Time travel

Y can't we go back in time and change something?

Let us hypothesize that travelling back (or forth) in time is possible, and even frequent in our time. If I'd want to go back and change something in my life, why couldn't I do it?

Simple: if I could, I'd already done it. I wouldn't have gone back, but I would have changed it already because I'll go back in the future. Confusing? Perhaps.

Quick example:

It's the year 2012. But in 2020, I'll want to travel back to 1990 and change what I ate for dinner on the 13th of January. Well, since I've already passed 1990, because I'm in 2012, whatever it was that I ate on that lovely Saturday night is already gone, and can't be changed. If I ate chicken, it was because it was chicken in the first place, or because, 8 years from now, I'll go back in time, toss out the beef and serve me a nice piece of chicken. Either way, I can't change the fact that I ate chicken, and therefore I can't go back and change it to beef. Actually I can, and that would explain why I'd go back later and change it to chicken...

So, broadly speaking, it's hard to imagine going back in time and changing the world, because it would already be changed...

I'm starting to think that the problem lies not just in Physics, but in perception...

Baby boom

Y are there so many pregnant women these days?
Ok, lets go over some basic biological concepts:
Sexual reproduction --> two organisms combining their genetic information in order to create a new one;
Asexual reproduction --> the equivalent of a guy creating a clone of himself through a simples hand job.
Alas, in sexual reproduction the resulting organism will have a mix of its parental genetic background, which leads to genetic diversity, while in asexual reproduction the progeny has the same genetic information of its parental entity.
Many microorganisms adopt asexual reproduction as default, and use sexual reproduction only under stress conditions (like lack of nutrients, adverse environmental conditions, etc.) in order to increase population diversity. The rationale is that this diversity might lead to organisms better fitted to withstand the changes that are occurring/have occurred in the environment, thereby avoiding extinction.
What does this have to do with pregnant women? Easy... For a few years now, the country's favorite word is "crisis". If there's crisis, it's because the environment in which we live has become harsh, stressful.
My theory is that some basic, ancient, biological sense has kicked in, telling us to reproduce like hell in the hope that our offspring will be able to overcome the hard times we face.
As for me, I've done all I could. 7 more months to go.

Malthus

Thomas Malthus was a scholar who, back in the 19th century, dedicated some of his time into thinking about population growth and decrease. Some of his ideas, known as the core principles of Malthus, are:food is necessary for human existence;

Human population, if not checked, tends to grow faster than the Earth’s capacity to produce subsistence;

the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal;

misery is the mechanism that balances human requirements and available resources;

Nature's requirement that the imbalance between demand and supply be resolved forms the "strongest obstacle in the way of any very great improvement of society," and thus makes "the perfectibility of man and society" a theoretical and practical impossibility;

The Principle of Population, i.e., the inevitability of misery due to the power of a population to overwhelm resources, provides the mainspring behind the advance of human civilization by creating incentives for progress.

For those that have a lazy brain, let me translate this into a picture:

Essentially, a population can’t grow without resources. A bit like this:

This last picture represents bacterial growth. In optimal conditions, as long as bacteria have resources available (aka nutrients) they tend to grow exponentially. After some time, the resources start to be depleted, toxic metabolic biproducts also accumulate in the medium, and growth slows down, eventually stabilizing (the number of dividing bacteria equals the number of dying ones). Inevitably, unless new nutrients are added, death follows.

Y, you may ask, am I writing all of this? Simple. The trend of bacterial growth is easily applied to Human population growth. This isn’t new, this is something that any biologist learns. Unfortunately, this knowledge isn’t given in every school, to every kid. Nor do the kids search for this kind of knowledge. And so, Humans go about their lives thinking that they have a great and sustainable way of life and that they can keep this up indefinitely, without thinking of potential consequences.

Can someone live without knowing the basic and essential biological principles? Yes. But that makes life so much harder for those that follow.

A5

Por que razão há sempre tanto trânsito do tipo "pára-arranca" na A5?
Para começar, é uma auto-estrada. Não tem semáforos. Tem 3 faixas em cada sentido (embora para muitas, quiçá a maioria, das pessoas, tenha apenas 2 faixas, e para uma minoria, existe unicamente a faixa do meio). Não tem cruzamentos.
Logo, não há razão para um qualquer carro parar na A5. A não ser que tenha um acidente à sua frente. Mas não há acidentes na A5 todos os dias. E os que têm, geralmente, um motivo idiota e são sempre nos mesmos sítios.
Mas voltando à questão... O próprio trânsito tem origem nos mesmos locais, geralmente subidas. No Verão é fácil explicar, o rebanho vai em direcção ao Sol. O Sol interfere com a visibilidade. A pessoa leva com o Sol na retina e o instinto absurdo de carregar no pedal do meio assume o controlo corporal. Segue-se batida por trás, ou num dia bom, um carro parado atrás, e começa assim um longo tormento automobilístico.
Mas num dia de Outono/Inverno, já com pouco ou nenhum Sol na "hora de ponta", o que é que acontece? Pois, é o supra-citado eclipse aberrante de faixas que ocorre. É isso, e o saltitar constante que muitos fazem de faixa para faixa, pois a dos outros parece que anda sempre mais depressa. E quando realmente anda, não serve de nada ir para lá. Os outros vão fazer exactamente o mesmo, o número de carros nessa faixa vai aumentar, e ela passa a ser a mais lenta.
Portanto, conselhos:
- de Monsanto até ao alto de Linda-a-Velha, a faixa mais rápida é a da direita.
- quando começarem a descer, há dias em que a da esquerda é a que flui melhor, noutros dias continua a ser a da direita.
- depois do desvio para Queijas, a regra da direita aplica-se.
- o viaduto entre o Estádio e Oeiras é sempre um ponto de extrema desaceleração para muitos carros, que teimam em não ocupar a faixa da direita, e aqui origina-se grande parte do trânsito. Por isso, optem pela direita.

Notas finais:
- ultrapassar pela direita é proibido. Mas segundo o código da estrada, a ultrapassagem consiste na mudança de faixa onde nos encontramos por forma a passar um veículo que impedia a nossa circulação na faixa em que nos encontrávamos. Logo, se forem sempre pela direita, não estão a infringir nenhuma regra e chegam mais depressa ao destino.
- será que a polícia já reparou que todos os dias milhares de pessoas cometem uma contra-ordenação muito grave na A5? É que o limite mínimo de velocidade permitido é 50 quilómetros por hora...

Toilet paper

Y do we use toilet paper?

The answer is simple, I guess... But better yet, who came up with the idea? Obviously, this crucial existential question overwhelmed me while I was taking a crap...

Doing some research (after washing hands), one can quickly find out that, apparently, the use of toilet paper was invented by the Chinese. Does this mean that if Chinese people wouldn't have been fleeing from their country for the last decades, dispersing all over the globe, we wouldn't be wiping our asses with paper? Maybe not...

Also interesting is the fact that, in some parts of the world, wealthy people once used other materials, like wool, for the same shitty job. Not only could they clean their ass, but it would also be warm and cozy.

As for the Romans, they stretched their empire using a sponge on a stick and a bucket of saltwater. No wonder the Roman empire fell...

As for people in India, they seem to find that using water is a more clean and sanitary practice. Of course it is! But not in India...

So, choose your method and wipe your ass.

Possession

Y do most Portuguese people feel the need to own their own house/flat?

Let's look at some facts:

To buy a flat, you seldomly (if ever) have all the necessary money. Thus, you go to a bank and ask for a loan - the process, by itself, is a pain in the ass. By the time you finish paying off the loan, the house/flat cost you around 10-20% more, or even higher. Also, you'll also be paying that loan over the course of 30 to 40 years. Although life expectancy is increasing, there's a big chance that the flat will never trully be yours. Hence, the argument that buying is better than renting, because at least you're paying for something that will be yours, may not be true.

A big advantage of renting is that you can move out whenever you want, if you get tired of living in the same place. Selling the flat, on the other hand, can be troublesome, unless you own a penthouse in the center of a cosmopolitan city. Also, you don't have to play all the sort of taxes that ownership implies.

You can always argue that, at least, you'll leave something for your kids (if you have any). Hello? If you're buying your own house/flat, you didn't get it from your parents. If your kids want some place to live in, they must work to get it.

Suffice to say I won't be convinced to buy a flat anytime soon.

And this serves only as an example, since most people feel the need to own everything that they surround themselves with. A theme for a future discussion.

ASFV TopoII

Y does the African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) encode its own type II topoisomerase?

It's a really interesting question, and while I don't know the answer to it (yet!), I'll let you know when I find out! In about 3 year´s time...

Just a curiosity: ASFV is one of the few viruses that encode their own topoisomerase II, and of those few, it's the only one capable of infecting mammalian cells.

It's probably best for me to go to work, then...