Ugh. That is the first time I have had to type the year 2013. Such an ugly year.

Anyhow, hey there hi there ho there, science fans! Time for another installment of everyone’s favorite science bulletin, the Friday Science Whatever, and time for us to all bask in the glorious glow that is Dame Science and her paramour, Lord Reason, and see what interesting babies they have had this week.

Sad, really, that the children are all born out of wedlock, but ever since Lord Reason started hanging out with asshole skeptics and Ayn Rand devotees, marriage between him and Dame Science has been off the table.

She might be a little stiff necked and conservative sometimes, but Dame Science is not THAT bad.

For our first item, check out this interesting view of our place in the universe :

Love the music. Anyhow, I quite like the animation of what you get when you add our solar system’s motion around the Galactic Core into consideration. It really makes you think about just exactly where we are going at any moment.

In fact, I have pondered that question ever since I was a kid having his mind blown by science class. We all know that we are never truly standing still. We know that the Earth spins on its axis, so we are all rotating with it. And we all know the Earth goes around the Sun, and so we have that momentum as well.

But things get especially crazy when you try to factor in the Solar System’s movement around the Galactic Core (which the makers of that video did), let alone the fact that our galaxy is moving incredibly fast relative to other galaxies, and the whole kit and kaboodle is moving relative to the location (so to speak) of the Big Bang… well, just exactly which way are going, man?

I don’t think it is possible to add all those vectors together in a meaningful way.

As for this bullshit about life being a vortex or the solar system being a vortex and all that, I would not pay too much attention to it, except as an object lesson in what happens when you mix a little science with a lot of magical thinking in order to get something that is really cool to think about when you are stoned. That stuff has no place in science or scientific thinking.

Our next bit is not strictly about science, but it is science-adjacent and I am quite intrigued by it, so you are going to hear about it.

It is all about a drug called Mediator and the scandal surrounding the deaths of 500 people from heart valve damage linked to the drug in Europe.

It makes for a great case to illustrate just what a bind modern drug companies are in. If they come up with the next phenomenal wonder drug, they can reap quite enormous profits from it. But the investment in R&D is substantial due to potential side effects (if you are going to mess with people’s bodies, you better be damned sure the benefit outweighs the harm), and even if they do their best to predict all the side effects of their latest super pill, the pill’s very success means that it gets used on millions of people, and previously undetectable side effects emerge due to large sample size.

But the really interesting thing is that the French are investigating the 90 year old founder and CEO of the drug company that makes Mediator for manslaughter.

I thought that only happened in episodes of Quincy or Law and Order. Investigating and maybe prosecuting a CEO for the effects of their leadership?

Way to go, France!

That said, a case like this presents a thorny Utilitarian dilemma. Sure, the drug killed 500 people (at least), but how many did it save? Is it possible for a drug like that to actually be a net positive?

It is probably beyond our moral understanding to figure such things out. Utilitarianism tends to have its biggest problem with dealing with the issue of the sanctity of human life, something which we culturally assign an effectively infinite value.

And Utilitarianism, being comparative, does not handle infinity easily.

Lastly, we have this fascinating bit of news from the Mars500 project.

To quickly recap : the Mars500 Project was an experiment where an international crew was subjected to the same conditions as those that would face astronauts on a 17 month journey to Mars and back.

Well, the first scientific papers from the experiment have been released, and no surprise, the subjects became very lazy and sedentary during their long confinement.

Even though they had activities like video games to do, and could control their light exposure, the trip was nevertheless very boring, and the result was that the “astronauts” slept a lot more (but poorly), and moved as little as possible.

I find this particularly interesting because I am assuming that these were all active, dynamic young people before the experiment, and not, say, fat depressives like me.

Oh, and the really cool thing : the subjects perked up and started moving more and doing more in the last twenty days of the experiment, even though there was no more to do than before.

Just having the anticipation of release perked them up. The scientists say that the subjects entered a state remarkably like hibernation.

Presumably, all animals have an “energy conservation” mode, where they go into torpor when there is nothing to do and save up their energy for when it is time to move again.

All this sounds real familiar to me. I am not technically locked in a test chamber away from the Sun all the time, but my mental illness makes it very nearly so. And what do you know, I am extremely lazy and sleepy and sedentary.

And when I am awake, what do I do? Play video games!

I am beginning to think that this experiment may have implications beyond the question of space flight.

Maybe some of us are astronauts without even knowing it.