Friday Thinking is a humble curation of my foraging in the digital environment. Choices are based on my own curiosity and that suggest we are in the midst of a change in the conditions of change - a phase-transition. That tomorrow will be radically unlike yesterday.
Many thanks to those who enjoy this. ☺
In the 21st Century curiosity is what skills the cat -
for life of skillful means .
Jobs are dying - Work is just beginning.
Work that engages our whole self becomes play that works.
The emerging world-of-connected-everything - digital environment -
computational ecology -
may still require humans as the consciousness of its own existence.
To see red - is to know other colors - without the ground of others - there is no figure - differences that make a defference.
‘There are times, ‘when I catch myself believing there is something which is separate from something else.’
“I'm not failing - I'm Learning"
Quellcrist Falconer - Altered Carbon
Content
Quotes:
Drought of the century in the Middle Ages—with parallels to climate change today?
Economics Nears a New Paradigm
Democracy for Sale - review – the end of politics as we know it?
Folklore structure reveals how conspiracy theories emerge, fall apart
Articles:
The World After the Coronavirus
Transition to extinction: Pandemics in a connected world
The science events to watch for in 2021
Are you willing to pay for email? How about podcasts? Here are our tech predictions for 2021
Microscanner mirrors replace human vision
Multifunctional lens sensor system could revolutionize smart contacts
New microscopy technique images live cells with 7 times greater sensitivity
DYNAMO achieves first observation of the 'charge separation effect'
Catalyst transforms plastic waste to valuable ingredients at low temperature
Clinical criteria for diagnosing autism inadequate for people with genetic conditions
The Great Famine (1315-1321) is considered the largest pan-European famine of the past millennium. It was followed a number of years later by the Black Death (1346-1353), the most devastating pandemic known, which wiped out about a third of the population.
#could_be_worse #one-lifetime
Drought of the century in the Middle Ages—with parallels to climate change today?
This is probably the most exciting and fruitful time ever to become an aspiring economist. Why? Because economics is reaching its Copernican Moment – the moment when it is finally becoming clear that the current ways of thinking about economic behavior are inadequate and a new way of thinking enables us to make much better sense of our world. It is a moment fraught with danger, because those in power still adhere to the traditional conventional wisdom and heresy is suppressed.
Economics Nears a New Paradigm
the key question for us at this moment in history is: how might our current system fail? What will bring it down?
The answer, it turns out, has been hiding in plain sight for years. It has three components. The first is the massive concentration of corporate power and private wealth that’s been under way since the 1970s, together with a corresponding increase in inequality, social exclusion and polarisation in most western societies; the second is the astonishing penetration of “dark money” into democratic politics; and the third is the revolutionary transformation of the information ecosystem in which democratic politics is conducted – a transformation that has rendered the laws that supposedly regulated elections entirely irrelevant to modern conditions.
Democracy for Sale - review – the end of politics as we know it?
Mark Twain is often credited with the saying, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” Twain never actually said it; it appears to be a mutated version of something essayist Jonathan Swift once wrote—a misattribution that aptly illustrates the point. The same is true of a good conspiracy theory, composed of unrelated facts and false information that somehow get connected into a loose narrative framework, which then spreads rapidly as perceived "truth." According to a June paper published in PLOS ONE, the structure of folklore can yield insights into precisely how these connections get made and, hence, into the origins of conspiracy theories.
"We tell stories all the time, and we use them to explain and to signal our various cultural ideologies, norms, beliefs, and values," co-author Timothy Tangherlini, a self-described computational folklorist at the University of California, Berkeley, told Ars. "We're trying to get people either to acknowledge them or align with them." In the case of conspiracy theories, those stories can have serious real-world consequences. "Stories have been impactful throughout human history," he said. "People take real world action on these. A lot of genocide can be traced back to certain stories and 'rumors,' as well as conspiracy theories."
Folklore structure reveals how conspiracy theories emerge, fall apart
A prediction by a number of smart folks on the impact of the covid-apocalypse on our future.
The pandemic has demonstrated conclusively that the U.S. government is not an indispensable player in global affairs.
The World After the Coronavirus
As the pandemic enters a new phase, we asked 12 leading global thinkers to predict what happens in 2021 and beyond.
One year after COVID-19 began its relentless spread across the world, the contours of a global order reshaped by the pandemic are starting to emerge. Just as the virus has shattered lives, disrupted economies, and changed election outcomes, it will lead to permanent political and economic power shifts both within and among countries. To help us make sense of these shifts as the crisis enters a new phase in 2021, Foreign Policy asked 12 leading thinkers from around the world to weigh in with their predictions for the global order after the pandemic.
Climate change signals a crisis of consciousness - where humans have to grasp themselves as one species in one world. The 21st century and the digital environment also represents a world beyond the nation - the city - the region. Our challenges are all our challenges.
Transition to extinction: Pandemics in a connected world
In the research I want to discuss here, what we were interested in is the effect of adding long range transportation. This includes natural means of dispersal as well as unintentional dispersal by humans, like adding airplane routes, which is being done by real world airlines (Figure 2).
When we introduce long range transportation into the model, the success of more aggressive strains changes. They can use the long range transportation to find new hosts and escape local extinction. Figure 3 shows that the more transportation routes introduced into the model, the more higher aggressive pathogens are able to survive and spread.
As we add more long range transportation, there is a critical point at which pathogens become so aggressive that the entire host population dies. The pathogens die at the same time, but that is not exactly a consolation to the hosts. We call this the phase transition to extinction (Figure 4). With increasing levels of global transportation, human civilization may be approaching such a critical threshold.
Nature provides 10 short paragraphs outlining some key science issues to watch in 2021.
The science events to watch for in 2021
Climate change and COVID-19 vaccines are among the themes set to shape research.
Climate comeback
COVID detectives
Vaccines and the pandemic
Open-access drive
Stem-cell revamp
Crunch time for Alzheimer’s drug
Mars gets busy
Long-awaited telescope launch
Ripple effect
Brexit unknowns
Here is a collection of signals for the next year or two in the digital environment.
Are you willing to pay for email? How about podcasts? Here are our tech predictions for 2021
It's that time of year where we make predictions about what to see from technology in 2021.
We already know we're good for new iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones, new smart speakers from Amazon and beautiful new smart TV sets that will have higher resolution than ever before—at a lower cost.
So let's offer up some tech predictions about what else we'll see, or just might. Let's start with a given:
You'll be paying for email in 2021
Big tech won't find the new administration any friendlier
The Streaming Wars will lose a big player
5G won't get any better until late 2021
Local retailers will find a way to compete with Amazon
Zoom and video meetings will only get bigger
Here’s another signal that self-driving cars are still just around the corner - but even if they aren’t - driving assistance with AIssistants is almost here.
Microscanner mirrors replace human vision
In autonomous vehicles, advanced technology takes the wheel, allowing passengers to sit back and enjoy the ride. Yet such systems have to meet stringent safety standards. For example, an autonomous vehicle must be able to recognize obstacles and other hazards—and apply the brakes in an emergency. Such a vehicle could be equipped with a new microscanner mirror from the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS. This performs a 3-D scan of the vehicle surroundings to a range of over 200 meters. When integrated within a LiDAR system, it can obviate the need for human vision and thereby make a key contribution to the safety of autonomous driving.
Today's vehicles already feature a variety of advanced driver-assistance systems. In coming years, it will become compulsory to install emergency systems such as evasive steering support in new vehicles, thus paving the way for the advent of autonomous driving. Yet even in coming vehicle generations, humans will still be expected to keep an eye on their surroundings and react in dangerous situations. This could well change, however, with the introduction of LiDAR (light detection and ranging) systems, which measure the distance between the vehicle and other objects. Such systems are able to scan the surrounding area for potential hazards and thereby replace the human eye. As such, they mark a decisive step on the way towards safe autonomous driving.
A team of researchers at Fraunhofer IPMS in Dresden has now developed a new type of microscanner mirror, which forms a key element of LiDAR systems that are capable of 3-D digital vision. This component is used to steer the laser that generates a 3-D scan of the surrounding area. AEye, a specialist for LiDAR systems in autonomous vehicles, is already using the microscanner mirror in its 4Sight LiDAR sensor. "With our technology platform, we're able to meet design specifications for new microscanners suitable for use with LiDAR," explains Dr. Jan Grahmann, research associate at Fraunhofer IPMS. "LiDAR systems are able to scan the surrounding area in three dimensions and therefore detect pedestrians, cyclists or other vehicles. Our MEMS mirror splits the laser beam in two dimensions and focuses the light on the object that is being measured. By measuring the time of flight of the reflected light, it is also possible to determine the distance to the object as a third dimension."
Speaking of human vision - this is another small signal of the emergence of wearable devices for monitoring health and interfacing with the digital environment.
Multifunctional lens sensor system could revolutionize smart contacts
The enormous impact of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, together with other diseases or chronic health risks, has significantly prompted the development and application of bioelectronics and medical devices for real-time monitoring and diagnosing health status. Among all these devices, smart contact lenses attract extensive interests due to their capability of directly monitoring physiological and ambient information. Smart contact lenses equipped with high sensitivity sensors would open the possibility of a non-invasive method to continuously detect biomarkers in tears. They could also be equipped with application-specific integrated circuit chips to further enrich their functionality to obtain, process and transmit physiological properties, manage illnesses and health risks, and finally promote health and wellbeing. Despite significant efforts, previous demonstrations still need multistep integration processes with limited detection sensitivity and mechanical biocompatibility.
Recently, researchers from the University of Surrey, National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Harvard University, University of Science and Technology of China, Zhejiang University Ningbo Research Institute, etc. have developed a multifunctional ultrathin contact lens sensor system. The sensor systems contain a photodetector for receiving optical information, imaging and vision assistance, a temperature sensor for diagnosing potential corneal disease, and a glucose sensor for monitoring glucose level directly from the tear fluid.
"Different from the conventional smart contact lenses with rigid or bulk sensors and circuit chips that are sandwiched in between two contact lens layers and contacted with tear fluid via microfluidic sensing channels, our ultrathin sensor layer could be directly mounted onto a contact lens and maintain direct contact with tears, showing easy assembly, high detection sensitivity, good biocompatibility, good mechanical robustness and not interfering with either blinking or sight of vision." said by Dr. Shiqi Guo, the first author of this study and current postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University.
"This multifunctional contact lens with field-effect transistors is able to provide diversified signals from eyes, which could be combined with advanced data analysis algorithms, providing personalized and accurate medical analysis for users.
Our capacity to literally see life in action - continues to achieve higher resolutions.
Our ADRIFT-QPI method needs no special laser, no special microscope or image sensors; we can use live cells, we don't need any stains or fluorescence, and there is very little chance of phototoxicity,
New microscopy technique images live cells with 7 times greater sensitivity
Experts in optical physics have developed a new way to see inside living cells in greater detail using existing microscopy technology and without needing to add stains or fluorescent dyes.
Since individual cells are almost translucent, microscope cameras must detect extremely subtle differences in the light passing through parts of the cell. Those differences are known as the phase of the light. Camera image sensors are limited by what amount of light phase difference they can detect, referred to as dynamic range.
"To see greater detail using the same image sensor, we must expand the dynamic range so that we can detect smaller phase changes of light," said Associate Professor Takuro Ideguchi from the University of Tokyo Institute for Photon Science and Technology.
The research team developed a technique to take two exposures to measure large and small changes in light phase separately and then seamlessly connect them to create a highly detailed final image. They named their method adaptive dynamic range shift quantitative phase imaging (ADRIFT-QPI) and recently published their results in Light: Science & Applications.
This is a weak-important signal of the mastery of the alchemy of light-matter-energy. Tomorrow’s possibilities will seem magical.
DYNAMO achieves first observation of the 'charge separation effect'
The University of Michigan has successfully demonstrated the "charge separation effect," predicted over a decade ago, which has important potential for direct conversion of light to electricity without the thermodynamic losses typical of photovoltaic (solar cell) technology. The results are expected to be important to future developments in ultrafast switching, nanophotonics, and nonlinear optics as well.
"For over 150 years since Maxwell's equations were first formulated no one has thought that effects enabled by the magnetic force of light were possible at low intensities," says Prof. Stephen Rand, Director of the Center for Dynamic Magneto-optics (DYNAMO), who led the multi-institution team that contributed to this research.
"In conductive media, at relativistic intensities, the electric and magnetic components of the optical field become so strong that they start moving the charges at the speed of light and deflect the motion to cause magnetic effects,"
The resulting magnetic effects in insulators generated by low-intensity light are one million times stronger than previously expected. Under these circumstances, the magnetic force of light develops a strength equivalent to the (usually dominant) electric force of light. This suggests that magneto-electric interactions could support the direct conversion of sunlight to electrical energy, leading to a new kind of solar power source without semiconductors and without absorption to produce charge separation. This could help revolutionize the development of clean energy because theoretically the process could be over 95% efficient, and it's particularly relevant for the space industry.
A good signal of a metabolic economy.
Catalyst transforms plastic waste to valuable ingredients at low temperature
For the first time, researchers have used a novel catalyst process to recycle a type of plastic found in everything from grocery bags and food packaging to toys and electronics into liquid fuels and wax.
The team published their results on Dec. 10 in Applied Catalysis B: Environmental.
"Plastics are essential materials for our life because they bring safety and hygiene to our society," said paper co-authors Masazumi Tamura, associate professor in the Research Center for Artificial Photosynthesis in the Advanced Research Institute for Natural Science and Technology in Osaka City University, and Keiichi Tomishige, professor in the Graduate School of Engineering in Tohoku University. "However, the growth of the global plastic production and the rapid penetration of plastics into our society brought mismanagement of waste plastics, causing serious environmental and biological issues such as ocean pollution."
Polyolefinic plastics—the most common plastic—have physical properties that make it difficult for a catalyst, responsible for inducing chemical transformation, to interact directly with the molecular elements to cause a change. Current recycling efforts require temperatures of at least 573 degrees Kelvin, and up to 1,173 degrees Kelvin. For comparison, water boils at 373.15 degrees Kelvin, and the surface of the Sun is 5,778 degrees Kelvin.
This is a small signal but its part of a growing effort to make sustainably produced and effective building materials.
Fungus as a sound absorber
As healthy and tasty as mushrooms might be, they are good for much more than just the dinner plate. The Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT has now teamed up with the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP to investigate the use of fungus-based materials for the fabrication of eco-friendly sound absorbers.
The original idea came from Julia Krayer, project manager at Fraunhofer UMSICHT in Oberhausen. She has been working on biomaterials for many years. "There's currently a focus on vegetal substrates and mycelium for the development of new materials." Krayer explains. Mycelium consists of a fine network of filament-like hyphae. In its natural habitat, mycelium grows underground, where it may span more than a square kilometer.
For the current project, Krayer and colleagues are growing hyphae in the lab. This mycelium is first mixed with a vegetal substrate consisting of straw, wood and waste from food production, and then printed into the desired shape by means of a 3-D printer. "The mycelial hyphae spread throughout the substrate and create a solid structure," says Krayer. Once the mycelium has permeated the fine-grained substrate, the product is dried in a kiln in order to kill the fungus. The cell walls of the resulting material are open, meaning that it will absorb sound. With its open cells and 3-D-printed porous structure, it is ideal for soundproofing purposes.
This is a small signal of how our understanding of DNA is contributing to the diagnosis of a range of human challenges.
Clinical criteria for diagnosing autism inadequate for people with genetic conditions
Researchers at Cardiff University say their findings show clinical services need to adapt so that people diagnosed with autism-linked genetic conditions are not denied access to vital support and interventions.
Published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, the international study analysed data from 547 people who had been diagnosed with one of four genetic conditions, also known as copy number variants (CNVs), associated with a high chance of autism—22q11.2 deletion, 22q11.2 duplication, 16p11.2 deletion and 16p11.2 duplication.
CNVs happen when a small section of a person's DNA is missing or duplicated. Certain CNVs have been linked to a range of health and developmental issues. They can be inherited but can also occur at random.
#Micropoem
I wonder if in the next decade -
grocery carts will self-drive -
back to a base station?
basic unskilled -
technological -
unemployment?
Superposition -
Collapse -
metamorphosis -
destruction-of-creation -
revolution-in-evolution -
self-organized criticality -
phase-transitions -
alchemy-of-faith -
Happy New Year
Yes -
there’s more to optimism -
than panglossian utopias -
and -
there’s more to collapse -
than a frame of the future -
it’s a frame of the past as well
in the 80s -
I used to watch a tv -
with a screen the size of my laptop -
with a long cable -
i could carry to any room in my apt -
then tv’s got bigger -
so they were replaced -
with laptops and mobile screens -
that we take anywhere -
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