All we want for Christmas - charcoal underpants

BBC - Future - How to tackle the most embarrassing problem on planes
I think I missed this article from two Decembers ago, about the problem of expanding intestinal gases on planes. (I'm glad to read it's not just my imagination - I had wondered for some time if the reduced cabin air pressure was really enough to cause this.  Apparently it is.) I also didn't know that you can buy charcoal filled underpants:

Even so, Rosenberg’s personal feeling is that more could be done – particularly since no smoking policies have made other odours more easily discernible. It may be possible to place charcoal within the seats themselves, he suggests – though previous studies have suggested that is not particularly effective, perhaps because most trousers and skirts create a “tunnel effect” that direct the fumes away from the cushion. Instead, he thinks that airlines would do better to use blankets with charcoal woven into the fabric. For people who are especially worried about their own flatulence, he points out that you can now buy underwear designed along similar principles; the American Journal of Gastroenterology reports that charcoal-lined underwear absorbs nearly 100% of the odour, compared to removable (and reusable) pads placed within trousers, which only absorb about 70%.

Somehow, I had previously missed reading about this brand of charcoal filtering underwear, and their rather upmarket looking website   You can thank me later...

No wonder defence industries like him...

The shambolic embarrassment of a President elect announcing potential policy as half-arsed thoughts on Twitter continues, I see:

 President-elect Donald Trump has said the US should enlarge its nuclear arsenal, an apparent reversal of a decades-long reduction of the nation's atomic weaponry that came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated calls for his country's arsenal to be reinforced.

And while the stoopid who voted for him thought it was great that careless reporting indicated Boeing was willing to shave about $1 billion off the cost of a new Air Force One (seriously, do reporters really think Boeing just admitted that it had bolstered the cost by 25% just because it could get away with it?), they might want to consider that all defence companies do have a great incentive to be seen to be flattering his massive ego, because they know he is a cash cow just waiting to be milked:

Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman are already competing to build a next generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles for the US Air Force, a project expected to cost at least $85 billion.
That is just one part of a modernisation plan that will contribute to what defence analysts call a gathering "bow wave" of spending in the coming decade on major weapons that future presidents will face.
Defence companies stand to benefit from a resurgence in military spending promised by Mr Trump and already under way in Western Europe and Asia as global tensions rise.

Vanilla coffee

On a whim, I recently put a few (well, maybe 5 or 6) drops of vanilla extract in my morning instant coffee.  (Moccona, if you're interested.)

It works well.  Not a strong taste, but sort of smooths out the flavour somewhat, I think.  Or perhaps I need to do a blind taste test to make sure I'm not imagining things.

Carry on.

Something vaguely optimistic

From The Guardian:

The Indian government has forecast that it will exceed the renewable energy targets set in Paris last year by nearly half and three years ahead of schedule.
A draft 10-year energy blueprint published this week predicts India will be generating 57% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2027. The Paris climate accord target was 40% by 2030.
The forecast reflects an increase in private sector investment in Indian renewable energy projects over the past year, according to analysts.
The draft national electricity plan also indicated that no new coal-fired power stations were likely to be required to meet Indian energy needs until at least 2027, raising further doubts over the viability of Indian mining investments overseas, such as the energy company Adani’s Carmichael mine in Queensland, the largest coalmine planned to be built in Australia.

Some astonishing figures

Why are rural areas seeing a rise in drug-dependent newborns? - CSMonitor.com

Gee, this isn't the cheeriest series of posts so close to Christmas. But Trump is on the way to the White House and the sense of doom is palpable.

Anyhow, here's one surprising sign of societal problems in rural America:

Roughly 1 out of every 130 babies in rural America are born dependent on drugs, according to a study published Monday.

The report, published in JAMA Pediatrics, shows a dramatic increase in neonatal abstinence syndrome – when a newborn baby is dependent on drugs and goes through withdrawal after birth – in rural areas between 2004 and 2013. In just a decade, the number of rural newborns suffering from chemical dependency skyrocketed from 1.2 per every 1,000 hospital births to 7.5 per 1,000.

While previous research has suggested an increase in neonatal abstinence syndrome in certain areas, the findings published Monday are the first to show just how widespread of a problem newborn drug dependency is across rural America, fueled by an increase in opioid use among women of all social classes and insufficient resources in far-flung areas to treat drug addiction.

Not a good sign...

Ice-melting temperatures forecast for Arctic midwinter | Environment | The Guardian

Earlier this year, when Arctic ice extent was low before summer, it looked possible that the summer melt would set a new record, and I thought that would be a good thing as the final nail in the coffin of AGW deniers, on top of record global temperatures convincingly beating the 1998 record, even on the dubious satellite records.  Well, it wasn't quite to be (a new record low ice extent, I mean), even though the summer melt was still very low.

But the recent patterns of global ice extent, and these odd winter temperatures, perhaps indicate we really don't have long to wait for the next record low.

Nick Cohen walking back from his Left hate?

I haven't followed his opinions all that regularly over the years, but I think it fair to say that, with this column, Nick Cohen's putting his attacks on the Left a bit more into perspective now, given the rise of the far Right in Europe and the US.   He really doesn't trust Russia, either.  Here's part of what he says about the murder this week in Turkey:

The propagandists of dictatorship are the most blatant exploiters of other people’s deaths. They use murder to brainwash their subjects at home and their fellow travellers abroad. Under the Tsars, Bolshevism and now Putin’s mixture of gangster capitalism and orthodox nationalism, hatred of the West has always been a defining feature of Russian ideology. When a Turkish police officer killed a Russian diplomat in Ankara this week – yelling ‘Don’t forget Aleppo!’ moments after the murder – Russia’s politicians and lickspittle ‘journalists’ instantly blacked out his real motives so they could fit him into their anti-Western story.

Even by the abysmal standards of Russian propaganda, the response to the assassination was breathtaking. It was either the result of Western protests about the Russian destruction of Aleppo or the direct result of a plot by ‘Nato secret services’. Despite helping Donald Trump to victory, and despite having the support of every far right party in Europe and Jeremy Corbyn’s contemptible British Labour party, Russia still has to regard the West as an enemy with supernatural powers. The propaganda is too deep-rooted and too useful to change. The naïve who think that Putin can be placated should watch it. Russia is telling us that not only that it cannot be appeased, it does not want to be appeased either. I doubt even a Trump presidency will stem the paranoid hatred.

Fear of blood

Menstruation really, really struck some old societies as something to be feared, didn't it?  And I see that in some corners of the globe, it still causes some terrible treatment of women and girls:

A 15-year-old girl died in a menstrual hut in western Nepal sometime between the night of Saturday, Dec. 17, and the morning of Sunday, Dec. 18. According to Nepal's Republica newspaper, Roshani Tiruwa, from Nepal's Achham district, went to the shed after eating dinner around 6 p.m. She lit a fire in the tiny mud hut before going to sleep. Tiruwa's father found her body the next morning. District police suspect the ninth-grader died from a lack of oxygen....

Since 2007, at least eight other deaths related to menstrual seclusion have been reported in Achham, a district with a population of 250,000. Carbon monoxide poisoning from lighting fires to heat the sheds was a common cause of death. Wild animal attacks was another.

The practice of menstrual seclusion is widespread in western Nepal. Taboos surrounding menstruation, rooted in Hindu mythology, have led to a range of restrictions on menstruating girls and women: from forbidding entrance to kitchens or temples to the practice of sleeping outside the house, called chaupadi. Many people believe that a menstruating girl who breaks the rules risks angering the gods and inviting misfortune on her family.

Chaupadi was outlawed by Nepal's Supreme Court in 2005 but proves difficult to eradicate. A 2011 U.N. report estimated 95 percent of women in the Achham district follow the practice. The government has invested in awareness campaigns and village by village has been declaring "chaupadi-free" zones. But that hasn't stopped the practice: Tiruwa's village was declared "chaupadi-free" in September 2015, according to Republica.

Tangled wins

Continuing my grudge against Frozen, this comedy song highlight from Tangled is about 20 times wittier than anything in the former movie.  You can read the lyrics on this version:

Not just me

I was watching Rick Stein's latest pleasant cooking/travel show last night, and he ended up in Greece, where he noted that a lot of people are "rather rude" about Greek cuisine.

Count me in on that.  Of all the European cuisines, I have always said that Greek is the least interesting, and I invariably find Greek restaurants are dull and way, way too similar.   Mind you, a good moussaka can be pretty nice, even though last night's example must be pretty damn heavy with olive oil.  But overall, I like to give Greek food a miss.

And in another example of confirmation that I am not alone, after all, I see that quite a few readers of The Guardian are criticising Frozen, a movie which I agree is completely underwhelming, with a popularity based on one song.  

Oh, and Jonathan Greene on Twitter has been sharing a three year old ribald attack on Love Actually, with which I also agree.  I really find that movie the pits, and would force people who love it into re-education camps if I were a not-so-benevolent dictator.  

Thanks, Hollywood cowards

Tom Arnold has a career to worry about?  Who knew?

I would say it is a near certainty that there is material of the kind Arnold describes floating around somewhere in Hollywood, but fear of legal action from Trump kept it in the closet.

What a bunch of cowards.

Clever mice

It turns out mice have a clever ability which has only just been discovered - the ability to sense oxygen levels through their nose: 

The genome of mice harbors more than 1000 odorant receptor genes, which enable them to smell myriad odors in their surroundings. Researchers ... have discovered that mice can also sense the oxygen level of the inhaled air using neurons in their nose. For this newly discovered sensory property, mice rely on two genes termed Gucy1b2 and Trpc2, but apparently not on odorant receptor genes.

The research team discovered that a specific type of chemosensory neuron in the mouse olfactory mucosa responds to oxygen decreases in the environment. Chemosensory cells typically detect an increase in the concentration of a substance. In mammals, a lack of oxygen was thought to be detected primarily by the carotid body, a sensory organ situated at the carotid arteries in the neck. Activation of the carotid body results in activation of the respiratory center in the brain. As mice live in burrows, it appears that during evolution an additional mechanism has developed in order to protect the individuals and their offspring from a shortage of oxygen....

Moreover, the scientists found that mice can learn very quickly where locations with low oxygen levels are, and then avoid these areas. By contrast, mice with inactivated Gucy1b2 or Trpc2 genes cannot distinguish between normal and modestly decreased oxygen levels in the external environment, and do not show avoidance behavior of these areas with a low oxygen level. These genes thus enable mice early on to select locations with an optimal oxygen level.

Blockchain doubts

I like to think I'm reasonably technology literate, but I have to admit, I can't for the life of me get what the IT pundits' excitement about Blockchain technology is all about.  I don't get what is meant to be transformational about it.  (Well, I think that this is what a bunch of people are claiming.)   That linked article is not the only thing I have read about it, but none of it convinces me that it is particularly exciting, or different, to the way things are done now.

I was always skeptical of 3D printing as being anything other than a niche method of manufacturing, and I think the early claims about it as the way of the future already look silly and overblown.   Bitcoin I always thought wildly oversold, too, and a bit of a silly idea that would mainly appeal to criminals and tax evaders.  I see that it was declared a failure early this year, although I am sure others will beg to differ.

I strongly suspect that Blockchain is something similar - an idea that has an odd ability to excite technophiles in a way that is out of proportion to the actual technology.

But, of course, I could be wrong.

A cinematic killing

I haven't seen the television news this morning, but the photos all over the media sure make this look like something from a movie rather than real life.  (Stating the obvious, sorry.)

And as we're not used to seeing Islamic inspired killers looking clean cut and in a suit, I'm surprised that more "false flag" claims aren't already out there.  The first to come up in Google is one on an odd looking site "Veteran's Today."   A quick look at its home page indicates it posts lots of odd things, but I can't quite see the political lines its conspiracy stuff usually follows.  Anyway, the link to their page seems to claim it is a Mossad hit, yet the headline is now reading that it was from "Turkish Intel" and a "false flag" by Erdogan (!)  

And how is Trump going to comment?  Via Twitter?  We'll see.  However he does, there's at least a 50% chance it'll be something gormless in either content or delivery.

A few comments

I'm really busy at the moment, but a few observations:

* did you see Jamie Oliver's Christmas cooking show last week: "A Very Clementine Christmas"? I don't think anyone in Australia knows what a clementine is, but Jamie mentioned them about 20 times in the 20 minutes of the show I watched.

* is it just me, or did Colbert seem in a very dark mood last on his show last week? I think it's the sense of doom coming from the upcoming meeting of the electoral college.

 * Conan, on the other hand, has had some very funny clips on his Youtube channel about his recent visit to Berlin. His sense of humour, and that of Germans, does not mix, but that alone makes watching him trying to amuse Germans pretty funny.

* Speaking of doom - I saw a clip of one of his last "thank you: yes we all agree I'm great" rallies by Trump in which he again made the patently false claim of this election victory being historically big. It isn't, of course, and the news that one poll indicates his lies sway Republicans says something remarkable about what you can get away with politically now. At least with Republicans, who seem to have fully embraced (without realising it) a post-modernist attitude to "truth", about a decade after the Left had already moved on from it. Amazing.

* Haven't seen Rogue One yet, but I will, despite being rather sick of Death Stars or uber Death Stars in the Star Wars movies. It's a bit like the whole genre of World War 2 movies being about the atomic bomb, in every movie.

* Yesterday's big, ugly Brisbane storm brought hail to my area, but not big enough to hurt cars or break roofs. Good.

A delightful explanation re Japanese napping

There's a lot to enjoy in this brief  NYT explanation about how the Japanese will nap anywhere they can get the opportunity:

In most countries, sleeping on the job isn’t just frowned upon, it may get you fired.

But in Japan, napping in the office is common and culturally accepted. And in fact, it is often seen as a subtle sign of diligence: You must be working yourself to exhaustion.

The word for it is “inemuri.” It is often translated as “sleeping on duty,” but Dr. Brigitte Steger, a senior lecturer in Japanese studies at Downing College, Cambridge, who has written a book on the topic, says it would be more accurate to render it as “sleeping while present.”

That, she said, captures Japan’s approach to time, where it’s seen as possible to do multiple things simultaneously, if at a lower intensity. So you can get credit for attending that boring quarterly sales meeting while also dreaming of a beach vacation.

Inemuri is most prevalent among more senior employees in white-collar professions, Dr. Steger said.

And more:

Sleeping in social situations can even enhance your reputation. Dr. Steger recalled a group dinner at a restaurant where the male guest of a female colleague fell asleep at the table. The other guests complimented his “gentlemanly behavior” — that he chose to stay present and sleep, rather than excuse himself.

The article even makes me feel better about whether I am getting inadequate sleep now.  If the Japanese have longevity, then their being well rested would seem not to be part of the explanation:

One reason public sleeping may be so common in Japan is because people get so little sleep at home. A 2015 government study found that 39.5 percent of Japanese adults slept less than six hours a night.

An unwritten rule of inemuri is to sleep compactly, without “violating spatial norms,” Professor Bestor said. “If you stretched out under the table in the office conference room, or took up several spaces on the train, or laid out on a park bench,” he said, that would draw reproach for being socially disruptive.

What a great country...

Happy rat/sad rat news

So Ratatouille was a kind of documentary?   I didn't realise Paris has a rat problem.   Probably because there's too much nice food there.  And how's this for a pest control manager who can still admire his prey (as well as making a dubious sounding claim):

Listening to Mr. Demodice, who has spent much of life observing rats, it is almost possible to feel affection for them.

“A rat is a very intelligent and athletic animal,” he said.

“Rats play a very useful role for us because what they eat we do not need to dispose of, so it’s very economical for us, and when rats are underground they also clean the pipes with their fur when they run through them.

“So we need to keep them. They’re sort of our friends, but they need to stay below. That’s all we ask: that they stay below.”

And in happier rat news, here's how to tell if your rat is happy:

Wondering if your pet rat is feeling happy? You should check its ears, researchers say.
A team of scientists in Switzerland found that a rat's ears are more pinkish and are positioned at a more relaxed angle when it is experiencing positive emotions. The researchers recently published their findings in the journal PLOS ONE.
Previous studies have focused on negative emotions –- for example, identifying how rats indicate that they are feeling pain, with the aim of learning how to avoid those situations.
Now, the research team led by Kathryn Finlayson is focused on promoting positive emotions in rats – rather than simply aiming for the absence of a negative state. As animal behavior researcher Luca Melotti tells The Two-Way, this is centered on the question of "what does it mean to have a life worth living?"

Actually, now that I read the article fully, couldn't the pink ears just be a result of the physical activity of tickling?   The controls should have had physical activity too, surely, before you could read much into pink ears.

Oh dear..

Well, it seems that my concerns that I would be put off by the ridiculously luxurious and enormous interiors of the spaceship may be the least of my worries.  Passengers is not getting great reviews...

Seems an awful long time since I was really completely satisfied with a spacey science fiction film...

Silly man

How much sense does it make for this Catholic from the 50's (who wasn't born til the 70's, probably) to claim this:

None at all really.  Has he no memory of the large number of women, even in Australia, who used to cover their hair to attend Mass before the 1960's?   And if hair covering was a sign of modesty for them, why is it not for Muslims?

Truth is, if there is any way to attempt to convert any Muslim practice into something they should be derided for, CL will try to find it, no matter the level of hypocrisy.

About Syria, and Putin nude

This seems a fairly balanced take on the matter of Syria and the geopolitical mess in the region.

I still don't trust Putin, though.  

Meanwhile, there is much to be somewhat amused about in this report about the Abe/Putin "Onsen Summit" that's just starting.  Some extracts:

Sushi, sashimi and wagyu beef was set be on the menu — and, in what could be a poor diplomatic decision, Mr Abe also planned to serve puffer fish to the Russian President.
One person dies each year in Japan — on average — after eating puffer fish that has been incorrectly prepared. 

I wish Abe would send a gift pack of puffer fish to Trump.   Never know your luck... (Come on - be honest:  his boorish and dumb behaviour would have to make him streets ahead in the "President elect we most want to not to make it to the White House, and we don't care how" stakes, around the globe.)

And the bigger question:   does Putin care to nude up in the interests of better foreign relationships?:

But the big question being asked in Japan is — will the two men climb into a hot-tub together?
It is odd for Australians to think about the idea of two middle-aged, straight men getting nude and chatting about world affairs while sitting in a pool of really hot water (42 degrees Celsius) — but in Japan, it is not that odd.
In a business setting, it is considered a natural extension of a working relationship — stripping back the layers builds trust and familiarity.
Mr Putin and Mr Abe might take an onsen together if the first stage of their talks go smoothly.

What would cause a bigger incident would be if Putin tries to get into the tub with bathers on.   Could cause the outbreak of war, that faux pas.