Saturday Summary

Most of us know snow shoveling can be difficult. The most recent stats available [from '99 to 2006] showed average yearly ER visits caused by shoveling were 11,500, the majority were lower back problems. There were, on average, 1647 deaths due to heart attacks. Given the fierceness of this year's storms I imagine we can up those figures by maybe 25%.

More statistics: only 15% of the Wikipedia contributors are women, this seems to be because young men are more likely to be computer geeks and the subjects are skewed towards areas and subjects that interest men more than women.

And another celestial statistic: So far 1235 planets in various solar systems have been defined as hospitable to life as we know it; as searches for such planets continue the numbers will certainly grow. So far, no communications from Out There have been received -- well, that's a matter of opinion because the UFO believers are many although we seem to be in a fairly quiet period just not, news-wise.

The US Government has issued a health statement asking Americans to eat less and exercise more. It's a gesture, there are no specifics attached to it. It sounds about as effective as grandmothers telling us to give up the four lettered words and always be polite to one another.

Here's an only-possible-in-Australia note: The Principality of Hutt River was created by Leonard Crasley 40 years ago. He is owner of a 18,500 acre farm. He was tired of paying taxes so seceded from Australia and became a Principality. Of course he's the prince. He issues his own money and requires visas of tourists wishing to five the 20-person town where they rarely stay over night because there are no motels/hotels, although among the tourists are many back packers who, possibly sleep under the stars. He pays no taxes, but he gets no benefits from Australian government either.

Lotteries in the US are a $70 billion industry. They have been around since early in our history. Lotteries were used in the initial building of both Yale and Harvard, as well as in funding the transcontinental railroads of the US. At present 43 states and all Canadian provinces have lotteries. The majority of the tickets are purchased by people in the lower 20% of the income scale in the US. Lotteries are often seen as a reverse tax -- because the people with the least pay the most. A Toronto mathematician/computer expert says the majority of the scratch-off cards have flawed programs and it's fairly easy to figure out which ones will have a pay off. Some Canadian lottery card printers have taken his warnings seriously and made changes. American lottery card printers have generally insisted their programs are too good to be cracked by a causal mathematician. Maybe ... maybe not. The Canadian guy has said even though he could crack the system the pay offs are not enough even to spend full time trying to live on the lottery; he does better at his current job, plus it's more interesting.

Saturday Summary

Just a few items today.
Don't know if I believe this: A Chinese driver managed to accumulate $55,000 in toll fees in 9 months time. [How? One wonders.] He's been sentenced to life in prison and $300,000 fine. China is very rough on scofflaws, apparently.

With North America shivering under one blizzard after another, the West coast dealing with mud slides and almost all of the province of Queensland in Australia under flood conditions, it's time those few doubters realize we're in a period of severe climate change. 2010 was the wettest year in recorded history -- or at least since Noah's time. It was the hottest since 1805 when temperatures began beingt recorded.

It may not seem so in Queensland, but actually 90% of the world's fresh water is trapped in ice in Antarctica. In that least hospitable continent, temperatures can drop as low as 97 degrees below freezing and winds can reach 200 miles per hour.

The most disturbing thing I came across this week was from an article in the January Vanity Fair about the testing of new drugs to prove their effectiveness is done abroad, often in poor countries and usually handled by private companies, not by the American drug manufacturers. Control of methods is not only lax but easily faked and likely to be not applicable to conditions in the US. This is only a hint of the extent of the problem. Anyone interested should read the article by clicking here. Why should we know about this? Well two of the world's biggest drug companies, Pfizer and Glaxo have both recently set aside literally billions of dollars in anticipation of paying legal fees to defend against suits stemming from the deaths many people who've died from drug side effects that were KNOWN to the drug companies who continued to sell their very expensive drugs despite knowing that they were doing as much harm as good. It's a very scary situation and being educated about it is your best protection.

Saturday Summary

The musk ox, which lives only in the Arctic regions, is not an ox at all. It is more closely related to sheep and goats. It is marvelously adapted to bitter cold with it's thick coat and heavy hooves that can dig through snow to forage. As a species it has out lived many of it's evolutionary contemporaries like the woolly mammoth and the saber toothed tiger. Scientist really can't explain how they've survived.

I didn't write a summary last Saturday because I had read only very depressing things, like the fact that the Unites States has had soldiers at war for the last 30 years! Yes! 30 years. Three recent books describe what's been going on and it's not pretty. I've lost the note I made of the titles and authors. But, in the meanwhile I've found a few more positive bits of information.

The worldwide gap in literacy rates between men and women has decreased since 1997; the percentage of difference in favor of men [as if I need to say that] has dropped from 12% to 9%.

A glass of red wine a day has been shown to contribute to a longer life -- happily, it's now known that champagne has the same effect! Just in time for the holidays too!

Some very good things are happening in New York City. Fast food places must display the calories in their offerings and the amount of trans fat as well. Also the city has made a deal with the cable companies that if a repair man misses an appointment the customer gets a refund. Other cities might take heed.

In the I'll believe it when I see it category; the Terrafugia Transition is the name of a flying car that is scheduled to be available sometime next year. Does anybody else remember those drawing about the wonderful future that school kids were shown back in the '50s? I'm still waiting for the flying car!

Saturday Summary

Not surprisingly, I've been reading a lot about food this week. I was also given a few "sent from Florida" grapefruits but I don't know yet if they are the white or red variety. I prefer the red and I just found out that I'm smart to do so. Red grapefruit have 25 times the vitamin C of white grapefruit. Plus they have as much lyocpene as fresh tomatoes -- why's that good? Because it's been shown that lycopene prevents osteoporosis far more effectively than calcium -- for those post-menopausal women who are most at risk. Better to eat grapefruit or tomato salad than drink all the milk.

And about dates: The date palm grows naturally in arid, sandy soil but near a source of water which in North Africa where the majority are grown, means oases. In the US we mainly see brown dried dates but they only turn brown when they're dried [preferably in the sun], they are red, yellow and shades of color in between when ripe on the trees. 90% of the dates produced in the world are produced in northern Africa, from Egypt right across to Morocco.

Olive oil usage has increased more than 50% in the last twenty years as Americans, not just those of Mediterranean background, discover that it is the healthiest cooking oil. Extra virgin olive oil [which has never been subjected to heat processing] is the only oil that can be kept at room temperature and will not go rancid.

Still in the plant world, teasel, the herb that resembles thistles, is often used in fall floral arrangements. But it's many sharp pointed bracts, when dried were long used in the woolen industry to "tease" up the nap of fabric after it was woven.

No, there can't be a week when I don't read about something negative and generally stupid: this week it was that while dentists are generally careful to shield patients when their teeth are X-rayed, and it is well known that young children are more negatively affected by radiation than older people, the majority of orthodontists use radiation that is much stronger than used in adults and use it more frequently on their young patients.

Gee, I'm sorry my daughters were subjected to orthodonture, although I'm glad they have attractive adult smiles.

Saturday Summary {on Sunday]

Jellyfish are fascinating to look at and to read about which I've been doing. I've also seen their blobby bodies on the sand now and then, sometimes looking quite fresh. So here are some facts: they have been in the seas for 500 million years which is known because very complete fossils have been found in Utah's mountains which were once part of a shallow sea. Fish have only been around for 370 million years. We don't yet know how many kinds of jellyfish that exist but they are being studied. Overfished areas and polluted areas of the sea attract jellyfish which are sometimes found in vast numbers. The equivalent of 50 dump trucks full of jellyfish caused a rolling black out on the island of Luzon, Philippines in 1996 when they were sucked into a power generator. Others have forced a company to stop diamond mining in the seabed off Namibia because they slime the equipment. I read much more about how their stingers work -- you don't really want to know, but it's good to have a bottle of vinegar in your beach bag, that's about the only thing that relieves the pain of a sting.

We tend to think that every kind of flora and fauna on earth must have been discovered by now but, not true of kinds of jellyfish and not true of any other life form. Just since 2000 300 new kinds of mammals have been discovered, one of the most appealing being a very furry brown monkey found in the highlands of Kenya. The native knew about it but our academics did not. Most mammals and plants not yet "discovered" are being discovered because of deforestation and roads in areas that were not easily accessible previously. Very large numbers of insects and kinds of bacteria are being discovered all the time. There's a lot to learn out there.

I did read a few other things: on the education front, many college professors use "clickers", little handheld electronic devices, in the classroom which allow students to answer questions, take tests and even make their presence [or wakefulnes/ sleepiness] known to the professor. Another plus is that since the students never know when the professor is going to ask a question that requires a click, it's hard for them to text during class.

Only in 1994 did it become legal in the USA for Native Americans to practice their native religions. Whenever you get into a freedom of speech and religion conversation, bring up that fact.

Saturday Summary #15

Cats cause more allergies than do dogs, an male cats are more likely to cause allergies than female and some evidence suggests that dark colored fur causes more allergic reactions than light. Those who compiled these facts did not mention that light colored cats especially love to leave their fur on dark colored clothing, especially when the wearer is going to an important event.

It's true, as many of us hoped, that chocolate is good for us. Modest amounts can help lower blood pressure and Swedish women who eat chocolate one or two times a week have fewer heart attacks than those who never eat chocolate. However daily indulgence in large quantities has adverse effects, like obesity which may lead to diabetes and more heart attacks. Some of the best things in life should be rationed, not gorged on.

Who would think of a banana peel as "real estate"? A marketing expert, of course. People at Chiquita Banana consider the peels prime real estate for building their brand -- via those little stickers which have been designed to welcome you to the land of Delicious. Lately Chiquita has decided to redesign those stickers, which they announced on their website. Some 25,000 people supplied possible new versions -- all sticking to the familiar blue and yellow color scheme. Some 1355 were chosen as finalists and will be voted on. 18 winners will eventually appear on a banana near you -- perhaps as near as in the hand approaching your mouth.

The more complex our civilization grows the longer it takes our human offspring to be ready for adulthood. For most of history a child was treated like a smaller adult and at very early ages set to work as part of the family. In early industrial society [some parts of the world are still at this stage] children worked in factories from as young as 9 or 10. But then, in the US and elsewhere, a stage called adolescence was recognized when children grew rapidly and become unruly, about that time adulthood began to be defined as either 18 or 21 [depending on local laws]. Since then young people accepting adult responsibilities, like marriage, has changed too. In the '70s, the average age for marriage was women, 21, men, 23; by 2009 it was women 26, men 28. Now the whole 20-something period has become an extended pre-adulthood with many young people returning to their parents' nest after college.

Enough soft "science." A couple of political facts, civilians in Iraq are safer than those in Venezuela. Last year 4,644 civilians in Iraq died violently; in Venezuela the number was a staggering 16,047. Mexico may be trying to compete in numbers with Venezuela, but many of their dead are hidden in mass graves.

Finally, the worlds biggest traffic jam -- between Hohhut, a city in Inner Mongolia, and Beijing is about 60 miles long. For more than a week the traffic jam on that four to six lane road is so bad many people have been stuck for up to five days on a journey they could probably walk in five days. Some reports say it is easing, others say this kind of jam is going to go on for as much as five years while the government, a bit belatedly, builds rail lines to carry the coal mined in Hohhut, thus getting the many coal carrying trucks off the road. People who live along the route are taking advantage and selling apples, noodles and such for whatever exorbitant prices they can get. Nothing has been written as far as I've seen about the sanitary facilities, or lack thereof. Labor Day travelers in the US may have to deal with heavy traffic but before road rage sets in they might consider that 60 mile traffic jam and take a few grateful breaths.

Saturday Summary #12

I'm chuckling this morning over the big stir [pun intended] about how Thomas' English Muffins get all their "nooks and crannies". Not the how so much as the names involved. A couple of years ago the company was purchased by a Mexican company, Grupo Bimbo. So Bimbo USA is the owner of the muffin company and it's $500,000 a year product. One employee recently got fed up with company policies and decided to move on to the makers of Ho-hos and Twinkies [Hostess]. He was formerly one of only seven people with the secret of how the muffins get their butter and jam welcoming holes. He's accused of planning to break his confidentiality agreement to let the Hostess Company in on the secret. It's more complicated than that but he seems to have been dissatisfied with being a Bimbo baker. I can't say I take Ho-hos quite as seriously as I take English muffins.

Forgotten history item: The US-Dakota War in Minnesota [before statehood]lasted six weeks in 1862 and ended with the public hanging of 38 Sioux on December 26th. Eventually an obelisk weighing 8,500 pounds was erected to commemorate what the Dakota and Sioux considered a massacre. It stood for years in a parking lot but in 1971 was taken down and stored in a warehouse. It has not utterly disappeared, just as has our memory of this action and numerous others against the Native Americans.

A term I learned this week, "linear forests" is applied to the hedgerows that have been a part of English and French countryside for centuries. These are being torn down and disappearing to enable mechanical farming thus destroying a habitat for many small animals and insects like butterflies. In France, between 1960 and 1990, 217,350 miles of hedges were destroyed. The butterflies seem to be moving on to municipal parks. I don't know what happens to the hedgehogs.

Other terms I like: among serious scientists are the "skin out" and "skin in" researchers. Frances Crick [Nobelist for discovery of helical DNA structure] is a skin in scientist. He said of skin out-er, Stephen Jay Gould, "The trouble with you evolutionary biologists is that you are always asking 'why' before you understand 'how'." The world is fortunate to have heavy weights on both ends of the seesaw.

In terms of light weight: Bicycles are now being made of bamboo and are becoming popular with bike messengers and people in countries where many cannot afford autos. Bamboo is the world's fastest growing grass. -- Yes, it's a grass.-- It can grow as much as 3 feet a day. It is a very renewable resource. It's tensile strength per pound is equal to steel.

An ecological disaster, among several I've read this week, the heavier than usual monsoon season has sent so much water carrying the waste dumped up-river down the Yangtze that tons of waste are piling up behind the Three Gorges Dam. They have been carting away as much as 3,000 tons a day but can't keep up with the inflow which threatens to disable the dam's lock system.

Also in China, factories that have been dedicated to making faux designer handbags and other luxury items are changing their products due to decreasing purchases in the US and elsewhere; they have shifted to mid-level products like Kate Spade and Liz Claiborne bags. Of course handbags are far from the only counterfeited products being made, the actual list is pages and pages long. [But none of the products are English muffins.]

The Nepali embassy in Kuwait is filled with Nepali women wishing to return home because their jobs as domestic servants have been more like slave labor than they expected. Likewise, in the Philippine embassy women wanting to go home are sleeping on their suitcases in every available space -- all hoped to make decent money, all are disappointed.

Finally a product the Chinese are not yet producing for the world market: Vulva Original is not a perfume, it is a scent that sells for $31 a vial which has a roll on top [like some deodorants have] because it is meant to be used sparingly, rolled on the wrist or top of one's hand. It's meant to be sniffed in order enhance the pleasure of male self-stimulation. The makers emphasize that it is not to be applied to any mucus membranes. My reading did not list where to purchase the product, surely an internet search would reward the needy.

Saturday Summary #11

Some people think flowers are sensate beings and believe picking them is murder. Hmmm... Horticulturists have found that the Easter lily bulb can move in the dirt if it is planted too shallowly. It has contractile roots that actually work to pull the bulb deeper into the earth. They know it has something to do with light -- that's all they know.

Rice plants come in different colors which has made Inakadate, Japan a tourist site since the local people began planting their paddies with different kinds of rice plants in such as way as to make pictures or spell words. The village was losing its young people to the city but now has become prosperous thanks to the visitors they attract.
The game of horseshoes is not widely played today but was played by the men in my family when I was growing up. Today Alan Francis of Defiance, Ohio is the undisputed world horsehoe champion; winner of the world title 15 times. His record is 90% ringers of all his pitches.

Thinking of diminishing populations in small villages: in 1800 the only city with one million people was London. Today 326 cities have over a million including 180 which are in developing countries. 16 megalopolises have over 10 million. The percentage of people living in large cities has doubled since 1950.

Another change since the 1950s: today the last month of life often costs more than all the previous medical expenses of that person. Dying used to be very different: George Washington developed a sore throat Dec. 13 and died the next evening, John Q. Adams, Andrew Jackson and Millard Filmore had strokes and died three days later, Rutherford Hayes had a heart attack and died in four days. People used to die quickly of pneumonia, in childbirth and infected wounds. All those things are treated today; often people go on for years of life, but too often they never get out of the ICU and run up bills of staggering size. More and more medical thinkers are grappling with the meaning of these facts and just what can be done and shouldn't be done for the dying and how to act both more responsibly and more humanely. Dying is going to happen to all of us and to everyone we love, we ought to be brave enough to give it some thought.

As a society we are expert at the old head in the sand position on hard questions.
No one seems to be grappling with the following facts: The Library of Congress plans to acquire and store all public Twitter posts since 2006. Meanwhile top secret organizations hidden from public view and lacking significant oversight number 1271 government organization and 1931 private companies all related to outer terrorism intelligence and homeland security. They employ approximately 854,000 people who have top secret clearance, [half the population of Washington D.C.]. This doesn't include the people who don't have that clearance. These people work in some 30 complexes in various locations in the US. These are mostly new buildings with extensive technology inside -- they were called "government bling". To say there is much redundancy is redundant. These organizations intercept 2 BILLION emails, telephone calls and other communications of private citizens every day. They produce so many reports that many are simply shelved and never read. ... Is this the meaning of homeland security or the government's technological version of Collier Brothers-like neuroses?

Saturday Summary #10

First a quote from Winston Churchill: "dogs look up to man, cats look down to man, pigs look us straight in the eye and see an equal." For the most part, pigs get a bad rap. They are as smarter than chimps in experiments using computers {and they don't even have hands for using a keyboard} they have a homing sense of direction that rivals that of dogs, they've been known to make good "watch dogs". And the little pot-bellied pigs are said to be excellent pets.

But on to our species: we tend to think our genetic evolution all took places millions of years ago Not so. Chinese geneticists have found that only about 10,000 years ago the people inhabiting the Tibetan plateau developed genes that allow them to use available oxygen more efficiently than other people so that they can thrive at altitudes of 10,000 to 15,000 feet or more.

Medical science keeps advancing. Former VP Dick Cheney has a hear implant about the size of a D battery that takes over the job of keeping the blood flowing. It flows steadily as water flows through a tap, it does not pulse as hearts normally do. So, in fact, he, like the few others with the device, does not have a pulse. If he should be found unconscious, a medic would think he was dead.

Are hardcover books dying? Amazon.com has been selling hardcover books for 15 years; they have been selling Kindles for 35 months. In the last three months sales of downloads of hardcover books have surpassed sales of the real thing. There were no statistics about sales of paperbacks. I saw a man reading a Kindle at the beach yesterday; he looked more intellectual than people reading paperback murder mysteries, although he might have been reading something equally inane. One can't tell. If you're concerned about making a certain kind of impression, I guess the Kindle is helpful.

Speaking of negative impressions. There are companies (two in the US and one in India, one in the Philippines were mentioned) that hire people to look at downloaded videos for social networking sites on the internet to find seriously offensive material, like child pornography, sadistic animal abuse, and such, and make sure it is no posted. I don't know how they do this technically, nor how the individuals watching it manage to eat and sleep like normal people.

More technology: Chinese-American pianist, Lang Lang, at recent NY Philharmonic concert asked the audience to vote on their choice of encore piece by texting on their cell phones, choosing between a Chopin etude and a traditional Chinese melody. They chose the Chinese piece. I suspect they were not surprised the next day when they received an offer from Lang Lang's record company to purchase his latest CD set at a discount and inviting them to follow him on Facebook.

Finally a bit of geography -- I always like learning new things about places: Venice is not an island as many people think, but an archipelago of 180 island tied together by approximately 400 bridges. The Grand Canal, the widest flowing more or less through the middle of the city, is lined with some 100 grand Renaissance and Baroque style palaces built by the wealthy merchants who flourished during the 500 years or so that Venice ruled the Adriatic Sea and eventually the Mediterranean which they did until land transport of goods became more efficient than sea transport in the 1700s.
As most of us know, the whole city is in serious danger of sinking into the sea and has already had several crises with flooding. Most of us who have been there feel profoundly sad to imagine the loss of such a charming and historic place.

Saturday Summary #6

To Kill a Mockingbird was written 50 years ago. It has been translated into 40 languages, woman Pulitzer Prize, made into an enduringly popular movie. Harper Lee, the author was given a Presidential Medal of Honor. This is the only book she has ever written.

As early as 1600BC Mesoamericans had learned complex rubber technology. The made rubber balls for ritual games, used rubber bands and had rubber sandals; this required rubber to be process for bounce/resiliency, elasticity and durability respectively, each a different "technology".

Orphan drugs are those for diseases affecting fewer than 200,000 [in the US] Big Pharma's PR people often say they are dedicated to finding drugs for those diseases even though they would make little money from them. Very few are brought to the market. Some are found to have unusual uses and prove to be money makers, for example bot ox was originally a cure for a condition causing muscle spasms but is now a very popular injection to make facial wrinkles disappear.

On the medical front, voice recognition software has advanced to the point that some 150,000 doctors are now using it for their patient's notes. It's now good enough, say they, that it no longer translates"supraspinatus" [a rotator cuff muscle] as "fish banana". Apparently there's not software to decode doctor's handwriting and probably never will be.

One more medical note: a craving for ice, all the time, not just in summer weather, is called "pagophagia" and is often a symptom of iron deficiency anemia. So when that guy at the next table at Pizza Hut is crunching away on his ice, tell him he really should be at a steak house having red meat, not a 4-cheese pizza.

In 982 Eric the Red sailed to a big island west of Iceland. He went home to Iceland and reported he'd found a big island he called "Greenland" and invited settlers to move there -- an bit of real estate hype! 4000 people fell for it. Once they were there he took off and found an even bigger "island" Newfoundland where he started a colony called "Vineland" Not many followed him there. Today Greenland is getting greener thanks to global warming and the 56,000 residents look forward to some prosperity in the future. When the coastal cities of North American and Europe are under water in a couple hundred years Greenland may be prime real estate.

The Kellogg Company has just recalled 28 million boxes of Apple Jacks, Corn Pups, Froot Looops and Honey Smacks because the lining in the box has such an awful smell people are complaining it makes them nauseous to the point of vomiting. They can't agree if it's a waxy, metallic or soapy smell, but they hate it.

Which brings me to a personal note. There's long been split in my family. One daughter and her family all love the herb cilantro [which has lately become very popular] which I and my other daughter think it tastes like soap and we want nothing with cilantro in it. I've discovered that there are at least two websites or blogs dedicated to people who fell as we do about it's soapy taste.

Finally from Wimbledon, an amazing game of tennis in which John Isner finally beat Nicholas Mahutin in the longest match ever played there with a score of 70-68 achieved in 182 games that took 11 hours and 5 minutes to play. The previous records was a winning game played by Jack Kramer in 1947 which lasted though 167 games [time not given] Yesterday Isner lost his next game in 57 minutes. Phew!

Saturday Summary #2

Random things I've learned this week:

There are 5,274 active farmers markets in the US. [Maybe one near you.]

A thirteen-year old boy has become the youngest person to summit Mr. Everest. [It's all downhill hereafter.]

In one three-day period the German Roman Catholic hotline for victims of sexual abuse was overwhelmed with 13,292 phone calls.

The chemical methyl metacrylate is in short supply. It is necessary for the white paint used for the center lines of highways. [So a highway near you might not get it's center line repainted in the near future. Drive carefully.]

Only the top numbers of the most recent population figures for the whole world that I have come across: total population 66,817 billion people. Chinese people, 1,330 billion, Indian people,1,173 million, in USA, 310 million. Of course these numbers change by the second.

Researchers a geolocators with which they can tag birds to follow their migrations which weight less than two grains of rice. [The locaters,not the birds.]