Book Review: Timewalkers

Timewalkers: The Prehistory of Global Colonization

by Clive Gamble

View all my reviews

It’s a difficult question. Why did earliest man leave Africa and migrate to new areas. Mostly, animals evolve suited to their environment and they don’t stray far. They may have several areas they frequent, but they return to each, not leave them entirely.We had already accommodated ourselves to ravel more than 12 kilometers for raw materials, which is less than modern hunter-gatherers, but more than other primates.

Book Review: The Forest People

The Forest People

by Colin Turnbull

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just finished a wonderful book, Colin Turnbull’s The Forest People. Turnbull lived ‘a while’ (pygmies don’t measure time with a watch or a calendar) with African pygmies to understand their life, culture, and beliefs. As he relays events of his visit, he doesn’t lecture, or present the material as an ethnography. It’s more like a biography of a tribe. As such, I get to wander through their lives, see what they do, how they do it, what’s important to them, without any judgment or conclusions other than my own.

How to Kindle your Child’s Interest in Science

It’s simple: Read about it. Science is more fascinating than fiction or fantasy games or cartoons. Here are five articles in the last Scientific American:

1. Chess. Back in 1859, chess was considered bad for people because it was physical exercise. Imagine that! Do your kids love chess?
2. The first night game in baseball. 1909–log before the first Major League Baseball played at night.
3. the legalities of virtual reality. Can you sue an avatar?
4. Ever hear of Deep Blue? The IBM computer that beat the chess champ? Now they have Watson, programmed to beat us at Jeopardy. (He sounds like Otto–accesses vast amounts of data instantaneously.)
5. Why don’t people have eyes in the back of their head.

DNA Computers and DNA Viruses

Cat’s the one who started me on DNA computers (we share a grad student office). My AI Otto is struggling with my need for speed in his computations and his need for energy to complete the work. When I ask him a question, he sorts through a datasphere the size of the digital Library of Congress (all public sources on the internet. Imagine if you searched ‘Homo erectus’ on the internet and then read and absorbed the one million hits–that’s what Otto does just to get started) to create the simulated reality required for his movies. You can see the importance of speed.

Here’s what I know about DNA computers. They weigh almost nothing, carry their own energy pack, can perform ten trillion operations at once and store an amazing amount of information–all in a drop of water with room to spare. The mechanics are deceptively simple. A high school senior won a scholarship by programming the Declaration of Independence into a DNA molecule. Here’s a link to How Stuff Works if you’d like more information.

The problem, from what Cat’s explained, is the amount of error in DNA computing. In our human genome, we call them mutations and they’re considered part of our uniqueness. The average child has around 6.3 billion base pairs of DNA with around 277 mutational differences from his/her parents. Many are noninvasive because 1) cells have built-in redundancies, 2) parts of our genetic make-up are inactive. Maybe they used to be active, but with H. sapiens sapiens, they aren’t. 3) some have nothing to do with how we get along in the world.

But, for traditional computing needs, we need more accuracy than that. The theorists believe that within highly-structured uses, they can be controlled. Taiwan has already created a chip out of DNA.

Parents and Kids: Facebook Friends?

Eleven percent of parents joined Facebook specifically to “spy” on their children, and 55 percent use it to “keep an eye on them,” according to the 2011 Bullguard Internet Security Survey. That 2011 survey of 2,000 Internet users in Great Britain also showed that 24 percent of the parents said that was the only way they could see what their child was really up to.

What’s Your Population Number?

With the world’s population expected to hit 7 billion soon, which number are you? BBC can tell you. Here’s mine:

Follow me.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything and Technology in Education. Currently, she’s working on a techno-thriller that should be ready this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

Google + Usage Skyrockets

Google opened G+ to the public–no invitation required anymore–and visit skyrocketed 1300%. That’s around 15 million US visits according to Experion.

Is FB listening yet?

Pig Survived Being Buried for Weeks

The Scientist reports that scientists have cloned a castrated male hog that survived for more than a month buried in the rubble after a massive 2008 earthquake in China.

Read more…

China’s New Aircraft Carrier

While we’re cutting our military budget, China is going full speed ahead. Read this story I got in my email yesterday:

China’s new aircraft carrier

Wow!

These aircraft carriers look formidable and of ultra modern design. There are reports the 1st Chinese aircraft carrier is under construction and could enter service around 2015 or earlier. It won’t be long before we see the real thing. Defense analysts are waiting; watching anxiously.

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THIS IS QUANTUM LEAP ABOVE ANYTHING WE HAVE ON THE DRAWING BOARD. THEY HAVE THOUGHT ” OUTSIDE THE BOX ” ON THIS ONE. BETTER SPEED, LARGER CAPACITY, MUCH MORE STABLE, ETC. DEFINITELY A ” BLUE-WATER ” LONG REACH VESSEL. PLUS THEY CAN SERVICE THEIR NUKE SUB FLEET IN-BETWEEN THE TWIN HULLS ( SIGHT UNSEEN ) OR EVEN LAUNCH AMPHIBIOUS OPPS FROM SAME. IT WILL BE LAUNCHED IN HALF THE TIME IT TAKES THE USA AT JUST ONE-THIRD THE COST. ADD THE NEW CHINESE STEALTH FIGHTER BOMBER ( NAVAL VERSION ALREADY FLIGHT TESTING ) IN THE MIX AND YOU HAVE THE MAKINGS OF A FORMIDABLE WEAPONS SYSTEM INDEED.

How Happy is the World

Mr. Sarkozy, France’s President, thinks happiness is as important as what a country produces. GDP should include GNH. Turns out, there is a lot of data on how happy the world is. I wanted to share it with you:

Happiness against income

Happy life years

Happiness measured by suicide

Happiness vs stress

Did You Know: Ex-Googlers Get More Funding than Yahoo and MS ex’s

Check out this chart from Silicon Alley Insider:

Ex Googlers get most funding.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman.  She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, an IMS tech expert, and a weekly/monthly contributor to Write Anything and Technology in Education. Currently, she’s working on a techno-thriller that should be ready this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Did You Know: Traditional Bulbs or Federally-mandated Bulbs?

67% Oppose Upcoming ‘Ban’ on Traditional Light Bulbs. One-in-five Americans (20%) say they or someone they know has bought large quantities of traditional light bulbs to use when those bulbs disappear off store shelves next year under new federal light bulb regulations, according to a Rasmussen poll.

The Importance of Father’s Day

73% Say Being a Father is Most Important Role for Men in Today’s World, according to Rasmussen Reports

Did You Know? Happiness is Linked to Peacefulness

The countries with the highest well-being tend to be the most peaceful and those with the lowest well-being are the least likely to be peaceful. The findings are from a new Gallup analysis revealing a strong relationship between Gallup’s life evaluation measure and two indicators of country stability.
Read more at GALLUP.com.

I’m sure the gun naysayers would be unhappy to see the US ranked higher on the ‘absence of violence’ graph than the United Kingdom with their tight gun control laws.

Overall, these conclusions are either self-evident or interesting. It depends upon which comes first–well-being or political stability. If people feel good about their government, they will not want to change it. That’s self-evident.

But is the corollary true: If government is stable, do people feel good about themselves? I don’t see evidence of that. Consider dictatorships.

Which begs the question, what is the definition of ‘stable’?

On a side note, one of my core beliefs is that man’s aggressive tendencies are fundamental to his survival. Throughout history, the more violent cultures have won out over their peaceful neighbors. Look at Athens and Sparta.Look at Hitler (short term, but no less destructive). The willingness to fight back, to defend ourselves with whatever means are available, the creativity to come up with new-fangled ways to protect our way of life is critical to our species. I don’t believe we want to breed that out of our genome.

Book Review: A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Short History of Nearly Everything

by Bill Bryson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So often scientific books lose us lay people with their PhD language. Not Bill Bryson. Using his infamous skill as a story-teller, he approaches the history of science with the same non-threatening approach John McPhee applied to the geology of America. Technicalities are dispensed with broad, non-pedagogic strokes while the surrounding humanity draws the reader into the intellectual excitement that is science. Readers can’t fail but want to read more.

Self-Pub Ebooks are Top Sellers

Based on a one-day survey, taken by a Nobody (like you and me so no insult intended. These days, it’s better to be a nobody than an MSM entity). Here’s his fascinating survey:

Interesting numbers:

• 28 out of 100 top e-books in Kindle Store are self-published; 11 are in top 50,
• all of those publications are priced $3.99 or less; that means 28% of top Kindle e-books cost less than $4,
• 18 of the titles are given the lowest possible price tag: $0.99,
• the shining star is John Locke with 8 titles (7 of them in top 50); Vegas Moon is the best self-published book – ranked #4,
• Amanda Hocking is sliding down; her best selling book, Ascend, is #64 (a result of signing a contract with a publisher?),
• authors to watch: Heather Killough-Walden, Julie Ortolon, J.R. Rain and Debbi Mack – with 2 or more titles in top 100.

Did You Know: The Pacific Rim Has Most Major Earthquakes

That’s where Japan is located. The ‘Pacific Rim’ are nations located along the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Here’s a list of the major earthquakes since 1900 (credit: USGS) and their locations:

Largest earthquakes since 1900

Major earthquakes since 1900 located along the Pacific Rim

Google Earth KML

Book Review: Timewalkers

Timewalkers: The Prehistory of Global Colonization

by Clive Gamble

View all my reviews

It’s a difficult question. Why did earliest man leave Africa and migrate to new areas. Mostly, animals evolve suited to their environment and they don’t stray far. They may have several areas they frequent, but they return to each, not leave them entirely.We had already accommodated ourselves to ravel more than 12 kilometers for raw materials, which is less than modern hunter-gatherers, but more than other primates.

What Does Courageous Learning Look Like in a Science Class?

A survey of high school science teachers responded to the question: “What does courageous learning look like in science?” Here are the surprising results:

What Does Courageous Learning Sound Like?

Book Review: The Forest People

The Forest People

by Colin Turnbull

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just finished a wonderful book, Colin Turnbull’s The Forest People. Turnbull lived ‘a while’ (pygmies don’t measure time with a watch or a calendar) with African pygmies to understand their life, culture, and beliefs. As he relays events of his visit, he doesn’t lecture, or present the material as an ethnography. It’s more like a biography of a tribe. As such, I get to wander through their lives, see what they do, how they do it, what’s important to them, without any judgment or conclusions other than my own.