A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Solar System - Pluto

In case you’ve been living under a rock these are the pictures that were recently taken of Pluto, a planet that has never previously been photographed in this much detail. 

With a diameter of 2368 km things that are bigger than it include the moon, the perimeter of the Bermuda triangle and the country of Russia. 

However it remains a crucial area of our solar system due to how little we know about it, which is quite a feat given human persistence and the fact that we’ve known about it since 1930. Bravo Pluto. Such a small ball of rock and ice which has been the heart of so many debates on a world 5 planets away, it might be small, but Pluto is no less important than any other planet.

Life Finds a Way - Or does it? (Part 2)

Hi everyone, apologies for the long wait but I've had a lot to do recently. So where were we, dinosaurs right? Okay, where we left off last time we were trying to determine whether or not, assuming we had the technology to create them, a dinosaur would actually be able to survive on the Earth as we know it today. We've already tackled the biggest two so lets get down to it then.

The next big factor that any animal needs, not to survive as such, but to be happy, is company. We are only now beginning to understand the complex social mechanisms that are in other species, not just humans.

For hundreds of years we were arrogant enough to simply assume, without reason that humans were the only animals with a complex social system and that no other animals could even come close. However now that animal psychology is becoming a more accepted field and we are accepting their intelligence we are making striking discoveries. Even Tyrannosaurus Rex is thought to have been a fiercely defensive parent. And if animals need other animals to function properly then whose to say that dinosaurs were not the same?

It is pretty generally accepted that triceratopses traveled in herds, so what would happen if one was brought into the world today with all of the genetic instinct of a herd animal, but no herd? Well it would most likely suffer from extreme loneliness, and like a chained dog it may experience fits of anger, frustration and fear. So if we were going to bring dinosaurs back we would most likely need to bring back more than one of each kind, forming a dino-colony of sorts.

Now we need to think about the biggest factor, how has the Earth itself changed in the 65 million years since the dinosaurs roamed alongside early life and would dinosaurs have adaptions still relevant to survive today?

So how exactly was the Earth different that long ago? Well to make it simpler we'll think about the end of the Cretaceous period when a meteor is said to have wiped out the dinosaurs, as dinosaurs saw a lot of change in the millions of years that they were on earth. At the end of the Cretaceous period the continents weren't all that different to ours. But was different was the surface itself. Primitive flowering plants had begun to flourish and due to the much warmer climate there were no ice caps, resulting in a world of forests surrounded by shallow seas. The land was much lower as this is when many mountain ranges began to form and all of this was ended when a big lump of rock fell out of the sky!

So how do we compare today? Well for one it is a hell of a lot chillier. The temperature could even rise up to 45 degrees which could extend to the poles due to the much more evenly distributed temperature, so we would only have a very narrow band near the equation where dinosaurs could sustainably live under natural conditions.

However altogether there's not much different enough to have a huge effect. Sure dinosaurs my not be so well suited to digest the more complex plants they may come across today, or may be harmed by foreign chemicals in the water, or diseases unfamiliar to them. But none of these are problems that we humans couldn't fix with some clever planning.

In conclusion although there would obviously have to be a lot of very clever planning and, despite the warning from Jurassic world, a tad of genetic engineering; not only is it possible that a dinosaur could survive today, its not even that big of an undertaking. What we would have to do to support, say a triceratops, is not much more than is done currently by zookeepers all over the world holding foreign animals in zoos. And who knows, maybe one day humanity will indeed resurrect some of these prehistoric wonders to witness the world as we know it today.

Apologies this took so long guys I've been really busy recently. However I'm finally finding myself with more time to write these. I'd like to thank everyone for reading, it means a lot that I can make your days just that little bit more interesting :) researching this has really given me an appreciation for how small we are in the grand scheme of life throughout the history of Earth, a mere smear of a paintbrush on the work of art that is life. So this is me going now, but firstly I would highly recommend Jurassic World to anybody who found this interesting as it is a truly amazing film with some excellent points. Until next time :)

Life Finds a Way - Or does it? (Part 1)

Who doesn't love dinosaurs? I mean really. Those of you who've seen Jurassic Park may have already guessed from the post title that this was inspired by the upcoming movie, and of course the fact that everyone loves the surreal idea of a prehistoric world full of dragon-like creatures that were all wiped out by an enormous astronomical event 65 million years ago!

But anyway down to the science.

It occurs to me that I haven't yet explained what this post is about so today I will be exploring if Jurassic Park would work as we all know that the Earth was very very different 65 million years ago, but would a fully grown dinosaur simply be able to cope with the conditions nowadays?

In order to answer this we must firstly think, what was the Earth actually like 65 million years ago? And what has changes today that would hamper me from being able to ride a triceratops around?


First of all lets tackle what today is seen as our future doom hanging over us all.... climate change!


Many famous dinosaurs that we know and love (Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops etc) are from the Triassic period, the final of the three periods in which dinosaurs mainly lived (Cretaceous, Jurassic and then Triassic in order). The conditions at this time were in general hot and dry, which suited the dinosaurs pretty well as they were cold blooded and therefore rely largely on heat from their surroundings.

There are actually a surprising amount of areas in which a dinosaur could survive and in fact thrive under these conditions, in fact pretty much anywhere around the equator would get enough heat and sunlight to heat the blood of our reptilian friends.


Secondly - and this is a big one - food and water.


So dinosaurs either eat plants, or meat, or both, allowing us to organise them into 3 classes: Herbivore, Carnivore or Omnivore.

So we'll begin with our vegetarians, herbivores range from what were thought to be grazing creatures e.g. stegosaurus all the way to the long necked creatures akin to reptilian giraffes that munch on the tops of trees, but is there enough vegetation to support them all?

We can safely say yes to that question, however there are some problems still, many herbivores were adapted to a diet of particular plants, many of which are extinct today, so without a carefully thought out diet or the return of some prehistoric ferns we could most likely not keep our dinosaurs satisfied with the weedy plants that are about today.

The next type of dinosaurs are carnivores, meat eaters. Carnivores tend to have to eat less mass and their bodies generally process the food more efficiently meaning that it would take less food to satisfy them.

This being said I think personally that we eat so many animals that we could definitely spare a few for a dinosaur or two to eat. We wouldn't really have any trouble feeding these beasts as they aren't too picky about what the meat is either.

The final class of dinosaurs is omnivores, and although we would have no trouble supplying food for this generally medium sized, not very picky group of dinosaurs, to keep them healthy we would be faced with the challenge of balancing their diet in such a way to keep them healthy, as their diet is such a mixture that we could not overfeed them on one section at risk of imbalancing their diet.




So that's it for this post, sorry I haven't uploaded much recently but I've been completely swamped and I assure that regular uploads will resume soon. I will continue this is a second part (mainly because this is beginning to get a bit too long for my liking) so goodbye until then, as always I appreciate you all and thanks for reading :) .

All You Need is Love

Attraction between people is something which has been around since the very dawn of humanity (because lets face it that's just how nature works) and as a result it's influenced our culture, our religions, our social media and even our science. So today lets look at what exactly makes our heart skip a beat when we see that person.

Firstly I'm just going to clarify that I will avoid the psychological explanations (definitely not because they were far too complex and too many for me to get my head around) and I will stick more to the biological side of things. Also if i did include all the crazy inside of the head stuff this post would be far too long and frankly nobody would actually read it.

And now that that's out of the way lets dig into the science. Attraction is a tricky thing to define, despite the best efforts of poets, writers and musicians over the centuries the google definition lists it as an attraction of provoking interest or liking, which is frustratingly vague. However while it is still difficult to get a precise definition of attraction we can take a pretty good guess at how it works.

Its no secret that people's bodies are a large source of attraction towards them, but the first thing I read about it in fact is pretty unusual, because a big thing that turns people's gears is what is known as bilateral symmetry.

This is literally what is says, symmetry!

If someone looks asymmetrical it could be due to trauma or stress experienced during development, that they weren't strong enough to deal with and obviously, this is something which humans are not so keen to replicate. This results in people being a lot more attracted to those whose faces are in fact more symmetrical.

Secret preference numero dos is one which features largely in our pop culture today, though we may not realise it, what I'm obviously on about it waist to hip ratio. Yep, to an extent baby got back is actually pretty scientifically correct.

This one probably doesn't come as a surprise because insecurity about our weight is one common fact that a massive amount of people share, especially in the western world. And what with all the media promoting impossible body standards, people nowadays are constantly bombarded with body standards that are in fact impossible for us to match, but evidently it doesn't stop a lot of people trying.

Humans seem to prefer when the waist of a prospective mate is roughly 70% of the width of their hips, and although this may seem a little harsh it has actually proven to have medical benefits for both men and women, as people in this range tend to produce the ideal amount estrogen in women and testosterone in men. 

It has also been noted that people in this range tend to be less susceptible to cardiovascular disorders, cancer and diabetes and women in this range have less difficulty giving birth and conceiving.

But there are some things that have a far bigger effect than any other these previously mentioned factors, namely pheromones.

For those of you who don't know, pheromones are like chemical messages given out by our bodies that give nearby people a hint at our genetic makeup (because who doesn't want to take in a big noseful of best friend every now and again?)

So as we all know the shizz that goes on inside our heads is pretty damn crazy. And all the crazy attraction stuff is down to our animal nature, our ancient hormonal programming which makes us want to find a mate and reproduce, it all pretty weird, in fact romantic love is actually akin to an addiction inside our brains!

So what hormones make this all happen? Well there are 4 main ones, which are Dopamine, Oestrogen, Seretonin and Testosterone are the main players in this field (its also important to know that these are not dependent on sex lines). 

The study that determined this tied each one to a different personality type. According to the study people with more active dopamine centers were more reward driven and impulsive in love. People with more seretonin were less anxious but more risk averse. But the key thing about this was that they tended to be a lot more attracted to people like them.

On the other hand it is also pretty true that opposites do sometimes attract. Testosterone full people tend to be analytical and competetive while oestrogen rich people tend to have more empathy and social. And these two groups actually were more attracted to each other. 

Its also important to recognize that these groups are not exclusively attracted to each other and this is not all that determines attraction, and after the initial phase lots of other stuff comes into play and helps to solidify the relationship over time, and form a longer term bond after the initial love (what people call new love) period is over.

So there it is, there's just a few of the crazy things that influence what we call love. But the real truth behind it is that we're never actually going to understand it completely. The human mind is simply far to complex and incredible to try and truly understand and predict, and the thing that has made humans so fascinated by love all these years is its unpredictable, inexplicable nature. If anything lets hope that science never completely understands it, because if love was quantifiable, then it wouldn't be half as wondrous. 

Personally I think there are few feelings on par with the little internal spark when you see that person, so maybe take a minute out of your day to make sure they know it. 

This is usually the part where I try to say something inspirational and obscure about the nature of human discovery or something like that, but instead I'll leave you with what is probably my favorite, and the most accurate summary of this topic, from the flash. (which is frankly a fantastic show in every way) 

Thanks for reading, See ya :)

Interstellar

I don't do this ordinarily but having just watched interstellar I have to express what a fantastic and thought provoking film it is, albeit hard to understand what happening at some parts it is absolutely chock full of moments that make you think oohhhhh or ahhhh. Basically it is a fantastic film which has been creatively made and extremely well written.

Under Pressure

With deadlines for coursework and exams approaching quickly, I highly doubt that I'm the only one who's feeling a bit tightly strung. Stress is something which we all experience at some point or another but why do we really feel such an emotional discomfort when we come under pressure? 

If we ask google it tells us that stress is ''a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances''. Which although true, is over complicating our question a little. Stress, when it comes down to it, is not an emotion. Stress is in fact a state of mine which results in an emotional response including but not limited to a mix of:

• Anxiety
• Sadness/Depression
• Trouble Concentrating
• Irritability
• Loss of appetite
• Memory troubles

So evidently stress is not a nice thing, nor a good thing, but what exactly is it? 

In a mechanical sense, stress is a physical force on an object, so considering that emotionally it feels very much like this, it is no big surprise that they are referred to by the same word. 

Our bodies run off a delicate equilibrium, a constant input and output of various things, the usual everyday routines and nothing that is very out of the ordinary most of the time. However when a condition in any equilibrium is changed, the equilibrium actually changes in favor of an opposing condition to attempt to restore this balance. This is exactly what stress is in a sense.

Stress is our body's response to change, our the effect of our various internal systems all working away rapidly to oppose a change. This also explains why such a wide variety of situations can cause stress, as anything which causes a drastic change or threatens to change our daily routine in future is in fact opposed by our own bodies. Through the emissions of various hormones or our brains refusing to stop working furiously to find a solution our bodies can cause us to feel run down and all sorts of emotional discomfort.

Having said that, is stress really a bad thing? Without stress we would not adapt to a new situation and would simply keep going the way we are. If we had no stress then we would not be prompted to adapt and survive. Potentially as a result of this humanity could have died out a very long time ago!

So there we have is, a quick evaluation of stress, like everything in the delicate equilibrium of life we need some to survive but when the balance gets upset it can lead to some pretty serious consequences. So next time you're feeling stressed out realise that you're feeling the emotion that's been driving us since the dawn of humanity, its pretty cool to think about :)

Thanks for reading guys I say this quite a lot but I appreciate it all, as I implied there are exams coming up and evidently I won't be posting so regularly for a while but I'll be sure to write when I can, see ya :)

I Want To Play a Game

What do you think of video games? Are you an enthusiast who is willing to defend them to the bitter end? Or do you think they waste time and cause crime rates to skyrocket? Either way we're delving into the depths of cyber (and real) space to try to figure out just how real these games could ever get.

Everyone has a different opinion about video games. To designers they are works of art, with months, sometimes even years of constant nitpicking every detail in order to give us the best experiences. Gamers obviously like them, as they provide a way to fill time, play with friends, and do things that they never could in real life, giving them a sense of accomplishment. 

On the flip side there are those who are strongly against video games, claiming that they give children violent tendencies and promote criminal activity to those who play them.

Video games weren't so much of an invention as they were an eventuality. With people becoming increasingly able to access computers that they could control it was only a matter of time until some person with too much time on their hands made a game out of it.

But what makes a video game real? Well in order to answer that we must think what lets us observe and absorb data from out current real world? Contrary to popular belief humans actually have at least 9 senses with most researchers agreeing we probably have about 20. However for the sake of time we are only going to talk about the big 5 that everybody is brought up learning about.

Sight

A huge part of developing video games is the graphic design. Everything in a game has to be individually designed, with a 3D model created, then each small blip on the model has to be individually colored in. So evidently due to the fact that you can always zoom in further on an object, we could never truly replicate an object within a game. However the trick is that humans cannot see the smaller things. In fact the human eyes only have a resolution of roughly 576 Megapixels. Game designers creating a simulation of real life could always take advantage of this and realise that a certain level, we cannot see the detail and so it would be not worth doing.

Accomplishable

Hearing

The second in command in the human brain is the sound, with a large portion of our brain dedicated to auditory processing we are able to pinpoint a sound from quite a distance and some people are even capable of echolocation, the biological radar commonly used by whales and dolphins. This is surprisingly easy to accomplish as even today video games accomplish a realistic surrounding using mixers to vary volume levels and guide us towards where an even occurs using sound. On the other hand it may never be possible for people to navigate a game with echolocation.

Accomplishable

Touch

This one is difficult, indeed until recently it was inconceivable, however with advancements such as microsoft's Kinect we no longer have to use controllers to control our games, on top of this, holograms may soon be able to be used widely due to Hololens, another advancement by microsoft. The only problem is that without actual physical objects or a direct link to influence the nervous system, it is basically impossible to simulate touch. Maybe this will come with time but for the moment it is simply not able to be done.

Not Currently Accomplishable

Smell

Smell is actually not as difficult to replicate as most people would think. In fact simply dispersing tiny amounts of the required substance or one of a similar smell would be sufficient. However this may not work well for people with allergies, other than that it is possible with some simple chemistry.

Pretty Easy

Taste

Ah the most widely used sense in the battlefield. Lets face it there are a lot of video games today where what you are most likely to taste is your own blood because you're getting shot at. However once again it could most likely be accomplished with some chemistry and substances of different textures.

Probably

And now a Bonus one, how on earth would a video game simulate true motion? How would it create a truly realistic environment? Because no matter how advanced the NPCs are or how good it looks if the world itself isn't realistic it will never seem real. And the sad truth is that due to the random nature of the universe that we live in this is almost unaccomplishable. There are simply so many factors, lets think about a simple flower for a minute, the head might turn to face the sun, but the wind might also be moving it. Gravity will be pulling it downwards, and if you step on it what happens then? If a simple flower take this amount of programming to create then the odds are that there will never be a video game that truly simulates real life.

I'm not exactly sure what this article implies but I am truly a fan of video games, I believe that in offering people opportunities to accomplish things that they could not do in real life they can help to boost self esteem and make people more open to new things. On top of this the sheer amount of work that goes into each and every one is immense and the people who design them really do not get the credit that they deserve for these works of digital art.

What I was trying to show with this article is the true complexity of the world around us, and how little we actually notice. If you take one thing from this article I hope that it is that our universe is incredible more complex and incredible than we could ever hope to comprehend. But we can really give it a good shot. Thanks for reading this I know it was long but I was very bored, it means a lot that people actually read these :) see ya!