Reading the World

May 12, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

By nature, humans generally like to share what they know – at least, they like to share parts of what they know. The very form and manner we choose to visualize what we know in a way that can be shared with others says a lot about how we see the world.

Tree of Knowledge

For example, one of my ongoing favorite phylogenetic trees, OneZoom, chooses fractal swirls, branches on the tree of life that rotate into ever smaller tendrils, ever closer detail. To me, this reflects our modern ability to see creatures, objects, energies, that are ever smaller. There’s no end to how small we can go.

But visualizing knowledge in the form of branching plant limbs and trees is nothing new.

The Petroleum Tree (1957), an illustration of petroleum uses.
Via: Slate

There’s a beautiful book out, The Book Of Trees by Manuel Lima, that takes a look at the roots of all these trees.

We pick other illustrations, other approaches, but the tree is an old beloved standard. It’s like we’re hardwired to depict knowledge, any kind of knowledge, in some kind of plant or tree-like form.

Given our roots, and given how important trees are to human life, I suppose it’s only natural. What would our visualisations of knowledge look like if we’d only ever seen desert, or rocks, or shallow pools of water?

Tree of virtues and vices (1121)
Via: Papress

View from Above

February 27, 2014 / PK Read / 1 Comment

17th century celestial map by Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit

We’re always looking for reasons, causality, connections, in life and in science. There’s an ongoing project that might be an invaluable tool in discovering unexpected interconnectivity on the planet’s surface.

The ICARUS Initiative (“International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space”) is a scientific collaboration working towards placing a remote sensory system on the International Space Station to track tagged animals around the globe.

The Icarus team is developing tag sensors that can be placed on any kind of animal, from zebras to butterflies, and which will relay the animals’ movements to the ISS antenna for distribution and analysis.

Movebank map. Click on the image for an interactive view, which can be filtered by animal identifiers.

Movebank map.
The data will be collected and stored with Movebank.
Click on the image for an interactive view, which can be filtered by animal identifiers.

By allowing scientists combine data sets from separate studies in new ways, including meteorological and geological data, entirely new questions can be proposed and ideas tested.

Suggested uses include tracking the spread of disease, gaining insight into migration, ecological patterns and better understanding of evolutionary processes.

And then there’s the example given by Dr. Martin Wikelski, head of the ICARUS Initiative and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology: By observing the movement of goats on Italy’s Mount Etna, volcanic eruptions can be predicted up to six hours in advance.

Huichol cross (‘God’s eye’). The four points represent the eternal processes of earth, fire, air and water. Colors carry symbolic meanings, as well.
Source: Geo-Mexico

When I was a kid growing up in California, it was common to pass the pre-Internet, pre-digital time of day by making God’s eyes, stick and yarn creations that symbolize the power to see and understand the unknown. God’s eye weavings are mostly decorative now, but the basic colors represent various aspects of life. Weaving together a God’s eye can be a way of meditating on how the various strands of life work together in unseen ways.

There isn’t really a scientific equivalent to the God’s eye, but projects like the Icarus Initiative might just be a start.

Hard Data

November 5, 2013November 5, 2013 / PK Read / Leave a comment

When I was a teenager, I went on an archeaological dig for a week or so. It was an enlightening experience, and not just because it made me realize how much I don’t like camping in the rain, even on a California beach.

One fascinating aspect of the dig was the discovery of various artifacts that were clearly intact, but which were for unknown uses.

Of course, a small part of an object – the metal eyelet of a laced shoe, for example – might have any number of uses once it has been separated from its parent object. At the time it had never occurred to me that humans could invent objects of everyday use, and that we could then collectively forget what they were for, or not intuitively understand their function.

Clay balls found at various sites across what was ancient Mesopotamia are thought to represent the first data storage and communication system in the era that preceded the invention of writing. Called ‘envelopes’, the balls range in age from 3000-5500 years old, and can be anywhere from the size of a golf ball to that of a baseball.

Photo: Anna Ressman/ Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

The envelopes have specific markings on the outside, and contain small geometrical objects, dubbed ‘tokens’, within. High-resolution computer tomography scanning has been used to examine the interiors without breaking open the clay exteriors.

Researchers suggest that the tokens represent some form of counting, while the outer markings denote buyer and seller information. Overall, the envelopes and their contents were probably a way to record economic transactions, a kind of prehistoric receipt.

Line drawing of clay ball exterior
Credit: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

There’s a part of me that thinks modern humans haven’t really changed all that much from the time we became sedentary city dwellers carrying out business.

How simple would the creators of these handy and long-lasting clay balls, likely considered intuitive and easy to use, consider the 21st century person who couldn’t easily figure them out?

What objects of data storage do I consider to be intuitive and functional, but which will one day present a strange and intriguing puzzle because some amount of cultural information has gone missing or is obsolete?

Harnessing Big Data at CERN

May 9, 2013 / PK Read / Leave a comment

CERN map
Source: Symmetry Magazine via Duke Physics

According to this playful map by Symmetry Magazine, we live somewhere in France between the Kingdom of CMS and the Canton of Alice. My regular running path takes me past a large access point to the CERN accelerator, which is 17 miles (27 km) in circumference. If it were shown on this map, I suppose it would be a large gate with a drawbridge.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest high-energy particle accelerator and arguably the largest microscope ever constructed, generates almost unimaginable amounts of data when it is running. Actually, it’s on a hiatus right now, but that doesn’t really matter much because there is so much data to process and examine before the LHC starts up again in 18 months. There’s a good article in Symmetry Magazine on how the LHC is a model for the processing of big data, a challenge faced all over the world in a number of sectors. Here’s a big infographic on big data.

Big Data
Source: Wipro.com via Infographicsmania.com

Collaboration strategies for big data are driving many of the open science initiatives today, not to mention commercial, artistic, military and government projects. For me, big data processing holds promise when applied to shared data that creates large, publicaly available collaborative projects like OneZoom (a phylogenetic tree project), or the LHC, or Wikipedia for that matter. Big data shows its teeth as well as its shortcomings with surveillance capabilities.

To get an idea of just how much data is ‘big’, another helpful illustration.

Big Data Comparison
Source: Symmetry Magazine

Finally, here’s a short film on just how LHC manages to collect and process those massive quantities of information.

Symmetry Magazine article – Particle physics tames big data, by Leah Hesla

You can also view the CERN short film here.

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data

Reading the World

View from Above

Hard Data

Harnessing Big Data at CERN