LifeItself

Recently, 1/2 of US patents was granted to foreign residents, whose numbers are at below 1/10 of the US population. This trend has been growing almost monotonically since 1947 and reflects the ever-increasing majority of graduate students in science and engineering, who are foreigners. Foreign graduate students are currently at 80% or so in math and petroleum engineering. The US Patent Office does not count naturalized American patent holders. Given that roughly 50% of engineering and science professors are foreign-born, patents given to foreigners in the US dominate. Fraction of all US patents granted to foreign residents. Note that the total foreign-born fraction of US population has hovered between 5 and 15% of the total population. Also note that since 1947 foreigners have received an almost monotonically growing share of US patents that is now at least 5 times their share of the US population. (I say at least, because I am adding naturalized citizens to the foreign fract...

Here is a decomposition into multiple Hubbert cycles of patents granted each year since 1790 by the U.S. Patent Office to 1 million US residents. Note that without a new cycle of inventions in something, the current cycles will expire by 2050.  In other words, the total number of U.S. inventions will decline dramatically in the next 20-30 years.  Some of this decline might be forced by a decline of support for R&D and fundamental research in the US. The fundamental cycle of patented inventions in the US peaked in 1914, when expressed per 1 million of people living in the US. This was the classical science and engineering patent cycle. The first small peak in 1870, was related to the Civil War and the newly acquired technological sophistication in the U.S. The second small peak in 1885, was probably related to the innovators who were born post 1860, coming of age. The third small peak in 1930, was a boost to innovation during the roaring 1920s. Curiously, the next larg...

The December 27, 2010, WSJ Opinion piece, "Ag Department Uproots Science," is full of fantastically uninformed thinking so characteristic of medieval alchemists. The piece takes to task the Ag Secretary and the Obama administration for being insufficiently warm towards the genetically modified (GM) plants and insufficiently lax in regulating them. The nonsensical argument that a genetically modified plant is "substantially equivalent" to an unmodified one, because a few different genes weight almost nothing, flies in the face of the very science the opinionator invokes so often. These modified genes express themselves differently in different circumstances, and may cause significant changes in chemical reaction pathways at cellular level. In other words, the modified plant may, and often does, produce chemicals that disrupt the human endocrinal system or are downright poisonous. A good example are GM potatoes. What irks me more than anything is that this roa...

Our 20-plus years old, tiny Russian cat, Kicka, died on this first day of Christmas at 2:43 am. Her fearless little heart kept on beating for another two days while her fat-free body was shutting down. Kicka died on Joanna's lap, with Julie and me petting her. Kicka died at home, surrounded by her loving family. I wish I could have the same death when my time comes. It seems unlikely, however. A search of Google, yesterday at 11 pm, provided the following results: "Cat" generated 745 million hits, only behind "Technology," 3,620 million hits; "Die" 1,210 million hits; "Car," 1,160 million hits; "History," 1,150 million hits; "Law," 912 million hits; and "Science," 825 million hits. "Cat" has virtually tied with "Baby," 764 million hits. "Cat" beat handily "Sex,", 702 million hits; "Energy," 550 million hits; "Dog," 371 million hits; and "Enginee...

Our little cat, Kicka, all bundled up, is lying semi-conscious and half-paralyzed on top of Joanna, who in turn fell asleep on a sofa. So I have time to reflect on this year and dream about the next one. Recently, I was asked to predict the most important events in 2011, and found it impossible. Instead, I have attempted to be wildly optimistic and skip the usual "peak-everything" stuff. Here is the result: The Happy New Year 2011 will see a thorough public discussion of what needs to be done to make the U.S. a more resilient society and economy. Federal government, Congress and Senate will start working together on the development of a massive national electrified railroad system to transport goods and people. We will come off the high horse and stop hallucinating about building bullet train tracks in a railroad system that is decidedly mid-twentieth century or older. Many cities across the U.S., will embark on the crash investment in light rail and other alternative...

My 21-year old cat, Kicka (Kitty in Polish) is dying. Life is leaving her in tiny puffs, and there is nothing we can do. Joanna, Julie and I are trying to feed Kicka warm broth. She no longer eats solid food and is barely able to lift her head to look at us with these bright, knowing eyes of hers that now shine less and less. Do you know that today one cannot buy chicken broth with fat? We obsess too much about obesity to be eating normal whole food. We adopted Kicka in Berkeley in early 1991. She was a tiny, visibly abused Russian cat. All these years she could not completely warm up to anyone, perhaps with the exception of Sophie, my middle daughter. In human years, Kicka is over 90 years of age. She survived in a pretty rough neighborhood in Oakland Hills, hiding from the coyotes, raccoons, hawks and owls, and fighting other cats. All of the cats were bigger than Kicka, so she lost her front teeth and almost died of infected wounds. The move to Austin brought Kicka back to life...

I have just migrated much of my old U.C. Berkeley website to the new UT Austin one. Sifting through my old posts on biofuels, agriculture, ecology and energy, I have observed with sadness that these posts remain as true today as they were five or six years ago. The more things change the more they stay the same.