Another career path overtaken by technology

Sexing chickens: Hey little hen | The Economist

According to the article, chicken sexing is a huge industry (needed to determine the fate of unfortunate rooster babies before they get fed too much.)

Yet a technology to sniff out the genders while they are in the egg has been perfected.

3D TV not so likely?

ABC The Drum Unleashed - Keep doing that and you'll go blind

Interesting article here by someone who should know the problems with 3D technology (seeing he was working on a Sega system which was never deployed.) He reckons that long term exposure to 3D is likely to be bad for the brain.

I just find it very hard to believe that 3D TV would be a worthwhile experience. I still haven't seen Avatar, but probably will some day. The only recent 3D movie I have seen is Monsters V Aliens, and as I wrote here before, the effect to me seemed to be of watching action on a intricate diorama, especially when there are action sequences taking place in the city. This is curious effect and enjoyable enough in its own way (it was like watching a movie unfold on the world's biggest train set) but it didn't in any particular sense make it feel "more real". Of course, it was a cartoon, so that may be an unrealistic expectation, but I am a little curious as to whether Avatar induces a similar feeling in me.

In any event, even with a 90 minute film, I found the 3 D system a bit tiring, so I am not at all sure how I will go with Avatar in 3D.

I just can't see the point of wanting to view most things in 3D on TV.

Shellfish can mess with your mind

Neuroskeptic: Beware The Clam of Forgetfulness

Fascinating story here about a rare problem with clams and mussels:

It turns out that there's a neurotoxin, domoic acid, which can indeed cause brain damage including memory loss. It's produced by certain algae, and can accumulate inside shellfish, especially mussels.

Domoic acid is responsible for amnesic shellfish poisoning, which struck a cluster of over 100 people in Canada in 1987; 4 died, and several others suffered permanent neurological symptoms, including epilepsy and most notoriously, anterograde amnesia, the inability to form new memories.

This could be a useful plot device in a movie:  criminal scientist tracks down witnesses to some evil deed he has committed and makes them forget by giving them doses of domoic acid.  [Maybe he has them over for mussels :) ]

Anyhow, I can apparently rest assured that I won't be killed by mussels or have my memory erased:

Since 1987, there have been no further cases in humans, thanks to shellfish harvesting regulations.

I certainly hope that's a failsafe system they have in place now.

Culinary notes

It seems to have been quite a while since I tried a new Saturday night recipe which was an unqualified success. (Well, one child didn't care for it much, but just how often can you bring a new dish to a wife and two kids under 10 and have all of them approve?)

Last night it was a whole snapper that had to be cooked, and I had grown tired of always grilling them Asian style (you know, soy, honey, ginger, sesame oil, spring onions and some chilli on the part the grown ups will eat.) So I tried Mediterranean style baked fish, from a recipe in the gigantic Stephanie Alexander book (which most Australians who have any interest in cooking would know about), and it was very good. It's pretty straight forward and goes something like this:

* cube some potatoes
* saute in olive oil for 10 minutes
* add finely sliced red onion, garlic, and chopped seeded and peeled ripe tomatoes
* cook for another 5 minutes
* pour over seasoned fish, and drizzle more olive oil and the juice of a lemon over top
* start baking
* about 10 minutes before fish is done, throw a handful of black olives over the dish as well.

For a recipe that is pretty simple, the results are quite delicious.

And here's something I have been meaning to ask since I first tasted them:

Where have you been all my life Sicilian green olives??

I think it was about two years ago that I first tasted these on an antipasto plate at an Italian restaurant, and I immediately liked them. I asked the waiter what they were, as I could not recall having such nice, fruity, not-so-salty olives before.

Since then, they have started appearing in deli's and even Coles supermarkets, but I swear they were unknown in Brisbane 5 years ago. (The Coles ones with lemon aren't the best example of the genre, by the way.)

Maybe stuffed green olives have always been of the Sicilian kind? I wouldn't know, because somehow I have never liked the looked of stuffed olives. What I am talking about is the plain, un-pitted Sicilian green.

Brisbane is not exactly ground breaking when it comes to selling new foodstuff to the general public, so I am curious as to whether they have always been sold in Melbourne or Sydney, and for some reason they have just come across the border? I don't recall any TV cook ever talking about them, so that probably doesn't account for their sudden appearance.

In any case, they are delicious, and a small deli in the shopping centre near my house sells them. I have to keep buying them every week in a show of support.

Try them if you never have before.

A dubious move

Wi-Fi Turns Arizona Bus Ride Into a Rolling Study Hall - NYTimes.com

In Arizona:

Morning routines have been like this since the fall, when school officials mounted a mobile Internet router to bus No. 92’s sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. The students call it the Internet Bus, and what began as a high-tech experiment has had an old-fashioned — and unexpected — result. Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared.

I'm not at all sure this is a wise move.

Hardly a dump

Better Homes and Gardens - Yahoo!7 Lifestyle

Haven't various Prime Ministers over the years complained about The Lodge as being a pretty inadequate official residence? Or was it mainly Paul Keating?* I see that in 2007 Bettina Arndt (?) was writing in the Canberra Times that the house is a "shameful" official residence, although how often and why the sex therapist may been visiting there is probably an interesting question of its own.

Anyhow, last night's Better Homes and Gardens (see link above for the video) had a segment showing some of the house and the gardens, and it seemed to me be to a perfectly fine looking shack for our PMs.

* Actually, a quick Google search indicates that Tamie Fraser instituted some big renovations in the late seventies, and as of 1979 the government decided to plan for a new prime ministerial residence.

That's the anti sport spirit!

Why the Olympics and Other Sports Cause Conflict - Newsweek.com

Yay. Christopher Hitchens seems to dislike sport of all varieties just about as much I do. (Is dislike too strong a word? I certainly ignore 99.9% of it, and am very cynical that it is "character building" in any sense at all. Building stadiums is just about the biggest waste of government money ever invented. Now that I think about it, maybe I hate sport.)

Anyway, it's a fun read.

Why not to love the (Iranian) bomb

Debunking the nutty theory that Iranian nukes are a good thing. - By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine

Pretty good article here debunking some of the recent opinion pieces that suggest Iran having the bomb might be a good thing regionally.

I'm not sure that Kaplan's optimism about how much time is left is right, though.

How Kevin lost his mojo

I won't bother providing links to support my claims in this post, but here goes.

It seems that many people sense a sudden turnaround in the image and political fortunes of one Kevin Michael Rudd. It's not just News Limited journalists either, whose changes of tune often seem strangely uniform after hints appear from the lips of the boss, but commentators such as Michelle Grattan, Bernard Keane, and even the folks at the lefty blog Larvatus Prodeo.

The climate change skeptics of the media and blogosphere think that Tony Abbott's ascension to being Leader of the Opposition is the explanation. But that seems far too simple and easy to me. I admit I pretty much despise Abbott for the opportunistic way he trashed climate change policy he previously supported to grab the leadership, but I still feel that Rudd's sudden tarnished image is more one of his own making than as a result of change of leadership. Here's my list of what's gone wrong for him:

1. Copenhagen: Rudd expected to be welcomed as a hero and to have an important role in negotiations. He took an enormous delegation with him to cheer just in case the leaders of 90% of the rest of the world said "who's he?" Instead, the conference showed all the dangers of any process organised by the UN, being hijacked by a bunch of mismanaged countries more interested in shaking down the West than talking about emissions, and one big powerful country (China) playing a spoiler role because it can.

So, it turned into a PR liability very quickly.

I did not expect it to go so badly either, but it was Rudd who put a lot of political eggs in the basket on this one.

2. He took a holiday. For once, Kevin stopped appearing on TV for a few weeks in January. He gave clear air for Abbott to turn up on whatever TV or radio appearance he wanted, with little government response following. If this was a deliberate tactic, it didn't work. Even though there was nothing significant policy-wise said in this period, all these "action" shots of (Tony in his speedos, Tony in his lycra cycling gear), at least give people the impression that he might be someone who can get things done. Which leads to the next point:

3. A sudden realisation that Rudd hasn't got all that much done. It seems to have taken a hell of a long time for the polls to reflect a cynicism in the public that Rudd is all waffling talk and light on the ground on actual results, but it finally seems to have kicked in.

Maybe it's the realisation that we're close to an election and (amongst other things) few students have got their free laptop; aboriginal housing is being fixed at a glacial pace and at huge cost; nothing obvious has changed in the State hospital system and any Federal 'takeover' is receding into the distance; even industrial relations changes seem to have taken a long time to become fully effective.

4. Now that Rudd has started to appear in the media again, he is doing it in a Presidential style which serves to highlight his deficiencies as a speaker and advocate. His weekly sessions on Sunrise to answer viewer questions is an appallingly dull format, and I don't understand why his media advisers (and the shows producers) haven't changed it completely already. (I missed it this morning, but could hear it in the background and suspect it may have tweaked already.)

I missed his "Q&A" show, but take it that it didn't go over so well. And when will some adviser be brave enough to tell him "Kevin, you simply have to stop with the 'and you know what'?" and his other rhetorical cliches which people are well and truly sick of.

Oddly, from what I see of his parliamentary performance, he's actually still looking confident there, but this counts for little just at the moment.

5. He never was very likeable but people seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt. That attitude is drying up fast.

Consumer revolt

The Cost of an E-Book Will Be Going Up - NYTimes.com

It does seem odd that, just at a time there is an expectation that e-book readers are really going to take off, the cost of e-books is expected to go up. But as noted, this is meeting stiff consumer resistance in the States.

Meanwhile, it would be good to be able to get more than just a Kindle in this country. Grr.

Fun reading ahead

Psychiatry's draft new 'bible' goes online - health - 10 February 2010 - New Scientist

It seems the draft new version of the DSM-V, the bible of mental health diagnosis, is now available on line.

Lots of potential fun there is trying to pin down what exactly is wrong with some of my fellow bloggers. :)

Legs astride the barbed wire fence

Rowan's apology falls short

I see that the Archbishop of Canterbury continues to try to do the impossible task of keeping the Church of England from splintering over sexuality, saying he's sorry to gays and lesbians if they feel he hasn't done enough for their recognition, while telling them they should still wait.

What a hopeless task.

Quite beautiful

Have a look at this mesmerising 4 minute film. (Watch it in full screen is best.)

The "making of" video shows how it is largely a digital construct, pretty much like Skycaptain and the World of Tomorrow, which was very much underappreciated.

Something to watch out for

The Ghostman of Skye | Ghostwatch | Fortean Times

True life ghost stories told by sincere sounding people can be both intriguing and entertaining, but as this review of a recent BBC documentary notes, television's treatment of this topic in the last few years has been dominated by appallingly silly ' psychic ghosthunter' style programs which no sensible person can watch.

But I'll have to look out for this doco. Some of the spooky stories are described as follows:

Among the most remarkable accounts were sightings of a ghost car on the Portree to Sligachan road, which have caused something of a sensation on the island. One driver described how he had pulled in twice to avoid what he believed was a real vehicle approaching, only to see the headlights mysteriously vanish. On a third encounter, he instead drove boldly towards the headlights, much to the discomfort of passengers in the car, only to find the lights unaccountably vanishing once again. An elderly ex-policeman told of seeing a headless lady in green; where the head should have been it was “vacant, missing”. Other stories told of strange lights associated with road accidents and drownings, which were seen as omens.

A phantom child, five or six years old, was seen by two men out walking. The vision occurred about an hour and half before the discovery of a body of a child who had drowned in a loch, and for whom neighbours were searching that night. An account from a John McGillivray told of a light seen climbing up from the shore and moving up the hill. This was reportedly seen at a spot where a body was later discovered, with the light moving along the track where the body was later carried to the nearest graveyard.

Not encouraging

Climate 'Tipping Points' May Arrive Without Warning, Says Top Forecaster

"Many scientists are looking for the warning signs that herald sudden changes in natural systems, in hopes of forestalling those changes, or improving our preparations for them," said UC Davis theoretical ecologist Alan Hastings. "Our new study found, unfortunately, that regime shifts with potentially large consequences can happen without warning -- systems can 'tip' precipitously.

"This means that some effects of global climate change on ecosystems can be seen only once the effects are dramatic. By that point returning the system to a desirable state will be difficult, if not impossible."....

Among the tipping points Holdren listed were: the complete disappearance of Arctic sea ice in summer, leading to drastic changes in ocean circulation and climate patterns across the whole Northern Hemisphere; acceleration of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, driving rates of sea-level increase to 6 feet or more per century; and ocean acidification from carbon dioxide absorption, causing massive disruption in ocean food webs.

Coming soon

What the LHC could find at half-power - New Scientist

There's no mention in this short note as to whether half power is enough for mini black holes. The answer will be somewhere on the internet.

Missing Annabel

I had been wondering why Annabel Crabb, my favourite political commentator of late, had gone to the ABC then promptly disappeared. The Australian has the answer, when Caroline Overington wrote about Insiders:

It will be a different kind of show this year, since the sharpest wit, Annabel Crabb, last week gave birth to a son, Elliott James, who is now undergoing 24-hour worship with his happy mum at home.

Betty still busy

This was one of the superbowl ads, and features Betty White, who I've always found funny:



She's 88 years old (!) and as sharp as a tack. You have to admire her.

Technical problem in the sky

Burj Khalifa observation deck incident is minor case, says official

The mystery reason as to why the Burj Khalifa 124th floor observation deck was suddenly closed is given some more background:

Michael Timms, a 31-year-old telecommunications engineer from the US, said: "I was walking around the observation deck when I heard this really loud noise and what looked like smoke or dust coming out from one of the elevator doors. There were at least 60 people on the deck at the time. Employees and security staff were telling people that everything was ok. But once it became clear we were not being allowed back down, some people got really angry while others started crying."

Timms added: "Civil Defence, paramedics and the police all arrived on the scene. One of the elevators had not reached all the way to the 124th floor and I saw some people climbing a ladder from the elevator up on to the observation deck." Timms said they were given an offer to return for free.

The elevators seem a bit problematic:

Fourteen people were also trapped in one of the Burj Khalifa's elevators for over an hour last month.

He should've travelled via robot camel

gulfnews : Dubai's Arabic-speaking robot takes a flight to Riyadh

A bit of silly stuff here about a robot taking a plane trip. I hope security gave him a thorough body cavity search first:

A first for Emirates, Ibn Sina, one of the world's most advanced robots, travelled as a First Class passenger on the flight accompanied by Dr Nikolaos Mavridis, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the UAE University College of Information Technology in Al Ain where the machine was developed, along with two of his assistants.

Able to verbally interact with people, Ibn Sina stunned fellow passengers as he was checked in at Emirates' dedicated First Class check-in counter and relaxed in Emirates' First Class lounge prior to boarding his flight.

More justification for my ETS cynicism

David Prosser: Carbon prices are going the wrong way - The Independent

Right now, the carbon price is heading in the wrong direction. The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee said yesterday that £88 per tonne was the lowest price necessary for investment in green technologies to become economic. In the EU scheme, the price for the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide is currently £13, having fallen back from closer to £20 since the middle of last year.

There have been two reasons for this decline. First, the free emissions allowances for the scheme were set prior to the recession: in a slowdown, emissions fall, so there has been less demand for additional allowances than was anticipated. And second, with the failure in Copenhagen to secure an international agreement on emission reductions, one crutch for the carbon price – that fewer free allowances might soon be available – was kicked away.

One of the few positive effects of the global recession has been lower-than-expected emissions. But the gain from that benefit will be more than wiped out by higher future emissions if the result is that the low carbon price makes it impossible for private-sector organisations to justify committing themselves to investing the huge sums necessary to build renewable energy plants with scale, or nuclear facilities.

When will the simpler idea of fixing a price on carbon via a tax so as to give investment greater certainty going to start getting more political support?

Growth area

South Brisbane And West End Population To Increase Three-fold

Over the last year I've spent quite a lot of time at West End and South Brisbane on Saturday afternoons while the kids attend a local class.

West End to me still has too much of the seedy feel that New Farm used to have (until the large number of boarding houses started closing down.) It seems pretty rare to walk down the main shopping street without seeing some drunk (or possibly drug addled or otherwise mentally disturbed) person on a bus bench or elsewhere. There are a large number of the artistically inclined living in the area, but I am not sure that modern artists necessarily make the best neighbours. The little enclave on the main street that is left as a aboriginal meeting place just serves to remind people of the seemingly listless and alcohol centred life of a large number of the urban aboriginal residents.

Still, I can see that it could have a bright future with more and more redevelopment of what is currently industrial land.

Must praise Malcolm

ABC The Drum Unleashed - Turnbull: why I will vote for Rudd's CPRS

I can't let Malcolm Turnbull's speech go without comment.

Even though I have always been cynical about emissions trading schemes, and doubt that they will work as well as economists like to think they could, Malcolm Turbull's speech yesterday was the best presented and most logically argued justification for an ETS for Australia that I have ever heard.

But of course, logic and reason (and principled stands on issues) don't count for much in politics. You have to take into account "the vibe", and with lots of TV images of lots of snow in America and Europe, and a lot of poorly understood reports on "Climategate", public opinion is swinging away from taking any serious action on CO2 emissions for the moment. There is still a majority supporting action, but the skeptics/disbelievers/deniers (there is no good term for them collectively) are feeling very buoyed at the moment.

The public is fickle on this topic, which is an inherently hard one to explain. (By that I mean not only emissions trading schemes, but climate change science itself is not "intuitive".) That the Right is increasingly identified itself with those who disbelieve a consensus view of science is a major tragedy.

To revive political will on the subject, we actually have to hope that 2010 is demonstrably a hot year globally, and the early indications are that this may turn out to be true.

As for convincing people that ocean acidification is a major issue: I don't know how you do that when it'll be a while yet before clear evidence of its effects on the ocean ecosystem can be irrefutable. It is clear that ocean pH is lowering, but will it take proof of the population of some sea creature falling as a result to overcome ignorance based skepticism of the topic? But then again, how did scientists manage to convince governments that the ozone hole depletion was a major issue before they could show ecological effects actually happening? Maybe that example of science successfully convincing the public of a need for action is reason to not be completely pessimistic.

An identity issue, continued

Yesterday while looking for something else, I found this post from 2007 which I had half forgotten about. (As with many of my half remembered stuff, I am often surprised how good some of my old posts are. Sorry, I may well suffer from too much self-regard!) It was on the topic of teenagers and the current Western cultural ideas about sexual orientation/identity. The issue was revisited in this post last year.

The short version is that the modern idea of the importance of identifying sexual orientation and "being true" to it may in fact be unhelpful to teenagers with uncertain or malleable sexual feelings by placing them under greater pressure to try to identity (and acknowledge) a sexual category at ever younger ages.

Anyway, today I find this item, which is very relevant to the topic:

Mental health professionals have long-known that gay, lesbian and bisexual (GLB) teens face significantly elevated risks of mental health problems, including suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts. However, a group of McGill University researchers in Montreal has now come to the conclusion that self-identity is the crucial risk-factor, rather than actual sexual behaviours. Their results were published in February in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

The researchers administered a detailed, anonymous questionnaire to nearly 1,900 students in 14 Montreal-area high schools, and found that those teens who self-identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual, or who were unsure of their sexual identity, were indeed at higher risk for suicidal ideation and attempts. However, teens who had same-sex attractions or sexual experiences – but thought of themselves as heterosexual – were at no greater risk than the population at large. Perhaps surprisingly, but consistent with previous studies, the majority of teens with same-sex sexual attraction or experience considered themselves to be heterosexual....

"It's important to realize that a large proportion of people who have sex with or are attracted to people of the same sex do not identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual. They consider themselves heterosexual." added co-author Dr. Richard Montoro of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). "Those students were not at all at risk of worse mental health outcomes."

"The main message is that it's the interface between individuals and society that causes students who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual the most distress," said study first author Yue Zhao, a McGill University graduate student working with Dr. Thombs.. "Sexual orientation has three different components. The first is identity, which is dependent on the society in which one lives; the second is attraction or fantasy; and the third is behaviour. Previous studies have not addressed which of those components may explain why GLB youth are at risk."

Well, there might be more than one way of looking at this, but I think it's not unreasonable for me to say it supports my position that any sex education (or school based gay support groups as are increasingly popular in America) which tend to encourage teenagers to self identify as gay at too young an age is not a good idea. It may do more harm than good.

I have no issue with schools taking strong action on bullying of anyone, whether its on the basis of perceived sexual orientation or not. But bullying is wrong because it is wrong, and you don't need to further emphasise the importance of sexual self identity to respond to it.

Must be time for another post about Japanese toilets

Caring about toilet noise: from feudal-era urn to 21st century gadget

This article suggests that Japanese sensitivity about the sounds people make when using a toilet has a long history. You've probably heard before:

most ladies’ rooms in the country’s department stores and office buildings are equipped with a device commonly known as ‘‘Otohime’’—originally the brand name of a product developed by Toto Ltd—which emits the simulated sound of a toilet flushing.

The rest of the article contains some phrases that you are unlikely to hear again. Ever. I'll put them in bold:

Shigenori Yamaji, an expert on toilet culture and researcher at Osaka University of Tourism’s Institute of Tourism Studies, agreed that being embarrassed by the thought of other people hearing such sounds in the lavatory seems peculiar to Japan.

According to Yamaji, this particular sensibility can be traced back to at least the 19th century, a time of feudalism in Japan, as the residence of a wealthy family in Yakage that also served as a designated inn for dignitaries was equipped with an urn traditionally called ‘‘Otokeshi-no Tsubo’’ (Urn for Covering the Sound).

The urn, now kept in storage at Yakage Folk Museum and expected to be put on display there in the near future, has a water outlet in the shape of a dragon. A curator said the urn was originally placed on a platform near the restroom, which was exclusively for the high-ranking guests of the inn and not for family members or servants.

When a guest wanted to use the room, it is thought that his attendant would be standing by to lift the plug on the urn and let the water out from the dragon’s mouth to cover the sound of the nobleman urinating, Yamaji said...

But some are critical of the custom. ‘‘I think the Japanese sometimes read too much between the lines,’’ said a housewife in her 30s in Chiba Prefecture.

‘‘My own excretory sounds never make me embarrassed. It’s much more embarrassing to put on makeup on the train,’’ said a dance instructor in her 50s in the same prefecture.

Amusing snark

“Edge of Darkness” and “The Red Shoes,” review : The New Yorker

Anthony Lane writes in his review of the new Mel Gibson movie "Edge of Darkness":

Mel Gibson, who looks and sounds not a day over sixty-five*, plays a policeman named Thomas Craven. ...

He wears a loose-fitting suit that he might have picked up at a morgue. “I’m the guy with nothing to lose who doesn’t give a shit,” he says. You’re telling me.

* He has, even I am surprised to learn, only just turned 54. Must be all that church going. Or the drinking and womanising. One or the other.

Something you didn't know about the LHC

Backreaction: The LHC Proton Source

A brief but surprising bit of information about the LHC at this post.

Living up to its reputation

BBC News - In Paris, the customer is not always right

Here's a somewhat amusing story of the famously surly service in Paris. (I visited once for a few days in the 1980's, and yes, the service for a foreigner barely able to cope with ordering a steak was pretty crook. But in a way, my travelling companion and I found it kind of amusing that it lived up to its reputation.)

There is a reason offered for this attitude, but I am not really convinced:

The revolution of 1789 has burned the notion of equality deep into the French psyche and a proud Parisian finds it abhorrently degrading to act subserviently...

In America, your waiter comes to your restaurant table to tell you his name is Joe. Here, your waiter expects to be addressed formally as Monsieur, in exactly the same way he will address you.

It is made clear from the start that no-one has the upper hand. The strict code of manners in Paris is a deliberate class-leveller.

Actually, I thought people sometimes complain that service in America was kind of surly in its own way now, with the reliance on tips to make any kind of decent living meaning that waiters will expect a decent tip regardless of the level of service offered.

And of course, I reckon the best service in the world comes from Japan. But commit a crime, and all bets are off. (See previous post.)

Punishment in Japan

Record 85% favor death penalty | The Japan Times Online

Wow. Amnesty International presumably has its work cut out for it in Japan.

Mind you, according to reports in the mid 1990's, prisoner treatment in Japan was so bad they might not thing execution is so bad. I wonder if things have improved since then?

Serious TV

Four Corners - 08/02/2010: A Good Death

When I first saw the topic for tonight's Four Corners (four terminally ill people let the program follow them in their last months) I thought that it was likely to be yet another bunch of pro-euthanasia people wanting publicity.

But from the program description, it's all about a palliative care centre in Sydney (and a Catholic one at that), so it's not what I expected.

A couple of years ago I mentioned that the Health Report on Radio National had a surprisingly good segment on palliative care. It's good to see occasional coverage of alternatives to euthanasia on "our" ABC.

And just before Four Corners, I see that Australian Story is about Red Symons and a fight with brain cancer that one of his sons had to go through when he was only 4. (He survived, but the family kept it quiet all these years.) Should be worth watching.

Christmas break 2009

I haven't got around to posting about the short Christmas holiday to Ballina, Northern New South Wales.

In 2008, the family made a brief incursion into Byron Bay (warning - best not attempted in peak holiday season), which at that time was the furthest south I had ever been along the northern NSW coast. (As I noted recently, the ocean does get cold very fast one you cross the border.)

Late last year, we started looking for somewhere to stay in the Christmas - New Year week, and found the Ramada Hotel & Suites at Ballina. It's a very new place, was pretty good value and had vacancies. I can recommend it.

The one bedroom suites are very nice, with a kitchenette, two big LCD TVs and a pretty large balcony. If you are on the side facing the Richmond River, you get pretty nice views too:


There's a good Indian restaurant downstairs, and not a bad Italian one as well. The main street of town is a block away. The beaches are only a short drive away, although you could walk a bit and just swim in the river if you wanted to. Here's a view of the town from the local lookout:


The coastal drive from Ballina up to Lennox Head is particularly nice. Here's a north looking photo just before Lennox Head, with Byron Bay in the distance:


The best thing about Lennox Head is Lake Ainsworth, a freshwater tea tree stained lake just across from the surf beach, which has the very nice feature of being exquisitely warm when the ocean is cold:


One other tourist place just outside of Ballina is the tea tree plantation of Thursday Plantation, which makes all those tea tree oil products. It features a free, though mosquito infested, maze which contains odd bits of artwork, such as these which seem to have gone missing from a scary sequence in a Harry Potter film:


Yes, despite some less than ideal weather for much of the time, we were suitably impressed by Ballina and environs, and decided we would particularly like to visit Lennox Head again. But let's end with the traditional sunset shot (I thought the dark rays were a little odd):



(As always, you can click on the photos to enlarge.)

A plainer form of CO2 cap

Lexington: A refreshing dose of honesty | The Economist

The Economist seems pretty impressed with the relative simplicity of this alternative proposal in American to "cap and trade":

Enter Maria Cantwell, the junior senator from Washington state. She is pushing a simpler, more voter-friendly version of cap-and-trade, called “cap-and-dividend”. Under her bill, the government would impose a ceiling on carbon emissions each year. Producers and importers of fossil fuels will have to buy permits. The permits would be auctioned, raising vast sums of money. Most of that money would be divided evenly among all Americans. The bill would raise energy prices, of course, and therefore the price of everything that requires energy to make or distribute. But a family of four would receive perhaps $1000 a year, which would more than make up for it, reckons Ms Cantwell. Cap-and-dividend would set a price on carbon, thus giving Americans a powerful incentive to burn less dirty fuel. It would also raise the rewards for investing in clean energy. And it would leave all but the richest 20% of Americans—who use the most energy—materially better off, she says.

Ms Cantwell’s bill is refreshingly simple. At a mere 40 pages, it is one-thirty-sixth as long as the monstrous House bill (known as “Waxman-Markey”, after its sponsors), which would regulate everything from televisions to “bottle-type water dispensers” and is completely incomprehensible to a layman. Instead of auctioning permits to emit, Waxman-Markey gives 85% of them away, at least at first. This is staggeringly inefficient: permits would go to those with political clout rather than those who value them most. No one is proud of this—Mr Obama wanted a 100% auction—but House Democrats decided that the only way to pass the bill was to hand out billions of dollars of goodies to groups that might otherwise oppose it. (There was plenty of pork left over for its supporters, too.)

Certainly, it would seem that Rudd' CPRS has much the same deficiencies as the Waxman-Markey proposal.

I wonder if anyone has modelled this simpler suggestion for Australia?

Cheers

Whisky recovered after 100 years on ice

Five crates of whisky and brandy belonging to polar explorer Ernest Shackleton have been recovered after being buried for more than 100 years under the Antarctic ice, explorers said on yesterday.

The spirits were excavated from beneath Shackleton's Antarctic hut which was built in 1908.

It's not confirmed yet that there are intact bottles inside the crate, but if there is, what should they do with it? I get the feeling that auctioning some bottles for some charity would be just as good a use as keeping it in a museum.

How to annoy the Left

The New Abstinence-Education Study Is Good News. So Why Are Liberals Freaking Out?

A good post here about the Left's seeming annoyance that any type of abstinence based sex education could possibly work.

The type of programme the subject of this study is described as follows:

...the study authors looked at African-American middle-school students in the Northeast who enrolled in an abstinence-only program (no instruction on contraceptives) and were taught, sans moral or religious arguments, that they should delay sex until they were ready. Marriage was notably left out of it.

The students in this program were more likely to delay sex in the two years after the program, as opposed to those who enrolled in no program or those who were instructed in safe sex.

As the post further notes:

The generally negative reaction from the left really gets at how incredibly polarized the sex-education debate has become, to the point where supporters of comprehensive sex education can barely mumble a word of praise for a successful program.

Honour killing reaches a new low

Turkish teenager buried alive because friendship with boys shamed family - Times Online

The father and grandfather of a Turkish teenager are to face trial for burying her alive because they were concerned that her friendship with boys had brought dishonour on their family.

Although honour killings are not infrequent in Turkey, the especially gruesome manner of Medine Memi’s death has shocked the nation.

A coroner said that Medine had been discovered bound and lifeless in sitting position in a 2m hole dug beneath a chicken coop outside the family’s house in the town of Kahta in Southeastern Turkey, 40 days after she had disappeared. The hole had been cemented over.

According to a post-mortem examination the large amount of soil in her lungs and stomach showed that she had been buried while conscious and suffered a slow and agonising death.

The circumstances get worse:

It also emerged that Medine had repeatedly tried to report to police that she had been beaten by her father and grandfather days before she was killed. “She tried to take refuge at the police station three times, and she was sent home three times,” her mother, Immihan, said after the body was discovered in December.

Medine’s father is reported as saying at the time: “She has male friends. We are uneasy about that.”

Who is responsible for this headline?

Learning from climate's sedimental journey

I'm warning you, I'm ringing the Bad Pun Police now.

How will this play out in Australia?

What Will Obama's Energy Bill Look Like Without Cap-and-Trade? - The Atlantic Business Channel

Interesting post here suggesting that Obama is going to abandon cap and trade for now (due to the impossibility of getting it through his Senate) and basically come up with a plan of incentives, just like Tony Abbott's plan.

How will this play out politically here? Abbott can claim that his plan is now like the US one. But, as the above article notes, every credible commentator believes that is a formula for achieving next to nothing.

It seems to me more and more likely that Rudd here should do a deal with the Greens that sets a low carbon price and leaves open future changes if ETS's do start taking off in enough other countries.

I suspect that if it was done quickly, it would deflect the "new tax" scare campaign of the Liberals by the time an election came around at the end of the year.

Being an average intellect is not so bad

You don't have to be bipolar to be a genius – but it helps - Science, News - The Independent

I find it pretty laughable that in the last bit of this article they list creative people who have claimed to be bipolar, and include Stephen Fry and Sting. Great Britain much be running out of creative geniuses.

Good idea

OECD queries cost of new broadband network | The Australian

...the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Australia desk, Claude Giorno, called on the Rudd government to apply more rigorous cost-benefit analysis to its infrastructure spending, including its $43 billion broadband network. Mr Giorno said "questions need to be answered" about Labor's broadband network because of the amount of spending involved and the apparent lack of any cost-benefit analysis.

The Coalition's plan was substantially better for a country like ours.

Another late TV recommendation

Monster Moves

SBS has moved Mythbusters from Saturday night to Monday, but new episodes are showing (yay.)

In the old Saturday night 7.30 slot they are showing (for a short time, anyway) Monster Moves, about how they manage to relocate buildings. It was very interesting and impressive show last week, I thought.

It looks like its been on Discovery channel for some time (see link above) but I had never seen it before.

A pretty remarkable advance

Cold Comfort: Young Women with Cancer Can Freeze an Ovary to Keep Kids in the Picture

Young women who have to undergo cancer treatment which might destroy their fertility will soon have this option:

Before starting cancer treatment, one walnut-size ovary is removed in a 30-minute, minimally invasive laparoscopic procedure. The tissue is then cut into pieces the size of rice grains and flash frozen in liquid nitrogen at temperatures nearing –200 degrees Celsius by a process called vitrification.

After the treatment regime is completed, should the survivor choose to become pregnant, the tissue is thawed and re-implanted onto the surface of the remaining ovary or the ligament next to the fallopian tube. Four months later—the time it takes for thawed primordial follicles (the functional units of the ovary) to mature and start ovulating—the survivor can conceive without hormones and in vitro fertilization, making the procedure a "natural" and effective way to preserve fertility in young women and girls with cancer, says Sherman Silber, director of Saint Luke's Hospital's Infertility Center of Saint Louis.

Small mystery explained

Which e-reader will conquer Japan? | Japan Pulse

When I was last in Japan, I asked some people if they knew of the Sony e-reader, which I was hoping I might be able to buy and use in Australia. However, they didn't know about it.

This article explains why. (Short version, an early version of it was a market failure, and Sony stopped selling them in 2007. They are now considering a come back in the market, because it has sold pretty well in the US and England.)

As for buying them here: I thought I read the other day that they were finally going to start selling them, but now I can't find the story. Maybe I was dreaming...

On the US abandoning space

Obama Budget Plan Grounds NASA Despite Increased Funding - TIME

Not a bad column here (with interesting comments following) on the bleak looking future for people in space.

An odd urban legend from Japan

‘Ririkan’ fast-food mystery meat ::: Pink Tentacle

Interesting post here about an urban myth from Japan that involves imaginary Australian giant rats.

Modern marriage in Saudi Arabia

gulfnews : 12-year-old Saudi girl drops divorce requests: reports

Riyadh: A 12-year-old Saudi girl has dropped her petition to divorce an 80-year-old man her father forced to marry in exchange for a dowry, according to media reports on Tuesday.

The girl and her mother reportedly withdrew the case on Monday in a court in Buraidah in Al Qasim province.

The girl told the court that her marriage to the man was done with her agreement, according to Okaz newspaper.

According to reports, the girl's father, who is separated from her mother, arranged her marriage to the 80-year-old in exchange for a dowry payment of $22,667 (Dh83,414).

An interesting point

Abbott's great big axe | Alan Kohler | News | Business Spectator

Alan Kohler is one of the few commentators to give more-or-less support to the coalition policy (well, he calls it "clever" anyway), and he makes this interesting point:

....the coalition is proposing to pay the Latrobe Valley companies to convert from brown coal to gas. There are a few other ideas tacked on to make it look like a policy, not a deal, but that’s the guts of it.

It’s a good idea – first proposed in Business Spectator last November. I’m not sure the amount of money nominated – a total of $3.2 billion, with up to $2.55 billion available for power station conversion – will be enough, but it’s an opening gambit.

Hunt spelled it out towards the end of yesterday’s press conference when the journalists were nodding off listening to Tony Abbott, so what he said has been largely ignored.

He said: “One of the large power companies has provided us with their advice. Because it’s commercial-in-confidence, they didn’t want it released – but they provided us with their advice that they could convert from coal to gas for $13 per tonne under this system.

“Now we want to check that, but … the oldest and least efficient of the power providers has said to us that under the government’s ETS we’re just not going to be able to afford the capital to transition because we will be struggling just to survive… Under this they’ve said that if our balance sheets are clear and there’s an incentive to change from coal to gas, this is very attractive and we are more likely rather than less likely to change under this system.”

But the fly in the ointment is this:

Presumably Tony Abbott didn’t just announce a deal with the owners of Yallourn and Hazelwood because firstly Greg Hunt didn’t have to enough time to negotiate one, and secondly because saying you’re going to hand over large dollops of cash to Hong Kong and British companies is not as good politically as saying “No Great Big New Tax” over and over (and over).

This leaves a big opening to Labor to exploit.

The other problem for Abbott is that no one believes that big enough changes can be done without raising some extra money to pay for it. If he really wants an alternative that is simpler to understand, he should go for an actual low carbon tax with revenue devoted to cleaner energy research and deployment.

Sickly drinks may may make you sick

Energy drinks 'increase heart attack risk' - ABC News

I've never understood the success of the energy drink market. They are uniformly sickly sweet (even those with artificial sweetener) and while I know younger people have a greater tolerance for sweetness until their palate gets a bit more mature, the taste of these products has always seemed over the top.

So it's interesting to note that they may be positively dangerous as well:

Gulping down a single energy drink can significantly boost the blood pressure in healthy adults, according to new Australian research.

The work by researchers at the University of Adelaide and Royal Adelaide Hospital shows that the popular drinks, used by young clubbers, exercise enthusiasts and sleep-deprived mothers, can also increase the stickiness of the blood and damages blood vessel function.

That'll help your credibility Tony

Abbott pencils in date with Monckton

Well much fun was to be had watching Kerry O'Brien put the precise questions to Abbott that the media had until now failed to ask:

KERRY O’BRIEN: Mr Abbott, you are using terminology like there's evidence evidence that carbon dioxide might be a problem. When you put that alongside what you told that audience in regional Victoria in October last year, "The climate change argument is absolute crap, however the politics are tough for us because 80 per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger". In other words, the only conclusion you draw from that is that you are saying, "We have to have a climate change policy because the people believe it's a danger, but I believe it's crap".

TONY ABBOTT: Well no, and as I said before, there was a little bit of rhetorical hyperbole in there which does not represent my considered position, I am not as evangelical about this as Prime Minister Rudd is. I am not theological about this the way Prime Minister Rudd is, but I do think it's important. And that is why I'm prepared to invest $10 billion over the coming decade to bring about things which will be good regardless, good for the environment, regardless of your views on the role of carbon dioxide in climate.

KERRY O’BRIEN: So when you say a bit of rhetorical hyperbole in that conversation with that audience you say you adjust the message to whatever audience you are playing to, if that's the case, how do we know you haven't adjusted your message for this audience?

TONY ABBOTT: Casually all of us are loose with our language, that was an occasion when I said what I shouldn't have said. It didn't represent my correct position.

KERRY O’BRIEN: There's nothing loose about the meaning of a term, nothing loose about the meaning of a term that says "absolute crap".

Now Abbott will help distance himself from the obvious charge that he is a climate change fake by meeting with Monckton? Ha.

ERF! Indeed

Abbott’s answer to climate change: ERF – Crikey

A critical look at Tony Abbott's plan you have for reducing CO2 emissions when you don't believe there is a need for reducing CO2 emissions.

I heard Abbott on the local radio this afternoon, claiming again that the "crap" comment about AGW was a "rhetorical flourish", and in fact he believes that (to paraphrase closely) something probably is going on with the climate, and it is prudent to take steps to reduce CO2.

Well, I will wait for the criticism of Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair to begin then. They wanted a disbeliever in AGW to lead the Coalition, but they didn't get it. (Or so he says. It depends on what day you ask him, and who he is talking to.)

If Bolt is to be consistent, he should be ridiculing Abbott 'til the election for daring to spend a cent on CO2 reduction.

The Church of Biff

More Churches Promote Martial Arts to Reach Young Men

This is just weird:

The young man was a member of a fight team at Xtreme Ministries, a small church near Nashville that doubles as a mixed martial arts academy. Mr. Renken, who founded the church and academy, doubles as the team’s coach. The school’s motto is “Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide.”Mr. Renken’s ministry is one of a small but growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low.

The gloomy future

News Analysis - A Decade of Enormous Deficits May Alter American Politics and Power - NYTimes.com

When the New York Times starts talking up deficit woes, it's probably serious.

A rare recommendation

Pajamas Media - When It Comes to Nuclear Power, Companies Should Think Small

There's very, very little that I bother recommending now from the anti-AGW infested site Pajamas Media, but this article on the apparent economics of small nuclear modules (about to go into production in the States) against giant nuclear power stations is worth a look.

Leading the world in toilet technology again!

Japanese machine turns office paper into toilet paper (w/ Video)

For a mere $100,000 investment, anyone who works in an office may be able to free themselves from the need to purchase toilet paper again.

I reckon my office could supply several households with toilet rolls.

But - if Australians took up the Japanese toilet bidets, it would probably save a lot more trees at better economy than this device.

Arguing targets

BBC News - 55 countries send UN their carbon-curbing plans

We'll be hearing more about this, no doubt. Especially this section:

The US previously pledged a cut of 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 (equivalent to 3% from the conventional baseline of 1990).

But its current submission promises a cut "in the range of 17%, in conformity with anticipated US energy and climate legislation, recognising that the final target will be reported to the Secretariat in light of enacted legislation".

Canada will also amend its target of 17% to make it align "with the final economy-wide emissions target of the US in enacted legislation".

And as for the other big players:

Among developing countries, China re-affirms that its 2020 target is a cut of 40-45% in carbon intensity and that this is to be regarded as voluntary, while India has retreated from a firm pledge to improve its energy intensity to a position where it promises to "endeavour reduce its emissions intensity" by 2020.

I guess there are ways this can be spun for both Rudd and Abbott. Abbott will argue that Rudd's tiny target is still ahead of the USA; Rudd can say that what he is doing is consistent with China's "reduce carbon intensity" approach.

What I am waiting for is a journalist to say to Abbott - "what is your reasoning for taking any action at all, given that we know that a claimed majority of your party believes that there is no reason to do anything at all about CO2 emissions, and you yourself described global warming as "crap" barely 4 months ago?"

Fish oil, part 2

Fish oil 'reduces youth psychosis'

After recently posting about the benefits of fish oil for adults who want to slow aging, this news of another (somewhat unexpected) apparent benefit of it for the young is worth noting:

In the study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry journal, 41 high-risk patients were given four fish oil capsules a day for three months. Only two of them developed a psychotic disorder, compared with 11 of another 40 who took a placebo...

High-powered anti-psychotic drugs can come with metabolic changes, sexual dysfunction and weight gain which are often not acceptable for young people, leading to high drop-out rates.

Very few people dropped out of the fish oil treatment regime, and a 12-month follow up showed the effect seemed to protect the brain even after the patient stopped taking the pills.

What isn't it good for?

Clarification on that water vapor story

The role of stratospheric water vapor in global warming

Yet again, John Cook does a clear and enlightening post on that "less water vapour in the stratosphere" story I posted about below. Bottom line:

There seem to be two major misconceptions arising from this paper. The first is that this paper demonstrates that water vapor is the major driver of global temperatures. In fact, what this paper shows is the effect from stratospheric water vapor contributes a fraction of the temperature change imposed from man-made greenhouse gases. While the stratospheric water vapor is not insignificant, it's hardly the dominant driver of climate being portrayed by some blogs.

The other misinterpretation is that this paper proves negative feedback that cancels out global warming. As we've just seen, the magnitude of the effect is small compared to the overall global warming trend.

iWant - I don't

Charlie Brooker | iPad therefore iWant? Probably. Why? iDunno

Charlie Brooker has some good cynical lines about the iPad. This is probably the best bit:

Apple excels at taking existing concepts – computers, MP3 players, conceit – and carefully streamlining them into glistening ergonomic chunks of concentrated aspiration. It took the laptop and the coffee table book and created the MacBook. Now it's taken the MacBook and the iPhone and distilled them into a single device that answers a rhetorical question you weren't really asking.

On a more serious note, it seems to me that Apple's failure to get on with Adobe (so that Flash content will not show on the iPad) is a very big reason not to buy an iPad:

In a blog post last week, Adobe group manager Adrian Ludwig railed against iPad and restrictions on Apple devices "that limit both content publishers and consumers".

"Without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web," Ludwig wrote.

This limitation does not apply to the games and other content available through Apple's App Store, as these apps are coded specifically to suit Apple's devices.

On the unofficial TheFlashBlog.com, Adobe platform evangelist Lee Brimelow provided several screen shots showing examples of web content that would be unavailable on the iPad, such as parts of CNN.com, Farmville.com, video streaming websites such as Hulu.com, porn sites, graphics on Google Finance, web games and much of Disney.com.

The coming ghost towns of Europe

The population crash | Fred Pearce | World news | The Guardian

Here's a pretty compelling extract from a book looking at Europe's dwindling birth-rate and aging population. (The situation with emptying towns is already very dire in East Germany, apparently.)

Red faces

Did rice wine lead to flushed faces in Asia? - New Scientist

As it happens, today I witnessed this first hand. I convinced an Asian friend, who assured me he did not often drink alcohol because of the severe face flushing it causes him, to at least try a Cascade Premium Lite. (Alcohol content: 2.6%.)

It was still enough to cause a very noticeable flush. It did seem to fade by the end of the schooner, though, but he wouldn't take up my suggestion that he now try a full strength beer to see if he had broken some sort of barrier.

The science behind it is explained in the New Scientist article as follows:

A mutation that causes some Asians to flush red when they down a beer may have evolved to help their ancestors cope with rice wine. A genetic study suggests that the mutation evolved around 10,000 years ago, about the same time as Asians were starting to farm rice and figuring out how to ferment it into boozy drinks....

The mutation causes alcohol to be metabolised at 100 times the speed that it otherwise would be. As the enzyme removes alcohol so quickly from the blood stream, it protects people from the harmful effects of alcohol, and Su believes it confers an evolutionary advantage: a study in the Han Chinese suggests that those carrying the mutation have the lowest risk of alcoholism (American Journal of Human Genetics, vol 65 p 795).

The mutation also causes a by-product of the alcohol's metabolisation to accumulate in the body, which makes those who have the mutation flush red when they drink.

So, this mutation has the embarrassing effect of making you look like a quick drunk, which (like my lunch mate) causes some sufferers enough embarrassment to not want to drink at all, but actually it sounds like they should be capable of drinking with relative impunity. How ironic.

School tables

ABC The Drum Unleashed - Julia Gillard: a political dill

So, it turns out that Bob Ellis can't stand Julia Gillard and criticises everything she has ever done. I'd guess that there is some personal history there that Ellis is not revealing.

But on the point of ranking schools, which Ellis disagrees with, someone in comments makes the point that a friend (a former teacher in fact) made to me on the weekend. That is, it's the private schools that might have a lot to lose in this. The Myschools site makes it easy to check how much value you might be getting for sending your kid to an expensive school, and it may not be as good a deal as expected.

Typical Democrats

Apart from the original race to the Moon being a Democrat initiative, it seems that since the 1970's, Democrat Presidents have only ever been about cut backs and bad news for the American space program. This tradition is, as I pretty much expected, continuing under Obama with this annoucement that the manned space program is going to yet again be stuck in low earth orbit indefinitely.

They (Democrats) seemingly have no vision about the future at all. I mean, does anyone feel that Obama actually has any daring in his approach to the energy future of the US or the world?

Bah.

Japanese economic woes

BBC News - Japan deflation hits a record pace to threaten recovery

On the up side, I guess this makes it more attractive for tourists.

(Jetstar continues to offer ridiculously cheap air fares to there from time to time. About $650 return from the Gold Coast.)

The silence of the planets

I didn't realise Frank Drake, who kicked off the idea of SETI, was still alive.

But he recently spoke at the Royal Society and explained that changes to broadcast technology is making the earth harder to hear from afar:

"The trouble is that we are making ourselves more and more difficult to be heard," said Dr Drake. "We are broadcasting in much more efficient ways today and are making our signals fainter and fainter."

In the past, TV and radio programmes were broadcast from huge ground stations that transmitted signals at thousands of watts. These could be picked up relatively easily across the depths of space, astronomers calculated.

Now, most TV and radio programmes are transmitted from satellites that typically use only 75 watts and have aerials pointing toward Earth, rather than into space.

"For good measure, in America we have switched from analogue to digital broadcasting and you are going to do the same in Britain very soon," Drake added. "When you do that, your transmissions will become four times fainter because digital uses less power."

"Very soon we will become undetectable," he said. In short, in space no one will hear us at all.

What is true for humans would probably also be true for aliens...

I have a vague recollection of Arthur C Clarke also saying that this would happen. Mind you, I am not entirely sure it is a good idea to make your presence known in the universe, so a bit of quiet from planet Earth might be a good thing.

It is complicated

Water vapour could be behind warming slowdown : Nature News

This article talks about a new suggestion that a drop in stratospheric water vapour might account for a (relative) levelling out of global temperatures in the last decade:

...a team led by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado, report that a mysterious 10% drop in water vapour in the stratosphere — the atmospheric layer that sits 10–50 kilometres above Earth's surface — since 2000 could have offset the expected warming due to greenhouse gases by roughly 25%. Just as intriguingly, their model suggests that an increase in stratospheric water vapour might have boosted earlier warming by about 30% in the 1980s and 1990s. The team's work is published online by Science today¹.

The effect on temperature is dominated by water vapour in the lower part of the stratosphere, which absorbs and radiates heat in much the same way as water molecules and other greenhouse gases do in the lower atmosphere. The drop in water vapour doesn't explain the entire decrease in the rate of warming, but it could contribute to it, says Susan Solomon, first author of the study

It all seems a very tentative idea though:

Other researchers see different factors at play in the recent temperature trends. A study published last year³ hones in on the solar cycle and the El Niño Southern Oscillation, an upwelling of warm surface waters in the tropical Pacific. Both have been in their negative phases for most of the decade so temperatures may rise as they move into their positive phases.

"I think it's exciting that this [transition] is happening, because we are going to learn a lot," says Judith Lean, a solar physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC, who co-authored last year's study³ with David Rind, a climate modeller at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

The article seems to indicate that no one knows what water vapour in the stratosphere will do in the future.

Other researchers think current models account for the occasional decade long stall in increasing temperatures and it's not a good idea to worry too much about the issue anyway.

You can bet, however, that skeptics will seize on this paper, with their attitude that if something is not completely understood, you don't do anything about it. Which is, by most scientists reckoning, a good way to gamble on potential long term disaster.

Australian bees visit

It's been a while since a photo appeared here, so let's put one up.

The kids noticed these bees in the garden in December. They have unusual behaviour, clinging to a particular stick on a bush overnight, and disappearing again during the day:



It appears that they are Australian blue banded bees. They are solitary (in that they don't build hives), but like to sleep together in small groups. Apparently they are common around Brisbane, but I've not noticed them before. Nice.

All that took 60 seconds?

Well that was sort of humiliating.

I've been blogging for nearly 5 years now, but never got around to downloading a back up copy of it, just in case Google somehow forget who I was or lost all of this valuable(?) work.  (I'm not read enough to be hacked, I figure.)

Anyhow, doing an export of the blog to a hard drive from Blogger is now very easy, but it saves it in a .xml format which doesn't (I think) save photos and just leaves the bones of the blog to be recreated later if necessary.  (I think.)

So I decided I would also download a mirror copy of the site onto my hard drive, using the very handy WinHTTrack Website Copier.  (I haven't used it before, but it worked fine.)  That way it looks exactly the same on my hard drive as it does on the web.

I assumed that this program going back through Blogger and downloading every post and photo would take, I dunno, at least 10 minutes.   Five years of writing and effort should not be able to be downloaded too quickly.

Well, I swear it took less than 60 seconds to finish.  I'm feeling slightly depressed now.

A novel suggestion

The Moon may have formed in a nuclear explosion:

The hypothesis (credited to Charles Darwin’s son George in 1879) is that the Earth and Moon began as a mass of molten rock spinning rapidly enough that gravity was just barely greater than the centrifugal forces. Even a slight kick could dislodge part of the mass into orbit, where it would become the Moon. The hypothesis has been around for 130 years, but was rejected because no one could explain a source of the energy required to kick a moon-sized blob of molten rock into orbit.

Dutch scientists Rob de Meijer (University of the Western Cape) and Wim van Westrenen (Amsterdam’s VU University) think they know the answer. Their hypothesis is that the centrifugal forces would have concentrated heavy elements like thorium and uranium on the equatorial plane and at the Earth core-mantle boundary. If the concentrations of these radioactive elements were high enough, this could have led to a nuclear chain reaction that became supercritical, causing a nuclear explosion.

Would have been good to watch.

A reasonable fear of lightning

People who know me well know that I am, to say the least, a touch on the sensitive side when it comes to storms and the danger of lightning. A brother says I am completely unreasonable about this; I argue that it is completely justified, and based on my broader than average reading of the strange ways lightning has killed or injured people.

For example, I know that is not a good idea to be near open windows during lightning storms. Yet people complain when I immediately start shutting windows as soon as I judge the storm is close enough. (Sometimes I can justify it because of the rain, but often I am shutting them before it starts.) The fact is that lightning has been known to come inside houses via open windows. For example, in New South Wales today, lightning through open windows struck not once but twice:

The Ambulance Service of NSW said a 37-year-old man was hit by lightning while doing the washing up near a window at a YMCA camp in Yarramundi at about 7.30pm (AEDT) on Thursday.

Paramedics were treating the man, who was suffering neck and shoulder pain, and planned to take him to hospital.

Emergency services were also called to a house on Macquarie Road, in Springwood, in the NSW Blue Mountains, after it was struck by lightning at about 5pm.

"It's come through the window, it hit the curtains and ignited them," a firefighter at the scene told media at the scene.

Two people, including a man suffering smoke inhalation, were taken to Blue Mountains Hospital.

Basically, I know from first hand experience, (there are two separate stories I can tell) that otherwise intelligent people are, as a rule, still pretty much completely ignorant of, or too silly to take reasonable precautions against, the danger of lightning, even when they are in situations where the danger is absolutely as high as it could possibly be. (Well, short of doing a Benjamin Franklin and flying a kite up into it.)

But as I say, those stories are for another day.

Money and influence

How Davos makes incredibly rich people seem smarter than they actually are. - Slate Magazine

Daniel Gross notes:

It struck me that the difference between banality and profundity is generally a few billion dollars: The real alchemy of finance is to endow those skilled at finance to wield authority in adjacent or even unrelated areas. That's the general theory of Davos, bankers sharing their theories about nonbanking subjects. Stick around and you'll hear a lot of conventional wisdom on globalization, climate change, poverty reduction, financial crisis, but it somehow sounds deeper and more weighty because it's delivered by an extraordinarily wealthy CEO, a private equity executive, or hedge fund manager rather than by a journalist.

Some observations about Monckton down under

I have seen bits of Monckton on Sunrise, heard him on Alan Jones, read about his having lunch with Miranda Devine, and heard a bit of him on Radio National breakfast this morning. There are several points I want to make:

1. He is being given far too easy a ride even by those journalists who do not trust him. On Sunrise, where there was a young scientist in opposition, he was allowed to get away with the broad statement that there are many (hundreds?) of peer reviewed papers showing that climate sensitivity is low. (That is, increasing CO2 will not lead to much of an increase in temperatures.) He has continually repeated his discredited maths in his letter to Kevin Rudd. There was no real response to this alone the simple lines "the climate scientists who hold this view are in a very, very minority. There is no doubt at all that the overwhelming majority of climate scientists believe in levels of climate sensitivity which are of great concern to them and which should be acted upon now." How hard is it to say that?

People like John Quiggin argue that engaging with skeptics on science in a debate forum is often counterproductive, and I understand the point. But what is happening now is just as bad.

Sure, people who read widely on the topic know the answers to Monckton's claims already; but the average audience member who is neutral or disinterested in the topic are being done a disservice by what seems to be a non-response to Monckton's direct claims.

If scientists want the science out there, they have to get more aggressive in answering the likes of Monckton.

I haven't had time yet to watch the embedded video interview by Ben Cubby that heads the Miranda Devine article: I hope it's better, but we need more than journalists challenging him.

2. As for those who do already sympathise with him; well what do you expect. I would be interested to know, however, on what basis (according to Devine) Monckton is said to be a mathematician.

Yes I know, he came up with a puzzle that presumably shows he has an interest in mathematics. But why doesn't anyone point out that the last time he took this gamble on his expertise, he lost. (His puzzle was solved within a year, not his estimate of three.)

3. Why does anyone keep calling him "Lord", or even "Viscount" Monckton?. As David Koch noted, Monckton had invited him to call him Christopher, yet people keep insisting on referring to his completely irrelevant title. Did Jeffrey Archer keep getting this from Australian and American interviewers? Not to the same degree, as far as I can recall. I can understand why grovellers to his views like Alan Jones will use the title over and over, but those who don't believe his message, just drop it.


In short, this is no time to be taking a back step in the PR wars over AGW. Scientists need to step up to the plate in defending their work, clearly point out the errors in Monckton's claims, and the reasons he should not be believed.

UPDATE: I've now watched the Ben Cubby interview of Monckton, and it wasn't too bad. Cubby manages to get Monckton annoyed by pressing him on the meaning of "peer reviewed", and Monckton waffles on and on in his pathetically self serving way. It's like that old Keating crack about Bronwyn Bishop: he's a mile wide but an inch deep.

Oh yes, this makes me feel good about the modern world

World's Second Pregnant Man Ready to Give Birth - latimes.com

Have a look at the photo.

Something new for the home based mad scientist

The Radiation Boom - As Technology Surges, Radiation Safeguards Lag - Series - NYTimes.com

A somewhat worrying report about cases of mistakes when hospitals use new cancer treating radiation machines in the States.

According to the article, they are sold with little in the way of regulation:

In this largely unregulated marketplace, manufacturers compete by offering the latest in technology, with only a cursory review by the government, and hospitals buy the equipment to lure patients and treat them more quickly. Radiation-generating machines are so ubiquitous that used ones are even sold on eBay.

“Vendors are selling to anyone,” said Eric E. Klein, a medical physicist and professor of radiation oncology at Washington University in St. Louis. “New technologies were coming into the clinics without people thinking through from Step 1 to Step 112 to make sure everything is going to be done right.”

Surprising.

That's the second biggest book etc..

Largest book in the world goes on show for the first time

It would take quite a while to read on a Kindle.

Podding in the garden

OfficePOD. Changing the way people work. Welcome to the next generation of workplace

Hmm. Don't be put off by the fact that it looks like it would be hotter than hell sitting inside one of these in your garden in Brisbane if there was any part of it in the sun.

Instead, just think of the pleasure you could get from saying to your wife: "I'll be in my pod, dear."

Yes, I'll take one thanks. (Found by the always witty Red Ferret Journal.)