Big picture time again

Here's a couple of Arxiv papers of interest:

The first one: a paper from January pointing out that finding a Higgs boson of just the right mass at the LHC could in fact confirm that the universe won't expand forever, but will undergo a "big crunch" in the distant future. (I would much prefer the universe to have a big crunch than accelerate into nothing. A big crunch leaves open Tipler's Omega Point, for which I retain a fondness.)

The second one: a recent paper talking at great complicated length about black holes as "fuzzballs". The thing is, black holes could hardly be described as well understood. Although there are astronomical objects which have the right weight and behaviour which would be expected of black holes, some still argue that they aren't "true" black holes at all, and there are questions about the exact nature of the horizon, etc of any black hole. When you get down to Planck size, I think the uncertainty is worse.

Anyway, although the paper seems to indicate that they still expect "fuzzball" model black holes to radiate with something like Hawking Radiation, I am not clear as to how they think this solves the information loss issue. (I have only skimmed this paper quickly.)

As for the relevance to the LHC and micro black holes, I would like the CERN safety review to take into account alternative models for black holes, just to see if they raise any safety issues in terms of potential for no HR, or increased accretion rates, etc.

Reads like fiction

Man with suicide victim's heart kills self - Life- msnbc.com

This is one of those real life stories that might strain credibility if you read it as fiction. (More remarkable than the fact that the heart recipient shot himself, as did the donor, is that the donor's young wife married the recipient!)

A witty Katz column today

Praise be to the Lord our Jobs - Danny Katz - Opinion - theage.com.au

The daily carrot routine

Health - Life & Style Home - smh.com.au

See the link to a story about a new book on anorexia, and how difficult it can be on the families. The way it can manifest does sound truly bizarre:

It [the book] features Hannah, who would peel and steam one frozen carrot at a time, weigh it, have three mouthfuls, turn the plate 45 degrees and have another three mouthfuls. When the carrot was gone, she would repeat the same routine with the next carrot from the freezer.

"It nearly drive us bonkers," her mother said. "It would take her up to 2½ hours each night to eat … 200 calories. It was mind-blowingly annoying. And we'd have to have the exact products in the right part of the fridge or she'd throw a hysterical screaming fit."

Such behaviour was extraordinarily difficult for families to understand, Professor Halse said.

Yes, it's hard to overstate how annoying that would be for the parents. Honestly, the first time your teenager did that routine for dinner, wouldn't you want to shake her and yell "pull yourself together", or something similar. Not that it would help, of course.

It really is one of the strangest medical conditions, and why is it that (as far as I know) it is only a relatively modern illness? Did a teenager's inclination to obsessive/compulsive behaviour 50 years ago just get directed into some other aspect of life?

Skin derived stem cells showing some promise

Technology Review: Reprogrammed Stem Cells Work on Parkinson's

Further confirmation in this story that embryonic stem cells may be unnecessary for useful therapy after all. It also indicates that unwanted cancer as a result of stem cell therapy might be able to be avoided.

Can I order my brain rejuvenation upgrade for 2030 now?

Things that turn up in libraries

The Tablet reports that:

Six previously unknown sermons of St Augustine of Hippo have been discovered at Erfurt University in central Germany, a find that the head of the university's library department, Thomas Bouillon, has hailed as "most significant".

As St Augustine died in 430AD, these are pretty old records relating to a very important figure in religious history.

Augustine could be something of a spoilsport, though:

In another sermon about St Cyprian, who was martyred in 258, Augustine criticises the practice of holding drunken orgies on martyrs' feast days.

Dang.

Just how bad can a little nuclear war be?

Limited nuclear war would damage ozone layer

Pretty bad, it would seem:

Mills and colleagues found that a regional nuclear war in South Asia would deplete up to 40% of the ozone layer in the mid latitudes and up to 70% in the high northern latitudes.

"The models show this magnitude of ozone loss would persist for five years, and we would see substantial losses continuing for at least another five years," says Mills.

The scenario they looked at was for 100 Hiroshima size detonations between India and Pakistan. (Those two countries apparently have 110 warheads between them, so the figure is relatively realistic.)

On the other hand, it would cool global warming for quite a while. But those who sunbathe to get warm will all get skin cancer from no ozone.

On the whole, not a good idea. (Incidentally, what sort of early warning systems do both of these nations have? It wouldn't hurt to have international co-operation to make sure these countries can't launch by mistake.)

Screen your genes before lighting up?

Genetics and lung cancer | Smoking out the smoking gene | Economist.com

I'll step on Harry Clarke's territory now and link to an interesting article about genes and lung cancer. Two paragraphs give you the flavour:

Paul Brennan and Christopher Amos both agree that something significant is going on in the part of chromosome 15 studied by deCODE. But they have concluded that genetic variation there acts directly on a person's susceptibility to lung cancer, rather than acting indirectly by modifying his smoking behaviour. That does not mean the gene or genes in question actually cause lung cancer. Rather, it means that they amplify the effects of smoking instead of the amount of smoking....

DeCODE has already announced it will add rs1051730 to the standard screen it offers to those who wish to know their susceptibility to diseases. The day is not far off, therefore, when those who take the essentially irrational decision to start smoking tobacco will be able to find out in advance exactly how foolish they are being.

The Scientific American version of the story is here.

Hey, you! Pay attention!

On 3 April, I posted about an article in Nature which contained some strong criticism of the forecasts of the IPCC as being overly optimist in projections for the potential technological reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases. (Nature quotes someone as calling it a "bombshell".) Nature followed up with commentary from several global warming figures, some criticising, some agreeing with, the original commentary. (To get to the articles now, go to the John Tierney link below and follow his links. News@Nature's way of stuffing around with certain links only being available for 3 days irritates me no end.)

So why hasn't anyone in the Australian blogosphere picked up on this? I would've thought it was of great interest to many bloggers I read regularly: Catallaxy, Harry Clarke, Quiggin, even Robert Merkel at LP. One would have thought it might even be of interest to Tim Blair or Andrew Bolt from a greenhouse skeptic's point of view. (I even emailed to Bolt about it, as I thought it a story deserving publicity.)

So why have precisely none of the above (as far as I can see) noted the story? (Not my post; the story itself.)

For those of you interested (such tiny number that there seems to be!) there is more about the article in John Tierney's column in the New York Times of 3 April.

A Google news search indicates that no Australian media outlet has reported the story either. What's wrong with you all?

More "Uh-oh"

Iran Begins Installing More Centrifuges - New York Times

Back, and dreaming

Last night I slept the deep sleep of the just-returned-from-camping. Nothing makes you appreciate your own bed more than a couple of nights sleeping in a sleeping bag on inflatable mattress. The other thing about camping sleep that I could do without is the disruption caused by the 30 meter walk to go to the toilet at 2.30 am. Nice to see the stars at that time of morning, though.

I also had a very protracted (or so it seems) dream last night in which I was trying to find a building in the city, and realised suddenly that I was in Melbourne, not Brisbane, yet I had no idea how I had gotten there. I rang my office and tried to explain as best I could, I think coming up with the theory that I must have slept-walked onto a plane. But the other odd thing about the dream was that I kept thinking "well, if nothing else, this will make for a really interesting blog post."

Maybe that is a sign I have been blogging too much?

I think it also occurred to me in the me in the dream that it seemed like a dream, except I was sure it wasn't. Those dreams are usually good to wake up from, except for the series of "proof of flying" dreams" I had some years ago.

I will leave you all now to analyse my subconscious, while I catch up on a day's work and attempt to post something of interest tonight.

Some decent stuff about mini black holes

Before I go away for the weekend, I thought I would point out these developments.

At last, at least one physicists' blog goes into a lot of detail about what they think would happen if mini black holes from the LHC did not evaporate via Hawking Radiation. This is well worth reading, although my feeling is still that it a pretty complex question and may yet be the subject of some uncertainty.

It seems to me, for example, that Bee's explanation of a mini black hole passing through the earth and hitting a subatomic particle does not coincide exactly with Greg Landsberg's explanation in 2006:

They would each take about 100 hours to gobble up one proton. At that rate, even if one did not take into account the fact that each black hole would slow down every time it gobbled up a proton, and thus suck down matter at an even slower rate, "about 100 protons would be destroyed every year by such a black hole, so it would take much more than the age of universe to destroy even one milligram of Earth material....

Compare that to Backreaction:

Nobody knows exactly what will happen when a tiny black hole hits a nucleon. On the scale of the black hole, the nucleon is about 1000 times larger in diameter, and a very dilute cloud of a few quarks and gluons. It may be that the black hole hits one of these partons, as they are called, thus disrupting the nucleon and carrying away a fraction of its mass. There is no theory to describe this, and there are all kinds of problems involved, as to what happens to confinement, colour neutrality, and so on. But whatever happened, in the end, the black hole may have gained, in the most extreme case, the mass of a nucleon.

It may be that they are in complete agreement, if Landsberg's explanation was given in more detail. But it reads to me like there is some uncertainty.

That said, they both agree that very, very few mini black holes should have less than escape velocity. That's good, although again it appears to me that Backreaction's estimate and Landsberg are different.

Another physicist spends a lot of time pointing out that the very limited experience in physics of litigant Walter Wagner, and getting upset that the media does not report this clearly. But on the more important point of why Wagner is wrong (in detail), we haven't heard from Steinberg yet. (Maybe he will just agree with Backreaction's analysis.)

Really, if physicists are unhappy about Wagner getting publicity over this, why didn't they simply address the issue in detail when asked about it over the last couple of years by the likes of James Blodgett. Instead, the reaction was (by and large) very dismissive, especially once you asked "what if HR does not exist?" I know that Greg Landsberg did go into a fair amount of detail in answers to James Blodgett, but he was pretty much the exception, as far as I know. (And he eventually stopped taking questions anyway.)

Only now, it seems, are we getting the detail which indicates that it was never a completely stupid question.

Short holiday from saving the universe...

The longer Good King Kevin stays overseas, the more of a goose he looks. (The follow up video of how he reacted when questioned about it at a news conference suggested that he is simply not getting enough sleep.)

I'm not sure that any of his cabinet back here are a suitable Sheriff of Nottingham; perhaps Gillard could be the Sheriff of Altona, if she was actually game to say much without Kevin's minders' approval. (Gawd, can't she now afford a move down the road to Williamtown, at least.)

As I like to imagine that I look like a slightly older Jonas Armstrong (hahahahahaha), all of this Robin Hood talk is by way of explaining that my family (and another) is off to set up an outlaw campsite near the forests of Kilcoy over the weekend, from which we will seek to at least "rob" free wine from a few local wineries, and muck about in boats and tangle up fishing line, while figuring out ways to encourage Kevin to stay overseas.

I probably can't post until Monday. Come back here over the weekend anyway so my sitemeter doesn't get depressed.

Bob Ellis pines for low technology

Unleashed: The young and the restless

I don't know that Bob Ellis was being entirely serious in his latest "Unleashed" column. ("Unleashed", incidentally, seems to be a government run service where those ignored at their own websites can seek a larger audience.)

Anyhow, Bob thinks that youth today binge drink, do drugs and don't marry because - there jobs are all crap:

They have jobs that demean and shame them, jobs that offend their conscience and wound their pride, jobs out of which they have no clear hope in their lifetime of getting out of, into jobs that are any better.

Where once they might hope to get a university degree in Roman history or music composition or quantum physics and a job thereafter teaching it, they now find these things unavailable to them.

Well, I'm still waiting for Bob Ellis' definitive paper on quantum gravity to appear at Arxiv, but it has yet to appear. Too many red wine stains, I suspect.

When Bob was a youth:

....the jobs young people got in their teens were plentiful and most of them agreeable.

I would like to see people of Bob's age surveyed and see what they have to say about that. According to Bob:

Electronic robot slaves have taken over the nicer, unconflicted jobs, and all that are left for humans to do are the nasty, humiliating, shaming, lousy jobs.

Come on, I think Bob's having a lend of us, don't you think? How about this line:

And so it is and so it goes, with bad jobs everywhere, jobs from which you might be sacked at any point, and rents going through the roof and frequent foreign travel no longer an affordable option, that young people, yes, take drugs and hit the piss and go down on one another as if there's no tomorrow. I would too in their shoes.

Funny he should mention foreign travel: in Bob's youth that usually involved a one way sea trip to England to work and save up money for the return leg in 2 year's time. There was no way the average youth could afford return holiday travel to New Zealand, let alone the rest of the world.

Did Bob miss out on a seat at the 2020 Summit? What a pity!

The end of the earth, but at least there's less fermented shark

Melting ice caps may trigger more volcanic eruptions

The story is about Iceland. The speculation is that decreasing ice cover there will let some of the volcanoes on the island become more active. (The decreasing weight pressure of the ice cap lets more magna get closer to the surface is the idea.)

This may also happen in other parts of the world, including Antarctica.

As one of the comments following the story notes, this could arguably be somewhat of a mixed blessing. Just the right amount of extra volcanic activity would increase aerosols in the atmosphere which has a cooling effect that can last for years. On the other hand, too much volcanism and you can kill most life on earth.

If Iceland is at risk, at least it means less fermented shark in the world. While I am not a huge fan of his, I recently saw chef Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" episode in which he travelled to Iceland and described the food as the worst he has ever experienced: especially the fermented shark. Bourdain cannot be accused of not being adventurous in what he will eat on his travels. If he says fermented shark is vile, I would really take his word for it.

Someone has put the show up on Youtube. You can see the segment with the vilest Icelandic food here:

About the LHC

As I predicted, the great majority of commentary on the legal action concerning the Large Hadron Collider is snarky. Phil at Bad Astronomy, a prominient Skeptic, had an initial post which was fairly restrained, but then followed it with a post linking to others which definitely fall within the "snark" category. Daily Galaxy severely ridiculed the topic, but in the process misrepresented the case completely. Most of the "big" physics sites I visit regularly seem to have taken a view of "the less said the better". I suspect that they probably figure that the less publicity they to anything that could delay the start up, the better.

For a good natured humorous take on it, see Scott Adams' post about it at his Dilbert Blog.

One thing is perfectly clear: most of those who are ridiculing the issue, especially in comments sections, have not read the main websites which have been discussing the issue for the last couple of years.

As I said in my original post on this, I liked James Blodgett's work because he was willing to be shown that there clearly is no risk, taking into account all possibilities (including the failure of the never observed Hawking Radiation to actually exist.) It's true that very, very few physicists doubt Hawking Radiation, but a few reputable ones have speculated that maybe it doesn't. When the CERN risk assessment paper is based heavily on the assumption that it does exist, that's where a legitimate criticism lies.

Much is being made of the background of Walter Wagner, one of the litigants. To be honest, I have no idea about his general credibility; I note that he certainly does seem to have had a very varied career, and the fact that his website was inviting donations was always something that gave me some concern. However, in his posts on the web he generally has come across as pretty rational, and the ad hominem attacks do nothing to address the key issue.

In the New Scientist version of the story, the case is "complete nonsense" according to CERN spokesman James Gillies. He appears to be much more circumspect in the report of the New York Times. In fact, the NYT report emphasizes that CERN physicists have taken the question seriously, and have been looking at safety issues again since last year. One of the most curious parts of the report is that most of the members of the Safety Assessment Group are said to prefer to remain anonymous "for various reasons". I am curious as to why that would be. It doesn't fit entirely comfortably with their insistence that they are being completely open about all of the possibilities they are considering.

I expect that the revised safety assessment will still give the project a clean bill of health, and I hope it does it on the basis of a convincing explanation that under no foreseeable circumstances could thousands of non-evaporating mini black holes floating in and around the earth absorb atoms fast enough to ever be a problem.

I hope the strangelet issue can similarly be dealt with as well.

We will see.

As I suspected...

Climate challenge underestimated? : Nature News

This looks like a really important story on the economics of climate change. My suspicion has long been that the optimistic talk of countries being able to achieve huge changes in CO2 emissions with lots of "green" technologies and without too much economic pain was bunkum, and this report indicates my hunch may be right:

Climate policy expert Roger Pielke Jr, climatologist Tom Wigley, and economist Christopher Green lay out in a commentary article published in Nature ¹ today why they think that the emission scenarios the IPCC produced nearly a decade ago, which are still widely used, are overly optimistic. They note that most of the IPCC’s 'business as usual' emission scenarios assume a certain amount of 'spontaneous' technological change. The size of this assumed change is unrealistic, they argue, and deceives policy-makers and the public about the crucial role policy must have in encouraging the development of technologies to prevent dangerous climate change.

Such a large chunk of the needed energy-efficiency improvements is built in to these 'business as usual' scenarios that the degree of change requiring special effort seems artificially small, they argue. According to the authors' own calculations, IPCC scenarios make it seem as if the technical challenge of stabilizing greenhouse-gas emissions at around 500 parts per million — a concentration which scientists think will prevent average global temperatures from rising more than 2 °C — is a quarter of its true size.

Richard Tol, an energy and environmental economist at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, Ireland, also says that the IPCC has underestimated the cost of technology, and notes that the cost of mitigating against climate change increases as time goes on. If Pielke and colleagues are correct, the cost of controlling global warming could go up by a factor of 16, argues Tol.

I trust Professor Garnaut is reading this with interest.

A laugh a minute in Iraq

In Baghdad, Iraqis take their humor extra dark - International Herald Tribune

According to this story, Iraqis still enjoy a good April Fool's joke, but in current circumstances, most of the jokes are very black. For example:

Rawaa, 25, a manager's assistant, said that in 2004, when she was in college, a student persuaded the class on April Fools' Day that the poetry professor — a man they all disliked — had been assassinated.

"We felt sorry about him, but very happy at the same time, because there will be no more poetry lectures that day," Rawaa said. She would allow only her first name to be used, afraid of falling victim to the real violence in the capital, anything but a joke.

Actually, all of the jokes in the article just don't sound funny, which makes for a curious read.

Dangerous headline for humour

Kidney Extracted Through The Vagina, First Time In Europe, Second In World

Oh great...

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | N Korea hits out at South leader

You can see more of the North's rant at the North Korean news agency here.

Meanwhile in China, they are probably tearing their hair out at the prospect of some sort of North Korean issue interfering with the Olympic Games.

Assud the Rabbit and the future of the Middle East

Hamas's harsh rhetoric against the Jews - International Herald Tribune

As this article notes, the outright incitement of young Palestinians against Jews is one of the biggest problems for finding a long term peace solution in the Middle East.

When you have prominent political parties (Hamas) still quoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as true, there is very little hope for the future. Not to mention Imams who like to sermonise that the Jews are doomed because of what the Koran says.

Assud the Rabbit, by the way, replaced Nahoul the bee, and vows "to get rid of the Jews, Allah willing."

God help us.

And how about a bit of concentration on this brainwashing as a problem from the likes of Ant Loewenstein? I note he says of the short film Fitna: "it’s vital to understand that this virulent strain of Islam-hatred is alive and well in the West."

Funny, Antony, how it is not being broadcast on local Israel TV to influence the kids. I reckon children's shows designed to instil hatred from an early age are more harmful, even if they don't show dead bodies, than a short bloody film on the internet which can actually be the subject of serious discussion by adults.

Robert Spencer's take on it is well worth reading by the way.

The Nazi children

Paddy Hitler, Max Mosley and the dilemma of Nazi children

This is a fascinating summary of what various "Nazi children" went on to do with their lives.

Under the entry for Paddy Hitler, you should follow the link to a story from the Times in December which I had missed. Wikipedia has an entry on him too. His story had until now escaped my attention.

(By the way, the Wikipedia entry notes that there have been a couple of fictional works in which Adolf travels to Liverpool to visit his nephew. What a neat idea for a movie.)

More curious Indian journalism

Mall mania grips city-Patna-Cities-The Times of India

Maybe I am just easily amused, but here's the introductory paragraph from the above story:

Built over the ruins of ancient Pataliputra, the age-old bazaars of modern Patna betray a flavour of yesteryear in its din and bustle, the bellowing of beasts, the salty language of traders and cattlemen and their shocking racy stories.

I am very curious as to the nature of the "shocking racy stories" that Indian cattleman tell at the market. Is it about what their cows got up to last night?

A comparison of interest to few readers

Inside the mind of the Archbishop of Canterbury David Bentley Hart TLS

This is a review of a collection of theological essays by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

The reviewer notes that the Archbishop is undoubtedly smart: he apparently can read 7 languages other than English, and lecture in five. He has an impressively large bibliography, including 3 books of poetry.

Still, it is a common criticism that his use of language is simply too opaque to understand his actual position.

The point of this post is simply to note that it occurred to me that he is the Barry Jones of the ecclesiastic world: both highly intelligent and well intentioned, but their verbosity and circuitous approach to topics makes people actually avoid trying to understand them.

Even the Arabs don't like Syria

BBC NEWS | Middle East | No Lebanon breakthrough for Arabs

It's hard to keep up with all the convoluted politics of the Middle East, but this short report is worth noting.

Funny money

Windfall that wasn't | The Australian

Glenn Milne explains how reports about an extra $1 billion to be paid to Victoria were never true, and the Rudd government did not seek to clarify the misreporting.

This also reminds me, when it was first announced by John Howard, there was some criticism from those on the Left that it was all a rushed and ill-considered program. Funny how that has all dropped away now that it is a Labor deal.

Things you didn't know about Julie Andrews

The actress Julie Andrews looks back on a rough childhood - International Herald Tribune

I like this section from the above review of Julie Andrew's autobiography:

The story starts in Walton-on-Thames, a village in the south of England, where she grew up. Her great-grandmother was a servant, her great-grandfather a gardener, and both grandparents on her mother's side died of syphilis, the only response to which is: blimey, they didn't put that in the press release for "Mary Poppins." (The book's tone addresses precisely this kind of joke and seems to implore, with weary finality, Enough already.)

In other movie news....

The pleasures of bad reviews are many, and sadly I had missed the outstanding collection of reviews that Paris Hilton's latest movie "The Hottie and the Nottie" garnered in February this year. (It only came to my attention now due to a brief recent mention in The Observer, where the reviewer noted "There is nothing to commend this disastrous film and not even a herd of wild horses, each laden with a Gucci saddlebag packed with doubloons, could induce me to see it again.")

Thinking I could find better bad reviews, I headed over to Rottentomatoes, where the film managed to get a 5% positive reading. However, it appears to be a real challenge to those trying to describe its awfulness. For example, (all of these taken from Rottentomatoes):

"It is excruciatingly, painfully, horribly, terribly awful." (Clear message, but lacks creativity.)

"Imagine the worst movie you've ever seen. Got it? Now try to think of something worse. That something is this movie -- wretched, embarrassing and a waste of the time and energy of everyone involved." (Slightly better.)

"I would like to tell you this gross-out-on-camera is every bit as bad as its title implies, but that would not be entirely true. It is much, much worse." (See what I mean; its awfulness seems to have transcended creative description.)

Just so you know what the plot is about, back to Mr French in The Observer:

The Hottie & the Nottie, produced by the vacuous, self-adoring socialite Paris Hilton and starring herself as the most beautiful, sought-after girl in Los Angeles. Paris is Cristabel Abbott, 'the hottie', who thinks that 'a life without orgasms would be like a world without flowers'. But would-be suitors can only approach her via her ugly, pustule-encrusted best friend, 'the nottie', who naturally ends up having a spectacular makeover.

Nearly every reviewer finds the film's message to be stunningly anti-feminist, and some note that it's a full length ad for the cosmetic surgery industry. As a way of summarising the anti-women aspects, I reckon the wittiest quote on Rottentomatoes goes to Suzanne Condie Lambert of the Arizona Republic:

'This movie hates women' is written over and over in my notebook, but that's not quite fair. This movie hates unattractive women.

Congratulations, Suzanne!

Kung Fu Kid

Continuing the current run here of videos and doodles, The Japan Times gives a new kids' movie a good review, and the trailer is up on Youtube. Looks fun to me; lucky I have the kids to see it with:

Cartoon

Kevin loves attention

G'day Kev, it's Russ - Opinion - theage.com.au

Just as you might expect, our PM is readily impressed when a celebrity wants to talk to him. Jason Koutsoukis is taking another job soon, which may be the reason he feels free to detail this rather embarrassing Rudd story. Go read it and cringe.

Black hole issue gets attention

Try this headline: Black Hole Eats Earth - International Herald Tribune

Well, what do you know. The New York Times (and IHT) give the issue of whether there is any potential danger from mini black holes that may be created at the LHC a respectful treatment.

This is, I expect, going to upset some of the science bloggers, when they get around to noticing.

The most interesting thing about the article is that it does confirm that there is a third "anonymous" safety review which is due to report soon. It was due to report earlier this year but seems to have been a bit delayed.

I would like to think that this shows that it is an issue that is being taken seriously, and hence it was reasonable for me to do likewise.

There has not been much around on Arxiv for quite a few months now that seems directly relevant to this issue. However, there was a somewhat useful answer to a question I asked given by Bee (physicist Sabine Hossenfelder) at her very worthwhile Backreaction blog. The comment is in the thread here, and is marked as being posted on March 11 at 10.32am. I don't think I can link to it directly.

While she clearly believes that Hawking Radiation is the answer (as indeed does virtually every other physicist), she does make the interesting point at the end as follows:

Besides this, I find it kind of funny that I occasionally come across this idea that these micro-black holes would 'sink' into the earth and collect at the earth's center. That most definitely wouldn't be the case - they would just go through and leave on the other side, even if 'slowly moving' or 'falling'. Why would they stop in the center of the earth?

Interesting point, as I had assumed they would end up there.

Dog fun

Here are two videos which raise the fun question: what are those dogs thinking?:

Peter Godwin on Zimbabwe

From prosperity to failed state: how one man destroyed a nation - Opinion

I mention this article, which is an good read in its own right, mainly because I want to recommend (what I think was) a "Conversation Hour" interview with Peter Godwin I heard earlier this week. However, there is no podcast of the interview on the ABC yet. Maybe it will up soon at that link.

However, there is a transcript of a Ramona Koval interview here.

He has a very interesting family story.

Uh oh

Rodents can learn to use tools: Japanese study

Six adult "degus" rodents, a kind of small rat, were trained at a laboratory at the Japanese government-funded RIKEN research institute and all of them were able to use a tiny T-shaped rake to retrieve food, it said.

In the final stage of the 60-day experiment, they were pulling the tool towards themselves to hold onto it and then moving it to obtain food, the study showed. ...

In one test they were given two tools -- a familiar functional rake and a non-functional tool that lacked a blade or had a raised blade. They chose the functional one without hesitation in most cases.

They chose the correct tool without being tricked by its colour or size, the study said.

First, I was wondering why Japan was doing this sort of research at all. But now I see. As soon as they can be taught to throw those little star knives, there will an army of hooded killer ninja rats sent out all over the world, hidden in the panels of exported Japanese cars, to do the evil bidding of the Emperor.

You have been warned.

Ross runs out of steam

Now for the shower without glory | smh.com.au

Don't you get the feeling that Ross Gittens ran out of inspiration for a column over Easter? His column today is about an "eye-opening" book that seems to have made him suddenly realise that some people may have more showers than they strictly need for hygiene purposes.

And maybe water shortages will make people critical of those who have too many, or too long, showers.

Well, d'uh, as they say in the classics. If Gittens lived in Brisbane, he would know that when a million plus people have their water supply heading towards 15%, it does tend to make one concentrate on shower times quite a lot.

Happily, our water levels are up to about 38% again, but still I think the city is not going to start to feel completely relaxed til we at least get over 50%.

International toilet news

Do city's troubled public toilets gotta go? | Seattle Times Newspaper

I have a vague feeling that somewhere in Australia a Council has tried these pod-like Germanic automated toilets. Certaily, Seattle has tried them, but what works in Europe obviously doesn't work there:

Seattle's $5 million experiment with self-cleaning public toilets could soon be over.

Citing drug use and prostitution in the silver pods, Seattle Public Utilities on Monday recommended removing the five restrooms, which were supposed to provide clean, safe facilities for tourists and homeless people....

After the automated restrooms opened in 2004, their floor-cleaning mechanisms became clogged by trash. Prostitutes and drug users sought cover in them. The Downtown Seattle Association reported that human waste on the streets increased, instead of decreasing, after they opened.

Talk about your cases of unintended consequences. I guess in Europe you go to your local brothel or cannabis coffee shop to partake in those habits.

Meanwhile, Salon recently ran an article about the sudden American interest in poo. (The book "What your poo is telling you" has been a surprise hit.) There is, as you might expect, a far amount of attempted poo humour in the article, but for my money, this quote has the funniest phrase:

Dillard also points to the current fad for "detoxing" the body by regularly getting high colonics as an obsessively unhealthy one. "This is a manifestation that a part of you is dirty," he says. "The colon has been around million of years and the wisdom of the colon predates us.

Try working that phrase unobtrusively into your workplace conversation tomorrow, and see if you can get away with it.

Whatever happened to...

John Hughes' imprint remains - Los Angeles Times

So, it turns out that John Hughes, who is a significant part of the reason I think the 1980's was actually a good decade for popular cinema, is highly regarded by many people trying to do movie comedy today. Quite a pity they don't follow his example and instead have plenty of swearing and too much graphic sex talk.

I had wondered from time to time what he was now doing. Nothing much, it seems, and he doesn't give interviews. Pity.

India: home of the novel position

Dirty dance racket busted in Delhi-Delhi-Cities-The Times of India

A dance party scandal in New Delhi:

The crime branch on Sunday night raided a hotel in Moti Nagar industrial area and arrested 10 scantily-clad girls gyrating to loud vulgar music. Out of job since the ban on dance bars in Mumbai, the girls, all aged between 18 and 25, were allegedly brought to Delhi by the kingpin of the dance racket, Dalbir Singh (25), who was also arrested from the spot.

According to the police, nine customers reportedly in uncompromising position with the girls and the hotel owner, Suresh Kumar (42), were also arrested.

Human rights fun and games in Canada

BBC NEWS | Americas | Speech row rocks multi-ethnic Canada

Of course, we have had the same stuff going on in Victoria too.

More soon

Spent the Easter weekend down the Gold Coast, without computer. Reasonable weather, for a change, but beaches a bit rough and lots of rips and strong sweeps. Couple of people drowned, one a tourist from England. This happens all the time in Australia: tourists who have never been in surf before jump in and get into trouble. It's an odd thought to most Australians that adults can get into the sea and not know how to avoid getting knocked over by a wave.

I wonder if Kevin Rudd has ever been to the beach much. Nambour is only a stone's throw from Maroochydore, where my family used to go beachside camping every Christmas when I was a young kiddie. He's a few years older than me, so it's not likely we ever built sandcastles together as toddlers. Anyway, I imagine he was always building models of Parliament and telling all the stick people how they have to clear everything through him first.

Back in Brisbane now, but with much to attend to. Some posts later today, I expect.

An Islamic story for Easter

I had missed the fact that Robert Spencer, the anti-Karen Armstrong when it comes to assessing the nature of Islam, has been "Blogging the Qur'an" for nearly a year now. (Karen Armstrong rubbished one of Spencer's books, but Spencer gave a spirited rebuttal.)

This is a very worthwhile exercise, since (as his introduction explains,) picking up and reading the Qur'an in translation is very heavy going due to its wildly disjointed nature.

I haven't read many of the entries yet, but the latest one is of particular interest. It tells the Qur'an-ic story of Moses and Khidr (the "Green Man"), about which I had not previously heard.

The exact nature of the Green Man is unclear, but he is meant to be good (a saint perhaps) and teaches Moses a lesson by doing some weird, apparently pointless, things, and only explaining the hidden "good" reasons for his actions at the end. The lesson to take from it is this:

“There are paradoxes in life: apparent loss may be real gain; apparent cruelty may be real mercy; returning good for evil may really be justice and not generosity (18:79-82). Allah’s wisdom transcends all human calculation.”

But, the part of the story that is disturbing is that one of Khidr's acts is this:

So they went on until, when they met a boy, he slew him. (Musa) said: Have you slain an innocent person otherwise than for manslaughter? Certainly you have done an evil thing.

The explanation Khidr later gives is:

As for the youth, his parents were people of Faith, and we feared that he would grieve them by obstinate rebellion and ingratitude (to Allah and man). So we desired that their Lord would give them in exchange (a son) better in purity (of conduct) and closer in affection.

As Robert Spencer notes, it's not hard to see how such a story can be used to support, at least psychologically, the awful practice of honour killings in Muslim society.

I've been trying to think of some biblical story which is as offensive to me in quite the same way. I don't think God telling the Jews to be ruthless in attacking their enemies is the same (and besides which, Islam has the same issue.) The lesson about the nature of God in the Book of Job is, I suppose, similar to the Green Man's lesson, but it is not God who directly inflicts the evil that befalls Job. And of course, although Jesus at times spoke not coming to soothe families, but to break them up, one of the best known parables is that of the Prodigal Son. Of course, it is mainly about humans who return to the path of God, but you could also read it as encouraging forgiveness of parents towards their children.

No, I just can't see how you can read as being an "acceptable" metaphor or lesson the precautionary killing of a young man because he will upset his parents in the future by being rebellious.

Oddly, Robert Spencer doesn't really dwell on this aspect very much; in fact, in the comments following the post he makes it clear that he actually meant to convey that he "loves" this "wild story". (The next comment questions this, as do I.)

For this Easter season, I will stick to Christianity as an "objectively" better religion, thank you very much.

Japanese binge kids

With all the recent talk of how to deal with youthful binge drinking, I thought it worth reminding people about cultural differences towards alcohol. Can you imagine the outcry, for example, if this ad ran in Australia?:



Yes, it's the Japanese fake beer for kids, and its been around for a while, as this 2005 post from Boing Boing shows. My son recently saw it on a DVD from Japan, and is very keen to try it when next there.

As the ad may suggest, Japanese society seems drenched in alcohol, yet per capita consumption is actually less than Australia. The legal drinking age is 20, and although it's not exactly a challenge for underage drinkers to get their hands on alcohol in a country where (at least in some places) vending machines sell beer and sake, there is not the concern about binge drinking and violence like there is in Australia, England and the States.

After-work drinking for adults is extremely common, but having the trains stop around midnight in large cities sets a de facto time limit for many to go home.

Lots of people make the same comment about European attitude to drinking - it's not just the quantities involved, it's the cultural attitude to alcohol that makes the difference.

In Australia, if binge drinking is causing problems on any inner city streets, I would have thought reducing opening hours for the bigger drinking establishments and clubs is an obvious response. (I have never quite understood the desire for large scale drinking after (say) 2 am at the latest.) However, widespread licencing of small establishments, especially if food is available, seems a very sensible idea if you want to encourage a culture of "paced" drinking amongst friends.

As to drinking as a undesireable aspect of sport club participation: well, having never belonged to a sporting club in my life, I am the last person to be able to judge how much of this is true. I have no idea how you would discourage excessive drinking in them, and doubt it is worth the effort of trying.

PS: one thing that clearly doesn't work in the "problem" countries is parents who allow their teenagers to drink at parties in the hope that they will exercise sensible self control and somehow get over the appeal of heavy drinking. It's a well intentioned but half-baked idea that doesn't bear scrutiny: if your culture already has too many binge drinking 18 year olds, how is allowing your 15 year old to also get drunk going to encourage responsible drinking 3 years later? In fact, is it possible that the increase in this practice over the last decade has led to the current binge drinking issue in young adults?

Crabb on Nelson

The Sydney Morning Herald Blogs: News Blog

Annabel Crabb's comments on Brendan Nelson's strange way of always having a tragic anecdote ready (whether or not it is relevant) bolster my belief that there is no conceivable way he will ever be elected Prime Minister.

As a seat warmer for the next, oh, 6 months or so, he has his uses. But he is not a serious contender for leadership of the country. Everyone knows it.

Vision

The consensus view among economists and commentators about what may happen next to the global economy appears to be a very definite “who knows.” This is not comforting. Nor is the fact that the full details of the way economies work now seems well and truly beyond any normal citizen’s grasp.

Anyway, assuming that we still have an economy in 2020, and have not been invaded by time travelling aliens from another universe (I like to worry about all possibilities,) here is the Opinion Dominion list of visionary things for the 2020 Summit. (Nearly all of these have been mentioned before here: use the search facility for more detail.)

1. The answer to Australia’s housing crisis: yurts! (I like the smell of canvas, but honestly, have a look at how nice and cheap these look.)

2. The partial answer to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions: nuclear pebble bed reactors. Seriously.

3. Reinstate funding for small earth approaching asteroid search facilities in Australia, and make Peter McGauran live in a crater.

4. First step towards solving the health crisis: ban 90% of cosmetic surgery and send the newly out of work doctors to re-education camps to treat remote aboriginal communities.

5. An Australian led recovery in the use of airships. Don’t be a wuss and use rare and expensive helium; go back to cheap hydrogen and just design them better. (Non inflammable skin would be a start.)

6. Treat all schizophrenia sufferers for toxoplasma - you just might cure a non-negligible percent.

7. Legislate against Big Brother every re-appearing in any format whatever.

8. Parliamentarians to have a minimum age of 50. (They should have happy families first. Power can wait.) Oh - and ban anything with any name like "youth congress" or "youth parliament". It only encourages the immature to become parliamentarians.

9. Public executions of one horse every day until they confess.

10. Kevin Rudd to divorce and marry into a Chinese political family so as to have a son who will lead the new Sino-Australian empire. (OK, that one is mildly fanciful.)

Actually, it's kind of disturbing how quickly I ran out of ideas, isn't it?

How encouraging

Most Palestinians favor violence over talks, poll shows - International Herald Tribune

A new poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the attack this month on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight young men, most of them teenagers, an indication of the alarming level of Israeli-Palestinian tension in recent weeks.

The survey also shows unprecedented support for the firing of rockets on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip and for the end of the peace negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders.

Robot mule still getting around

Back in March 2006 I posted a link to a remarkable "robot mule" video. The device is still being developed, it would seem. Found via New Scientist, here's some new footage of the slightly creepy looking robot in action. (I always get the impression I am watching two humans who have got their pantomime horse costume on wrong.)



Actually, I would like to see someone riding on the back of it. It would be a spectacular way to make an entrance to, well, anything.

Go Novell! All praise to the Wordperfect!

WordPerfect antitrust case greenlighted by the Supreme Court

Good Lord. Wordperfect gets a mention in the news, as its old owner gets the right to continue an anti-trust case against Microsoft.

Actually, I didn't know that Wordperfect's downfall was partly blamed on Microsoft making it harder for it to work on Windows 95. Here I thought it was just crushing deals with government which forced it out. (I'm pretty sure Microsoft did deals with Australian Defence Department, at least, which required them to convert to Office and then run nothing but Office.)

Anyway, this a good excuse for me to sing the praises of Wordperfect again.

(And no, I don't mean DOS based 5.1. Wordperfect is now up to version 13, and a new version comes out from current owner Corel every 2 or so years.)

Unfortunately, increasingly government departments which publish forms are only supplying Word or .pdf documents, and I am forced to use Word more and more. (Wordperfect will open and convert them, but it's still not a perfect process, and trying to edit the documents makes the formatting issues worse.)

So, I have to use Word 2000 from time to time. Yeah, it's getting to be an old version now, but I find it hard to believe that newer versions have changed the basic problems I have with it.

You see, I consider it an absolute objective fact, that formatting a Wordperfect document is much, much easier than formatting anything in Word.

And you know what really annoys me: even when I ask for help from young employees who have only ever used Word, they usually still do not know how to fix a formatting problem. They just end up shrugging and suggesting some complicated work around, rather than a simple fix.

The attachment to Word is only because they know nothing better.

Here is my quick list of the ways in which Wordperfect is better:

1. it opens and saves in more formats than Word (in fact, I heard that this is the reason why some law firms keep it as an option, since you can open nearly everything from every year on it;)
2. it starts faster; it saves documents faster;
3. it saves to smaller sized files;
4. it has had built in conversion to .pdf for years (an extremely handy feature when you have to email documents);
5. it is not a heavy drain on the processor;
6. it's nicer to look at;
7. it has never been targeted for viruses in the same way Microsoft products have;
8. it does headers and footers, justification, indenting paragraphs, absolutely every formatting thing in a simpler, easier and more transparent way than Word. (As far as I know, with Word you still can't do "reveal codes" to work out a formatting error.)

Yes I know, the war is lost already. But I love Wordperfect nonetheless.

The Rudd Diversions

Mission complete: PM returns to his papers - Opinion - smh.com.au

Annabel Crabb explains Kevin Rudd's "make busy" tactics in Parliament. Now that they have been disclosed in detail, what's the bet that the PM will make some changes?

Camel love

To eye of Saudi beholders, camels make them swoon - International Herald Tribune

It's an amusingly written story on the fondness that Saudi Arabians have for their camels. An extract:

Indeed, says Fowzan al-Madr, a camel breeder from the Kharj region southeast of Riyadh, there are few pleasures in life greater than a long, late-winter afternoon in the desert in the company of beautiful camels.
....

"See this one?" he asked, pointing to a white female camel with long eyelashes and a calm gaze.

"She isn't married yet, this one," Shammari said. "She's still a virgin. Look at the black eyes, the soft fur. The fur is trimmed so it's short and clean, just like a girl going to a party."

Suddenly, Shammari grabbed the white camel's chin and kissed her square on the mouth.

Make your own jokes.

Look at me, look at me

Hmm. The widely read and highly regarded Tigerhawk has a post on "Dinner in the Sky", about which I had posted (complete with picture too) in November 2006.

When will the prescience and greatness of Opinion Dominion be appreciated?!

(And I still say there's no way I would enjoy dinner like that.)

Toxoplasma meets its match? (And why women should hug their cat)

Newly Developed Anti-malarial Medicine Treats Toxoplasmosis

This sounds quite significant, especially if you own a cat:

A new drug that will soon enter clinical trials for treatment of malaria also appears to be 10 times more effective than the key medicine in the current gold-standard treatment for toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by a related parasite that infects nearly one-third of all humans--more than two billion people worldwide.

Readers may recall that toxoplasma affects the behaviour of rats, making them more available for cat attack, and it is suspected that it may also affect the personality of humans:

Reaction time is affected, with possible implications for automobile accidents and other mishaps. Women seem to become more intelligent, outgoing, conscientious, sexually promiscuous, and kind; changes in men seem to cause opposite trends. All humans tend to be more prone to feelings of guilt (Flegr et al, Lindova et al).

Hey, wait a minute: from a man's perspective, we should encourage women to get this disease! There would be more sex, but more guilt too. Perfect for Catholics then!

But treat men only and it may be the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

Respecting Hay-Soo

Scott Adams explains the reaction to a short series of Dilbert strips he did involving a modern version of Jesus at Dilbert's workplace. (The series isn't all that funny - you can check it out via the link - but it's certainly harmless.)

Adam's post about the reaction is very amusing, though:

As you might imagine, I got a lot of e-mail about this strip. Comments were about evenly divided between people who are deeply offended and people who think it was my best work yet. Interestingly, the people most amused often described themselves as religious, and those offended often noted that they were not especially religious.

My favorite rhetorical question, which I received an alarming number of times, was “Why don’t you mock Mohammed next? Huh? Why not?”

Well, aside from the blindingly obvious reason that I prefer life over death, I didn’t realize I was making fun of Christianity this week.

I would also assume that there has not been all that many newspaper office burnings or threats to behead Adams.

Buckle your swash

BBC - Robin Hood - Homepage

I've been meaning to mention for some weeks now that the Robin Hood TV series (second season currently showing here on Sunday evenings) is very enjoyable as family entertainment.

I'm not sure that American TV is really doing anything significant in the way of family entertainment now.

I see that a third season is on the way too. Good.

Potatoes in space

All hail the uber-tuber | By genre | guardian.co.uk Books

Yet another of those history of a commodity books, this time on potatoes.

From the sound of the review, it is pretty interesting. I for one didn't know that the route the tuber took to Europe is still not clearly known. Also, I'm not sure I've heard this claim before:

Each tuber contains all the vitamins, minerals, proteins, calories and cellulose necessary for life: a healthy adult could survive indefinitely, though perhaps unenthusiastically, on potatoes alone.

But the potato's crowning achievement may yet lie in the future:

A stand of potatoes large enough to provide an astronaut's nourishment for the day will also, Reader reports, supply all the oxygen that the space traveller needs, and mop up all the exhaled carbon dioxide as well. It won't be the only crop in tomorrow's zero-gravity garden, but it could be the most vital.

Just so you know

Al Jazeera English - News - Eu Deems Iran Poll Unfair

Good to see Al Jazeera reporting this.

Interesting medical news for Mark Latham & Paul Keating

Technology Review: Taking a Shot at Hypertension

....scientists from the Swiss biotechnology company Cytos have created a vaccine that lowers blood pressure. They say that it may one day eliminate the need for daily medication.

And you thought we had a bad doctor shortage...

Doctor shortage takes a toll in Japan

Japan's fear of immigration is hurting their hospitals:

Unlike in some Western countries that welcome medical professionals from abroad, the gap in Japan cannot be filled by foreigners.

Japan has virtually no foreign doctors due to strict immigration rules, although it took the landmark step in 2006 of allowing in a limited number of nurses from the Philippines.

2020 vision - more candles

Penny Wong's warnings today that "the Government's plan to cut greenhouse gases will produce the biggest shake-up to the economy in decades" illustrates one reason people should be deeply cynical about the 2020 Summit.

Isn't it bleeding obvious that massive changes to energy use and generation to be made within a very short time frame will, if taken seriously, completely over-ride all other long term issues in importance and effect?

What a mix

Gays fear an influx of hate - Los Angeles Times

The US as a cultural and ethnic melting pot was never more fully on display than in this case which happened in Sacramento.

Short version: Fijians (one of whom was gay) clash for hours with Slavic evangelical Christians, of which there are many in Sacremento, during a picnic. About the Russians generally:

With as many as 100,000 newcomers from republics such as Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, the Sacramento region has one of the nation's largest concentrations of Soviet immigrants. Most began arriving in the late 1980s -- about a third of them conservative evangelical Christians seeking religious freedom.

The influx has created a thriving Russian community with Russian-language newspapers, cable TV and radio shows, as well as 70 Slavic churches -- nearly all adherents of a fundamentalist creed that condemns homosexuality.

Sounds like a place for Foreign Correspondent to do a story.

Tracee's latest upset

Tim Blair seems to be having the weekend off, so someone has to take over the Tracee gig.

First: what the hell is it about the women columnists at The Age and their habits with mirrors? First, it was Catherine Deveny making the oddest introduction to a column about International Women's Day I had ever read; now its Tracee Hutchison confessing to her fair share of sub-navel gazing. Who will be next? *

Anyway, the point of Tracee's column this week is to complain bitterly about the recent tampon ad which reminded viewers of the sexual slang (originally American, I assume) meaning of beaver.

Given that, as a conservative, I actually don't disagree with Hutchison's criticism of "raunch culture", and I would hardly accuse the ad of being in good taste; I still find her outrage a bit over the top.

First, it's hard to take the metaphor too seriously. The rodent in question is shown under the girl's arm walking down the street, then under a hairdresser's hairdryer, and then having its nails painted. As these are activities with no real life equivalent, the point would seem to be that the anatomy in question is a young woman's (best?) friend. Given Tracee's self-examination, I take it she approves of women having a thorough acquaintance with their body, but extending that into a jokey stereotypical girly friendship is obviously just too much of a stretch for her.

Tracee seems particularly upset by the fact that a considerable number of young women are apparently not offended by "... their vaginas being referred to as toothy, amphibious rodents.." She seems a bit unduly sensitive about beavers as animals; I thought most people found then interesting and somewhat endearing, and far from the ugliest creature around. Personally, I think some rodent sensitivity counselling for Tracee would not go astray. (Don't watch this, TH.)

But the part that really upset Tracee was the third scene, in which 2 men are shown looking at the bikini clad woman/rodent at the beach. Our columnist reads it this way:

And who in their right mind thought it was OK to thinly disguise a blatant male ogling at beaver-as-vagina sunning itself on the beach as a tampon ad?

Make no mistake. There was absolutely no ambiguity here. This ad said loudly — and apparently proudly — that women are nothing more than vaginas on legs. It not only offended and degraded women, it underestimated and degraded men.

Well, as a general rule, it's near impossible to underestimate men enough when it comes to their visual interest in what's on display at the beach. And couldn't part of the point be that there is (at least metaphorical) genitalia on open display? Ask Paris and Britney if that attracts attention.

As I say, I'm not a fan of the ad, and conservatives do share (for somewhat different motives) feminism's concern that men and women would be better occupied not thinking about sex all the time. But this ad's central (admittedly dubious taste) joke is only appreciated by those old enough to have heard the slang already; and to the extent that the "ogling" section can be taken to be mean that young women might enjoy the learing attention of men: well it would hardly be the first ad to suggest that.

Our Tracee is giving it more attention than it deserves.

* (I trust not Michelle Grattan; that would be a mental image way, way too far.)

Bugs in space

Hardy Earth bacteria can grow in lunar soil - New Scientist Space

Planning on colonizing the moon? Cyanobacteria may be your best friend:

The cyanobacteria were taken from hot springs in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, US. When put in a container with water and simulated lunar soil, the cyanobacteria were found to produce acids that are amazingly good at breaking down tough minerals, including ilmenite.

They use the nutrients freed up this way to grow and reproduce. "This is unbelievable," Brown told New Scientist. Breaking down the same minerals artificially would require heating them to very high temperatures, which uses enormous amounts of energy, he says. Cyanobacteria, on the other hand, use only sunlight for energy, though they do their extraction work more slowly than heating the soil artificially.

History repeats

Hospital staff on a 'knife's edge' - National - smh.com.au

After reading this story of today's damning evidence of government incompetence in funding and managing Sydney's North Shore Hospital, it occurred to me that the electoral success of Labor in New South Wales in the last 7 years or so is very reminiscent of the National Party's success in Queensland in the early 1980's.

That is, against all logic, the voters keep re-electing a party which no sensible person could say is governing properly. Somehow, a mild wariness of the talent of the Opposition keeps trumping incredibly incompetent government.

Test yourself

DOTHETEST

It takes barely a minute and (if you are like me) you will be truly surprised.

Hand that advertising agency a cigar. Or something else that signifies success without necessarily killing you.

Found via the ever excellent Mind Hacks blog (see link at the side.)

Quark nuggets ahoy

0803.1795v1.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Click the link for the intriguingly titled "The search for Primordial Quark Nuggets among Near Earth Asteroids".

Turns out some small asteroids in the solar system might be made of quarks, and careful observation could check this out:

The exotic nature of the nuggets allows one relatively easy form of distinguishing them from conventional asteroids: since the strange quark matter is expected to have a plasma frequency as high as 20MeV (well in the hard-ray frequencies), the bare quark surface would act as a perfect mirror to the incident solar light. Hence, contrary to the case of even metallic asteroids for which A ∼ 0.1, we expect albedos ≈ 1 and therefore a quotient FV /FI much larger than any reasonable normal surface.

Sounds cool; asteroids that are nice shiny mirror balls.

The paper says there may be 10 to 100 bound to the solar system, and many others that may just pass through. They might occasionally hit the earth:

The possibility of a direct impact onto the Earth is
extremely small (about one event per Hubble time) for halo PQNs, but grows considerably for a captured population. Specific signatures of such an hypothetic collision (likely giving rise to a huge epilinear earthquake) have never been worked out in full detail.

Just thought you should know.

No wonder they ate so many coconut cream pies

'Gilligan's' Mary Ann Caught With Dope

Texting money

Loans by text message send young Swedes spiralling into debt

Fire off a simple text message, wait 15 minutes and presto, 300 euros land in your account; the simplicity of obtaining SMS loans in Sweden is increasingly luring youths into debt.

What a silly idea.

The predictive powers of Lost in Space

Alpha Centauri Should Harbor Earth-like Planets

Of course it does: the Robinson family would not have sent off on a wild goose chase, would they?

As it happens, last weekend I found Lost in Space episodes on DVD at the local video hire. Hence, my ongoing project to brainwash my son into liking the TV and movies I liked at his age continues.

Just a few comments on re-watching some episodes:

a. the deliberate humour is often still pretty funny.
b. American TV series really have long seasons, don't they?
c. it's still good TV for kids, at least until they get to the cynical age when a beach ball cannot plausibly be a landmine (from the episode "The Golden Man", of which I had a clear memory.)

I have to hire the 3rd season, when the theme music changed to the upbeat "countdown" version. What are we going to do when John Williams dies?

By the way, I am one of the few people who saw the movie at the cinema. It was not bad at all, in my books.

Keeping it young

Injection Of Human Umbilical Cord Blood Helps The Aging Brain, Study Shows

A somewhat interesting study reported above. But does the idea of old folks trying to find a source of umbilical cord blood for their brain rejuvenation therapy sound just a little creepy?

(Actually, the study involved human cord blood cells going into rats, and it still seemed to help. Maybe animal cells would help in humans - hopefully without too many animalistic side effects!)

NASA re-designs, and shuttle sightings

Someone has to remind the Australian nation to go out and watch the space shuttle/International Space Station go overhead, and it looks like it's me.

It turns out there are a good run of evening sightings available starting Friday. Go to the NASA sightings pages and follow the links to your nearest city.

The whole NASA home page has been re-designed, and it's looking a lot better for it.

High temperature talkshow

In case you missed it, you really should have a look at the Memri video on this recent LGF post, showing a very heated recent "talk" show on Al Jazeera.

While Wafa Sultan can be certain to face criticism from some quarters that she does not understand Islam as a religion, what is more disturbing to Westerners is how the pro-Islam speaker (and the show's host) seemingly don't care about the historical accuracy of virtually anything they say.

Last night's Four Corners on Islam in Australia was of some interest, but hardly went into depth on any individual part of the picture. I didn't see all of it, but my impression was that most of its intention was to blame Australian for not being accommodating enough. (It was fair enough, though, to have embarrassing displays of ugly yobbo Australian patriotism as part of the show.)

Still, the attitude of worldwide Islamic victimhood on display in both of those links is very worrying, as is the fact that it is being taught to their children.

It's also puzzling how Islamists can continue to paint the invasion of Iraq as an anti-Muslim crusade. Can't those on the Left, who deplore the American action, still try and do something to correct Muslim beliefs about the motive? It's no use those on the Right telling Muslims they are mistaken, they won't believe us anyway.

The China problem

Alarming growth in expected CO2 emissions in China

Some impressive (but not necessarily in a good way!) figures discussed here:

The researchers' most conservative forecast predicts that by 2010, there will be an increase of 600 million metric tons of carbon emissions in China over the country's levels in 2000. This growth from China alone would dramatically overshadow the 116 million metric tons of carbon emissions reductions pledged by all the developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol. (The protocol was never ratified in the United States, which was the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide until 2006, when China took over that distinction, according to numerous reports.)

Put another way, the projected annual increase in China alone over the next several years is greater than the current emissions produced by either Great Britain or Germany.

Based upon these findings, the authors say current global warming forecasts are "overly optimistic," and that action is urgently needed to curb greenhouse gas production in China and other rapidly industrializing countries.

The whole article is worth reading, if you like being depressed.

Departing for another universe

A Brief History Of Time Machines - Forbes.com

What's Forbes.com doing with a general overview of time machines?

It's an easy read, with nothing much new to me, except the second paragraph from the section I quoted here, which has an idea I don't recall reading before:

British physicist David Deutsch, invoking the "many-universe" interpretation of quantum mechanics, believes that "pastward" time travel would require travel to another, parallel universe--one in which I could kill my grandfather and in which I (therefore) would never be born. Via a time machine, I would have removed myself from this universe to take up residence in that one.

The idea has some interesting implications. Deutsch has suggested that one reason we have detected no extraterrestrial civilizations may be that, using time machines, they have left this universe, preferring to live in another.

I suppose it also means that our universe could see a sudden influx of aliens arriving from another universe; not just from a corner of the one we know.

Neutrino beam from aliens

0803.0409v1.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Here's an interesting suggestion in a new paper on arXiv: maybe aliens use neutrino beams to communicate over interstellar distances, and these may be detectable at the IceCube neutrino detector in Antarctica.

For something even more out there, the paper has a footnote to a 2003 paper which speculates on the use of neutrino beams to disable nuclear weapons. The paper makes it clear this is not about to happen anytime soon, but it's pretty good fodder for a science fiction writer.

Why economists don't run defence forces

Do we need a (surface) navy ? John Quiggin

What nice irony. No sooner does John Quiggin suggest that Australia should give up having a naval "surface fleet", and the media reports that the Navy can barely staff the meagre submarine fleet we already have.

Submariners have always been overstating their usefulness. I remember hearing a navy officer in (I think) the late 70's saying that the new cruise missiles that were then being developed would remove the need for an attack capable air force for Australia.

The fact is, Australia with its mix of defence roles (local participant in regional disputes, contributor to worthy larger causes across the globe, and potential defender of our own continent) is always going to need a mixed force with a bit of everything. What to put in that mix is always going to be controversial, but very radical force restructures are never likely to be politically palatable or popular with the public. And that is how it should be.

More cheer

BBC NEWS | Health | Alcohol 'quickly' cuts heart risk

Middle-aged non-drinkers can quickly reduce their risk of heart disease by introducing a daily tipple to their diet, South Carolina researchers say.

New moderate drinkers were 38% less likely to develop heart disease than those who stayed tee-total, a four-year study involving 7,500 people found.

Those who drank only wine showed the most benefit, the researchers reported in the American Medical Journal.

The American Heart Association is still the spoilsport, though:

Despite several studies showing an association with alcohol intake and reduced cardiovascular risk, guidance from the American Heart Association warns people not to start drinking if they do not already drink alcohol.

Conspiracy time

Rudd razor gang out for older blood | NEWS.com.au

Yesterday it was carer bonuses to be dumped to slow down the economy. Today (see above) it's time to speculate about the pensioner bonus.

Needless to say, such cuts make no sense at all in terms of intended anti-inflationary effect. The beneficiaries targeted are hardly likely to be those in the big-screen-plasma (well, now LCD) TV - and - surround - sound - home - entertainment - buying variety of citizens who the government wants to stop their spending, are they?

In fact, the cuts leaked make so little intuitive sense, I am almost tempted to adopt Left wing conspiracy think and suggest that Rudd is orchestrating the leaks so he can look "caring" when he agrees that these people in the community should not bear the brunt of government cuts. (Note I said "almost".)

This first significant mis-step by Labor has given the Liberals a much needed psychological boost. On Lateline last night (it's the top video link), Joe Hockey was looking very confident against Chris Bowen, who, a bit like Albanese, seems just a bit too uptight for TV. I wouldn't give him a regular spot if I were Labor.

Colbert, and International Improve Women Day

Colbert Report has been very funny lately. I still say he far outshines Jon Stewart and his Daily Show writers. Beneath the irony laden act, Colbert certainly seems not as ideological driven as Stewart, and capable of some genuine warmth towards conservative figures. (See his recent interview with White House insider Tony Snow.)

The difference is that watching The Daily Show leaves the strong impression that the host and audience just know that all conservatives are idiots. The Colbert Report, despite being a complete satire of conservative TV, still ends up feeling more good natured and generous in its assessment of conservatism.

But am I just being deceived by Colbert's successful acting?

Having now read his Wikipedia entry and a lengthy article about him in Vanity Fair, I am happy to see that my suspicions are somewhat confirmed. Colbert the actor comes from a very large southern Catholic family that was touched by tragedy, now has an apparently happy family of his own, and teaches Sunday School.

Of course, that alone doesn't necessarily stop him from now being as ideologically liberal as they come. But it does indicate that I was correct in detecting some underlying sympathetic understanding of conservative politics and religion on his show.

Anyhow, this was all by way of preamble to an irony filled segment from Colbert for International Women's Day:

Smell like an Egyptian

An unsanitised history of washing - Times Online

Nothing much new in this article, if you've already read stuff about the history of personal hygiene. Except for this little bit:

The ancient Egyptians went to great lengths to be clean, but both sexes anointed their genitals with perfumes designed to deepen and exaggerate their natural aroma.

I wonder what scents that involved. (Big potential for poor taste jokes here, I suppose.)

This paragraph from the article is of some interest too:

The outsiders usually err on the side of dirtiness. The ancient Egyptians thought that sitting a dusty body in still water, as the Greeks did, was a foul idea. Late 19th-century Americans were scandalised by the dirtiness of Europeans; the Nazis promoted the idea of Jewish uncleanliness. At least since the Middle Ages, European travellers have enjoyed nominating the continent's grubbiest country - the laurels usually went to France or Spain. Sometimes the other is, suspiciously, too clean, which is how the Muslims, who scoured their bodies and washed their genitals, struck Europeans for centuries. The Muslims returned the compliment, regarding Europeans as downright filthy.

Overanalysis

Disney keeps killing movie mothers | NEWS.com.au

Well, I can't say that I ever spent much time thinking about how dead mothers is a recurring theme in Disney movies and TV. It's true enough, I guess.

But to then blame that for making kids not miss their real life mothers while they are at work: that's just a silly stretch.

One could also make the point that a recurring theme of american sitcoms has been the wife/mother who is secretly the one with power and common sense in the household. (Think about it, if you never have before.) Has this made generations of kids resent their father for being stupid?

Cuts for the sake of cuts

Razor gang slashes carers' bonus | The Australian

LABOR will scrap annual bonuses of $1600 paid to carers as its budget razor gang carves deep into welfare programs to cut spending and curb inflation.

It will replace the payments with a higher utilities allowance but will leave the sick and disabled and their carers hundreds of dollars a year worse off.

Yes, it's important to stop those profligate carers who you always see out at the best restaurants, buying French champagne and using their PDAs.

On Hamas

Comment is free: Hamas' uncritical friends

Ah, there's nothing like a Guardian Comment is Free post that is anti-Hamas to get the readers raging.

The post makes an interesting point about increasing Arab criticism of Hamas and Hizbollah's tactics.

Will it have any effect, though?

Back in Australia, I note that Antony Loewenstein is currently raging about the Gaza situation, with (as you would expect) nary a criticism to be seen of Hamas' rocket tactics. But has he got comments turned off , or is he simply being pretty much ignored these days?

I did see his book "My Israel Question" on sale for $5 recently.

The Lucy situation

I'm still enjoying a lot of That Mitchell & Webb Look (9.30 Wednesdays on ABC1). Some of their silly sketches are very Spike Milligan-ish (especially Numberwang,) but basically I think they are good comedy actors. Try this:

What blew in 536?

RealClimate

Check the link for a post about new evidence suggesting that the likely cause of a globally recorded dimming of the sun in 536AD was a large volcanic eruption. (A comet was the previous suspect.) But still no one seems certain as to which volcano it was (except it was likely in the tropics.)

The story quotes Michael the Syrian:

"The sun was dark and its darkness lasted for eighteen months; each day it shone for about four hours; and still this light was only a feeble shadow … the fruits did not ripen and the wine tasted like sour grapes."

That's one way to counter global warming.

What's Mandarin for "Pardon?"

Bjork's Shanghai surprise: a cry of 'Tibet!' | World news | guardian.co.uk

International Icelandic diplomat Bjork confuses an audience in China:

Bjork is under attack after shouting "Tibet! Tibet!" at the end of her song Declare Independence at a concert in Shanghai.

The crowd did not erupt into jeers, however:

...another audience member, Gabriel Monroe, told the Guardian most people did not register the remark at first.

"One of my friends thought she was saying 'to bed', because she had mentioned it was the last song," he said.