Patternicity, Renewable Energy, Progeria

1. Patternicity

I came across the word "patternicity" today in the comments on a blog post about people associating the full moon with crazy behaviour. I can imagine that if there ever has been some sort of positive correlation between extra rowdiness and the full moon, then it would have been in an era when night time lighting wasn't a thing and to be able to be out at night was more difficult. More people about, more likelihood of bad behaviour.

Patternicity is the finding of non-existent patterns, and as such seems like it might be another word for pareidolia. Not recognising real patterns is called apatternicity. From an evolutionary point of view, apatternicity is much more dangerous than patternicity since a false positive is less likely to kill you than a false negative – is it a snake or not? If it is and you think it isn't you could die. If it isn't an you think it is, no harm done.

2. Renewable Energy

A few years ago, I went to a talk about an optimist's tour of the future. We hear so much doom and gloom about the future, but this talk was a light in the darkness. It gave a glimpse into how people are coming up with ingenious solutions to today's problems from revitalising the farmland in Australia to growing human organs to capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Today I read an article on renewable energy sources which falls into the same category of ingenious solutions. This solutions range from artificial tree wind turbines which work at half the windspeed of the giant concrete windmills scattered about the countryside, to harnessing the excess heat in the London Underground to heat local homes, to giant solar powered ducks! The wind turbine trees are being tested in Paris this spring and are due to be installed across France later this year.

3. Progeria

There was an article in the Telegraph today about a girl with Progeria died. Progeria is a progressive genetic disorder which causes aging at up to ten times the normal rate. People with this disorder have dwarfism and small faces, and problems associated with aging. They usually don't live past 13. There are only around 70 known cases of it.