Science Ain't So Bad

THE INSPIRATION

NICE SCIENTISTS INVENT USEFUL THING

Be good if there was a green box with a red light and a buzzer. Bomb goes by? The buzzer buzzes, the red light blinks.

Like that.

Wouldn’t that be nice? It would change so many things and, maybe, tilt the advantage in the terrorism struggle back to the guys who call themselves the good guys.

Or is that the other guys?

Whatever! You know what I mean, right?

An Israeli team’s announcing an electronic explosives detector. Works for all SORTS of explosives. TNT, too. It’s very portable, very fast,  and can identify explosives that’re some distance away – a nice feature if you don’t wanna keep hiring new people to replace the ones that got exploded.  The lead researcher, Dr. Fernando Patolsky (Tel Aviv university), says there’s a need for this.

Well.. yuh!

Yer gonna find lots of troops in Afghanistan who think so. When you never know WHAT’S gonna blow, you get a little jumpy. This sounds like just the kind of device that could make a real difference . The nano sensor based device is the instrumentation equivalent of human/animal smell. I’ve called  this kind of thing an artificial nose, in the past,  because it “sniffs” the air that contains the molecules of the thing you’re looking for. No nostrils. No bump on the bridge. Probably no embarrassing hairs but nose-like in what it does.

Patolsky says it’s better at picking out explosives than dogs. That makes my eyes water. I happen to know how good dogs are at this particular job so that’s REALLY impressive!

You gotta think there’ll be interest from Homeland Security and the Military.

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BOTULISM BAG?

BAGS

Mister ScienceAintSoBad loves resuseable grocery bags. They’re just nice. They have logos. They don’t fall apart. You can haul yer pet to the groomer in one. And they’re good for the environment, right?

What if they’re not good for the environment? Does that mean the concept of reusable bags blows up?

Before I go on, I should say I hope I’m not trying to be mean. I don’t LIKE discouraging people who are trying to do good but I signed up for science and technology.

My job.

So – the facts.

Let’s start with a widely read journalist who specializes in this stuff, Bob Lillienfield (Use Less Stuff report), who says that even if EVERYBODY used reusable bags, it wouldn’t much matter:

The bag is not the environmental bogey-person that everybody thinks it is,” he says. “If you look at the entire grocery package that you bought, the bag may account for 1 to 2 percent of the environmental impact.

1 or 2 percent? And, maybe 12% of shoppers use ‘em? Gee. Let’s look a little deeper into this environmental miracle.

How long do they last?

Maybe MISTER ScienceAintSoBad’s not as careful as he should be but reusable bags seem to wear out  in as little as 15 uses (holes in the bottom) and since the bags are much heavier and fatter than regular plastic bags, they take more space in a landfill and more space in the trucks that carry them (which then  use more fuel per bag). They’re designed to be degradable and that could be a good thing. But we know that even paper bags don’t degrade significantly faster than their plastic cousins in a landfill. Not enough info on reusable bags yet but MISTER ScienceAintSoBad isn’t real optimistic about them, either.

Then there’s food poisoning.

Which only happens if you let yer bags get nasty.

By reusing them.

Karen Hawthorne (National Post) says we should wash ‘em with bleach each time to minimize the chances of getting sick. She describes a study by Sporometrics in Canada. Most of the bags were contaminated. Some were pretty bad.

Wash them? Bleach? EACH time? Electricity, detergent, and bleach? HOW much energy did you say these bags save?

And what about your time? That’s worth nothing?

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA

These bags’re good for all kinds of things. But, if you’re motivated by environmental concerns, they’re a bust.

FINAL NOTE

You’re mad at me?

I’m not surprised.

My wife, best friend and, (she’ll be surprised to learn) editor, hasn’t let me run with my religion article yet. She says I gotta tone it down. Too edgy. Easily misinterpreted. Which really surprises me since it’s very supportive of religious belief and believers (it says, mainly,  that the clash between science and religion is overplayed and overly simplistic).

Well, if you think religion is a touchy area, how about environmentalism?

Screw with those guys and out come the tar pots!

I know it isn’t nice to diss the sacred renewable bag and MISTER ScienceAinSoBad wishes he could be more positive.

You want to register your opinion, here’s a good resource for tar. Feathers are available lots of places, but you can try this one.

Our rating for reusable shopping bags: ScienceAintSoBadRating = 2

(And  that’s generous).

A NASA THING!

THE DEMISE OF THE ROCKET SHIP

You and I have been using rocket ships as our basic transportation into orbit for as long as we can remember. Could say they’re the cruise liners of the IPad era. But they’re a bit rich at 1.3 billion dollars per cruise, aren’t they? They’re also inefficient and they’re not exactly “Environment Green”. Also, since each launch is a boo boo  away from a “big bang”, you would be right to conclude they’re dangerous as crap!

INEFICIENT BLUNDERBUSSES

Wasn’t it  Werner Von Braun who said that rocket ships give the Law Of Diminishing Returns a bad name, requiring, as they do, that the passenger list include the fuel tank, itself, which has to be dragged into orbit even as the stuff in it is being consumed? The tank (filled with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen) weighs about 1.7 million POUNDS and you gotta bring it along each trip if you hope to escape the pull of SOL (Stupid Ol’ Earth).

Well it’s not as inefficient as democracy but it’s close.

So, where was I? I had a point here..

(MISTERScienceAintSoBad shuffles his papers).

Ah.. I think I was telling you that NASA’s having a change of heart about this idiocy of flying 10 story buildings into orbit. If a rocket scientist’s THAT smart, he.she oughta be able to think him.herself right outta business. Least, that’s the theory.

So Stan Starr, Chief of the Applied Physics Laboratory at the Kennedy Space Flight Center has been scratching together a proposal to combine some existing technologies and then throw lots of money at them to see if the bills’ll stick. The idea seems to be a three phase system where the first phase is some kind of track or sled (could be electromagnetic propulsion or something else) which would accelerate the craft faster and faster, horizontally.  Then, after reaching some horrifying number of machs, scramjet engines (phase two) would cut in to fly the beast up to the point where, in phase three, a relatively dainty “second stage” type rocket would boost it on its way to its mission. And, instead of jettisoning the usual singed and dented crap to be hauled back for retrofitting, the launch vehicle would simply return to base and land.

Elegant.

Really, really, elegant.

And fictitious.

None of this exists. But all the basics are there. Rail guns exist. Rocket sleds? check. Neither is anywhere near “up to spec” as a space launch platform but, in astronautics, hope springs eternal. Ramjet supersonic spaceplanes? Che… well, coming along, anyway. Point is, that each phase has advanced technology to build on and could, with appropriate guidance and a humongous “stimulus check”, become part of an entirely new vision of space transport.

ScienceAintSoBad greets this proposal with lots of enthusiasm.

ScienceAintSoBadRating = 10 big ones. Go for it, guys!

CLASH OF EGOS. STEPHEN HAWKING VS GOD

How do I introduce Stephen Hawking?

Monumental.  The best of the best in Physics. Creatively brilliant. Reaching up, out of an ALS destroyed body that barely keeps him alive, to the highest order of accomplishment in one of the most difficult fields of endeavor.

Impossible.

How could anyone ignore the most profound handicaps to accomplish what he has?

As for God, what can I say?

Really he needs no introduction.

Like Hawking, he stands alone and his very existence seems filled with miracles. He is beloved  and admired by billions who look to him for comfort and guidance.

G_d (Image suffers from the usual deficiencies of trying to capture an ubiquitous being)

So what is one to make of the current clash between the two?

Hawking says God’s role in the creation of the universe  has been overimagined. In his new book, The Grand Design, Hawking asserts that the laws of physics provide a perfectly adequate explanation  for the beginnings of the universe and that, therefore, God’s role is redundant,  unnecessary, and suspiciously convenient for the religious establishment which benefits from the widespread belief that nature needed a hand from the Big Guy (the Big Guy, being God, by the way,  not Hawking).

He confronts, directly, the argument that only God could create something from nothing, discussing the quantum mechanical implications of doing that very trick.

God, on the other hand, has chosen to ignore Dr. Hawking.

So far, at least.

A guy as smart as Hawking will surely appreciate the advantages of leaving things that way.

10.5 WATTS'LL DO YA

SHIFTING TO LED

In 1980, we met the compact fluorescent light.

Ugh!

Small and twisty with nasty contents. You KNOW something THAT bad must have an environmental justification. Compact fluorescents (CFLs) are just just – I dunno – wrong! The color is off, the shapes are off, they’re just not RIGHT!

They say we’re sposed  to use more and more compact fluorescents because  incandescent light bulbs are on the way out. They (incandescent bulbs)  chew up watts faster’en my dog chews through a morselburger (a morsel of hamburger dropped, accidentally, on the floor).

‘course, if you don’t like compact fluorescent bulbs and you wanna do the the right thing and avoid incandescent bulbs, there are those nice hot orange-ish  halogen lights. MisterScienceAintSoBad likes ‘em better than CFLs.

But where are the  sturdy,cool,  long lasting light emitting diode (LED) bulbs which produce a lovely quality of light and  were promised in Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 1 (Let there be.. “)? Aren’t they the ultimate solution to lighting?

They’re a comin’.

If you’ve bought yerself a nice flashlight, lately, you’ve probably noticed that there are dozens of models that sport LED bulbs. Unlike the flashlights we grew up with  that  throw out a wavering  yellow dot, surrounded by greasy ringlets of yellow and get dimmer and dimmer with use, the new flashlights with LED bulbs are incredible. They’re bright and clear and last a spooky long time. There are tiny versions that surprise with great light and larger versions that ‘re almost like an automotive headlight. Aim one across a big field and you can actually SEE the coyote who’s checking you out. MisterScienceAintSoBad has one for dog walks.

The coyotes in my town are buying them too.

According to Cree, sales of LED lighting components have doubled in the past 12 months.

Doubled.

Home lighting? Just watch. Home Depot’s gearing up to sell a “65 watt LED bulb” that  only uses 10 watts of juice. The light quality will be terrific, it will last a ridiculously long time,  and, if it breaks, no hazmat suits. A vacuum cleaner’ll do nicely.

PocketPad

GOOGLE ANSWERS THE IPAD. RAISES IT ONE.

Mister ScienceAintSoBad tried out the Droid X, Verizon’s very latest Android phone.

Which isn’t easy. They’re gone.

Sold out.

Why?

Cause customers got the idea right away.

Terrific app phone.

ALMOST too large.

Almost.

Makes yer pocket look funny.

It’s so large (and fast and easy to see) that you can pretty much do all that stuff you wanna do WITHOUT having to cart around a “computer”.

Which, keyboard or no, the IPad is.

You want funny looking pockets, put an IPAD into your pocket.

Funny.

At 4.3 inches, the “X” pushes the size of an app phone right up to the envelope. But it’s still pocketable. It’s still a phone.

LITTLE awkward.

So is love. So is parasailing. So is paying yer phone bill.

It’s a compromise. A MUCH better one than a tablet computer. The soft  keyboard’s big enough to make for near touch typing (in landscape mode). Videos engulf you.  Enough room to stuff in plenty of battery.  Plenty of speaker. This isn’t resonant, wall pounding base but, for a phone? Wow!

There’s even room for a functional (and hand insensitive) antenna. (Insensitive to hands as far as I could tell.  Look for testing lab results on reception, not reviewer impressions, OK?)

I’m keeping a point on ice. I may need it for Samsung’s Galaxy S .

ScienceAintSoBadRating = 9.