Superpowers… in the Real World

What's up? So… another Monday, is alright, we've discussed it before and now we gotta start our week. All I gotta say regarding last week is… what's going on with the weather? I know you know what I'm talking about, these heat waves are growing bigger, let's hope nature isn't trying to make up for the cold winter we just had.

Now… topic of the day: Superpowers. What's up with those? Well, I don't need to throw at you the whole 4-1-1 of them since you pretty much have the knowledge… flying, x-ray vision, super strength, you know them all, of course, in the science fiction. Maybe you've picked up a comic book or watched a cool movie and you wondered at least once what would be like to have one of these superpowers, but what if I told you that some of these abilities are being performed by real people in the real world? And I'm not talking about using special lenses, an airplane or a suit, I'm talking no devices here.

It turns out science has made possible some dudes and gals to have certain abilities we consider -for the lack of a better word- amazing! Not sure exactly how we can explain some of this, but it's real and they live among us. The first example I can think of is this german baby I heard some time ago with a strength beyond ordinary, he was born in 99 and his nickname is 'Das Uberboy', and what scientists say is that there's a real genetic mutation (sort of X-Men) and his muscles are all ripped.

There are less 'obscure' cases (since that german kid has never been seen), such as Ben Underwood, his superpower is called 'echolocation' (for me the best new name for a superpower). It turns out he can't see, but it looks like we could, since we plays ball, skates, writes and all using and incredible techniques involving the echoes on things bouncing back at him, pretty much as a bat… that's a superpower Batman would be dying to have! An incredible note, Ben also can play videogames… but how? Don't ask.

As a final example are some Buddhist monks, who apparently are some sort of Pyro from the X-Men (second time I quote the comic), since the generate heat energy from their bodies to the point when they can put on fire certain objects. They do so with a meditation technique called Tum-mo, that way they lower their metabolism and control their body temperatures. Researchers still can't say how this works, but it's known the practical implications and even astronauts can benefit from all this.

What do you think? Sure there are many more examples, but how do these occur? Is not like science cannot explain it, more like scientists can't, because all has an explanation. Do you know anyone with any cool abilities? Any sort of explanation you may have about any superpower? If you could have one of them… which one would you like? (Please don't say something like: the superpower to have all superpowers) So many questions! Leave all your comments downtown and if you want to know more about it check out the vid! See you next Thursday!

Can people fly?

Hey guys, so… what's up? And please don't come up with responses such as: 'The sky', 'clouds' or the common classic 'the ceiling'. Hope you had all your batteries recharged to face this new week, so let's bring it! Now I came up with a very unusual question, since you read the title (and if not, no need to scroll up). Its unusualness is not because of the answer -not going to fry the pill here- but because someone was smart enough to ask it in the first place.

Ever had that dream where your feet are off the ground and suddenly you are above clouds meeting mountains as equals? Light as a feather, people have said. I believe this is probably the most recurrent dream after the one standing on a stage crowded… and naked (mmm… another blog topic?). So, I guess is fair to say the idea of people flying wouldn't be too bad, would it?

But the reality is… we simply can't, we are doomed to be strapped to the ground and vehicle-dependent to try differently. Ok, I know I playing fool here if I insist, but for the sake of argument I'll do it just this one time more: 'Can people fly?'. And as a rush of voices drilling in my head I hear a solid: 'No, people can't'. Ok, no worries, now I get it. Now I feel compelled to dig in and to find all the reasons why people can't fly, probably if we can find out every single explanation why humans can't fly -on their own- we, in the very distant future, can work out something… right?

Believe it or not, some peeps have done some pretty weird explanations why people can't fly, from the very basics one to ones dealing with physics, formulas, equations and what not. We are going to know the surface about them and if you can come up with a new one, feel free to share it with the world (and, once you're at it, with the slightly less number of people who read this blog).

First, gravity… yeah, some laws simply can't be broken, not gonna be around the bush with this one, pretty basic. Two, lack of wings, this one is more of a workaround with gravity, a way of defying, just like airplanes or birds do… the questions arises, given our anatomy, if we grew wings (BIG conditional) would our bodies be capable of flying and steering in the air? Can't say if they would, maybe we'd be as graceful as a hypo doing ballet. Those are sort of the basic answers, but wait… there are more.

Wind can't keep us up, even with winds (I have no idea how to sustain this argument, the one who said it maybe have done the proper test with real human wings… just saying). Another explanation I read said something like, in all our thousands of years in the evolution cycle we never needed to fly… cool, I wish we had at one point the need, wouldn't you say? A fun argument stated we humans can't fly because we only use 20% of our brains, but if we used 100% we'd be able to fly using brain energy. Sorry, I don't know the units of that -brainjoules (bj?)- Can't speak for that argument.

As you see, science can be fun too, not only tells us what we can do but also it knows very well what we can't possibly do. Can you think of any other reason why people can't fly? Or maybe you can come up with a great and original response. If something hits your brain leave a comment in the section below and how know, maybe in the year 7865 we may start seeing the first steps in human flying evolution. Until then… just keep walking.

Is Time Travel Possible?

Happy vacations start! Yeah I know… many of you will be working/studying and what not, but if you have at least a couple of days off take some time to plan something cool to do, I dunno, go out with your friends, read a book, visit some exotic place, get a tan… anyway, there are plenty of things to do and we simply don't have the time to do them all… or do we?

Today's post title (in case you haven't figured it out) is a question I first read in a book wrote by Richard Matheson in 1975 called Bid Time Return that later was adapted to a movie starring Christopher Reeve (Superman) and Jane Seymour (Dr Quinn). Without spoiling a thing this novel deals with something many people don't actually believe it can be done… time traveling.

Note: Since I won't be talking about the movie (can do so in another post) I really encourage you if you have the chance to read the book… it holds a GREAT premise, on my personal favorites, the movie is also great, give it a watch if you can!

What do physicists think about all this? Well… believe it or not they have some really cool questions and many peeps have come up with their own answers. I recently read an article by Josh Rubak (http://www.rubak.com/index.cfm) and he has a pretty cool one about the possibilities of time traveling. It turns out there are four 'modes' in you want to travel through time, two involving the past and other two the future, and in each them we can either be a 'viewer' or to be a 'participant'.

Long story short… we can only 'view' the past and 'participate' in the future. I think it makes sense since if we change the past paradoxes will occur and if we participate in the future (and we can go back in time afterwards) we again find paradoxes in our way. What's a paradox? Well, if you want to think something for a long time a debating with folks here it goes… what happens if you go back in time and kill your dad? As you can image… that's a paradox and there're tons of points of view in regard.

I've always liked thinking about those things (not killing my dad, but in time travel), you know, visiting times and places you've only gotten to know in books and movies, having the first tools in practically all aspects of life (so long internet). Can you picture yourself how would you be in the medieval era or before the birth of Christ? What profession would you have? I guess is nearly impossible to get the whole picture, but is a great exercise. In the other hand… what about going to the future? Will there be any resemble to today's world? Imagine all sort of hi-tech stuff spread out everywhere? The possibilities would be incredible!

As you've thought, many people get their references in this sort of matter from the media, I don't need to recall you the amount of movies/books/stories dealing with time travel… my favorites? Well, besides the Bid Time Return book (again, awesome) I'd say in movies Primer and The Jacket. The first one is an independent film about two dudes who 'accidentally' build a time machine and the second one deals with traveling when people gets isolated wearing some kind of straitjacket. Both are really good films in their own right.

We hear all the time science fiction is surpassed by reality… examples? All around us: TV, internet, moon travels, microchips… bla, bla, bla. The real question here would it be… will we ever be able to travel in time? Are there the means and science to ever put a machine able to do so? If there was a chance, would you jump in? As always, please feel free to leave all your comments in the section below (don't be shy, you know you want to see your comment down there) and in the next entry I will post a shocking surprise… see you mid week!

Meanwhile watch this small vid where Michio Kaku explores the possibilities of time travel in terms 'for the rest of us'. What do you reckon?

A Romance of Many Dimensions

What's happening forum!? (just stole that line from a mainstream youtube channel I've been watching lately, kinda like it). What's new with you? Hope you've had a blast reading this blog, I'm pretty sure you're gonna love the next posts, so let's jump in.

When I was in the university (don't worry, that was last year) very few sessions really moved me, not because of the content or schedule, but because of the 'feeling' on the teachers words. I bet most of us just fall sleep or check our e-mail when teachers detoured from the main subject, but is in this times when the most important things shine up… or simply the least boring.

I remember one particular lecture of my Graphics teacher, when he was trying to explain to us what's up with the 'fourth' dimension, so he came up with a small story from a book called 'Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions' by Edwin A. Abbott. How can this title possibly explain the fourth dimension? And don't laugh, but the main character is a square… have your attention yet?

This story starts with our square (who I like to refer to as Mr. S). Mr. S has lived in the 2D for all his life, that's all he knows, he can go up and down, left and right, in fewer words, he is the master of 2D. One night Mr. S has this dream where he visits Lineland (you won't find this place on a map, don't bother) and he meets the ruler (no pun intended) of this place and Mr. S talks to this guy about Flatland (his 2D world), but the ruler doesn't believe such a place exists, since he only knows Lineland, where there's just one dimension.

But later in the tale Mr. S meets a visitor from a 3D world (Spaceland), this visitor is what we'd call a sphere. Since there's no way to fit a sphere in a 2D world, all Mr. S sees is a circle (another peep from Flatland), but things start to get out of control (at least to Mr. S) when the sphere moves, because Mr. S perceptions translates into a circle changing size (much like slicing an orange, all slices are different sizes). But how is this a big deal for Mr. S? Well, imaging if in your life you meet a person, and all of the sudden his or her size changes? Or maybe some colors? Or even worse… if this person disappears? That is exactly how we'd feel if something or someone who'd lived in 4D visits our 3D world… start getting the picture? (For the record… I think those names worlds are my highlight of the day!)

All this episodes are entwined in an english novel, and though you can think is a math or geeky novel, it is actually a satirical novella dealing with social hierarchy issues… wow! That's some imagination from the XIX century, I'm starting to worry where the romance is at (I'm thinking of all sorts of interaction with squares and circles…). Anyway, is a great novel from the UK which you should read now! Here's the link to the novel, perhaps is better if you print in though. Also check the trailer of the movie, is kinda funny!

http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/

Six Degrees of Separation

How's it going guys? Hope you've had a nice week. Before stepping out in our main post just let me give you my update about the last one, our new favorite equation!!!… Did you try it to hit the the calculator? What's your lucky number? Well… all I'm gonna say mine is… 11.

Ok, moving on. Now let's take it old school… social networks. What? Another one of those? Like if you haven't heard enough from them already, nowadays they're flooded with information, communication, pictures, groups, links… man, is quite easy to have a headache from all of it. And funny enough, these internet networks are in diapers. Take note that I started the paragraph with 'old school'… what's so old about it? Well… let me play interesting for now and tell you about the very first (and original, I might add) social network.

Remember the days without a computer? Hard to believe? Even in those days people had their own 'social network', and sometimes they didn't know about it. I like to call this network as the 'Six degrees of separation' experiment. I know you might heard about it, and you may ask yourself… "Wait a minute, that's not a social network, get your sources together!" Just keep reading.

It turns out that "Six Degrees of Separation" (SDoS) is a theory suggesting that every single person on the planet is somehow 'connected' to any other person you can think of through six other people max. Let me put it this way… if you are a facebook user then you can be 'connected' with any other user through six (or less) other users who make a chain of friends out of themselves. This was first proposed in 1929 by Frigyes Karinthy (I told you it was old school!). It sounds like a nice coincidence, but… it is true?

If you explore this on the web, you're gonna find a lot of experiments. People from the MIT, IBM, sociologist, playwrights, all have done their own little experiments. I personally like one involving the postal service, where some random senders only know the recipient's name, occupation and general location. Their task was to make sure the package was delivered to the target via people they thought were most likely in touch with the recipient (their friends or family). All these experiments results are quite striking, since the average number of 'links' needed between persons was, indeed… 6… but why 6? Is some sort of magical number? Maybe. Does it mean anything? Maybe not. Anyway, experiments and research are in still in the works and maybe, sometime, we'll be able to know if this theory carries some sort of deeper meaning.

Can you imagine being potentially in touch with EVERYONE? And I mean EVERYONE. Every person you see on the streets, TV, movies, radio, people from China, Ethiopia, Sweden… wow… my mind explodes! You can do your own experiment on the web, just look your facebook friends or people following you on twitter. Even Hollywood took noticed of it and there's a movie with that very title (Will Smith's on it). Here's the trailer of the movie if you fancy watching it.

Honestly I think anything is possible, but if we wanna make contact with the one person first we gotta find the right six people to make the connection.

Drake's Tweaked Equation

What? Are we turning this space into a Math class? Naahhh… I know it sounds like it, but bare with me for the next couple of lines to find out something truly amazing it may help you BIG TIME! Everything started like a couple of weeks ago having a chat with a friend of mine (@Padaguan) when he talked to me about a guy in the UK named Peter Backus from the University of Warwick who did something it may not get a Nobel prize for, but I'm sure many people are gonna love him for it (and in my opinion that's wicked!). All begins with the title of this post… obviously we're not going to mess with the numbers, all we need to know is that the untweaked equation was once written back in '62 by… (guess who?) Dr. Drake, and it helps to measure the possibility of finding life in other planets… plain and simple.

Ok… fair enough… so what? How this bunch of numbers are gonna help us in any way? Alright… here it goes, while scientists are using this equation to estimate the existence of intelligent life outside our world… this english fella tweaked it in order to… (drum role!) measure the number of compatible ladies and potential girlfriends for him. And it gets better, it doesn't limit to "find" them around the world… but in his own town instead!

How is this possible? Well, now we're stepping in the line between abstraction and practicality. Here's how it works, while the original formula takes into consideration other aspects, the ones we're going to see are some sort of adaptations of your own likings (i.e. if you want your girlfriend to have a major or being over certain age). So, we have to make up our minds and choose how we want out mate to be. After we have that sorted out we need to know certain things regarding our town's population (like percentage of genders and such).

Alright… good so far? I saw the formula and in total it takes 8 different aspects, which (easy enough) all we have to do is to multiply them with our trusty calculator and violá!!! To cheer you up, our new best friend from UK got a pretty solid answer… 26… YESSSS!!! 26 is the number of girls from London he may have a wonderful relationship with (in his own words). You hated numbers? Not now! I have to say that's a pretty nice adaptation we can all use. My friend @Padaguan did the math for his case and his new lucky number is 14. That's the number of compatible girls walking the hallways and hanging out in his university waiting to be found! (That's right! He narrowed it that down!)

What are you waiting for? Grab a calculator and hit those buttons! Your perfect match can be just around the corner just waiting for you (or for any other compatible one). I hand you the link listing the aspects you need to work its magic and also I leave a small vid so you can meet the author of the original equation himself: Dr. Frank Drake (you gotta bow to him!) I'm about to hit the calculator myself, I'll let you know my numbers in the next post.

Here's the link

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/phd_students/backus/girlfriend/why_i_dont_have_a_girlfriend.pdf

The Butterfly Effect

Have you ever heard the term? Or the movie? (Kinda cool if you ask me). Have you ever wondered how come are you living your life exactly the way it is? Did you plan it just the way you wanted it or as most people say: "One thing led to another…". I don't want to burst anyone's bubble if they argue with me by saying: "Dude, I planned all my life and I'm living it exactly as I want it. You have no idea what I've been through to achieve it". But the thing is, as much control as we have over our lives, we just don't control all around it. These are mere examples of this so-called metaphor that we all may be immerse in.

To be in the same page, the butterfly effect is a metaphor dealing with a theory called the "Chaos Theory" (long story short, mini-tiny differences in the beginning of anything causes extremely big differences at the end of things). The metaphor describes a butterfly (captain obvious!) flying around, and with this movement may unchain a change in the weather of a place very far away (much like rain or anything like it). Sounds like a very weird example, but it helped me to understand how apparently despicable details may matter for any outcome we can think of.

But how this weird metaphor applies to our actual lives? Is it practical? My very personal answer is.. by all means YES! Just think of any recent day you've had. Make a list of things you wanted to do but for any weird/silly/unknown reason you either delayed or postponed them, maybe you met someone or your internet was down or ran out of gas… well, let's say those things are your butterflies! And you doing things or not is your "weather". Now we're getting somewhere! I know it sounds very out-there, but I think is very believable. I mean, imagine how you met your best friend, or how you ended up stuck in a meeting… or simply, how did your meet your boyfriend/girlfriend… those butterflies are everywhere!

Any science involved here? Believe it or not, yes. There are tons of things on the web, examples, experiences and if you're brave enough, even mathematical definitions and some real studies. If you spare a minute or two, you can surprise yourself. I even noticed this theory on the media, I bet you're begging to hear about the movie, I will say that it sets nicely the effects of people acts and their own future getting affected, but steering aside from THAT movie (I mean, the title itself is revealing enough) I like to think in this other movie… "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (minor spoiler alert!), somewhere in the middle of the movie a narrator explains us how a series of mundane events seemingly unrelated lead to a sad outcome (just like one of those series of cartoonish mechanisms involving a ball going around and activating all kinds of scales, strings and weights). If only one event is missed, then the outcome would be totally different.

So, next time you're doing something you actually want, think if any butterflies are preventing to mess up with your weather! What's your story? Leave a comment if you've lived anything like it. Is always nice to think people are going through same things we are! I leave a small background video if you want to know a bit more about this metaphor. See you next weekend!

Cosmos

Last week I went to  a DVD store and I saw on the shelf a 4 DVD pack of a mid 80's miniseries written by Carl Sagan called Cosmos. I remember seeing an episode or two when I was in junior high and it caught my eye right away. Just yesterday, 10 years later, I watched the first episode and luckily it answered the very first question that I had regarding the miniseries… what in the world is Cosmos? And believe me when I tell you, I loved the answer. Cosmos is all there is, all that ever was or ever will be. Gosh! If I knew that when answering a quiz… every time I would've responded… Cosmos!

This miniseries explores and narrates, with clear analogies and comparisons, different fundamental questions about the human life… how did we evolve? How the world was created?… anyway, sort of geeky-general questions that actually I'm eager to know the answers to. Obviously I'm not going to review it, since I've seen only a couple of episodes, for a change I'll try to tell you my first impressions on this "personal voyage" as the intro states.

First of all, this is not led to a brainy/scientific audience, here you won't find any mathematical explanations, complicated terms or a boring, heartless host. Carl Sagan has managed to communicate, with incredible easy examples, some of the most fascinating and creative answers for the rest of us. This collection of episodes are not glued with high-level explanations, but with, for a lack of a better word, love (?). Corny as it sounds, it is true. And that was the first thing I noticed, while waiting for a complicated moment I was welcomed with analogies that I, a mere mortal, could understood as crystal as water (in a non-smoke free environment, of course). You can tell Sagan was fascinated with every word he said, and most of all, you believe his words.

Just thought of another great approach I realized… when people hear "Cosmos" (and if they see the DVD cover) they'll definitely categorize this miniseries as an universe/galaxy/world movie. Well… can't blame that, since we just heard that ALL there is is Cosmos… but that conception can't differ more from the truth. Here you will hear things as big as the "Big Bang Theory" (no, you won't find Penny here… sadly) or as small as a bird. Mundane things like a city or a war are addressed, so you're in for a treat in every new episode you watch. Nicely attached in some episodes are small entries recorded 10 years after the main piece where Sagan updates some info regarding that particular episode.

I know it's been a while since Cosmos was released, so you won't find HD, widescreen or other fancy features, and some effects may seemed outdated (not a fault by any means), but in return you'll find a great piece of human heritage courtesy of a true character as Carl Sagan at his finest. Since the price tag is extremely low (150 MXN for over 750 min of film in 4 DVDs) and for the quality of the information I definitely recommend you give this a buy and believe me, you hardly will find a better deal than this one. As usual, I leave you with a small video review (well, is like 27min long, but watch just a couple of minutes) so you can have a great preview of this sublime voyage.