Why Do We Dream?

This is one slice of an incredible high resolution, enhanced color image of Pluto, recently released by NASA. You can see the full, larger version here. 

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Class in session as Planet X starts it off with our favorite dense objects: 

Neutron Stars!

http://www.space.com/22180-neutron-stars.html

One of my favourite geology facts is this: These diagrams are a lie.

The mantle isn’t yellow. Nor is it orange, or red, or brown, or gray, or black.

The earth’s mantle is made up largely of peridotite.

The earth’s mantle is lime green.

A neural network invents some pies

(Pie -> cat courtesy of https://affinelayer.com/pixsrv/ )

I work with neural networks, which are a type of machine learning computer program that learn by looking at examples. They’re used for all sorts of serious applications, like facial recognition and ad targeting and language translation. I, however, give them silly datasets and ask them to do their best.

So, for my latest experiment, I collected the titles of 2237 sweet and savory pie recipes from a variety of sources including Wikipedia and David Shields. I simply gave them to a neural network with no explanation (I never give it an explanation) and asked it to try to generate more.

Its very first attempt left something to be desired, but it had figured out that "P”, “i”, and “e” were important somehow.

e Piee  i m t iee ic ic Pa ePeeetae  a   e eee  ema iPPeaia eieer   i   i i  ie e eciie Pe eaei a

Second checkpoint. Progress: Pie.

Pie Pee Pie Pimi Pie Pim Cue Pie Pie (er Wie Pae Pim Piu Pie Pim Piea Cre Pia Pie Pim Pim Pie Pie Piee Pie Piee

This is expected, since the word “pie” is both simple and by far the most common word in the dataset. It stays in the stage above for rather a while, able to spell only “Pie” and nothing else. It’s like evolution trying to get past the single-celled organism stage. After 4x more time has elapsed, it finally adds a few more words: “apple”, “cream”, and “tart”. Then, at the sixth checkpoint, “pecan”.

Seventh checkpoint: These are definitely pies. We are still working on spelling “strawberry”, however.

Boatin Batan Pie Shrawberry Pie With An Cream Pie Cream Pie Sweesh Pie Ipple Pie Wrasle Cream Pie Swrawberry Pie Cream Pie Sae Fart Tart Cheem Pie Sprawberry Cream Pie Cream Pie

10th checkpoint. Still working.

Coscard Pie Tluste Trenss Pie Wot Flustickann Fart Oag’s Apple Pie Daush Flumberry O Cheesaliane Rutter Chocklnd Apple Rhupperry pie Flonberry Peran Pie Blumbberry Cream Pie Futters Whabarb Wottiry Rasty Pasty Kamphible Idponsible Swarlot Cream Cream Cront

16th checkpoint. Showing some signs of improvement? Maybe. It thinks Qtrupberscotch is a thing.

Buttermitk Tlreed whonkie Pie Spiatake Bog Pastry Taco Custard Pie Apple Pie With Pharf Calamed apple Freech Fodge Cranberry Rars Farb Fart Feep-Lisf Pie With Qpecisn-3rnemerry Fluit Turd Turbyy Raisin Pie Forp Damelnut Pie Flazed Berry Pie Figi’s Chicken Sugar Pie Sauce and Butterm’s Spustacian Pie Fill Pie With Boubber Pie Bok Pie Booble Rurble Shepherd’s Parfate Ner with Cocoatu Vnd Pie Iiakiay Coconate Meringue Pie With Spiced Qtrupberscotch Apple Pie Bustard Chiffon Pie

Finally we arrive at what, according to the neural network, is Peak Pie. It tracks its own progress by testing itself against the original dataset and scoring itself, and here is where it thinks it did the best.

It did in fact come up with some that might actually work, in a ridiculously-decadent sort of way.

Baked Cream Puff Cake Four Cream Pie Reese’s Pecan Pie Fried Cream Pies Eggnog Peach Pie #2 Fried Pumpkin Pie Whopper pie Rice Krispie-Chiffon Pie Apple Pie With Fudge Treats Marshmallow Squash Pie Pumpkin Pie with Caramelized Pie Butter Pie

But these don’t sound very good actually.

Strawberry Ham Pie Vegetable Pecan Pie Turd Apple Pie Fillings  Pin Truffle Pie Fail Crunch Pie Crust Turf Crust Pot Beep Pies Crust Florid Pumpkin Pie Meat-de-Topping Parades Or Meat Pies Or Cake #1 Milk Harvest Apple Pie Ice Finger Sugar Pie Amazon Apple Pie Prize Wool Pie Snood Pie Turkey Cinnamon Almond-Pumpkin Pie With Fingermilk Pumpkin Pie With Cheddar Cookie Fish Strawberry Pie Butterscotch Bean Pie Impossible Maple Spinach Apple Pie Strawberry-Onions Marshmallow Cracker Pie Filling Caribou Meringue Pie

And I have no what these are:

Stramberiy Cheese Pie The pon Pie Dississippi Mish  Boopie Crust Liger Strudel Free pie Sneak Pie Tear pie Basic France Pie Baked Trance pie Shepherd’s Finger Tart Buster’s Fib Lemon Pie Worf Butterscotch Pie Scent Whoopie Grand Prize Winning I*iple Cromberry Yas Law-Ox Strudel Surf Pie, Blue Ulter Pie - Pitzon’s Flangerson’s Blusty Tart Fresh Pour Pie Mur’s Tartless Tart

More of the neural network’s attempts to understand what humans like to eat:

Perhaps my favorite: Small Sandwiches

All my other neural network recipe experiments here.

Want more than that? I’ve got a bunch more recipes that I couldn’t fit in this post. Enter your email here and I’ll send you 38 more selected recipes.

Want to help with neural network experiments? For NaNoWriMo I’m crowdsourcing a dataset of novel first lines, after the neural network had trouble with a too-small dataset. Go to this form (no email necessary) and enter the first line of your novel, or your favorite novel, or of every novel on your bookshelf. You can enter as many as you like. At the end of the month, I’ll hopefully have enough sentences to give this another try.

When engineers are bored.

Acting outrageous and making a complete fool of yourself while drunk has been linked to a genetic mutation. It blocks the production of one of the body’s serotonin receptors, which can affect mood swings, impulsive behavior, and decision making. So far, the mutation has only been found in Finnish people, but the discovery is helping researchers understand more about the role serotonin plays in your body. Source Source 2

What makes fireworks colorful?

It’s all thanks to the luminescence of metals. When certain metals are heated (over a flame or in a hot explosion) their electrons jump up to a higher energy state. When those electrons fall back down, they emit specific frequencies of light - and each chemical has a unique emission spectrum.

You can see that the most prominent bands in the spectra above match the firework colors. The colors often burn brighter with the addition of an electron donor like Chlorine (Cl). 

But the metals alone wouldn’t look like much. They need to be excited. Black powder (mostly nitrates like KNO3) provides oxygen for the rapid reduction of charcoal © to create a lot hot expanding gas - the BOOM. That, in turn, provides the energy for luminescence - the AWWWW.

Aluminium has a special role — it emits a bright white light … and makes sparks!

Images: Charles D. Winters, Andrew Lambert Photography / Science Source, iStockphoto, Epic Fireworks, Softyx, Mark Schellhase, Walkerma, Firetwister, Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com, Søren Wedel Nielsen

ELI5:How come people can't be cryogenically frozen safely as the ice crystals destroy the cell membranes, but sex cells such as sperm are kept frozen for long periods of time yet remain functional?

I work in a lab where we freeze down cells all of the time. We freeze our cells in a medium that contains 5% DMSO, which among other things can be used as a cryoprotectant. However, DMSO is also toxic to cells at the concentrations necessary for cryoprotection. Consequently, when you freeze cells in DMSO, you add the DMSO medium at ice-cold temperatures and don’t allow the cells to warm up. When you later thaw the cells, you have to dilute out the DMSO as quickly as possible without causing osmotic shock, which can pop the cells. Such restrictions on freezing and thawing would basically be impossible to control at the level of a complete organism.

However, to contradict a lot of previous posts, individual cells can be recovered from freezing with high viability. When performed properly (and this varies quite a bit by cell type), you can expect >90% of cells to be alive following thaw.

The chemicals that allow cells to survive freezing are toxic to the body. Keeping the cells cold minimized the damage that this chemical does to the cells. With single cell solutions, adding the chemical at ice-cold temperatures and immediately diluting it out when you thaw the cells can keep 90% of the cells alive. There’s no way to do this with an intact body.

It’s also worth noting that this is probably not the only reason that this technique doesn’t scale to organisms.

Explain Like I`m Five: good questions, best answers.

Olinguito 

On Tuesday, Bill Stanley grabbed my arm and pulled me into a side hallway as we were walking towards the mammal collections on the third floor. He looked around suspiciously before leaning in, and in a hushed tone he said

there’s a new raccoon.

What do you mean? 

There’s a new raccoon. You can’t tell anyone. It’s in the pipeline. Going live on Thursday.

Wha- I wasn’t going to-

You can’t tell anyone. Guess where it was discovered?

Oh, geez. I don’t know. Maybe Per-

Here. It was discovered here. 

Then he patted my shoulder, winked, and kept walking. 

Such was my introduction to the olinguito - and yesterday Bill brought it out to show me. In front of us were two drawers, one with the previously known species and the newly described animals on the right. It was immediately obvious to me that before us were two different animals - the size, color and length of the fur, the size of the ears - but without the previous knowledge that they were not one in the same, would I have seen the same dissimilarities? 

This is what sparks me. This is what drives my enthusiasm. In these drawers for sixty years, side-by-side these animals remained, their full potential not realized until a curious researcher took the quiet time to sit down and take a concentrated look at them. It’s the romance of the discovery – it was here all along! – and once you see the striking inconsistencies there comes a feeling of empowerment, the thought that we are the next big discoverers. The thrill of the breakthrough remains attainable, accessible. It’s not beyond our reach or out of grasp - I look forward to seeing what you find next.