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Here are some of the most interesting readings from last week: How does learning Turkish feel to a German writer? Our reluctance to use the word no seems to be a big problem:   http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/10/20/how-to-say-no-in-turkish/ A Syrian Law student's precarious journey over 10 borders from Syria to Sweeden. A must-read before any discussion on refugees:  http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/26/ten-borders Early detection could make living with Schizophrenia possible:  http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/stop-the-madness/ U.S is a terrorist state, which used human Guinea Pigs and advanced psyhcology to develop torture methods beyond the imagination of Mengele. When it was found out that one of the torture victim was innocent, the official reaction was: "One can only be sure of the suspects innocence after the suspect fails to give any information after such horrendous torture." This is beyond outrageous:  https://medium.com...

Here is a video of supersonic streams of hot gas coming out of young stars, as observed by Hubble: And here is the video of NASA's Cassini probe approaching Saturn: These terrific videos remind me of the memorable passage in Battlestar Galactica, where the most intellectual of the different Cylons - robots in form of humans- resents his creators for giving him a human body and human soul: Ellen: The five of us designed you to be as human as possible. John: I DON'T WANT TO BE HUMAN! I want to see gamma rays ! I want to hear X-rays , and I -- I want to -- I want to smell dark matter ! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to -- I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me! I'm a machine, and I could know much more, I could experience so...

I don't wanna be human . I want to see Gamma Rays . I want to hear X-Rays and I wanna smell Dark Matter . I wanna reach out with something other than these paws. And feel the solar wind of a Super Nova . So lamented Brother Cavil in Battlestar Galactica, to his creator. Now, thanks to University of Cardiff, you will at least be able to see Gamma Rays and X-Rays. In their new site ( link to the site ) you can see the result of the brand new Planck Satellite' ( link to the site ) full sky scans in different wavelengths. They are gorgeous!

At the core of evolution lies the natural selection, which is an algorithm more than anything. There are many units that have different properties, which are distributed randomly in the beginning. All of them get to reproduce themselves, albeit with an efficiency that is related with the suitability of their inherited properties to the environment in which they are reproducing. It's all that simple. I'd like to share two possible applications of this algorithm in two widely separated, yet very interesting fields. Quantum Darwinism : It is a mystery, why the infinite number of ways a quantum states that a particle can be in manifests itself as a single classical state. In plain words, why don't we see two versions of ourselves in the mirror - until we look at the mirror, but that's another exciting story -, where as this may be the case for photons or atoms. One possible solution to this question invokes the natural selection algorithm a la Darwin. They postulate that th...

... realy, they are very decent people... ... for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to poop on! "...maybe it was made up by over-eager scientists, the same scientists who made up things like evolution and gravity." Unlike Triumph, these Congressman do believe in this. In the mean time, heres what the scientists think:

There has been some talk in the secular/humanist blogosphere about the need for bringing the two great "magisteria" of human culture, namely the arts and sciences closer in the 21st century. I am not sure how possible this will be, especially after the usurpation of scientific methods by racist/fascist ideologies in the first half of the 20th century and the the reactionary "post-modern" zeitgeist prevailing in the arts world. What I know is possible is that an alternative set of two great "magisteria" can be brought together. I am talking about the culinary art and science. The French Chemist Hervé This has already taken few big steps in this direction. It all started one day when he was preparing cheese suffle. The recipe told one should add 4 eggs one by one. The Chemist in him told him that putting all at one should not be a problem. In the end, his hastiness spoiled the suffle. As a scientist, he set out to discover the scientific explanations for suc...

Every dog owner, every dog lover, every animal lover should watch this great BBC documentary on the incredible and unique bond between humans and dogs. It is looking more and more likely that the dogs have evolved traits such as being able to tell human emotion from facial gestures, being able to understand human mimics, human words. It is also likely the dog barking is an evolutionary trait selected since it allows inter-species communication. I wish so dearly that the Turkish State TV would air more of this kind of educational programs, instead of the anti-Evolution bullshit they've been airing for some time.

I seriously think humanities delusion of self-importance and arrogance will be its end. These two fantastic videos allow me to demonstrate my point. This video demonstrates the proportions of the Earth, the Sun, the Solar System, Milky Way, other galaxies, and the known Universe. I don't think any human language has a word capable describing how small our planet earth is (*). Seen from a cosmic scale, our little blue world is vanishingly insignificant. This is the first part of mans misplaced notion of self-importance. If our world were the only significant object in the Universe, humanity might have been justified in feeling important. After all, we would be the "owners" of the universe. But this is not the case, we are the inhabitants of an insignificant rock formation in the universe, which is unspeakably bigger in scale. However, it is precisely this spatial insignificance that makes this rock formation revolving around the sun so important. As far as we know, we are ...

via Pharyngula : This is übercool. Researchers from American Museum of Natural History first profile the hydrological features of the Lower Congo River. They find out that there are canyons which are hundreds of meters deep. These canyons are separated from each other via strong currents. So for a fish getting in one of them there is almost no way out. They then collect fish of the same species - where species is defined from the way they look - from different canyons. They analyze their DNA, and they see that evolution is in action, and the difference in their genome sequences correlate with their geographical location. Speciation has not started, but it is on the brink of starting. This is my friends, Evolution in action.

Here is a jolly news from Copenhagen: Denmark's Lars Lokke Rasmussen called late-night talks with a group of 26 influential world leaders on how to unblock negotiations. "We discussed how we can make progress and we had a very fruitful, constructive dialogue... for almost two hours," he told reporters. 26 leaders, almost two hours. 4.5 minutes for each leader. That's more than enough time to agree on a climate deal. I wonder whose idea it was, and if they really thought that it could work, to get heads of states together and expect them to reach an agreement. There is empirical evidence, that a committee ceases to function if it grows larger than 20 members . I had no trust in this Copenhagen farce. What infuriates me is not the deadlock that the talks are in. It's rather this naive belief -rooted in religion, or delusion of self-importance- that the earth's atmosphere is some magical self-healing system. "Nature" would heal itself. This new-age bu...

Somewhere in this picture, there is a pale blue dot. It is your home. It is the home of every living thing that we know and we don't know of. This is a picture taken by the Voyager in 1990 of our planet from 6 billion kilometers away. It is the most humbling picture I have ever seen. It has been said that science does not provide moral values but religion does. I beg to differ. Even though science by itself, which is merely a method, cannot provide a moral framework, the fruits of knowledge it gives us let us define our morals. This picture is a great example. Carl Sagan, touched by this picture wrote a book on this. Here is an excerpt from the introduction, which everyone should listen from time to time to wash away his or hers false ideas of grandeur: "Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In...

Sir Richard Dawkins' favorite species . Just another demonstration how where an animal lives strongly determines its locomotion capabilities. Sadly, another twist of evolution, this incredible animal lives only and only in Madagascar, relying on a certain tree there. It's habitat being destroyed by farmers, its hunted for its fur, and as a result there are less than 1000 Silky Sifakas left in the entire Universe. They are one 25 critically engendered primates in the world. Just another repetition of the same old story.

Meet Ardi. She is the oldest human ancestor ever found. She lived in the forests of the area what is now Ethiopia, 4.4 million years ago. This makes her allegorically the mother of Lucy , who lived 3.2 million years ago, and the grand mother of the Turkana boy , who is 1.5 million years old. An us? We are all the descendants of a handful of her great grandchildren who left Africa 50 000 years ago! The story of Ardi is a very interesting one. It started with a single molar teeth discovery in 1992. Careful excavation has gathered a complete skeleton: Recently 440 anthropologists published their findings in 10 papers. It is said that there are even older fossils that has been found in the same area, which are being investigated at the moment. So be ready for even more exciting results! The importance of Ardi is that it could both walk and climb. This is against the hypothesis that bipedal walking was an adaptation to the drier landscape of Africa, which had fewer trees. I am very excited...

They Might Be Giants has a new album for the kids. This songs about the importance of Science. I love it. Considering the Scientific illiteracy in the USA, this song serves a good purpose: They Might be Giants like stating truisms. Here's a cover they did long time ago:

It a common argument I hear in epistemological discussion I have from time to time: We cannot hear or touch or see electromagnetic waves, but we know they exist. Apart from the fallacy that seeing is feeling the electromagnetic waves we know as light, this is a great example of how we come to knowledge through science. Hans Christian Ørsted noticed that electric current produced magnetic forces. Faraday took this observation further, and through his experiments showed changing magnetic forces create electric current. Both of these were descriptive laws, however no mathematical derivation from first principles were provided. It was Maxwell who combined these laws in his equations, which made testable predictions such as the existence of radio waves which were capable of action at distance. Hertz demonstrated that this is the case, and it is thanks to these people you are able to read this post. Long story summarized, scientific method works! This wonderful picture is another beautiful ...

The revolutionary idea of Newton was not finding out there is a force pulling the apple that fell on his head. It was all to obvious. What he found, and made the thinkers of his time so upset -the science was about to be born, it was called natural philosophy back then- was that the same set of rules govern the celestial bodies such as stars and planets -which were perfect and eternal,- and moral bodies such as an apple or humans. He was able to explain the astronomical laws that Kepler derived based on the painstaking observations by Tycho Brahe, with the laws he derived from everyday objects. The world and the skies were never to be seen as different spheres anymore. This year marks also the 400th anniversary of Galileo's observation of the stars and the planets, and the birth of modern astronomy. Following the path he opened, that is using publicly available observations, we are able to construct a fairly complete model of the history of our universe since -and before- its birth...

The answer to the question in Turkey is "nothing". I fear Turkey's not alone. The great political philosopher, policy maker, comedian, race driver, commentator Jeremy Clarkson wrote in his magnus opus: "There is not a single thing that government improved in your life." But lately, either this has become a more spoken reality of Turkey, or I am getting old and the politicians are looking more corrupt than ever as Baz Luhrmann wrote. These lovely, incredible, and somehow magical videos of the Moon's surface were shot by the Japanese spacecraft Kaguya: Watching these clips, I wished we had this technology when I was a kid. I said to myself, at least I am lucky enough to have my kids watch astonishing such videos. It struck me at that moment. The Turkish kids ARE BANNED FROM WATCHING THESE VIDEOS. These and many more fascinating videos. The Turkish Courts banned the WHOLE YOUTUBE a year ago, since there were derogatory videos of the founder of the Republic Kem...

A strain of indescribable post-modernism may be termed anti-scientism. According to this strain, scientific method is "just another story," along the stories told by religion, tradition, mysticism. Of course the actual argumentation is far more complex and subtle -which I do not claim to have explored-, but the common theme is more or less the same. Recently rhe rise of religion in both eastern and western societies, and their natural clash with modern values based on truths obtained by scientific method, has undoubtedly created a problem of ontologically categorizing the places in the society and meanings of science and religion. On the one hand there is the so called New-atheists, New-humanists, or as they describe themselves the "Brights" - to be fair they call those who are insistent on a supernatural powers the "Supers". They are of the opinion that religion should ultimately be taken out of the public discourse, and left to persons only just like wha...

This is from the avesome blog Pharyngula . Click to zoom. On the left is a timeline of universe, with Human involvment in it. Just in case you still think we play an important part in the Universe. On the right the same timeline from a young earth creationist point of view, which takes Genesis in Bible literally. Yes, there are still some crackpots out there.

Basic questions sometimes lead to incredible discoveries. I am not gonna act like a life coach -what a funny term- and try generalize this. Ask yourself these two questions if you have not already done, and contemplate. I will write in my next post about the answers, and the great mind who solved them. 1- The speed of light does not depend on the observers speed. What happens to an observer who is traveling faster and faster. What would an observer "see" when he is as fast as the light? 2- You are in an elevator. As it accelerates, you feel lighter. As it decelerates you feel heavier. What if the earth were one large elevator?