Archive for November, 2013

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UN Climate Conference over – Fortunately nothing was achieved!

November 24, 2013

The UN Climate Conference in Warsaw is over.  We are told that agreement was reached on a compromise. The countries agreed not to make commitments but instead that they would all make “contributions”. To make sure that agreement was reached these contributions are not legally binding. Moreover each nation is only required to specify its “contribution” by the first quarter of 2015 –  if it feels able to. The method of measurement or monitoring the contribution is left to each nation!

The agreement is that each nation may do as it pleases.

Developing countries “believe” in global warming only because they think they can get money from the developed world if they seem to do so. There has been no global warming for 17 years. The supposed link between carbon dioxide and global temperature is well and truly broken. Nobody with any sense believes any longer that any measures taken by any or all countries to cut carbon dioxide emissions can have any impact on our climate. But the UN and political correctness continues with this fiction. Developed countries are no longer prepared to allow the political correctness of global warming and carbon dioxide emissions to lose even more jobs than have already been lost. The vested interests in this fiction and the carbon industry that has sprung up in the last 2 decades are well entrenched – from academia to “green” politicians to lobbyists to “green activists” and to the various industries tied to trying to get rid of fossil fuels. Yet, coal consumption globally has increased by over 80% in the last 10 years and global temperatures have actually declined.

But still some 10,000 bureaucrats and politicians and another 5,000 workers in academia and about twice as many lobbyists and environmentalists travel from one UN conference to the next and achieve nothing but merely plan for the next conference. It seems success is measured by making no commitments whatsoever except to have another conference.

THE UN COP19 conference in Warsaw has ended. Fortunately nothing was achieved. The conferences are now on life-support and being kept alive for nothing other than to keep the conference supporters in jobs. It is time to pull the plug and let these conferences die.

USA Today: 

Avoiding a last-minute breakdown, annual United Nations climate talks limped forward Saturday with a modest set of decisions meant to pave the way for a new pact to fight global warming.

More than 190 countries agreed in Warsaw to start preparing “contributions” for the new deal, which is supposed to be adopted in 2015. That term was adopted after China and India objected to the word “commitments” in a standoff with the U.S. and other developed countries.

The fast-growing economies say they are still developing countries and shouldn’t have to take on as strict commitments to cut carbon emissions as industrialized nations.

The conference also advanced a program to reduce deforestation and established a “loss and damage” mechanism to help island states and other vulnerable countries under threat from rising seas, extreme weather and other climate impacts.

The wording was vague enough to make developed countries feel comfortable that they weren’t going to be held liable for climate catastrophes in the developing world.

U.S. and other rich countries also resisted demands to put down firm commitments on how they plan to fulfill a pledge to scale up climate financing to developing countries to $100 billion by 2020.

It looks like everybody succeeded very well in making no commitments of any substance and they have all agreed to have another conference.

Execution rather than euthanasia is called for.

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, UN | 3 Comments »

Boeing issues warning: Further icing problems with GE GenX engines on Boeing aircraft

November 23, 2013
GenX 2B GE

GenX 2B GE

UPDATE:

Reuters: Boeing advised airlines on Friday about a risk of engine icing problems on its new 747-8 and 787 Dreamliner planes with engines made by General Electric, urging 15 carriers to avoid flying them near high-level thunderstorms. 

The move followed six incidents from April to November involving five 747-8s and one 787 when aircraft powered by GE’s GEnx engines suffered temporary loss of thrust while flying at high altitude. The problem was caused by a build-up of ice crystals, initially just behind the front fan, which ran through the engine, said a GE spokesman, adding that all of the aircraft landed at their planned destinations safely.

Boeing on Friday issued a notice prohibiting the affected aircraft from flying at high attitude within 50 nautical miles of thunderstorms that may contain ice crystals.

Icing problems with GE engines on Boeing’s Dreamliner has led to Japan Airlines pulling the Dreamliner from two international routes.

This comes on top of the icing problems noticed recently on the latest 747 cargo aircraft. A few weeks ago it was reported that a number of the latest long-haul Boeing 747 cargo aircraft fitted with the new GenX series of GE engines experienced engine icing problems when flying in particular cloud conditions at 41,000 feet:

Wall Street Journal: Icing Hazards Surface on Boeing’s Newest 747 Jet

Years after aviation-safety experts thought they had eliminated the danger of airliner engines abruptly shutting down from internal ice accumulation, the same airborne hazard is showing up on a new generation of Boeing Co. jumbo jets.

The Chicago plane maker and General Electric Co., whose engines are installed on the biggest and newest Boeing 747 model, are now working together on fixes to prevent ice buildup that can prompt the giant airliner’s engines to temporarily malfunction or even stop working while cruising roughly 7 miles, or 41,000 feet, above the earth.

A GE spokesman said there are proposed software changes—which still need to be tested and then approved by the Federal Aviation Administration—designed to detect the presence of ice crystals in the atmosphere and eject the tiny particles before they form a coating deep inside engines that can melt or break into chunks.

… challenges with the GEnx-2B engines on extra-long 747 aircraft—known as 747-8s—highlight complex and nagging icing hazards that once again are forcing industry leaders and an international research team to scramble for answers. Before the partial government shutdown, according to industry officials, the FAA was moving toward mandating modifications to the 747-8’s computerized engine controls and making plans to warn pilots about susceptibility to internal engine icing while flying over storm-prone regions at roughly 40,000 feet.

Previously, experts believed such icing occurred primarily below 25,000 feet. ….

These cases of icing are different to those normally encountered and which are relatively well understood.

Aviation Week: 

….. The AirBridge Cargo event is the latest in a growing number of engine-icing incidents, which have triggered recent changes in international certification requirements. Unlike traditional engine icing, in which supercooled liquid droplets freeze on impact with exposed outer parts of the engine as the aircraft flies through clouds, engine core ice accretion involves a complex process where ice particles stick to a warm metal surface. These act as a heat sink until the metal surface temperature drops below freezing, thereby forming a location for ice and water (mixed-phase) accretion. The accumulated ice can either block flow into the core or shed into the downstream compressor stages and combustor, causing a surge, roll-back or other malfunction.

Until relatively recently, it was assumed that ice particles would bounce off structures and pass harmlessly through bypass ducts, or melt inside the engine. Now, there is evidence of an environment where a certain combination of water, ice and airflow is susceptible to accreting ice. Like many of the other known core icing events, the ABC 747-8F incident occurred near convective clouds. When incidents were first reported, investigators initially assumed supercooled liquid water, hail or rain were responsible because they had been lifted to high altitudes by updrafts. Yet most events have been recorded above 22,000 ft., which is considered the upper limit for clouds containing supercooled liquid water. ……

To find out exactly what is happening inside the convective systems that most frequently cause core icing, particularly in mid-latitude and tropical regions, an international team plans to conduct the High Ice Water Content (HIWC) test campaign in Darwin, Australia. The team includes NASA, FAA, Environment Canada, Transport Canada, Airbus, Boeing, the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Also joining the effort will be the European Union’s High Altitude Ice Crystals (HAIC) project, which will be contributing a specially configured Falcon 20 research aircraft. ……

But now Boeing has warned all its clients who use aircraft with GE’s GenX engines not to fly them near certain kinds of storm clouds. And Japan Airlines whose Boeing 787 Dreamliners are powered by GenX engines has pulled the aircraft from two of its international routes:

Reuters: Japan Airlines (JAL)  said on Saturday it will pull Boeing 787 Dreamliners from two international routes after the U.S. aircraft maker notified it of icing problems in engines produced by General Electric .

Japanese carrier said Boeing notified airlines not to fly aircraft with GE’s GEnx Series engines near storm clouds following a recent incident in which a 747 aircraft experienced a loss of thrust after flying through anvil cloud.

As a result, JAL will replace Dreamliners on its Tokyo-Delhi and Tokyo-Singapore flights with other types of aircraft while also dropping a plan to use 787s for its Tokyo-Sydney route from December.

JAL will continue to fly 787s for other international and domestic routes, which are unlikely to be affected by cumulonimbus cloud for the time being.

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When JFK was shot, I was asleep

November 22, 2013

It is a day for memories.

I was 15, in Calcutta and had ongoing final school exams.

When JFK died at 1230 CST on 22nd November, it was almost midnight in India and I had just gone to bed. I was first to wake up the next morning around 5am to do my last minute review for the days exams. But I always started by going through the sports pages and the comics in the papers. The news just made the headlines in the editions of the two newspapers we got – The Statesman and the Amrita Bazar Patrika. For a 15 year-old schoolboy JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy represented all things American and all things admirable. I woke my parents after seeing the headlines in a state of disbelief, as if they could somehow make the news disappear.

I cannot remember what exam we had that day but I do remember that we talked about nothing else. Within our little group at school we were in the throes of just becoming politically aware. Within our group we had staunch capitalists and die-hard communists (of the Soviet Union persuasion since India had had a border war with China the year before) and every shade in-between. But political leanings were irrelevant that day. There was a sombre, subdued mood among the entire class and the teachers. Few had much experience of violent death. We all knew that our final exam results would be decisive in the choice of which University we would get into and that our futures depended on our results, but there was an underlying realisation that this event, far away across the world, was something probably much more important and fateful than our exam results.

Of the 10 in our group, two have died. In reality and in hindsight, for each of us, the exam results we achieved has probably had a much greater direct effect on our careers over the 50 years since then, than JFK’s asassination. But something inside each of us, I think, changed that day. Whatever JFK may have achieved as a politician is fading rapidly as time passes. But the impact his death, and the manner of his death, had on those of his time will remain till they, too, pass on.

I cannot remember much about those exams 50 years ago. But I can remember with astonishing clarity exactly how I felt when I first saw the headline that JFK had been shot dead. It is a crystal clear emotional recall which I cannot fully articulate.

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Androids will dream of this electric “J”

November 22, 2013
Android on a Kawasaki J

Android on a Kawasaki J

It will never go into production.

It’s electric (note the artistic and symbolic flashes of green), but they are sticking to a NiMH battery rather than a lithium-ion fire hazard.

It’s what some androids will dream of instead of electric sheep.

It’s the Kawasaki J-concept motor cycle being displayed at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show.

DigitalTrends: The Kawasaki J technically has three wheels, but in Sport Mode the two front wheels are pushed together, and the entire machine hunkers down to lower the center of gravity. In Comfort Mode, the stance is raised and the front wheels separate, giving the ride a more upright position that is, well, more comfortable.

Instead of handlebars, steering is accomplished with two levers, one attached to each of the front wheels. It’s a decidedly Steampunk mechanism, compared to the bike’s Cyberpunk styling.

In three-wheeled Comfort Mode, the J concept looks like a scooter used by mall cops in the futuristic Grid city from Tron. In maximum-attack Sport Mode, it looks completely otherworldly.

Powering the Kawasaki J is an electric motor hooked to a nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery pack. The packaging advantages of an electric powertrain were probably needed to accomplish the J’s transformation stunt. Note that it doesn’t use the lithium-ion batteries that are found in most electric cars and plug-in hybrids.

The Kawasaki J looks awesome on the show stand, and it won’t be going anywhere else. Kawasaki has no plans to put it into production. That’s just as well; it’ll save owners from having to try to explain it to their neighbors.

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The first string? Man-made, twisted, fibre, cords at least 90,000 years ago

November 22, 2013

The man in question may well have been Neanderthal. Fibre artefacts rot easily and the oldest remains found of a man-made, twisted, fibre “cord” or “string” dates from only about 30,000 years ago. A new paper describes perforations in upto 90,000 year old, stone and tooth artefacts as well as shells from Abri du Maras and other Neanderthal sites in France, indicating they had once been threaded on “strings” and worn as pendants.

This post has beeen shifted to 6,000 Generations

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Good news today: “Green groups walk out of UN climate talks”

November 21, 2013

The UN Climate conferences must count as the most useless, misguided and profligate international cooperation ever.Therefore one hopes that this report in the Guardian is true. The best thing that could happen would be if everybody walked out of these orgies of decadence and the world could forget the last two decades of waste.

I doubt it will happen, since these UN jamborees provide a wonderful and regular forum for the do-gooders and the catastrophe mongers to gather and wallow in their delusions. Mostly financed by taxes. The IPCC is at best a disgrace to both science and to international cooperation. I suspect the green groups think they will get valuable publicity with their walk-out stunt but will all return tomorrow.

They are on to too good a thing and I doubt that they will walk out never to return. But I can always hope:

The Guardian: 

Environment and development groups together with young people, trade unions and social movements walked out of the UN climate talks on Thursday in protest at what they say is the slow speed and lack of ambition of the negotiations in Warsaw. 

Wearing T-shirts reading “Volverermos” (We will return), around 800 people from organisations including Greenpeace, WWF, Oxfam, 350.org, Friends of the Earth, the Confederation and ActionAid, handed back their registration badges to the UN and left Poland’s national stadium, where the talks are being held. 

“Movements representing people from every corner of the Earth have decided that the best use of our time is to voluntarily withdraw from the Warsaw climate talks. This will be the first time ever that there has been a mass withdrawal from a COP,” said a WWF spokesman. 

“Warsaw, which should have been an important step in the just transition to a sustainable future, is on track to deliver virtually nothing. We feel that governments have given up on the process,” he said.

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MOM turns its camera on Earth while preparing for critical insertion into Mars trajectory

November 21, 2013

While the MOM spacecraft “Mangalyaan” is in orbit around Earth, its systems and scientific instruments are being tested to prepare for the critical burn at 0036 IST on 1st December (1906 GMT 30th November) to inject it into a Mars trajectory. The colour camera has been turned on Earth during testing and ISRO has released this photograph.

This image was taken yesterday at around 1350 hrs (IST) from a height of almost 70,000 km above earth and has a spatial resolution of 3.5 km.

Earth from MOM 20131120 image ISRO

Earth from MOM 20131120 image ISRO

The spacecraft’s engine has so far been fired as follows:

  • first orbit-raising manoeuvre 416 seconds
  • second orbit raising manoeuvre 570.6 seconds
  • third orbit raising manoeuvre 707 seconds
  • fourth orbit-raising manoeuvre (time not specified, firing curtailed inadvertently)
  • fourth supplementary orbit raising manoeuvre 303.8 seconds
  • fifth orbit raising manoeuvre 243.5 seconds

The next critical burn (the seventh) has to to use the 440 Newton liquid engine again to impart a delta-v of nearly 648 m/s and the engine will have its longest burn time of 1,351 seconds. Three mid course corrections on the spacecraft’s journey to Mars are planned for and the fuel carried has to also cater for finally braking to enter into Mars orbit.

The Hindu carries a long, fascinating interview with  K. Radhakrishnan, ISRO Chairman. The article is a little unusual in its length and technical detail which most Indian newspapers would fight shy of! Some selected extracts below but the entire interview is worth reading:

After the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C25) put India’s Mars Orbiter into a perfect earth-bound orbit on November 5, it has been a smooth journey so far for the spacecraft. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) boosted the Mars Orbiter’s apogee in six complex manoeuvres executed between November 7 and 16. ISRO did this by giving commands from the ground to the spacecraft’s propulsion system, called 440 Newton engine, to fire. A crucial event of the trans-Mars injection of the spacecraft will take place on December 1 by a prolonged firing of the 440 Newton engine.

…. Till now, we have completed six manoeuvres including a supplementary one. Currently, the spacecraft’s apogee is 1,92,915 km. 

In the early hours of December 1, around 00.36 hours, we have the trans-Mars injection of our Mars spacecraft. On that day, we are going to use the 440 Newton liquid engine again to impart a delta-v, that is, an incremental velocity of nearly 648 metres a second to the spacecraft and the engine will burn for 1,351 seconds. It is crucial in the sense that we need to give the exact velocity required to take the spacecraft from the earth-orbit, passing through the sphere of influence of the earth which extends up to 9.25 lakh km from the earth, cruise through the long helio-centric phase, then get into the sphere of influence of Mars, and on its arrival near Mars on September 24, 2014, it has to be put into 376 km plus or minus 50 km above Mars at that point of time. On the same day, the next crucial operation of the spacecraft’s Mars orbit insertion has to take place. When this running of the 440 Newton liquid engine takes place on December 1, we also have eight numbers of 22 Newton control thrusters firing. 

There are two tasks for them. One is the spacecraft’s attitude control. Secondly, if it is required, they will aid the 440 Newton thrusters to augment its thrust-level. Both the functions will be performed and the Mars spacecraft will then be moving towards the helio-centric orbit. Then on December 11, we plan to have one small firing for mid-course correction of the spacecraft. There may be one more mid-course correction during the helio-centric phase, and subsequently, a fortnight before the spacecraft’s arrival near Mars, there will be one more mid-course correction. So there will be three mid-course corrections between December 1, 2013 and September 24, 2014. 

With the velocity imparted to the spacecraft on December 1, 2013, we will have an estimate of its expected position on September 24, 2014. We will be continuously tracking the spacecraft and if there are deviations vis-à-vis the end goal, we will make the corrections. So December 1 will be a crucial operation. The spacecraft’s propulsion system, i.e., the 440 Newton liquid engine, will complete its first phase of operations on December 1. It has to be re-started for its operation on September 24. There is thus a long gap. 

How confident are you that you can re-start the 440 Newton engine after it has hibernated in deep space for about 300 days during the spacecraft’s voyage? 

We have been using the 440 Newton engine for our Geo-synchronous Satellite – GSAT- missions where the spacecraft’s orbit has to be raised about a week after its launch. In the case of Chandrayaan-1, we had to restart the operation after a fortnight. For that, we had qualified the liquid engine in 2008 to restart after one month. 

During the last two years, considering the specific requirements of our Mars Orbiter Mission for re-starting the spacecraft’s 440 Newton engine after it has idled for about 300 days, we had done these two actions. One is we have provided a set of parallel circuits for the propellants’ flow-lines and also provided redundancy in the form of a latch-valve. So what essentially happens is that one portion of the fluid circuit will be closed after December 1. The parallel path will be energised for the operation in September 2014. 

……. In the spacecraft’s orbit-raising manoeuvres, during its trans-Mars injection and its insertion into the Martian orbit, the firing of the liquid engine is done in a closed loop mode. Here, a precision accelerometer is used to estimate the incremental velocity added as the liquid engine burns and when the accelerometer gives a feedback that the required incremental velocity added to the spacecraft has been achieved, the burning of the liquid engine is automatically terminated. So, minor variations in the performance of the liquid engine will not matter because we are cutting off its burning based on the delta-v that is achieved. That is why we call it closed loop of firing. …… 

Up to (925,000) km from the Earth, the spacecraft will be in the sphere of influence of the Earth. Subsequently, it will be moving into the helio-centric phase of its flight. It is a long one, where you have to look at the influence of other planets and the Moon and then the solar radiation pressure acting on the spacecraft. That pressure varies with respect to time because the geometry of the sun and the spacecraft matters here. This is something we have not done so far and this helio-centric phase of the flight is new to us. 

In Chandrayaan-1, we had travelled up to (400,000) km, which was well within the sphere of influence of the Earth. But here for the first time, we are moving out of the sphere of influence of the earth. So how the spacecraft will behave during the helio-centric flight of 680 million km along the arc is new to us. Then the spacecraft gets into the sphere of influence of Mars which is nearly six lakh km from Mars. 

From our understanding of the Mars gravity model, the influence of the atmosphere of Mars, the influence of the two satellites of Mars and the solar radiation pressure there on the spacecraft are very important. This is also a new thing that we are attempting. 

So the navigation of the Mars spacecraft from the orbit of the Earth to the orbit of Mars, passing through all these three phases, is a new knowledge that we are acquiring and validating during the next 300 and odd days.

Read the whole article.

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A private, auspicious trip to Mars and back

November 20, 2013

I don’t believe in Astrology but 5th January 2018 is a particularly auspicious and propitious date for a quick jaunt to Mars and back. And billionaire Denis Tito plans to take advantage of the advantageous alignment of Mars and Earth to make the first manned trip to Mars and back. It would be a “free-return” trajectory so the couple making the trip would only fly around Mars and return to a landing on Earth 501 days after they left.

InspirationMars: The mission’s target launch date is Jan. 5, 2018. This exceptionally quick, free-return orbit opportunity occurs twice every 15 years. After 2018, the next opportunity won’t occur again until 2031. The mission will provide a platform for unprecedented science, engineering and education opportunities, using state-of-the-art technologies derived from NASA and the International Space Station. It will be financed primarily through philanthropic donations, with some potential support from government sources.

The closest distance between Mars and Earth varies by almost a factor of two over an 18 year period. Note that 1 AU (Astronomical Unit) is the average distance between the Sun and the Earth (about 150 million kilometers). NASA

Inspiration Mars Press Release: 

Dennis Tito, founder and chairman of the Inspiration Mars Foundation, testified today before the House Science Subcommittee on Space during a hearing on commercial space. Tito shared the results of a 90-day study undertaken by Inspiration Mars and developed through collaborative efforts with
NASA centers and industry partners to define a baseline architecture for a human mission to Mars. The
Foundation proposes to send a spacecraft in late 2017 or early 2018 bearing two astronauts, a man and
woman, to the far side of Mars and return them to Earth. ….. Inspiration Mars’ Architecture Study Report describes the proposed mission architecture to enable the voyage of 314 million miles in 501 days, which requires collaboration through a public-private partnership with NASA. The plan calls for two launches to keep crew and cargo separate, an inherent safety feature to the mission architecture. First, the SLS will lift off from Kennedy Space Center with a four-part payload to place cargo into Earth’s orbit, consisting of: an SLS upper-stage rocket to propel spacecraft from Earth’s orbit to Mars; a service module containing electrical power, propulsion and communication systems; a Cygnus-derived habitat module where the astronauts will live for 501 days; and an Earth Reentry Pod derived from Orion. The second launch will take the crew into orbit aboard a commercial transportation vehicle (selected from competing designs under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program). From there, the crew and Inspiration Mars vehicle stack will rendezvous in orbit using docking procedures perfected by more than 130 trips to the International Space Station. ….

Tito noted there is a window for a mission by a different trajectory, a mission longer by 88 days that could be flown in 2021. Tito stated, “Given Russia’s clear recognition of the value and prestige of accomplishments in human space exploration, and their long-time interest in exploring Mars, my personal belief is that in all likelihood the Energia super-heavy rocket revival announcement signals Russian intent to fly this mission in 2021. Their heavy lift rocket, along with their other designs for modules and the Soyuz, can fly this mission with modest upgrades to their systems. China is also developing suitable capabilities and must surely be contemplating this opportunity to be first to Mars. It is our civic duty to bring this to the attention of the executive and legislative government branches. The 2010 NASA authorization has given America the opportunity to be first to Mars, and we believe it should be taken by launching the mission to Mars in 2017.”

Fast Free return trajectories between Earth and Mars occur twice every 15 years:

Low energy Free Returns with TOFS around 3 years (or less) are plentiful and occur every synodic period. Higher energy Free Returns with TOFS around 2 years are also plentiful and occur synodically. Of particular interest are fast Free Returns which occur in 2015 and 2017 and have the shortest TOF of about 1.4 years. These trajectories may provide a timely opportunity for the first human mission to Mars.

File:Inspiration Mars trajectory.svg

Inspiration Mars trajectory: Wikimedia

“Practical schemes for sending humans to Mars have been on the drawing boards for more than 60 years. Pioneering space engineer Wernher von Braun, author of the 1952 book “Project Mars,” proposed Mars flyby flights using Apollo lunar spacecraft in the 1960s.” – space.com

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Waiting for a new Tendulkar

November 20, 2013

An almost necessary requirement for anyone to be a credible successor to Tendulkar will be for him to enter into Test cricket by the age of 17 or 18 at the latest (Tendulkar joined the Indian Test team at 16).

Two years ago Arman Jaffer exploded into cricket consciousness with 498 runs for his school Rizvi Springfield in a Giles Shield match. He was only 13 at the time. He was selected this summer when he was still 14 as a probable for Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy squad.  He is still only 15 and remains on course to emulate Tendulkar’s particular brand of divinity.

ToI: Veteran opener Wasim Jaffer will welcome the introduction of his 14-year-old nephew Arman Jaffer, who was included in a 30-man probables list named by the new panel of Mumbai selectors, ….. Having scored heavily in junior cricket in the past few years, Arman has already made a name for himself as a batting sensation. He slammed a record 498 for Rizvi Springfield in the Giles Shield final back in 2010, and almost broke that mark by rustling up 473 this February in the Harris Shield final at Matunga Gymkhana. This season, Arman steered the Mumbai U-16 team to the Vijay Merchant title by scoring 1046 runs with four hundreds and eight fifties — in six games. It was the first time a batsman had scored more than 1,000 runs in that tournament.

But there are others who could push Arman Jaffer hard. His record of 498 in schools cricket has already been broken, once again by the captain of Rizvi Springfield.

ToI: Mumbai’s under 16 and Rizvi Springfield captain Prithvi Shaw created the world record by becoming the first batsman to score 500 runs in inter school tournament. The 14 years old Prithvi achieved the milestone against St. Francis D’Assisi in the Harris Shield tournament match on Wednesday. 
Prithvi’s marathon 546 runs knock that came off 330 balls was studded with 85 fours and five sixes.The Mumbai teenager broke Armaan Jaffer’s record of 498 runs. On Tuesday, Prithvi was unbeaten on 257 to put Rizvi Springfield (Bandra) in command against St. Francis D’Assisi (Borivali).

First Post: …. Shaw has amassed 4000 runs in the last three years across the circuit — mainly in school cricket competitions. …… Shaw has already played abroad in England for the Gloucestershire second team — which is just one level below first-class cricket. ”I am a professional and when I see talent I know it. If he keeps up the work, in five years he will arguably be the best batsman in the world,” former English county cricketer and the founder JW cricket academy Julian Wood said about the teenager.

The vintage Tendulkar will be sorely missed of course – though I think he should have retired 4 or 5 years ago. But his straight driving between mid-on and cover came straight from heaven. But there is new talent making itself known. Jaffer and Shaw will be names to watch and I am quite sure they will not be without rivals.

For all schoolboy cricketers it will be a worthy ambition to try and follow in Sachin Tendulkar’s footsteps. But to actually succeed Sachin will not be easy and it may never happen.

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Men, muscles and noses (and why the Dong has a luminous nose)

November 20, 2013

A new study suggests that men have larger noses than women because they have greater muscle mass to supply with oxygen. That is also possibly why archaic humans with greater muscle mass than modern humans also had larger noses.

Nathan E. Holton, Todd R. Yokley, Andrew W. Froehle, Thomas E. Southard, Ontogenetic scaling of the human nose in a longitudinal sample: Implications for genusHomofacial evolution. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2013; DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22402 

The University of Iowa’s news release:

Human noses come in all shapes and sizes. But one feature seems to hold true: Men’s noses are bigger than women’s.

A new study from the University of Iowa concludes that men’s noses are about 10 percent larger than female noses, on average, in populations of European descent. The size difference, the researchers believe, comes from the sexes’ different builds and energy demands: Males in general have more lean muscle mass, which requires more oxygen for muscle tissue growth and maintenance. Larger noses mean more oxygen can be breathed in and transported in the blood to supply the muscle.

The researchers also note that males and females begin to show differences in nose size at around age 11, generally, when puberty starts. Physiologically speaking, males begin to grow more lean muscle mass from that time, while females grow more fat mass. Prior research has shown that, during puberty, approximately 95 percent of body weight gain in males comes from fat-free mass, compared to 85 percent in females. …. 

…. It also explains why our noses are smaller than those of our ancestors, such as the Neanderthals. The reason, the researchers believe, is because our distant lineages had more muscle mass, and so needed larger noses to maintain that muscle. Modern humans have less lean muscle mass, meaning we can get away with smaller noses.

“So, in humans, the nose can become small, because our bodies have smaller oxygen requirements than we see in archaic humans,” Holton says, noting also that the rib cages and lungs are smaller in modern humans, reinforcing the idea that we don’t need as much oxygen to feed our frames as our ancestors. “This all tells us physiologically how modern humans have changed from their ancestors.” ….

And by whatever strange associations that go on in my brain, Edward Lear’s explanation for how his heartbroken and stalwart Dong made himself a prosthetic, luminous nose (which I must have first read some 50 years ago) keeps going around in my head (extract from Edward Lear’s nonsense poem).

……. And those who watch at that midnight hour
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as the wild light passes along, —
            “The Dong! — the Dong!
      “The wandering Dong through the forest goes!
            “The Dong! the Dong!
      “The Dong with a luminous Nose!”
…….
Playing a pipe with silvery squeaks,
      Since then his Jumbly Girl he seeks,
      And because by night he could not see,
      He gathered the bark of the Twangum Tree
            On the flowery plain that grows.
            And he wove him a wondrous Nose, —
      A Nose as strange as a Nose could be!
Of vast proportions and painted red,
And tied with cords to the back of his head.
      — In a hollow rounded space it ended
      With a luminous Lamp within suspended,
            All fenced about
            With a bandage stout
            To prevent the wind from blowing it out; —
      And with holes all round to send the light,
      In gleaming rays on the dismal night.
…….
And all who watch at the midnight hour,
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as they trace the Meteor bright,
Moving along through the dreary night, —
      “This is the hour when forth he goes,
      “The Dong with a luminous Nose!
      “Yonder — over the plain he goes;
            “He goes!
            “He goes;
      “The Dong with a luminous Nose!”

The Dong was first published in 1846 and maybe Rudolph, who first appeared in a 1939 booklet written by Robert L. May, got his glowing red nose, in a similar way to the Dong.

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Posted in Anthropology, Evolution, Humans, Literature | Comments Off on Men, muscles and noses (and why the Dong has a luminous nose)

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