Sticky tape x-rays

Here's a really cool story about how sticky tape releases x-rays -- really. They did little sticky-tape-sized x-rays of their fingers!

Link: www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/10/23/2398928.htm
Just marvellous.

Categorised as: technology
Technorati Tags: x-ray, UCLA , triboluminescence

Evolution in action

Was watching a UK documentary¹ about Charles Darwin the other day. In it Richard Dawkins was interviewing a prostitute in Kenya who apparently has immunity to HIV. There's a significant percentage of the population infected with HIV, a high rate of clients per day for Nairobi prostitutes who commonly don't use condoms so the odds against prostitutes there contracting HIV are really low. So prostitutes like this lady are current and real life examples of humans evolving purely by natural selection to beat some virus (i.e. lots and lots of people die but only the one with genetic advantage survives to reproduce)!

Kind of ironic that the very occupation that's highly likely to get you infected with HIV is one that potentially reveals the genetic sequence needed to avoid it.

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Genius_of_Charles_Darwin
Categorised as: nature
Technorati Tags: Charles Darwin, evolution , Richard Dawkins, HIV

I'm just testing out Ping.fm to Facebook, Blogger and Twitter...

Warning: 450ppm CO2 target would delay doubling of GNP by 6 whole months!

Criticise him as a utopian leftwing pinko as you wish to, but Clive Hamilton has clearly highlighted how current governing structures and economic practices are ill-equipped to handle climate change legislation.

Hamilton has pointed out that, in Australia at least according to Garnaut's modelling, a target of 450ppm of carbon dioxide is going to delay the doubling of Australia's GNP by only 6 months compared to a target of 550ppm.^[source] To state the obvious it is an incredibly trivial delay in the great scheme of things. And the delay compared to having no target whatsoever would still only be 2.5 years.

I used to think enacting major social change was largely a case of causing a swing in public opinion to a critical mass which would in turn result in the necessary changes to policy and legislation. But what about the case where public opinion has shifted in support of change, but the science of the issue is too complex (and dare I say esoteric) that the layperson doesn't have any real idea of political and legal changes required to achieve the outcomes desired by public consensus?

To me this is the problem of legislating to combat climate change and it's a global one. Mass opinion has already shifted. Sure there are still very vocal and otherwise-intelligent skeptics out there but even if they are right (and I don't for one second believe they are) public opinion has overtaken them anyway. The problem is translating public consensus to combat global warming and live sustainably into real and effective policy.

This problem truly makes a case for acknowledging and tackling the economic growth fetish, as Hamilton describes it. In this sense, public opinion still needs some swaying, but this is a much tougher task.

More people need to be exposed to and contemplate the idea of economic growth being a fetish... This way public consciousness relating to climate change could be raised in a way that makes the truly desirable legislatory path (i.e. the one that is in the best interests of society as a whole) clear and obvious.

Related older blogposts by me:

• Why sticking to old ways of thinking is stupid (25 February, 2008)
• Buy nothing on election day: On Growth Fetish and Buy Nothing Day (19 November, 2007)

The Clive Hamilton opinion piece came from Crikey.com.au subscriber article (8 September 2008)^{[subscriber link]} from which I paste large chunks here:

Garnaut bows to the insanity of growth fetishism by Clive Hamilton

The Garnaut report demonstrates how our obsession with economic growth is so powerful that we are unwilling to contemplate sacrificing a tiny amount of consumption now to sharply reduce the risk of climate catastrophe.

The report presents modelling results on the economic implications of stabilising atmospheric concentrations at 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) versus allowing them to rise to 550 ppm. (The pre-industrial level was 280 ppm of CO2 and we have now reached 387 ppm.)

The 450 ppm target will be accompanied by warming of about 2°C by the end of the century while 550 ppm is likely to see warming of 3°C.

Climate scientists believe that the difference between the two is huge with 550 ppm dramatically increasing the likelihood of catastrophes and runaway climate change – such as an irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet resulting in sea-level rise of 7 metres. That would rule out any chance of returning the atmosphere to a safe level for thousands of years.

Yet Garnaut’s recommendation that the Government aim for a 10% reduction over 2000 levels is based on the belief that stabilizing at 450 ppm is politically infeasible and we must reluctantly accept a 550 ppm world.

How much will pursuing the 550 ppm target cost us in terms of lost income? Garnaut says it will shave a little more than 0.1 per cent from GNP growth through to 2050. This means that instead of growing annually at, say, 2.5 per cent if we do nothing, GNP per person would grow at "only" 2.4 per cent if we aim at 550 ppm. Aiming at 450 ppm would cost only fractionally more.

The welfare cost can best be understood as follows. With an annual real growth rate of 2.5 per cent per person, then with no carbon abatement Australia’s GNP will double by 2040. If from 2012 we aim for the 550 target our GNP will not double until 2049, i.e. we will have to wait an additional two years. And, according to Garnaut's modelling, if we aim for the much safer target of 450, we will have to wait another six months.

...

The economic impact of pursuing a target of 450 ppm rather than 550 ppm is so small that it will be exceeded by the normal statistical error involved in measuring GNP growth. Yet it seems that this amount is so large that it renders the safe option politically infeasible.

...

Garnaut himself ... asks "Is it worth paying over the course of the century less than 1 per cent of GNP for the non-market benefits, insurance value and the enhancing value beyond the 21st century of the 450 strategy?"

He says this is a matter of judgment. Anyone who has to give more than a moment’s thought to this choice must be deluded.

...

Image courtesy of Stephen Leahy.
Categorised as: philosophy, society
Technorati Tags: Garnaut report, Australian economy, Clive Hamilton, growth fetish, public opinion

Cold and nasty

This morning I was trawling through the ABC News recent news archive to find some story about cold and nasty weather conditions in Victoria. Instead I was quite incensed to find a story about the cold and nasty organisers of the Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Remember that gorgeous little girl in red who was dubbed the Nikki Webster of Beijing. (For those of you not Aussie enough to remember, Webster was the cherubic child singer at the Sydney Olympics in 2000). I remember us commenting on her magnificent voice, but it's lucky I'm not a lip-synching expert or I might have noticed the truth. The girl we saw, Lin Miaoke, was chosen for her good looks not her voice. The voice was a recording of another Chinese girl, Yang Peiyi, apparently plumper and with uneven teeth.

...Chen said the girl whose voice was actually heard by the 91,000 capacity crowd at the main Olympic stadium was in fact seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, who has a chubby face and uneven teeth.

"The reason why little Yang was not chosen to appear was because we wanted to project the right image, we were thinking about what was best for the nation," Chen said in the interview that appeared briefly on the popular news website Sina.com on Tuesday before it was wiped from the Internet.^[source]

How cruel. I really feel sorry for little Yang. I hope she won't be depressed with an eating disorder in ten years time, but an international superstar who's defected from China, because her voice was exquisite and she deserves the credit!

Apparently this news was broken (quite by accident no doubt) in an interview published on Sina.com, but disappeared from the Internet a few hours later. I made quite an effort to suppress this cynical thought from popping into my head so I could really appreciate the opening ceremony and it's lovely patriotic display of Chinese culture and history (sans the foot-binding, 'cultural revolution' and other horrors, but then the Sydney ceremony didn't include the mass murder of Tasmanian aborigines either). But now I feel vindicated for noticing some parallels between the Beijing ceremony and the movie adaptation of George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'. Remember the opening scene at the Beijing ceremony with all the drummers, dressed identically, raising their arms in unison and shouting? Well it eerily reminded me of the opening scene of '1984'.

The same article describes other parts of the ceremony that were fakes. Some of the fireworks were actually pre-recorded animations! (more: 1, 2)

Categorised as: society
Technorati Tags: Chinese culture, Yang Peiyi, Lin Miaoke, discrimination, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Northern Lights: Adelaide cartoonified!

The Northern Lights show of the Adelaide Festival this year has been one of the most brilliant and striking features. Any day I catch the train after 9:30 this is what I am seeing walking along North Terrace. Last week we took time to sit still and contemplate each projection and, frankly, I never paid such close attention to the architecture of these buildings even though I see them every day. The show was meant to finish on the weekend, but apparently it's been extended by two weeks so if you're in Adelaide for Easter or are already here and just don't get into the city after dark much, make sure to check it out!

I have a heap of photos of the buildings on my phone, but lost the cable to transfer (phone cameras are such a pain) so I'm using other much better photos by other Adelaideans out there to illustrate...

This neon version of Elder Hall is my favourite. For a place many will associate with memories of uni exams this one transported me into a cartoon world! (images courtesy of Hanna)



One of the projections on to the Art Gallery (image courtesy of waterl00; click for larger)


A Vegas-inspired projection on to the Mitchell building of Adelaide Uni (images courtesy of Roving Rob)



A very colourful version of the State Library facade (image courtesy of Hanna)


Thank you Adelaide Festival organisers and artists. In a month of Fringey, artsy, comedic goodness, this has been the icing on the cake!

Categorised as: society
Technorati Tags: Adelaide Arts Festival, Northern Lights, Adelaide, North Terrace, artistic projection, Art Gallery of South Australia, State Library of South Australia, University of Adelaide, Electric Canvas