India is home to nearly a fifth of the world's population and around 2020 it is projected to overtake China as the most populous nation on Earth.
How vegetarians are seen has shifted radically over time. During the Inquisition, the Roman Catholic Church declared vegetarians to be heretics, and a similar line of persecutions occurred in 12th century China (Kellman, 2000). In the earlier half of the twentieth century, the sentiment toward vegetarians remained distinctly negative, with the decision not to eat meat being framed as deviant and worthy of suspicion.Well, we all know about Hitler now, don't we...
Major Hyman S. Barahal (1946), then head of the Psychiatry Section of Mason General Hospital, Brentwood, wrote openly that he considered vegetarians to be domineering and secretly sadistic, and that they “display little regard for the suffering of their fellow human beings” (p. 12). In this same era, it was proposed that vegetarianism was an underlying cause of stammering, the cure for which was a steady diet of beefsteak.
Some links of some interest:
* small, modular, nuclear power continues to be developed, but not without some financial issues.
* Russian cosmonaut says they ought to find a good cave for a moon base. I agree. Lunar cave exploring is a topic inadequately covered in science fiction, as far as I know, too.
* American lunar scientist says you could build a decent sized moon base using tele-operated robotics before you send astronauts there. First job: dig up some water at the poles. Easier said than done, and sounds rather improbable. But whatever happened to the idea that a private company had, maybe during the 1980’s as I think I read it in Omni magazine: put a tele-operated lunar rover on the Moon and let people on earth pay for time controlling it. You would need it to be in a scenic part, though. An hour of trundling across a flat plain is hardly going to be worth it.
* NASA has been thinking about using “fuel depots” in space instead of having to launch a spaceship full of fuel to get where it needs to go. There are, however, some obvious problems:
Sounds a bit improbable, again.Propellant depots carry risks, too. Fuels like liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen must be kept at ultracold temperatures and, unless the depots were heavily insulated, would boil away over time. And transferring fuel in the weightlessness of space is not straightforward, although perhaps simply setting the depot and spacecraft into a slow spin would generate enough force to push the fuel into the spacecraft.
* Somebody’s been studying sea monkeys ™, it would seem, to learn about their fluid dynamics. Why one would remains a significant mystery of the universe.
They say their results line up with previously published studies and suggest that the average global land temperature has risen by roughly 0.9 °C since the 1950s.
Muller says he is surprised at how well the findings line up with previous analyses, which he takes as evidence that the various scientific teams working on these data did indeed go about their work "in a truly unbiased manner".
And, The Economist still doesn’t get it. The issue of “the world is warming” is not one that climate skeptics question, it is the magnitude and causes.
The potato used to be considered something of a wonder food. Grown originally in South America, its introduction to Europe literally transformed agriculture.
Before the introduction of the potato, those in Ireland, England and continental Europe lived mostly off grain, which grew inconsistently in regions with a wet, cold climate or rocky soil. Potatoes grew in some conditions where grain could not, and the effect on the population was overwhelming.I hope you noticed the title of the book in there. I don't believe I have ever seen the word "esculent" before. Let's double check the dictionary: a thing, esp. a vegetable, fit to be eaten. Well, we learn something every day.
"In Switzerland, for instance, the potato arrived in the early 18th Century and you can see over and over again as people started growing potatoes, the population grew," says John Reader, author of The Potato: A History of the Propitious Esculent.
"Birth rates rose, infant mortality improved, women became more fecund and all of that can be absolutely attributed to the potato."
For decades, potatoes were one of the most reliable sources of energy. They grew when other grains and vegetables could not, they required little processing once grown, and they packed a healthy dose of nutrients.
That is why Meredith Hughes, managing director of the Potato Museum, is not worried about pockets of anti-potato sentiment. "I don't agree that the potato is vilified," she says. "I think the potato is just taking off."Actually, given that the potato is becoming more popular in China, she could have a point about the potato "just taking off".
Ms Hughes and her family have built up the largest private collection of potato artefacts, currently located in New Mexico, but in search a permanent home. Both she and the museum are unaffiliated with the potato industry.
"The potato is an incredibly influential food," she says. "It has changed the course of history, it has influenced popular culture. It has saved people from starvation."
There is talk that Rudd is wooing Bob Katter so he can dispense with the support of Andrew Wilkie and the pesky pokies tax.What? There is nothing "tax" about voluntary pre-commitment for pokies at all. Yet this same line had been used by Channel Nine spokesperson last week when they wrote about how it was a political ad was spoken during a high rating rugby league match:
''The comments relating to the federal government proposed poker machine tax reflect the views of the Nine Network regarding matters directly affecting the NRL community,'' she wrote, again misconstruing the pre-commitment policy as a tax.This is a bit of a convenient mistake that keeps getting repeated, isn't it?
Director of Monash IVF Professor Gab Kovacs said that women should not be fooled into thinking that freezing their eggs for social reasons offered a "guaranteed family in the fridge".
Fertility clinics have begun targeting their services to women in their 20s and 30s, but Professor Kovacs warned women that the success rate from egg freezing was low and that women couldn't rely on it later in life, Fairfax newspapers report.
"I think they should be working harder to find a partner or changing their criteria for Mr Right," Professor Kovacs said.
"Maybe there is no Mr Right and you have to settle for Mr Not-Too-Bad. There is no such thing as a perfect person for anybody, and even if they're perfect now, they won't be perfect in five or 10 years time."
Egg freezing costs between $10,000 and $14,000 per cycle is not covered by Medicare if done for non-medical reasons.Of course, in the comments following there are a smattering of women saying "well, I only got married late and had my first child at 38, these concerns about infertility are overblown. You hang out for the right man, girls!" which probably annoys fertility clinic doctors no end, because they actually know what the figures are.
Valerie Solanas was a radical feminist who believed in the violent creation of an all-female society. In 1967 she asked Warhol to produce her play Up Your Ass, but he lost the script and Solanas started demanding payment. Finally, in June 1968, she turned up at the Factory and shot him in the chest. It was a grievous wound – Warhol had to wear a corset for the rest of his life to, as he put it, “keep my insides in” – and he only just survived.As Appleyard notes, his work went down in quality after this, but you do get the feeling Bryan still has a soft spot for him.
Coming out of the new Tintin film directed by Steven Spielberg, I found myself, for a few seconds, too stunned and sickened to speak; for I had been obliged to watch two hours of literally senseless violence being perpetrated on something I loved dearly. In fact, the sense of violation was so strong that it felt as though I had witnessed a rape....As someone says in comments:
The sense of outrage is palpable, and even after two days I find myself moved to pity; to pick up my shuddering, weeping copy of Hergé's The Secret of the Unicorn, cradle it in my arms, and whisper soothingly to it that everything will be all right; but all the time knowing that, after this, it won't be; nothing will be the same again. The forces of marketing, and of global idiocy, will see to that. But I will try to make things better as well as I can and remind you of some of the things that made Hergé's original one of the consistently great works of art of the 20th century.
Dare I suggest you get out a bit more?
Apple claims the Korean technology company ''blatantly copied'' its highly successful tablet computer and infringed at least two patents related to touch screens and the gestures controlling them.
This situation has lead to one of strangest police task force names:For our own inquiries, we posed as local businessmen and asked around for a witch doctor that could bring prosperity to our local construction company. We were soon introduced to Awali. He led us into a courtyard behind his home, and as if to welcome us he and his helpers wrestled a goat to the ground and slit its throat.
"This animal has been sacrificed to bring luck to us all," Awali explained. He then demanded a fee of $390 (£250) for the ritual and asked us to return in a few days.
At our next meeting, Awali invited us into his shrine, which is traditionally built from mud bricks with a straw roof. Inside, the floor is littered with herbs, face masks, rattles and a machete.
The witch doctor explained that this meeting was to discuss the most powerful spell - the sacrifice of a child.
"There are two ways of doing this," he said. "We can bury the child alive on your construction site, or we cut them in different places and put their blood in a bottle of spiritual medicine."
Awali grabbed his throat. "If it's a male, the whole head is cut off and his genitals. We will dig a hole at your construction site, and also bury the feet and the hands and put them all together in the hole."
The Anti-Human Sacrifice Police Task Force, launched in response to the growing numbers, says the ritual murder rate has slowed, citing a figure of 38 cases since 2006.It's a bit like living in a place where a Grimms' Fairy Tale could actually happen.
In bringing the Parliament to this point, Julia Gillard is picking up the can that has been kicked down the road by John Howard, Kevin Rudd and, in his own way, Malcolm Turnbull. It's maimed all of them, this diabolical issue, but Julia Gillard is still standing, and has today pulled off a legislative feat that - under the circumstances - deserves recognition even among the non-enthusiasts.
Bringing regional independents together with the Greens, to reach agreement on a fiendishly difficult economic reform like this one? Convincing the Greens to exempt petrol from the scheme?
Prevailing upon Bob Brown - hardly an International Man of Steelmaking, ordinarily - to rescue $300 million in assistance to steelmakers after Tony Abbott refused to vote for it?
All of these outcomes looked fairly unlikely as the New Paradigm was lowered nervously into place, and yet they have come to pass. Where her predecessor ached to be popular, this prime minister has made unpopularity into something of a personal art form.In light of this, I find those on the Left who want to see Gillard replaced by Rudd, like John Quiggin, to be exercising perversely strange logic. This is actually an achievement by Gillard, and she should be given the opportunity to reap any benefits from finally being seen to take action. Success on the mining tax should also be seen as an achievement by the Labor base, and that is another thing Rudd didn't achieve.
A three-point rise in the Newspoll primary vote for the ALP has avoided the unthinkable for the Gillard government of going to 25 per cent or below to have less support than the combined vote for the Greens and various odds and sods, but the broader view of this survey of public opinion about Labor - as well as the personal standing of Julia Gillard - is devastating. The electorate has not only stopped listening to Labor but rejected it on every front.In fact, the way I read the poll, Labor is still preferred outright on IR and education, arguably has more people favouring their position on climate change if you make the assumption that the substantial number for "someone else" are mostly Greens, and is even pegging on health.
ASYLUM seekers would receive better protections in Malaysia under the Gillard government's proposed transfer deal than being held in indefinite mandatory detention in Australia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office has said.
Australia ''would fall well short'' of the human rights criteria demanded of Malaysia under the deal signed in July, the UNHCR's regional representative, Richard Towle, has told a parliamentary inquiry....
''In the context of the Malaysian arrangements, the assurances of legal stay and community-based reception for all transferees can be seen as a more positive protection environment that protracted - and in some cases indefinite - detention that many face here in Australia, provided the assurances are carefully monitored,'' Mr Towle wrote.
The High Court struck down the refugee swap partly because Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention. But Mr Towle said many signatories did not meet the ''the fundamental protection safeguards that were expected of Malaysia under the arrangements''.
The UNHCR has also dismissed a ''misperception'' that asylum seekers could be caned, saying the document to be issued proving their legal status would have been ''a significant safeguard''.
Mr Towle said the Malaysian government also planned to extend legal work rights to all refugees, not just those sent from Australia. This would allow refugees to access insurance and health schemes.
Their research found much higher rates of serious brain and eye disease among U.S. infants with congenital toxoplasmosis than among similar infants in Europe, where the prenatal testing is routine....The reason for the different outcomes between affect US and European babies:
Eighty-four percent of the North American infants studied had serious complications of the parasitic infection, including calcium deposits in the brain, water on the brain and eye disease that caused visual impairment or blindness. By contrast, few European infants had these problems – for instance, about 17 percent of French infants with the infection develop complications.“It was a shock,” said Jose Montoya, MD, the study’s senior author and an associate professor of Medicine in Infectious Diseases at Stanford. “We were dismayed to see so many little ones with severe eye disease, hydrocephalus and brain calcifications.”
...effective medications exist to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the Toxoplasma gondii parasite – and babies who receive these drugs in utero have much lower rates of complications than the infants in Montoya’s study, whose mothers did not get the prophylactic meds.The test is cheap too. I wonder if it is done in Australia?
