LLPOH Digital Archives: June 2003
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Portfolio Management is HOT! Yup, just looked at what's out, and its serious.
Posted by E Moritz @ 01:00 AM CST [Link]
Saturday, June 28, 2003
It is well known that Manhattan Co-Ops and Condominiums can lead to great happiness ...and many are in true pursuit of this kind of happiness.
Posted by E Moritz @ 05:19 PM CST [Link]
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Something interesting is going on in France ... No, not freedom fries, Bébéar New Capitalism.. The Economist has an interesting story about the new capitalist ideas of Claude Bébéar "the godfather of French business and finance, founder and chairman of AXA, France's biggest insurer". According to the story, "He thinks the capitalist system is in danger of imploding .... Financial markets and the real economy have disconnected, he says. Share prices no longer reflect true values as they are too volatile. Analysts follow ratios like sheep, and have sold their independence to their corporate-finance colleagues." ... I think many of us here in the U.S., in light of ENRON and similar escapades, would have to agree.
Bébéar's proposal? "voting by shareholders should be compulsory. More boldly, he wants to scrap the principle of equal treatment of shareholders ... in favour of a system that rewards investors for holding shares over time. Thus, an investor who owns a share for, say, two years, will have more voting rights than one who bought yesterday. And the dividend received would rise with the length of the investment. After a decade, it might be 50% higher than on a newly purchased share." ... pretty radical for a leading capitalist. But, maybe, just maybe, we're starting to see the evolution of capitalism into a higher form. Capitalism with responsibility. Short term thinking would be replaced by longer horizons. "An investor with an enhanced dividend would be reluctant to lose it by selling, but more inclined to intervene in a company and, says Mr Bébéar, thereby fulfil his ownership duties".
What novel thoughts, we're more than simple econotomatons.
Posted by E Moritz @ 10:02 PM CST [Link]
Accorings to the Economist: ITS HOUSE OF CARDS TIME: "In many countries the stockmarket bubble has been replaced by a property-price bubble. Sooner or later it will burst, says Pam Woodall, our economics editor". Unfortunately the Economist has a little price bubble going with the premium content charges ... oh well. We'll look to LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION ... to keep an eye on the matter. Speaking of bubbles ...
Posted by E Moritz @ 08:03 PM CST [Link]
An unexpected twist, according to a report in The Economist, A chemical derived from nicotine may protect against dementia.
YOU would have to twist a doctor's arm a lot before he would admit that there could possibly be any health benefits from smoking. But for the past decade there has been nagging evidence that smokers suffer less than other people from Alzheimer's disease, and that this is not merely because they tend to die before the symptoms would otherwise appear. Now, a piece of research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by Tobin Dickerson and Kim Janda, of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, provides a possible explanation. the story goes on to say that "nornicotine, one of the molecules that nicotine is turned into by the body, and particularly by the brain ... is good at participating in a reaction called glycation, in which it reacts with glucose to form a molecule that goes on to react with a protein.."The actual Proceedings article [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.1332847100] states the following:
Glycation of the amyloid {beta}-protein by a nicotine metabolite: A fortuitous chemical dynamic between smoking and Alzheimer's disease. Dickerson TJ, Janda KD. The origin of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been subjected to an intense amount of examination; however, a clear conclusion as to the nature of this crippling disease has yet to be identified. What is readily accepted is that a definitive marker of this disease is the aggregation of the amyloid beta-peptide (Abeta) into neuritic plaques. The recent observation that nicotine exposure leads to delayed onset of AD has stimulated a flurry of research into the nature of this neuroprotective effect. This phenomenon has been debated, but no consensus has been reached, and although these studies have targeted nicotine, the primary alkaloid in tobacco, few studies have considered the physiological role of nicotine metabolites in disease states. Nornicotine is a major nicotine metabolite in the CNS and has been shown to participate in the aberrant glycation of proteins in vivo in a process termed nornicotine-based glycation. Herein is detailed a potentially fortuitous role of nornicotine-based glycation in relation to the pathology of AD. Specifically, nornicotine was found to covalently alter Abeta, leading to reduced peptide aggregation. Potential consequences of this reaction cascade include reduced plaque formation and/or altered clearance of the peptide, as well as attenuated toxicity of soluble Abeta aggregates. The findings described provide an alternative mechanism for nicotine neuroprotection in AD and a means for the alteration of amyloid folding based on a covalent chemical event.in case you're wonderng .. glycating would, make it hard for peptides to link up to form Alzheimer plaques. I am waiting to find out more ... [more]
Posted by E Moritz @ 07:56 PM CST [Link]
According to CNN, Lake Manatee is full ... and there's possible trouble ...BRADENTON, Florida (CNN) -- Engineers managed to manually crank open one of three spillgates on the Lake Manatee dam in an effort to speed drainage from the lake, which had reached record levels and threatened Manatee County's riverside and lakeside communities.
Two of the dam's spillgates opened late Saturday night, but the third jammed, prompting emergency officials to order hundreds of homes evacuated as water approached the top of the 50-foot-high dam
So which is it global warming, global cooling, or global hot-air?
Posted by E Moritz @ 07:35 PM CST [Link]
Green Sums: Industry Blossoms as Americans Spend More Time, Money Outside: That's the Washington's Post eclectic story of the day. While mere mortals toil to get a hit here and there, WP claims "Michael Hackley sells gas grills from his base in Baton Rouge, La., ... Hackley, who claims 15,000 to 16,000 daily hits on his site (www.bbqguys.com), said his most expensive grills are his most popular, a complete reversal of five years ago. A large, top-of-the-line stainless-steel grill with extras such as lights and rotisserie can cost almost $10,000, as much as the dearest commercial-grade kitchen ranges.". Go figure ... Congratulations Mike.
Posted by E Moritz @ 07:22 PM CST [Link]
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Clyde E. Findley and Walter E. Hanley, Jr. in Festo - Who Decides Prosecution History Estoppel? write:
Prosecution history estoppel is an also an established doctrine. It holds that where an inventor narrows a claim element by making an amendment or argument in support of patentability during the prosecution of a patent application, he cannot later invoke the doctrine of equivalents to recapture what the claim element would have otherwise covered. The inventor is estopped or "locked in" by his earlier amendment or argument. Prosecution history estoppel is a limiting doctrine. It bars resort to the doctrine of equivalents to expand the scope of a patent claim beyond its literal meaning. .I sure am glad there's a simple explanation out there ... and that there are folks who pilpultate this (if you don't know about pilpulpating ... don't ask). I'd hate to think that they could and wouldn't; they'd have to do something else, and that could definitely lead to problems ... so best festo laid to rest ... or progress in that direction.
Posted by E Moritz @ 09:15 PM CST [Link]
Perhaps late, but better later than never ..... from the Google press release archive ... Google also announced that Michael Moritz, general partner of Sequoia Capital, and John Doerr, general partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Buyers, have joined its board of directors. Michael Moritz is currently a director of numerous companies, including Yahoo, eToys, Quote.com, eGroups, PlanetRx, Flextronics, and WebVan. John Doerr was a co-founder of @Home and is a director of several high growth internet companies, including Amazon.com, Drugstore.com, Handspring, Healtheon/WebMD, Homeshop.com, Intuit, and Sun Microsystems.
To the best of my knowledge ... Michael is not a relative .... Oh well, but he does do some pretty impressive things ... and that's close enough. John Doerr is no slacker either.
Posted by E Moritz @ 08:52 PM CST [Link]
OK ... I like them blog things ... or is it the blog that ate Manhattan ... LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION ... the Touchstone of Real Estate Properties is it ... and now showing Just in from Sutton Place on the screen.
Posted by E Moritz @ 08:35 PM CST [Link]
Saturday, June 14, 2003
Appraising Miami? Well, if you wanted to know who's appraising Miami, you could visit this interesting site, (if you really really wanted to know everything about florida you might start here), but if you wanted to know who is really doing well in Real Estate, you could check the downloadable reports compilation.
Posted by E Moritz @ 11:28 PM CST [Link]
Property and Happiness, is there any relationship between the two? It would seem there is ... and how about happiness and Real Estate .... there too there appears to be a correlation ... people seem to always want to own Real Estate ... are people just as happy using property and real estate? I don't know, but another experiment is in the works.
Posted by E Moritz @ 02:08 PM CST [Link]
Friday, June 13, 2003
Google Dance - Sabre Dance? Markus Sobek has a great explanation in Google Dance - The Index Update of the Google Search Engine ... according to Markus "The Google search engine pulls its results from more than 10,000 servers which are simple Linux PCs that are used by Google for reasons of cost. Naturally, an index update cannot be proceeded on all those servers at the same time. One server after the other has to be updated with the new index. " The details: of the dance? www-ex.google.com, www-sj.google.com all the way to www-fi.google.com all participate ... he also states: "www2.google.com and www3.google.com will always appear on www.google.com later on". OK ... now we know. Thanks Markus
Posted by E Moritz @ 09:49 PM CST [Link]
Florida-Appraisers.com is providing a "Complete Directory of State Certified Appraisers in Florida". ... fully searchable too. Go Sunshine State! Pretty Neat!
Posted by E Moritz @ 09:07 PM CST [Link]
It ain't small, its a monkey .... Monkeypox is the news ... (via the Age)
Monkeypox jumps human barriers -- June 14 2003 Madison, WisconsinA Wisconsin nurse might have contracted monkeypox from a patient in what would be the first known case of the disease spreading from one person to another in the United States, officials said.
Wisconsin state epidemiologist Jeff Davis said yesterday that health officials were testing tissue specimens to confirm whether the unidentified health-care worker was infected with the African virus.
While this story is developing ... and prairie dogs are implicated ... it would appear that this ain't no simple monkey business ... apparently the rat doctors have been exploring monkeypox issues for a while ... [more]
Posted by E Moritz @ 08:00 PM CST [Link]
Patently Insane? Uncle Sam Taken to the Cleaners, Again ... I just finished reading reading NIH censured for Taxol deal: US auditors criticize NIH for poor deal over Taxol royalties, while patent row continues in Canada in The Scientist, where Peg Brickley summarized General Accounting Office (GAO) report ["NIH's pact with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) recovered only $35 million in royalty payments for Taxol after taxpayers spent $484 million to develop the best selling cancer drug in history"]. [Taxol is the anti-cancer drug] the article goes on to state "The company's sales revenue from Taxol was $9 billion between 1993 and 2002." and " ... BMS admitted no wrongdoing in the series of US Taxol settlements, including a recent one in which it agreed to return $135 million to the states, hospitals, and insurance companies who claim they were bilked on the price of Taxol." The reason for this situtation, the article claims is "BMS was able to use its allegedly baseless patents to keep generics out of the market for years".
Reading this wonderfull example of corporate vitality at work ... the recent Harvard Law Review note Estopping the Madness at the PTO: Improving Patent Administration Through Prosecution History Estoppel [VOL. 116 · May 2003 · NO. 7, pp 2164- 2185; no, I know nothing of the Bluebook] came to mind. The note stated that the Patent and Trademark Office [PTO] "grants approximately 97% of patent applications" (while "courts invalidate 46% of litigated claims"). The reason for this - increasing numbers of patent claims (easy patents invite casual filing) coupled with decling PTO budgets (who needs these government bureaucrats anyway?)
So the alleged BMS strategy appears to have worked. Who ends up paying? Uncle Sam and his relatives (that's us ...), and then we wonder why drug prices are high. Now of course there will be those who argue that without ludicrously enticing incentives, drug companies wouldn't enter the market ... sounds fair on the surface, but ... not true. if Uncle Sam funded the research, and if the product has been demonstrated to be effective against a lethal disease, what's the risk to the drug companies? Is it so mandatory for Uncle Sam to channel taxpayers' wealth to drug companies? I wonder if there's some smart MBA out there who can work out the ROI on some pretty simple alternatives?
Posted by E Moritz @ 07:33 PM CST [Link]
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Thor's Hammer, Justice, and Lightning. I have to admit, although I am a great fan of Thor and his hammer Mjollnir, it wasn't until Garrett over at Gtexts pointed it out, that I ever considered exploring the Mjollnir story ... According to Garrett (sourced by others) " ... Occidental Mythology ... identifies modern judge's gavel as derived from and originally symbolizing Thor's Hammer". Looking further into the "ridiculous amount of further information on this subject " gallantly provided by Dan Bray, one discovers that Mjollnir is also associated with lightning. So ... Thor ... hammer ... lightning ... justice ... Thanks you! I Marvel at Marvels (or at least Marvel Comics), for having picked inspiring role models, I just never would have stumbled into the Thor/Gavel/Justice/Lightning association.
Posted by E Moritz @ 08:15 PM CST [Link]
Asteroid (29075) 1950 DA: Houston, Do We Have a Problem? According to NASA/JPL NEO PROGRAM, 1950 DA may be more than a casual close encounter. Their discussion starts:
Asteroid (29075) 1950 DA was discovered on 23 February 1950. It was observed for 17 days and then faded from view for half a century. Then, an object discovered on 31 December 2000 (New Year's Eve) was recognized as being the long-lost 1950 DA.
Radar observations were made at Goldstone and Arecibo on 3-7 March 2001, during the asteroid's 7.8 million km approach to the Earth (a distance 21 times larger than that separating the Earth and Moon). Radar echoes revealed a slightly asymmetrical spheroid with a mean diameter of 1.1 km. Optical observations showed the asteroid rotated once every 2.1 hours, the second fastest spin rate ever observed for an asteroid its size.
When high-precision radar meaurements were included in a new orbit solution, a potentially very close approach to the Earth was detected on March 16, 2880. Analysis performed by Giorgini et al and reported in the April 5, 2002 edition of the journal Science ("Asteroid 1950 DA's Encounter With Earth in 2880: Physical Limits of Collision Probability Prediction") determined the impact probability as being at most 1 in 300 and probably even more remote, based on what is known about the asteroid so far. At its greatest, this could represent a risk 50% greater than that of the average background hazard due to all other asteroids from the present era through 2880, as defined by the Palermo Technical Scale (PTS value = +0.17). 1950 DA is the only known asteroid whose hazard could be above the background level.Scientific American's note on this states "The most recent opportunity to track the asteroid's journey will not be the last: 1950 DA will be observable again in 2032 and several times thereafter. But even those sightings may not suffice."
What do we learn from this?
1. This is pretty serious.
2. We lost track of this asteroid for 50 years, and will do so periodically
3. 2880 is not the far off.
4. Serious resources and talent to address this issue must come into being soon. Speeches, committees, conferences, panels, token programs are not enough.
5. We don't want a replay of the Dinosaur story ...
6. It really is time to get the lost souls of Homo Sapiens Sapiens beyond the infantile homicidal terrorist phase; there's real work to be done. The resources and talent being diverted to deal with sick minds (with hands and fingers on bad buttons) are needed to deal with really serious issues.More from recent media and scientific news (June 2003) (via AsteroideWatch) reveals the following:
From astronomy.com:
Although the probability is low, if an asteroid collides with Earth in the relatively near future it would likely land in one of our oceans, which cover 70 percent of the planet's surface. On March 16, 2880, asteroid 1950 DA will pass near Earth, possibly close enough to crash into the Atlantic Ocean. According to two researchers, this 38,000 mile-per-hour (61,000-kilometer-per-hour) impact would create enormous tsunami waves as high as 400 feet (120 meters) that would cover the U.S. Atlantic coast.In the June issue of the Geophysical Journal International, Steven Ward and Erik Asphaug, both of the University of California at Santa Cruz, report their findings concerning the potential catastrophic impact. From this research, the duo developed a computer simulation to investigate the effects an asteroid the size of 1950 DA (about two-thirds of a mile or one kilometer across) landing in the Atlantic about 360 miles (580 km) from the east coast of the United States ..... Within two hours of the impact, 400-foot tsunami waves would slam onto the shore from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. A few hours later, 200-foot waves would reach the rest of the East Coast and the Caribbean. Eight hours after the impact, western Europe would see waves measuring 30 to 50 feet (9 to 15 meters) in height.
[more]
Posted by E Moritz @ 07:40 PM CST [Link]
Superconductivity is still hot! InCites-Sci-Byte Hot Paper of the Week Superconductivity of metallic boron in MgB2, by J. Kortus, I.I. Mazin, K.D. Belaschenko, V.P. Antropov, L.L. Boyer, [Physical Review Letters, 86(20): 4656-9, 14 May 2001] got 255 citations to date.
Abstract: "Boron in MgB2 forms stacks of honeycomb layers with magnesium as a space filler. Band structure calculations indicate that Mg is substantially ionized, and the bands at the Fermi level derive mainly from B orbitals. Strong bonding with an ionic component and considerable metallic density of states yield a sizable electron-phonon coupling. Together with high phonon frequencies, which we estimate via zone-center frozen phonon calculations to be between 300 and 700 cm(to the negative 1), this produces a high critical temperature, consistent with recent experiments. Thus MgB2 can be viewed as an analog of the long sought, but still hypothetical, superconducting metallic hydrogen."If you were looking for how to swing hot Real-Estate deals, you would look here.
[more]Posted by E Moritz @ 06:36 PM CST [Link]
Monday, June 9, 2003
I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE AND IT IS BLOGGING, or, I HAVE SEEN THE BLOG AND IT IS FUTURING ... Actually, MSNBC Weblog Central is doing a great job. I am looking at BLOGSPOTTING, and it looks good. So does the Practical Futurist page. I might not agree with all I see there ... but there's gold in them hills there, if you're willing to pan for it. Which brings me to speculate/assert time IS the most valuable resource. And if you're really wondering what will make it big in the future ... why its those things that help create time, or pack more into given intervals ... so there's plenty left to do, not withstanding this Limits thing.
Posted by E Moritz @ 10:49 PM CST [Link]
HarryPotterMania - is that Harry Potter in the Sky?. Lest we forget what everyone's waitin' for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) by J. K. Rowling. OK Harry, lets see what you've got...
I say to you all, once again--in the light of [more]
Lord Voldemort’s return, we are only as strong
as we are united, as weak as we are divided.
Lord Voldemort’s gift for spreading discord and
enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing
an equally strong bond of friendship and trust.Posted by E Moritz @ 08:29 PM CST [Link]
Buffymania: Just in case you're worried Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not getting the attention she deserves ... [more]
Posted by E Moritz @ 08:14 PM CST [Link]
Finding Nemo is #3 on June 3 Google Zeitgeist. Matrix Reloaded and Buffy are declining. Thanks for the update.
Posted by E Moritz @ 08:03 PM CST [Link]
Chronicles of Higher Education's Scholars Who Blog article is pretty informative ... it also illustrates the immense power bloggers are yielding and will be increasingly wielding. While the TRUTH will always win, its likely to do so much earlier now. IN fact, since there are likely to be an ever increasing number of Vigilant Bloggers, we may well be at the tipping point for the illiterati (via Kimberly Swygert's Number 2 Pencil).
Posted by E Moritz @ 07:11 PM CST [Link]
While searching for Knowledge about Knowledge, I ran into Ruby Manikan. While researching my Prime-Radiant post on Limits of Knowledge, I came across Ruby Manikan dictum in The Columbia World of Quotations If you educate a man you educate a person, but if you educate a woman you educate a family (ATTRIBUTION: Ruby Manikan (20th century), Indian church leader. “Sayings of the Week,” Observer (March 30, 1947).
How true ... perhaps we ought to reflect on this more than we have so far?
Posted by E Moritz @ 05:52 PM CST [Link]
Sunday, June 8, 2003
Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: Imaginary and Virtual Places ... ... this came up rather suddenly ... Imaginary Places ... of all places ... are those you stick a square root of minus one in front of them? Not at all ... we're talkin ... guidebook of the make-believe. Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi tell us about Oz, the "large rectangular country where everyone works half the time and plays half the time, one that is divided into four smaller countries: Munchkin Country, Winkie Country, Quadling Country, and Gillikin Country" [more]
Posted by E Moritz @ 11:08 AM CST [Link]
Saturday, June 7, 2003
Supertransfection, transcription factors, stem cells, and the Triple Crown ..., Well, I did have to put in a plug about the non- Triple Crown today. Gtexts does raise the possibility of cloning Funny Cide (despite Funny Cide being a gelding; by the way if FC is a gelding, is he a "he", or a former "he"?). According to The Scientist, Kaoru Mitsui and colleagues at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, used an in silico approach to find genes that have expression patterns identical to that of Oct4 (Cell, 113:631-642, May 30, 2003) ... Both teams used "supertransfection", the viral-based strategy for DNA transfection that avoids epigenetic effects of chromosome integration and identified the protein Nanog. Murine nanog cDNA is 2184bp long, comprising an open reading frame encoding 305 amino acids over four exons and a 3'-untranslated region containing a B2 (alu) repetitive element. The protein contains a homeodomain conserved in rats and humans, but no other conserved motifs. A sequence of tryptophan repeats, Trp-X-X-X, was also identified, although its function remains unclear.
Expression of Nanog was confined to preimplantation embryos (from the morula stage through to the epiblast) and primordial germ cells, as well as in various tumors and undifferentiated ES cells. Nanog conferred the ability for self-renewal on ES cells in a manner that was independent of, but augmented by, the presence of LIF, which was independent of Oct3/4 expression and which was resistant, but not refractory, to the effects of differentiation-promoting agents".
If I interpret this correctly, there may be ways of keeping cells young, or doing some pretty wild and crazy things, or may be doing some staid but important things. In any case, its too late for SeaBiscuit; but Empire Builder and Funny Cide may benefit in some way. Maybe if the interested masses desire to have a healthy Funny Cide 2 attempt a triple crown win some day, maybe then stem cell research will get on track.
Posted by E Moritz @ 11:24 PM CST [Link]
NANO NANO NANO -- Nanobelts of semiconducting oxides is Hot!, No, this is not about Mork and Mindy according to incite .. "Nanobelts of semiconducting oxides," by Zheng Wei Pan, Zu Rong Dai, and Zhong Lin Wang, [Science, 291(5510): 1947-9, 9 March 2001.] is the current Hot Paper in Chemistry
Abstract: "Ultralong beltlike (or ribbonlike) nanostructures (so-called nanobelts) were successfully synthesized for semiconducting oxides of zinc, tin, indium, cadmium, and gallium by simply evaporating the desired commercial metaloxide powders at high temperatures. The as-synthesized oxide nanobelts are pure, structurally uniform, and single crystalline, and most of them are free from defects and dislocations. They have a rectanglelike cross section with typical widths of 30 to 300 nanometers, width-to-thickness ratios of 5 to10, and lengths of up to a few millimeters.
The beltlike morphology appears to be a distinctive and common structural characteristic for the family of semiconducting oxides with cations of different valence states and materials of distinct crystallographic structures. The nanobelts could be an ideal system for fully understanding dimensionally confined transport phenomena in functional oxides and building functional devices along individual nanobelts."
Looks like Nanotechnology is indeed moving forward. Thank you Eric. All we need to figure out now is what to do with these nifty tiny nanobelts ... perhaps nanotires?
Posted by E Moritz @ 09:50 PM CST [Link]
Monday, June 2, 2003
Yes, Stargate is neat .... and is now its own cottage industry ... [more]
Posted by E Moritz @ 07:28 PM CST [Link]
Calling Star Trek, Deep Space 9, Quantum Leap and Stargate:Making a wormhole just got easier..., at least according to a recent Nature science update. The update reports on an article by Visser, M., Kar, S. & Dadhich, N. Traversable wormholes with arbitrarily small energy condition violations. Physical Review Letters, 90, 201102, (2003). The article states ... "The amount material needed to build a window through time is infinitesimally small, new research shows.
To travel through time, all you need to do is open a wormhole in space-time and step through it. And to do that you need a magic ingredient called 'exotic matter', which is repelled rather than attracted by gravity."
The problem? No one know where to get a hold of this 'exotic matter" .... but I'm hopeful ... This would be REALLY REALLY EXCITING ..... and besides ... I would like to see more Stargate movies made. [more]
Posted by E Moritz @ 07:16 PM CST [Link]
Ilya Prigogine is no more ...., with sadness we report that Ilya has passed on (via Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Chemistry,
Prigogine is known best for his work on dissipative structures. His main area of work was systems dynamics (especially in systems far from equilibrium) and the understanding of the role of time in physics and biology. His work is seen by many as a bridge between natural science, the studying of biological systems and social science, descriping the natural laws allowing self-organization under the rule of thermodynamics.The community of science will miss him.