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BS: Random Traces From All Over
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: JohnInKansas Date: 14 Apr 08 - 02:49 PM Undersea quake swarm puzzles experts Hundreds of tremors emanate from unusual source off Oregon coast By Jeff Barnard The Associated Press updated 2:19 p.m. CT, Sun., April. 13, 2008 GRANTS PASS, Ore. - Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off central Oregon, something that often happens before a volcanic eruption — except there are no volcanoes in the area. Scientists don't know exactly what the earthquakes mean, but they could be the result of molten rock rumbling away from the recognized earthquake faults off Oregon, said Robert Dziak, a geophysicist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University. There have been more than 600 quakes over the past 10 days in a basin 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Newport, Ore. The biggest was magnitude 5.4, and two others were more than magnitude 5.0, Oregon State University reported. "In the 17 years we've been monitoring the ocean through hydrophone recordings, we've never seen a swarm of earthquakes in an area such as this," Dziak said. /quote Some additional commentary at the link, along with an almost illegible small "map" of where all this is going on. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 14 Apr 08 - 02:58 PM DOnuel, what a rare story!! Did you ever publish it? As for that cluster of tremors, it may be the Kraken is finally getting fed up, or the UFO's are leaving the parking garage... A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: JohnInKansas Date: 14 Apr 08 - 03:17 PM But when(?) a new volcanic island appears 150 miles from the Oregon coast, what legal basis will the Russians have for claiming it as their territory? John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: JohnInKansas Date: 14 Apr 08 - 03:25 PM Swarm intelligence inspired by animals Research could enhance surveillance photos, assist the military By Bryn Nelson Columnist updated 11:14 p.m. CT, Sun., April. 13, 2008 It's never too late to learn about the birds and the bees. Particularly when they can help enhance surveillance photos, quickly sort through military reports and even enable individual robots to navigate within an army of fellow automatons. The secret behind these new research efforts derives from the basic rules of what's known as swarm intelligence, a scientific framework inspired by the way in which birds flock together, social insects swarm and dust particles swirl in the air. By understanding and correctly applying the rules that animals or particles use to identify and align themselves with their neighbors, Oak Ridge National Laboratory computational scientist Xiaohui Cui said swarm intelligence can yield very fast, though often approximate, solutions. Even so, for an application like identifying the best evacuation route out of a city during an emergency, "getting something quickly is perhaps more important than making sure it's the absolute best system possible," said Jesse St. Charles, a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga graduate student working with Cui. The ability to quickly cluster similar entities using minimal resources also could be a boon for military analysts tasked with searching through thousands of field reports for ones relevant to a specific course of action. To that end, Cui and St. Charles are working with both the U.S. Navy and Air Force to help them better organize their documents. Flocking rules The bird-flocking research underlying the duo's current effort was initiated by other scientists in the mid-'80s, mainly as a way to produce more realistic video games. From that early work, three basic rules emerged. "The separation rule basically keeps the birds from colliding with each other. So as they get closer, there should be a stronger repulsive force," said St. Charles, who introduced his project earlier this year during a presentation at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The second, and complementary, rule is known as the cohesion rule. "It says, 'I don't want to get too far away from my neighbors,' " he said. For the third, or alignment rule, birds gauge where their neighbors are flying and then align themselves with the group's average heading. A few years ago, Cui added a fourth rule, which states that birds should only flock with the same species. For their database-sorting algorithm to work, documents should likewise clump only with those that are similar enough to be considered, say, another mallard instead of a Canada goose. To determine whether documents really are birds of a feather, a database is first stripped of non-meaningful words and word endings. Each raw document is then analyzed for the frequency of remaining terms, resulting in an ID that its neighboring documents can use to assess their relatedness. "What we've done is set up a virtual two-dimensional space like a game board," St. Charles said. "We randomly position these documents at the beginning, and randomly assign them a direction to fly in. Each document will fly in whatever direction for a small distance. And they will ask, 'Who is nearby me?' They look at their neighbors and then apply the four rules to the documents by them." After a few hundred steps around the board, similar documents find each other and become locked in the same flocking pattern. And because they don't have to apply the rules to every document in the database, St. Charles said, the system is much speedier than other aggregators. On average, the duo deals with about 3,000 to 10,000 documents and normally ends up with around eight to 10 main clusters. The system also preserves indirect relationships that might be lost with other methods requiring a document that pertains to airlines, defense contracts and Senate policy to be stored under a single subject heading. /quote Additional comments on "Enhancing photographs" and "Route finding for Robots." "No individual fully grasps the entire problem, whether the task is to defend a hive or migrate in a coordinated fashion, he said. But by acting on its own senses within its immediate surroundings, each animal influences its neighbors' behavior. Magnified across a large flock or swarm, "you get a global behavior of the whole system that can appear intelligent."" Sound like a political party organization? Or maybe a megachurch? Perhaps if this actually can be applied to government/military applications, the government could approach the collective intelligence of a flock of starlings.(?) John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 14 Apr 08 - 08:35 PM From LiveScience.com: "IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) Ñ The Johnson County Board of Supervisors has changed its mind about allowing a paranormal team to look for ghosts at a one-time mental asylum. Board members last month approved an investigation of the buildings, but decided to vote it down in response to negative feedback, said Board Chairman Rod Sullivan. He said the board initially did not oppose a request from the Johnson County Historical Society to have a paranormal team conduct a free investigation at the site, which is now a private residential care facility for the mentally ill called Chatham Oaks. Chatham Oaks officials were among those opposed. "I think the rules have changed a bit because Chatham Oaks stepped up,'' said board member Terrence Neuzil. "Obviously, the cards have changed a bit.'' Historical society officials said the controversy began in March when they passed along a request from the Carroll Area Paranormal Team to do a scientific study of the site. The team planned to spend one night at the site to look for paranormal activity, using equipment such as thermal imaging cameras and voice recording systems. Brandon Cochran, museum operations assistant for the historical society, said one of the most common questions from people touring the 153-year-old poor farm is whether it's haunted. Cochran said he had hoped the study would end all the speculation." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 15 Apr 08 - 10:59 AM In a cultural development I never would have predicted, the United States is exporting its cheerleading know-how to Bangalore. "Inevitably, moral scolds — of which India, as a society, has a surplus — will write letters to the editor complaining about the vulgarity/anti-Indianness/neocolonialism of the cheerleaders." First Bollywood, now cheerleaders. Clearly, we have replaced the UK in post-colonial cultural influence in the subcontinent. Except on the far side of the Khyber. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 15 Apr 08 - 05:30 PM Reconstruction of a Neanderthal's voice saying "E". Story of the science behind this is here. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 17 Apr 08 - 06:45 PM Solar system 'bounce' may send comets our way 19 April 2008 Ker Than Magazine issue 2652 OUR solar system has a bounce in its step, which may regularly send streams of comets hurtling into the Earth's neighbourhood. The solar system orbits the Milky Way's centre, but it does not travel exactly on the galactic plane. As a result, the gravity of the plane pulls the solar system towards it, through it, and back again at regular intervals - we pass through the plane every 35 to 40 million years. William Napier and Janaki Wickramasinghe at Cardiff University, UK, built a computer model of this motion. They found that when the oscillation brings us closer to the galactic plane, its gravitational tug can perturb comets in the Oort cloud, which surrounds the solar system. Similarly, passing through the galactic plane may bring the solar system into collision with the massive gas nebulas that reside there, which can also dislodge comets. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 18 Apr 08 - 10:36 AM KUALA LUMPUR, Apr. 17, 2008 (Reuters) — Borneo's mysterious pygmy elephants may be the descendants of Javan elephants accidentally saved from extinction by a local sultan several centuries ago, the conservation group WWF said on Thursday. Pygmy elephants, so called because they are smaller and less aggressive than mainland Asian elephants, number perhaps 1,000 today and live in lowland forests in Borneo that are shrinking under the threat from timber, rubber and palm oil plantations. With their larger ears, more rotund features and longer tails, the animals differ from other Asian elephants and scientists have long questioned why they never spread to other parts of the island, the WWF said. New research published on Thursday supports a long-held local belief that the elephants were brought to Borneo centuries ago by the Sultan of Sulu and abandoned in the jungle, it added. "If they came from Java, this fascinating story demonstrates the value of efforts to save even small populations of certain species, often thought to be doomed," Christy Williams, of the WWF's Asian elephant and rhino program, said in a statement. The Sulu elephants are thought to have originated in Java, where elephants became extinct some time in the period after Europeans arrived in South-East Asia, the WWF said. "Elephants were shipped from place to place across Asia many hundreds of years ago, usually as gifts between rulers," the statement quoted Malaysian forester Shim Phyau Soon as saying. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 18 Apr 08 - 10:40 AM ...Researchers studied the responses of 540 women on the Sexual Excitation/Sexual Inhibition Inventory for Women that rated current and sexual problems, lifetime arousal difficulty and lifetime problems with low sexual interest. The strongest predictors of reports of sexual problems were women's sexual inhibition scores. Below are some of the findings: Sexual inhibition scores were the strongest predictor of current and past sexual problems including lifetime arousal difficulty and low sexual interest. They were better predictors than demographic and background factors such as age, socio-economic status, and whether or not women were in a sexual relationship. "Arousal Contingency" or the ease with which arousal can be disrupted by situational factors, and "Concerns about Sexual Function" were the two most predictive of women's sexual problems. The Kinsey Institute has been developing, testing and fine-tuning the dual control model of sexual response, which is the basis for the Sexual Excitation/Sexual Inhibition Inventory for Women used in this study. This theoretical model reflects the idea that sexual response in individuals is the product of a balance between excitatory and inhibitory processes. Researchers believe these two systems operate somewhat independent of each other and are different in each person. ..." (Science Daily News) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 18 Apr 08 - 10:42 AM The psychologists wanted to know if there is something inherently rewarding about being treated decently. So, they scanned several parts of the participants' brains while they were in the act of weighing both fair and miserly offers. Consistent with previous results, the researchers found that a region previously associated with negative emotions such as moral disgust (the anterior insula) was activated during unfair treatment. However, interestingly, they also found that regions associated with reward (including the ventral striatum) were activated during fair treatment even though there was no additional money to be gained. As reported in the April issue of the journal Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the brain finds self-serving behavior emotionally unpleasant, but a different bundle of neurons also finds genuine fairness uplifting. What's more, these emotional firings occur in brain structures that are fast and automatic, so it appears that the emotional brain is overruling the more deliberate, rational mind. Faced with a conflict, the brain's default position is to demand a fair deal. Furthermore, when the scientists scanned the brains of those who were "swallowing their pride" for the sake of cash, the brain showed a distinctive pattern of neuronal activity. It appears that the unconscious mind can temporarily damp down the brain's contempt response, in effect allowing the rational, utilitarian brain to rule, at least momentarily. (Also from Science Daily) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: JohnInKansas Date: 19 Apr 08 - 02:54 PM Everyone by now should know the standard warning: Don't drink the water. A new caution has been added: DON'T EAT THE SPIDERS One solution to pollution: Don't eat spiders Contamination in food chain traced to mercury-laden crawlies near river The Associated Press updated 4:43 p.m. CT, Thurs., April. 17, 2008 WASHINGTON - Mercury contamination in rivers can spread to nearby birds, even ones that don't eat fish or other food from the water, researchers said. Researchers from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., found high levels of mercury in the blood of land-feeding songbirds living near the South River, a tributary of the Shenandoah, they reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science. The South River was contaminated with industrial mercury sulfate from 1930 to 1950 and it remained under a fish consumption advisory. But the researchers led by Dan Cristol, an associate professor of biology, studied birds that only eat insects that live on land. Spiders made up the largest part of the birds' diet, along with moths and grasshoppers, the researchers said. It turned out the spiders were the source of the mercury. "The birds eat a lot of spiders. Spiders are like little tiny wolves, basically, and they'll bioaccumulate lots of contaminants in the environment. The spiders have a lot of mercury in them and are delivering the mercury to these songbirds," Cristol said in a statement. The next question to be answered: How are the spiders getting the mercury? The researchers speculated it could be from eating aquatic insects, or the chemical could have been deposited on land during flooding. The research was funded by E. I. DuPont de Nemours and Company, the College of William and Mary and the U.S. National Science Foundation. ©2008 The Associated Press. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: bobad Date: 20 Apr 08 - 02:12 PM Masturbation 'cuts cancer risk' Researchers were assessing prostate cancer risk Men could reduce their risk of developing prostate cancer through regular masturbation, researchers suggest. They say cancer-causing chemicals could build up in the prostate if men do not ejaculate regularly. And they say sexual intercourse may not have the same protective effect because of the possibility of contracting a sexually transmitted infection, which could increase men's cancer risk. Australian researchers questioned over 1,000 men who had developed prostate cancer and 1,250 who had not about their sexual habits. They found those who had ejaculated the most between the ages of 20 and 50 were the least likely to develop the cancer. The protective effect was greatest while the men were in their 20s. Men who ejaculated more than five times a week were a third less likely to develop prostate cancer later in life. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 20 Apr 08 - 02:21 PM Oh. come, come, Bobad. Surely you jest!! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: bobad Date: 20 Apr 08 - 02:27 PM I know it sounds too good to be true but you can check it out here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3072021.stm |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 20 Apr 08 - 05:05 PM I say, old cock, here's to your very good health. I didn't really doubt you, you know. Just keeping my hand in . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:40 AM "IT'S amazing that nobody has spotted it before. Superimposed on every ocean on the planet there is a striped pattern of currents. Yet what causes them is a mystery. Between 1992 and 2003, Peter Niiler of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, and colleagues collected data from more than 10,000 drifting ocean buoys, which they tracked with satellites. As expected, the buoys' movements were influenced mainly by known global currents, which are driven by wind and by differences in the temperature and salinity of seawater. But when the team analysed the data, it emerged that something else had been subtly influencing the buoys' paths. It turned out that there were alternating strips of water running eastward or westward, a bit like parallel moving sidewalks. Niiler recalls his reaction: "My God, we've never seen these before." Satellite measurements showed that the interfaces between adjacent currents were alternately associated with slight peaks and troughs in sea level. When the team looked at this variation globally, they found that the 150-kilometre-wide bands covered pretty much every ocean (see Map). To confirm that the currents were real, the team set out to measure them directly in two regions in the eastern Pacific. "Their existence is so surprising that we had to prove first that they are not an artefact of satellite data," says Nikolai Maximenko of the University of Hawaii. Sure enough, they recorded currents flowing in opposite directions at around 40 metres per hour (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2008GL033267). This is slower than most previously known ocean currents, which may explain why the striped flows have remained undiscovered until now. "Only a very lazy canoeist would notice the effect," says Maximenko. The flows extend right down to the ocean floor, and the boundaries between currents are alternately associated with peaks and troughs in temperature as well as sea level. This suggests that they influence processes such as nutrient and energy flow around the oceans, but this has yet to be proven, says Niiler. What causes the striped flows remains a puzzle. "They are a fascinating new aspect to the ocean's circulation, but the jury is still out on the mechanisms leading to their formation," says Geoff Vallis of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University. He points out that similar patterns exist in atmospheric flows on other planets, for example, Jupiter. Whether similar effects are at play here is unclear, he says." Niiler has been busting his buns getting these physical measurements accomplished over twenty years using drifter buoys he designed. There are hundreds of his buoys all over the oceans. The data from his drifters is the only source of the data behind these conclusions, and he deserves great credit for this. Without these measurements this pattern of striated currents would never have been deduced. And they could completely shift out understanding of the planets fluid dynamics. For one thing the Niiler striations demonstrate that none of our models of ocean circulation are accurate, as none of them predicted the Niiler striations even though all the major ones agree on accurately modeling temperature and salinity models. But it is on these inaccurate models that most of our intricate analyses of global warming and CO2 build up are built. It is possible that the ocean currents he has dexcribed have very different effects in their scrubbing of CO2 than previously estimated. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 21 Apr 08 - 09:09 PM In the mountains of Cameroon, the worldÕs rarest gorilla can now find sanctuary in a newly created reserve. At about 7.5 square miles (almost 20 square kilometers), the Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary contains about 20 of the nearly 300 remaining Cross River gorillas. The rest of the gorillas are scattered across multiple sites in Cameroon and Nigeria. Although small, the new reserve contains a genetically important segment of the population. ÒHopefully, this and other sanctuaries like it will give us time to protect and learn more about the worldÕs rarest great ape,Ó said James Deutsch, Director of the Wildlife Conservation SocietyÕs Africa Program. Cross River gorillas, which are related to the more well-known lowland and mountain gorillas, are classified as critically endangered by the World Conservation UnionÕs (IUCN) Red List. While many populations are threatened by poachers, the gorillas of Kagwene have been protected by the local belief that the apes are people and therefore cannot be hunted or consumed. Elsewhere, gorillas are threatened by hunting and habitat loss. Some former hunters and other residents from local communities staff the sanctuary. A field station also accommodates guards, who will be posted by the government to monitor and protect the sanctuary. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: JohnInKansas Date: 21 Apr 08 - 09:58 PM From: Amos - PM Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:40 AM "IT'S amazing that nobody has spotted it before. Superimposed on every ocean on the planet there is a striped pattern of currents. Yet what causes them is a mystery. While it may be that only a few people have mentioned it before, and so far as I've seen no one has done a detailed analysis, a very similar effect is seen at smaller scale in a number of different situations where it seems fairly well understood. If there is a flow in one direction (here due to wind and tides) there must be a counterflow in the opposite direction to keep the water from accumulating, piling up, and tipping over on things. The resulting "stripes of flow" may occur sometimes between vertically stacked layers, but in open large bodies are expected to occur in areas laterally separated from each other. The behavio(u)r is expected. All that's really left is for someone to run the numbers (and show that their set of numbers predicts "reality" to an acceptable degree). Or so it would seem. (The analysis for a simplified - smaller - device was assigned as homework in one of my Sophomore classes. Hardly anyone got it all right. I asked god for help, but he was still in short pants and hadn't progressed to partial differentials in compressible1 flows.) 1 Same math mostly works with density gradients. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 22 Apr 08 - 03:36 PM DNA Evidence Frees Man From Zoo PHOENIX—Years of controversy were finally settled Monday after DNA tests conclusively proved that Duane Panovich, an attraction at the Phoenix Zoo for the past 11 years, was indeed a human being, and not a reticulated giraffe from southwestern Kenya. (...) (Well, I said random, didn't I?) A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 22 Apr 08 - 03:59 PM Some families seem blessed with eternal youth, looking much younger than their years. Now, astronomers have found just such a clan of icy objects in the outer solar system. They appear puzzlingly fresh-faced, despite the fact that they probably formed in a collision more than a billion years ago. The largest member of the family, a rapidly tumbling blimp-shaped object called 2003 EL61, was discovered in 2005. In 2007, astronomers found five smaller objects travelling in similar orbits. Their paths suggested they all formed a single object that was broken apart in a collision more than a billion years ago. Now, a team led by David Rabinowitz of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, US, reports that the brightness of the large object and four of the smaller ones (the fifth could not be observed) changes little when observed from various points along Earth's orbit. That suggests their surfaces are covered with fresh powdery ice no more than 100 million years old. The researchers also suspect it means the surfaces are bright, though they haven't directly measured how much light the objects reflect. Odd compositionA fresh surface is understandable for the biggest object, 2003 EL61, because it is large enough to hold an atmosphere that vaporises and refreezes regularly. But the four smaller family members are too small to hold atmospheres, says Rabinowitz. In fact, no other small objects in the outer solar system have been found with bright young surfaces. They are thought to darken over time as solar ultraviolet radiation and charged particles called cosmic rays break down carbon-rich ices such as methane. This 'space weathering' leaves behind dark, reddish carbon compounds. "Something fishy is going on [with this family]," says Mike Brown of Caltech in Pasadena, US, who was not involved in the new study. "We sure have a lot to learn about what happens to ice in the outer solar system." (New Scientist) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 24 Apr 08 - 10:03 PM Scripps' official release concerning Niiler striations. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 24 Apr 08 - 11:16 PM There's a new recipe in the embryonic stem cell cookbook. Scientists have announced the creation of a human master heart cell, able to transform into all the different cells that make up a beating heart. Though the cells can repair a damaged mouse heart, it's too soon to say whether they will help treat humans who have suffered a heart attack, says Gordon Keller, a cell biologist at McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Toronto. Embryonic stem cells are an exciting technology because, in the right environment, they transform into any human tissue. But the human heart, made of three different kinds of tissue, has thus far proved elusive. By tweaking an existing recipe that makes one kind of heart cell, Keller's team coaxed stem cells into forming all three types: cardiac muscle cells that pump blood, smooth muscle cells that form blood vessels, and endothelial cells that line coronary blood vessels. Beating cells Beginning with human embryonic stem cells grown in the lab, Keller's team added proteins important to cell growth and differentiation. After two weeks, the researchers had created a culture that included all three kinds of heart cells, and Ð importantly Ð no others. Even in a Petri dish, the cells beat. "I think it's fascinating to think you can take a cell, put it in a dish and 12 to 14 days later you get populations that are contracting human heart cells," Keller says. When implanted into mice, the cells improved their damaged hearts. Just as importantly, the cells did not form teratomas, tumours that are a common problem with stem cell therapies. "It's extremely interesting to think about having one cell that could do it all," says Chuck Murry, a cell biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, whose lab converted embryonic stem cells into heart muscle cells last year. (New Scientist, 23 April 08) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 24 Apr 08 - 11:27 PM Megaquake set to strike within a decade 26 April 2008 Catherine Brahic in New Scientist SOMETIME in the next 10 years we can expect an earthquake of a similar magnitude to the 2004 Sumatra quake that triggered the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami. So say Vladimir Kossobokov of the International Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics in Moscow, Russia, and colleagues, who have developed an algorithm to predict where and when such megaquakes will occur. The team claims a global pattern emerges in the years before earthquakes of magnitude 9.0 or more. For example, the number of quakes caused by crustal movements between 300 and 700 kilometres below the surface rises, as does the incidence of those with a magnitude of 8.0 or more. Kossobokov points out that the four largest earthquakes of the 20th century happened within just 12 years, starting with the Kamchatka Peninsula quake in Russia in 1952, and culminating in the magnitude 9.2 quake in Prince William Sound, Alaska. ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 25 Apr 08 - 01:04 AM WASHINGTON (AP) -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests. Geneticist Spencer Wells, here meeting an African village elder, says the study tells "truly an epic drama." The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday. The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age. "This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species' history," said Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence. "Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA." Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study anthropology using genetics. The report was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. Studies using mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down through mothers, have traced modern humans to a single "mitochondrial Eve," who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago.... (CNN) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 25 Apr 08 - 01:08 AM "Atmospheric levels of the principal heat-trapping gas, carbon dioxide, are continuing to rise at an accelerating rate," according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "After a decade of stability, levels of an even more potent heat-trapper, methane," have risen as well. Both gases increased due to "the burning of fossil fuels." The congressional leadership offices employ "full-time staffers who serve as liaisons to the political blogging world." CQ writes that "the largest such operation" may be in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office. Also, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) "has been following the bloggers for a few years now and has actually written a number of his own blog posts." And finally: On Tuesday, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman spoke at Brown University about responding to climate change. However, not everyone liked his speech. A few seconds into his address, "environmental activists...stormed the stage" and began "tossing two paper plates loaded with shamrock-colored whipped cream at him. Friedman ducked, and was left with only minor streams of the sugary green goo on his black pants and turtleneck." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 25 Apr 08 - 10:32 AM In the first analysis of proteins extracted from dinosaur bones, scientists say they have established more firmly than ever that the closest living relatives of the mighty predator Tyrannosaurus rex are modern birds. The research, being published Friday in the journal Science, yielded the first molecular data confirming the widely held hypothesis of a close dinosaur-bird ancestry, the American scientific team reported. The link was previously suggested by anatomical similarities. (NYT Science) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 25 Apr 08 - 02:05 PM German intelligence agents have been caught spying on a German journalist -- again. The controversy over e-mails collected from a SPIEGEL reporter has become a national scandal. Chancellor Merkel says her faith in her spy chief has been rattled, while German papers wonder if the service can be trusted at all. DDP Ernst Uhrlau, top German spy. Germany's foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendiesnst (BND), has spied on journalists before: In 2005 it emerged that German reporters were placed under surveillance by agents who wanted to ferret out the sources of leaks from the BND. It was a big scandal. There was a public uproar, and the government installed a new BND president, Ernst Uhrlau, who swore to make the service more "transparent." The latest scandal is like déjà vu. E-mails by a German journalist -- this time at SPIEGEL -- have been collected by German intelligence agents. The apparent target of the surveillance was Mohammed Amin Farhang, Afghanistan's Economy Minister, who traded e-mails with SPIEGEL reporter Susanne Koelbl between June and November 2006. She was sending him pieces of an in-progress book about Afghanistan. Her correspondence was retrieved using Trojan-Horse software that invaded the minister's computer system and sent copies of his e-mail back to the BND. In the meantime Germany's highest court has severely restricted (more...) the use of spyware against German citizens. It's doubtful the verdict will have a bearing on this case, but Mr. Farhang happens to carry a German passport... (Der Spiegel) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 01 May 08 - 10:11 AM "A team of engineers at the University of California at Berkeley has developed a technique for transmitting medical images via cellphones. This potentially could bring medical imaging to the 'three-quarters of the world's population which has no access to ultrasounds, X-rays, magnetic resonance images, and other medical imaging technology.' The lead researcher said that this new system would make imaging technology inexpensive and accessible in non-industrialized countries. As medical images are usually pretty large, I was a little bit skeptical when I first read the UC Berkeley news release. But as the researchers have found a way to reduce these images to a mere kilobytes, it can actually be feasible..."(ZDNet) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 01 May 08 - 10:15 AM According to New Scientist, two physicists from France and the U.S. have developed a simple mathematical model which shows how urban road networks evolve. Their model shows that urban street patterns and leaf pattern formation follow similar rules. The researchers validated their theoretical model by analyzing real road networks in about 300 cities. They've looked at young cities, such as Brasilia, and older ones, such as Cairo or London. Their conclusion is that the evolution of urban road networks follows 'a simple universal mechanism despite significant cultural and historical differences...". Sometimes I get the feeling that we are all part of the Howdy Doody show, and we can't find the damn script... A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 01 May 08 - 10:19 AM SOmebody order a Mongo for SPawzer, huh? "Popular Science reports in 'The Cup Stops Here,' 'the most important piece of male athletic gear, the protective cup, hasn't changed much over the years.' After looking at a bunch of protective cups available from $8 to $25, the reporter thinks he has found the winner. The NuttyBuddy™ has been invented by Mark Littell, a former MLB pitcher. It is made of Lexan, a polycarbonate resin, and you can buy it for $19.95. And it is available in 4 sizes, 'Mongo' (XL), 'The Hog' (L), 'The Boss' (Juniors/small) and 'The Hammer' (youth). But read more… . Here are some short excerpts from the Popular Science article. "Littell is so confident in his product that he's taken 90 mph fastballs to his junk on national TV in an unparalleled, if not slightly disturbing, customer testimonial. The NuttyBuddy (or Nutty for short) has a more anatomical shape that distributes the force of an impact to the pelvic area and provides a more contoured space 'for testicle A and testicle B,' according to Littell. […] Littell says the roomier shape of the Nutty is a key to both comfort and protection, citing more confining models' lack of space. ('That's why [ball players] are constantly grabbing them"). More room results in a more natural fit, "the way that the Man upstairs made them,' says Littell." ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Donuel Date: 01 May 08 - 10:52 AM Polycarbonate contains BHA which causes prostate cancer. Christian genocide cover up: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-6637396204037343133&hl=en-CA (interviews of the survivors) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 03 May 08 - 10:45 AM GRAPHENE QUANTUM DOTS. Physicists at the University of Manchester have created single-electron transistors as small as 30-nm in size on two-dimensional carbon. (Ponomarenko et al., Science, 18 April 2008) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 03 May 08 - 06:14 PM From "Notes and Queries", Dialogues in Letters, 1871, London SUMMUM Jus, SUMMA INJURIA" (4th S. v. 317, 433, 588.)Ñ Your correspondent G. A. B. has been at the trouble to collect out of various Latin authors the above adage, and he inquires if there are any other instances of it being noticed. In a sermon by Dr. Thomas Sherlock, an old divine, and who was at one time Master of the Temple Church, London, he will find mention made of the phrase. It is very apt to be used by some persons as a weapon of offence against the science of judicature, and therefore I will give the substance of Dr. Sherlock's interpretation, as 1 do not happen to have my own copy of his works at hand. I am sure what is given contains no vital error of the learned bishop's words. It cannot with consistency be affirmed that what is summum jut according to the law, is according to the same law summa injuria. Summum jut regards the written law ; summa injuria regards the original reason of all law. He goes on further to say, attention must be given to the difference between the reason of justice and the rules oi justice ; and by the rules of justice he understood the general principles and maxims of justice by which the laws of all countries are governed and directed. By the reason of justice he understood the fountain from which all maxims and all laws are derived, which is no other than right reason itself; for laws are not just as partaking of the authority of the lawgiver, but as partaking of his reason. Hence arises the distinction between jood and bad laws, though both derived from the >ame authority: showing thereby that an authority, though it may make a valid law, yet it cannot make a good one unless acting upon the reason of justice. A. B. Edinburgh. "Тнв DEVIL BEATS пи WIFE " (4"1 S. vi. 273, 358, 427 ; vii. 25.) Ñ With regard to the proverbial " Devil and his dam," and the question " Who is the devil's wife ? " asked by CUTHBBET BBDB and myself, I find illustration in Ñ " Grim, the Collier of Croydon ; or the Devil and his Dame; with the Devil and St..Dun9tan."Ñ Dodaley's Old Playi, vol. xi. The Satanic portion of the plot of this play runs thus : Ñ Spenser's Malbecco tells the story of his wrongs to the infernal judges. They cannot believe that wives are so utterly bad ; and, to make proof, send up to earth the devil Belphagor, who is to remain here a twelvemonth and a day, to marry, and so to take back evidence on the matrimonial question to the hellish synod. Poor Belphagor is at the outset cheated of the wife of his choice, marrying the maid instead of the mistress. His wife, after committing all the sins that woman can commit, poisons him ; and he returns to hell with the new appendage of horns : Ñ " Belphagor. These are the ancient airas of cuckoldry, And these iny dame hath kindly left to me ; For which B쳌lpha쳌or shall be here derided, Unless your great infernal majesty Do solemnly proclaim, no devil shall scorn Hereafter still to wear the goodly horn. " Pluto. This for thy service I will grant tUee freely : All devils shall, аз thou dost, like horns wear, And none shall scorn Belphagor's arms to bear." [Compare the song in As You Like It (iv. 2) Ñ " Take thou no scorn to wear the horn."] This portion of the plot is taken from Machia- vel's Marriage of Belphegor. How much further back can the story be traced? JOHN ADDIS. ARMS OF CHARLEMAGNE (4th S. vii. 75, 180.) The sword said to have been the property of Charlemagne, which, with other regalia, is preserved in the Schatzkammer at Vienna, bears on the pommel an escutcheon charged with the single-headed eagle displayed; the same bearing also appears upon the scabbard. The regalia, however, are of a later date than the time of Charlemagne. The eagle appears for the first time on the seal of the Emperor Henry (an. 1056). Armorial bearings, in the modern, acceptation of the term, were unknown in the days of Charlemagne ; but the eagle might be considered the traditional arms of the emperor, and so would answer W. M. H. C.'a purpose. J. WOODWARD. 4'bS.VII. MAT 6, 71.] It seems life was considerably simpler in the nineteenth century, nicht war? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: bobad Date: 03 May 08 - 09:11 PM Nanowire battery can hold 10 times the charge of existing lithium-ion battery BY DAN STOBER Stanford researchers have found a way to use silicon nanowires to reinvent the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power laptops, iPods, video cameras, cell phones, and countless other devices. The new technology, developed through research led by Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, produces 10 times the amount of electricity of existing lithium-ion, known as Li-ion, batteries. A laptop that now runs on battery for two hours could operate for 20 hours, a boon to ocean-hopping business travelers. "It's not a small improvement," Cui said. "It's a revolutionary development." http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 03 May 08 - 11:41 PM The entire trial of Daniel Parnell et al for conspiracy against landlords in the period 1880-1881 -- some of the finest language you will ever read -- can be found at this site -- but be prepared to spend some time lost in the traces of dusty time! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: JohnInKansas Date: 04 May 08 - 05:14 AM The recent post by Bobab: Nanowire battery can hold 10 times the charge of existing lithium-ion battery raises a minor question: Will a Nanowire Lithium Ion battery using a silicon nanowire anode and holding 10 times the energy of a common Carbon-anode Lithium Ion battery also burn 10 times as brightly when the battery explodes in your laptop (as happens with annoying frequency with conventional Li-ion batteries)? Just curious. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 04 May 08 - 06:14 PM Allan Bomhard and Colin Renfrew are in broad agreement with the earlier conclusions of Illich-Svitych and Dolgopolsky in seeking the Nostratic urheimat (original homeland) within the Mesolithic (or Epipaleolithic) Middle East, the stage which directly preceded the Neolithic and was transitional to it. Looking at the cultural assemblages of this period, two sequences in particular stand out as possible archeological correlates of the earliest Nostratians or their immediate precursors. The first of these is focused on Palestine. The Kebaran culture of Palestine (18,000-10,500 BCE) not only introduced the microlithic assemblage into the region; it also has African affinity, specifically with the Ouchtata retouch technique associated with the microlithic Halfan culture of Egypt (24,000-17,000 BCE). The Kebarans in their turn were directly ancestral to the succeeding Natufian culture of Palestine and the Levant (10,500-8500 BCE), which has enormous significance for prehistorians as the clearest evidence of hunters and gatherers in actual transition to Neolithic food production. Both cultures extended their influence outside the region into southern Anatolia. For example, in Cilicia the Belbaşi culture (13,000-10,000 BCE) shows Kebaran influence, while the Beldibi culture (10,000-8500 BCE) shows clear Natufian influence. The second possibility as a culture associated with the Nostratic family is the Zarzian (12,400-8500 BCE) culture of the Zagros mountains, stretching northwards into Kobistan in the Caucasus and eastwards into Iran. In western Iran, the MÕlefatian culture (10,500-9000 BCE) was ancestral to the assemblages of Ali Tappah (9000-5000 BCE) and Jeitun (6000-4000 BCE). Still further east, the Hissar culture has been seen as the Mesolithic precursor to the Keltiminar culture (5500-3500 BCE) of the Kyrgyz steppe. To have spread so widely suggests some cultural advantages were possessed by these people. It has been proposed that the broad spectrum revolution of Kent Flannery,[citation needed] associated with microliths, the use of the bow and arrow and the domestication of the dog, all of which are associated with these cultures, may have been the cultural "motor" that led to their expansion. Certainly cultures which appeared at Franchthi cave in the Aegean and Lipinski Vir in the Balkans, and the Murzak-Koba (9100-8000 BCE) and Grebenki (8500-7000 BCE) cultures of the Ukrainian steppe, all displayed these adaptations. (Wikipedia discussion on Nostratic meta-grouping of language families) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 05 May 08 - 01:27 AM Spiders "talk" to potential mates using a type of light not visible to the human eye, scientists report. A team found that male jumping spiders (Phintella vittata) are using ultraviolet B (UVB) rays to communicate with females. While UVA rays are often used in animal communication, this is the first evidence that UVB light is also being used, the researchers said. The study is published in the journal Current Biology. It is unclear how the females detect the UVB light. The team found that male spiders were reflecting the ultraviolet B rays from their bodies. The researchers discovered that females were more likely to mate with males that could "talk" to them with UVB compared with spiders sitting in chambers where UVB light had been blocked with filters. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 05 May 08 - 07:40 PM 38 Years Since Ohio's Kent State |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 05 May 08 - 07:47 PM Sorry about the HTML -- I had been trying to start a new thread on this and the effing script would not start one. Here's the link where the video may be seen. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 06 May 08 - 08:50 PM Oil paintings have been found in caves behind the two ancient colossal Buddha statues destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban, suggesting that Asians Ñ not Europeans Ñ were the first to invent oil painting. Many people worldwide were in shock when the Taliban destroyed the Buddha statues in the Afghan region of Bamiyan. Behind those statues are caves decorated with paintings from the fifth to ninth centuries. New experiments performed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) show that the paintings were made of oil, hundreds of years before the technique emerged in Europe. The results are detailed in the peer-reviewed Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry. ÒThis is the earliest clear example of oil paintings in the world, although drying oils were already used by ancient Romans and Egyptians, but only as medicines and cosmetics," said researcher Yoko Taniguchi. In many European history and art textbooks, oil painting is said to have started in the 15th century in Europe. However, scientists from the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo (Japan), the Centre of Research and Restoration of the French Museums-CNRS (France), the Getty Conservation Institute (United States) and the ESRF have recently identified drying oils in some samples studied from the Bamiyan caves. Painted in the mid-seventh century, the murals show scenes with Buddhas in vermilion robes sitting cross-legged amid palm leaves and mythical creatures. The scientists discovered that 12 out of the 50 caves were painted with oil painting techniques, using perhaps walnut and poppy seed drying oils. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 07 May 08 - 03:28 PM If cosmologist Will Percival of the University of Portsmouth in England is right, the universe will end about 60 billion years from now, when every molecule and atom will be torn asunder by a mysterious entity that opposes gravity's pull and turns it into a cosmic push. The cosmic killer is a runaway version of what astronomers call dark energy, an unidentified substance that pervades all of space. Dark energy appears to cause the universe to expand at an accelerated rate. Many studies have found hints that the density of dark energy is constant over time and that it therefore exerts a constant repulsive force. But Percival and his collaborators, studying cosmic expansion by measuring sound waves generated in the early universe, have found the first sign that dark energy could be growing stronger over time. It's as if someone had floored the cosmic gas pedal. And that would lead to a universe that ends in the Big Rip. Percival's team examined the echo of sound waves created soon after the Big Bang, when photons and baryons — ordinary subatomic particles like electrons — were bound together. The primordial cosmic sound-wave oscillations arose because of the tug of war between gravity, which acted to compress each photon-baryon clump, and the radiation pressure exerted by the photons, which resisted that clumping. Although the sound waves ceased some 400,000 years after the Big Bang, when the universe became cool enough for photons and baryons to go their separate ways, the echoes of this cosmic symphony left their imprint as ripples in the distribution of galaxies in the modern-day universe. The characteristic wavelength of these ripples provides a standard ruler for gauging cosmic expansion. (Science News) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 09 May 08 - 10:07 AM When Incan healers scraped or cut a hunk of bone out of a person's head, they meant business. Practitioners of this technique, known as trepanation, demonstrated great skill more than 500 years ago in treating warriors' head wounds and possibly other medical problems, rarely causing infections or killing their patients, two anthropologists find. Trepanation emerged as a promising but dangerous medical procedure by about 1,000 years ago in small communities near the eventual Inca heartland in Peru's Andes mountains, say Valerie Andrushko of Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven and John Verano of Tulane University in New Orleans. Incan healers later mastered certain trepanation methods, performing them safely and frequently. "Far from the idea of 'savages' drilling crude holes in skulls to release evil spirits, these ancient people were highly skilled as surgeons," Andrushko says. The researchers' new investigation, published online April 3, will appear in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Prehistoric trepanation in this part of South America consisted of four techniques, the scientists say. Practitioners cut out squares of bone, bored holes in the skull, scraped away bone to create an opening or made circular incisions to remove a plug of bone. Inca surgeons specialized in the latter two methods. Excavations, however, have not yielded trepanation instruments. In pre-Inca times, only one-third of skull surgery patients survived the procedure, as indicated by short- or long-term healing around cranial openings. Survival rates rose to between 80 and 90 percent during the Inca era, from A.D. 1400 to 1532. Few skulls showed signs of infection near surgical holes. Most recipients of skull surgery displayed one trepanation hole. A substantial minority exhibited from two to seven such openings. ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 09 May 08 - 11:10 AM Neil Young, the famous songwriter from the 1960s and '70s, who has remained productive through contemporary times, is building a musical archive that he hopes both his aging fans and future generations will buy to learn of his work. Young appeared on stage at the opening of JavaOne Tuesday, and amidst the rehearsed lines, it was clear he was genuinely grateful to the originators of Java and Java developers who have enabled something that he longed to create since the 1980s: a multimedia presentation of his work, updatable with new material as it's found, and accessible to millions. "Thank you, Java; thank you, Sun," said Young as his appearance on stage neared its close, and the "Rockin' In The Free World" refrain from his song of the same name started to play. It was perhaps a good choice as Sun Microsystems (NSDQ: JAVA) tries to emphasize its transition to a free and open source software company. Young will soon issue the first disc in a five-volume edition containing the record of his work dating back to 1963, when he was an instrumentalist and member of the Buffalo Springfield band. He thanked Java because it is the software that runs Blu-ray players, and his archival work will appear on Blu-ray format discs. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: bobad Date: 09 May 08 - 11:18 AM Men charged after skull dug up and used as bong Thu May 8, 2008 7:08pm EDT HOUSTON (Reuters) - Authorities in Texas have filed corpse-abuse charges against two men who allegedly removed a skull from a grave and used it as a bong. The Harris County District Attorney's Office confirmed on Thursday that misdemeanor abuse of corpse charges have been filed in the case. One of the men allegedly told police they dug up a grave in an abandoned cemetery in the woods, removed a head from a body and smoked marijuana using the skull as a bong. Police found the cemetery and a grave that had been disturbed but are still investigating the rest of the story, officials said. (Reporting by Bruce Nichols) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 12 May 08 - 12:35 PM Sign and Sight, a German site, interviews a mad scientist of quantum mechanics. An excerpt: "Die Weltwoche: Professor Zeilinger, the media calls you "Mister Beam". You personally were absolutely against the association with beaming. Why? Anton Zeilinger: Because it gives the wrong impression of my work. "Beaming" exists only in science fiction films, where it was invented as a money-saving device. Actually having to land on all those planets runs up huge production costs. Beaming is cheaper: 1,2,3 and you're somewhere else. But that's a long way from anything we're doing here. What are you doing? Transferring the properties of light particles over certain distances onto other light particles, with no time delay. The procedure is based on phenomena which exist only in the quantum world, and is known as "quantum teleportation." It sounds almost as exciting as "beaming". Yes, but there are two major differences. Firstly, we transfer properties, not matter. And secondly, until now we have had more success with light particles and occasionally with atoms, not with larger objects. In 1997 your team successfully performed the first quantum teleportation. What distances can be crossed with this technique today? Last year we teleported light particles across a distance of 600 metres under the Danube – that's the current world record. In theory the range is limitless. I always say that when the Americans really start their Mars mission, the 280-day journey will be deadly boring for the astronauts. They might be interested in taking part in a few teleportation experiments on the way, and increase the record by a hundred million kilometres or so. You said that you only transfer properties, not particles. Would "copying" not be a more accurate expression than "teleportation"? No. Firstly it differs from simple copying in that the original loses all its properties. That is something so crazy that it could only exist in the quantum world. You can actually remove all the properties of a particle and give them to another particle. But both particles remain where they are. Yes, but the question is: how do I recognise an original? I maintain: solely through its properties. Matter itself is completely irrelevant. If swap all my carbon atoms for other carbon atoms, I am still Anton Zeilinger. This happens over the course of our lives. We are continually changing our cells. Exactly. The only important thing are my properties, and they are based on the order of the atoms – that what makes me who I am. The atoms are unimportant in themselves. So when we transfer characteristics during teleportation, in this sense we are actually transferring the originals. Some teams of physicists are already teleporting single atoms. So what really stands in the way of beaming humans? We are talking about quantum phenomena here – we have no idea how we could produce these with larger objects. And even if it was possible, the problems involved would be huge. Firstly: for physical reasons, the original has to be completely isolated from its environment for the transfer to work. There has to be a total vacuum for it to work. And it is a well-known fact that this is not particularly healthy for human beings. Secondly, you would take all the properties from a person and transfer them onto another. This means producing a being who no longer has any hair colour, no eye colour, nix. A man without qualities! This is not only unethical – it's so crazy that it's impossible to imagine...." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 12 May 08 - 04:29 PM From the International Herald Tribune: MUMBAI: Uma Phago has no memory of seeing a human stomach, not even her own. But she remembers very well what a stomach feels like. After her sister gave birth by Cesarean section, Phago ran her curious fingers along the stitched-up abdominal ridge. The sensation never left her mind. In the Indian outsourcing company where she works, her job is to transcribe what American doctors record on their Dictaphones. They send their files at sundown to India, and a team of 5,500 Indians works while the doctors sleep. Every so often, the dictation involves a Cesarean, and Phago's ears perk up with fascination. Phago, one of eight blind workers at CBay Systems, takes longer than most of her colleagues to type up the details. But because she is blind, she seems to get more of a thrill doing it, imagining the lives of the faraway patients and squeezing from each assignment a quantum of pleasure that is ever rarer in the tedious, soul-deadening world of Indian back offices. In the dark, drab office where Phago works, her sighted colleagues stare all day long at their screens, conversing only rarely with one another and never with the doctors they assist. Working behind a virtual wall for foreigners you never meet is not for everyone. The grinding, repetitive, anonymous nature of much outsourcing work is one reason why even the best Indian back offices struggle to retain good employees longer than one year. But Phago, who has been here for more than a year, has no plans to leave. She was hired as part of CBay's corporate social-responsibility experiment, and although the program reflects only a tiny corner of a vast industry, it has turned up an unexpected truth: Blindness seems to infuse the outsourcing transaction with a warmth and a mystique that the sighted often fail to see, almost as though outsourcing were made for the blind. "It's our advantage, this imagination thing," Phago said. "Our whole life, we are imagining." ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 12 May 08 - 05:39 PM Seal tries to Have Sex with Penguin, Makes History "A seal has been caught on camera trying to have sex with a penguin. This seems to be the first known example of a sexual escapade between a mammal and another kind of vertebrate such as a bird, reptile or fish, "although some mammals are known to have attempted sexual relief with inanimate Ñ including dead things Ñ objects," said researcher Nico de Bruyn, a mammal ecologist at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. One summer morning, scientists observing elephant seals on a beach on Marion Island near the Antarctic spotted a young male Antarctic fur seal subduing a king penguin. "At first we thought it was hunting the penguin, but then it became clear that his intentions were rather more amorous," de Bruyn recalled today via email. The roughly 240-pound seal subdued the 30-pound adult penguin by lying on it. The hapless bird of unknown sex struggled, rapidly flapping its flippers and attempting to stand and flee, without luck. The seal then alternated between resting on the penguin and thrusting its pelvis at the bird in vain attempts to insert its penis for 45 minutes. Natural, unsuccessful sexual escapades by this variety of seal with members of its own species may last as long as this penguin assault did, "but yes, it is quite a long time and thus unusual," de Bruyn told LiveScience." (Live Science .com) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over From: Amos Date: 12 May 08 - 08:06 PM The Get Out Clause are an upcoming UK band who are currently unsigned. They took a brilliant and IÕm sure soon to be much copied method to producing their own video. Unable to hire a production crew for a standard 1980Õs era MTV music video, they performed their music in front of 80 of the 13 million CCTV ÒsecurityÓ cameras available in England, including one on a bus. They then used BritainÕs Data Protection Act to request the footage that was shot of them. Grab some decent and inexpensive video editing tools (say. . . an iMac) and presto! They got themselves a unique and in my opinion quite interesting music video. See it here. Top marks for innovative low-budget thinking. |
