All 5 key DNA components detected in a Ryugu asteroid sample

 

 

A sample collected by the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft from the spinning top-like asteroid Ryugu contained the nucleobases adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil.

Cosmology: mass distribution in the universe

Interesting facts about the average distribution of matter in the universe can be found in the DISCOVER paper Taking the Measure of Nothing in the Universe (Corey S Powell, Feb 1 2017). 

But very few of that mass is ordinary matter. Indeed, in the cited paper we read:

If you average out the entire cosmos, there is a total mass density of 9.9 x 10^-30 grams per cubic centimeter, which is equivalent to 5.9 protons per cubic meter. Note that I was describing mass density, however, not particle density. According to the latest data from the Planck satellite, only 4.8 percent of that density consists of ordinary matter, mostly hydrogen nuclei (protons). On average, then, there is 0.3 atoms per cubic meter of space.

Picture - Hubble Ultra Deep Field - from Wikipedia

Carl Sagan - gods as dreams

"It is said that men may not be the dreams of the god, but rather that the gods are the dreams of men." 

Carl Sagan - Cosmos

Opt Art: From Mathematical Optimization to Visual Design | Prof. Robert Bosch | Talks at Google

 

Robert (Bob) Bosch - James F. Clark Professor of Mathematics at OBERLIN COLLEGE

Brains as prediction machines - Quanta Magazine

To Be Energy-Efficient, Brains Predict Their Perceptions

QUANTA MAGAZINE - November 15

`Results from neural networks support the idea that brains are “prediction machines” — and that they work that way to conserve energy.'

"not everything that counts can be counted..."

`Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.'  ~William Bruce Cameron... that's an appropriate motto for this most interesting opinion piece, indeed food for thought from The Conversation:  

Our obsession with metrics is corrupting science

The final paragraph poses a good question and points out to the emergence of an opposition to the "h-index" hysteria, built on the idea that content is more important than metrics. As it should be!

"Does the h-index indicate anything other than a high citation rate, whatever that may mean otherwise? Ironically, science and hypothesis testing is needed. For example: do researchers with high h-indices contribute anything of more significance than those with lower ones? Internationally, opposition has taken the form of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). Institutions are urged to acknowledge that the scientific content of a paper is more important than publication metrics or the identity of the journal in which it was published. Content rather than metrics is what ought to count."

 

 

Multiverse?

In the news:  

"Did Scientists Actually Spot Evidence Of Another Universe?" (see here, and a recent arXiv paper)

There is a problem with that view, what does "other" really means. Since there are traces of "others" that can be detected, this suggests at least a "scheme" of laws that applies to "this" and all the "others" as well. Like a moduli space? In which case there is only one (albeit "generalized" of sorts) Universe.

A Peek Into the Physics Students' Lounge at ONU

 © Mihai Caragiu

Theology and science - signing off

In the last 20 years I authored or co-authored a couple of things on religion and science, theology and science, orthodox theology and science, and so on. Truthful to my evolution in the last six years, I am signing off from such a view. Especially in Romania, virtually all theology and science - related body of work starts from the strong assumption that theological dogma is, in a form or another, an absolute given, while somehow science must `illuminate' the `eternal truth' , attempting to offer validity, or claiming to establish an added bonus or certification of validity to said `absolute'. Such an approach seems to me deeply and fundamentally flawed. Even if there may have been occasionally some interesting points here and there, I am gladly forfeiting them all so that they will not leave any room for potential misunderstandings. Here and now I am explicitly distancing myself from whatever I wrote at the `theology/science' interface.

At this point in time, it seems to me that the right approach would be that of an agnostic/atheist who considers religion/theology a phenomenon that is real - but in the sense of it being a natural (or nature-based) phenomenon that is serious enough to warrant a natural explanation, simulations, network-based analyses, neurological, many-body, etc. Paradoxically, such natural-based insights may offer illuminations that are more rewarding than the whole `make theology great again through (improperly) associating it with science' paradigm I am signing off from.