Posts

Showing posts with the label books

Chasing Ghosts of the Universe

You probably heard that matter is pretty much an empty space. It's true. Everything is made of tiny particles with nuclei in their centers and clouds of electrons orbiting around. If we take hydrogen (H), for example, the smallest atom with just one proton in the nucleus orbited by just one electron, and if we scale the proton to be the size of a basketball, the orbit of the electron in diameter would be something about 15 km. Both the nucleus and electrons are electromagnetically charged, keeping everything in stable equilibrium, and also inside the nucleus, two more fundamental forces—strong and weak nuclear interactions—are keeping all the matter and energy in line. However, the smallest atom in the universe is not the smallest standalone system we know of. According to the standard model, all atoms and complex molecules found in nature or artificially produced are made of fundamental particles. Something we cannot cut into smaller pieces. Electron is one of them. But there are more. So far, as far as we know, if we count all of those basic particles inside protons or neutrons and those that represent force carriers in addition to the "god" particle that makes all the mass possible, there are exactly 17 of them. But one of them deserves its own story to tell. Its nickname is "the ghost particle," and it is literally capable of passing through any mountain like it is made of cheese.


You probably guessed, this will be a short story about neutrinos, the most elusive particles in the universe we can play with. They are products of radioactive beta decay in heavy nuclei where a proton or neutron decays into other subatomic particles, i.e., if a proton decays in a process known as 'beta plus decay', it transforms into a neutron, a positron, and a neutrino. In the moment of its creation, even if it happens in the center of the sun, it escapes the entire star immediately. There are many different beta decay types, and I mentioned just one; others help as classified neutrinos. Just like with other fundamental particles that come in three flavors—the charged leptons (electron, muon, tau), the up-type quarks (up, charm, top), and the down-type quarks (down, strange, bottom), bottom)—neutrinos can also be different in mass and property. The one created in the previous example with the creation of positrons is called an electron neutrino, but if anti-tau or anti-muons are created in the process, neutrinos that emerge on the other side of the decay will be tau or muon neutrinos, respectively. A neutrino, no matter which type it is, belongs to leptons as well. This means it is not affected by strong nuclear force at all, and it only interacts with weak nuclear force, and because it is a particle with mass, it also follows gravity as well. To simply illustrate its ghostly manner, I will just note that its tiny mass is about 4 millionths of the electron mass (and electron mass is 1837 times less heavy than the entire mass of hydrogen). Furthermore, it is not electromagnetically charged and therefore not affected by this fundamental force as well. In other words, if you like to watch horror movies or believe in ghosts, the obvious conclusion is that they are made of neutrinos. That would perfectly explain how ghosts travel through walls and doors just like Patrick Swayze did in the movie "Ghost" a couple of decades ago.

Well, kidding aside, and thankfully for these neutrino features, they are really one ghostly particle that is extremely hard to either control or detect. However, this phantom behavior of theirs immediately triggers some extraordinary ideas. If we could embed messages into neutrinos and control the path of their beam, we might literally send them through anything. If some neutrino-based portable device is possible to be built and you are located, for example, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and you want to send a message to Beijing, China, you would have to point your neutrino device slightly toward the center of the Earth*, and neutrinos would reach the receiver with the speed of light all the way through the planet. But before we glimpse into the obvious possibility of whether or not it is possible to use neutrinos in some sort of communication, let's check some more facts about them.


Basically, neutrinos, strictly speaking, belong to the radiation realm. They are indeed carriers of radioactive energy. The same as alpha and beta particles, gamma rays, muon radiations, and tons of other types of particles floating around the universe as a result of different types of particle decays or some other processes in the universe. Actually, we are living in a soup of radioactive energy on a daily basis from various sources, as pretty much everything in the universe is decaying or decomposing toward the ultimate fate of the universe, which will in the end be just one giant soup of basic ingredients, if the everlasting expansion of the universe is the correct theory, that is. Therefore, the choice between usage of paper and plastic bags has nothing green in the potential answer. Either way, both bags will eventually decompose. Just give them enough time. Humans are also radioactive; we also emit radioactive particles thanks to the radioactive food we are consuming. Technically speaking, all food is radioactive because all organic food contains carbon-14, or radiocarbon, as it is nicknamed. Many other radioactive elements can be found in other products, and the most notable one is potassium-40. This one is actually a radioactive isotope that undergoes all three types of beta decay. In one of them it emits neutrinos as well. So, if you like eating bananas, rest assured that you are one of the neutrino producers, as well as bananas are very rich in potassium. Believe it or not, large container shipments full of bananas at ports or airports regularly trigger radiation alarms. Well, if you have not eaten the entire container full of bananas, you are safe. Radiation from a couple of bananas is harmless, way below the edge, and potassium is actually very good for you, and if you emit a neutrino here and there, nobody will notice. Believe me. Well, on second thought, don't believe me. Even though neutrinos are very hard to detect, there is still, after all, a way to do it.

Neutrinos are tiny particles, but a few of them, on rare occasions, still collide with the atom nucleus of the material they are passing through. And by few, I mean the literal meaning of the word. The Sun is producing an extremely large number of neutrinos—60 billion per square centimeter are passing through Earth and... us each second. That is maybe around 100 trillionneutrinos passing average humans. To detect that few, several extremely large detectors are created, and one of them is shown in the above image: Super-Kamiokande under Mount Ikeno in Japan. It utilizes Cherenkov radiation, optically equivalent to a sonic boom, to detect collisions. If a neutrino collides with the electron or nuclei of water, the neutrino only changes direction, but the particle that was struck recoils in sudden motion and faster than the speed of light in water (which is slower than the maximum speed of light in a vacuum). This creates a flash of light, which is amplified with photodetectors (those round bulbs all over the water pool). This flash provides information on the direction and type of the neutrino. SK is located in the old zinc mine 1 km below the surface in order to exclude all other radiation from reaching the water and ensure that only neutrinos are detected. To illustrate the small number of neutrinos detected with this approach, state the fact that the total number of collisions detected from supernova SN1987A in Kamiokande was only 19 out of trillions of neutrinos emitted by the supernova. A small number of neutrinos are regularly detected from the Sun, and their number is way smaller than predicted by the number of estimated nuclear reactions in the star, which provides proof that neutrinos are able to change their flavor during their travel, and as it seems, especially during their travel through solid matter. Different numbers of solar neutrinos are detected during the night as they pass a long way through the solid matter of the entire planet Earth, while during daylight they need to penetrate only those 1000 meters to reach the mine chamber.


Poor detection of neutrinos due to their weak interaction with matter is only the start of bad news regarding the potential communication device we are trying to build. More difficulties follow. For example, artificial production of desirable types of neutrinos is either with nuclear reactions or in particle accelerators, which are either too large or too dangerous to build. Encoded information in beamed neutrinos can also be lost with their oscillation between flavors during travel. Creating desirable beams and paths is still not perfect, and last but not least, there is too much noise on the way, as billions and billions of other neutrinos are also there, either created in stars, supernovas, or those created in the very beginning during the Big Bang. Even so, scientists with powerful proton accelerators developed a procedure to develop stable beams of neutrinos or anti-neutrinos**, which are then directed toward near and/or distant detectors. Two experiments emerged with potential scientific value: in the first, a neutrino beam at Fermilab was sent with a short, encoded message through 240 meters of rock toward the MINERvA neutrino detector, and the word "neutrino", which was binary encoded within the beam sequence, was successfully decoded. The second and most challenging one was performed in Japan. Within the "T2K experiment", both neutrino and anti-neutrino beams are created in the J-PARC laboratory and sent toward the 295 km distant Super-Kamiokande. Both are successfully detected and, in return, opened the first working neutrino beamline over large distances.

So in both theory and practice, neutrino communication might be possible, and current experiments confirm it with working proof of concepts made in large neutrino observatories and accelerators. Actually, it resembles the state of computers as they were some half a century ago, when they were large and limited in mathematical computation and built with bulky vacuum tubes. With the invention of semiconductors and transistors, everything changed, and the result is pretty much in front of you, either on your desk, lap, or palm. Perhaps a similar breakthrough is waiting to be invented so we could equip our smartphones of the future with neutrino messaging when we would be finally able to send texts to Mars from our living room without enormous satellite dishes. Who knows, maybe the search for extraterrestrials would gain a completely new angle, and perhaps many of those neutrinos that are passing through our bodies right now could be complex messages from E.T., and neutrino communication in the future might be our ticket into the Milky Way alien internet. Universe's WiFi. So to speak.


Speaking about E.T. and science fiction in general, this neutrino story reminded me about two more things I love to share in conclusion for this post. The first one is John Cramer, an experimental and theoretical physicist and professor at the Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle. Some seven or eight years ago, Cramer intended to perform an experiment with two quantum entangled laser beams pointed in different directions. He was trying to prove that by fiddling with one beam that was sent into a circuitous detour miles away through optical cable, it would be detectable on the second beam that ended in a detector much earlier in a different location. Detection of this form of laser beam fiddling would be an indication that quantum entanglement is a phenomenon not only between spatially distant particles but also distant in time. When asked what he expects in the outcome, John Cramer, being a science fiction author as well, said, "If this experiment we're doing works, then I will follow up and push it as hard as possible. And if it doesn't work, I will write a science-fiction novel where it does work. It's a win-win situation."

The second thing, and in the recent tradition of MPJ and its "books" thread, what partially hinted at this post is the great novel "Signal", written by Patrick Lee, with the entire plot triggered by the neutrino-based portable device capable of catching radio waves from the future by harvesting neutrinos that move against the direction of time. The device is able to hook into radio stations 10 hours ahead. Just try to imagine all the implications and applications of this kind of fictitious device. If you can't, I am encouraging you to grab Patrick's novel and read it. I literally swallowed it and, during reading, eagerly waited for another chapter. I really can't emphasize what is better, the thriller plot, the sci-fi, or the intense writing. I will say no more.

Image refs:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-neutrino-detectors-look-so-cool
http://irfu.cea.fr/Sphn/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/
http://www.patrickleefiction.com/
http://www.nuclear-power.net/nuclear-power/fundamental-particles/antineutrino/
http://particleadventure.org/neutrinos.html

In text refs:
* http://www.antipodesmap.com/
** http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/november-2012/how-to-make-a-neutrino-beam

Refs:
http://physics.info/standard/practice.shtml
http://chemistry.about.com/od/foodcookingchemistry/tp/Radioactive-Foods.htm
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/life-is-rad
http://www2.lbl.gov/abc/wallchart/chapters/03/2.html
https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/neutrinos/neutrino-types/
http://timeblimp.com/?page_id=1033
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2007/07/17/4350992-backward-research-goes-forward
http://faculty.washington.edu/jcramer/cramer.html
 

I, Robot

"Gloria had a grip about the robot’s neck that would have asphyxiated any creature but one of metal and was prattling nonsense in a half-hysterical frenzy. Robbie’s chrome-steel arms (capable of bending a bar of steel two inches in diameter into a pretzel) wound about the little girl gently and lovingly, and his eyes glowed a deep, deep red." - If you didn't recognize the narrative, it is from Gloria & Robbie's reunion from the touching ending of Isaac's "I, Robot" first story. If you read "Robbie" before, you are probably, by now, recollecting what actually preceded this very moment of two persons getting together in this happy ending of the most famous Asimov short story. But if you never did, I am encouraging you to do so; if nothing else, then for the simple reason that even though it was written some eighty years ago, the premise is still fresh and valid, just like it was published yesterday.


The word 'robot' was actually coined a couple of decades before 'Robbie' by the Čapek brothers, Karel and Josef, and was first used in Karel's play 'Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti' (Rossum's Universal Robots). Although robots in this play were more androids and cyborgs, in fictitious literature they were not fully mechanical, AI-type automated inventions but rather sort of technologically augmented humans or created biological organisms. Nevertheless, the word stands to this day with its root in all Slavic languages, Serbian included. I remember my grandmother often using the word 'rabota' ('robota' in Czech), which, even though not in use in the official Serbian language, is actually the only possible way to represent the hard work or labor in just one word.

In sci-fi literature and motion pictures, not all robots are equipped with artificial intelligence, emotion chips, and sophisticated technology and created to look exactly like we do. Many of them are made just to do hard work, like in the original Isaac's or Karel's stories, but even though they all have one thing in common. Their own personality. Something that makes the robot unique and has properties only living organisms have. Believe it or not, if you have a vivid imagination or perception of the details of your own surroundings, personality is something even ordinary items can own. Not long ago, when my son was at the appropriate three-year-old age, I bought for him a large helium balloon to play with indoors. At the end of the meter or so of string, I hung a couple of iron rings to weigh just enough for the balloon to float freely in the air. It was fun playing with it, of course, but even more fun was just monitoring what it did on its own. Due to invisible drafts and air circulation in our flat and slight differences in pressure and temperature in different rooms, it was obvious that our 'Balloon Boy', as we called it, never wanted to stay still for a long time, and after a while I noticed that it particularly liked the kitchen. No matter where you floated it initially—in the living room, dining room, or hallway—after a couple of hours it drifted away to its favorite spot and stayed there put. And to do so, it had to pass through several corners and doors and avoid solid items and furniture. Now you tell me, how was our Balloon Boy different from any other home pet? It had a name, it required constant attention (instead of feeding, in this case, adjusting weights to compensate for helium lost), it also had its own favorite spot in the flat, it loved to play and drift, it was cool, and it... well, eventually died. From my point of view, Balloon Boy was no different than any living pet, and with all of his regular activities, 'he' earned his own personality. Not a big one, for sure, but personality-wise it was.


Robbie was designed to serve as a nursemaid, but in the end, from one young girl's perspective, it was a perfect pet or Balloon Boy substitute. He didn't talk but was able to mimic all the personality necessary to be an ideal companion for eight-year-old Gloria. And he was a great listener, something parents nowadays rarely have time or patience to do for their children on a daily basis. Robbie was also the first robot in Isaac's "I, Robot" masterpiece and surely one of the first generations of robots. With later stories and the overall sci-fi genre, within robotics and cybernetics naturally comes artificial intelligence. In this realm, my favorite robot in the entire expanse of science fiction is Commander Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation". He has it all and was as fully functionally self-aware as anyone else in the franchise. But we are far away from such achievement. I mean, creating artificial software design to mimic human beings within the current stage of hardware and software is very much possible. Computers are fast enough to process very detailed responses from the surrounding environment. Sensing tools are also mature enough to visually and audibly acquire all the data for a hypothetical humanoid robot to deal with and to be very close to passing the Turing test. Simply put, I am convinced that very soon we will have artificial Facebook contacts you can add to your friend lists and communicate with in the usual manner and never know that they are not really humans. To be perfectly honest, I will not be surprised if they already exist today and use social networks as a perfect beta testing ground.

However, what is still behind rapid development in computer science is power and mechanics. These days Boston Dynamics' Atlas's new upgrade is going viral, and if you haven't already seen what it can do, please take a couple of minutes to watch the above video. It is amazing what they achieved in only a couple of years of development from the first 'Petman' bipedal robot initially constructed for testing chemical protection suits. Still, even though walking and handling simple labor is vastly improved, motion and sophistication are yet to explode in some sort of technical breakthrough that would allow continuous operation without the need to recharge often and, of course, to have more human-like motion abilities and be able to do various actions, from as sensitive as operating smartphones to as bulky as carrying heavy sacks and boxes. And at the same time, to look like one of the chess players from the above photo. Or both of them. Until then, there will be no fear of some futuristic robot uprising in Boston Dynamics, especially against those test people from the Atlas video.


To conclude this post without mentioning industrial robots would not be really fair. They have been among us for years and doing their job with great perfection. Honestly, one of the 'always on' TV channels playing in our living room is 'Discovery Science', and I simply can't get enough of those shows "How It's Made" and "How Do They Do It?" especially with all those automated industrial lines with heavy usage of robots and machines. Cybernetics is one great engineering, and it literally expanded exponentially with microcontrollers and industrial software. With a little regret of missing the opportunity to pursue a career in robotics, I remember those couple occasions in school when I participated in a competition in building a controllable circuit board with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, an amazing one of the first home computers I owned for years back in the eighties. It had an extension connector, designed for accessories, with 8 pins fully controllable with its famous PEEK & POKE commands. I used it to programmatically control electronic relays capable of controlling the flow of heavy electronic AC current.

Now, even though industrial robots are already ready to go to another planet (and a couple of them have already been sent to Mars and successfully did or still do their jobs), androids are still not on the horizon. Should I dare to predict the first commercial humanoid robot on the market? Let me put it this way: the human body contains 200+ bones, 600+ skeletal muscles, and more than 300 joints. When we reach a scientific breakthrough in using artificial muscles and power systems able to operate a vast number of joint and bone movements, it will not be long before we see the first Robbies in hardware stores.

Image credits:
http://www.templates.com/blog/robots-people-striking-3d-perspective/
http://www.blutsbrueder-design.com/
http://dailyinbox.com/next-decades-manufacturing/

 

Friendly IoT or Daemon of WarGames

Is the Internet dangerous? Well, yes, we know all the hazards of spending all the work hours behind monitor screens, browsing the web at home, doing social networking, playing online games, watching YouTube, staring at smartphone little displays, or for whatever reasons we sit above our keyboards most of the time every day. That's indeed what we first think of—all the negative aspects of the mighty global network—but today I am not referring to all the potential medical issues inherited from sitting too long on the chair or looking every day into the LCD screen. I also don't mean the obvious social and/or physiological outcomes from letting the virtual world take over the real one for more and more people every day. No, I mean the real danger. Did the Internet overcome the pure network system and become a tool for mass destruction or a background tool for criminal activities? Can someone use the internet to hurt somebody or to perform a murder? Either directly or indirectly? Can some organization, country, or corporation use it to start a war? I mean, wars in the past began by more trivial things than by one global network. There was one war in the year 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras, initiated by a football game. True story. Google it.


You can relax. The Internet is still far from being a player. Or a rifle. It is getting sophisticated by the day, but currently it is still lacking two things to become something more than just a network. Two things are in development as we speak. And yes. You can stop relaxing now. The Internet IS going to be potentially capable and very dangerous when these two things become reality in the future. Very near future, if you ask me. And one of those two doesn't even have to be perfect. Like any other internet thingies, they have cool acronyms. AI and IoT. The first one will provide internet to be self-aware... or... in simple words, to start thinking. It means 'Artificial Intelligence', of course, and even though current development is far away from creating a real replacement for a human mind, some sort of NAI (near AI) will be sufficient to act independently on many occasions. NAI is not real AI. It is rather a complex logic that emulates thinking behavior in some spatial scenarios with predefined and predicted all or most of all directions and events. For example, the current two operational robotic rovers on Mars, Curiosity and Opportunity, are capable of driving on their own with their operating software. Or here on Earth, many metro systems in large cities are operated by complex control and are fully automated, without humans behind train controls. Something like in this embedded video was unthinkable only a couple of decades ago.

To be honest, true AI is not really a real threat. Even if science and technology build an AI entity tomorrow with certain doses of emotions and reason, it will be just another child in the neighborhood. True danger in the background of the global worldwide web is only the programmer's anticipation and powerful IF-THEN-ELSE command. And we have both today. AI being a mad mastermind of the future is not needed. The only thing preventing the Internet from being dangerous today is the still-early phase of IoT. "Internet of Things". Think of it like this: if you have brains and no body or senses, you are as good as a conductor without an orchestra. This is the inevitable part of the future Internet. It will get a body and a wide variety of sensing abilities. Basically, until now, IP addresses were reserved for devices with brains, or CPU units if you will. Home computers, business servers, phones, tablets, smart TVs, and microcontrollers are happy units today with internet access and proud owners of IP addresses. The trend is for tomorrow that all technology-based devices get online too. Remote controllers, motion sensors and any type of sensing converters, home and kitchen appliances, cars and any type of vehicle, industry tools, medical sensors, 3D printers, clothing items, and literally anything at all will be able to get a 'smart patch' and be allowed to be monitored or controlled over the internet. Think of this futuristic network from today's Google and Android smartphone perspective.


If you are a user of Google networks and devices (like I am, and this is just an example; the same goes for other providers and internet giants), from their databases (and I am not saying that they are doing it), it's possible to know what you are browsing to the simplest detail by your usage data in searching the net and the history of your browser, who you are following on social networks by which timeline or wall pages you are opening the most, what you like and dislike, what your watching habits are by your YouTube statistics, how your life looks in writing by your usage of Blogger, and all your whereabouts of your Android smartphone by Google Timeline. Not to mention that they have access to all of your online photos, videos, and files through your usage of all of their services and cloud storage. Oh, yes, and they have all your passwords you typed on various websites. Google is not even on the top of potential 'smart' providers with access to your, well, everything. If you are a user of, for example, Microsoft or Apple and their operating systems, then they are able (and again, I am not saying they are doing it) to know and have access to your localized data that is not clouded online. The story continues into the business environment further. If you are the proud owner of a rack of servers in some cool data storage building and you didn't write all the software and used so-called 'third party' code, the simple fact is that you are not the only one with potential access to all of your racks. And you are not the only one capable of monitoring all the network traffic. Those who manufactured network cards can do it too. Again, I am not saying that big internet corporations are doing all those spying and sniffing of people and other entities online, just that if they wanted to, it would be technologically possible.

Anyhow, all the worries of today's digital world end with privacy concerns. If you are a villainous criminal or a mad hacker, all you can do is steal somebody's identity data and log into other people's accounts for whatever malicious reasons you would do that, but you can't physically and directly harm somebody. In the past I have had these encounters with online thieves, and one of them cracked my password, logged into my dial-up account, and used free internet for a while until I went physically to the internet provider and overrode him for good. After that experience, I am creating complex passwords, and on a couple of occasions, they are so complex that even I forget them after a few weeks. I guess now is as good a time as any to thank all those "Forgot your password?" links standing timidly next to login forms.


However, the Internet of Things will have the power to end all of those 'benignities' of today's online world. Smartphones will not be the only systems with a 'smart' prefix. I am imagining all the varieties of SmartHomes, SmartCars, SmartShips, SmartRoads, SmartOffices, SmartFields, SmartTraffic, SmartEnergy, SmartPolitics... Ok, let's not push it. Some things will never happen. Nevertheless, and seriously speaking, even though this post looks like I am against the future breakthrough in the Internet size and means, many of the IoT-based gadgets will be extremely helpful. Think of the future SmartForest with many embedded fire sensors and intelligent surveillance cameras or SmartHealth gadgets actively monitoring your health signs and alarming anything potentially hazardous, either from within your body or by sensing bad food or air or any type of toxin in your near proximity. Surely every bright medal has the opposite side, and with the possibility of accessing all the gadgets online and controlling them from a distance, I am more than positive that we will be facing SmartViruses as well, and still, just people's passwords to access their mailboxes or bank accounts will be completely dwarfed by the online crime of entering somebody's house system and starting to leak gas while everybody is sleeping.

I am not quite sure that the Internet of Things will exactly be "The Fourth Industrial Revolution", but in one way or another, after a decade or so of transition years, it will be our everyday reality, and the next generations will embrace it and take it for granted just like we do with our current technological surroundings. Or our fathers and grandfathers and their lives within old-fashioned telegraphs, radios, and CRT television sets. Or their fathers and grandfathers with newspapers and books.

Anyways, we will be dealing with IoT when it happens, and I am sure I will be writing about it in general or in specifics on this blog or elsewhere in the future, but today I only want to end this story with a recommendation of one great related novel. About thirty years ago, I was watching WarGames on one of my first VCRs, and it instantly became one of my favorite films. I was more or less the same age as Matthew Broderick back then, in the middle 80s, when he played the lead role in the movie, and needless to say, I spent numerous hours watching it again and again and even read David Bischoff's book based on the original screenplay and enjoyed it all the same. At least for me, it was definitely an influential book of the decade. Every now and again in the previous thirty years, after WarGames, I was wondering why no decent book or movie was made to represent the real successor of the original story only in the realm of nowadays' Internet instead of WarGames' military background. And after three decades, finally, last week, on a friend's recommendation, I purchased Daniel Suarez's "Daemon". In the 'book' thread of the blog, I reviewed many titles without much of a spoiler, and to continue in the same fashion, all I can say is that it's one of those books you hate to leave, and as I am very close to the end, I don't see what would happen to force me to not give it a full five stars. "Daemon" is exactly what I was expecting after WarGames. I read that Walter F. Parkes, co-writer of the original WarGames screenplay and producer of the Man in Black movies, was interested in producing the movie "Daemon" and its sequel, "Freedom" (or "Darknet" in some editions), but this is still in "the clouds", probably due to the extremely technical plot and twists. Perhaps "Daemon" is more suitable for a mini-series or sci-fi TV show... Time will tell.

As for me, my time in the near future is locked and reserved for "Freedom", eagerly waiting in my Kindle's memory. With the same enthusiasm, I am embracing a not-so-near future full of "Internet Things" and what they will bring to our technocracy.

Image refs:
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/iot-brings-potential-security-threats
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/WarGames-Blu-ray/47282/
http://www.amazon.com/War-Games-David-Bischoff/dp/0440193877
http://www.amazon.ca/Freedom-TM-Daemon-Daniel-Suarez-ebook/dp/B002VUFKDY
https://3dprint.com/113502/iot-2015-person-of-the-year/

Refs:
https://re-work.co/blog/embrace-the-iot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/05/13/IoT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things
http://www.amazon.com/War-Games-David-Bischoff/dp/0440193877
http://www.amazon.ca/Daemon-Daniel-Suarez-ebook/dp/B003QP4NPE/
 

Why Do We Age?

Did you know that there are certain species on the face of the Earth that are truly and literally immortal? Yep. They never die. Of old age, that is. I am not talking about some microscopic bacterial life or stubborn viruses in existence. No. Real animals. Take these two: turtles and lobsters. They literally don't age. When it comes to first one, I can't resist not quoting article in below refs* I read online—to the logical suspicion of endless turtle lifespan and why in the aftermath they don't crawl everywhere we look today, they answer, "Of course they die; otherwise we'd be swimming in turtles, but the weird thing is, they never seem to die of old age. It's always a disease, or a falling boulder, or Master Shredder". And this is a real truth, actually, including 'Master Shredder', who might be just a metaphor for us killing turtles for food or purses and belts or whatever we do with dead turtles. Joking aside, the very research of big turtles shows no evidence that their bodies change or mature after they pass their teenage years. They are literally capable of sexual reproduction until the end of time. And again, the glimpse from the noted article stating the obvious: "They can breed and lay eggs until the day they drop dead, and that means that, technically, a turtle can live and have sex forever". The same is with lobsters—well, I am not sure about the sex thing, but they don't age either. Just grow bigger and bigger and bigger until they finish their lifespan in the kitchen of some fancy restaurant. When they got so big that their shell couldn't sustain them anymore, they just got out and started growing a new one. I am sure somewhere out there in the bottom of some sea or ocean there are lobsters today old enough that they are actually living witnesses of Darwin's "Beagle" sailing out for her historical voyage around the world in the early nineteenth century.


I am sure by now you already started growing an ultimate regret about why on Earth you weren't born on one of the Galápagos Islands, hatched out from some egg, and spent eternity practicing martial arts—and instead ended up being a human. But seriously, the title's question is real and open for scientific discussion. And for theatrical purposes, let me repeat it: "Why do we age?" And ultimately die? Surely, if we find out why, the next question is, of course, can we cheat it? Expand it? Live forever? If we find out that is possible, the third question in the row imposes. Should we do it?

But, before we dive into deeper thoughts and evaluate leading theories and hypotheses, I remember when I started with a blog, one of my early small posts in the humor thread was a couple of famous quotes about life itself. As far as I remember, many of them were really plain and intelligent jokes, but the one said by Ronnie D. Laing, a Scottish scholar who dedicated his life to research of mental illness and psychosis, was probably hitting the target in the bullseye. He said, "Life is a sexually transmitted disease, and the mortality rate is one hundred percent." If we extract the humor from this one-liner, what we really get is, perhaps, the ultimate truth. Reaching your or my old age, or death itself, might be nothing else than a genetic disease, in a stretched form of the definition of the word 'disease', and we might be able to do something about it.


Well, contrary to lobsters and turtles (and some other 'immortal' species like certain types of whales, seashells, sponges, hydras, etc.), we are mammals, pretty different kinds of anim... ahem, species. We are different in many ways, genetically speaking, and compared to, for example, reptiles, we cannot regrow our teeth or entire body parts as well, and our DNA, as it seems, has limited regeneration ability that fades with years and ultimately gets exhausted the moment before death. For those lucky to die of old age.

Two leading theories have been posted until today. First, it was proposed that living organisms have some sort of genetic expiration time, written in DNA. In other words, we are all combinations of genes of our parents and their parents and parents before them, all the way back in the history of our families, and this lucky mixture of genes, written in all of our cells, is built to last only a limited period of time. Even though this theory seems so unbelievable and far-fetched, it is actually hinted at in labs. In some genetic research of worms, altering their genome and some specific genes 'produced' the worms who actually lived four times longer than their unaffected peers.


If those genes with encoded expiration dates really exist, finding and rewriting them might be able to increase our lifespans. However, the second theory is much more appealing and easier to understand. It simply says that our cells die at the end of the cycle due to too much damage they suffer over time. To simplify it, there are two types of DNA in our cells: nucleus DNA, which defines us, located in the cores of cells, and mtDNA, residing outside the nucleus and in special parts of the cells called mitochondria. While nucleus code is used during the cell's division to produce another cell with the same DNA, mtDNA is there mainly to produce energy for the cells from the food we consume. And both DNAs can be damaged over time due to various factors, and as time passes over years and decades, the damages become more severe, and at the end of the process, which we know as aging, the entire organism dies. If we focus on mtDNA first, it's logical that these 'power plants' of our cells endure way more pressure than their fellow DNA in the nucleus, as they are in the first front lines hit by influences of the food we eat. From that food they produce energy and, in the process, a very bad byproduct called ROS, 'Reactive Oxygen Species', which are a variety of oxygen-based molecules that are very dangerous for the power plant itself and very capable of ultimately damaging the cell and mtDNA to the point of full destruction in the process of unwanted mutations. Basically, if you are now thinking that a special sort of diet or simply eating less food would give you a longer life, think again. In fact, if you do so, it is logical that more DNA in mitochondria will survive over time in their intact form, but on the other side, restricted diets in lab animals show that they grow slower than normal, reproduce less than normal, and have more endangered immune systems than usual. We need food. It is essential. So, don't stop eating, but try to do it properly and in the most healthy way possible. But the theory of lifespan directly related to the healthy mtDNA is proven in poor lab mice in which scientists encoded a faster genetic mutation of mitochondrial DNA, which resulted in faster aging and a shorter lifespan—they actually lived three times shorter than their 'normal' friends and cousins. So oxygen is bad and ultimately kills you. And yet we cannot live without breathing, can we? A paradox of creation, especially if you are a believer.

What about nucleus DNA in our cells? Are they also causing aging in the process of mutation? Yes, due to mutation of the nucleus, DNA cells end up in a cancerous or non-cancerous state, which is pretty much a defect and the cell's death. During an organism's growth, cells divide in the process called 'mitosis'—one 'cell, by using code in the nucleus, DNA, divides into two new cells, which are exact replicas of the parent cell. Even after an organism has fully matured into its adult stage, cells still continue to divide for the purposes of reproduction and replacement of lost or dead cells. However, as it seems, both resulting cells are not really and exactly the same as their predecessor cells. Yes, the code in chromosomes is the same, but the ending caps of the chromosome structure are getting shorter after each division. These caps are called 'telomeres', and their main purpose is to protect the end of the chromosome from connection with other chromosomes. After numerous divisions of the cells, telomeres run out, and this is pretty much the end of it. The cells are after that doomed. But this is not the end of all the ways of the one-cell doomsday scenario. According to Aubrey de Grey, one of the leading scientists in biogerontology, the scientific subfield of gerontology concerned with the biological aging process, over the years the cells accumulate various molecules that are no longer useful and potentially harmful. And not just within the cells, but also in the space outside cells. Those molecules are scientifically called 'intracellular and extracellular aggregates', but their real names are 'junk molecules', and, like the name suggests, the more of an accumulation of junk, the more dysfunctional the organism becomes. Dr. Aubrey de Grey proposed even more processes, on the cell level, influential in aging, and thanks to his research and the entire scientific mainstream, which is still ongoing research, we definitely understand it more than ever.


Benjamin Franklin once said that in this world nothing can be said to be certain except for death and taxes. I, for one, would definitely like to see the end of death and taxes for sure, and even though it is very hard to imagine a world without taxes, death, after all, might be a very different story. Well, understanding aging is one thing, and finding the cure for it is surely another, not to mention manufacturing a 'cheating-death' pill is not really in the realm of possibility anytime soon. Even the 'genetic pill' that will be able to slow down aging or the one capable of reverse engineering that would replace the mythical fountain of youth (or Lazarus Pit from the DC Comics franchise) is far away from the horizon. However, what is on the horizon and even much closer is the effort and research. Last year Google announced a plan to invest lots of money into California Life Company, aka Calico, and if you go to their website, the first thing you will see is their motto, "We're tackling aging, one of life's greatest mysteries." If you dive into the current stage of IT-leading entrepreneurs and futurists, it seems they all are sharing the same enthusiasm in the "curing death" realm, and I can't help but state the similarity with A.G. Riddle's new novel called "Departure", which pretty much influenced me to write this post, even though I was planning it for a while. I will not spoil the reading for you, but in a nutshell, one of the background stories in it is dealing with immortality, which, in one way or another, resulted in the end of civilization as we know it. I am encouraging you to read the book; it is definitely one of the best novels of the year in the sci-fi realm. In short, in the aftermath related to immortality, one of the leading characters from the novel, Sabrina Schröder, was portrayed giving a TED talk about cheating death and why we should avoid it on a large scale. That's all I would say. Sorry, but you would have to read the entire book to understand everything. I will just say that I hope Riddle's 'Titans' are not predictions for 'Googlers' or 'Applers' or 'Calicos' or whatever the name they come up with in the upcoming breakthroughs in aging research.

As for me, I am sure I wouldn't mind prolonging life a bit, or a little bit, or a 'frakking' long bit, but avoiding death is raising lots of other dilemmas in morality and everything else. It could be handy on long interstellar voyages, though, but it is not far from the truth that reproduction and further evolution of humans would be in real danger if everybody took the immortality pill and if we were stuck in the current stage of evolution without offspring of any kind. Morality issues of a potential cloning of a human being and making it immortal might not be too different.


Extending the lifespan is a very different story. I would always take the red pill and jump into the rabbit hole without hesitation. Life is way too short. After all, lifespan is something nature and evolution have been working on for centuries. If we learn to push and help a little with science, I would definitely be aboard.

Refs:
http://www.calicolabs.com/
http://www.medicaldaily.com/cure-aging-google-plunks
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../trying-to-cure-ageing.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._D._Laing
http://genetics.thetech.org/original_news/news10
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/05/age/
http://www.agriddle.com/departure/sabrina
http://www.agriddle.com/Departure
* http://www.cracked.com/animals-that-are-immortal.html
http://www.aboutdarwin.com/voyage/voyage03.html

Image credits:
http://nocamels.com/2013/12/stop-aging-to-prevent-alzheimers/
http://nocamels.com/2015/06/genetic-sequencing-evolution-cancer-brca1/
 

Who's Behind the Wheel?

Have you ever been in a situation to answer somebody's question with 'Yes and No'? Well, it is definitely one of those answers they are teaching politicians to answer every time they need to use some evasive maneuvers in order to avoid discussions they don't want to get into. But in this case, the answer to the question from the title, or expanded a little with "Are you really behind the wheel of your body?" is really "Yes and no". And nothing could be closer to the truth. The keyword is, of course, parasitology, a very complex scientific research that is trying to understand properly all the macro- and microorganisms that can't live without other living beings and usually do that without their consent and rather use them to live their entire or partial life, which in most cases leads to the host's malfunction, to use a raw mechanical word. They only leave hosts in case of their death or if the host's environment is exploited to the level of uselessness for parasitic survival or simply to follow the natural circle of life, i.e., to lay eggs outside the host environment.

Toxoplasma gondii—a single-celled protozoan*

This blog is not a medical source or place for studying biological entities of any kind, and I am surely not really qualified to provide any advanced knowledge about parasites and how to avoid contamination or heal after. But I am always interested in scientific edges and research that provide unusual results, to say the least, and this post is more about whether or not some parasitic species, like Toxoplasma gondii, are able to affect the human mind in a way that the personality of the host could be changed to the level of influencing their entire social life. However, some basic information can't hurt in order to better understand how biology works. For example, if we are talking about macroparasites or entire sexually developed tiny organisms with complex 'teen' and 'adult' lives with stages of infecting hosts, feeding, laying eggs, and contaminating surroundings, then we are talking more about different kinds of worms (shaped as round, tape, hook, whip, etc.) invading hosts through raw meat, contaminated water, or unclean food. This is the most common way of intrusion, but parasitic eggs can be spread everywhere and through the simple touch of infected handles, phones, appliances... anything at all. When inside, they eat your digested food or even your blood vessels and cells. And they spread a wide variety of diseases, even though they can stay dormant for months and years. They are truly microscopic monsters, very similar to those 'Alien' types in horror movies.

However, the bigger they are, the better they are studied and understood, and today, contrary to the Dark Ages, when parasitic infection was able to spread severely among huge numbers of people, treatments are very successful if detected as early as possible. The smaller they get, like the single-cell deadly microorganism known as Plasmodium (the malaria parasite), the tougher the fight is for knowledge and treatments for diseases they are causing. And for some parasites, disease, in the form we define it, is just the final stage of their complex life. As it seems, they are also very much able to force their hosts to do their bidding as well. In the most intelligent and cruel way. Let's see what Toxoplasma gondii is capable of. Sometimes it is hard to believe all the scientific facts. And believe me, 'believe' is the right word for this little alien and hostile invader of hosts' minds. Humans included.

Cats and Mice: It's Complicated*

All parasite species tend to complete their lives from the stage of being born till the end of their lives. Toxoplasma gondii's ultimate treat is the cat. This is what it is designed for, and this is where it wants to finally multiply and end its life. But it is hard to find a cat when you need it, right? So there are lots of potential intermediate hosts on the way. Before they ultimately end in the intestine of a cat-shaped animal, they find the drive in the cysts of the brain and other tissues of a warm-blooded species, including humans. If they move into rats or some other rodent animal, the parasite recognizes its intermediary and alters the host's behavior for one purpose only—to be an easy victim for cats. More precisely, they induce high levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter known to alter novelty-seeking and enhance the host's neuroticism. In other words, the mouse becomes a curious adventurer of its surroundings and loses fear of cats and everybody else. Uninfected rodents have built-in protection from their native predators and always try to avoid areas marked with cat urine or odor, but after the infection, the parasite brainwashes rodents to even go into craving cat urine and directly into the trap. Toxoplasma gondii can only sexually reproduce in the feline gut, and there you have the answer to why cats love mice and rats so much. Even more surprisingly, all the symptoms in infected lab rats stay after parasites die in the rodent, suggesting permanent changes in the host's neural system.

But what happens if T. gondii finds the way and invades the human body? And according to research, it is apparently capable of infecting us on large scales, and up to one-third of people around the world are estimated to be potential hosts. And we are sort of a dead end for their travel. If we exclude sporadic cases of tigers and lions attacking and eating humans, cats actually can't thrive on us. Well, yes, domestic cats don't eat human beings, but still, there are other ways of transferring parasites from humans to cats, and it seems that Toxoplasma gondii, like in rodents, is also trying to use its unprecedented ability to alter host behavior, all in favor of parasitic life fulfillment. For the simplicity of this blog post, we can make a difference in parasitic life inside an intermediate human host compared to rats and mice. In its acute form, I would say after the parasite realizes there is no way out, or due to some other reason in the mixture of the parasitic and host's life, the human host can go into severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia, suicidal behavior, or the performance of slow mental activity and thinking. Within a large amount of time, in the parasite's latent form, the host is going through light personality changes that are very difficult to recognize as a disease. The latent toxoplasmosis might even be immune to treatments and antibiotics, and some hosts, like our distant rodent relatives, could even change their response to cat odor as well.

The Veneration and Worship of Felines in Ancient Egypt*

Perhaps a decade ago, one comprehensive study was finished at Charles University in Prague, in the Czech Republic, by Jaroslav Flegr, and numerous researchers ended with extremely interesting findings published in the paper "Induction of changes in human behavior by the parasitic protozoan Toxoplasma gondii" (referenced below). Over the years, they tested many cases of infected men and women against 'Cattell's personality factors' (a sort of scientific personality test designed to reveal aspects of an individual's character) and compared them to those performed by non-infected people. Both infected men and women had significantly higher apprehension and levels of social fearfulness, with significant differences in results between the two groups. Infected men showed lower superego strength (rule consciousness), higher vigilance, were more likely to disregard rules, and were more expedient, suspicious, jealous, and dogmatic. Women, on the other end, showed higher warmth and higher superego strength, suggesting that they were more warm-hearted, outgoing, conscientious, persistent, and moralistic. And all those human properties are not considered a disease of any sort. Remember that the latent stage of toxoplasmosis can be the case for one of three people you can meet on the street, including yourself and me. All those people would behave differently if they were not under the influence of small microorganisms only visible under the eye of an electronic microscope!

Now, it is very much close to all sorts of logic that human culture, isolated or widespread, can alter individual personality. In simple words, if you are a member of a herd of sheep, you are most likely a white sheep and behave like all the other members of society, well... the herd. However, the same logic goes for humans and the other way around—that cumulative personality might shape cultural dimensions through the collective behavior of individuals. And if you got yourself a society of humans, all or most of them infected with T. gondii (which is not far from the truth, especially in the early history of mankind ever since ancient Egypt and the domestication of cats), their cultural self would no doubt be shaped far from the case if they were all uninfected and healthy. And if you glimpse again the personality of diverted subjects above, with increased apprehension and decreased superego with men and highly sensitive women, if you ask me, the very own free will could be in question along with increased susceptibility to superstition and religiosity.

Well, I am not saying it, and surely there's lots more research to be done, but if one small society in the history of humanity should thank a small microorganism for, i.e., the rise of religion and everything that implies, you have to wonder...


...about a nice plot for a novel. And that is exactly what Tom Knox did with his thriller called "The Deceit", an amazingly wrapped plot that connects the origins of all religions, ancient Egypt, domesticated cats, Toxoplasma gondii, and everything that might come out of this twist glued together. True or partially true or not at all, this book inspired me to learn something that I didn't know before and, of course, pushed me for a little web research that ended with this blog post. This is actually a second time that Tom Knox, a.k.a. Sean Thomas, forced me to do some more reading about the background of his novel, and needless to say, I recommend both books and am looking forward to more of his work. I have already hinted at "The Marks of Cain", which apparently offers similar travel through the history of man. Stay tuned.

T. gondii refs:
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/1/1.short
https://web.natur.cuni.cz/flegr/pdf/induction.pdf
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/273/1602/2749
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070403-cats-rats.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2526142/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16PF_Questionnaire

* Image refs:
https://www.science.org/content/article/.../toxoplasmosis-parasite-lab
http://www.ancient-origins.net/history/veneration-and-worship-felines-ancient-egypt-003030
 

Atlanteans

If I am going to give a thought or two about ancient Atlantis, its mysterious people, and all the conspiracy theories behind it, there is no doubt that I'll first think of the origin of the story. Classical Greece and Plato. One of the most famous scholars from BC. In his own time, Plato was definitely the top Greek philosopher from ancient Athens, who lived in the fourth century before Christ and dedicated his entire scholarly life to philosophical research and development of modern society and politics. The method he used in his publications was dialogues, a very popular way of expressing scientific thoughts at the time. Plato's dialogues, in which he never took the role as one of the participants, were often the front story accompanied with narration, but in some of them he even excluded the narrator and presented his work in pure novel style, with his characters carrying the story all the way.


In regard to today's title, two dialogues are especially interesting—Timaeus and Critias. Participants in the dialogues were Socrates, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and Critias, and Plato tried to describe the perfect society time-framed way back before the old Classical Greece. In short, these two dialogues describe a tale from a man called Solon, another Athenian, who, during his travels throughout ancient Egypt, learned about mysterious people who lived and perished many generations before. Twenty years or so before these dialogues, Plato had written his masterpiece "The Republic", in which he discussed what he thought of an ideal state with a 'just man' and the meaning of justice in general from the point of view of Greek cities from the classical time. His ideal state was named 'Ancient Athens', placed in existence 9000 years before Plato's time (or 900 if the suggested error in translation is true), and governed with a superior and almost utopian society. As it seems, Atlanteans are used in Plato's books just as an example of how even the enemy that was so powerful, beyond any current comprehension, is incapable of defeating a perfectly regulated society. After that the story went wild, and Atlanteans, who tried to enslave the entire Mediterranean, were easily defeated by 'utopian' and perfectly organized Athenians. In the aftermath, their superb armada retreated to their island, and the gods in their final rage destroyed the entire Atlantean civilization, which Plato described in his famous words, "There occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of misfortune, the island of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea." In the second dialogue, "Critias", Plato described in more detail the origin of the 'ancient' Atlanteans, with extensive use of old Greek mythology, as Poseidon's heaven, who created a perfect society that ultimately, over time, started to fade out as soon as they started losing their divine origin and got overwhelmed in corruption.

Today, we have great knowledge about ancient Greek times, and so far there are no scientific facts in favor of "ancient of the ancient" Greek society that is older than 3 millenniums BC, who fought mighty civilizations that came from the other side of the Pillars of Hercules and both vanished without a single trace. However, there is a faint clue and tons of theories of where Plato really found inspiration for this incredible tale.

Reconstruction of a late Cycladic Ship (© 7reasons, Michael Klein)*

As for the faint clue, I would vote for the ancient Minoan civilization and their predecessors, who preceded the Greeks in the Aegean and suffered ultimate decimation from both natural disaster and human invaders. They lived on the island of Crete within the ancient settlements of Knossos and Gortyn and also on the northern Aegean island of Thera (Santorini) in the ancient site of Akrotiri, which, just like Roman Pompeii, is remarkably preserved after the tremendous volcanic eruption. Their civilization flourished in the late Bronze Age and, like in Plato's words, within a single day and night, around the year 1600 BC, disappeared into the sea in one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in the history of the entire world. What is today known as 'The Minoan eruption of Thera', seismologists tend to classify as four times more powerful than the well-known explosion of Krakatoa. If Minoans had more settlements in the neighborhood, which was likely, they were all destroyed and sunk during the natural reshaping of the archipelago. A massive eruption, no doubt, created a large tsunami wave that probably reached all the way to Crete and ultimately decimated the Minoan people in the northern part of the island. In the following years, pirates and thieves from the sea and land took the chance and made sure for Minoans to never recover to what they once were.

Well, in conclusion and after this small history glimpse, if you ask me, there is a fair chance that Plato's Atlanteans are truly based on ancient Minoans. After all, 2300+ years ago, in Plato's time, the world wasn't big, and the entire cradle of the civilization, as we popularly call Greek Classical times, was small and all about the Aegean Sea. Even the Mediterranean was too large for wooden galleys and far travels. Ancient Minoans came to the Aegean two millennia before Plato, and after their misfortune, I am sure the legends and myths about them grew slightly above the facts. Still, their language, clay tablets, art, pottery, architecture, and overall history prove they once were a very respectful and organized society.


There is no doubt that Atlanteans from Plato's 'Timaeus and Critias' served just a supporting role in this piece of philosophy, but still, ever since, the Atlantis story has had a large impact on literature, comic books, and movies. They are used in tons of novels and portrayed as an insanely advanced civilization with all the technological wonders, perfect cities, flying ships, state-of-the-art armory, etc. There is no bay or gulf in the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Caribbean that some rich adventurer or scholar didn't try to find the Atlantean ruins or at least to post a new theory of the Atlantis site or a conspiracy theory of some sort. To be honest, I am really ok with that—if you look at it from the entertainment point of view, what you get is very much fun, and if you read it on the beach, it surely adds another level to your vacation time.

This is exactly what I did this summer, and during our ten days of R&R on Thassos Island of the northern Aegean, I loaded all three books of The Origin Mystery on my Kindle and swallowed them all in record time. Honestly, from this trilogy I expected a lot, and this is exactly what I got! You have to be brave to make yet another novel about Atlanteans, and A.G. Riddle wrapped it just right. He managed to connect several sci-fi genres into one successful story. For my taste all the sciences are there and connected perfectly. Biology, virology, genetic research including junk-DNA involvement, physics and space travel, quantum entanglement, Antarctica, known history, and the use of connection and conspiracy theories like the Nazi bell (Die Glocke) or the Roswell UFO sighting. Play with time dilation and hibernation. Space battles of enormous proportion. Explanation of gods and ancient astronauts. If you add the usual 'Indiana Jones' type of adventures and romance, there was no better choice for me this July. Perhaps, using so many connected sciences in the plot is too risky, as the author faces the challenge of choosing what is more important and deserves to be explained better at the expense of other technologies or speculations, but I don't mind. All in all, Riddle's Atlanteans are perhaps the best version I've read in a long while, and I warmly recommend it.

Reconstruction of the Akrotiri Supervolcano (© 7reasons, Michael Klein)*

As for the real Atlanteans, or in this case ancient Minoans, I hope some of next summer will lead us to the southern Aegean, and then this story will earn another post in the thread. No doubt with images from ancient Akrotiri. In the meantime, don't miss the below link with incredible scientific reconstructions from before the Minoan Eruption made by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archeology (LBI ArchPro).

Image credit:
* The Akrotiri Supervolcano (© 7reasons, Michael Klein)
 

Do You Live to Work, Or Work to Live?

Do you ever wonder why we work like we do? Why does working time last those eight hours, and why does it take the best part of the day? Who made it this way? And why? It all started with the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century, which culminated in a real nightmare for most of the workers, especially in large factories, where long working hours were mandatory and kept people outside their homes all day long. The working day was 10 to 16 hours, six days a week, and not only for adults. Use of children was cheap and preferable. Deaths and illnesses due to exhaustion were common, making the working conditions cruel and inhuman. Eventually, the nightmare spread from workers toward capitalists as well, in the form of the rise of a social movement with Robert Owen's famous slogan, "Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest".


Well, today, almost two centuries later, we now live, more or less, in Owen's vision, working around eight hours per day and enjoying our lives during or after work. Or both. Nobody today dies from the job. Well, not due to poor working conditions, anyways. Perhaps some of us are in danger ofdeath by boredom on some rainy days in the office, but, and again more or less, today we are in control of our professional careers. On the other end, if you ask me, even these eight hours are sometimes too long. Many times. They say that with age comes wisdom, but also comes a certain dosage of laziness, especially in the second part of the working hours. After 20 years of continuous work in my professional career, eight hours now seems too long. I passed that period in my life with idealistic thoughts and glimpses of the world as it is, waiting for me to make the difference. If you are in your forties, there are other variables that must be included in private and professional life. Middle-age crisis, for example. Not enough challenges like before. Too much routine in both lives. Too competitive an environment, to say the least, wherever you look. Generation gaps. Following faster ways of living. And you don't have to be in your forties anymore to feel the difference or experience injustice.

Perhaps it is time again for another Robert Owen to appear and try to shorten this eight hours to six or less. Or to try and modify the working habits and move everything possible to freelancing and outsourcing. To ban offices in those businesses that still insist on using them in old-fashioned ways, although the entire job can be done today from a kitchen table and home wifi. Before, when I was a teenager and later when I was trying to take the first step in my professional career, they used to say that major changes will come in the 21st century. The new millennium will change everything. Well, the 14th year now in the new spectacular century is about to expire in a few months, and I can't notice anything majorly different. More or less. But still, the major question from the old times is still there. Do you live to work, or do you work to live?


It would be unfair if I continued with this story without answering it first. And to be honest, from the beginning and my first employment, I always worked to live. For me, family and home was, is, and will always be number one. No exceptions. No matter how important the project I was involved in was. But to be completely honest, if I used a scale from minus ten to ten, where -10 means full commitment to the job, while +10 is the finest family time, I would not score the biggest number too often. I don't think I score it easily even today. It is impossible. Sometimes, if it comes into my life challenged and pure, the job can suck me in for days. Months, even. But always let me go. So my number is within a wide scale from -5 to the very high of 9, with more positive than negative values. Ten only sometimes. And I want to keep it that way. If I looked to all my half-a-dozen companies I was working with in my former professional life, the cruel truth is, with a couple of exceptions, that I didn't stay in touch with my former co-workers. We all moved along. Simply put, while our intelligence and education define us completely, our curriculum vitae is nothing more than a document only worthwhile during searching for a new job. Nobody cares what is written inside while you are having a steady job. Only in between two of them.

But enough with work; let's see the other side of the medal. The story I wanted to tell in the first place, and maybe unconsciously, I started with too long an introduction. What actually inspired me for today's story is Tony Parsons—British journalist and novel author. About a month ago, after I read three of Harlan Coben's thrillers in a row and two of James Patterson's Alex Cross series during the summer, I felt that I needed a break from tension and crime stories. But I can't really swallow those light readings with love stories in the foreground, so I went in search of something different—hoping to find a story based on ordinary life, family affairs, or one of those with "true story" written on the main cover. Tony Parsons, with his "Man and Boy" trilogy, gave me exactly what I wanted. And more.


If you didn't read it already, I recommend it warmly. It is about a typical family of the early 21st century, filled with both pain and love, surrounded by a tough life in one large city in which work and mortgage can destroy your life in a split second. Harry Silver, in the main role, shows us everything that might strike one modern family in one fast-forward world and where, no matter how he tries to maintain normal family life, this proves to be not entirely possible with all the mistakes and distractions from the job. It is also about conflicts between generations and what connects them. About the shallowness of business life. Friendships. This is the story that will force your eyes to let go of a tear or two too often, but also it will put a smile on your face every now and again as well.

I stumbled upon "Man and Boy" within Serbian Laguna, my favorite online bookshop, in their editor selection called "Laguna gems" or something like that, and after I reached the second cover, I felt hunger for more stories like this one. So I browsed the bookshop's online store again, secretly hoping for a sequel, and searched the author's page. To my surprise I found two more novels in the trilogy and also short news about the author visiting our town on the tour to promote his latest book. To cut the story short, I ordered the remaining novels, read them in record time, and yesterday Viktor and I grabbed the first book and went to the signing event to meet Tony in person. I knew that a person who was able to write Harry's adventures couldn't be much different than his main character, especially after I read somewhere that his personal life story has many connecting points with the novel itself. As it turned out, Tony Parsons was one great guy with nothing but the smile on his face despite the endless line of people waiting for the autographs. He was especially nice with Viktor and shared the fact that his middle name is also Victor, named after his father, so I can't resist not sharing the photo of two Viktors below. After the event, my son and I went to McDonald's for a Happy Meal to sort out our impressions, and later, the first thing he said to his mother when we came home was, "It was the best day!" I couldn't agree more.

Tony Victor Parsons & Viktor

Anyway, to resume the main story and in conclusion, my life outside work, in its current stage, is one huge place and full of wonders and challenges. No matter if I just read a book, watch a movie, do dishes, participate in a social occasion, play a game, travel, or enjoy precious family time, it is always far ahead of the most enjoyable project at work for which I, in the end, receive a paycheck. This always makes me feel that "work has this strange effect of zooming things larger than they really are".** Money is one great thing we can't live without, but sometimes, if not always, it manages to spoil the very essence of the work it is paid for. In the latest years, when I ask myself why I worked so hard on a project that gave me pleasurable time while it lasted, I always answer with "Oh yes, for the money'. And it wasn't my first thought when I asked myself the same question twenty years ago...

Image refs:
http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/5-things-every-son-needs-to-hear-from-his-dad.html
https://vomitingdiamonds.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/boredom-at-the-office/

Refs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
* http://connections.msn.com/articles/detail/256476535
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/05/typical-work-day-length/
** http://www.thehighcalling.org/work/work-life-balance
http://financecareers.about.com/od/careermanagement/a/LiveToWork.htm