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DNA Blueprints Guide The Construction Of Specific Human Structures
Chad Mirkin discusses using DNA to build a three-dimensional structure out of gold, likening the process to building a house. Starting with basic materials such as bricks, wood, siding, stone and shingles, a construction team can build many different types of houses out of the same building blocks.
The article includes an audio recording of the full interview. Photo courtesy of the UCSD School of Medicine.
| Why Does The Sun Rise And Other Questions |
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| Opinion - Global Warning | |||
| Lisa Jain Thompson | |||
| Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:00 | |||
 Fairfax, VA, USA. Although most of the Twenty-First Century English speaking world is heliocentric — at least as far as the earth revolving around the sun — we still speak of the sun rising in the morning. I suspect that this is because we just can’t deal with the somewhat disturbing thought that the earth horizon is sinking and we certainly don’t want to be reminded of our fragile place on one obscure outer arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
So the sun rises and sets and we generally ignore the fact that our planet is rotating eastward once every 23.9345 hours while taking 365.256 rotations (days) to orbit the sun once. Once around the sun is a year but we don’t think about our actual earth orbit much unless we are sending a robot explorer to another planet (Mars, perhaps). Then we need to learn higher math(s), orbital mechanics and how to use them.
This is where applied science meets the theoretical, the physical universe confronts the lab, and real world engineering supplants classroom teaching. “Going Live” places all bets on the table and a mistake in a field test — a theory proved emphatically wrong — might mean your life.
But that’s not what I want to write about.
If transluminal [N1] means to travel beyond the speed of light, shouldn’t transgender mean you are beyond gender? All galaxies inside the Hubble sphere recede subluminally (slower than light) and all galaxies outside recede superluminally (faster than light). [N2]
What does this have to do and how does this relate to transgender? Decoherence associated with super-Hubble modes in de Sitter space [N3] may have a dual description in which it is attributed to the interaction of sub-Hubble modes with an environment that resides just inside the observer’s horizon. Decoherence associated with transgender modes in normal space have a dual description which is attributed to the interaction of gender modes with an environment that resides just inside the transgender performance.
But why a transgender performer should chose to have any gender at all suggests that gender is real and anchored to the physical reality of biology. If gender were only a social construct, an ethereal wisp that has no basis in the sex binary, shouldn’t the transgender be beyond gender? If, as some theorists suggest, gender is a fiction imposed by society, why do transgenders spend so much time and effort insisting what their gender is? — it’s an artificial construct after all.
Just as transsexuals are not beyond sex, transgenders do not appear to be beyond gender.
But that’s not what I want to write about.
Since semi-annual means twice a year and biannual means twice a year but biennial means every two years, you would expect bisexuals to have two sexes or perhaps have sex once every two years. But they don’t appear to, do they? I mean the two sexes part — I doubt that most bisexuals have the reproductive organs of both sexes. I don’t have a clue how often an average bisexual (other than me) engages in love making but every two years seems excessive. [N4]
The dictionary tells me that bisexual means being sexually responsive to both [N5] sexes; ambisexual.
Ambisexual? Is this like being ambidextrous? Or perhaps it is veiled reference to the Kama Sutra or a Master of Primate Sexual Positioning.
Returning to the dictionary one more time (rather than consulting the Playboy Mansion) finds that ambisexual is defined as being sexually attracted to either sex indiscriminately.
Indiscriminately? That definition must have been written by an aging straight Calvinistic Preacher Man.
Never have been indiscriminate. Ok, there was that one night and I was drunk and he was drunk …
That sexy lesbian professional football player? When she walked me to my car that night, I really thought that she was concerned with my safety.
And when that woman and I pretended to be a lesbian couple so that that drunk horny guy would quit pestering us at the bar, how were we to know that kissing each other would heat both our engines full up to beyond Warp 10?
We were definitely transluminal when we hit the bed.
But that’s not what I want to write about.
Miscellaneous Thoughts and QuestionsIf God is our father, who is our mother-in-law?
Suppose Shakespeare really was a queen?
If love never changes, why do we age?
If all men are created equal, how do you explain American Idol?.
Richard Pryor and George Carlin are both dead. Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller are both still making movies. In light of this, discuss God’s Plan from Creation to Jerry Lewis.
If death is highly overrated, what should be first?
Aces and Eights are a dead man’s hand. What would they be called if Jack McCall had missed?
If the Texas Rangers had won the World Series during the five years when George W. Bush was managing partner, when would Iraq have been invaded?
Who is Joshua and why does he have a Tree?
If gay is queer, shouldn’t straight be sad?
Swearing in Barack Obama as President of the United States represents half a first; Michelle Obama becoming First Lady, however, will be more or less a full first.
But we don’t want to talk about that, do we?
Notes[N1] Superluminal. Vonda N. McIntyre. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN-10: 0395349427 ISBN-13: 978-0395349427. Science Fiction.
[N2] Edwin Powell Hubble (20 Nov 1889 – 28 Sep 1953) was an American astronomer who demonstrated the existence of other galaxies outside of our own Milky Way and profoundly changed our understanding of the universe. Among other things, he discovered Hubble's Law, proving that the degree of redshift observed in light coming from a galaxy increases in proportion to the distance of that galaxy from the Milky Way, establishing the expansion of the universe. The limitations of redshift measurement results in what has become known as the Hubble limit and defines the Hubble volume (or Hubble sphere). The sphere contains the volume of the universe bounded by the Hubble limit; this fabulous object is frequently used synonymously for the observable universe. For us, the Hubble limit defines the cosmological event horizon, within which is that portion of the universe which is observable from any specified point at a specified time. In mathematical terms, the Hubble volume is the spherical region of space centered on the Earth with a comoving radius of c / H0, where c is the speed of light and H0 is the Hubble constant. More generally, the term "Hubble volume" can be applied to any region of space with a volume of order (c / H0)3. [N3] Four-dimensional deSitter spacetime satisfies the Einstein equations in vacuum with a positive cosmological constant. It was discovered by Willem de Sitter (6 May 1872 – 20 Nov 1934) and, independently, by Tullio Levi-Civita (29 Mar 1873 — 29 Dec 1941). So there. [N4] I sense a potential doctorate lying in wait. [N5] There’s that damned sexual binary raising its ugly head again.  Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson is the Co-Founder & President of TS-Si, Inc. She also serves as a Contributing Editor and columnist for the TS-Si website. Ms. Thompson's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. Lisa welcomes your comments. You can use the public form below or send private correspondence via her TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.
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