SEP 07
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What’s it like ?
Stephen Fry enthusiasts probably already know that he’s started a new
blog.
The latest post ‘ Let fame ’ is an example of what Stephen calls a ‘ blessay ’ ( Blog Essay ).
And very substantial blessay it is too – at nearly 9000 words – describing everything you ever wanted to know about fame from a uniquely Fryesque viewpoint.
Don’t miss.
29 SEP 07 (late)
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Exploring the boundaries
First a definition :
Geography : ‘ The study of the physical features of the Earth and of human activity as it relates to these.’
But is the definition due for an update ?
Perhaps so, according to a new research article just published in the journal : Progress in Human Geography
Dr. Fraser MacDonald, from the School of Anthropology, Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Melboure, Australia feels that it might be time “ to establish outer space as a mainstream concern of critical geography. “
Really Magazine wonders though if perhaps the incorporation of outer-space
studies into geography - admirably ambitious though it is - might call
for a more accommodating word – since Geo-Graphy means ‘ describing
the Earth ‘
Perhaps Universography ?
29 SEP 07
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Computer Pollocks again
A joint study team from Northwestern University (US) and the University
of Victoria (Canada) has been looking into ways of generating artificial Jackson
Pollocks for some time now.
And their latest results have just been published in the Journal of Mathematics
and the Arts.
Their new system uses :
“ . . . a Navier-Stokes solver for an axis-symmetric fluid column and a linked mass system for tracking the 3D motion of the jet's axis line.”
The researchers have made their programme available on-line – here’s what happened when we road tested it :
Perhaps you'll have more luck.
Alternatively, if you’d like to see examples of their computer Pollocks ( and have a * lot * of time on your hands ) you could try loading this gallery provided by the designers.
Or for more tech information you could try this, their explanatory .pdf
( we did, but it locked up and crashed Firefox. )
؟ ؟ ؟
On the other hand, if you’d prefer to see a quick, painless, working,
real-time, online Pollock generator, then avoid the two university
computer-departments altogether and go
here instead.
28 SEP 07
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Temporary portmanteau enigma
In the course of our research, Really Magazine has come across an academic concept which has left us puzzled.
Viz.
Brown Bag
Here’s just a few examples from :
etc etc etc
Of course the explanation is sure to be straightforward and clearcut – we just haven’t found it yet.
What is it ?
Why is it ?
Are there any other ‘ Bags ‘ - blue ? green ? pink ?
Reader Carmelita kindly explains it for us :
" . . . lecture series to catch the young professional or busy student are usually advertised as 'brown bag' affairs, where you bring your lunch (in a brown bag or not) and eat it while listening to the speaker."
25 SEP 07
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Proceed with caution for another ten years.
There can’t be many UK research programmes that have a budget of £8.8
million*
The Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme does though, and has recently published an update in results they have found so far :
They can be briefly summarised thus :
“ Mobile phones have not been found to be associated with any biological or adverse health effects . . . “
( from their press release )
The report eases the burden on future researchers by crossing certain ( previously contentious ) items off the list :
“ The MTHR programme also investigated whether
mobile phones might affect cells and tissue beyond simply heating them. The
results so far show no evidence
for this and the committee believes there is no need to support further work
in this area. “
“ . . . no evidence that brain function was affected by mobile phone signals or the signals used by the emergency services (TETRA). The MTHR programme management committee believes there is no need to support further work in this area. “
So, can we finally be sure that mobile phones and the supporting transmission
infrastructure are safe ?
Not quite. There was a recommendation for further study into long-term (10 years +) use, and the report also has this message :
“ A study on risk communication found that the penetration of precautionary advice to the public is limited and suggested that policy makers may need to adopt alternative strategies for the delivery of messages in this area. “
So, what precautions are necessary - for a system which has “ not been
found to be associated with any biological or adverse health effects “ ?
Really Magazine searched the 64 page report but was unable to find the answer(s)
( Full report here - 64 page .pdf )
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* Funding : roughly 50% from taxpayers and 50% ' from industry ' – disappointingly, the report doesn’t list the companies concerned - but Really Magazine guesses that whoever they are, they will probably feel that their money has been well spent.
24 SEP 07
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Aerotoxics explained ? ( Don't hold your breath )
Flying could possibly be slightly more dangerous ( or not, as may be the case ) than previously imagined.
This is more or less the conclusion of a UK Govt. commissioned inquiry which looked into the burgeoning list of mysterious ill-health reports from airline pilots - they have been suffering from headaches, nausea and eye irritation and chronic fatigue.
The finger of suspicion has been pointed at the possibility of cabin air contamination by engine fuel – but the exact causes are as yet unknown – and they may stay unknown for while longer – for the report commission decided there is :
“ . . . insufficient evidence to recommend any specific additional research for any other acute or chronic health effect with regard to oil/hydraulic fluid contamination incidents on commercial aircraft. “
Odd perhaps, considering that, of 27 pilots ( who had reported symptoms ) examined on behalf of the Govt. at University College London - 27 were found to have " cognitive defects . . . "
Readers might be wondering how the cabin air supply could become contaminated in the first place . . . the answer lies in the way the pressurised cabin air system is ( usually ) designed. Rather than installing heavy and expensive dedicated air pumps, the systems tap high pressure air from a handy nearby source – the jet engines.
Unfortunately, this means that if there are any leaks of unburnt fuel, the vapour can find its way into the cabin air supply. There can't be many long-haul airline passengers ( or any crew ) who don't yet know what it smells like.
This alone might not be considered more than an olfactory inconvenience - if it wasn’t for Tricresyl phosphate . . .
Tricresyl phosphate is added to airline fuels at levesl of 1 to 5% as an engine-wear inhibitor - and it’s an organophosphate . . .
oooops . . .
For more details on the story, see yesterday’s issue of Chemistry World from the Royal Society of Chemistry
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Resources for further research :
• The Aerotoxic Association ( website dedicated to raising Aerotoxic Syndrome Awareness )
• The UK’s Dept. of Health info resource pages ( includes the report )
• Everything you ever wanted to know about Tricresyl phosphate
21 SEP 07
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The perils of cyberMunching
First a definition :
Munchausen syndrome :
“ . . . is a psychiatric disorder in which those affected feign disease, illness, or psychological trauma in order to draw attention or sympathy to themselves. “ ( source : WikiP )
The name was coined in the 1950’s – but recently ( 2000 ), a new variant has been described :
Munchausen by Internet : ( a.k.a. cyberMunch )
The Doctor from the who first described this new condition has just published
a letter-to-the-editor in the October issue of the journal Psychosomatics drawing attention to the possible legal implications surrounding cyberMunchers.
He describes the (unpublished ) court case of Mr. A , who took some cyberforum participants to court after they had posted notes suggesting that he might not have been entirely truthful when describing his string of ‘ life threatening conditions and surgical operations ‘ on the website.
Tellingly perhaps, Mr. A dropped his case when the judge asked that his ( real ) medical records be presented to the court . . .
The doctor warns of the possibility that cyberMunching :
“ . . . will someday result in a precedent-setting judgment against such an individual “
20 SEP 07
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Sticking to the factoids.
A University of Bristol (UK) spin-off company Revolymer™ has
been featuring heavily in the news over the last few days after its appearance
at the BA Festival of Science, in York, where it presented its
patented non-sticky, enviro-friendly chewing gum.
a.k.a Clean Gum™ and Rev-7™
Really Magazine scoured the UK media for hard facts . . .
Here’s the BBC report :
disappointingly though, the piece neglects to mention what it’s made of. Bearing in mind that ( if the product is approved for sale by the govt. regulators ) millions of people may soon be routinely chewing it - it would be nice to know ?
Here’s the Daily Mail’s version :
also no mention of its composition.
And the FT ?
nope.
The Independent ?
they get a little closer, revealing that it contains:
“ the same sort of rubberised polymer found in car tyres. “
yes, but what is it exactly ?
Try as we might, Really Magazine failed to find the details of its composition in the heavy flurry of press reports.
Why the reluctance to say what it actually is ? Perhaps the basic chemical compostion is secret ? Subject to commercial confidentiality ?
Well, no, actually it’s public domain and freely available on the www.
Really Magazine tracked down the patent on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) website - where it’s summed up by the following single sentence :
“ a polymeric material having reduced tack which has a straight or branched chain carbon-carbon polymer backbone and a multiplicity of side chains attached to the backbone wherein the side chains, which are attached directly to carbon atoms of the polymer backbone, have the formula CH3 or have the formula CH-CH R3 I I R1 R2 wherein R1 is H, -C(O)OR4 or -C(O)Q and R2 is -C(O)OR4 or -C(O)Q provided that at least one of R1 and R2 is the group -C(O)Q; R3 is H or -CH3; R4 is H or an alkyl group having from 1 to 6 carbon atoms; Q is a group having the formula -O-(YO)b-(ZO)c-R5, wherein each of Y and Z is, independently, an alkylene group having from 2 to 4 carbon atoms and R5 is H or an alkyl group having from 1 to 4 carbon atoms; a is 3 or 4 and each of b and c is, independently, O or an integer of from 1 to 125 provided that the sum b + c has a value in the range of from 10 to 250, preferably 10 to 120. “
Perhaps the media were right not to mention it – it is a bit of a mouthful.
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Notes:
UK sales of chewing gum : £300 million a year
UK gum clean-up costs : £150 million a year
( source : The BA )
18 SEP 07
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A new kind of downsizing.
According to recent Associated Press report, at least one large US employer has plans to start charging their employees for being overweight :
“ In 2009 the company will start reducing pay for employees in its health plan by $10 per paycheck if their BMI — a measurement of body fat through a height and weight ratio — is in the obese range of more than 29.9. “
Really Magazine wonders if perhaps the move might set some interesting new legal precedents ? - the piece also quotes a senior partner at a Boston-based employment law firm :
" I believe that in just the next two years more employers will turn to penalties to change employee behavior."
said the spokesperson from Littler.com
17 SEP 07
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Tangle angle largely unravelled
Jean-baptiste Masson at the Laboratoire
d'Optique et Biosciences , Palaiseau, France recently
investigated the following problem :
“ Why does curly hair get less tangled than straight hair ? “
The question itself might seem counter-intuitive to some ( e.g. those who have curly hair ) but the results were clearly demonstrated by a series of experiments - which involved a team of hairdressers counting the tangles in the hair of their clients ( 123 straight – 89 curly )
The results were unequivocal. Straight hair was almost twice as tangly.
To explain the findings from a theoretical point of view, Masson used a mathematical
model incorporating techniques from polymer dynamics.
The theory describes how the tangle-factor depends on the angle at which hairs cross – which ( * for some reason Really Magazine doesn’t yet fully understand ) tends to be bigger when the hairs are straight.
And this causes more tangling ( * as above ).
The research was recently published in the American Journal of Physics
Link here ( subscribers only )
p.s. in case readers were wondering, Jean-baptiste has curly hair ( he’s
the one on
the left )
15 SEP 07
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The Sh4pe of th7ngz 2 c0m3.
What will web search engines look like in ten years ? This one of the questions driving a mutimillion dollar research project at the Turing Center, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington.
The Turing Center is “ Investigating problems at the crossroads of natural language processing, data mining, Web search, and the Semantic Web.”
Their ‘ KnowItAll ‘ project has been up and running in test mode for a while now, and demos of two of its compnent parts - Textrunner and Opine - are now available online.
It’s :
“ an unsupervised information extraction system which mines product review data in order to build a model of important product features “ currently configured in demo mode with a database referencing anything to do with hotels.
We checked out the system by searching for the word ‘ food ’ – mining several hundred hotel databases across the US and Europe.
‘ food ’ : No results.
Then we tried -
‘
Towels ’ : No results.
‘
Pool ’ : No results.
‘
Rooms ’ : No results.
Moving on, we tackled Textrunner.
which :
“ searches hundreds of millions of assertions
extracted from over 100 million Web pages on the topics of nutrition, history
of science, and general knowledge,
and sorts the results by probability. “
And this time we fared much better - getting 47 results with our search for ' bananas ' .
Such as :
' bananas are fruits '
but we also got results like these :
' Banana nut '
' Q a why is the brat diet bananas '
' apples is top banana ' and
' this s**t is bananas '
We should remember that both the facilities are still very much in development – but is it possible that they might have been made available for public appraisal a touch too early ?
If not, things might not bode all that well for the look and feel of search engines 10 years from now. Highlighting again the extreme problems in creating software which is ' intelligent ' enough to sort the wheat from the chaff when the original data – internationally gigantic though it may be – is shot through with junk.
Substantially underwhelmed by KnowItAll’s responses we decided
to try one last query – again with perplexing results
:
We searched for ' Chocolate teapot ' and found out that :
' performance appraisals are about as useful as the proverbial chocolate teapot '
14 SEP 07
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Black Sky research.
Many species of insect are able to easily find their way around under very
low light conditions. Some even prefer to do so. But until now it was largely
unknown whether one of the world’s most ubiquitous insects – the blowfly ( commonly known [ possibly erroneously ] as the bluebottle ) can,
or can’t, successfully navigate in the dark.
To find out, a research team from the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, UK used a low speed wind tunnel and sticky traps baited with liver.
Two species of blowfly were put to the test under varying lighting conditions : the results :
“ The number of both species caught, decreased incrementally as light intensity was reduced. “
So, during the hours of darkness at least, it’s now known that :
“ . . . while flies may be activated by carrion odours, they do not appear to be able to navigate effectively to the source of that odour. “
Readers wondering about possible practical applications of the knowledge might find a clue in the title of the journal in which the research is published :
Forensic Science International
13 SEP 07
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The sweet smell of :
It’s official ( for the time being ) C14H18N2O5 is
“ safe at current levels of consumption as a nonnutritive sweetener. “
Better known as Aspartame, the chemical has been the focus of controversial claims and counter-claims
since its accidental invention back in 1965.
After a somewhat rocky start, the chemical was finally approved by the FDA in 1981 - thanks in no small part to the efforts of a Mr. D. Rumsfeld who was president/CEO of Searle Inc. ( the patent holders ) at the time.
It’s now used in more than 6000 food and pharmaceutical products ranging from soft drinks to ketchup.
A new study, which looked at more than 500 reports dating from 1970s onwards, has just been published in the September issue of Critical Reviews in Toxicology.
Results:
“ No credible evidence was found that aspartame is carcinogenic, neurotoxic or has or any other adverse effects . . . “
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Note : The research was “ .
. . funded by unrestricted support from Ajinomoto
Company, Inc. “
–
one of the world's foremost suppliers of . . .
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Bournemouth rock music.
“ The unexpected appearance of what looks like facing profiles in a romantic encounter gives rise to appropriate mood music."
The ‘facing profiles’ referred to are in fact artefacts in a view of a micrograph of crystalised rock from Antarctica.
And they were the inspiration for melodic passages in the ‘ Antarctic Sonata ‘ - an original musical composition from Kevin Jones, Visiting Researcher to Bournemouth University in the UK
The piece also derives musical material from the undulating shape of the Antarctic coastline itself .
“ We hope that the performance will stimulate new insights, connections and alternative ways of thinking about structures, dynamic processes and geological relationships,”
The world premiere is at the Geological Society’s Bicentenary Conference in London this evening, at 6.00pm in the Churchill Auditorium, at the QE II Conference Centre, Westminster, London.
If you can’t make it to the concert, you can listen to excerpts
here on the University’s press-release page.
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Really magazine is unaware of other examples of " geologically inspired music " – if readers know of any, get in touch.
Many thanks to reader Carmelita who points us in the direction of more rock-music : [1] [2]
11 SEP 07
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Inequality wars
The University of Texas Inequality Project ( UTIP ) is involved with measuring and explaining movements of inequality in wages and earnings and patterns of industrial change around the world.
They’ve recently developed a disarmingly simple theory with regard to inequality and warfare.
Their theory postulates that when two countries are at war, the ‘ winner ’ can be predicted – with a high degree of accuracy - according to how egalitarian it is.
The less inequality, the more likely a country is to ‘ win ’.
Looking back at wars across the globe from 1816 to 1990, the institute found
“ In these years, the more equal side won 64 of the 80 conflicts (80 percent). “
“ . . . the evidence for an egalitarian victory proposition is remarkably strong. “
The theory – simple though it is – is fraught with problems. How do you define an ‘ egalitarian ‘ country ? Are democratic countries egalitarian ? Are the communist countries egalitarian ? Are some egalitarian states more egalitarian than others ?
More tricky still, is it always clear which country was the ‘ winner ’ ? – and how long do you wait to be really sure ?
If the institute’s idea really holds up to close scrutiny, then can it be useful for predicting the likely outcomes of future wars – and current ones ?
Say, for example the ongoing war in Iraq. The invading countr(ies) could certainly said to be more ‘ egalitarian ’ than Iraq was under Saddam – so, according to the theory, the ‘ coalition ’ will very likely turn out as the ‘ winner ‘ .
Really Magazine reserves the right to remain sceptical.
Our prediction is that the real ‘ winners ‘ won’t be the coalition - or the country of Iraq - or whatever remains of it.
The real winners will be the arms manufacturers, the private security firms, the ‘ reconstruction ‘ companies, and the oil coporations – almost everyone else loses – egalitarian or not.
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Their research paper hasn recently been published in the current issue of Defence
and Peace Economics
Here’s a link to the full paper:
10 SEP 07 (midday)
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Competition #4won.
We must have made it too easy - a sample just 130 milliseconds long was more than enough for it to be almost immediately identified . . .
We've posted up a new sample.
10 SEP 07
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Competition #3 won.
Our Trace That Noise Competition #3 has been rumbled . . . The sound was part of a recording of Passer domesticus - the House Sparrow - which is suffering a mysterious decline in numbers in the UK and some other countries. There is still no widely accepted explanation as to why. Lots of theories though, pollution, pesticides, cellphone radiation, viruses, even ' too many tarmac-ed driveways in gardens ' . . .
As far as we know*, the Independent’s £5000 prize for coming with a convincing definitive answer is still unclaimed . . .
[ * we've e-mailed them a few times to ask - but they haven't yet replied . . .]
There's a new sound for perusal, ( competition
#4) here . . .
08 SEP 07
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Penalty shoot-outs finally cornered
– should they be before or after extra time ?
A definitive answer was the goal of a research team from the Dept. of Economics at the University of Southern California – and the results of their study have just been published in the Journal of Sports Economics.
The problem was tackled with the application of careful mathematical modelling using game-theoretic tools to endogenize the scoring probabilities.
As might be expected, the calculations are far too complex to go into here, but the net result can be summarised as follows :
“ The paper has demonstrated that shooting penalties
at the end of regular time and let
the outcome count only if the extra time finishes with no goals has the potential
to turn
games more attractive. “
Read the full paper here :
06 SEP 07
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Turn off turned off.
The BBC has abandoned its plans to produce ‘ Planet Relief ‘ , a TV special on climate change.
Part of the programme’s strategy would have asked viewers to participate in a mass " switch-off " to save energy. ( presumably not their TVs though ) . . .
But it seems the BBC has ( for the time being ) given up on the idea - it’s been involved in talks with the UK’s National Grid PLC ( which oversees the country's ( privatised ) electricity supply ).
“ Negotiating this with the National Grid had taken over a year, as engineers feared the switch-off might overload parts of the network. “
Really ? How would that work ? Can anyone enlighten us ?
05 SEP 07
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Assisting the successful sculptural aggregation of crystalline precipitants.
“ Whoever the first person was to think to form snow into a human figure was a genius. “
Begins patent 7,264,531 B2
‘ Method and apparatus for facilitating the construction of a snow man/woman ‘
issued by the US Patent Office today.
Snowperson building can be far from straightforward, as the author of the
new patent points out.
For instance :
• The weight of the head ( in the case of a large snowperson ) can make it difficult to lift into position.
• There’s the tricky part of ‘welding’ the head onto the torso.
• Wind can blow away hats, scarves and other accoutrements.
• The snow-balls used to make the snowperson can be disappointingly un-spherical – they are never perfectly round.
• Finally, there is terminality. ( a.k.a. "awl melty" and "gawwn". )
“ . . . we are living in the 21st century now.
We have created the Internet. China is getting ready to send a person to
the moon . . . Can't somebody
build a better snow man ? “
The answer, for anyone keen to find out how to build a large and near perfect snowperson is : Yes : and :
“ Today is that day “
Read the full patent here :
04 SEP 07 (late edition)
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Fame dangers
Liverpool John Moores University has recently completed a study into the dangers involved with being a pop star. The details of which are press-released today.
The study traced the lives ( and deaths ) of more than 1000 US and European musicians and singers by cross referencing data from 430 websites, books, and other sources.
When compared with the rest of the population in the UK and the US, researchers found that rock and pop stars were more than twice as likely to die early . . .
In all, 100 stars died between 1956 and 2005.
The average age of death for the North American stars was 42 – and the European stars lasted seven years less.
" Public health consideration needs to be given to preventing music icons promoting health-damaging behaviour amongst their emulators and fans " say the authors.
However ( though Really Magazine has failed to find a mention of it anywhere in the many media reports we’ve seen today ) the study also revealed the most common case of death :
Cancer.
Here’s the full report
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Also see: ( the decidedly unPC )
04 SEP 07 (midday edition)
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Auricular curricula
If your pet has ‘ nasty ears ‘ and you’re anywhere near Stillwater, Oklahoma tonight, then here’s a seminar which could well be of interest to you (both).
It’s entitled “ Help ! My Pet Has Nasty Ears “
7pm, Oklahoma State University, McElroy Hall Auditorium. Free entrance, parking
and refreshments.
04 SEP 07
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Religiosity on the couch.
Back in 2005, the University of Chicago Medical Cente published details of research into how religious physicians tend to be.
A sample of more than 1000 US physicians ( who responded to a postal survey ) showed that doctors in the US were five times more likely to be Muslim, six times more likely to be Buddhist, seven times more likely to be Jewish and 26 times more likely to be Hindu than the population at large.
" We did not think physicians were nearly this religious, " said study author Farr Curlin, MD, at the time.
“ These results were not anticipated. Religious belief tends to decrease as education and income levels increase, yet doctors are highly educated and, on average, well compensated.”
Now the team have extended their study – to psychiatrists. And the results have just been published in the journal Psychiatric Services.
This time the data showed that - compared with physicians - there was a decrease in religiosity.
Since Sigmund Freud's 1927 publication of The Future of an Illusion
“ many psychiatrists have had to counter accusations of having no religious beliefs. “
And the new research showed that 17% don’t have – roughly equal to the general population.
( Though the psychiatrists's favouite religion still featured at levels more than 15 times higher than in the poulation at large . . . )
Abstract of the research here :
03 SEP 07
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