The secret, social lives of bacteria – Cooperative behavior between bacteria, both inter and intra species, coordinated via chemical messages. Behavior like "should we make light?" and "should we kill the host now?". Scary, awesome, and a beautiful system to investigate with algorithmic game theory! (tagged: cooperationbiologytechnologybacteriascience )
Computational Legal Studies – More people using machines to understand politics. A whole new class of dual use technology. Propaganda or transparency? Manipulation or clarity? Unauthorized social networking. (tagged: transparencytechnologygovernmentlaw )
The New Nostradamus – Bruce Bueno de Mesquita uses large game theory simulations to try and predict the outcomes of complex negotiations involving many parties, both economic and political. Sounds interesting. Also sounds a little bit like bullshit. But apparently the CIA did a prospective trial (no backtesting bias) and found that the models made accurate predictions something like 90% of the time, when the analysts providing the inputs to the model made wrong predictions. Not so surprising that computers are better at synthesizing massive logical datasets into an outcome. The hard part seems like it would be getting the right inputs, and also trusting that people behave rationally, and (perhaps) know what's good for them. (tagged: economicspoliticssciencemathpredictiongametheorytechnology )
Ice Shelf Instability Backgrounder – A good backgrounder from last summer on the Wilkins Ice Shelf (which has just collapsed), and shelf dynamics in general, with links to the relevant literature. None of this is quite as sudden and shocking as the media reports have made it out to be. (tagged: climateantarcticaiceshelf )
SEC Charges 'Prophet' With Fraud2010/03/04 Sadly, this guy really isn't any more dishonest than most investing newsletter publishers, or actively managed mutual funds. His problem is he was too honest about his dishonesty.
Should We Clone Neanderthals?2010/03/03 Apparently the quest to resurrect our nearest hominid relatives continues! This is going to be so weird.
City Response to “Water Conservation: Sober Up San Diego, The Water Party Is Over.”2010/03/03 Although they won't come right out and say it, it does appear that the City has no intention of proactively dealing with the possibility of long term undersupply/overdemand of water. Ironically (I think) San Diego gets about twice the reainfall of Taos, NM, where the earthships happily collect and process all the water they need for domestic living... suggesting that if you're creative enough, actually *both* sides in this SD debate turn out to be a little bit absurd.
The truth about risk2010/02/26 A great interactive info-graphic and discussion for exploring various investment returns over the last century.
The American poor spread to suburbia, but we’re not ready2010/02/25 We already have a word for a large annulus of poor people surrounding a relatively wealthy urban core, and it's not "suburbs". For instance, we don't talk about the "suburbs" of Jakarta, or Mexico City, or Cairo, or Nairobi.
Enceladus' Warm Baghdad Sulcus2010/02/24 Thermal IR overlaid on a visible light mosaic of Baghdad Sulcus on Enceladus. Basically the whole fracture is warm and spewing geysers into space. Weird weird awesome icy place.
The Case For An Older Woman2010/02/22 No surprise: men disproportionately prefer younger women, but it turns out women are fairly even-handed when it comes to age and dating. However, if you look at many other preferences (sex frequency, dominance/submissiveness, etc.) younger men and older women actually aren't a bad match. I certainly don't regret having had experiences with older women when I was younger.
Attribution of climate forcing to economic sectors2010/02/22 A paper in PNAS on relative climate effects of different industry sectors, which emit different relative proportions of aerosols (cooling) and GHGs (warming). Cars are "clean", and so are almost exclusively warming both short and long term. Power is "dirty", and so is less warming short term. However because the time-constants for removal of aerosols and GHGs are so different, in the long term, all these emissions are warming. Suggests cutting out car emissions first, then going for power/industry, lest we also remove our inadvertent sulfate aerosol geoengineering. Interesting way of looking at the problem, but I fear it will be latched on to by the deniers/geoengineers and misconstrued to suggest that dirty emissions are actually a good thing...
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