Shrimp on treadmills and other Science

I admit up front that sometimes the things scientists do sound strange, funny or even stupid. Take the experiments on hamster testicles. Microsurgery on the vas deferens to sterilize male hamsters. This got a William Proxmire “Golden Fleece Award” for wasting taxpayer’s money. Yet the research led directly to the Vasectomy surgery performed on millions of men successfully every year. Or Paul Ekman’s research on facial expressions that has led to the decoding of facial expressions and is partly responsible for the successful system used by Israel and TSA screeners in the quest for terrorists.
Admittedly some research looks goofy. For example someone did a study to find out why prisoners want to get out of jail. The point is this: science at the front end is an easy target for anyone that doesn’t understand what science is all about.
So what is science all about you ask? At the core, it is about asking questions and getting answers. Sometimes the questions seem silly and sometimes not. Politicians like to make headlines by uncovering “waste and fraud” and being vigilante watchdogs of public funds. They still fill the budget with “turkeys” and “earmarks”, and they still piss away millions of dollars a year on “fact finding” trips all over the world, and they still take money from lobbyists who control the legislative process.
And shrimp? This research is looking at the effects of pollution on the physiology of crustaceans and is related to the recent oil spills. Not a bad investment. And the total spent was only $1000. Still, it sounds silly and makes the “Government” look bad to some.
Image: http://msnbcmedia2.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/061018/061018_shrimpTreadmill_hmed_2p.grid-6x2.jpg

More Dead than Dead.

Whoa! Wait a minute. More dead than dead? Deader than dead?
Yup. A study cited below (1) focused on Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) people as being perceived as worse off than dead. I agree. I would rather be dead than kept in a PVS. But not for the same reasons as the people who form the basis of the conclusions of this study. No, those people believe in an afterlife, where brain function remains intact, perception of the world remains intact and intelligence remains intact. After the brain is long gone. The study found that as religiosity increased so did the notion that PVS was a “deader” form of dead than being really dead.
Confused? No need. All you have to do is put yourself into the mindset of the after lifers to get it. If you are not brain dead you obviously are still conscious and sentient. If you are dead, then you have gone to the afterlife where you are once again conscious and sentient. So, the in-between, PVS, where there is no consciousness and no sentience is “more dead than dead”. Simple.
Two things though: I have a hard time thinking that people who actually believe that there is an afterlife are really sentient, and I don’t want to lay around in a PVS being an expense and psychological burden on my loved ones.
As for me: Pull the Plug and Let Me Go. Where? No Where.

1. DEAD: K. Gray, T.A. Knickman and D.M. Wegner. More dead than dead: Perceptions of persons in the persistent vegetative state. Cognition. Published online July 27, 2011. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.06.014. Abstract available: [Go to]
Image: http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/after.life_.jpg

No Knee-jerks Here.

While researching Rudolf Brazda I came across a YouTube video with an unpleasant title: Why Homosexuality Should be Banned. Given my own thoughts on the matter I considered ripping the computer out of the wall, but thought “No, don’t be an asshole like the knee-jerk homophobes.” So I watched it. And boy, am I glad I did.
This is a gem of a home produced video that destroys the myths of homosexuality in a series of arguments designed to attack homosexuality. A beautiful piece of creative art that will make the most ardent homophobe at least stop and, oops, I was going to write “think”, but we know homophobes don’t think. They jerk.

Do youself a real favor whether you are a supporter of equal rights or a supporter of limited rights, and watch this video. You will never be the same again.

Anti homosexual video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=lSfFa44p96o
Rudolf Brazda video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x-1uFsOXWhQ
Image:http://images.sodahead.com/polls/001741905/923692305_polls_NoHomosexuals_5523_899800_answer_3_xlarge_xlarge.gif

Montsegur: Twelfth Century Holocaust

The Cathar's origin is a bit clouded, but they had influences from many religions. Buddhism, Hindu and Christianity all were there in some form. By the 12th century the core was Christian. But not the “Church” version. Rather an admixture of philosophies and beliefs, with one fatal tenant: They refused to accept the Pope as the spiritual leader of all Christians and were therefore declared heretics. Thousands were burned alive after refusing to accept the Church and the Pope.
I wanted to visit one of the last holdouts of this peaceful people, the mountain top refuge called Montsegur, located in the Midi Pyrnees in southwest France. Six hundred Cathars were besieged in this tiny redoubt for 10 months and eventually more than 200 were burned alive. The original structure was destroyed after the siege and rebuilt twice since, the current iteration known as Montsegur III. Little of the original remains.
I hoped to find a palpable sense of spirit in and around the castle (called the “Chateau” by locals) but felt only vague whispers. Sal and I made the steep climb, walked over the entire site and then went into the village for a glass of wine. The experience, while not the spiritual one I expected was none-the-less emotional. Simply being on the site of the massacre brought the history vividly to the present. The horrors of the Church, in the name of their “God”, were present in every corner of the area. As with any holocaust site, this one has a profound message for mankind: be vigilant and do not let this happen again. Yet we seem doomed to repeat the barbarism of extermination. I can personally name a few dozen “holocausts” that have occurred during the history of mankind. I am sure many are forgotten or went unrecorded. I wonder how many have been perpetrated in the name of some religion. Or with the tacit approval of some religious leader. Or by the warriors of a religion?
Just wondering. And BTW, it’s not over yet.
Image: Sal and Woody at Montsegur
See also: http://searchesworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/they-sang-as-they-burned.html

Mystery Snake Finally Caught, Revised

(The revision is correcting the identification of the snake and adding the video.)

This spring we finally saw the culprit that was eating our goldfish. A very spooky water snake. I tried several times to sneak up on it but to no avail. In desperation I bought a snake trap, baited it with "Just Mice" paste and waited for 2 months. All I ever caught was a snake skin that was actually shed in the trap while we were in France.
Three days ago I decided to just put the trap in the water, on a shelf in the pond and see what happened. What happened was it started to catch tadpoles. A few the first day, several more the second and by last night there were more than a dozen bullfrog babies in the trap. And that was enough to entice the hungry snake into the trap. This morning I found I had traded tadpoles for a water snake. He/she turned out to be a Florida red belly water snake Nerodia erythrogaster erythrogaster. About medium size and very "bitey". I can't get a good photo in the trap, so I will take a video of the release later today as I give it a holiday in Lake Jackson. Miles from my pond! My hat is off to the trap people for making a good product, but the advice to use mouse paste was not quite on the mark. I am writing them to suggest they make a new product and call it "Just Tadpoles and Frogs". Yummmmm.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojPLCU6o7rQ
Image: http://students.ncwc.edu/bio401/2005/Christopher/red%20belly%20water%20snake.jpg
Snake Traps:http://www.bugspray.com/catalog/traps/snake_traps.html

People Just Get Out Of The Way!!!

"If all insects on Earth disappeared, within 50 years all life on
Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the Earth,
within 50 years all forms of life would flourish."
— Biologist Jonas Salk

Assuming that the above quote is essentially stating the truth, and I think it is absolutely spot on, tell me this: Why should we do anything to promote our own survival? You would think that an intelligent species that is decimating the world would come to the conclusion that they should just get out of the way. Hell, even NASCAR drivers do it.
The Question restated: Can anyone think of any valid reason at all for the continuance of the Human race? Besides the selfish gene theory? Maybe so we can do good? At what price? I hate to admit that I can’t.
On the other hand, if is going to end, I would prefer it to end after I finish the wine in the cellar. And that, my friends, is exactly the problem.
Image: http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/nobabies.jpg

Ishmael and the Starving Children

The book “Ishmael” has been around for a while, and when a friend gave it to me to read recently I thought after finishing “I am Ishmael”. My conclusions are the same: agriculture changed the human paradigm for ever, for the worse. Never truer than today. Millions of people starving to death in Northern Africa. The stated cause: Drought and crop failure. That is complete rubbish. The cause is simply too many people trying to live on too little arable land. And the land gets less arable as global climate change drives the droughts.
The conundrum is this: if we let the millions starve and die, them the population will be reduced to the survivors who might have a chance to survive the coming disasters of weather. If we feed them they will survive and have more babies and further degrade the environment in which they live. The civilized answer is “feed them”.
But wait! Where does the food come from? Ah, therein lies the rub. It comes from the world’s nations that have surplus food production, and they also have population increases and they also have climate-related problems with agriculture. So what happens when the starving of the world are starving and we don’t have surpluses to give them? Do we starve ourselves to feed them?

(By the way, You are responsible for all the starving children in Africa today. Yes, You. You wanted their parents fed 20 years ago, and now their children are starving. At least take responsibility for that.)
Don’t turn away from this discussion friends. It is just around the corner.
Image: http://misstila.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Starving-Child-5.jpeg
Ishmael the novel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)

Cognitive Sewage

I love this term: “Cognitive Sewage”. Just has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? I heard it this morning during a discussion on NPR about the shortage of drinking water looming in the near future and the nearly endless supply of treated water from sewer treatment plants. Drinkable water. That no one wants to drink. Why not? The simple answer is the “yuck” factor.
Your brain scores the effluent as “yucky”, relates it to sewage and you refuse to consider drinking it. Even though it may be significantly cleaner than the water in the river or ground that is the source of your current drinking water. Powerful associations in the brain make you recoil at the thought of drinking the stuff.
I remember a conversation I had with a sanitary engineer who was overseeing the installation of a small treatment plant at a trailer park where I lived. This would be around 1969 or so. The small plant, he said, would produce drinkable water at the outflow. The outflow was piped into a sinkhole at the edge of the property. I offered to get him a glass, and he said “no thanks, I’m not thirsty.” Neither was I. The water in the Mississippi river is sewage effluent. Ever been to Nawleans? Yup, you drank sewage effluent.
Think of all the cognitive sewage you have floating around in your brain. Fears, phobias, irrational ideas about certain types of people. Think about it. I put Republicans in that category, and conservative religious nutters. Maybe it’s time to flush the toilet of our minds and start over? For me, that starts in the voting booth.

http://www.uncoverage.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Sewage-treatment-plant-in-Encino-where-the-magic-happens.jpg

The Hole in the Hourglass of Life

One of the common metaphors for a person’s life is the hourglass. The sand starts in the top, birth, and runs out into the bottom, death. I like this idea because it gives the sense that although there is a finite time for living, the pace is controlled by the hole in the middle. But unlike a real hourglass, the pace isn’t a constant. The problem is that individual behavior and luck operate together to change the damn hole size. For instance, you can have half the sand in the top and be killed by a bus. Giant hole, all the sand moves south at once. Or, you can exercise, eat right, get plenty of sleep and water and maybe tighten the hole a bit.
So, life is viewed as a finite resource with a variable consumption component. The real bitch, though, is looking at the glass as time passes and noticing the inexorable flow out of the top into the bottom. At some point, most people would give almost anything to be able to turn the glass and keep going. Not bloody likely. On the other hand, a life well lived is enough for most of us. As the sand shifts south we all gradually shift south ourselves. We slow down, get weaker, get shorter, get more philosophical and less radical, and, yes, usually get somewhat rounder.
I hate that the sand will run out someday, and I hate knowing that the sand is more in the bottom than the top, and I hate that I can’t just turn the glass. But I love the life already lived, downs as well as ups. I love the idea of life and look forward, however long the sand will last, to more of a life well lived. Bring on the wine, food, adventure and love. Simon and Garfunkel said it best: “Life I Love You – All is Groovy”.(1) What’s not to love?
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KZi-aV0VTk
Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFnZ4TKdcZYKNPGz1B_i0iSrnlrbEyT4QDlDZVmNvMTepq6WxJjTObyrqCy4U00DEjjGAFKa35TQsYVUqy8r9nDrnO-lXDiHh7nGQDAU7myMG16cWTGTtDm6YsBoF2HqwObs_a1HfJTrrc/s1600/hourglass.jpg

Could you live on a total of $10,000 a year?

Social Security: Why is it in Trouble?
There are basically 2 answers to this question. The first is purely demographic. More people are collecting benefits (more money goes out) than people are paying into benefit programs (money coming in). Over time, the amount of money collected will not be sufficient to cover future payouts, and the future amounts collected will not cover the future liability.
The second answer is a bit slipperier. In 2011, so far, the trust fund held 2.5 trillion dollars, all in government backed securities. The problem is this: when the fund needs more money to pay out than money that comes in, it has to sell the securities. And if the markets for the government borrowing money to redeem the securities are weak or gone, the trust fund is in deficit.
Insolvency will occur if all the bonds are redeemed and not enough money comes in to pay current recipients. This date is somewhere between 25 and 75 years in the future. To fix it the congress must either cut benefits and/or raise the payroll tax to produce more income.
I started hearing about this problem TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO!!! Since then, a few minor fixes have been done, but congress has kicked the can down the road. Now it is a budget/political issue. The government must buy the bonds it sold to the trust funds so the funds can pay their bills. The government is in a deficit mode now, so money for something must be borrowed.
The poor of the nation are the easiest target and the least likely to win a court battle. So answer me this: How would you like to try to live on ten or fifteen thousand dollars a year, total income? Including paying for health care, food, housing, etc. How big a cut would you be able to take and still eat, get medicine and have a roof over your head? Oh yeah, I forgot. Medicare will take care of your health. Not.
Image: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zMSMQXhHoQY/TaOIQWiRWUI/AAAAAAAAF9U/yGUt1Di9pqo