Google Earth has captivated The Green Man and clearly the artists at The Glue Society. Here are a couple of their images of biblical scenes as they may have appeared from Google Earth.
Noah's Ark as the time of floating approaches
The parting of the Red Sea for Moses.
The crucifixion
Some people are just not cut out to be a teacher. One can only hope it was not a science class.
The Green Man posted at the time of the Abu Ghraib atrocity on the flaw in human nature that leads to ordinary people behaving in a manner that seems completely inhuman.
In 1971 Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment in the basement of a Stanford University building. Volunteers were assigned randomly to be either a prison guard or a prisoner and they were left to their own devices. The outcome was essentially the same as Abu Ghraib. Dr Zimbardo explains
prisons offer an environment where the balance of power is so unequal that even normal people without any apparent prior psychological problems can become brutal and abusive unless great efforts are made by the institution to control the expression of guards' hostile impulses . . . It's not that we put bad apples in a good barrel. We put good apples in a bad barrel. The barrel corrupts anything that it touches
I think we know that not only was there no effort to "expression of guards' hostile impulses" at Abu Ghraib it was probably encouraged. Anyway if you want to see the documentary on this ground breaking research that would now, quite correctly, be regarded as unethical. It is available on U-Tube. Visit Pure Pedantry
On a lighter note the American Physiological Society reports that cycles competing at altitude lowered the time it took to cover 6 kilometres by an average of 15% when using Viagra. The cyclists riding at a simulated altitude of 12,700 feet and using Viagra had significantly improved stroke volume (now now, that is the volume of blood moved out of one ventrical of the heart per beat) and cardiac output (which is the stoke volume times heart rate) compared with those not taking the drug.
The report did not report on whether any adjustments to the bicycle seats were necessary.
Is the west, lead by the USA, entering a new "dark ages" where religious doctrine is allowed to dominate and direct scientific endeavour? Well probably not, but the American public school system has certainly giving us some disturbing examples of "dark ages" mentality with the attempt of the religious right to introduce religion into the science class under the cloak of "intelligent design". It has reminded us of the preciousness of the purity of scienctific endeavour, which should be the unbiased search for knowledge.
Lifeevolving.org is a comprehensive resource for teachers, students and anyone interested in the science of evolution.
Kieren Green, who seems to have strangely, given his surname, taken a dislike to The Green Man website (see previous post), suggests that The Green Man shift his focus to theology.
The site isn't a theological site however religion and spirituality does crop up from time to time and, accordingly, The Green Man will take Kieren's, somewhat acerbic, suggestion and venture into the domain of spirituality.
We are all, of course, aware that physicians are appalling at healing themselves and one area where this is particularly true in the area of depressive incidents. Depression is at plague proportions within the medical community with upwards of 20% of interns suffering major and frequent depressive incidents. This is presumeably one of the most significant contributing factors to the epidemic of substance abuse amongst the medical profession. Research in this area indicates that 15% of interns exhibit pathological misuse of alcohol whilst another study found 11.4% of physicians had used benzodiazepines in the past year in an unsupervised fashion and 17.6% had engaged in unsupervised use of opioids.
A study by University of Cincinatti which appears in the March-April 2006 edition of Ambulatory Pediatrics, found that 25 percent of 227 primary-care residents surveyed reported a number of symptoms associated with depression such as irritability, sense of isolation and hopelessness, and fear.
Work has been done in an attempt to address this by limiting the excessive hours that these young doctors work however it seems to have had little or no impact on the incidence of depression.
So how does this relate to spirituality? Well I am glad you asked. The research shows risk for significant depressive symptoms was greater among respondents who reported negative religious coping mechanisms, poorer spiritual well-being and the need for more spiritual support. This may by correlative and not causal. Doctors who have trouble coping also have trouble dealing with their spirituality.
The bit of the conclusion that most intrigued The Green Man however was this statement
Mood or other psychological problems among primary-care residents, or any other health-care provider for that matter, could negatively affect patient care
I think we have the crux of the problem in this one statement. We don't give a bugger about the wellbeing of the doctors except in as much as it affects patient care. Perhaps if we started treating them as people with needs, wants and insecurities all of their own we may take significant steps forward in the solving the problem.
Read more here. and here.
This is a picture of the brown recluse spider. It has a really nasty bite so it is just as well that it is reclusive.
Below is a gross out photo of the results of a typical bite.
What makes the bite of this spider interesting to The Green Man is the toxin that it contains, called sphingomyelinase (SMaseD) and what makes SMaseD interesting that exists only in two places in nature, the brown recluse spider and the bacterial strains of pathogenic Corynebacteria that cause various illnesses in farm animals.
As the monk Gegor Mendle discovered all those years ago vertical transmission of genes from one generation to its offspring is an everyday process. Lateral gene transfer between unrelated species is a much rarer and special event. This is what appears to have happened in this case however at this stage it is uncertain whether the spider or the bacteria first had the gene for the production of this toxin and the transmission method is still unclear however an obliging virus is probably the most likely candidate. Matthew H. J. Cordes of Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, University of Arizona Tucson and Greta J. Binford of Department of Biology, Lewis and Clark College Portland continue the hunt for the origins and transmission vehicle.
Here is the count down to the new year this year
five - four - three - two - one - one - Happy New Year
Note that there are two "one"s because this year there is a leap second to adjust for the fact that our planet doesn't quite rotate at the rate it used to, partly thanks to the Boxing Day tsunami last year.
Think of it as the earth giving you a free additional second of life. Isn't nature a wonderful thing?
It looks so appealing, teaching numbers by using characters like in the image to the right.
Sadly it is much more meaningful to adults, who already understand the meaning of the number than to children. New research by Ohio State university has shown that the complexity of relating characters or faces to numbers only confuses chidlren and hides the deeper meaning of the symbol.
Here is the thing! Children are quite clever enough to understand the symbolism that is inherent in written numbers. Vladimir Sloutsky, who has touch of the Tim Allens about his appearance, thinks
Many teachers believe that concrete materials make learning more fun for students, and that will increase their motivation and help them understand the concepts. While this may be true, in many cases, the concrete materials also interfere with what they are trying to learn.”
It seems that if you want to teach your child about numbers it is best to simply show them some numbers. All the cute characters only confuse them.
Take a look at the photos on the right. A number of male subjects in an experiment conducted by researchers at Lund University, Sweden, and New York University were asked to choose which of the faces they found more attractive.
In a subsequent question they were asked to explain why they thought the face in the photo they had chosen was more attractive. Unbeknown to them however the researcher, in a magician like way, switched the photos. The majority of participants happily went about explaining why the they though that photo was the most attractive even though it was not the one they had chosen.
The crux of the matter is that, once we have made a decision, we reinforce the decision we have made by adjusting our expectations to suit the prior decision. Thus, when the participants were presented with a photo that they believed they had chosen they adjusted their expectations to support that choice.
You probably recognise the animals at the top of this image they are zebras of course. The ones down the bottom are quaggas. They became extinct about 100 years ago and pelts and skeletons are still around.
They evolved from the zebra between 100,000 and 250,000 years ago. So what does it take to evolve into a new species? Lets assume that we are rejecting the concept of God reaching down and giving them a prod with a devine device as advocates of Intelligent Design are suggesting, it takes a disrupted gene flow, that is where two populations are genetically isolated from one another either by geography or by behaviour.
The Quagga are an excellent example of the speed at which speciation can take place when animals are subjected to extreme evolutionary pressure, in this case the ice age. They evolved from a herd of zebra that became separated from the large community and under the extreme pressures of the ice age rapidly evolved, changing colour, body type and presumably behavioural patterns such that when they were reunited with the wider zebra community they could no longer interbreed.
This is a plot of solar flare activity over the last 30 years. No doubt you will spot a pattern, that is because the human brain is particularly adept at spotting patterns, even when there isn't one, but that's another story. In this case there is a legitimate pattern and it is an 11 year cyclical pattern.
The really interesting part about this pattern is that in 2005 we should be experiencing much less sun spot activity than we actually are. Whilst the solar minimum is not due until 2006, it was expected that sun spot activity would be diminishing in the lead up. The exact opposite has been occuring, the level of X-Class solar flares this year is more typical of a period approaching a solar maximum.
One of the major influences of sun spots on the earths ecology is that they are a major contributor to the warmth of the earth. Periods of extended absense of sun spots are the trigger for an ice age. Conversely excessive sunspot activity contributes significantly to the global warming of the earth.
If we are entering a period of extended sun spot activity then all the self-flagellation that has been occuring over the use of fossil fuels and their contribution to global warming may be unnecesary. It may be that not matter how responsible we could have been in the past the global warming would have happened anyway.
Read more on sunspot cycles here.
Putting aside the cause of global warming for a moment and moving to one of the most dramatic results of global warming, it seems that hurricanes and typhoons (which are essentially the same thing but in different oceans) are getting fewer but stronger. Nature reports on research by Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta which shows that ,whilst the number of "stormy days" has decrease by 25% since 1995, the number of category-4 and -5 storms have risen by 30% over the same period. Most of these storms are at sea and do not impact human communities but clearly experiencing storms such as huricane Katrina will be more common in the future and communities in the danger zones will need to alter their approach to coping with these phenonemia.
At 1740 UT on Sept. 7th, Earth-orbiting satellites detected a major X17-class solar flare coming from the sun's eastern limb. The source of the explosion was probably returning sunspot 798, which sparked strong auroras in August. An X-class flare is technically refered to as a "humungus bugger". They are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms.
This blast was not Earth-directed, but explosions later this week (and next week) could be as the active region turns more and more toward our planet.
Feel free to burn off. Your contribution to global warming will be swamped by the massive global warming that a X-Class solar flare generates.
On the up side September might be a particularly good month for auroras
Via Space Weather
Here is a photo from a make up supplies website Elyse It is supposed to be scary. The concept of maggots eating away at a living person is the stuff of horror films and, as it turns out, science.
In the first world war victims of horrific wounds often went days or weeks without proper medical attention. Wounds were simply bound up and left. William Baer, a surgeon of the time, reports on opening bandages to discover wounds teaming with thousands of maggots. On removing them he discovered dead tissue missing from the wound and only healthy living tissue remaining. Far from causing the death of the unfortunate victims the maggots were saving lives. Maggots only eat dead flesh and they are a most efficient micro surgeon when it comes to cleaning dead and rotting tissue from a wound.
It is a natural characteristic that is once again being harnessed by the medical profession to effectively treat patients with dead and potentially gangrenous tissue. Laboratories are producing blowfly maggots that are free from disease and distributing them to hospitals who use them to treat people suffering conditions that have resulted in extensive tissue death, such as frost bite and burns. The maggots are introduced and the wounds bandaged. Recipients report feeling some movement in the area but not pain from their medicinal companions.
It is, however, a serious departure from the modern approach to medicine and the FDA (food and drug administration) who regulates medicines is having trouble coming to grips with this reintroduction of what is the most ancient of natural surgical techniques. The question is, in legal terms, what are maggots. The FDA's lawyers have decided that they are a medical device since, according to Mark Melkerson, acting director of the Division of General, Restorative and Neurological Devices, speaking of both maggots and leeches
The primary mode of action for maggots is chewing. For leeches, it's the eating of blood. Those are mechanical processes
It seems to The Green Man that both leeches and maggots fall into a category entirely unquantified by the FDA.
Leeches are finding favour amongst microsurgeons charged with the responsibility of reattaching severed bits, such as fingers or hands. The major problem facing these surgeons is the differing structure of veins and arteries. Arteries must be strong enough to handle the pulsing blood pushed out by the heart and, accordingly they are thick walled and easy to identify and reattach. Veins, on the other hand, rely on the movement of muscles in the limb to shift blood back to the heart. Accordingly they are thin walled and difficult to find and repair. This results in a situation where blood is being delivered to the severed limb in greater quantities than it is being recovered, leading to a buildup of blood. This causes swelling and often death of the limb.
Leeches naturally inject patients with a potent chemical cocktail that includes an anticoagulant, an anesthetic, an antibiotic and a substance that dilates blood vessels. This cocktail encourages fast bleeding to empty the appendage of extra blood, reducing pressure and allowing veins to form on their own.
If that wasn't enough, leeches are also extraordinarily sensitive to proper blood flow and so can offer immediate feedback on how well surgery went. Dr. Bruce Minkin, a hand surgeon in Asheville, N.C. says
If it won't attach if there's not good arterial blood coming in, and sometimes that tells me that I need to go back in
The only serious problem in the utilisation of these two excellent biological agents in the treatment of extreme wounds is the attitude of the patients and their relatives. Many find it difficult to conceive that leeches and maggots, both regarded with disgust be most people, can be used in any way that would be beneficial. It is an example where our natural instincts are completely contrary to what is in the best interest of the patient.
Spreading activation is a model for linguistic information retrieval within the human brain. The basic idea is that memory is a network of interconnected concepts. A particular concept is linked to related concepts by bonds. The ease with which related information is retrieved is dependant on the closeness/strength of the bond between two concepts.
In the above example the concept of "fish" has many related concepts, "chips" as in "fish and chips", "sea", "cat", "scales" and, of course, many others. The ease with which each of these related concepts is retrieved is dependant on how strong the bond is in your brain between the two concepts. For me, chips wins hands down, somewhat reflecting an obsession with food, for you it is probably something quite different. The bonds are not static but dynamically change with use. The more frequently a link is accessed the stronger it becomes. This usually reflects the importance of that link. Things that are extremely important occupy much of our thinking and we traverse this link many times as we are mulling over aspects of the particular issue or event.
Of recent times this concept has been embraced by the business community with the development of mind mapping techniques. These involve the representation on paper of networks that have a similar structure to the theoretical structures discussed above. Naturally this was rapidly followed by supporting software. Now everything from PCs, to PDAs to iPods have mind mapping software available.
The big question is whether external representations of this conceptual model of memory are effective. Many people swear by it and find it a valuable tool but little research has been done in this area. The big problem, or possibly advantage, of this sort of software is that we record what we think should be important to us not what actually is. This may be an advantage simply because the mind does very well by itself at handling the things that are really important to us. The software can be used for the things that our bosses think should be important to us.
This Alex, he is an African grey parrot and he is 28 years old. He has just demonstrated something that we have long thought was impossible for children under 4 and all animals, an understanding of the concept of zero.
To put this in context, at the time of the birth of Christ, the concept of zero was not in common use. When you were born you were one. In the intervening 2,000 years we have incorporated this concept into our mathematics. You may think of it as a simple concept but its recent incorporation into our library of mathematical concepts gives testament to it's complexity.
Like so many characteristics which, over the years, we have use to define our humanity, our separation from the rest of the animal kingdom, this one has fallen to an animal with the brain the size of a walnut.
Alex, who lives in a Brandeis lab run by comparative psychologist and cognitive scientist Dr. Irene Pepperberg, spontaneously and correctly used the label "none" during a testing session of his counting skills to describe an absence of a numerical quantity on a tray. This discovery prompted a series of trials in which Alex consistently demonstrated the ability to identify zero quantity by saying the label "none."
Dr Irene says
Chimpanzees and possibly squirrel monkeys show some understanding of the concept of zero, but Alex is the first bird to demonstrate an understanding of the absence of a numerical set.It is doubtful that Alex's achievement, or those of some other animals such as chimps, can be completely trained; rather, it seems likely that these skills are based on simpler cognitive abilities they need for survival, such as recognition of more versus less
Here is a most spectacular photo of astronomer Dennis Mammana of California pointing out Mars to onlookers on Aug. 26, 2003. He is lit by a flashlight which accounts for the extraordinary image and he is pointing at mars the last time it was as close to the earth as it will be on Oct. 30, 2005.
(I cheated and coloured Mars in red, it is actually whiteish like the rest of the objects in the sky in the original)
On October 30th Mars will come within 69 million kilometers of Earth. To the unaided eye, Mars will look like a bright red star, easily the biggest object in the night sky, excluding the moon. Certain rumours about it actually being as big as a full moon are, fortunately, completely inaccurate. If it was close enough to be that big then the tides it would generate would make the Boxing Day Tsunami off the coast of Indonesia look like a ripple in a kiddies pool.
It may not be as big as a full moon but it is worth a look anyway.
See the original photo and a bigger story at the NASA website.
Do you have trouble with your nerves, that is your actual nerves not your nervous reaction to things, then in future you may be turning to the humble herpes virus for relief.
Neurologist David Fink of Ann Arbour University has been experimenting with herpes in a way that most people don't. It may not be as much fun but the benefits of his ground breaking research hold the key to relief for suffers of a nerve disease that is one of the most painful. Neuropathy is the degeneration of the nerves and is a common complication of diabetes and other diseases. It causes patients to experience excruciating pain when a normal person would experience only a mild touching sensation, temperatures that would normally be perceived as pleasantly warm feel furnace-hot.
Part of the problem arises from an absence of a substance called GABA, you don't care what it stands for.
Viruses, in case you are unaware, are very simple structures designed for inserting renegade DNA into cells in your body and Dr Dave is using this behaviour in the much maligned herpes virus to insert GABA producing genes into these nerve cells.
The herpes virus is modified to make it harmless and the gene, along with a promoter to switch on the gene, is inserted into the virus. The virus was then injected into the spinal chord where it goes about its work.
At this stage the only beneficiaries of the technique have been rats however the rats are very pleased with the results. Human trials are expected to commence next year.
A Green Man note: Images of herpes returned from a google search were far too gross for just after lunch and accordingly the entry is image free.
Asteroid 2004 MN4 is in an uncertain orbit around the sun. Here is a plot of its current orbit relative to the earth.
It looks pretty harmless and it is, at the moment. The plot of its orbit on Friday 13th April, 2029 looks considerably different. In fact on the scale that this plot is drawn it would show a direct impact of the asteroid with the earth on this date.
Of course this is drawn at a astronomical scale and the current thinking is that it will miss the earth by a astronomical "hairs breadth", 30,000 kms.
So what is the scenario like if it did hit? Well at 320 meters wide it is significantly smaller than the asteroid that is currently being blamed for the extinction of the dinosaurs. It is big enough however to destroy an area roughly the size of Texas or France. If it hit an ocean then the tsunamis would dwarf those recently occuring in the area of Indonesia.
The two initial sightings had Paul Chodas, Steve Chesley and Don Yeomans at NASA's Near Earth Object Program estimating the chances of it hitting at about 1 in 60. Given the level of devastation and death it would cause you would have to say that 1 in 60 is pretty damn scary. More recent analysis indicates that it is unlikely to hit.
The white bar in the image above that runs perpendicular to the trajectory indicates the current estimate of the margin of error in their calculations. That small amount of black space between the end of the margin of error and the earth is supposed to be reassuring.
Ever wondered what a synchrotron was for. Well apparently, amongst other things, it can be used for reading ancient manuscripts. The Archimedes Palimpsest is the earliest transcription of the theories of the legendary Greek mathematician, and the original text detailed his method of mechanical theorems.
In 12th century material for writing on was expensive, and the parchment containing the manuscript was scraped clean and reused for the production of a prayer book. The problem was further compounded by 20th century forgers reusing the parchment once again to make fake medieval art, as per the image to the right.
Scientists at Stanford Radiation Laboratory used the synchrotron to cause the iron in the original ink to fluoresce enabling the original writing to be seen.
The Green Man draws your attention to the venerable scientific journal The Australian Women's Weekly. Issued monthly, you may be tempted to wonder why it is not called "The Australian Women's Monthly". Who can say, persumably the publishers did not feel that name conveyed the feeling they were looking for, but that is another story. Known for its incisive commentary and thorough analysis of contemporary issues it is little wonder that your daily horoscope is nestled amongst thought provoking articles covering the full spectrum of critical thought, such as "Marry a farmer", "How Michelle Pfeiffer went from tomboy to luminous beauty" and "Six steps to help you choose the right foundation for your skin tone".
Given that the horoscope contains important information on romantic issues such as the selection of the appropriate husband, fiscal viability vis-a-vis selecting the correct tattslotto numbers and basically your whole approach to the month ahead you would naturally assume that Anthea Starwoman who authors this authoratative column would be abreast of current issues in the zodiac. It is with great surprise and regret that The Green Man must inform his readership that the information that she is baseing her forecasts on is millenia out of date.
Not only have the zodiac signs moved but a 13th star sign has been found, Ophiuchus or The Serpent Bearer. Your zodiac sign is determined by the constellation that the sun is in, viewed from earth, at the time of your birth, a "Gemini" is a person who was born when the sun was in front of the stars of the constellation Gemini the twins for example. The trouble is that the earth is wobbling on its axis, each wobble taking 25,800 years. The result of this is that the sun is now in capricorn when, 2,600 years ago, when the zodiac was defined, it was in aquarius.
To complicate the issue even further, not all constellations are the same width. When the zodiac was first drawn up each constellation was assigned 30 degrees or 1/12th of the year. We know however that Cancer, for example, is a small constellation, and Pisces is huge.
The upshot of all this, taking into account the current state of the earths wobble, the existence of the 13th sign, and the varying sizes of the constellations, the current dates for the signs of the zodiac have changed significantly.
Click here to see the current dates for the zodiac signs.
No wonder your lotto numbers are never the right ones!
Angelo Cagnacci of the Modena General Hospital, Italy reports in this months edition of the journal Human Reproduction that women born in Spring have a significantly longer period of fertility than those born in Autumn. He speculates that this may be a result of the fact that spring babies tend to be born with a smaller stash of eggs in their ovaries. This means they run out of eggs and consequently enter menopause earlier than autumn born women.
Just why this phenonemon exists is still a mystery however we do know that spring babies gestate largely during the winter, whereas their autumn counterparts spend summer in the womb. This points to some possible reasons
- differences in temperature,
- length of day,
- the mother's diet,
- infections
may influence the developing child
With a sample size of 3,000 post menopausal women the phenonemon is beyond doubt however whether these results from Italy will translate to other communities such as USA or Australia is debateable. The 3,000 women in question were all born in post-war Italy where access to food and general nutrition was poor. Equally, fluctuations in food quality and type across the seasons is far less these days in western countries.
Tom Kelsey, who studies human reproduction at the University of St Andrews, UK says that in todays world the most important indicator is the mother body mass index.
Ah, there is justice in the natural world afterall.
Brian Langerhans of Washington University Arts & Sciences has a fascination with male Mosquitofish genitalia. (The Green Man is not sure whether this classifies as an Art or a Science but, for the sake of maintaining some decorum, he will assume it is a scientific interest.)
Anyway it transpires that female Mosquitofish have a decided preference for male Mosquitofish that are, shall we say, "well hung", although it is not clear whether, in an aquatic environment "floating" might not be a better term than "hanging". What ever, female Mosquitofish go for male Mosquitofish that have a large one.
Casting your eye to the photo of fish in question you will note a certain streamlining of body shape. This is fundamentally disrupted by being well equiped in the genital department. Consquently the size of their organ slows them down, making them ripe for consumption by larger fish. It seems that, in the natural world, well equipped male Mosquitofish get a lot of sex but only briefly before they are eaten.
I think there is a lesson for us all in that.
Take a look at the picture to the right. Scary aren't they. That is because they are black. In a fascinating study by Matthew Lieberman, assistant professor of psychology at UCLA, it was discovered that fear of black men in embedded in the American psyche and that is not only the white American psyche, African-Americans are equally fearful when they see photos of expressionless African-American males. This is in contrast to Caucasian males who do not illicit this fear in either Black or White Americans.
The study was conducted by monitoring one of the most primitive structures in the brain, the amygdala. If you are talking primal fear then you talking about the amygdala. Most subjects, both Black and White, showed increased activity in this section of the brain when shown photos of expressionless faces of black men in a way that was completely absent when shown equivalent photos of white men. Professor Matt says,
Many people of either race may not be happy to find out that a part of their brain involved in responding to potential threats responds more to African Americans than Caucasians. Even people who believe to their core that they do not have prejudices may still have negative associations that are not conscious.
One of the more popular theories explaining this phenonemon is that our brains are "trained" at an early age to illicit this response when confronted with the appropriate stimuli, ie a black face. This training is independant of immediate family relationships. One could speculate that the Black Power movement originating in the 1960s may have fundamentally altered the perception of a whole generation of Americans of all colours towards Black males.
As pointed out earlier the amygdala is a very primitive structure in the brain and we have more modern structures that can, and do, come into play when dealing with our primal fears. The right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex is primarily concerned with moderating/inhibiting our more primal responses. In the case of the subjects of this study mentioning the term "African-American" at the time the image was shown caused a substantial increase in activity in this area. Spoken language interpretation is, of course, a much more advanced brain function than vision and invoking this high brain function also invoked the higher regulatory functions as well. It seems that whilst the subjects were scared of the image they also worked at suppressing this fear, presumably because they viewed it as racist and inappropriate.
September 11, 2001 certainly gave America a wake up call, it was not invincible afterall. But what was the message that they got and was it the correct one?
Whilst taking analogies too far is clearly dangerous and absurd, used in a restrained manner they can help clarify a complex issue. It is with this in mind that I risk the analogy of the USA with a man in his mid-20's. America is a young nation but past it's infancy and possibly at the height of its powers, like many young men, it had a view of itself as invincible.
Regardless of what they might think, young men are not invincible, and it is often the smallest of organisms, bacteria, that demonstrate this in the most devastating fashion. So it was with America, it was not a superpower, or even a smaller nation, that demonstrated to America that they could be damaged but a group of a dozen or so men.
America's response was also sadly typical of many young men when their vulnerability is made apparent to them and that is dangerous and reckless bravado to prove that they have not been cowed by the misfortune that has befallen them.
There is always more than one way to view an event of course and another way of viewing the 9/11 tragedy is as a natural disaster. It may be a strange and difficult concept but the reality is that acts of terrorism obey the same laws of nature as other disasters, such as the recent tsunami. Analysis by Aaron Clauset and Maxwell Young of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque has shown that world wide acts of terrorism follow the law of nature known as "power-law" relationship. Put simply the severity of an attack is inversely proportional to the time between attacks.
For those of a mathematical persuasion the ratio is x^-1.85.
Based on this approach we can expect another terrorist attack of the magnitude of 9/11 within the next 7 years.
If you are finding this concept somewhat difficult to accept then it may be that you are still thinking on the human race as being apart from nature and somehow not governed by its rules. Immanuel Kant was not burdened with this handicap. In 1784 he wrote
Individual men, and even whole nations, little think, while they are pursuing their own purposes...that they are advancing unconsciously under the guidance of a purpose of nature which is unknown to them.
This arises because we are talking of a sample of 6 billion individual organisms and the vagaries of small sample sizes simply do not apply.
This does not mean that we should stop trying to prevent terrorist attacks, that is part of the dynamic and is factored into the seven year estimate. It does however place a different perspective of the rhetoric relating to "the war on terror" that has been serving so effectively to re-elect conservative governments in the west. It is not a war, to win or lose, but a natural process in which we are all participants.
On December 24th there was a massive earthquake measuring 8.1 in Antarctica south of Tasmania. This was the result of the movement between two of the earths tectonic plates, the Antarctic Plate and the Indian Australian Plate. Two days later pressure created by this movement was released on the other side of the Indian Australian Plate.
An earthquake of 8.9 resulted in Tsunamis killing tens of thousands of people. These two related incidents were inconsequential in the earths long history, a minor adjustment of the earths crust.
On the 24th there was no rush to ascribe meaning to the massive earthquake in the southern ocean. No one died and, as such, it was an incident of note to scientists and few others. Because of the massive loss of life in the second incident however many people will be desparately trying to draw some meaning from the tragedy.
The event per se has no more meaning than any other natural event. Nature has no human traits, it is not vengeful or malicious or capricious. A lion kills for no reason other than to eat, tectonic plates shift for no reason other than to relieve pressure in the earths crust.The only meaning there is to draw is that life is tenuous and that our belief that we have somehow "tamed" the world in which we live is just a self-indulgent fantasy.
This is a terrible human tragedy but is it any more tragic than mass starvation in Africa. Perhaps it is time to consider that it is not the tragedy that you are reacting to but the "drama". It is so much more dramatic and so well covered by the media. Watching people starve to death doesn't make nearly as good television footage.
The moon will be full for Christmas and it is a smaller one that you will see. This is the moon at apogee when it is farthest from the earth. Here are two images of the moon, the upper one at perigee when it is closest and the lower at apogee.
At apogee (Dec 27th) the moon is 50,000 km further from the earth than when it is at perigee which last happened on Oct 18th. The moon's orbit around the earth is eliptical varying from 356,400 km to 406,700 km from Earth.
The Geminids can be found in the constellation of Gemini in the night sky, hence their name. They are not aliens however they are a meteor shower. The asteroid 3200 Phaethon is orbiting the sun in our solar system and is dragging after it a tail of dust particles. Each year in mid December the earth barrels through the tail creating a spectacular night time display. This year it is on 13th December. The particles causing the meteor shower are travelling at approximately 80,000 mph when they hit our atmosphere and burn up.
You, the readership of The Green Man, who are naturally more intelligent than average, will have no doubt raised your collective eyebrows at an asteroid having a tail. Of course we all know that comets typically have tails and asteroids don't. Since you already know this I don't need to explain that comets are made up of ice, dust and gravel, which facilitates the tail, where as asteroids are solid lumps of rock. Scientist speculate that 3200 Phaethon has collided with another asteroid or comet and picked up some debris as a tail in the process.
Here is a cellestial map courtesy of NASA to help you find the Geminids. The best time to look is around midnight of 13/12/04.
Read more at the NASA website.
I have posted this image before but it is just so spectacular it is worth a revisit. If you look carefully at this image of the setting sun you can see sun spot 652 which was present on the suns surface in July 2004.
The number of sun spots varies over an 11 year cycle and they have a significant impact on global warming. Quite unsurprisingly then it has been found that they also have an impact on agricultural productivity. Astrophysicist Lev Pustilnik of Tel Aviv University and Gregory Yom Din, an agricultural economist at Haifa University have been studying this and found a link between wheat productivity in the US, and hence the price of wheat, and the sun spot activity of the time. Read more here.
It is quite disconcerting for many people that aspects of our wellbeing are so completely out of our control and speaking of being outside our control the next two asteroids that are due to just miss hitting the earth are 2004 RZ164 due on 8th December and 2004 VW14 due on Christmas Eve. Neither is on track to actually hit the earth which is probably just as well because the second one particularly could have significantly disrupted your planned Christmas party. Both are big enough to cause catastrophic damage to the earth, something along the lines of the asteroid that allegedly whiped our the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
hmmmm some people do some funny things with chocolate. I might note at this point that a quick browse of the web for images using google with the word "chocolate" and "safe search off" will result in some even more intriguing photos that I will refrain from posting here since this is a "nice blog", well fairly nice anyway. This is a chocolate wig that formed part of the annual chocolate fashion show in New York.
By way of something mildly riske from the same event here is a chocolate bunny, but not the type you typically get at at Easter. It sets the mind a wondering, who gets to eat the chocolate afterwards and given the location of some of the chocolate who would want to. Hmmm perhaps I had better not persue that thought much further.
It seems to me that this would definitely have to be a cold climate type activity. In the tropics, yuck, it doesn't bear thinking about really. Enough of that, you can listen to a chocolate dance song here.
Peter Barnes, professor of thoracic medicine at Imperial College London, UK is also interested in matters relating to chocolate. You will note that Peter is a professor of Thoracic Medicine and not Gynaecology so those of you on work PCs can continue reading in safety.
Professor Pete is working with chocolate in the treatment for persistent coughs. He is finding it to be an effective alternative to opiates, which have traditionally been used, and nearly as much fun for the patient to boot. The chemical in question is theobromine which is a constituent of cocoa. Theobromine appeared to have no unwanted side effects. This is not true of narcotics which list drowsiness and constipation among the negative effects. Apparently theobromine interacts with the vagus nerve that runs from the lungs to the brain and regulates coughing. You can read more about his research here.
If you are pregnant at the moment then you can take heart that the chocolate is not only helping to suppress your cough but also producing a happy baby.
Katri Raikkonen at the University of Helsinki, Finland has found that babies born to women who had been eating chocolate daily during pregnancy were more active and "positively reactive" - a measure that encompasses traits such as smiling and laughter. Also where the mother was stressed the babies showed less fear when confronted with new situations than babies of stressed mothers who had not consumed chocolate. Read more about chocolate in pregnancy here.
Here is a photo of a US Soldier, a Marine actually. Mind you it looks mighty dry in Iraq. It makes you wonder whether a Marine is quite the right choice. Their name tends to imply a somewhat wetter environment. Still I assume that the US Military knows what they are doing placing soldiers with such an amphibious name in a desert.
He looks pretty tough though. Not tough enough for the US Military however. They are always looking for ways to toughen up their soldiers and since they are not members of the International Olympic Committee they don't have to pretend to be tough on performance enhancing drugs.
When it comes to performance enhancement the wonder drugs for humans are androgens, those are the male sex hormones. Everybody benefits from a bit of androgen in their lives, even women. So what do androgens do, well apart from a bit of a downer about them slightly increasing the risk of prostate cancer in men, they facilitate development of muscle mass and are critical in the development of bone density. Increased androgen levels result in skulls that are thicker, increased formation on the outside of long bones, such as the femur, decreased formation on the marrow surface inside the bone, reduced bone loss and low bone "turnover." In spite of the helmet our friend is wearing I think we all recognise that a thicker skull has to be an advantage in his line of work.
Anyway the US Military think it is and they have given Oregon Health & Science University $1.72 million to research it on their behalf.
Cast your mind back to 1925, well most of you will have to imagine it since you are young whipper snappers. A noteable trial was taking place in Dayton, Tennessee where a one John Scopes was fined $100 for having the audacity to teach the concept of evolution to his science class. Tennessee had, at the time, a law that forbade the teaching of "any theory that denies the story of divine creation as taught by the Bible and to teach instead that man was descended from a lower order of animals". Who knows they may still do.
It seems that the concept that we are at one with the animal world and evolved from forms of humans more primative than ourselves and indeed that we share a common ancestory with, most recently, chimpanzees, gorillas and other high order primates is still a very real problem for fundamentalist USA. Patricia Fuller of Atlanta's Cobb County for example firmly holds the opinion that
God created earth and man in his image. Leave this garbage out of the textbooks. I don't want anybody taking care of me in a nursing home some day to think I came from a monkey."
Unfortunately for Ms Fuller antidiscrimination laws prevent nursing homes from being quite so selective of their staff and I would suspect that shortages of qualified staff in this discipline means that nursing homes can't afford to be that fussy anyway.
Dear Patricia is not confining her dogmatic beliefs to her retirement planning however. She has successfully brow beaten the local educational authorities into placing a sticker on their science text books that said
"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."
She did this on the basis that
It is unconstitutional to teach only evolution. The school board must allow the teaching of both theories of origin.
The fatal flaw in this argument is that creation is not a scientific theory but rather a religious assertion and has no place in a science class. Whilst fully admitting that US constitutional law is not my strong point I seriously suspect that there is no law that is compelling Ms Fuller to send her children to this school or, even if she does, compelling them to take science.
Anyway, there other parents in her neighbourhood who are equally indignant but this time at the presence of the sticker on the text books. Gina Stubbart says
Widely accepted or otherwise evolution is science. If you don't want to learn about art don't study Art; if you don't want to learn about History don't study History and if you don't like Science don't study Science.
As you can imagine, there is only one place for matters to be settled in the USA and this is in the courts, everyone sueing everyone and why wouldn't you, it is the American way.
(via Guardian)
