The Big Picture: Science!

[bunji]

In this thread and episode, people not realizing that some factors make random things incredibly difficult. Jetpack? Fuel source that doesnt weigh too much and which is actually economically viable, aswell as stabilizing flight. A cure for the common cold won't be found, because the common cold is collective term for a million different kinds of germs that produce basically the same immuno-defence response.

I'm sure similar seemingly trivial things are whats hindering the other stuff aswell. Mining oil on mars wont be profitable untill some clever guys invent some way of lifting mass out of a planets gravitational pull without expending so much fuel that you lose money in the end. You've all seen the shuttle launches, think of all the fuel expended to launch 4 guys in a bathtub into orbit and imagine what it would cost to hoist large quantities of oil into space.

I share moviebobs dismay that some things that we "should" have now just arent, but look at what we do have ffs. The iPad is crazy. Its a flat board. That can instantly summon up almost all of mankinds accumalted knowledge. 3d tv. Damn there's so much, lets enjoy what we have and celebrate science not only for giving us that but what it may one day give us.

 

[Dak_N_Jaxter]

*watches video*
You glorious nerd

 

[BgRdMchne]

How come you never see the headline "Psychic Wins Lottery?"
-Jay Leno

I don't need to be psychic to know these things. Just like I know that Jesus will never come back, there will never be peace on Earth, and that coal will never spontaneously turn into gold.

Your life will be a lot better if you take off the rose colored glasses and accept that this world is shit and that science is no longer about innovation and advancement, merely profit and finding better ways to put dumb YouTube videos on a telephone.

 

[DuelLadyS]

Dear Bob,

It takes decades of selective breeding to make a small dog a few pounds lighter. Shrinking bears to hamster size will take centuries, if not millenia. Sorry.

Sure, we could lie about what's on Mars. Then the powers that be will decide to fight over who owns Mars. Other countries space guys will call us out to prove it to buy themselves time to get up there and plant their 'dibs' flag first. It's harder to set up than it sounds.

It would cost McDonalds more to set up the labs and equipment to grow meat than to just keep killing cows- not to mention cultural backlash against lab grown food. We'll do what we can on our own.

We apologize that your jetpack isn't ready.

Sincerely, Science.

 

[Eli Wasserman]

Here ya go Bob. Enjoy

http://martinjetpack.com/

 

[Gluzzbung]

Hate to say it, but the reason we're still on Earth is because any type of bacteria on another planet would kill everyone it touched, most likely.

no its not, not at all. think space suit. and then think about getting to those planets. and rethink what you just said.

So you think people would be able to construct a steller space station, on an alien planet, and keep it air tight so no bacteria could get in? That's unreasonable and what do you clean the space suit with? Even if it is possible, which I highly doubt to the degree of certainty, it would be completely uneconomical because of the amount you would need to take and how frequently you would need to take it.

 

[Madrak the Red]

I usually hate doing this, but I feel I just have to:

Bob, please don't do this. It makes me sad. As soon as I saw the title, I though 'I sure hope he doesn't ask for a goddamn jetpack'. And then he went and did it. Needless to say, it made me die a little inside. Why don't you have one? Because they're impractical and incredibly dangerous. They have short runtimes, and technology does not exist to allow them to be much longer. Once again, as is often the case with these 'why don't we have x' scenarios, perfectly plausible theory is defeated by engineering, and our actual current ability.

Number two: growing steaks. No large scale infrastructure exists to do this. People like the way things are. People don't buy GM food, they aren't going to jump on this too quickly. It is a technology in it's infancy. Give it time, you sound like a child moaning because things aren't happening quite as fast as you like.

Number three: Space travel. I agree, it's a mighty shame that space programs are getting cut all over the place. I want to go to Mars as much as the next guy. I want Star Trek to be as real as much as the next guy. But unless some fairly major overhauls in the fundamentals of physics take place, it isn't going to happen. I'm sorry (and I really am) but it just isn't. Not within your lifetime, anyway.

Also: a scientist who lies is no longer a scientist. As people have said, you do not falsify data. You seek the truth, and the reason. Doing what you propose would have the potential to discredit the entire scientific community. Which would be really, really bad. You for sure do not want people to stop listening to science.

Number four: the many different shapes and sizes of dogs is due to a long, long period of selective breeding, complete with health problems that come with it. It wasn't a process of picking out genes or whatever (which is super difficult in controlling things like size of a very complex mammal, by the way). To do it with other animals would require a similar process, one with millions of animals taking many years. And a rather brutal process at that. And then let's not forget the genetic diseases that come with any pure-breed. I do not personally know, but the genome of a dog may support the differences in phenotype that can be exhibited. Such differences may not be possible with other species (granted, this is somewhat conjecture, but it is still possible).

So please, Bob, think before you speak next time. To me, a some-what educated scientist and engineer, you sound unabashedly ignorant and demanding. Granted, there is the possibility that this was a joke, and I'm sure people will urge me to take it as such. But please, do a little reading up before you start.

 

[aquarius87]

This was the best episode so far !

A friend of mine showed me a documentary about a chicken battery.
Kept saying how unnatural it is, and we should close em all-together.
After explaining him there's NO WAY a few domesticated chickens in the backyard could supply the whole world of hard needed eggs, my friend still stood with his point of (as he said) science ruining the world.

Later I read an article about the first egg "created" without a chicken ever getting involved :O
I told my friend, and also about the "science engineered meat"...get this: he'd much rather die than eat unnatural food :<

I'm all for the future (w00t green chicks ) but there's just no way to please everyone :$

 

[Prof. Monkeypox]

I'd complain that you don't seem to "get" how science works if I wasn't so convinced that was part of the joke. So... good job, I guess?

 

[Gluzzbung]

I love meat and am pretty handy with a grill, but I am totally on board for cultured meat. Raising and slaughtering livestock for calories is a really inefficient use of resources and if there's a cheaper way that uses less real estate and less slaughter to make meat that tastes the same and offers the same nutritional benefits (or better) we should all be in favour of it. Heck, Taco Bell admitted their meat is like 1/3 real beef to 2/3 soy already, so it's not like the taste actually matters to the average fast-food junkie.

Hate to say it, but the reason we're still on Earth is because any type of bacteria on another planet would kill everyone it touched, most likely.

I love H.G. Wells, but his understanding of biology is a century old. Why would bacteria evolve to prey on organisms from a biosphere on a completely alien planet? It makes no evolutionary sense.

While they wouldn't specifically be evolved to prey on us, we must assume that the basic fundamentals of life; oxygen, food, water, heat, are still apparant, and so the bacteria would be drawn to us. Our bleach and disinfectant may not even do anything to it. Also, out immune system would be completely ill prepared to tackle whatever infection beset us, whether it is the local cold or something more like a planet wide equivilent of MRSA that we cannot counter.

There is a 99.9% possibility that at least part of their evolutionary timeline has no connection with us and so each would be unprepared to counter the other. It would be irresponcible of us to send people to another planet only to die themselves and kill the planets population with the diseases they brought.

 

[wolf thing]

Hate to say it, but the reason we're still on Earth is because any type of bacteria on another planet would kill everyone it touched, most likely.

no its not, not at all. think space suit. and then think about getting to those planets. and rethink what you just said.

So you think people would be able to construct a steller space station, on an alien planet, and keep it air tight so no bacteria could get in? That's unreasonable and what do you clean the space suit with? Even if it is possible, which I highly doubt to the degree of certainty, it would be completely uneconomical because of the amount you would need to take and how frequently you would need to take it.

you do know there a space station above us right now, where people live for years at a time, in space, where there is not atmosphere at all. i think you need to stop and do a bit of thinking.

 

[unlimitedwin]

As a Science student in University studying Astrophysics and Biology, I can give tell you the actual basic reasons none of these are commonplace.



[HEADING=2]1) Jetpacks:[/HEADING]

Far too energy inefficient with current technology.
We simply do not have the resources to run these on a large scale.

Personal Jetpacks exist, as do flying cars, the issue is providing an efficient energy source in terms of space required for fuel, price of fuel and energy output.



[HEADING=2]2) Cultured Meat:[/HEADING]

Religion and the related "not what God intended" morality.
Like it or not, religion does legitimately hold back science, for better or worse.

There are also plenty of non-religious factors to the issue born of ignorance of the science, i.e. meat being dangerous to consume as it might change our genes or cause other defects. They may be factually wrong, but they can be loud...


[HEADING=2]3) Space Travel:[/HEADING]

Same issue as with Jetpacks: Energy source.

Our planet earth simply does not contain the amount of resources necessary for large scale space travel with current technology.

Fusion technology (same reaction that powers the Sun (and Ironman for that matter...)) is the current main hope for achieving this efficiency, but we are still MANY years away from seeing fusion reactors successfully scaled down to manageable sizes.


[HEADING=2]4) Small Animals:[/HEADING]

Smaller brain = less intelligence.

A creature that requires greater intelligence to survive would die if it were miniature.

There are lots of other biological issues with resizing animals.

Lets just put it down to being cruel, stupid and impractical.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Hate to say it, but the reason we're still on Earth is because any type of bacteria on another planet would kill everyone it touched, most likely.

Science!

Hey, science guys, we need you to answer a few questions.

Watch Video

Theres no life outside earth thats even reachable by us. Most likely. Mars has no life.

Jetpacks exist, the meat growing technology doesnt produce meat on a large enough scale AT ALL as it needs nutrient paste and a framework to be built for it to grow around and it takes ages to perfect the technology. Space is expensive and theres nothing in space worth getting, why lie to send us somewhere hard to reach, hard to supply and with no real resources?

Why would you train a bear at all? Wolves, which we bred to make dogs are usefull even as wolves. We can tame wolves. Not tame as in fit for a single mother but good for a hunting pet? Damn right. We decided to breed those wolves for OTHER usefull traits like size, speed and smell. Bears have no traits worth having at all, not tamable, large, dangerous, dont hunt food we eat well, greedy, no pack mentality, will NOT obey leaders for that reason ect... so having one in the first place is useless, they only thing you CAN do is selectively breed it. Which is wastefull since for the mean time its dangerous and useless. There. Any more questions?

 

[Xanadu84]

This is weird. Bob is usually pretty thoughtful and realistic, down to earth in his assessments. And then suddenly he decides to act silly and childish for an episode.

I mean its fine, its funny and all, but it was a bit jarring.

But just to clarity

Science is practical. Jetpacks are not. But if you really want a jetpack to yourself, go pay a scientist a few million dollars.

Cultured meat is possible. But it's not cost effective when compared to old fashion slaughter. Also, you will still need something to grow the meat from. Practically there's just not enough of a difference yet between growing and slaughtering to justify the huge investment to start this up. And places in Africa have difficulty making a well, never mind a genetics lab. And lastly, you think food producers are anxious to be portrayed as affronts to God? I guerentee you that if McDonalds started selling burgers from hunks of non-animal flesh, there would be a boycott of terrified people who can't even get past the idea of irradiated food or genetic engineering. ell, Im very pro-science, and I would have to pause before trying a test tube burger because hey, its probably fine, but what if its not when I can just get a burger from this cow? Even if this was largely accepted (Which it wouldn't be) the loss of profit would be larger then the savings. I will grant you, however, that animal rights groups should be all over this. Well, unless they start thinking that a grown porkchop without a nervous system deserves rights. Which sounds crazy, but so does PETA general.

Space travel is cool. Working economies are better. Better to put space travel on the back burner and develop more practical technologies that will help facilitate faster space technology advancement in the future then blow all our cash now, and the resulting stagnation in our economy actually pushes back space travel by decades. Do you make 1 SVC in Starcraft then then let him gather minerals to kick out a marine? No, you make a bunch of boring SCVs which means that you have Siege Tanks instead. If you want Space Travel, research the kind of practical technologies that will make life better now AND help space travel long term. Also, the whole lying thing probably wouldn't actually pass Peer Review. Scientists give way, way more transparency then other professions, and even politicians get caught. Scientists couldn't manage this.

We have been forcefully evolving dogs for millenia. Maybe we are better at it now, but that's still a pretty huge head start. And once its domesticated, evolution becomes easier. If there's a demand, it will likely happen. Personally, I say screw dogs, go check out domesticated Foxes

 

[BgRdMchne]

I don't need to be psychic to know these things.

Yes you do. At least to be certain

If we're going to get pedantic, then I'll argue that there is no such thing as absolute knowledge and that all is just informed speculation.

Remember when it was "known" that the world was flat or that the atom was the smallest piece of mass, etc. Although the scientific method may be a little more accurate than Greek mythology at explaining the world, it is not perfect.

 

[RadiusXd]

I will answer all 3 of these to the best of my knowledge with as few words as possible.

A) Why no Jet packs, Fly Car, and what not.

Answer: We have Jet backs, and we have flying cars (there called planes). See Jet packs are difficult to use as a flying requires much more skill then driving. Air is difficult to navigate and takes lots of skill and training to be able to perform safely. And even after all that, the numerous jet packs, and rocket powered wing suits that exist are still VERY dangerous. One mistake and you are dead, one pocket of thin air and you have a serious accident. Jet propulsion is not an efficient form of mass transit no matter how neat it might sound.

Why not grown meat?

Answer: It's not cost effective. They are working on it but the general issue is that the cost of growing an organ super out weighs the cost of raising cattle. Raising cattle is pretty cheap as they feed them selves, and what they eat is a renewable resource. The whole system is already in place, so why grow them? Its a fine idea if the science can make it cost effective which we are very far from.

Whats up with the human space program?

Answer: It's useless. And I'm serious, it's completely fucking useless. The only use is to mine asteroids which might be a profitable venture, which can be done by robots. Robots can handle all of our space travel needs at a fraction of the cost.
Now why is it useless? Because people in space is unnecessary and will always be unnecessary. Robots and AI are the key tools to space exploration, when it comes to deep space exploration we will first be sending robots who can do things like survive absolute zero, and 1000 year journeys to the nearest life harnessing planet. As far as physics is concerned faster then Light speed travel is impossible. So we have so pretty insane treks to the nearest life habitable star.
Tell me who was better for scientists, Spirit and Opportunity or Neil Armstrong? Spirit and Opportunity killed the human space program.

Why no small genetically altered bear pets.

Well we could, but we just don't. You could without fancy genetic experimentation, Down breed bears into small cute domesticated pets. But the issues that stand in the way are things like Bears being protected a species, and it not being cost effective. And the number of generations it would take would be quite staggering. See dogs have been domesticated over many years and they are ready to breed within a year of birth. Which makes domestication quite simple. That and wolves don't attack people, bears do.


Past that we have better things to solve before we can start on deep space exploration, like developing long lasting and reliable sources of energy, using genes to super evolve our species into something far beyond anything we could imagine, and continue to develop computer technologies so we can better facilitate every last aspect of our existence.

you do know what time dilation is right?

 

[RJ Dalton]

Not to crush your hopes and dreams, Bob, but there actually is a *very* significant problem with building stations on Mars. See, there was a Biodome experiment done a while back that totally fell apart a while back. It turns out, you can't make an enclosed environment to mimic the outside world because the growth of certain bacteria messes up the the oxygen levels dramatically within the space of a couple of months and we have no way of controlling it. I believe the project was called Biosphere2, if you want to look up the details. Basically, it was exactly the same as the Biodome movie, though; a carefully controlled experiment being ruined by unexpected and unwanted brainless organisms far below the level of evolution expressed by the rest of the planet.

 

[The Imp]

ill just leave this here
http://www.imgftw.net/img//170221905.jpg

 

[Gallium]

Science Answers! (I am a Chemist)

Point 1) The Jet Pack.
I'm not going to give you the lame answer of "you already have them, here is the Bell rocket belt". I take it you want more than 20 seconds of flight and less death-trapness.

You don't have Your jet pack because chemistry says "No."
No ifs, no buts.

Chemically fuelled jet packs simply can not contain enough energy in such a small area. This chemistry, all the laws (well, the major ones at least) are known and not going to change. We have pictures (Thank you Electron Microscopes!). You can compress and store the fuel as much as you like, but eventually you start hitting the limits of what is mechanically possible / weigh so much you lose all benefit of carrying the extra fuel.

Now, you could say "use nuclear!"... but if you could do that at "carry on your back" levels, you would have things far, far cooler than a jet pack to play with.

Which leads us neatly on to answer...

Point 3) Why no cities on Mars?
Chemistry says "No.... at least at cost effective levels".

Exactly the same problem as above. You can not get enough bang per buck with chemical reactions to launch the HUGE rockets required for a colonisation effort cheaply. As for your idea of lying... Consider this:
Say the Moon is covered in solid gold bars. No need to dig them, no need to refine the ore, just solid bars lying around you can pick up and chuck in your space ship.
At today's prices would still be cheaper to just dig it out of the ground on earth than to send a person up there to get them and bring them back.

*THAT* is how expensive space travel is.

Now, once again, you could use nuclear. More sensible idea this time round, but most ways of doing it require for transporting the multi-hundred ton nuclear engine into orbit (while they can reach a much higher top speed, they don't generate sufficient thrust to get into orbit to begin with). Which brings us back to our old friend chemistry... which is a *****.

Point 2) Grow Meat.

Science is working on it. But... it is bloody expensive! For the moment at least.
Once again, consider this:

Scientist + Lab + Chemicals + Biotech process + Quality Checks + Regulations = The Definition of Expensive.

Some guy + Field of Grass + Cow = Cheap.

Sorry, down to money. Making meat cheaper than "leave and animal with some grass" is going to be very hard work.


Point 4) Small Dogs

Genetic variability. Dogs have the highest variability in their genes of any animal, they are also domesticated making them easy to select traits (because of this variability) via breeding. Bears... not so much. Any variation in their genes will be killed to death in the wild making the task even harder.

Now, genetic engineering might be able to help you in the future. But that will take time. And a lot of Bears.

Hope that helps!