Hiroshima not forgotten

7.30 last night did a good story about high school girls in Hiroshima taking part in recording the previously untold stories of survivors.   (The 88 and 90 year old sisters looked very sprightly, and sounded as sharp as a tack.)  

I've been trying to find some other, less well known, photos with which to remember the 70 year anniversary, and perhaps these will do - a series of photos taken for Life only a couple of years after the bomb, which show both the horrifying wounds on survivors, but also signs of the resilience with which the city was (surprisingly rapidly) re-establishing itself. 

Tracking down the conservative/liberal gene

Can genes make us liberal or conservative?

If Jason Soon doesn't tweet this story, I'll eat my metaphorical hat.

The one thing I don't quite understand about the apparent genetic component to political beliefs, however, is how it explains the not uncommon phenomena of former quite extreme Lefties who convert to being extreme Righties.  (It sort of happens in the reverse direction too, I suppose, but not as often.)  The ranks of Catallaxy threads are full of people who claim they made the conversion, for example.   Is there just a genetic element to "it doesn't matter what I believe, I just must believe it 100% percent"?

Update:  my "hat" is safe.  I spent a while yesterday wondering whether I had correctly referred to it as "metaphorical" or not, and found it hard to work out a definitive answer from Google.

Beautiful Antarctica

Readers will know I like photos of Antarctica, and there is a beautiful set of them up at The Atlantic, for some reason.

More care needed

Crucial ocean-acidification models come up short : Nature News & Comment

Interesting article here, noting that a lot of the uncertainty in working out the ecological effects of ocean acidification  comes from experimenters (especially those at the start of research into this) not being careful enough with the experimental set up. 

I had noticed myself that, over the years, after the initial flurry of reports about the dire effects on different organisms, there followed a lot of considerably more ambiguous reports from tank experiments.   And, yes, it had been noted before that how the water chemistry is altered is important.

But do the researchers writing this paper think this means there is not a serious problem for the oceans?  Nope:

Cornwall says that the “overwhelming evidence” from such studies of the
negative effects of ocean acidification still stands. For example,
more-acidic waters slow the growth and worsen the health of many species
that build structures such as shells from calcium carbonate. But the
pair’s discovery that many of the experiments are problematic makes it
difficult to assess accurately the magnitude of effects of ocean
acidification, and to combine results from individual experiments to
build overall predictions for how the ecosystem as a whole will behave,
he says.

 This article also notes that not enough experiments have looked at the combination of warming water and decreasing pH together.

Climate change, algal blooms, poison crabs

Toxic algae blooming in warm water from California to Alaska

This coastal ribbon of microscopic algae, up to 40 miles wide and 650 feet deep in places,
is flourishing amid unusually warm Pacific Ocean temperatures. It now stretches from at least California to Alaska and has shut down lucrative fisheries. Shellfish managers on Tuesday doubled the area off Washington's coast that is closed to Dungeness crab fishing, after
finding elevated levels of marine toxins in tested crab meat.

So-called "red tides" are cyclical and have happened many times before, but ocean researchers say this one is much larger and persisting much longer, with higher levels of neurotoxins bringing severe consequences for the Pacific seafood industry, coastal tourism and marine ecosystems.

Dan Ayres, coastal shellfish manager for the Washington Department of  Fish and Wildlife, said the area now closed to crab fishing includes more than half the state's 157-mile-long coast, and likely will bring a premature end to this year's crab season.

"We think it's just sitting and lingering out there," said Anthony Odell, a University of Washington research analyst who is part of a NOAA-led team surveying the harmful algae bloom, which was first detected in May. "It's farther offshore, but it's still there."

The survey data should provide a clearer picture of what is causing the bloom which is brownish in color, unlike the blue and green algae found in polluted freshwater lakes. Marine detectives already have a suspect: a large patch of water running as much as 3 degrees centigrade warmer than normal in the northeast Pacific Ocean, nicknamed "the blob."


"The question on everyone's mind is whether this is related to global climate change. The simple answer is that it could be, but at this point it's hard to separate the variations in these cycles," said Donald Boesch, professor of marine science at the University of Maryland who
is not involved in the survey. "Maybe the cycles are more extreme in the changing climate."

Come on.  It's hard to imagine how warming ocean waters won't lead to more extensive and longer lasting poison algal blooms.

"Classic liberal" and its modern, crypto meaning

If you ask me, "classic liberal" has become something of a cover for "short-sighted rich libertarian asshat primarily interested in increasing his or her own wealth and influence."

Here's Charles Koch, for example:

Q: How important is it to you to see a Republican in the White House?
A: It depends on the Republican. I am not a Republican. I consider myself a classical liberal. I believe in certain principles and I am looking for candidates who are advancing those principles....

Q: How is it fair that people who have more money have more of a voice in politics? Isn’t that an imbalance?
A: Well, voice, what does that mean? I mean, the government is largely influenced by people who advocate corporate welfare and advocate these policies that create this two-tiered society … So I mean, a voice, yeah, we get more press. You all are interested in what we say. But are we really having an influence?...

 Q: Are you worried about climate change?
A: Well, I mean I believe it’s been warming some. There’s a big debate on that, because it depends on whether you use satellite measurements, balloon, or you use ground ones that have been adjusted. But there has been warming. The CO2 goes up, the CO2 has probably contributed to that. But they say it’s going to be catastrophic. There is no evidence to that. They have these models that show it, but the models don’t work … To be scientific, it has to be testable and refutable. And so I mean, it has elements of science in it, and then of conjecture, ideology and politics. So do we want to create a catastrophe today in the economy because of some speculation based on models that don’t work? Those are my questions. But believe me, I spent my whole life studying science and the philosophy of science, and our whole company is committed to science.

Holding my breath

Day three, and yes, I'm still talking about things Mission Impossible 5 made me think about.

Today:  holding your breath.   It's not something I keep in my mind, the matter of how long those insane free divers can hold their breath.

So, from a story about them at the ABC:

The current men's world record holder is Stephane Mifsud of France with a time of 11 minutes and 35 seconds and the womens' world record is held by Natalia Molchanova of Russia with a static breath hold of just over nine minutes.

The sport doesn't allow pre-breathing of oxygen, I believe, but for divers who do that they can get up to 20 to 30 minutes, it seems. 

The claim that Cruise once held his breath underwater on set for 6 minutes is therefore not completely ridiculous, after all. 

Update:   Oh.  The female champion diver I mentioned here has been claimed by her nutty hobby.

The Senate stunt team is back

They're useless, being there mainly for the purpose of self-promotion:  Leyonhjelm/Day to introduce Bill to remove penalty rates.

And yes, I am aiding their "look at me" effort, but if I do so while pointing out that they are actually useless, I don't care.

Bolt backs the Republican intellectual wasteland

Cruz missile could save the US from Obama’s legacy | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Tragic.

Sounds complicated...

Panasonic moves closer to home energy self-sufficiency with fuel cells - AJW by The Asahi Shimbun

I'll just quote this story in full, and note again that Japan seems the most advanced country in terms of use of domestic fuel cells:

Panasonic Corp. said it has developed a catalyst that uses sunlight efficiently to extract hydrogen from water, a technology that could lead to energy self-sufficiency in homes powered by fuel cells.

The company said it tested photocatalysts consisting of niobium nitride that can absorb 57 percent of sunlight, a rate far more efficient than the titanium oxide photocatalysts used today that absorb only ultraviolet rays, which constitute 4 percent of sunlight.

Using this catalyst, Panasonic plans to develop products, such as panels similar to solar cells, for installation on rooftops.

These products in turn will create the hydrogen that fuel cells use to generate electricity.

“Commercial application will be 2020 at the earliest,” Panasonic Managing Director Yoshiyuki Miyabe said. “We want to achieve this as early as possible.”

Panasonic has already started selling home-use fuel cells to generate electricity from hydrogen.

Good cancer news

Pancreatic cancer urine test hope - BBC News

I've known at least two people who have died of pancreatic cancer in my life, and it is one of the worst ones for being undetected until it is too late.  So this is good news.

When conservatives with agendas fall out

It seems Andrew Bolt is very, very upset with Chris Mitchell, editor of the Australian.  Which is funny, given their mutual interest in mudslinging Julia Gillard over events 20 years old and which Bolt never thought important until she was PM; their disgraceful campaign against Gillian Triggs;  their mutual undying support of Abbott in his fascistic campaign to do anything he likes at sea and in offshore detention centres and keep it secret from the public under threat of criminal charges; and (of course) their mutual contempt and wilful ignorance of the science of climate change. 

Update:  I just remembered, isn't News Corp actually paying the production costs of Bolt's TV show?  I suppose that makes Bolt's attack "brave"; but then again, I guess Mitchell may well have no influence at all on whether Bolt's show maintains a budget.

Amusingly, I see that a few Catallaxy threadsters are saying they will end their Australian subscriptions over the paper's support of Adam Goodes, and the aboriginal constitution amendment.   They're very upset that the entire media universe has turned into leftists.    Hahahahahaha.

I also note that it seems to me that the only commentators on the web who supported Bronwyn Bishop were at Catallaxy.   Steve Kates, the lone economist in the world who understands it properly because he knows what Says Law really means, was adamant she should never resign.   Sinclair Davidson said she had been an excellent speaker (again, a view virtually unique on the World Wide Web.)   Alan Moran, banned from the IPA, still has a gig at Catallaxy claiming global economic catastrophe from reducing CO2. 

What an extreme and nutty corner of the interwebs it has become....

Two ocean acidification papers

1.  Ocean acidification measurements across an entire ocean indicate that pH is dropping in a way consistent with modelling.

2.   If you burn fossil fuels on a "business as usual" basis for another hundred years or so, even a future (improbably efficient) means of removing CO2 from the atmosphere is not going to help the oceans much.

I think I have summarised both of these correctly.

I've been thinking...

...about the next Mission Impossible movie.

Seeing they spend so much time on accessing encrypted information stored in places using the weirdest security systems, can't the writer look into something more realistically at the cutting edge, such as quantum cryptography?

Now, I guess the point of that is to make information genuinely impossible to break into, but there is nothing impossible to Ethan Hunt, as we were told in the last movie.  (Perhaps he can be split into a both dead and alive version in a Schrodinger's Cat upscaling.   Would that help with quantum cryptography?   Who cares?)

Candle viewing

How far away do you think the human eye can see a candle?   (I'm assuming we're talking some sort of average size one, too.)

I would have guessed about 1 km, but according to the paper reported here, it's more like 2.76 km.

Your day is now complete.   

Not sure it's how a drink with a buddy is supposed to end...

Viagra 'added to Chinese alcohol' - BBC News

Weekend roundup, with Mission Impossible 5

What a nice weekend:  beautiful warm late winter sunshine; out to Mulgowie farmer's market for lots of fresh vegetables, fruit juice and caramel popcorn (I did have a 12 year old in tow); a couple of craft beers at the Hoo Ha Bar near Southbank;  grilled kipper for dinner (why don't Australians eat more of them?).  Sunday I found myself looking in at what seemed to be a very Anglo Catholic Anglican mass in an old church in Fortitude Valley (the amount of incense they used created a cloud that never fully dissipated the rest of the service);  a fresh sandwich for lunch with steak slices and hot mustard; and a very successful coq au vin cooked by me for dinner.

Amongst all of that, the family went to see Mission Impossible 5.

It is very good.   While the Bond style opening was thrilling, I think the motorcycle/car chase was perhaps the best of its kind that I have seen.  (The editing is fast, but not Bourne fast with shaky cam, and it genuinely looks dangerous for Cruise and the stunt team.)   The night at the opera segment is, as others have noted, a bit Hitchcockian, but it's enjoyable and (what's the word?) sumptuously staged.

I have to admit that the other set piece is, fundamentally, silly (water and electronics are not known for their friendly intermingling); almost up there with the need for a secret gigantic radio telescope to communicate with a satellite in Goldeneye.   But there is still tension in how it is handled, and it is a spectacular setting, that entry point.   (What looked like some silly sci fi physics in the trailer wasn't after all.)  Yeah, it's true:  what I can't forgive in Bond I can forgive in Hunt.  

It does have a bit of a feel that it has been written as a series-summarising send off, but as all reviews have been saying, Cruise looks extremely fit and engaged, and it does have a hint of further story in there with the femme fatale, and Alec Baldwin, so that yet another outing still wouldn't seem self indulgent.

In fact, maybe it will go in a new direction, where the IMF being dysfunctional is not the key plot point, like it has been for most of the other movies.  (OK, maybe it wasn't in MI2, but I prefer not to think of that embarrassing entry.)

Update:   I missed that Cruise has already said that they are planning a sixth, and without as long a gap as with the other installments.   The movie seems to have already made more than $100 million worldwide in its first weekend.  Good.

Amusing myself....

Drinking and conception

Drinking at conception boosts diabetes risk for baby

This finding:

Babies conceived by women who drink alcohol around the time of conception face dramatically increased risks of type 2 diabetes and obesity in early middle age, a University of Queensland
study has found.

The discovery was made by School of Biomedical Sciences scientist Associate Professor Karen Moritz during research into how events – particularly alcohol consumption – before and during pregnancy affect the long-term health of offspring.

is only based on "laboratory rat model", but still, it does sound a potential worry for humans.

Sharks getting aggro?

Surfer mauled in shark attack at Evans Head

I'm sure I'm not the only person thinking that it seems sharks are getting more aggressive against humans lately, including, unfortunately, many of them around Australia.  Have a look at the recent list of attacks in this article, many of which have only given people a fright, but still there are quite a few incidents of aggression that I haven't heard of until now.