Yesterday we were briefly in Rochester and stopped to have afternoon tea (well, tea and cake, not the full works with cucumber sandwiches, scones and jam, vicars, etc.) in the cathedral tea shop. I ordered a coffee for Noreen and a large pot of tea for me only to be told:
I can’t do you a large pot of tea, but I can do you a pot of tea for two.
Duh?!
I originally started off the previous post intending to write this one. So, having been diverted, here is the post I’d intended to write …
Having been “under the cosh” recently I’ve missed writing about a number of science items which have caught my eye. This is by way of a quick update on some of them.
Food Production & Agriculture
I’ve blogged a number of times about the need for a major restructuring of world-wide agriculture (see here, here and here). New Scientist on 14 June carried an article and an editorial on this subject. Sadly, being part of the “mainstream science establishment” (my term)they don’t get the need for restructuring. They see the solution only in terms of improved varieties, increased production and a decrease in food prices, with all the sterility that implies. They’re unable to see the problem in terms of overproduction of animal protein and a reduction in useful farmland due to poor methods and bio-fuel production. All very sad.
Don’t Blame it all on the Gods
The same issue of New Scientist – it was an especially interesting issue – carried a short article with the above title. I’ll let the introduction speak for itself …
Once phenomena that inspired fear and foreboding, lunar and solar eclipses can now be predicted down to the second, forecast centuries into the future, and “hindcast” centuries into the past. The person who started us down the path from superstition to understanding has been called the “Einstein of the 5th century BC”, and was known to his contemporaries as “The Mind”. He went on trial for his impious notions, was banished from his adopted home, but nevertheless influenced generations of later scholars. He was Anaxagoras, a native of Ionia in what is now Turkey, and the first great philosopher to live in Athens. Now this little-known scholar is being seen by some as the earliest known practitioner of the scientific method.
Worth searching out if you’re interested in the history of science or the Ancient Greeks.
America’s Abortion Scandal
This is the title of the third article I’ve picked from 14 June New Scientist. In the article Pratima Gupta, a (female) practicing obstetrician-gynaecologist, argues against the prevailing belief amongst US medics that abortion is always psychologically damaging for the woman. Gupta sees no evidence for this and rails against “personal moral beliefs trumping scientific evidence [and even] individuals’ personal beliefs”. What’s worse is that there appears to be covert censorship making abortion something which cannot be researched or discussed. All very interesting when put up against the case of Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin whose unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, being made (as I read it) to have the child and marry the father (see here, for example).
Cut!
Finally, this time from New Scientist of 19 July, which contains an article on male circumcision; again something I’ve blogged about before (see here and here). Quite predictably there is a rumpus brewing about the medical profession’s desire for all males to be circumcised – at least in Africa and by implication world-wide – egged on by the WHO. The studies which showed such huge benefits from circumcision are being criticised for their design, for being stopped early and for their assumptions. Surveys which question people’s experience of circumcision are also highly criticised. And of course being a mainstream science journal, New Scientist totally ignore any question of human rights, abuse and mutilation. It’s about time the medical and scientific professions woke up and smelt the coffee.
1. Early Morning Fog, 2. KCM, 3. 365 Toy Project: Day 57, 4. sunday morning 10am, 5. REJOICE and then……….., 6. Pear Trees Mean Spring, 7. Lovely To See You, 8. Avocado Sandwich, 9. pale green butterfly, 10. Mon-DAY 163: saturated in the snow, 11. 92/365- My Inquiry, 12. Cleaning lady / Upratovačka
The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste the html into your blog or Flickr stream (the easiest way is to copy the URLs and then head over to the fd’s flickr toys link above and use the mosaic maker).
The questions and answers:
1. What is your fave time of day Early morning, not that I can ever get up!
2. Your initials KCM — sorry this had to be a pic of me, it was the only half decent one I was offered!
3. Your age in years 57
4. What day of the week is your birthday this year Sunday
5. What is the first thing you are going to do when you retire Rejoice
6. What is your fave season Spring
7. Grab a cd at random without looking, and then look and search for a track title Lovely to See You from the Moody Blues On the Threshold of a Dream
8. What di you have for lunch today Salad sandwiches and avocado
9. What color is your car (or bike if no car) Bike: pale green
10. How many flickr groups do you belong to 163
11. What color are your pants Natural skin; that’s right, I’m not wearing any!
12. What is the first thing you would buy if you one the lottery A cleaning lady
I wanted to get a person in each of the pictures, but that just proved too hard, at least to do in a sensible time.
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
Another in the occasional series.
Over the years I’ve made this on numerous occasions and did so again yesterday for the first time for quite a while. Some of the result has just been eaten for lunch.
You will need:
2lb (1kg) Minced Beef
½lb (250gm) Bacon or Ham scraps, roughly chopped (optional)
1 pint (550ml) Breadcrumbs
2 medium Onions, finely chopped
Lots of Garlic, roughly chopped
Large bunch fresh herbs (optional; use whatever is available and you like)
Cooked Spinach (optional)
15-20 Olives, roughly chopped (optional)
2 Eggs
1 tbsp Olive Oil
2 tbsp Tomato Puree (optional)
1 tbsp Garlic Puree (optional)
1 tsp Dried Chilli Flakes (optional)
2-3 soft Tomatoes
A slug of Brandy, Whisky or Calvados (optional)
Salt & Pepper
What you do:
Notes:
We’ve not done a Friday Five for a long time, so here’s this week’s …
1. What drink wakes you up best in the morning?
Tea. It just has to be a pint mug of tea. Strong tea, with very little milk — you have to be able to trot a mouse on it! 🙂
3. Do you drink the recommended 8 glasses of water per day? Why/why not?
No. Why not? ‘Cos I drink plenty of other liquid (usually at least 4 pints of tea a day, without anything else) and I don’t like plain water — well neither would you if you had to suffer London’s recycled liquid concrete.
4. What are the ingredients of your favorite mixed drink? (Doesn’t have to be alcoholic!)
It has to be Gin and Tonic!
5. Are you a coffee drinker? How do you take your coffee, if so?
I hardly ever drink coffee these days, and haven’t for 6 or 7 years. I used to like on coffee in the office, but a dowser & healer I knew worked out that coffee wasn’t good for me (except possibly in homeopathic quantities) so I stopped drinking it. (And no he wasn’t anti-coffee as many of these people are; asked him and he actually dowsed it there and then.) These days I drink coffee probably about once a month — occasionally I fancy a coffee (has to be strong, like the tea) and I’m almost always left disappointed.
[Brought to you courtesy of Friday Five.]
I’ve posted before about the need for a paradigm shift in agriculture policy (see here and here). There is an article by Jeffrey D Sachs in the June 2008 issue of Scientific American which picks up on this theme – although to my mind he doesn’t go far enough. As the article isn’t (yet) online, here is an edited version:
Surging Food Prices and Global Stability
Misguided policies favor biofuels and animal feed over grain for hungry peopleThe recent surge in world food prices is already creating havoc in poor countries, and worse is to come. Food riots are spreading across Africa, although many have gone unreported in the international press. Moreover, the surge in wheat, maize and rice prices … has not yet fully percolated into the shops and … the budgets of relief organizations … In early 2006 a metric ton of wheat cost around $375 on the commodity exchanges. In March 2008 it stood at more than $900 …
Several factors are at play in the skyrocketing prices … World incomes have been growing at around 5% annually in recent years … leading to an increased global demand for food … The rising demand for meat exacerbates the pressures on grain and oilseed prices because several kilograms of animal feed are required to produce each kilogram of meat. The grain supply has also been disrupted by climate shocks …
An even bigger blow has been the US decision to subsidize the conversion of maize into ethanol to blend with gasoline. This wrongheaded policy … gives a 51% tax credit for each gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates a minimum of 7.5 billion gallons of domestic renewable-fuel production … overwhelmingly … corn-based ethanol, by 2012. Consequently, up to a third of the US’s Midwestern maize crop this year will be converted to ethanol, causing a cascade of price increases … (Worse still, use of ethanol instead of gasoline does little to reduce net carbon emissions once the energy-intensive full cycle of ethanol production is taken into account.)
The food price increases are pummelling poor food-importing regions … Several countries … have cut off their rice exports in response to high prices at home … Even small changes in food prices can push the poor into hunger and destitution … some of the greatest famines in history were caused not by massive declines in grain production but rather by losses in the purchasing power of the poor.
… measures should be taken in response to the food price crisis. First, the world should … fund a massive increase in Africa’s food production. The needed technologies are available – high-yield seeds, fertilizer, small-scale irrigation – but the financing is not. The new African green revolution would initially subsidize peasant farmers’ access to better technologies [… and …] help farm communities establish long-term microfinance institutions …
Second, the US should end its misguided corn-to-ethanol subsidies … Third, the world should support longer-term research into higher agricultural production. Shockingly, the Bush administration is proposing to sharply cut the US funding for tropical agriculture studies … just when that work is most urgently needed …
This week’s self-portrait: 52 Weeks 12/52 (2008 week 20)
Some weeks ago I wrote about an article in Focus (a UK popular science magazine) about what some see as the pressing need to redesign our farming paradigm (see here). I was heartened over the weekend to see that several luminaries, including Professor Tim Lang, have taken up the cause in the RSA‘s quarterly journal – albeit in a more measured way, but that’s as one would expect from such an august institution. The gloss to their article, The root of the problem, reads:
Food security has risen up the political agenda, but sufficiency of supply is not the whole challenge […] Instead, we should look at ‘food capacity’ and the sustainability of our models of production and consumption.
Good to see the issue is climbing up the agenda. All we have to do now is get agribusiness and our vested-interest politicians to take note.
I always see Focus, the BBC’s science and technology magazine, and mostly I find it too superficial to satisfy to my scientific mind (not surprising really, it’s designed for interested amateurs, not former science professionals). But occasionally they have an interesting and thought-provoking article or comment. One such is in the current issue (April 2008) where Colin Tudge, zoologist, science writer and broadcaster, makes the case for the redesign of farming rather than the current trend towards super-livestock. Unfortunately the BBC doesn’t put the whole of the printed magazine online, so here is a heavily edited (but I hope undistorted) version of Tudge’s article; to read the whole thing you’ll have to buy the magazine.
The US government has approved the cloning of high-performance cattle, pigs, and goats … The idea is to make genetic copies of ‘elite’ animals: the ones that grow quickest, or give the most milk … Commercially, this sounds good.
…
But the decision … has been met with protest.
…
[A] few decades ago, traditional dairy cows in the western world yielded between 600 and 800 gallons per year, and were productive for at least five to 10 years … Modern herds are expected to average more than 1000 gallons a year [and some even 2000 gallons] … These high-performance cows average only 1.8 lactations, after which they have mastitis and are crippled.
…
Worse, though, is the mindset behind this use of cloning. For elite animals do not perform well except in cosseted conditions, and are … force-fed on high-grade feed. This requires huge capital – so such animals are intended only for rich countries whose consumers already have more than enough.
…
Worst of all, the frenetic search for the high-yield animals completely misconstrues the role of livestock. Already we are failing to feed the world’s population. An
estimated one billion out of 6.5 billion people are chronically undernourished while another billion suffer from excess.
…
The central task is to produce the most nourishment possible from the available landscapes. Food crops produce far more food calories and protein per hectare than livestock, so they should be our priority – cereals, pulses, nuts, tubers, fruit, and vegetables … Cattle and sheep should feed on grass or … trees that grow in places where we cannot easily raise crops … The omnivores like pigs and poultry can feed on surpluses and leftovers.So farming that is designed to maximise food output produces a lot of plants, with modest amounts of livestock … Plenty of plants, not much meat and maximum variety is precisely what modern nutritionists recommend.
…
But modern, industrial, high-tech farming has nothing to do with feeding people. It is designed to generate cash.
Spotted today on the Ocado (aka. Waitrose) supermarket website.