Category Archives: science

amusements, books, quotes, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

The usual eclectic mix. Firstly something dear to my heart …

A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.
[Alan Bennett]

So long as a judge keeps silent his reputation for wisdom and impartiality remains unassailable: but every utterance which he makes in public except in the course of the actual performance of his judicial duties, must necessarily bring him within the focus of criticism. [It would] be inappropriate for the judiciary to be associated with any series of talks or anything which can be fairly interpreted as entertainment.
[Lord Goddard, Lord Chief Justice, 1955]

I suppose one shouldn’t expect anything less po-faced coming out if the 1950s, but oh, dear we are on our dignity aren’t we! Next something I’ve long suspected, from someone who should know …

Science is organized common sense. Philosophy is organized piffle.
[Bertrand Russell, philosopher and mathematician]

There are three faithful friends:
– An old wife
– A shaggy dog
– And ready money
[Thoughts of Angel]

Slightly dodgy ground there, methinks! And finally …

The best of all stratagems is to know when to quit.
[Thoughts of Angel]

amusements, arts, food+drink, links, medical, natural history, science

Links of the Week

Here’s your usual selection of things which interested/amused me and which you may have missed. And do we have a bumper selection this week!

First something useful? There’s a view that “use by” dates on food are a myth which needs busting. So it’s American but I don’t see much being different in the UK. But I do worry whether people have enough common sense to safely abolish “use by” dates.

And now to the very unuseful. Why does the search for the Higgs Boson matter? Actually to most people it doesn’t matter; whether physicists find it or not it won’t change the lives of 99.9999% of the population. That doesn’t necessarily mean we shouldn’t look for it, but in the overall scheme of broken banks and countries it actually doesn’t matter.

Sociable wasps have an eye for faces. But not for caterpillars. And you just thought they were animated automatons sent by the Devil to annoy you!

And talking of the works of the Devil, pyjamas are another … The joys and benefits of sleeping naked. And no, it isn’t colder!

Think you’re good at sudoku? You’ll need a good night’s sleep before you try this! He-he!

A few weeks back we told of these strange paper sculptures left in libraries. Well the phantom has returned, for the last time.

Not got enough to do in the run-up to Christmas? Need a craft project? Make storybook paper roses (above).

And finally … Do you need an udder tug? Well who doesn’t? — Certainly no self-respecting mutt!

current affairs, medical, science, thoughts

Gawdelpus …

… if this is the logic!

BBC Breakfast is this morning reporting the need to “halve the number of people in the UK with HIV”. And how are we going to do this? But getting people tested earlier, etc. etc.

No, guys!

Even if there were zero new infections, the only way you halve the number of people with an incurable disease is for them to die!

So did you mean you need to halve the number of new cases? Or halve the number of people who have HIV but are undiagnosed? Or what did you mean?

amusements, food+drink, medical, natural history, personal, photography, science, sexuality

Reasons to be Grateful 2

OK so here’s week two of my experiment: this week’s things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful:
Crab Apples

  1. Autumn Colours^ — there are still some gorgeous golden leaves around as well as bright red fruit on our ornamental crab apple, especially in …
  2. Sunshine* — which makes those autumn colours all the more vibrant
  3. Vagina Cupcakes — they’re a hoot!
  4. Beaujolais Nouveau* — I’ve now tasted three different ones and they’re all excellent
  5. Sleep — it’s so restorative to sleep well and undisturbed as I did last night
^ Click the image for a bigger version, and for other photos.
* No-one said I couldn’t choose the same things as last week!
environment, science

How Green is Your Green?

The answer may depend on the quantity of rare earth elements used.

A few days ago I spotted an article on the web under the headline Your Prius’ Deepest, Darkest Secret points out that many products which appear to to reduce ones environmental footprint actually contain relatively large quantities of rare earth elements, which have to be mined and refined — a dirty process at the best of times.

Neodymium magnets turn wind turbines. Cerium helps reduce tailpipe emissions. Yttrium can form phosphors that make light in LED displays and compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Hybrid and electric cars often contain as many as eight different rare earths … Walk down the aisles of your local Best Buy and you’ll be hard-pressed to find something that doesn’t contain at least one of the rare earths, from smartphones to laptop batteries to flat-screen TVs. They’re also crucial for defence technology—radar and sonar systems, tank engines, and the navigation systems in smart bombs.

No surprise therefore that the demand for rare earths is sky-rocketing and mining is expanding accordingly. Mining and refining produce mountains of waste from rock spoil to harsh acids as well as consuming gargantuan quantities of energy. And mining companies don’t have good track records at reducing and managing any of this.

Another side of the coin is that many of these elements are used in such small quantities that recovering them from old products and recycling them becomes equally as hard as the original refining.

As I pointed out here and as the article concludes: What good is green technology if it’s based on minerals whose extraction is so, well, ungreen?

Gawdelpus.

medical, personal, science

Hairy Mysteries

We are used to the fact that men grow hair on their heads and faces. And that some men even dare to grow hair on their chests — much to the horror, it seems, of most girls.

We also know that male hair growth is in part related to testosterone levels — or at least the testosterone level at some critical point in their development — as well as genetics.

So why is it that even the hairiest of men don’t grow hair round where their shirt collar goes? (There are a few very, very hairy men who do grow hair under their collars, but they are unusual.)

It seems unlikelky that the lack of hair is due to collar abrasion. The area is totally devoid of hair and there is no sign of hair regrowth if collars are not worn. The collar also seems not to affect hair growth in those very hairy men who do grow hair on their necks.

This really does seem to be a genuinely hairless area.

Can anyone explain why this is the case and what evolutionary advantage it might once have had?

Or perphaps to put it another way … why is facial and chest hair selected for, but neck and shoulder hair mostly isn’t?

books, medical, personal, science

Reasons to be Grateful

This week I’ve been reading Richard Wiseman’s 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot. This is a self-help book but with a big difference. As the book blurb says

Welcome to the new science of rapid change. In 59 Seconds psychologist Richard Wiseman exposes modern-day mind myths promoted by the self-help industry, and outlines quick and quirky techniques that help people to achieve their aims in minutes, not months.

And from New Scientist

This is a self-help book, but with a difference: almost everything in it is underpinned by peer-reviewed and often fascinating research. It could actually help you be a little happier, perform better at interviews, procrastinate less, improve your relationships, reduce your stress levels and be a better parent

And it does exactly what it says on the tin!

In the final chapter Wiseman briefly summarises ten things which he could explain in under a minute (the challenge he set himself at the start of the book) and which could make a difference:

  1. Develop the gratitude attitude
  2. Place a picture of a baby in your wallet
  3. Hang a mirror in your kitchen
  4. Buy a pot plant for the office
  5. Touch people lightly on the upper arm
  6. Wite about your relationship
  7. Deal with potential liars by closing your eyes and asking for an email
  8. Praise children’s effort over ability
  9. Visualise your self doing, not achieving
  10. Consider your legacy

No they aren’t all inherently obvious. And I’m not going to try to explain them here — you’ll just have to splash out a few quid on the paperback.

Do they work. Well clearly Wiseman thinks they do. I don’t know, although I follow the logic behind most of them. So what I’m going to do is try a little experiment of my own here: and that’s try the first on Wiseman’s list which he summarises as:

Develop the gratitude attitude
Having people list three things that they are grateful for in life, or three events that have gone especially well over the past week, can significantly increase their level of happiness for about a month. This, in turn, can cause them to be more optimistic about the future and improve their physical health.

So each weekend I’ll write a short post about at least three (I’ll aim for five) things which have made me happy or which I’m grateful for over the last week. And I’ll aim to do this trough to at least the end of 2012. There’s no control group so it will be hard to know how well it succeeds, other than maybe my qualitative perceptions — but then that is at least half of what it’s all about. Anthony Powell attributes to his character General Conyers in Books Do Furnish a Room:

The General, speaking one felt with authority, always insisted that, if you bring off adequate preservation of your personal myth, nothing much else in life matters. It is not what happens to people that is significant, but what they think happens to them.

So here are my first five things which have made me happy/grateful over the last week:

  1. An excellent Anthony Powell Annual Lecture last evening from Prof. Vernon Bogdanor
  2. Noreen
  3. A stunning flower on our Hibiscus
  4. Sunshine
  5. Beaujolais Nouveau

environment, links, science, sexuality, topographical

Links of the Week

This week’s catch-up on things you may have missed, and which I missed writing about. This week: Sex and Science.

Now I know all maps are a 2D projection of a 3D surface, but I’d never realised before quite how many different ways there were of doing the map projections.

Does bestiality increase your risk of penile cancer? Why would anyone even think to want to find out?

First there was the Human Development Index — a sort of generalised national “happiness rating”. Then someone decided to add some greenness and turned the whole thing upside down.

Lots of interesting, quick and easy video explanations of physics at Minute Physics. Worth a look — and not just for geeks.

Vulvanomics — on female genital cosmetic surgery. Why would anyone? But then as a fully paid up mail I will never understand.

Antibiotics with a side of steak. Worrying commentary on agribusiness.

And finally …

Some lucky women are having orgasms in an MRI scanner. Now how cool is that?

But they’re doing it to show that only Epilepsy brings more activity to women’s brains than does “self-stimulation” to orgasm.

We live in a strange world!

amusements, beliefs, quotes, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

The usual eclectic and eccentric mix this week …

If you can’t see the bright side of life … then polish the dull side.

Wear short sleeves … Support your right to bare arms!
Thoughts of Angel

The very concept of “average” necessarily implies variability.
Emily Nakoski, On monkeys, bullshit, and scale

I hold this truth to be self-evident, that a debt crisis cannot be resolved with more debt.
Hellasious on Quantum Economics

It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others.
MFK Fisher quoted in Why Do People Eat Too Much?

Ponder less on what you yourself perhaps think than on what will be the thoughts of the majority of others who, carried away by your authority or your reasons, become persuaded that the terrestrial globe moves among the planets. They will conclude at first that, if the earth is doubtless one of the planets and also has inhabitants, then it is well to believe that inhabitants exist on other planets and are not lacking in the fixed stars, that they are even of a superior nature and in proportion as the other stars surpass the earth in size and perfection. This will raise doubts about Genesis, which says that the earth was made before the stars and that they were created on the fourth day to illuminate the earth … then in turn the entire economy of the Word incarnate and of scriptural truth will be rendered suspect.
17th-century Rector of the College of Dijon writing to the priest-scientist Pierre Gassendi. With thanks to Barnaby Page.

medical, science

World Diabetes Day

Today is World Diabetes Day.

Who knew? I certainly didn’t and I have diabetes! So they’ve kept that one quiet. Or was I asleep? Yeah, probably.

Think you don’t need to read this? It’ll never happen to you, will it? Think again. Do the Diabetes Risk Assessment. And then read on anyway.

On this day Diabetes UK are asking us to highlight the 15 healthcare essentials which they see as a basic right of all diabetics. Many are surely the basic healthcare rights of everyone.

I’ve listed these 15 healthcare essentials below with a note of when should get them done and how well I do against this.

  1. Get your blood glucose levels measured. Annual blood test. Check.
  2. Have your blood pressure measured. At least annually. Check.
  3. Have your blood fats (cholesterol) measured. Annual blood test. Check.
  4. Have your eyes looked checked. Annual. Check.
  5. Have your legs and feet checked. Annual. Check.
  6. Have your kidney functions monitored. Annual blood and urine tests. Check.
  7. Have your weight checked. As required. Check.
  8. Get support if you are a smoker. As required. N/A
  9. Receive care planning to meet your individual needs. As required. Never really needed this.
  10. Attend an education course. At initial diagnosis. I’ve only recently been offered this after 6 years.
  11. Receive paediatric care if you are a child. As required. N/A
  12. Receive high quality care if admitted to hospital. As required. Yes, on the odd occasion it’s been needed.
  13. Get information and specialist care if you are planning to have a baby. As required. N/A
  14. See specialist diabetes healthcare professionals. As required but at least annually. Check.
  15. Get emotional and psychological support. As required. Not needed anything specific.

Well I’ve actually done better than I thought. Really only the education has been badly missed.

And as you’ll see little if any of this is onerous. And it is definitely worth doing as these simple actions can head off (or at least catch very early) the common long-term complications of diabetes: heart disease, retinopathy, neuropathy and kidney disease.

You can find more details about each of these here.