Category Archives: science

current affairs, medical, science, sexuality, thoughts

Pubic Hair Removal – Why?

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An interesting article in the Guardian on Friday (11 Feb) by Bidisha in which she asks why women are these days removing their pubic hair. Her contention is that it’s a fashion (almost certainly) and that it is generally a bad idea, psychologically, for both men and women. I’m not sure I entirely agree with this, but it’s an interesting argument:

Are women so ashamed of their bodies’ natural beauty, so unaccepting of things as they are that they will do anything at all, even if it’s degrading, to get some willy time? A man who withholds his attention and affection according to the follicle count of a lady’s crotch doesn’t deserve intimacy with a real-life woman. A man who likes a woman without pubic hair despises adult women so much that he wants us to resemble children […]

I worry about these men too […] They are now in danger of returning to a Victorian naivety. They may well believe that […] women naturally do not have any body hair. Upon seeing some real hair on a real woman for the first time they may well vomit or faint, or both […]

As for the women, don’t you have anything more interesting to do than dutifully coif your cassoulet?

You can find the full article here.

beliefs, medical, personal, quotes, science

Quotes of the Week

Quite a lot of quotes, and slightly early, this week as I missed last week’s post. And lot’s of zen type quotes too as I’m getting to the end of several zen books. So here goes …

There is no optimal state of consciousness. Optimal is just an idea, another manifestation of the Great Somewhere Else. Consciousness is just an idea.
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]

What is true during dreamless sleep is true no matter whether you can recall the experience and write about it or not. What is true in a whorehouse in Bangkok is true whether you visit it and take Polaroids or not. What is true for six-legged aliens on the fifth planet circling Epsilon Centauri is true whether you go there and talk to them or not. You may never know the life your toothbrush leads when you’re not around but it’s certainly real.
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]

Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.
[Jane Wagner]

After all, it is no more surprising to be born twice than it is to be born once.
[Seagal Rinpoche; comment at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/01/literal-rebirth.html]

Reincarnation is a fun subject. I do like the concept ‘how can you return if you never leave?’ I think that sums it up nicely. From the perspective of our experience, it’s easy to find examples of how this might actually work. Consider this: when you were five, playing in your yard, you suddenly thought a strange thought – I wonder who I will be when I grow up? Will I still be me? And of course, you did grow up, and you are still you – but you are not the child who asked that question so long ago. Did the child ‘die’? No,it didn’t. But the child is not there any more – so how can that be? Maybe reincarnation is a little like that?
[Mr Reee; comment at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/01/literal-rebirth.html]

The pen is mightier than the sword but a vagina beats anything you’ve ever seen.
[Bizarro Seagal; comment at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/01/literal-rebirth.html]

‘Bonsai?’
‘The Japanese art of training little trees to resemble big ones. Wouldn’t work unless there was a scale-independent structure.’
‘I knew a bloke once did bonsai mountains,’ said Olly. It took a few seconds for us to twig.
‘You mean pet rocks?’ enquired Deirdre.
‘Suitably fragmented rocks do look a lot like mountains,’ I said.
‘He didn’t just sit a rock in a bowl, you know,’ said Olly. ‘It’s lots of work making proper bonsai mountains. He had all the gear – little hosepipes with spray-action nozzles and fans stuck on special stands to weather them with miniature rainstorms, spark generators for small-scale lightning, lots of tiny mirrors to focus the Sun’s rays. Even a tiny snow machine.’
‘Really?’ Deirdre was interested in gardening and this just about counted.
‘Yeah. But he had to stop.’
‘Why?’
‘The rocks got infested with greenfly. On skis.’ Deirdre hit him.
[Ian Stewart; Cows in the Maze]

The tricky part about being human is that you have to be your own pack leader. You have to know that you can keep yourself safe, stand over your own emotional center of gravity and stay stable but responsive.
[Emily Nagoski; at ]

Let me tell you, friends, this is an amazing book. Just reading it put me into an altered state of consciousness. I entered a realm where perceptions of form and matter vanished, to be replaced by an amorphous void beyond all thought and senses, a world of peace and quiet undisturbed by the anxieties and uncertainties of the material universe. In other words, I fell right to sleep.
[Brad Warner; Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death and Dogen’s Treasury of the Right Dharma Eye]

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
[Indira Gandhi]

What is religion but the distillation of an individual’s perception of the truth? By that definition, even atheists have religion.
[Amelia Nagoski]

Chinese medicine calls the gut the lower dan t’ien – guess where the upper dan t’ien is? Yep, the head. My gut is a brain just like the one in my skull.
[Amelia Nagoski]

There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to
new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally of course, there are times that are cold, and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream. Those rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing, not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are.
[Seagal Rinpoche; comment at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/02/reasons-to-be-cheerful.html]

medical, memes, personal, science

Thing-a-Day – FAIL!

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Well to misquote Robert Burns, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

I started with every intention of completing this year’s Thing-a-Day. Then everything went “castors up”!

Last Thursday I had a relatively routine medical procedure (trust me – you really don’t want to know the details!) as a day-care patient at our local private hospital. Everything appeared to go OK and I was discharged early that evening feeling surprisingly good despite the sedation.

By Friday morning I was in quite some abdominal discomfort and had a raging fever. To cut a long and tedious story short I got back to see the consultant at 2pm on Friday and he immediately re-admitted me to hospital with instructions to get a CT scan on the way. The scan showed that I had one of those 1 in 1000 complications: peritonitis. Major Gerry Bummer!

The upshot was that I spent the weekend connected up to drips (IV fluids, antibiotics and insulin), on a diet of “clear fluids” only and being disturbed every 1 hour 27 minutes (well it certainly wasn’t regular) round the clock to have everything measured. By Monday I was well on the way to recovery and was discharged, without a demob suit but with a box more antibiotics and an instruction to “take it easy for a few days”. So I am. And I’m still getting better; the discomfort has almost entirely gone; and I go back to see the surgeon on Friday for a check-up.

With a couple of notable exceptions I have to say the care I received was brilliant. My GP was on the ball, helpful and sympathetic. So was my consultant who actually came in to see me at 0830 on Sunday morning! The nursing staff were great and mostly friendly and chatty and had time for you. I did like the way when I was with him the consultant picked up his phone, asked when the Imaging Department would scan me and then told them that no, he wanted a scan now and not in 3 hours time! No-one was in any doubt who was in charge.

What wasn’t I impressed with? One of the night nurses didn’t inspire a lot of confidence, but she was the only one of the many nurses I saw who didn’t. But worse was the reception from the Endoscopy Department when I called them on the Friday morning, clearly unwell: the best they could do was “go to your GP”. My GP nearly blew a gasket and I suspect someone got an Exocet suppository when I wasn’t there.

Let’s just hope things keep rolling downhill and there are no nasty surprises in the biopsy results.

Meanwhile having missed some days of Thing-a-Day I don’t have it in me to start over. This was not the intention. MAJOR FAIL.

Time to go and take the antibiotics!

medical, natural history, photography, science

Swoose


Swoose, Wool (Dorset), 24-Oct-10, originally uploaded by Dave Appleton.
Swoose? No I’d never heard the word either until today. But then I saw birder Dave Appleton’s superb image (reproduced above) and followed the link to his website where he describes a bird which is a hybrid of a swan and a goose … hence a “swoose”. In fact he is describing this bird; publishing several sets of photographs of it; and documenting its history.

Now I didn’t know either that swans could cross-breed with geese. (That’s two things I’ve learnt today!) But, although it is extremely rare, apparently swans and geese can interbreed. As Dave explains the offspring don’t usually survive to adulthood. However the bird pictured is known to have hatched in 2003 and was photographed by Dave last October, possibly having successfully bred itself.

Following the story on Dave’s website, it seems that the parentage of this bird is pretty well authenticated short of someone managing to get samples and do the DNA profiling. I hope that it is possible to get the DNA profiling done; the results would be extremely interesting to those interested in birds but also, I imagine, to academic zoologists. And it would be interesting too to see if the bird’s proposed parentage is correct. If nothing else this is an interesting puzzle and I’d like to say “thanks” to Dave for making all this information available.

Of course, there’s another rather interesting and deeper legal puzzle here. All Mute Swans (our native, resident British species) belong to the Queen and are as such protected. Geese however appear to be protected only during the closed season (February through August) and are thus treated as game birds like duck). But what is a Swoose? Is it a swan or a goose? Were these birds to become common and a pest (very unlikely, I know) I feel sure this would be a most interesting legal debate. Just don’t anyone dare go and shoot the bird in the meantime because …

Whatever the bird actually turns out to be it is a most handsome and interesting creature which deserves a lifetime of quiet observation and protection.

current affairs, personal, science

World Shattering

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger Disaster, when the space shuttle broke up just 73 seconds after launch killing all seven astronauts aboard.

Whether one agrees with manned space missions or not (and I have to say I’m divided on the matter) we should be mindful of the huge challenges which have been overcome to achieve this and admiring of those who have been a part of it. The spin-offs from space exploration have been tremendous and include such everyday things as smoke detectors, crash helmet design, digital imaging, ultra-sound scanning, satellite communications and whole swathes of computer and medical technology.

Thinking about the Challenger Disaster got me thinking further about the sheer number of world-changing events which have happened during my three-score years. Well let’s just restrict it to ones I remember (which rules out the Suez Crisis as it’s too hazy a memory).  In no particular order …

  • Challenger Disaster, 28 January 1986.
  • 9/11, 11 September 2001; al-Qaeda flew two planes into the World Trade Centre in New York.
  • Fall of Berlin Wall, 9 November 1989.
  • Assassination of John F Kennedy, 22 November 1963.
  • First Man on the Moon, 21 July 1969.
  • Sputnik, 4 October 1957. I think this is the first world event I really remember at all clearly. I recall my father taking me into the garden one night to see Sputnik 1, or one of it’s very early successors, as a tiny star passing quickly overhead.
  • Chernobyl Disaster, 26 April 1986.
  • Fall of Communist Russia, 1 July 1991. This was just one of a whole series of revolutions, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, which saw the dismantling of the Communist Bloc in the late ’80s and early ’90s; in many ways it is hard to tease them all apart.
  • Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962. I don’t think I fully understood this but I remember how frightening it was.
  • Rhodesian UDI, 11 November 1965. This was probably the first world event I recall following properly and trying to understand. I think history will tell us that in realigning the politics of southern Africa UDI was seminal in the breakdown of apartheid.

These are just the events which spring immediately to mind; I’m sure there are many more. But looking at that list makes me wonder at the interesting times I’ve lived through even before one takes UK domestic events into account.  Leaving aside world wars and invasions (I’m thinking WWI, WWII, 1066, Civil War) few generations can have lived through such interesting and momentous times.

What about you? What events do you remember?

current affairs, personal, science

Class

Does class still matter in Britain today?

BBC Lab UK works with leading scientists to create real, ground-breaking scientific experiments. One of their current experiments is to find out if class still matters in modern Britain. And if so, what does the real class system look like?

You can contribute and find out how YOU wield power and influence by taking the BBC’s Britain’s Real Class System test.

At the end you’ll find out something about you and your place in British society today – and have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve contributed to research.

medical, science, words

Labia minor

Labia minor is a good example of the unexpected surprises and humour which exist in the world of biological nomenclature. In this case the name applies not just to the “two longitudinal cutaneous folds on the human vulva” but is also the specific name for the Lesser Earwig.

Fortunately such eclecticisms are being collected by Mark Isaak at Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature. As Isaak says:

Scientific names of organisms are not usually known for their entertainment value. They are indispensable for clarity in communication, but most people skip over them with barely a glance. Here I collect those names that are worth a second look.

Some names are interesting for what they are named after (for example, Arthurdactylus conandoylensis, Godzillius), some are puns (La cucaracha, Phthiria relativitae), and some show other kinds of wordplay (such as the palindromic Orizabus subaziro). Some have achieved notability through accident of history, and many show the sense of humor of taxonomists.

If you’re interested in either biology or words it’s well worth a look. But prepare to be amazed for amongst the collected examples you’ll also find:

  • Unifolium bifolium (European May Lily); basically “single leaved plant with two leaves”
  • Abra cadabra (a clam)
  • Ba humbugi (a snail); from the Fijian island of Mba
  • Panama canalia (braconid fly)
  • Mozartella beethoveni (encyrtid wasp)
  • and of course Labia minor (Lesser Earwig); “small lips”; don’t ask why this would be appropriate for an earwig!

Isaak has even included an essential guide to the basic rules of biological binomial nomenclature. And a section on the (increasingly weird) names being given to genes – the well known gene sonic hedgehog isn’t the half of it!

My favourite? Well one of the best named is surely Boselaphus tragocamelus, an antelope (below) whose name translates from the Latin as “ox-deer goat-camel”. Clearly named, as well as designed, by a committee!

beliefs, current affairs, medical, science, sexuality

On Legalising Sex Work

In the UK, as in much of the English-speaking world sex work (selling sexual acts for money) is illegal, although there are naturally nuances of the law defining where the boundaries are. But this is not the case in many other countries and, somewhat surprisingly, it isn’t the case in the entire English-speaking world.

There’s an interesting article by Kate McCombs over at My Sex Professor about sex work in the Australian state of Victoria where it is both legal and regulated. And it isn’t as if Australia is any less puritanical than the UK or USA.

I’m not going to reproduce the whole of McCombs article (you can read it for yourself) but what follows is a summary with a few observations of my own.

To be legal sex workers must be consenting and over 18 which is achieved through registration of individuals, brothels and escort agencies. Street-based sex work is illegal for both worker and client but, of course, hasn’t been entirely eliminated – and frankly never will be. (Any legalised and regulated activity will always have someone prepared to work outside it, for whatever reason.)

All sex workers in Victoria are required to undergo monthly checks for chlamydia, gonorrhoea and trichomonas; and quarterly tests for HIV and syphilis. (You can’t enforce that without a registration system, which of course also has the side benefit that it brings the sex workers within the tax system!) Legal sex workers have significantly lower rates of all STIs than the general population of the state. What’s interesting is that the few STI cases which do occur among legal sex workers almost all derive from their partners and not from clients.

While there is still stigma and discrimination within the healthcare system this is an improving situation. State police are formally trained about sex worker rights and take charges against clients seriously. Consequently sex workers can make decisions based on their own safety without fear of legal reprecussions.

This is all supported by good education for the sex workers about their rights, navigating the health and legal systems, and what to do if they’re the victim of a crime. This education incorporates feedback from the sex workers themselves, which further helps drive the positive outcomes.

The police believe sex workers themselves (both legal and illegal) are one of the best resources for reducing trafficking, which remains illegal. Apparently sex workers do inform the police when coerced or underage work is happening in their areas.

Overall it seems that compared with the more normal prohibitive situation, the approach of Victoria has well researched public health benefits, based as it is on laws which help keep people safe and reduce stigma for both worker and client. Surely this has to be a better way forward?

food+drink, science

Beer is Better

And now for some real, if esoteric, scientific research. This from the February 2011 issue of Scientific American:

Beer Batter Is Better
How it makes a great fish ‘n’ chips

If you’ve ever sat down at a pub to a plate of really good fish and chips — the kind in which the fish stays tender and juicy but the crust is super-crisp — odds are that the cook used beer as the main liquid when making the batter. Beer makes such a great base for batter because it simultaneously adds three ingredients — carbon dioxide, foaming agents and alcohol — each of which brings to bear different aspects of physics and chemistry to make the crust light and crisp.

Beer is saturated with CO2. Unlike most solids, like salt and sugar, which dissolve better in hot liquids than they do in cold, gases dissolve more readily at low temperatures. Put beer into a batter mix, and when the batter hits the hot oil, the solubility of the CO2 plummets, and bubbles froth up, expanding the batter mix and lending it a lacy, crisp texture.

That wouldn’t work, of course, if the bubbles burst as soon as they appeared, as happens in a glass of champagne. Instead beer forms a head when poured because it contains foaming agents. Some of these agents are proteins that occur naturally in the beer, and some are ingredients that brewers add to produce a creamy, long-lasting head. These compounds form thin films that surround the bubbles and slow the rate at which they burst.

Foams also make good thermal insulators. When you dunk a piece of beer-battered fish into a deep fryer, most of the heat goes into the batter rather than into the delicate food it encloses. The bubbly batter can heat up to well over 130 degrees Fahrenheit — the point at which so-called Maillard reactions create golden-brown colors and yummy fried flavors — while the fish gently simmers inside.

The alcohol in the beer also plays an important role in moderating the internal temperature and crisping the crust. Alcohol evaporates faster than water, so a beer batter doesn’t have to cook as long as one made only with water or milk. The faster the batter dries, the lower the risk of overcooking the food. If the chef works fast enough, he can create a beautiful lacework in the coating that yields that classic beer-batter crunch.

[W Wayt Gibbs and Nathan Myhrvold]

amusements, science

A Cable Too Far

Clearly I’m not the only one capable of extracting the wee from things. This from the “Feedback” column of the current issue of New Scientist:

Almost three years ago Japanese electronics giant Denon offered hi-fi enthusiasts the chance to pay $499 for a short length of computer network cable, usually costing only a few dollars (23 July 2008). The claim was that the cable “thoroughly eliminates adverse effects from vibration”.

We never did get a clear explanation of how vibration can affect digits running through a cable. But it seems the price was a bargain, because the AKDLi cable is now on sale at Amazon.com at $9999 new or $999 used (plus $4.99 for shipping). Hi-fi fans have not been indifferent to the cable’s qualities. They have turned Amazon’s customer comments pages, at amzn.to/cablereviews, into a paean of ironic praise for these bits of wire, with well over 1400 reviews.

Recent postings include this from DMan: “I filled a large glass with ordinary tap water and carefully dipped the doubled-over cable in. The whole glass turned instantly dark, red and more viscous. A quick taste and both my friend and I agreed that it was the finest tasting red wine we’d ever encountered.”

This comes from jmf: “Ever since I started using the cable … my light sabre skills have improved dramatically, much to the awe of my Master. I am able to jump from an anti-gravitational car running at full speed onto another, all the time dodging a laser gun.”

Perhaps most startling is what happened when Philip Spertus connected his cable to an iPod: “After listening to the entirety of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony I went on to listen to his 10th, something that I have never been able to accomplish with the lower quality ethernet cord that I had previously been using.”