instead of sending out mass emails that are often lost or misplaced, the wave would allow for instant back communication with, not only the sender but whomever else you want to work with. This would enable the worker (whether in academics, science, engineering, business, etc.) to get his point to the correct people faster than ever before.

Finally, because wave allows developers to make new APIs, each wave could be filled with tools such as maps, images, videos and anything else that could improve communication and empower individuals to better there work environment and whatever they're working on. 

So, what are your thoughts? Do you think that Google wave has the potential to become a great tool for the early 21st century or will it go the way of Facebook; losing focus and aiming toward frivolous tools that only waste time?

Earth-Moon-Mars: How to get there?

Welcome September! Its amazing how quickly the summer passed us by but autumn is upon us and Sci-Phi will be moving into high gear over the next few weeks. For those who have been avidly reading our posts over the summer months, you will know that Sci-Phi has taken a turn toward space. Hey, its the International Year of Astronomy, the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 as well as a myriad of other space-related events! For the next few posts, we'll be looking closely at the future of space and how it should or even might affect our future. To begin our voyage I'd like to turn to the race to the moon or Mars. Should we go and if so how? These are the very questions asked by the Obama committee charged with reworking NASA's goals and plans and are very important when dealing with the future of humanity in space.

Since former US President, George W. Bush, proclaimed his intentions for a return to the Moon late in his first term, NASA has worked on its new Orion capsule and Ares I/V launch system. Although highly ambitious, the plans have evoked controversy from the public, Congress and even the scientific and engineering community. For starters, the rocket designed to take any future lunar explorers to the natural satellite has had engineering and physical problems that have threatened its viability from the start. It is up to the Obama adminstration to decide if the planned system should go forward or if NASA should look to the many alternatives. The problem continues in funding the ambitious project, which to the debt ridden US government is as appealing as sticking a burning stick in your eye.

Alternative solutions for funding come more from international cooperation than obtaining much-coveted congressional support. As I mentioned in a previous post on asteroid hunting, deals between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) help to close funding gaps and eliminate repeat experiment work. The problem is that its hard enough to get international support with robotic rovers let alone the setting up of an international base on another planetary body. In the end, its my opinion that we're left with two solutions that could even be merged to help move humanity further along in its space dreams.

The first solution involves using corporations like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences to manage low earth orbit (LEO). The problem is that until a non-government funded profit can be made from such launches, world space agencies like NASA or JAXA (Japan) will have to fund the work. The good news is that it helps to drive innovation and, because of competition, also drives down prices. The bad news is that the industry is still young and will need federal support for years to come.

The second option is to use the International Space Station (ISS) as a model for a future international voyage to the Moon, Mars or even asteroids. Once again, like the corporate model, the international space station model may become an international headache. The ISS is not an agency like NASA, ESA or JAXA but rather a collaboration of such agencies in the pursuit of a common goal. An international base on the Moon or Mars would require an offical agency for logistics and continued support for many more years than the ISS. Second, without such an agency, political infighting back here on Earth could strand future astronauts and scientists on a far away world with little to no support. We would need an international, non-partial agency to coordinate the launches, construction and supplies lines in order to secure not only the safety of the mission but of its most valued crew.

With such obstacles, it may seem as though we should not even try. Such an attitude, however only helps to fuel pessimism and nationalism, both enemies of space exploration. When the United States, in its nationalistic space race of the mid-20th century outperformed the USSR and beat them to the Moon, we lost interest and went back to our normal lives here on the planet. Such an attitute of indifference was protrayed by Tom Hanks in Apollo 13 when he was questioned by a Senator regarding the need to go back to the Moon after the US beat the USSR there and back. International efforts and continued competition between scientists and explorers is the better way that will keep interest alive for many additional years. And once a base is established anywhere in the solar system, the chances of turning back will fall dramatically. When the Europeans proved they could colonize the Americas by the mid-16th century the race was on to develop and expand their new empires. When humanity finally proves its worth outside our fragile atmosphere we will find it equally difficult to turn back and head home.

Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Full_Moon_Luc_Viatour.jpg

Congress's Biggest Mistake

By Joshua Adams and Brian Devine

Earth; 65 million years ago. Life, relatively stable for the past 100 million years was about to be shaken to its core. An asteroid, 6 miles long, hurtled through space on a collision orbit with Earth. The collision, releasing the energy equivalent of millions of tons of TNT, causing massive changes in climate altering the course of natural history forever. The impact is responsible for the rise of mammals and, subsequently the rise of humanity.

Fast forward 65 million years to 2004. Congress is briefed by NASA on the threats of of a collision from an interstellar object. In 2005 Congress told NASA to find all near-Earth objects below 140 meters in size. The problem; Congress never appropriated any funds to buy any new equipment or telescopes to actually find the asteroids. Wow, another brilliant idea from the Bush administration and the then Republican Congress. Now, NASA is looking for the funds from an increasingly skeptical public and Congress in a time when the national budget is already strained by a massive deficit and debt. Do we really want to look back on this time and shake our heads after such a disaster? Do we want this time to live in infamy for its lack of foresight and determination to avoid a disaster?

Solutions from the United States may not come soon enough to avoid a disaster. New research points to an increasing danger from near-Earth objects much smaller than the typically referenced 1 km in size or larger. More importantly to us is the threat that can loom in the darkness beyond the scope of our current observation. Of course, we are speaking of the recent impact of an object on Jupiter in July.

Amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley spotted a small dark spot near the giant planet's southern pole, the aftereffects of a massive impact from a large near-Jupiter object. Its importance transcends the fascination of an impact on the gas giant. Jupiter's collision with the object shows how in the dark we really are about asteroids and comets that may be on a collision course with other planets or even Earth. We never did see the impact coming and who says we'll find one heading for our home planet? One thing is clear, we need a solution and one that lies beyond the realm of just the United States. We need an international effort to search for such objects and develop the technology necessary to avoid an impact.

Such international endeavors may seem outside the ability of a world constantly in conflict until we reflect on recent space developments. The International Space Station was constructed and maintained by multiple space fairing nations, including the former rival to American space power, Russia. And recent news points to a partnership between NASA and the European Space agency or ESA for a Mars rover mission while Russia may be looking to work with NASA on a manned mission to Mars. These developments give us hope that an international solution to asteroid hunting will be found. The question is, will we have enough time?

Josh and Brian will post their own separate opinions on this subject tomorrow. In the meantime, what do you think? Do we have a chance of finding near-Earth objects or will we drop the ball like the US did with Hurricane Katrina? Will an international effort be mounted or will the US go it alone?

Image: http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/asteroid_earth_impact.jpg

The Power of Amateur Astronomy: Green Pea Galaxies and a Major Collison

Many of us remember those dark evenings, far away from the constant onslaught of the city lights when we could just look at the stars. Some, like myself had and still have telescopes to stare at the planets or nebulae sometimes hundreds of light years away. Others just stared at the night sky without any magnification, still in awe of the great expanse we call space. And yet, in all of our time spent staring at the stars we never could imagine that anything productive, scientifically productive could come from it---until now.

Late one night a few weeks back, I was sifting through my daily dose of science news when something rather interesting caught my eye. Our solar system's largest planet, Jupiter had been hit from what appeared to be an asteroid or comet. While that was big news to the astro-physics community, what followed in the article was, to me far more important. This major discovery was not first made by a high powered research station in Chile or Hawaii but rather by Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer from Murrumbateman, Australia. His full report can be found here. Amazing, someone outside of the academic world had made a major scientific discovery and even made the news in the Journal Science's magazine, ScienceNow.

A week later, I was reading an article featured on Space.com on a new form of galaxy that had been discovered. Called Green Pea Galaxies they are named for being 10 times smaller and 100 times less massive than our Milky Way. Once again, it was not the discovery that was most interesting but by whom it was actually made. The discovery was made through an online program called Galaxy Zoo that allows amateurs who like science to help classify countless galaxies based on a few simple rules. Those answers are then added to the program's ever growing database where they are accessible for future academic and non-academic research. According to Space.com's article on the event, a number of participants started an online forum discussing some of their findings. This prodded the programs' operators to investigate and in the end a new type of galaxy had been discovered.

So, what to take from these two excellent examples of amateur science. There are probably many ways to analyze the results and usefulness of such work but I would categorize it in two ways. First, this disturbs the widely held belief that only PhDs in science can actually do science. It does not remove the need for the PhD but should make us think of its role in science. I myself am going for an MD/PhD and would never want the title to become meaningless but it is this author's belief that if science is going to penetrate all of society, we must be willing to allow non-professionals to make some discoveries of their own while PhDs can lead the way to publication and theorizing new and far more complex science (see nanomedicine anyone?). As the digital age advances through the next decade we will see many more of these discoveries made by amateurs and we must be willing to accept them if we are to see science reach its true, great potential.

Second, Carolin Cardamone, the lead author of a paper detailing the Galaxy Zoo discovery commented that one person could not have made the discovery. With the internet becoming a major portion of many people's lives, not just in the west but all over the world, the power of many eyes and minds will increasingly be put to use in helping to advance knowledge and science. Just as amateur scientists in non-wet lab situations (Sorry amateur geneticists...that is still solely my job) will increase scientific knowledge, so will the greater and ever increasing number of them in the next decade of the 21st century.

So, what are your thoughts? Do amateur scientists have a chance or will they be drowned out by the academic community? If they are drowned out, is it the right thing to do? Will that community of academics provide the necessary support for such work or will it try to stifle it? These are important questions as the next decade progresses and their answers may help to define the future of science.

Image: http://jupiter.samba.org/jupiter-impact.html

Aha, so thats why I enjoy reading...

The cup was rounded at the top with a gleaming gold brim and the drink sparkled inside like water on a clam lake as the sun sets behind a hill. "Julian, Julian..." I heard my name being called from the distance, in a slightly muffled voice like one coming from a bad speaker in the next room. I slowly rose from my stupor and glanced around me. Four men were sitting, filling the room with a light haze of cigar smoke while another lite the countless candles placed around the room.

When I first starting reading Harry Potter many years just a few years after the Philosopher's, or Sorcerer's Stone was released, I joined an ever growing chorus of fans, eager to know more about Rowling's magical world. A few years ago, while visiting friends and family in Germany, I started reading Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day, I noticed that I could imagine the world portrayed as though I was actually standing there. Just like the introduction to this post, the world seemed so vivid, so real and I couldn't simply put the book down. I wanted to know what was going to happen next. In my own stab at literature, many questions abound but one thing remains clear, for many of us, we can imagine the world I created and it seems, at least to me, real.

We've all had the experience of being immersed into a fictional, or even non-fictional world presented to us in a work of literature. The works of JRR Tolkien are, even after Peter Jackson's epic films, amazing to read. I thought, as did much of the world, for years that our ability to become immersed in such world was because of details. We knew that simple words could cause motor regions of the brain to activate but didn't know if such interactions continued into long, sometimes highly detailed paragraphs and phrases. Now, psychologists think they have the answer and its a rather interesting one.

According to research by Jeffrey Zacks at Washington University in St. Louis, general regions of the brain associated with certain feelings and actions are activated when reading associated passages from even a simple story. This seems to fly in the face of the idea that it is the heavy detail of praised novels that cause such feelings of immersion. Its defiantly an interesting one, but I still have many questions that I hope scientists will try and investigate.

First, if only general regions of the brain are activated, then are there other factors involved in the feeling. Second, are these now unknown factors responsible for some readers having a hard time getting into books like Harry Potter? Its amazing to me to hear of people who seem to find the book hard to understand or even boring and such research helps to shed some light on our questions but defiantly does not provide the final answer.

When I first started reading Neil deGrasse Tyson's book Death by Black Hole two months ago, I noticed how I could imagine the world he portrayed even though it spoke of black holes and quantum mechanics. Tyson has long had the skill to make science accessible to all readers, from scientists like myself to laymen and amateurs but does his and other's somewhat unique skill to captivate audiences by their descriptions further complicate the situation? Is it just our brains, or does the writing style of the writer play a major difference in the ability to immerse a reader in a fictional world? Or is it a combination of the two? Finally, could there be one more factor, peer pressure? Harry Potter's ascension to the top of the New York Times best seller list was not done with just a few readers. Millions of people worldwide have shared in the common experience of the story and millions more will in the coming decades as parents pass the stories down to their children.

We have much to do to find the long sought after answers to the questions of why we get so attached to our books but this new research goes a long way in not only helping to answer the questions but ask a few more for the taking.

What are you thoughts? Are my questions valid or the product of a mind after too much caffeine and too little sleep?

Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Old_book_bindings.jpg

40 Years On and the Question Remains---Should we go Back?

Forty years ago yesterday, Apollo 11 and her crew of Neil Armstrong, Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins made human history when they landed on Luna, oh sorry I mean "The Moon". Forty years later, NASA's budget is being strained, questions abound on the future of humanity in space and commercial enterprises are fighting to start a new era in space travel (See Space American Breaks Ground in New Mexico). So, this author asks the vital question, "Should we go Back?" and answers simply, "YES".

Humans, I believe are born to explore. From our origins as a species we yearned to explain the unknown and, when that wasn't enough, actually attempt to go there. Space is no different and, while it is not as Star Trek once coined, "The final frontier", it is the next logical step in our development. But before we go, we must answer to an increasingly skeptical public why its worth the risk and the cost when we have so many problems to deal with here on the planet's surface.

These questions are not fool hardy and require deep thought before giving a response. When I tell people my goals of not just being a scientist and physician but also working for NASA, they get a quizical look and remark, "Why...there's nothing up there". Well, there they are obviously wrong but no matter how hard I try, I cannot convince them. They accept what I'm doing, at least to show support but find it hard to justify spending billions just to "explore" and "do science". The answers are not easy. Sure, we can tell people that the T-Cast system that stops their Boeing 747 from crashing into another one was developed by the Shuttle program, but how many people can actually connect to that? That's where the problem lies, the technology is hidden from view.

So, how do we explain it? Well, I have two answers and, as always am glad to start a discussion on them and others that you may have...hopefully they'll even trump mine! The first answer comes from the famous film, Apollo 13, depicting the near catastrophic events that ended the mission's trip to the moon. Near the beginning of the film, Jim Lovell played by Tom Hanks, is discussing the upcoming Apollo 13 mission with a group of U.S. Senators when he's posed the very same question we're posed now, "Why spend all this money on the space program when we've already gone to the moon?". The question was aimed at the fact that the United States had already beaten the Soviet Union to the moon so why go back? Lovell's answer is one of the best in my book and goes something like this in the film, "What if no one followed Columbus back?". Brilliant, even if it turns out to be pure fiction. We never know what the future holds for each and every one of us so turning our back on space may cost us a life we can't even dream of now.

The second answer comes from the recently departed broadcasting legend, Walter Cronkite. In an interview in the 1990s, Cronkite was asked about his near euphoric attitude when it came to space. His response speaks volumes on the power of space and science in general. He sums his experience up by saying that, in all the horror and bloodshed of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the space program brought a sense of hope and optimism into American and world homes in a way not seen since the late 19th century. Maybe its Cronkite's view that holds for us now; stop thinking that the world is going to blow up tomorrow and start thinking about our future, our future among the stars.

Whatever the answer is, one thing is clear we must NOT abandon our journey to space. Humanity owes itself the treat of traveling amongst the stars and whether we start with a base on the Moon or Mars we must press onward and never waver. We already had one great leap, so lets go and have our blast off to a new and brighter future for "man kind".

Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Apollo_11_insignia.png

Gournia

On June 29th, I left Buffalo, New York to partake a dig in Crete. A little background on Gournia, Gournia is an ancient Minoan site which oversees the vast landscape as well as an ancient harbor. The site dates to about 1500 BC right around the height of the Minoans. The Minoans were an ancient civilization who prospered on the island of Crete. The Minoans flourished for a great period of time as Crete, was known for its great ports. The astonishing thing about this, is until Gournia, it was believed that because of their powerful navy, and natural land barrier (Crete is an island) the Minoans never had to build any fortification walls. This all changed when the port area of Gournia was excavated.

Gournia was excavated in the early 1900’s by a gal named Harriet Boyd. Boyd focused on mainly the central site, which is located on a hill. Insert picture This site has a central palace located on the very top, around the palace it has surrounding houses. The palace overlooks the harbor in which my team is excavating. The harbor is very interesting because it is built during two time periods. The first time period dates to when the palace was actually built, now if you look closely the whole part you see is an add on, which was built in the 1300’s. This extension was built around the time in which the Minoans were dealing with a great catastrophe, the biggest earthquake in history erupted on the island of Thera, which resulted in a Tsunami (About 60 feet high) hitting the island of Crete. This devastated the Minoans so greatly that they never really recovered.

While excavating, my team found a portion of a wall that connected two of the natural harbors.This wall may lead to a rewriting of the history books. This wall seems to resemble a fortification wall which would be absolutely astonishing. The Minoans were thought to be peaceful and have a superb navy, if this turns out to be a fortification wall, then our whole perspective of this ancient race would absolutely change. More on this in a couple days.

STEM: Connecting Science, Math and Technology

A few weeks ago, I was listening to Science Magazine's weekly podcast, ScienceNow and they mentioned an initiative that I had never heard of before: STEM. STEM, or Science, Technology, Engineering and Math is a proposed series of core subjects that many in the education realm of science are proposing as a way to encourage more students to enter the fields of science and engineering and help drive our world forward.

I started thinking back to my days in elementary, middle and high school when we dealt with math and science and noticed something that STEM, although a great idea, leaves out; connecting math with science. In today's world, you can't even understand how to run QPCR, something thousands of other scientists and I use to search for genetic markers and protein expression, without using math to perform the dilutions and yet thinking back I never associated math with science before taking calculus. Could this be one of the fundamental flaws of our modern educational system? If students in science do not believe they need math to succeed they may wait until its far too late to try and understand mathematics and, in turn may leave the field for less math-based careers.

In the United States, everyone learns from a young age the connection between math and business. Early on, especially in the first few years of grade school, many math problems deal with currency and its values. When learning multiplication and division, many of the problems I was confronted with in those iconic colored workbooks of second and third grade dealt with money and its uses. Very few, if any dealt with science.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we start introducing our second graders to Newton's second law, F=ma, but why not lay the groundwork. Its this author's opinion that having kids add up or multiply things from the scientific world---space shuttles or trees, maybe even a cell or two, may bridge the gap between the two academic disciplines. That way, when they're ready for high school and college, they can approach science in an entirely new way, one that combines math and science from the start. Think of the possibilities; being able to offer math courses that, when explaining that theta=arc length/radius we can bring in the fact that this is part of the calculations regarding pendulums, something every school child has seen at least once in a museum.

We definitely need to do something. In my first two years at the University at Buffalo, I have seen many intelligent people pull out of science simply because they couldn't handle the math in general chemistry. Is it because, as we've been saying for years, they aren't "math people" or could it be they never connected math and science thus leaving people interested in science but woefully unprepared for the mathematics involved? This entire scenario reminds me of a story one of my history teachers from high school once told me. Some ten years after he started teaching, he noticed that his students, while well versed in the history of early modern Europe, were doing rather poorly on his exams. The culprit; the students, while intelligent and fond of history and its relationship with the present and future, had little to no writing skills. Those skills had been detached from history for so long that many kids simply could not find the connection between writing for an English class and their passion for history. Because of this overlook, when I was in eighth grade, although our class was already proficient in writing, we were instructed on essay writing in my American history class. History filled its own gap---the question now is, will math and science do the same?

Follow Up: What are your opinions on the dilemma and what is the situation like in other countries?

Greetings from Crete!

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to let everyone know for the next three weeks I will be in Heraklion, Crete. I will be going on an archaeological dig and hopefully I will be able to keep you guys posted almost every day on my travels. I will upload all of the pictures on the blog so you will all see how beautiful Greece actually is.

Brian

Spaceport America Breaks Ground in New Mexico

Two days ago I was sifting through my ever expanding Google Reader (RSS feed) and scanned for any interesting articles from the world of science that day. Most topics were interesting but nothing to jump up and down about until I read "Work Starts on US Spaceport". Intrigued I went to the BBC page and read on. I had heard about this project a few years ago but doubted it would ever get started. I mean, how many times before have we heard about a building commercial access to space and knowing that nothing will ever come through on it. Well, not this time.

Some of you will remember the Ansari X Prize in Space that launched Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne in 2004. Now putting the finishing touches on two SpaceShipTwo spacecraft, Enterprise and Voyager (named for both Star Trek and the Space Shuttles of the same name) the company is expected to base it operations at the so-named Spaceport America in southern New Mexico.

Ok, so here's whats happening. Over the past few years, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico and several corporate groups have lobbied to build the world's first commercial spaceport from the ground up. Not only were they successful in gaining industry support, they even got voters to approve tax increases to fund the project! Someone from Washington should go talk to those guys the next time they approve a stimulus package! The project aims to build from the ground up, with a world class design for the spaceport, both vertical and horizontal launch sites that can accommodate rockets and space planes and of course room for expansion. It's also interesting to note that starting in the mid-second decade of the 21st century, the X Prize suborbital competitions will be held exclusively at the site.1

Ok, so this is all great but what about the future? We know it will place the U.S. and New Mexico at the forefront of commercial space travel and may spark new interest in space as an engine of economic and scientific growth. What we don't know is where this particular project will lead to exactly. Its fine to say it will spark "growth" but what kind? Do we want to encourage new and cheaper satellite launches? If so, we need to think about an international LEO (Low Earth Orbit) traffic control. If we want to build orbiting commercial and government stations that far outstrip the International Space Station (ISS) then we need to focus on craft that can dock easily without pilot commands. Or, do we and the industry want to look farther. Do we want to prepare for human flight by running biological and medical research in space and on the ground? Will this lead to new marketable products or will it need government grants? Finally, and I know this is out there, but are firms thinking about the potential of mining mineral rich asteroids or do we want to explore that later this century?

What are your opinions? Are my questions valid or do they escape the purpose of this project? Finally, what have I missed? What should the goal of this station be? These questions must be asked as we move into a new era of spaceflight.

1. http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/051007_xprize_cup_update.html

Picture: http://62mileclub.com/62mileblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/insidespaceportterminal-web.jpg