Don't inhale

How I Survived China - The Atlantic (November 2009)

James Fallows has a short but interesting comment on how bad pollution is in China.

Swiss cheese universe

Hey, who can resist an arXiv paper with an abstract that starts like this:

We present strong arguments that the deep structure of the quantum vacuum contains a web of microscopic wormholes or short-cuts. We develop the concept of wormhole spaces and show that this web of wormholes generate a peculiar array of long-range correlations in the patterns of vacuum fluctuations on the Planck scale.

Well, I can't, even though I need to converted into a more pop science format.

Master of my neurons?

You can control your Marilyn Monroe neuron

All sort of odd sounding, and probably has some deep philosophical implications for mind/body stuff, but you can go read it yourself.

Tough talk on Japanese men

The age of listless, wary, anxiety-ridden and insecure young men

A Japanese women's magazine notes:

The term “soshoku danshi” (herbivorous male, as distinct from the carnivores of earlier generations) has grown widely current since being coined in 2006 to describe the timid, emotionally stunted specimens now on the threshold of the prime of life. It’s hard to blame them. As consultant Takao Maekawa points out, with salaries stagnant and jobs, if you’re lucky enough to have one, insecure, “it’s enough to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm for their work.”

Herbivorous—more or less passive, that is to say—attitudes toward courtship are a direct result. “Young men don’t have the confidence their fathers had that they will be able to support a family,” says Ushikubo. “That tends to drain a man’s romantic impulses.”

Adding insult to injury, women, with less vested interest in the way things used to be, are adapting better than men to the way things now are. “Seeing women emerge stronger than themselves,” observes Maekawa, “has further undermined many men’s confidence.”

The answer, apparently, is for women to offer:

"...generous doses of praise, encouragement, and understanding."

[I'm emailing the article to my wife now, as I figure what's good for the Japanese is good for me too.]

But in comments, readers beg to differ:

The listless, insecure young men of today are carbon copies of their fathers. Japanese men are as selfish, immature and emotionally underdeveloped as they have always been. That's simply the very nature of this beast.

I say on behalf of my Japanese brothers: Ouch!

Fusion: the third way

A novel form of fusion power: Psst, kapow! | The Economist

Hadn't heard this one before, but who knows if it will lead anyway.

Welcome back Annabel

I'm not sure why Annabel Crabb was missing from Fairfax for a month or two, but it's good to have her back. In today's column:

Rudd likes to portray his policies as tougher than they really are because, like most Labor MPs who were around in 2001, he clearly remembers the Atomic Wedgie that he and his colleagues copped back then over immigration.

His buttocks now flinch reflexively every time the subject comes up, which is why he keeps saying things like, "I make no apologies for my staring-eyed, extremist, hardline, definitely not soft or anything ideas about illegal immigrants."

And why he persists with describing his policy approach as "humane toughness", a deeply Ruddesque contradiction in terms that fits well with his scores policy (Responsible Drunkenness) and his fiscal policy (Conservative Recklessness).

Listen to your fellow doctors

Womb transplants 'within two years' - Science, News - The Independent

This is just silly:

British scientists believe they will be able to carry out the first-ever successful womb transplant within two years. They have worked out how to transplant a womb with a good blood supply which could mean it lasts long enough to carry a pregnancy to term.

Um, do we know how the immunosuppressants affect babies? (Maybe we do: I suppose it is possible some young women on them have fallen pregnant.)

But even so, Smith, who has been practising this on rabbits, notes:

...there was little interest in the studies in the medical profession but the demand from patients was huge. He said: "There's a lot of dismissal in the profession in terms of this being a step too far in fertility management. But for a woman who is desperate for a baby, this is incredibly important."

Mr Smith, who presented his findings at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in Atlanta, Georgia, said the womb would only stay in place until the woman had had the children she wanted. "The plan is that once a woman has had her children, the uterus comes out and she can come off immunosuppressants."

Mr (I assume it should be "Dr") Smith should spend more time telling patients to be more realistic and that medical science can't appropriately remedy all of life's misfortunes, rather than working on disposable uteri.

Life is simpler here

Get set for next year's overhaul of official kanji | The Japan Times Online

You get a good idea of the complexity of Japanese (and, I guess, Chinese) language when you read this article about a forthcoming government revision of "official" kanji next year. For example:

Vigorous debate about the list has taken place in committee meetings in the past four years. Japanese language educators have objected in vain to inclusion of such adult-themed kanji as 淫 (IN, lewd), 艶 (EN, charming, voluptuous) and 賭, (ka-keru, gamble). Two kanji much requested in a public-comment forum last spring were 鷹 (taka, hawk) and 柿 (kaki, persimmon), but the panel has decided not to include these. It has also elected not to axe forum participants’ least-popular kanji — 鬱 (UTSU, melancholy), written with an eye-popping 29 strokes.

Nearer but poorer

400,000 former Anglicans worldwide seek immediate unity with Rome

This seems all very complicated, this creation of a special branch of Catholicism to accommodate the conservative Anglicans who have lost the fight in their own church:

The Pope has made it significantly more attractive for Anglicans to move over this time by offering a universal solution that allows them to retain crucial aspects of their identity and to set up seminaries that will, presumably, train married men for the Catholic priesthood. But any serving clergyman would face a marked loss of income. A job as a clergyman in the Church of England comes with a stipend of £22,250 and free accommodation. Catholic priests earn about £8,000, paid by their parish and topped up by a diocese where the parish cannot afford even that.

That sounds a very small amount of money for a Catholic priest. Mind you, I have only the vaguest idea of how it all works in Australia. It's not something I have ever asked a priest about.

I have been told, however, that in Vietnam, being a priest can be quite a good earner, as the parishioners believe it is important to be very generous to their priests. (My source, himself a Vietnamese catholic, indicated that they usually are not shy about having girlfriends too.)

But back to the issue of married priests: if ever there was a simple action that could make the priesthood a much more attractive option, it would be for the Pope to allow all priests to marry. This would be unassailable in terms of Biblical prohibition, almost certainly lead to less situations of sexual abuse, and mean a much less lonely life for most priests. (I suspect that, at least from their middle age onwards, it may be the companionship of married and family life that priests regret missing more than the sexual side.) It is a much less controversial issue than women's ordination (and, of course, gay marriage), as it is reverting to a state the Church formerly accepted, rather than a novel invention.

The Eastern Orthodox Church has a compromise position: either get ordained single and commit to celibacy, or marry first and then get ordained. However, being ordained and married means no hope of being a bishop. But how many priests join for career progression anyway?

The Orthodox position sounds tough for those who fall in love after a "celibate" ordination, but at least it has the virtue of not encouraging priests to hang around single bars on a Friday night.

I reckon it's a good idea, with one additional benefit that it may well result in the average age of new priests being a bit older, but probably more mature, and less likely to drop out later.

Yes, the sooner the Pope goes Orthodox on this issue the better.

UPDATE: one of the reasons (I suspect) that the Church doesn't feel much pressure about this issue might be because it is obviously part and parcel of "progressive" Catholics' set of beliefs about sexuality. Of course if you want your neighbour's gay son to be able to have a wedding in the Church you are not going to have an issue with a priest having a wife. (Indeed, you would probably welcome your priest and his new boyfriend over for dinner too.) So, it's easy to dismiss it as part of a progressive agenda that just doesn't "get it".

Unfortunately, strong conservatives are inherently unlikely to have any reforming bent at all when it comes to the Church. They like things just the way there are (or were, in their childhood) thank you very much.

So, who are the Catholics who could effectively press for this reform? That is the problem.

An interesting Hitchens

Why on earth would we wait to disarm Iran? - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

Who cares?

US scientist David Nozette charged with trying to sell secrets to Israel | csmonitor.com

Against cooling

Has global cooling begun? | csmonitor.com

Warming up the Arctic

Arctic Lake Sediments Show Warming, Unique Ecological Changes In Recent Decades

I didn't know this:

....recent warming around the Arctic is overriding a cooling trend caused by Earth's periodic wobble. Earth is now about 0.6 million miles further from the sun during the Northern Hemisphere summer solstice than it was in 1 B.C. -- a trend that has caused overall cooling in the Arctic until recently.

The study indicates marked increased warming since 1950. Although, I have to say, didn't we know that already from thermometers?

Real reductions

Club Troppo - It’s not easy being green

Ken Parish makes good points in his post on the uselessness of the Rudd government's ETS (with or without Liberal amendments.)

He also mentions an obvious way to make real CO2 reductions, by a rapid increase in natural gas for electricity generation.

Like Ken, I am not at all sure why this gets so little consideration as a policy measure. Is the ETS meant to make it happen anyway? It doesn't seem so.

Of course, there is also the issue of Labor's ban on nuclear power, which is mentioned in comments.

If Labor wants to be serious about CO2, they have to start debating nuclear. But instead, they'll probably ride the wave of sentiment that "at least they are doing something", which probably means they are actually quite a danger to real progress on the issue.

A good Henderson

Judges and juries called it as they saw it

This is a good Gerard Henderson column today. I wish I could find the Phillip Adams 2006 column he refers to.

Coral confusion

This seems like an important bit of research. Not all corals appear to stop calcifying with lower pH, and it would seem that the precise mechanisms for calcification are not as well understood as you might expect.

This paper reports that it would appear that what is crucial for good coral calcification (at least in one species) is bicarbonate concentration:

The corals responded strongly to variation in bicarbonate concentration, but not consistently to carbonate concentration, aragonite saturation state or pH. Corals calcified at normal or elevated rates under low pH (7.6 to 7.8) when the seawater bicarbonate concentrations were above 1800 μM. Conversely, corals incubated at normal pH had low calcification rates if the bicarbonate concentration was lowered. These results demonstrate that coral responses to ocean acidification are more diverse than currently thought, and question the reliability of using carbonate concentration or aragonite saturation state as the sole predictor of the effects of ocean acidification on coral calcification.

What is not explained is whether lower ocean pH has any consistent effect on bicarbonate concentration in shallow waters. It would appear from here that dissolved CO2 result in increased bicarbonate. However, I'm sure there have been lab based coral studies where they bubbled CO2 through the water and the coral calcified less. So what was the reason for that?

So: this may (or may not) represent relatively good news for the future of coral. But, let's wait for more news and analysis.

Bad algae

Killer algae a key player in mass extinctions

Today, just about anywhere there is water, there can be toxic algae. The microscopic plants usually exist in small concentrations, but a sudden warming in the water or an injection of dust or sediment from land can trigger a bloom that kills thousands of fish, poisons shellfish, or even humans.

James Castle and John Rodgers of Clemson University think the same thing happened during the five largest mass extinctions in Earth's history. Each time a large die off occurred, they found a spike in the number of fossil algae mats called stromatolites strewn around the planet....

"If you go through theories of mass extinctions, there are always some unanswered questions," Castle said. "For example, an impact - how does that cause species to go extinct? Is it climate change, dust in the atmosphere? It's probably not going to kill off all these species on its own."

But as the nutrient-rich fallout from the disaster lands in the water, it becomes food for algae. They explode in population, releasing chemicals that can act as anything from skin irritants to potent neurotoxins. Plants on land can pick up the compounds in their roots, and pass them on to herbivorous animals.

Some CO2 skeptics like to argue that it is a plant food and that a lush world will follow from higher concentrations. But as I have suggested before, if it makes toxic algal more likely, that is not going to be a good thing.

Back to basics

Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming

While my position is to concentrate on ocean acidification as sufficient reason to urgently seek a reduction in CO2, I have been complaining for some time that the popular skeptical pundits against global warming seem to show no interest at all in applying any degree of skepticism to the arguments that they think bolster their position.

So it's worthwhile going back to basics, and the always readable Skeptical Science blog has an excellent post (see above) on why it is known that CO2 is causing warming.

Handy information

Physicists Calculate Number of Parallel Universes

In a new study, Stanford physicists Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin have calculated the number of all possible universes, coming up with an answer of 10^10^16.

"Handy for what?" you might ask. I don't know - I'm working on that.

Pet peeve noted - please ignore if offended by the trivial

As I'm posting on the trivial today, and a blog is the ideal place to get a pet peeve that's bothered you for years off your chest, I note as follows.

For the first time in many years, I just had a strawberry milkshake (with malt.) The malt cost 50 cents extra, which must make it one of the more precious foodstuffs available at a milk bar, but that's not the peeve.

It's the fact that, after whisking the shake, the guy looked at the level in the container, and then topped it up with a bit more, unshaken, plain milk. Then it was served it to me.

I had forgotten about this fairly widespread and (to my mind) very irritating practice that I used to note when I was a more regular milkshake consumer. (We're talking university days now.)

I don't want my strawberry flavoured milk diluted at the last minute by the addition of more plain milk. It also doesn't do much for the frothy head either. If it is to be done at all (and it should not need to be if the original estimate was better) it should at the very least be put it back on the machine. But those who top up in this way never do.

I'm already planning my cranky old man tactic of just walking away when I see this done. (Unless, of course, I have already paid for it.)