Welcome to another addition of cheese ends. (Picture from here.) Water on the Moon The moon has hematite. What’s interesting about this is hematite is a form of rust—a product of iron interacting with oxygen and water. The moon is airless. How did it get there? Chandrayaan-1 has a Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument (adorably …
I discussed a while back my opinion on the stampede to bring AI into the kitchen, living room, workplace, and bedroom that seems to be going on. Picture from here. My opinion isn’t all that different though I’m now a bit more informed. I believed I referred to ChatGPT (and others) as a stochastic parrot—that …
In these hot days I thought it might be interesting to talk about how animals deal with heat. (Picture from here.) I went into graduate school to study environmental physiology, got side tracked, and ended up in neurophysiology. Then, of course, went into software engineering as one does. Temperature is a problem for any organism. …
Be patient with me while I talk about this. (Picture from here.) Humans separated from chimpanzees between 4-7 million years ago. This time is a significant point of discussion in the human evolution community. The most recent value I’ve found is 6.9-9 million years ago. (Original article here.) Fossil timing is a bit different. The …
I’ve said before that humans are amazing creatures. (Picture from here.) We are incredibly smart—so smart that we forget how smart we are when we do stupid things or find minimal common ground with other animals. “Well, if a myna bird can use tools, they must be on a par with us. Therefore, tool using …
Everybody else is weighing in on the chatbot revolution. I guess it’s my turn. (Picture from here.) ChatGPT, and the other “AI” tools that have been showing up lately, do not conform to what I would call actual intelligence. They are extremely good and predictive models of human generated text. Their ability to sound nearly …
When I first moved up here to Massachusetts, I did what I always do when visiting a new town, I went to the science museum. (Picture from here.) There was an exhibit of the cave paintings. The docent talked about them and said (as close as I remember): “Who were these wonderful artists? It certainly wasn’t …
My Paleontologist/Geologist spousal unit Thor Talks more rocks! In an earlier blog, I commented on our (or my) current obsession with polishing rocks and the stories they tell. Here’s the latest batch of beach pebbles that Sara and I gathered, nicely tumbled:
(Picture from here.) These are the kinds of posts that get me in trouble. I am quite pro-environmental. We have as much solar as we can possibly afford at the moment. Our power supply is aggressively electric. The only place where we use fossil fuels is in heating—which, in the northeast, is a difficult thing …
What better way to start the year than with Cheese Ends? (Picture from here.) I’m getting older every year, so we’ll start with a possible approach to human longevity. Anyone who has worked with culturing cells has noticed that after a number of generations—say 50, or so—the cells get bloated, sick, and generally unhappy. They …
Join my paleontologist/geologist husband Thor Hansen as he talks about our fascination with marble pebbles we collect on Greek beaches. NOTE: I’m busy this holiday week as it’s my featured week to create daily posts for The International Pulpwood Queens Book Club, since my novel PAUSE is a December selection of the club. Check it out …
Last time I talked about the evolution of structures—called morphogenesis, in biology. (Picture from here.) I spoke of it a bit frivolously in the context of anti-evolution conversations. I didn’t give it the airtime it deserved. So. Today, let’s talk about how drosophila, cephalopods, and human beings can develop from a zygote into vastly different …
People who don’t believe in evolution make me tired. (Picture from here.) For one reason, it’s like saying I don’t believe in the sun. The sun is there whether one believes in it or not—the existence of the sun is independent of belief. The fact of evolution also exists independent of belief. The obscuration of …
