Author Archives: alistair

Terrry Pratchett has announced that he has early onset Alzheimers

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I just heard that the great author Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers. Pratchett has written stacks of excellent books which have sold over 55 million copies worldwide. His Discworld novels are brilliant and The Science of Discworld is a superb introduction to scientific thought.

He has released this letter making the announcement. I think that he is remarkably positive (speaking of getting a few more books out) but it is clearly devastating news. Alzheimers is a horrifying disease – I wish him all the best.

I like the end of his letter:

PS.  I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as ‘I am not dead’.  I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else.  For me, this maybe further off than you think – it’s too soon to tell. I know it’s a very human thing to say “Is there anything I can do”, but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

Mind altering parasites and the cat lady next door

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In his book Breaking the Spell Daniel Dennet briefly describes the fascinating Lancet fluke. It is a little parasite with an amazing life cycle (nicely described here). The little bugger reproduces in the liver of grazing mammals, but its eggs are excreted in their feces. That means that the larvae somehow need to get back into the grazing mammals. No problem, they can use mind control. Seriously.

The larvae get themselves eaten by ants and then, literally, take over the ants’ brains at night. Once into an ant, the larvae take control of part of the ant’s brain and cause it to climb to the top of a blade of grass every night. There they wait all night, hoping to get eaten (they only do this at night because during the day it would be too hot and the larvae would die).

If the ant hasn’t been eaten by morning it is allowed to return to normal behavior. Until the next night that is. Sooner or later a passing sheep/cow comes past at night and munches the grass and the little Lancet fluke is home free. Amazing.

The New York Times recently posted an article on similar parasite called Toxoplasma gondii which reproduces in cats. It needs a similar way of getting back into the cats after being excreted in feces and it does so by infecting the brains of rats. Rats infected by Toxo lose their fear of cats, and in fact are attracted to them. You can see where this is going…

The scary part of this story is that T. Gondii also infects people! Wired reports that it is estimated that more than 20% of people are infected. The exact impact on humans has not been conclusively proven yet, but it seems plausible that infected people would be attracted to cats.

You know that crazy cat lady next door? Maybe her brain has been infected by a mind altering parasite!

Evolutionary design – getting the computer to evolve novel designs

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The Economist has this article about how designers are using software to evolve better designs. The approach is called evolutionary design and it “enables a computer to run through tens of millions of variations on an invention until it hits on the best solution to a problem.”

The system takes the design blueprints as a genetic makeup and then evolves a population of different designs. Ones, that work well, are discarded and those that are promising are mixed with other promising designs. This process is repeated for perhaps millions of generations until some truly “inspired” designs are generated.

The article describes cases where evolutionary design has come up with novel designs that human designers had not thought of. For instance:

  • At the University of Sydney, in Australia, Steve Manos used an evolutionary algorithm to come up with novel patterns in a type of optical fibre that has air holes shot through its length. Normally, these holes are arranged in a hexagonal pattern, but the algorithm generated a bizarre flower-like pattern of holes that no human would have thought of trying. It doubled the fibre’s bandwidth.

The evolutionary algorithm (creating and mixing blueprints) is quite easy to develop (I once wrote one), the hard part is evaluating which designs are “good”. That is done using a software simulation of the designs and is the true constraint on this novel technology.

Still, very interesting.

Good luck to Chris Comer

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Wired has this article about the former Texas science curriculum director, Chris Comer, who was forced to resign after she forwarded a mail announcing a lecture promoting evolution. Her bosses felt that by sending an FYI about the lecture she was showing “insubordination” and therefore needed to go.

It boggles my mind that the people running the science curriculum are not allowed to promote a solid scientific theory/law like evolution. There is a good quote in the article:

  • “Each approach should be fair game for critical analysis, so terminating someone for just mentioning a critic of intelligent design smacks of the dogma and purges in the Soviet era.”

Intelligent design is hogwash and has no place anywhere near scientific education, except as an example of a bad theory. The Texas school board has a long way to go – Mrs Comer you are better off without them over your head.

Financial Mail on a possible Zuma presidency

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The Financial Mail has this article speaking about what a rough road we have ahead if Zuma becomes South Africa’s next president. Unfortunately it now seems that the only way we can avoid such a tragedy is through charges being pushed through against him.

The article tries to figure out what Zuma would be like as president. This is pretty tricky because he is distressingly quiet about his policies and ideas. That said, the author is able to infer some of Mr Zuma’s social ideas:

  • “He has intimated that the press should project a positive image of the country, rather than criticise.”
  • “His own behaviour and support for Zulu virginity testing poses significant concerns about his attitude to the rights of women.”
  • “Other comments betray his homophobia.”

The article goes on to discuss possible economic and cabinet changes that the author feels Zuma is likely to make. For instance, his close alliance with the left is likely to have a big (and in my opinion bad) impact on his fiscal decisions. Labor laws will probably become tighter instead of being loosened. Taxes are likely to go up and tax breaks could become “a distant memory”.

Although I don’t necessarily think everything in the article is justified Zuma does scare my pretty badly. He doesn’t give us enough information to judge his policies and what he does say is all crazy.

The religiously sensitive have a go at Gareth Cliff

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Gareth Cliff is a “controversial” morning radio presenter in South Africa. He was recently discussing this crazy story about the Sudanese teddy bear circus when he said: “If God is great, why would he be so easily offended by what a mortal man says? If God has such an ego, then he must be petty.”

Large portions of the South African public have now gone nuts and are calling for him to be fired and even fined for his actions. Madness.

I am sick of hearing about this kind of stuff – be confident in your religion. If you don’t agree with Gareth Cliff then don’t listen to his show. Or even, though this never happens, engage him in a logical debate. But he has a right to say what he thinks and that right should be protected.

I often think Mr Cliff is an idiot, but in this case I happen to agree with him. I think it a little strange that people who are so sure of themselves get so easily offended when such mundane questions are asked of them. If you are so sure then just say “‘No, God is not petty.” That should be it!

I know first hand how this plays out too. Yesterday a respected colleague and friend told me that I am “the spawn of evil” when I suggested there is a possibility that there is no God.

We respect your position and you should respect ours.

Dino fossil found with some skin tissue mummified

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National Geographic reports on an astonishing fossil that has been unearthed recently. “The extraordinarily preserved hadrosaur, or duck-billed dino, still had much of its tissues and bones intact, encased in an envelope of skin”.

The dinosaur died in a “perfect soup” of chemicals allowing for the amazing preservation of its tissue after 67 million years. The paleontologists are all very excited about the information that they can get from this specimen. And it was found by a teenager!

This image above shows the preserved scales of the dino’s skin.

The Sudanese teddy bear circus

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You may well have heard about the British volunteer teacher Gillian Gibbons who has been sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation from Sudan because she allowed her class to name a teddy bear Muhammad. She was convicted of “insulting religion” because any depictions of Muhammad are deemed insulting – so naming a teddy bear Muhammad is a no-no.

I must admit that I find this kind of thing a little crazy. As I have said in the past, I think it’s very important to be tolerant of other cultures and open to other ways of life. However, I just can’t respect the kind of country/culture that thinks this reaction is OK. Ridiculous.

Even more worrying is the fact that it seems many people in the area thought that this punishment was too lenient for the crime and have been protesting and calling for the death sentence! These guys are completely mental. They need some perspective.

The Economist has an article on the the subject. What they say there is what I have found to be true here in Cape Town: most Muslims in democratic countries also think this kind of reaction is unjust.

Update: I have just read that the woman was given a presidential pardon and has been released. A good step, but I still think that the law was a crazy one.

Tutu for president

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Desmond Tutu is someone who I find I almost always agree with. The man does not buy into the loyalty-above-all-else culture of the ANC. He has the guts to take “them” on about a lot of things, but is still perceived as a constructive force. I wonder what his economic policies are – perhaps he could lead a successful opposition.

Anyway, he has just been reported as implying that the ANC should not elect Jacob Zuma because he would shame the country.

Yet again I couldn’t agree more Mr Tutu.