Thanks, Tim

Tim Robbins, in a Q & A session with The Guardian, ends with a joke I’m guessing I’ve heard before, but had forgotten:

Why didn't Hitler drink gin? It made him angry.

Good work if you can get it

For some reason, it appears JAL used to be the most generous airline in the world when it came to pilot salaries:

JAL pays pilots more than any other company in Japan except ANA, and a lot more than almost any other carrier in the world, for that matter. The average salary for a JAL captain in 2008 was ¥18 million a year  [currently about AUD $223,000] regardless of how many real hours he spent in the air (the standard is 65 hours a month). The new pay system would do away with this guarantee, effectively making pilot pay dependent on hours flown, which has increasingly become an industry norm. In real terms it will mean that JAL pilot pay will drop 20 to 30 percent to about ¥12 million a year..

I must see if I can get a JAL aircraft skin for Flight Simulator. It will make me feel more comfortable.

Not healing themselves

I mentioned recently some Australian research on doctors and their higher rate of suicide.

Now there’s a article in the New York Times on the same topic in the American medical system.  It contains some pretty surprising information, such as this:

For several decades now, studies have consistently shown that physicians have higher rates of suicide than the general population — 40 percent higher for male doctors and a staggering 130 percent higher for female doctors. While research has traced the beginning of this tragic difference to the years spent in medical school, the contributing factors remain murky. Students enter medical school with mental health profiles similar to those of their peers but end up experiencing depression, burnout and other mental illnesses at higher rates. Despite better access to health care, they are more likely to cope by resorting to dysfunctional behaviors like excessive drinking and are less likely to receive the right care or even recognize that they need some kind of intervention.

The widespread biped

The ABC says that some Chinese “scientists” (I wonder what their normal day job is, though) are going to look for their version of the “wild man” again:

Over the years, more than 400 people have claimed sightings of the half-man, half-ape Yeren in a remote, mountainous area of the central province of Hubei, state news agency Xinhua said.

Expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s yielded hair, a footprint, excrement and a sleeping nest suspected of belonging to the Yeren, but there has been no conclusive proof, the report added.

Witnesses describe a creature that walks upright, is more than 2 metres tall and with grey, red or black hair all over its body, Xinhua said.

It’s somewhat interesting, this widespread popularity of bigfoot type mystery creatures in different parts of the world. Although, now that I think about it, I suppose you only hear about them from Tibet/China, North America and Australia. Or do you?

Of course, the internet can answer me, turning up this information in a flash:

Folklore from Europe tells of a creature called the wildman. Like Bigfoot, the European wildman looked something like a human covered all over with a thick coat of hair, and it lived in the wilderness. Beyond these facts, there is not much resemblance between wildmen and Bigfoot. Wildmen could sometimes talk and generally seemed more human-like than Bigfoot.

In fact, European folklore assigned a different origin to the wildman that we do to Bigfoot. The wildman was not a different species. It was thought that any man or woman who wandered in the wilderness, acted like a wildman and ate acorns would gradually grow a thick coat of hair all over the body. Day by day, this person would become less human. The end result was another wildman or wildwoman. This transformation was permanent and could not be reversed, even if the wildman were captured and forced to live according to the rules of civilization.

Well, be careful with the acorn recipe I linked to in the previous post.

Anyway, other sites, like this page from Monstropedia (a handy reference, by the sounds) note that bigfoot-like creatures have been claimed to be seen in many other parts of the world, such as South American and Hawaii. It also notes what I have mentioned here before as one of the most fascinating things I find about sightings of mystery night creatures: how they have often been claimed to be associated with foul smells.

Of course, one explanation could be that they are the citizens of an alternative earth that keep stumbling through the portals between worlds. In which case, on their version of the planet, they keep having mysterious sightings of strange, short, relatively hairless bipedal creatures that come in all sorts of weird colours.

Nuts are our friends

Walnuts seem a particularly good nut to eat, according to this study:

Eating a diet rich in walnuts or walnut oil could help your body deal better with stress, according to a new study from a team of Penn State researchers.

Following other studies which have shown that omega-3 fatty acids -- like the alpha linolenic acid found in walnuts and flax seeds -- can reduce bad cholesterol, Penn State researchers examined 22 healthy adults with elevated bad cholesterol (LDL) levels to see what effect a diet of walnuts and walnut oil might have.

The researchers found that including walnuts and walnut oil in the diet lowered both resting blood pressure and blood pressure responses to stress in the laboratory. To "stress" the participants, researchers had them give a speech or submerge a foot in cold water. "This is the first study to show that walnuts and walnut oil reduce blood pressure during stress..

And in other nut related news: as they don’t make an appearance in this part of the world, I didn’t know you could eat acorns. The New York Times provides a Korean recipe for acorn jelly. It explains:

Acorns were once a dietary staple wherever oak trees took root. Native Americans used acorn flour for baking; Germans roasted the nuts as a coffee substitute, and Berbers in North Africa pressed the fruit into oil.

These days, besides survivalists and squirrels, Koreans are among the few who’d think to find dinner on the front lawn.

You don’t just gnaw on any old acorn, though:

Acorns in their raw state are full of tannins, which are toxic in high doses. To avoid death by dinner, the nuts must be rinsed with water until the compound is thoroughly leached out. Processing time varies depending on the type of oak you choose.

Steve Brill, who leads edible foraging tours of New York City parks and is known as Wildman, says acorns from white oaks are generally less astringent than those from red oaks. He advises avoiding the red variety altogether unless you have access to an unpolluted freshwater stream.

“The ideal process is to put acorns in a weighted sack and set them in the running water for a few weeks,” he said.

And what do you do if you don't have a stream handy? Mr Brill has an eccentric domestic solution:

Mr. Brill...alternatively suggests placing the sack in a toilet tank for a month. Each flush will provide a quick rinse. “The tank isn’t contaminated with sewage,” he said, “but be warned that the tannins will turn the toilet water brown.”

Must stop talking about it

There seems to be an inordinate amount of talk about matters sexual here this week, but it just seems to be the season for odd/interesting reports about it.

First, Mind Hacks referred recently to a column in Psychology Today which gives a quick rundown on the history of “self pleasure.” It is, I think, mainly a summary of the ideas in the book "Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation," which I have read or heard about before, but despite my feeling that it has already had mention here, my (somewhat unreliable) blog search function can’t find it.

So, the core idea of the book is that a couple of centuries of cultural/medicalised hyperbole about the dangers of a near universal male practice was kicked off by a opportunistic crank and his successful book “Onania; or, The Heinous Sin of Self Pollution and all its Frightful Consequences,…etc” in 1715. But the cultural reason why it caught on so readily is explained this way:

The book, it appears, had hit a nerve by tapping into the zeitgeist of a cultural shift, where concerns about privacy were becoming paramount. Masturbation, along with reading printed books--a new technology at the time--had become a symbol for the uncontrolled, uncensored private lives of individuals, including women. Such private power was felt to threaten the social order. The social keepers of the order--the politicians, aristocrats, and professional classes--hence hurried to proclaim the potential dangers embodied in this newly shamed and shameful act.

Sounds as good a theory as any. The rest of the column is full of interesting bits, most of which I've heard of before, and so I will assume most readers have too. But although I knew of the historical connection of hysteria with women’s sexuality, I don’t think I had heard of this extra detail:

Interestingly, masturbation was not considered proper or safe for women even during those times when some were given masturbation treatments by their doctors. Yes, in the late 19th century, doctors occasionally masturbated women who were suffering from ‘hysteria.' It was a nifty Victorian trick: Suppress and deny female sexual knowledge and expression, and when the resulting misery erupts through general manifestations of bodily and emotional discomfort, diagnose the women as ill and have them get sexual release through the desexualized digital (and later mechanical) manipulations of male physicians. All in a day's work!

And for my final un-family friendly story for the week, the New York Times had a story on the village of Puttenham, notable for its ancient church, friendly pub, and being incredibly popular for visitors wanting to have (or simply view) outdoor sex.

This is starting to get up the nose of the locals. (Perhaps an unwise expression in the context, now that I think of it.) Naturally, this is mainly a male activity, and has become a high tech hobby in Britain. The report explains as follows:

Public sex is a popular — and quasi-legal — activity in Britain, according to the authorities and to the large number of Web sites that promote it. (It is treated as a crime only if someone witnesses it, is offended and is willing to make a formal complaint*.) And the police tend to tread lightly in public sex environments, in part because of the bitter legacy of the time when gay sex was illegal and closeted men having anonymous sex in places like public bathrooms were routinely arrested and humiliated.

* well, given the mutual consent involved, that’s hardly surprising.

Anyhow, the residents who would like the Council to do something about the bit of field they feel is too close to town and schools which is prime “dogging” territory are getting limited sympathy. I think this was the most ludicrous line by far:

“It was like, ‘Are you taking this seriously?’ ” Ms. Paterson said. “One cabinet member said, ‘If you close this site, there could be an increase in suicides because these people have nowhere else to go.’ ”

Well, why stop there? As a public anti-suicide measure, councils could designate each local “public sex participation area” by big neon signs, and have red or green lights on public toilets to indicate what use they are currently available for. [Insert symbol for rolling of eyes.]

A spectacular case of a double life

A report in The Guardian, which tells a story so remarkable, I’ll copy it here in full:

The lawyer for a military commander who flew the Queen and other dignitaries around Canada has said his client will plead guilty to murder, sexual assaults and break-ins.

Colonel Russell Williams was the commander of Canada's largest air force base until he was charged this year with the murder of two women, the sexual assault of two others and 82 break-ins during which he stole women's underwear.

The case shocked the country, hurt soldiers' morale and prompted fears that the commander of Canada's most high-profile military base and the man who once flew the country's prime ministers could have been a serial killer.

In 2005 Williams, who was born in England and raised in Canada, was pictured with the Queen and Prince Philip while he served as their pilot during a visit.

Williams waived his right to a preliminary hearing in August and was ordered to stand trial. The 47-year-old is charged with the murder of Jessica Lloyd, 27, whose body was found in February, and Marie Comeau, a 38-year-old corporal under his command who was found dead in her home last November.

He is charged with attacking two other women in separate incidents in September 2009. Most of the homes Williams was accused of breaking into were in Ottawa, where Williams has a house with his wife, and in the Tweed, Ontario, where he lived while he worked at the Trenton military base.

More wacky, deadly, Japanese architecture.

I’ve mentioned here before the fondness modern Japanese architects seem to have for precipitous stairways without rails, balcony levels with low walls, and generally anything that any sensible client would recognize as a death trap for them or their house guests.

Well, I think this distinctive set of apartments in Tokyo probably takes the cake.  Why bother waiting for the resident to slip off the edge of rail-less stairs when you can actually build large holes in the floor!

As I said in a comment at Dezeen, the next logical step is hidden, spring loaded trap doors in the floor, to keep clients on their toes.

Animal thoughts

There’s a really great interview in Salon with the author of a book “Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat” (good title, hey?) about the complicated relationship humans have with animals.

It’s full of fascinating details, such as this bit of history (mentioned particularly in light of the recent puppy drowning Bosnian girl video):

I've been thinking about this. I just went back this morning, and I uncovered a piece in the New York Times from 1877. And it's actually fascinating. They had a stray dog population, so what they did is they rounded up 750 stray dogs. They took them to the East River, and they had a large metal cage -- it took them all day to do this -- they would put 50 dogs at a time, 48 dogs at a time in this metal, iron cage, and lower it into the East River with a crane.

Wow.

Until the animals drowned. And then they would pull them out and they sold the carcasses for their leather, for a dollar each. And then they'd put another 50 dogs in there. And they started doing this at 7:30 in the morning, and they did it well into the afternoon. And so drowning animals was actually an acceptable way of dealing with pet overpopulation in 1877. Now it seems horrifying. I watched that girl toss those puppies into the river, and it was just horrifying.

Yes, times have changed. The author, Hal Herzog, also explains how he thinks the link between animal cruelty as a child and violent, sociopathic behaviour as an adult is a bit overblown:

So the question is, how predictive is this? What I do in the book is, I went around and asked my friends, "Hey, did you ever abuse an animal?" And what I found is what other researchers have found; that, yeah, a lot of people have a history of cruelty.

Margaret Mead once said, "The worst thing that can happen to a kid is to abuse an animal and to get away with it." Because that's going to give him license to be like that later. I don't think the link is as strong as some of the link proponents. I think we should be concerned with childhood cruelty, but not necessarily because these kids are going to turn into sociopaths. I found a striking statement in Darwin's autobiography where he says, "I beat a puppy when I was a child just for the power of it." Charles Darwin.

And earlier in the interview, he explains that the reason it’s hard to “think straight” about animals arises (perhaps unsurprisingly, I suppose) because we love meat. Even most vegetarians:

The fact is, very few people are vegetarians; even most vegetarians eat meat. There have been several studies, including a very large one by the Department of Agriculture, where they asked people one day: Describe your diet. And 5 percent said they were vegetarians. Well, then they called the same people back a couple of days later and asked them about what they ate in the last 24 hours. And over 60 percent of these vegetarians had eaten meat. And so, the fact is, the campaign for moralized meat has been a failure. We actually kill three times as many animals for their flesh as we did when Peter Singer wrote "Animal Liberation" [in 1975].

I wonder if his book addresses one issue: why does it seem that culturally the Chinese (specifically, I mean, those who currently live in China) seem so disinterested in animal welfare?

And one final bit that I had not really reflected on before:

Katherine Grier, who wrote probably the best history of pets in America, said that pet keeping really took off among the middle class between the 1800s and early 1900s was because it was a movement to make children better people. That raising a dog or a cat in your family if you were a kid was actually a way to learn nurturing skills and responsibility and all this stuff. I think there's some truth to that.

Makes sense, I think.

Well, that’s confusing (temperatures up no matter which way you look at it)

There are reports of a new study out in Nature of satellite data of the Sun’s recent behaviour, indicating that despite being in a “quiet”period, it still probably warmed the Earth. 

Here’s the short version in New Scientist, and the longer version in Nature News.  From the latter:

Contrary to expectations, the net amount of solar energy reaching Earth's troposphere — the lowest part of the atmosphere — seems to have been larger in 2007 than in 2004, despite the decline in solar activity over that period.

The spectral changes seem to have altered the distribution of ozone molecules above the troposphere. In a model simulation, ozone abundance declined below an altitude of 45 kilometres altitude in the period 2004–07, and increased further up in the atmosphere.

The modelled changes are consistent with space-based measurements of ozone during the same period.

"We're seeing — albeit limited to a very short period — a very interesting change in solar irradiation with remarkably similar changes in ozone," says Haigh. "It might be a coincidence, and it does require verification, but our findings could be too important to not publish them now."

Meanwhile, Roy Spencer’s most recent satellite data shows September was very hot globally, and Roy is puzzled as to why.   (The on set of  la Nina should mean temperatures heading down.)

Gee, at some point he might even have to revise his just published book (arguing that warming will be minimal).  Ha.

Under the sheets

Not much science attracting my attention this week, so it's back to the bedroom. Or car or playground, or where ever it is teenagers engage in an activity at too young an age:

The survey of 8800 year 10 and year 12 students in 300 schools around Australia was taken in three snapshots between 1997 and 2008.

The proportion of year 10 boys who had had sex rose slightly from 23 per cent to 27 per cent between 1997 and 2008, while for year 10 girls the rise was more significant, up from 16 per cent to 27 per cent.

In year 12, the number of boys who reported having had sex dipped slightly from 47 per cent in 1997 to 44 per cent in 2008, while the rate for girls rose from 48 per cent to 61 per cent.

Regardless of what you think about teenagers and sex (although my readership is probably unlikely to include hipsters without children who like to say "well, what's wrong with teenage sex anyway. As long as it's safe and done responsibly, I wouldn't mind my teenager ...etc,) surely everyone would have to be a bit puzzled about figures suggesting that the rate of school age girls reporting sex is much higher than for boys the same age.

And of course, the other thing is that they are not doing it so responsibly anyway:

Condom use had not increased since 1997, with 51 per cent of respondents in 2008 reporting they always used condoms.

Study co-author Anthony Smith said the increase in the proportion of students who had had more than one sexual partner potentially posed serious public health risks.

And back to The Age's version:

One of the authors of the La Trobe University research, Paul Aguis, said the lack of condom use was worrying because sexually transmitted infections among young adults had risen dramatically in the past 10 years and the survey showed only moderate knowledge of the infections. He said the rate of teenage pregnancy in Australia was also among the highest in the developed world. ''The notifications for chlamydia have risen year on year for the last decade and show no real sign of slowing,'' he said.

Meanwhile, if you want a highly detailed account of current sexual practices in America, William Saletan has a somewhat salacious article on it in Slate.

What's most surprising in it is the extent to which it would appear that sexual experimentation is indeed on the rise, and that bisexual experience is more common than I would have expected. As Saletan notes:

Apparently, a lot of people try gay sex, but only about half stick with it. By ages 18-19, 10 percent of men say they've performed fellatio. That number drops among men in their 20s and 30s. But among men in their 40s and 50s, 13 percent say they've done it, and 14 percent to 15 percent say they've received it from another man. Meanwhile, 11 percent of men aged 20-24 say they've received anal sex. For unknown reasons, that number declines in the next higher age bracket but then steadily rises in succeeding brackets, leveling off at 9 percent among men in their 40s and 50s.

I don't know, but those figures seem a bit suspicious to me. Are we sure there was even the correct understanding of the question here?

If they are accurate, I guess the other thing they mean is that, if Americans are like the English, few of them having the occasional same sex encounter would class themselves as "gay". It's probably a case of score one for Foucault, I think. (See the summary of his position in this interesting article by Keith Windshuttle.)

UPDATE: reading The Guardian's take on that American survey, I'm even more suspicious of some of the figures:

Of the 14- to 16-year-old boys and girls surveyed, only around 10% said they were engaging in any kind of sexual activity with a partner – whereas 62% of boys, and 40% of girls, in the same age group were happy to admit to masturbating on their own during the last year.

Oh come on. The true figure for that age range of boys who masturbated in the last year would easily be double that. That's right - 124%. (Female readers may be surprised by the figure, but if so, you're underestimating teenage boys.)

In the other direction what about this?:

Nearly 15% of women in their 30s, for example, reported having performed oral sex on another woman at least once in their lifetime, while 13% of men over 40 said they had done the same to another man and 50% of men aged 50-59 said they had received it.

Half of the men who were teenagers in the 1960's say they have received it from a man? I remain deeply skeptical.

I wouldn't mind betting that this has something to do with it:

(rather than through face-to-face interviews, the new survey was carried out online, a method believed to encourage more open and honest responses)

It's also easier to brag, misunderstand, or not pay attention.

Religion, sex and politics

Let’s talk about all those things that are dangerous to mention at a dinner party with people you’ve only recently met:

* Here’s a bit of trivia, but I have been meaning to say this for some time: this painting of John Henry Newman always reminds me of a young Jonathan Miller. Am I right, or am I right?

* I recently found an article on why Catholics don't go to confession anymore which I thought was pretty good. (It noted the recent change in the concept of sin from the strictly personal to more "corporate" or social sense as being in large par responsible.) But now I can't find it again. In any event, I was going to add that I think the power relationship between priest and penitent is also now an issue, with people no longer confident of the confession of sins as an anonymous exercise which does not change the relationship between them and their parish priest. (And, sure, you could travel out of your parish to get true anonymity, but that is a bit troublesome.)

So, I thought, couldn't the internet help out? Confessions by Skype to an anonymous priest who could be anywhere in the world? But it seems Rome has already dismissed this as a possibility back in 2001. Yet, would it be better to have some form of one-on-one confession than none at all? I think the fact that sins are stated out loud is important, rather than merely thought about during, say, the penitential part of the Mass. (Just in the way that the spoken declaration of love carries more power to the person saying it than the mere thought of it.)

Hence my wish list for reform of the Catholic Church grows: relax celibacy rules for priests; and get with the internet for a real revival of confession.

* A few weeks ago, there was a news story about the rate of HIV amongst American gay men which I forgot to mention:

One in five sexually active homosexual men in the US has HIV, and almost half of those who carry the virus do not know they are infected, a study has found.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention tested more than 8000 men in 21 cities in 2008, and found that even as infection rates were climbing among men who have sex with men, young, sexually active gay men and those in minority groups were least likely to know their health status, while the rates of other at-risk groups - heterosexuals and intravenous drug users - were falling.

Aren’t they just extraordinarily high figures after all these years of attempted education and behaviour modification?

* In other news I overlooked noting earlier, everyone was also surprised last month that a big survey indicated that Britain was not as gay as it seems. (1% identifying as gay, .5% as bisexual.) People say that, as it was based on doorstep and telephone questioning, there may well be some under-acknowledgement, but no one seems to expect that the “true” rate is dramatically higher.

It certainly seems that the gay lobby has a political and general agenda setting clout far beyond their numbers.

* I’ve taken to trusting Tim Colebatch’s economic/political commentary of late, and today’s column talks about the issue of cutting back government spending. He seems to believe it is more a case of tax reform needed, rather than urgent spending cuts.

* Green preferences to Labor were no higher in the recent election than at the 2007 election. In fact they were slightly less. That’s a bit surprising.

* Finally, I liked Charlie Brooker’s column on the Franzen book mix up, where some file mix up meant the wrong version of Freedom was published in some numbers. Charlie writes of his own technique:

At first glance, this looks like an almighty disaster, albeit an understandable one. Like anyone who's ever suffered the traumatic loss of the only copy of a crucial file, whenever I'm writing scripts I tend to end up saving about 1,500 different versions along the way, leading to a directory full of bewildering titles such as FINALSCRIPT2a.DOC and FINALSCRIPT1b-IGNORE-ALL-OTHERS-AND-USE-THIS.DOC and FINALSCRIPT1c- I-AM-SPARTACUS.DOC.

Tired

Went away for the weekend. Feel tired.

Four Corners looks interesting tonight. Most likely will be a post due after I see that.

The assimilation begins...

Now look, I wouldn't go out and buy one, OK?

But, if through a particular deal that seemed good anyway, a sales rep was going to throw one in, I wouldn't knock one back.

I found out last night that it enables me to do something in bed that I have never done before, and it gave me considerable pleasure. My wife was able to join in too, but really, even if she wasn't there I would still have enjoyed it. Perhaps in a different way, but it would still be enjoyable.

Strangely, but it may be their normal practice, I suppose, it comes with no instructions. I think it is assumed that everyone is so used to using it, of course instructions are not necessary.

I'll report later once the novelty has worn off. In the meantime, I will be away a short time while I am being assimilated.

Testing

Just testing a few things. You may safely ignore this post if it changes.

Who said hung parliaments were a bad thing?

I don’t think any commentator predicted the outbreak of good behaviour during Answer Time yesterday.   Annabel Crabb explains:

You see, Question Time used to feature common displays of rowdiness, after which the Speaker would ritually expel the troublemakers.

Some MPs were regular warmers of the bench; Wilson Tuckey used to be especially naughty on a Thursday, which cynics used to ascribe to the Qantas flight schedule to Perth (early sin-binning equals home by tea-time).

But in this new chamber, suspension from the House now entails more serious consequences than an early minute and the chance of a televised flounce-out.

These days, suspension or expulsion could mean the difference between winning and losing legislation in the Parliament.

But the best anecdote from her column is this:

Could the delicate balance of the new brevity requirements withstand its most gruelling acid test - a ministerial answer from The Hon Kevin Michael Rudd, MP?

The four-minute system met its nemesis at Question Twelve, when Melissa Parkes, Labor's Member for Fremantle, asked Mr Rudd to tell the chamber what was going on in Pakistan.

Mr Rudd rose, and opened with an acknowledgment of Australia's responsibility to help Pakistan recover from its dreadful floods.

"When you have a friend in need..." he began.

And then drew breath. Which gave an Opposition heckler just enough opportunity to holler: "Don't call Julia!" whereupon the place fell apart.

Nothing new, I think

Here's a skeptical take from the Washington Post on the National Press Club "UFOs have interfered with nuclear weapons" conference the other day.

The events described are interesting, and have been know about in UFO circles for a long time, but the main problem was the press conference did not (as far as I can tell) add anything substantially new to what was already known.

Reports of UFOs being “interested” in nuclear weapons facilities have been around for a long time.  As to the military’s general interest in them,  the sensible journalist and author Bryan Appleyard has commented that he's been told by sources he considers reliable that US radar tracks have been taken as convincing proof by some within the military that unexplained objects have zoomed around our atmosphere. (He's written a whole book about aliens, but I haven't read it, and it apparently is more interested in the cultural aspects of the phenomena.) In any event, it would seem logical to say that if nuts and bolts type of UFOs exist, the US military would have some evidence of them.

A tad speculative

New Scientist explains that there’s a new idea about the end of the universe around – it just runs out of time:

"We could run into the end of time," Ben Freivogel tells a seminar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Several colleagues seem nonplussed, and one Nobel laureate looks downright exasperated. "I'm aware that this sounds like a crazy conclusion," Freivogel admits, generating a round of what sounds like relieved laughter. But perhaps their relief is short-lived.

The nature of time, our perception of it and even whether it exists at all are hot topics for both physicists and philosophers. But Freivogel isn't pushing a strange new concept of time.

His idea is arguably even more baffling. He thinks that time, as described by Einstein's theory of general relativity, could simply end in our universe, taking us with it. He gives us another 5 billion years or so before the axe falls (see "Five billion years to go", below).

However, the article goes on to explain that this is all very speculative, and it seems not so many are convinced that it makes sense. Good. Although, I must say, if cosmologists came up with a theory in which time and the universe could end at any minute, it would probably be adopted by Christians as the justification for the Gospel expectation that the end of the world could sneak up on us at any minute, in the same way that Genesis is seen to be reflected in the Big Bang. (In fact, the idea that the universe is a giant simulation being run on someone else's computer already gives us that possibility, I suppose; but theologians probably don't want to run with that idea because it might mean that God is a pimply alien teenager.)

Tuesday's list

There doesn't seem much that is blogworthy at the moment, but there's always something:

* Discover magazine looks at a "zero carbon" city that has been partially completed in UAE. It links to a New York Times article about it, which is extremely critical of it being a "gated community". But there are not enough photos for my liking.

* Hey, there's another critic who doesn't care for Franzen and Freedom.

* A neuroscientist and writer explains why he likes to call himself a "possibilian". It's just a fancy name for an agnostic who likes science fiction ideas, I reckon. I think I count as a Christian with possiblian interests.

* Have a look at the video at this link to see a Japanese apartment in which you would never, ever want to wake up with a hangover.

That's the second biggest prize cup I've ever seen

From the Japan Times, a photo of the winner of the Emperor's Cup at the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament:



That's ridiculous. Clearly, you have to be a Sumo wrestler to be able to hold the thing without falling over. (In fact, I suppose it explains why Sumo have to be so fat :) .)