Author Archives: Hue White

A competitor to the Panama Canal may begin construction soon.  WorldPress.org‘s Ailana Navarez reports on the beginnings of a rival canal in Nicaragua, and the power behind the dream:

In Nicaragua, a dream nearly as old as its independence is finally in development. In December of last year, the country celebrated the groundbreaking of a new canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The “Great Nicaragua Canal” will be a rival to the famous Panama Canal and yet another bridge between two rising international players: Latin America and China.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government says the canal will provide many local economic benefits, including an end to extreme poverty and unemployment via an estimated annual growth of 10 percent. He added that the $50 billion project will open a new era for a “more sovereign” and “interconnected” country. But what are the implications of its competition to the already established Panama Canal? And how far can the term “sovereignty” be used when the project is foreign funded?

Who’s backing it?  China.  Why?

… Chinese maritime vessels are being constructed larger, by an estimated annual rate of 3 to 4 percent. This has led to some of these mega-ships having to navigate around South America through its hazardous southernmost Tierra del Fuego point, all because they were too large for Panama’s canal. And regardless of Panamanian lock additions in recent years—resulting in 13.7 meters in depth and 90 to 300 meters in length—Nicaragua is still projected to more than double both measurements.

But there’s more:

It is also worth noting that the new Nicaraguan canal could be of further strategic importance to Beijing, in that it would allow passage of their warships or prevent a NATO country from closing a seaway to Chinese interests during future diplomatic crises.

Wikipedia has an entry:

The 259.4 km long canal as planned will have three sections. The West Canal runs from Brito at the Pacific Ocean up the Rio Brito valley, crosses the continental divide, and after passing through the Rio Las Lajas valley enters Lake Nicaragua; its length is 25.9 km. The Nicaragua Lake section measures 106.8 km and runs from 4 km south of San Jorge to 8 km south of San Miguelito. The Eastern Canal is the longest section with 126.7 km and will be built along the Rio Tule valley through the Caribbean highland to the Rio Punta Gorda valley to meet the Caribbean Sea.

Both the West Canal and the East Canal will each have one lock with 3 consecutive chambers to raise ships to the level of Lake Nicaragua that has an average water elevation of 31.3 m, range 30.2-33.0 m. The western Brito Lock is 14.5 km inland from the Pacific, and the eastern Camilo Lock is 13.7 km inland from the Caribbean Sea. The dimensions of each of the chambers of the locks are 520 m (1,706 ft) long, 75 m (246 ft) wide, and 27.6 m (91 ft) threshold depth. As locks generally define the limit of the size of ships that can be handled, the Nicaragua Canal is being designed to allow passage for larger ships than those that pass through the Panama Canal. For comparison, the new third set of locks in the Panama expansion will only be 427 m (1,401 ft) long, 55 m (180 ft) wide, and 18.3 m (60 ft) deep.

By comparison, the Panama Canal’s length is 77.1 km.

HKND holds a 50 year concession (WaPo claims 100 year) for this project.  Al Jazeera America reports on this issue:

… Nicaraguan environmentalists are horrified. They say the concession is a new form of colonization. “Nicaraguan citizens will have to face grave challenges in order to rid themselves of colonizers,” Mónica López Baltodano, an environmental lawyer and the head of Fundación Popol Na, a Nicaraguan nongovernmental organization, told local media in December. “We’re going to have to initiate a struggle for national liberation, much like Sandino,” she said, referring to Augusto César Sandino, a guerrilla leader who led a struggle against U.S. occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930s.

The no-bid concession, fast-tracked through the National Assembly in a day, with no public debate, violates Nicaragua’s Constitution and more than 10 international environmental treaties, she said. “The constitution established that any concession of natural resources has to be approved by all the municipalities affected and all representatives on indigenous lands,” she said. “This concession does not do that.”

Sandinista legacy project?  Chinese vanity project?  Obscure Chinese strategy?  They do think big, building the Three Gorges Dam, which has been the center of controversy.

Columbia University has decided to divest from private prisons.  ThinkProgress:

The Columbia University Board of Trustees voted Monday to make the university the first in the nation to pull its investments from the private prison industry. The university will divest from two major for-profit prison companies and create a new policy to ban investment in companies that operate prisons. …

“We targeted the university’s investments in two private prison companies, but we hope that private prison divestment campaigns, with the abolitionist vision of a larger anti-prison movement, can help us start working towards divesting from the idea that prisons equal justice, which we believe to be fundamentally racist,” student organizer Dunni Oduyemi wrote in a statement.

HuffPo notes, however:

The school still holds shares in G4S, a British prison and security services company.

USA Today reprints part of an email from Columbia U:

“This action occurs within the larger, ongoing discussion of the issue of mass incarceration that concerns citizens from across the ideological spectrum. We are proud that many Columbia faculty and students will continue their scholarly examination and civic engagement of the underlying social issues that have led to and result from mass incarceration.”

The Columbia Spectator reports on the views of some of the student organizers:

“All of the work was done by students and especially students of color on this campus,” [Dunni] Oduyemi, a former editor in chief of The Eye, said. “The narrative should really be one of students and the way that we have managed to take power in a small way that is representative of a larger movement.” …

“We’ve said over and over again that we don’t want any investment in racist and classist systems of incarceration and policing, and those are all things that are going on in Harlem,” she said.

“There’s no way for Columbia to fully divest from these systems of racist policing and incarceration. It’s founded in that and uses that violence to maintain its privilege, so there’s a lot of work to do.”

So far it seems the potential for corruption has not been the primary driving force, but rather concern about how subtle racism can result in harsher sentences for minorities.  While it appears it’s effective – and that’s good – recognition of the inappropriateness from the get-go would possibly permit future better decisions.

While I’ve never doubted that gay marriage was a positive social good (and I do mean that – never a doubt – my sister and I call ourselves the mad rationalizers for coming to decisions without rational thought, and then madly backfilling), I fear I must disembowel any notions that I might be a strait-laced liberal/progressive by expressing sympathy for Chief Justice Roberts this evening.  In his dissent (contained in this document, starting on page 40), he remarks:

But this Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be. The people who ratified the Constitution authorized courts to exercise “neither force nor will but merely judgment.” The Federalist No. 78, p. 465 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton) (capitalization altered).

Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not.  …

Today, however, the Court takes the extraordinary step of ordering every State to license and recognize same-sex marriage. Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening. Supporters of same-sex marriage have achieved considerable success persuading their fellow citizens—through the democratic process—to adopt their view. That ends today. Five lawyers have closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law. Stealing this issue from the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage, making a dramatic social change that much more difficult to accept.

First of all, he is concerned the Court is making law, rather than interpreting law.  His anguish at this is quite evident, and you have to respect the man for it.

Second, he evidences his concern that the decision of the Court will provoke a stronger polarization of society, and while this decision will bring solace to numerous homosexual couples who desire nothing more than stable, society-supported relationships, he is worrying about the other end of the spectrum – the continuing and strengthening embitterment of the far right of society.  And while it may be tempting to write them off as “wingnuts”, I must remind the reader that said “wingnuts” are just as prone to reproduction as are those of who you approve – and thus the embitterment becomes a curse upon the next generation.

His remark about a government of laws, not of men also strikes a chord, as I have been trying to find time to construct a story (movie) involving, as a secondary theme, such a statement.  It’s quite important, in my view, as a way to ensure that all people are equal before the law: you can’t enshrine that important principle in a government of men (where laws are created and enforced at the whim of those at the top), only in a government of laws.  Thus, he accuses the five affirmers in this opinion of degrading the entire institution of our government.  (This being my first time actually reading part of a SCOTUS opinion, I have no idea if such accusations are always made as a matter of form, or reserved for egregious mistakes.)

But the truly strong point is his remark

Supporters of same-sex marriage have achieved considerable success persuading their fellow citizens—through the democratic process—to adopt their view.

And I do believe this is very true.  Change from below is much more persuasive, much more a chance for truly thoughtful people to understand the motivations and reasons for a change – and to accept them and even support them.  Orders from above?  Many, many people hate to be pushed around by superior forces.  Slamming this change through, as important as it is to the homosexual community and to its individual couples who live in states that had not yet accepted the idea, is going to continue to radicalize the conservatives – and not limited to the wingnuts.  This decision may affirm the rational aspirations of society for stability and prosperity – but … not everyone is rational.  That was unfair and untrue, I think; the proper phrase is Priorities differ.  Whether or not someone believes gay marriage is right, when persuasion changes to brute force, the priority is no longer to discuss the proposal at hand, but to recall that brute force is the tool of the bully, and here, in America, public bullies are not tolerated.

After all, that’s what we were doing in the Revolutionary War, no?

OK, so all that said about my sympathy for the Chief Justice, this bit deserves criticism:

As a result, the Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?

Never mind that marriage customs differ – sometimes radically – from culture to culture and across time.  It’s almost irrelevant.  This really ignores something fundamental: this is America.  We’re the folks who change things at the drop of a hat if we think that will improve the general lot of mankind.  We’re not the ones caught in the sclerotic social milieus that our ancestors escaped over the last 250 years, and that’s because we were willing to change.  Change social systems, economic systems, clothing styles, our accents.  If, by changing some marriage laws & customs, we can improve – vastly! – the lot of some 5% of our citizens, then we’ll do it, and those few who fear the wrath of their God can go cower under their beds.

That’s who we think we are.  Have you forgotten, Chief Justice?

Noson Yanofsky, in The Outer Limits of Reason, talks about physicists and what some of them most desire:

Another methodology that scientists use to find and select different theories is beauty.  Scientists insist that a theory must, in some sense, be beautiful.  The world-famous physicist Hermann Weyl is quoted as saying, “My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful, but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful.”  Paul Dirac had similar sentiments: “It is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have them fit experiment … it seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one’s equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress.”

First reaction is a little bit of queasy horror: they do what?  They don’t want to verify the theories, the mathematics, are congruent with a bit of real-world experimentation?

In our discussions concerning free will, we mentioned that some physical phenomenon are not easily described by mathematics, and suggested that this means reality is not a mathematical artifact as a few scientists, such as Tegmark have suggested (this is known as Mathematical universe hypothesis), but rather a tool for studying reality.  As a tool that describes a phenomena that doesn’t necessarily have to follow the tool’s rules, it may be acceptable to follow one’s preference for beauty over accuracy.  Although I’m not persuaded.

I’m more inclined to believe this subclass of scientists are simply a collection of romantics.  A very odd bunch, of course.

Or, at least for those following Mathematical universe hypothesis, they see themselves creating new realities as they create these mathematical structures (ala Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber), and strive to create the most beautiful realities possible.

But a bit more from Noson:

What exactly is beauty?  The term is just as hard to define in science as in regular life.  Some physicists have equated beauty with elegance, which is an equally indefinable concept.  Some have said that beauty is related to simplicity, which is basically what Occam’s razor is all about.  And still others have said that a theory is beautiful if it exhibits a lot of symmetry or harmony.  There is much disagreement because no one has a sure-fire explanation for what exactly to look for or why this property works at picking good theories.

So it’s all a little confused and not formalized.  Noson let’s the inimitable Bertrand Russell have the final go:

“Academic philosophers, ever since the time of Parmenides, have believed that the world is a unity … The most fundamental of my intellectual beliefs is that this is rubbish.  I think the universe is all spots and jumps, without unity, without continuity, without coherence or orderliness or any of the other properties that governesses love.”

I suspect Mr Russell would have considered parts of the universe fundamentally unmathematical.

NewScientist (13 June 2015, paywall) reports on elephant migrations:

AFRICAN elephants are crossing borders to escape poaching. They seem to be heading to Botswana, Gabon, Namibia and Uganda. Political stability, relatively sparse populations and low levels of government corruption mean these countries are bucking the trend for declining elephant numbers.

Meanwhile, those countries with high levels of corruption are seeing their elephant populations drop.  For example, Greater Elephant Census reports on Mozambique:

This preliminary data suggests alarming news; elephant populations appear to have plummeted in many traditional habitats including Niassa Reserve, Limpopo National Park, Quirimbas National Park, Tchuma Tchato and The Tete area. It appears from this preliminary data that in five years there has been a 48% decline in Mozambique due to severe poaching, with formerly elephant-rich ecosystems such as the Niassa Reserve experiencing losses of 63% in three years. 

They comment positively on Uganda, negatively on Tanzania here and here.  The Wildlife Conservation Society, which also supplies information on elephant populations, is here.

The reader gives his thoughts on the matter of the Iranian deal and President Obama:

If you give away the store to Iran now for the short-term “look good” your long-term legacy is going to look awful, as the flaws will certainly show up in the next 5 years. I don’t think Obama or any politician would want to risk that, even as strange as politicians are.

The GOP is currently quite short-sighted.

Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiators, outlines the problems Iran has with the United States & the West in this article for AL Monitor.  He covers 19 complaints, and while I’m not an expert on the history of the United States and Iran, many of them are familiar incidents and make sense as complaints.  A sampling:

1. Western governments staunchly opposed Iran’s efforts to nationalize its own oil industry in the early 1950s. The United States and the United Kingdom even referred Iran to the UN Security Council as a “threat to international peace” for having the audacity to wrest control of its resources from foreign companies.

4. Since the revolution, the United States’ core policy toward Iran has been centered on regime change through coercive means such as sanctions, isolation and support for opposition groups — which have at times engaged in terrorism. A rethinking of this strategy only began during the 2nd term of US President Barack Obama’s presidency.

5. After the revolution, many Western countries unilaterally withdrew from numerous contractual commitments they had with Iran and left the country with tens of billions of dollars of already paid for but unfinished industrial projects.

10. During the era of moderate Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani in the early 1990s, Iran welcomed the “goodwill begets goodwill” proposal of the George H.W. Bush administration and demonstrated it by facilitating the release of American and Western hostages in Lebanon. Paradoxically, the United States responded to this goodwill by increasing pressure and hostility toward Iran.

Also mentioned is the Shah fiasco, the airliner we shot down, and concerns about general treatment of Iran, particularly since the revolution.  Whether these are all true or not, they have no doubt entered the Iranian collective consciousness as truths that will impact negotiations.  It might also not hurt to have the American public become aware of them, evaluate them for truthfulness, and perhaps learn from them – whether it’s learn not to trust foreigners (a poor lesson, yet always worth keeping in mind), or that mistreating other nations in the name of corporate greed can have karmic results which we’d really rather not experience.

A new angle shows up in this thread mainly concerned with chimps.  Felix Warneken is interviewed by NewScientist (13 June 2015, paywall) concerning his attempts to teach chimpanzees to cook:

You discovered that the chimpanzees could transport raw food for cooking. Can you tell me more about that?
In the wild, chimpanzees tend to forage – they just snack while they go. But cooking requires you to take the food back to somewhere to do the cooking. And it’s not that easy. Even we humans sometimes can’t resist the urge to nibble as we are cooking our own dinners. But many of the animals were able to do it. We saw one chimp try very admirably to carry the food 4 metres to the cooking device.

But unfortunately, he tried to carry it with his lips, so he kept “accidentally” eating it. Another chimpanzee would run over to the cooking site very quickly, holding the piece of potato as far away from himself as possible, seemingly so he wouldn’t be tempted. It was challenging for them, but many of the chimps were still able to anticipate cooking in the future and therefore save food for that future use. It was remarkable.

So the chimps weren’t permitted to actually cook; a device was rigged so that placing a raw food in one drawer and then shaking the device would result in a cooked food appearing in another drawer.  It’s rather like giving a pet meds with a promise of treats afterwards, only better.

It also reminds me of a cat who made a habit of vomiting on the carpet.  One day, having been given substantial warning of an impending episode, I picked him up and placed him on a discarded newspaper, and then rubbed his ears once he finished disgorging.  For years after that, many a newspaper was ruined by him, whether or not I was there to remind him.  One bright cat.

A reader is stunned by the light:

Very interesting! I knew that the right kind of sunlight produced vitamin D. I wondered about the efficacy of vitamin D supplements. I’ve just started reading about the importance of NO in the blood stream. I’ve had several lesions removed from my skin, and being very fair as well as having been badly sunburned a couple times as a kid, conventional wisdom has said that I’m at higher risk of skin cancer.

Well, I know I’ve read somewhere that low Vitamin D levels correlate with cognition deficiencies, so I wouldn’t give up on supplements just yet.  But there’s more to this sunlight game than we know, apparently.  And while cancer is never something to be wished for, most varieties of skin cancer can be remedied if caught early and vigilantly treated.

Here’s a study, published in 2009, that suggests blood pressure is affected by temperature:

Falling temperatures in winter may cause an unhealthy rise in high blood pressure in elderly people, according to a new study linking cooler temperatures with higher blood pressure. …

Now a large study from France has shown that blood pressure in elderly people varies significantly with the seasons, with rates of high blood pressure readings rising from 23.8% in summer to 33.4% in winter. Blood pressure increases were seen in both the systolic (top) and diastolic (bottom) numbers. …

“Mechanisms that could explain the association between blood pressure and temperature remain undetermined.”

So that’s a correlation, not causative.

And it might be worth sunbathing right before that next checkup, just to keep the blood pressure down.

A reader launches a rhetorical question concerning the deal:

How likely is that Obama will worry more about short-term optics than long-term security? Or long-term relationship with Israel and Saudi Arabia, both of whom vehemently do not want Iran to go nuclear?

If you’re a committed GOPer/Obama hater, you presume he’s all about the short-term opportunity and the legacy – possibly because they hate him, possibly because that’s how they’d do things.

If you’re Andrew Sullivan, you credit him with being far smarter than his critics – quite often true – and, based on that credit, ready to be patient with him.

I’m still bemused by this trade pact – the secrecy seems absurd.  But Obama has had a high percentage of good decisions and has shown long-range vision, while dealing with an obstructionist Congress more obsessed with having lost an election than in governing.    Is he worried about legacy?  He already has the ACA, recovery from the Great Recession, and several other achievements.  He has not been generous with planetary science, but Congress has mostly covered that, if I’m to believe the Planetary Society mailings.  Since this gig pays nothing, I’m more than willing to see how the deal is done in the end.

Donald Trump has entered the race for the GOP Presidential nomination.  Businessman, TV star, investor, and outspoken, he has no electoral experience.  He does hold a BS in Economics from the Wharton School.

On The Issues lists him as a Right Conservative:

Other than favoring staying out of Iran, I can’t say I like his answers to the standard social quiz managed by On The Issues.

Amidst the punditry giggles is the story of Mr. Trump showing up in second place in a Suffolk University poll conducted of likely Republican voters in New Hampshire:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (14 percent) leads businessman Donald Trump (11 percent) in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary contest, according to a poll from the Suffolk University Political Research Center.

However, the balance of the results are mixed for Trump – he’s number 11 in the list of candidates NH GOP voters would wish to see on a debate stage:

“This is where Trump’s unfavorability is limiting people’s tolerance to hear what he has to say, and voters would rather see other candidates in the debate,” said [David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston]. “Trump’s controversial candidacy is being constructed in a way that gives him visibility and exposure in the short term but may also limit his growth in the long run, like a glass ceiling.”

To my mind, this suggests New Hampshire voters may have less interest in the outspoken social conservatives and more in someone who has had business success, rather than just running their mouths – although Mr. Trump is well-known for his, perhaps, over-articulateness.  The applicability of business acumen to political processes, however, is limited, as I’ve discussed before:

Let’s consider something else that can get my knickers in a knot – the businessman who decides to run for office and repeatedly offers up his businessman experience, his acumen, as his credentials that makes him qualified for office – H. Ross Perot being the best known example in my lifetime (“I just want to get under the hood and fix things.”).  So what’s wrong with this picture?

What we’re forgetting is that the goal of business – commerce – is NOT the goal of the government. I’m finding it a little hard to articulate the goals of government that are not objectionable to someone out there, so I’ll suggest that, if only currently, the goals of government are to protect society from outside intervention; and regulate the internal interactions of society, individually and collectively, such that, well, colloquially, everyone is equally unhappy; or that everyone is justly, according to their actions, treated.

As the one is not the other, it seems reasonable to propose a simple principle by which we can avoid future mistakes: those activities, supporting the goals of government, which may reasonably be undertaken by government, should always be taken care of by government. It is not a necessity that government be absolutely lean; showing a profit at the end of the year is not a requirement, although certainly a large deficit can be a drag on the economy. When the principle is abrogated, we find such distasteful activities as companies lobbying for longer prison sentences solely to inflate their bottom line.

(h/t Scan @ The Daily Kos)

A reader writes concerning Ceres and some white spots:

I refuse to believe the bright spots on Ceres are just reflections. A reflection would vary in intensity with rotation. I need a better explanation.

Since one of the white spots had been previously observed by HST, it’s doubtful that this is a camera artifact / defect.  Here is a report on the white spots.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has beamed home the best-ever photo of the mysterious bright spots that speckle the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres.

The new image resolves Ceres’ strange spots, which are found inside a crater about 55 miles (90 kilometers) wide, into a cluster comprised of several patches, some of which were not visible in previous photos. But it doesn’t solve the mystery of the spots’ origin and composition.

“At least eight spots can be seen next to the largest bright area, which scientists think is approximately 6 miles (9 km) wide,” NASA officials wrote in a statement today (June 22). “A highly reflective material is responsible for these spots — ice and salt are leading possibilities, but scientists are considering other options, too.”

I speculated that perhaps Ceres was perhaps not rotating quickly enough, but space.com reports otherwise:

A day on Ceres lasts a little over 9 Earth-hours, while it takes 4.6 Earth-years to travel around the sun.

At least, I’d think it would be fast enough to cause a variability in reflection.  IO9.com presents speculation from the principal investigator (the link IO9 has for the principal investigator is broken, otherwise I’d use it), Chris Russell:

“Ceres’ bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin. This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations.”

The comment section also has some semi-viable speculation.

Volcanos require a magma layer, but several moons have known volcanic activity – usually caused by the gravitational proximity of the primary – Ceres has no primary.

I briefly speculated that it might be chemical, but given the HST observations are more than a decade old, you’d think the material involved in the reaction would be exhausted, unless lower temperatures slowed down the reaction – but then would it be visible?  But my chemical knowledge is miniscule.

Finally, the IO9 story also tells us what makes a scientist a scientist:

I admit it: I’m totally jazzed that we’ve got such a blatant mystery staring right at us, daring us to figure it out with ever more obvious clues!

Over the last few years I’ve been rather impressed by the fearfulness expressed by the dermatologists concerning their chosen nemesis: the sun.  It appears that Dr. Richard Weller (I think I have the proper Richard Weller in that link) doesn’t agree with his colleagues, as noted in this opinion piece published in NewScientist (13 June 2015, paywall):

This is, of course, quite correct. A vast body of evidence links sun exposure to skin cancer. What is lacking, however, is any evidence that sunlight is bad for you, if by “bad for you” we mean it shortens life. Ask a dermatologist about the evidence that sunshine raises your risk of dying and there will be an embarrassing silence. After a century of knowing the link between sunshine and skin cancer, this is not good enough. In fact, there is increasing evidence that keeping out of the sun may be killing you – and in more ways than you think.

It helps if the inquirer is a fellow doctor, I suspect.

People with the highest vitamin D levels tend to be healthier.  They are less likely to have high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes or heart attacks – in fact, they are less likely to die prematurely of any cause. This raised hopes that a simple vitamin supplement could reduce lots of major causes of death.

Many studies have now tested the effects of vitamin D supplements on health, but the results have been disappointing. …

My group has found another mediator that brings us benefits from sunlight: nitric oxide. Its apparent simplicity belies its importance. Nitric oxide has many roles, but a major one is the Nobel prizewinning discovery that it dilates blood vessels and controls blood pressure. In 1996, we discovered that the skin produces this gas. This is because the skin contains large stores of nitrate, which the ultraviolet (UV) radiation in sunshine converts into nitric oxide. When this gas enters the circulatory system, it lowers blood pressure by a small amount. This can make a big difference. …

Sun-produced nitric oxide may also help explain some blood pressure puzzles – why the average blood pressure of the UK population is lower in summer than winter, for example, and the correlation between latitude and blood pressure, with people living closer to the equator having lower blood pressure than those at higher latitudes.

And, in general?

A survey of 30,000 Swedish women recruited in 1990 and questioned about their sun-seeking behaviour found that the more they had sunbathed, the less likely they were to have died 20 years later. In fact those who did the most sunbathing were half as likely to be dead as those who had avoided the sun entirely. The authors calculate that 3 per cent of deaths in Sweden are due to insufficient sun exposure. Other research backs this up. Another Scandinavian study of 40,000 women found that those who went on the most sunbathing holidays were least likely to have died 15 years later.

And

In fact, a study of the over-40s in Denmark found that those with non-melanoma skin cancer were less likely to die than healthy controls, and much less likely to have a heart attack. So when I diagnose it in my patients, the first thing I do is congratulate them.

A big, juicy article.  While keeping in mind that this appears to be cutting edge research, possibly not yet replicated, I do think I’ll be getting a little more sun during the summer.

Still not doing that nude sunbathing in January.  Not in Minnesota.

NASA’s Dawn mission to Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, has popped up a new mystery:

In addition to the bright spots, the latest images also show a mountain with steep slopes protruding from a relatively smooth area of the dwarf planet’s surface. The structure rises about 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the surface.

(h/t CNN)

With regard to some mystery bright spots on Ceres, NPR comments,

NASA Flummoxed By Dwarf Planet’s Bright Spots, ‘Pyramid-Shaped Peak’

What they don’t mention is that a flummoxed scientist is a happy scientist.  Another fine picture:

Resuming this dormant thread, Louisiana appears to have upset IBM, according to Andre Moreau @ WAFB:

IBM has cancelled Monday’s ribbon-cutting for its new National Service Center in Baton Rouge because of Governor Bobby Jindal’s executive order. …

Hours after lawmakers voted down the legislation on May 19, effectively killing it, Jindal issued an executive order with language that mirrored the “Marriage and Conscience Act” that was authored by Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Bossier City. The Jindal power play was met with an avalanche of negative statements against Louisiana.

So the struggle between the far Right and Big Business for the soul of the GOP continues.

(h/t Kerry Eleveld @ The Daily Kos)

Is the deal in danger?  The Majlis of Iran, its elective legislative body, recently passed a law outlawing arbitrary inspections of military nuclear facilities, interviews with scientists, etc.  For Iran’s viewpoint, reports the Tehran Times:

The Iranian parliament voted on Sunday to ban access to military sites and documents and inter- view with nuclear scientists as part of a possible nuclear deal with world powers.

Of the 213 lawmakers present, 199 legislators, some chanting “Death to the America,” voted in favor of the bill. Three lawmakers opposed the bill and five abstained.

The bill also demands the complete lifting of all sanctions against Iran as part of any final nuclear accord. …

Talking to reporters, legislator Ali Motahari said the bill would not affect the trend of the talks negatively and that it would not “tie the hands of [the country’s nuclear] negotiators.”

Motahari also noted that inspection of the country’s military and non-nuclear sites would never be allowed unless permitted by the Supreme National Security Council.

LawFare’s Yishal Schwarz notes:

… the vote of the Majlis is not yet binding; the bill still requires ratification by the Guardian Council.

However,

As I’ve written before, the entire structure of the NPT rests on the IAEA retaining access to whatever sites it deems necessary for ensuring the peaceful nature of a country’s nuclear program. This assumption is already codified in Article 73 of the comprehensive safeguards agreement (that Iran has already signed) and its rearticulation is the primary purpose of the additional protocol that Iran committed to signing and implementing under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

But beyond Iran’s own existing legal responsibilities, comprehensive IAEA access is, simply put, the reason why the West is at the negotiating table. No concession, agreement or commitment matters if the world cannot be confident that Iran isn’t simultaneously advancing its nuclear program impermissibly at some secret, off-limits site.

He believes the Obama Administration will try to paper this over.  PJ Media has a similarly cynical outlook:

You would think that what the Iranian parliament has done would be a deal killer. In order for a deal to be reached, the US will have to make massive concessions. But this deal is no longer about stopping Iran from getting the bomb — if it ever was. This is about securing Obama’s legacy and allowing us to pretend that the Iranian nuclear program has been checked.

Rick Moran at American Thinker has a similar viewpoint:

Ordinarily, these conditions would be deal-breakers.  But never underestimate the capacity of President Obama and Secretary Kerry to cave in to Iranian demands.  They may massage the language a bit, but in the end, in order to get a deal, they will give the Iranians everything they want.

HNGN reports an interesting detail:

Iranian parliament, however, added amendments that would renounce its own power to veto a deal between Iran and group of six nations, reported Radio Free Europe. Lawmakers also gave supervision (of nuclear deal/final draft of negotiations between Iran and P5+1) rights to Supreme National Security Council, a body consisting of officials appointed by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“We won’t agree to a deal without that. We expect that there will be many voices and opinions on the difficult issues as we work towards a final deal. But our team is focused on what is happening in the negotiating room,” a State Department official told Fox News.

Perhaps the situation isn’t entirely dire?  My take is that the Majlis is a rather nationalistic body which does some posturing, but the capacity to get things done may lie with other bodies, such as the Supreme Leader, the Guardian Council, and perhaps the Revolutionary Guard.  The proof will be in the pudding.

You’d think wolves would prey on baboons.  You’d be wrong.  NewScientist‘s Bob Holmes (13 June 2015, paywall) reports on the interaction of gelada monkeys and the local wolves:

In the alpine grasslands of eastern Africa, Ethiopian wolves and gelada monkeys are giving peace a chance. The geladas – a type of baboon – tolerate wolves wandering right through the middle of their herds, while the wolves ignore potential meals of baby geladas in favour of rodents, which they can catch more easily when the monkeys are present. …

Even though the wolves occasionally prey on young sheep and goats, which are as big as young geladas, they do not normally attack the monkeys – and the geladas seem to know that, because they do not run away from the wolves.

“You can have a wolf and a gelada within a metre or two of each other and virtually ignoring each other for up to 2 hours at a time,” says [Dartmouth primatologist Vivek] Venkataraman. In contrast, the geladas flee immediately to cliffs for safety when they spot feral dogs, which approach aggressively and often prey on them.

When walking through a herd – which comprises many bands of monkeys grazing together in groups of 600 to 700 individuals – the wolves seem to take care to behave in a non-threatening way. They move slowly and calmly as they forage for rodents and avoid the zigzag running they use elsewhere, Venkataraman observed.

It’s not ignorance that the wolves are predators, though:

Whatever the mechanism, the boost to the wolves’ foraging appears to be significant enough that the wolves almost never give in to the temptation to grab a quick gelada snack. Only once has Venkataraman seen a wolf seize a young gelada, and other monkeys quickly attacked it and forced it to drop the infant, then drove the offending wolf away and prevented it from returning later.

And, yes, they recognize this could be similar to the mysterious alliance between dogs and humans.  In a sidebar, though, is noted this observation:

… the geladas don’t seem to get anything from the relationship, since the wolves are unlikely to deter other predators such as leopards or feral dogs, he says. Without a reciprocal benefit, [Oxford’s Claudio] Sillero doubts that the relationship could progress further down the road to domestication.

Maybe the observers just haven’t figured out the reciprocal benefit,  yet.

A reader remarks about the New Horizons Pluto probe:

Most of that warmth from “electrical systems” is actually coming from that lump of Pu-238 that’s powering everything. You do know that we are precariously short on Pu-238, right? (Heck, it may have been on your blog that I first that bit of information!)

Nyah, I didn’t tell you.  I had heard tell – a while ago – that we were short radioactive material for use in medical scanners.  That was molybdenum-99m.  Pu-238 is used

… as the heat source in radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs).

Universe Today shares the possibility of restarting production:

The end of NASA’s plutonium shortage may be in sight. On Monday March 18^th,  [2013,] NASA’s planetary science division head Jim Green announced that production of Plutonium-238 (Pu-238) by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) is currently in the test phases leading up to a restart of full scale production.

Just to top it off, remember the protests against the use of RTGs in the Cassini probe?

…. won’t be arriving next week, according to NewScientist (10 June 2015, paywall):

And with a 12-watt transmitter on board, the signal is so weak that it can carry only about a kilobit of information per second across 5 billion kilometres. Precious images and other discoveries from the fly-by will take 16 months to download.

But at least they’re warm:

Pluto’s realm – dark, cold and far from home – is tough territory. Solar panels are no use at this distance, so New Horizons runs on heat from the radioactive decay of a lump of plutonium. Under such weak sunlight an unheated probe would cool to below -200 °C, so New Horizons is cosseted in a multilayer blanket that traps waste heat from its instruments and electrical systems, keeping its interior at about room temperature.

NewScientist (13 June 2015, paywall) reports that my alarm concerning Saiga antelopes is nothing to worry about:

Now the culprit has been identified as haemorrhagic septicaemia, caused by the bacterium Pasteurella multocida, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health, which says the outbreak is now over.

So much for intuition and inner alarm bells.

The latest paper edition of Skeptical Inquirer (July/August) publishes Prof. Terence Hines’ review of The Horse That Won’t Go Away, by Thomas E. Heinzen, Scott O. Lilienfeld, and Susan A. Nolan.  Two items caught my attention: first, that Facilitated Communication (FC) is still in use today, a fact that I find appalling – I remember it being debunked between 25 and 30 years ago, and (deep breath) in fact wrote a perfectly dreadful play concerning the dangers of FC.  Prof. Hines summarizes the dangers mentioned in the book, including the facilitator can easily choose to level false charges of sexual abuse against the very parents who’ve requested their help – through their subject.  This should deeply concern any parent of a child who cannot communicate.

Second, some facts about drug-sniffing dogs:

Most surprising to me was the finding that drug- and explosive- sniffing dogs do  very poorly in actual tests where their handlers don’t know where the target materials are or are thought to be.  Although the authors agree that more research is needed, the fact that such dogs will “alert” when there’s nothing there is troubling.  One study the authors describe showed that out of 10,000 alerts, there was a 74 percent false alarm rate.

That’s a very high false positive rate; combined with civil forfeiture practices, it’s more than troubling.  The false negative rate is not mentioned in the review.

Hines’ judgment on the book?

It’s common to say that a book should be “required reading.”  In my case, this won’t be just a cliche since I will be assigning this book in every psychology course I teach from now on.  It is very well written.  It is never boring or pedantic.  It contains much excellent material for class discussion and written projects.

(updated with FC link to Wikipedia)

Evaluating the education of our children is a difficult thing to do.  This blog has noted in passing the problems inherent in the current testing approach in the United States (here and this educator’s blog post) and India, where parents climb the walls to sneak answers to their children.  AL Monitor‘s Walaa Hussein now publishes a report on similar behavior in Egypt:

High school exam seasons in Egypt are often accompanied by exam leaks — a phenomenon that has become a major challenge to the successive Egyptian governments, despite several attempts to confront it. The government transports exam questions in a military helicopter from the printers affiliated with the Ministry of Education, whose locations remain a secret. This procedure is done under the auspices of the Egyptian armed forces to prevent the leaking of the exams. Also, the Ministry of Education has started using electronic detectors to search the students for mobile phones to prevent the exam questions from being leaked on social media just minutes after the exam starts. The Ministry of Interior is working to secure students’ conduct during examinations, amid a phenomenon of mass cheating. …

As to what is behind the cheating phenomenon, Mogheeth said, “There is a flaw in the educational system, which relies on end-of-year exams. This tempts students to obtain [the questions] illegally because it means avoiding making a year’s worth of effort. Modern education systems, however, are based on grading students on the various subjects [more than once] throughout the academic year. Exam leaks and cheating will continue as long as the system remains as is — giving the student only one opportunity [to sit for a test]. Egyptian universities cannot accommodate all those [who graduate with] high school diplomas. This complicates matters further and makes the student worry about reserving a seat in any university and by any means, regardless of the [student’s] abilities and skills.”

I suppose we could at least be pleased by the students’ ingenuity.  But the problem remains: how does one evaluate students?

An update on the North Carolina legislature is provided by the North Carolina Association of Educators:

Students and schools will be heavily impacted by the Senate majority cutting nearly 8,600 teacher assistants over the next two years. Not only will it have a big impact in our schools, it will create turmoil for thousands of families. So much for the Senate’s job creation budget!

NCAE worked with senators to try to restore teacher assistants. Some lawmakers tried to restore TAs and other education needs by replacing the Senate Majority’s proposed corporate tax cut, but Republicans either voted down the amendments or used parliamentary maneuvers to kill them.  NCAE will now have to push the House to reject this proposal. The House maintained the current level of TAs in its budget.

Raises are miniscule, and future educators lose free health care once they retire.  Other topics impacting schools, as noted by the same update, includes changes to gun laws and voter ID changes.

Perhaps the most intra-humanity project to be undertaken, there are many approaches to this – from mediation to the marrying off of the local princess to the king next door.  In Iraq, the weak central government has resulted in the revival of the ancient conflict resolution practice of fasliya, as reported by AL Monitor‘s Omar al-Jaffal:

Women took to the streets of al-Mutanabbi Street in central Baghdad June 2, holding large banners denouncing fasliya marriage — the Arabic word for marriages arranged as compensation, through which tribal conflicts are resolved — which has surfaced in Iraq anew. …

Women who have been placed in a fasliya marriage are not entitled to file for divorce or separation because, according to tribal customs, they are stripped away of any rights.

An example:

… saying in a statement to al-Sumaria channel that a crisis broke out between two large tribes in Basra over the death of a woman during an armed conflict between both tribes. Therefore, al-Shawi tribe presented 10 women — not 50 as the media claimed according to al-Maryani — to al-Karamsha tribe for fasliya. The two tribes refused to talk to the media about the incident, claiming it was a personal affair.

According to the report, this appears to be a tribal custom, confined to the rural areas; it had been banned by the Iraqi government in the 1950s, but with the dissolution of the strong central government by the American invasion, it has been gradually reappearing in the absence of other mechanisms – or coercion from Baghdad.  I don’t know much about the social dynamics of Iraqi tribes, so I can’t really hazard a guess as to why this works for them.  My lovely Arts Editor suggests that marriage gives the two tribes a family link, and therefore they have to stop fighting – but I’m not sure that’s how it works.

Kevin McLeod sends in a tip on another perverse incentive, the previous being private prisons.  Once again, this is law enforcement related: The Daily Signal reporting on the confiscation of possibly criminally-acquired funds:

He would eventually return home, but the cash Clarke had in his pocket didn’t make it.

Instead, the weight of the federal government came down on the 24-year-old, and his $11,000 was seized by federal and state law enforcement before he ever boarded the plane. …

Then, the officers seized his $11,000, cellphone and iPad.

Clarke received his phone and tablet two months later. But, more than a year later, he’s fighting to have his cash returned.

“I was being treated like a criminal, and I didn’t commit a crime,” he said. “It was very frustrating.”

According to court documents, Conrad said the money was seized “based on probable cause that it was proceeds of drug trafficking or was intended to be used in an illegal transaction.”

The article goes on to discuss the problems Clarke is having, and his use of the Institute of Justice.

At this juncture, a slight pause.  While working on this post, I noticed The Daily Signal describes itself as a news organization of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank. That was interesting, as the right-wing tends to be hard on crime, and that’s the point of the civil forfeiture laws: to remove the profit from crime.  However, there are two mitigating factors: civil forfeiture is dangerously similar to simple theft, so that goes against the grain of the right-wing – and the Institute of Justice, while to the best of my meager knowledge, is an admirable resource, it usually associates with the right-wing.  It may just be the founders are conservative, or it may have to do with much of its work being to fight against the regulatory state, aka Big Government, a primary bugaboo of the conservatives.

The perverse incentives of the civil forfeiture laws are mentioned only in passing, and to my mind they are the primary problem.  This is an age where laws of draconian and unnecessary nature exist, and conservatives try to cut budgets to the marrow, thus leaving law enforcement with too much to do with way too little funds; the civil forfeiture laws offer a legal, if unjust, way to replenish the war chests of agencies who are either underfunded, or at least regard themselves as underfunded.

If we were to consider revoking the civil forfeiture laws, we should also rescind the marijuana laws: legalize it, and reduce the work load.  Perhaps there are some other unneeded laws.

End Civil Forfeiture provides reasoning and research.

The American Civil Liberties Union proves this is not just a conservative issue.

The Institute of Justice has some resources devoted to civil forfeiture laws.