Special: Technology Tuesdays (on Wednesday): Defending against the Sun - Both Beautiful and Terrifying

Watch the movies 2012 and Knowing and you may just be thinking, "Haven't I seen this before?"

You're right.  You have.

Whether it's in the year 2012 or through (spoiler alert) advanced knowledge from other worldly beings, both movies say that the earth will perish thanks to the fiery flames of the sun - and this is meant literally.  Both movies say that violent eruptions from the Sun, a.k.a solar flares, will come speeding to Earth at alarming speeds and without warning and will destroy us all.

Rather than "Haven't I seen this before?" the perhaps better question to ask would be "How do we prevent solar flares from wreaking havoc on Earth?"

                                      A gigantic solar flare about to come right to Earth, but Earth's natual magnetic field protects us from the flare's destructive power all the time....we hope.  Image from a Montana State University article

Well, we are technologically sophisticated, but not enough to capture a solar flare when it leaves the sun and redirect to another part of space, but we do have a plan.

There is a space.com article from last month about NASA's new project aptly named "Solar Shield" that is aimed at giving power companies on Earth a warning of when a coronal mass ejection (the solar flare) will come slamming into Earth.  The warning is usually given a day or two in advance of actual impact.

The point of this early warning detection system is to limit the amount of damage done AFTER the solar flare ejects from the surface of the sun.  We cannot stop a solar flare from occurring in the first place, and we cannot stop a huge solar flare from destroying the earth, but we CAN limit the damage done by a certain sized solar flare that isn't big enough to wipe us all out.

This is extremely important and the Solar Shield project should get more praise and attention and media coverage.  This is not to say that a flare will happen any day now, but the more attention that comes the way of this project, the more the project will be pressured to be effective, and the less likely it will be that once a solar flare comes, power companies will be powerless to save power grids around the world that supply power to our cell phones, televisions, gas stations, airports, schools, hospitals, computers, supermarkets and just about every other thing you take for granted in life.  After all, technology and the power to supply it is what our society is literally built on today.

Take that away from us and we will be living the lives of those in 2012 and Knowing after the screen fades to black and the credits start rolling.  What's that?  You don't know what happens to the people after the screen goes dark?  Yeah, me neither.

Web Wednesdays: Face Recognition Technology, A Gift or Curse?

The New York Times posted an article today about social media giant Facebook and its new Face Recognition Technology (FRT) and how it is now easier than ever to recognize yourself and other friends.

Using an added feature called "tag suggestions," Facebook takes photos where people are tagged by YOU, and then apply the FRT to apply tags to similar photos posted of that same person posted on the entire site. Let's say you tag your friend once, Joe Schmo, in an album where there are more than 60 photos of Joe Schmo untagged.  Facebook's "tag suggestions" tool and FRT will tag Joe Schmo's name to the remainder of the photos in the album and perhaps to other photos of other albums Joe is in.

Facebook claims this saves the user time since he or she won't have to tag the same person over and over again.  The Times article states that this may take away business from sites like Face.com that use and depend on the same technology to make business.

Convenient?  Probably.  But what if Joe doesn't want to be tagged in any photos?  Facebook will still leave you with the option of taking your tag away, but if Joe didn't want to be tagged, it will take time just to "de-tag" himself thus taking away the time-saving convenient option of not having to create tags in the first place.

Thinking of suggestions?  Perhaps right after creating an album, Facebook can ask the creator if he or she wishes to allow Facebook to use its FRT to create tags throughout the album.  It should be stressed that it needs to be done after creating EACH album because personal preferences may change and if it is only asked once in a hard-to-read and small-printed change of agreement form when logging onto Facebook, one may just forget about it.

Here's an example of how the FRT just might be implemented in a brilliant illustration from the BBC:

Check out the Biometric technology article this image came from in a BBC piece

What do you think the exciting prospect of Facebook implementing this new technology?  

Check out the New York Times article that propelled this post.  

Science Fridays: Want an endless supply of Gold? Go to the Kuiper Belt!

Let's take a trip back 4.5 billion years ago when the solar system was forming.  There were many collisions of asteroids and meteors hitting planets, making planets bigger with every hit along with the gases that were settling into planetary atmospheres.  This process was known as accretion.  Every once in a great while, or rather, once in a great great great while, you would have a collision like this:

(from Mike Wall in space.com's article Ancient Crashes)

While this seems incredibly destructive, it actually is part of a theory that is incredibly revealing about Earth's history.  The image above shows a body roughly the size of the moon crashing into Earth at a very high speed, which then cooled off and began an orbit around Earth with only one side facing the Earth.  This body of course is now known as El Luna or the one and only moon.

Besides decreasing the Earth's size slightly, tilting Earth's axis and besides creating our Moon, this crash may have brought metals with it, some of which include gold and platinum.

Gold is luxurious and was the source of a mad populous dash from the eastern half of America to the West.  You can in part thank platinum for reliable dentistry equipment, laboratory equipment, very-much needed fiber optic cables and even helps coat jet engine fuel nozzles.  

There is a trend I'm getting to here.  Elements like gold and platinum coming from space, there are even rocks found in Antarctica coming from Mars.  All this may help someday support a theory called panspermia: that life as we know it did not start on Earth, that it may have come from space.  

Minerals, elements, ancient large crashes, and even modern organisms all coming from somewhere else???  Everything we know may not even be home grown?  I haven't been this disappointed for my home turf since realizing palm trees weren't native to California.

No wonder why we have such a hunger to venture out into space.  We have a hunger to go home.  Next time you pick up a nice golden jewelry or watches, don't think "Thank God for this Earthly element" (Come on, I know you say that), think "Thank God for putting this element on Earth."

Want to read more on ancient crashes into Earth?

History Thursdays: Can Technology Get Out of Hand?

History Thursday did not appear last week, so it will this week!  Remembering history can teach us lessons about the past, what went wrong or right, and help us improve our present and future, let's all remember that next time we go to History listen to a sometimes-boring-balding-man lecturing about past warfare activities or anything of the sorts.

But speaking of warfare, that's where this History Thursday looks back.  The brilliant History Channel reminds us what happened on this day, December 9th in 1950: Harry Gold is sent to prison for his role in atomic espionage.

Before you ask yourself "Harry who???" or "atomic espionage?  Who cares!"  just picture this image in your head...

            (image taken from thesticksblog.com)

Harry Gold was sent to prison for 30 years that day in 1950 for being a courier between British scientist Klaus Fuchs and Soviet agents.  Fuchs allegedly stole top-secret information on the atomic bomb, and his arrest led to a large scale FBI operation into Soviet espionage and the theft of atomic bomb secrets.  Want to read a more complete version of this story?

Historians and scholars can debate that there were many different points in history that started the cold war, but some could evidently point to December 9th, 1950 being THE date.

The Cold War and its historical facts and interpretations isn't what this blog post is about.  Choosing to take a bird's eye view into the larger issue at hand here is questioning whether harnessing the power of the atom and using nuclear technology for peaceful purposes can be achieved.

Here you can read about how nuclear energy produces even more electricity: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf01.html

Can our technology get out of hand?  Can we use nuclear technology solely for its peaceful purposes and not use it to duplicate the image of above that causes so much harm and destruction?

What can we use it for anyway?  A better question is, how can we continue to use it to benefit HUMANS in everyday life?

A detailed and informative read from the CBS Interactive Business Network explains some uses for nuclear technology that helps us understand just how crucial and important it is to every day life:

1. Sterilizing Medical Equipment - you know, surgical gloves used during surgery and bandages to wrap up your sore ankle

2. Drug testing - no no no, not the kind you can find on college campuses.  According to the article linked, 80 percent of new drugs approved by the FDA for medical use in the US is in part thankful to the radiation developed by nuclear technology

3. Diagnostic techniques - from the invention of x-rays to the radioisotopes that allow medical specialists to see specific biochemical functions in the body.  Heard of the SPECT scan (single photon emission computed tomography) that can help detect cancer cells?

OK, enough medical uses.

4. Material Products - Chemical reactions of certain materials and a slight exposure to radiation help create "heat-shrinking" products which can be used in the packaging industries.  Radiation also changes the molecular structure of materials which allow them to absorb ample amounts of liquid and products that rely on this process include disposable diapers for the little ones and air fresheners used for that terrible smell you in the kitchen you think comes from the fridge that will never go away.

5. Wear Contact Lenses?  The article states that the saline solution used to clean contact lenses is sterilized by gamma radiation.

The list goes on and on and on, but remember to read it and find out more about it!

So what do you say folks?  nuclear tech for peace or nuclear weapons for war?  It might just be an opinion poll down the road.

Mickey Mouse Mondays: I Don't Want to Grow Up, I Just Want to Be a Kid

It's Monday so it's time for kid stuff and for the parents who may be reading.

If you have read the previous posts, you may have picked up by now that while I devote two days of the week to the internet and technology, most posts are going to reference one of those two topics, so no difference today!

If you are a kid reading this or if you have kids of your own, you know that the internet is a pretty big place.  You can read all kinds of information about just about anything that's on your mind, from tomorrow's weather to the latest celebrity sighting!

To all the kids out there, there is a message in all this: stay educated by reading about the history of the US and the world, understand the geography of our planet, and keep working on those math problems -  and use the internet to your advantage. To the parents, help them find the resources online to stay educated.  Kids today use computers and log onto the internet more than previous generations, encourage them to use the internet to supplement their education.

How do you use the internet to educate kids?

Not by studying online lecture notes and reading page after page of text.  You do so by....... playing games!

Here's one resource that can help: http://www.kidsknowit.com/

There are some fun educational games where kids can learn more about history, geography, and even dinosaurs.

There are kids sections of news agencies websites, such as the BBC and PBS among others.

While these are kids games, it may not be so bad for adults to brush up on some math and spelling games as well, or do we think we're too good for it?

Science Fridays: Life Always Finds a Way

It's Science Friday today and I know yesterday was History Thursdays, but I spent yesterday researching and reading the news on NASA's astrobiology announcement: life may exist on planets that we never thought possible.  


Before yesterday, NASA was hyping its announcement, with journalists and sci-fi fans excited at the possibility of NASA announcing a detection of an advanced civilization a certain amount of light years away.  The actual announcement yesterday was disappointing for some, but for those who hope life exists elsewhere in the universe, it was perhaps the most exciting astrobiology news in history.

Here on Earth, an astrobiology research fellow at NASA named Felisa Wolfe-Simon made a discovery that microbes can survive by digesting and incorporating the poisonous element known as arsenic into its DNA to survive, and it is just important to note that it substitutes the element phosphorous with the deadly arsenic.  Phosphorous is one of the supposed six "ingredients" needed for life to survive.

Think about this for a minute... a life form inhaling poison after replacing it with a needed element that it needs to live?  You may be thinking that there have been small life forms at the bottom of the ocean that thrive on super-heated vents spewing gas from the ocean floor that is so hot, if us humans were down there, we would either be crushed by the pressure or melted alive!

Apologies for this picture, but it needs to be shown just how gruesome arsenic can look, even on human hands...

As astounding as that is, it is even more impressive that life forms on this planet can survive by inhaling an element that we thought would kill a life form on other planets much less our own.  The six elements scientists say that life (at least here on Earth) needs to survive are: Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorous and Sulfur.

This Earthly discovery has profound consequences in our search for extraterrestrial life on other planets throughout the cosmos.

As more stars, their planets and the planets' moons are being discovered, we must realize that no planet and moon should be classified as "inhospitable" because if life forms here on Earth can replace a needed element with a poisonous one, other organisms can survive on planets with thin atmospheres, violent storms, extremely hot or cold temperatures or arid surfaces.

The lesson learned here is that life always seems to find a way to survive and thrive on whatever food or resource it is given, whether through evolution or on unlikely surfaces here on Earth, so why couldn't the same happen on other planets?  It seems ironic that we can sometimes learn about extraterrestrial life forms best by exploring Earth!

If you want some more details on this article or other science and space articles, check out this link on space.com:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/arsenic-bacteria-extraterrestrial-life-search-101202.html

Till next time!

Web Wednesdays!

Last time I posted, I declared Friday posts would be devoted to science based topics.  I took some time to think about the other 4 days of the week (if popularity grows, you might just see some posts on the weekends!)  and this is what topics I will bring up on the other days:

1.  Mickey Mouse Mondays (lets view this as kids stuff, maybe education, kids TV, video games, you know, stuff your kids enjoy!)

2. Technology Tuesdays (anything in the deep tech field, new advances in the world of technology that fun stuff)

3. Web Wednesdays (not the annoying white string that is created by an insect that gets stuck in your face, I'm talking about internet related subjects)

4. History Thursdays (I wanted to continue with alliteration, but really wanted to talk about historical subjects as I am a fan of what we have accomplished (or not!) as a species)

5. Science Fridays (Already declared...)

So there you have it, the weekly lineup which can change depending on comments or suggestions.

But lets stick to today, web wednesdays.

I just finished a Masters degree in emarketing, so I have great interest in how the web/the internet can help enhance marketing efforts.  I'll focus briefly on search engine optimization, or SEO (its not sleepy time yet, this is interesting and can help create visibility and ultimately new customers for any business, all you have to do is have a website!)

Search Engine Optimization efforts is a small part of e-marketing or online marketing, but very important.  Say your company sells shoes and wants to attract a small portion of the 28 percent of the world's population that uses the internet (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm).  What your shoe business wants is to appear high on the list of giant search engines like Google when someone types in say "shoe company"

The image above shows what someone would find today when using Google to search for a "shoe company."  But how do the companies called "The Shoe Company" and the "Brown Shoe Company" get to the top?  They do so by maximizing their SEO efforts.

Search engines like Google use "spiders" to crawl around a website (we will stick with shoes here) and look for certain metatags,  keywords or descriptions that relate to a search about shoes.  These descriptions or keywords can be found in the code written for companies like "The Shoe Company" by hired web coders or designers.  If Google finds that these web designers use words such as "shoes" as a keyword, Google will like that and rank "The Shoe Company" higher than say the "Joe Shmo Shoe Store" that doesn't include keywords in its coding at all.

I can go on and on about this but the main point to take here is that successful SEO strategies like "The Shoe Company" has done will increase traffic to its website and potentially increase its revenue.  There is so much to learn about SEO related stuff and I recommend Mr. Nambiar's take on it:

http://www.myseoarticle.blogspot.com/

That's it for web stuff today.  Much more to do and explain next time.  Thanks for reading and get prepared for a lesson from the past on History Thursdays!

Science Fridays!

My apologies as I was away in Mexico the last couple weeks.  To make these posts a little more organized and to put a little order on things, I am going to start designating certain days for certain topics, and I start with Science Fridays!

Science in this case can relate to anything science, whether it be scientific fact, NASA activity, things you or I read in scientific journals, space.com or even science fiction.

While in Mexico these last two weeks with friends, I visited the quite a few Mayan ruins in the Yucatan Peninsula, from the sites called Chichen Itza to Uxmal way in the southwest corner of the Yucatan state.  I get excited by the history of a lot of things, especially these ruins.  But I could not help but wonder at how I have been watching some science-fiction type program on the History channel called "Ancient Aliens," a program that brings historians, archaeologists and authors together to try to explain the mysteries of sites like the Mayan ruins by explaining that hundreds and thousands of years ago, our ancestors were being visited by advanced alien beings from the cosmos.

The program shows authors who seem to believe for the most part that these aliens were not violent in nature, and that there is evidence in places like the Mayan ruins and other ancient sites around the world that not only did they visit us, but they helped our society advance by telling us things such as how to build sophisticated structures and how the universe is full of life.

I must say once again that this is a case of science fiction because as fascinating as it is and as much as I'm sure there are plenty of people that want to believe in the possibility of other worldly visitations from the stars that have helped us humans along our evolutionary path, there still isn't concrete evidence for it. Even while visiting these Mayan ruins the last two weeks, sure I thought about the subject and was even interested enough to buy a book by Erich von Daniken called "Chariots of the Gods" that focuses on these beliefs, but I certainly could not come to the conclusion that these fascinating Mayan temples were built by or influenced by alien architecture, rather just human ingenuity and ultimately great, creative and resourceful minds working together.

What do you think about this subject?  Great story?  Is it us trying to connect dots that aren't there?  Or is it a way for us to say that ancient peoples could not create vast structurally sound complexes without the help of others?

Next Friday, I promise I'll get to a scientific subject more earthly...

Politics

It is an important time in America, and it's pretty hard to deny that.  Congressional elections will be held in less than a week here and some pundits say how America votes (whether its for more republicans or democrats) will be how they judge President Obama's performance his first 18 or so months as number 44.

My message to you, the readers, that I hope you pass on to others who vote is simple: vote for who YOU want and who YOU believe in.  Please do not let CNN, Fox News, or any other news program determine who you vote for.  If you are for less taxes and government, fine.  If you are for an expanded government with the promise of government security and oversight in our nation, then that's fine too.

What gets to me about politics is the money spent.  So often you hear about the debt our nation has accumulated, yet spending related to politics, whether in campaigns, ads, rallies or the like often is not ridiculed as a form of wasteful spending.

I call it wasteful spending because I speak from experience with social networking expertise that in order to get a word out about who you are or about your campaign, you can do so for free via social networking sites.  President Obama did a great job at utilizing this during his presidential run in 2008.  I am not saying to avoid political spending altogether, but more of an emphasis needs to be placed on social networking sites and its value, because candidates and the public can save a lot of money that way.

It's not a one stop solution, but it can help alleviate some massive spending which is what the people ultimately want.

Agree?  Disagree?  Other suggestions?

What is this blog anyway??

Dear Readers,

To an alien from another planet trying to figure out what humans are, in simplest of terms, we would seem like bags of water, liquid, or blood.  The alien wouldn't know that we started our journey hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years ago in Africa, and that various migration patterns led humans to look diverse and the way we do today.

The alien wouldn't know about political divide, political unrest, economic instability, the ten commandments, or about the Chicago Cubs failing to win baseball's world series every year.

The point is that this blog will touch on a variety of subjects, from the political news of the day to a hot sports subject.  Though this author has a huge fascination with everything scientific (whether it be NASA related or technology related), sports, and politics.

It needs to be clear that YOUR voice is needed to keep this blog going.  If you don't agree with someone, dislike a subject, want to start a conversation about another subject, or anything else, just speak your word.

But above all else, please remember that we are all bags of water, everyone has an opinion and passion and no one needs to be ridiculed.

Thank you and let's start talking!