Wednesday, April 28, 2004
NANOMEDICINE -- for REAL
Here's a report about research into using synthetic DNA as a molecular-scale "computer" that could act as an in-vitro smart drug delivery system. Pretty cool.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:06 PM
ASIA'S BOY BOMB
Here's an interesting article about the looming demographic issue of the excess of male over female babies in Asia:
In 1993 and 1994, more than 121 boys were born in China for every 100 baby girls. (The normal ratio at birth is around 105; for reasons debated among biologists, humans seem naturally to churn out slightly more boys than girls.) In India during the period 1996 to 1998, the birth ratio was 111 to 100; in Taiwan in 2000, it was 109.5. In 1990 a town near New Delhi reported a sex ratio at birth of 156.
It's going to be a problem...
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:35 AM
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
ALLAH'S NUKES
Getting closer every day.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:05 PM
Friday, April 23, 2004
LONELY VIRGIN TO CIRCLE THE GLOBE
That provocative title refers to a truly cool project I discovered today. Virgin Airlines founder Sir Richard Branson is financing the design, construction and flight of the The Global Flyer, yet another Burt Rutan creation that is intended to circle the world without refuleing, with only a sole pilot (unlike Rutan's previous unrefeuled powered plane, that did the trick with two on board). Check it out -- it's a beautiful plane and a very cool idea.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 5:59 PM
BASEBALL IN CHINA
Really.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:35 AM
IRAN'S NUKES, IRAN'S LIES
Iran is saying that the Bush Administration's accusations that Tehran is working toward production of nuclear weapons are false. The Left in Europe and America rant constantly about "Bush's lies," but what will they say when it turns out that Tehran has been lying about its nuclear program for years? Nothing.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:28 AM
POOR AFRICA
The Telegraph has a review of a recent book about Africa that describes and seeks to explain the world's basket case. Via Arts & Letters Daily.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:52 AM
LASER WEAPONS
Defense Tech has an item on the status of laser weapon development. I think this, along with robotics, is the most important just-over-horizon development in military technology. Such weapons promise a meaningful defense against ballistic weapons at every scale, from ICBMs to mortar shells. They are also very promising "assymetrical" weapons since our most likely opponents over the next 50 years are unlikely to have such weapons.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:45 AM
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
QUICKSILVER to CONFUSION
Salon's lead items today are about Neal Stephenson's latest novel, The Confusion. The first is a long, very good interview with Stephenson, the second a brief review of the new book. I've been working my way through the first book in this trilogy, Quicksilver (The Confusion is the second volume, the third will be out this Fall).
These are very long, episodic historical novels of ideas, set during the brilliant explosion of the Enlightenment. They're dense, fun and challenging. I love them.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:44 PM
SOYUZ SOLUTION
A Soyuz ferry successfully delivered the new 2-man crew to the International Space Station (along with a Dutch astronaut who will work there for a week before he returns with the old crew -- in a Soyuz)
Meanwhile, Russian financial problems have caused them to ask NASA to increase caretaker crew service from six months to a one year, which NASA has rejected. Simply subsidizing the tried and true Soyuz assembly line for as long as it takes to get a new, reliable means of transport to and from the station is the obvious answer but that would be too simple and easy for NASA, which always does things the convoluted, difficult and pork-barrel-laden way. The Russians aren't our enemies any more, subsidizing the Soyuz assembly and launch facilities won't help the Russians develop any new military technology and U.S. companies are already using Russian-derived rocket engine technology in some current-generation boosters. Oh well...
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:51 AM
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
CLASH of CIVILIZATIONS II
As promised, I've posted the most recent round of my correspondence with a Muslim reader of this blog who has taken issue with some of the things I've written about Islam. Here's a sample:
> I'm just giving you one little example of
> how the issue is much more complicated than it initially seems at surface
> value. I don't agree with your conclusion that dictatorships and closedness
> is somehow intrinsic to Islam or that the Shari`ah promotes it.
Well, again we shall have to agree to disagree. Assuming that a peace can be achieved between the West and the Islamic world, we shall see. My prediction is that countries governed by shariah will never prosper, because skepticism, which is the root of progress, is ultimately discouraged in a regime in which so many things are held to be haraam, off limits, forbidden, heretical. To the modern mind, all things are subject to question, governed only by facts that can be proven in a systematic, reproducible way. This approach to life seems to be inconsistent with the basic foundation of Islam as, apparently, is the reward of risk-taking that is inherent in capitalism. If the Muslim world rejects systematic skepticism and capitalism, then it IS rejecting modernism.
If the Muslim world IS willing to declare a truce, then it will have to build walls around itself to hold out the modern. This, to me, is the formula for the kind of lock on the minds and bodies of its people that the Communist world sought to enforce, also with walls, both physical and cultural. The only way that the communist world could sustain itself was through an enforced rejection of the West, a rejection its own people hated. Of course, the Communists didn't have the promise of eternal bliss to hold out to those who they sought to hold in their utopias by force.
You can read the whole long exchange here. The earlier exchange is here. Read it first if you haven't yet.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:40 PM
Monday, April 19, 2004
CLASH of CIVILIZATIONS?
Back on March 24, I posted a note about some correspondence I'd exchanged with a Muslim who was unhappy with some of the things I've written here about Islam. In the last few days I've received another long letter from the same fellow, and am working on a reply now. Stay tuned.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 1:18 PM
DANIEL DENNETT
The Guardian has a good profile of one of my heroes, philosopher Daniel Dennett. There's a mention of an upcoming new book from Dennett, titled Breaking the Spell. Those who know Dennett's work can guess what it will be about. Check it out.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 1:15 PM
Sunday, April 11, 2004
WHO NEEDS ENGLISH?
That's the title of a post over at Living in China discussing a recent article in the LA Times talking about how some East Asians are turning to Chinese as their second language, instead of English. One more data point defining the rise of the Middle Kingdom. I've been saying for years that there are three "global languages" that will matter in the 21st century: English, Chinese and Spanish.
Take a look around while you're there at Living in China. It's one of the most vibrant blogging communities around.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 12:35 PM
Saturday, April 10, 2004
MISSING IN ACTION
That's the title of an article at Salon that wonders where Kerry is with criticisms of the Bush foreign policy as things turn very ugly in Iraq. (You have to sit through an ad to get a "day pass", but it's worth it.) The point is that Kerry isn't coming forward with an affirmative case, explaining what his alternative would be. Could it be because he doesn't have one?
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 3:47 PM
"EURABIA" AT THE NEW YORK TIMES
The term "Eurabia" was coined by Bat Yeor, the Egyptian-born scholar of the Islamic institution of "dhimmitude" -- the second-class citizenship afforded to non-Muslims in Muslim-ruled countries. Here's an article at, of all places, the New York Times, about the concept that Europe's demographic and cultural decline are providing an open door to a slow conquest by Islam.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 10:36 AM
Thursday, April 08, 2004
SPACESHIP ONE FLIES AGAIN -- HIGHER AND FASTER
Space.com is reporting that Burt Rutan's privately-funded rocket plane had its second powered flight -- to 105,000 feet and and twice the speed of sound.
It's not all bad news!
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:25 PM
Sunday, April 04, 2004
THE MIRROR OF FALLUJAH
That's the title of Victor David Hanson's article today that he publishes under the by-line, "No more passes and excuses for the Middle East." His portrait of the Middle East is accurate. The question is, what can be done about it?
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 9:29 PM
CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERALS CHANGE PLACES
Here's an excellent essay about how the left and right in America have swapped thematic approaches to politics over the last 50 years, with the main ingredients having changed hands being optimism and pessimism. The author puts the turning point in the Johnson administration:
Optimism is difficult to maintain when things don't turn out the way they're forecasted. No one was more an apostle of liberal optimism than Lyndon Johnson, who had studied, after all, at Roosevelt's knee, but the Vietnam War eroded confidence in government and ultimately forced liberals into a pessimism about the value of trying to do good in an uncertain and dangerous world. Indeed, the war divided the Democratic Party not only between hawks and doves but also between those who believed in America's mission as the beacon of freedom and those who had come to doubt it. Once the war turned bad, liberals turned wary, fixating on examining how things had gone wrong. As everyone now knows, this was the new liberalism -- gun-shy and cautious. It no longer embraced a "rendezvous with destiny," as Roosevelt had declared. By the 1970s and the Carter administration, it had a meeting with malaise.
Excellent analysis.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:51 AM
