ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 561

Time’s Arrow

We think space and time are the structure of the universe. Yet Einstein argued “space and time are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live”. And the philosophers Kant and Heidegger, saw space and time as the framework of thought, not of the world. Are space and time just a human fantasy?
At the heart of this issue of IAI News is this complex question of time. Going head to head are philosopher Joseph Diekemper and theoretical physicist Julian Barbour. At issue: the nature of the present. Diekemper argues that the present is nothing but a border between the past and the future. However, Barbour responds to say that arguing over past and future is to miss what really matters.
Despite this uncertainty about its true nature, time is nonetheless vital for human conceptions of identity. Philosopher and classicist Angie Hobbs argues that time matters twice over: both as memory and as the narrative structures we need to make sense of ourselves and the world.
Meanwhile, our ...

Here’s What The World Looks Like To A Wasp

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

Cerceris arenaria Jaco Visser/Shutterstock

Wasps conduct morning flights in which they study their nests from all angles so they can find their way home from foraging flights. A study of how they do this, complete with cameras to mimic a wasp-eye view of the world, could help ups find ways to ensure robotic aircraft don't get lost.

Parasite Hijacks Chimps’ Brains And Makes Them More Likely To Be Killed By A Leopard

Plants and Animals





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The parasite makes chimps attracted to leopard urine, increasing their chance of being eaten by the cats. Kjersti Joergensen/Shutterstock

It might sound like the plot of a Hollywood film, but there is a parasite that invades the brain of its host and alters their behavior in an attempt to get them killed. The parasite, known as Toxoplasma gondii, is actually much more common than you might think, with over half of humans thought to be infected, though thankfully for most people it is harmless.

World record Internet data transfer rate almost 50,000 times faster than broadband

At a blistering 1.125 terabytes per second, a new optical communication system developed by University College London (UCL) researchers has created a new record for the fastest ever data transfer rate for digital information. At the quoted rate, say the researchers, the entire HD series of the TV show Game of Thrones could be downloaded in less than one second.

To help achieve these incredibly fast transfer rates, the researchers took recent developments from the realm of information theory in regard to the maximum amount of information that can be transmitted being limited by the finite signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and applied advanced digital signal processing techniques to optimize the SNR and maximize data throughput.

In other words, the team determined the most efficient way to encode data in optical signals, taking into account the limitations of the transmitter and receiver. They then cleverly used noise reduction techniques normally found in wireless communications and applied them to optical transmission. In this way, the team was able to ensure that the transmitted signals were able to be minimally effected by distortions in the system electronics.

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Gravitational Waves: Everything You Need To Know About The Historic Discovery

Space





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Big news, but what does it all mean? R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL

At 5:51 a.m. EDT (9:51 a.m. GMT) on September 14, 2015, history was made. At that exact moment, the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors in Louisiana and Washington state independently saw evidence for gravitational waves, originating from two merging black holes 1.3 billion light-years away. It was pretty big news. You might have heard about it.

An update on Richard’s condition in his own words.

Richard recorded the following message to update everyone on his condition.

Microsoft’s New Tool Identifies What Dog Breed You Look Like

Plants and Animals





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Everett Historical/Microsoft

For a bit of fun, Microsoft has developed an application that identifies which dog breed a human face looks most like: What-Dog.net.

Simply upload a photograph of your face to the site and it will deliver you a response making “an informed guess on what kind of dog you or your friends might be.” And don’t worry, they've explicitly said they don’t keep anybody’s photos.

Why Studying Fertility in Sea Urchins Makes Sense [Excerpt]

Excerpted with permission from Sex in the Sex: Our Intimate Connection with Sex-Changing Fish, Romantic Lobsters, Kinky Squid, and Other Salty Erotica of the Deep, by Marah J. Hardt. Available from St. Martin’s Press. Copyright © 2016. (Scientific American and St. Martin’s Press are part of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.)

Admittedly, spontaneous sex on the subway is a bit of a stretch (and probably nauseating for anyone who rides the G train on a regular basis). But the idea that sex depends upon a crowd is no exaggeration—especially for the less-than-agile lot.

Take sea urchins. A few leaky males can cause an entire nearby cluster of sea urchins to unleash clouds of sperm, which they pump out through holes in the tops of their heads. As is so often the case, males tend to let loose their loads first, followed by the females. It’s a familiar pattern, occurring in sea cucumbers and abalone, among others. With sea cucumbers—squishy, sausage-shaped cousins of sea stars and sea urchins—researchers think the slight delay between male and female spawning times might help increase fertilization rates. The sperm released by males forms a dense cloud just off the bottom through which the females’ buoyant eggs must float on their way to the surface.

In general, bottom-dwelling, or benthic, invertebrates such as sea cucumbers, sea stars, and sea urchins don’t tend to travel very far, certainly not when compared with migrating bluefin, but even compared with horseshoe crabs. (Deep-sea species may be an exception, as they have to scavenge across fair distances for sparse food supplies.) But around coastal and shallow seas, many invertebrates stick close to home—tubed feet can only take you so far. When it’s time to have sex, these species huddle up with their neighbors as individuals broadcast millions (sometimes billions) of sperm and eggs into the currents.

In an ironic twist, this strategy for boosting fertilization success can also pose a significant threat: even in the enormous expanse of sea, there can be such a thing as too much sperm. For most eggs in the animal kingdom, polyspermy—multiple sperm penetrating an egg—is fatal (those choosey female Beroë ctenophores are a rare exception). To understand what’s going on, we’ve got to dive down to the microscopic front line where sperm meets egg. The battle of the sexes rages on even at this unicellular level, and, believe it or not, sea urchins are the go-to animal for studying this kind of stuff. An extremely diverse group, sea urchins can be the size of a small brown bur or enormous, such as the softball-sized, long-spined black sea urchins, which wield four- to twelve-inch needlelike spines. They look more like a medieval weapon than the underwater lawn mowers they truly are. Impressive to behold, disastrous to touch, sea urchins can be found from the shallows to thousands of feet deep, from the warmest tropical seas to the undersea plains of the Arctic Ocean.

Google “sea urchin fertilization” and you’ll find dozens of animations and videos of lone sea urchin sperm finding its way home to an egg. Why the plethora of sea urchin sex tapes? Because studying fertilization in sea urchins makes sense. They are easy to keep in aquaria, spawn on command (a quick injection of potassium chloride, aka sea urchin ejaculation juice, is all it takes), their gametes are easy to collect once in the water, and because fertilization takes place outside the body, it’s much easier to observe and manipulate than, say, inside an elephant. And, not insignificantly, PETA has yet to march on behalf of captive sea urchins.

So, anyone out there who has ever received fertility treatments, any of the hundreds of thousands of couples who have successfully tried IVF, and especially any of the estimated five million or more people who now exist because of such assisted reproductive technology—thank sea urchins. All of those innovations stand on the shoulders of a basic understanding of what actually happens when sperm and egg collide. And we know that from studying sea urchins.

Help Save The Whales By Watching Porn

Plants and Animals





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Two humpback whales. Seb c'est bien/Shutterstock

In a move set to make humpback and sperm whale puns irresistible, PornHub has announced its new program to help save the whales.

Scientists Give Up Hope Of Contacting Philae Probe

Space





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Philae has not been in contact with Earth since June 2015. DLR German Aerospace Center

Following a 10-year journey through space and 15 months on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it’s time to write the obituary for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Philae probe, after ground controllers gave up trying to re-establish contact with it. Now in eternal hibernation, the small lander had only made intermittent contact with Earth following a problematic landing in November 2014, and has finally been abandoned to the cosmos.