You Are Here - Local Bubble

Great post at John Baez's blog - http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/12/27/our-galactic-environment/

Its very cool to have an even greater perspective on where we are and whats around us.  Wasn't that long ago that our view barely extended to the solar planetary system, and now we visit its farthest reaches with spacecraft.  How long before there is some kind of plan to explore this wider vista?  Distance, duration, and speed limits will frame how the exploration will occur, and how we will come to understand it, but I bet it will occur.

linkedin graph

Saturn

This is too cool!

From Cassini.  Lots more details here: http://www.ciclops.org/view/7418/A_Splendor_Seldom_Seen?js=1

sigh. foreseeable, lamentable, unintended consequences

Polio rates increasing in Central Asia. Heath workers distributing vaccines killed. Reason? Health workers used as cover by CIA trying to find OBL back in the day, leading to distrust now.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/12/health-workers-killed-trying-deliver-polio-vaccine-pakistan/60100/ 

Map thanks to http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring.aspx

Coupland is always good for interesting insight

I've always enjoyed Coupland's insight.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-radical-pessimists-guide-to-the-next-10-years/article1321040/

My read is that if Coupland is near the mark the future will be mundane, distressing when we think about missed opportunities, yet strangely comfortable.  We'll see.

I think the applecart will be upset by something unusual, unexpected, unforeseen in its consequences.  Detection of intelligence (maybe, it'll be ambiguous) in deep space, or the emergence of some kind of artificial intelligence here, or interesting results in bio-medial research that lead to significant life extension that no one is prepared for.

I hope we mature, at least a little bit.

patenting seeds?

Good overview article by Carey Gilliam in Reuters about an upcoming court case regarding seed patents.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/10/us-monsanto-lawsuit-idUSBRE8B917T20121210

I'm all for protecting innovation, but I'm not so much for using the patent system to leverage innovation protection into non-competitive market dominance or oppression. There are real policy issues: food policy, farm policy, food safety, as well as intellectual property policy.  I hope the path forward incorporates all the considerations that affect the economic health of society, and not just considerations of intellectual property maximization designed to benefit the incumbent biggest corporations.  Just sayin'

Thanks to the interwebs for a photo of seeds.

posing

No photos of her for a while, so, ....