Fringy, science-stuff, maybe fact or fiction?

 

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 21:28 | link | comments (4)

Divine lightning reaction?

A Chinese man who swore to God that he didn't owe money to a neighbour was hit by lightning a minute later.

The man, named Xu, made the oath in front of a crowd of neighbours in Fuqing city, reports Southeast Express.

He vowed that he had never borrowed money from Mr Huang, who claimed Xu borrowed 500 yuan, the equivalent of £40, from him three years earlier.

"He borrowed 500 yuan three years ago from me for a friend's marriage gift, but he has denied it ever since then," said Huang, who went to Xu's home to demand payment.

"I told him that if he dared to swear to God that he didn't owe me the money, then I would waive his debt," said Huang.

Xu made the oath, but was suddenly struck by lightning a minute later.

He was immediately taken to hospital where doctors confirmed he had been hit by lightning. He is expected to make a full recovery.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 10:59 | link | comments (1)

 

"Smoking helps you lose weight -- one lung at a time!"

"Today, if you ask a car dealer to let you see something for 10 grand, he'll show you the door!"

"Medical insurance is what allows people to be ill at ease!"

"Prison inmates are treated to cable TV, hot meals and a college education, while on the outside some people can only afford these things through a life of crime!"

"Thank's to the new welfare bill, the question "Paper or plastic?" now refers to many American's sleeping arrangements!"

"In retrospect it becomes clear that hindsight is definitely overrated!"

"Most people are so lazy, they don't even exercise good judgement!"

"If opera is entertainment, then falling off a roof is transportation!"

"A college jock is someone who minds his build instead of vice versa!"

"The only advantage to living in the past is that the rents are much cheaper!"

"Getting old is when a narrow waist and a broad mind change places!"

"How come stealing from one book is plagiarism, but stealing from many is research?"

"It takes one to know one -- and vice versa!"

"Nowadays, a balanced diet is when every McNugget weighs the same!"

"Teenagers are people who act like babies if they're not treated like adults!"

"A teacher is someone who talks in our sleep!"

"How come we choose from just two people for President, and fifty for Miss America?"

"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!"

"You can be on the right track and still get hit by a train!"

"Blood is thicker than water... but it makes lousy lemonade!"

"The U.N. is a place where governments opposed to free speech demand to be heard!"

"A plastic surgeon's office the only place where no one gets offended when you pick your nose!"

 

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 00:20 | link | comments (1)

Indian Call Centers

Telegenisys India Pvt. Ltd. specializes in "business process outsourcing" for medium-sized companies worldwide, and they boast a singular vision -- to one day achieve the SEVEN F'S of customer service. In no particular order, these f-words are Focused, Fast, Flexible, Friendly, Fair, Futuristic and First Class! Business process outsourcing is a euphemism for lowballing bids on jobs like engineering, tech support, customer service or animation, and setting up "call centers" in countries like India, China, Egypt, and the Philippines.

Apart from movies and television, America's premiere exports are overindulgence, depression, premature death and regime change. There's no better way than to enjoy all of the above than working in an overpopulated Indian call center. India, crowned by businesses around the globe as the world's back office, employs 350,000 people in the outsourcing industry each year, adding 150,000 new jobs every twelve months. Just imagine them all stuffed in one single cubicle clonking phones together and you begin to approximate the sensation. The average call center can house fifteen hundred 20-year-old Indian technology graduates.

When a business in the United States hands over all its call center jobs to workers in India, it means that young Indians will be on the telephone with you a great deal: answering your customer service questions, troubleshooting your software problems and assisting you with credit card inquiries from thousands of miles away. Similar outsourcing corporations exist here in America, but the majority of jobs go to domestic incarcerated prisoners.

Because of the time difference between India and the United States, Indian employees work graveyard shifts, arriving at the office in the early evening (6:30pm) and returning home shortly before dawn (3:30am). The adjustment to such odd hours is hitting India hard, and carrying with it a host of health problems: digestive disease, hair loss, back pain and stress to name just a few. An estimated 50,000 young English-speaking Indians have already been exposed to the phenomenon of accent stress.

In hundreds of classrooms across India, instructors from as far away as the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and Britain's Oxford University have set up workshops which serve to neutralize an Indian's accent before he or she ever touches a telephone. It can take weeks to teach someone how to "flatten out" their Indian intonations, to pronounce Pottery Barn more like Poddery Barn. Accent-neutralization classes incorporate a whole toolbox of geography lessons, regional dialects, and shorthand introductions to American culture -- including holidays and baseball scores. Some Indians are asked to act out Western fairy tales, perform Shakespeare, and examine popular caricatures of Indians like Apu from The Simpsons.

Have you ever tried faking an English accent for eight to ten hours a day? What a pain in the ass. You get a sore throat that never heals. Crowded offices populated with hundreds of equally sick individuals merely exacerbates the situation. Some girls develop menstrual problems. Orthopedic distress and chain-smoking are other common symptoms. Many India call center employees find it difficult to have a positive outlook towards life when they can't even get a good night's sleep. Employees deal with an average of one hundred phone calls per shift -- more if their excitable manager is feeling "pumped up" for some reason.

Study these pictures of Indian call centers closely: these are not cuddly, friendly, operator-in-command studios in the traditional sense. Look at the top of every single computer monitor, where nobody has lined up collectable figurines from Pixar's The Incredibles. Where are the Dilbert mugs, the cat calendars, the bowls of candy pushed forth to foster friendship and camaraderie among employees? Okay, very well: where are the Bollywood posters, the curry forks, the belly-dancing platforms? Sometimes there's a banner on the call-center floor: WEAR YOUR BEST SMILE AND MAKE YOUR CUSTOMER SMILE TOO!

The quality of life in India, despite the lack of material comforts and amenities, is rich in religion, family, and human relationships -- none of which matter two shits when you're troubleshooting someone's Photoshop serial number halfway around the world, or helping some fat lady in Alabama figure out why her debit card won't come out of the ATM machine. The moment your shift is over, your chair gets warmed by another representative ("rep") ready to take over where you left off.

The rep's job is complex, to say the least. Chances are he'll be talking to someone as ignorant about India as he or she might be about America.

Customer: How come every time I call Verizon Wireless I get some black dude who can't speak proper English? Would you say you're more from the hood or more from the ghetto?

Employee: Sir. I'm willing to help you conduct this transaction, provided you don't make any further comments like that about my background. Otherwise I'm going to have to end this conversation.

Customer: Faggot. [hangs up]

One of the worst things you can do while trying to navigate a call center is to make a racist remark or a negative comment insulting an Indian rep's ancestry, heritage or skin color. When confronted with such a volatile situation, the rep will have no choice but to flip open the chapter on "setting boundaries for the conversation," and proceed accordingly. His or her voice will drop down to neutral or matter-of-fact tones, showing as little emotional reaction as possible, in the hopes your anger doesn't escalate. The rep's job is to help you subscribe to the Playboy channel, not to make you a better human being.

The reverse racism scenario is equally worthy of study: what does a rep do when the caller believes he or she is a target of racism? Let's watch one of the most offensive (and effective) verbal strategies you as a customer can pull:

Customer: I asked you twice now already: can I get the chamois crib covers in bronzeberry frost and periwinkle or do I have to take my business to Ikea?

Employee: I do believe we have those colors in stock. One "sec" while I check the figures.

Customer: Woah -- did you just call me and my family a bunch of niggers?

In this scenario, the rep will have no choice but to indirectly acknowledge the racist accusation with a neutral observational remark such as it sounds like you're pretty frustrated. Without so much as a pause, the rep will then U-turn the conversation back to the bronzeberry and periwinkle matters at hand. By delivering empathy statements which properly identify your feelings of frustration, and immediately following them up with choices of appeal which a customer can embrace, refuse, or ignore, the Indian rep can avoid further intimidation.

However, responding positively is not always sufficient. The customer can repeat the accusation, even going so far as to suggest everyone in the company is "out to get" a particular race. This is where even experienced reps can choke: these remarks must be treated more seriously than other insinuations. If the situation cannot be sufficiently diffused, the customer might bring his case to the media -- who in turn will play endlessly looped recordings of the rep's technique, reflecting poorly upon the whole call center.

In such an event, a company's best public relations maneuver is to fire that rep -- or the entire call center -- in response to a news story that just won't die, thereby exorcising "troublemakers from within" without once examining mitigating circumstances. Companies can be somewhat reluctant to evangelize the number of outsource employees answering phones ten thousand light years away.

It is a multicultural world, and nobody understands each other. A rep's self-control is critical at racist junctures (however unfair or unjustified the accusations) and the same holds true for sexism. Both men and women can be victims of sexist comments, but Indian women are more likely to be targets, particularly when the subject of the call involves computers, mathematics, construction, or machinery. In this example, the customer is a male and the employee is a female.

Customer: Not to be rude, but in my experience women just aren't that knowledgeable about auto repair. I'd be way more comfortable discussing all this with a man.

Employee: I understand. The thing is, if you want your car fixed today, I'm the only person available. So it's up to you what you want to do. I'm happy to discuss the problem with your car so we can get it fixed before the weekend.

Customer: How about I come down there and shave off your tits with a cheese grater?

Again the rep must avoid being "drawn in" to an argument about a woman's natural abilities in the auto shop. While sexist remarks can be insulting and demeaning, it's imperative that the female rep not take the bait. Instead, she must briefly reassure the male customer of her experience and skill and then immediately refocus the conversation back to the customer's car. Unfortunately in this instance, the caller chose to respond with another sexist comment: the implication that a woman without breasts would be an acceptable alternative to a male mechanic. The caller might also have requested some "customer cervix".

Call center employees are trained to understand that a customer's fit of pique surfaces for one of two reasons. The anger can be a byproduct of the company, product or service in question -- or it can arise from personal matters completely unrelated to the rep. One such "unrelated" form of anger involves the caller's past negative experiences with vaguely similar agencies. Callers to a government institution, for instance, may approach the act of speaking to a rep with only disdain, factoring in a lifetime of perceived injustices, exasperation and defeat.

Customer: It's the fourth building permit I've had trouble with this year! This is the last goddamn time -- I want someone to use his fuckin' brains and tell me which -- which -- goddamn form I'm supposed to fill out, and where I'm supposed to take it or send it. Jesus!

Employee: Well you do seem frustrated and it certainly sounds like you want to get these permits approved as quickly as possible. It's true, that some people can get impatient with the process, and I certainly apologize for any time delays you've experienced. I know you've done much of the planning, and you have all your information ready. Let's get right to it.

Customer: [Gunshot, phone clatters to floor]

Callers become "difficult" when they feel their expectations have not been met, but our fearless Indian rep attempted the most logical course of action: she communicated an awareness of "where the customer is coming from". Hey man, I'm hip to your vibe; this life we endure -- how strange, yet how jolly; etcetera. We're all in it together, kid. This faux familiarity (fauxmiliarity, n.) must be delivered with complete neutrality, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the caller, and certainly not dwelling on old stuff. Time-traveling is a strategy widely employed by call centers: the rep puts callers in a Wonka-style time machine, transporting them from the past into the present, with promises of four-star customer accommodation in the future.

Anger management is a challenge in any culture. If the callers' connections are free of line noise and their wireless phones are adequately filtering out unwanted background sound, there are only three communication barriers which threaten reps: foreign language customers, callers with impenetrable accents, and customers with speech disabilities.

Customer: [unintelligible]

Employee: I'm sorry, I'm not sure I heard you correctly. Are you calling to apply for a Magic Moments Visa Rewards card?

Customer: Me no rikey. You bad person.

There can be only one common solution to these barriers. The customer service rep must try and try and try again to satisfy the customer's inquiry, under the mindful wiretapping of eavesdropping superiors. The Indian call center rep is a heavily-monitored surgeon performing delicate service operations, and all conversation must be reduced into shorter meta-sentences with periodic summarizations of the discussion so far.

Employee: Okay, you don't like me, and I'm a bad person. Is that correct?

Customer: [unintelligible]

If untreated, anger inevitably leads to abuse. Customers are far more aggressive on the phone than in person. Not surprisingly, the take-this-job-and-please-to-shove-it rate is high in call centers in India, as thirty to forty percent of most workers quit within the first year. They are quickly replaced: English speaking youngsters in India are clamoring for jobs which pay anywhere from $160 to $300 per month.

As India's outsourcing firms continue to grow, those in charge of hiring are starting to despair: the majority of young Indians they interview are growing just plain unemployable. Only one in ten graduates appears to be worth placing -- and as one frustrated Mumbai-based manager fumed to Satish Jacobs of ABC News: "Just look at their English!" Several letters in his hands held plaintive requests like, "As I am marrying my daughter, please grant a week's leave," and "I am well in here and I hope you are in the same well." Are you getting any closer to solving the mystery of why these workers only earn one dollar per hour?

If India is unable to recruit workers at reasonable wages, they lose orders to Thailand, China, and the Philippines. Meanwhile, disgruntled Americans and British workers whose jobs have been outsourced can easily get them back -- if they're willing to move to India where their English accents and down-home colloquialisms might be a distinct advantage, and if they're willing to work for an Indian wage. And while you're over there, please do not offer their God a peanut.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 10:07 | link | comments (1)

Intel cuts electric cords with wireless power system

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 10:45 | link | comments (1)

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 23:37 | link | comments

Although I'm a cat person, when I was younger, I loved dogs. I had two pups, their names were Tubby and Zeppelin. I've decided to get a sweet, loving pup, and here's a video of him. I can't wait to cuddle with him:

 

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 17:45 | link | comments (5)

John Titor

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 21:36 | link | comments (1)

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 00:23 | link | comments (2)

Jeez, even Roma (maybe, in Roma's case I'm still doubtful ), LITM, and IML can learn math.

Elephants master basic mathematics

Add elephants to the growing menagerie of animals that can count.

An Asian elephant named Ashya beat this reporter at a devilishly simple addition problem. When a trainer dropped three apples into one bucket and one apple into a second, then four more apples in the first and five more in the second, the pachyderm recognised that three plus four is greater than one plus five, and snacked on the seven apples. (In my defence, I watched the video in a noisy and crowded auditorium.)

"I even get confused when I'm dropping the bait," says Naoko Irie, a researcher at the University of Tokyo, Japan, who uncovered the elephant's inner genius. She presented her findings last week at the International Society for Behavioral Ecology's annual meeting in Ithaca, New York.

Moreover, Irie found that as well as summing small numbers with almost 90% accuracy, elephants can discriminate between small numbers.

That's not so surprising, considering that animals from salamanders to pigeons to chimpanzees can discern numerical values. But all animals, including humans when forced to make split-second decisions, are best at telling apart two quantities when the ratio between the large and small number is greatest.

Spot the difference

Not so for elephants, Irie says. The four that she tested distinguished between five and six apples as well as they did between five and one. They picked the bucket with the most fruit 74% of the time, on average, far above 50-50.

"It really is tough to figure out why [elephants] would need to count," says Mya Thompson, an ecologist at Cornell University who studies elephants and attended Irie's talk. Asian elephants live in close-knit groups of six to eight, and they may count one another to make sure the herd sticks to together. "You really don't want to lose your group members," she says.

Alternatively, the mathematical prowess of elephants may be a side effect of their bulging brains and an evolutionary kinship to other "smart" animals, Irie says.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 22:22 | link | comments (3)

Maybe Roma was right, I don't seem to fit Napoleon, although the Moon-chickie-thing is afraid that I might believe so; how about:

or:

or:

or:

 

or:

or:

 

or:

or:

my favorite:

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 18:54 | link | comments (4)

Well, it's back to school time again. I finished buying my notebooks (compostion books). But I need the opinion of my lady freinds who read my blog. I need back to school clothes once more. Well, what do you think about this outfit?

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 20:03 | link | comments (8)

HURRICANE SEASON CAN MAKE A STORM SHUDDER

We're entering the heart of hurricane season. Any day now, you're going to turn on the TV and see a weatherperson pointing to some radar blob out in the Atlantic and making two basic meteorological points:
* There is no need to panic.
* We could all be killed.

Yes, hurricane season is an exciting time to be in South Florida. If you're new to the area, you're probably wondering what you need to do to prepare for the possibility that we'll get hit by "the big one." The best way to get information on this topic is to ask people who were here during Hurricane Andrew (we're easy to recognize, because we still smell faintly of b.o. mixed with gasoline). Based on our experiences, we recommend that you follow this simple three-step hurricane preparedness plan:

STEP 1. Buy enough food and bottled water to last your family for at least three days.

STEP 2. Put these supplies into your car.

STEP 3. Drive to Nebraska and remain there until Halloween.

Unfortunately, statistics show that most people will not follow this sensible plan. Most people will foolishly stay here in South Florida. If you're one of those people, you'll want to clip out the following useful hurricane information and tuck it away in a safe place so that later on, when a storm is brewing, you will not be able to locate it.

We'll start with one of the most important hurricane preparedness items:

HOMEOWNERS' INSURANCE: If you own a home, you must have hurricane insurance. Fortunately, this insurance is cheap and easy to get, as long as your home meets two basic requirements: (1) It is reasonably well-built, and (2) It is located in Nebraska.

Unfortunately, if your home is located in South Florida, or any other area that might actually be hit by a hurricane, most insurance companies would prefer not to sell you hurricane insurance, because then they might be required to pay YOU money, and that is certainly not why they got into the insurance business in the first place. So you'll have to scrounge around for an insurance company, which will charge you an annual premium roughly equal to the replacement value of your house. At any moment, this company can drop you like used dental floss. Since Hurricane Andrew, I have had an estimated 27 different home-insurance companies. This week, I'm covered by the Bob and Big Stan Insurance Company, under a policy which states that, in addition to my premium, Bob and Big Stan are entitled, on demand, to my kidneys.

SHUTTERS: Your house should have hurricane shutters on all the windows, all the doors, and - if it's a major hurricane - all the toilets. There are several types of shutters, with advantages and disadvantages:

* Plywood shutters: The advantage is that, because you make them yourself, they're cheap. The disadvantage is that, because you make them yourself, they will fall off.
* Sheet-metal shutters: The advantage is that these work well, once you get them all up. The disadvantage is that once you get them all up, your hands will be useless bleeding stumps, and it will be December.
* Roll-down shutters: The advantages are that they're very easy to use, and will definitely protect your house. The disadvantage is that you will have to sell your house to pay for them.
* "Hurricane-proof" windows: These are the newest wrinkle in hurricane protection: They look like ordinary windows, but they can withstand hurricane winds! You can be sure of this, because the salesman says so. He lives in Nebraska.

"HURRICANE PROOFING" YOUR PROPERTY: As the hurricane approaches, check your yard for movable objects like barbecue grills, planters, patio furniture, visiting relatives, etc.; you should, as a precaution, throw these items into your swimming pool (if you don't have a swimming pool, you should have one built immediately). Otherwise, the hurricane winds will turn these objects into deadly missiles. (If you happen to have deadly missiles in your yard, don't worry, because the hurricane winds will turn THEM into harmless objects).

EVACUATION ROUTE: If you live in a low-lying area, you should have an evacuation route planned out. (To determine whether you live in a low-lying area, look at your driver's license; if it says "Florida, " you live in a low-lying area.) The purpose of having an evacuation route is to avoid being trapped in your home when a major storm hits. Instead, you will be trapped in a gigantic traffic jam several miles from your home, along with two million other evacuees. So, as a bonus, you will not be lonely.

SUPPLIES: If you don't evacuate, you will need a mess of supplies. Do not buy them now! South Florida tradition requires that you wait until the last possible minute, then go to the supermarket and get into vicious fights with strangers over who gets the last can of Spam. In addition to food and water, you will need the following supplies:

* 23 flashlights.
* At least $167 worth of batteries that turn out, when the power
goes out, to be the wrong size for the flashlights.
* Bleach. (No, I don't know what the bleach is for. NOBODY knows what the bleach is for. But it's traditional, so GET some, dammit!)
* A 55-gallon drum of underarm deodorant.
* A big knife that you can strap to your leg. (This will be useless in a hurricane, but it looks cool.)
* A large quantity of bananas, to placate the monkeys. (Ask anybody who went through Andrew; after the hurricane, there WILL be irate monkeys.)
* $35,000 in cash or diamonds so that, after the hurricane passes, you can buy a generator from a man with no discernible teeth.

Of course these are just basic precautions. As the hurricane draws near, it is vitally important that you keep abreast of the situation by turning on your television and watching TV reporters in rain slickers stand right next to the ocean and tell you over and over how vitally important it is for everybody to stay the hell away from the ocean.

At that point, if you've prepared all you can, there's frankly nothing left to for you to do but pray. I mean for a really BIG wave.

 

 

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 20:41 | link | comments (6)

I finally got a chance to go back home:

Star Trek warp drive is a possibility, say scientists By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 15/08/2008

Two physicists have boldly gone where no reputable scientists should go and devised a new scheme to travel faster than the speed of light. Star Trek technology: The reality A brief history of warp drives Warp Drive - A New Approach [the paper] The advance could mean that Star Trek fantasies of interstellar civilisations and voyages powered by warp drive are now no longer the exclusive domain of science fiction writers.   The US Starship Enterprise from the original Star Trek series In the long running television series created by Gene Roddenberry, the warp drive was invented by Zefram Cochrane, who began his epic project in 2053 in Bozeman, Montana. Now Dr Gerald Cleaver, associate professor of physics at Baylor, and Richard Obousy have come up with a new twist on an existing idea to produce a warp drive that they believe can travel faster than the speed of light, without breaking the laws of physics. In their scheme, in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, a starship could "warp" space so that it shrinks ahead of the vessel and expands behind it. By pushing the departure point many light years backwards while simultaneously bringing distant stars and other destinations closer, the warp drive effectively transports the starship from place to place at faster-than-light speeds. All this extraordinary feat requires, says the new study, is for scientists to harness a mysterious and poorly understood cosmic antigravity force, called dark energy. Dark energy is thought responsible for speeding up the expansion rate of our universe as time moves on, just like it did after the Big Bang, when the universe expanded much faster than the speed of light for a very brief time. This may come as a surprise since, according to relativity theory, matter cannot move through space faster than the speed of light, which is almost 300,000,000 metres per second. But that theory applies only to unwarped 'flat' space. And there is no limit on the speed with which space itself can move: the spaceship can sit at rest in a small bubble of space that flows at "superluminal" - faster than light - velocities through normal space because the fabric of space and time itself (scientists refer to spacetime) is stretching. In the scheme outlined by Dr Cleaver dark energy would be used to create the bubble: if dark energy can be made negative in front of the ship, then that patch of space would contract in response. "Think of it like a surfer riding a wave," said Dr Cleaver. "The ship would be pushed by the spatial bubble and the bubble would be travelling faster than the speed of light." The new warp drive work also draws on "string theory", which suggests the universe is made up of multiple dimensions. We are used to four dimensions - height, width, length and time but string theorists believe that there are a total of 10 dimensions and it is by changing the size of this 10th spatial dimension in front of the space ship that the Baylor researchers believe could alter the strength of the dark energy in such a manner to propel the ship faster than the speed of light. They conclude by recommending that it would be "prudent to research this area further." Einstein's spooky action acts at 10,000 times the speed of light Reach for the stars on a beam of light We must leave Earth, says Hawking But hold the dilithium crystals: Dr Chris Van Den Broeck of Cardiff University commented: "The problem with this and previous schemes (including my own) is that part of the exotic matter would have to travel faster than the *local* speed of light (roughly speaking, it would need to go faster than the speed of light with respect to the portion of space it occupies), and that's not allowed by any established physical theory." And even if this criticism can be met, Richard Obousy computed the amount of energy required to start up a "warp" process (but not the total energy required to travel a specific distance) around a 10x10x10 metre-cube ship based on the required change in dark energy in a space equal to the volume of the ship. The energy to kick start the drive turned out to be equivalent to turning the entire mass of Jupiter into energy, by Einstein's famous E equals Mc squared equation, where c is the speed of light. Given the mass of Jupiter is around 2000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms, that is a big number. "That is an enormous amount of energy," Dr Cleaver said. "We are still a very long ways off before we could create something to harness that type of energy."

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 19:44 | link | comments

For IML:

 

Yup, even english professor 'girlie things' had crushes when young, and I'm sure this brings back memories to IML. Jeez...girls....

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 21:16 | link | comments (7)

I finally found a sure way for Roma to have a lasting relationship she so desires:

'Beer goggles' are real - it's official

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 10:21 | link | comments (4)

How real, sexy women look in bathing suits:

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 21:34 | link | comments (5)

19 terrifying incidents involving fish

26 dead, 297 injured and two left traumatised. Matt Clarke takes a look at 19 painful incidents involving fish from the depths of the news archives...

Willy fish or Candiru might swim up your penis or vagina if you urinate in the Amazon. Picture by Takedashingen620 (Creative Commons)

We've scoured the Practical Fishkeeping news archives to dredge up some of the weird and terrifying incidents involving fish that we've covered in the past few years...

Attack of the 'willy fish'

The legendary candiru, or 'willy fish' as it sometimes less politely called, is known about well outside its native range in the freshwater rivers of the Amazon basin. These small catfish are parasites and normally live in the gills of very large catfishes, to which they're attracted by the ammonia that is excreted by the fishes' gills.

Unfortunately for bathers, gills aren't the only things that can excrete streams of ammonia into water. Humans urinating while swimming also do the same. The tiny catfish home-in on the trickle of ammonia-rich wee and swim up the victim's penis or vagina, locking themselves in place with a set of sharp hooks. Once there, they leave you in immense pain and try to dine on your blood.

Although infamous, "attacks" by these fish are actually not thought to be particularly common. We covered the first confirmed and documented case of the removal of one of these catfishes from a man's penis. There's also a video, and a dramatic reconstruction of the event, if you're not too squeamish.

While candiru are normally small fish – an inch or two at most - the catfish removed in this case wasn't a little one. It measured an eye-watering six inches in length and half an inch wide! Given the choice, I think I'd personally prefer to be stung by something instead...
More: Candiru attack

Flying fish jumps into man's eye

While numerous boaters have been injured by Silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) and sturgeons leaping out of the water, most are lucky enough to come away with just cuts and bruises. However, one patient admitted to a hospital in Guadeloupe was rather unluckier.

He was quietly enjoying the Caribbean sun when a needlefish leapt out of the sea and impaled his eye socket. The fish tried to flap free, causing serious damage to the man's optic nerve. It eventually snapped off its beak, leaving it stuck inside the man's eye socket.

Perhaps most amazingly, the man waited five days before popping in to casualty to have the lump of bone removed from his mangled eye socket. Consequently, even after the remove of the bone fragments and a course of antibiotics he lost the sight in the affected eye...

More: Flying fish jumps into man's eye

Steve Irwin killed by stingray

Although they're potentially dangerous, deaths by stingrays are actually relatively uncommon, so the news that television reptile expert Steve Irwin had been killed by a Bull ray while filming off Queensland was all the more shocking.

Irwin was believed to have been snorkelling over some large rays when one of them whipped up its tail and its large, barbed venomous sting struck him in the chest – pretty much the worst possible place there is to get stung by a ray. Given the wound Irwin suffered when he was struck in the chest, there was probably little that could be done to save him.

However, research undertaken by scientists from the University of California, who examined clinical records on 119 people who had been stung by stingrays, suffering acute but non-lethal pain in the process, showed that most had pain relief within half an hour by submerging the wound in hot water.

Stingrays are found over a very wide area and a number of commonly kept in aquariums, especially the freshwater species from South America. Research has shown that it's actually these species that give the most painful stings, with even a small nick from the stinger enough to result in an exceptionally painful wound. Fortunately, stings from freshwater rays in the aquarium are extremely unusual because fishkeepers tend to treat them very cautiously.

More: Steve Irwin killed by stingray

Sarpa salpa: Picture kindly supplied by David Koutsogiannopoulos

Men hallucinate after eating fish

Two men got more than they bargained for when they dined on a popular local seafish in Mediterranean restaurants in 2006. The men suffered from "terrifying" visual and auditory hallucinations - seeing and hearing things that weren't really there - after eating the Salema porgy, Sarpa salpa.

The fish had been eating algae containing an indole toxin with similar effects to the recreational drugs LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and DMT (dimethyltryptamine) which left the men suffering from a rare case of Hallucinogenic Fish Poisoning or ichthyallyeinotoxism.

Apparently, Sarpa salpa is known to be affected by this algae and was once known as the Dream fish and was even used as a recreational drug in Roman times. The men "tripped" for 36 hours after eating the fish, suffering from various hallucinations and nightmares in the days that followed...

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Picture: Chris73, Creative Commons Licence.

'Salmon' kills 15 and hospitalises 115

You've got to be a little bit mad to dine on a fish like fugu that can potentially kill you. However, even eating what you believe to be salmon can be potentially deadly.

Fish suppliers in Thailand aren't legally allowed to sell puffer fish meat, as it was banned there in 2002, so some of them have been dyeing the toxic puffer fish meat and passing it off as salmon on fish markets and restaurants to unsuspecting punters.

In the space of three years, 115 people were hospitalised after eating the puffer fish meat (which is known as fugu) and 15 were left dead. The meat contains a toxin called tetrodotoxin (TTX) which is produced by bacteria living within the fish. Miniscule quantities can be deadly and there's no antidote.

However, an active part of TTX is also a pain killer some 3000 times stronger than morphine and this is being used to produce a new drug called Tetrodin to help addicts come off heroin.

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Diver impaled by four-foot needlefish

In 2005, 19-year old Tonga Loumouli from Hawaii was impaled through the chest by a pointy-nosed fish while diving at night. The fish stuck its nose in his chest and then wriggle free, leaving a massive gash and one of its teeth behind.

Loumouli's friend pulled him into a dinghy and then dragged him a mile before getting help from a police officer. He was taken to hospital with a serious liver injury. While in hospital, unable to speak and attached to a ventilator he scribbled a note to his mum and sister which read "I'm going to quit diving..."

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Boy collapses after being stung by fish

You're not even safe if you're in the UK. One youngster, 13 year old Aaron Maughan, who was paddling in the sea at Seaton Carew in the north east of England, collapsed after he stepped on a venomous Lesser weever fish, Echiichthys vipera. This small fish, which reaches up to 15cm/6" in length, tends to spend much of its time sitting buried in the sand with only its small poison-laden dorsal fin spines sticking out.

Maughan said: "I'm a blackbelt in karate and have had a lot of fights, even a broken nose, but this was something else. It felt like I had stood on a nail or glass. I looked down and there were three spikes sticking out of my foot. I started to walk back to my gran up the beach, blood was dripping out, then I just collapsed."

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Picture by Springcold (Creative Commons).

Fishkeeper poisoned by dead fish

The fish don't even have to be alive to cause problems. The curator of a public aquarium in the Netherlands got pricked by a dead porcupine puffer while conducting an autopsy on the fish and ended up getting poisoned.

A number of pricks from the spines of the pufferfish allowed the fish's body fluids, which contain the potent neurotoxin tetrodotoxin, get into his system. He survived, but suffered from paresis (a loss of movement of the limbs), paresthesias (loss of sensation), as well as a headache, dizziness and numbness.

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Man attacked with stuffed fish

Nor do the fish have to be freshly dead. An American woman used a stuffed swordfish to attack her boyfriend during an argument, leaving him with several cuts to his arms and shoulders. Ouch.

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Picture by Mike Rizzo.

Piranha bites off side of man's finger

Although widely believed to be one of the most dangerous fish, according to recent research piranhas aren't usually that dangerous, unless you catch them.

However, fishkeeper Mike Rizzo of Michigan suffered a nasty wound when he was moving his pet sub-adult Diamond rhombeus piranha to a new aquarium. The piranha, which is called Markov, tried to jump out of the net on the way to the new tank so Rizzo put out his hand in an attempt to block it. Unfortunately, the startled fish chomped straight into his finger, ripping off the side.

Rizzo told Practical Fishkeeping: "He got a hold of my finger damn well. He bit all the way down into my knuckle and broke the capsule my knuckle is in and chipped a piece of bone off it. The bite also went through the nerves and other stuff in my finger. At first it was extremely painful. I think that a lot of it was due to the initial shock as well as seeing the skin and flesh dangling off and seeing blood literally spurting out as my heat beat, and just forming a large pool on the floor."

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Woman badly bitten by piranhas

If you're leaving your piranhas in the care of your mum, you'd think it would be a good idea to let her know what she was dealing with. However, one mother wasn't quite so lucky and suffered a nasty wound after one of her son's "goldfish" latched on to her hand while she was cleaning out its aquarium. Doctors said she lost all of the skin from two of her fingers and was lucky not to have lost her hand in the incident.

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Statistician stung by scorpion fish

A British man who works for the Office for National Statistics was stung by a scorpion fish and nearly died while on holiday on the Greek Island of Rhodes. What are the chances of that happening?

Rod Lawson from Cumbria picked the fish up and got speared in the finger, then got jabbed again as he was putting it back in the sea. Lawson said: "[My arm] was like an elephant's trunk - four times its original size from the fingers right up to the armpit. It looked absolutely terrifying. It was very, very scary because the pain was intense and within just a short space of time I was drifting in and out of consciousness. Apparently it was touch and go for quite some time."

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Spotted eagle ray by Jean De Bosset (Creative Commons)

Woman killed by leaping eagle ray

Spotted eagle rays, Aetobatus narinari, which can reach several metres across, don't jump out of the sea that often, so Judy Kay Zagorksi of Michigan was exceptionally unfortunate to have been hit by a 1.5m wide specimen earlier this year.

The massive ray leapt from the sea and collided with Zagorski while she was in a boat with her family off the Florida Keys. Although the species is potentially venomous, it's thought that the weight of the fish hitting Zagorski was the cause of death in this bizarre accident.

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600lb Marlin "attacks" angler

An 18-year old angler on a game fishing trip off Panama was attacked by a massive 600lb Marlin after it jumped into the boat he was fishing from. Stephen Schultz was knocked to the floor and had blood pouring from his nose and mouth.

He was flown to hospital were x-rays showed that his sinus walls had been broken in four places. He also suffered an inch and a half cut in the back of his throat and had numerous lacerations inside his cheeks after the Marlin's sword smacked him in the face. The Marlin was returned alive.

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Blue Marlin, Makaira nigricans (Creative Commons).

Man impaled by giant fish

Ian Card was less lucky. He was fishing in an International big game fishing tournament off Bermuda when he hooked a 14' Blue marlin, Makaira nigricans. The fish, which weighed around 360kg/800lb leapt out of the water, impaled him through the chest with its 90cm/3' long sword and jumped into the sea with him still attached.

The fish swam down deeper, but miraculously, Card managed to push himself off the sword and resurfaced 50m from the boat with blood pouring out of his chest. Amazingly, he survived.

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Girl critically ill after eel jumps into mouth

A three-year old girl in Taiwan became critically ill after a bizarre incident involving some live eels. Her father caught a number of eels and took them home alive to cook them. While he was killing one of the eels it made a bid for freedom and jumped into the girl's mouth, where it became lodged in her oesophagus.

Her father managed to pull the fish free, but ruptured her oesophagus in the process, resulting in surgery to fix the wounds, as well as a secondary infection.

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Swimmer chokes to death on fish

A teenager swimming in Lake Qaroun in Egypt choked to death after a fish swam into his mouth while he was swimming. Paramedics were unable to resuscitate the man, who died before he reached the hospital.

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Puffer fish kills eight and hospitalises 170

In a single week, eight people were killed by eating toxic puffer fish meat, while another 170 were hospitalised and survived. Cats, dogs and crows who ate the scraps also died.

140 of the people went down with puffer fish poisoning after eating a fish ball soup at a funeral in Thailand. After the meal, the guests started to vomit and were complaining of numbness of the tongue and shortness of breath. A single puffer fish contains enough toxin to kill 30 people, and there's no antidote.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 16:53 | link | comments (3)

Cern lab set for beam milestone

By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News The magnets are linked up in a chain for 27km A vast physics experiment - the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - reaches a key milestone this weekend ahead of an official start-up on 10 September. Engineers had previously brought a beam of protons - tiny, sub-atomic particles - to the "doorstep" of the LHC. On 9 August, protons will be piped through LHC magnets for the first time. The most powerful physics experiment ever built, the LHC will re-create the conditions present in the Universe just after the Big Bang. It's been a long-haul, and we're all eager to get the LHC research programme underway Lyn Evans, LHC project leader There are over 5,000 magnets arranged end-to-end in a ring that runs for 27km through a giant tunnel under the French Swiss border. Once the LHC is fully operational, two proton beams will be fired down pipes running through these magnets. These beams will then be steered in opposite directions around the main ring at close to the speed of light. At allotted points along the tunnel, the beams will cross paths, smashing into one another with cataclysmic force. Scientists hope to see new particles in the debris of these collisions, revealing fundamental new insights into the nature of the cosmos and how it came into being. Precision timing For the two-day "synchronisation test", engineers will thread a low intensity beam through the injection system and one of the LHC's eight sectors. These two sectors have now reached a sufficient level of readiness to handle the energetic stream of particles, and this opened up the opportunity to run the test. The purpose of the test is to help ensure that the LHC is working in step with its "injector", known as the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator. Each detector is the sum of many complicated elements Before a beam can be fired into the main ring, the proton beams have to be boosted to high energies in a chain of particle accelerators, or injectors. The SPS is the last link in this chain; it is from here that protons are fed directly into the LHC ring via two "injection lines" - one for each beam. "The aim is to get the timings right between the two machines and in order to do that we will take some beam into sector 2-3," said Roberto Saban, the LHC's head of hardware commissioning. Cern, the organisation that operates the collider, said it will attempt to circulate two proton beams all the way around the ring on 10 September. This is considered the giant lab's official "switch-on". Beam collision "It's been a long haul, and we're all eager to get the LHC research programme underway," said Lyn Evans, the project leader. This full beam injection will take place at an energy of about 450 gigaelectronvolts (GeV). Over subsequent weeks, engineers will gradually boost the energy and fine tune the machine. Roberto Saban said that in order to obtain high magnetic fields with a modest power consumption, the LHC's magnets are required to be "superconducting". This is the property, exhibited by some materials at very low temperatures, to channel electrical current with zero resistance and very little power loss. This requires cooling the magnets to a temperature of 1.9 Kelvin (-271C; -456F). Six out of eight sectors are currently at their operating temperatures; cooling of the remaining two should be completed in the next few weeks. Over August, scientists will continue electrical testing of the LHC hardware prior to circulating beams in early September. This phase will continue through the month to ensure that the entire machine is capable of accelerating and colliding beams at an energy of five teraelectronvolts (TeV). Once stable, circulating beams have been established, they will be smashed together - in preparation for the LHC's science phase. BBC Radio 4 will broadcast live from Cern on 10 September. The Big Bang Day starts in the LHC control room at 0830 BST for the official start-up, and then continues through the day with related programmes, from indepth discussions about particle physics to a special one-off radio version of the popular TV drama Torchwood.

 

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More "Engrish" translations before the olympics

 

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Teacher finds new cosmic object

By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News The object is lit up by a long-dead quasar A new class of cosmic object has been found by a Dutch schoolteacher, through a project which allows the public to take part in astronomy research online. Hanny Van Arkel, 25, came across the strange gaseous blob while using the Galaxy Zoo website to help classify galaxies in telescope images. Astronomers subsequently confirmed that the object was one-of-a-kind. The work has been submitted to the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The object quickly became known as "Hanny's Voorwerp" - Voorwerp being the Dutch word for "object". The Voorwerp is a massive 'light echo' produced as the light strikes the gas Dr Chris Lintott, University of Oxford Researchers think this green blob got its energy from light emitted by a quasar (a powerful radiation source powered by a supermassive black hole) that has since gone dim. They think the quasar was hosted in a nearby spiral galaxy called IC 2497. It was so bright that, if the quasar was still active, it would be visible from Earth with binoculars. However, because of the distance between the galaxy and the Voorwerp, light from the quasar would have taken tens of thousands of years to reach the gaseous blob. This is why the Voorwerp is still bright despite the quasar having now shut off. "The quasar itself is no longer visible to us, but its light continues to travel through space and the Voorwerp is a massive 'light echo' produced as the light strikes the gas," Dr Chris Lintott, from Oxford University, explained. Unique object Smaller light echos have been noted around exploding stars, or supernovas, but never on this scale. Dr Lintott said the object was the only one of its type known to astronomers, though other Voorwerpen could still be awaiting identification. He added that the object had been catalogued before, but its significance had only been recognised when it was brought to the attention of Galaxy Zoo team members by Ms Van Arkel. Ms Van Arkel was an astronomy novice before taking part in Galaxy Zoo Ms Van Arkel, from Heerlen, near Maastricht, told BBC News she had no background in astronomy. She said her interest in music had led her to the book Bang! The Complete History of the Universe, co-written by Queen guitarist Brian May with BBC Sky at Night presenters Chris Lintott and Sir Patrick Moore. This in turn had encouraged her to get involved in the Galaxy Zoo project, which has just been given three more years of funding. After failing to match the object to any galaxy types described in the Galaxy Zoo classification tutorial, she e-mailed the site's webmaster. This alerted team members who subsequently examined the images themselves. Death of a quasar This prompted observations of the Voorwerp by scientists using the Isaac Newton Group of telescopes in La Palma, Spain, and the Swift space telescope. Dr Lintott said team members had booked follow-up observations of the Voorwerp with the Hubble Space Telescope. But they will have to wait for the orbiting observatory to be upgraded during a space shuttle servicing mission currently scheduled for October. High-resolution imaging of the object could reveal whether the quasar darkened quickly or over a longer period of time. Team members would also like to look at the object at infrared wavelengths. It is unclear why black holes turn off, but the phenomenon was previously known from studying populations of active galaxies. However, Dr Lintott said this could be the first time astronomers have been able to pinpoint one that was once active and has since shut down, using the light echo from a long-dead quasar. As for what the Voorwerp itself is, the possibilities include a galaxy that has not produced any stars bright enough to be viewed from Earth. But astronomers are stumped about the hole in its middle. It could have been made when a jet of particles, travelling at near light-speed from the nucleus of IC 2497, punched through the gaseous blob. But this remains highly speculative. The green colour of the Voorwerp is caused by ionised oxygen. During the last year, 50 million classifications of galaxies have been submitted on one million objects at galaxyzoo.org by more than 150,000 amateur astronomers from all over the world. The next stage of the project will ask volunteers for more detailed classifications, making it easier to identify more unusual objects such as Hanny's Voorwerp.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 04:13 | link | comments (5)

What is the term used for the third derivative of position?

It is well known that the first derivative of position (symbol x) with respect to time is velocity (symbol v) and the second is acceleration (symbol a).  It is a little less well known that the third derivative, i.e. the rate of change of acceleration, is technically known as jerk (symbol j).  Jerk is a vector but may also be used loosely as a scalar quantity because there is not a separate term for the magnitude of jerk analogous to speed for magnitude of velocity.

In the UK jolt has sometimes been used instead of jerk and may be equally acceptable.

Many other terms have appeared in individual cases for the third derivative, including pulse, impulse, bounce, surge, shock and super acceleration.  These are generally less appropriate than jerk and jolt, either because they are used in engineering to mean other things or because the common English use of the word does not fit the meaning so well.  For example impulse is more commonly used in physics to mean a change of momentum imparted by a force of limited duration [Belanger 1847] and surge is used by electricians to mean something like rate of change of current or voltage.  The terms jerk and jolt are therefore preferred for rate of change of acceleration.  Jerk appears to be the more common of the two.  It is also recognised in international standards:

In ISO 2041 (1990), Vibration and shock - Vocabulary, page 2:
"1.5 jerk: A vector that specifies the time-derivative of acceleration."
Note that the symbol j for jerk is not in the standard and is probably only one of many symbols used.

As its name suggests, jerk is important when evaluating the destructive effect of motion on a mechanism or the discomfort caused to passengers in a vehicle.  The movement of delicate instruments needs to be kept within specified limits of jerk as well as acceleration to avoid damage.  When designing a train the engineers will typically be required to keep the jerk less than 2 metres per second cubed for passenger comfort.  In the aerospace industry they even have such a thing as a jerkmeter; an instrument for measuring jerk.

In the case of the Hubble space telescope, the engineers are said to have even gone as far as specifying limits on the magnitude of the fourth derivative.  There is no universally accepted name for the fourth derivative, i.e. the rate of change of jerk, The term jounce has been used but it has the drawback of using the same initial letter as jerk so it is not clear which symbol to use.  Another less serious suggestion is snap (symbol s), crackle (symbol c) and pop (symbol p) for the 4th, 5th and 6th derivatives respectively.  Higher derivatives do not yet have names because they do not come up very often.

Since force (F = ma) is rate of change of momentum (p, symbol clashes with pop) it seems necessary to find terms for higher derivatives of force too.  So far yank (symbol Y) has been suggested for rate of change of force, tug (symbol T) for rate of change of yank, snatch (symbol S) for rate of change of tug and shake (symbol Sh) for rate of change of snatch.  Needless to say, none of these are in any kind of standards, yet.  We just made them up on usenet.

Now class, repeat after me. . .

Momentum equals mass times velocity!
Force equals mass times acceleration!
Yank equals mass times jerk!
Tug equals mass times snap!
Snatch equals mass times crackle!
Shake equals mass times pop!!

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Iranian Experts complete Carrier Sub!

Featured - Post Media Reply

Iranian Experts have recently finished work on a new class of submarine called 'Hath AL Adda' meaning 'Dark menace of the deep sea on the wings of a large bird'
The New submarine is shown in the secret video clip Jumping out of the sea in a move developed to frighten infidel navies into surrendering. It can also be used to ram low flying aircraft that might be involved in an un-provoked attack on the sacred land of Iran.
The submarine is equipped with next generation electronics and has some innovative features not seen before on any submarine. The Iranian Experts have taken the good points of western submarines and added more! This sub has 3 captains in 3 bridges, therefore increasing the deadness of the sub by 3. It has propellers at the front and back, to confuse allied anti sub ships as they wont know which way it is going. A conning tower on the bottom as well as the top helps the crew see when they are close to the bottom and can be used to fire at other submarines below. It can fire assault elite Republican Navy speedboats as well as torpedo's. As seen before it can launch the latest flying sub fighters of the Iranian Elite Naval Air Service.
Iranian Naval officials said in an un-official press briefing that the submarine is full operational and can be put to sea at a moments notice without even photo shopping! The only performance data we were able to glean was a top surface speed of 32knots and a submerged speed of 300 knots thanks to special propellers developed by the Iranian Experts. It can carry 150 Elite Republican Guard Assault speed boats and their crews. It is thought that this sub alone could close the straight of Hormuz and sink the entire allied naval force in a morning before prayer time, it is just the generous and forgiving will of the gracious and wise people of the Islamic state of Iran that allows the infidel navies to live, for now.

 

 

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White House Briefed On Potential For Mars Life

Aug 1, 2008

By Craig Covault   The White House has been alerted by NASA about plans to make an announcement soon on major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the "potential for life" on Mars, scientists tell Aviation Week & Space Technology. Sources say the new data do not indicate the discovery of existing or past life on Mars. Rather the data relate to habitability--the "potential" for Mars to support life--at the Phoenix arctic landing site, sources say. The data are much more complex than results related NASA's July 31 announcement that Phoenix has confirmed the presence of water ice at the site. International news media trumpeted the water ice confirmation, which was not a surprise to any of the Phoenix researchers. "They have discovered water on Mars for the third or fourth time," one senior Mars scientists joked about the hubbub around the water ice announcement. The other data not discussed openly yet are far more "provocative," Phoenix officials say. In fact, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory science team for the MECA wet-chemistry instrument that made the findings was kept out of a July 31 news conference at the University of Arizona Phoenix control center. The goal was to prevent them from being asked any questions that could reveal information before NASA is ready to make an announcement, sources say. The Bush Administration's Presidential Science Advisor's office, however, has been briefed on the new information that NASA hopes to release as early as mid August. It is possible an announcement would not come until September, to allow for additional analysis. That will depend upon the latest results still being analyzed from the spacecraft's organic oven and soil chemistry laboratories. Phoenix scientists have said from the start that neither the TEGA organic chemistry lab nor the MECA wet chemistry system could detect current or past life. MECA's two microscopes do, however, have the resolution to detect bacteria--which would be life. Sources, however, say the microscopes have not detected bacteria. The Phoenix scoop was successful in delivery of a soil/ice mixture to TEGA this week after the material stuck in the scoop on two tries. The analysis of that sample is under way. The sample contains about 1% ice and 99% soil. As expected, the instrument immediately detected hydrogen and oxygen atoms indicating water. Its electricity load also increased initially, a positive sign that water ice was being melted by the system. The fact TEGA is starting to process some ice samples "had champagne corks popping" here, says William Boynton TEGA principal investigator from the University of Arizona. "We have tasted the water and it tastes great," he said. Before launch, some website literature by the TEGA team indicated it possibly could find organic evidence of "past" life. Both Boynton and Peter Smith, who heads the mission now, say that is not the case, although TEGA organic data could start major new arguments about life. It has yet to find organics, but still has several sample ovens available to make such a discovery. An electrical short that earlier threatened TEGA operations has resolved itself, Boynton says. News media cited the water ice finding as a major discovery, but it was totally expected by the science team. The different MECA data combined with TEGA is increasingly compelling as another piece in the puzzle of life. The key is in the soil and water, and how the two behave together at that site on Mars, not the expected confirmation of water ice at this stage in the mission, Mars investigators told Aviation Week. The MECA instrument, in its first of four wet chemistry runs a month ago, found soil chemistry that is "Earth-like" and capable of supporting life, researchers said then. It is intriguing that MECA could have found anything more positive than that, but NASA and the University of Arizona are taking steps to prevent word from leaking out on the nature of the discovery made during MECA's second soil test, in which water from Earth was automatically stirred with Martian soil. Photo from University of Arizona and NASA/JPL: Yellow outlined robotic arm targets for new Phoenix Mars trenching show work areas planned for mission extension through at least September. Snow White area (blue rectangle at far right) is current ice sample zone.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 05:06 | link | comments (2)

A quick fix for global warming

By Chris Bowlby BBC News It's the stuff of science fiction, but could mirrors in space or sea water sprayed in the air be shortcuts to halt global warming? "It's Dr Strangelove. But it's the kind of Dr Strangelove you could see governments really using." That's how one expert describes geo-engineering - the idea that we can use a kind of technical quick fix to cool the planet if global warming accelerates. Plans for geo-engineering can sound bizarre. Smoke and mirrors to cool the planet? They range from placing millions of tiny mirrors in space to reflect back some of the sun's rays, to using rockets to launch tons of sulphur into the stratosphere to create a kind of planetary sun shade. That plan was inspired by watching what happened after the eruption of the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines in 1991. Sulphur ejected into the atmosphere spread around in subsequent months to create a layer believed to have had a temporary cooling effect as it blocked some of the sun's warmth. Other suggestions include spraying sea water into the atmosphere to make it cloudier, or pumping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere or out of the oceans. Until recently, policymakers have dismissed this as science fiction, a complete distraction from the fight against global warming. Now, attitudes seem to be changing. FIND OUT MORE Analysis is on Radio 4 on Thursday, 31 July at 2030 BST Or listen to it later on the BBC iPlayer "I think we're faced with such an enormous problem that we need to do all the research we can to see if there are any geo-engineering proposals which work through to the marketplace," says Professor Sir David King, until recently the government's chief scientific adviser. There are still many scientific doubts about geo-engineering. What might the side effects be? Are such schemes irreversible? Plan B But as there is now so much pessimism about whether governments will ever agree to reduce carbon emissions enough, more and more scientists say we need to know exactly what our other options are. Wait till it's too late? If we don't do any research, says Professor Brian Launder of Manchester University, who is editing a new study of geo-engineering for the Royal Society, "we won't have anything that we can bring into place in 2030 say, when suddenly the world is at a crisis point". Some forms of geo-engineering are also surprisingly cheap. That leads to fears that governments facing particular climatic problems might go it alone. China and India, which have growing scientific capabilities, could use geo-engineering as a way of challenging international climate policy if they saw it as too skewed towards the interests of Western countries. Or, even more alarmingly, an individual might decide to play with the global climate. Professor David Victor, of Stanford University, imagines a scenario in which someone is frustrated at the lack of international action. "[They] could buy the aircraft and buy the rockets and just start doing some geo-engineering off their own island." James Bond films of the future, he adds, might not feature Goldfinger. It could be Greenfinger, hand hovering over the global thermostat. Running on empty So how can geo-engineering be policed? It's a major challenge. While climate change treaties try to persuade everyone to do the same things and reduce emissions, agreements on geo-engineering would be about stopping something happening - something we don't yet understand. Efforts to cut emissions falter But Sir David King says we should at least begin to discuss it as part, and still a minor part, of the climate change policy debate. "We need to make sure that there is control and validation over any of these procedures. But at the same time let's not take attention away from the major issue of removing our dependence on fossil fuels." The dilemma is painful. Discuss a technical fix for future climate change, and people assume there's less need to cut carbon emissions now. Ignore it, and possibly face a kind of climate anarchy. Others suggest geo-engineering should be embraced with enthusiasm, such as Julian Morris, of International Policy Network, a think tank sceptical about climate change and in favour of free market solutions. "Investments in geo-engineering research are almost certainly the biggest bang for the buck that one could get in terms of addressing catastrophic climate change - a much, much bigger return than, for example, trying to control carbon emissions at the moment," he says. "In fact diverting money into controlling carbon emissions and away from geo-engineering is probably morally irresponsible." There is no one obvious solution Most scientists and governments say geo-engineering remains hazardous and is only a partial fix. They hope it will never be needed. But if global warming becomes more and more threatening, some will see it as the lesser risk. Professor Scott Barrett, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and an expert on international environmental agreements, says he ignored geo-engineering for many years. Now, faced with the failure to reduce emissions enough, he says there are no easy options. "[Geo-engineering] is not something we're going to want to use as a first choice. I think the chances are likely that it will eventually be used, for better or worse, in circumstances in which the risks of not using it seem to be higher than the risks of using it."

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