Category: Science

Life, Science

Classical mistakes: Quantum Biology

Hard to know where to begin, but picking up a copy of this book is a good start… Very well written, pretty accessible; and utterly mind-blowing.

Given recent forays into maths I just about get Erwin Schrödinger’s puzzlement in 1944 at this central question of heredity: “how could identical copies of genes be passed virtually unchanged from one generation to the next?”

As Life on the Edge explains – all the laws of classical physics and chemistry are statistical laws; which means they are only true on average and are only reliable because they involve very large numbers of particles interacting. 

Knock billiard balls around on a table for an hour and you can predict most will end up in the pockets. Thermodynamics works like this and predicts the average behaviour of lots of particles, not the behaviour of an individual molecule. 

As Schrödinger pointed out all the laws of classical physics and chemistry – including all those relating to fluids and chemical reactions – are based on this principle of averaging large numbers. ‘Order’ emerges from ‘disorder’.

Schrödinger not only observed that the statistical laws of classical physics couldn’t be relied on at the microscopic level; he quantified the decline in accuracy. The size of deviations from the classical laws is inversely proportional to the square root of the number of particles involved.

A normal balloon filled with a trillion particles deviates from the ‘gas laws’ by only one millionth. But a tiny balloon filled with only one hundred particles will deviate from ‘orderly’ behaviour by one in ten.

And here is where Schrödinger locates the problem – the ‘order from disorder’ principle of classical laws cannot govern life, because some of the tiniest biological machines are just too small to be governed by classical laws.

At the time Schrödinger was writing his book What Is Life? he calculated that a single gene might contain about a million atoms. The square root of a million is one thousand. So the level of noise and inaccuracy in genes should be one in a thousand – or 0.1%. And yet genes can be faithfully transmitted with mutation rates of less than one in one billion.

Schrödinger concluded that the machinery of life could not be founded on the ‘order from disorder’ of classical laws – but must be subject to the strange, but strangely orderly rules of quantum mechanics.

This is just the most abstract of the arguments and examples for quantum effects in life. Life on the Edge gives us the science of smells, migrating birds, the extraordinary efficiency of photosynthesis, the relevant complexity of the mind and more. Enough to completely persuade me that Schrödinger was right – quantum effects are everywhere in life’s most basic processes.

I’ve always thought the quantum realm was abstract and perhaps just a little unreal – Life on the Edge will persuade you that it’s quantum mechanics not clockwork, that makes all living things tick.

Life, Psychology, Science

Nostalgia

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Turns out Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be…

Traditionally associated with wallowing in a rose or even sepia-tinted past; nostalgia has a bad reputation for losing us in misty-eyed escapism to a lost time that never really was.

I’ve always believed nostalgia was a thing to avoid; at best a source of melancholy and at worst downright sadness. But not so according to the New Scientist:

First described by Johannes Hofer in 1688, the word nostalgia comes from the Greek nostros, to return home, and algos, meaning pain. Hofer observed it as a disorder of homesick Swiss mercenaries stationed in Italy and France… a disease which whose symptoms included weeping, fainting, fever and heart palpitations. He advised treatment with laxatives, narcotics, bloodletting or if nothing else worked sending the soldiers home.

As recently as 1938 the New Scientist continues:

It was described in the British Journal of Psychiatry as “immigrant psychosis”: a condition marked by a combination of homesickness, exhaustion and loneliness.

However, in the last two decades nostalgia has been recognised as an emotion found in all cultures; a mix of happiness and longing. Its bittersweet nature is apparently “unique but universal” – and most of us experience it at least once a week!

Why?

One theory the New Scientist offers is that nostalgia gives us a sense of continuity in life: “Nostalgia reminds us we are the same person we were on our seventh birthday party as on our wedding day and at our retirement celebration.” 

It turns out nostalgia is an antidote to loneliness; not its cause. It lifts us when we are feeling down and boosts well-being. 

And it helps you cope… less nostalgic people feel less connected to others, that life has less meaning, are less likely to seek help from others and deal with loneliness less effectively.

Whereas: “reflecting on nostalgic memories boosts optimism and leaves people more inspired to pursue their goals.” Wow! What’s not to like?

Music is a particularly effective summoner of nostalgia by all accounts (explains my blog about Teddy Mac, Alzheimer’s and Sinatra’s: “You make me feel so good”).

So yesterday I tuned into Absolute 80s on the radio for some teenage kicks, and sent my folks some BFI black and white archive videos of our home town. I used to think that sort of thing might drive them to melancholy; not now.

I’m embracing and prescribing a regular dose of nostalgia – rose tinted spectacles all round!

Achilles, Odysseus, Psychology, Science, Sport, Work

Optimism Epiphany

   

I’ve had an epiphany. It all comes down to three Ps; and avoiding learned helplessness…

First discovered in dogs and then in humans, Wikipedia takes up the strain here:

Research has found that human reactions to a lack of control differ both between individuals and between situations. For example, learned helplessness sometimes remains specific to one situation but at other times generalizes across situations.

An influential view is that such variations depend on an individual’s attributional or explanatory style. According to this view, how someone interprets or explains adverse events affects their likelihood of acquiring learned helplessness and subsequent depression. 

For example, people with pessimistic explanatory style tend to see negative events as permanent (“it will never change”), personal (“it’s my fault”), and pervasive (“I can’t do anything correctly”), are likely to suffer from learned helplessness and depression.

If you want to bounce back fast from setbacks and beat the blues, Martin Seligman’s book and the thesis of learned optimism are well worth a read. It’s certainly working for me. 

I’m ruminating less, and actively breaking up permanent, pervasive and personal interpretations of bad situations when I hit them…

I’m regularly reminding myself: 

“It’ll pass”, “it’s just one part of my life”, “it’s not me that’s causing this.”

And directing myself – and others – toward action, not helplessness: 

“Ok but what can we do about it right now”,  “OK if we can’t fix that, what else can we fix” and “if anyone is going to make this better we can, so let’s have a go.” 

I feel a lot better, and people around me do too. It transpires the main benefit of pessimism is you predict the future better. 

Optimism might help change it.

Aristotle, Psychology, Science, Writing

Habit Forming

  
Is the great Greek wrong on this one… 

I stumbled across  an interesting article in Time – (it quoted an academic from my place of work) which suggests he might be:


So what are habits, really? According to Dr. Benjamin Gardner, a psychologist focusing on habit research at King’s College London, “habit works by generating an impulse to do a behaviour with little or no conscious thought.” Habits are simply how the brain learns to do things without deliberation. These impulses can be put to good use, but only certain behaviors can become habits.

Building a habit is relatively simple — just harness the impulse. For new habits to take hold, provide a clear trigger, make the behavior easy to do, and ensure it occurs frequently. For example, by completely removing unhealthy food from my home and eating the same thing every morning, my diet became a healthy habit. I extracted the decision making process out of what I eat at home.

However, if the behavior requires a high degree of intentionality, effort, or deliberation, it is not a habit. Although proponents of habits tout them as miracle cures for doing things we’d rather not do, I’m sorry to say that’s snake oil. All sorts of tasks aren’t habits and never will be. By definition, doing things that are effortful aren’t habits.

Unfortunately, this means behaviors that require hard work and deliberate practice aren’t good candidates for habit-formation. For example, although I make time for it every day, writing is not a habit. Writing is hard work. If I waited for an “impulse” to write, I’d never do it. To get better at writing requires concentration and directed effort to make sense of the words as they go from the research to my head and then to the screen. Similarly, lifting weights isn’t a habit because getting stronger requires working harder.

So if these type of behaviors aren’t habits, what are they? They’re routines. A routine is a series of behaviors regularly practiced. Routines don’t care if you feel an urge or not, they just need to get done. When I finally realized I would never succeed at making going to the gym a habit, I began looking for how to establish a routine instead.

This makes sense, when you think about it. I’ve read elsewhere that as much of 40% of the time we are doing things which have become habitual and have no conscious deliberation – we are on Autopilot.

This suggests three things – all of which I’m trying… Make boring but useful things a habit (taking my vitamin D for example); make things which take some effort but are good for me into a routine (write a blog every Saturday); and more counterintuitively – make sure things which are supposed to be enjoyable, don’t become a habit. 

Why? Because once you stop thinking about them, you’re no longer consciously enjoying them. Not having a drink on Monday or Tuesday has become a habit (good). So sometimes sharing a bottle of prosecco with my other half on a Wednesday, has become a treat (need to be careful it doesn’t become a habit though…)

It’s worth reflecting on what you want to do without thinking, what you can’t do without thinking and what you enjoy doing – and need to think about to consciously enjoy. 

Habits aren’t conscious. They may help to make us excellent; but our best and most enjoyable work and experiences require conscious effort. 

I’m sure Aristotle would buy that.

Life, Psychology, Science, Work

Wood for Trees

click for the detail

I’m not a huge one for detail. Not that I don’t notice things; just that I’m more interested in the bigger picture and the human dynamic these days.

It turns out my psychometric profile (in the jargon) always has one big question in mind: 

Will this work?

So I’m mostly only interested in the details which guide the answer to that question: is this a good idea, is it do-able, are people likely to go for it, can I get my bit of it done?

That means I tend to want to break big problems down into smaller ones; ‘chunking up’ (also in the jargon). 

So what is murderous for me?  

Impractical idealists, detail-minded questioners and incessant talkers… I need time and space to think and I like people who take the time to listen – as my finest friend did this week.

As the old song goes ‘everybody’s talkin at me’ at the moment. But the good news is, I cope better with it these days than I once did. I’m better at seeing what matters; and what I just need live with.

Which brings me onto my remarkable factiod of this week – why is the night sky dark? 

If the universe is infinite and full of an infinite number of stars, the night sky should be saturated with starlight. But it isn’t…  Roger Barlow explains all on The Conversation: 

Imagine you are deep in a forest. All around you there are trees. Wherever you look, you are looking at a tree. Maybe a big tree close up or a bunch of small trees further away. 

Surely it should be the same with stars. We’re deep in the universe and whatever direction we look in, there ought to be stars there – billions and billions and billions of them. You would have thought that they’d fill the whole night sky, with the more distant ones fainter but more numerous.

The reason the night sky isn’t just a blaze of light is because the universe isn’t infinite and static. If it were, if the stars went on forever, and if they had been there forever in time, we would see a bright night sky. The fact that we don’t tells us something very fundamental about the universe we live in.

A limit to the universe may seem a natural explanation – if you were in a forest and you could see a gap in the trees, for example, you might surmise that you were near the edge. But it’s dark on all sides of us, which would mean not just that the universe is bounded, but that we’re in the middle of it, which is pretty implausible.

Alternatively, the universe could be limited in time, meaning that light from far-away stars hasn’t had time to reach us yet.

But actually the explanation is neither of these. Light from the far-away stars gets fainter because the universe is expanding.

Edwin Hubble discovered in 1929 that distant galaxies and stars are travelling away from us. He also found that the furthest galaxies are travelling away from us at the fastest rate – which does make sense: over the lifespan of the universe, faster galaxies will have travelled further.

And this affects how we see them. Light from these distant, fast-moving galaxies and stars is shifted to longer wavelengths by the Doppler effect. In the case of these stars, the effect shifts visible light into invisible (to the human eye) infra-red and radio waves, essentially making them disappear. 

The blackness of the night sky is direct evidence of an expanding universe.

Fascinating – a fine example of seeing the wood for the trees.