People have mentioned that they miss Noemon's science thread. I read a ton of science news, so I thought I'd start a thread and try to post at least one interesting link every day so we can talk about it. Maybe I'll even make a few posts where I talk about science topics without the benefit of a link.
I'll try to update this post so all the links will be collected in one place.
Oh, and feel free to post links that you find interesting. I'll try to add them to this post, too.
[ November 18, 2007, 04:18 PM: Message edited by: Shigosei ]
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Great idea, Shig!
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Okay, the link that caught my eye today is actually a blog post: Martian Colors. The author talks about a talk he attended regarding synesthesia, where the brain mixes different senses. One common form is grapheme-color synesthesia, where certain numbers or letters evoke sensations of color. What's interesting is that these sensations are real enough that they apparently can help people perform certain tasks more easily -- check out the article for more details.
What's even wilder is that a colorblind man with synesthesia still experienced certain colors, even though his retina couldn't detect them. So that raises the question: this guy can experience colors that he's never actually detected with his eyes. When I see blue light, is there some particular set of neurons or neuron firing pattern that corresponds to what goes on in this guy's brain when he sees a letter he associates with blue? Is there some inherent blueness experience that can occur without ever seeing the appropriate wavelength of light?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Yay science!
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Not exactly a science link, snowball sulfur, yet related to the above via communication and art.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I didn't even have the sound on and that made me smile.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Synesthenia. Hmm. *read link*
I kind of have something similar with music.
Play me a band, and I have a color association. This includes music whose CD case, or any color at all, I have not seen.
Example: Panic! At the Disco's song I Write Sins, Not Tragedies, is maybe... a slightly violet-red.
Daughtry's song It's Not Over is more of a black-blue.
Gavin DeGraw's song Chariot is yellow-orange.
The Fray's song Over My Head is red.
From the Wallflowers, songs definitely have colors. Like, their song Letters From the Wasteland has a burnt-orange/brown color, their song The Beautiful Side of Somewhere has a... whitish-blue feeling.
The Decemberists' songs all have interesting colors too. The Engine Driver is definitely purple, for example.
Death Cab for Cutie tends to have bluish hues of different sorts for the songs of theirs I have. In fact, I note that many times a band's music tends to fit in similar colors, like red, orange and yellow for Panic! At the Disco, or bluish above for Death Cab, etc.
I mean, this isn't so much a strong thing, more of a subtle association, and it really isn't always clear, but it keeps... happening. It's weird. Perhaps it's sometimes the association with some words in the songs themselves, or things I see while listening sometime that makes a connection, or what. It might be that such things have a significant impact, and not all songs automatically create a color association, it seems to occur more while I'm in my car, for example, and thus paying more attention to the music.
Maybe it's nothing. I don't know! But I know the color feels associated. It was weird, the way that this article described the letter number thing just sounded oddly familiar.
Edit:
While listening to Boa's song Duvet at this moment, after finishing typing this up and just listening a moment, I noticed a definite puplre/black vibe from the song.
Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :
I too get color vibes from some songs.
Clubbed to death, is intense "matrix" green, and so is Furious Angels. I Know You See It, is also green.
It's nothing intense or serious besides for a vague feeling of color and is limited to a few songs.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Oooh I like this idea. I have an article in the current Scientific American I'm reading which is fascinating that I want to post about.
Anyway, the article says that virtually everyone living in the temperate zones, particularly people with dark skin, don't get enough vitamin D, and that vitamin D is really good to protect against cancer, and lots of diseases, and auto-immune disorders. It's really interesting. I started taking 2000 IU of vitamin D a day because of this article. There are some studies that show no benefit too, so it's not completely clear. But it sounded like something important that people might want to look into.
[ November 05, 2007, 08:15 PM: Message edited by: Tatiana ]
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
I read that one too! I thought it was interesting that there were different pathways for producing the finished molecule that the body needs.
For those who can't read the article, it goes like this: D3 is made in skin cells when they absorb ultraviolet light. D2 comes from food sources. Either D3 or D2 can be made into 25D in the liver, and then 1,25D in the kidneys. However, the skin cells that make D3 in the first place can do all those steps too.
By the way, for those who have journal access through a university library or other institution, Scientific American may be available online for you.
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
My favorite article (of sorts) on synesthesia is from Cassidy Curtis, a former student of my advisor in college (another of whose former students is rather well known). There's a new (since I'd last visited) flash applet at the bottom of the page that interactively shows how he sees text. Pretty cool!
Interestingly enough, my friend Veronica (who does research on synesthesia) posted a comment on the blog earlier today. Small world, I guess?
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Comet Holmes has brightened dramatically. Previously, it was so faint that a good telescope was required to see it. Over a few days, it brightened enough to be clearly visible to the naked eye, even in places with light pollution. Apparently, it has yet to dim again (it's been over a week since the initial flare-up), so go check it out! Viewing tips and a telescope image.
Apparently, the sudden increase in brightness is due to the comet abruptly throwing off a lot of gas and dust, as comets tend to do when they get close to the sun. What's odd is the comet is nowhere near the sun, and there's no good explanation for the eruption.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Elephant seals are being used as diving probes to make ocean water depth, temperature, and salinity measurements. Mostly to track living and migration habits of the seals themselves but with the bonus of being an inexpensive though uncontrollable UAV. (The glued-on SEaOS radio-tags are shed during the annual moulting process).
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
This video of a solar flare forming on the surface of the sun is the most amazing thing I've seen in a long time. I can't stop watching it! I keep running through it over and over again and seeing new stuff each time.
I really want a weapon that will do this... at least in some video game somewhere. How cool would that be? Posted by Saephon (Member # 9623) on :
Wow, that is pretty mesmerizing Tatiana. I'm not gonna lie, the first thing I thought of was the Lifestream from Final Fantasy VII >_<
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
High definition video of the moon's surface. It's lovely. I think it's odd that we haven't really been studying the moon much since the end of the Apollo era. So thanks for the stunning images, Japan!
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
And yet more lovely high resolution images, this time with a biology bent: images from Creature by Andrew Zuckerman, courtesy of Wired.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
What's your brain doing at night while you're asleep? It turns out that it's doing all sorts of things. Sleep appears to be vital in consolidating memories and working out patterns. Even taking a nap after learning a new task can improve performance. What's really interesting is that different stages of sleep have been tentatively linked to different kinds of learning. Deep, slow wave sleep improves declarative (factual) memory. REM tends to improve performance in pattern recognition. Stage 2 sleep, which is a transition period between light and deep sleep, appears to have some relation to motor tasks.
Has anyone actually read this guy's book? I've got some serious issues with his video. Especially if its going to be presented as a science link.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
How come in "The Tenth Dimension" he goes from talking about spatial dimensions to talking about time?
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
I kind of wondered about it as well when I first saw it. It's an interesting idea, but I'm skeptical that this is the sort of thing scientists are really talking about when they speak of ten dimensions. Here's a link that discusses what I think may be closer to what the string theorists mean by "higher dimensions": Extra Dimensions in Cosmology. The other dimensions are still spatial dimensions, rather than alternate realities as presented in The Tenth Dimension. They're just too small to be perceived. Unfortunately, since we're so attuned to the three-dimensional world, it's almost completely impossible to get our heads around the concept of these other dimensions.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Not talking about alternate realities as such (ie in the sense used in scifi&fantasy) but rather about having room with sufficient freedom for sum-over-histories to occur.
[ November 12, 2007, 01:27 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Flaming Toad on a Stick (Member # 9302) on :
I was actually skeptical from the beginning, but it seemed interesting, and I saw this thread, so I thought, why not. And he does, to a small degree, explain his reasoning for moving from the third to the fourth dimension in that way.
Posted by HollowEarth (Member # 2586) on :
Besides his bizarre description of 3 spacial dimension + time, my first big issue with is description is the quick gloss over quantum measurement and then its application to people (5:14 in the movie).
Claiming that quantum mechanics applies to things like people and the decisions we make is, IMO, a sign of something trying to be presented as science when it really isn't.
quote:As I often do, I started with that basic hard science fact and then ran with it far past the edges of where most mainstream scientists would be comfortable, taking it through the ideas of Richard Dawkins and on out into the metaphysical fringe. Why do I keep doing that? Why do I suggest that there should ever be any links between reality as depicted by mainstream science and, for instance, ancient philosophy? Well, as I often say, I'm not a physicist and I'm not pretending to be one: as long as fans of the tenth dimension project understand that we're exploring ideas that are beyond the periphery of the mainstream, just for the joy of playing with ideas, then speaking personally I see nothing wrong with getting creative.
But the issue here is that he presents his movie and his book as though this is really what is being claimed by the scientists doing the work--and its not, at all. If he'd like to spin theories about ancient philosphy and the reptilians that rule the planet or anything else fine. But don't misrepresent your work as something that it isn't.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
The current issue of PLoS has an article about the study of hypocretin in zebrafish. In mammals, trouble with the hypocretin system causes narcolepsy. However, in zebrafish, knocking out the receptor results in fragmented sleep but does not increased sleep during the daytime.
One really interesting thing about the study is that when the fish were sleep deprived during the night (in the dark) by electric shock, they experienced a rebound later on when allowed to sleep, much as humans do after being sleep-deprived. If, however, the fish were exposed to light, they didn't sleep and they didn't experience a rebound, even after three days with no sleep. After a week in constant light, the fish started sleeping again, but didn't show any ill effects. Perhaps in this species (or maybe fish in general) the circadian rhythm serves as more of a backup to light/dark signals.
Another interesting difference between zebrafish and mammals is the effects of injecting hypocretin directly into the skull. Doing this to mammals is highly stimulating, while the zebrafish experienced mild sedation. So in zebrafish, it seems that the hypocretin system helps to consolidate sleep, but does not consolidate wakefulness, perhaps because the light does that instead. In mammals, hypocretin helps to consolidate both sleep and wakefulness. This may imply that mammals and fish share neural circuitry for regulating sleep, but have different means of regulating wakefulness.
I'd also be interested to know if zebrafish start exhibiting circadian behavior if kept in constant dark. If so, will the mutant fish have more trouble staying awake than their wild-type counterparts? I'm sort of tempted to e-mail the authors and ask them about it.
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
Nice! The postdoc I'm working with is actually just cloning out hypocretin in cavefish- we're hoping to look at how sleep behavior (among numerous other traits) evolved in animals with no predators and no light exposure versus their closest surface-dwelling relatives.
Cavefish are a particularly fun organism for the study of evolution, particulary evolutionary developmental biology, as there are several distinct populations which independently diverged from the "surface" strain, and all of which lost their eyes, pigment, predator avoidance behaviors, etc. via convergent evolution over the last few thousand years. All of these populations show very distinct phenotypes, but are still closely related enough to interbreed. As a result, they're ideal for genetic analysis. We're using QTL to map traits to particular loci within chromosomes and identifying the pertinent polymorphisms responsible for the cave phenotype versus the surface phenotype. Neat stuff, plus the cavefish look freakin' cool- think big, albino zebrafish with no eyes, which sometimes like to swim sideways.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I want to start a band called Narcoleptic Zebrafish. Who's with me?
-pH
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Only if I can play the cowbell.
Posted by EmpSquared (Member # 10890) on :
And only if we're an industrial band.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I'd never read that narcoleptics had dead hypocretin producers before. I used to be a night owl but then started sleeping regularly in my early twenties. My sister went on to be narcoleptic. I always thought it was basically lifestyle induced. Hmm.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Nope. The going theory is that it's autoimmune, much like type I diabetes. There's no known lifestyle link, although it's possible that early symptoms might be mistaken for a lifestyle.
Posted by Valentine014 (Member # 5981) on :
I knew it! Lobsters do feel pain when being cooked in boiling water.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Well, except that immune response correlates with sleep quality. I'd have to see more to be persuaded of an organic autoimmune mechanism leading to narcolepsy.
Now I weep for the lobsters.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
About the lobsters, I thought it was pretty obvious already. Nobody wants to be boiled alive, right? Sometimes the human species makes me ashamed to be (mistaken for) a member.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
Cool video on Moebius Transformations
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
I read the nociception and pain article. I didn't know that there were specific criteria for telling the two apart, but it makes sense. I'm not surprised that the prawns were able to feel pain. I wonder what the subjective experience is like for an invertebrate, but I suppose it's not possible to determine that.
The comet photo is beautiful! I'm really bummed that the weather is so cloudy here. I want to go see it for myself. I wonder if it really looks like a big ball in the sky like it does in the photo. That must be an odd thing to see.
Pooka, certain HLA subtypes are associated with narcolepsy. Somewhere around 90% of people who have narcolepsy with cataplexy have the HLA-DQB1*0602 marker (although some of the general population does as well). The autoimmune link isn't definite, though -- it's just the best guess at present.
Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
Yes, I saw comet 17P/Holmes. I could see the spot with my eye, and I could tell it was a little blurry. Through the telescope, it looked like a giant smudge. Pretty cool, but not nearly as vivid as comet Hale-Bopp from a few years ago.
We were using a Dobsonian (sp?) telescope, and we were experiencing a little light pollution. I think you need some pretty decent eyes to spot it, but if you know where to look, it helps.
I was bummed-- the Leonids were supposed to happen last Saturday, but there was too much cloud cover in my part of the world to see them.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
I saw a report that the coma/halo/gas cloud of comet Holmes is now larger than the Sun. Sorry, no link.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
An article on chimps and humans with a buncha bananas...err...interesting links to other missing links at the bottom of the page.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
BTW, I just wrote a little computer program to test the claims of the paradox listed above. I was able to reproduce the results for the alternating games. It needed to have game 1 and game 2 barely weighted against the player in order for the combined game to produce a player win. Even then, the player only came out a little bit ahead.
I couldn't get the random game to turn out in the player's favor consistently. If game A and game B were both against the player, randomly switching between them didn't seem to help any.
I'd be interested in seeing the actual study for the weights the physicist used (the article couldn't be more vague), but I don't care enough to look for it. It's probably in Spanish anyway.
[ December 04, 2007, 05:28 PM: Message edited by: Xavier ]
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
Super massive black holes to collide within 10,000 years. Okay, we have a while yet, but it's pretty cool, nevertheless. Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
That doesn't make any sense to me. Even after reading the article that explains it I don't get it. Driving a car that gets 15 mpg 100 miles uses (rounded up) 7 gallons of gas, it uses 6 for 18 mph. A 50mpg car uses 2 gallons, a 100mpg uses 1.
Using the 15,000 mile standard from the article, it takes 1,000 gallons to go that far on a 15mpg car. 833 for a 18 mpg car. 300 for a 50mpg car. 150 for a 100mpg car. Hm, that actually looks strange, you'd think the ratio would be even per mile per gallon. But still, going from 15mpg to 100mpg reduces it by 850 gallons, so, let's look at THAT number. I guess I just don't like the message of the article.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
You just proved the article's point. You saved 167 gallons by switching from the 15 mpg car to the 18 mpg car but only 150 gallons by switching from the 50 mpg car to the 100 mpg car. The point is that the best way to reduce oil consumption is to eliminate the bottom of the barrel in terms of fuel consumption (as opposed to pumping out a better Prius).
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Modifying the European litres per 100kilometres to an American gallons per 100miles 15mpg translates to 6.66gallons per 100miles 18mpg translates to 5.55gallons per 100miles for a difference of 1.11gallons per 100miles Whereas 50mpg translates to 2gallons per 100miles 100mpg translates to 1gallon per 100miles for a difference of 1gallon per 100miles
Then using a bit of advertising sophistry ala "You save more money by purchasing a $500 Gucci shopping bag for $400 than by purchasing a $5 TraderJoes bag for $4" one could conclude that saving 1.11 gallons is better than saving 1 gallon.
Lyrhawn's just one of them contrarians who'd wonder how spending an extra $396 for a bag could be considered saving money.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
What is your point?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Something is fishy in that math, like I said, I'm just not sure what it is. But I think there's something to these numbers: A 15mpg car with a 10 gallon gas tank goes 150 miles. For a 18mpg car, is goes 180 miles, for a 30 mile improvement. Nothing really to write home about is it? Same 3 mile difference in 50mpg to 53mpg takes us from 500 miles to 530 miles. Spread that between 50mpg and 100mpg and you have a 500 mile difference. Now using the 15mpg standard on those 500 miles, I just saved 33.3 gallons of gas, not 1. Even using the 50mpg standard I saved 10 gallons, not 1. I think if you're going to do a comparison by that, the mpg should be equal, not attached to the change like that, I think that's math cheating.
Besides, I think what aspectre is saying is that the savings garnered by a switch from 15 to 18 pales in comparison to the change we NEED to get is to safe sustainable levels, which probably ranges in the 50-75 range in the short term.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
aspectre doesn't have a point. If we switched every 15 mpg car to 18 mpg, we would save more gas than switching the same number (not that we have anywhere near this number to begin with!) of 50 mpg cars to 100 mpg cars (not that we can make this big an improvement in fuel efficiency, practically).
It is not math cheating. It is choosing disparate ends of the range to make a simple point: if you want to save gas on a national scale, focus on the low end. Anything else is just playing around.
edit: Lyrhawn, using miles you could drive is useless. People don't drive miles they could drive, they drive approximately the same number of miles, especially considered in the aggregate. Changing the miles per gallon will not magically make them drive less or more. The only accurate comparison, if what we want to do is save gas, is gas saved given a constant amount of driving.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Forgive me, I'll admit outright that my math skills aren't generally impressive, but how are 3 miles per gallon at the lower end of the scale worth 50 at the other end? It just doesn't make sense to me, even seeing the numbers right in front of me. And I think it's suspect using an adjusting measuring bar for savings. If you look at miles driven and compare that to a flat 15mpg measuring stick, the savings are even over the scale, it's only when you slide the mpg up with it that it looks that disproportionate.
I'm not saying I wouldn't believe it if I saw a more extensive explanation, but on the surface it just looks wrong. I look at it like this: There’s a hundred gallons of gas to give out, those hundred gallons of gas mean 1,500 miles traveled for a 15mpg car. 1,800 miles traveled for a 18mpg car, 5,000 miles traveled for a 50mpg car, and a 10,000 miles traveled for a 100mpg car. Now okay, let’s say miles actually traveled is immaterial, and what really matters is gallons spent. You save 300 miles between the 15mpg car and the 18 mpg car, and in 15mpg terms, you’ve eliminated 20 gallons of gas. Going from a 15mpg car to a 50mpg car is 1,500 to 5,000 and saves 3,500 miles, and in 15mpg terms, you saved 233.3 gallons of gas. Going from 15mpg to 100mpg is a difference of 8,500 miles, and you save 566.6 gallons of gas. If I buy that 18 mpg car, to travel the same distance as a 15mpg car, I just saved 20 gallons of gas. The difference looks a lot more uniform when you put it in those terms. Explain to me why that way of thinking is wrong.
100mpg cars aren't that far off at all. I'd say we have an economically feasible one within five years. If it even takes that long.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
You are looking at it wrong.
Americans drive approximately some X number of miles each year. No matter what the price of gas or the mileage of their cars, this number of miles will not be substantially different. This is true even down to the level of individuals, though at that level there is somewhat more fluctuation.
The question is, given how many miles Americans are going to drive, how much gas is going to be used, and what measures will save how much of that.
If the drivers in 15 mpg cars all upgraded to 18 mpg cars, they would use huge, huge amounts less gas, while upgrading those driving 50 mpg cars to 53 or even 100 mpg cars would not save as much gas (even on a per-drive basis, much less factoring in that there are many more of the former than the latter). It is always better to focus on the low end of gas mileages. Improving the gas mileage of high mpg cars by a few mpg is a rounding error in the amount of gas saved by improving the gas mileage of low mpg cars by even fewer mpg.
As for the math, (1/15 - 1/18) is greater than (1/50 - 1/100), and (1/15 - 1/18) is much, much greater than, say, (1/50 - 1/60). These are the appropriate equations, given the basic constancy of miles driven.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
As for an economically feasible 100mpg car, we very well might have . . but it will still be a small minority purchasing it, and those will almost entirely be people who already have high mpg vehicles. If we persuaded the same number of people driving 15 mpg cars to switch to 18 mpg ones, we would save more gas. And there are a lot more people driving 15 mpg cars that we could persuade.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I thought this linked article to the original made it much clearer:
quote: Among them: a seemingly huge upgrade in fuel economy (say, trading a Camry for a Prius, which doubles your fuel efficiency from 30 mpg to 60 mpg) can have the same fuel-saving consequences as seemingly smaller improvements among larger vehicles (say, trading a 15-mpg SUV for one that gets 20 mpg).
Using miles per gallon, that fact just seems strange -- how can the huge jump from 30 mpg to 60 possibly have the same effect as the much smaller shift from 15 mpg to 20?
But if you use the Canadian method, there's nothing counterintuitive or confusing. Shifting from a car that burns 4 gallons every 60 miles (i.e., 15mpg) to one that burns 3 gallons over the same distance (20 mpg) saves 1 gallon of gas every 60 miles: 4-3=1. Likewise, shifting from a car that burns 2 gallons per 60 miles (i.e., 30 mpg) to one that burns 1 gallon (60 mpg) saves 1 gallon over the same distance: 2-1=1. The math is much clearer, and any apparent "paradox" disappears.
I get what you are saying. I don't get how being able to drive 50 miles more on a gallon of gas is LESS of a saving than being able to drive 3 miles more on a gallon of gas. That doesn't make sense to me, no matter how many times it's repeated.
I'll take minor issue with the price of gas affecting how many miles we drive. Recent studies have shown that when prices creep much above $3 a gallon it DOES change our driving habits, just a bit, but it does, and that ripples over hundreds of millions of drivers. But for this discussion that'd really neither here nor there, and the more the price of gas hovers at $3, the less it matters.
But okay, the miles traveled isn't going to change, it's all in gallons used. In my explanation above the savings are the same throughout the spectrum. It only changes when you move the bar, but when you stick with a 15mpg spectrum throughout, the savings stay the same. Switching from 15 to 18 has the same percentage saving as switching from 15 to 100. Isn't that comparing apples to oranges to move the bar up?
quote:As for an economically feasible 100mpg car, we very well might have . . but it will still be a small minority purchasing it, and those will almost entirely be people who already have high mpg vehicles.
In the near term, yeah, you're probably right. A lot of things depend on what kind of car comes out of the Automotive X Prize contest, and whether or not Lithium Ion batteries can make PHEVs as economically feasible and viable (to what is being claimed they can do) as major car companies (well, specifically GM) would like. GM claims they'll have a PHEV that gets a 250mpg equivilant in a few years for less than 30K. It's a pretty extraordinary claim, and I've little hope that they'll be able to pull THAT off, but even a 100mpg PHEV or better for less than 30K that has mass market appeal would be impressive.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Type the following into google:
(1/15 - 1/18) - (1/50 - 1/100)
That's how much of a greater savings there is per mile driven by improving from 15 to 18 than from 50 to 100. Do you at least follow the math?
Yes, the price of gas affects the number of miles driven, but that is small, and it doesn't matter as much to people driving high mpg cars, so if anything it will improve the comparison in favor of improvements on the low end. Mostly it doesn't matter, though.
It isn't comparing apples to oranges, it is comparing real scenarios to other real scenarios. There are high mpg cars out there. There are low mpg cars. No matter how much you might want them to, people driving 15 mpg cars are not going to switch to driving 100 mpg cars in noticeable numbers. People who are driving 50 mpg cars might switch to driving 60 mpg cars, and a few even to 100 mpg cars, but it won't matter much, because it is the many more people driving 15 mpg (or 20, or 25) cars who are using the gas, and small improvements in their efficiency will always matter more than equivalent improvements in higher efficiency cars.
If you want to reduce American gas usage, go after the people driving the low mpg cars. Any mpg improving plan that does not include going after the low mpg vehicles is a worse policy choice than one that just goes after the low mpg vehicles, just given the greater improvement ratio at the low end plus the greater number of drivers at the low end. Any plan that does not take serious steps to deal with low mpg vehicles is just looking to score some quick points by making the people who are already buying high efficiency vehicles feel even better about their mostly irrelevant improving fuel efficiency without pissing off the more numerous people in inefficient vehicles.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I get the math, I got it from the first post, it just doesn't seem like that SHOULD be true.
You don't have to school me on the policy angle, I'm already more than in favor of going after the drivers of the lower mpg cars and SUVs, have been since I started paying attention to this issue. And at the moment I too am more concerned with people driving 15mpg cars than I am with people driving 50mpg cars, though I question a lot of your statements of fact there, I don't want to get into that in this thread.
I still think my way makes a lot more sense, and I'll leave it at that, not just because my head is killing me from a combination of a bad head cold and the insanity of this math problem, but because I have to leave for work now.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I'm not entirely certain what your way is, but at least a good chunk of your math is irrelevant to a policy analysis (the parts dealing with being able to drive more using the same gallons).
The reason it should be true is because what we are comparing are not numerators in the relevant equations, but denominators. They work like fractions. Fractions work like this, and they should work like this.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
How about this -- don't think of it as a car that gets 50 mpg. Think of it as a car that uses .02 gpm (gallons per mile). If you move from a .067 gpm car to a .056 gpm car, you save more gas than if you upgrade from a .02 gpm car to a .01 gpm car.
Sorry for the lack of updates on the thread lately, by the way. Things have been busy!
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Lyrhawn, I think it doesn't make sense to you because the US way of presenting the data doesn't make much sense from the stand point of energy conservation.
From the standpoint of energy conservation, you need to look at how many gallons of gas it takes to go a 100 miles.
The US system makes sense is you are concerned with how far you can drive before you have to buy gas.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Given the weight of opinion, I'll have to say okay, I agree with you guys. It still feels wrong, but I'll go along with it.
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
For some reason, I read this thread title as "Comments on cornet". I'm clearly preoccupied by my occupation.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:How about this -- don't think of it as a car that gets 50 mpg. Think of it as a car that uses .02 gpm (gallons per mile). If you move from a .067 gpm car to a .056 gpm car, you save more gas than if you upgrade from a .02 gpm car to a .01 gpm car.
That's a very good way to put it.
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
As a policy decision it's better to get X people to switch from 15 mpg to 18 mpg than to get X people to switch from 50 mpg to 100 mpg. Of course, it's even better to get everyone to switch to >50 mpg vehicles. Or not drive at all! *raises hand*
From the individual's point of view it can certainly make a bigger difference in utility to switch from 50 to 100 than from 15 to 18. Let's look at some numbers.
Suppose Abby and Bobby each drive 500 miles a week. Long commute, I guess. Abby drives a 15-mpg SUV and Bobby drives a 50-mpg Mini. At $3/gallon for gas, Abby saves $16.67 a week switching to an 18-mpg vehicle, while Bobby saves $15.00 a week switching to a 100-mpg vehicle. This is amortized, of course.
On the other hand, Abby normally has to fill up her 10-gallon tank 3.3 times a week. Yikes! After the switch she has to fill up nearly as often, 2.8 times a week. Meanwhile Bobby fills up once a week before switching and once every other week afterwards.
Finally, Abby's range on a single tank goes from 150 to 180, while Bobby's range goes from 500 to 1000. Bobby definitely doesn't have to worry as much about running out of gas on those long road trips, not that s/he did much in the first place.
Sure Abby's switch saves more gas (and therefore cash) than Bobby's. But arguably Bobby's switch has a much higher impact on his/her lifestyle. (Also, we're notably not factoring in the hidden costs of taking the time to fill up.)
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So, to sum up, lots of difference on the individual's side of things, not much when you look at collective consumption.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Given the proliferation of gas stations, I am not overly worried about the increase in welfare due to not needing to find a filling station as often.
Also, for this to have any relevance to a policy analysis one must assume a marked dichotomy between the driving habits of people currently with low mpg vehicles and those with high mpg vehicles. I do not believe there is such a marked dichotomy; at best a slight tendency.
And if the goal were to save them cash, there would be no policy; if the person could save cash overall by upgrading their car, they probably would. The goal is to reduce gasoline usage and emissions.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
I wasn't sure if I got the math either until I wrote it out for myself. This assumes an equal number of cars all driving the same number of miles per day:
30 cars, 15 mpg, 10 miles per day = 300 miles total = 20 gal used per day 30 cars, 18 mpg, 10 miles per day = 300 miles total = 16.67 gal used per day 3.33 gal saved
30 cars, 50 mpg, 10 miles per day = 300 miles total = 6 gal used per day 30 cars, 100 mpg, 10 miles per day = 300 miles total = 3 gal used per day 3 gal saved
Though it looks as though this has been pretty well hashed out and didn't need more explaining, I posted it anyway.
As was already pointed out, the disproportionate amount of low mpg cars on the road only serves to exagerate the difference.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Plus, it is a lot easier to move someone from a 15 mpg car to an 18 mpg car than from a 50 mpg car to a 100 mpg car .
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Yeah, there are megatons of cars around that get 18mpg (or better). Good luck finding someone who has a 50mpg auto -- the Prius is the only truly mass-produced personal automobile that even makes the claim -- or finding a 100mpg car for him to switch into.
Which is why such assertions by the BobLutz's of the world that switching from a 15mpg vehicle to an 18mpg vehicle is better than Research&Development to build a more efficient means of travel is sophistry that doesn't even reach the truth level of BS.
[ February 28, 2008, 03:37 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Give Lutz some credit. GM has totally turned their view of hybrids and alternative cars around in the last few years. They offer more hybrids than I think any other single car company at the moment, US or Japanese. In general US car companies have really made a turnaround in the last couple years on the subject of efficiency and hybrids, to say nothing of the growing interest and investment in PHEVs.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Of course, the same math applies for any lesser increase in mpg than 50 to 100 that's worse than 15 to 18. For instance, anyone in a 30 mpg car improving to a 35 mpg car is much less of an impact on the environment than the 15 to 18 switch.
Also, I fail to see where Lutz said anything of the kind -- in fact, in your latest link, it talks about how he is supporting research into things that are increases in efficiency in the high end, not the low end. Why do you so frequently say things contradictory to what you link, aspectre?
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Another article on lattice calculations which clarifies some of the misleading points in the other two, and vice versa.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
[ March 22, 2009, 03:07 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
The traps are cool. It makes me wonder what other hidden surprises could be found by amateurs perusing google earth. Sounds like a fun game, fishing for interesting aerial finds! Arr, arr.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
How about driving less? How many gallons does that save? And it has the added benefit of forcing the price of gasoline to go down. All those people who tried to drive up the price by speculating on oils futures, appear to be (deservedly) losing their shirts, as the price seems to be coming down again. Should be a no-brainer. So many people have lost their jobs, and are still losing their jobs, that a very large number of people can no longer afford long, driving vacations, and in fact must limit their driving only to what is really necessary. With lower demand must come lower prices. Oil prices cannot really go back up until the economy improves, and there has been a net gain in employment for a while.
Posted by Marlozhan (Member # 2422) on :
I know that graphene is mentioned earlier in this post, but I think it is cool enough to warrant repeating.
quote:Graphene is a form of carbon in which the atoms are arranged in a flat hexagon lattice like microscopic chicken wire, a single atom thick. It is not only the thinnest material in the world, but also the strongest: a sheet of it stretched over a coffee cup could support the weight of a truck bearing down on a pencil point.
quote: Among its other properties, graphene is able to conduct electricity and heat better than any other known material, and it is completely transparent. Physicists say that eventually it could rival silicon as a basis for computer chips, serve as a sensitive pollution-monitoring material, improve flat screen televisions, and enable the creation of new materials and novel tests of quantum weirdness, among other things.
quote: Dr. Geim and Dr. Novoselov first succeeded in creating flakes of graphene by peeling them off piles of graphite — the material that is in your pencil lead — using Scotch tape.
Posted by Herblay (Member # 11834) on :
Graphene isn't "completely transparent" as claimed above -- it absorbs around 3% of white light. That's actually pretty high for a single atomic layer.
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