Space contamination

Space agencies world over have been on a quest to send a feeble human out of the world and most likely to Mars. Now that the president has also joined the game, more investments will be going in that direction. And many private companies are on the same track as well. But is there any reason other than nourishing own ego to attempt a trip to the red planet?

Humans have ably demonstrated that they are incapable of taking care of the environment they live and breed in. To send a specimen of the human kind to another planet would be the first step to initiate an irreversible catastrophe. Some have argued that sterilization of robotic equipment travelling to other planets is overdone and even suggested that humans should seed any rock they can find with bacteria and virus. Sure, the single celled cousins may jump at the suggestion, but is that wise?

Exploration has been integral to the human experience. But history also shows that their explorations have resulted in irreversible damage to what they found. They have been unable to learn by observation and bad habits picked up in the past hundred thousand years invariably has led to scorched earth policies. Now that the horizons are expanding beyond the struggling blue planet, there is no indication that humans have learned from their mistakes.

God does seem to have a sense of humor as she appears to have imposed daunting space-time constraints on a species who has acquired a quantum computer, by sheer accident. To make matters worse, the canopy, humans could observe is infinitely bigger than they could ever experience and akin to an ironic twist in a horror movie, they find that such observations are fleeting as the whole universe runs away from them at an accelerating rate.

Those who sit back in awe of the abundance of ignorance surrounding them, often have no desire to drive the truck to the next planet. But the engineers among us live for such meaningless tactics without ever thinking what it really means.

How long?

A recent survey from Columbia (1) shows some interesting results. They asked 1600 participants between the ages of 18 and 64, how long they prefer to live. It appears that close to half of the surveyed population would not want to live more than the average life expectancy and almost 1/6 indicate a preference lower than that. Beyond the obvious correlation to expectations of the quality of life in old age, the data also shows significant relationship to race - with African Americans and Hispanics wanting to live a lot longer than White/Caucasians.

This is an important question and a rich area for further research. Till recently, humans had conquered most of the pathogens but they succumb to auto-immune diseases in which the body attacks itself. Heart disease, cancer and diabetic complications top the list - all of which portend lower quality of life in later years. This coupled with a brain that is bored could be a potent combination for humans, whose infrastructure was never designed to go beyond a few decades. In spite of the billions going down the drain to “cure all diseases,” it is clear that homo-sapiens may require outside help to get over their genetic deficiencies.

How long does one want to live? I think it should depend on whether one is able to add value to society.

  

(1) http://esciencenews.com/articles/2016/08/25/how.long.do.you.want.live.your.expectations.old.age.matter

Sugar & Salt

For nearly hundred thousand years, humans were without two ingredients that will cut their life short substantially. In the last few thousand years, sugar and salt rose to prominence and are now considered responsible for a large spectrum of human diseases including heart disease and metabolic syndrome that includes diabetes. The economics of these chemicals has been attractive from inception. Recent evidence that the sugar lobby (1) has been involved in suppressing the evidence that sugar played a major role in CHF is symptomatic of the fact that there has been powerful forces behind these industries. Little did Gandhi knew that his salt march in India, nearly a century ago, could have been deleterious to the health of Indians.

The taste buds of Homo sapiens are finely tuned to pick up these toxins, for small quantities are absolutely essential for health. The evolutionary forces could not anticipate that these chemicals will be manufactured and consumed by modern humans in such frequency and quantities that their organs simply give up, unable to cope with them. These materials have become a sign of wealth and power and nations warred to take control of their sources and production. More recently, they have been disbursed in colored and famous water world over, to fundamentally transform human health. 

Two toxins, salt and sugar, are responsible for possibly half the health care costs in the world. However, there are no signs of any abatement in their production and consumption.

(1) http://esciencenews.com/articles/2016/09/13/historical.analysis.examines.sugar.industry.role.heart.disease.research

They are already here

As a chunk of investments go down the drain seeking extra-terrestrials, drug resistant bacteria that cause two million illnesses and 23 thousand deaths in the US alone (1), have gotten little attention. These true extra-terrestrials, who got here hitching a ride on an asteroid, have been powerful and robust over a few billion years. They have transformed the planet, oxygenated it and prepared it for larger organisms, that would fall prey to them. They could dance in unison, divide and multiply and evolve in short horizons, aided by almost countless experiments. They will create organisms that could walk and eat, to satisfy their every whim, with an intelligent control system, that "advanced life," calls the microbiome. They could trigger feelings, switch their occupants' brain on and off, get them to eat what they would like and even decide on an expiry date for the host. Such is the power of the single cell organism, they have dominated the blue planet since their arrival, perhaps by chance.

ET is already here and they have been for over four billion years. As the greatest scientists fear, they are indeed more intelligent as they have not only designed an environment for themselves but also populated it with organisms they could control for their own benefit. As the chemists seek soil from far and wide to conquer the fully optimized machines they could only observe under a microscope, as the pharmaceutical companies run away from declining economics of third world diseases, as the NIH struggles to figure out how to advance thoughts and action, as the foundations that proclaim to lift humanity from disease and strife stop at mosquito nets and commercials, the single cell organism organizes further to consolidate control.

The worst idea of human history is the thought that they are "advanced."

(1) http://esciencenews.com/articles/2016/09/09/how.fight.drug.resistant.bacteria

ROE - Return on Education

As the political season heats up, politicians appear to be mired in tactics, symptomatic of lack of vision and strategic intent. A society deserves the politicians they are afforded but increasingly policies that affect the long term health and prosperity of the nation are unlikely to be affected by the appointed leaders, whoever they may be. Some want walls and others Wall street, but neither can lift the spirit and ambitions of 320 million beating hearts across the continent. As space enthusiasts search for extra-terrestrials, technologists build artificially intelligent bots and medical experts seek methods to ameliorate pain and defeat micro-organisms - politicians, caught in a time warp struggle to stay relevant. The younger generation has left them, for they have seen the light at the end of the tunnel, where they could imagine and build a world for the future.

As the blue planet spins and rotates to stay alive from its perpetual plunge into the center of the sun, protected from countless debris by its venerable cousin, Jupiter, its inhabitants, blinded by ignorance, appear to be ready to fight. They fight with ideas, races, countries, localities, genders and the gender-less, as if their whole life depends on it. They shout on TV and against those on the idiot box, they soften and harden policies at will, they own and disown coal, make speeches to the top bankers for money, refuse to release tax returns and proclaim wealth without understanding there is a liability side to the balance sheet. They visit churches of color, dance to show approval only to break down a few minutes later. They seek money for charities funded by the straight and the crooked, they meet lobbyists and people, shake hands and hold babies as if the whole country is melting down at the sheer sight of them.

Politicians, possibly a new species, could be endangered species, especially if the world educates itself with freely available information. Education has the highest return compared to any other investment by an individual or society. It can help sort out fake politicians who assert their past and your future, confidence tricksters, non-replicatable academic studies, drugs that lose efficacy over time, financial advisers who do not know finance, advertisements that promise the impossible, religious fanatics who perform magic, insurance policies that do not pay, charlatans who shout buy and sell as markets close and space agencies who spawn manned space missions for their own sake.

Such is the state of misinformation that education has higher returns now than it ever had.

The stock and flow of IQ

A recent publication in the Royal Society Open Science (1), hypothesizes an intriguing idea - explosion in hominoid intelligence a few million years ago was aided by a significant increase in blood flow to the brain and not necessarily by an increase in its size. Moreover, the increase in the flow of blood may have resulted in the growth in brain size. If so, a lucky change in the diameter of the arteries carrying blood to the brain may be responsible for humans dominating the blue planet.

Plumbing appears to be central to health. It has been speculated that most autoimmune diseases, including even Alzheimer's disease, could be related to the body's declining ability to eliminate waste through the plumbing system, it has been afforded. Age and use of these systems appear negatively correlated with their efficiency in clearance. If the recent finding is true, the plumbing alone plays a central role in the evolution of intelligence, providing the energy hungry organ with ample fuel and cooling and nourishing it from relatively modest beginnings in Australopithecus to arguably better modern humans.

Plumbing appears to be central to modern medicine. In a regime with little threat from microorganisms, humans may perish by the clogging of their own aging infrastructure.

(1) http://esciencenews.com/articles/2016/08/31/blood.thirsty.brains

Proxima test

As the year 2020 draws near, those who emphatically professed conclusive evidence for extra-terrestrial life would be found by then, are getting a bit nervous. But there is good news - a rocky planet, Proxima-b, has been found in the "habitable zone" just a mere 4 light years away. All that remains now is the "contact," - or perhaps spectral evidence of oxygen, water and methane before uncorking champagne bottles. We are now months away from the declaration that life on Earth is not unique, albeit, by proxy evidence. The space agency, as usual, is ahead of schedule.

Boring statisticians have devised constructs such as prior and posterior probabilities of expectations - something ET enthusiasts appear to have little respect for. They have left Enceladus, Saturn’s beautiful moon, the most promising for life in the neighborhood, in the dust with the news that Proxima-b has been found, for conjecture is more powerful than facts and spectra, more beautiful than actual measurements. Before the space agency devises methods to test for life on Proxima-b, they have to ask two important questions.

1. What is the a priori probability of life on Proxima-b?

2. If they do not find life there, does the posterior change in any way?

If the answer to question 1 is zero or the answer to question 2 is no, then there is no logical reason to explore the rocky cousin. We already know there is no "advanced life," there because if there were, we would already have been at war with them.

The fifth force

Recent research from the University of California, Irvine, (1) speculates on the existence of the fifth fundamental force field, apart from gravitation, electromagnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces. This is possibly in a newer direction that counters the tendency of contemporary physicists to spawn yet another "fundamental particle", anytime they do not understand a phenomenon. Speculating on the existence of a newer force, at the very least, shows some creativity in high energy physics, resting on the laurels of their recent discovery of the God particle, in the noise generated in Geneva.

It appears that we are in a stalemate. Physics, dominated by technicians, has been running amok, plunking billions down the tunnel, proving particles of fantasy. It appears that few are asking if proving fantastic particles is advancing the field in any way. Recently, the engineers hung mirrors to measure gravity waves to the tune of the diameter of a proton to prove two black holes merged nearly a billion years ago. Could somebody prove otherwise? Physics has reached a plateau, in which physicists can prove anything with the help of engineers.

Since we have over hundred "fundamental particles," already, perhaps defining a new "fundamental force field," is in a better direction.

(1) http://esciencenews.com/articles/2016/08/15/uci.physicists.confirm.possible.discovery.fifth.force.nature

Deeper learning

Recently, statistical and mathematical techniques that have been tried and abandoned decades ago to teach computers to be smarter, have surfaced again with better sounding names. With nearly zero cost computing power in the cloud, some companies have been plunging head first into the deep abyss. Deep learning is stylish - some even try "deep mind," in an attempt to replicate the complex human. What the younger scientists may not know is that most of what they have found, has been known for a long time and one should not take advancements, due to only the recent availability of cheap computing power and memory, as "ground-breaking." Disappointments may be in store for those, highly optimistic of "solving," human intelligence. The convergence of Neuroscience and Computer Science is a welcome trend, but a dose of realism may be apt medicine for those modeling the mind, downloading the brain and possibly curing physical death.

Even since she stood up in the African Savannah, a few hundred thousand years ago, the human has been puzzled by her own mind. She searched the skies, climbed mountains and dived into the oceans, seeking the object, she could not herself define. The theory of consciousness has eluded her, for what she was seeking obviously interfered with the tools she was using. It was the ultimate prize. If she could understand herself, then, a whole new world could open up. The body can be separated from the mind, and the latter then could be rendered immortal. The mind could be replicated and networked and perpetuated across space and time. She could create and capture imagination at will. She could solve problems of infinite complexity, travel into interstellar space or even to another universe. If only, she could understand the mind and concoct a theory of consciousness. But alas. it is not to be. Whatever one calls it, the "neural network," has failed to show signs of consciousness. Yet another technology is substantially sub-optimized by engineers and scientists, most comfortable with deterministic answers to complex questions.

Ignorance is highly scalable in the presence of infinite computing power.

Premature existence

Recent ideas from Harvard (1) speculate on the lack of  maturity of life as we find it on Earth. Contemporary theory, which appears highly unlikely to be true, suggests an origin of the universe about 14 billion years ago and the ultimate demise of it in about ten trillion years from now, making it infinitesimally closer to birth than death. Life, if it is a property of the system, has had only a short moment in this unimaginably long time horizon. So prototypical observations of life, such as that we find on this uninteresting corner of the Milky Way, a rather common place galaxy, is premature by any stretch of the imagination. Even after the Sun balloons up in less than five billion years to a red giant and consumes the blue planet, with all its ignorance locked up in a small space, the universe will continue and create life forms of much greater capabilities and interest.

Life on Earth appears to show severe limitations and indicate prototypical experimentation, with infinitesimal life spans of biological units, that appear incapable of perpetuating information and knowledge across time. Such a design can only be the result of an unsuccessful trial of a large number of possible simulations. The fact that "advanced life," is battling the microscopic ones on Earth can only imply very early and unsophisticated experiments to gather raw data. If there is any learning present in this prototypical system, it has to be about what does not work rather than the other way around. The fact that the blue planet at the exact distance from a medium size star with such abundant resources and stable climate has been unable to produce intelligence may instruct future experiments, what not to attempt.

It is early but known experiments appear to be in the wrong direction.

(1) http://esciencenews.com/articles/2016/08/01/is.earthly.life.premature.a.cosmic.perspective

Biology meets computing

The ease of biological manipulation by chemical means has held life sciences companies back for over a century from exploring the system, that is equally receptive to electromagnetic interventions. Recent news that GSK has partnered with Alphabet to advance the field of bioelectronics is encouraging. The idea is to impart electrical signals to neurons by micro implants to cure chronic diseases. Although it is a profitable path to pursue, some caution may be in order.

There is a long history of engineering experts attempting prescriptive interventions on biological systems with an expectation of deterministic outcomes. Humans are generally good in engineering and traditional computing but biological systems do not behave in such a predictable fashion. Their engineering competence comes from selection, in which simple tools based on Newtonian Physics let them survive the harsh environment they were in for nearly hundred thousand years. The modern game is distinctly different and it is unlikely that they possess the skills to fast track with the hardware they have built up. With "Artificial Intelligence," soaking up the air waves, it is important for technology giants to bias toward humility. As projects such as "death cure," so slow to come to fruition so as to annoy the technologists behind it, perhaps getting not too excited about curing diabetes through neuron stimulation is a good idea. After all, nature took four billion years to get here, albeit, it was without a computer farm that soaks up a high share of the world electricity production. Competing with nature is likely to take a bit more than that.

The convergence of biology and computing is unavoidable. However, it is unlikely to be advanced by those with stagnant notions of either field.

The inverted U

The value individuals add to society appears to be in the shape of an inverted U. On the high end - philosophers, scientists and technologists, who seem to know everything, appear to add very little of practical value. Recently, a scientist remarked, "when we found the gravity waves, the whole world stopped," unaware of the fact that most of the world did not know or care. On the low end, ignorance is as dangerous as cyanide, as ably demonstrated by contemporary politicians. In this scheme, the highest value to society appears to come from those in the middle - not too ignorant and not too arrogant. On both ends, there is a common factor - a brain that is idle, because of either stupor or conceit.

To maximize the value that individuals contribute to society, it appears that they have to be lifted from the abyss of ignorance or shown a practical path down from the mountains. The perception of knowledge is as dangerous as a lack of awareness of ignorance - for both result in a loss of value to society by a lack of contribution. The former, locked behind ivy walls, lament at a world of ignorance and the latter, aided and abetted by their leaders, scorn at knowledge. In the middle, humans of blood and flesh, are caught in a time warp they simply could not escape. Apathetic and lethargic, the middle withdraw from media events and elections and watch from the sidelines. This is a movie with a sad ending - dominated either by the ignorant or the arrogant, with little to differentiate between them.

Neither abundance nor lack of knowledge add societal value. Those who are aware of their limitations, do.

Simplified diagnostics

Research from Columbia (1) indicates that impairment in odor identification portends cognitive decline and possibly Alzheimer's disease. This appears to dominate more prevalent PET and MRI scans for the diagnosis of these ailments. This is a constant reminder that humans are far from mastering the workings of the organ they carry on their shoulders by engineering and scientific means and simpler measurements of inputs and outputs dominate such mechanics.

The human brain has been an enigma. It consumes vast amounts of energy and often produces little utility - either to the immediate host or to society at large. It effectively delegates routine affairs to the vast Central Nervous System attached to it by a thread and maintains a small garbage collection mechanism within itself to keep track of the estate it manages, automatically. Often, it gets bored and shows signs of over-design, a quirk of evolution that endowed it with vast processing power by incorporating quantum computing in a small and efficient space. Lack of large memory has allowed it to venture into the production of heuristics and showing signs of intelligence. But acceleration in technology and society has stretched it, lending some functions of importance irrelevant and elevating the irrelevant to importance.

Its decline is painful to close observers but not necessarily so for the host, herself. In a regime that disallows rolling back time, the objective function has to be minimizing pain - physical or emotional. A system that pragmatically allows such an outcome by its own deterioration can only be considered good. Diagnostics that does not require cutting open the delicate organ or injecting it with radioactive materials may be the best, for the recognition of the start of decline of this beautiful machine is not necessarily good for the host nor for close observers.

(1) http://esciencenews.com/articles/2016/07/27/smell.test.may.predict.early.stages.alzheimers.disease