Eight Glasses of Water a Day? Who says?

According to Dr. Heinz Valtin, a physiologist who has studied water regulatory systems in humans for over 40 years, the answer is No.

Evidentially this is just another urban myth that most of us have accepted as true because we have heard it so many times. Be warned, that is true about more than just water. It pays to be a skeptic.

Dr. Valtin states that unless you have a physical condition that requires you to consume large quantities of water, like kidney stones, there is no reason a healthy adult needs so much water.

The myth is thought to come from a misunderstanding dating back to a 1945 study that suggested 1cc of water be consumed for every calorie eaten. Not only is that study very outdated, but the amount of water in the food was to be taken into account, which drastically cut down the liquid water to be drunk.

Nevertheless, in hot weather it is better to be safe than sorry, so here’s to you.

Where did that Moon of ours come from?

Reading time about 60 seconds

An early theory explained the moon by saying it formed from the same gas cloud from which the Earth and other planets formed. This explanation doesn’t fly because the moon contains very little iron. The Earth has a lot, mostly at its molten core. If the moon formed out of the same stuff as the Earth, the moon ought to have more iron.

A second theory explained away the Moon’s small amount of iron by suggesting the Moon formed somewhere else, where there wasn’t much of that pesky iron, and was captured by the Earth’s gravitation as it swung by. This one didn’t work out either. When samples of the moon were brought back by Apollo astronauts and analyzed, it was found that they had a chemical composition almost identical to Earth’s making it unlikely that it came from somewhere else.

A third idea tried to explain away the Moon’s ‘iron deficiency anemia’ by suggesting the early Earth spun so fast that some of its surface was flung off and went into orbit. The hole it left was the Pacific Ocean basin. Since most of the Earth’s iron is at its center, the flung off material would not have a lot of iron in it. But when they crunched the numbers relating to the Moon’s orbit, they found the math didn’t work out.

The latest theory is that a chunk of debris, leftover from the formation of the Solar System, slammed into the Earth and knocked a large amount of the iron poor crust loose. Scientists estimate that the piece that hit us was a third to half the size of the Earth. The material blasted loose formed a ring around the Earth which clumped together to form the moon. This is the currently accepted theory.

It’s interesting that even after decades of head-scratching, scientists are still not really sure how the moon came to be.

Redo of Older Blog On UFO's

Reading time about 80 seconds

Just read an interesting piece on-line, which is no longer available to link to, about UFO's. You may remember that I wrote about the percentage of people who believe in space aliens having visited Earth is 20% higher than those who believe in evolution.This article states that the UFO scare started in 1947 when a man named Kenneth Arnold claimed to have seen nine UFO's flying over Mount Rainer in Washington. As I recall, in the TV documentary made of this incident, he was flying a small plane at the time and perhaps his being a pilot added some credulity to the story. Soon after a number of similar reports were made as the sighting took hold on the public’s imagination. Bad reporting is given, by the author, as the reason they were called ‘flying saucers’. In reality, Mr. Arnold is said to have reported them as crescent shaped. He went on to say that they “flew erratic, like a saucer if you skip it across water." He evidently didn't mean they looked like saucers.

What caught my attention was that the authors of the book, The Saucer Fleet" (Apogee Books, 2008), claim that the entertainment media picked up on this story and promoted the flying saucer story hoping to cash in on books, movies, etc., from all the interest they themselves created. Eventually that one 'sighting' became a culture myth that many people came to believe as true, or so say the authors.

Me? As I said before, I would be surprised if we were alone in the universe, but am not ready to say they have visited Earth, but I am open minded about it. I have read a few books on the subject both for and against. Both points of view are persuasive.

What troubles me about all this has to do with the age of the universe, which is at least 13 billion years old. In all that time there had to be civilizations older and more advanced than ours. Why haven't they stopped by to introduce themselves?

Not Rootin for Newton

Reading time about 40 seconds

This blog's been a bit sparse lately, but I have a good excuse. I've been helping a daughter with physics who's decided to get her college degree at a point in life that it can be considered a career change.

Now I remember taking physics in high school and college and I know most of it hasn't changed all that much, but it seems like a vague memory and somehow much harder. What has struck me is that I somehow managed a career in science without ever having to calculate the force required to move a 50 kg trunk up a four meter ramp inclined 25 degrees to the horizontal. For this I also needed to remember something called trigonometry and wrestle with sines, cosigns, etc. In all these years the only kind of signs I've used are the kind that directed me to the nearest McDonald's.

I'm sure this stuff must be important,but looking back I'm not sure why it has to be so hard. In forty years I,ve never fired a 10 kg cannon ball at an angle of 45 degrees with an initial velocity of 600 meters per second discounting air resistance. Not at any angle actually and no one's ever fired one at me.

Census of Marine Life

Reading time about 60 seconds

Important in the history of life on Earth are the several extinction events that killed millions of species. The most famous of these resulted in the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. What is little recognized is that Earth is now in the midst of an extinction event of colossal magnitude and Homo sapiens is the cause. Since the Industrial Revolution we have turned up the Earth’s thermostat, fouled its waters, its air and are in the process of overcrowding her with huge numbers of hungry mouths to feed.

Among biologists greatest fears are that millions of species will go extinct before we even know they were here. Most folks have the idea that all the creatures of the Earth have been neatly tagged and identified. Not so. Based on the rate new species are discovered, vast numbers of undiscovered species exist.

A partial remedy for this is the Census of Marine Life begun in 2000. The goal is to discover and catalog as many of the sea’s inhabitants as possible as well as understand their distribution, diversity and abundance. The census ends in 2010.

Why bother? Well some estimates foretell an end to all commercial fisheries by 2050. We already find supermarket freezers filled with fish once considered ‘trash fish’. Not so long ago no one dreamt of eating them. This census will help identify where stocks of fish are and how best to manage them in order to maintain a commercial fishery. Not only that, but it's impossible to rebuild an environment (should we become so wise) if we don’t know what is here.

This is scary stuff to someone looking at this from the perspective of a time when 2-3 billion people populated this planet not 6-7 billion and growing fast, needing electricity, fuel, food, products of manufacture and medical care.

Beyond Understanding?

Reading time about 60 seconds

We’ve all heard of the Big Bang Theory of the creation of the Universe. It is the currently accepted theory as to where everything came from, an infinitesimally small point smaller than an atom, which in a fraction of a fraction of a second expanded to give birth to time and space as we understand it.

Physicists have been able to explain mathematically and with conventional physics what happened after the expansion occurred, but do not know what happened in the instant of the expansion or before it, because conventional mathematics and physics is insufficient to explain it. We do not at this time have the tools to understand what happened.

Is this because we don’t have the tools or because we don’t have the minds to understand? The human mind is the result of billions of years of evolution. All living things on Earth are. Our minds evolved to survive in environments to which it was exposed. One reason we cannot imagine infinity, although we can conceive of it, is because our minds evolved in a finite space. There are always limits to distance, quantities, etc. We evolved in a finite space not an infinite space so there would be no reason to be able to deal with infinity.

By the same token perhaps we do not have the ability to understand the physics of the big bang anymore than we can imagine infinity because we did not evolve with such physics.

To understand these unimaginable events we may have to develop an Artificial Intelligence that can interpret this strange physics in a manner our minds can understand and explain it to us in terms we can understand.

Remember When

Reading time about 35 seconds

I have finally reached the age of retirement. Frankly I never thought I’d make it.

It is interesting to look back at what my grandparents thought of as amazing. The airplane, telephones and TV for instance. They were from French Canada, Quebec to the rest of us and spoke no English when they arrived. They attended night school to learn English and did their best to fit in. Their heavy Quebecoise accent made that hard.

My grandmother was among the first to buy on the installment plan and had one of the first TV sets on her street. I was 10 before I saw it. We lived in Key West, Florida where there was no TV reception yet. I have to admit it was love at first sight. I sat mesmerized before the fuzzy black and white image of Crusader Rabbit and his faithful sidekick Rags the Tiger. Love of television or anything with a screen must be instinctive for kids.

My grandparents knew nothing of computers, color TV, cell phones, iPods or spaceflight. These all came about during my lifetime. I like them told an unimpressed grandchild about all the things we did not have as children.

I can’t even imagine what she in turn will tell her grandchildren about the technologies that did not exist when she was young.

They, like you, will probably be unimpressed.

Higher Education, Higher Costs

OK, it’s been awhile since I was in school, but not so long ago we used clay tablets and rolls of papyrus. Although when I hear what it costs these days to get an education it seems like another century. Well actually it was.

A daughter of mind has taken the Presidents advice and after a few years away went back to school. Unfortunately the Prez forgot to mention how much it costs these days. I remember a time when folks didn’t need to incur a mountain of debt to get an education. I didn’t even know what a student loan was. The private schools were expensive, but if you took the state up on their offer it was really affordable. And community college was free. You just paid for your books.

What got me started on this was how much she paid for an elementary physics textbook. Are you ready? Two hundred and fifty dollars! Of course that price included a book of answers to the problems at the end of each chapter. At that price a tutor should have been included.

If America is to ever again gain the high ground in education and out compete the rest of the world we darn well better make an education affordable.

Remember, many of the ‘Greatest Generation’ went free and that included housing. Those grads helped build America into the powerhouse it once was.

You know, kindergarten through college is free in France. Oh yeah, I forgot they’re Socialists. We can’t have any of that. Can we?

The Deepest Deep

Someone once said that small minds are impressed by big numbers. Well I qualify.

I was just looking at a very impressive big number that had to do with the deepest place on the face of the Earth. The Marianas Trench near the island of Guam.

The bottom of this deep trench in the floor of the Pacific Ocean is under nearly seven miles of water. The measured depth is 35,840 feet. If you dropped Mount Everest, the highest place on Earth, into the Marianas Trench the summit would still be under 6800 feet of water.

As you know water has weight, a square inch one foot high weighs about a half pound. So, for every foot of ocean water the weight on a square inch increases by half a pound. That's the pressure you feel in your ears at the bottom of a pool. Now imagine 35, 840 feet times ½ in pounds of pressure per square inch. That's nearly 18, 000 pounds or nine tons per square inch. That'd hurt your ears. It's like the weight of nine cars on every square inch.

Two men, Picard and Walsh, piloted a submersible called the Triest (see photo) in 1960 to the bottom of the Trench. On the bottom they found some fish and shrimp living happily.

People have not been to the bottom since the descent of Picard and Walsh in 1960.

I guess that's why they say we know less about the oceans than the Moon.

Crosswords Puzzle Me

My wife loves to do the New York Times crossword puzzles and is really good at solving them. Me? I am about as good with crosswords as I am at Scrabble® and I’m pretty bad at that.

I got to wondering who invented this humbling game and how far people take the playing of crosswords.

The crossword puzzle first appeared in 19th century England. In 1913 Arthur Wynne created the first crossword to be published in a newspaper, the Sunday New York World.

Here is a link to the first published crossword puzzle and a link to the solution.

Crossword puzzle solvers even go so far as to have a tournament in Brooklyn, New York. The 33rd Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament will be held in 2010. Grand prize is $5000.

If you’d like to try your hand there are a number of crosswords available online.

Me? I’ll stick to Monopoly®

A beautiful Grind

I ran across a box of old books while cleaning up my hangar. In it I found a really ancient book about telescope making for amateurs. Many years have passed since I bought that now old, outdated book written in a quant, old fashioned manner.

What struck me as I leafed through the slightly moldy pages, stuck together in places from a long forgotten leak in the roof, was how clever were those amateurs who contributed to the book. These guys and gals ground their own mirrors and lenses atop oil drums filled with water and tested their hard won creations with kerosene lamps with a pinhole in the chimney to simulate a star, and a razor blade to provide a sharp edge to cut the light revealing imperfections reflected off a glass surface shaped with finer and finer grades of abrasive.

These wizards of improvisation built mounts for their telescopes out of iron pipe sunk into washtubs filled with cement for steadiness and clock drives to follow the stars with hand filed gears powered by a falling weight. Can you imagine? Not a watt of electricity to be found anywhere.

I have no idea what my point is other than admiration for those amateurs and their determination and imagination.

I’m thinking of trying my hand.

Anybody out there built a telescope?

Hoax or Misunderstanding?

Way back on August 27,2003 the mysterious planet Mars came closer to Earth than it had in nearly 60,000 years, just 56 million kilometers or about 34,000,000 miles.

Since then e-mails have gone out every Aug 27th since saying Mars will appear as large as the full moon. Not so. Mars won't even be visable this August 27th and even if it were it would appear as only a bright yellow to reddish star.

Some say it is a hoax and some say it was just a misunderstanding. Regardless it will not look like the full moon.

Mars will be 35,526,000 miles from Earth on July 27, 2018 its next nearest approach.

Since Mars is only 4226 miles in diameter at its equator and at a close approach is 35,000,000 miles from us and the Earth's moon is 2160 miles in diameter at the equator and about 238,000 miles from Earth, there's no way Mars and the moon can look the same size when Mars is 147 times farther away than the moon.

Too bad though, it would be a great sight.

Cats

I got to wondering who my cat's ancestors are and where they lived, so I did a little research. I found this information in Scientific American's June issue article entitled' The Taming of the Cat'.

Cats are the most popular pet in the world. One out of every three American households has at least one cat. There are over 600 hundred million domestic cats worldwide. If you have to ask why, you don't keep one. But how did cats become domestic and when?

Until recently it was believed the domestication of cats started with the ancient Egyptians 3600 years ago. Genetics and archaeological evidence now suggest a more distant time.

In 2000, Carlos Driscoll, University of Oxford, compared DNA samples of 979 wildcats and domestic cats. Samples of the wildcat Felis sylvestris lybica (Photo), found in Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and the domestic cat were 'virtually indistinguishable', strongly suggesting a Middle Eastern origin for the domestic cat.

Further strengthening the domestic cat's more distant origins are recent archaeological finds of a human and domestic cat buried together on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus dating back 9600 years. This find suggests that cats were living with humans and being carried by people from place to place over nine centuries ago.

But how did the wildcat, F.s. libica, come to live with humans?

Archaeologists digging in Israel discovered the remains of house mice in storage areas for grain dating back at least 10,000 years. It is thought that wildcats were attracted by the mice and perhaps food scraps in garbage dumps near human settlements. Over the years the boldest of the cats survived at a higher rate because of the easier pickings associated with humans. The more domesticated they became the greater their odds for survival. Those of you on a cat's personal staff have experience as to why.

Over the centuries wherever we have gone we have brought our cats with us. The house cat eventually found its way to America about 500 years ago finishing a 10,000 year migration to the New World. One of their descendants can usually be found occupying the most comfortable spot in our house.

We Only Have One Environment

The Obama Department of Interior is doing a great job cleaning up that scandal riddled department, but doesn’t get high marks for doing its job.

Since President Obama picked Ken Salazar to head up Interior, they have been following the Bush administrations’ lead when it comes to protecting endangered species.

Not only has the Obama Department of Interior agreed with the previous administration when it comes to reducing protection for polar bears, now they refuse to protect some 1200 wolves in Montana and Idaho. These two states are gearing up to join Alaska in slaughtering hundreds of wolves at a time when their population has declined due to some as yet undiagnosed disease.

There is that old saying, “The more things change the more they stay the same.”

There is a lot of big money that is afraid protecting the Polar Bear will require them to do more on Climate Change and of course most ranchers don’t like wolves.

Here’s another old saying for you, ‘Money talks, trash walks.’

Buggy Whips and Extinction Events

As you all know, I am a biologist to the core. I tend to look at most things in that light. Take the current political situation. Yes, I know I try really hard to not make this blog political, but sometimes...

I have been following politics with greater or lesser intensity for nearly four decades and not much really changes, but I have to admit the last three months have been fascinating. You'll notice I didn't say awesome. The Grand Canyon and things like that are awesome. But that's another subject. Watching the Republican party lately is really one of those things you get to see once in a lifetime.

If the radical right does not stop making buggy whips in the age of the automobile they will soon be out of business. Another analogy I can think of that works here is evolution. I know a lot of the real in crowd at the GOP doesn't believe in that Law, but I do and will use it. Creatures become extinct when their environment changes and they are unable to adapt to that change.

If the right wing leaders of what is left of the Grand Old Party are not able to adapt to the changing political and social environment or learn to make tires instead of buggy whips, then it's bye bye forever. The Republicans will eventually recover, but without them.

I wonder if they'll be missed?

Cry Wolf

What in the name of whomever is going on in Alaska? I just got an e-mail from Defenders of Wildlife about the bloody slaughter of wolves up there. If they can be believed, and I think they can, Alaska's Governor has declared an 'open season' on wolves.

They are being shot from aircraft, and I guess from dog sledge, wolf pups are being shot in the head and poisoned with gas grenades in their dens.

Can anybody tell me why? I thought Alaska was a big place. They don't have room for wolves in what is advertised by Alaskans as--- the last Great Wilderness?

Doesn't sound like it if you're a wolf.

It Pays to Advertise or Talk to the Shield

In most places in Europe important folks have a crest. Many times they are in four parts and painted on a shield. Things like owls for intelligence. Lions for courage. Books on heraldry are full of stuff like that.

Now of course you have to be really important to have your own crest. They are not for the average Joe or Jill. For one thing there are too many of us, and second nobody cares about average folks. If you don't believe me just watch Congress in inaction on C-Span.

I got to wondering, if I did have a crest what would be on it? What four things or qualities do I care enough about to paint on my shield? Since I only have four things I can pick, they have to be important. I mean I like ice cream, cheeseburgers, chili and the Beach Boys, but not enough to paint on my shield. No offense guys.

It does make me think. What is really important, what would I like the world to know about me?

I'm a Loser--weight that is

I know something about diets. I've had insulin dependent diabetes for over thirty-five years. By watching my diet, exercising and checking my blood glucose levels and most of all paying attention to my disease, I've managed to head off any complications. Well good for me. Not really, because it's a no brainer. Exercise some discipline or die young and leave a good looking corpse.

Having a disease like diabetes is a lot about dieting. I have been on a diet for 35 years. Do I cheat? Of course I do. But not most of the time. Just some of the time. It takes the pressure off.

As far as the diet stuff goes, what I've found most helpful is a food diary along with measuring the quantities of food I eat. I don't do this all the time, just once in awhile to make sure I'm really eating what and how much I think I am. It is easier to stay on track if I know exactly how much and what I'm eating and yes I write down any cheating. If I have to write down everything I eat or drink, then it's harder to kid myself about what or how much I eat. And believe me I'm a great kidder. And measuring helps me develop an eye for portions. I can recognise what a cup of mashed potatoes looks like on a plate at a friends or a restaurant.

The most important thing for me is that a diet must be a life long thing. It's not temporary, it's forever. So, I take it a day at a time. I didn't try to lose weight that took me years to gain in weeks. That's too hard and too painful. I try to remember that by cutting my calories by 100 a day, I can lose 10 pounds a year or if I increased my intake 100 calories a day, over a year I would add 10 pounds. So what works for me is small changes over longer periods of time.

There are some websites that help me with nutritional values, calories in fast food or just about any food such as Calorie Count.

Busy, busy

I am in the weeds today. I'll post something tomorrow if I can catch up.

lyle

Small Airplanes

I got my pilot's certificate a few years ago allowing me to fly a small airplane. An acquaintance of one of our daughters saw the small airplane I was storing for a friend and commented, “That's small. Looks dangerous.”

Not really. Pilots receive a lot of training and practical experience before they are set loose on their own, unlike most of us who drive cars. Cars are small and really dangerous. Every year in the U.S. nearly 40,000 people are killed in traffic accidents, almost half involve alcohol. For some reason if a small airplane has an off-field landing (pilots don't like the word 'crash') the news is all over it. Now it's true that most local news reports traffic fatalities, they are just not reported nationally as are airplane misadventures.

Unlike cars, airplanes are required to be inspected by a certified airplane mechanic every twelve months in order to renew it's Airworthiness Certificate. This inspection checks to see that every inch of the airplane complies with FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) Airworthiness requirements for this particular type of airplane. If the airplane flunks any part of the inspection it is declared not airworthy and cannot be flown until the problem is corrected by a certified mechanic and reinspected. Additionally, pilots are required to take a check ride, essentially a practical exam, with an FAA certified inspector every two years to insure that they are still safe pilots. Pilots are also required to take a physical exam every three to four years, depending on their age. If they fail that, they are not allowed to fly until the problem is resolved.

Pilots who fly commercially, such as for the airlines, are subject to even more training and scrutiny as are the airplanes they fly.

At this point allow me digress for a moment to dispel the notion that flying an airplane is hard. It's not. Anybody of average intelligence and health can learn. If you do, the one thing I can promise you is when on your first solo you look over at that right seat and see nobody there, you will have a life changing experience.

So, when my daughter's friend commented on the safety of that small airplane, I couldn't help thinking of his 60 mile drive here, mere feet from another car whose driver may be drunk, texting, or day dreaming.

Patriot Confusion

Patriot—one who loves his or her country and supports its authority or interests, Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition.

I am third generation military. I was even stupid enough to volunteer for Vietnam. Not one of the dumbest things I've ever done, but definitely in the top ten. Now, a lot of people would think that qualifies me as a patriot-by their definition.

Unfortunately, a lot of folks are a bit confused as to what a patriot is. Being a patriot to them is agreeing with them as to what they think a patriot is.

To me loving and supporting your country is being willing to actually do something not just pay lip service to supporting the troops or a particular political party. And that doing something includes having the courage to tell your country when you thing she is wrong. Just as we would tell a friend or child when we believe they are wrong, we should all have the courage to disagree with government policy, when after careful consideration of the facts, we believe it's going down the wrong path.

Patriotism is more than saying you support the troops while driving around in a vehicle guzzling gas, refined from Mid East oil, with American flags sticking out the windows.

Nothing New

If you've ever written a piece of fiction you probably realize how hard it is to come up with a plot nobody has thought of before. It's nearly impossible. The best we can hope for is to put a new spin on something. And there's nothing wrong with that.

If you see a lot of movies you probably realize you've seen the story before, just a different location, time and characters. Supposedly there are only seven plots and everything else is just a variation. That's why we're so seldom surprised by an ending.

Our hero has a problem. Hero tries to solve the problem. Villain or circumstance tries to stop her/him. He/she succeeds or doesn't.

It's the same with music. After all, after hundreds of years of tunes how do you come up with a new one? For instance, a lot of the music from Star Trek and Star Wars is based, and not too loosely, on The Planets, by Holst. At the end of the Jupiter Suite you hear the Star Trek theme loud and clear. The haunting and scary music of Jaws can be heard in the famous 4th movement of The New World Symphony by Dvorák and the Rocky theme borrowed from a piece by Brahms. So what you say? You're right, so what. There just really is nothing new under the sun.

The real genius of creative people is how they make it seem new.

Pets Keep Those Ducks in a Row

I was sitting here working on this blog when my cat walked in and just like that I decided to change the subject.

In a world that keeps throwing you knuckle balls, where no matter how hard you try your ducks won't stay in line and at times you think the universe is conspiring to destroy you, it's nice to have a friend. Not just any friend, but a really special friend who no matter what's going on or how well or badly you're dealing with life's surprises just hangs in there steady and constant as the North Star guiding you to more tranquil waters. ( Whoa, where're that come from??!!)

Anyway, a pet is that special friend. Always there, always constant, always a friend, never too busy to cheer us up.

Thanks for being a friend, buddy.

Oh right, I need to clean your litter box.

Hubble Can See Into the Past

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a time machine. Everybody probably knows that, but it still amazes me that HST can look into the past. For example, the sun we see is the sun as it was eight minutes ago. That's because light is fast, but not instantaneous. It takes sunlight a little over eight minutes to travel the 90 million miles to Earth. An impressive example of light's speed is that if you could travel at the speed of light you could circle the Earth at the equator 7 ½ times in a single second.

The farther away an object is the farther back in time HST sees. An object a light year away is 6 billion miles distant, the miles light travels in a year. If the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is peering at it, it sees the object as it was one year ago. It's frustrating, but you can't see things at a distance in real time. But, that can be a good thing.

Astronomers tell us the age of the universe is around thirteen billion years. That means if the HST could see a galaxy that lies 13 billion light years from us, it is seeing it as it was when the universe began.

Now that's cool.

Sorry, Government, and Trust

Sorry, nothing today. I've volunteered to help a daughter write a resume.My sympathies to all of you looking for work.

It's ugly out there and it's not your fault.

Personal Comment:

As old as I am, I still cannot believe how badly our government has failed us. I am really angry that a government we trust to protect us from harm has betrayed us through inattention, greed, outright larceny and conspiricy to defraud.

But then, I'm a Vietnam Vet. I shouldn't be surprised.

Grumpy Isn't Just One of the Seven Dwarfs

OK, I'm grumpy today, I don't know why, but I believe I have that right under the Constitution, if I don't I should.

I think what brought it on was my error in not switching stations when MSNBC cut to covering Miss California's defense of her rights under the Constitution, aided and abetted by The Donald.

I guess what bugged me was the amount of time and discussion spent on a non-issue, a lot of it about how much of a non-issue it was. What I forgot is that all these cable folks are out to sell Corn Flakes,by boosting viewer ship airing hot button or busy body issues. I wish they covered science with such intensity. OK now I'm beyond grumpy and bordering on cynical.

But, as Lilly Tomlin said , “The problem with being cynical is that it's so hard to keep up.”

Nice Wolf

All dog breeds are descendants of wolves. A wolf is just a dog; a wild one. A few wolves were domesticated 10,000 years ago and through careful, and sometimes not so careful breeding, we got the family dog.

As a little kid I'd seen cartoons, movies and even fairly tales where the wolf was a vicious, cunning, slavering killer, with fiery, bloodshot eyes, the kind you see in Disney films-- 'the big, bad wolf', and don't forget Little Red Riding Hood. Are they really that bad, I wondered?

I looked for some statistics that would tell me how dangerous these big, bad wolves are or aren't and was surprised to learn that since 1900 there has only been ONE human killed by wolves in North America and that was in Canada. After all with a reputation like wolves have you'd expect wholesale slaughter of humans, not just one in 109 years.

Unfortunately, man's best friend, the domestic dog, has a much poorer record. Between 1979 and 1998 there were 332 humans killed by the family dog in the United States.

I've decided Walt Disney owes the wolves an apology.

The Piano and Target Practice

Three years ago I decided to learn to play a musical instrument. Now, this sounds like a harmless enough enterprise, but that depends on whether or not one has any musical talent. I am marginal at best.

For the last couple of years I’ve mentored elementary school kids, probably because I miss my grandkids who live in other states, and they were learning to play the Recorder flute. It seemed pretty simple so I bought one for $1.99, a couple of easy books and set out with high hopes and great expectations. But, for some reason my high notes sounded like I stepped on a mouse, so I bought a more expensive flute ($14.95!), but the mouse squeaks were still there. It wasn’t the flute.

Playing my squeaky flute did force me to learn to read music, after a fashion. You know it’s not really that hard. Since I had little success playing those pesky high notes I thought I would simplify things by getting a keyboard. I got a nice Yamaha for $99 including stand and power supply.

I had been told that keyboard playing is really just target practice so I figured I had it made. If I hit the right key, I played the right note. No squeaking here. And the neat part is I had a choice of over a hundred different instruments if I got tired of the piano.

What I didn’t realize is you get to use both hands. Now that sounded OK, until I tried it. You’ve got two hands playing different combinations of notes at the same time, arghhh. I have trouble brushing my teeth with my left hand. But, it’s still fun playing if you only use your right hand. After all the melody is played with the right hand and that’s the part you tap your foot to.

What made things easier is my realization that I won’t live long enough to learn to play classical stuff. So, by limiting myself to pop music and only trying to have fun, I have a fighting chance.

But still, how hard do you think the guitar would be?

Thoughts on Mother's Day

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and as I have never written a word about this most important Holiday, it is high time.

I lost my mother a few years ago; just as you will someday. Unfortunately, I never fully appreciated her until it was too late. Mom was not perfect, anything but, but the one thing she did better than anything else was love me. No matter what stupid or selfish things I did she was always on my side. No matter what the rest of the world’s opinion of me was, hers was always predictable; she loved me and was on my side.

I didn’t realize, until after she was gone, how important it is to have at least one person in the whole world to be there for you no matter how boneheaded you were. That’s not to say she always thought I was right. She made it clear when she thought I was wrong, but she was still always on my side.

Mom’s are like that.

Molly and the Bond, James Bond--Escape

After watching Quantum of Solace a few days ago, my attention was naturally caught by a real life adventure that took place in Montana last week. There was escape from certain death, a desperate chase, our hero hopelessly outnumbered by heavily armed villains in pursuit using every advantage modern technology could give them. Time after time there were hair raising escapes. But our hero was not a British Secret Agent, but a 1200 pound cow.

A heifer, nicknamed Molly, was awaiting her fate at a slaughterhouse in Great Falls, Montana when she saw an opportunity for escape. Without hesitation she lept over an ungarded gate and hot hoofed it down a road, just like 007. A few hours later she was seen and reported to the enemy who pursued her through the city finally trapping her between a truck and a fence. Undaunted she bolted through the fence, dodged a murderous SUV, ran across railroad tracks in front of a speeding train, cleverly leaving her hapless pursuers on the wrong side, and ran down a road barely dodging a speeding semi. Unfortunately an icy river lay ahead trapping her between it and her ruthless pursuers who quickly surrounded her and slowly moved in to put and end to her desperate escape. True to the double 'O' tradition, Molly jumped into the freezing water and swam courageously for the far bank once more eluding her now enraged pursuers. Exhausted and sinking slowly she was being swept downriver by a strong current, it looked like the end, but she fought the current and the frigid, muscle numbing water and was rewarded for her courage by finding a sand bar. Molly staggered from the river and walked slowly up the river's sandy bank.

Despite her great courage, the foe were too many and she was again surrounded and hit with a tranquilizer dart, she kept going until hit with two more. Slowed by the powerful drugs sped through her body by her noble heart she was finally captured.

Fortunately, Molly's story gained the attention of the nation and her captures were forced to free her to the owners of an organic farm who kindly granted her sanctuary. She is now retired from the fray and will spend her remaining years in comfort and security as a reward for her courage and determination to be free.

Good on you, Molly.

Bond, James Bond--Books Before Movies

OK, I admit it, I'm a move nut. Last night I watched Quantum of Solace and was lucky to escape with only singed eyebrows and powder burns. Now that was some action flick.

Years ago, when I was a student, I read all the Bond novels by Sir Ian Fleming. Sir Ian wrote 12 novels and nine short stories about our hero as well as the children's story, Chity, Chity, Bang, Bang. Casino Royal was the first in the series published in 1958. The first movie Dr. No, is the sixth novel in the series.

Sir Ian was an officer with British Naval Intelligence in WWII, holding the rank of Commander and organizing a commando group which specialized in snatching Nazi intelligence material before the enemy could destroy it. Obviously the inspiration for many of his plots.

Now to say the books are like the movies is like saying Ben Stiller and Daniel Craig are a lot alike. In the books, Bond is a slightly overweight, alcoholic, Turkish cigarette chain smoking sexist who drives a Lincoln Mark 5, has a cruel smile and sleeps with his hand on the Walther PPK under his pillow and has none of the whiz bang gizmo's dreamt up by Q for the movie Bond. As uninteresting as that sounds, the books were really fun and unlike anything I had ever read. It is the opinion of many aficionados of the Bond books and movies that fans either like the books or the movies, but not both.

I like them both and you might as well.

Good Student or Good Memory

I haven’t been a formal student for years, but something still bugs me about school.

How does the educational system differentiate between students who have good memories and can ‘psych out’ the professor or teacher and are good at taking tests from those who really understand the subject and have a talent for it, but whose memory isn’t that great or aren’t good at playing the game or taking an exam?

Of course, I’m talking about myself here, but I’m sure I have a lot of friends out there. You know who you are, the ones who sweat bullets to get by, but enjoyed and had a real feeling for the subject and in real life were good at their job despite not being the best student.

The way things are you are labeled brilliant if you can barf up the right answers, even if a month later you don’t know what the heck the course was about, and average or a little better if you scrape by, but have a feel for what you learned.

Even though I was never interested in Med School, that one as well as the Nursing School a daughter attended comes to mind. Are the students who get straight A’s really going to make the best Doctors and Nurses? Isn’t there an important if not critical quality not measured by grades lurking somewhere?

I think so.

Climate Change

The other day my neighbor told me there can’t be Global Warming; we had a cold snap last summer.

It shows what an unfortunate name Global Warming is; thankfully the scientists replaced it with Climate Change. What’s in a name? Well, if you call the phenomenon global warming, people like my neighbor think it should be getting warmer all the time, when in reality the warming is a trend, going up and down in the short run, but trending higher over the long run. In the midst of the rising atmospheric temperature can be a decade or more of a drop in average temperatures. What matters is that over the last hundred years the Earth’s atmospheric temperature has risen 1.3 degrees.

Now, 1.3 degrees doesn’t seem like much, but when you have meteorological dynamics in such fine balance it doesn’t take much to upset things. I’m sure we’re all aware of the rapid melting of glaciers, permafrost, polar ice caps, etc.

I am particularly worried about the thawing of the permafrost. This can potentially release huge amounts of methane--a greenhouse gas 10 times more potent than CO2. The melting ice, whether in glaciers or ice caps, is scary too as this reduces the amount of light colored ice to reflect heat back into space exposing darker ocean or rock to absorb even more heat melting more ice. When this happens things can get out of control fast.

Of course it doesn’t help my neighbor understand what’s going on when scientists working for big energy companies say that there is no such thing as Global Warming. Fortunately their corporate remarks are mitigated by tens of thousands of scientists, who are not paid to have an opinion, saying there most certainly is and here are the facts to prove it.

It's Round??

I was listening to “Good Vibrations” and that got me to thinking about earthquakes, which led to plate techtonic theory, and how everybody thought Wegener was a crackpot for proposing such a loony idea as continents drifting around on giant plates floating on molten rock, and that got me to thinking about the over 150 year old one-sided debate about Evolution. Scary, huh?

Anyway, as we all know this debate is primarily between religion of a certain stripe and science. We’ve had many of these debates before. A monk by the name of Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 because, among other things, he believed in an infinite number of planets all inhabited by humans. Unfortunately for him the bible didn’t mention that fact.

Copernicus was afraid to publish his discovery, in the 1500’s, that the Earth revolved around the sun instead of vice versa, as scripture revealed, until after his death.

The sun rises, and sets, and returns to its place, from which, reborn, it revolves through the meridian, and is curved toward the North. (Ecclesiastes 1:5).
In the 1633, Galileo, the father of modern science, was tried by the Inquisition for teaching the ‘Theory’ of Copernicus. The Catholic Church finally apologized some 300 years later.

Of course, there was opposition to the dissection of humans for the benefit of medical science, women as men’s inferior and a whole host (no pun intended) of other nutty ideas marching under the banner of religiosity.

Now in the 21st century we have Darwin’s Theory of Evolution kicked around in the name of scripture. (It’s unfortunate that ‘theory’ is tacked on the front as it has a different meaning to scientists than it does to the rest of us, making Darwin’s ‘Theory’ easier to attack).

Hopefully, someday we can accept, what I call, the Law of Evolution with the same rationality we accept that the Earth is not only round, it revolves about the sun.

One Hand Clapping?

I got to wondering about Buddhism, so I got a book . I was surprised to learn it's called “The Way” by many, not an –ism.

The Way as originally taught and practiced has absolutely nothing to do with religion. We humans just love to religify things. A lot of The Way is about paying attention to what's going on right now, not what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow.

I realized I spent a lot of time thinking about the past---and doing a lot of cringing---or worrying about the future and worrying. I was not paying attention to the now which is where I am and all I can really do anything about.

I have to admit I have a lot of trouble staying in the present. It's like driving a car. The past's in my rear view mirror, the future's out the windshield. In real life I see a lot of things through the windshield which never happens and a lot of what I don't see does. When I pass it and see it in my rear view there's nothing I can do about it.

The hard part is the present, closing my eyes, neither looking through the windshield nor the rear view mirror. Sort of like the suicidal practice of texting while driving. Sooner or later I just have to look up to see what's coming and before I know it I'm taking a peek at my rear view mirror.

Of course, in real life I need to learn from the past and prepare for the future. I just have to be sure I'm not dwelling on things I can no longer do anything about or imagining things that probably won't happen.

Paying attention is a lot harder than I thought.

A Harmless Gas??

I ordinarily avoid swimming, while blogging, in the shark filled waters of politics, but Michelle Bachman's, Representative of Minnesota's sixth Congressional District, speech before Congress on Earth Day forced me into the water.

Rep. Bachman stated that not a single study has shown carbon dioxide to be a harmful gas. She said, “it is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas.” She bases her argument on its being "a natural product of nature." Has she heard about climate change and greenhouse gases, like CO2? It's been on the news, I think.

To say I was stunned by her speech is an understatement. Just when you think politicians of a certain persuasion can't be any more insulting to the electorate's intelligence, they prove you wrong.

I am sure we can all think of many 'products of nature' that are dangerous, arsenic comes to mind. I wonder why?

Giddyapp

A lot of time travel stories have people from the past struggling with 'modern gadgets', sometimes frying themselves with some high tech device they don't understand.

Well, how about our time travelling, modern high tech hero? Wonder how well he/she would do riding a horse or driving a stagecoach or trimming a kerosene lamp?

Ever been in an antique shop and found stuff that puzzled you?

It seems every time has its own tech. It doesn't matter if you go backward or forward, there are still problems with gadgets that can baffle you or kill you.

Foreign Uranium

There's been a lot of talk about nuclear power lately and I got to thinking about where the Uranium for these plants would come from. After all, we'd not be much better off if we had the same problem with foreign Uranium as we do with foreign oil.

According to the World Nuclear Association, half of the world's Uranium production is from just three countries, Australia, Canada and Kazakhstan. The remainder comes from 15 or so countries including the United States which only produces about 5 percent of world production. Currently we import a whopping 95 percent of our Uranium.

According to the CIA Fact Book the USA imports 58 percent of its petroleum.

I guess what I'm wondering, if we go nuclear, are we going to be dangerously dependent on foreign mines?

And we still haven't figured out what to do with the thousands of tons of nuclear waste these plants would produce.

I got to thinking about how fast we can send and receive information.

Today if you want to transmit information, you have a number of ways to do it at around the speed of light, which means almost instantly or at most a few seconds, to anyone equipped to receive it nearly anywhere on earth. But, it wasn’t always like that.

At the time of the American Revolution the fastest way detailed information could be delivered was governed by how fast a horse you had. No detailed info could be transmitted faster. I say detailed because the Romans army used fires and flags to relay simple messages and of course there was the lantern in the Old North Church---one if by land, two if by sea---to send an ‘instant message’ to Paul Revere. But detailed instructions had to be written down and dispatched by a runner or a person on horseback or by horse drawn coach.

A famous example is the legend of a message run from the town of Marathon to Athens bringing the results of the battle of Marathon. The runner, Pheidippides, is said to have run the 26 plus miles collapsing and dying after delivering the message, “We have won.”

Of course, the type of information tended to have a higher level of importance because it was so difficult and expensive to send. Today we are awash in a Tsunami of information. Most of us get more news in a day than our ancestors did in a lifetime.

Ahhhhh, Chooooo

Many folks take herbal medications because they truly believe they work and are safer than pharmaceuticals.

Now I know some of you out there are completely unconvinced by scientific double blind studies, where neither the researcher nor the subject know what the test subject is getting-- the herb or a placebo. These studies consistently show many herbal remedies don’t work any better than a sugar pill.

I don’t know if it’s a mistrust of science or what, but I do know that people who use these herbs really believe they work. However, without a carefully run clinical trial, say where a person is given an herb ‘known’ to prevent colds and/or reduce their severity, and their nose swabbed with a cold virus, you don’t know if what you thought you were catching was really a cold or an allergy attack or whatever. Several times a year I feel as though I'm coming down with a cold only to find myself symptom free the next day without taking anything.

Here’s a true life adventure to help make my point. When I was seven I was convinced I had a cold, sore throat, runny nose, the works. I had a box of Luden’s Cherry cough drops and ate the whole box while sitting on a fence in the sun. The next day the ‘cold’ was gone. I was convinced the cough drops cured me. The next time I caught a cold I ate the same kind of cough drops while sitting in the sun in the same place. This time it didn’t work.

So, if scientific studies tell me an herbal remedy doesn’t work, I personally am more apt to believe that than my neighbor who swears by the stuff. But, that’s just me.

Oh, by the way, if you are going to take an herbal, please do a little research of your own. Some of these herbs can be toxic all by themselves or when taken along with a prescription medication.

What Problem?

One would really have to not be paying attention to be unaware that the planet was in the midst of an energy crisis. But, that’s OK, we had people we were paying to pay attention, right?

Problem was maybe their jobs depended on their not paying attention. I know that’s pretty cynical, but where are we? We’re hustling to make up for many years of negligence. This did not happen overnight, it’s been coming for a long time, and it’s no big secret we need at least three planets to sustain our growing consumption of not just energy, but all natural resources.

And THEY are still trying to tell us everything is Ok, no climate change; plenty of oil, water’s fine and besides a free market will adjust and find new technology to cope. That’s the biggest lie of all. It is really risky and expensive to develop new technologies and if there is one thing private enterprise doesn’t like it is an expensive risk. Some things take government. To quote NYU’s Martin Hoffit, “Most of the modern technology that has been driving the U.S. economy did not come spontaneously from market forces,” giving as examples jet planes, satellite communications, integrated circuits, and computers. He goes on to say, “The internet was supported for 20 years by the military and for 10 more years by the National Science Foundation before Wall Street found it.”

‘Free market forces will handle it,’ is one of those things that sound good only if you say it really fast. We don’t have the luxury of entertaining fast talk from people who are paid by or make a profit from the exploitation of resources we can no longer afford to waste or events like climate change they try to turn into a shell game.

Go Hug A Tree

I once heard if you live long enough you’ll be in fashion.

For years, those who chose to protect the environment were tagged with disparaging labels like ‘tree hugger.’ Now it seems everybody is a ‘tree hugger.’

Most things I see on the tele these days have commercials from the big oil and gas companies about how green they are-- like we’re supposed to forget how hard they've fought restrictions on the way they do business.

I wonder how many of those bumper stickers saying, ‘Hey, I like Spotted Owls---fried,’ I’m going to see in the near future?

Gee, it’s nice to finally be in fashion.

Waiter-There's a fly in my soup!

I came across some really disgusting gastronomical suggestions for the astronauts.

Remember, all you SciFi fans, the complaints about pressed soy steaks or yeast porridge and algae jello?

Well, how about dried fly pupa, larvae and adult house flies pressed into a cake or maybe added to a nice yeast broth for some added protein? The nutritional scientists claim over 70% dried protein by weight. Earthworms fell just a few points behind. And as a bonus flies and earthworms do a pretty good job of turning that pesky garbage into more flies and earthworms.

There is a serious side to all this-but maybe you think dried turtle food is serious enough-but it may be awhile before steak on the hoof appears at the local Lunar Mega mart and it is constructive to give even the wildest ideas some thought.

Iron Chief, tonight’s mystery ingredient---fly pupa.

911 to the ISS?

We were visiting grandkids in Houston a few years back, so naturally we made the required pilgrimadge to the SpaceCenter and being a good tourists took a tour.

The tour included the assembly building for the 7 crewperson rescue boat, in anticipation of putting more than a janitor crew of three astronauts aboard at a time, as that was all Soyuz could accommodate as a rescue vehicle.

The designation was the X-38 Crew Return Vehicle, I think.

If my memory serves me, and it usually doesn't, Bush killed that project to free up funds to return to the moon in a souped up Ap0ll0 type craft.

Now I hear with the new truss installed yesterday, we have enough power to crew up to six.

I got to wondering. If somethiing bad happens, how do we get them down? The shuttle retires next year.

Anybody know?

Shroud Eaters-AKA Vampires

I love vampire lore and movies and thought I was up to date, but here's a new one, at least to me, but then I don't get out enough.

Evidently it was a custom in 1600 Europe to stuff a brick in the mouth of a suspected vampire so they could not feed and therby starve.

These suspects were already buried, usually in a mass grave, victims of the latest plague. When the tombs were reoppenned to bury more victims, during a subsequent the plague, sometimes a gravedigger or priest thought something about the corspe didn't look right and was a vampire. One of the reasons they were suspicious is that folks of those times thought vampires had something to do with disease, in addition to their other antisocial activities.

Quite often the tipoff was a hole in the victums shroud around the mouth and (sorry) blood oozing from the mouth and the body bloated.

The scientific explaination given is that the hole around the mouth is from decay from mouth bacteria, the blood oozing from the mouth was pushed out by swelling internal organs and you know why bodies bloat as they decay.

What happened to the stake through the heart?

Watching a gnat while listening to 'Good Vibrations'

I've probably seen gnats thousands of times, but I don't think I've ever SEEN one before. Know what I mean?

This thing is tiny. It wouldn't crowd a pinhead yet it senses its surroundings, seems to get to wherever it is it is going, can FLY, land and walk.

It's nervous system can't have that many nerve cells, but look what it does with them. It is an autonomus, living thing that is just amazing.

We are Stardust

Was watching a Science Channel show about how we and the universe came to be.

According to current theory all the matter and energy in the universe came from a point smaller than the nucleus of an atom that violently expanded about 13 billion years ago in what is referred to as ‘The Big Bang’. The idea that the whole universe was contained in so small a space is unimaginable not because it is wrong, but because our wonderful brains did not evolve to deal with such concepts. As an example try to imagine infinity, I can’t do it, but that’s because nervous systems developed in a world of finiteness. Evolution was more concerned with fight or flight or how to get lunch without being lunch than think about the origin of the universe, but what is remarkable is that we can do it nevertheless.

Anyway, the show said that way back when the proto-universe cooled enough to allow the formation of neutrons and protons out of things like quarks and their esoteric friends, hydrogen and helium formed. After a really long time these elements condensed into proto-stars. Slowly gravity condensed these stars and as they compressed they heated up until they got so hot they ignited into a fusion reaction uniting hydrogen atoms to form helium releasing massive amounts of energy. Think H bomb. As time went by, the star fused together larger and larger atoms up through the periodic table until it got to iron-- the fusion end of the line.

These massive stars then began to collapse since they no longer generated the energy to counter their crushing gravity. Eventually the star collapsed erupting in a super nova scattering most of its partial periodic table of elements through space.

In our case, one of these star’s stuff condensed into our sun and solar system. On Earth the atoms created in that exploded sun formed the molecules that evolved into life. We got a brain out of the deal that could think about where it came from and how it was created.

We are made of star dust.

Kinda gives you goose bumps, huh?

Radioactive Waste-where do we store it?

Was reading in SciAm about the benefits of nuclear power. There seems to be little doubt we need to come up with a number of alternate energy sources to lesson the havoc about to be wreaked on our small planet by global warming.

Although I agree that nuclear power plants have a much better safety record than they used to have, we still have a problem as to what to do with megatons of radioactive waste from these uranium burners. Some of the waste must be stored for thousands of years. Linguists are trying to come up with some kind of signage to warn future humans of the danger of these dumps thousands of years from now when language may be very different from today's.

Another problem is the plutonium produced in burning U235. You need to keep it out of the hands of wingnuts who might want to build a bomb.

Radiation and Astronauts

A big problem for manned space flight beyond low Earth orbit is radiation. Earth and to some extent low-Earth orbiting space craft are protected from the intense radiation from the sun and cosmic sources by its magnetic field.

The problem to solve for long lunar missions or missions to Mars is one of shielding. On the Moon the astronauts can burrow under the lunar soil or set up shop in lava tubes. Mars has no magnetic field and anyway the trip there will take a long time exposing astronauts to radiation over a long period of time. I’m not an expert, but that doesn’t sound like a good thing.

While in transit NASA has to find a way to shield the crew from radiation. Some investigators suggest using water, which they have to carry anyway. But water is heavy. Other lines of research are looking at the possibility of creating a magnetic field around the spacecraft that will function much like the Earth’s.

In the early days of spaceflight astronauts reported seeing flashes of light, even with their eyes closed. That’s the hint. Particles of cosmic radiation were smashing into their retinal pigments causing a flash of light. I thought I'd heard somewhere that a high percentage of astronauts suffer from a form of cataract appearing several years after their flights.


Has anybody else heard of this phenomenon?