Tech Review: Garmin eTrex 20 Handheld GPS

I just purchased a Garmin eTrex 20 handheld GPS (released in late September 2011) and I decided to do a quick user review of it.

Here, check out my video:



This is my first GPS device, which means I can't do a relative comparison with other units.

So, based on its own merits, here are my comments on the eTrex 20:

1. Build quality is solid, and when loaded with batteries it has a nice, reassuring heft to it. Dark grey areas are rubberized for wear resistance. USB connection is hidden under a rubber weather-resistant flap, and the micro-SD slot is protected inside the battery compartment, which are thoughtful design features.

2. The glassy LCD screen is tad reflective when viewed under direct sunlight.

3. Ability to decode both GPS and GLONASS satellite signals is a very useful feature. In the field, it takes less than a minute to get a position fix, and the precision is quite good, around 4 metres at best.

4. It works well inside vehicles too, I've tried it in buses and get practically instantaneous position and speed readings. It will definitely work as a car GPS, though that is not its intended function.


Would you like to know more?
- GPS (Wikipedia)
- GLONASS (Wikipedia)

Space Shuttle Rolls Into History

A quiet night landing of the space shuttle Atlantis, returning from the STS-135 mission, marked the end of the US space shuttle programme.





NASA's Constellation Program, which was projected to develop a replacement rocket for the space shuttle, was cancelled last year.

While the government is not currently working on a shuttle replacement, potential private sector candidates include the Falcon 9-Dragon vehicle from SpaceX, which has been successful in test launches so far, but is still in early development.

Thus for the foreseeable future the USA will no longer have any human-rated launch vehicle.

Without manned spacecraft, US astronauts will now have to rely solely on the Russian Soyuz to access the International Space Station.


Would you like to know more?

About the past future of spaceship design:
- Counterintuitive Science: Fast Speed, Fat Shape

Science Reporting By The Straits Times

Just read a science article in the Straits Times entitled "Brain Illness Leaves Woman Fearless." (ST 18 Dec 2010 Page C14)

The research study that is featured in the article (diminished fear experience of a woman with a genetic condition of the amygdala) is quite interesting, but what is even more interesting is how the Straits Times presented the news.

Since the ST article was edited mainly from an original article by Agence France-Presse (with some details from an Associated Press report added in), it is informative to compare the ST and AFP versions to see the differences.

Words that are different or missing in either version are highlighted in RED (additional source marked with asterix).

~~~~~~~~~~

ST Version

Brain illness leaves woman fearless

WASHINGTON - United States scientists have discovered a woman with a rare brain disease that makes her afraid of nothing - not a huge snake lurking near her children, not a knife to her throat, and certainly not a horror movie.

The 44-year-old* woman cannot experience fear because of a condition that has destroyed the part of her brain - the amygdala - where researchers believe the feeling of fear is made.

Over the past two decades researchers have been analysing the woman, known as SM, for clues about her condition which they say could help them treat post-traumatic stress disorder, particularly in soldiers returning from war.

A study of her fearlessness was published online on Thursday in the journal Current Biology by University of Iowa researcher Justin Feinstein and colleagues.*

"It is quite remarkable that she is still alive," said Mr Feinstein. "The nature of fear is survival and the amygdala helps us stay alive by avoiding situations, people, or objects that put our life in danger," he said.

Instead of fear, SM, whose rare condition is known as Urbach-Wiethe disease, describes "an overwhelming feeling of curiosity."

The woman's eldest son, who is in his 20s, told researchers he could not ever recall seeing his mother afraid.

He said he remembered one event in particular from his childhood when he was playing with his two brothers and they saw a big snake in the road nearby.

"Well, mum just ran over there and picked it up and brought it out of the street, put it in the grass and let it go on its way," he said.

The woman also told researchers that when she was in her 30s, a man grabbed her and stuck a knife to her throat.

"She looked at the man and confidently replied, 'If you're going to kill me, you're gonna have to go through my God's angels first.' The man suddenly let her go," said the study, adding the woman then described walking calmly home.

Other experiments devised by the researchers - leading her through a haunted house where people dressed as monsters and ghosts sprung from the darkness, and showing her a series of scary video clips - fell flat too.

She considered the haunted house to be "highly exciting and entertaining", like the rush she gets from a roller coaster, Mr Feinstein said.*

Scientists believe she was once able to feel fear because she has described childhood memories of being afraid of the dark, and being once frightened by a dog.

Mr Feinstein said he hopes that SM's experience could help treat people with post-traumatic stress disorder, a problem he has seen in his work treating US soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Their lives are marred by fear, often times unable to even leave their home due to the ever-present feeling of danger," he said.

"By understanding how the brain processes fear, we may one day be able to create treatments that selectively target the brain areas that allow fear to take over our lives."

*From AP report


AFP Version

Woman who knows no fear could offer brain clues

WASHINGTON - US scientists have discovered a woman with a rare brain disease that makes her afraid of nothing - not a huge snake lurking near her children, not a knife to her throat, and certainly not a horror movie.

The woman cannot experience fear because of a condition that has destroyed the part of her brain - the amygdala - where researchers say they believe the feeling of fear is made.

Over the past two decades researchers have been analysing the woman, known as SM, for clues about her condition which they say could help them treat post-traumatic stress disorder, particularly in soldiers returning from war.

"It is quite remarkable that she is still alive," said lead author Justin Feinstein whose study appears in the journal Current Biology.

"The nature of fear is survival and the amygdala helps us stay alive by avoiding situations, people, or objects that put our life in danger," he said.

"Because SM is missing her amygdala, she is also missing the ability to detect and avoid danger in the world."

Instead of fear, SM, whose rare condition is known as Urbach-Wiethe disease, describes "an overwhelming feeling of curiosity."

To test her reaction, researchers led her into an exotic pet store filled with spiders and snakes, animals she repeatedly said she "hates" and tries to avoid.

"Upon entering the store, SM was spontaneously drawn to the snake terrariums and appeared visually captivated by the large collection of snakes," the study said.

Asked by a store employee if she would like to hold one, SM agreed and then played with one for about three minutes.

"She rubbed its leathery scales, touched its flicking tongue, and closely watched its movements as it slithered through her hands," it said.

"Her verbal behavior revealed a comparable degree of fascination and inquisitiveness: she repeatedly commented, 'This is so cool!'"

When she reached for a tarantula, however, she had to be stopped because there was a high risk she could be bitten.

"When asked why she would want to touch something that she knows is dangerous and that she claims to hate, SM replied that she was overcome with 'curiosity,'" the study said.

The woman's eldest son, who is in his 20s, told researchers he could not ever recall seeing his mother afraid of anything.

He said he remembered one event in particular from his childhood when he was playing with his two brothers and they saw a big snake in the road nearby.

"Well, Mom just ran over there and picked it up and brought it out of the street, put it in the grass and let it go on its way," he said.

"I thought that was kind of weird."

The woman also told researchers that when she was in her 30s, a man grabbed her and stuck a knife to her throat.

"She looked at the man and confidently replied, 'If you're going to kill me, you're gonna have to go through my God's angels first.' The man suddenly let her go," said the study, adding the woman then described walking calmly home.

Other experiments devised by the researchers - leading her through a haunted house where people dressed as monsters and ghosts sprung from the darkness, and showing her a series of scary video clips - fell flat too.

"She reacted to the monsters by smiling, laughing, or trying to talk to them," the study said.

"She found the fear films to be exciting and entertaining, and in one case, she inquired about the name of the movie so she could rent it from the video store later that day."

Scientists believe she was once able to feel fear because she has described a childhood memory of being afraid of a dog.

They also note that "SM has never been convicted of any crime, but rather has been the victim of numerous crimes."

Feinstein said he hopes that SM's experience could help treat people with post-traumatic stress disorder, a problem he has seen in his work treating US soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Their lives are marred by fear, often times unable to even leave their home due to the ever-present feeling of danger," he said.

"By understanding how the brain processes fear, we may one day be able to create treatments that selectively target the brain areas that allow fear to take over our lives."

Feinstein said science should look for PTSD treatments that "focus on ways to safely and non-invasively dampen amygdala activity," mainly through medication and psychotherapy.

~~~~~~~~~~

A significant portion of the original AFP article is omitted from the ST version.

Interestingly, the missing parts are mostly related to the downside of having practically no fear, such as the inability to detect and avoid danger, fascination with potentially dangerous animals, becoming a victim of crimes etc.

A quick survey of other new reports indicates that this danger of lacking fear is actually an important message from the researchers - here are some excerpts:

~~~~~~~~~~

1. Associated Press

a) Her case shows that the amygdala plays a key role in making people feel afraid in threatening situations, researchers say.

Her life history also shows that living without fear can be dangerous, they said.

b) She apparently hasn't felt fear as an adult, not even 15 years ago in an incident described by the researchers. A man jumped up from a park bench, pressed a knife to her throat and hissed, "I'm going to cut you."

SM, who heard a church choir practicing in the distance, looked coolly at him and replied, "If you're going to kill me, you're going to have to go through my God's angels first."

The man suddenly let her go. She didn't run home. She walked.

"Her lack of fear may have freaked the guy out," Feinstein said.

But it also got her into that situation in the first place, he noted. SM had willingly approached the man when he asked her to, even though it was late at night and she was alone, and even though she thought he looked "drugged out."

SM has also walked into other dangerous situations because of her lack of fear, and all in all, it's remarkable she's still alive, Feinstein said.


2. ABC News

a) S.M. also had exposure to fearful situations in her past. She was held up at gunpoint and at knifepoint and was almost killed during a domestic incident. S.M. told researchers she did not feel fear during these life-threatening situations. She was also aware that her inability to react to fearful stimuli was not normal.

b) S.M.'s case is also important to understand because the ability to experience fear and respond to it is essential to survival. The researchers believe that because she could not detect threats to her safety and avoid them, she wound up in numerous life-threatening situations.

"Indeed, it appears that without the amygdala, the evolutionary value of fear is lost," the authors wrote.


3. Time.com (Healthland)

a) The authors note that SM's response to what would normally be considered fear-inducing situations was not characterized simply by a lack of responsiveness, but rather a heightened arousal and interest. In other words, she practically courted danger.

b) The researchers stress that SM's condition is more a curse than a blessing: "[SM's] behavior, time and time again, leads her back to the very situations she should be avoiding, highlighting the indispensable role that the amygdala plays in promoting survival by compelling the organism away from danger. Indeed, it appears that without the amygdala, the evolutionary value of fear is lost."


4. Discovery News

a) That wasn't the only occasion that SM, who was living in the projects in a seedy part of town, got herself into a precarious situation. There was the time, for example, that a man approached her from behind, put a gun to her head, yelled "Boom!" and then ran away. She figured her attacker was a drug dealer whom she had repeatedly turned in to the police, but she didn't consider calling the cops after the incident.

"She described the situation as strange," Feinstein said. "She's not reacting in normal ways that anyone who had fear would."

b) "We don't suggest by any means to remove this area of the brain," Feinstein said. "We don't want a million SM's walking around getting in trouble. This one case highlights why we do need an amygdala."

Instead, it's possible that drugs or behavioral methods could quiet the amygdala just enough to free people whose lives have been taken over by fear.


5. Scienceblogs.com (Neurophilosophy)

a) SM has been studied extensively during the past two decades. Early investigations showed that her non-verbal visual memory was signficantly impaired but that otherwise she had an IQ in the low-average range. She also displayed inappropriate social behaviours, quickly becoming friendly with the experimenters and making sexual remarks, due to disturbed executive control. Subsequently, it was found that she was unable to recognize emotions in facial expressions, and a study published earlier this year showed that the brain damage had eliminated her monetary loss aversion - that is, she makes risky financial decisions that most of us would avoid because of a fear of losing money.

b) But based on interviews with her and her three children, the authors suggest that she probably has not experienced fear at all throughout the whole duration of her adult life, despite having encountered an unusually high number of traumatic and life-threatening events. Aged 30, she had a knife held to her throat by a drug addict while she walked through a park at night, but did not panic and walked away calmly when he let her go. She has also been held at gun point, was nearly killed in an act of domestic violence, and has been the victim of numerous crimes in the poverty-stricken area in which she lives.

~~~~~~~~~~

From these excerpts, it can be seen that all the above news articles - except for the Straits Times version - emphasize the researchers' point about the dangers of lacking fear.


Would you like to know more?

- The Human Amygdala and the Induction and Experience of Fear (Feinstein et al. 2010) Current Biology

Happy New Year 2010!

So the media says that the decade is over... or is it?

Did the decade start in 2000 or 2001?

Who gets to decide these things?

?

In any case, a New Year beckons! I would like to thank all regular Fresh Brainz readers for your support through these years.

And just like last year, I'll present a compilation of the Weekly Obscure Quotes from this outgoing year.

Hope you like them!

**********

1. “Pablo Casals was a great cellist of the last century – he was a great virtuoso, just considered the absolute master of his instrument. And in his 90s he was still practicing 3 hours a day. And one of his friends asked him, ‘Senor Casals, you're a master, why do you still practice 3 hours a day?’ and he said, ‘Well, I'm beginning to notice some improvement.’” – George Carlin

2. “A student of ours, Fran and her husband, John, decided they wanted to go to live in the Missouri Ozarks. Everyone told them that there was no way for them to make a living there. Everyone they asked advised them not to do it. Finally, a minister in the Church they proposed to attend told them that they were to serve there. Out of twenty or thirty people they asked, that minister was the only one who told them to come. Of course, it was exactly what they wanted to hear. They sold their home and most of their possessions accumulated over a lifetime. They moved to the Ozarks and went broke within a year. They had to leave and begin all over again.” – Joe Ross

3. “If a judge was to say to you: ‘How do you account for the fact you say you are home asleep at midnight, but we found your DNA at the scene of the crime’, and you went: ‘I move in mysterious ways, goodnight!’ It won’t wash.” – Ricky Gervais

4. “Excellent black people have always been compensated for excellence. Always. The real equality is when we can have a black president as dumb as George Bush. That's when we're really equal. That's when the dream has come true.” – Chris Rock

5. “How easily nonsense proffered in an earnest and profound manner can browbeat someone into acquiescence.” – John Allen Paulos

6. “The opponents of evolution education are not disputing the facts of any particular scientific conclusion - that’s why they don’t do experiments, or publish research. What they want is “equal time”: equal time between religious dogma and science - between faith and reason - between provable theory and unprovable assertion.” – Timothy Sandefur

7. “Using ‘Darwinism’ as synonymous with ‘evolutionary biology’ is thus a touch unfair to the men and women who have contributed to the scientific edifice to which Darwin provided the cornerstone, including (to name a few) Wallace, Huxley, Weisman, De Vries, Romanes, Morgan, Weidenreich, Teilhard, von Frisch, Vavilov, Wright, Fisher, Muller, Haldane, Dobzhansky, Rensch, Ford, McClintock, Simpson, Hutchinson, Lorenz, Mayr, Delbrück, Jukes, Stebbins, Tinbergen, Luria, Maynard Smith, Price, Kimura, Ostrom, Wilson, Hamilton, and Gould, to say nothing of even more who are still contributing to evolutionary biology. As Olivia Judson (2008) recently commented, terms like ‘Darwinism’ ‘suggest a false narrowness to the field of modern evolutionary biology, as though it was the brainchild of a single person 150 years ago, rather than a vast, complex and evolving subject to which many other great figures have contributed.’” – Eugenie C. Scott and Glenn Branch

8. “Governments seem to be unaware that bankers do not rescue economies, they rescue banks. They always want to privatise profits and nationalise losses.” – Daniel Thorniley (The Economist)

9. “No feature of consciousness has ever been discovered that does not depend 100% on neurophysiology. Stimulate the brain with chemicals or an electrical current, and the person’s experience changes; let a person’s experience vary, and you can measure the changes in chemistry or electrophysiology. When a brain is damaged, the person’s mental life is diminished accordingly, and when the brain’s activity ceases, the mind goes out of existence – Wallace’s séances notwithstanding, no one has found a way to communicate with the dead. The very existence of a subjective correlate of brain activity may not be understood (if it’s an intellectually coherent problem at all, which some would deny), but positing a ‘soul’ simply renames the problem with no insight, and leaves the perfect correlation between consciousness and neurophysiology unexplained.” – Steven Pinker

10. “They say a rising tide lifts all ships. As the water drains out of the market, all of the rocks and sharks are left exposed.” – Hendersonmj (commenter at StarTribune.com)

11. “If anything, a student who tries really, really, really hard at something and still repeatedly falls short might benefit from realizing that his talents lie elsewhere… not to state the obvious, but I don't want a brain surgeon who graduated at the top of his class because he had perfect attendance. I want one who is an artist with a scalpel.” – Michelle Cottle

12. “Additionally, a frightening web of mutual dependence develops among huge financial institutions. Receivables and payables by the billions become concentrated in the hands of a few large dealers who are apt to be highly-leveraged in other ways as well. Participants seeking to dodge troubles face the same problem as someone seeking to avoid venereal disease: It’s not just whom you sleep with, but also whom they are sleeping with.” – Warren Buffet

13. “The worst kind of censorship has always been the kind that newspaper people impose on themselves.” – Andy Rooney

14. “Science lets us see superstition for the disempowering nonsense that it is. I think it’s the only method that can truly satisfy our innate curiosity and it literally lets us reach for the stars. That’s why science is important.” – Alom Shaha

15. “Does anybody understand me? Don't go. I am lonely. I am delicate. Please don't leave me. I'm like an old car in Cuba.” – Hans Oberlander

16. “Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.” – Ray Bradbury

17. “It's the rain that I hear coming, not a stranger or a ghost. It's the quiet of a storm approaching, that I fear the most.” – Delerium (Innocente)

18. “Doth thy other mouth call me? Mercy, mercy! This is a devil, and no monster. I will leave him; I have no long spoon.” – Stephano (The Tempest)

19. “Sometimes, you don't have to do anything to offend... but I'm not in the business of making everyone happy.” – Sam Ho

20. “The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it.” – Dr. Horrible

21. “It depends on what you mean by organising. It is kind of flattering in a way. I'm frustrated, I talk to people, I collect info, I send to different people. You want to join, join. I will help you. We discover that networking helps.” – Dr. Thio Su Mien

22. “It’s a trap!” – Admiral Ackbar (Return Of The Jedi)

23. “What, then, do Jim Watson and I deserve credit for? If we deserve any credit at all, it is for persistence and the willingness to discard ideas when they became untenable.” – Francis Crick

24. “If I ask you for sex, will you give me the same answer as the answer to this question?” – via ‘That Sounds Clever’ blog

25. “In real life, she has almost nothing in common with most of her viewers. She is an unapproachable billionaire with a private jet and homes around the country who hangs out with movie stars. She is not married and has no children. But television Oprah is a different person. She somehow manages to make herself believable as a down-to-earth everywoman. She is your girlfriend who struggles to control her weight and balance her work and personal life, just like you.” – Weston Kosova and Pat Wingert (Newsweek)

26. “Ribonucleotides are simply an expression of the fundamental principles of organic chemistry. They’re doing it unwittingly. The instructions for them to do it are inherent in the structure of the precursor materials. And if they can self-assemble so easily, perhaps they shouldn’t be viewed as complicated.” – John Sutherland

27. “If we cooperate, it will mean opening up our rocket program to them. We have only two hundred missiles, but they think we have many more. So when they say we have something to hide? It is just the opposite. We have nothing to hide. We have nothing. And we must hide it.” – Nikita Khrushchev

28. “Fundamentalists are people who consider themselves oppressed when they’re not allowed to force their beliefs on everybody else.” – Yoga for Cynics

29. “The clue to the entire mindset is in the import of her first few sentences: if we believe that we were "created out of love" by a loving creator, then we are worthy of love, and can love. If not, then not. Like only comes from like. If we are material and physical, then nothing can come out of that but material, physical things. No values, no morals, no thoughts and no feelings. Mind comes from mind. Life comes from life. Fish come from fish. Monkey come from monkeys. People come from people. Love comes from love. If the universe wasn't a kind of love to begin with, then there would be no real love in it at all, ever. Their views are impoverished by their lack of imagination, and the almost infantile inability to see that small changes can accumulate till they are big changes, and novelty can grow out and emerge from something not at all like it.” – Sastra

30. “Because with great power, comes giant robots.” – Starschwar

31. “You're either growing or dying, there’s no middle ground. You can’t hold what you have, that doesn’t work in business. So we grew.” – Hugh McColl

32. “A tree is known by its fruit.” – Leileilove1101

33. “One blueprint for trouble, making collapse likely, is where there is a conflict of interest between the short-term interest of the decision-making elites, and the long-term interest of the society as a whole. Especially if the elites are able to insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions.” – Jared Diamond

34. “What is the point of having independent scientific advice if as soon as you get some advice that you don't like, you sack the person who has given it to you?” – Chris Hunhe

35. “I think it is important at least to raise the possibility that you can criticize something which everybody has accepted as uncriticizable.” – Howard Zinn

36. “I did have another job at one point, as a computer programmer, but I kept up with my other work because it was so much more enjoyable.” – Brooke Magnanti (Belle de Jour)

37. “By 2006, chief executives at the biggest U.S. companies had bumped up their compensation to 364 times that of the average worker, compared with just 40 times the average worker's pay in 1980.” – Michael Brush

38. “The crisis almost certainly spells the end of Dubai's economic model that’s focused heavily on property investment and inflows of foreign capital.” – Paul Chapman (Reuters)

39. “On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.” – Charles Babbage

40. “Over the past few decades, psychologists have dismantled the myth of objectivity. The fact is, we carefully edit our reality, searching for evidence that confirms what we already believe. Although we pretend we’re empiricists - our views dictated by nothing but the facts - we’re actually blinkered, especially when it comes to information that contradicts our theories. The problem with science, then, isn’t that most experiments fail - it’s that most failures are ignored.” – Jonah Lehrer

**********

Have a Happy and Healthy New Year 2010!

Why Societies Collapse

Interesting TED talk by Professor Jared Diamond, better known for his book "Guns, Germs, and Steel".





1. "One interesting common thread has to do with, in many cases, the rapidity of collapse after a society reaches its peak. There are many societies that don't wind down gradually, but they build up, get richer and more powerful, and then within a short time, within a few decades after their peak, they collapse."

2. "One blueprint for trouble, making collapse likely, is where there is a conflict of interest between the short-term interest of the decision-making elites, and the long-term interest of the society as a whole. Especially if the elites are able to insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions."

I am concerned with situations where a leadership class sets the society on a unsustainable trajectory that results in a rapid collapse of the whole system in a matter of decades.

This is especially worrying when the decision-makers are insulated from the consequences of their actions, therefore there is no feedback inhibition to reduce or stop their damaging policies.

Business Vs Science: A Dash Of Gold

Lab results are usually boring documents of jargon and numbers that only experts can appreciate.

So when would business people and investors be "excited" about scientists and their lab results?

When the scientist is a geologist, and the lab results are about the amount of gold deposits at a site.

**********

In 1993, geologist Michael de Guzman, project manager of Bre-X Minerals Ltd, discovered some gold near Busang River in Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Estimates of the gold deposits gradually rose from 2 million ounces to a massive 70 million ounces (~1984 tonnes), and consequentially Bre-X expanded from a penny stock into a 6-billion-Canadian-dollar company with a peak stock price of CAD $286.50 (over 10,000% increase in two years!)

Then, in 1997, the company collapsed. Bre-X filed for bankruptcy and billions of dollars of investor funds went up in smoke.

And the term "Bre-X" became synonymous with one of the biggest mining frauds in history.

Check out this documentary for a quick (and slightly over-dramatized) overview of the entire affair:



Masterminds - Fool's Gold Part 2 of 3

Masterminds - Fool's Gold Part 3 of 3


To me, two segments from the documentary are especially interesting -

1. Andrew Willis: "There was always some science backing up this fraud."

2. Narrator :"For years, de Guzman struggles for recognition in an industry dominated by large American mining companies."

Andrew Willis: "Mike de Guzman knew he was smart, he had fabulous marks, he had an engineering degree, but he never got a great job, he never got a crack at a great job. It's very difficult for the Filipinos, even with extremely good engineering training, to get senior jobs with the big mining companies."

Narrator: "While exploring the jungles of Borneo, de Guzman devises a plan to make himself rich. Unable to get the support he needs to find a gold mine, he decides to invent one."


Here's another interesting exerpt from an article entitled "The mystery of Michael de Guzman" -

3. By 1993, de Guzman was heading up the site for Walsh's Bre-X Minerals as the company's exploration manager in Indonesia.

At one point, it appeared as though the Canadians were preparing to pull the plug on the expensive -- and fruitless -- exploration.

De Guzman pleaded with Felderhof for more time and soon, Busang's drilling results turned up stunning levels of gold.

"We almost closed the property," de Guzman told Fortune Magazine in 1997, before the scandal erupted.

"In December 1993, John said, 'Close the property,' and then we made the hit."

**********

When business collides with science, when one person's ambition is repeatedly met with denied opportunities and rejection, when desperation coincides with brilliance and creativity...

Who can predict what happens next?


Would you like to know more?

About the Bre-X scandal:
- The mystery of Michael de Guzman (Canada.com)
- Stranger than Fiction: The Bre-X Gold Scandal (CBC Digital Archives)

About other cases of fraud:
- Scientists Who Cheat

Was It The Publication Record?

I must say that I find Dr. Cai Mingjie's blog "A Singapore Taxi Driver's Diary" an interesting and engaging read.

It is a brutally honest account of a new taxi driver trying to make a living on the roads of Singapore.

But after reading his posts, most readers would undoubtedly ponder the question:

What happened?

How did an Associate Professor become a taxi driver?

Prominent blogger AcidFlask has a hunch; he examined Dr. Cai's publication record and found that Dr. Cai published a total of 16 papers (14, plus two more discovered by his commenters) in 16 years.

He felt that:

"With that in mind, it becomes a damning fact that Dr. Cai only has 14 publications to his name since joining the IMCB 16 years ago. Going only by that criterion of quantity, publishing less than one paper a year makes for a truly unimpressive publication record. But just about every practicing scientist knows that despite the current pressure to publish or perish, science and research isn’t (entirely) about churning out more and more papers, and the number of papers that can attributed to one’s name is not necessarily a good measure of a scientist’s productivity."

While AcidFlask acknowledges that there could be many other plausible factors leading to Dr. Cai's contract termination, one of his commenters is much, much less charitable...

#4 by i am not that great at August 19th, 2009:

"i don’t think it is that worth defending him per se. in the current competitive research environment, his publication record in 16 years probably only speaks of one thing – he is working in a very sheltered environment in which he does not have to fight for funding, and he is very comfortable in it.

i didn’t go that in depth into digging up his past papers, but my impression from his pubmed-searchable papers is that – his lab didn’t actually grow that much in the 16 years, and he does not have collaborators.

if he had worked in the states, and if he had been so comfortable with himself, he wouldn’t have survived the assistant professor stage. he probably is indeed a good scientist, but the environment spolit him. and when imcb’s culture changed, he didn’t realise it and he didn’t change, and he got killed.

hence, regardless of what measure a*star uses to judge the performance of its employees, he would still have been killed. face it, even in the US, if you are a young professor, you will have to work for money. if you apply for funding from ACS, you ought to package your work around cancer. it is a fact of life. if you work in a*star, you will have to make those guys that give you money happy. it is a different story if you are tenured, but obviously that guy is not…!"

**********

So, was it his publication record that ended Dr. Cai's appointment?

Here at Fresh Brainz, we are outsiders to this issue.

Moreover any single case is always a "unique" case.

However, Dr. Cai was not the only Principal Investigator who was affected.

When there is more than one case, an opportunity to learn more about the truth surfaces.

In Dr. Cai's blog a commenter by the name of Xinmin (most likely A/Prof. Cao Xinmin) left this comment:

Xinmin said...

"I read your article with tears. At the beginning, I was very sad, but at the end, I was so proud of you. I admire your courage and spirit. With these, nothing can beat you. As your former colleague, another PI in IMCB, we share a similar fate. I graduated from University of Chicago, working in IMCB for 19 years, publishing >50 papers (including 7 in 2008), trained many PhD, university, and polytechnic students. All the years of hard work and teaching don’t seem to count for anything. My lab will be closed down soon. You are not the first, and I won't be the last. We have made Singapore our home, and our children have gone or will go to National Service. More importantly, we have made our contributions to put Singapore on the world’s scientific map! Isn't it ironic that when the government is putting in considerable efforts to develop life science in Singapore, we lost or will lose our jobs? I may not have the qualification to become a taxi driver, but I will do my best in my life after IMCB, whatever that will be and to be like you. Even as a taxi driver, you live in a brilliant and wonderful way. I wish you all the best!

August 18, 2009 1:00 PM"

Was the publication record a major factor?














I'll let the readers decide.

Third Year

It's been three years down the road, and I would like to thank fellow Clearthought Singapore veterans and all my regular readers for staying on this channel.

I'll probably write a more substantial post a little later, because I went to the Darwin and Wallace talk in late June and took extensive notes, but right now my situation is not conducive to serious blogging.

So, to mark this third blogiversary I'll leave you with this little piece of Socratic dialogue, inspired by the post "don't need doctors anymore" at Angry Doc's site.

I hope you'll find it funny and interesting.

**********

Geordie: "Did you know that Steve McCurry, the photographer who took the famous 'Afghan Girl' photo came to Singapore and gave a talk at SMU?

Freddie: "Dang, I missed that. I went to John van Wyhe's talk at NUS instead. So, anything interesting?"

Geordie: "Somebody asked him what brand of camera he used. Ha ha, can you believe it?"

Freddie: "Heh, don't tell me it's the Nikon vs Canon dickfight again. Or is it Leica vs Zeiss?"

Geordie: "It's the Nikon vs Canon. I think that marketing hype is making people stupid. Nobody would ask a famous painter what brand of paintbrushes he used, so why should people care about the brand of camera that a famous photographer used? As long as the picture is focused and well-exposed would it have mattered if he used a disposable camera?"

Freddie: "I think that tool worship is common to people who don't understand or are not interested in the process. Perhaps the professionals themselves are contributing to this misunderstanding by making the process look too easy. The tool IS the profession. I can totally see it from that point of view."

Geordie: "What are you talking about? Are you saying that a camera can walk by itself to Afghanistan, endure the hardships of a wartorn environment, seek out interesting people, interact with them and produce a well-composed and expertly-timed shot?

Freddie: "Look, a camera is what takes the photos, right? If Steve McCurry didn't have a camera with him when he saw the Afghan Girl, the photo could never happen. You can consider him merely as a vehicle to bring the camera to the Afghan Girl and then press the shutter button. All he did was to travel to a remote place, turn some dials and push some buttons - the camera did all of the 'real' work."

Geordie: "Ha ha, that's a pretty twisted way to see it. The facts are the same but the emphasis is backwards. From such a view you can dismiss the photographer as an incidental, or even an irrelevant aspect of the photographic process!"

Freddie: "You don't need photographers any more, you just need an expensive brand name camera. The photographer only pushed a button! Anyone can push a button."

Geordie: "From that perspective you can pretty much dismiss the work of any professional. Teachers? Anyone can talk and write something on the whiteboard. The textbook IS education. Scientists? Anyone can push buttons and transfer liquids from one tube to another. The PCR machine IS research. Oh man..."

Freddie: "There you go."

Geordie: "Who could see it that way? Apart from a few strange people? I mean, that can't be a prevalent view, right?"

Freddie: "I suspect that it is more common than you think. To a society that is obsessed with results and performance indicators, most people can't be bothered about the process behind anything. What they want are results, now now now! Don't care how you do it. Just tell me what I want to hear."

Geordie: "But without the process you cannot have results."

Freddie: "But even with the process, you may not have results. So why care about the process? As long it produces a result that you like, it must be a 'good' process, whatever it is."

Geordie: "Ha ha, this must be a personality-dependent thing, because I don't understand how anyone can think that way. I suppose it is some kind of superduper mental shortcut. Good photo = expensive branded camera. Expensive = good. Cheap = lousy. Quick and easy."

Freddie: "Easy on the brain, but difficult on the wallet!"

Geordie: "Yeah, which reminds me of that neverending treadmill of earning and spending. If the price is the primary gauge of what is 'good' then people must keep buying more and more expensive stuff in order to feel a sense of improvement in their lives."

Freddie: "That's good news for the marketing people."

Geordie: "For the Nikon marketing people, Canon marketing people, or the disposable camera marketing people?"

Freddie: "Ha ha... suffice to say that happiness is not free, but it is surprisingly inexpensive.

Geordie: "It is meaningless to talk about the 'expense' of happiness. It's a process. You can't just stuff happiness into a bottle and slap a brand label on it."

Freddie: "Actually I think you can. And someone will pay real money for it."

Geordie: "Someone?"

Freddie: "Everyone."

Everybody Cheats... At Least A Little Bit

Interesting talk by MIT behavioural economist Dan Ariely about the psychology of cheating and how it relates to the stock market.






While the observation that morality is heavily dependent on the social context is not new, what really impressed me most is the implication of his experimental results - that a moral code not only helps to regulate in-group behaviour, but also concurrently enhance in-group loyalty via a "Us vs Them" mechanism.

Even if the moral code itself is completely made up!

I don't understand why there is a deep human need to feel morally superior to other people, but this need can clearly be exploited by people who stand to benefit richly from it.

Pipette tip to Mind Hacks.


Would you like to know more?

Another TED talk by Prof. Dan Ariely
- Are we in control of our own decisions?
- Predictably Irrational

Serge Haroche's Talk At NUS

French physicist Professor Serge Haroche came to the new NUS Alumni House last Wednesday to give a public talk entitled "Power and Strangeness of the Quantum".

I think that quantum physics is one of the most misunderstood fields of science in the public perception, so I decided to go to the lecture to learn more about it directly from an expert in this area.

Since it was going to be a public talk, hopefully there won't be too much difficult maths!















As you can see, the turnout for the talk was excellent. This was my first visit to the Alumni House - they have a nice big lecture theatre, which was about three-quarters full on that day.

The crowd was quite varied; there were political dignitaries (I assume from the French Embassy), French-speaking scientists, school kids in uniform and even a Sister in religious dress.















Here's the MC for the evening starting off the event by introducing the Dean of Science, Professor Andrew Wee, who would be giving the welcome address.















In his address, Prof. Wee said jokingly that he was glad that so many people turned up for the talk, even though it was April Fool's Day!

He noted that this talk was part of the 80th anniversary celebrations of the Faculty of Science, which would include many other activities, such as science busking.

He also revealed that the Ambassador of France was in attendance in the audience, which indicates that the invited speaker is a highly respected academic indeed.















Next, Prof. Wee called upon Christian Miniatura, who is a visiting professor at the Centre for Quantum Technologies, to give an introduction about Prof. Haroche's research career.















Here's a quick overview of Prof. Haroche's many academic accomplishments. Note that he has taught in American universities for a number of years - I'll come back to that later.















Next, a photo of the research group where Prof. Haroche was a graduate student. His supervisor Prof. Claude Cohen-Tannoudji would later share the Physics Nobel Prize in 1997.

Prof. Miniatura remarked that Prof. Haroche looked pretty casual at that time, with his hands in his pockets...















Another photo of Prof. Student Haroche at that time, not looking very prominent amongst a big stack of research equipment.

Prof. Miniatura noted that those machines may look antiquated, but our instruments today would also look old-fashioned to our grandchildren.

I should also add that scientific equipment may become faster and better, but one thing will never change - troubleshooting.

Remember kids, if there isn't any troubleshooting, it ain't science!















After the brief introduction, Prof. Haroche was welcomed onto the stage...















... and there was a lolcat right there waiting for him.

But of course.

What did you expect?

Did you really think that you can sit through a lecture on quantum physics without seeing a lolcat?!??

Think inside the box, my friend!















Prof. Haroche began by remarking that seeing those old photos again gave him a bittersweet feeling, because it reminded him of how fast time flies.

I think that the years that he spend in the USA has affected his accent; he sounds less French than Prof. Miniatura.

(I also noticed that French people who have spent too many years in Singapore pick up an amazingly authentic Singlish accent, far more accurate than Americans or Brits. But that's a topic for another time...)

He then pointed out that the famed Richard Feynman quote - "nobody understands quantum mechanics" - should be taken with a grain of salt.

"But just in case you don't learn anything from my talk, at least you're in good company," he joked.

Nice.















Though quantum physics is usually associated with microscopic phenomena, it actually deals with more than 60 orders of magnitude!

As mentioned in the previous slide, quantum law appears at all scales, but at the macroscopic level, it is generally "veiled".

This is an important point that he'll explain in detail later.















As usual, with these sort of scale charts, biological scales are often represented by the DNA double-helix, but never the collagen triple-helix.

It always makes me smirk. Oh well, I'm not a biochemist anyway.

And biologists always appear "sandwiched" between particle physicists and astronomers.

That's fine to me too; it's the stuff in the "middle" that determines the flavour of a sandwich...















This is a public talk where the audience may be more interested in tangible benefits, thus Prof. Haroche spent some time emphasizing the importance of quantum physics to everyday technologies, such as computers...















... lasers...















... atomic clocks (less than one second error over 10 million years!) and GPS systems that depend on them...















... and the quintessential marvel of modern technology - the MRI, which is actually a combination of three quantum technologies.















Now for the maths... time to run and hide!

Not so fast, Prof. Haroche is simply stating that the behaviour of an electron in a hydrogen atom can be described using a wavefunction - a mathematical tool that gives probabilistic results.

Instead of a particle moving in a fixed orbit, the electron is considered to be in a superposition of an infinite number of possible positions.

He noted that Nature has a "wavy" structure. In quantum physics, determinism is replaced by randomness and particles are replaced by wavefunctions.

Apparently Einstein disliked the random aspect of the wavefunction so much that he uttered his famous "God doesn't play dice" quote.















Wavefunctions may sound like mere mathematical constructs, but Prof. Haroche showed us that modern instruments can produce real images of wavefunctions.















Once again, he emphasized that quantum theory is a probabilistic theory.















The essence of quantum strangeness is exemplified by the bizarre phenomenon of quantum interference, which is often demonstrated using Young's double-slit experiment.

When individual particles (eg. electrons) are fired one-by-one through the setup, they hit the target screen at random positions.

As more and more particles pass through, a predictable interference pattern builds up progressively.

But how can there be "interference" if there was only one particle passing through at any one time?















In quantum physics, the wave equation accurately predicts the appearance of the interference pattern.

But Prof. Haroche remarked that classical physicists are not satisfied with that sort of "explanation"...















... they want to know exactly what happened to the particle...















... but the very act of observing the particle disrupts the interference pattern on the target screen!

To me, the easiest way of bending my brainz around this is to think of "observation" here as an active process that can perturb the behaviour of the particle.

Something like how people look away when you shine a bright light in their faces!

More on this later.















Quantum interferences don't just occur spatially, but temporally as well. Interference patterns that appear in time are called "quantum beats".















I'm not going to pretend that I understand the maths behind quantum entanglement.

Suffice to say that once again Einstein didn't like this, calling it "spooky action at a distance", but John Bell found a way to experimentally test it and prove him wrong.















Another strange feature of quantum mechanics has to do with particle identity.

At macroscopic scales, "identical" particles can still be differentiated from one another.















But in quantum systems, identical particles cannot be distinguished from each other. They have no "colours".

Particles can be divided into two categories, based on their interactions with one another: Fermions and Bosons.















Here's a quick overview of the differences between fermions and bosons.

Particle constituents of matter are fermions while intervening particles (such as photons) are bosons.

Got it.















But atoms that are made up of an even number of fermions behave like bosons.

Er... I'm getting a little lost here.















So, depending on the total number of particles in an isotope (including electrons), an atom can behave either as a fermion or as a boson, thus producing a different interference pattern.

I think I understand this.















Now, to me this is the most important slide in the entire talk, because it addresses a key public misunderstanding of quantum physics that is often exploited by New Age woo-meisters.

Can quantum strangeness occur to macroscopic objects?

Erwin Schrödinger once posed this question as a thought experiment: the infamous Schrödinger's Cat (referenced in the lolcat slide earlier) which has become sort of a mascot for quantum strangeness.

Schrödinger was thinking of a way to transform a superposition inside an atom to a large-scale superposition of a live and dead cat by coupling the cat and atom using a specially constructed device.

He wanted to critique the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics by illustrating the absurdity of its consequences.

Wikipedia describes this concisely:

A cat, along with a flask containing a poison, is placed in a sealed box shielded against environmentally induced quantum decoherence.

If an internal Geiger counter detects radiation then the flask is shattered, releasing the poison which kills the cat.

Quantum mechanics suggests that after a while the cat is simultaneously alive and dead.

Yet, when we look in the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, not a mixture of alive and dead.

Prof. Haroche explained that quantum strangeness usually does not happen to macroscopic objects precisely because of decoherence: the environment gets entangled with the system and destroys quantum superpositions.

He said that you can consider it as the environment "spying" on the cat.

Decoherence becomes faster as the system size increases, thus macroscopic objects behave in a more intuitive, classical manner.















Schrödinger did not expect anyone to actually test his thought experiment, but today physicists have the tools to fight decoherence and it is now possible to do the imaging of isolated trapped atoms...















... see microwave photons...















... and even set up a photonic version of the Schrödinger's Cat experiment.

Here, the purple feature under the disk corresponds to the "cat state" quantum coherence.















As decoherence effects set in, you can see the purple feature gradually disappear from the field diagram as the quantum system is transformed into a classical system (towards upper right).















Prof. Haroche then proceeded to talk about new quantum technologies on the horizon.

An exciting new field of quantum computing is emerging and has the potential to be much faster than current technology.

However, he cautioned that building a large practical quantum computer is very difficult because of decoherence.

A simpler application of quantum entanglement is in cryptography - used for the purposes of secure communications. This technology is already available on the market.















In his last slide, Prof. Haroche turned to his attention to the question of whether a second "quantum revolution" is approaching.

He speculated that we might see new applications in the future that we can't even dream about today.

As a concluding message, he encouraged young scientists to let their curiosity drive their research and not to be obsessed with the quantum computer, but quickly added "as long as the funding agencies permit it".

He joked: "That is our tragic position in life."

With that, he ended his talk and it was time for the Q&A session!

I asked the first question of the evening, and not surprisingly it was:

"What popular misconception of quantum physics in the public annoys you the most?"

Prof. Haroche replied that he especially disliked the abuse of quantum physics in discussions of consciousness or free will, because those processes operate at an "overwhelmingly classical" level.

Later, a member of the audience stood up and commented: "I'm just a layman but now I know where the term 'quantum leap' comes from!"

Then there was a question about quantum tunneling, and Prof. Haroche proceeded to give a quick overview of that effect.

I think the best question of the evening came from a young man who asked:

"There are now numerous interpretations of quantum mechanics. Which interpretation do you prefer?"

Prof. Haroche conceded that it was a good question - he was aware of physicists who were adamant that quantum mechanics does not "need" interpretations and that the mathematics was all that you needed.

He used to subscribe to that view, but confessed that as he got older, he appreciated interpretations more. Still, he thought that it could be an "endless game" since our intuition is simply unable to understand quantum mechanics.



















After all that heavy intellectual "food" it was time to stuff my face with some real "classical" stuff!

It was Thai food, and you can see that there was a good spread.

As I munched on my dinner, I was thinking about decoherence due to environmental entanglement and how it vastly simplifies the behaviour of macroscopic objects, which fits nicely into my FAMILIAR model.

Maybe I'm really on to something...


Would you like to know more?

Other lectures by prominent academics:
- Bruce Alberts At The Biopolis
- Embryonic Stem Cell Lecture (Prof. Martin Evans)
- Early Detection Is Your Best Bet (Prof. Lee Hartwell)

Anatomy Of A Myth

With Earth Hour fast approaching, I think it's a good idea to look beyond the symbolic gestures and review the core issues behind the topic of climate change.

Here's an excellent video that investigates some of the claims made by global warming denialists:



One major shortcoming of the mainstream media is that they generally do not reference original research articles, such that their readers can't easily check if the supposed quotations or conclusions were actually there. As a result, you have to get on the Interboobs to find out crucial details about any scientific or technological matter.

Whatever their reasons (political or otherwise) for not linking to primary references, this practice will slowly erode the credibility of the mainstream media and drive more and more discerning readers to the science'o sphere where they can discuss the issues at hand candidly and directly with the researchers involved in the field.


Would you like to know more?

About another misinterpretation of research data by the press:
- Science journalists? Don't make me laugh (by Ben Goldacre)

About another global warming denialist:
- An Anti-Scientific Mind