Climate change psychology

I see that Chris Mooney has written a book "The Republican Mind" that looks at the different character types of people who are attracted to the opposing conservative and liberal sides of politics. It is being discussed around the place in relation to climate change in particular.

This is an especially interesting topic, because until the last decade or so, I would not have said that conservatives (at least of the non-American variety) showed signs of being strongly anti-science. Even the Americans, with their significant chunk of disbelief in evolution in the population, still seemed easy convinced of science-y (or at least technological) things like the "Star Wars" laser defence system proposed by Reagan, and nuclear power generally.

But there is no doubt that AGW has changed this.

So, while I have long thought that that conservatives and progressives do tend towards some differences in character and world outlook, I am sceptical that this has much to do with the fierce resistance to accepting what mainstream science is saying on climate change. This blog post at the Economist discusses this, and the comments following it are well worth a read too.

In Australia, John Quiggin has noted the book as well. It is only a matter of time before it is discussed at the frequently embarrassing-as-an-advertisement-for-the-Right blog Catallaxy, but there will be virtually nothing of value said about the topic there by its regular crew.

Far from encouraging

Nankai quake scenario menaces Pacific coast | The Japan Times Online

They've been revising some estimates for potential future tsunamis in Japan, in light of last year's experience, and the results sound remarkable:

 Wide swaths of the Pacific coastline stretching from Honshu to Shikoku may be hit by tsunami over 20 meters high if a newly feared megaquake occurs in the Nankai Trough, a Cabinet Office panel warned Saturday.

The new warning comes after the panel revised its 2003 estimate to reflect new findings from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Tohoku region's coastline last year.

The 2003 report said no areas would see tsunami higher than 20 meters. The updated report is based on the assumption that the earthquake will have a magnitude of 9.0.

The tidal waves generated by the Nankai Trough temblor would slam areas from Kanto to Kyushu, with waves of up to 34.4 meters likely in Kuroshio, Kochi Prefecture, and between 10 and 20 meters in parts of Shizuoka, Kochi and Miyazaki prefectures.

Urban areas of Tokyo would see tsunami up to 2.3 meters high, but the village of Niijima in the Izu Island chain, which is administered by Tokyo, could face deadly waves up to 29.7 meters high, the panel said.

Sunday morning balloon

I was half awake at 6.30 when I heard a gas burning sound coming from outside. It took me a minute to realise what it was, but the balloon was a bit further from the house than I expected:


Sounds travel a long way on quiet Sunday mornings.

To be used how?

LG unveils flexible e-paper display

 LG has announced it has started mass production of its electronic paper display (EPD) product, with a planned launch in Europe next month.

What exactly do they intend doing by way of a different product with flexible e-paper, I wonder.   

A minor but amusing Bleat

For some reason, I particularly enjoyed James Lilek's most recent bleat, looking at a couple of old American advertising characters. (It's a bit surprising that these figures continue to exist in any format on modern packaging - I can't really think of any Australian equivalent. Well, except for Louie the Fly, I guess, but even he only appears on TV.)

For those with young daughters

Puberty Before Age 10 - A New ‘Normal’? - NYTimes.com

I didn't care for the start of this long article (telling of a mother trying out a quake alternative medicine guy to see why her daughter is undergoing very early puberty,) but apart from that, it's a good explanation of the phenomena.

I didn't realise this:

Now most researchers seem to agree on one thing: Breast budding in girls is starting earlier. The debate has shifted to what this means. Puberty, in girls, involves three events: the growth of breasts, the growth of pubic hair and a first period. Typically the changes unfold in that order, and the proc­ess takes about two years. But the data show a confounding pattern. While studies have shown that the average age of breast budding has fallen significantly since the 1970s, the average age of first period, or menarche, has remained fairly constant, dropping to only 12.5 from 12.8 years. Why would puberty be starting earlier yet ending more or less at the same time? 

I also didn't know that the differences between racial groups was so distinct:

Then in August 2010, the conflict seemed to resolve. Well-respected researchers at three big institutions — Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Kaiser Permanente of Northern California and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York — published another study in Pediatrics, finding that by age 7, 10 percent of white girls, 23 percent of black girls, 15 percent of Hispanic girls and 2 percent of Asian girls had started developing breasts.

Pretty remarkable, and it also seems very difficult to work out exactly what is going on.

Anyway, its good of the NYT to put such lengthy magazine articles up. It remains, to my mind, one of the most generous media sites around.

The red knit cap explained

James Cameron’s deep-sea dive: What’s it feel like to go so deep underwater? - Slate Magazine

Director James Cameron successfully completed a 6.8-mile-deep dive to the most remote region of the ocean Sunday and was shown emerging from his submarine in a small knit cap. Jacques Cousteau’s red knit cap was a signature part of his look, which was aped by Bill Murray and his crew in the movie The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Why do underwater explorers wear skullcaps?

Because it’s practically freezing down there. The water temperature at the bottom of the ocean usually hovers around 37 degrees Fahrenheit, and most deep-sea exploration vehicles don’t have climate control. Explorers tend to bring hats, gloves, long johns, and other warm layers, which they pull on as they descend and the temperature drops. Socks and caps are particularly important, as it’s coldest on the floor and ceiling of the submersible. Because of concerns over electrical fires, deep-sea explorers wear natural fibers like cotton and especially wool, which is fire retardant, instead of synthetic fabrics.

Deep-sea divers have been wearing skullcaps, also known as watch caps or seaman’s caps, since long before the adventures of Jacques Cousteau. He may have picked up the style from hard-hat divers—those 19^th-century explorers who wore big copper helmets—who favored red knit caps for decades. The character of Steve Zissou in The Life Aquatic wore an identical cap in homage to Cousteau.

Taking apart the shuttles

Decommissioning the Space Shuttles - In Focus - The Atlantic

There are some eye-catching photos here of the process of decommissioning the space shuttles (and their facilities at NASA) in preparation for their future as museum exhibits.

Burning for attention

Self-immolation in India: Frighteningly common | The Economist

This talks about the increasing cases of self-immolation to make a political protest in India and Tibet.  A bit of a worry.  

News of note

* there was an election on Saturday in Queensland. Labor lost.

* some physicists have been working on what it would feel like on Earth if a primordial black hole passed through it. (There would be a bit of shaking, but the planet would go on.)

* I'm a bit busy...

All possum

The friendly possum under the deck has been coming back a lot lately. He (or she) likes to be fed, and this photo came out looking like I was being threatened if I didn't hand over a grape:



And he or she is now a movie star:

Some more noisy eating can be seen here (and note how it seems to be left handed):

As usual, very cute.

The last unconquered lands

Madagascar mystery of how small group of Indonesian women colonised island

So it seems Madagascar has an odd anthropological history, with DNA research indicating this:

If the samples are right, around 30 Indonesian women founded the Malagasy population ''with a much smaller, but just as important, biological contribution from Africa'', it says.
The study focused on mitrochondrial DNA, which is transmitted only through the mother, so it does not exclude the possibility that Indonesian men also arrived with the first women.
Computer simulations suggest the settlement began around AD830, around the time Indonesian trading networks expanded under the Srivijaya Empire of Sumatra.

This gives me an excellent opportunity to note that the Revolver Maps gadget that you can see on the right hand side of my blog (the pretty rotating global showing the sources of hits to this website) has been here for quite a while now, and has shown hits from virtually all corners of the planet except Madagascar.

The Revolver globe can, incidentally, be enlarged by clicking on it so you can see that all continents have been conquered by this blog. But Madagascar has been sticking out like a sore thumb for me lately. It's big, I'm pretty sure it has more than cartoon characters living on it, and no one there has apparently ever ended up here despite my having mentioned the place at least 8 times since 2006.

What's a blogger supposed to do to get attention from an enormous island? Speaking of which, looking at Revolver again, I see that no one from Greenland has ever come here.

Surely that other big island has got a mention here? Yes, it looks like at least 17 times.

What is wrong with the people of Greenland and Madagascar? Do I have to mention them every second post to finally get a hit from them? Do I have to insult them, or praise them, to finally get someone to drop by?

I see that Greenlandic has become the official language of the icy island, but maybe I can get by with a Danish message:

Hilsner folk Grønland! Jeg ser frem til at dele en banket hvalspæk med dig, i hvert fald i cyberspace, men jeg vil hellere lade gæret fisk ud af menuen. Spiser du gæret fisk?

Af den måde, er det skandaløst, at Google translate endnu ikke dækker grønlandsk.*

As for Madagascar, I see it's Wikipedia entry is rather interesting, and it once had a king with an awesome name:

Upon its emergence in the early 17th century, the highland kingdom of Imerina was initially a minor power relative to the larger coastal kingdoms^[52] and grew even weaker in the early 18th century when King Andriamasinavalona divided it among his four sons. Following a century of warring and famine, Imerina was reunited in 1793 by King Andrianampoinimerina (1787–1810)

He was an unusual looking dude too:

Sort of looks like the ancestor of Weird Al Yankovic, actually.

Right: I've probably now committed an insult to a revered figure of Madagascar and teams of assassins are being despatched from the country right now. Please report this to Bob Carr if this blog suddenly goes silent.

* Greetings people of Greenland! I look forward to sharing a banquet of whale blubber with you, at least in cyberspace, but I would rather leave the fermented fish off the menu. Do you eat fermented fish?

By the way, it is outrageous that Google translate does not yet cover Greenlandic.

French mythology?

Wine and kids: Is it OK to let them try it? - Slate Magazine

This article notes that the French method of a gradual introduction to alcohol to kids at the family table did not actually lead to responsible adult drinking:

NPR recently aired a story looking at the rising incidence of binge drinking among French youths and growing doubts in France about the wisdom of giving children an early introduction to alcohol. What accounts for the upsurge in hell-raising? One possibility is that French parents have become more like us: They aren’t drinking nearly as much wine as they used to, and fewer children are being introduced to alcohol in the home. But here’s the thing: Early exposure has historically not encouraged moderation in France. Alcoholism has long been a major public health problem there. (In fact, the incidence of alcohol-related road fatalities got so bad that in the mid-1990s the government enacted some of Europe’s toughest drunk-driving laws.) The bottom line is that the seemingly more enlightened French approach hasn’t actually produced healthier drinking habits.

Oh. It was a French myth? Should I stop serving my kids sparkling apple juice in champagne glasses?

Going down

James Cameron’s Rocket Plunge to the Planet’s Deepest Recess - NYTimes.com

I don't care for James Cameron or his films, but I suppose I have to admit that he has the kind of rich man eccentric hobby that is at least interesting.  That is, he gets his own personal deep sea submersible built and ride it to the bottom of the deepest trench in the world.

This article shows the unique vertical axis design of the submersible, which has been built in Australia.  (Who knew we were good at that?  Pity we can't seem to do it quite so well with Navy submarine.)

He obviously does not suffer from claustrophobia:

Mr. Cameron plans to plummet 6.8 miles. The Challenger Deep is the most remote area of the Mariana Trench, the deepest of the seabed recesses that crisscross the globe. He is to cram his 6-foot-2 frame into a personnel sphere just 43 inches wide, forcing him to keep his knees bent and his body largely immobile. The dive plan calls for him to remain in that position for up to nine hours.

Better him than me.

Of course, if he disappears in the attempt to do this, it would form a great premise for a future Cameron-esque director to build on. Not that I wish him harm;  rich people who push technological limits are doing something better than making expensive but so-so movies.

The road to Mandalay

Mandalay is one of the nicest sounding city names, isn't it? Not sure why; it just is.

This is mentioned because Foreign Correspondent last night was from Burma, and what an interesting country it looked. Dirt poor, and as I missed the start I'm not sure if they ever explained what the stuff on the face is about, but the vistas of old temples from balloons looked almost other worldly.

Video should be available here.