Optimus Waffle

Anti-Speed Camera Device

2010-03-31T13:10:00.006+01:00

Last week a colleague and I headed up to Windermere in the English Lake District to do some fieldwork for a paper we're busily scribbling away at. Despite it being March and the weather being a touch questionable, it was, none-the-less, extremely beautiful:

Anyway, during the long (6 hour) drive we (as generally happens during long drives on British roads these days) touched upon the subject of speed cameras, bane of the motorist. Now, before I begin, let me just be clear, I'm not a raving loony (well, depends on who you ask I suppose) who wants to go tearing round the countryside at 100 miles an hour. It does, however, nark me when we go through miles of road works with 50 mph average speed cameras and see not a single soul working on them.

We mumbled away about how easy it would be to make an anti-speed camera device, in the end coming to a quite surprising solution. Our thought process was basically this:

Speed cameras work using the Doppler Effect; by looking at the apparent frequency shift of a known pulse after it has been reflected off the moving vehicle (see below). In order to prevent said speed camera from catching you, you require some way of scrambling or cancelling this reflected signal. The optimal way of doing this is to emit a phase inverted (upside down) version of this reflected signal. Now, the signal being reflected back to the speed camera is itself the phase inverted version of the original signal emitted by the speed camera as a result of the reflection process.So, the easiest way of making yourself an anti-speed camera device is to steal a speed camera and mount it (discretely, of course) on your car...

The Happyness Scale

2010-03-02T16:21:00.002Z

Haven't posted anything in a while, so thought it was about time I pulled on my blogging mittens and got typing again. As an easy intro I thought I'd post the little figure below, which kinda developed out of a discussion we were having the other day when I was accused of being a tea-centric being. Have to admit, they're probably correct...

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

2009-09-06T11:23:00.005+01:00

When I heard this book was being released in the US my envy knew no bounds. It was all I could do to restrain myself from spending a small fortune importing a copy. And I didn't even have a work-related jolly I could use as an excuse to visit the US and purchase my very own. Subsequently, as is the way of things when you have mind as small as mine, the undoubted delights of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies got pushed further back in my cerebrum, being overtaken by newer, shinier exciting things.

So, imagine my delight when tearing open my birthday presents a few weeks ago I was confronted by a zombified Georgian Lady. Lets face it, any book that starts with the immortal line 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains', is gonna rock! Let me tell you, this book does not disappoint!

This modern adaption of Jane Austen's classic by Seth Grahame-Smith remains startlingly faithful to the original text. Grahame-Smith elegantly twists the storyline in a marvel of storytelling. The characters, from the headstrong Elizabeth to the arrogant Mr Darcy or the prattling Mrs Bennett, are exactly as Austen originally wrote them, it just so happens the world in which they inhabit is also populated by the 'sorry stricken' who potter round hunting for more brains and generally causing all kinds of mischief. The way zombies, ninja's, and all manner of other things you'd never expect to see in a Jane Austen novel, are worked into the text is done so with incredible dexterity. For example:

"His misfortunes!" repeated Darcy contemptuously; "Yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed." With this, he swept her feet from beneath her and sprang to his own. Elizabeth was too quick to allow him the advantage, for she was soon upright and swinging the poker at him with renewed vigor.

This book has jumped straight into my must read list. The idea of throwing zombies at a Jane Austen novel is brilliant in it's own right, but when it is done in such a careful and thorough manner the end result is a wonder to behold. Everyone, and I mean everyone, should read this.

Lions Loose in Yorkshire

2009-07-31T19:14:00.003+01:00

The other day I came across a brilliant reader's letter in the paper Look Local, published weekly near Sheffield. The said letter quoted an article from 1891 describing the events that occurred when a traveling circus of wild and wonderful beasts had a few problems with the lion's wagon.

Here is the letter transcribed in full:

EXCITING SCENE NEAR OUGHTIBRIDGE

A CAGE OF LIONS OVERTURNED

TWO CHILDREN INJURED

“The quiet valley in which the hamlet of Wharncliffe Side is situated, was yesterday the scene of a series of exciting incidents. The collection of animals known as Day’s Menagerie was at the Holmfirth Feast during the early part of the week; and on Thursday [May 14^th 1891] it set out for the Sheffield Fair. In consequence of a slight mishap on the road, however, they only reached Deepcar, where they remained until early yesterday, when they resumed their journey. Soon after six o’clock in the morning the fourteen vans containing the animals, and a number of camels following on foot, entered Wharncliffe Side. As they were passing down the road there the thread upon the bolts fastening one of the axle arms to the van containing the lions, gave way, and after oscillating for a few seconds, the van rolled over on its side with a loud crash. Fortunately no persons were walking by the side of the van at the time or they would certainly have been crushed to death.

Wallace, Hannibal, and Tyrant, three large lions, which were the occupants of the van, naturally became much alarmed, and one of them tore away the grating, which when the van is in the proper position is on the top. Now that the van had fallen the grating was at the side, and the lion, after removing it, put his head out and made the surrounding hills echo with his roar. The other lions joined in the cry, and were answered by the howls and yells of the bears, tigers, wolves and other animals in the remaining vans. Mr John Daniel Day, one of the proprietors, at once gave the lion a stroke with the butt end of a whip stock, and having by this means prevailed upon him to withdraw his head, he promptly nailed a board over the opening.

It was not long before the inhabitants of the neighbouring houses, and especially the children, gathered round the van, and Police-sergeant Hobson proceeded to the place to render assistance. A number of horses attached to milk carts were passing at the time, and the former, partly in consequence of the roaring of the animals, but chiefly at the sight of the camels, became very restive.

Mrs Wragg of Brightholmelee, was proceeding to Sheffield in her milk cart, when the horse bolted, and she jumped out; and while Sergeant Hobson and a number of other men went to secure the horse, Mr Joseph Wood, whose father bears the same name and keeps a farm at Onesacre, was leading his horse past the place, it broke away upon seeing the camels, and rushed through the crowd, knocking down three girls. It then leaped over a wall into a field, when one of the shafts and most of the harness broke; the cart remaining in the road. The horse was cut but not permanently harmed.

One of the girls was not hurt, but the other two received rather severe injuries. One of the injured children is Clara Micklethwaite, ten years of age, daughter of Benjamin Micklethwaite, a rasp cutter, who lives at Wharncliffe Side. When the horse sprang into the field she was wedged between the cart and the wall. She was rendered insensible, but recovered consciousness upon being taken home. The name of the other girl is Alice Hawley. She is eleven years of age and is the daughter of Arthur Hawley, who lives at Wharncliffe Side and is employed at the paper mill there. She was knocked down by the horse, but fortunately the wheels of the cart did not pass over her.

Both girls were attended by an assistant of Mr. Browning, surgeon, Oughtibridge, who found them suffering from bruises, but neither of them had sustained broken bones. Micklethwaite also suffers from internal injuries, but it is not expected that they will terminate fatally. About four years ago Hawley was an inmate of the Infirmary in consequence of her having received a very severe kick in the face from a horse.

Another horse which took fright at the camels was that of Mr [John?] Walker, of Eaton House, near Brightholmelee, but no accident resulted. After some difficulty Mr Wood’s horse was caught, and by borrowing another cart he was able to complete his journey. Meanwhile the services of Mr. Thomas Walker, the village blacksmith had been obtained for the purpose of mending the defective bolts, and he accomplished his task with such promptitude that the menagerie was soon able to proceed, and the Sheffield Fair Ground was reached without further mishap”.

I love the idea of a circus of wild beasts traveling round Yorkshire from one country fair to the next. To us, today, the thought of seeing lions and tigers in the flesh (well, fur I suppose) might not seem particularly exciting. But, to people in the late 19th Century, who didn't have the constant exposure to such things that TV and the internet grants us, this would have been an incredible sight. It is easy to see why the local fair became such a central part of rural life.

Furry Little Friend...

2009-07-31T16:49:00.003+01:00

Rather random (and short) post this one, but was so pleased with the end result I just had to.

For months now, my parents have been telling me about this little field mouse that comes and eats bird seed from a feeder near their back door every morning. So, this morning, having an hour or so to kill, I camped out with my camera...

Isn't he/she just adorable!

Blood: The Last Vampire

2009-07-01T19:25:00.005+01:00

Last night I went to see the newly released film Blood: The Last Vampire. A live action adaptation of the original anime short of the same name from 2000.

This is the latest in a series of reimaginings, sequels, and adaptations that have emerged since the award winning original. These have been of mixed quality: the manga sequel Blood: The Last Vampire 2000 (or 2002 as it was for the Western release) was pretty darn dreadful; while the anime reimagining, Blood+, was a truly breathtaking success. Part of the problem for this stream of additions to the fanchise is living up to the masterpiece that was the original. Although short, and not having a particularly challenging storyline, it mixes a gloriously captivating kernel idea with intreguing characters and mesmerisingly beautiful animation. I was blown away for the entire 48 minutes of runtime the first time I saw it (and have been ever since, to be honest).

With this in mind I was naturally quite nervous when I went to see this latest offering. However, I need not have been. Although it can't live up to the originality (by definition it never was) and stunning beauty of the original, it is a thoroughly enjoyable romp of a film that also contributes something meaningful to the franchise. While (as with everything else so far) the storyline won't trouble those little grey cells overly, the action is pretty much non-stop and heavily stylized in a manner that excellently suites the feel of the film. Additionally, for anyone who's watched or read anything else in the series, it also fleshes out some more of the myth behind Blood.

My one gripe would be the CGI, which at times is god awful. In the modern film and TV industries I don't think there is an excuse for having poor CGI. My take has always been; do it good, or don't do it at all. I just wish Chris Nahon would have stuck to that adage.

Otherwise, if you're a fan of the original I think it's well worth seeing. If you haven't seen the original, you could do far worse than choose this as your introduction to the franchise, just make sure you check out the original and Blood+ afterwards.

A Walk Around Britain

2009-06-26T11:45:00.005+01:00

I actually stumbled across these guys a while ago, and have been meaning to write some incomprehensible mumblings about them for ages. However, what with the thesis reaching its inevitable conclusion I haven't been doing a great deal of anything except typing furiously into a LaTeX document! Now that the beast is finally finished I have time to waste, so there should be many more comments appearing on this wee collection of random drivel in the near future.

Walk Around Britain is a little jaunt being undertaken by three brave souls: Ed; Will; and Ginger. These three minstral are spending their time hiking around Britain, literarly singing for their supper. The idea, as I understand it, is very simple: to travel the length and breadth of the land with nothing but the clothes in their packs, a good solid walking stick, and an ability to turn a tune.

To quote the men themselves:

'A Walk Around Britain' is not a project, nor a grand plan, or any kind of national event. It is some people who are walking around, and learning in the oldest and most intensive way known, on a simple footbound journey.

The journey started back in 2004 when they followed the Pilgrim's Way from Winchester to Canterbury. Out of this simple exploration of an age-old path that has been trodden by hundreds of thousands of feet, the grander undertaking occupying them today has grown. Starting in February of this year near Canterbury, they have presently covered much of southern England, learning all manner of songs and stories along the way. At present, according to the website, they are in Wales, aiming to spend the summer slowing making their way northwards through the Lake District and Yorkshire, until they finally finish up in Scotland, just in time for winter. The last bit may sound like madness (it certainly doesn't sound like my kind of fun), but they are planning on constructing their very own roundhouse within which they will spend the winter. Then, with the bluebells of springtime, they plan to be up and off again for another year of walking and singing.

I love the idea of this. Particularly from the point of view of the simplicity and freedom of simply wandering wherever your feet take you. So much of our lives today are driven by the tightly controlled schedules imposed upon us, either by ourselves or others, that this freedom to wander is a welcome breath of fresh air, and might serve as a reminder of just how irrelevant the lack of shredded marmalade in the supermarket (or whatever) really is.

I also think there is another, more culturally important part of what Ed, Will, and Ginger are doing. Britain undoubtedly represents a treasure trove of information on the history of the human race. Archaeologists and historians have been able to reconstruct the settlements, industry, and battles from remnants left behind by the people of these islands over more than 3000 years. However, the culture of these people is very poorly understood. With the rapid advance of modern technology (such as this very blog), however, the traditional ways of recording the culture have equally rapidly dwindled away. Hopefully, through the book(s), cd(s), and other chronicles of their adventures, at least a part of this cultural record might survive a little bit longer.

Geoengineering

2009-04-29T15:27:00.002+01:00

Today a very good article was published in the Guardian newspaper on this most emotive of subjects.

The Climate Engineers - John Shepherd

Personally I'm not a big fan of the idea of geoengineering. A lot of the ideas being bounced around (such as carbon sequestration) are short term fixes to what is clearly a long term problem. Equally, a lot of these methods are likely to have side effects that we don't fully understand, since the vast majority of them involve manipulating extremely complex ecosystems (e.g., ocean fertilization). If there is one thing we really have to learn is that we cannot mess with existing ecologies and expect to get away with it scot free. For example, look at the way Austalia and New Zealand have been forever changed by the introduction of European species by western settlers.

Although John's article does not go into the particulars of the subject, it is encouraging to know that the Royal Society has decided to do something about this. It is also encouraging to hear that John will be chairing the committee. Although I cannot claim to know him well, our paths have crossed several times and he has always come across as an extremely clever and very level headed. Just what the doctor ordered!

The End of Mr Y

2009-04-14T11:30:00.005+01:00

In this superb book, Scarlett Thomas throws together the concepts of modern scientific thinking and physiological reasoning regarding consciousness into a thoroughly gripping yarn. To describe it simply as a novel is doing Thomas a great disservice. In truth it is really a very clever thought experiment in the classical sense of Schrodinger or Maxwell, all nicely encased in a fast-paced, entertaining adventure story. Although there are a number of reviews out there(e.g., bookslut or Katrina), here's my two penneth.

The story follows disillusioned Ph.D student Ariel Manto. Her supervisor vanished some 12 months prior to the begging of the tale, and as we begin her University is falling down. Through a series of strange events she ends up finding a very rare copy of the book 'The End of Mr Y' by Thomas Lumas, a supposedly cursed text of which there are only a couple of copies known to exist. Contained within this valuable work is the recipe to make a drug which allows one to access the Troposphere, a extra set of dimensions where all consciousnesses interact. Obviously, being the plucky young heroine in a modern adventure novel, she goes straight out to get the necessary ingredients and have a go herself. Needless to say, all hell breaks loose and and we're led on a merry old romp.

Although the basic skeleton of the story isn't something insanely creative and new, the concepts Thomas discusses along the way are what make it. Some pretty complex and very thought provoking issues are introduced, all in a manner that leaves the reader interested and wanting to know more. Somehow, Thomas manages to strike the perfect balance between being complex and engaging, without also being confusing.

The basic idea revolves around the principle that thought (i.e., consciousness) is matter, thereby enabling consciousness to take the form of a higher dimensional space. This Troposphere therefore allows you to gain access to other peoples mind and their memories. In principle, the statement that thought = matter is true, thoughts can be observed as increased electrical activity within the brain. For me, how this ties with an extra 'consciousness' dimension is probably a step too far. But, one idea Thomas discusses along the way, is the belief that consciousness evolves in a similar way to physical traits.

This I find immensely emotive. As is pointed out, under this principle there is nothing to stop machines developing consciousness, indeed it could be thought of as being unavoidable. So, HAL or Skynet mightn't be that far off!

In conclusion, The End of Mr Y is a great book, and doesn't feel anywhere near the 506 pages in length it is. If you have an interest in the philosophical sciences then you'll find it extremely engaging, and well worth curling up with one sunny spring afternoon.

Nyquist and sampling

2009-04-10T17:16:00.007+01:00

Due to one thing and another (mostly the one thing commonly referred to as my thesis, although I have some more personal terms for it), I haven't found the time to keep this little corner of the blog-o-sphere up to date lately. However, the blighter is just about finished (the light is most definitely in sight), which means normal service should be resumed in the near future.

In the mean time, there are a couple of things of late that have caught my attention, causing my little grey cells of curiosity to spark into life. So, with luck, I hope to take up some of the time off I'm allowing myself over Easter (ssh, don't tell the supervisors) to catch up on a little bit of blogging.

First amongst the musings I wanted to talk about is a few thoughts I had whilst looking up some information on Harry Nyquist. Anyone who has studied physics, maths, or engineering of some description must has come across him and his famous Nyquist Theorem (although, properly it should probably be called the Nyquist-Shannon Theorem).

For anyone who hasn't come across this particular idea, it is one of the fundamental principles of Information Theory (something which Nyquist and Shannon both contributed heavily toward developing). Regardless of whether you've ever studied this subject at all, it will have played a huge part in your life. Information theory is fundamental to the way the all those electronic gizmos (from the telephone to the computer and the microwave) we have got so used having loitering around the place. The fundamental principles of information theory are what govern the way the information is communicated, both within a electronic system (e.g., signals between the CPU and graphics card in your computer), and between them (e.g., telephone signals). While subtle nuances in the theory allows this information to be transferred faster and more efficiently, therefore making your computer or tv work faster and better.

At the core of this is something called Sampling Theorem; i.e., the Nyquist-Shannon Theorem. This basically covers the way analogue signals are translated into digital ones (and vice versa). This is easiest explained if we consider an example, say music. Lets consider we're sat in a quiet room strumming a guitar. The sound produced by the guitar spreads out through the room as a series of pressure waves. If we were to think about how these pressure waves are heard by a human ear, we would get a continuous line of varying amplitude; an analogue signal (see figure below).

However, if we want to record this sound so we can replay it on a computer we have to digitize it. Computers can't store analogue signals since they, by definition, have an infinite number of amplitude values. Thus, analogue signals are digitized, which means we describe the analogue signal as a series of amplitude values (see figure above). Thus, the sound of the guitar becomes a series of numbers that represent the amplitude of the sound (pressure wave) at a moment in time.

This digitization of the analogue signal is where the sampling theorem comes in. We have all got music stored on our computers which we can listen to. In order for this to sound the same as if were were sat in the same room as the real instruments playing, the sound has to be sampled at short enough time steps so as to convince the human ear that it is not a series of descrete samples. Basically, it's the same way as animations work. An animation consists on c. 30 individual drawings which are flashed onto the screen every second. The human eye can't tell the difference between them, and so is tricked into thinking it is a moving picture. With the digitization of the sound from our guitar, we're doing exactly the same process.

Every electrical gadget in your home works with these digital signals. What the Nyquist-Shannon Theorem describes, is the minimum time step at which a signal has to be sampled in order to convey a certain set of information. Engineers, mathematicians, and Physicists think of this information in terms of it's frequency, which is what the theorem describes; the Nyquist Frequency.

I deal with the Nyquist theorem pretty much every day as it also plays a fundamental part in signal processing, which is essentially what I do. However, what I didn't know was just how successful Nyquist and his colleagues at AT&T Bell Labs who pioneered information theory (amongst other things) were. The total of 11 researchers won 6 Nobel prizes between them! That is an incredible success rate, and probably one which will never be replicated anywhere else. Kinda puts into perspective everything us little people are struggling with!

Watchmen

2009-03-08T19:20:00.004Z

Last night I went to see Watchmen. Zack Snyder's movie adaptation of the highly acclaimed graphic novel written by Alan Moore...and I wasn't disappointed!

I have to admit, when I first heard that a movie adaptation was actually in the process of being filmed (afterall, Hollywood have been trying to do this since pretty much straight after the comics were released), I was more than a bit worried. Watchmen, the novel, is a classic. A piece of Sci-Fi/Fantasy literature that, for me, ranks right up there with anything H.G. Wells, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, or any one of other masters that have graced the genre have produced. In fact, being completely honest, I think it ranks right up there with any literature of any genre. So, any movie adaptation had very, very big boots to fill even without the lead weight of also being a comic book adaptation, which, lets face it, doesn't tend to bode particularly well.

However, despite all the potential pitfalls, for me it lived up to the billing amply. The cinematography was everything one comes to expect from Snyder (e.g., 300), a compelling mix of breathtakingly panoramic drama and brutal close-ups, but done such that it doesn't dominate the storyline. The casting was perfect with very strong performances all round, although I have to tip Jackie Haley as Rorschach who gave a perfectly pitched mix of madness and heroism. The score was tremendous, right from the off as Bob Dylan's gravelly voice kicked the movie into gear it again hit the difficult balance between dominating the movie whilst also being noticeable and adding a sense of atmosphere.

Most importantly, though, it managed to do justice to a complex storyline of a dozen or more subplots all working on a multitude of different levels. Some details have been cut (and the ending has been tweaked slightly), but none of this is critical. The same driving force behind the story is there, the same subtle poking and prying into the various characters and their morals, the same dark commentary on human society. Somehow it all comes through, along with a bucket load of other brilliant little details and nods to other things (such as Niel Armstrong's fictitious 'Good luck Mr Gorsky' quote).

Some of the ultimate fan boys will complain about how this scene or that scene has been cut. Others will complain about how long it is. But, when all is said and done, the story and characters are still there in all their dark and miserable glory, and 2 hours 40 minutes is not really that long to have to sit still! So, my advice is that, if you're a fan of the comic it's a must, but even if you're not you should give it a go (I went with some people who haven't ready the book and they said it was fine to follow).

It's big, it's bold, it's brutal, and it's bl**dy brilliant!

Science communication

2009-01-06T10:16:00.006Z

Following on from yesterday's banter, I thought I'd say a bit more on the communication between scientists and the general populace.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to hear a talk given by Michael Jones, Chief Technical Officer at Google and one of the brains behind GoogleEarth, GoogleMaps, and GoogleScholar. His talk was titled 'The Spread of Scientific Knowledge from the Royal Society to GoogleEarth and Beyond', and presented a whistle-stop tour of how the communication of science has changed over the past thousand years (he actually started a little bit before the Royal Society).

One of his major driving points was that, when the Royal Society was at its peak, this coincided with a peak in the effective communication of science to the general public. This was because science at that time, rather than being presented as a a paper in one of a few dozen scholarly journals, was presented in the form of lively, open debates that could be attended by anyone. Effectively, data analysis was being done on-the-fly, in a similar manner to the theological debates of Ancient Greece and Rome. As a result, the quality of the science wasn't always of the highest standard, but the communication of ideas between scientists and the public was instant and free-flowing. Today, however, we are at the other extreme. All the analysis is done behind closed doors, with the data kept a closely guarded secret until it is ready for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal that requires a subscription fee, and is therefore never read by Joe public. As a result, the quality of science being published is extremely high (on average), but very, very little is being filtered through to a non-scientific audience.

One outcome of this is the misunderstanding and misrepresentation of science in the media. There is no wonder the issues surround the LHC occured because most people had never even heard of the Higgs Boson before, much less knew people were looking for it. However, another more sinister result of this poor communication of science is the drop in kids taking science subjects beyond the compulsory level. It's all well and good teaching children about Newton or Maxwell (there is no doubt they are hugely important and what they did for Physics is without parallel), but they can't empathize with a guy who died 300/400 years ago. They can however connect with someone who is alive today, someone who can stand in front of them with a giant tank full of water and mud explaining how beaches are formed, for instance.

Yes, they might not understand the finer details of why this ocean model is better than that ocean model or how you grow cocolithophore cultures in the lab, but if the science is pitched at the right level they can understand why it's important and will be interested. The vast majority of children are, by nature, interested in just about everything as long as it appears relevant.

Michael Jones argued quite strongly that we should actively be trying to move toward the middle ground. Finding some kind of status quo where the peer-reviewed system can be used to maintain high standards of science, but whilst also effectively communicating recent developments to a wider audience. I couldn't agree more.

Hunter S Thompson

2009-01-05T15:20:00.008Z

'Too weird to live, too rare to die,'

Hunter Stockton Thompson (1937-2005)

On Saturday I welcomed in the New Year by going to watch the film 'Gonzo: The life and works of Dr Hunter S. Thompson'. This new documentary by Academy Award and Emmy winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, is a humorous and thought-provoking ride into the mind of one the most iconic journalists and writers of the 20th century.

Concentrating mainly on his most productive and, arguably, most influencial early career throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, it follows his development from a bit-part, freelance writer riding round California with Outlaw motorcycle gangs, through into becoming the most notorious journalist of his era (probably any era), punching, tearing, and slicing chunks off any authoritarian figure who dared stand in his way. One of my favorite parts of the documentary was Thompson's reply to a TV interviewer asking about the comments made in his 1972 Rolling Stone article that Senator Edmund Muskie was hooked on the obscure drug Ibogaine:

'I said there was a rumour going round Milwaukee, and I should know. I started it!'

Given my most recent post (Social detritus) on journalists stretching the truth, it may appear somewhat contradictory to now be applauding Thompson for driving a wrecking ball through someone's campaign just because he didn't like him. However, this is where I think there is a big distinction between Social Journalism and Science Journalism.

In the former, facts and figure are considerably hazier, being largely governed by one's own social and economic view point. So, when covering events such as political campaigns and policies, it is important for all the different view points to get aired because what is good for one social group will invariably be bad for another. In this manner, having journalists who are willing to take a stand against things they don't believe in (such as Thompson did against the Vietnam War) are an important way of balancing the status quo, otherwise the politicians (who represent a very small portion of the overall social demographic) would have far too an easy time of it, and we would likely see policies favorably cantered toward their peers.

With the latter, facts and figures are considerably less hazy. Indeed, one could quite easily argue the opposite, that, in fact, there is too much information out there at the moment as the number of peer reviewed journal swell in ranks, each demanding larger wads of money from increasingly cash-strapped academic libraries. The main problem with this area of journalism is that the increasing trend towards sensationalism has lead to several radical theories that do not represent the consensus of scientific opinion (e.g., The Day After Tomorrow) getting blown completely out of proportion, and/or articles completely misunderstanding the fundamental science (e.g., LHC).

However, I think that, given the times in which we live, it is unfair to point the finger solely at journalists saying that they should use one approach for one type of article, and a completely different approach for another. That bold articles standing proudly in the face of authority should be confined to only certain subjects. A good proportion of the blame for the public misunderstanding of science is the poor communication skills of most scientists. Lets face it, we are terrible at explaining what the hell we do all day - even to each other!

Social detritus

2008-12-28T15:27:00.007Z

'The daily press is the evil principle of the modern world, and time will only serve to disclose this fact with greater and greater clearness. The capacity of the newspaper for degeneration is sophistically without limit, since it can always sink lower and lower in its choice of readers. At last it will stir up all those dregs of humanity which no state of government can control.'

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher and theologian, expressed this opinion in The Last Years, a collection of his journal entries between 1853 and 1855. How apt they were in the middle of the 19th Century, I do not know, but now, over 150 years later, they can have rarely resonated with such truth.

During the course of the last year we have, as always, seen a number of examples of journalists taking their journalistic license just a little bit too far. But, what we all witnessed thoughout the summer regarding the end of the world as soon as the LHC was switched on at CERN, made feeding time in the lion enclosure look like the height of hout-couture!

This problem of media attention for all the wrong reasons was similarly faced by astronomers 5 to 10 years ago. Pioneering work on the Cretaceous-Teriary impact by Walter Alvarez and others cemented the idea of cataclysmic asteroid impacts causing mass extinction events, in turn paving the way for enormous summer blockbusters such as Armageddon and Deep Impact. In the wake of these attention grabbers, every discovery of an asteroid with an Earth crossing obit (known as an NEOs - Near Earth Object) gained pages of dedicated coverage in the world's media. The end of the world was, seemingly, at hand.

In the short-term such publicity can be good for the scientists involved, but in the long-term its effect on the science can be disastrous. The general public have a relatively short attention span when compared to your average scientific experiment. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the scientist inside me coming over all pompous and considerably better than thou, rather simply stating the fact that the public struggle to grasp the immense timescales involved in most scientific project, nor the general scientific adage of 'so-and-so being correct within errors'.

With the NEOs this is particularly apparent; when was the last time you saw a newspaper report of an asteroid getting all snugly with the Earth in a couple of hundred years time? Just because the press coverage has died down doesn't mean the chance of us being wiped out by a lump of rock and metal hurtling towards us from the icy depths of the solar system have diminished, quite the contrary. One will hit us sooner or later, and chances are we might not even see it coming as it approaches us from perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) and is therefore lost in the blinding glare of our dear, little star. The lack of news is simply a reflection of the rapidly waning interest.

I, for one, hope that CERN and the LHC does not suffer a similar fate. Although it will, in all likelihood, take some 5+ years to get meaningful results the team are confident enough to publish, the questions it could answer are enormous. However, somehow, sadly, I think it has already begun. Indeed, one could say it had already begun the moment the world didn't end...even if that was just a rediculous piece of journalistic fiction.

Alternative famine remedy...

2008-12-18T17:27:00.005Z

Recently I came across a paper published in the September 1920 issue of the journal Nature under the rather presumptuous title; 'The Drying up of South Africa - and the Remedy'. This interesting paper (more of a comment, really) talks about the eternal struggle between Mankind and Nature (as in the hippy-ish force, not the journal!), opening with the paragraph:

'Whilst Man of all races and skin-colours is once more involved in fractricidal quarrels - how Superior Intellegences in more advanced spheres must grin as they watch our wars against one another through super-telescopes or by aethereal telegraphy! - Nature is making one more effort to get rid of man. This time through Drought. She has seemingly hated everything that rose above the mediocre on this planet, whether it was in fish shape, or the fish-saurian, the dinosaur, the struthious bird, the ungulate mammal, or the brain-worker, Man. She tried to nip us in the bud by reviving the Ice ages which she had used for other destructive purposes in the pre-Cambrian, Devonian, Permian, and Jurrasic periods. But this succession of cold spells only braced Northern Man to greater efforts and greater triumphs, and sent Southern Man to grapple with the tropics, and to digest and partly overcome their germ diseases. Now the tropics, and above all the sub-tropical regions are being threatened by drought. The desert is spreading in sub-tropical North America, in tropical South America, in temperate and sub-tropical Asia and eastern Europe, in northern and north-central Africa, and in that prolongation of the African continent which lies beyond the Zambezi and Kunene Rivers.'

Quite a rant, I know! Wait until you see the last paragraph:

'Man must give up internecine warfare and unite all his forces to defeat his arch-enemy, Nature. He must melt the ice at the North and South Poles, and put a stop to the spread of desert conditions in Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas.

H.H. Johnston'

'...unite all his forces to defeat his arch-enemy, Nature.' For some reason I now have an image of Nature in my head that's a cross between Brittania and the classical Victorian image of Queen Boudica.

Well, whether by design or not, we seem to be trying to do what he suggests, although somehow I don't think it's working quite how he imagined...

How proxy is a proxy? - Part II

2008-11-14T13:32:00.004Z

So, I believe that last time I threatened to, for once, have a series of evolving posts that gradually elucidate on a single topic. Henceforth, here is round two.

As a reminder, last time I posed the question:

How accurate are experiments where non-human, proxy cadavers are used?

In particular, I'm considering experiments where we want to use existing acoustic technology to image submerged cadavers.

To start with, lets think about precisely what we're going to be imaging with the acoustic returns. Sounds simple, doesn't it?! Sadly, as with almost everything to do with acoustics, simple questions tend to result in complex answers.

In order to image something using sound, it needs to present a measurable change in acoustic impedance (i.e., basically a measure of the strength to which the material resists the passage the sound wave) to it's immediate surroundings. The human body is generally considered to consist of 60 -70 % water, suggesting that a cadaver sitting on the seabed, lakebed, or riverbed will tend not to offer as strong an acoustic target as, say, the sediments on which it is resting because it closer resembles the water around it than the sediments do.

However, the acoustic backscatter from a target (the sound which travels from the source to the object and is reflected back towards the source again) is the combined response of two processes:

1. Surface scattering: the energy reflected back by the water/cadaver interface.

2. Volume scattering: the energy reflected back from within the target.

Of these, the volume scattering is the one we're particularly interested in. As I said earlier, the surface scattering will not be very strong for a cadaver. The volume scattering, on the other hand, will be. This is because, during decomposition, gas builds up within the tissue and internal cavities of the cadaver. This gas will present a very strong change in acoustic impedance.

So, when we want to acoustically image a cadaver, we would expect the dominant acoustic signature to be from the build up interstitial gas as a result of decomposition.

How proxy is a proxy? - Part I

2008-11-12T15:14:00.008Z

As I've mentioned in a blog a couple of months ago, Piggy hide and seek, I've recently been looking into the idea of using shallow water marine geophysical techniques in helping Law Enforcement Agencies conduct underwater body searches. Going through the frantic research process involved with writing any kind of research proposal, a particularly interesting thought occurred to me, namely:

How accurate are taphonomic experiments where non-human, proxy cadavers are used?

In certain states of the USA it is possible to use human cadavers when people have donated their body to science, or their body remains unclaimed. This has enabled researchers at the University of Tennessee's Anthropological Research Centre, in Knoxville, to setup their 'Body Farm', where human cadavers are placed in a variety of environmental conditions and their decay monitored over a period of days, weeks, months, and sometimes years. As a result of the ground-breaking research conducted at Tennessee, other body farms have now sprung up in Western Carolina University and Texas State University, although on considerably smaller scales.

The work undertaken by these institutions has been truly astonishing, advancing forensic entomology immensely. Without this work there must be thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of homicides the world over that would never have been solved. However, outside of these specific locations, the vast majority of people trying to undertake research in this, or related, fields have to rely of using proxy cadavers, normally domestic pigs. This leads to the question of how accurately a pig cadaver can imitate a human one? Taphonomically they have been shown to be very, very similar; their skin is close enough to ours for use in skin grafts for burns victims, whilst, also being omnivores, they have much the same gut bacteria, leading to a decomposition progression that very closely mimics our own.

This is all well and good for taphonomic and forensic entomology studies of beetle or fly larvae colonization, etc, but for our purposes, where we want to image the acoustic properties of the cadavers, can we truly say the same?

This is something I'm, hopefully, going to explore in the next few blogs by discussing the physics behind the variety of acoustic profilers that can be used. In this way, it should be possible to see where the potential differences between the different cadavers could result in different observations.

The Obama-wagon...quick, jump!

2008-11-06T09:38:00.004Z

Firstly, and probably most importantly, congratulations to Senator Obama on his resounding victory Tuesday evening. Secondly, congratulations America!

It was quite a surreal evening for me. I attended my first ever 'Election Party' (I'm not sure what it says about me that it was for an American Election rather than a British one, but...). Throughout the evening there was a lot of talk about how, if Obama got in, people would feel 'proud to be American again', which says a lot for the damage our friend George W. has done to international relations on all levels. However, the best comment of the evening, I think, came when someone said:

'We've really dodged a bullet by avoiding electing Palin as Vice President.'

I couldn't agree more, it's hard to imagine what could be worse that having the gun-toting creationist loitering in the wings, just in case something happened to McCain. I have to admit, though, there is a part of me that feels sorry for Senator McCain. The guy is not a bad politician, and probably wouldn't have made a particularly bad President, but suffered because somehow his party decided Sarah Palin would make a great running-mate!

However, what has grabbed my attention most about the immediate outfall from the election result, is the level of childishly cynical hero worship that has swept around the political world. Nothing describes this better than the pitiful exchange between Gordon Brown and David Cameron in the House of Commons yesterday.

What is more pathetic than two grown men fighting it out to be associated with Senator Obama's victory? Why is it necessary - is the result of the US election really going to influence British voters in their choice of who they will vote for in our forthcoming election? Had the elections happened the other way around (which they might well have), do they really think that Obama and McCain would have reciprocated and been fighting tooth and nail as to whose campaign closest resembled that of the British PM? I think not!

After all the comments on the blog-o-sphere and articles in newspapers and news websites in the UK criticizing American politics over last few years, on the evidence of this we should perhaps be looking a little closer to home!

E-Day is nigh

2008-11-04T13:10:00.003Z

Sadly, there's been little activity on this blog in recent weeks. I assure you, it's not that I don't have anything to say, simply too much to do. As anyone who's ever done a PhD will tell you, as the deadline looms everything else in life gets pushed aside as the behemoth of a thesis grows (you should see the amount of facial hair I now have)!

Today is an interesting day. As I'm sure everyone is aware, it's US Election Day! Over recent weeks the newspaper, together with quite a few of my favorite blogs, have been discussing this topic ad infinitum:

Cosmic Variance
Lab Lemming
Shores of the Dirac Sea
Michael Berube

Plus, probably a million more that I don't read! So, I'm not going to say anything else on the subject, other that try reading some of the above if you're interested.

Oh, and, "Come on Obama!"

Talking ourselves into a recession

2008-10-08T11:02:00.003+01:00

This morning I had an interesting conversation with a work colleague regarding the dubious present state of the financial system over our usual mug of ultra-strong coffee. I have always tried to shy away from writing social criticisms and keep my blog purely science based, but for this I'm going to make an exception. As a vaguely scientific side note, however, our coffee would normally make a good high school science experiment since it behaves more like a glass than a liquid. I'm not sure whether this is purely a factor of the percolation time, or a combined effect with the obscene amounts of sugar vigorously stirred into it, but, either way, this coffee could quite easily go undercover as treacle.

Today's caffeine fueled discussion stemmed from an article published on BBC News yesterday. Entitled 'UK economy already 'in recession'', it is one of the millions of stories being run on news websites and in papers around the world regarding the impact of the present economic crisis on society at large, i.e. levels of unemployment, high-street spending, manufacturing, etc. The point we were talking about was not the comments on rising unemployment, etc (all of which are very valid and supported by statistics from the British Chambers of Commerce), rather that half-way down it proceeded to say 'Technically the UK is not yet in recession...'.

Hang on one cotton-picking minute! First you say we're in a recession, then you say that, according to the guidelines by which economists define recession, we're not - guidelines which have some well founded mathematical basis.

Don't get me wrong, I know full well why headlines such as this are printed. I am all too aware of the way journalists will twist stories to be more dramatic if they think it will result in more sales. The kernel of our discussion this morning revolved around the fact that, normally, the application of such writer's license effects only a limited number of people. Take, football, (soccer to any Americans reading this) for example. The amount of bad press placed on the England football team after a poor performance has many times affected the confidence of the players and therefore their subsequent performances, resulting in the demise of a number of managers in the process. But, this effect is limited to the team and their immediate circle. Although poor performances leading to us not making a major competition has been shown to cause a drop in revenue for sports bars, etc, in general terms this impact is low.

With the economy, the story is a different one. The western economy is closely coupled to the performance of the stock market, when the market is in a period of growth the economy will grow too, and vice versa. The danger of the stock market is that, to a large extent, is is driven by the mood of it's investors. If they get twitchy and start panicking then all hell breaks loose (as was seen with the Northern Rock debacle earlier this year). Unlike football, in this case any fall out from bad press can effect everybody as overly dramatic stories bemoaning the 'almost' recession cause investors to become less pragmatic and the market to plummet and the economy to wobble. As the news article itself pointed out, this then feeds back into the general public with job losses, etc, which then feeds back into the economy with less high-street spending to prop up the markets, i.e. an economic circle of death.

So, in conclusion, I ask the question we talked about over coffee. By printing and talking all this doom and gloom regarding the state of the economy, are we in fact talking ourselves into a recession when otherwise the markets would have dipped but stabilized?

Don't forget the old ways

2008-10-07T20:09:00.000+01:00

Recently I've been spending a large part of my time writing quite a complex bit of new code to process the seismic data we acquire using our 3D chirp system (those of you who've been paying attention will remember me talking about this a little while ago). Going through this process I've become increasingly aware just how much we take for granted the insane amounts of computing power those of us in active science research have available to us.

Although the process I'm trying to accomplish (3D seismic imaging) is not in either conceptually complex, nor difficult to write as an algorithm, it is difficult to do well. This spawns from two main factors: firstly, our obsession with data redundancy leading to enormous amounts of data being pumped in at the beginning; and secondly, the complex coupling between acoustic waves and their host medium making modelling the propagation of sound in geologically complex areas mathematically expensive (equally, this can also be thought of as a problem resulting from our desire as scientists to push the limit and explore more challenging environments).

The former problem is the one I've been mainly struggling with. The nature of our system means that trying to produce an imaged volume requires the manipulation of an incredible amount of data. For an average survey you're talking about having 10 - 15 million spatial samples, each consisting of 3000 - 4000 measurements of the reflection energy recorded at different times. To image this, the data has to be converted into the Fourier (frequency) domain since the propagation of acoustic wavefronts through a medium is frequency dependent. This produces a further 1500 - 2000 data points for each time measurement, giving a total of about 1.2 x 10^14 (120 trillion) data samples to manipulate! Not to mention a windowed Fourier transform before and after!

When handling data on these sorts of volumes it's easy to forget that altering the location of a single calculation within the code can dramatically affect it's run time. Simple things, like moving a variable calculation out of a for loop so that it is calculated only once for each frequency component on each time series shaves, literally, days off the processing time. Equally, a clever bit of sorting of your input data can enable the application of a single calculation to time series from multiple surface locations.

These techniques are not new, as sundialsvcs pointed out in this thread on LinuxQuestions.org I recently stumbled across. There is a tendancy with the processor power and memory volumes available at increasingly reasonable prices for our coding to become more slapdash and less optimized. The application of a little thought and some of the tricks commonly employed when computers were beasts that filled entire rooms could, I think, cut swathes off our (by this I mean scientists) processing time.

Also, talk about cutting energy usage to save the environment - imagine how much greener it would make us!

A fifth force farce

2008-10-06T11:09:00.000+01:00

Over the weekend a good friend of mine from undergrad sent me a link to this site discussing a joke publication on the discovery of a fifth fundamental force.

Personally, all credit to the guy! Threatening to take the mickey and submit a spoof paper, be it as an April fool or whatever, is something I think most people would talk about (probably somewhere between pint number 4 and pint number 5), but then casually side step when it came to actually joining pen and paper. But not Lawrence Krauss, oh no! He threatened, and then had the balls to back it up.

There are a couple brilliant bits in his article, but I think my personal favorite has to be reference 6:

'6. Thanks to the intermediation of high-ranking officials from certain Italian banks, Vatican archival material was made available to us.'

As good a spoof as the original manuscript is, he was completely out performed by the 'reviewing' team from PRL. Their report is a work of genius. This line from the editor had me in stitches for a good while:

'In addition, we feel that the general interest (and even novelty if you want to be arcane about it) no longer supports the discovery of new forces. Already five have been reported in the literature and we think the time has come to draw a halt to the unbridled publication of force discoveries.'

Hopefully most readers of the science blogosphere, especially those who've ever had the privilege of trying to sift through reviewers comments, should appreciate this as much as I did. Enjoy!

Cosmic Variance Challenge 2008

2008-10-02T09:33:00.000+01:00

In the US there is a tradition each year for DonorsChoose to use the impact of the internet to provide extra funding to classrooms all over the US with their Bloggers Challenge. This year, one of my personal favourite blogs, Cosmic Variance, has got involved with their very own Cosmic Variance Challenge 2008.

I'm sure any donation to this worthy cause would be much appreciated (even more so if you can help them beat ScienceBlogs!)

We like da Moon

2008-09-30T10:55:00.000+01:00

As I wittered about a few days ago, I'm quite keen on the concept of Big History. Something I meant to talk about in that post, but kinda ran out of room, was an idea that has been rattling around my head for some time now. It goes something like this...

The Moon, our big white faced friend in the sky, is believed to have been formed by a collision between the proto-Earth and a Mars-sized body some 4.45 billion years ago. The evidence for this particular theory for the lunar origin, first proposed by William Hartmann and Ronald Davis in the journal Icarus during April 1975, has been steadily growing over past decades. Where as almost all other planetary satellites are thought to be either captured asteroids (e.g., Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos) or co-formed accumulations of material during the planet's formation (e.g., the Galilean satellites of Jupiter), the anomalously large size ratio and angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system make either of these scenarios unlikely. Just to add weight to this arguement, the Moon also appears to have a small (< 5% total mass) iron core, which one would expect to be much larger in both former cases.The third theory popular prior to Hartmann and Davis' writing, which involves the moon breaking away from a rapidly spinning Earth, also falls down with this latter piece of evidence as one would expect no (or almost no) iron core (let alone mismatches in the amount of angular momentum!).

I suppose, the long and short of what I'm trying to say is, basically, that it has been circling our little blue globe as long as life has been wandering round, eating, fighting, and having sex.

In his talk at IGC, Walter Alvarez postulated that having such a large moon had a massive impact in the development of complex life on Earth. This, he said, is likely to be caused by the lunar tides making the transition from aquatic to terrestrial life easier. In both of these statements, he is correct. Having a large Moon has almost certainly had a massive effect on the development of life on our planet, while the presence of a tidal zone (which would have been considerably larger when life was forming in the Archaen, since the Moon would have been much closer) one can conceptually imagine would smooth the transition into land dwelling life forms.

However, I disagree that this is the most lasting influence of the Moon-Earth system on the development of life. One could argue this from the philosophical view-point that Alvarez is implying that all truly complex life will be terrestrial in origin. To put it politely, this it utter codswallop! Marine life and the marine ecosystem is incredibly complex, and just because they don't pour concrete over everything doesn't stop them from being highly evolved. Taking the more scientific approach, the largest implication for having such an Earth-Moon system is, I think, one which has been loosely discussed for some time, namely the stabilizing effect of the Moon on the Earth's obliquity (angle of the Earth's rotation pole to it's orbital plane). Presently, the complex interaction between the Earth's orbital and rotational momenta, with the gravitational effects of the Moon, Sun, and Gas Giants, holds this stably at c. 23 degrees (plus/minus c. 1.25 degrees). Without the stabilizing effect of the Moon, it has been shown that the highly variable effect of the Gas Giants (caused by their changing position relative to the Earth during the orbital cycle) could cause this to vary by up to 80 degrees!

The small fluctuations in the Earth's obliquity are known to be one of the driving forces behind the Milankovic cycles, which are thought by climate scientists to be the dominant cause the glacial cycle. Conceptually, introducing larger amplitude and shorter period variations in the obliquity would dramatically change the Earth's climate history; which is generally built on long periods of warmer climate and low ice levels, separating somewhat shorter periods of colder climate with large ice levels. Shortening these calm time periods between ice ages is likely to have a large effect on the evolution of complex life. Although one could argue that it is unlikey to stop the development of complex life completely, shorter calm periods would certainly have slowed evolution down a notch or two.

To my knowledge no one has tried running any kind of altered obliquity simulation. Maybe on of these days I'll get round to it!

Piggy hide and seek

2008-09-29T13:27:00.000+01:00

Watching the 'freshers' turn up at work this year, all bubbly and full of the promise of a new beginning, made me have a little think. Eight years ago I was one of those over-eager little souls bounding into the Physics and Astronomy Department in Sheffield. Four years ago, I was probably not too dissimilar, this time bounding into the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. Last week my PhD and, hopefully, Post-Doc supervisor handed me a book entitled 'Advances in Forensic Taphonomy: Method, Theory, and Archaeological Perspectives'. Funny how things change!

Were you to ask me where I thought I'd be in eight years time when I started my undergrad in Physics with Astronomy at Sheffield, I would almost certainly said something along the lines of 'hopefully doing something in astronomy'. Were you to ask me where I thought I'd be in four years time when I started doing geophysics at Southampton, I'd almost certainly have replied something along the lines of 'yeah, well, I'll probably sell out to the industry and go hunting for oil'. Yet, now, here I am, writing a Post-Doc proposal to play underwater hide and seek with some dead pigs using a variety of acoustic profilers. Funny thing is, I ain't complaining!

The principle is quite simple: we have already proved that our decimetre resolution 3D seismic system, 3D Chirp, can be used to image everything from geological structure on 10s metres scale, down to individual objects some 10s centimetres in size; and a number of companies have already shown that acoustics can be used to locate dead bodies. However Police authorities around the world still primarily default to using shore walks and diver surveys when conducting missing person searches.

To a large degree, their lack of trust in these new technologjes is reasonable. Practically, these systems tend to be highly specialised, requiring a large amount of detailed knowledge to get the best out of them. Thought needs to go into which acoustic profiler to use (side scan sonar, sector scanning sonar, echoscope, or a sub-bottom profiler such as chirp or boomer), where and how to use it, how to process the acquired data, how to interpret the processed data, etc, etc. The list is almost endless. Then, to confound it all, there has been very little work done on how the acoustic response of a body varies with the level of decomposition. How long does a body have to have been deceased before they present a strong enough acoustic signature to be detected? How long before the body is so decomposed that is presents no acoustic signature? How does this vary from person to person and locality to locality? How does this vary with the frequency content of the acoustic source? Such basic, fundamental questions need solid, scientifically robust answers before the Police authorities can be expected to make extensive use of these techniques. Hopefully, we might be able to provide them with a few.

Finally, something a little more topical. I recently discovered this post by Moshe Rozali talking in very general terms about the principles of field theory, and in particular Quantum Gravity. This is a pretty meaty topic to tackle in any situation, but Peter manages it with beautiful elegance in his usual easy-to-read style. Given the recent media hype surrounding the LHC and the Higgs Boson, this post is well worth a read as it outlines some of the basic holes in our present understanding of gravity. Personally, I think it's a shame some of the 'science' journalists didn't give it a browse before they started the 'black hole to destroy the world' tirades, maybe we'd have gotten a few more interesting news reports if they had...although they would, probably, have sold fewer newspapers!

Big History

2008-09-25T11:41:00.000+01:00

Big History is an area of science I only recently discovered via a talk given by Walter Alvarez at the 33rd IGC meeting in Oslo, Norway. This multi-disciplinary approach to looking at history, considers the major events/factors that have been the driving forces behind the formation of the world and indeed the universe as we know it today.

Personally, I find the idea of bouncing around ideas on such large scales fascinating. The way that, for instance, you can consider the evolution of complex life from the view point of a series of astronomical forcing factors really tickles my little grey cells. Also, discussing such topics is clearly perfect for pub based debates, where almost anyone from any walk of life can contribute something. It reminds be greatly of my 2nd and 3rd year Astronomy tutorials with Prof. Hughes, which turned into massive debates on subjects such as the origin of the solar system, or asteroid impacts, or any one of a million other subjects.

For an introduction to the topic one shouldn't look any further than Marnie Hughes-Warrington's excellent article in the Bulletin of the Historical Society, which provides a brilliant and engaging overview of the subject and how it has developed from the early imaginings of, for example, Isaac Asimov and Preston Cloud, in the 1980s through to the recent pioneering writings of David Christian and Fred Spier. Anyone interested in the subject should, I think, start there. It certainly worked for me!

Why exams are bad!

2008-09-24T10:56:00.000+01:00

This morning, the title story on the Education section of BBC News reads 'Testing harms school science'.

No sh*t sherlock!

This particular little gem is something nearly everybody in science has been screaming to the heavens about for years. Don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing the finger at teachers or pupils (Christ, I was one of the latter not too long ago!), rather my wagging pinky is aimed straight at Whitehall and those suit clad tyrants who dictate just about everything in our lives by instating ever increasing levels of red tape.

Their obsession with tests and league tables and an ever changing syllabus is at the root of this problem, which extends far beyond Science's sacred shores. First year physics students at Bristol, along with most other UK Universities, are made to sit a basic maths test in their first week. This forms a guide to the Maths for Physicists modules that run throughout the first year in order to get everyone up to the required competence level. I quote the test in Bristol specifically, because this test has been running for some 30+ years now, and, while the average A-level grade of entrants has sky rocketed, the average score on this never changing test has plummeted. This is not a reflection of the quality of the students, or their aptitude for maths/science, rather it reflects the method of GCSE and A-level teaching.

The pressure on schools, teachers, and pupils to get straight A's and be at the top of their respective league table is bordering on the obscene. As a result of this Stalinistic approach to schooling kids, the basic understanding of the fundamental subjects (English as well as Maths and the Sciences) is being superseded in preference to exam grades. For me, the key point is that exam results are mistakenly being identified as the goal, whereas, surely, the primary outcome should be that kids leave school brimming with knowledge and skills that can be applied to the rest of their lives.

Unsurprisingly, with such a contentious subject, there are lots of webpages out these discussing this exact same topic. One of my personal favourites is this one on Y Safle, who collates figures garnered from the Exam Boards to back up his arguement. It's well worth a quick peek.

To finish on a bit lighter note...while on my morning browse of BBC News I also discovered something which would only ever happen in Australia:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7632158.stm

'A woman on the north coast of New South Wales in Australia is being held hostage in her own home by a large pig'. That has to be the best opening sentence to a news item since the tiger was found a NY flat, and by some margin! I've got this image now of a very large pig, with Samuel L. Jackson side-burns and a John Travolta quiff, peaking out between blinds at an array of police cars whilst clutching a sawn-off shotgun, cigarette hanging limply from his chops.