A Quote on Science

Here is a nice quote from Marie Curie about how science contributes to our lives.

Man vs. Nature Part II

The fight between the fence and the tree continues. Still unable to determine who will prevail.

Looks like the tree is upset with the struggle with this lighting.

Jupiter Ascending

I'm one who enjoys a good science fiction movie, especially if it's set in space or bears the signature of The Wachowskis. Combine these together, add a little genetic engineering and you get Jupiter Ascending.

I don't know about you guys but I've marked this one on my 2014 calender.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoCyL_Pqzu8

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes or World War 4: A Multi-Species World War?

After seeing the trailer for this upcoming science fiction movie, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the immediate thought that came to my mind was Albert Einsteins famous quote: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."


Could this movie be a reinterpretation of this famous quote? What are your thoughts about this?


For those of you who haven't watched the trailer yet, you can watch the trailer form this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0wP5ZkaUGg

The Future of Gold

One of my favorite TV-shows for this summer was Bering Sea Gold. A show about dredgers hunting for gold in the Bering Sea during the summer. Whilst watching the show, I couldn't stop wondering what the future of gold mining would be and what kind of documentaries about gold hunting would we see in the future. After doing some research, I found two areas where gold mining may become popular in. Space and nuclear transmutation.

Mining celestial bodies such as asteroids, moons and other planets for rare elements is slowly becoming a reality. Companies like Planetary Resources are working on designing and constructing different spacecrafts to examine and mine asteroids. Other companies are working on creating cheaper methods for leaving Earth (such as the space elevator).

Turning lead into gold, transmuting it, was thought to be no more than Alchemy, fiction. However, in the twentieth century, it was proven that certain isotopes of certain elements, like Mercury 196, can be turned into gold in a nuclear reactor. This process is called Nuclear Transmutation. As new technologies for radiation safety and energy systems develops, we can expect nuclear reactors to become smaller, cheaper and easier to make for people who want to make one at home (DIY nuclear reactors).

In theory, we might see TV-shows about the challenges people undergo whilst trying to make a living by mining for or transmuting gold in the future.

Happy Birthday Star Trek!

On this day of 1966, the first episode of Star Trek was aired. Ever since that day, Star Trek has inspired hundreds of thousands. Happy Birthday and "Live Long and Prosper"!

Above: The original crew from The original series.

A Pale Blue Dot Among the Stars

Sometimes, I look at pictures of Earth taken by the exploration satellites (the Voyagers, Cassini, New Horizons...), to remember that in the great void of the universe, we are nothing more than that pale blue dot among the stars.

Re-Atomization?

     Earlier today, I watched Elysium at the theaters. It's a film (starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster and Sharlto Copley) about the social clashes between the rich and the poor with a twist of science fiction technology. The poor are left stranded on the over populated and over crowded Earth, whilst the rich live on the Elysium, an advanced space station and try to get richer.

     The technologies we see in the film are: robots, exoskeletons, energy weapons, neural information storage and extraction, space transportation and habitats and a very mysterious healing machines. One way or another, most of these technologies appear in other popular works of science fiction. Out of all of these, the healing machines seem to be the most interesting one to me (most likely because it's something alien to the science fiction technologies I'm familiar with).

     The machine looks and functions like an MRI scanner. The injured person lies down on a bed, a rotating arm scans his or her body. During this process, an image of the inside of the body (similar to the images seen on the screens connected to MRI scanners) appears on a computer. Once the injuries or sicknesses are detected, whether they are multiple fractures, cancerous tumors, missing limbs or even the facial damage caused by being close to an exploding hand grenade, the body is healed in a process called re-atomization. What exactly is this re-atomization process?

     Based on what we see in the movie, re-atomization seems to be some sort of process where the atoms in the body are reorganized in order to reverse all damage. How does this work exactly? We aren't given any clues in the film apart from the rotating arm (which also re-atomizes the damaged areas it goes over). So we can assume that the rotating arm does the re-atomizing. Yet, regarding the nature of the process itself, we can only leave that to imagination. Whatever it is, I hope scientists and engineers come up with it soon...

     

The Fate of Jabba the Hutt

Jabba the Hutt is one of the most popular villains of the Star Wars universe. His most famous appearance is in the beginning of Episode VI, Return of the Jedi. He is the major crime lord of the planet Tatooine. For those of you who haven'r watched the Star Wars series (specifically episode 6), I advise you to watch it before you continue reading this post. 

Episode VI was filmed in a time before CGI was possible, so the creatures that appear in the movie are either costumed actors or puppets. This includes Jabba.

I also advise you  to watch: From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga, 
for those of you who are interested in the construction of these creatures.

What interested me after the film was the fate of these puppets, specifically the fate of Jabba the Hutt.

Last month, I finally achieved one of my lifelong goals and attended a Start Wars Celebration. Among various activities, I also happened to learned the fate of Jabba. 

Whilst having a chat with Toby Philpott (one of the puppeteers inside Jabba) and later with John Coppinger (who built Jabba), one of the questions I asked was the fate of the puppet. I was sad to find out that after the shooting was done, the puppet was stored in a warehouse for a while. About a year later, the puppet was thrown away to the trash. John Coppinger who discovered Jabba in a trash container managed to save his tail (which was sold in an auction earlier this year). He told me that someone else took Jabba's radio operated eyes.

Its sad, learning that something that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours to make was eventually discarded to the trash. I wish that they donated Jabba to a museum where it would probably attract thousands of fans every year...

Yet, it was an honor meeting the John Coppinger and Toby Philpott and learning about their experiences designing and operating Jabba the Hutt.



Above, Toby Philpott and John Coppinger behind a small model of Jabba.

Man vs. Nature

There's an interesting example of man vs nature a few steps from my house. I've observed it for a number of years.

When I first noticed this tree that grew within the wire fence, I was too late to save it. However this also allowed an opportunity to observe what will happen.

So far, both have become deformed due to this "struggle for survival" between them. Which one will prevail, I have no idea at the moment. 

      My hand as a reference for size.

Iron Man 3

Just returned from watching Iron Man 3 I will write more about it in my upcoming posts. However, I cannot hold myself from saying that it will probably be one of my favourite films, definitely my favourite super hero film...

Complexity From Simplicity

Here is a TED talk of Adam Savage, a co-host of one of my favourite TV-shows: MythBusters.
It explains how some of the most important scientific discovery's are based on simple ideas. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8UFGu2M2gM

The Alien at the Library

One of the artworks I enjoy viewing at the university is this painting located at the first floor of the library here at Bilkent. I call this the Alien of Bilkent (not its real name) because in a way it reminds me of the art of H.R. Giger (whom I mentioned in my previous post).

However, as can be seen from some of the sample artworks in my previous post; elements like colour, technique and style differ greatly from those of H. R. Giger. Yet (at least for me), it gives an impression similar to some of Giger's works.

  

I don't know what its original name is or the artist who created it. I am planning to look into this, maybe even get an interview with the artist. I will try to keep you guys updated about my research regarding this picture in the future.

The Works of the Grand Engineer

Here is a post from my previous blog: The Art of Science.

In the film Prometheus; beings known as the "Engineers" are (believed to be) responsible for the creation of the Xenomorphs (the Alien creatures) and the human race on Earth. Although the film answers some of the questions about the Aliens, it also induces of tons of more questions into our minds. Such as: Where did the Engineers come from? and Is there a "Grand" Engineer responsible for the creation of the Engineers? and so on.

Today, I found the answer for the latter of the two, during a visit to the museum of the Swiss Surrealist artist H.R. Giger.

The art of H.R. Giger formed the basis of the famous Alien creatures and won him an Oscar award in 1980. Some of his earlier artworks and designs of the Alien creatures, a couple of sized replicas and his works for other films like Species can be found at his museum along with his Oscar award.

In the Aliens part of the museum, visitors can see some of his paintings, models and earlier designs of the Xenomorphs, the engineers, the Facehuggers, the space ships and much more. You can even come face to face with some Xenemorphs if you wonder away...

Visitors can also see some of H.R. Giger's works and designs he has worked on for the Species series (designs for Sil and Eve as well as a model of the Ghost Train which Sil sees in her nightmare...) and other films.

H.R. Giger designed and inspired the Engineers and the Xenomorphs which in a way makes him the Grand Engineer (at least until the sequel of Prometheus)...

Getting a chance to view his museum (again) at Gruyere Switzerland was a great honor for me (being a hardcore fan of science fiction). I advise everyone interested in the Alien franchise, science fiction or Surrealism to visit the museum. It will definitely be your time.

For those who are planning to visit, mind your head in the Alien exhibit. You never know what is hiding above you in the shadows...

The Limits of Language; Brain and Tongue

Some of you may have heard about the Tower of Babel. It is a biblical story that explains how humanity spread over the globe and how different languages arose. For those of you who aren't familiar with the story, I advise you to read it before you continue on this post since I will make a few references to it.

As Arthur C. Clarke once said (in the prologue of 2001: A Space Odyssey), language is the greatest human achievement of all times. It is the fundamental basis of human progress. Not only does language allow us to communicate with each other, to share our feelings, our intuitions and hopes... it also allowed us Homo Sapiens to progress to where we currently are. Thanks to language, our earliest ancestors were able to share their knowledge with each other allowing the next generations to survive. Each new generation added onto this knowledge which eventually allowing people to build city's, satellite's and create today's world.

As stated in the Tower of Babel, in the beginning, humans shared a common language which pretty much allowed their imaginations to become the limit.In the case of the story, they started building a tower that would reach up to the kingdom of heaven. As a result, the Lord decided to spread humanity all over the globe, thus preventing their unity.

Come to think of it, some of the greatest problems we face are those related with understanding. Our mastery over language and the depths of our vocabulary are the two main factors that decide the extent of our ability to communicate and share information. Some of us can explain the most complicated problems in a language that everyone can understand whereas others can spend hours and hours trying to explain a problem and lead to more answers that questions.

What is language exactly? Our brains and our nervous system have their own (in a way digital) language, a language similar to that of computers and electronic circuits, one which scientists around the world are trying to decode. In order to communicate our needs, feelings and discoveries, this biological language gets translated into the language we speak. Of course, this translation isn't 100% effective or efficient.

Those of you who speak multiple languages (in my case; Turkish, English and a little French) know the difficulty that arises with translation between them. No matter how hard we try, we cannot always successfully translate a phrase from one language to the other 100%. Sure, we can easily translate the basics and the words but when it comes to the more complex ones then the job becomes harder if not impossible. What I mean is: try to translate a Shakespearean poem into another language. Sure you can easily translate the words but will it still give the same feeling the original one yields when you read it? Will it still have the magic at a level that Shakespeare gave it? Based on an experiment we performed in Turkish class this year, where we looked at multiple Turkish translations of To Be or Not To Be, I can definitely say no! Translate it word for word and it doesn't make much sense. Alter those words, make them rhyme... and the poem doesn't yield the same feelings and sensations that William Shakespeare gave. This is also the same case for translation between the brain's  language and the tongue.

Ever get one of those feelings that you were unable to translate? Ever get that ache somewhere in your body that you couldn't quite describe or were you ever unable to phrase how you felt at a certain point? Some of these are mainly due to limitations of vocabulary and mastery over language. Others are due to the problems associated with translation between the brain and the tongue.

Another interesting example between the brain functions and language is memory. Our language can affect how we remember an event. Take for example watching a football (soccer) game. When you see a goal being scored, you will remember who scored it and the importance of that goal (especially if it is a winning goal), but will you remember the technical details of that goal? Will you remember where in the goal post the goal occurred? Most likely not. This is due to how we describe the event. We describe it as a goal scored by someone, not the goal scored by someone through a certain point in the goalpost. However, in Australia there is an Aboriginal group who speak a language called “Guugu Yimithirr” where cardinal directions are used rather than the egocentric system (the system most of the languages are based on). The members of their tribe learn to recognize the cardinal directions with respect to their geographical surroundings at a young age. They also tend to store their memories with the respective cardinal directions of the events as well. Returning to the football example, a speaker of “Guugu Yimithirr” will remember the goal, where in the goal post the ball entered and which side of the field the ball was on.

Returning back to translation between the neuro-electronic language of the brain and the language we speak, is their a way in which two brains can communicate without means of an interpretor (in this case language). In other words, can direct brain-to-brain communication exist? So far, this branch of science is just at its very beginning (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/mind-melds-brain-communication_n_2781609.html), yet we can see examples of it in fiction.

Altar of Eden, a novel written by the New York Times Best seller author James Rollins shows us a glimpse of a society where direct brain-to-brain communication exists. Human experimentation yielded to the formation of a tribe of people, as well as certain animals, that have special magnetite crystals in their brains which allows the brains to directly communicate with each other via radio waves. Along with the science behind this, James Rollins explains some of the social effects direct brain-to-brain communication can have. The primary and most obvious effect is the absence of a vocal language. The tribes members never speak yet they are aware of each other at all times (unless they are separated by a Faraday cage). Secondly, when all these brains communicate with each other, each individual brain acts like a node in a much bigger brain. In other words; together, the tribe acts like one single mind, a hive-mind. Thirdly and finally, direct brain-to-brain communication isn't limited to the same species. Any species that has this "ability" can communicate and share brains with each other. An example from the novel is researchers brought a parrot, a tiger and a monkey with this implant together (so that they shared brains) and asked the parrot to calculate the number PI. Surprisingly, the parrot was able to recite PI to a large number of decimal places, yet was unable to do this alone. Who knows what might happen when direct brain-to-brain communication is achieved. For those who have read Altar of Eden, it is both fascinating and disturbing.

We've looked at how our speaking language limits the brains language, the effects this can have on brain processes like memory and looked at some of the implications of direct brain-to-brain communication in fiction. I would like to end this post by saying that (based on Altar of Eden) if somehow our native tongues was replaced by a way that allowed brains to communicate directly, like the construction of the Tower of Babel, human imagination would become the only limit.

Welcome/First Post

Hi everyone and welcome to my new blog. My name's Murat. I'm an Electrical and Electronics Engineering student in Turkey. This is (going to be) my blog where I'll post about things related to science, technology, science fiction and similar things that I find fascinating. I look forward to filling up this digital void and hope my readers will enjoy it...