Life, Dreams and Reality -- Sohel's Blog

Alright. It is not a full human brain. A half a mouse brain instead. Simulated in a supercomputer with 4096 processors. Each processor has 256 MB of memory. That is quite a staggering number. "Using this machine the researchers created half a virtual mouse brain that had 8,000 neurons that had up to 6,300 synapses.The vast complexity of the simulation meant that it was only run for ten seconds at a speed ten times slower than real life - the equivalent of one second in a real mouse brain." A good start, indeed! In a short period of time, more structures and details will be added in this simulation, a full mouse brain is not that far away, it seems. This will surely lead to other more "closer to home" simulation, like a full human brain in a computing simulator. One may wonder, what practical applications beneficial to human and animal kind will be adopted from these and other similar future simulators? Article Link: Mouse brain simulated on computer Regards, Sohel

Two degrees temperature rise may not be much for many affluent parts of our world, but for Bangladesh, it can bring disaster, even its existence may get threatened in an unimaginable scale. A Bangladeshi writer, Tahmima Anam, writes in her eloquent and heart-felt prose in The New York Times article, a few excerpts are given below: For whatever else it strains to hold, it is the crush of humanity that makes Bangladesh what it is: a calamitous country, a country so full of people that every slight shift in circumstance has dire consequences. The weather does not have to be extreme. It has only to be intemperate, and the country does the rest. According to the United Nations, the temperatures this winter in some parts of Bangladesh were the coldest in 38 years. The last time it was this cold, Bangladesh was called East Pakistan. Looked at another way, however, the mean temperature was only two degrees below the average for January. Yet in a country so precariously balanced, two degrees me...

Read the following excerpt from an article in Reason magazine: the personhood brain network evolved because as an intensely social species, our ancestors' survival was enhanced by understanding the beliefs, motivations and personalities of others. They also speculate that the cost of ascribing intentions to non-intentional systems might have been far less than the cost of failing to recognize intentions in intentional systems. Thus the brain's personhood network may err on the side of activating too often. (This may account of religious belief systems that attributed intentions to the sun, rain, rivers, volcanoes and the like. Interestingly, the less humanity has attributed intentions to natural phenomena, the greater control we have obtained over them -- or is it the other way around?) Farah and Heberlein then claim that since the personhood network makes frequent mistakes and often attributes personhood to non-intentional systems that "suggests the personhood is a kind o...

This title from The New Scientist is somewhat misleading. The article describes the difficulties in differentiating wormholes from black holes. This problem in separating the two also raises the possibilities that many of the "indirectly" discovered black holes are perhaps wormholes, instead, the doorway to other universes. Two definitions are given below for black holes and wormholes for the interested ones: A black hole is an object with such a powerful gravitational field that nothing, not even light, can escape it if it strays within a boundary known as the event horizon . Einstein's theory of general relativity says black holes should form whenever matter is squeezed into a small enough space. Though black holes are not seen directly, astronomers have identified many objects that appear to be black holes based on observations of how matter swirls around them. Wormholes are warps in the fabric of space-time that connect one place to another. If you i...

Meet a few victims from World Bank's mysterious economic directives toward the developing nations around the world. This global financial institution was created in the vision of "help the poor" and "end the poverty" motto, but its apparently ruthless and forceful ordering of the developing nations' governments adopting neoliberalism are fueling more miseries and even unaccounted deaths from lack of water and electricity, high priced imported foods that is contributing to poor nutrition to millions, etc. How could this be expected from this "benevolent" world institution? The answer is the following: "It does not promote a sensible mix of markets and state action - the real path to development. No: the World Bank pursues the interests of US corporations over the poor, every time." Here is a few excerpt from Johann Hari's timely article in The Independent: Meet Hawa Amadu, 70-something, living in the muddy slums of Accra, the capital o...

From time to time a hot cup of tea or coffee, specially blended Frappuccino or Vanilla Bean can surely uplift a sour mood after a horrific morning rush traffic. If it is a wintry morning with unexpected snow, then the bitter sweet flavor of Caramel mocha can jump start those icy cold but stressed nerves. Various flavors of coffee, tea and other dairy or non-dairy beverages are here to stay for a foreseeable time. With its bitter-sweet taste, these beverages bring "The Lids", like Hitchcock's horror movie "The Birds". Read the following excerpts from Seattle Post-Intelligencer : .... when plastic lids are put into recyclable bins, they contaminate the contents. Most lids are made from polystyrene, a liquid hydrocarbon manufactured from petroleum. If polystyrene mixes with recyclable paper, the recyclables become waste. The Environmental Protection Agency has not come to a definitive conclusion on the direct carcinogenic effects of polystyrene, but the evidence is...

Ever since Star Trek had started its journey where "no man has gone before", traveling faster than the speed of light, warp drives, warm holes, etc., all these techie terms have seeped into mainstream consciousness. Sound barrier was crossed many and many years ago by the inventive human beings that certainly had raised the hope of doing the same with speed of light. However, there are differences. The following article published in NASA's website gives a succinct but good explanation what's this difference and what are the obstacles human ingenious are facing in crossing this "impossibility". Here is an excerpt: Ever since the sound barrier was broken, people have been asking: "Why can’t we break the light speed barrier too, what’s the big difference?" It is too soon to tell if the light barrier can be broken, but one thing is certain -- it’s a wholly different problem than breaking the sound barrier. The sound barrier was broken by an object that...

Could it be that genetically modified crops or commonly used pesticides like "neonicotinoids" behind this sudden "vanishing" of bees in several countries in the past few months? Bees are vital for agricultural field for their natural pollination abilities. How much affect it would play on world's food production if this trend of "vanishing" bees cannot be reversed in time? If the scientists find out that genetically modified or engineered crops or chemicals are the reasons for this outbreak of "mad bee disease", what does it tell of long term effect of human consumption of genetically modified food that have not been put into any long term rigorous systematic testing? The New York Time's article " Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons " strokes many "unpleasant" questions in mind. What is really happening to the bees? Read the full article from the following link: Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons Reg...

The underground organ market where economically deprived, poverty stricken poor men and women are selling their living organs to the rich men and women with money to pay. If one's loved one is struggling with an organ failure or severe malfunction, that one knows what it is like to be in this delicate painful scenario. It is true that since there is no effective government regulations except worthless "paper-laws" in world nations, in many cases, the underground activities in organ buying and selling have potential of bending the established rules, like discarding " brain-death standards , donor age limits and recipient health requirements. States have let transplant agencies put patients on life support, contrary to their living wills, to preserve their organs. If Congress revises its ban on organ sales, as some advocates hope, lawmakers in South Carolina plan to offer prisoners reduced sentences in exchange for organs or bone marrow." Whether government wan...

Look at the following sites, examples of what to come in a very short time when Web 2.0 goes the mainstream. The first website let you create your own picture puzzles, and the second one is a handy one in managing all To-Do-Lists, reminders, planning, etc., a nice alternative to pricey hand-held organizers. The immense power of web programming is only beginning to emerge! picture dots • dot to dot / connect the dots generator Remember the Milk: http://www.rememberthemilk.com/

It has already started. Cool online softwares slowly but definitely are replacing the old pc based ones. If you consider the benefits of online software, it makes sense: One incentive for companies to supply online software is compatibility. In one go all customers can be upgraded to the newest version and create files that are universally compatible, unlike different generations of Word documents. "Another advantage of online software is that the companies can track exactly what you do and how you use it. Then they can target specifically to you," said Mr Thompson. "If you send a lot of e-mails about they'll know that maybe you're trying to buy a cellphone, and they can serve you ads on cellphones. "So the companies really like it, and it's to the companies' advantage for the software to work extremely well and for you to use it all the time because then they get more information and then they can sell you more stuff." That is surely a h...

Here is a poem from The Paris Review, Spring 2007 edition. The link is the following: The Following Should Not Be Questioned More features like excellent interviews, fictions and other items can be read from The Paris Review online presentation. One of the best magazines for literature lovers! The Following Should Not Be Questioned Adam O. Davis Never before such a distant season of derision. Across town, the silo siren heralds an encore to panic. The lake below Mexico City shivers like a Plexiglas dance floor. A fine time to forget about our appointment with the radioman who was appropriately hostile with his briefcase blues: somewhere in California something is on fire. A smattering of pay phones is known as a “currency” of pay phones. Currently, this currency has no customer. Stay alert. Watch your neighbors. Leave us a backgammon board and your buttons for checkers. Leave us sharks and soapboxes and sleight of hand, Triffids and terc...

Saudi Arabia's repressed people have started to take "actions" against the monarchy instituted "moral police" whose purpose is to harass men and women if they are seen together in public, or if women choose not to cover the strands of their young or gray hear beneath the suffocating veil. These "moral police" is called (ironically) " Organization for the Promotion of Morals and Prevention of Vice", but like the unaccountable "divine" emperor at the throne, who is going to implement "Promotion of Morals and Prevention of Vice" on these wretched "moral" and "virtue" crunchers? It seems, Saudi Arabian oppressed people have started to take the "sticks" in their own hands. Link: Saudi moral police 'under attack

Useful instruction on how to revive those dust gathering "old pcs" that most of us bought paying hefty price in their hey days is hard to find. Windows have solid strangle hold in consumer pc market, but Linux is slowly gathering steam in the last few years. The article below published in Byte.com provides a short instruction on how to get up to speed in rejuvenating your old computers. Link to the article: How To Revive An Old PC With Linux

Having day dreams and make them come true may sometimes prove to have an ocean between. What does it take to become one's own boss? Is it huge reserve in the bank? Or having arcane technicalities embedded in neocorex? Working for someone else, making monies for corporate entities who mostly stay out of reach in La-La-La lands or scuba diving in exotic places while you, the "hard-working" individuals, busting your stressed cranium to pay the never stopping monthly bills. What does it take to break away from having that eerie feelings of being strapped in a hospital gurney, no movement is allowed, waiting to inhale the last breath? The following article published in The Spectrum may not give you the complete answer, but it can be a starting point for most earth-bound ones like me. Regards, Sohel Becoming Your Own Boss

While some powerful nations are too busy "putting out the fire", economic necessity, demands for energy in highly booming nations like China and India, are realigning "the geoeconomic and geopolitical landscape of the East, with serious ramifications for U.S. policy." The writer Afshin Molavi in his Washington Post article describes this new "realignment" between Middle-East and Asia as the "New Silk Road", "the growing business and trade corridor". Read the following extract: "The new Silk Road is largely the result of the confluence of China's and India's economic growth and high oil prices. China and the six oil-rich members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -- Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates -- are flush with cash. What's more, Chinese and Indian energy needs will ensure that the GCC region -- the equivalent of the world's 16th-largest economy -- continues to grow. By ...

Well made point from this article is the following observation from the ecologist Ken Caldeira, co-author of this comprehensive studies on the effects of re-forestation: "protecting the forest should be part of an effort to sustain the world's biodiversity. He also adds that the findings do not endorse clear-cutting or destroying wildlife habitats. "I think that it's important to look at preventing climate change as a means rather than an end in itself," he says. "Too narrow a focus on global warming and a loss of the broader focus of protecting life on this planet can lead to perverse outcomes." Rather than looking to forests to solve the current climate crisis by capturing carbon dioxide, he suggests targeting our "energy system," which continues to create the pollutant." Scientists attributes the following three major functions affecting climate: "They absorb carbon, which they pull from the atmosphere, creating a cooling effect; ...

Researchers using nanotechnology have taken a step toward creating an "optical cloaking" device that could render objects invisible by guiding light around anything placed inside this "cloak." The Purdue University engineers, following mathematical guidelines devised in 2006 by physicists in the United Kingdom, have created a theoretical design that uses an array of tiny needles radiating outward from a central spoke. The design, which resembles a round hairbrush, would bend light around the object being cloaked. Background objects would be visible but not the object surrounded by the cylindrical array of nano-needles, said Vladimir Shalaev, Purdue's Robert and Anne Burnett Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The design does, however, have a major limitation: It works only for any single wavelength, and not for the entire frequency range of the visible spectrum, Shalaev said. "But this is a first design step toward creating an optical clo...

Indian Cricket team exited the World Cup Cricket tournament in a shock. This single event has broken perhaps a billion or more Indian's heart across the globe . But in business, due to "reforms to capital markets, the stockmarket has exploded even as interest rates have remained low. Other bottlenecks have been removed, including rules limiting the debt that companies can accrue." Here is another observation from The Economist: "the tide of foreign acquisitions by Indian companies will continue to rise, with more and bigger deals. How successful they will be is less certain. No big foreign acquisition has failed so far—even though, according to consultants at McKinsey, that is the fate of 60-70% of cross-border takeovers. “It's important for companies to look at the economic rationale, and not get taken to extremes by emotion and ego,” says Ranbaxy's Mr Singh. Wise words for proud Indians, especially since their cricket team keeps losing." Read the full ...

Read the extract below and see the graph from The Economist : African and Arab countries have the fastest growing populations because of their high fertility rates. At the other end of the scale, many of those forecast to shrink most were formerly part of the Soviet Union. Economic decline and political uncertainty since its break-up has resulted in high emigration. For many countries, the opportunities arising from becoming members of the European Union has accelerated this trend. AFP

"Even though the prisoners are British rather than Americans, neocons have been desperate to head for television studios. The only reason they have not done so yet is a request by the British government to the Bush administration to stay out of it. Word has also reached members of Congress. The British fear is that even a mild rebuke from President George Bush, or a neoconservative such as John Bolton, will be counterproductive, escalating the crisis and making it harder to get the 15 back." Cautionary but smart steps by the Brits taken on this present crisis. The article linked below describes this growingly tense issue better than Fox's Mr. O'Reilly or CNN's Mr. Glen Beck's apparent ratcheting up more tension for further violence. With subtle and prudent diplomacy Brits has better chance getting release of these prisoners from Iranian regime peacefully. Read the complete article from the following link: The American dimension Regards, Sohel

Watch the following video posted on You Tube , where a segment of Bill O' Reilly's The Factor broadcast on March 30 th shows how this trickster put his own words on an American retired Colonel's mouth. Does Mr. O'Reilly have any shame? When Colonel Ann Wright rightfully informed Mr. O'Reilly that she had served 29 years for U.S. military, and asked him for his service record, that was the last straw for this "flamboyant" journalist. He signaled to cut her microphone off so that anymore pertinent questions like double standards in treatment of prisoners defying Geneva Conventions can not be raised. Perhaps Mr. O'Reilly assumes American general populace to be completely dumbed down, cowed down after years of his and his cohorts' similarly relentless bombardments of fictitious accounts, fabrications of elaborate myth and forceful denial of any complicity in soaring war and violence in the name of his upholding "sacred" journalism. Regar...