Cav > Books: science‎ (367)

"...The possibility of life on Mars and Venus is being explored. The statistical likelihood of life existing on one of the innumerable exoplanets in a star’s habitable zone is high, and soon to be explored by spacecraft capable of sending data back within a human lifetime. Most importantly, for the first time, the search for near-Earth extraterrestrial artifacts is the work of science, privately and publicly funded. Whether or not humanity persists long enough to get off its home planet and to exist independent of its home star is on us. And, if we are diligent, smart, and intrepid, just maybe we manage this with an extraterrestrial assist."

"Data support the possibility that in 2017 an extraterrestrial-manufactured artifact passed through the Solar system. That year, astronomers, using data collected by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) located at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, identified an interstellar object1 that they called ‘Oumuamua, which translates to “scout” in Hawaiian. Based on the wealth of empirical data collected about the object, I argued that it was most plausibly of extraterrestrial manufacture, rather than a naturally occurring interstellar rock.
The data revealed that ‘Oumuamua’s shape—long and remarkably flat— was to an extreme degree unlike any space object seen before. The data also showed to a certainty that its unusual trajectory around the Sun was changed, not by any visible outgassing such as occurs with all comets, but most likely due to it being pushed by solar radiation, just like NASA’s rocket booster, 2020 SO, which was discovered by Pan-STARRS on September 17, 2020.
Then there was ‘Oumuamua’s extraordinarily low velocity at the point when our Solar system encountered it, which was measured at what astronomers call the Local Standard of Rest (LSR). In space everything is moving relative to everything else. An object at “rest,” such as ‘Oumuamua, is an object with a velocity that makes it comparatively still among all that movement. This is rare. ‘Oumuamua’s being at the LSR made it an outlier to 99.8% of all stars. Nature infrequently puts objects at the LSR. If, however, humans wished to manufacture an object and place it at the LSR, that would be well within our technological know-how. And that is why I likened ‘Oumuamua to a buoy our Solar system ran into rather than a rocket aimed at our Solar system..."

"What was a little more surprising—and disappointing—was the fact that on Day Two, and continuing over Years One through Five, a majority of the scientific community expressed a skepticism about this evidence that was greater than anything directed at scientific speculations such as string theory, types of dark matter, and multiverses. This is despite the fact that to date we have no empirical data demonstrating a theorized string, a dark matter particle, or a single universe other than our own. Scientists, in other words, are more comfortable asserting the existence of phenomena they have no empirical evidence for than accepting the possible existence of a phenomenon—Extraterrestrial Civilization (ETC)—for which we do."

"But what’s uncommon knowledge is that if you take that universal law of storytelling and combine it with the fact that Marvel and DC are owned by the Walt Disney Company and AT&T’s Warner Media LLC, respectively, then you uncover a terrifying truth. Two of the most powerful multinational corporations on the planet have spent decades, in plain sight, paying some of the most creative people alive today to design increasingly credible world-domination schemes—and these schemes have been thwarted only by chance, by circumstance, by the pins we writers have carefully inserted into our own grenades. Once you understand that, it doesn’t take much to wonder: What if the supervillain didn’t have to lose? What if the heroes faced a scheme so clever and bold and audacious and unprecedented that it could never be predicted, much less foiled? And if a supervillain could do that in fiction, what’s to stop someone else from doing it in real life? That was the origin of this book: that moment when I realized that not only have I spent years working on ways to take over the world, but thanks to my background in science[*] . . .
. . . I’ve actually figured it out.
And unlike most supervillains, I’m more than happy to share."

"We’re addicted to the cheapness and convenience of fossil fuels, and even after we’ve invented and invested in renewable fuel sources like solar, hydroelectric, and wind power, those are often used to supplement our ever increasing desire for power, rather than to fully replace fossil-fuel generation."

"Biophilia explains why even today we build houses on the lake, why every child wants a teddy bear, and why Apple names itself after a fruit and its software after noble predators, surfing spots and national parks. The company is brilliant at instilling biophilic longing and affiliation at the very same time it lures us inside."

"This book explores the science behind what poets and philosophers have known for eons: place matters. Aristotle believed walks in the open air clarified the mind. Darwin, Tesla and Einstein walked in gardens and groves to help them think. Teddy Roosevelt, one of the most hyperproductive presidents of all time, would escape for months to the open country. On some level they all fought a tendency to be “tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people” as hikerphilosopher John Muir put it in 1901."

"I’ve divided the book into five parts to help make sense of the material, and to make it useful. The first part sets up the two dominant theories that attempt to explain why our brains need nature and that drive much of the research: the first chapter takes us to Japan, where researchers are quantifying nature’s role in lowering stress and boosting mental health using a framework based on the biophilia hypothesis, the idea that we feel most “at home” in nature because we evolved there. The second chapter swerves over to Utah, where American neuroscientists are more interested in how nature helps restore our attention-addled brains to a state of sharper cognition. I’ve organized the rest of the book by nature dose. I explore the immediate effects of quick bursts, or “nearby nature” on our three main senses—smell, sound, sight. Then I look at what happens to our brains and bodies when we hang outside a bit longer to approximate the Finnish recommended nature dose: five hours a month. In Part Four, I take a deeper, longer dive into the wilderness, where really interesting things happen to our brains. This is where, in the words of neuroscientist David Strayer at the University of Utah, “something profound is going on.” Finally, we’ll look at what it all means to the way most of us live, in cities."

"Do you imagine futuristic cityscapes? Do you feel hopeful? Do you picture billowing smokestacks? Do you feel terrified? Does it remind you of school? Does that hold a positive or negative connotation for you?
As to what you envisioned, it may have been any of the above, or something totally different still. But the general consensus of the American public on this matter can be quite easily traced through recent history. In the years following World War II, the American economy was booming. The middle class was gainfully employed, adequately fed and sheltered, and filled with optimism. Because of this, science was viewed as a gleaming obelisk of limitless advancement. It was Disneyland’s Tomorrowland. It was the Jetsons. It was longevity and prosperity."

"Prior to the internet, there were sources of information that were unanimously agreed upon to be trustworthy and reliable. Stories published by newspapers had to be heavily researched by professional journalists. Knowledge from an encyclopedia was not questioned by those who needed to reference a fact, because they were written by top specialists in every discipline, which contributed to their considerable cost. Whether we regard them as good or bad, those times are gone, and they are never coming back. Unlike the encyclopedias of old, the quality of information on the internet is not reliable. It ranges from outstanding to abysmal. For this reason, the internet can serve as a magic mirror, a place where people go to confirm pre-existing bias. Outlets that reflect what we already “know” are correct and trustworthy. Those that do not are ignored, deemed fraudulent, deceitful, paid for by malevolent institutions, or worse. This method of assessment rarely has any respect for the qualifications of those who produce the content we encounter, which has led to what is popularly referred to as the “post-truth era.”

"Have you ever stopped to wonder how you arrived at where you are? Sit back for a moment and think about it. Ask yourself, “How did I end up at my current job, in this city or state or country, with these particular friends and family?” If you are like most people, you will probably think back to some of the major decisions you made throughout your life. You might consider the skills, interests, and talents you have acquired across the years. Perhaps you will recall the hard work and effort you have exerted in order to get to where you are. Undoubtedly, these are all important factors in helping to explain the specific twists and turns that have occurred in our lives.
But there is another factor that may be just as important. Yet it is the one element that we often forget when explaining our journey. It is the random factor."

"Randomness is thus a constant companion as we live out our lives. It exerts its influence in ways that are obvious and not so obvious. In this book we explore the manner in which this companion walks beside us.
The topics of chance, luck, and randomness have been considered since antiquity. Written discourse regarding unexpected and chance events had its beginnings in ancient Greece. Indeed, the Greek gods of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades were thought to have drawn lots to determine which realm of the world they would rule over, with Zeus drawing the sky, Poseidon the seas, and Hades the underworld.8 Epicurus, Aristotle, Euripides, and other Greek philosophers grappled with whether there was such a thing as chance and / or whether the world operated by a knowable and constant set of laws."

"Before the Second World War, military conflicts were fought under orthodox conditions, usually termed “conventional warfare,” but several innovations had significantly changed combat, leading inextricably to the race for a nuclear weapon in the 1930s and 1940s. Conflicts had been fought by armies on horseback with guns of varying sophistication since the 16th century, but mechanized warfare and machine guns changed this calculus and set the stage for future combat by the end of World War I. Other sinister changes entered the fray during this conflict, such as chemical weapons like chlorine and mustard gas. The total warfare brought about by World War I and ensuing wars like the Spanish Civil War made the quest for the most powerful weapons somewhat necessary."

"The word, from the Latin sentire, to feel, is so mercurial that the philosopher Daniel Dennett has, perhaps playfully, suggested, “Since there is no established meaning… we are free to adopt one of our own choosing.” Some use sentience interchangeably with the word consciousness, a phenomenon that in itself is so elusive as to reduce the most stalwart scientific mind to incantations of magic.
Marveling at how brain tissue creates consciousness, how material makes immaterial, Charles Darwin’s staunch defender T. H. Huxley once pronounced it “as unaccountable as the appearance of Djin [sic] when Aladdin rubbed his lamp.”

"...I myself became curious about the drug when my father, a retired judge, started to consider giving microdoses of LSD to my mother to treat her Alzheimer’s disease. He had asked me why, if the drug was actually supposed to help, he couldn’t just get it at the pharmacy. This launched me on my research.
The more I dug into the history, the more fascinated I became. I began to see how much of the early history of LSD was shaped by the shadow that lies over the molecule, a result of the personal connection between a Swiss pharmaceutical CEO named Arthur Stoll, a kind of unwilling forefather of psychedelics, and Richard Kuhn, the leading biochemist for the Third Reich. This relationship aided the National Socialists, who were beginning to study the use of psychedelics as potential “truth drugs”—questionable research, which, after the war, sparked the interest of the US military and its intelligence agencies in these substances.
This book is what emerged from my curiosity. In this moment when, after many decades, we are finally reconsidering the nature of our laws surrounding psychedelics, it feels more important than ever to look backward and understand how we arrived at those regulations in the first place."

"...Red light and near-infrared wavelengths is not harmful because treatments occur in a controlled environment such as a licensed spa or medical center, or even using a high-grade red light device at home. This means the chances of the light wavelengths generated by pure red light burning the skin are very dismal."

"...Red light therapy has been around for decades, since the advent of lasers in the 1960s. Currently, there are dozens of FDA-cleared red and near-infrared light therapy devices on the market, mainly for skin care and aches and pains. Some estimates suggest that the light therapy market, including white light devices for seasonal affective disorder and devices of other colors, will reach $1 billion worldwide by 2025."

"The goal of this book is twofold: to inform and inspire curiosity and action. Because light therapy can seem like magic—how, after all, can a form of energy have healing effects on the human body?—this book lays out in plain language the science of this treatment and its possible results. It does not diagnose or treat, but it does explain which conditions respond best to light therapy and how to seek it out."

"More than 4,000 PBM lab studies have been conducted, as well as about 700 clinical trials. In total, more than 6,000 papers have been published on the subject—nearly 500 in 2018 alone, signaling a rising interest in the treatment.
Looking back over the last decade or so, we can point to a few particularly important papers. A major report was published in the journal Nature in 2006, highlighting the ability of near-infrared light to flush nitric oxide from cytochrome c oxidase, helping stressed cells return to their normal, healthy function.4 The report noted that “any solution to excessive [nitric oxide] binding might lower the risk of both cancer and degenerative diseases,” since it would encourage sick cells to die off and rejuvenate healthy cells. The following year, the Journal of Rheumatology published a review of research on treatment for chronic neck pain and found that low-level laser therapy effectively reduced pain and improved function in the intermediate term for acute and chronic conditions"

"PBM is also effective at treating wounds and illnesses in animals, which seems relevant to the conversation since there’s no such thing as a placebo effect in animals. As Dr. Praveen Arany, a PBM researcher at the University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine, explained to me, “Animals do not have placebo. They do not pretend to get better because you’re shining light on them.” Take that, PBM skeptics."

"The global transition to LED lighting seems to be having some concerning impacts on the natural world and human health. These energy efficient artificial lights produce different spectra than older incandescent technology, or the natural light of the Sun that life on Earth evolved with over billions of years. LED lighting is brighter, bluer, and more widely used than incandescent lighting.
Glen Jeffery, a professor of neuroscience from University College London, said that as a result, we may be paying the price with our health due to being oversaturated with blue light and starved of red and infrared light..."

"...While it was once believed that the healing effects of red and near-infrared light could only be obtained using expensive laser devices, science has since established that inexpensive LEDs (light emitting diodes) of the same wavelengths can provide the same remarkable healing benefits at a fraction of the cost."

"I wrote this book because I’ve experienced the benefits of red light therapy firsthand, and I now feel compelled to tell the world and help others find the same healing. The repair and enhancement of my brain function, sexual function, thyroid and overall health due to light therapy have been nothing short of miraculous.
Red light therapy isn’t a cure for all diseases, but by optimizing cellular function, supporting the immune system and accelerating the healing process, there are probably no diseases or conditions that it cannot benefit.
It’s my goal in writing this book to make the most complete resource on red light therapy ever written. One that is based on scientific evidence yet can be easily understood by anybody of any age."

"The global transition to LED lighting seems to be having some concerning impacts on the natural world and human health. These energy efficient artificial lights produce different spectra than older incandescent technology, or the natural light of the Sun that life on Earth evolved with over billions of years. LED lighting is brighter, bluer, and more widely used than incandescent lighting.
Glen Jeffery, a professor of neuroscience from University College London, said that as a result, we may be paying the price with our health due to being oversaturated with blue light and starved of red and infrared light..."

"...Hundreds of millions of people would be told to start taking it by their doctors every day. And doctors all over the world would call it a “miracle drug.”
Here’s the crazy part: That drug exists.
But it’s not a pill. It’s red and near-infrared light.
Red and near-infrared light therapy are one of the biggest breakthrough discoveries in health in the last half century. Scientists have quietly accumulated thousands of studies on the power of red and near-infrared light to enhance human health for the last several decades. And yet, most people have never even heard of it..."

"In this book, you’ll discover the incredible power of red and near-infrared light therapy and how it can help:
* Increase your energy
* Combat aging and make your skin healthier, reduce wrinkles, and help get rid of cellulite
* Speed up fat loss
* Improve muscle recovery and athletic performance
* Improve mood and cognitive function
* Speed healing from injury
* Improve metabolism and hormonal health
Sound too good to be true? Think again! Red and near-infrared light have already been proven in over 3,000 scientific studies to do all that and more!"

"There have now been literally thousands of studies conducted upon both animals and humans. Overall, red light has been repeatedly shown to have positive effects on cell function in animal and human studies and aid in improving a wide range of conditions, improving health in numerous ways. Red and near-infrared (NIR) light therapy devices have been FDA-approved for several purposes so far, including anti-aging, hair-loss reversal, acne treatment, pain relief, slow to heal wounds, fat loss, among other purposes. (This is worth noting as it proves the abundance of research showing benefits—the therapy has to be proven safe and effective in numerous trials to gain FDA approval.)"