Category Archives: science

medical, science, sexuality, thoughts

Body Comfort & Sex Education

1 Comment

The eponymous author at Oh My God, That Britni’s Shameless wrote an interesting post a day or so ago about sex education.  What I like about Britni is that she is not only completely open minded but she has the confidence to say exactly what she thinks.  Which doesn’t mean I agree with everything she says; for instance her assertion “It’s just a natural and accepted thing that men are sexual, so they’re going to talk about sex and masturbation and dick size“.  Well, no, sorry, at least in my experience, men don’t; they’re too uptight – but that may be different for the younger generation.

Britni’s post, while being largely aimed at sex education (and just as applicable in the UK as in America), adds support to my long-held belief that we would all be better adjusted mentally, have a lower rate of unwanted pregnancies, and be in better health generally, if we were less repressed, better educated and more comfortable with our bodies.  As an example the US and UK have the two highest rates of unwanted teenage pregnancy in the western world; compare with the laid-back, free-thinking Dutch who have the lowest.  See this Wikipedia article (though some of the date here is quite old) and the diagram in this article from the Independent; see also, inter alia, here, here and here.

If we are to achieve this change of mindset we have to do two things: (a) restructure the brains of our revered leaders (political and religious) giving them a complete paradigm shift in their thinking on all things sexual, and then (b) investing in much better, more open and more caring sex & health education, vide the Dutch.  Along the way this, of course, will mean a change in attitudes towards nudity.

But of course the status quo is self-fulfilling and comfortable; change is uncomfortable and no-one much likes being outside their comfort zone.  Our leaders are repressed, so the modus operandi follows this, making the (unthinking) populous repressed, and they become or elect our leaders, and so ad infinitum.  I don’t know how we break the cycle.  All people like me can do is to keep expressing our views in the hope that the message does eventually seep into the cracks in a few brains and start that paradigm shift.  So I’m not putting any money on this change happening any time soon, but hope springs eternal.

science, thoughts

Quantum Spin-Drying

1 Comment

Two pieces from the Feedback column in New Scientist of 13 February which especially “amused” me.

The care instructions for the dog kennel John Straede bought advised: “Hand wash in warm water with mild detergent.  Do not spin dry.”

Secondly, and probably more worryingly …

FEEDBACK has observed that the word “quantum” often translates to “magic” or “expensive fruitloop magic remedy”.  Threatening to put this observation on a sound academic footing, Graham Barrow carried out a pilot literature-survey.

In just 5 minutes a famous web search engine showed him many variants, starting with – of course! – “quantum crystal healing”.  Then there was “quantum kinesiology”, which presumably begins with the recipient’s arm in a superposition of floppiness and firmness, and “quantum reflexology”, which could lead to your feet changing position without passing through intervening space – handy for avoiding the cracks in the pavement.

“Quantum homeopathy” is so obvious in retrospect that we’re ashamed we didn’t invent it: the remedy does and does not contain any molecule of the claimed active substance, until you open the bottle.

In “quantum acupuncture” we imagine the needle both punctures the skin and misses it altogether.  And would a “quantum massage” involve a hand all over your body at once?  But what on earth, or anywhere else, is “quantum reiki”?  We fear there may be answers – and more examples.

Like Feedback, my mind boggles slightly over the concept of “quantum reiki”.  What’s worse is that in about two minutes I have found “quantum hypnosis”, “quantum dowsing” and “quantum meditation”.  I think I might be getting an attack of quantum worry!

amusements, beliefs, current affairs, science

Mythbusters

The latest (March 2010) issue of the BBC’s popular science magazine Focus contains an article busting some of the world’s most common myths.  For example:

Goldfish have short memories. 
False; they have memories which last at least a week according to experiments.

Sugar makes kids hyperactive. 
Experimentally proven to be false.  But that’ll be about as popular a result as the finding that MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism.

Men with big feet have big penises. 
Sorry girls, also false, according to just about every survey ever conducted.  There is no reliable way to determine the size of a guy’s lingam without seeing it.  Enjoy!

At the end of the article they add a few new myths suggested by readers, including the following with rather zen qualities …

In the era of black and white films,the world was black and white.
According to which logic the world didn’t exist before films were invented.  Interesting idea for a thriller story though!

When you jump up, the world moves forwards a bit before you land, so you touch down in a slightly different place.
This is an old one and I’ll get into trouble with the science community here but I reckon this is actually true.  When you jump the world moves on, but so do you as you have angular momentum (essentially forward motion) from when you were attached to earth.  However you will, I suggest, be slowed very marginally by friction with (resistance from) the air and thus will land in a subtly different spot from where you jumped.  But this effect will be so tiny it will be unmeasurable even after a huge number of jumps.  So for all practical purposes this is also false.

People with outie belly buttons are more attracted to people with innie belly buttons because they fit together: like a jigsaw
Would that life were so simple.  But if it were around 80% of us would be single as outies make up only around 10% of the population.  And no-one knows why.

Every zebra, when scanned by a barcode reader, comes up as ‘frozen peas’.
Unless there is some strange default barcode which defaults to “frozen peas” (very unlikely) this can’t be true as a zebra’s stripes do not conform to the coding of thick and thin lines which make up a barcode.  But I love the zen quality of the idea.  Another good plot-line for a short story?

Anyone got any other new myths?

beliefs, medical, science, thoughts

The Dawkins Delusion

4 Comments

As regular readers will know I don’t do God or gods (of any gender).  In fact I don’t do dogmatic belief systems at all, preferring to find my own way and my own ethics, intellectually.  Which of course does not mean that I can’t appreciate many of the great things which have been done in the name of religion; that I don’t abhor the many bad things; that I am amoral; or that I would ever deny anyone’s right to believe whatever they wish as a crutch to get them through this life.

I am not a theist; neither am I an atheist.  I prefer to say that, while I find the notion of some all-supreme being inherently unlikely – literally fantastic – I simply do not know; and further I doubt that we can ever know.  Which should not stop us seeking and pushing back the intellectual envelope.

I am as suspicious of atheists as I am of theists.  For atheists are just as bigoted – sometimes more so – than theists.  Richard Dawkins is a case in point.  His aggressive “new atheism” is just as dogmatic, inflexible and demanding as the belief system of any theist fundamentalist.  Indeed I would go so far as to label Dawkins himself a fundamentalist – albeit one who doesn’t fly plane-loads of innocents into office blocks.

I was pleased therefore to see in next week’s Radio Times (23-29 January) the most measured and comprehensive demolition of Dawkins and his ilk under the title The Dawkins Delusion.  It was written by novelist Howard Jacobson who presents the first programme in Channel 4’s series The Bible: a History.  And it isn’t that Jabobson is a believer: he describes himself as an atheist “who fears all fanaticism bred by faith” which includes Dawkins et.al.

Sadly the Radio Times article isn’t on their website, but I feel sufficiently enraged by Dawkins’s bigoted anti-bigot stance that I’ve broken the rules and put a scanned copy online here (although it will be removed forthwith if I am requested to do so by Radio Times, or if I spot that the article is available elsewhere online).

Jacobson’s opinion, although not new, is important and deserves a wider airing.

beliefs, medical, personal, science, thoughts

Things What I Don't Do

1 Comment

Over recent months I’ve come to realise that there are whole categories of things and activities which I just do not do and cannot engage with. These are things which the vast majority view as important, if not life critical. In general these are things which, contrary to majority opinion, I think are boring, actually not important or (in a couple of cases) just plain wrong. Here’s my controversial list of things what I don’t do …

[Aside: Before you lay into me, remember that these are my personal opinions.  I’m not saying they have to be your opinions too.  You are free to believe whatever you wish as long as you don’t expect me to join you!]

Golf. Pointless. Expensive. Over-hyped. Environmentally damaging. And time-consuming.

Boats. I never could relate to water. I hated learning to swim. Don’t even like putting my head under the shower to wash my hair. Something to do with being in control, I think. And anything to do with more than a small dingy is only standing under a shower tearing up £20 notes. Boring.

Twitter. I might take some notice when someone can really, rationally, explain to me what the point is. Actually totally unimportant. Just because we have the technology to do something doesn’t mean we should do it.

IVF. In my view this is fundamentally wrong. If a couple cannot have children then generally Nature knows there is some good reason they shouldn’t. I also suspect it is being over-used just because your modern girlies can’t conceive easily as they’ve all been on the pill for too many years. Again, just because we have the technology … And no, this isn’t sour grapes just because we don’t have children: we planned not to have children.

Stem cells. For me the jury is still out on this. Yes, I see the apparent medical benefits. But I’m not convinced it isn’t going to turn out to be something with unforeseen adverse consequences. And I’m also not convinced of the overall ethics. Again, just because we have the technology … But mostly I don’t do stem cells because I find it a deeply boring field of study.

Climate change / global warming. This is another which falls into the deeply boring bucket. I know the theory is that it’s important, and maybe it is. But as soon as politicians get involved there are instantly too many vested interests and parochialism. But for me it is just deeply boring, because it is so ubiquitous.

Africa. See comments above about things being ubiquitous and boring and the involvement of politicians. We (white man) has basically fucked up Africa over the last 2-300 years. Perhaps the most respectful thing we can do now is to stop meddling and let the Africans sort themselves out, like we should have done from the start. But most of all this is in my deeply boring bucket. I’ve been assaulted just too much about this over the years — I have issue fatigue.

Elephants. Well for me they just go along with Africa as being deeply boring and so over-done that again I have issue fatigue. Yes OK so they’re endangered. That doesn’t mean I have to take them to my heart. Similarly for polar bears; and even tigers are getting to that bracket.

iPod, Wii, xBox etc. See comment above about Twitter. Really what is the point? Just totally, totally, unimportant and irrelevant.

Mainstream classical music. Boring. Dull. Overdone. Tinkling audio wallpaper at best — especially Mozart and Haydn. With a very few exceptions. Some music pre-Bach or post-Beatles is interesting, but even then by no means all. And no, it isn’t that I don’t like music; I just hate what everyone else likes.

H5N1 Avian Flu. In general I find odd and emerging diseases interesting, in a forensic way, but this appears to have been blown up out of all proportion. More cynical vested interests? Politicians trying to frighten us to keep the great unwashed under control? I don’t know. But as it appears to have been a knee-jerk over-reaction — which does the scientific/medical community no favours — I can’t get interested. The same with H1N1 Swine Flu.

Cars. Oh dear. No, sorry guys, it isn’t necessary for everyone to drive and have their own car. Neither of us drives, we never have done. OK, I accept we live in a city, which helps, but we do OK without driving. We have a good relationship with our local cab company and give them a lot less money than we would spend on running a car. And we get a lot less stress and hassle — not to mention that not having a car is much greener. Again it is all down to politics and vested interests: we have to make and sell stuff to keep the world turning. Err … maybe if we didn’t do this we wouldn’t be in the climate change mess we are? Let’s put the money into decent public transport (and that includes taxi services, ‘cos you can’t run a bus from here to everywhere). Oh, and sorry, cars are deeply boring too.

Yes I know I’m mad; eccentric. Just remember: “blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light”.

current affairs, science

Flexible Working

3 Comments

Jilly, over at jillysheep, has touched today on the cultures which is part of current working life; cultures which mostly shouldn’t be there!  What follows is verbatim my comment to her post, reflectng my experience of this in a large IT company over the last 10-15 years.

I agree with your comments on working life. Flexibility should be a “no brainer” for most employers. It is 1991 since I worked in the same office as my immediate line manager; well over 10 years since I had my own desk; and 5 years since I went in the office out of routine. On average over my last year working I think I went into an office (not even my base office) just once a month. I could do everything from home with a laptop, broadband, instant messaging, phone, and audio-conferencing phone number (we didn’t even need video-conferencing!). In the rare instance I was sent hardcopy mail it was simply redirected to my home address; but 99.999% of everything (even payslips) was done electronically. And I was managing $5M projects with a team spread across the world – some of whom I never met face to face!

When you put the cost of the technology required against the cost of office space, employee morale (from increased flexibility), efficiencies, savings on travel (cost and time), etc. the payback is probably about 1 year, maybe less. Flexible and mobile/home working actually means you get more work done because people will do a bit extra here and there as long as they are trusted not to abuse the flexibility.

The killer is the long hours culture. And not just long hours in the office, but also people feeling that they have to work long hours at home too — evenings and weekends because it is always there. I used to regularly work a 50 hour week; easily done by starting a bit early, taking little time for lunch and working a little late. I was fairly disciplined about the hours I would and did work – and was still reckoned to be one of the most efficient and achieving project managers in the team! Anyone who needs to work 70 or 80 hours a week (and many of my colleagues did) is either very inefficient (=ineffective) or is being abused by their management with way too much work.

OK, there are of course jobs you can’t do remotely. Anything where objects, food, drink have to be handled (and that’s everything from factories and farms to hospitals and pubs) you need warm bodies on site. But that still doesn’t preclude flexible hours providing you can get the people scheduling right. But anything office based should be easily done from anywhere with current technology.

The challenge is the huge cultural change; let’s not underestimate that. Management have to learn to trust their people to do the hours to get the job done. The company has to be prepared to invest up-front in the technology (and some support staff); that’s an investment usually over several years but with significant paybacks in efficiency (not necessarily overall fewer jobs, just different ones). The people have to learn to do without the office; you have to find ways of allowing people to continue to have a virtual coffee together and gossip. People also have to learn to be trusted, which means not being closely supervised all the time and being a “self-starter”.

Of course, as with anything else, there are people who cannot hack the cultural change; who need the office because (typically) home is too distracting. And this is no respecter of age, gender, role or seniority. I know secretaries who happily work from home and senior directors who have to work in the office; and vice versa.

How the working word has changed even in the time I’ve been working! And what was the prime cause of all this? Ultimately I suspect the PC.

books, food+drink, medical, nudism, personal, photography, pleasures, quotes, science, thoughts

Outlook for 2010

2 Comments

Jilly over at jillysheep has prompted me to think about what I might want to achieve in 2010. This is not something I normally do, as I have always been content to drift with the tide and see what washes up.

But in 2010 I would like to:

  1. Win the lottery jackpot (minimum £2m)
  2. Lose 50 kilos (I keep telling you I’m hugely overweight)
  3. Do all the cooking (like I used to)
  4. Get the bathroom rebuilt (probably requires as a prerequisite)
  5. Get the house rewired (also requires as a prerequisite)
  6. Get the whole house tidy, uncluttered and clean – and keep it that way
  7. Get the two-thirds of the house which badly needs it redecorated (another that requires as a prerequisite)
  8. Go on at least three 2-week holidays, one railway-based, one to Europe and one naturist in the sun
  9. Travel from Thurso to Penzance by train.
  10. Have a good sunny summer and be able to walk skyclad all summer around my garden

That list was a joke! Yes, I would like to do all those things but the chances of achieving them are at best 1 in 14 million (ie. the chance of winning the lottery at any one attempt. If I win the lottery (odds over the year probably 300 in 14 million) all except , and #10 become relatively easy.

OK, so let’s be realistic. What do I stand some chance of achieving?

  1. Lose 15 kilos
  2. Get out to the shops (even the dreaded supermarket) at least once a week (ought to be easy now I’m retired)
  3. Cook 3 meals a week
  4. Go out to take photographs at least once a week (also should be easy)
  5. Write 2 weblog posts a week
  6. Get the heating fixed (like Jilly, we have an annoying intermittent and unsolved problem)
  7. Grow a year’s supply of chillies – on the study windowsill (given that we use a lot of chillies and said windowsill space is limited this will need a very prolific variety)
  8. Get my Anthony Powell Society work up to date, and keep it that way
  9. Get the sitting room and dining rooms properly tidy and inhabitable
  10. Rejuvenate my fish tanks
  11. Go away on holiday for 2 weeks
  12. Make some major progress on my family history (yes that’s vague; first I have to take stock of what I’ve got)

And if I actually manage to achieve half of that lot I should be satisfied.

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions – that’s just setting oneself up to fail, because they are always so unrealistic – so I’m not going to start this year and I’m not even going to commit to trying to achieve any of the above. They are what I would like to achieve. It’s a “wants list”, not a “must achieve or else list”. One reason I took early retirement was to get away from the incessant round of unachievable “must achieve or else” objectives. That way come madness and depression. 2010 is about relaxing and finding a life again.

Happy New Year to everyone!
Please don’t go out celebrating and get frostbite. 🙂

current affairs, science, thoughts

Thought Provoking Scientists

The current issue of Scientific American contains the usual thought provoking features from its four regular, heavyweight opinion writers. Here is a taster of each of their articles:

First, Jeffrey Sachs on the challenges of tackling birth control and food production in tandem.

The green revolution that made grain production soar gave humanity some breathing space, but the continuing rise in population and demand for meat production is exhausting that buffer. The father of the green revolution, Norman Borlaug … made exactly this point in 1970 when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize: “There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort.”

It is not enough to produce more food; we must also simultaneously stabilize the global population and reduce the ecological consequences of food production – a triple challenge.

Next, Michael Shermer on the psychological differences between conservatives and liberals.

[Jonathan] Haidt [psychologist; University of Maryland] proposes that the foundations of our sense of right and wrong rest within “five innate and universally available psychological systems” that might be summarized as follows:
1. Harm/care …
2. Fairness/reciprocity …
3. Ingroup/loyalty …
4. Authority/respect …
5. Purity/sanctity …

Self-reported liberals are high on 1 and 2 … but are low on 3, 4 and 5 … whereas self-reported conservatives are roughly equal on all five dimensions, although they place slightly less emphasis on 1 and 2 than liberals do.

Instead of viewing the left and the right as either inherently correct or wrong, a more scientific approach is to recognize that liberals and conservatives emphasize different moral values.

Thirdly, Lawrence Krauss on filtering out bias in news reporting.

I reflected on something I had written a dozen years ago, in one of my first published commentaries:

“The increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with impunity in public discourse is chilling. Our democratic society is imperiled as much by this as any other single threat, regardless of whether the origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism, simple ignorance or personal gain.”

As I listen to the manifest nonsense that has been promulgated by the likes of right-wing fanatic radio hosts and moronic ex-governors in response to the effort to bring the US into alignment with other industrial countries in providing reasonable and affordable health care for all its citizens, it seems that things have only gotten worse in the years since I first wrote those words …

I worry for the future of our democracy if a combination of a free press and democratically elected leaders cannot together somehow more effectively defend empirical reality against the onslaught of ideology and fanaticism.

And finally the always slightly off-the-wall, zen-like Steve Mirsky on knuckle-cracking research.

Most known knuckle crackers have probably been told by some expert – whose advice very likely began, “I’m not a doctor, but …” – that the behavior would lead to arthritis …

“For 50 years, [Dr Donald Unger] cracked the knuckles of his left hand at least twice a day, leaving those on the right as a control …

Finally, after five decades, Unger analyzed his data set: “There was no arthritis in either hand, and no apparent differences between the two hands.” He concluded that “there is no apparent relationship between knuckle cracking and the subsequent development of arthritis of the fingers.” Evidence for whether the doctor himself was cracked may be that he traveled all the way from his California home to Harvard University to pick up his Ig Nobel Prize [in Medicine awarded in 2009] in person.

The good thing about all of this is that these guys are working thinkers and are tackling some really knotty issues; moreover they write clear and concise single page articles such that you come away not just understanding the issue but being able to form your own opinion, whether with or against the writer’s standpoint. We need more people like these guys: clear concise communicators with the vision to see the issues and the brain-power to tackle them head-on without recourse to vested interests and politics. More power to Scientific American for allowing them this freedom.

amusements, medical, memes, personal, photography, science

Smelly Meme

This week’s Flickr meme was to share 12 of our favourite smells. I thought we’d done this before, but anyway here’s a selection …

1. Christmas Spice
2. Sea
3. Baking Bread
4. Coffee
5. Old Roses
6. Lavender
7. Grapefruit Oil
8. Pine/Cedar Wood
9. Cherry Brandy
10. Christmas Roast
11. Sex
12. Bitter Almonds

1. Mulled Wine, 2. Danish North sea shore, 3. Fresh Baked Bread, 4. Within the crowd of coffee beans, 5. Jacques Cartier, 6. Lavendar, 7. Grapefruit Essential Oil Massage Candle, 8. The Buttermere Pines, 9. cherry brandy, 10. Roasted Turkey, 11. after SEX, 12. sunny almonds

And here’s my slightly off the wall version …

1. i always wanted a dog for christmas, 2. Sea of sin 04, 3. Woman of Bread, 4. There’s a rabbit in my coffee!, 5. Old Rose Socks, 6. Lavender Sky, 7. Grapefruit Moon Kickoff gigger, 8. cedar, 9. Cherry Brandy, 10. 7870 – vietnam – Roasted piglet snout, 11. Sex is Like Pizza, 12. The Saga of Peaches

As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr. Mosaics created with fd’s Flickr Toys.