4 ms·

It seems like 500 Million suns worth of energy ( not totally converted into momentum -- since we can observe it ) to power a spaceship, by an advanced civilisat

It seems like 500 Million suns worth of energy ( not totally converted into momentum -- since we can observe it ) to power a spaceship, by an advanced civilisation, is a bit wasteful. I think it's more likely if FRBs are from a civilization they represent something like the output of an industrial process ( maybe for creating dark matter or other exotic materials ), or the equivalent of blasting to get access to minerals, or even a weapon, like a super powerful nuclear or dark matter weapon. Someplace the expenditure of energy is justified by the cost. Or maybe it's a race of super-advanced giants playing with enormous laser pointers just for fun.

mseepgood 9y ago
> It seems like 500 Million suns worth of energy ( not totally converted into momentum -- since we can observe it ) to power a spaceship, by an advanced civilisation, is a bit wasteful. Wastefulness doesn't stop civilizations from doing something. It could be the spaceship equivalent of a SUV.
- 19eightyfour 9y ago
  Lol. That's good. So true. I didn't think of that. It's more like "unconscious" nature that is usually more efficient instead of civilizations. Although I don't understand why some crop genomes have so many more genomes than humans. Maybe wastefulness is everywhere.
  - derefr 9y ago
    Are you talking about polyploid genes? Having more copies of each gene per cell nucleus is effectively RAID: it protects against copying errors, and therefore against genetic disorders and cancers. This does have the side-effect of increasing the size of the nucleus of each cell, which is a problem if you're an animal with cells that need to float around in a blood stream and squeeze through tiny capillaries—but not if you're a plant, with all your cells locked in place.
    - 19eightyfour 9y ago
      That's also an important consideration I hadn't thought of. The plants can have the cell size constraint relaxed because of their different morphology / physiology. In fact, it came from me looking at human and other vertebrate genomes, and then looking at some reference "crop" genomes and seeing multiples as many genes. I didn't know if they are polyploid copies as you say or not tho it could have been. I'll try to find the links where I saw these numbers (from a few years ago now) and update. [edit] Ok, for example: chimpanzee genome, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/genomes/202 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/genomes/202? , size: ~3Gb, scaffolds: ~50k bread wheat genome, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/genomes/11? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/genomes/11?, size: ~13Gb, scaffolds: ~750k And more summaries are at the Wikipedia page of sequenced plant genomes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sequenced_plant_genomes#Grasses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sequenced_plant_genome... ( there are many with over 30,000 genes ( cf humans < 20,000 ) and there are a few big ones ( Aegilops tauschii (Tausch's goatgrass) has 4.3Gb ), and most are more than 200 Mb ( cf fruit fly is around 180Mbp ) When compared with small insects and animals ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sequenced_eukaryotic_genomes#Animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sequenced_eukaryotic_g... ) plants often have larger genomes. And in some cases larger genomes than humans. The weird thing is that genome size is correlated with "complexity" in non-animal world too. With fungi and so on having smaller genomes generally than large plants. All this seems weird because my assumption is that animals are more "complex" than plants. So either there is a lot of redundancy there or plants have some kind of unseen complexity. It would be cool to see models that try to quantify the explanations of large genomes given here by others ( error and viral resistance and freer nuclear sizing ) and see if those models can account for the sizes somehow, or if there might be more to the picture. Another possibility is that genomes grow with genetic manipulation so cross-breeds have bigger genomes. But what does that say for humans? Are we the result of genetic breeding as well?
      - derefr 9y ago
        To put a finer point on it, the limit on cell size is closer to the definitional difference between what makes something a "plant" vs an "animal" than almost anything else. Plants, due to their stable tissue structures, don't need to worry about their cell size, and therefore don't need to worry about unbounded DNA growth. Because of this, they have evolved to take advantage of having "more" DNA. Yes, polyploid plants are generally healthier, because plants expect polyploidy. But even without polyploidy, plants have large amounts of "specialized-use" genetic material, libraries of specific responses (e.g. immune responses) to specific problems (e.g. parasites) that may have only existed millions of years ago. They can just keep all these one-off solutions around, evolving to protect themselves against one more thing at a time. (This is also why plants tend to be full of weird organic molecules like terpenes, which are beneficial to nearly every animal alive today: those chemicals probably protected them from something at some point, and the genes responsible for making them have had no reason to be shut off since then.) But animals, with a finite limit on gene-base size, must solve problems differently. Animals evolve along different lines—polyploid mutations usually result in non-viable offspring for animal species, because animals frequently have mutations that assume diploidy, with complex machinery to favor better vs. worse versions of each diploid gene using silencing or epigenetic methylation. And more generally, animals evolve solutions to whole classes of problems that have compact genetic representations. We don't have a million custom immune responses; instead, we have xenograft rejection genes, T-cells, livers and kidneys, saliva and stomach acid, the sensation of itching, skin that sheds and skin oil that clears pores, and put together, those mechanisms handle 99% of cases just fine. And often we don't need any of those; the primary "solution" that animals have to almost every problem, is just the ability to move away from the source of the problem. If there's a predator, you can just run away. You don't need to know what the thing is, to run away from it; you just run away! Universal solution! To do that, we need a lot of things: not just limbs, but sensory organs, to know where we are and where the predator is; and nerves, to link the two; and even some sort of instinct for what predators exist, or memory to record sense-fear associations. But all those genes still take up far less space than immune proteases individualized for every bacterium and fungus on earth.
  - tejtm 9y ago
    a genome is a dartboard, a virus is a dart, having a giant dartboard means the dart is more likely not to hit a bullseye (really big. so big you can't even throw the dart far enough to reach[1]) 1 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8339.2010.01072.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8339.2010....
    - 19eightyfour 9y ago
      I never even considered that! As far as I'm concerned that's a really workable explanation. Thanks!
- pif 9y ago
  > It could be the spaceship equivalent of a SUV. I bought my first SUV a few weeks ago. It's a Jeep renegade, thus not very big, still the comfort from big space inside (without a huge 2-D surface) is priceless.
  - 19eightyfour 9y ago
    Jeeps are solid. I'm one of those Defender geeks.
    - macintux 9y ago
      Nice. Wrangler is my poison of choice, but stumbled upon a 70s-era Defender near my house recently, and a co-worker owns an even older one. Beautiful vehicles.
      - cr0sh 9y ago
        I've been thinking about a Wrangler myself, something with the I-6 if I can still find one. But that mention of the Defender sent me looking, and I really like how it looks. But unless I get a much better (much, much better!) job somewhere, I can't even afford a used one. There are ones on CL right now in my area, dating from the 80s (but with low, low miles for some reason) selling for close to 90K - and if I'm going to spend that kind of money locally, I might as well get a Local Motors Rally Fighter! Honestly, though, what I would love to own isn't for sale yet, and if they ever do finish them for sale, likely they won't sell them to anyone in the US: http://oxgvt.com/ http://oxgvt.com/ ...though they should be legal to drive, as a "kit car" (though probably deadly in a collision on our streets).
- smoyer 9y ago
  My SUV has about the same fuel economy as my mini-van ... It's better on the highway and worse around town.
  - 19eightyfour 9y ago
    Yeah they do get a somewhat overzealous helping of shade. Sometimes it's more of a "pile on" effect than actually deserved. But I literally think Tsubi "pajero" ruined everything forever with their cynical naming. Leopard. Yeah, right.
  - bitJericho 9y ago
    Except your minivan can haul things, your suv is barely better than a car.
    - smoyer 9y ago
      Kind of ... the seats in the SUV fold down and I haul stuff in there too. You're right that it isn't as big an open space. More importantly, the SUV will haul my (small) yacht but it's a strain on the mini-van.
adrianN 9y ago
Does the 500 Million suns figure come from a calculation that assumes propagation in all directions? A focused beam would use a lot less energy.
tomaskafka 9y ago
Every new thing seems wasteful. Try explaining to your grand-grand-granddad why there are huge manufacturing cities in China, global supply chains, hundreds of thousands of undersea cables, worldwide network of cables and base stations in order to get you a funny cat video into your pocket in park.
- 19eightyfour 9y ago
  This is a valid point too. When the "why" is not understood, the "thing" looks wasteful. Thanks so much!

mseepgood 9y ago

> It seems like 500 Million suns worth of energy ( not totally converted into momentum -- since we can observe it ) to power a spaceship, by an advanced civilisation, is a bit wasteful. Wastefulness doesn't stop civilizations from doing something. It could be the spaceship equivalent of a SUV.

19eightyfour 9y ago
Lol. That's good. So true. I didn't think of that. It's more like "unconscious" nature that is usually more efficient instead of civilizations. Although I don't understand why some crop genomes have so many more genomes than humans. Maybe wastefulness is everywhere.
- derefr 9y ago
  Are you talking about polyploid genes? Having more copies of each gene per cell nucleus is effectively RAID: it protects against copying errors, and therefore against genetic disorders and cancers. This does have the side-effect of increasing the size of the nucleus of each cell, which is a problem if you're an animal with cells that need to float around in a blood stream and squeeze through tiny capillaries—but not if you're a plant, with all your cells locked in place.
  - 19eightyfour 9y ago
    That's also an important consideration I hadn't thought of. The plants can have the cell size constraint relaxed because of their different morphology / physiology. In fact, it came from me looking at human and other vertebrate genomes, and then looking at some reference "crop" genomes and seeing multiples as many genes. I didn't know if they are polyploid copies as you say or not tho it could have been. I'll try to find the links where I saw these numbers (from a few years ago now) and update. [edit] Ok, for example: chimpanzee genome, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/genomes/202 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/genomes/202? , size: ~3Gb, scaffolds: ~50k bread wheat genome, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/genomes/11? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/genomes/11?, size: ~13Gb, scaffolds: ~750k And more summaries are at the Wikipedia page of sequenced plant genomes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sequenced_plant_genomes#Grasses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sequenced_plant_genome... ( there are many with over 30,000 genes ( cf humans < 20,000 ) and there are a few big ones ( Aegilops tauschii (Tausch's goatgrass) has 4.3Gb ), and most are more than 200 Mb ( cf fruit fly is around 180Mbp ) When compared with small insects and animals ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sequenced_eukaryotic_genomes#Animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sequenced_eukaryotic_g... ) plants often have larger genomes. And in some cases larger genomes than humans. The weird thing is that genome size is correlated with "complexity" in non-animal world too. With fungi and so on having smaller genomes generally than large plants. All this seems weird because my assumption is that animals are more "complex" than plants. So either there is a lot of redundancy there or plants have some kind of unseen complexity. It would be cool to see models that try to quantify the explanations of large genomes given here by others ( error and viral resistance and freer nuclear sizing ) and see if those models can account for the sizes somehow, or if there might be more to the picture. Another possibility is that genomes grow with genetic manipulation so cross-breeds have bigger genomes. But what does that say for humans? Are we the result of genetic breeding as well?
    - derefr 9y ago
      To put a finer point on it, the limit on cell size is closer to the definitional difference between what makes something a "plant" vs an "animal" than almost anything else. Plants, due to their stable tissue structures, don't need to worry about their cell size, and therefore don't need to worry about unbounded DNA growth. Because of this, they have evolved to take advantage of having "more" DNA. Yes, polyploid plants are generally healthier, because plants expect polyploidy. But even without polyploidy, plants have large amounts of "specialized-use" genetic material, libraries of specific responses (e.g. immune responses) to specific problems (e.g. parasites) that may have only existed millions of years ago. They can just keep all these one-off solutions around, evolving to protect themselves against one more thing at a time. (This is also why plants tend to be full of weird organic molecules like terpenes, which are beneficial to nearly every animal alive today: those chemicals probably protected them from something at some point, and the genes responsible for making them have had no reason to be shut off since then.) But animals, with a finite limit on gene-base size, must solve problems differently. Animals evolve along different lines—polyploid mutations usually result in non-viable offspring for animal species, because animals frequently have mutations that assume diploidy, with complex machinery to favor better vs. worse versions of each diploid gene using silencing or epigenetic methylation. And more generally, animals evolve solutions to whole classes of problems that have compact genetic representations. We don't have a million custom immune responses; instead, we have xenograft rejection genes, T-cells, livers and kidneys, saliva and stomach acid, the sensation of itching, skin that sheds and skin oil that clears pores, and put together, those mechanisms handle 99% of cases just fine. And often we don't need any of those; the primary "solution" that animals have to almost every problem, is just the ability to move away from the source of the problem. If there's a predator, you can just run away. You don't need to know what the thing is, to run away from it; you just run away! Universal solution! To do that, we need a lot of things: not just limbs, but sensory organs, to know where we are and where the predator is; and nerves, to link the two; and even some sort of instinct for what predators exist, or memory to record sense-fear associations. But all those genes still take up far less space than immune proteases individualized for every bacterium and fungus on earth.
- tejtm 9y ago
  a genome is a dartboard, a virus is a dart, having a giant dartboard means the dart is more likely not to hit a bullseye (really big. so big you can't even throw the dart far enough to reach[1]) 1 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8339.2010.01072.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8339.2010....
  - 19eightyfour 9y ago
    I never even considered that! As far as I'm concerned that's a really workable explanation. Thanks!
pif 9y ago
> It could be the spaceship equivalent of a SUV. I bought my first SUV a few weeks ago. It's a Jeep renegade, thus not very big, still the comfort from big space inside (without a huge 2-D surface) is priceless.
- 19eightyfour 9y ago
  Jeeps are solid. I'm one of those Defender geeks.
  - macintux 9y ago
    Nice. Wrangler is my poison of choice, but stumbled upon a 70s-era Defender near my house recently, and a co-worker owns an even older one. Beautiful vehicles.
    - cr0sh 9y ago
      I've been thinking about a Wrangler myself, something with the I-6 if I can still find one. But that mention of the Defender sent me looking, and I really like how it looks. But unless I get a much better (much, much better!) job somewhere, I can't even afford a used one. There are ones on CL right now in my area, dating from the 80s (but with low, low miles for some reason) selling for close to 90K - and if I'm going to spend that kind of money locally, I might as well get a Local Motors Rally Fighter! Honestly, though, what I would love to own isn't for sale yet, and if they ever do finish them for sale, likely they won't sell them to anyone in the US: http://oxgvt.com/ http://oxgvt.com/ ...though they should be legal to drive, as a "kit car" (though probably deadly in a collision on our streets).
smoyer 9y ago
My SUV has about the same fuel economy as my mini-van ... It's better on the highway and worse around town.
- 19eightyfour 9y ago
  Yeah they do get a somewhat overzealous helping of shade. Sometimes it's more of a "pile on" effect than actually deserved. But I literally think Tsubi "pajero" ruined everything forever with their cynical naming. Leopard. Yeah, right.
- bitJericho 9y ago
  Except your minivan can haul things, your suv is barely better than a car.
  - smoyer 9y ago
    Kind of ... the seats in the SUV fold down and I haul stuff in there too. You're right that it isn't as big an open space. More importantly, the SUV will haul my (small) yacht but it's a strain on the mini-van.

adrianN 9y ago

Does the 500 Million suns figure come from a calculation that assumes propagation in all directions? A focused beam would use a lot less energy.

tomaskafka 9y ago

Every new thing seems wasteful. Try explaining to your grand-grand-granddad why there are huge manufacturing cities in China, global supply chains, hundreds of thousands of undersea cables, worldwide network of cables and base stations in order to get you a funny cat video into your pocket in park.

19eightyfour 9y ago
This is a valid point too. When the "why" is not understood, the "thing" looks wasteful. Thanks so much!