Tag Archives: science

The mass of trees

There are many questions that might seem simple but aren’t. For instance, where does the mass of trees come from?

Many people believe it comes from the soil. However, most of a tree’s mass comes from carbon… in the air.

This is one of those tidbits of information that if you know it, it’s not a big deal, but if you don’t, well then you likely either checked the date of this post to see if it was written on April Fools, or you did a Google search.

While it is interesting to dig into the science of this and learn about photosynthesis, and study the exchange of gasses, and what happens to carbon in the process, it’s also wonderful to marvel at the idea of what’s happening: Trees grow and get their size out of the air.

Here’s a quick video that explains it.

Here is another thought about trees. They won’t grow without the energy of the sun doing the work to convert the carbon from the air into the mass of the tree… so when you throw a log into a fire, you are converting energy captured by the sun back into heat energy.

From Wikipedia:

In physics, mass–energy equivalence is the principle that anything having mass has an equivalent amount of energy and vice versa, with these fundamental quantities directly relating to one another by Albert Einstein’s famous formula:

This is a big jump in thinking, but isn’t it interesting that so much of the mystery of life and our universe can be derived from the mass of a tree?

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* Update: See the first comment by Stephen Downes that points out my error in connecting the relationship to the mass-energy equivalent… I should have just left this post at the marvel of trees growing out of air!

Biohacking human abilities and the future of CRISPR

We are comfortable altering our bodies to maintain our abilities: laser eye surgery, hip replacements, hearing implants… What about genetically enhancing our abilities? Is this different?

Imagine three men, all of them 82 years old and generally healthy. But they are all quite different.

The first man is mostly bald with gray hair over his ears, hunched over, walks with a cane, wears thick glasses, has hearing aids, has bent fingers from arthritis, and his hands shake slightly… and although he has a couple stints in his veins, he has no life-threatening ailments. Unless he meets an unexpected or untimely death, he will likely see his 85th birthday.

The second man has had his genetic makeup altered by CRISPR, taking advantage of human genes being altered to reduce the effects of aging. He looks 55-60 years old, with a full head of hair, greying near his ears, an upright posture, 20-20 vision, good hearing, and steady hands, unaffected by arthritis… his cardiovascular health is like that of someone fit and in their 50’s. He has no life-threatening ailments. Unless he meets an unexpected or untimely death, he will likely see his 100th birthday.

The third man has had his genetic makeup altered by CRISPR, taking advantage of animal and plant genes being altered to enhance his life. His hair is naturally jet black, and has an attractive but unnaturally beautiful shimmer. His eyesight is as good as a hawk’s, 20/2 vision, meaning he can see something 20 feet away as if it is just 2 feet away. His hearing range is more like a dogs than a human… His muscles are huge and he has the physical and cardiovascular health of a man in his late 30’s. He has no life-threatening ailments. Unless he meets an unexpected or untimely death, he will likely see his 125th birthday, and he will still have the mental acuity of a man 1/3 his age.

My hunch is that you are not bothered at all by the health improvements of the second man, but the idea of the third man is a bit disturbing. We are ok with the idea of reducing the effects of aging… skin creams, laser eye surgery, cochlear hearing implants, plastic surgery, knee and hip replacements. All these things to help us hold on to our youth, and if we can do these things genetically, that’s great.

But the third man seems unnatural in a way that is scary. He seems more than human. He seems to be an enhanced species. And here is the truly scary thing… he is inevitable. We now live in a world where people consider themselves biohackers… self-taught amateurs who are DIY (Do-It-Yourself) biologists. And the technology is becoming easy enough for a person in their basement to alter the genes of a human being.

Stop and really think about that for a moment. An amateur biologist can alter the genes of a dog, and there is nothing to stop him from attempting to do the same to himself. This isn’t science fiction anymore. And if a DIY, basement biologist alters their own genetic makeup, then decides to have children, those genetic alterations will become part of the human genome. We are going to see altered and enhanced human abilities added to the genetic makeup of our future generations… with no oversight!

The question isn’t if this will happen, it’s how soon, by whom, and with what unforeseen consequences? Will biohackers be designing super humans? Will being an unaltered human 75 years from now be disadvantageous? Will these disadvantages be enough to be considered a sub-class of a super being… An upgraded human that is smarter, stronger, healthier, and lives longer, with more vitality in their later years, which will make a regular human being seem weak, and perhaps stupid too.

This is the stuff that science fiction is made of, and it’s happening right now. It’s happening in biomedical labs bound by ethics boards; And it’s happening unsupervised in the basements and garages of biohackers with both good and nefarious intentions. That’s both a very real and very scary concern to think about.

In orbit around the sun

Yesterday was my sister’s anniversary, and that made me think about how many rituals and celebrations are based on one rotation of the earth around the sun: Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, school years, mating seasons, and harvests… All these are based on our orbital geography around our galaxy’s star.

Earth orbits the Sun at an average distance of 149.60 million km (92.96 million mi),[1] and one complete orbit takes 365.256 days (1 sidereal year), during which time Earth has traveled 940 million km (584 million mi). ~ Wikipedia

We celebrate events based on yearly journeys of 940 million kilometres. That works out to over 2.5 million kilometres a day! Would this yearly trip have been as significant if the earth’s axis was not tilted, giving rise to the changing seasons?

Perhaps one of the most apparent factors contributing to Earth climate change is the angle at which the earth is tilted. This is the angle at which Earth’s axis of rotation is from the vertical, also known as Earth’s obliquity. Earth’s current tilt angle is approximately 23.5 degrees. The axial tilt angle affects climate largely by determining which parts of the earth get more sunlight during different stages of the year. This is the primary cause for the different seasons Earth experiences throughout the year, as well as the intensity of the seasons for higher latitudes. For example, in the Northern Hemisphere, if there were no axial tilt, i.e. Earth’s obliquity would be zero degrees, then there would be no change in the seasons from year to year. This would be because there would be no difference in the amount of solar irradiation received, year-round, anywhere on Earth. ~ Wikipedia

What would life be like if temperatures stayed relatively constant depending on your latitude? How important would birthdays be? Would our calendars be based on the moon? How important would the passing of a year be?

Enjoy your next orbit!

Thinking about positive thinking

I’ve been thinking a lot about thinking today. I recalled my sister telling me about a Japanese Scientist who froze either pure or distilled water drops to examine the ice crystals… except that first he treated the water in a special way. He would ‘apply’ thoughts, and words, to the water containers first: things like ‘joy’ and ‘happiness’ or ‘sorry’ and ‘anger’. The results were remarkable! Beautiful patterns with positive thoughts & words, and patternless, blocks or ‘broken’ patterns with negative thoughts & words.

It makes me wonder about all this talk I hear about broken schools and our ‘failure’ to prepare our students for the future?

It makes me wonder about all the negative self-talk our media perpetuates… We aren’t pretty enough, we are too fat, we look too old, we aren’t rich enough, we can buy happiness, our future is bleak!

How much of this is real, and how much of it is unintentionally willed by our own (weak?) thoughts?

If we could accumulate a day’s worth of thoughts and place that on a frozen water sample, what shapes would we get? Beautiful patterns or broken formations?

What if we did this for our family, community, city, nation or world?

I know what it would look like for every newspaper & news media stream that exists, and find this disturbing… a reason why I avoid the news altogether!

There are some amazing things happening in this world. Kindness, generosity and love can be powerful and potent catalysts in changing what our daily thoughts accumulate to.

At the end of today, think of what the crystallized accumulation of your daily thoughts would look like. If you see something beautiful, congratulate yourself! If you see something less than beautiful, know that you have the power to change that, and also know that begins with acceptance, not blame… with forgiveness, not anger… with love, not self-loathing.

Gandhi was right, we really do need to be the change we want to see in this world. And that starts with our thoughts that drive us.

Think good thoughts,
Say good words,
Do good deeds.