Filed by Bil at 9:08 pm under Religion, The Science
3 Comments

I recently read an article by Isaac Asimov, written in 1964 and published in a World Book Encyclopedia. He told in scientific terms how life on this planet probably started. After I read it, it was like a light turned on in my head.

A long time ago, when the Earth was very different than it is today (i.e., no plants, no animals, no Starbucks, lots of hydrogen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, etc.), the oceans were much more volatile and both liquids and gasses on this planet were much thinner. The sun’s rays could penetrate the atmosphere much more powerfully, and UV rays would get through to everything. At some point, the oceans’ water was less like the water it is today and more like ammonia, with all the hydrogen and whatnot, which is a fair argument since hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe.

Back in the 1950’s, some scientists ran a series of tests in which they concentrated UV rays on liquid mixtures that they theorized the oceans were probably like. The UV rays typically caused the atoms to get very excited, and larger molecules formed. They found in several of the compounds (which were most akin to ammonia) that the concentrated UV rays caused the creation of amino acids, which are the basic building blocks of proteins, which are key to providing energy for things like, oh, you know, self-reproduction.

So, the theory goes that back on ancient Earth, the sun’s UV rays eventually created amino acids in the ocean, which after a while formed into proteins, and sooner or later cells began to reproduce themselves (ta-da! Life!), and gradually became more and more complex, which has gotten us to where we are today.

Asimov said it more elegantly.

Nevertheless, I find it to be a very, very good explanation of how life actually started, and it was verified by multiple experiments trying to do exactly that. Once I read this, I knew I had science on my side.

Before reading on, I would like to steer you towards my friend Ben’s blog, where he has posted an interesting article on the natures of science and religion (it is the article dated June 16, 2007).
(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 3:57 pm under The Arts, The Science
3 Comments

Virtual human puts doctors inside their patients

Let me preface this by saying that the preceding news article is actually very good news. I worry that what I will say next may give the impression that I am against this “virtual human” as an amazing tool for medical science.

There has been a very interesting discussion going on that I am happy to call attention to yet again, because I think it has the potential to go on and on and on and it’s very cool to me. (It’s an older article from this website and all its following comments.) We have been talking about art and its meanings and manifestations, and somewhere in there is a brief tangent about semantics.

I consider myself a laid-back person, but for some reason I’m a stickler for semantics. I think it’s important that we all know what we’re talking about and express our ideas properly so that others listening may be on the same page. With all our tools of communication nowadays, our language(s) is(are) evolving faster than the ecosystem after a nuclear powerplant meltdown on the Galapagos Islands. In other words, really fast. So whenever I see something, especially a news article, make a linguistic mistake, my first reaction is panic and outrage. I don’t always make sense myself, so I am forgiving of others, but still…grrr.
(Keep reading…)