The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science:

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.
The integrity of science rests on the willingness of scientists to expose new ideas and findings to the scrutiny of other scientists. Thus, scientists expect their colleagues to reveal new findings to them initially. An attempt to bypass peer review by taking a new result directly to the media, and thence to the public, suggests that the work is unlikely to stand up to close examination by other scientists.

The whole list is worth a read.

The Loom as an interesting post discussing co-operation and cheating amongst slome molds:

After several hours, the Dictyostelium slug goes through another change. The back end catches up with the tip, and the slug turns into a blob. About 20 percent of the cells move to the top of the blob and produce a slender stalk. In order to keep the stalk from flopping over, these cells must produce rigid bundles of cellulose. Unfortunately, this cellulose also tears apart the amoebae that make it. The remaining amoebae in the blob then take advantage of the suicide of their slugmates. They slide up to the top and form a globe. Each amoeba in the globe covers itself in a cellulose coat and becomes a dormant spore. In this form the colony will wait until something – a drop of rainwater, a passing worm, the foot of a bird – picks up the spores and takes them to a bacteria-rich place where they can emerge from their shells and start their lives over.

If a particular mold can avoid becoming part of the stalk it could gain an evolutionary advantage, but as you would expect there are checks and balances in place to detect cheating. The rest of the article looks at the latest research on the topic and is worth a read.

An interesting post in which a chemist debunks reports in the paper claiming that the UK flight bombers intended to use acetone peroxides as their explosives.

The news this morning was full of stuff about “ordinary looking devices being used as detonators”. Well, if you’re using nasty unstable peroxides as your explosive material, you don’t really need any — the stuff goes off if you give it a dirty look. I suspect a good hard rap with a hard heavy object would be more than sufficient. No need to worry about those cell phones secretly being high tech “detonators” if you’re going this route.

A recent review of the Dept. of Homeland Security’s terrorist-catching performance has revealed that they’re focussing so much effort on the terrorist watch list that they’re increasingly failing to catch people with illegal documentation.

As CBP [Customs & Border Patrol] has stepped up its efforts to intercept known and suspected terrorists at ports of entry, traditional missions such as narcotics interdiction and identification of fraudulent immigration documentation have been adversely affected. Recent data indicates a significant decrease over the past few years in the interception of narcotics and the identification of fraudulent immigration documents, especially at airports.

So, if you really ARE a terrorist, get yourself some dodgy documentation and you now stand a better chance of getting in to the US than previously.

From: Bruce Schneier

Looks like the UK is following in the footsteps of the US and slowly becoming a nation of idiots. Today’s Guardian reports that over 30% of university students believe in Creationism or Intelligent Design.

In a survey last month, more than 12% questioned preferred creationism – the idea God created us within the past 10,000 years – to any other explanation of how we got here. Another 19% favoured the theory of intelligent design – that some features of living things are due to a supernatural being such as God. This means more than 30% believe our origins have more to do with God than with Darwin – evolution theory rang true for only 56%.

It’s finally over bar the shouting. Israel has had their arse handed to them on a plate by Hizbullah, and been shown up as not the force everyone thought them to be. They failed in all their main objectives:

- Hizbullah is as strong as ever

- Hizbullah will still be right up against the border

- Hizbullah still has loads of rockets left

Sure, they demolished half the country, but that’s the easy part when you’re the only side with an air force, and it’s still a total fuck-up, since the rationale behind it was that it would piss off the local population and turn them against Hizbullah. In fact, it had the opposite effect. Not only did the non-partisan section of the local population swing overwhelmingly against Israel, so did huge amounts of the global population. Israel has been shown to be the overly aggressive bully that it really is, and it’s going to be a very long time before they manage to re-erect the “woe is me” facade they traditionally use to justify their actions.

Finally, now that the Lebanese side of things has died down, expect to hear reports of Israel’s dodgy actions which occurred in Gaza while the world was focussed on Lebanon.

The Weathermakers, by Tim Flannery, looks at the problem of global warming and is a pretty timely read. Flannery breaks the issue down into a few key areas which he addresses in turn, starting with James Lovelock’s Gaia theory and how climate has changed in the past, what effects past changes have had on our planet and how the current CO₂ levels compare to historic ones.

He then goes on to look at the effects global warming has already had on things like coral bleaching, species extinction, sea levels and frequency of severe storms before tackling the science behind climate modelling, the accuracy of our current models and what those models predict for the future. Along the way he shoots down some of the myths put forward by the anti-global warming crowd, eg: that since plants breathe CO₂ an increase in CO₂ will provide unprecedented agricultural yields. This is currently doing the rounds in the US at the moment, with the energy lobby taking out full-pafe newspaper advertisements to promote this theory. Flannery shoots it down by quoting research which shows that plants are actually less productive in an atmosphere with increased CO₂!

Next up is a look in more detail at what will happen if things continue as they are, including a look at how plants and animals adapted to temperature changes before (by migrating) and how human infrastructure and agriculture is likely to hamper that process. He also talks about the effects of warmer oceans and their effect on food production as well as the effects on the ocean’s ciculatory systems.

The penultimate section deals with potential solutions to the problem, noting that we solved the ozone hole problem in a reasonably short time with a concerted international effort. He talks about Kyoto, both good and bad, and how it’s here to stay, the costs of fixing the problem versus those of doing nothing, the downside to plans to encourage the oceans to take up more CO₂ by fertilising them with iron and finally, why a hydrogen economy will never work.

His final section is where he offers solutions that will work, focusing on the golden trio of hydro, wind & solar before introducing nuclear power, which seems to be making a comeback for two reasons: one, it emits very little greenhouse gases (about the same as hydro/wind/solar when you include lifetime costs) and two, more and more scientists think that global warming is a much greater problem than that of nuclear waste.

Flannery concludes by giving a few easy ways for the individual to start making a difference, including tips for reducing energy consumption and offsetting that which you can’t easily reduce. The book is well worth a read, and while it’s certainly alarmist in places, that’s probably what’s needed to get people to start taking the process seriously.

I’d started exercising again this week after yet another unforced layoff. Decided to alternate run and bike days for the forseeable future. Nothing hectic, just get out and do roughly 30mins a day and take it from there.

Went for a run in Centennial Park on Tuesday and it was great. The weather’s getting better as the days get longer, so it was a perfect 21C and great light as the sun started setting. All went well and I was quite enthusiatic about exercise again.

Wednesday saw me head out on the bike for a lap of a slightly hill course around the back streets of Vaucluse. Again, nice temperature and a bit of sun and all was well with the world.

I returned to Centennial yesterday for another run and now it’s all gone pear shaped. The weather was a bit colder due to wind chill, but I did my usual run without issue, only to find my right knee giving me all sorts of trouble last night. Any squat/lunge type of movement causes pain, as the tendon attaching to the lower front of my patella seems to be inflamed. I didn’t do anything stupid, or any obvious trip, so I’m at a loss to explain it.

No more running for a while though ;-(

B: 11.3km – R: 8km

WorldChanging.com has a post on an aspect of the nuclear power debate that I hadn’t considered before, namely what happens when there’s a water shortage?

Nuclear plants need lots of water for cooling purposes and as a result are usually situated beside a river. As global warming raises temperatures of the rivers, and potentially reduces the water flow through them, there’s less water around to cool the reactors and they have to be shut down temoprarily. This has already happened in France, Germany and the US, and it would be particularly relevant here in Australia given the fact that we’ve been in permanent drought around Sydney for six years at this stage.

The Caot Institute has a paper titled A False Sense of Insecurity (97KB PDF) which looks at the real risks associated with terrorism and compares them to risks encountered in everyday life.

Until 2001, far fewer Americans were killed in any grouping of years by all forms of international terrorism than were killed by lightning, and almost none of those terrorist deaths occurred within the United States itself. Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Department began counting) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts.

Kind of puts it all in perspective really. And for this the US has spent almost a trillion dollars on wars in Iraq & Afghanistan? Sounds like a complete waste of money to me… unless, could it really all be about oil?? ;-)

The article also makes the point that we are letting the terrorists by becoming unnecessarily worried and that our governments, particularly the US Government, are deliberately inflaming public opinion:

What is needed, as one statistician suggests, is some sort of convincing, coherent, informed, and nuanced answer to a central question: “How worried should I be?” Instead, the message the nation has received so far is, as a Homeland Security official put (or caricatured) it, “Be scared; be very, very scared — but go on with your lives.”

Or, as John Howard likes to say, “Be alert, not alarmed”. However, while this approach would be admirable, and certainly preferable to the current one, it would probably fail as the general public has an inability to understand relative risk. The article notes that an American’s odds of dying on an airline flight is around 1 in 13 million. You would get the same odds in a car, on the safest roads, after only driving 11 miles! Worth a read.

Hat tip to Bruce Schneier

MTV have an educational program called Break The Addiction, which is a 12-month, 12-step guide to fighting global warming with lots of simple tips on how you can make a difference. Worth a read.

Juan Cole, and one of his readers, have come up with a theory of what is really going on in the Middle East, and it all centres on Iran’s oil & gas reserves.

In a worst case scenario, Washington would like to retain the option of military action against Iran, so as to gain access to its resources and deny them to rivals. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, however, that option will be foreclosed. Iran may not be trying for a weapon, and if it is, it could not get one before about 2016. But if it had a nuclear weapon, it would be off limits to US attack, and its anti-American regime could not only lock up Iranian gas and oil for the rest of the century by making sweetheart deals with China. It also might begin to exercise a sway over the small energy-producing countries of the Middle East. (The oil interest would explain the mystery of why Washington just does not care that Pakistan has the Bomb; Pakistan has nothing Washington wants and so there was no need to preserve the military option in its regard.)

Even an Iranian nuke, of course, would not be an immediate threat to the US, in the absence of ICBMs. But the major US ally in the Middle East, Israel, would be vulnerable to a retaliatory Iranian strike if the US took military action against Iran in order to overthrow the regime and gain the proprietary deals for themselves.

In the short term, Iran was protected by another ace in the hole. It had a client in the Levant, Lebanon’s Hizbullah, and had given it a few silkworm rockets, which could theoretically hit Israeli nuclear and chemical facilities. Hizbullah increasingly organizes the Lebanese Shiites, and the Lebanese Shiites will in the next ten to twenty years emerge as a majority in Lebanon, giving Iran a commercial hub on the Mediterranean.

China and India could get Iran, and Iran could get Lebanon, and as non-OPEC energy production decreases, the US and Israel could find themselves out in the cold on the energy front.

As you will gather if you read my ramblings on a regular basis, I’ve been harping on about global warming for a while. Two weeks ago I finished reading The Weathermakers by Tim Flannery, which outlines the current state of the global warming debate. It’s not pretty, and he agrees with NASA’s James Hansen’s comment that we have ten years left to start making a serious difference to greenhouse gas levels, otherwise we will have reached a point where serious consequences are unavoidable.

So, with all that in mind, I decided it was time for me to make an effort. Since I don’t own my own home there’s not a lot I can do structurally, like install solar panels etc. so I opted to make the few changes I could, and offset those I couldn’t. It just so happened that a few weeks ago, just before I started reading Flannery’s book, I came across two separate stands in the CBD, on two separate days, at which energy companies were giving away free energy-efficient light bulbs and water-efficient shower heads. You had to provide proof-of-address, presumably so they can spam you, but I figured it was worth it. I walked away with 11 light bulbs and a shower head, went home and installed them and that was the hardest part of the whole exercise!

Next up was to ring our electricity provider, Energy Australia and tell them we wanted to switch to their PureEnergy package, where they guarantee that for every kWh you buy from them, they will source the same amount from government accredited green, renewable sources. We had to pay a 25% premium, which, based on our typical energy use, works out at about $200 per annum.

Finally, it was time to offset what was left over, namely the travel component. I wanted to offset my car usage, and all the air travel I’ve booked for my trip to Canada. There are a few companies around the world who guarantee to offset tonnes of CO₂ for a price, but I decided on ClimateFriendly.com, mainly because they agree to invest the money in developing renewable sources rather than just planting trees as other operations do. The fact that it’s an Australian operation helped too. So, I went on to their website and started using their calculators to see what I was in for:

If you exclude the air travel, which is a one off and not representative of my annual air travel, then I can offset almost all my greenhouse emissions for approximately $200 per year (given that the electricity bill is split with Jacqui) which is a pretty small price to pay if you ask me.

From The Open Voting Foundation:

“Diebold has made the testing and certification process practically irrelevant,” according to Dechert. “If you have access to these machines and you want to rig an election, anything is possible with the Diebold TS — and it could be done without leaving a trace. All you need is a screwdriver.” This model does not produce a voter verified paper trail so there is no way to check if the voter’s choices are accurately reflected in the tabulation.

It’s been a big week for the dope-busters! Having watching Floyd Landis reclaim the yellow jersey on Stage 17 of the Tour de France, after falling apart the prevous day, I was a little suspicious, but I opted to downplay my usual cynicism when it comes to extraordinary sporting performances and give him the benefit of the doubt. I shouldn’t have bothered really. My general maxim still stands: if a sporting performace seems too good to be true, it probably is.

His B sample is due for testing today, but rumours abound that a second, more specific test on the A sample has detected exogenous testosterone, meaning it came from outside his body and was not generated naturally. If this is the case, then he’s screwed.

Hot on the heels of Landis’s case we hear that Justin Gatlin, the ’world’s fastest man’ at 9.77 for 100m, has tested positive for testosterone as well. Looks like he’s screwed too as he had a previous positive for amphetamines caused by a treatment for ADD.

I still maintain that Ben Johnson was the greatest ever! Drugged or not, it’s almost 20 years since he ran 9.79 in Seoul and they’ve only shaved 0.02secs off that, and one of those two was also on the gear.

So, Israel goes to war because Hizbullah captured a couple of its soldiers. Why is it then that all I see in the news is Lebanese civilians being killed, and civilian infrasturcture being destroyed, even in non-Shiite areas not on the border with Israel (and therefore not firing missiles at Israel)?

Then today, the Lebanese Daily Star reports that five of the country’s main factories, producing milk, pharmaceuticals, paper and packaging, got targeted and destroyed by Israeli strikes? Doesn’t sound like Hizbullah infrstructure to me?

This is brilliant:

To see him speed down hallways and make sharp turns around corners is to observe a typical teen – except, that is, for the clicking. Completely blind since the age of 3, after retinal cancer claimed both his eyes (he now wears two prostheses), Ben has learned to perceive and locate objects by making a steady stream of sounds with his tongue, then listening for the echoes as they bounce off the surfaces around him. About as loud as the snapping of fingers, Ben’s clicks tell him what’s ahead: the echoes they produce can be soft (indicating metals), dense (wood) or sharp (glass). Judging by how loud or faint they are, Ben has learned to gauge distances.

The technique is called echolocation, and many species, most notably bats and dolphins, use it to get around. But a 14-year-old boy from Sacramento? While many blind people listen for echoes to some degree, Ben’s ability to navigate in his sightless world is, say experts, extraordinary. “His skills are rare,” says Dan Kish, a blind psychologist and leading teacher of echomobility among the blind. “Ben pushes the limits of human perception.”

From: People.com

After a few weeks sitting around doing nothing, I decided to get back into it last week. I cleaned off the bike and started cycling home from work again. There was no point cycling is as I’ve been exhausted due to staying up late watching either the Tour de France or the World Cup, so I bought myself a ten journey ferry ticket and will use that for two weeks of mornings. I’ve started doing some core and stability work, and I’m going to add running to the mix this week as well and see how that goes.

B: 52.5km, Core * 3

Le Monde Diplomatique:

The 1949 Geneva Conventions state, in article 54 of their additional protocol: “Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited”. It is also “prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population”. That means that the Israeli army’s latest offensive in the occupied territories amounts to war crimes; it includes the blockade of the civilian population and their collective punishment, the bombing of Gaza’s $150m power station, depriving 750,000 Palestinians of electricity in the intense summer heat, and the kidnapping on the West Bank of 64 members of the political wing of Hamas, including eight cabinet ministers and 22 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. On 5 July the Israeli government said it would expand its military operation in Gaza.

Israel has violated another principle of international law in this offensive: proportionality. Article 51 of the protocol forbids “an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” Can saving one soldier’s life justify destruction on this scale?

Israel & America are the two countries which I intensely dislike on the world’s stage right now. Individuals from each country are no more likely to be personable, or arseholes, than individuals from any other country, including my own, but both governments are scum.

The U.S. under Bush bleats long and loud about spreading “freedom and democracy”, all the while dismantling protections from government intrustion at home and abroad, and demonstrating with their every action that democracy doesn’t mean ‘of the people, for the people and by the people’, it means ‘whatever government will best serve the will of the US’. So much for the Founding Fathers and their vaunted Constitution.

As for Israel, their government’s actions are disgraceful and bring shame on their nation. The state of Israel certainly has a right to exist and its citizens have a right not to be subjected to rocket attack and suicide bombings, but equally the state of Palestine has a right to exist, and the Palestinians also have a right not to have Israeli snipers killing their children, Israeli helicopter gunships firing missiles into apartment blocks and Israeli artillery shells killing families at the beach.

What is doubly depressing about Israel’s conduct is that it is a nation whose very existence is a direct result of the persecution of Jews throughout Europe, culminating in the Holocaust, yet the descendants of those very same persecutees now spend their days, either directly (as government or military officials) or indirectly (by electing said government) persecuting and subjugating millions of Palestinians. How can a population for whom being victims of persecution is such a recent, vivid memory, and part of their psyche, turn around and allow their government to engage in essentially the very same behaviour?

This is brilliant! ;-)

Watch this:

Then watch this: