Quick Takes 04.17.2009

• Are we organisms or living ecosystems? – SEED

As soon as we are born, bacteria move in. They stake claims in our digestive and respiratory tracts, our teeth, our skin. They establish increasingly complex communities, like a forest that gradually takes over a clearing. By the time we’re a few years old, these communities have matured, and we carry them with us, more or less, for our entire lives. Our bodies harbor 100 trillion bacterial cells, outnumbering our human cells 10 to one. It’s easy to ignore this astonishing fact. Bacteria are tiny in comparison to human cells; they contribute just a few pounds to our weight and remain invisible to us.

Many alternative treatments, from homeopathy to a variety of herbal remedies, have been shown to be ineffective—yet they persist, and, in many cases, have become big business. To understand why failure can be successful, a group of researchers have put together a mathematical model that accounts for how treatment decisions spread. This has allowed them to show that ineffective treatments are often more successful in society than efficacious alternatives.

At its heart is the idea that the fundamental particles we observe are not point-like dots, but rather tiny strings that are so small that our best instruments cannot tell that they are not points.

It also predicts that there are extra dimensions to space beyond the obvious length, breadth and depth, but we do not experience them because they are bunched up in tiny spaces.

Even if we cannot measure and assign precise values to it in any “scientific” way, I do very much think that intelligence exists and that it varies in the actions of each person. The concept is a useful and important one for scientists and educators alike. My objection is to thinking that any “test” of a person’s intelligence is up to the task. Rather we should focus on ensuring that the fundamentals (literacy, etcetera) are well taught and that each child’s diverse talents are encouraged and nourished.

When the iPhone App Store launched last year, a flood of ‘virtual’ music apps, ranging from pianos to drums hit the market. Most of these didn’t fare so well on the iPhone’s small screen, save for one fantastic standout: Smule’s Ocarina, which was perfectly suited for the iPhone and was fairly easy for beginners to pick up. The app became a massive success, and became one of the App Store’s most popular applications ever. Today, Smule has released Leaf Trombone: World Stage (iTunes Music Store link), a new virtual musical instrument that is better than Ocarina in nearly every way.

My emphasis in bold added to the above entries.

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