An operation that may be a bit less popular soon

Vasectomy raises risk of lethal prostate cancer, study shows | Society | theguardian.com

From the report:

Harvard scientists analysed the medical records of nearly 50,000 men
and found that those who had the operation were 10% more likely to be
diagnosed with the disease.

The study revealed a stronger link with the most serious forms of prostate cancer,
with rates of advanced or lethal disease rising by 20% in men who had
the procedure. The danger seemed to be highest among men who had a
vasectomy before the age of 38.

As the article goes on to note, the rate of increased risk amongst men who have had the snip is not exactly dramatic, but it's still pretty bad PR for an operation that I suspect has peaked in popularity.  (Just taking a guess on that point.)

The caffeine of war

How Coffee Fueled the Civil War - NYTimes.com

Here's something a bit out of the blue:  a great read about the huge importance of coffee to the soldiers in the American Civil War.  For example:

The Union Army encouraged this love, issuing soldiers roughly 36 pounds
of coffee each year. Men ground the beans themselves (some carbines even
had built-in grinders) and brewed it in little pots called muckets.
They spent much of their downtime discussing the quality of that
morning’s brew. Reading their diaries, one can sense the delight (and
addiction) as troops gushed about a “delicious cup of black,” or fumed
about “wishy-washy coffee.” Escaped slaves who joined Union Army camps
could always find work as cooks if they were good at “settling” the
coffee – getting the grounds to sink to the bottom of the unfiltered
muckets.

This actually explains something.  As a child, I had a quite nicely detailed soldier set of the Civil War.  It came from my eldest sister, who had married an American.  Actually it might have been my brother's set, as there was also a set of American World War 2 soldiers fighting the Japanese, if I recall correctly, and maybe we had one set each.  In any event, I ended up playing with both sets, although it is possible that my brother eventually took them with him.  He retained a fondness for setting up war scenes with soldiers well into his marriage!

Although these sets were made of plastic, I have never since seen ones that were of similar detail, perhaps short of what you can buy and paint in modeller's shops in those boxes where you only get 6 or so in a tiny set.   (I can't remember how many figures we had in ours:  I would guess a good 30 to 40 figures on each side, together with equipment.  The pieces were not designed for painting - they were able to be used just as they were, and a human figure was perhaps 3 cm high.  You sometimes see really ultra low quality soldier sets of similar size in KMart or discount variety stores, but they are absolute rubbish compared to the quality in the sets I'm talking about.)

Anyhow, I remember that the Civil War set included little pieces of camp cooking equipment, which included something that did look like a coffee pot.   So, this is the reason why, and it was indeed accurate.

PS:   it also brings up one of those fascinating odd points about the US - obviously, coffee has long been important to Americans, but it seems almost universally agreed by Australians and Europeans who visit there that the "standard" version of coffee they now consume is pretty bad compared to what we have after developing a "coffee culture" in the space of only about the last 30 to 40 years.  Did their making do with coffee brewed from whatever water was available in a field in the Civil War permanently degrade their taste for it?   Just wondering.  (And a disclaimer - I am not really a coffee snob, and I did not have a coffee habit
when I was last there over 20 years ago.  So maybe it is just coffee snobbery I am hearing - but the complaint does seem so common, I assume there is something to it.)

The Old Man and the Sea

Fight climate change by building away from sea: Rupert Murdoch

In a big weekend for disclosures that didn't really surprise anyone, the more important one was that Rupert confirmed his climate change skepticism and suggested the magic solution is (to paraphrase) "I don't know if its happening, but even if it is, don't bother trying to limit it:  just don't build big houses on the seashore."

Thanks for the sage advice, Rupe.

Another test

A test.

Update:  I just needed to post a pic from my tablet, and having done this one some time ago, just decided to use it.  But I have to say, if ever we did need a pantomime Queen Liz for a Parliamentary kid's show, it would be like he was made for the role, no?

Testing an app, just ignore

"Say anything" Clive

No, Tony Abbott, nothing about the Senate negotiations was 'normal' | World | The Guardian

As Lenore Taylor notes:

This is, after all, the bloke who said this week, while launching a
publication on the renewable energy target:, “When it comes to fighting
climate sceptics you have to persevere.”

But before the election, asked on the ABC whether he agreed that
global warming would have a big impact on Australia, he said: “No, I
don't believe that's so. There's been global warming for a long time. I
mean, all of Ireland was covered by ice at one time. There were no human
inhabitants in Ireland. That's how the world has been going over
millions and billions of years and Ross Garnaut knows that's true, so I
think that's part of the natural cycle.”

Surely this wild inconsistency has to sink in soon through the skulls of the unengaged voters who got him in?

Sack him

Operation Sovereign Borders chief unable to answer asylum questions | World | The Guardian

The role Angus Campbell is playing in this government's refusal to supply basic information as to its conduct is a disgrace:

Asked where the 153 asylum seekers were, Campbell said: “In regard to
that issue and the venture that you speak of, that is a matter under
consideration by the high court so it would be inappropriate for me to
comment further.”...

Campbell was later questioned about the capabilities of vessels
involved in asylum-seeker operations. Asked by the Greens senator Sarah
Hanson-Young what the capacity of the Ocean Protector was, he said:
“Again I don’t have the answer to that at hand and if you wish me to
take it on notice I will refer that to the Australian Customs and Border
Protection Service.”

Hanson-Young then asked: “And how many people would the Triton hold?”

Campbell: “I’ll have to refer that to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service.”

Get a room, you two

Rupert Murdoch: It’s one of my lifetime achievements | 50th Birthday | News | | The Australian

Good Lord, hasn't it been embarrassing watching Paul Kelly write page after page for what seems like the last 6 months about the grandeur of the 50th birthday of Rupert Murdoch's newspaper which has sunk to the level of objectivity shared by Green Left Weekly?

I trust Kelly, always a tedious analyst who loves to take 1000 words to say what could be said in 200, is at least  getting paid well for such PR guff and embarrassing promotion of a boss who increasing looks like Mr Burns.  Actually, Mr Burns can open his eyes wider that Rupert appears now capable of doing.

Kant is hard work

Kant confusion | TLS

This review of another book about Kant's moral philosophy starts out well, pointing out the problems people see with the categorical imperative, but as it gets more and more into the detail of Kant's terminology, the more one remembers what hard work it can be to follow his arguments.

Still, it's worth a read.

And it reminds me - one of my fantasy film scripts or novels was going to be about Kant not being a fussy virgin who never left his home town, but an early James Bond doing secret spy work across 18th Europe during university holidays.   I mean, just look at those bedroom eyes:




This could be the hardest pitch ever to a Hollywood studio - but you have to admit it is original.  (I hope.)

He (and they) really likes the film

Boyhood review – one of the great films of the decade | Peter Bradshaw | Film | The Guardian

 Like the fabled Jesuit, Richard Linklater has taken the boy and given us the man. In so doing, he's created a film that I love more than I can say. And there is hardly a better, or
nobler thing a film can do than inspire love.

It has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes too, which is rare.   I will see it.

Relationship problems, Adam?

If anyone has read Adam Creighton's blog entry in The Australian today,  and understands his point, could you kindly drop by and explain it to me?

My quick take is that it's an impenetrable mish mash of a discussion about no fault divorce and economic consequences of divorce and how women now do things differently and that may not be good and maybe we'd all be better off (how exactly is not explained) if there was fault based divorce that still didn't actually require fault.

Highly Radioactive Man

The Tragic Tale Of Atomic Man: Life As A Radioactive Human | Gizmodo Australia

I don't recall reading the story of Harold McClusky before.  It seems remarkable he survived so long...

A Bolt apology

Andrew Bolt the latest to apologise over Tony Abbott's wall punch | Richard Ackland | Comment is free | theguardian.com

It's a pity he only had to make it on radio.  Didn't he suggest the Ramjan incident didn't happen in his blog?  I would have expected so, but can't be bothered looking.

Comedian needs another job

I never thought Jimeoin was particularly funny:  inoffensive though.

But from the parts of SBS's "Full Brazilian" show I have seen: man oh man, does this comedian need to find another line of work, or what?   Or are other, completely burnt out, unfunny writers responsible for the dire lack of successful humour that he tries to deliver on the show? 

It's been awful.

I feel a bit mean saying it, in a way, because his dumb persona is successful to the extent that one imagines he is unemployable for any more challenging task.  And he is still inoffensive.

Lucky no one much reads this blog, then. 

Ice, ice, baby

Cooling protects oxygen-deprived infants : Nature News & Comment

A team led by Denis Azzopardi, a neonatologist at King’s College London, lowered the body temperature of 145 full-term babies who were born after at least 36 weeks of gestation. All were at risk of brain damage because they had been deprived of oxygen during birth — a problem that is often caused by troubles with the placenta or umbilical cord, and affects nearly 750,000 babies a year in the United Kingdom.

The researchers cooled the infants to between 33°C and 34°C for 72 hours, starting within 6 hours of birth. The technique is known to boost the chances that children avoid brain damage until they become toddlers², but any longer-term benefits have remained unclear.

The study finds treated babies had better mental and physical health than untreated infants through to ages 6 or 7: they were 60% more likely to have normal intelligence, hearing and vision. Those who survived to childhood also had fewer disabilities such as difficulty walking and seeing.

Interesting, eh?

The dumb Right celebrates

Andrew Bolt is happy to see himself on the cover of The Spectator, but is cranky that the Senate is not supporting budget measures that were supposed to make up for loss of revenue from the carbon price.

There are two possible ways of looking at this:  the first, that by softening cuts, Palmer (and Labor) actually help Abbott's position with many in the electorate who have stop supporting him since the budget.   Maybe Abbott will happily enough muddle through to the next election.

The second:  that this is really untenable, and a double dissolution is needed to give one side or the other some clear air going forward in terms of long term fiscal and policy approach.

I'm still leaning towards the second view, but want more rope out there for Palmer and his Senate fan club to hang themselves with (metaphorically speaking, of course) before the next election.

I would say a double dissolution by early 2015 would do OK, thanks.

Update:  the ideological driven Right celebrates too, with much excitement over a bald Senator who got there by a combination of deception and luck (don't believe me? - check the LDP vote in every other State, including WA in their rerun) mouthing philosophical platitudes that give them a warm inner glow but reflect next to nothing on the practicalities of running a modern society and government, except in the fantasy Libertarian World that's been overtaken by about 180 years of history. 

Amusingly, the LDP with it abhorrence of taxes (just because they are taxes) is also crushing the Coalitions budget, but not for political gamesmanship of the kind Labor and the Greens are engaging in (carrying on in the same manner that the Coalition did in opposition) but because they really truly believe it - that repairing a budget is best achieved by giving up lots of tax revenue.   (Oh, OK, they would fix that by simply stopping government spending instantly on a multitude of things, overnight.   Leyonhjelm's alternative budget was a stinking pile of poo that outdoes the wrong priorities of Abbott by at least one order of magnitude.)

So what's worse - politicians who block things for the purposes of tactical advantage, or ones who block things because of ideologically driven wrong headedness?   I already know the answer to that - there is no arguing with Leyonhjelm or his ilk because they are purely ideologically driven.  The sooner he is out of the Senate, the better.

Stem cell failures we don't hear (much) about

Stem cell treatment causes nasal growth in woman's back - health - 08 July 2014 - New Scientist

I've always been somewhat skeptical of stem cell therpy, and the enthusiasm with which researchers wanted to mash up embryos to get them.  (I know, the title story of the nose growing on a woman's spine is not involving embryonic cells, but I am still leery of playing around with embryos for any reason.)

So it's interesting to note that there have been spectacular failures in their experimental use, and that we don't seem to ever hear much about them:

There are thought to be more than 1000 ongoing stem cell trials, including two on the US clinical trial register ClinicalTrials.gov, which use olfactory ensheathing cells (see main story, above). However there is an unknown number of people visiting private clinics for unregulated stem cell treatments.

As there is no global register it is unknown how many people have developed additional problems as a result of such therapies, but a few cases have come to light of tumours or excessive tissue growth. One of the first people to receive fetal cells to treat Parkinson's disease was a 50-year-old US citizen in China. Upon his death in 1991, 23 months later, he was found at autopsy to have a teratoma growing in his brain that contained hairs and cartilage (Neurology, doi.org/tjt).


A more highly publicised case was in 2009, when an Israeli teenager developed brain and spinal tumours  after receiving several implants of fetal stem cells in Moscow to treat
a rare degenerative condition. And in 2010, a 46-year-old woman developed multiple tumours in her kidney after having her own bone marrow stem cells injected at a private clinic in an attempt to treat her kidney failure.

There have also been at least three cases of people developing leukaemia after receiving stem cells from umbilical cord blood. However, that is less surprising as ordinary bone marrow
transplants – which are a source of blood stem cells – also carry that risk.

As someone says in the article:

"It is sobering," says George Daley, a stem cell researcher at Harvard Medical School who has helped write guidelines for people considering stem cell treatments. "It speaks directly to how primitive our state of knowledge is about how cells integrate and divide and expand. "

The case shows that even when carried out at mainstream hospitals, experimental stem cell therapies can have unpredictable consequences, says Alexey Bersenev, a stem cell research analyst who blogs at Cell Trials. "We have to realise complications can also happen in a clinical trial," he says.

Meanwhile, in Bahrain

Man arrested for cross-dressing in Bahrain | GulfNews.com

A man was sentenced to one month in prison followed by deportation after he was apprehended for wearing women’s accessories and makeup in Bahrain.

The expatriate Arab was arrested by a police patrol as he was walking “in a feminine way” in the Bahraini capital Manama and attracted the attention of the servicemen.

He said that he worked in a women’s beauty salon and that his profession demanded that he always looked elegant and wore the latest fashion accessories to set a positive example for his clients.

The public prosecution was not convinced by the arguments and charged him with encouraging debauchery. He was subsequently referred to a court that ruled to keep him in jail for one month.

Well, I certainly hope that Arab police are given adequate training at their academies on how to spot questionable "walking in a feminine way".

More generally:

Cross-dressing is banned in Bahrain and in the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states — Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Foreigners who are apprehended for their “unacceptable looks” in public are often jailed for a short period before they are sent home.

Local conservatives have regularly called for tougher measures against cross-dressers and gays, accusing them of spreading vice, particularly among young people.

Sort of good news

Significant step towards blood test for Alzheimer's

Remote writing

Chasing Orwell’s Ghost | Roads & Kingdoms

I happen to think that 1984 is a vastly overrated work, but it is still of interest to read this photo essay about the remote Scottish island location where Orwell went to finish it.    Very bleak, like the novel (although the black and white photography doubtless makes it look as bleak as possible.)