Christmas Break

I'm going to take a week off, or so, for the Holiday. I know I can't complain about being burnt out from prolificity; I barely post enough as it is. But I have other things to concentrate on the next week. When I get back, I'll review 2010, my prediction that 2010 would be The Year of the Human Machine Interface, and make my bold prediction for what tech trends we'll see next year.

If anyone needs any last minute Christmas gift ideas for me, I really want the Kindle Wifi.


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Merry Christmas from TAE

To all you out there, from me here, a verry Merry Christmas. Remember its the giving that matters, not the getting.

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Weekly Devotional

Once again I come around in the rotation for St. Andrew's Weekly Devotional series.

Typically, these weekly devotionals are very good. They are introspective, uplifting, and direct. I feel like maybe I should violate the "rules of devotionals" a little, as my own birthday present for Jesus.
As we celebrate Christmas this week, and as we move towards 2011 the next, I humbly ask that each and every one of you declare 2011 "The Year I Become a Hero." Jesus, of course, typifies heroic behavior: stoically true to his principles, altruistic like no other, encouraging of similar behavior in others, and at the end, completely self-sacrificing with zero chance of reciprocity. Sure, Spiderman saving Manhattan from the evil Dr. Octopus is a heroic tale (and makes a good movie). But it stands pretty pale against the Man From Nazareth who saved the entire human race.
Being a hero isn't easy, so I know I am asking a lot. We live in an age of abject selfishness, where we can see people on reality TV shows obsessed with themselves, then turn off the TV and post the latest tidbits and minutiae about our lives onto Facebook, imagining that everyone on Earth is sufficiently interested that they should care and read about us. Movies like "Wall Street" suggest that although greed is evil...it's not that evil because it is necessary for the American economy to be so strong. My entire generation has been labeled "The Me Generation," a name I find incredibly depressing. We can "tweet" our thoughts, we can write blog posts about our feelings, we can post YouTube videos about our lives. Modern technology has essentially become a vessel for our narcissism.
Enter the hero. Heroes are not born; they are made. Dr. Phil Zimbardo, a psychologist at Stanford University, has suggested that a scientific method can be designed and implemented to create heroes. First, he suggests, we must train future Heroes to recognize fatal human flaws that can allow "evil to flourish." Second, we must train them not to be a willing bystander to evil acts. Next, he suggests, future Heroes must study past heroes in order to identify with them and eventually emulate them. The final act, and perhaps the most important, is when potential Heroes go out into the world and begin performing small heroic efforts, which will gradually train their behavior to one decidedly for good and not one of evil or unhelpful neutrality.
I believe we can simplify it even further and so here is my challenge for you: in 2011, do one thing every day that is purely altruistic and cannot be reciprocated. Compliment the bus driver. Visit your grandpa. Help your mom make dinner. Drop a dollar in the red bucket. Pray for someone and let that person hear you doing it. If your recipient tries to reciprocate and perform an act of kindness back to you, refuse it, and suggest they instead pay it forward to someone else. The way I see it, none of us can shoot webs from our arms, none of us have super strength. Also, none of us is the immortal human incarnation of God. But there are 800+ members of Saint Andrew, and many of them will receive this devotional in their Inbox. And in my wildly optimistic utopia, all of the recipients hear me and perform 365 miniature acts of heroism next year. That's 292,000 acts of heroism. Just from our little church.
And while I find nearly three hundred thousand acts of kindness a delightful outcome, what I am seeking is more important than that. This time next year, I will write another devotional, around Christmas. I want to write then about the 800+ self-made heroes we have right here in Kansas City. I want to write about how each and every member of Saint Andrew, carefully and modestly, cultivated a heroic spirit in them over the last year and my goodness, what a great place our church is because of it! I want to see our membership swell, as downtrodden and saddened people of this town are compelled and uplifted by the power and altruistic nature they see in us. I want them to say, "I know they are Christians by their love." And most of all, I want to write a year from now about how my wildly optimistic utopia turned out to be a very practical and achievable reality.
So please. Go be a Hero, every day. I'm not asking you to save Manhattan. I'm asking you, tiny little act by tiny little act, to save the world.

I'd expand that to my few, precious readers. Do something good, next year. You don't have to change the Earth's rotation. Just do some little thing, some tiny, insignificant thing, each and every day. Add them to the pile. I guess what I am dreaming of is crowdsourced salvation.


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A thought for your Tuesday - Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic...

Reading is a noun or verb. Writing is a noun or verb. What is the verb form of Arithmetic?


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Hello, Dream Job

R&D Engineer 2, Los Alamos National Lab

I wonder if Mrs. TAE would like Sante Fe?

Or maybe she'd prefer Albuquerque?
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XKCD, I love you

I could not have said it better.


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The End of DADT

I was having a really lousy weekend. News of this made everything better. Go America. Know hope.


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Friday Poetry Burst

I've used this before, yes I know, but I just had a huge setback at work, and needed the words.
Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


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Quote for the Day

"Any lab that is government certified has oversight." - Ryan in the comments here.

Chortle.


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The Worst Science Idea of 2010 - Genspace Now Open For Disaster

Here's the idea:
Let's build a lab where anyone, literally anyone, can come and tinker with microorganisms. Better yet, let's make this lab have no oversight whatsoever. Then, let's call making transgenic bacteria (in an unsecure environment) a "fun and educational" project.

Then, let's complain that University research (in a secure environment) is undemocratic and held under the tight tyranny of professorial dictators.

Then, let's encourage people to use the lab to test themselves for genetic conditions. If it turns out they have a genetic condition that will eventually cost them (and their insurance provider) thousands millions, I am sure these people will report it to their HMO immediately, and not try to hide it.

And while some people use the lab space to carry out work that might have serious IP and future revenue implications...let's secure it with no more than a sliding patio door.

Way to go Genspace! You have won TAE's coveted "Worst Science Idea of the Year" award.


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Back Once Again To Monogamy

TPI (for the purposes of disclosure, TPI has the quiet distinction of being married to my favorite sister) points to an interview with Mick Jagger, in which Jagger clearly has all the answers:

[Jagger] goes on to talk, in a rather rambling way, about the animal kingdom and how human mores regarding marriage and fidelity correspond to what we know of primate behavior. “If you have studied or have even a passing knowledge of animal behavior, it’s hard to see how our rules and regulation fit in,” he says at one point.

There are swans, he is reminded.

“Oh, yeah, I love it when women say that,” he replies. “I always have a joke with L’Wren about that. Women tend to say these things more than men do, don’t they?” He affects a sentimental whisper: “ ‘They mate for life, you know.’ ” He chortles heartily at this piece of feminine nonsense. “Yeah,” he muses, when his laughter dies away, “it’s swans and there’s one other. What is it? Albatross, or something.”

TAE delights in his knowledge of animal behavior (a B.S. in biological engineer and and a M.S, in biomechanical engineering may have included a passing knowledge of animal behavior) and relishes the beautiful moments when people who don't have "biology" in their academic major attempt to explain biology. You certainly don't see any blog posts from TAE on music composition. But I want to leave the hard work to TPI on this one:

You know, Jagger is right that primates aren't so interested in monogamy. But you know what else they're not interested in? Living intercontinentally, playing guitars and pianos, reading (much less writing) books, designing camera angles, spending hundreds of hours in a studio making a record, plotting break-even points, concerning themselves with decades-long creative partnerships, and exercising. And anyone who has studied, or even has a passing knowledge of animal behavior, knows that the chimp is no damned good at sitting still through lectures on "wave and sand formations." Just think about the massive cultural effort that goes into creating even one of these enjoyments. Consider the endless, orgasm-less hours that went into creating the simple electric guitar and the social milieu in which it can be played and heard. Your wearier voices of modernity spent their lives trying to answer the question of just how the blundering meatsacks that we humans are have managed to channel our effort into such apparently useless things as grand pianos and scientific lectures. And as unsatisfying as the work of a Freud or a Marx might ultimately be, they at least felt the need to account for the vast difference between humanity as we know it and the primitive state in which they imagined our true selves to have been forged.

Not so with the practitioners of evolutionary astrology. Why do we like to screw around? Bonobos. Why do we like to mate? Swans. Our true self, the key to our correct and rational conduct, is buried in our genetic history and that's all there is to it. Whereas once we danced on strings held by the stars, now we are the dysfunctional captives of some primitive human prototype. The terrifying thought that we might truly be conscious and truly free is banished either way.

In its core this is a wonderful counterargument. Because Jagger asks us to look at other animals behavior, we must look at our own species behavior as a guide to judging monogamy. However, what TPI is proposing is that modern humanity's freedom to behave as we wish also gives us the freedom to be monogamous, to marry, and to love one person our whole life.
But here's the question I have: if monogamy is a social construct of free will, why did it come about? We've always had Mick Jagger-esque people in society. We've always had Casanovas, Lolitas, various other polygamous subcultures. How did monogamy win the day for our society of free will? To hear some talk, not only is monogamy "unnatural" but it even can cause unneeded social conflict. Seems to me that if polygamy were a feasible option (in pre-monogamy-culture) we'd all have done it and never abandoned it. Sex is awesome, right! And not at all a distraction!
I go back, again and again and again, to the belief I have that the human species, despite our racy bonobo cousins, was a monogamous one. The argument for us being sex-crazed polygamists goes like this: bonobos have tons of sex for fun, for social connectedness, and for procreation. We are genetically closest to bonobos and chimpanzees (another promiscuous species), so we must also be genetically prone to promiscuity and polygamy as well. But the geniuses of animal behavior like Jagger want you to stop there. Please, please don't ask them the following question: why do Bonobos live in a matriarchal society but their next closest cousin, the gorilla, lives in a strict patriarchy? How can this be? Didn't the Bonobos get the memo that patriarchal society is what their cousins do, so they should naturally do it to?
Or could it be that ecological, physical, mental, and social changes (the very changes that brought about speciation of Pan from Gorilla also were the ones that caused Bonobos to have different sexual characteristics than their nearby cousins?
You cannot ask that question of these wizards of animal behavior because they know you will then extend that question to Pan vs. Homo. Could the massive physical, mental, and ecological changes that split us from our shared Hominini ancestor have also pushed our current species to become monogamous? Or at least provided the necessary environmental and social challenges to make monogamy advantageous over polygamy? TAE thinks, ardently, that this is so.
Almost unique to the entire animal kingdom, the females of our species have 12 menstrual cycles a year. Also strange: their menstrual cycles do not happen at the same time. Gather a random sample of 200 women and you'll have about a quarter of them "in heat" at any given time. Imagine, then, a primordial human male, faced with a tribe of constantly fertile females! Monogamy makes sense for females in this world, because it becomes the only social structure available for them where they don't face constant threat of rape.
Now imagine you are a male, in a tribe full of other males, faced with these constantly fertile females. Is there any hope for your tribe not destroying itself from within other than if each male is "assigned" a female to which he has sole mating rights? Surely we've all seen imagery of bucks, clashing with each other over mating rights during the rut. Imagine that 24/7/365.

TPI is right. Humans (and perhaps humans alone) have a choice to be polygamous or monogamous, just like we have a choice to play electric guitar or acoustic. But the argument seems to be coming down to "we can choose to ignore our sex-crazy nature and be monogamous or not" when I cannot accept that our species was successful in evolving as a polygamous one. Rather, I have to believe that the choice we free humans have is "should we choose to act like monogamous humans or act like polygamous bonobos?"


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In which I ask why my dad is a Republican.

TAE has a lot of friends and family members that are both Republicans and avid Conservationists. Many are hunters, and consider preservation of wild areas specifically and the environment in general an important part of their core value system. However, as Republicans, the freedom and ability to develop individual wealth as a member of a free-market capitalist economy is also wildly important to them. TAE suggests these two concepts are directly in conflict, and have been since the 80's.

And I'm not alone. Slate writer Daniel Sarewitz writes:

It is no secret that the ranks of scientists and engineers in the United States include dismal numbers of Hispanics and African-Americans, but few have remarked about another significantly underrepresented group: Republicans. No, this is not the punch line of a joke. A Pew Research Center Poll from July 2009 showed that only around 6 percent of U.S. scientists are Republicans; 55 percent are Democrats, 32 percent are independent, and the rest "don't know" their affiliation.

Doctor Science at Obsidian Wings responds:

I think the first shift of scientists to the political left happened around April 22, 1970 -- the first Earth Day. After that, as I finished high school and went on to college, when I said I was studying "ecology" people made immediate, forceful assumptions (one way or the other) about my political views. I remember going to a panel discussion in the mid 70s about science and politics, science and religion, where the speakers agreed that "science is not politically on the right or left" -- and I know they were wrong, because I was an ecologist and that was a political label more than a scientific one, at that time
My memory of the 70s and 80s is that Republican Party was *not* particularly anti-evolution at the time. There were discussions and debates about "Evolution and the Bible" and such, but they didn't have a particularly partisan character yet.
What I recall being much more significant were environmental issues. Although the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act were passed under Nixon, by the time the Reagan administration rolled into town the Republicans were pretty strongly on the side of pollution and extinction. Many of you are probably too young to remember Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, but that Wikipedia article covers the high points. Basically, he was completely on the side of extractive industries (including forestry and mega-agriculture). He justified it with Christianism: God wants man to have "dominion" over the earth, and besides, Jesus was coming back any day now.

There are two key claims he raises here. The first is that Republicans choose the economy over the environment, starting with the Reagan Administration, and the second is that the Republicans are more of a religious party than a political one. He goes on to suggest the former is what caused the exodus of scientists from the GOP:

Basically -- because even the short version is getting to be too long -- I think that in the 80s the Republican powers saw even the hardest of hard scientists, the physicists and geologists and NASA, take positions that impeded the core Republican value of Making Money.

Perhaps. But perhaps not. There is money to be made in science, too. The drug industry makes millions (billions?) in profits every year. Were American interests so composed, a very large amount of money could be made converting homes and businesses into more energy efficient versions. Cap and trade could make a lot of people rich. Cutting edge energy technologies could not only power the American infrastructure, but also power the American economy and provide us with another layer of dominance in the global game. That should appeal to Republicans.
No, I think the source of the exodus of scientists from the GOP is not due to Republican greed. Rather, the Republicans, for at least the last 15 years, have seemed to have a crusade going against science. Because Making Money sounds good to scientists, too. I wouldn't leave the GOP because they were greedy. I can be greedy too. But when my hardened, GOP-loyal-forever elders tell me that I am going to Hell for believing the Earth was formed over a period of billions of years, I subconsciously and consciously distance myself from them. I want to make millions, one day, in a free market where people can buy my product with minimal taxation or regulation. One thing I plan to invent requires a high-performance computer running evolutionary algorithms. How can I do that, but not believe in Evolution? Creationism is almost a uniquely Republican trait in my lifetime. And then you have issues like stem cell research, which hold the very real promise that before I die of old age I could see functional, perfect human organs grown on a petri dish in a laboratory. But the ethics of using a gamete cell to do this has become a clearly "Christian vs. UNChristian" battle when in fact the ethics of American stem cell research should be a-religious and should not be decided in the realm of what "faith tells us to do." Especially not in a country where the very Republicans who tout their Christian beliefs on stem cell research are the same ones that bandy around the Constitution and Bill of Rights at any and all convenient moments.
But coming back around to where I started, I have to wonder how my dad can be a Republican when they so aggressively pursue economics over the environment? When they use Al Gore as a convenient scapegoat to laugh away actual efforts to prevent climate change? In the 90's, especially, and of course around the time Mr. Obama was running for election, my dad rallied with others against the "certain" restrictions on firearms that Democrats were bound to enact. Clinton certainly enacted some firearms legislation. So as a hunter, I can see a purist hatred of Democrats being feasible, given the illusory belief the NRA seems to project that Democrats = Gun Control. But my dad is a pretty smart fella, surely he's realized that anti-democrat doesn't have to mean pro-Republican. The proof is at the top of the post: 32% of scientists identify as independent.
But climbing into my dad's truck six long years ago, Bush Cheney 04 sticker proudly displayed on his back window (right next to the Ducks Unlimited sticker), I was very confused. How could he support people that actively want to rape the Earth for every drop of oil with no attempt - literally zero attempt - to force America off oil dependence? Bush was all about "ending dependence on foreign oil" with heavy emphasis on the word "foreign."
Four years later I watched with chagrin as my dad seemed to support McCain over Obama. This was easier to understand; the fear that a Democrat President would come for our guns (despite the fact that a Republican President had passed the Patriot Act and basically given himself the privilege to do just that) loomed very real in the hearts of any active hunter, including myself. But could my dad really believe that a Republican stooge rogue hack who went from ardent conservationist to Kyoto-hater in about 5 minutes and from claiming in 2007 that global warming was "a serious economic and security concern" and "not a Hollywood invention" to saying in February 2010 that "80% of global warming science is based on fraud and misinformation" would have done a better service to hunters and conservationists than Mr. Obama? McCain supported cap and trade right up until he won the Republican nomination for President, at which point he became an ardent critic of it.
I realize, dear readers, that there are many subtle nuances at play in the choice of political affiliation, and probably my dad is a Republican because of one of them. But I've known the man for 28 years. His three loves are 1. His Wife 2. His children 3. Hunting. Given those priorities, I just don't understand how he could be a Republican.

Update: This is an interesting, and telling list of the least conservation-friendly politicians. Note the political party trend.
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The Hero Project

Jonah Lehrer reports on Phil Zimbardo's latest project (remember the Stanford Prison Experiment?) in San Fransisco: a school for heroes.

The goal of the project is simple: to put decades of experimental research to use in training the next generation of exemplary Americans, churning out good guys with the same efficiency that gangs and terrorist groups produce bad guys. At first glance, this seems like a slightly absurd endeavor. Heroism, after all, isn’t supposed to be a teachable trait. We assume that people like Gandhi or Rosa Parks or the 9/11 hero Todd Beamer have some intangible quality that the rest of us lack. When we get scared and selfish, these brave souls find a way to act, to speak out, to help others in need. That’s why they’re heroes.
Mr. Zimbardo rejects this view. “We’ve been saddled for too long with this mystical view of heroism,” he says. “We assume heroes are demigods. But they’re not. A hero is just an ordinary person who does something extraordinary. I believe we can use science to teach people how to do that.”

Um, awesome! TAE suggests this is a great idea. However, what makes me sad is that Zimbardo thinks we need such schools, which implies current school curricula is lacking in heroic (moral) education. Give the whole article a read, it's interesting.
Zimbardo suggests a curriculum to foster ordinary heroes: increased awareness of personal faults that could become "evil," study and admiration of historical and fictional heroes, and eventually performing real life acts of kindness and integrity.
I'm reminded of a scene from one of my favorite movies, Sam Raimi's Spiderman 2:

Henry Jackson: Hi Peter!
Peter: Hi Henry. You've grown tall!
May Parker: You'll never guess who he wants to be...Spiderman!
Peter: Why?
May: He knows a hero when he sees one. Too few characters out there, flying around like that, saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people. Setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they'll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.

Zimbardo is apparently dreaming big:

One day, though, Mr. Zimbardo hopes to have a hero project in every city. “One of the problems with our culture is that we’ve replaced heroes with celebrities,” Mr. Zimbardo says. “We worship people who haven’t done anything. It’s time to get back to focusing on what matters, because we need real heroes more than ever.”

Huh, ya think?
Here's the thing, and both Zimbardo and Sam Raimi  nail it: heroes must be cultivated. Peter Parker became a hero after gaining his spider-powers, yes, but the ethics and morals that compelled him to "do good" were fostered in him by his Uncle since he was a kid. "With great power comes great responsibility," his Uncle had told him for years.

TAE posits the following: to teach someone to be a hero, you need only teach them altruism. And unsurprisingly, TAE has previously written that perhaps altruism is the single trait (if a single trait could be identified) that defines us as human. Especially in the sad modern culture of America, selfishness has become a way of life. "Greed is good," Gordon Gekko intones. Reality TV tells us we should have cameras, following us constantly, documenting our lives (because we are so interesting). Facebook enables us to broadcast ourselves, our every activity and interest (with pictures) for the world to see. These activities are all fine, sure. I'm not saying everyone that uses Facebook is a "villain." Rather, I am saying what the world needs is regular lessons and reminders that once you turn off Facebook, turn on your altruism. Once you stop watching reality TV shows, start remembering that other people on this planet exist besides yourself and they could probably use a little help.
As Zimbardo says: "Though real heroes take risks...one can’t begin with reckless acts of altruism. Courage requires practice." Would that we all practiced, daily.


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The Large Hebron Collider

Earlier this morning, Israeli physicists announced plans to build the Large Hebron Collider, a giant circular ring designed to hurl Israelis and Palestinians at each other at speeds nearing the speed of light. Israeli scientists hope that by smashing individuals of the two groups together, they might successfully detect the MOT Particle, which they have nicknamed the "One True God particle," putting to rest several thousand years of debate over the exact conditions at the formation of the West Bank.


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Business

Back from the conference, new posting soon.


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Dear TSA

Dear TSA,

I'm no terrorist. In fact, I'm surely the opposite. Evidence for this being the fact that I really don't mind so much when I get zapped with x-rays in the name of safety, or the fact that I maintain a high-level security clearance with not problem.
The enhanced pat-downs and the x-ray scanners with naked pictures are lame, sure, but I'd rather have 'em than a terrorist on an airplane.

That said, I have to call into question one of your current policies: laptops. I noticed, yesterday, as I was flying from Kansas City to New Orleans that I had to pull out my laptop and put it in a separate bin from my satchel, for some reason. That's fine. But why didn't you check my laptop charger?
Because my laptop is pretty old, my laptop charger is a brick, approximated 4" x 3" x 1". It has cords running out of both sides, one ends with a DC port, the other cord runs to an AC adapter plug. It seems to me that I could have stored a sizeable block of C4 inside that charger and you'd have let me do it.
In fact, I am sitting here looking at it. Based on my measurements, I could package a 0.75" X 3" X 1.75" block of C4 inside the charger. The cord that runs from "the block" to my laptop could easily have been the detonator cord (the detonator having already been pressed into the C4), that I spray painted black to match the block.
Now, take me and three of my friends, all with "laptop chargers" in their satchels on the same plane. One of us has a simple Arduino board (that also went right through security no problem) to use as the trigger. Lo and behold, we could VERY easily take the airplane down.

Now, I am not advocating this. Terrorism is heinous and evil and not a productive way to bring about social change, unless chaos is the social status you wish to achieve. I am just suggesting to the TSA that maybe they think about how dumb it is to scan laptops in the x-ray scanner but not the charger block.


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Murder

I spotted him about 4:45 pm. He was tall, and looked in pretty good shape. He certainly towered over the others around him. He showed up where I hadn't been expecting him. I'd assumed he be further down the hill, further away from traffic.
In any case, there he was. Looking all proud of himself around the ladies. Some other dudes were nearby, but he clearly was being territorial, being alpha. From where I was, he didn't see me. Which was lucky, I suppose, because I wasn't trying extraordinarily hard to remain hidden. As he'd gotten in view I'd perked up from where I was hunkered down. Now I slowly reached down and lifted my rifle onto the shooting sticks I had lain in front of me. He still didn't see me. Unfortunate for him.
He was moving now, following 'his' girls. Didn't seem in a particular hurry. Arrogant. That'd cost him. Through the scope of my rifle I could clearly see his face. He kept nonchalantly looking over his shoulder at the other boys, seemingly to confirm they were being sufficiently submissive. We'll see if he finds hot lead submissive.

I'd been waiting for him, for quite some time. Most of the year I'd been planning when and where I would kill him. I dreamed about it. Thought about it. Even talked to my dad about it. I'd worked out a game plan. Chosen a place to kill him. Imagined walking up to his still body. Imagined standing over him, seeing that lifeless gaze in his eyes. Seeing the drips of blood coming off his chest from the bullet wound. Maybe I'd press on his chest, I daydreamed, and hear the shuddering wheeze of a destroyed thoracic cavity.

So there he was, standing there all proud and fearless, in my scope. I took off the safety and held my breath. The lack of a breathing rhythm froze the muscles in my chest, making the gun steadier. Also, by holding my breath, my heart rate dropped - making my aim even steadier. The cross-hairs rested right on his chest, just below the shoulder. The kill zone. I gently squeezed the trigger.

A muzzle flash filled the scope, and I blinked. Like always, I didn't feel the gun recoil at all. I watched him take off running. The girls he had been with scattered like quail. The other boys, elsewhere on the hillside, stood there trying to figure out what was happening for a moment, then took off running too. He stumbled and fell, got up and ran, then stumbled and crashed to the ground, spinning a half circle. He struggled a few times, there, on the ground...then lay still.
Even from 200 yards away, I heard his crashing fall. Even over the hammering of adrenaline-powered heartbeats in my ears. A surge of emotion went through me. I had just killed. I had just ended a life. The calm serenity of his life had been shattered by me, by the thoughtless energy of my rifle, and by the steady efficiency of my ability.
I loaded another cartridge into the chamber. Perhaps he'd rise again. Or perhaps I could kill another. A double kill seemed too much to hope for. My breathing slowed, I hadn't realized I had been gasping for breath. It had all been over in seconds. The hillside was empty now, save for me and the heap of flesh laying a ways in front of me.

Walking up to a dead body is always a weird experience. Will the body suddenly rise? Perhaps he's not dead; perhaps he's just gathering strength for a counter-attack. As is my nature, I don't keep a gun ready at those moments. If he had the strength left to fight back, it'd be just my physicality versus his. But he lay there, still. The only movement was the slight blowing of his hair in the wind. The only sound was my breath.
I stood over him. I saw, as I had imagined, the lifelessness in his eyes. He was gone. Gone forever. I had...I had murdered him.

What else can you call it? He was innocent, he had done me no harm. But I, well honestly, I delighted in his death. I was proud of it. I was looking forward to telling people about how I had killed him. How deadly accurate I was. How I had waited for the perfect shot. How I had taken him, right through the heart. I had known, from the distance, that he was a big boy. But up close, he seemed huge. I wondered how, out there alone, I would take care of his body. Loading it into the back of my truck was going to be a nightmare. Maybe I could just use ratchet straps; tie them around him, then just lash him to the tow hitch and drag him up to the barn. Hang him up in the barn and let the blood drip out of him.

I got out my knife. Best just field dress him right here. He'd be lighter, that would help. The crows and coyotes can have his entrails. As I split him from sternum to hips, his guts poured out. They were hot. Steamy and hot. The smell of them was strong, stronger than I had remembered since my last kill. I took care: if you are careful the whole abdominal cavity will just sort of pour out. Don't want to puncture the stomach...contents always reek. Cut the bottom end of the intestine to release it from the anus.
Then I cut through the diaphragm. Blood poured everywhere. Working blind, I reached up past his lungs and heart (I could tell his heart was in pieces) and cut his windpipe and esophagus. His lungs came out, and his heart sort of poured out. My shot had been good. He had been dead before he knew the bullet hit him. With that, the work was mostly done. I elevated his head and back, to let the majority of the free blood pour out onto the ground. Man, big boys like this can sure bleed. Then I began the onerous work of heaving him into the back of my pickup.

A half hour later he was hanging by his neck in the barn, blood lazily dripping onto a tarp below. I'd let him hang, and cool, for a couple days, then with dad's help I'd grind him up and put him in the freezer. We'd drag the bones and sinew down to the hedgerow for nature to clean up.

From a single shot fired on that hillside to hanging that deer in the barn had been less than an hour. The gruesome efficiency gave me a strange sense of satisfaction. I am an apex predator. I proved it.


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The Definition of "Discovery"

I have to admit, before I get into this, that I am a little jaded. I got excited, like everyone else, by Kottke's implication that yesterday's NASA announcement might be the discovery of E.T. Then, when it turned out to be a horrifying well-performed press conference that was a strange concoction of part roundtable, part lecture, and part press release...I must admit that I had furrowed brows. Maybe even a scowl.

That said, I think we need to discuss whether or not it is a huge misnomer to call Wolfe-Simon's GFAJ-1 bacteria a "discovery." Let us pretend, for a moment, that I took an algae, maybe some monocell from the chlorophyta division, and added DNA for a green phosphorescent protein. Presto, change-o, I've got glowing algae. Should I announce I have "discovered glowing algae"? Or would a better word be "created"? Or suppose I took a flu virus, and weakened it until it was harmless in terms of symptoms, but still provided the immune system with a response that would give a host later immunity to the same flu virus at full strength (this is a common method of making annual flu vaccines). Should I announce I've discovered a "cure for flu" or should I say I've "created" a flu vaccine?
The point I am driving towards is that while the ability of a living organism to seemingly thrive in the absence of phosphorous is truly amazing, the fact that it was not a naturally occurring phenomena makes the idea of it being a "discovery" less certain.

Extremophiles - bacteria and microorganisms that seem to thrive in awful conditions - are prevalent all across this planet. From sulfur-loving organisms living on volcanic vents on the pitch black seafloor, to algae growing in hot springs in Yosemite, to whole ecosystems living under the ice in Antarctica, you name the place...there are bugs there, delightfully thriving, pushing the limits of what a "hostile environment" really is.
And each of these organisms leads to the obvious conclusion that life on other planets might not need a perfect oasis of nutrients, water, and sunlight in order to exist.
But TAE wonders: though life can exist in a hellish, arsenic-laden place like Mona Lake, California - can it also evolve there?
It'd take a better biologist than I to tell you which came first...the thermophiles or the rest of us, but go far enough back, to the Primordial Ooze, and you have to eventually find "The First" which spread into life on Earth.
I think what we should be focusing on here is not the fact that "The First" used Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, Sulfur, and Phosphorous as its essential 6, but rather that The First appeared precisely when the Earth was at a chemical state conducive to it's appearance. And that chemical state included the most biogenic chemical compounds, which were created from the most biogenic atoms available.

Expand this view to other worlds, or their moons (like Titan), and while the cocktail of chemicals on that moon does not necessarily, in my view, eliminate the possibility that life might evolve there, the state of those chemicals as well as the state of the moon itself lead me to believe that Titan is a lifeless hydrocarbon-laden rock. I'd like to believe in methanogenic mice, skittering around pools of acetylene and playing on the frozen water rocks strewn all about...but I just can't see that such a place would allow for the development of a First.

So what of this arsenic-eating bacteria "discovered" at Mono Lake? Sadly, I have to believe that the fact that it needed laboratory coaxing to achieve phosphorous-free status actually weakens the chances of E.T. evolving on an arsenic world.


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New Life Discovered! (on Earth) - UPDATED

Cat is out of the bag:

At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same. But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first discovery. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don’t have to be like planet Earth.

It is not an overstatement to say this may be the biggest discovery in my lifetime. More to come.

UPDATE: I stand a little underwhelmed by the news. Researchers basically took a bacteria from an arsenic-rich environment and coaxed it a little further, until it didn't need the phosphorous at all. The bacteria wasn't already phosphorous free.
The smoking gun in exobiology will be the discovery of a bacteria that violates the current HONCSP requirement without tampering by humans. While this does have huge and far-reaching implications, it really isn't the thunderous breakthrough I was hoping for.
Sadly typical of NASA...


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Life on Titan

What if Kottke is right? What if this afternoon NASA announces the discovery of living organisms on Titan (a moon of Saturn)? I find it unlikely, mostly because I do not believe we have the equipment orbiting Titan to conclusively prove little critters are moving about. Sure, the Huygens craft landed and took pictures, but barring a webcam video of some sort of Titan-dwelling, methane-powered mouse skittering about, I highly doubt we've found evidence of life.

My instinct, considering this is NASA, is that they will have no conclusive results, but will call for massive, open-ended funding to plan a long-range mission back to Saturn to do further analysis of Titan to inconclusively determine that there might be the conditions for some sort of life form to maybe have evolved, maybe be evolving, or may yet to evolve. NASA will get a cadre of experts, as Kottke has outlined, and they will describe a test method by which living organisms might be detected, then NASA will announce that the mission will take tons of money and years and Boeing or Northrup-Grumman will be the prime on the mission.

But what if there was life on Titan? What if methane-based gas creatures flitted about the sky, drinking acetylene, and occasionally eating the methanogens that skittered around the hydrocarbon ponds on the surface? Not only would it be the most important announcement in the history of our species, but it would drastically change the "definition of life" and make us reevaluate (and almost certainly increase) the number of star systems we believed to be habitable. Certainly, humans could not live on Titan, nor could any other carbon-based life form. But if other forms of life could exist on these bizarre worlds...imagine the possibilities when the Universe may have not 22 sextillion stars as previously estimated...but three times that many!


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