Category Archives: science

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.

arts, books, links, science, thoughts

Links of the Week

A collection of the curious and interesting you may have missed. This week we have a selcetion of the eccentric and the scientific …

First up here are nine equations true (science) geeks should know — or at least pretend to know. No I’d never heard of some of them either!

Why is this cargo container emitting so much radiation? Seems fairly obvious to me but it clearly puzzled the Italians.

Science, philosophy and religion: which best offers us the tools to understand the world around us? Here’s the scientist’s view, which is much as expected but still interesting to read.

John Lennon’s tooth bought by Canadian dentist. FFS why?

And finally … They’re baffling but they’re rather splendid. Who left a tree and a coffin in the library?

amusements, current affairs, science

Quantum Economics

This is an old one, but given the current dire situation of a good proportion of the Euro-zone countries, it seems strangely apposite — again!

Quantum Economics

The discussion of the creation of money and debt puts me in mind of the creation of virtual particle/antiparticle pairs in the vacuum. I wonder how many other Quantum Physics concepts can be applied to money.

Cash is not continuous but exists in discreet levels. The smallest quantum of money is called the Plank Penny.

Like energy and matter, money can be converted into things and vice versa. However during the conversion some money is always lost to a form of entropy called VAT.

It is not possible to be absolutely sure of both where your money is and how much it is worth. Finding out how much your money is really worth involves spending it which destroys the money. This is called the Uncertainty Principle.

Large accumulations of money distort the economic space around them producing an effect comparable to gravity. This is called the Million Pound Note effect.

Large accumulations of debt (anti-money) also have the effect of attracting more debt. Eventually the debt can collapse under its own weight forming a black hole. The space near a black hole is characterised by strong economic distortions such as hyperinflation and large amounts of spin.

The three laws of thermodynamics, apply equally to economics:
1. you can’t win
2. you can’t break even
3. you can’t get out of the game.

And the final reason why economics is like quantum physics? If you think you understand it, then you don’t really understand it at all.


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food+drink, memes, music, personal, quotes, science

Ten Things – November

Number 11 in my monthly series of “Ten Things” for 2011. Each month I list one thing from each of ten categories which will remain the same for each month of 2011. So at the end of the year you have ten lists of twelve things about me.

  1. Something I Like: Beaujolais Nouveau (This year’s is supposed to be even better than last year’s which was superb; and it’ll be here in a few days time!)
  2. Something I Won’t Do: Plumbing
  3. Something I Want To Do: Visit Norway & Sweden
  4. A Blog I Like: Cocktail Party Physics
  5. A Book I Like: Douglas Adams, Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
  6. Some Music I Like: Handel, Messiah
  7. A Food I Like: Pizza
  8. A Food or Drink I Dislike: Sweet Potatoes
  9. A Word I Like: Mendicant
  10. A Quote I Like: The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. [JBS Haldane]
environment, science, topographical

Fukushima Revisited

I’ve not written recently about the nuclear disaster in Japan following March’s earthquake and tsunami. This is largely because there has been little in the way of new news. However a few days ago an IEEE Spectrum report was released which looks at the first 24 hours at the nuclear facility following the earthquake and highlights some of the design and procedural errors which exacerbated the disaster.

Although the situation in the reactors was clearly far worse than we had been led to believe, I’ll not extract the report here: you can read a summary on-line. And it is worth reading: it’s clear, lucid, gives a flavour of just how complex these situations really are, how much wasn’t know (or wasn’t told) and how people react under extreme pressure.

What I will do is mention the six major lessons which have been highlighted by the report, with the inevitable handful of comments. This should be sufficient to show where there were errors in the design of plant and procedure. Before that there’s one important thing to note:

[The] report is based on interviews with officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the International Atomic Energy Agency, local governments, and with other experts in nuclear engineering, as well as a review of hundreds of pages of official reports.

So it isn’t just make-believe; it should be good stuff. Anyway here are those lessons:

Lesson 1. Emergency generators should be installed at high elevations or in watertight chambers.
Sounds obvious, doesn’t it. But it all comes down to good risk analysis. If you aren’t expecting significant flooding it makes great sense to put plant, especially emergency generators etc., on the ground: they’re excessively heavy and when operating generate huge amounts of noise and vibration.

LESSON 2. If a cooling system is intended to operate without power, make sure all of its parts can be manipulated without power.
Again sounds obvious when stated like that, but far too easy to overlook, although good design reviews should have picked this up.

LESSON 3. Keep power trucks [mobile emergency generators] on or very close to the power plant site.
Why would we do that? Isn’t a central facility more cost effective? In this case no, it may not be!

LESSON 4. Install independent and secure battery systems to power crucial instruments during emergencies.
Same comment as for Lesson 2.

LESSON 5. Ensure that catalytic hydrogen recombiners (power-free devices that turn dangerous hydrogen gas back into steam) are positioned at the tops of reactor buildings where gas would most likely collect.
You’re never going to get a big build-up of hydrogen inside a containment building are you. Wait: isn’t that what a containment building is for? But be honest, how many of us would have thought of this?

LESSON 6. Install power-free filters on vent lines to remove radio-active materials and allow for venting that won’t harm nearby residents.
Again, see Lesson 2.

What remains clear to me is that the plant, the systems and the procedures worked correctly, and were implemented correctly, as they were designed. What failed is the 40-year-old design and the procedures which didn’t go far enough in their disaster scenario planning.

We would (and do) do much better now and will do even better as a result of this disaster. Because of its safety critical nature, the nuclear industry is like the aviation industry: every accident (and near-accident) is analysed for the underlying root cause(s) and there is a culture of incremental improvements and (where necessary/possible) of retro-fitting improvements. Notwithstanding the fact that Fukushima was (and is) a disaster, exacerbated by continuing failures in transparency and communication, I see this as a positive experience which should make nuclear power safer and more acceptable — not the reverse.

The biggest disaster is the effect on the displaced and frightened people which is largely psychological and social rather than medical; and that’s in large part down to the obfuscation and half-truths of the TEPCO and Japanese government communications. One day governments will learn that total transparency is the only safe course of action.

beliefs, history, links, science, sexuality, thoughts

Links of the Week

This weeks collection of the curious and interesting you may have missed …

Lord Norwich makes some sly remarks about Popes. But how does he know what Pope Nicholas V was like?

Now apparently out gut bacteria may be causing obesity. And you thought it was because I ate too much.

Scientists also think they’ve discovered why some of us hate Brussels Sprouts. Yes it’s all in the genetics, and our taste buds.

In other news, speculation is rife that Palaeolithic man went in for piercing his penis. It all sounds pretty tenuous to me, but then there’s nothing new under the foreskin sun.

And finally … And finally someone in “authority” has come to realise that what we’ve been saying all these years might just be helpful: prostitution could be solved by decriminalising brothels. Government: smell the coffee … it ain’t going to go away and if you licence it you can tax it!

beliefs, books, quotes, science

Quotes of the Week: Sublime & Ridiculous

The Tuesday scowls, the Wednesday growls, the Thursday curses, the Friday howls, the Saturday snores, the Sunday yawns, the Monday morns, the Monday morns. The whacks, the moans, the cracks, the groans, the welts, the squeaks, the belts, the shrieks, the pricks, the prayers, the kicks, the tears, the skelps, and the yelps.
[Samuel Beckett, Watt]

The moon lives twenty-eight days and this is our month. Each of these days represents something sacred to us: two of the days represent the Great Spirit; two are for Mother Earth; four are for the four winds; one is for the Spotted Eagle; one for the sun; and one for the moon; one is for the Morning Star; and four are for the four ages; seven for our seven great rites; one is for the buffalo; one for the fire; one for the water; one for the rock; and finally, one is for the two-legged people. If you add all these days up you will see that they come to twenty-eight. You should know also that the buffalo has twenty-eight ribs, and that in our war bonnets we usually wear twenty-eight feathers. You see, there is a signif­icance for everything, and these are things that are good for men to know and to remember.
[Black Elk, quoted somewhere I now forget by Joseph Campbell]

Moyers: What happens when a society no longer embraces a powerful mythology?
Campbell: What we’ve got on our hands. If you want to find out what it means to have a society without any rituals, read the New York Times.
Moyers: And you’d find?
Campbell: The news of the day, including destructive and violent acts by young people who don’t know how to behave in a civilized society.
Moyers: Society has provided them no rituals by which they become members of the tribe, of the community. All children need to be twice born, to learn to function rationally in the present world, leaving childhood behind …
Campbell: That’s exactly it. That’s the significance of the puberty rites. In primal societies, there are teeth knocked out, there are scarifications, there are circumcisions, there are all kinds of things done. So you don’t have your little baby body any more, you’re something else entirely.
When I was a kid, we wore short trousers, you know, knee pants. And then there was a great moment when you put on long pants. Boys now don’t get that. I see even five-year-olds walking around with long trousers. When are they going to know that they’re now men and must put aside childish things?
Moyers: Where do the kids growing up in the city — on 125th and Broadway, for example — where do these kids get their myths today?
Campbell: They make them up themselves. This is why we have graffiti all over the city. These kids have their own gangs and their own initiations and their own morality, and they’re doing the best they can … they have not been initiated into our society.
[Joseph Campbell; The Power of Myth]

Out of this scrimmage Thomas Drury emerges as something of an orchestrator, an impresario of knaveries …
[Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, 2nd edition, 2002]

A fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta.
[Shakespeare, I Henry IV, I ii]