Tag: science

“Lasers” Are No Longer Just for Bond Villains

photog Science , ,

It turns out that cheap drone weapons are re-energizing research and development of laser weapons.  Apparently, the differential cost of offensive and defensive missiles is forcing countries to reconsider building defensive laser weapons.  Israel’s successful Iron Dome anti-missile system is demonstrating that if an enemy is willing to flood the field with cheap missiles, they can bankrupt the defender using effective but expensive anti-missile missiles.

Lasers on the other hand after the initial purchase cost of the system uses about ten dollars in electricity per kill.  Of course, lasers are limited by weather conditions.  The quote from the article says, ““With lasers, if you can see it, you can kill it; typically rain and snow are not big deterrents,” says Robert Afzal, an expert on lasers at Lockheed Martin. “But a thundercloud—that’s hard.””

And the range of targets is impressive but not unlimited:

““A laser of that class (100 kW) can be effective against a wide variety of targets, including cruise missiles, mortars, UAVs, and aircraft,” says Perry. “But not reentry vehicles [launched by ballistic missiles].” Those are the warheads, and to ward them off, he says, you’d probably have to hit the rocket when it’s still in the boost phase, which would mean placing your laser in orbit. Laser tech is still far from performing such a feat.”

The Russians, Israelis and Americans all have active fiber laser weapons programs in the 100 – 300 kW range which is the current state of the art.  But now that the economic necessity for these systems has been demonstrated I imagine more powerful and multi-weapon platforms can’t be far behind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgUnDeED9MM&t=89s

Well all I can say is it’s about time.  We were promised lasers back in the sixties.  Even Dr. Evil had sharks with frikkin’ laser beams back thirty years ago.  Slackers.

String Theorists – The Snake Oil Salesmen of Theoretical Physics

photog Fake Science, Science , , , ,

This video is a “debate” between a string theorist and two actual physicists (including a Nobel Laureate) over the legitimacy of the multiverse model of reality.  It’s really quite embarrassing.  The string guy sounds like a penny stock broker trying to hawk his wares by touting the “research” that is just around the corner and right at the edge of proving all the ridiculous tenets of his unprovable or inconsistent or even haphazard concepts.

The other two physicists and the moderator all seem exasperated by repeatedly slapping down both the substance of his argument and the sleight of hand attempts to conflate the standard understanding of quantum mechanics with the string theory basis for the multiverse model.  In fact, these physicists provide arguments against both of these things separately and still the string guy keeps on coming up with cutesy analogies for using space-based probes to look for the equivalent of the “ultrasound image of the gestating baby universe in the first microseconds after the Big Bang.”  He even manages to talk about the umbilical cord of this fetal universe.  It’s beyond silly.

If you’re interested in watching a string theorist getting slapped around this video might be of interest to you.  I know I enjoyed it.  String theory seems to be the physics equivalent of communism.  It’s a theory that has never worked but provides its practitioners with a funhouse version of reality that they can bloviate about and if they manage to get put in charge of resources waste them endlessly until they bankrupt their host.

Highly amusing.  I was especially amused to hear that the string guy works at my alma mater.  Ah, the pride is back.

How Far Out There is Out There?

photog Science ,

Have you ever wondered how far away is the farthest visible galaxy?  Or what is the heaviest balck hole so far observed>  How about what is the fastest orbital speed of an object revolving around another stellar object?

Being a life-long nerd I enjoy nothing better than to see the latest high-end astrophotography and reading the highest exponential distances, masses and speeds tacked onto these images.

Well Astronomy Magazine has an article called “The most extreme celestial objects in the universe.” that answers some of those questions with lots of beautiful and intriguing astro-photos and other visuals.

Well, sometimes we have to step back from politics and smell the roses or gawk at the latest eye-candy taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).  After all this is Orion’s Cold Fire.

 

 

 

Joe Biden Cures Cancer

photog Current Events, Science ,

Recently the odious fungoid that infests 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was raving about his imaginary “war against cancer.”  Under ordinary circumstances I assume that every pronouncement that emanates from that malignant wretch is a lie.  But when it comes to wars on cancer, I have a special level of scorn.

Since the 1960s America has been bombarded with headlines on how the titanic energies of the federal government and the medical science infrastructure would finally defeat cancer “within twenty years.”  Now this twenty-year estimate is very similar to the one that has been promising us nuclear fusion energy “within fifty years.  We’re currently on the eightieth year of that guesstimate.

The idea that a moron like Joe Biden is going to solve a biological mystery like curing all cancers is truly absurd.  Sure, he’s only talking about funding a research initiative but the scope of what he’s proposing to do dwarfs the resources he’s talking about by a factor of a million to one.

The mistake that people make when they compare biology to something like technology or economics is thinking that there is a linear relation between what you know and what you don’t know.  Everyone was told that once we had decoded the human genome everything else in human biology would be a matter of reverse engineering solutions to every disease and problem.  Boy was that stupid.  The genome gives us the code for figuring out the peptide sequence in all the proteins that the body uses.   But it turns out that understanding how these proteins interact with all the other chemical substances in the body is so complicated that all knowing the compositions of the proteins does is mock us with the actual complexity of our cells.

Even the shape of these protein molecules is a mystery that has to be painstakingly determined with X-ray crystallography and other complicated and exacting techniques.  And even then, we don’t know the shape the molecule assumes in the specialized environment when other molecules are associated during various interactions.  Recently artificial intelligence has been tasked with automating the calculation of the shapes of all the proteins known to man.  And this is surely a boon.  The countless man-hours saved by the machine cataloguing the shape of two hundred million proteins is stunning.  But as is freely admitted by the AI’s creators, these shape estimates are extremely questionable.  They only form the basis for a more through examination of the protein.  Maybe they really only help to narrow a research effort down from an even larger problem down to just an enormous one.

The metabolic pathways associated with the human immune system is one of those areas where protein shape is critical.  An enormous amount of effort has been expended in trying to understand how the human body differentiates between pathogens and self when it tries to protect from viruses, bacteria and other organisms.  When the immune system becomes too active, we end up with auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn’s Disease where the body attacks its own cells.  And yet that same immune system is also charged with attacking cancer cells.  Tumor necrosis factors exist in the body for this purpose.  These delicate balances and how they fail is the subject of endless research.

Practical results have been made.  Antibodies have been manufactured with the ability to target the exact cancer cells that a patient is producing.  There have been cures.  But failure is the rule, success the exception.  Once again, what we know is still an infinitesimal part of what needs to be learned.

It can be hoped that AI will eventually be an accelerant for the research being done.  But I suspect that what we are looking at is a multi-generational effort that will involve incremental progress.  In fact, it’s possible that fundamental biological research not even aimed at cancer will provide the stepping stones that one day will allow truly effective cancer treatment.

One thing I can guarantee is that Joe Biden will never be thought to have done anything meaningful to help advance cancer research.  In fact, I’ll go one better.  Joe Biden will never be thought to have done anything meaningful to help anyone but himself.

Scientists Say Conservatives Happier Than Liberals. Duh!

photog Current Events, Science , ,

Apparently believing that dysfunction is normal and good is evil isn’t conducive to peace of mind.  I guess trying to see that two plus two equals five all the time must hurt their brains.  Well there is the consolation that these people are at least scared and miserable.  Now if we can find a way to prevent them from inflicting their madness upon us we’ll be ecstatic.

Silly Season 2022 – The Search for Intelligent Life on Capitol Hill

photog Current Events, Science, Science Fiction / Fantasy ,

As I reported yesterday summer has come to Dunwich and right on cue the media “silly season” erupts into life.  That’s right UFOs are back in the headlines.

“The House Intelligence Committee will hold the first open hearing on UFOs in more than 50 years.”

With apologies to the author of this article and in sympathy with all of my fellow science fiction devotees having the US Congress investigate UFOs is fraught with existential peril.  Imagining Nancy Pelosi presiding over a debate as to whether evidence of hypersonic maneuverability is terrestrial or extra-terrestrial without her invoking either Steven Spielberg or George Lucas seems impossible.  Maybe there are a half dozen congress critters with enough intelligence to weigh the kind of evidence that the Defense Department, the Intelligence Agencies and the Space Force will bring to the table but they will be drowned out by barnyard noises emanating from the majority of the denizens of the House of Representatives.  Imagine AOC and the rest of the “Squad” jumping to the defense of the little green men based on their evidence from the movie, “E.T., The Extraterrestrial” that government intent toward aliens is racist (or at least species-ist if I may coin the term).

The author finishes off this article with a demand for Washington to come clean on all their secret knowledge about UFOs.

“Top line: We don’t know what the most extraordinary “other” bin UFOs are, who or what is operating them, what their intentions might be, or how they operate. Maybe they are many different things with many different origins and intentions. Regardless, science demands we find out. This is no longer the early Cold War. The public can handle this subject with the seriousness it deserves. So also does our national security demand as much. Again, if another nation figures out how to replicate the way these most extraordinary UFOs operate before the U.S. does, we’ll have a problem.”

Well, we can’t even get the FBI and the courts to stop arresting Americans for trumped up charges of insurrection.  If the government actually had proof of extra-terrestrial life and technologies what are the chances that the CIA and the Defense Department would tell us the truth?  Slim and none would be the optimistic answer.

Luckily we can fall back on a very important source of information on UFO research.  I leave it for your consideration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xngFNtzMf3s

 

A Handy Primer on Nuclear Weapons

photog Science , ,

If you’ve got an hour and a half and want to find out exactly what a three stage thermonuclear weapon is and how it works or whether a neutron bomb was really invented to empty a city of humans but leave the buildings intact then this guide might interest you.  I’d always wanted to know how a cobalt bomb worked.

I watched it with great interest.  I learned a number of things that I hadn’t known.  For instance, in a multi-megaton bombardment of a city very few of the deaths will be by radiation poisoning.  The fireball and blast wave will kill mostly everyone who would have received a fatal dose of primary radiation from the fission and fusion neutrons and gamma radiation.  and the fallout will be dispersed into the stratosphere by the mushroom cloud for the whole world to enjoy later.  And I didn’t realize that hydrogen bombs were filled with styrofoam.  Don’t tthese monsters know how environmentally unfriendly styrofaom is?

 

 

Biotech Company Testing Gene Therapy to Cure Heart Disease

photog Current Events, Science

This article reviews a gene therapy that prevents clogged arteries in people who have a genetic basis for high levels of low density lipoprotein cholesterol.

Later this year, Verve Therapeutics of Cambridge, Ma., will initiate Phase 1 clinical trials to test VERVE-101, a new medication that, if successful, will employ gene editing to significantly reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or LDL.

…

The medication is targeted specifically for patients who have a genetic form of high cholesterol known as heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, or FH, caused by expression of a gene called PCSK9. Verve also plans to develop a program to silence a gene called ANGPTL3 for patients with FH and possibly those with or at risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

They’ve done the testing in monkeys and soon they’ll be trying it out on humans.  This is getting closer to the stuff that was science fiction fifty years ago.  A single intravenous treatment alters the DNA sequence of the patient’s liver cells and permanently cures a condition that would otherwise require statins and dieting and eventually stents and surgery to keep the patient alive.

I’m waiting for the gene therapy to cure my congenital laziness.  But the work-ethic-impaired never get consideration for our disease.  So unfair.

 

 

 

 

 

Energy Equates to Wealth

photog Current Events, Fake Science , , , , , , ,

Something that Environmentalists don’t want to admit is that fossil fuel has produced the modern world.  Without coal, oil and gas as fuels (and much, much else) we would still be living like the peasants in medieval Europe did in the 1300’s.  Coal was the fuel that made steam power possible which produced locomotives and steam ships.  Oil became the default fuel for electrical generation, automobiles, modern trains and also the basis for the myriad petrochemical products that make possible everything from pharmaceuticals and clothing to building materials and every other thing that’s made of what we call polymers.  Natural gas is the fuel for most of the modern electrical generation installations built in the United States over the last forty years or more.  And it heats a large percentage of homes and businesses.   Without these fuels we would literally be poor, cold, hungry and sitting in the dark.

And the Left knows that.  Now Jeff Bezos and the rest of the plutocrats are fine with this.  They know that they would still be able to reap the benefits of energy even if they denied it to the rest of us.  Bezos could have his own private solar collecting system and wind turbines with battery back-ups that could allow him to enjoy all of the modern comforts that would be denied to us.  His jet and helicopter and cars would mysteriously be able to use fuel while we would only be able to purchase a battery car that could only go a short distance and would be hard pressed to recharge by the next morning when we had to commute back to work.  Impoverishing and disenfranchising us is actually the goal of this whole exercise.  A new feudalism would replace a free country and the aristocracy and their minions would lord it over the rest of us deplorables.

Of course, we may not be happy about letting them do this.  Right now, $3.50/gallon gas and the inflation that causes in our economy is making Dementia Joe awfully unpopular.  When it reaches $5.00/gallon he may get tarred and feathered.  And that would be a wonderful thing.  Impoverishing the American people should be considered treason.  So hopefully the environmental insanity being pushed should create a strong reaction to the progressive agenda.  That would be a good outcome.

But there is something that needs to be faced.  There is a finite amount of hydrocarbon fuels in the Earth.  I’m not saying we’re close to the end.  I’m only saying there is an end.  And now is the time to be doing the basic research to find the next energy source for the modern world.  Maybe it’ll be nuclear fission plants, safer versions of the ones currently in place, maybe it’ll be better applications of solar power, perhaps solar collectors outside the atmosphere beaming microwave energy down to collection stations on earth.  Maybe it’ll be geothermal hot spots.

An inexhaustible energy supply solves one of our problems.  With it we can produce electricity to run our factories and if it is truly inexhaustible, we can even heat our homes with it.  But whatever it turns out to be we will still need a fuel for our cars and planes.

Airplanes will never be able to run on batteries.  The power density is too low.  And as we’ve seen battery powered cars are very limited in their range.  Unless there are large gains to be made in battery technology which is unlikely, the best solution is a synthetic fuel.

Maybe it will be hydrogen.  Hydrogen is highly energetic and when it is burned with oxygen its  combustion product is water.  It doesn’t get cleaner than that.  But hydrogen is a small molecule gas and it leaks easily and it blows up mightily.  So extremely fail-safe equipment will be a necessity if it becomes the fuel, we run our automobiles and planes on.  But hydrogen is not the only option.  With unlimited electrical energy engineers could very easily produce synthetic methane (natural gas).  Or with a little more work they could make longer hydrocarbons.  Octane is the optimal component of gasoline.  That could be the main product we produce as our global fuel.  Of course, we would be using water and carbon dioxide as our starting materials so at that point we would have a carbon neutral effect on the environment which unfortunately would make the environmentalists happy.  I wouldn’t feel so good about that but I guess it will have to be.

So, the exhaustion of supplies of natural hydrocarbon fuels is something we should be anticipating.  But instead of giving up the modern lifestyle we’ve gained from these energy treasures we need to use our ingenuity to invent replacements that enhance our ability to control our environment and improve our way of life.  And that’s my version of following the science.

The Country Leading the World Into a Nuclear Power Future – Finland?

photog Current Events, photog's Corner , , ,

Apparently the Finns have taken a decisive step toward making nuclear power the basis for their electric energy generating capability right through the next century.  The Finns have done the work to not only move into the next generation of nuclear power plant design but they are currently building the first modern large scale long term (permanent) repository for spent fuel rods.

If only Americans were as realistic and logical, especially all those global warming kooks who want to get away from fossil fuels but are too stupid to realize we already have the technology that will replace fossil fuels in the future.