big on love, tolerance, and the human potential
Attraction is ‘determined by walk’
An hourglass figure has long been perceived to be the ideal figure for a woman to have.
But New York University researchers have found that to be found attractive, a woman had to move in a feminine way – swaying her hips.
Men, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper found, were more attractive if they moved with a “shoulder swagger”. [BBC]
A quarter of US veterans treated by doctors when they return from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer mental health problems, according to US research.
The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at 103,788 personnel between 2001 and 2005.
The most frequent diagnosis was post-traumatic stress disorder, but anxiety, depression and substance-use also counted as mental health problems. [BBC]
Surveillance cameras are common in many cities, monitoring tough street corners to deter crime, watching over sensitive government buildings and even catching speeders. Cameras are on public buses and in train stations, building lobbies, schools and stores. Most feed video to central control rooms, where they are monitored by security staff. The latest breed, known as “intelligent video,” could transform cameras from passive observers to eyes with brains, able to detect suspicious behavior.
A person carrying a heavy load under a jacket would walk differently than someone unencumbered – which could help identify a person hiding a weapon.
A car pulled into a parking lot and the driver got out, a box springing up around him. It moved with the driver as he went from car to car, looking in the windows instead of heading into the building.
In both cases, the camera knew what was normal and what was not.
The gaming industry uses camera systems that can detect facial features, according to Bordes. Casinos use their vast banks of security cameras to hunt cheating gamblers
[story]
By the time the Atlantic Ocean pours through the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia with a controlled fury that is unmatched anywhere in the world, nearly 14 billion tonnes of seawater will have sloshed into that channel — equivalent to the combined flow, some have calculated, of every river on earth.
Canada may well be the place for tidal power, or at least what is called in-stream generators.
The latest technology relies on small propellers or turbines that can be anchored to the sea floor.
Nova Scotia is considering as many as 300 units in a seabed farm, at least twice the 20 foot diameter of the test unit in this picture of a test unit by Scotland’s OpenHydro, in strategic locations around the bay.
[story at CBC]
The world’s first field of underwater turbines, using currents of the East River, will be in New York City. [link to post]
Tuberculosis is back with a vengeance with a third of the world’s population currently infected.
TB is a highly contagious disease of the lungs that was thought to have been virtually eliminated by the 1960s, but is now resurgent and kills nearly two million people worldwide every year.
New infections are occurring at a rate of one per second.
There’s a dramatic rise in the incidence of new strains of TB that are resistant to traditional antibiotics. As a result, the World Health Organisation, the Bill Gates Foundation and the European Union have all launched initiatives to tackle the problem.
The bacterium survives the initial attack by the body’s immune system and then lies dormant, usually in the lungs, waiting for any sign of weakness, such as a secondary infection. Its resurgence over the last 20 years has been closely associated with the AIDS epidemic, which destroys the human immune system and has allowed TB to get a grip once again.
London is the TB capital of Europe, although most large cities here and in North America have seen rapid increases in the number of TB infections. However, the problem is most acute in Africa and Asia where HIV/AIDS is also most prolific and a shortage of traditional TB medicines and problems with patient compliance has led to the emergence of drug-resistant strains of the disease.
“There were only ever a limited number of drugs that were effective against TB… [link]
No honey bees are native to the New World.
European colonists in the 1600s and 1700s brought honey bees with them, some of which became feral. But honey bees are essential to U.S. agriculture, pollinating more than 90 crops. That pollination leads to yield and quality improvements worth more than $14 billion annually.
Africanized honey bees more ardently defend their nests than do the European honey bees that are common to the United States and sting in greater numbers with less provocation.
There are very minor genetic differences between African and European honey bees, but it is not yet known whether these differences govern the honey bee traits that people are most concerned about.
After 5 years of being fairly settled, Africanized honey bees have been on the move for the past 2 years, spreading into four new states—Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana—since fall 2005.
Before that, Africanized honey bees had spread into five southwestern states— Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Nevada, in that order—between October 1990 and 2005.
[link to USDA]
A float depicting U.S. President George W. Bush being spanked by the Statue Of Liberty passes by in the carnival parade in Mainz, Germany.
via boredStop
Alan Kay, interviewed in CIO Insight (another link via Martin‘s del.icio.us links):
A great thinker in our field is Doug Engelbart, who is mostly remembered for inventing the computer mouse. If you search Google you will find Doug’s Web page, where there are 75 essays about what personal computing should be about. And on one of the early hits you can watch the demo he gave in 1968 to 3,000 people in San Francisco, showing them what the world of the future would be like.
Engelbart, right from his very first proposal to ARPA [Advanced Research Projects Agency], said that when adults accomplish something that’s important, they almost always do it through some sort of group activity. If computing was going to amount to anything, it should be an amplifier of the collective intelligence of groups. But Engelbart pointed out that most organizations don’t really know what they know, and are poor at transmitting new ideas and new plans in a way that’s understandable.
via Preoccupations
“The dopamine neurons are responsible for telling the rest of the brain what stimuli to pay attention to,” says Terry Sejnowski, the director of Salk Institute for Biological Studies Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, referring to the cluster of brain cells that produce one of the many chemical elixirs that activate, deactivate, or otherwise alter our mental state.
In a deeper way, he explains, evolutionary factors – the need for individual organisms to survive, find food or a mate, and avoid predators – are at work behind the mechanisms of unconscious decision making.
“Consciousness explains things that have already been decided for you…”
How is the physical brain is related to the thinking, experiencing, self-aware mind?
Is There Room for the Soul?
New challenges to our most cherished beliefs about self and the human spirit. Developments in science and religion point to a new picture of reality.
Since leaving office in 2001, Bill Clinton has amassed an estimated $40-million from speaking fees.
Last year was his best yet, raking in between $9-million and $10-million from speeches around the world. He earned in the region of $200 000 a year as president.
Clinton, who went into the White House with relatively modest means compared with most of his predecessors, left office an estimated $12-million in debt from election campaigning and legal fees in relation to the Whitewater affair and the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Since becoming an ex-president, he has established himself as the world’s best-paid after-dinner speaker, charging about $150 000 a speech. On one particular day, in Canada, he gave two speeches, earning $475 000.
He told an audience in Kentucky in the autumn: “I never had a nickel to my name until I got out of the White House, and now I’m a millionaire.”
But he was only paid personally for about 20% of the speeches he made.
Many of the others were for charities, mainly the William J Clinton Foundation, whose annual budget is $60-million and which he runs to help the developing world, primarily to combat HIV/Aids. Some of the speeches were given for free.
from South Africa’s Mail & Guardian
Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
– Ann Landers
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
– Will Rogers
There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.
– Ben Williams
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
– Josh Billings
The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.
– Andy Rooney
We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It’s the best deal man has ever made.
– M. Acklam
Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate.
– Sigmund Freud
I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.
– Rita Rudner
A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.
– Robert Benchley
Anybody who doesn’t know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.
– Franklin P. Jones
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
– James Thurber
If your dog is fat, you aren’t getting enough exercise.
– Unknown
My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can. That’s almost $21.00 in dog money.
– Joe Weinstein
Ever consider what our dogs must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul — chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we’re the greatest hunters on earth!
– Anne Tyler
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
– Robert A. Heinlein
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
– Mark Twain
You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, ‘Wow, you’re right! I never would’ve thought of that!’
– Dave Barry
Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
– Roger Caras
If you think dogs can’t count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two of them.
– Phil Pastoret
My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog already thinks I am.
[via temple treats, Canada]
Cells can be made cancerous by viruses, even those that are considered harmless.
A virus can cause massive chromosomal instability by fusing cells, increasing the rate of chromosome mutations. Fusion abruptly unites two or three cells under the same membrane
At least 18 of 29 virus families that infect human cells have species that fuse cells.
Chromosomal instability is characteristic of most human cancers. All malignant tumor types have been shown to contain chromosomal aberrations. Inactivating these viruses would help to decrease the incidence of cancer. [story]
The stage theory of grief (disbelief, yearning, anger, depression and acceptance) has become well-known… The Yale Bereavement Study examined stage theory grief indicators within 24 months following the death.
Disbelief was not the initial, dominant grief indicator, the researchers found.
Yearning was the dominant negative grief indicator from one to 24 months postloss.
Disbelief decreased from an initial high at one month postloss,
yearning peaked at four months postloss,
anger peaked at five months postloss,
and depression peaked at six months postloss.The authors add, “acceptance increased steadily through the study observation period ending at 24 months postloss.”
Persistence of these negative emotions reflects a more difficult than average adjustment for the bereaved survivor, a potential referral for treatment.
Why ‘hug a shady wet nun‘?
‘The Fall of Rome’
The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.Caesar’s double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.
The UK government wants to encode iris information on passports and keep copies on database to use in iris recognition systems in a system that is being trialled at the moment.
This might mean that personality profiles could be generated from biometric data.
Mind Hacks responds:
How accurate they might be remains another question, but as with any centralised population sample, the concern is that those with unusual results may be scrutinised more closely using other methods, or deemed to be ‘risky’.
MindPlanet reports in the The Sell-Off of America that “America’s Middle Class Has Become Globalization’s Loser”
This article by Germany’s best-known economics writer – Steingart was chosen as “The Economic Writer of the Year” in 2004 – provides a fast and high-level overview of how the American empire is losing (has lost?) its economic power.
While the dollar is still the world’s currency of choice, the USA no longer controls it.
Furthermore, with increasing trade deficits, the outsourcing of labor, and spiraling debt, the US economy is poised on the edge of collapse.
And the American middle-class has and will bear the brunt of this shift as it plays out over the next few decades.
Delinked from prosperity
Make no mistake about it: at the start of the new century, the United States is still a superpower. But it is a superpower that faces tough competition from outside and difficulties within.
In Canada, the middle class is losing too.
After-tax family income for the middle class has dropped approximately five percent.
Inequality is higher in the 2000s than it has been since Statistics Canada began measuring comparable statistics in the mid-seventies.
Toronto’s Globe & Mail concludes the report from StatsCan with an unusually understated remark:
Overall, income inequality “is an interesting trend which seems to be developing in many countries,” said the senior research economist. “It’s something that would be good to keep our eye on.”
Income inequality grew in most industrialized countries such as the Finland, Germany, Sweden and the U.K. in the nineties. Canada sits in the middle. The gap is significantly higher in the U.S.
Jacob S. Hacker, Resident Fellow at Yale
“Wages are stagnant and the middle class is shouldering a larger tax burden. Prices for health care, housing, tuition, gas and food have soared. New government data also shows that tax cuts have shifted the overall tax burden to the middle class from the wealthiest Americans.
The wealthiest 20% of households in 1973 accounted for 44% of total U.S. income. Their share jumped to 50% in 2002, while everyone else’s fell. The share dropped for the bottom fifth.
“For those working in the bottom half of the pay scale, they’re under an enormous amount of pressure.”
2006 US News and World Report:
“…a whopping 67 percent of said they were “dissatisfied” with the state of the union.
“Income distribution from 1995 to 2004, during both an economic boom and a recession, kept tilting toward the already wealthy. The top income quartile gained 77 percent, while the bottom gained just 8 percent.”
This article asks, ‘While worrying about China, are we asking the right questions?’
The notion that China could possibly displace the United States at the pinnacle of world affairs may seem preposterous. China is starting from way behind, and no one looks to China as a political model.
For most of human history, China was the wealthiest, socially most tranquil, scientifically most advanced and arguably the best governed society on the planet.
It is determined eventually to restore itself to these heights.
The first challenge comes from China’s growing weight in the global economy.
The main challenge from China’s economic success lies less in its role as a producer of goods sold throughout the world than in its probable emergence as the world’s largest consumer and capital market.
China already consumes 25-40% of the world’s crude coal, iron ore, steel, aluminum and cement.
It is now almost certain that the next phase of the information revolution will be led by Chinese, Japanese and Koreans. This means that they, not Americans, will own and control the intellectual property and “killer apps”….
China is competing with other Asian nations and itself in a contest we do not even appear to realize is underway.
Will Hutton argues in The Writing on the Wall, growing income disparities and increasingly rigid class boundaries are causing many to wonder whether the American Dream is nothing more than myth.
The utopian ideal of the United States — that through hard work you can achieve your place in the sun — is being confounded by everyone’s actual daily experience.
Americans expect better. About 70% of Americans believe that the poor have a good chance of escaping poverty — only about 30% believe that they are trapped there.
By contrast Europeans — living in more socially fluid societies — are nonetheless much more pessimistic about the chances of mobility. Only 40% believe the poor can escape their fate, and 60% believe they are trapped.
Benjamin Franklin was born the fifteenth son of a candle maker and retired at age 42 with enough of a fortune to comfortably pursue a life of politics and scientific inquiry.
The opportunity for such mobility is retreating, and this is beginning to affect not just American society — but also the American imagination.
In the USA,
- families with children are likely to stay poor,
5 times more likely than British, German, French or Spanish- only 10% will move out of the lower class; was 23% in the 1970s
There can be a new highway in the sky.
The development of the ‘right of way’ is one of the overlooked functions of our economy. And forfeiting the ownership and management of these rights may be a costly giveaway that jurisdictions are failing to claim, control and capitalize.
We are accustomed to the ubiquity of the transportation industry. Its technology, huge budgets and large operations underpin our productivity. Transportation draws our landscape and becomes the rhytym of society. Yet these institutions rely on their right of way and the grant of opportunity that follows.
The transportation industry is historical technologies, dominant players, tremendous battles, including the strategic and economic factors of our defense and trade, and politics. But regardless the scale, these are first governed by the regions and communities where we provide transport a right to cross.
Current industrial and political culture may slow transportation development even with the claims to innovate and adjust to emerging conditions until a new political approach combines both technology and its conduit.
Until there is a ‘market of way’, regional and local development will be restrained to a narrow range of transportation options based on traditional conduits. Not unlike the sisterly arrival of bike paths that have stimulated a smallish transit boom, or the robust conversion of railroads to ports and landbridges, choosing new and efficient transport options requires a renewed appraisal of available conduit options.
In order to help diversify and stimulate the transport sector, there are several economic claims that cities, towns and rural regions can reserve as part of their community of assets. For example, “the air value over our roads is a trillion dollar frontier” that is seldom considered in the heat of great discussions about energy options, new types of vehicles, transit systems and the shaping of community development.
But perhaps fundamentals are reappearing. Worldchanging blogger Ethan Timm reports “Aerial Tram Leapfrogs Grids and Networks“
“…could be the future of inter-neighborhood, inter-nodal transit.
“…efficient aerial transit could be to car-clogged streets what cell phones were to tangles of wires and switchboards.
“…areas which have poorly-developed technology or economic bases can move themselves forward rapidly through the adoption of modern systems without going through intermediary steps.
Paul Graham, a prolific essayist, attempts a thoughtful reply:
“‘Wise’ and ‘smart’ are both ways of saying someone knows what to do. The difference is that “wise” means one has a high average outcome across all situations, and “smart” means one does spectacularly well in a few.
The distinction is similar to the rule that one should judge talent at its best and character at its worst.
So a wise person knows what to do in most situations, while a smart person knows what to do in situations where few others could.”
Paragliding 2005 World Cup winner Ewa Wisnierska, 35, was lifted to 32,612 feet – higher than Mount Everest – sucked by updrafts in a thunderstorm in eastern Australia.
She attempted to skirt the thunderstorm and when that failed, repeatedly attempted to spiral against its powerful lift.
Battling hailstones the size of oranges, she decided her chances of survival were “almost zero.” She radioed her team leader at 13,123 feet.
“I said, ‘I can’t do anything,'” she told reporters at a news conference. “‘It’s raining and hailing and I’m still climbing – I’m lost.'”
“You can’t imagine the power – you feel like nothing, like a leaf from a tree going up. I was shaking all the time. The last thing I remember it was dark. I could hear lightning all around me. I knew I was in the middle of a thunderstorm and I could not do anything.”
Ground teams used global positioning and radio equipment to track her altitude as she soared from 2,500 feet to more than 6 miles in about 15 minutes.
She lost consciousness for more than 45 minutes while her glider flew on uncontrolled, sinking and lifting several times.
She regained consciousness at about 4 miles high and landed safely, but had ice in her lightweight flying suit and frost bite on her face. She landed 40 miles off her launch site.
She recalled feeling like an astronaut returning from the moon as her landing approached. “I could see the Earth coming – wow, like Apollo 13 – I can see the Earth,” she said.
Another paraglider, He Zhongpin, 42, has died during the same weather system, apparently from a lack of oxygen and extreme cold. His body was found 47 miles from his launch site. [The Times]
The book, Inside Her Pretty Little Head, says women ultimately control the levers of modern business.
Research in the US shows that they account for 80 per cent of consumer purchase decisions, including two thirds of the computers bought and 60 per cent of cars.
The book argues that businesses need the “four feminine codes” of marketing:
- The Altruism Code. The feminine tendency is to focus on others
- The Aesthetic Code. Women want to make the world more attractive
- The Ordering Code. This is intended to cater to the practical
- The Connecting Code. To build relationships and communities
Article at the Times
Canada and the United States are convening a special forum on mental health after a startling survey found one in six adults have been diagnosed with depression.
Overall, 20 per cent in Canada and 21 per cent in the U.S. said they’re either clinically depressed or they think they are but never had it properly diagnosed. The survey suggests 23 million people have been diagnosed, including 1.8 million in Canada.
More women than men suffer from it and the illness is more prevalent among those with lower incomes and less education.
[story at CBC]