Saturday Morning Science

Saturday Morning Science 15

June 18, 2011June 29, 2011 Pete Chapman Life, Saturday Morning Science, Science0 comment

Arsenic and Old Life– I grew up reading science fiction and was introduced at a young age to the idea that life might have a different chemical basis than the standard arrangement based on carbon. Silicon based life was already a cliché long before I saw the old classic Star Trek episode The Devil in the Dark wherein a Federation mining colony is terrorised by a life-form that could ingest rock and move through solid matter as if it were swimming in water. I remember asking my father, a chemical…

Computing Featured Gaming Science

Saturday Morning Science 014

June 4, 2011June 6, 2011 Pete Chapman DNA, Mass Effect, quantum computing, quantum mechanics, Saturday Morning Science0 comment

The deep nature of life as we know it just got weirder. One of my favourite books on biology is Jacques Monod’s magisterial Chance and Necessity. It is a step by step description of how life evolves at the microbiological level without any predefined plan, purely as a by-product of random forces.

Computing Featured Science

Saturday Morning Science 013

May 28, 2011May 30, 2011 Pete Chapman exoplanets, quantum computing, robots, rogue planets, Saturday Morning Science4 Comments

The world’s first commercial quantum computer meets its “early adopter”…What was imagined as rare and unique now looks to be numerous and common and enough with the killer drones: what about a robot for the best in us? Schrodinger’s Catbox Arrives!!! It’s powered by a 128 cubit processor, it has a 100 square footprint, it looks like the monolith from 2001: a Space Odyssey trying out for the role of of Jake La Motta in Raging Bull and it’s yours for 10 million dollars. Originally this space would have held…

Featured Science Zombies

Saturday Morning Science 012

May 21, 2011May 24, 2011 Pete Chapman Apocalypse, Outer Limits, Roswell, Saturday Morning Science, Science, Stalin, Zombies1 Comment

The future’s uncertain and the end is always near. Roadhouse Blues- The Doors The silly season is well under way. Today the world is going to end. Joe Stalin engineered the Roswell saucer crash. The Centre for Disease Control went viral with a zombie attack piece. And don’t get me started about Lars Von Trier, his silly “worlds in collision” movie or his public airing of his private Fuhrerbunker. I’m glad this is a science column. I could just walk away and say none of this is on my beat….

Featured Science

Saturday Morning Science 011

May 14, 2011May 15, 2011 Pete Chapman Neanderthals, Radiolab, Saturday Morning Science, Science0 comment

Caveman Blues -I’ve been working up a piece about Neanderthals, collecting links on current research and rereading older theories about our enigmatic, long lost relatives. The problem is; we just keep finding stuff and it keeps getting written up as somehow conclusive or definitive when it’s really just cumulative. Take for example two findings from this week, I’ll cite the Science Digest articles, not because the folks at that site are doing anything wrong (in fact they are getting tighter on their writing and presentation) but because even the good…

Science

Saturday Morning Science 010

May 7, 2011May 15, 2011 Pete Chapman relativity, Saturday Morning Science, Science, space1 Comment

Saturday Morning Science is back!!! I wish I could say that something ground breaking, phase changing or paradigm shifting had happened since the last instalment. Something that had eluded detection by the entire world and could just now be revealed to rgbFilter readers as an exclusive article. But no, science doesn’t work that way and beware of anyone that claims it does. The biggest story this week involves an experiment that took a year to run, decades to implement and proved a theory that is nearing its centenary. Gravity Probe…

Science

Saturday Morning Science 009.5

April 9, 2011May 15, 2011 Pete Chapman Saturday Morning Science0 comment

Saturday Morning Science is going on a brief hiatus until May 7 (yours truly must deal with moving and taxes). In the meantime, I will be working on the background research for some of the following articles. Two or Three Things We Know About It- A revised hitch-hiker’s guide to the Galaxy. What is our current map of the second biggest thing that we can’t see? Neanderthals- What is the current state of knowledge about our distant cousins? Is it time to retire the Turing Test? – Likewise, if you…

Featured Science

Saturday Morning Science 009

April 2, 2011April 4, 2011 Pete Chapman future shock, grey goo, nanotech, paranoia, Saturday Morning Science, velociraptors5 Comments

Is Grey Goo the New Yellow Peril or Just Another Red Dawn?– Future, how I fear thee, let me count the ways. Long before one succumbs to future shock there is future anxiety. To the best of our knowledge we are the only species on the planet that builds fallout shelters, frets about asteroid collisions and establishes religions that posit an end to the world. If you are waiting for some ethologist to post “Apocalyptic Cultism Among Ring Tailed Lemurs” you are going to wait a long time and either…

Computing Featured Science

Saturday Morning Science 008

March 26, 2011March 28, 2011 Pete Chapman Darwin, Miller-Urey Experiments, Saturday Morning Science0 comment

“…a warm little pond” That simple image of a lukewarm puddle comes from a letter that Charles Darwin wrote to botanist Joseph Hooker in 1871, wherein he speculated on the possible, purely chemical origins of life. It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are present, which could ever have been present. But if (and Oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that…

Saturday Morning Science 007

March 19, 2011March 24, 2011 Pete Chapman Saturday Morning Science0 comment

When the god Kashima is distracted, the cowardly Namazu sees a opportunity for mischief. This giant catfish, a monster, a yo-kai, was imprisoned underground and his subterranean thrashing about is the source of earthquakes. How this is interpreted is a matter of history. At first Namasu was a replacement for the more traditional, Chinese inspired dragons. He was a resentful godling, peeved at the low regard that humans held for him (catfish is an unpopular food choice with the Japanese ) and only too willing exert himself to remind humanity…

Computing Science

Saturday Morning Science 006

March 12, 2011March 16, 2011 Pete Chapman Anthony Atala, cultured meat, growing organs, Saturday Morning Science, Vladimir Mionov0 comment

Life is What You Make It-2.0 Usually this column gets constructed out of items which are “trending” and usually they cluster around a given discipline or problem that makes for interesting connections. This week we’re looking at current items about biology. There is no overarching “big theme” or theory. Biology is much like its subject matter; diffusive and continually coming up with novelty and variety. 3D Organ Printing– The “Gee Wiz” knob on this one is hard cranked to eleven. Is it any surprise that I’m going to link you…

Saturday Morning Science 005

March 5, 2011April 4, 2011 Pete Chapman Saturday Morning Science, string theory2 Comments

This installment has nothing to do with Charlie Sheen. Popular science writing doesn’t need him, it’s got String Theory. This week it’s all about gravity; the weak yet pervasive force that holds everything together and either kick starts grand theories or brings them to a grinding halt. Every toddler becomes a gravity theorist when they first get it into their head to can the crawl and get with this walking thing. I’ve noticed two distinct styles to this process. Some kids are devout Newtonians. They stand and then tilt themselves in…