Tidbits

Been a long time. Actually my original thought was to write my autobiographical sketch in parts and end it with the results of this year's CASP (and in my fantasies, I solve the protein folding problem by then). But reality struck me down and I started thinking, what if my programs suck big time in CASP ? So, abandoned the idea of my autobiographical sketch. Unfortunately, after college was where most of the fun began, as far as protein folding is concerned, so you people missed the fun part, but never mind, it will come at a later date. I do have a lot of small things to share, and I have been sending myself mails to remember them, so here they come:

1. Saw this on Scientific american today : Take a cylinder with radius 'z' and height 'a'. What is the volume ? PiZZA... HEE HEE HEE... I like it...
2. I've heard of the one billion euro project for future science or something like that. And most projects are interesting, but I had one of my own. I thought it might be a good idea to sequence a cohort over a long period of time. I know the same information you can get by sequencing multiple cohorts at one particular time, but I still think it would be cool to see how mutations accrue and gives rise to diseases.
3. Saw this article on New Scientist about how computer games makes us better human beings (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228441.600-levelup-life-how-gaming-can-enhance-your-reality.html?page=2). OK, that is not what they said, but still. I feel much better now about the $500 I've already spent on games. And did I mention MW3 ? Its awesome...
4. Bring hard disk tomorrow to take backup.... oops that was something else, not for sharing, but still, now that I have typed it, I will let it remain.
5. Some of you may remember my post sometime ago about computer chips and future science projects. I remember that the chip had a 9nm design or something. Saw this on Nature today, and I think it is awesome (http://www.nature.com/news/nanoscale-wires-defy-quantum-predictions-1.9747).
6. Observed this today on the window sill in the lab while I was waiting for 1700 hrs. If you blow hard on a ladybug, it squats. I saw this many times, but it suddenly dawned on me how similar the reaction is to what we do in high winds. Makes you wonder about a lot of things...

   
   

   Thats all for now. Oh wait, I saw this article in EMBO reports titled "Is there a Neurobiology of the  free will ?" (http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v13/n1/full/embor2011229a.html). I do not agree with what the author wrote in many places. First and foremost he says:

   "Science does not strive for truth, in other words, but for probability, a kind of knowledge that can be, and arguably has to be, ‘probed". 

   I do not agree. Science does strive for truth. It is just that at any given point, we dont have the whole truth available to us.

   "For science, therefore, there are just two sorts of event: events with causes, with which it is classically concerned, and events without causes, chance events."

   Again, the problem has been stated multiple ways, especially as hidden variables etc. I dont think there are any 'genuine chance' events. But of course thats my opinion. And of course, given this opinion, I cannot agree with the author that we should stop looking further when we can calculate probabilities of events. We should strive for a deeper understanding. To give another example (apart from my coin toss analogies in a previous post), think about people entering and leaving walmart. If you naively observe them, their time of residence inside Walmart may seem random and normally distributed. Does not mean people randomly barge in and out of Walmart. They make decisions regarding what they need and according to how many things they need and other factors, and their residence time has a good explanation. Similarly, radioactive decay seems random, but if you look deeper, there might be  a deterministic reason. Last one bothers me the most :

   "No neurobiological observation could ever refute Socrates’ claim that he wanted to drink the poison given to him"

   Hmmm, the author is a neurobiologist, so this is kind of perplexing. I mean, there are a number of studies that suggest fMRI and other things can be used to find if people are 'telling the truth'. And then there are these experiments, where they predict what a mouse will actually do before it performs that action. So, we are moving towards a stage where maybe in a 100-200 years from now (especially armed with the 9nm nano chips!!!), we can map the entire thought process in one brain. We might then figure out that free will is nothing but the outcome of neurobiological processes. That is, if we get information of a rat's brain at all times (the same rat whose actions we can predict to some degree), can we not predict what it will do in a given situation, based on all the signal processing occurring in the brain ? Is that not what 'free will' is, the decisions we take 'on our own' ? 

   Now, remember that we know with this hypothetical rat, how exactly each neuron is functioning. I think we can predict how it will react in each situation by precise mathematical equations integrating the information from each chip. But, on the other hand, we cannot ever hope to do that as the rat surely will die before we even do it. So the problem here also is the same as the above two problems. Our inability to examine a situation does not mean that the situation is unexaminable. Perhaps at a later date with newer technology, we might be able to do so. And that ladies and gentlemen, is the goal and eternal hope of Science. Or as Sheldon of big bang theory says "to peel off the mask of the universe and stare at the face of god". So keep peeling till you stare at the face of god.