Hawking, God, etc

I haven't really bothered talking about the Hawking comments on "physics shows there is no need for God" because anyone who knew about Mr H knew that he never believed in God, and the statement was a mere publicity blurb for a book.

But there are a few commentary pieces on Hawking and the book which are worth following:

* Paul Davies, who has also made more than a few dollars by talking about God and physics, is always worth reading.

* Roger Penrose, despite getting on in the years, talks about the book and some past big statements made by SH.

* Peter Woit, whose site Not Even Wrong is always pointing out that media releases claiming that some scientist has just found a possible way to test string theory are invariably wrong, looks at the book and strongly criticizes the scientific position Hawking seems to have put himself in. He also makes it sound like it definitely not going to be a best seller.

Smarter than the average economist?

Nicholas Gruen seems a nice enough guy, for a (no doubt well paid) chess playing economist who writes easily mocked boring articles on how exciting Web2 and Gov2 are. (Just go through Club Troppo to see what I mean.)

But, it amuses me to see that I seemingly can outsmart him when it comes to Tiger Airlines. As I recently noted, my family and I have triumphed in 3 return trips with the rule-ridden discount airline over the last few years, all the time watching only other people (like Nicholas) lose their temper and arguing at the check in desk.

Politics, politics

Gosh there is an unusual amount of noteworthy political commentary in the papers today:

1.   News Limited is no doubt disappointed that it didn’t persuade the public with its “Coalition for government” post election campaign.   Shanahan has to sheepishly concede that Newspoll indicates a large majority of voters approve of the independents going for Labor.

2.  Niki Savva usually provides fair commentary (not that I agree with all of it), and today she makes some recommendations to Tony Abbott about cutting dead wood, and reinstating Turnbull to finance.   Fair enough, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s a hell of a lot of dead wood to be pruned.

3.  Michael Stutchbury explains why a carbon tax is a better idea than all the mixed direct action steps that Labor has imposed (and more of which we would have had under Liberals.)   This makes sense, and again shows how bad an idea it was for Abbott to promise to never introduce any carbon pricing.    If he doesn’t change that line, it’s hard to see why he should ever be  seen to have economic credibility.

4.  Meanwhile, over at Fairfax, Maxine McKew writes an article that promotes a higher density, more populous, Sydney on environmental and economic grounds, and in doing so shows some smarts which she failed to do while she was an MP.  Too late now, Maxine.

The science of mice handling advances

Nature reports on a study about the best way to pick up a lab mouse:

Picking up mice at the base of the tail is standard practice in laboratory research, but whether this is the best method is unclear. Researchers now suggest that cupping a mouse in the hand or carrying it in a small tunnel reduces stress and encourages cooperation.

I like that last bit about mouse co-operation. Has a pharmaceutical company ever had a meeting in which its scientists said to them "sorry the new drug tests failed, but you know we're not entirely sure the mice were co-operating"?

It is, however, a little surprising to me that these science types haven't tried to standardize mice handling before:

"The paper has made me rethink some of the things we do," says Scott Russo, a behavioural neuroscientist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. His lab members routinely clutch mice by the tail, even though they investigate the effect of stress on anxiety, depression and addiction. "Tail handling could absolutely influence the effects we observe," he says. Anxiety behaviour in mice is notoriously inconsistent — it fluctuates across strains, and even across days, he says. "If this is a way to reduce inter-experimental variability, this would be a very important finding."

Just not cricket

Odd story for the day:  cricket farming is in crisis. 

Just thought you should know.

Flying humour

Given that my main birthday gift featured all the equipment I need to become a Microsoft Flight Simulator tragic (thank you, kind wife) I found this video quite amusing:

Information of uncertain significance

I've always liked this They Might be Giants song, but there are only audience videoed live versions on Youtube with dubious sound quality, and you can't hear the lyrics clearly. So instead, let's listen to a recently posted ukulele version, with a vocal performance which I find oddly endearing. (It's not great, but may still be better than what I could achieve):



Thanks faceless singer.

By the way, the song is particularly apt for today, which may, or may not, record my entry into my 6th decade (yes, yikes!), depending on whether you are counting in Earth or Mars years. On the upside, I feel much wiser and benevolent already. On the downside, I did have to pluck hair from my ears on Thursday, extract nose hair yesterday, and shave the odd patches of hair on my shoulders this morning.

Relax: death by rogue planet kinda unlikely

As it happens, my wife and son were watching 2012 last weekend. (I was moving in and out of the room, but from what I saw, it did look every bit as silly and bad as I expected.)

Of course, I have reassured the son that it's just a silly story and the science in it is just ridiculous. He doesn't seem concerned. Now I can show him a paper by (I think) an astronomer, inspired by some of the apocalyptic theories about what might happen in 2012, with the great title:

Is it plausible to expect a close encounter of the Earth with a yet undiscovered astronomical object in the next few years?

Short answer: no.

Actually, it is interesting to note from the paper that there has been a fair bit of work on what might be lurking around in interstellar space. I was aware of "brown dwarfs" possibly being loose out there, but didn't know (or had forgotten about) the possibility of rogue planets that could unexpected wander into a solar system:

Concerning the existence of free-floating planets of smaller mass, Stevenson (1999)
noted that, under certain circumstances, Earth-sized solid bodies wandering in the
interstellar space after being ejected during the formation of their parent stellar systems may sustain forms of life. Again as a consequence of three-body interactions with Jovian gas giants, Debes & Sigurdsson (2007) have recently shown that during planet formation a non-negligible fraction of terrestrial-sized planets with lunar-sized companions will likely be ejected into interstellar space with the companion bound to the planet. Debes & Sigurdsson (2007) yield a total number of free-floating binary planets in the Galaxy as large as 7×108. At present, no planets like them have yet been detected. Proposed microlensing surveys of next generation will be sensitive to free-floating terrestrial planets (Bennett & Rhie 2002); under certain circumstances, they may be able to yield 10100 detections of Earth-mass free-floating planets (Bennett & Rhie 2002). One to a few detections could be made with all-sky IR surveys (Debes & Sigurdsson 2007).

Anyhow, the paper goes on to list the reasons why we would already know about it if something was about to zoom into the solar system by 2012.

What a relief. :)

A kind of vindication, and vague reason for optimism

Here's a slightly altered version of something I just posted at Catallaxy:

Over at Skeptical Science, Roger Pielke Snr (quite a favourite of climate change skeptics for many a year) been actively commenting in a recent post which criticised him for overstating the case on what’s been happening with ocean warming since 2004. (He says there is none; everyone else says there is no reason to be so confident based on the short timeframe and doubts about the adequacy of the measuring system).

Most interestingly, at two different points he says:

“Thus to conclude that I have ever not been concerned about the addition of CO2 and how it affects the climate system misrepresents my perspective. I am particularly concerned with respect to the biogeochemical effects of added CO2.” and

“In terms of CO2, we do not even need to discuss global warming to be concerned by uncontrolled increases in its atmospheric concentration. We see directly from observations of atmospheric concentrations of CO2 that humans are increasing its levels. If global warming were not occurring at all, we should still be concerned.”

Which is what I have been saying since, oh, 14 Nov 2006. (Although I have been persuaded since then that AGW itself is also a serious concern.)

I note that Pielke does not make it clear what biogeochemical effect he is talking about: the one I have concentrated on is ocean acidification, but I can't see that he has ever made reference to it at his blog. Is there another that he is referencing? He does talk about biogeochemical effects in relation to anthrogenic land cover change, but it doesn't sound as if this paper talks about CO2 causing biogeochemical effects.

So what his precise concerns are remains a bit of a mystery to me, but certainly I still believe that, like his son, he is being disingenuous by letting his warming skepticism (or in his son's case, glee over IPCC mistakes) be promoted all over the blogosphere and thus encourage policy inaction on CO2, when in fact he claims it's a "reason to be concerned."

Meanwhile, I see that a new study that did the exercise of looking at what would happen to CO2 levels and temperature if you never built another CO2 emitting device. The answer is a bit surprising:

The researchers found that atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ would stabilize at less than 430 parts per million (ppm) and the increase of global mean temperatures since preindustrial time would be less than 1.3°C (2.3°F).

"The answer surprised us," says Davis. "Going into this study, we thought that existing sources of CO2 emissions would be enough to push us beyond 450 ppm and 2°C warming." In light of common benchmarks of 450 ppm and 2°C, these results indicate that the devices whose emissions will cause the worst impacts have yet to be built.

Of course, it's impossible to turn off the new CO2 making device switch, but it does emphasise that aggressive action on CO2 production has a vague chance of working to limit temperature increases.

Not keeping it nice

What's the latest trend in England? Old people getting STD's:

The figures showed that 45 to 64-year-olds saw the biggest rise in syphilis, herpes, chlamydia and genital warts between 2000 and 2009. They also saw the second-biggest rise in gonorrhea cases, beaten only by the over 65s.

Cases of syphilis in 45 to 64 year-olds rose ten-fold from just 52 in 2000 to 503 in 2009. In the over 65s, cases more than quadrupled from just 7 in 2000 to 32 in 2009.

Gonorrhea fell in all age groups between 2000 and 2009 except for the over 45s.

Whatever happened to "no sex please, we're British"?

I was also surprised to read recently that a very popular show there is a medical reality one called "Embarrassing Bodies" in which people, for some reason I find hard to fathom, are happy to come on and show their oozy, swollen, warty crevices and appendages on national TV. One of the doctor stars says:

"I didn't think piles and verrucas would be exciting to a Channel 4 audience," he says, "but I soon realised that people hadn't seen the novelty of haemorrhoids before, because we're usually pretty crap about talking about this stuff. Yes it's a bit gross, but we never treat it in a sensationalistic way...."

As the Guardian article (which I am quoting from) notes, while the show may encourage some people with conditions that really deserve treatment to go to their doctor, there are concerns that the show's attitude to plastic surgery is not helpful:

One of the surgeries Jessen recommended on an episode in 2008 was a patient's labioplasty. In her book Living Dolls, Natasha Walter details how uneasy this made her feel. "[In this episode] a young woman consulted a doctor about the fact that her labia minora extended slightly beyond her labia majora and that this caused her embarrassment. Instead of reassuring her that this was entirely normal, the doctor recommended, and carried out, surgery on her labia. The comments left on the programme's website showed how this decision to carry out plastic surgery to fit a young woman's body to a so-called norm made other young women feel intensely anxious. 'I'm 15 and I thought I was fine, but since I've watched the programme I've become worried, as mine seem larger than the girl who had hers made surgically smaller! It doesn't make any difference to my life, but I worry now that when I'm older and start having sex I might have problems!' one girl said.

There are plenty of gross and normally private things to be seen on the show's website. (Including vulva, penis and breast galleries over which 15 year old teenagers can either feel encouraged, or, just as likely, fret.)

Look, I obviously can't say that the show is all bad for the reason already mentioned; and I don't think I count as prudish about non-sexual nudity. (See my previous comments about Japan.) But it still seems that the show is a symptom of a distinct change in the British psyche over the last 40 years or so from instinctive reserve to exhibitionism. How else can you read comments like this (from the Guardian again):

Natasha, who wants to talk about irritable bowel syndrome. Her boyfriend, Peter, waits patiently by the fence. "We love the show," he tells me. "My mother died of skin cancer this year and the programme showed me the warning signs to look out for. Plus all the blokes with their tackle out – they ask questions I wouldn't dare!"...

Kelly Coulter, who's brought her 18-month-old son to the truckstop to talk about a problem with his gums, says she'd "absolutely get my breasts out on the show if I was guaranteed a boob job". ....

Rosie and Kelly are 13 years old, and so excited to be in the presence of Dr Christian that they're quivering, visibly. .... they're recalling their favourite episode from the three series so far. Was it the episode with the interior designer's oversized labia? Was it the one about the woman with the udder-like breasts? The one with Christina's anal warts? They remember all of those, but their favourite was the episode where Dr Christian stood in a locker room to compare the penis sizes of a whole rugby team.

I'm glad it's a version of reality TV that has not caught on here.

Definitely Jungian

Back in my recent review of Inception, I guessed that the movie was based on Jungian psychoanalytical theory. It seems I was more correct than I knew. A post at Mind Hacks goes into a lot of detail about how the movie reflects Jungian ideas.

Say a prayer

Here at the Dominion we like any study that suggests prayer is a Good Thing.  Mainly because it annoys atheists, but also because prayer research is just inherently interesting.

The Economist ran an article recently  about study that showed the benefits of praying daily for your romantic partner.    It makes you like them more.

It’s an odd study, sure to have holes poked in it by godless killjoys, but I like it.

Urban heat island, meet rural cool island

Here's something I hadn't heard much about before. Global warming skeptics go on a lot about urban heat islands causing a significant part of temperature increases over the 20th century.

But there is another effect - increased irrigation causing an artificial cooling:

Scientists are just beginning to get a handle on irrigation's impact. In a hundred years, the amount of irrigated farmland has grown four-fold, now covering an area four times the size of Texas. Puma and his coauthor, Benjamin Cook, a climatologist at Goddard and Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, are the first to look at the historic effects of mass watering on climate globally by analyzing temperature, precipitation and irrigation trends in a series of model simulations for the last century. They found that irrigation-linked cooling grew noticeably in the 1950s as irrigation rates exploded, and that more rain is now falling downstream of these heavily watered regions. ..

Globally, irrigation's effect on climate is small—one-tenth of one degree C (about 0.2 degree F). But regionally, the cooling can match or exceed the impacts of greenhouse gases, say the scientists. For example, the study found some of the largest effects in India's arid Indus River Basin, where irrigation may be cooling the climate up to 3 degrees C, (5.4 degrees F) and up to 1-2 degrees C in other heavily irrigated regions such as California's Central Valley and parts of China. The study also found as much as .5 degree C cooling in heavily watered regions of Europe, Asia and North America during the summer.

Irrigation has increased because it boosts crop yields, supporting many millions of small farmers, said Upmanu Lall, head of the Columbia Water Center at the Earth Institute. But concern is growing that groundwater supplies in India and China may not keep up.

So, use up your groundwater, and suddenly you may find your local area quite a bit hotter than before.

I trust Watts up With That will post on this soon. They had better, after spending so much time on urban heat islands.

A new government. Yay.

This is, at the very least, going to be a very interesting term of Federal government to watch. 

Labor is lucky not to have to run everything past Bob Katter.  If it were up to him, I expect it would be decaying spaceports and opera houses on Cape York in 20 years time, and stalled development of a revolutionary baby formula using freeze dried bananas and barramundi oil.  

Now Julia Gillard should prove her conservative social views claim by quickly getting married to Tim. 

Her parents turned up on ABC 24 hour news channel yesterday, and they seem very nice.  It also became clear that Julia gets her over-endowed earlobes from her mother.   Sadly, the computer I was watching it on did not have an easy screenshot save on it, so I missed that. [ Hopefully, mentioning Julia’s earlobes will again cause a 500 extra visitors over the next couple of days.]

And how’s this for a perfect picture for a caption competition today:

If I had enough time I would supply a few myself, but I’m late for work.

Dawn of D Day

So, we should know who the independents will support in government by this afternoon.

There seems to be a late swing of opinion that maybe the Coalition will get their support after all, despite many reports over the weekend that it had pretty much given up hope. Well, with Bob Katter involved, anything could happen.

Never has the matrix of the good, the bad and the ugly of political policies on offer at an election been so hopelessly mixed between the parties. I've already disclosed this elsewhere, but I voted informal in the House of Reps, and a Labor - Liberal mix in the Senate. I made sure the Greens were far down the list, as even though they have one good idea (a moderate introductory carbon tax) I am loathe to give them too much power to implement their mostly objectionable policies.

By rights, this means I have no real grounds to complain about the election outcome. But I still think a severely chastised Labor has the better chance of making a good government than an Abbott-led Coalition. I simply don't trust Abbott's instincts as leader, and the substantial rump of climate change skeptics who form his support base make me very pessimistic about the party as a whole. His Swedish style parental leave plan is a folly introduced in exactly the same self centered way Rudd would get some of his flakier ideas up. His is similarly populist on immigration limits, and there were clear errors (and hidden elements barely noticed by the electorate - such as big savings in pharmaceutical benefits) in their policy costings.

On the other hand, I couldn't quite bring myself to be seen to be rewarding the large amount of rushed, barely justified policy making of Labor. I think the NBN, while sounding all shiny and impressive, is overkill for Australia, and the ideal solution is almost certainly one that falls between the Coalition and Labor extremes (probably closer to the Coalition plan). To take a couple of other examples: a laptop for every student was a populist waste from day one, and the insulation scheme had absolutely hopeless implementation in the face of plenty of warnings.

One hopes that the way these policies were developed (seemingly on the back of a Rudd envelope) will not be repeated with the removal of uber control freak Kevin.

Also in Labor's favour, I have to say that, regardless of the exact amount it will raise, I don't understand why any government should not proceed with a mining super-profits tax if you have in principle agreement from the major miners. My impression is that, as with nearly all new taxes, it is likely to raise more than expected rather than less.

Perhaps this indicates I should have voted for Labor anyway, but although I like her personally, there wasn't a Gillard led government record to vote on. I share the view of the Labor strategists who now say that going to the election early was a mistake.

With any luck, if Tony Abbott does not become PM he'll have another burst of self doubt and not be leader next time around. No one seems to think that will happen, because he has been deemed a success merely by not being entirely the mistake ridden campaigner that everyone expected. (The all running, never sleeping action man image was as shallow as the Kevin 07 campaign really, although I always knew there was an element of deceit in the latter's public persona.) I still consider Abbott a policy flake, too willing to change on a whim, and in that respect, he is actually close to the Rudd model in terms of policies he will run, even if he is much more collegiate in dealing with his Parliamentary colleagues. (Mind you, no one else would have run a government like Rudd, not even Turnbull.)

Ha ha

The new green Germany can't afford to be so Green after all:

The German government has decided to extend the life spans of the country’s 17 nuclear plants while alternative energy sources are developed, a move that is also likely to create windfalls for both power companies and strained government coffers. ...

New taxes levied on utility companies as part of the deal will be used in part to help develop renewable energy sources, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday. But she said Germany could not afford to get rid of nuclear power as planned because the amount of renewable energy available would not be sufficient to fill the gap.

“Nuclear energy is a bridge,” she said.

Under a German law, passed by a previous government in 2002, the last nuclear power plant was to be shut by 2022. That decision, bitterly resented by the nuclear energy companies, was largely supported by the German public, which has a deep aversion to anything nuclear, a sentiment that intensified after the nuclear accident at Chernobyl.

Recent polls have shown attitudes shifting, however. A survey by Forsa, an independent polling institute, in July found that 81 percent of Germans said the country could not do entirely without nuclear power, up from 59 percent five years ago.

Bad writers

The Independent has a long-ish article listing the ways in which several prominent British children’s authors were, in their private lives, not very nice people.

It spends most of its time on Roald Dahl, as there is a new biography of him out. I think I have read before about his famous rudeness, but it takes some talent to write to your publisher threatening to leave it and get this responce:

"Let me reverse the threat," he wrote to Dahl. "Unless you start acting civilly to us, there is no possibility of our agreeing to publish you. Nor will I – or any of us – answer any future letter that we consider to be as rude as those we've been receiving."

I think I have read elsewhere that he was nice to his children, at least when he was home and not sleeping around town, but that might one of the few examples of considerate behaviour.

The article then gives shorter histories of other British authors who it is a pleasure not to have known. Even Enid Blyton gets a serve, with one of her daughters writing:

"The truth is," wrote Imogen later, "Enid Blyton was arrogant, insecure, pretentious, very skilled at putting difficult or unpleasant things out of her mind, and without a trace of maternal instinct. As a child, I viewed her as a rather strict authority. As an adult I pitied her."

The unifying theme is that they pretty much all had tragedy in their early lives. Maybe that’s why I don’t care for Harry Potter: a mere divorce is hardly enough for Rowling to be a good writer.

On a related matter, I recently read the short autobiography of Graham Green “A Sort of Life”. (This was another of my triumphant finds from the Lifeline Book Fair.) It was well written and pretty interesting, dwelling a lot on his unhappy teenage years in school and how he ended up in therapy for a time.

Greene clearly recognized as an adult that he had always had mental health issues, describing how boredom had always felt like a ballooning pressure inside his head which led to both reckless behaviour (Russian roulette to make him feel more alive) and extensive travel. Given that he is now well known for his rampaging sex life, it was a little disappointing that he only relates his very first erotic feelings (when seeing some actress in a play) but then says nothing at all about how or when he lost his virginity.

It also ends rather abruptly, and although I know he did a second volume of autobiography, I can’t say I have ever seen it around. But still, a good read.

Ancient brews

Biblical Archaeology Review covers all the important stories, such as the one discussed in detail in this article: "Did the Ancient Israelites Drink Beer?" The short answer: yes, but you wouldn't realize from the Bible:

Beer was a staple in the Israelite diet, just as it was throughout the ancient Near East. Yet a search of most English translations of the Bible will produce few, if any, occurrences of the word “beer.” Ancient Israel’s affinity for beer has largely been ignored. I believe this is for three reasons: (1) confusion about the meaning of the Hebrew word shekhar (שכר), (2) a general snobbery in academia causing scholars to scorn beer drinking while celebrating wine culture, and (3) the unique challenges archaeologists have faced in finding (or identifying) beer remains in the Israelite material record.

It's a pretty interesting article generally, shining light on the possible importance of beer to the evolution of human society (seriously!):

Humans have been making beer for at least 5,000 years, and most likely much longer. Some anthropologists have argued that it was a thirst for beer, rather than a hunger for bread, that led to the Neolithic Revolution (c. 9500–8000 B.C.E.), during which humans gradually abandoned a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in favor of sedentary farming. Beer eventually became a defining characteristic of human culture, much like wearing clothes.

Sounds to me like there's a faction of anthropologists who study this just so they can count visits to the local pub as research. Anyhow, ancient beer was something I'm not entirely sure I would enjoy:

Beer was often produced by creating a bread or cake made from malted barley or wheat. The bread was then placed in water, forming a sweet liquid known as a wort. In a few days, after adding yeast, the carbohydrates would be converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide, which would cause the liquid to bubble, indicating fermentation. Thus the wait from the time it was produced until the time it was consumed would have been only a few days. Moreover, beer did not keep well, so it was made for immediate consumption.

I wonder if there are ancient beer brew hobbyists out there who try to recreate this. I wouldn't be surprised.

Dump and gone

On Saturday night, I ended up at a Highgate Hill park with hundreds of other people watching the Brisbane Riverfire fireworks display, most noteworthy this year because it apparently really is the last time the city (or anyone in Australia?) will see an F111 dump and burn.

An explanation as to why this is a unique trick of this particular aircraft is given here:

Wing Commander Gray, who will be piloting one of the F-111s on Riverfire night, says the dump and burn is simply down to a quirk of design.

"Every big aircraft that carries a lot of fuel - even big airlines have that ability to be able to dump fuel in case they need to come back to lighten the load," he said.

"With the F-111 the dump port where the fuel comes out is actually between the engines and because we are an after-burner aircraft, which is gives us more power, we basically inject fuel into the exhaust. That's what most fighter-type aircraft do.

"If we're dumping fuel at the same time when we're in afterburner the fuel ignites, whereas in other aircrafts it would just be seen as a vapour stream."

Given that they have always been based at Amberbley, I suspect Brisbane is pretty unique in having this as a regular feature of our fireworks and other displays.

I think, but haven't been able to confirm through Google yet, that the first time it was done here for entertainment purposes was for the Commonwealth Games in 1982. There were four of them that peeled apart while alight, causing some surprised residents to think the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were paying a visit.

Anyhow, the people in the park on Saturday night seemed particularly pumped to see the F111, which did put on 3 particularly long burns this year. Low cloud makes it look brighter too. I've looked at various movies taken of it on Youtube, and I think this is one of the best:

Sydney tiltshrunk

Well, I was in Sydney recently, and I haven’t played with Tiltshiftmaker.com for a while, so here goes: