New physics?

CDF Ghost Muons | Cosmic Variance

When the Cosmic Variance physicists aren't spending their time promoting gay marriage, Obama and the death of religion (who said scientists are mostly godless liberals?) they do write interesting stuff about physics.

They are very excited about some experimental results which (if confirmed) indicate that some completely new physics has been discovered. (Well, some completely new particle, which may - or may not - solve the mystery of dark matter.) It's not so often that something so unexpected turns up at particle accelerators.

Some science magazines are reporting it too.

My somewhat cynical take on this: aren't we all glad we spent $6 billion (and counting) on the LHC while in fact there was useful stuff being discovered at old labs?

We'll be hearing more about this

Sex on TV Increases Teen Pregnancy, Says Report - TIME

Perhaps that headline should only be "...is associated with increased Teen Pregnancy", but you get the drift.

It would interesting to have a list of TV shows of the last decade which have been shown to have the most irresponsible attitudes to sex. Two immediately spring to my mind:

1. Sex and the City. Was contraception ever mentioned in that show, even in passing? Did any of the women ever say over their Manhattans "Why did I do that? I hardly know the guy and didn't use a condom. Now I've got chlamydia." (Maybe it was dealt with in one episode; I was hardly a regular viewer.)

2. Ally McBeal, but mainly for one outstandingly irresponsible episode in which she had "one off" sex with a hunky stranger she had just met at a car wash. (I think it was in the car wash itself.) Yet the episode was all about what this meant from a sexual politics point of view, of the "how bad is it for women to just want anonymous sex now and then, after all most men would be happy to do that" variety. I don't recall anyone saying to her "Surely you used a condom?" (The spontaneous nature of the incident indicated that she didn't.) Of course, the follow up should have been: "Are you insane? Get off to the STD clinic immediately".

John McCain could make you rich!

An Australian on line bookmaker is offering 9 to 1 for a John McCain win. Now you know where to invest your dwindling retirement funds.*

*Disclaimer: Opinion Dominion is not a licensed financial adviser, nor even comfortably rich. However, a share of any winnings from this tip will be gratefully received.

The Japanese who can samba

An enclave of Brazilians is testing insular Japan - International Herald Tribune

Until I started visiting Japan, I didn't know anything about the South American connection. You can read an interesting article about Brazilian Japanese who have migrated back to Japan at the link above.

Comment, comment

Comments are cordially invited (on this post) about any recent post.

It's so quiet around here sometimes...

Strange days in England

Pity the women who come within range of Brand and Ross | India Knight - Times Online

Readers will recall last week's post about how a couple of big time BBC radio hosts caused an uproar by leaving obscene and juvenile messages on the answering machine of a 78 year old actor, who didn't find it terribly funny.

Thousands of people complained, the PM criticised the BBC; comedian Russell Brand belatedly resigned, and Jonathan Ross, who has been around forever on British TV as well, was suspended for a few months.

Yet, over the weekend, there were a couple of articles in the British press claiming this was all massive overkill.

The strangest defence of all came from India Knight in The Times (see above). She complains that if the public likes 2 blokes of mature age carrying on like "hysterical teenagers", then the BBC ought to keep running them (provided they apologised, which they had.)

Yet by the end, she claims this:

"...what lies at the centre of this sorry saga is misogyny. None of it would have happened if Ross and Brand displayed - or were asked to display - even an iota of respect for women. Instead, both men have made part of their living out of treating women - wives and mothers excluded - as though they were pieces of meat. This can be very funny but it sticks in the craw."

She then explains how she once did a "straight" interview with Brand, and weeks later (after the interview was published):

I was ... taken aback to find myself named on air as a prelude to Brand discussing my bosoms with, surreally, Noel Gallagher from Oasis, who insistently asked: “Did you sleep with her?”, a question that caused Brand to speculate in some detail about what sleeping with me might have been like. None of this was mean or cruel, but it was out of order and reductive: woman, ergo piece of meat, fair game, punchline, nonperson.

It seems pretty amazing that she defends Brand at all in light of this. He sounds about as loveable, mature and intelligent as our Kyle Sandiland, and I for one would be most upset if he scored a slot on ABC radio or television.

Just all further evidence for my evolving thesis about the great moral decline of England.

More Japan pics

It's time to show some more photos of minor interest from my recent Japan trip. As always, clicking on the photos makes them bigger and somewhat more impressive.

Another small town in the northern part of Honshu is Hanamaki. The centre of town itself is nothing special, but it has many onsen hotels in the area, and we stayed in one which had a particularly pretty setting. Here's the view from the back:


There were pleasant walks to be had around the surrounding farm area, with featured many rice fields. (Mind you, rice is grown absolutely every it can fit in Japan. Staying with friends well in the middle of in Osaka, their apartment looked over a small rice field.) While I had seen green rice fields in spring and summer before, I didn't realise they went a nice golden colour before harvest:


Not only are houses, hotel rooms and cars small in Japan, so are the tiny sized rice harvesters:


Walking around, we saw this older style onsen, still operating apparently, but it put me a little in mind of the one in Spirited Away.


This flower (cosmos, I believe) was very common this visit, including in the gardens and roadsides around Hanamaki:


This was a very large, extra-touristy, onsen hotel, with entertainment each evening. The local farmers' elder sons (the only ones allowed to do this, apparently) presumably make a bit of extra money of an evening by doing the deer dance. This clip is not too exciting, but I'm sure you've wasted your time on worse diversions:



After all that walking and entertainment, it is reassuring to see the automatic defibrillator in the hotel foyer:


These have become an incredible fad in Japan over the last few years, and they appear in all sorts of places now. (Soon I expect they'll be in cars.) One wonders whether the staff administer the shock, or if they have to wait for the ambulance to arrive. (UPDATE: anyone can use them, apparently, and there is a very interesting and detailed article in Nature about how and why they have appeared everywhere in Japan.)

So, you can do certainly do worse than try the onsen of Hanamaki. Wish I could remember the name of the one we stayed at, but my wife will know if anyone is interested.

Developer perils in China

Bursting of bubble hits Chinese middle class | theage.com.au

The Age has an interesting article today on the downturn in the real estate boom in China. There are bargains to be had in new apartments, at least compared to a year or so ago, and things may well get worse.

The most fascinating part of the story is this:

Buyers in the West are familiar with the property market tides that alternate between spreading wealth and financial misery. Western courts tend to dismiss the claims of real estate agents as "mere puffery". But in China, where the concept of private home ownership is scarcely a decade old, those who bought near the top tend to believe they have been robbed. The first buyers to notice their wealth diminishing were those who bought unfinished apartments and watched neighbouring units being sold for much less. They are banding together to accost developers, air their grievances in the media and take their problems to court.

"Don't buy Zhonghai houses, the value will fall fast," chanted a crowd last weekend at a Zhonghai development in eastern Beijing. A Zhonghai manager, Ouyang Guoxin, negotiated the crowd's silence by promising to buy back the apartments at original contract prices during the week, which he never did. On Tuesday the crowd raided the group's offices in West Beijing and disconnected the receptionist's computer.

And as for the legal system: well, it isn't helping. (Mind you, not that it should, in this particular case, but still it could be better handled than this):

Shanghai lawyer Du Yueping says he has received inquiries from disgruntled investors in most major Chinese cities, including 400 in the coastal city of Xiamen. "They're all asking me the same question, how they get their money back," he says.

Each working day since September 23, Mr Du has tried to file a writ in Shanghai's Pudong District Court. Each time, the judge has refused to accept the paper work, citing orders from above.

Pornography, sex (and cows) in Indonesia

It's been months since I've checked the Jakarta Post, which is a pity because I have been missing stories like these.

Australians are rightly concerned about the Labor Party's plans to compulsorily censor the internet at ISP level. (Funny how little time blogs Larvatus Prodeo have spent on the issue. If it had been done under John Howard, the lefty blogosphere and The Age would be brimming every day with column inches about the fascist nature of the government.)

Yet, things could be worse. In Indonesia, what sounds like the world's vaguest anti-pornography legistlation has just been enacted:

Here's the Jakarta Post's list of concerns:

Contentious articles in the porn bill:

1. Article 1: Definition
Pornography is drawings, sketches, illustrations, photographs, texts, voices, sound, moving pictures, animations, cartoons, poetry, conversations, gestures, or other forms of communicative messages through various kinds of media; and/or performances in front of the public, which may incite obscenity, sexual exploitation and/or violate moral ethics in the community.
Feared impact:
The definition is open to all kinds of interpretation, such as how to define gestures that incite obscenity or sexual exploitation, and will be subject to debate.

2. Articles 20-23: Public Participation
The public can play a role in preventing the production, distribution and use of pornography...by...(d) supervising people on the danger of pornography.
Feared impact:
This article could be used by certain groups to take the law into their own hands by attacking people they believe are violating the law.

3. Articles 8, 34, 36: Criminalization of victims
The articles threatens up to 10 years in prison or Rp 5 billion in fines for violators of the law.
Feared impact:
Artists or models in art shows or productions could be punished for their creativity.

Yep, watch your hand gestures next time you are in Jakarta.

In further Indonesian sex news, this time involving cows, who knew that in Bali, if a man is caught having sex with a bovine, religious purification requires that the cow (but not the man) be drowned?

I note that the man in question was aged 70. Maybe he had been watching too much Japanese DVD porn. (See previous post if you don't understand.)

Anyhow, surely everyone should feel sorry for the cow. But I suppose we do have to teach such brazen temptresses a lesson.

Disturbing Japanese story of the year

It was in Time magazine in June, but I missed it then. (Of course, what the nation needs is younger people more involved, and not in a solo way.)

Phillip Adams - professional dill?

Back in March 2006, I noted how one Radio National fixture (Robyn Williams - who has run the Science Show forever) admitted that he had not remembered that when you catch a plane from Australia in summer to go to New York, it might just be cold at the destination. He wore sandals and (I think) shorts on the plane. Just how many people with a university education and a lifetime of thinking about science do that?

(Men who don't wear closed in footwear on long international flights have always annoyed me anyway: feet and sandals can smell, and I don't reckon they could be as inherently safe as proper shoes in an emergency exit situation.)

Well, a lack of common sense seems to be thriving at Radio National, particularly in the overtly political broadcasters.

Phillip Adams on Wednesday night seemed to have a bit of time to kill, and started his show by detailing his misadventures in getting into his Sydney home. You can listen to it here, but I'll summarise from memory:

a. due to some accident, he has been using only one eye this week;
b. he realised a couple of nights ago during his evening radio show that he had locked himself out of his Sydney house;
c. his house is narrow but 4 levels high;
d. he decided to get in by climbing up to the 3rd level balcony with an extension ladder, which he had trouble working out how to use properly;
e. this he did, in the dark and (by the sounds of it) by himself;
f. he got up to the balcony (the door to which he presumably does not lock) and got inside;
g. his monitored alarm system then went off, waking up the neighbours (as his show ends at 11pm, this was presumably around midnight);
h. the alarm company rang and asked for his password. He could not remember it, nor even his own phone number (!)

He did not bring this up, but he is aged 69. He is well know for his Egyptian artefact collection, and made his millions in advertising.

So, the next time you see a one eyed, grey, rich, somewhat overweight 69 year old man teetering three levels up on an extension ladder in Paddington, you might want to call out to him :"Phillip, there is such a thing as a 24 hour locksmith, you know!"

Clean coal skepticism

Time to bury the 'clean coal' myth | Environment | guardian.co.uk

There's not much detail in the polemic, but I share the skepticism that clean coal has any realistic prospect (at reasonable cost and within an appropriate time frame) of making a difference to greenhouse gas.

Bye bye Doctor

Tennant to quit Doctor Who | Media | guardian.co.uk

Shrimp don't care for CO2

Long-term effects of predicted future seawater CO2 conditions on the survival and growth of the marine shrimp Palaemon pacificus

Another day, another report of an experiment in which a marine creature is shown to be adversely affected by high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere:

The present results demonstrate for the first time that the predicted future seawater CO2 conditions would potentially reduce shrimp, and possibly other crustacean, populations through negatively affecting mortality, growth, and reproduction. This could threaten entire marine ecosystem through disrupting marine food web.

News will be greeted by the sounds of crickets chirping in the audience.

Half of America will find it funny

'I Would Make A Bad President,' Obama Says In Huge Campaign Blunder

Can't trust Catholics

The end of the Catholic vote - Los Angeles Times

A majority of Catholics are going for Obama, according to this article, despite lots of guidance from US bishops that abortion is a crucial issue this election.

George W could holiday there

On war's outer edge in Kurdish Iraq - International Herald Tribune

Iraqi Kurdistan is trying to attract tourists:

Not without reason do guidebooks charitably call Iraqi Kurdistan the "Switzerland of the Middle East."

Apparently, ads have already been shown on American TV. Visiting there sounds like a very mixed experience:

While Erbil is a far cry from Baghdad, signs of the war are impossible to avoid. Hotels are fenced off by concertina wire, vehicles are inspected by Kalashnikov-toting guards, and checkpoints are abundant. On a lesser note, tourists accustomed to high-end comforts may also find Kurdistan frustrating. Electricity is spotty, few locals speak English and latrines, even in some hotels, consist of a hole in the floor.

But the friendliness, and pro-American sentiment, of many Kurds might make up for the poor infrastructure. Mention in a restaurant that you are from the United States and your meal may be gratis. And it is not uncommon for Kurds to invite Westerners to share home-cooked meals, even in inhospitable places.

UQ research on acidification and reefs

Rising CO2 'will hit reefs harder'

As usual with the issue of ocean acidification, this will probably just get 'spotty' media coverage:

In a large experiment on Heron Island, the team simulated CO2 and temperature conditions predicted for the middle and end of this century, based on current forecasts of the world's likely emission levels and warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The results of their analyses of the bleaching, growth and survival of a number of organisms including corals indicates that a number of very important reef builders may be completely lost in near future.

“We found that coralline algae, which glue the reef together and help coral larvae settle successfully, were highly sensitive to increased CO2. These may die on reefs such as those in the southern Great Barrier Reef before year 2050,” says Dr Anthony.

Thanks, Janet

Janet Albrechtsen today supplies some details to confirm that (as I said yesterday) Europe has no reason to feel smug about the current financial crisis.

Mystery man

Confessions from the Obama campaign trail - Los Angeles Times

Interesting "confession" here by a reporter who has been on the campaign trail with Obama, and feels he still doesn't know who he is. His Messianic qualities seem to be somewhat lacking in the back of the campaign plane:

One of the striking ironies is that a man who draws tens of thousands of people to his rallies, whose charisma is likened to that of John F. Kennedy, can be sort of a bore.

The overall image painted is of a man who is overly cautious about controlling his image, and/or just a tad on the emotionally cold side.

PS: I still wonder which personality type it is best to have his or her finger on the nuclear button: someone who has been known to be have strong outbursts of temper, and had more than his fair share of adultery (indicating at least, I suppose, someone well acquainted with emotions, but not necessarily in a good way); or someone who appears to have his emotions tightly bottled up and has spent an inordinate amount of time in calculating his own advancement.

The (no doubt unfair!) images I get is of McCain's aides wrestling him to the ground to stop him giving the "fire all missiles" order, while in an alternative universe Obama intellectualises his way (and convinces his minders) to making a limited nuclear attack in circumstances that will later be regretted.

All silly speculation, I know, but hey it's my blog.