Harry Chen Thinks Aloud

According to the data published by the US National Oceanic and Atomspheric Administration (NOAA), the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high.

Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

The worst part of the news, though is expected, is that the situation is worse than scientists have previously predicated. The Earth is losing its natural ability to soak up CO2 each year.

Climate models assume that about half our future emissions will be re-absorbed by forests and oceans, but the new figures confirm this may be too optimistic. If more of our carbon pollution stays in the atmosphere, it means emissions will have to be cut by more than currently projected to prevent dangerous levels of global warming.

Source: World CO2 levels at record high, scientists warn, guardian.co.uk

The Scientific American magazine announced a special online edition that is formatted for mobile device browsing.

http://wap.sciam.com

FYI. Opera Mini, my favorite mobile web browser, just released Opera Mini 4 beta. To view web sites that are not optimized for mobile browsing, use Opera Mini. Check out its demo video and simulator.

NeuroSky and Emotiv Systems are two US companies that are working on technologies that will allow gamers to control video game characters by thoughts. Central to these technologies is a technique called EEG.

Controlling things by mere thought is a staple of science fiction. That fiction, though, is often based on a real technique known as electroencephalography (EEG). This works by deploying an array of electrodes over a person’s scalp and recording surface manifestations of the electrical activity going on under his skull.

How exciting! If it works out, it will be another revolution in the video gaming — after Nintendo Wii’s motion-based game controllers. But don’t get too excited, there are many problems need to be solved before we see it in the consumer market.

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In his speech at a recent conference, Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, urge scientists to better market themselves, so that the world might have a better chance to solve hard problems like energy consumption, poverty and global climate change. Many scientists don’t value the importance of marketing — this is a big mistake.

In my experience, successful research projects, especially those with the most profound influence, often require as much effort in building marketing as in conducting research. Scientists can spend years in the research labs and produce ground-breaking results. However, if they can’t make the world understand their research, they can’t really help the world to progress. This is why Page is urging scientists to budget fundings for marketing and universities to encourage an entrepreneurial research culture.

If you are a scientist, how should you market yourself?

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A little known business in China is modern mummification. In this business, workers, typically medical school students, are hired to clean, cut, dissect, preserve and re-engineer human corpses, preparing them for the international museum exhibition market.

In this New York Times report, the story of a modern mummification business is a controversial one. Western businesses are setting up these shops in China because of little government regulations.
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When two people get into a fight, it’s always difficult for them to stop. Why? Because the person who received the last punch always want to get even the opponent with an additional punch.

If getting even with your opponent is the end means to stop a fight, in theory it should relatively easy to get two people to stop fighting. Each person just count how many times they have received a punch from their opponent. They should stop fighting when each has received equal number of punches.

However, this is hardly achievable in reality.

A recent study, reported in this NYTimes article, shows that while people think of their own actions as the consequences of what came before, they think of other people’s actions as the causes of what came later.

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We often learn something new when tracing our family trees. But what’s possibility that you are the decedent of Genghis Khan?

Here is a true story.

The first American to be able to claim descent from Genghis Khan has been discovered. He is Thomas R. Robinson, an associate professor of accounting at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.

Dr. Robinson’s descent from Genghis Khan emerged in a roundabout way. The Y chromosome of that Mongol emperor was identified in 2003 by geneticists at the University of Oxford in England. Surveying the chromosomes of Asian men, they noticed a distinctive genetic signature in populations from Mongolia to Central Asia. Their common feature was that all but one lay within the borders of the former Mongol empire.

The geneticists concluded that the far-flung Y chromosome must have belonged to Genghis Khan and had become so widespread because of the vigor with which he and his sons labored in their harems, a fact noted by contemporary historians.

This story is interesting not only because of the surprising genetic relationship between a US professor and a 13th century conqueror, but also because it’s another real life example that shows the power of modern science. In science, I believe.
Source: In the Body of an Accounting Professor, a Little Bit of the Mongol Horders, NYTimes, June 6, 2006.

Speak the truth is the responsibility of all scientists. To be able to speak the truth is the basic right of all scientists. According to New York Times, “scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming.”

Employees and contractors working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with a U.S. Geological Survey scientist working at an NOAA lab, said in interviews that over the past year administration officials have chastised them for speaking on policy questions; removed references to global warming from their reports, news releases and conference Web sites; investigated news leaks; and sometimes urged them to stop speaking to the media altogether. Their accounts indicate that the ideological battle over climate-change research, which first came to light at NASA, is being fought in other federal science agencies as well.

Since I don’t have full knowledge about these incidents, it’s difficult to say how much truth is in the story. However, it’s certain that if the story was truth, it’s a “crime” for the White House to prevent scientists from publicly discussing global warming issues.

This subject reminds me of an OnPoint podcast show that I have listened.

1. NASA and Global Warming, OnPoint, NPR, February 03, 2006