Announcement: This Saturday at The Science Circle - "Mitochondrial Dysfunction" and "Nuclear Energy"

 
"Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Failure in Human Disease" 

Saturday October 30

10 AM to 11 AM SL time 

Some two billion years ago, a seminal, endosymbiotic event occurred: a larger, anaerobic bacterial cell ingested a smaller, aerobic prokaryotic ‘germ’. This beneficial union of two life forms led to the evolution of more highly organized eukaryotic cells with mitochondria as subcellular organelles. These mitochondria still retain their own bacteria-like DNA – they also replicate themselves. As the metabolic power source for eukaryotic cells, mitochondria utilize (detoxify) oxygen to produce energy, an attribute that has made possible the rise of multi-cellular organisms and higher life forms. Mitochondria are vital to cellular life and therefore, to human life. Unfortunately, they can also be subject to genetically-based errors of metabolism.

Presentation by Robert A. Hendrix, M.D. 

Auditorium

To read more, Click Here. 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/125/132/22

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"Nuclear Energy"

Saturday October 30

9 PM to 10 PM

The prospect of carbon-free electricity produced reliably and abundantly would incentivize investments in nuclear energy. Concerns over proper fuel disposal or recurrences of nuclear accidents with disastrous consequences also inhibit liberal employment of the energy source. Alternative power plant designs such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are being considered to improve safety and reduce construction costs. To what extent should we consider nuclear energy a solution to ensuring our energy needs are met in our struggle with climate change? 

A presentation by Karthik P.

Auditorium

To read more, Click Here.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/67/129/32
 

Longtime Bitcoin Developer Quits, States It Has "Failed"

By Bixyl Shuftan

Bitcoin, the noted electronic currency that's gained a following among computer geeks attracted to the idea of a worldwide virtual currency and those looking for an alternative to the US dollar and other currencies backed by big banks, has made news time to time, such as when it went through wild price swings in March and April 2013, and when one of it's largest exchanges, Mt Gox, went bankrupt in Feb 2014. Since then, the Crypto currency has continued on, making news recently as the best performing currency in 2015, gaining close to 40 percent.

But a couple weeks ago, it was dealt a major setback when one of it's developers and longtime advocate, Mike Hearn, sold all his bitcoin and published a blog, saying Bitcoin had failed, and would no longer be taking part in it. He wrote, "It has failed because the community has failed. What was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked “systemically important institutions” and “too big to fail” has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people. Worse still, the network is on the brink of technical collapse. The mechanisms that should have prevented this outcome have broken down ..."

So what are the problems? The big one, Hearn stated, is that the rate at which Bitcoin transactions can be made has been decreasing to the point it's networks are running out of capacity and becoming unreliable. Backlogs at peak times are becoming increasingly common. The blocks in it's blockchain have been steadily increasing, but the capacity cap of each block remains unchanged. While there are several reasons that the capacity limit hasn't been raised, the big one is that it's been effectively controlled by Chinese miners, "just two of whom control more than 50% of the hash power. At a recent conference over 95% of hashing power was controlled by a handful of guys sitting on a single stage."

So why won't they allow the capacity to grow? Hearn wrote, " the Chinese internet is so broken by their government’s firewall that moving data across the border barely works at all, with speeds routinely worse than what mobile phones provide. Imagine an entire country connected to the rest of the world by cheap hotel wifi, and you’ve got the picture. Right now, the Chinese miners are able to — just about — maintain their connection to the global internet and claim the 25 BTC reward ($11,000) that each block they create gives them. But if the Bitcoin network got more popular, they fear taking part would get too difficult and they’d lose their income stream. This gives them a perverse financial incentive to actually try and stop Bitcoin becoming popular."

As Hamlet Au would comment in New World Notes, "Ironically enough ... a currency that is so appealing to libertarians" was being strangled "because of well, the Chinese Communist Party. ... A virtual currency which promised to free us from government oversight and oppression is being successfully strangled in its crib by one of the world's most oppressive regimes. Without hardly even trying."

Despite this blow, Bitcoin remains popular. And it's unlikely it will collapse anytime soon. But as Chris Baraniuk writing for the BBC put it, "it certainly look(s) as though fundamental questions over how Bitcoin works are now coming to a head."

Sources: Mike Hearn, BBC, New World Notes.

Bixyl Shuftan

Philip Rosedale: "The Media Is Wrong, SecondLife Didn’t Fail"

In an article written by Sarah Lacy for her online magazine Pandodaily, the writer came across Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab and Second Life. Rosedale talked about what the writer called, "the all too familiar hero-villian press cycle," about how national publications ignore companies in Silicon Valley until it's certain to be big, "then they make the founders into two-dimensional cover boy 'overnight' successes. … And then when it starts to fall apart, they either become evil or stupid. Either way, they're mocked, written off, and forgotten about."

It's never that simple for a startup, Lacy wrote, and certainly not for Second Life, which was praised as the next big thing, and then dismissed and mostly forgotten. It's audience had stopped growing, and "many consider anything that's not growth" or going pubic or sold, as "death."

Rosedale argued that contrary to what the national media might believe, Second Life didn't fail, it was a success. It currently has about a million active users, almost the same number it had at it's peak. when IBM and other companies were setting up places there. That the number never fell should still be considered a success "in a world were fads quickly come and go, especially with 700 million a year in virtual goods traded every year.

So why didn't the numbers grow, even with virtual worlds a success in other countries? Either Americans have a failure of imagination, "or he was way too early." Rosedale felt most people desire what they know, and if they can't get it can escape through other means such as TV, getting as Lacy put it "the culture that's already built for them, but without the responsibility to build it themselves."

As for being too early, Rosedale was proud to think that might be the case, "We were early to an idea that most people thought would eventually happen … What I'm most proud of is that we found a way to make that into a profitable company years earlier than it should have emerged, through our hard work."

In an economy all about continuous growth, Second Life might seem easy to ignore. But after ten years, it's still going and self-sustaining. Lacy commented if her company built that, "I'd still be damn proud of my team."

Read Lacy's article in full Here.

Special thanks to Solar Hydro