All posts by Rand Simberg

Science And Society

Good News For Alzheimer’s Patients

The disease may not be as destructive of memory as previously believed. That means that if they can come up with a cure, or ways of repairing the neuronal damage, people may be savable as the persons they were. This would reduce the attractiveness of the cryonics solution for them, if true.

[Update in the afternoon]

I should clarify that last sentence, per the question in comments. What I mean is that it would reduce the attractiveness of cryonics as a cure for Alzheimer’s. That is, if you believe that Alzheimer’s is destroying your mind, you’d like to preserve it before it’s all gone, so even though it’s currently illegal, it would be desirable to have yourself frozen now in the hope that they can repair you in the future, rather than the empty husk of the Alzheimer’s-addled you, from which all knowledge of who you are is gone.

This research provides an alternative. Let the mind go, if it can be brought back with future therapies, even before you’re suspended, without taking the risk on freezing it.

Science And Society

Good News For Alzheimer’s Patients

The disease may not be as destructive of memory as previously believed. That means that if they can come up with a cure, or ways of repairing the neuronal damage, people may be savable as the persons they were. This would reduce the attractiveness of the cryonics solution for them, if true.

[Update in the afternoon]

I should clarify that last sentence, per the question in comments. What I mean is that it would reduce the attractiveness of cryonics as a cure for Alzheimer’s. That is, if you believe that Alzheimer’s is destroying your mind, you’d like to preserve it before it’s all gone, so even though it’s currently illegal, it would be desirable to have yourself frozen now in the hope that they can repair you in the future, rather than the empty husk of the Alzheimer’s-addled you, from which all knowledge of who you are is gone.

This research provides an alternative. Let the mind go, if it can be brought back with future therapies, even before you’re suspended, without taking the risk on freezing it.

Science And Society

Good News For Alzheimer’s Patients

The disease may not be as destructive of memory as previously believed. That means that if they can come up with a cure, or ways of repairing the neuronal damage, people may be savable as the persons they were. This would reduce the attractiveness of the cryonics solution for them, if true.

[Update in the afternoon]

I should clarify that last sentence, per the question in comments. What I mean is that it would reduce the attractiveness of cryonics as a cure for Alzheimer’s. That is, if you believe that Alzheimer’s is destroying your mind, you’d like to preserve it before it’s all gone, so even though it’s currently illegal, it would be desirable to have yourself frozen now in the hope that they can repair you in the future, rather than the empty husk of the Alzheimer’s-addled you, from which all knowledge of who you are is gone.

This research provides an alternative. Let the mind go, if it can be brought back with future therapies, even before you’re suspended, without taking the risk on freezing it.

War Commentary

A Depressing Assessment

…of Israel’s war last summer against Hezbollah:

When war erupted in summer 2006, Israel enjoyed overwhelming military superiority and favorable political conditions. However, its strategic follies and operational deficiencies resulted in a faltering, indecisive war. The Israeli military could have administered a serious blow to Hezbollah from the air during the first few days of the war or, alternatively, destroyed most of Hezbollah’s military presence in southern Lebanon with a large land invasion. Unfortunately, Israel’s political and military leadership had no clear concept of what victory over Hezbollah entailed.

Israel squandered an important opportunity to settle regional scores. It left unchecked Iran’s apparent efforts to expand Shi

Media Criticism

The Elephant In The Room

Called Al Qaeda. (Democrat) John Wixted, on the prevalence of the false “civil war” meme:

Awareness of al Qaeda is slowly growing in the minds of mainstream media reporters who have been hamstrung by the civil war schema that they simply cannot get out of their heads. Even so, there is not the slightest mention of the fact that al Qaeda was probably behind yesterday’s bombing. Millions upon millions of readers of countless stories like this all over the world will read about that bombing and then shake their heads at the escalating “civil war” in Iraq. And then they will rage at George Bush for what he has done. Here is CNN’s coverage of that event, and, again, not the slightest hint that this was an attack by al Qaeda (because, I assume, the reporter thinks this was part of the civil war). The CNN story even notes that this was a suicide bomber. Many stories fail to mention that key detail. It is important because virtually all suicide bombers are members of al Qaeda, as I detailed here. As such, this bombing was not part of that civil war. It was another atrocity designed to provoke a civil war that has largely abated since the troop surge began. That’s the key distinction, and it cannot be emphasized often enough. People just don’t get it, so it needs to be explained repeatedly until they do. In fact, what’s missing from discussions by Bush and McCain and others who have the details right is the emphatic statement that these attacks are not part of the civil war; they are attempts by al Qaeda to provoke a civil war. Just stating that these attacks were perpetrated by al Qaeda does not go far enough to change the thinking of those whose minds are ensnared by an obsolete civil war schema. You have to specifically tell them that they are wrong to think like that. That gets their attention (because they are under the comfortable impression that the civil war debate was settled long ago), and it momentarily arouses disbelief (trust me — I’ve been down this path with people many times). When they are presented with incontrovertible facts regarding the role of al Qaeda in Iraq in a moment of disbelief, it has been my experience that minds change (including liberal minds). But you have to directly assert that these attacks are not examples of the civil war in action, nor do they represent sectarian violence. If you don’t, people have great difficulty assimilating the idea that attacks by Sunni al Qaeda against Shiite civilians do not constitute examples of sectarian violence/civil war.

His emphasis, not mine.

Political Commentary

This Can’t Possibly Be True

That well-known metallurgist and structural engineer, Rosie O’Donnell, told us that fire can’t melt steel. It’s never happened before in history. Well, I guess that there’s got to be a first (or second) time for everything:

Heat from the tanker explosion on the westbound 580 melted the upper roadway of the MacArthur Maze. The fire was intense enough to cause the tanker truck to basically melt away, according to crews on the scene.

I think that we need to investigate this. Were there charges planted in the bridge to make it collapse at an opportune time? Were there Enron and Halliburton financial records in a truck driving below? Were the Jews warned to stay off it? And where was Dick Cheney?

More grounds for impeachment, I’d say.

[Via emailer Mike Puckett]

Political Commentary

This Can’t Possibly Be True

That well-known metallurgist and structural engineer, Rosie O’Donnell, told us that fire can’t melt steel. It’s never happened before in history. Well, I guess that there’s got to be a first (or second) time for everything:

Heat from the tanker explosion on the westbound 580 melted the upper roadway of the MacArthur Maze. The fire was intense enough to cause the tanker truck to basically melt away, according to crews on the scene.

I think that we need to investigate this. Were there charges planted in the bridge to make it collapse at an opportune time? Were there Enron and Halliburton financial records in a truck driving below? Were the Jews warned to stay off it? And where was Dick Cheney?

More grounds for impeachment, I’d say.

[Via emailer Mike Puckett]

Political Commentary

This Can’t Possibly Be True

That well-known metallurgist and structural engineer, Rosie O’Donnell, told us that fire can’t melt steel. It’s never happened before in history. Well, I guess that there’s got to be a first (or second) time for everything:

Heat from the tanker explosion on the westbound 580 melted the upper roadway of the MacArthur Maze. The fire was intense enough to cause the tanker truck to basically melt away, according to crews on the scene.

I think that we need to investigate this. Were there charges planted in the bridge to make it collapse at an opportune time? Were there Enron and Halliburton financial records in a truck driving below? Were the Jews warned to stay off it? And where was Dick Cheney?

More grounds for impeachment, I’d say.

[Via emailer Mike Puckett]

Space

Faster, Cheaper…

…and hopefully at least as good, if not better. Clark Lindsey explains the significance of the successful UP Aerospace launch:

So why is this a big deal? Suborbital rockets have been launched at WSMR and elsewhere since the 1940s. This flight is significant because of the business model, not the altitude attained. The vehicle was designed to serve a consumer market rather than to carry out a task for the military or some other government entity. To do this profitably, the vehicle must be built for as low a cost as possible and must be cheap to fly. Spaceflight for the general public is new to the rocket world.

[Update a few minutes later]

Jon Goff has a very instructive post for those who buy into the mantra about how much more of a problem orbital is than suborbital with respect to energy.

As I note in his comments section, while these are great points when it comes to getting to orbit, the real issue is the energy that has to be dissipated to come home. I think that this will be the far greater challenge for orbital vehicle developers, at least if they’re reusable (and despite progress that can continue to be made in dropping the cost of expendables, ultimately that’s the only way to go for truly low costs, not to mention ability to bring the customers home).

Even Burt claims not to have a solution (though he may be sandbagging us). Certainly his current shuttlecock concept won’t ever scale up to an entry from orbit. As I’ve noted before, though, Burt is not God, and just because he doesn’t know how to do something, doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.