Body and soul

The extent to which, during my lifetime, Catholic devotion and teaching has moved away from emphasising Mary is something which often crosses my mind as an interesting topic which seems to attract little, or inadequate, attention academically.  (Not that I have really gone looking for it, I suppose.  But why isn't this really major, and rapid, change in Church emphasis, at least in the Western branch of Catholicism, more discussed?)

While not directly on that point, Phillip Jenkins here notes some relatively early "alternative gospels" which talk about Mary's death, and says they are little studied, which he thinks is a pity.  He writes:

One reason for this, of course, is that for most Protestants (and some Catholics), the ideas I am describing – the whole Marian lore – is so bizarre, so outré, so sentimental, and so blatantly superstitious that it just does not belong within the proper study of Christianity. If anything, it’s actively anti-Christian. Even scholars prepared to wrestle with the intricacies of Gnostic cosmic mythology throw up their hands at what they consider a farrago of medieval nonsense.

As I’ll argue in a forthcoming post, that response is profoundly mistaken. If we don’t understand devotion to Mary, together with such specifics as the Assumption, we are missing a very large portion of the Christian experience throughout history. It’s not “just medieval,” any more than it is a trivial or superstitious accretion.

A sarcastic Jericho

Joe Hockey wants an external auditor – I volunteer for the job | Greg Jericho | Business | theguardian.com

Ha!  Greg Jericho gets very sarcastic in his column, explaining why Hockey's "we must audit the Treasury's forecasting" was political grandstanding bumpf.

More "something you don't see every day"

 

Apparently, a privately owned lion was found wandering Kuwaiti streets, and ended up in a police car.  From the report:

Police are seeking the owner of the lion, believed to be someone who was illegally rearing it as a pet in a country where such animals are sometimes considered status symbols. 

   I wonder if the RSPCA there takes in all strays?

On thin ice

Arctic ice continues to thin, and thin, European satellite reveals - CSMonitor.com

More Traditionalist concern, I expect

Archbishop Pietro Parolin says in an interview that celibacy in Roman Catholic Church is open for discussion

Archbishop Pietro Parolin said in response to an interview question with Venezuelan newspaper El Universal that “celibacy is not an institution but look, it is also true that you can discuss (it) because as you say this is not a dogma, a dogma of the church.” Parolin also noted, even though the church is not a democratic institution, it must "reflect the democratic spirit of the times and adopt a collegial way of governing."

According to the National Catholic Reporter, Parolin’s comments “are raising eyebrows today, with some wondering if they herald looming changes in Catholic teaching and practice.”

Traditionalists must be getting agitated

You don’t have to believe in God to go to heaven, Pope Francis assures sceptics 

The Pope has again said conciliatory things to atheists?   He must be starting to concern traditionalist Catholics of the Michael Voris, Father Z variety.  The latter has not commented yet, but surely something is coming...

A call out to Catallaxy

Gab, and any other woman, who reads this morning's open thread and simply passes over a comment made by a new regular at 6.25, is an absolute disgrace.

The future may be panda powered

Study: Panda Poo May Be Coup for Future of Biofuels | Climate Central

Good to see innovative uses for pandas:

Brown’s team has found more than 40 different microbes living in the guts of giant pandas at the Memphis Zoo that could help decompose the corn cobs and other tough plant materials so it can be more easily and efficiently processed to make ethanol.

The study is using the feces from giant pandas Ya Ya and Le Le. Pandas, which have a short digestive tract, feast on a diet of tough bamboo. Bacteria with extremely potent enzymes break down the woody bamboo efficiently and quickly.

“The time from eating to defecation is comparatively short in the panda, so their microbes have to be very efficient to get nutritional value out of the bamboo,” Brown said. “And efficiency is key when it comes to biofuel production — that’s why we focused on the microbes in the giant panda.”

Brown’s team found the specific bacteria that break down lignocellulose into simple sugars, which can be fermented into bioethanol, and they found other bacteria that can transform those sugars into oils and fats for biodiesel production.

The microbes in pandas’ guts are accessible via their feces and can easily be cultured, Brown said.

What's better than acid on your teeth? Hot acid!

Coca-cola to introduce world’s first canned hot fizzy drink in Japan - Asia - World - The Independent

I wonder if they have buffered the acidity in this drink some way; because I can't imagine that heating up soft drink does any wonders for your tooth enamel.

Hormones are complicated

Middle-Aged Men Can Blame Estrogen, Too - NYTimes.com

The article starts:

 It is the scourge of many a middle-aged man: he starts getting a pot belly, using lighter weights at the gym and somehow just doesn’t have the sexual desire of his younger years.

The obvious culprit is testosterone, since men gradually make less of the male sex hormone as years go by. But a surprising new answer is emerging, one that doctors say could reinvigorate the study of how men’s bodies age. Estrogen, the female sex hormone, turns out to play a much bigger role in men’s bodies than previously thought, and falling levels contribute to their expanding waistlines just as they do in women’s. 

The discovery of the role of estrogen in men is “a major advance,” said Dr. Peter J. Snyder, a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, who is leading a big new research project on hormone therapy for men 65 and over. Until recently, testosterone deficiency was considered nearly the sole reason that men undergo the familiar physical complaints of midlife.

What a complicated design is the human body, heh? 

Is that right?

Coalition rhetoric a real confidence builder

Michael Pascoe talks about the self fulfilling prophecy of improved business confidence after the election, but ends on this note:

 It is a little bemusing that the only concrete decision taken by the yet-to-be-sworn-in government is to waste money – having to pay Steve Bracks a couple of years’ wages for nothing amidst suggestions that the New York consul general’s post will instead go to a Liberal Party worthy.

Is that right, the bit about the 2 years salary?

In any case, it's not a good sign of the Coalition swinging the axe for party political reasons.

More attention to reef needed

Coral will dissolve if CO2 emissions don't change

I think that, coming out as it did during an election campaign, this story about new and significant sounding research didn't attract much attention.

I did see it at the time, but forgot to come back to it.  I also thought to myself that Ove Hoegh-Guldberg has long been very pessimistic on everything he says about the reef, so maybe this press release is over-stating it too, but now that I read the detail about what they did, it seems I was wrong. Here's the abstract itself:

Increasing atmospheric partial pressure of CO₂ (pCO₂) is a major threat to coral reefs, but some argue that the threat is mitigated by factors such as the variability in the response of coral calcification to acidification, differences in bleaching susceptibility, and the potential for rapid adaptation to anthropogenic warming. However the evidence for these mitigating factors tends to involve experimental studies on corals, as opposed to coral reefs, and rarely includes the influence of multiple variables (e.g., temperature and acidification) within regimes that include diurnal and seasonal variability. Here, we demonstrate that the inclusion of all these factors results in the decalcification of patch-reefs under business-as-usual scenarios and reduced, although positive, calcification under reduced-emission scenarios. Primary productivity was found to remain constant across all scenarios, despite significant bleaching and coral mortality under both future scenarios. Daylight calcification decreased and nocturnal decalcification increased sharply from the preindustrial and control conditions to the future scenarios of low (reduced emissions) and high (business-as-usual) increases in pCO₂. These changes coincided with deeply negative carbonate budgets, a shift toward smaller carbonate sediments, and an increase in the abundance of sediment microbes under the business-as-usual emission scenario. Experimental coral reefs demonstrated highest net calcification rates and lowest rates of coral mortality under preindustrial conditions, suggesting that reef processes may not have been able to keep pace with the relatively minor environmental changes that have occurred during the last century. Taken together, our results have serious implications for the future of coral reefs under business-as-usual environmental changes projected for the coming decades and century. 

But no, we were probably too distracted at the time it came out by the searing political story about how  Kevin Rudd failed to chat to a make up artist. 

Failed to rise

If there is but one small consolation out of the election, it's that it would seem to show that, even in Queensland, there might be limits on the nuttiness that people will vote for.

I forgot to post about him before the election, but unknowispeaksense had alerted us to a candidate in Capricornia for the "Rise Up Australia" party who had a particularly paranoid streak.  Quoting from a newpaper:

CAPRICORNIA’S newest federal candidate believes the United Nations contracted a private company to cause the floods in Central Queensland in 2010 and 2011.

Rise Up Australia Party’s Paul Lewis yesterday expressed concern his views might not get him elected....


The self-proclaimed born-again Christian said he had visited friends in the region over the past six years.  During his visits in the past three years he said it was obvious “weather manipulation” technology was being used.

He said aerial tankers bought by a private company from the US defence force were sub-contracted by the UN to spray chemicals on clouds over CQ in 2010, causing high levels of rainfall.

And remember who helped launch Rise Up Australia - none other than Christopher Monckton. 

"Rise Up" calls for a cut in the intake of Muslims, and (obviously) thinks climate change is a UN conspiracy, so should go over a treat with many of the commentators at Catallaxy, one would expect.

But as it turns out, Paul Lewis did not do so well - he got 379 votes according to the latest count.  Even for the Senate, where Rise Up did run, that's not enough.  I wonder, how did people recognize him so well as the nuttiest out of a good field of nutters?   Is the name "Rise Up Australia" just over some fine line that marks "obviously crazy"?

Speaking of Catallaxy, I noticed someone there yesterday in a thread claim that a policeman a couple of decades ago had told him that (this would be pre the Howard gun buy back) most murderous shootings in Australia were gay men killing other men in fights over lovers. (It's just that it's media silence that we never knew that, apparently.)   This sounds a wildly implausible claim, does it not?   But it came to mind when I noticed this today from Salon:

Last Saturday, the hosts of the Minnesota-based radio show “The Sons of Liberty,” Bradlee Dean and Jake McMillan, claimed that homosexuals are responsible for half of all murders committed in large cities. Where they would get such a wildly inaccurate notion, nobody knows. Facts or actual information seldom interfere with the dissemination of hatred.

Dean, who is founder and executive director of a nonprofit Christian youth organization, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (wow, doesn’t that Mad Max-inspired name make Christianity seem appealing?), said he was quoting a New York City judge named John Martagh. But, after just a little digging, the Huffington Post revealed the quote came from a 1992 newspaper column by an evangelical loony who never cited his statistical source, but is still quoted from time to time in anti-gay rhetoric. So this is just one of those lies that gets repeated enough it becomes a kind of truth for the liars.

Well, I had missed the "killer gays" meme back in the 1990's, but it good to see that it gets an airing at the ABC collective.  (You remember - the Australian, Bolt, Catallaxy.)

Dark energy and fat gravitons

Fat gravity particle gives clues to dark energy 

As explained at the link, one possible explanation of  dark energy would be if gravitons had a tiny, tiny mass.

(Is it just me, or does Nature News seem to be going a bit "New Scientist" in its reporting of some rather speculative theories?  Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Another from the "Only in Japan" file

Can this cuddly mascot soften Japan prison image? | GulfNews.com

How does Japan help people feel better about a prison in the neighbourhood?  By making a mascot, of course:



Heh.

Storing energy works for solar, not so much for wind

Scientists calculate the energy required to store wind and solar power on the grid

A bit of a complicated study looking at the issue of storing energy from renewables.

It seems that with wind power, there is not much point in trying to store its energy when there is excess available, but that's not the case for solar.  

The real losers under an Abbott government...

...could well be the right wing schlock jocks who presumably have much less to get their dander up now that the world has been put to rights by a Coalition government.  (Sarcasm, of course.)

Even worse could be the fate of Michael Smith, who entertains himself and a clutch of wingnut types by playing amateur sleuth to what Julia Gillard did in her law office 20 years ago.  He'll probably spend the next 6 months trying to get the Abbott government to call a judicial enquiry into it; but if Abbott has any sense (yes, I know, a dubious proposition) he'll avoid the appearance of a vindictive witch hunt that no one sensible has reason to care about and reject the call.   Then, if  no police charges appear against Gillard (which is what I have always thought the likely outcome, given the shocking reputation of the main witness against her), what is Smith going to blog about?

For that matter, Andrew Bolt is going to have a harder time working himself into a frenzy, isn't he, when his favourite Labor targets are gone from the leadership and government?   I think I read somewhere that Insiders thrashed Bolt Report in the ratings in the election run up, but I can't find that story now.  Good to see that people know where to go for serious political coverage, anyway.

And the same general thing goes for all the radio right wing talk back.  Sure, the repeal or not of the carbon tax will keep them going for a while, but not for 3 years.

Odd but interesting

I wish the author hadn't given it a silly title, but this explanation of new (and previous) research on testosterone, testicle size and parenting (and male behaviour generally) makes for interesting reading.

Here's the quote

Lenore Taylor referred to this last night on Q&A, but I see that Michelle Grattan had already quoted it on line:

In all Abbott’s talk about the mandate he will have, it is worth noting his own view in other circumstances. He wrote after the Howard government’s 2007 defeat: “[Opposition leader Brendan] Nelson is right to resist the intellectual bullying inherent in talk of ‘mandates’. What exactly is Rudd’s mandate anyway: to be an economic conservative or an old-fashioned Christian socialist? The elected opposition is no less entitled than the elected government to exercise judgement and to try to keep its election commitments.”

Thanks for explaining that to us, Tony!

I trust the new Labor leader will quote that back at the government frequently with respect to carbon pricing.

The other matter which will make the debate interesting will be the IPCC report due out very soon.  It is expected to be strong, and should make the Labor and Green's position on carbon pricing appear more principled than ever.

If Labor had any sense, they would also be lining up economists to talk about how the "direct action" plan cannot plausibly reach its targets at the set cost Abbott has committed himself to.

I also note this from the LDP's website:  after a lot of dumb skeptic talk about how AGW isn't yet proved, it ends with:

Should the evidence become compelling that global warming is due to human activity, that such global warming is likely to have significantly negative consequences for human existence, and that changes in human activity could realistically reverse those consequences, the LDP would favour market-based options.

I doubt that a libertarian Senator will ever change on this - but if their website is to be believed, they may prefer carbon pricing to "direct action".

Nice graphic

Arctic sea ice delusions strike the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph | Dana Nuccitelli | Environment | theguardian.com

The Arctic Sea Ice extent minimum, which is only a short time off, is going to be much higher than last year's record, but as noted in the above article:

As University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins noted last year,

"Around 80% of the ~100 scientists at the Bjerknes [Arctic climate science] conference thought that there would be MORE Arctic sea-ice in 2013, compared to 2012."

The reason so many climate scientists predicted more ice this year than last is quite simple. There's a principle in statistics known as "regression toward the mean," which is the phenomenon that if an extreme value of a variable is observed, the next measurement will generally be less extreme. In other words, we should not often expect to observe records in consecutive years. 2012 shattered the previous record low sea ice extent; hence 'regression towards the mean' told us that 2013 would likely have a higher minimum extent.

And this is nicely illustrated by this lovely gif, which I don't think I have seen before: