Man, what a week in science. WAY too many cool science stories to cover, so I am going to have to steel myself and take the weakest ones out behind the barn and put them down.

OK, maybe that is a bit harsh. But it really doses feel like choosing amongst my darlings sometimes, and that is never an easy thing to do. Not when you have a heart full of love like I do.

But, in the end, come what may, choices have to be made. So think of today’s lot as the Top 4 Cool Science Stories Of This Week.

Here they are in semi-random order.

The Coolest Question Of The Week

As soon as I read the title of this PopSci piece, I knew I would be including it.

It is called Can We Make It Rain With Lasers, and for me, that is an instant winner.

As is often the case in these kinds of science stories, the answer is “maybe?” but that is still pretty darned interesting. A French physicist named Jérôme Kasparian says that he has a method of using a high powered laser to seed cloud and thus set off a chain of precipitation, and thus, make it rain.

The idea is that the laser would strip electrons off of air molecules in the cloud, causing them to ionize and thus attract water molecules, which would then stick together to form droplets, which would then rubn into each other to form larger droplets, and so forth and so on until it’s raining.

This does not come easy. It takes trillions of watts of laser power. But high powered lasers are becoming cheaper, and in farming areas rain is worth a hell of a lot of money, so it might just be able to work as a business model as well as a technology.

I picture a giant laser on the back of a flatbed, traveling from town to town, selling rain on demand.

The Matrix Question

Coming in second in the Question Race comes How Do We Know We Are Not Living Inside A Massive Computer Simulation?

It is a philosophical issue worth pondering, and not just when you are stoned and want to sound deep. The surprising bit is that some scientists think they might have a scientific way to figure it out.

Now to be honest, I do not quite follow their reasoning, at least as it is presented in the article. But it does not matter, because I made up my mind a long time ago that a perfect simulation of reality is, by definition, reality, as far as we can tell. If we can tell it’s a simulation, it is not a perfect simulation. So to pragmatic me, the issues is not important. We have what seems to be objective reality, and until that model of existence fails in a demonstrable and repeatable way, that will do nicely.

Still, I am curious to see what their pursuit of this GZK limit yields.

The Truth Of Sex Addiction

I was quite surprised and a little upset to read this piece about the controversy surrounding the diagnosis of sex addiction this week.

Not that I disagree with their being an official diagnosis for it. Far from it. I just had no idea until now that there was any controversy about it.

I mean, I first heard about it in the 1980s. There’s support groups for it and everything. So I just assumed it was a known and accepted thing.

So to find out now that a lot of people apparently do not think it exists is a little disturbing. What is to dispute? Any pleasurable and rewarding activity can be addictive. People have been known to get addicted to knitting, for crying out loud, or doing jigsaw puzzles.

And I think we would all agree that sex is very pleasurable and rewarding. Plus there are powerful issues of ego being tied in with desirability and sexual prowess to deal with. There is no doubt to me that it is a real thing.

And remember, when separating the pathological from the habitual, you can always fall back on the basic DSM definition, which states (IIRC) that a behaviour is pathological in an individual if it :

a) causes them to be a danger to themselves or others
b) takes over the person’s life more and more over time
c) promotes a feeling of helplessness and loss of control in the person
d) distorts or displaces their ability to have a normal life
and e) is otherwise compulsive to the point of destructive loss of self-control

And I think sex addiction meets this criteria quite nicely.

Any objections would just be bizarre puritan sex-shaming based on people who are getting a lot of sex not “deserving” to be in the same category as alcoholics and junkies.

A Real Life Tractor Beam

Finally, in yet another bit of Star Trek come to life, scientists have demonstrated an honest to goodness real live working tractor beam.

Granted, it can only pick up a tiny ball 30 micrometers in radius that was suspended in water, but hey, all great inventions start out small, right?

I mean, the first telephone could only reach the next room!

So everybody out there, move your Time Till Star Trek clock ahead ten seconds from… um… wherever it is right now, I guess.

Look, I am still working on that part, OK?

Plus One Bonus Item

And finally, a bonus item, so-called because it is not, strictly speaking, a science item. It’s a science fiction item. But I just had to include it.

It is a Tumblr blog called Fashion It So, and in it, two friends go through episodes of Star Trek : The Next Generation and make hilariously bitchy comments about the rather eclectic fashions on the show.

And, on the way, also end up doing a rough plot synopsis, which is also a lot of bitchy fun. I highly recommend it for people who enjoy that sort of fun.

Seeya next week folks!