It was "revealed" in todays Sunday mail (and I assume at least all other APP publications) that murdered multimillionaire businessman Herman Rockefeller met his killers through an internet sex site. The article continued he had "at least five (5) secret pre-paid mobile phones" and had "at least one mystery girlfriend".

The article also noted that Mr Rockefeller is a married man with 2 children before it continued to drag his name through the proverbial mud. I find it utterly appalling, that a journalist would stoop so low as to write such an article. A man has been killed, and I honestly don't see how his past transgressions are any of our business. Indeed, by making such public statements about the man when he has only recently been murdered must be causing untolled heart-ache and distress to his family.

And the worst part of the whole thing morally is that Herman Rockefeller isn't here to defend himself. At any rate I fail to see how the interworkings of anyones personal life, including their transgressions, where they don't directly effect public life, should become public knowledge. I'm sick of hearing about this or that persons sexual transgressions, it's none of my business nor is it any of yours. It only adds mountain to an already painful situation. It also cheapens the publication, reducing it to little more than a trashy tabloid magazine. I feel journalists should be legislated in such a way as to prevent them reporting on such things.

If it doesn't effect more people than a persons private family, then it honestly shouldn't be reported on.

I recently stumbled across a website for a Christian organisation calling themselves "The Institute for Creation Research" (ICR) with their main goal apparently being to harmonise Science with the Bible. One would think then any serious attempt at such would be done by a team of fully qualified science majors specialising in a selection of fields such as variants of Biology, Geology and the sciences involved in genetics amongst others.

Logically speaking, one has to be able to understand the science before they attempt to harmonise with it, or indeed as the organisation seem to often do, refute it and so the aforementioned team would be necessary for serious conclusion. However; as is often the case with Christian websites refuting science; no such team exists at the "Institute of Creation Research" with their misunderstanding of DNA sequencing and even the roles of different chromosomes easily demonstrated in their front page article "Are Humans as Close to Chickens as They Are to Chimps" (the miscaps are theirs not mine).

The Article refers to the results of the comparison of Human Y Chromosomes with the Y Chromosomes in Chimps which were published in the biological journal "Nature". The original article in Nature speaks about how little knowledge of the Y Chromosomes evolution across species as full sequencing has only ever, until recently, been performed on Humans. The article then goes on to speak about how divergent the Y Chromosomes in Humans and Chimps are.

Showing their total and complete ignorance to genetics, the "Institute of Creation Research" then picked up the article in Nature and decided to run it's results as proof humans and chimps are unrelated and share no common ancestor. In fact the results actually prove nothing like that. In outright incomprehension they continued on to attempt to use this data to disprove the fact that Humans and Chimps hold 98% of their genome in common.

"Most of their findings do not fit well with the often-repeated erroneous statement that humans and chimps are 98 percent similar, nor with the more general hypothesis that they share a common ancestor. One sequence class within the chimpanzee Y chromosome had less than 10 percent similarity with the same class in the human Y chromosome, and vice versa. Another large class shared only half the similarities of the other species, and vice versa. And one whole class on the human Y chromosome “has no counterpart in the chimpanzee MSY [male-specific Y chromosome].”"

They couldn't have gotten it more wrong. Beyond the use of their continual phrase "vice versa" being redundant (It's like saying X and Y are different and so is Y and X different), they've also demonstrated thorough naivety towards how genetics works, how the 98% genome comparison between humans and chimps was achieved and the role the Y Chromosome plays.

So on the off chance someone from the ICR stumbles across this blog, and to better educate people before they read such crude pseudo-scientific articles I'll explain the situation a little better. The Y chromosome exists ONLY in males, meaning that females exist entirely without it, but funnily enough are still part of the same species. Meaning the Y chromosome is more about gender difference then it is about species difference. While they haven't yet been compared, I'm quite certain you'll see equivalent differences in the Y chromosomes of birds. It doesn't mean they don't hold a common ancestor, nor that they aren't all birds.

Furthermore, if you compare the human Y chromosome with that of another human, you'll find a large amount of differences just as you will with any other part of DNA sequencing. This is because of genetic variation, and so it isn't overly surprising to find differences between humans and chimps. What the scientists involved WHERE surprised at was there were more differences than they predicted. But as previously stated little is known about the evolution of the Y chromosome, it's an area for which this comparison is only the beginning of research.

But simply misjudging the number of differences is no more proof that humans and chimps are unrelated, than the countless misjudgements and mistakes made during the evolution of IVF proves it won't produce babies. Clearly IVF does produce babies, and clearly misjudgements in differences doesn't disprove theories nor do they disprove the FACT that humans and chimps share 98% of their genes in common.

To illustrate how completely out of context the ICR have taken comments made in the original Nature article check out these 2 sequential paragraphs taken from the "Institute of Creation Research" article

"The Nature paper expressed the mismatch between this data and standard evolutionary interpretations in a more muted tone: “Indeed, at 6 million years of separation, the difference in MSY gene content in chimpanzee and human is more comparable to the difference in autosomal gene content in chicken and human, at 310 million years of separation.”1 Autosomes are the chromosomes other than the X and Y.

So, the human Y chromosome looks just as different from a chimp’s as the other human chromosomes do from a chicken’s. And to explain where all these differences between humans and chimps came from, believers in big-picture evolution are forced to invent stories of rapid wholesale rearrangements, and rapid generation of both new gene-containing and regulatory DNA."

The Nature article quote clearly is referring more towards the timeline difference, rather than actual similarities between humans and chickens. It's a quote that is clearly directed toward the surprise in difference between Y chromosomes and how long those changes were previously thought to have taken. But undoubtedly it's a quote that will go on to haunt science for years to come as creationists misunderstand the quote continually.

Ultimately anyone who can not conclusively see the similarities both in physical looks and behaviour modelling between humans and chimps is delusional. Evolution is a theory backed by insurmountable evidence, and while there may be surprises found during it's continued research, those surprises won't be such as to disprove the theory of evolution, which itself is still evolving as new research is preformed. If anything, all this new data about differences in human and chimp Y chromosomes proves is some timeline theories are off. To conclude anything more than that however is laughable.

Links;

ICR Article
Original Nature Article

The much anticipated apple iPad was announced yesterday as expected; and as I imagined isn't really what one would call a show stopper.

The iPad measures 9.5 x 7 inchs with basically all of that space constituting the touch screen. And while I praise apple for their continued green approach to new devices, I fear the aluminium frame may feel bulky, and the glass components make it easily broken. The first thing one notices when they look at the device is that it literally resembles a super-sized iPhone or iPod Touch, and you honestly aren't to far off.

The iPad is yet another apple device to lack a physical keyboard, with apple choosing to embed their proprietary virtual keyboard which has featured in their other touch devices instead. This indeed limits what can be done on the device as the user must type with the underwhelming virtual keyboard, causing most people to churn out numerous typos. With that said however, I suppose it's down to apples good thinking that they haven't marketed this product as a desktop replacement or office tool.

The iPad features a 1Ghz processor which, for a device of it's size leaves me entirely under-whelmed. Even my netbook which is 10.1 inch contains a 1.6Ghz atom processor. The large screen is somewhat obviously touch, allowing for the familiar navigation of the iPod Touch & iPhone. It's capable of playing ACC and mp3 music files as well as mp4 and mov video files. The iPad also contains the full safari web browser and email client, so it comes as no surprise I guess that apple are marketing it as best used for surfing the web.

While I have to credit apple with including an inbuilt microphone, I can't shake the feeling that they missed the boat completely by failing to include a web cam. With the virtual keyboard ruling out using the device for emails of great length or substance, and with the growing market for video calls I would have thought it a logical conclusion to add in a web cam.

So what CAN the iPad do? Well apart from surfing the internet, sending and receiving email, listening to music and watching videos the device is able to...wait for it...view photos! Beyond that you're able to download and use apps from the app store, and use the iPad as an ebook reader by downloading iBook and purchasing apple proprietary format ebooks. And that brings us to the extent of what the iPad can do.

To be honest I can't see a reason ANYONE would want one. With desktop and laptop computers taking care of your work/office needs and much of your home computing needs; with netbooks and laptops enabling mobile computing and smart phones taking care of the rest of your internet (including email) needs, where does the iPad fit in? That is to say, when you get down to it the iPad literally is just a giant iPod Touch. In fact, the iPod Touch is able to do some things that the iPad can't!

Can you really see yourself carrying something around the size of an A4 piece of paper in order to listen to music, watch movies and look at your photos when the smart phone in your pocket can do all that and more? And can you really honestly see yourself wondering around with an aggravating touch device trying to write emails on the go and surf the web when again, the phone in your pocket at a fraction of the size can do all that too? And lets face facts here; at $259 including free unlimited GSM data transfer to purchase and download ebooks, the amazon kindle is far better designed and priced if you're after an ebook reader.

The iPad has 3 storage choices; 16GB, 32GB and 64GB and comes in both a wifi stand alone and a 3G + wifi versions for surfing the web. And lets be real here, no one is going to want to be tied to a wifi network, so the 3G + wifi version is the only realistic option here. With the 16GB 3G+wifi model costing $629US and the 64GB model at $829 the iPad has priced itself out of the market. But I'm sure that apple will come up with some ingenious marketing ploy to suck people into buying this underdeveloped offering. Essentially however it comes to this, if you want to waste money, get no real benefit and look like a dork by all means rush out and by an iPad. However if your sensible, value your money and your self respect then give the iPad a wide berth and leave it to shrink into obscurity as another apple iFail device.

Links;

Technical Specifications
Pricing
Amazon Kindle

It's often said that if aliens ever visited earth that we would be able to communicate with them by way of mathematics. That maths is a universal language. I disagree entirely; here's why.

Mathematics; including the numbers and other symbols used in it's function; are no more than a concept. That is to say, they exist in the same way as time or language do; solely in our minds. Far from being a universal concept, mathematics is nothing more than a means to rationalise, order and attempt to predict an otherwise chaotic universe. The reality of the situation is that 1 + 1 only equals 2 because we say it does. We could have just as easily have designed the system in such a way as to make it equal 5.

The most interesting observation about mathematics is that it is a system which has been designed around the concepts we wish it to express. Or in other words, instead of mathematics being a function that the natural word obeys, it is a concept that has be designed around the natural word. How does that matter you may ask?

For mathematics to be a universal language then it would have to contain universal truths which it sadly, and contrary to some large brain thinkers belief; does not. To contain universal truth it would have to be a function to which nature obeys. Or in other words, mathematics would have to of existed prior to the creation of matter. But far from this being the case, it can be observed that mathematics uses made up concept to explain the functions of nature and the greater universe.

This explains why advanced calculations can be, and are often, off sync with reality. It explains why the unknown universe remains unknown. For instead of having rules which all matter must obey, we come up with rules that we observe matter functioning under. Leaving blank anything we have never observed and thus causing gaps and holes in the mathematical concept. If something is unknown &/or unobserved then we can attempt to apply equations from known &/or observed situations to the function, but this usually ends up rather wrong.

Again, this explains why the universe remains very much a mystery 40 years after man aledgidly landed on the moon. The understanding simply isn't there. Instead humanity functions by first observing and then theorising conceptual equations to explain what they have observed. Or in other words, far from being a marvel of technological genius; all of human technology, experience, achievement and observation is rarely anything more than a colossal fluke. Eureka has less to do with planned thought and more to do with lucky coincidence.

So, for future reference; should you ever encounter an alien being during your travels. Attempting to communicate with it through mathematics, be them simple or advanced in nature, more than likely will NOT work. It remains only a concept fixed solely in our minds.