50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing

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For the 50th Anniversary of the moon landing, here is an infographic of the mission flight path, courtesy of the Smithsonian National Air and Space museum (above). Then explore all Apollo mission landing sites courtesy of Google Moon (below).

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Things that Just Happened in London.....

This week, the Royal Society is hosting a workshop called "From Connectome to Behavior", hosted by the OpenWorm Foundation. A program can be found here. 

The Monday and Tuesday sessions included talks by OpenWorm senior contributors as well as mathematical, biological, and engineering researchers from around the world (including John White, a C. elegans  research legend). Fortunately, you can get a taste for the topical diversity on the OpenWorm Twitter feed, and from the screenshots below.

The Wednesday session was a day for demos and less formal talks, as evidenced by the robotics contingent showing off their latest hardware. Living worms also made an appearance!

How good is the OpenWorm simulation suite? Take a simple test: which one is the real worm, the worm on the left or the worm on the right? View the video footage and vote here.

Here is some OpenWorm-related artwork on display, designs by Matteo Farinella. 

If what you see here looks good and you would like to learn more, please get in touch with the OpenWorm community! Hope to see you soon!

Thanks to the Royal Society of London for being an excellent host!

Catching up on Free Alife

Here are three Alife-related resources to catch up on, some new and some not yet posted to this blog:

Alife XV just concluded, and was hosted in Cancun by Carlos Gershenson and the Self-organizing Systems Lab at UNAM. The proceedings are available here.

Here are the Proceedings from the previous Alife conference (XIV), held in NYC during the Summer of 2014.

And here is the Spring 2016 issue of Artificial Life journal, which features selected papers from the Alife XIV conference (held in NYC in 2014). Be sure to check out the paper "An Informational Study of the Evolution of Codes and of Emerging Concepts in Populations of Agents", which I reviewed.

Arriving at October 21, 2015...... and beyond

Last year I marked the date, and this year it became a "thing" (at east on the internet). So here are a few links to celebrate the famous date from the "Back to the Future" trilogy.

Billings, L.   Time Travel Simulation Resolves "Grandfather Paradox". Scientific American, September 2 (2015).

"What 'Back to the Future, Part II' Got Wrong (and right)", from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

"The Physics of Back to the Future" from Ethan Siegel at Starts with a Bang blog.

A welcome to the future, from Doc Brown himself:

COURTESY: Universal Studios.

And now..... a bit farther into the future...... The Economics of Star Trek, which is a really active area of internet scholarship:

Transcript of the recent New York ComicCon panel on Trekonomics.

Podcast on the "Economics of Star Trek", courtesy of FW: Thinking.

A few other takes on the Star Trek economy from Noahpinion, Joseph Dickerson, and Slate.

In the future, Spock is on the money. COURTESY: Rick Webb, The Economics of Star Trek: the proto-post scarcity economy.

Posters at the International C. elegans Meeting

UCLA and Los Angeles. COURTESY: UCLA Department of Physiology.

I just returned from the International C. elegans Meeting in Los Angeles (being hosted on the UCLA campus). There are posters, talks, workshops, and much fun to be had. I will give a more detailed discussion of some of the sessions in a future post.

Some people (not me) took turns wearing the "worm suit".

COURTESY: #worm15 Twitter feed.

There were several days of talks and posters, plus the famous C. elegans art and variety shows. Talks ranged from Physiology to Evolution and Development. The worm art show is somewhat unique to the conference, The OpenWorm group was able to meet up and discuss research strategies. 

There was also a worm art show. Here are some of the entries. 

Aside form partaking in the intellectual and social festivities, I also presented two posters on Saturday night. One was in the area of experimental evolution, and the other on the DevoWorm project.

Sample of the Experimental Evolution poster. Full poster can be viewed/downloaded here.

Sample of the DevoWorm poster. Full poster can be viewed/downloaded here.

My week was not all worm biology. I also sampled some botany, courtesy of the Mildred Mathias Botanical Garden, UCLA.

A Mechanistic but Non-deterministic Holiday Season.....

This has been cross-posted to Tumbld Thoughts. 

The cold and emotionless holiday season......

Have a recursive holiday season!

Season's Fractals!

Here are some nice technological and mathematical non-sequiturs for the holiday season. Full of modern Western traditions. Thanks to Craig Ferguson, Benoit Mandelbrot, and natural forms for the conceptual help.

Freely-associated Earth Day and Outdoor Adventure-related Content

This is being cross-posted to my micro-blog, Tumbld Thoughts.

Here is a recent story on how 70,000 ladybugs have been released in the Mall of America to combat aphid infestations of the interior foliage. At 4.2 million square feet, the Mall of America has developed an incipient ecosystem [1]. The dynamics of this ecosystem will interesting to observe, particularly in light of the work that has been done in the field of biospherics (e.g. Biosphere 2, which is sponsored by the University of Arizona) [2]. Speaking of self-sustaining ecosystems.......

Nice ecosystem animation for Earth Day, courtesy of Google Doodle. Surf the web to find the true meaning of Earth Day, I guess. Speaking of surfing.....

Why it pays to Surf Michigan. No, really! There is a thriving (albeit obscure) surf culture in the US state of Michigan [3]. Lake Michigan surfing (inset on the left, picture from the St. Joseph Pier on Lake Michigan) has been going on for years, usually in the Fall and Spring when gales present waves large enough for surfing on.

When there is significant rainfall (such as during the past few weeks) or Spring snowmelt, the inland rivers (inset on the right, picture from the Red Cedar River in front of the Administration Building at Michigan State University) allow for interesting surf conditions.

Rincon Beach Park, Santa Barbara County, CA. There is also beachfront right across the street from the UCSB campus.

Surfing at Michigan State is a bit like a cold UC Santa Barbara with ducks on a river (odd mental image, I'm sure). Speaking of academically-oriented surfing [4], here is a profile on the "Physics of Surfing" class offered at UC San Diego [5]. Happy outdoor adventuring!

Scenes from the "Physics of Surfing" class, which combines lessons in instrumentation, oceanography, and of course surfing.

NOTES:

[1] this has parallels to ecosystems that emerge due to climatic changes such as the retreat of glaciers.

[2] Allen, J.   People Challenges in Biospheric Systems for Long-Term Habitation in Remote Areas, Space Stations, Moon, and Mars Expeditions. Life Support and Biosphere Science, 8, 67-70 (2002).

[3] Pictures of wetsuit adventurers in interesting conditions courtesy of Matuli Surf Company (Matulis brothers, Midland, MI).

[4] Here is a list of the top 10 surf colleges from Surfer magazine. Michigan State (nor any other Michigan University) is on it. The only odd duck here is NYU, which offers you the opportunity to surf Long Island (and perhaps the sewers). I might add Florida Atlantic University (FAU) to the list, at least during hurricane season.

[5] A few more links about those skeptical of the academic value of studying surfing: 1) a video on the physics of surfing by Kevin Stahl and friends, 2) a white paper called "The Physics of Ocean Waves" by Michael Twardos (courtesy of Snake Gabrielson's Surflibrary.org), 3) a story by John Jeka at the University of Maryland in the "Neuromorphic Engineer" called "Light touch-contact: not just for surfers". The article profiles the role of touch (e.g. somatosensory information) in helping people and other animals keep their balance when moving across a surface.

Heads (rolling?) on Mars....

This is being re-posted from my microblog Tumbld Thoughts.

I think I know the location of Phillip K. Dick's (PKD) head. HINT: you must get your ass there ASAP. My awareness of the lost cybernetic PKD head courtesy of the book "How to Build an Android". Quote courtesy of Hauser from "Total Recall: 1990". Telling Quaid (alter ego) to go to Mars.

As for the recent movie (Total Recall: 2012), see my critique ("For whom would you rather buy a new memory?", originally posted at Tumbld Thoughts on August 3) below:

Aha! I just knew the remake of "Total Recall" [2] was going to be a shitty fraud! My main problem going in was that the new movie, unlike the original movie and short story, does not take place on Mars. Instead, it takes place on earth in a dystopian future. No Mars, no sale. Colin Farrell in the role of Quaid [3] also does not help. 

As a matter of principle, I like the premise. The mix of cognitive engineering and "out there" sci-fi sensibility is something I can get on board with. But the new movie offers little inspiration from either [4]. In short, it's not getting my ass to Mars.....oh wait, it can't!

NOTES:

[1] for more information, please also see this article from BoingBoing.


[2] so far so bad, according to Wired.

[3] I have no doubt he would be able to say "get your ass to Mars". The problem is that he doesn't have the opportunity to.

[4] although I understand that people travel seamlessly through the earth's core in a post-apocalyptic future. That alone ruins it for me. Good night.

Florida Museum of Natural History: prehistory on film.

This is really cool! Who says that YouTube is contributing to the downfall of civilization (I am not among those people, but whatever)? Have a look at these videos from the UF libraries archive. I used to work here as a Masters student:

Video of museum dedication ceremony, part 1

Video of museum dedication ceremony, part 2

This is the dedication of Dickinson Hall, which is now the "old" FLMNH (where they house most of the collections and scientific research today). By contrast, the "new" FLMNH (with the fully-functioning Butterfly rainforest) is out on Museum road near 34th Street (which is just off the lower left edge of the map shown below):

Map of UF campus with museum sites highlighted

The whole buliding was designed to look (and apparently function, since it dosen't have freight elevators) like a Mayan pyramid nestled into the side of a hill. Notice how the front entrance appears tobe a single story while the plaza in back looks quite expansive with staircases and everything. In the background you can see Carrtram Hall (a portmanteau of Carr and Bartram Halls, home of the Zoology and Botany departments).

If you ever pass by (right on I-75) or visit Gainesville, FL, do yourself a favor and visit this museum. You'll learn a hell of a lot more than you will at Disney, and they have some pretty good collections, especially pertaining to Florida, Carribean, and South American biodiversity/cultural history.

More UF trivia as the opportunity presents itself......