The Science Thread

[Louanne Learning]

This thread is for a broad discussion of all science-related topics.

Post about a new discovery or technology (or old ones for that matter), or a question you have.

Read something interesting from the scientific world? Please post it here.

Feel free to use posted content to inspire your writing!

 

[Louanne Learning]

This was my last entry into The Science Thread at the old site:

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

― Carl Sagan, Cosmos


He’s talking about the interconnectedness of all things.

Even if you are “starting from scratch” – you need your basic ingredients.

It kind of reminds me, too, of how science works, with increased knowledge being built on knowledge that has come before.

Many believe that Isaac Newton was the greatest scientific mind that has ever lived, and he said:

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

― Isaac Newton, The Correspondence of Isaac Newton: Volume 5, 1709–1713

 

[Louanne Learning]

There’s always been a lot of curiosity about what goes on in the minds of (non-human) animals.

Is language the window into the mind? AI researchers and biologists hope so. They are using AI to reveal information about animal communication.

For example, AI has been used to show that sperm whales have a “phonetic alphabet” from which they construct complex communications (a dictionary of whale sounds is being compiled).

AI’s power lies in “its ability to recognize, parse and replicate patterns” - and language is very patterned.

Perhaps the broadest of these research programs is the Earth Species Project, which uses large language models, the same kinds of AI tools that power ChatGPT, applied to animal communications. Earth Species Project scientists hope that such models can ingest communication signals from other species, learn to find patterns and perhaps meaning, and convey that understanding back to humans.

In the future, quite possibly, we will be able to answer philosopher Thomas Nagel’s famous question: What is it like to be a bat?

Nagel wrote about an animal’s umwelt – its “specific experience of the world, informed by its senses and brains, and inaccessible to other animals.”

Inaccessible? Maybe not.

AI Could Help Humans Understand Animals​

 

[Louanne Learning]

information about animal communication.

I've always liked the videos of dogs saying "I love you."

 

[Naja Noir]

I would love to understand animals, I wonder if they would want us to though? Perhaps there's a few that wouldn't. Interesting nonetheless.


This is the most recent article I was reading. Time has always fascinated me. I love it. I hate it. I dont understand it the way I long to. But it rides roughshod over us no matter.

We won't be taking a ride back to the future because of time mirrors, but I think they'll show us more about the universe, ourselves even, than we can have imagined.

Physicists confirm the incredible existence of 'time mirrors'

 

[Zmar]

There’s always been a lot of curiosity about what goes on in the minds of (non-human) animals.

Is language the window into the mind? AI researchers and biologists hope so. They are using AI to reveal information about animal communication.

For example, AI has been used to show that sperm whales have a “phonetic alphabet” from which they construct complex communications (a dictionary of whale sounds is being compiled).

AI’s power lies in “its ability to recognize, parse and replicate patterns” - and language is very patterned.




In the future, quite possibly, we will be able to answer philosopher Thomas Nagel’s famous question: What is it like to be a bat?

Nagel wrote about an animal’s umwelt – its “specific experience of the world, informed by its senses and brains, and inaccessible to other animals.”

Inaccessible? Maybe not.

AI Could Help Humans Understand Animals​

It's truly exciting. The simple fact that I can say, without appearing wholly deranged, that it is possible that I will be able to have an actual verbal conversation with a non-human animal in the near future.

Many of us have obviously got complex communications and relationships with non-humans, but to go beyond that will be... eye opening. Possibly horrific, too.

I'd love to have a proper conversation with my longstanding animal friend, but I'm worried that I wouldn't like the things I might hear! Hopefully he'll live to see the technological singularity, though!

Note - The Earth Species Project was the inspiration for my entry into the last month's flash competition on the old site.

 

[DLC]

I used to write about boring things like carbon cycles and nutrient displacement.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Time has always fascinated me

Me, too.

Einstein said, "the distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion".

The idea that time is an illusion is a difficult concept for me to grasp. It seems that all of time is stored in the present, and the present inevitably becomes the future. I've got memories from long ago, stored in my mind. I'm going swimming in a little while. Past and future.

A book that did wonders for me when I was going through a hard time is The Power of Now, by Eckart Tolle. The basic premise is that there is only the present. But I think that's more of a coping mechanism that a reflection of reality?

So, from a man of science, and from a man of spirituality - that there is only the "now" -

But then there's the idea that we know time is passing, since the entropy of the universe is increasing.

 

[Louanne Learning]

The Earth Species Project was the inspiration for my entry into the last month's flash competition on the old site.

That's wonderful to hear!

 

[Louanne Learning]

I used to write about boring things like carbon cycles and nutrient displacement.

Doesn't sound boring to me. Was it for your job?

 

[DLC]

Doesn't sound boring to me. Was it for your job?

I sure as shit didn't do it for fun.

 

[Louanne Learning]

I sure as shit didn't do it for fun.

It was a science-based job? Please tell us about it!

 

[DLC]

Environmental science. A eats B who eats C that shits at point X, causing plant 1, which is C's food, to grow, but should A eat too much of B due to excessive inputs of runoff horsey poo, Weedo 5000, Bug spray, superphosphate and so forth, C gets too rowdy, until the numbers of plant 1 go south and potato. Which of course leads to the question - do we have a chemical for that? Australia is awesome.
Anyhow, this was grossly simplified. I haven't done it for years. So yeah, animals, plants, the big picture. They say nature isn't cruel or kind, just indifferent, and at a constant state of war and yeah, that sums it up. The war for nutrients and Mr Sun, and meat.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

Environmental science. A eats B who eats C that shits at point X, causing plant 1, which is C's food, to grow, but should A eat too much of B due to excessive inputs of runoff horsey poo, Weedo 5000, Bug spray, superphosphate and so forth, C gets too rowdy, until the numbers of plant 1 go south and potato. Which of course leads to the question - do we have a chemical for that? Australia is awesome.
Anyhow, this was grossly simplified. I haven't done it for years. So yeah, animals, plants, the big picture. They say nature isn't cruel or kind, just indifferent, and at a constant state of war and yeah, that sums it up. The war for nutrients and Mr Sun, and meat.

So, a fellow social worker?

 

[Louanne Learning]

Environmental science.

I am a retired high school science teacher. Mostly, I taught grade 11 biology, but I also I had the pleasure of teaching the locally developed grade 9 science class (for students with learning disabilities) and their absolute favourite activity was the ecosystem in a jar - something like in the pic below - with Elodea, snails and fish.

 

[DLC]

Yeah, so many of those. Not sure that plant of yours would be welcome here.

 

[DLC]

Let me tell you about wombats. Yes, they actually do have squarish stools, and their burrows are extensive, which was a problem when the old man went over one with a tractor, causing them to collapse and getting him stuck. Yeah, he weren't a fan. If you go inside these burrows, they'll charge you and try to get under you and push you against the burrow's roof, and wait til you die from asphyxiation. They bite. Their bites, unlike their stools, are perfectly circular. Ok, they bite, scratch and want you dead or to go away; nothing unusual. Now there was a wombat man who studied wombats who took a special interest in our area, which bordered the Wollemi National Park. This bloke would go down their holes with a garbage can lid held in front of him so it doesn't fuck him up. So we got to talking.
In short, our wombats were very aggressive; they'd chase you a bit if you surprised them, where in most places they usually trundle off all nonchalant. This is because there's wild dogs all over. They're not dingoes, they're escaped hunting dogs, farm dogs, whatever. They've kind of evolved into superdogs, they're smarter and tougher than domestic dogs, due to the fact if they can't think, they don't eat, unlike Fido over there. They look kinda like a cross between a German Shepherd and a kelpie, sort of, bit like a wolf but with shorter legs. So it's the dogs harassing them that turned the wombats nasty. Oh, yeah. If wombat man saw one going somewhere, he'd shoot it with a .22, bouncing it off the top of it's skull. A .22 won't go thru, so long as you get the angle right. This would stun poor Mr Wombat long enough for him to tag it and take a blood sample, and the thing would wake after a minute or two and stagger off with a band-aid on it's head. Some science is pretty metal.

 

[Louanne Learning]

@DLC - thanks so much for sharing that story!

We don't have wombats in Canada, but they are pretty cute!

 

[Louanne Learning]

Here’s some recent science about another animal from Australia - zebra finches

(From a Nautilus article I got in my inbox this morning.)

Male baby zebra finches spend hours and hours learning how to sing, even repeating their warbles up to 10,000 times a day.

Researchers wondered what drove the devotion to this self-learning – and found their answer: dopamine.

What they found is that dopamine levels in the baby birds’ brains closely matched the birds’ performance of the song, suggesting it plays a central role in the learning process.

The findings of the two studies could give scientists insights into not just self-driven learning but also Parkinson’s disease, obsessive compulsive disorder, and substance use disorder, which all seem to be driven by a faulty intrinsic reward system, says Gadagkar. “This study directly connects dopamine with the learning and performance of a natural behavior which may in the future provide insights for how to treat these kinds of diseases,” he says.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Just a tidbit for those writing of people existing at high altitudes. Have them inhaling Xenon gas.

These Climbers Summited Mount Everest in Record Time. Did Inhaling Xenon Help?​

British climbers recently reached the top of Mount Everest in record time. They inhaled xenon gas before the trip.