Recent hits

Exploding asteroid theory strengthened by new evidence located in Ohio, Indiana

So, maybe an asteroid hit Canada about 13,000 years ago, causing a wee bit of upset to the climate in the process. Interesting theory.

On a similar topic, to commemorate its100 year anniversary, Australia's Duncan Steel wrote an article at Nature about the various theories that have been offered over the years regarding the Tunguska event. Unfortunately, it's behind a paywall, but Jerry Pournelle's email page seems to have copied it all out. Good reading.

Recommended reading

A few recent articles of interest:

* The New York Times magazine looked at the demographic crisis of Europe (and some other countries). So you thought Mark Steyn was exaggerating? How about this:

Around the time that President Kennedy went to Germany and gave his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, Europe represented 12.5 percent of the world’s population. Today it is 7.2 percent, and if current trends continue, by 2050 only 5 percent of the world will be European.

And bear in mind the age of that 5% too:

....in 2025, 42 percent of the people living in India will be 24 or younger, while only 22 percent of Spain’s population will be in that age group.

The article offers explanations for the low birth rate of most European countries, and the relatively high birthrate of the US, but they still don't get around to quite explaining Germany. Worth reading anyway.

* The Atlantic Monthly has an interesting article about how GM is putting all its eggs in one electric car basket. I wouldn't be buying shares in the company at the moment.

* While your at the website, have a read about the Price Tower, a 19 story high rise building Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Oklahoma. It doesn't look much from the outside, but the article makes it sound like it's worth a visit. The writer knows how to use redundant information for amusing effect:

Wright, who is best known for his low Prairie-style buildings, had a complicated relationship with tall buildings, calling one an “incongruous mantrap of monstrous dimensions.” Yet late in life he created drawings for a 528-story skyscraper featuring atomic-powered elevators with five cabs strung vertically in each shaft. (It was never built.)

* Still in the US, the Observer's Ruth Fowler takes a long, cross country trip on Amtrak and enjoys it quite a lot. (Her article reminded me of a few long train trips I took in Australia as a teenager/young adult. It is a social way to travel, and it's a pity that it is no longer all that economically attractive.) Fowler makes me laugh with this account:

Amtrak employees themselves assume key roles in this peculiarly theatrical mode of travel. En route to Montana I was woken in the morning by a lady trilling over the intercom: 'I'm singing in the rain. Just siiinging in the rain! I'm brewing COFFEE! Mmmm, coffee! Rich, robust, strong, masculine, earthy coffee! Can you smell it? It wants you. This coffee wants you. I'm in the lounge car. Ask for Miss Olivia. I'm waiting for you with my enormous coffee pot. MM-mmm!'

* Bryan Appleyard has been in fine form lately, having spent a lot of time recently in America with some unusual consequences (a passion for cowboy boots, for one.) Some recent posts of his which are particularly enjoyable: all about religion and excretion; an assessment of Bill Gates as he departs Microsoft; a certain problem with people sometimes not getting Bryan's tone.

Just go read him regularly.

Fixing Firefox 3

If, like many, you have been surprised by the horribly ugly and strangely behaving drop-down address bar in Firefox 3 (the "awesome bar", apparently), there is an add on that at least stops it pulling unvisited bookmarks into it. (If I want to use a bookmark, I just go to the bookmarks tab.)

It's Hide Unvisited 3, and it appears to work well enough.

Actually, I now see there is another add on which apparently gives you back something very close to the old bar. Maybe I should try that too.

Meanwhile, work and stuff continues to bother me.

The future is green

Alternative energy: Microbe economics | Business | guardian.co.uk

I'm still busy, but in the meantime you can read about the potentially bright future of algae.

Did you know there is a National Algae Association? No, nor did I.

The only thing that worries me about the idea of huge vats of algae being grown for fuel and (potentially) food is that it's a little too reminiscent of Soylent Green. Let's hope they never decide that adding the occasional body is a good fertilizer for it.

Random notes

* Saw Q&A last night. Tim Blair comes across as more restrained than on his blog. Greg Hunt has a truly ghastly way of smiling, and the hair style doesn't help. He badly needs a face coach, or something. Bill Shorten, on the other hand, really seemed very likeable in the more relaxed setting. I thought in the election campaign that he could be a bit dull and inflexible in one-on-one interviews, but on last night's evidence, you can really see the public warming to him as human personality and a pretty centrist sounding laborite. Much more likeable than robotic Rudd.

* Michelle Grattan has been very, very kind to Rudd in most of her assessments of this new government, so when she says he's not gone so well in the Asian diplomacy stakes, you can believe it.

* Some Labor figures are starting to talk nuclear. I suspect the swing will happen before the next election, and the Liberals will not (if they are sensible) disagree. The only problem then may be Greens in the Senate, if something legislative is needed to establish the industry.

* In the Lefty blogosphere, good to see the insults fly in comments at Club Troppo, especially when one of the targets is my vote for the most irritating blogger who keeps getting noticed: Ken Lovell.

And as many people at noticed, Kim at LP seems to have had a brain meltdown this week too. She is best ignored in 99% of cases, anyway.

Raiders of the Lost haemorrhoids

Well, the opinion sale is going slower than expected, so here's something to keep you entertained.

There's an article in Biblical Archaeology Review that is entitled "Did Captured Ark Afflict Philistines with E.D.?". The "E.D." referred to there is erectile dysfunction.

Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall, but it would seem that the general gist is that the Bible says the Philistines suffered "tumours" after they took the Ark of the Covenant from the Jews, and some translations have interpreted this to mean haemorrhoids. But apparently this article suggests that the effect on the Philistines might more appropriately be interpreted as erectile dysfunction. God really knows how to punish those manly rampaging Philistines!

Someone comments about the story appear in this forum, and the guy makes the useful suggestion that the general idea of tumors, painful swellings or erectile dysfunction being caught from standing too close to the Ark might mean it was radioactive! This is an oddly appealing theory.

I note, however, that it didn't seem to work on Indiana Jones.

Now, get back to work.

UPDATE: here's a better explanation of the argument in the article:

The short version: 1 Samuel 5-6 recounts how the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites in battle. They took it back to Ashdod and put it in front of a statue of Dagon. The next day they found Dagon toppled. They propped it back up, but this kept happening. The hand of the LORD was heavy on the Ashdodites, and he afflicted them with [or in their] ‘opalim.

The meaning of ‘opalim is uncertain. It has traditionally been taken as hemorrhoids. The KJV renders emerods; most modern translations are squeamish about this and euphemize this as tumors or sores. The root ‘ophel is used for the upper city of ancient Jerusalem, and conveys the sense of a hill, a height or a rise, and thus a swelling. It’s kind of hard to imagine what the five golden hemorrhoids would have looked like.

But there is a theory that the ‘opalim were not hemorrhoids, but rather penises. This is driven by archaeological discovery of cultic situlae in the shape of penises, which were actually a common cultic representation in Philistia. (The print version of the article has lots of pictures.) The sense of something that rises would fit.

Someone in the comments following suggests that in fact the affliction might have been priapism!
That would be, I suppose, a particularly ironic curse for God to send upon the Philistines.

Crazy opinion sale on now!

It's End of Financial Year madness here at the Opinion Emporium! All opinions on sale at never to be repeated prices! Send money quickly for an opinion on any topic, and you'll be proud to print out my personalised response 300 times and glue each copy to your lounge room floor for that unique look that your friends are guaranteed to notice.

Need a fresh opinion next year? No problem. New opinions always available, but never at these never-to-be-repeated prices!

Hurry, opinion sale must end 30 June!

Meanwhile, posting will be light here while I deal with the influx of orders. Don't miss out: order your opinion now!

A Colbert moment

This segment from tonight's Colbert Report seemed particularly funny:

Mini black hole safety report finally here

Backreaction: Black Holes at the LHC - The CERN Safety report

The above post at Backreaction tells us about the CERN safety report which was finally released last Friday.

I haven't had time to read it yet, but apparently, as expected, it uses the example of long lived neutron stars as the major argument as to why micro black holes could not be a danger to the earth.

This may well end up marking the official end of my concerns about this as a issue, but I should read it first. (And one immediate issue I can think of is whether you can really use the cosmological argument as a close enough analogue to the way many black holes could be created in close proximity in a short space of time at the LHC.)

For any of you who think that it has been a waste of time worrying about it in the first place, you should read what actual working physicist Bee says in her comments on the above post:

I think it is good they wrote this report and from a legal point of view I can understand that some people found the issue was not appropriately addressed. CERN should have taken these concerns more seriously earlier then it wouldn't have come so far. In this particular situation I find the argument about the black hole scenario ridiculous, but that's because it's a topic I happen to have worked on and know something about. If I consider experiments in other fields where I couldn't tell exactly what the story is, I certainly would appreciate a similar report. The new CERN report I find extremely clearly written and I hope this will suffice and be the end of this catastrophe scenario.

This is a completely different attitude, and a very welcome one, from that expressed by most physicists when lay people started asking questions. (I'm looking at you, the guys at Cosmic Variance.)

Success for fish lovers everywhere

Barrier Reef 'no-take' zones see leap in fish numbers - New Scientist Environment

The large no fish zones which the Howard government introduced appear to be working, at least for delicious coral trout.

Good to see Howard's environmental policies working. Three cheers for conservative governments! Hip hip..

Toxoplasma research

Indiana U scientists uncover potential key to better drugs to fight toxoplasmosis parasite

I know I am probably the only Australian blogger who obsesses about toxoplasma gondii and its evil cat hosts, but someone has to do it.

Anyway, there is research going on that might lead to a vaccine. Good. The mind bending parasite might be defeated yet.

Fiddling

As you can see, a process of fiddling with my template has begun. I think I can go back to the old one if I want to.

I don't like HTML.

Blowhard

Ferguson 'an effective blowtorch', says Caltex boss

This would have to be one of the most unusually phrased compliments a politician has ever received:

However Caltex chief Des King has defended the Minister, saying Mr Ferguson may have made his case behind closed doors.

"I met with [Mr Ferguson] personally many times, and he can be a very effective blowtorch," he said.

Christian China?

Late Night Live - 19June2008 - John Micklethwait: The Economist and globalisation

While we're gazing into the future, I only caught a bit at the end of the interview that you can hear at the above link.

John Mickethwait said that he had been in China recently, and the home church movement was massive. He expects that by (I think) the middle of this century, China could have the largest number of Christians of any nation.

I think I am recalling the details correctly. Phillip Adams was surprised at this suggestion, as was I.

Dooming men to unhappiness

Indian girl-boy ratios at 'all-time low': British charity

This article talks about the continuing massive disproportion of boys to girls in India. (All due to gender selection in abortions.)

It's hard to imagine that in 20 years time the current crop of boys are going to sanguine about this, when there will clearly be huge numbers of them simply incapable of finding a wife (or even girlfriend.)

The things you can buy on the internet today...

Ready, steady, grow: athletes turn to Viagra - Times Online

Athletes may be using Viagra as an on field performance enhancing drug:

Experts believe that Viagra, which dilates blood vessels, could help in events requiring explosive power, such as sprinting. Others suggest it could help endurance – not so much marathon sex sessions as marathon running – particularly at high altitude or in polluted conditions, such as those expected at the Beijing Olympics. The drug is believed to aid the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to muscles.

How close in time to the race do they have to take it? And has there yet been a case where a guy who has taken it has had problems with the unintended side effect? It's not actually banned right now, by the way.

The article also notes:

Meanwhile, British officials are taking action to prevent athletes fooling dope testers by using false penises when giving urine samples. The penises, and untainted urine, are widely available on the internet.

Ah, the old false penis full of clean urine in the underpants trick. How to fight this:

Doping control officers have been given strict guidelines that athletes must be observed and their bodies visible from the stomach to the knees when they produce urine specimens.

I assume that paruresis can be a career threatening condition for athletes.

For those curious about the "readily available" fake urine test penis kits, you might be amused by the comments about the new and improved "Whizzinator" here, but the photo of the product makes it NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK. Here's a section:

By implementing a hidden internal check-valve, the act of urination is so realistic that even a direct observer will not be able to detect that it is in-fact simulated. There is no fumbling around with obvious switches or clamps. This eliminates a big problem associated with the original Whizzinator which has an on/off switch that is very audible and very obvious!

Hydrogen car scepticism

Technology Review: Blogs: The Last Car You Would Ever Buy--Literally

Sounds like some pretty good arguments being put in that post about why hydrogen fuelled cars of any variety are not a good idea.

Chick lit from Saudi Arabia

Sex and the Saudi girl - Times Online

Here's an interesting story on a 25 year Saudi author who has written Arabic version of "chick lit". This section is a little surprising:

When her book hits the shelves in Britain this week, western readers will get a peek at what’s going on behind the veils and under the burqas. Disappointingly, the scenes are not too dissimilar to a western hen party: bitching, belly dancing and gossiping about men. The atmosphere seems far from warm and sisterly. Girls obsess about bodies and eye each others’ “front bumpers” and “back bumpers” with envy.

You’d think that one advantage of being forced to cover up in public would be a freedom from a looks-fixated culture. Yet these women want nose jobs, they want liposuction, they want gym-honed booties and are highly competitive with it. In modern Riyadh it seems that hell isn’t other people, hell is other women.

“Women want to look good for themselves, not just for men,” says Alsanea. “All women show off to one another and like wearing designer clothes. I’m not showing a whole new world. In a lot of respects Saudi women are just like everyone else.”

The glowing pony, and other physics news

'Abundant health from radioactive waste' - physicsworld.com

Physics World notes a recent paper prompting radiation hormesis (the idea, supported by at least some studies, that exposure to just the right low levels of radiation is actually good for you.)

The paper comes up with some novel suggestions:

In his paper, Luckey goes so far as to suggest that schools be built "in used nuclear power plants", and children be given sculptures that are impregnated with nuclear waste to boost their exposure to radiation (and their health). He does caution, "However, children should not ride [sculptures of] radioactive ponies for more than a few minutes every day".

Yet another reason to go nuclear!

Also on the Physics World blog, they have an update on the suspiciously under-reported recent Japanese demonstration of what might be a form of cold fusion, and an article pointing out that Canada is building another couple of nuclear reactors.

We seem to be slipping well behind the technology stakes when even Canada has more of a nuclear industry than us.

Bad review news

Wow. Mike Myer's new movie, The Love Guru, is getting some really savage reviews. Dana Stevens at Slate has a pretty good opening paragraph:

There are good movies. There are bad movies. There are movies so bad they're good (though, strangely, not the reverse). And once in a while there is a movie so bad that it takes you to a place beyond good and evil and abandons you there, shivering and alone. Watching The Love Guru (Paramount Pictures) is a spiritual experience of a sort, but not the sort that its creator and star, Mike Myers, intended. This tale of a guru who brings joy to all who meet him is the most joy-draining 88 minutes I've ever spent outside a hospital waiting room. In the course of those long minutes, Myers leads you on a journey deep inside himself, to the source from whence his comedy springs—and it's about as much fun as a tour of someone's large intestine.

The Happening has received reviews nearly as bad. How does M Night Shyamalan keep getting funding for his films (and big movie stars to appear in them?)

Both he and Myers show what can happen when creative control is centred for too long in one person.