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Noted in Passing 19th January 2013

January 19, 2013

A weekly post on things that were interesting or which I would have liked to have blogged about …….

Engineering and Technology

A work of genius: Harry Beck's map of 1933

A work of genius: Harry Beck’s map of 1933

The London Underground is 150 years old and the iconic London Underground Map is a work of some genius – by an electrical draughtsman Harry Beck – in focusing on connections and ignoring geography.

Boeing is facing a torrid time with the 787 Dreamliner and has stopped all further aircraft deliveries. This is going to hurt their cash flow even before all the claims from the airlines come in for the grounding of their aircraft.

The advent of hydraulic fracturing and the consequent availability of shale gas means that new lines are drawn on the energy map of the world and many of the oldest and most stable geopolitical truths will be turned on their heads.

If graphene turns out to be the wonder material that it promises to be then it is time to invest in graphite.

Science and Behaviour

The dangers with blindly assuming that correlations represent a causal relationship is well demonstrated by this study on milk, chocolate and Nobel prizes. Derby Proctor believes that chimpanzees have a sense of fairness but her “ultimatum game” experiments were not strictly ultimate games at all and are not convincing.  Altruism among chimpanzees is – if it exists at all – strictly limited and only after basic needs are satisfied and restricted to a very few.

Matt Ridley joins the list and also dumps on Mark Lynas and green orthodoxy

The curious case of Zuma’s deputies deals with the intricacies of politics in South Africa and in the ANC today. An interesting post on the French need to be relevant in the world and Hollande’s adventures in Africa.

How much of the chatter on Twitter or postings on Facebook are real communication and how much is noise? Nandana Sengupta looks at the pluses and the minuses of the explosion of opinions via social media in India.

Having spent a lifetime with contracts I have always taken “terms” of “terms and conditions” to signify “limits of time” but terms and conditions have now converged in usage to be almost identical in meaning.

On where Tolkien may have found the word “hobbit”.

For Wodehouse fans and for the first time since Ralph Richardson as Lord Emsworth in 1967, BBC are showing a  new TV series centred around Blandings Castle. The reviews were not very kind:

“The performances weren’t bad exactly, but there was an impression that the cast had raided the charity shop and were merely having a spiffing time in vintage clothing.”

Bad Science

Michael Marotta describes four books on bad science.

The British Met Office makes yet another misstep and demonstrates that massaging science to get a desired result makes for bad science.

Climate models are hardly worth the paper they are printed on and they don’t seem to have any idea of how to handle the effect of clouds. Models – which are pushing the alarmist cause – generally assume they have a positive feedback on global warming but in reality the feedback is negative.

Professor Debora Weber-Wulff reports on Multiple Retractions of Articles by Computer Science Professor

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Airport security is now more about business than about security

January 19, 2013

I can still remember arriving at airports, checking in and strolling quietly to my departure gate without undressing along the way or unpacking my bag or spending up to an hour standing in a “security” queue. The “airport experience” was still something to look forward to. But that is in my memory like a long-lost dream. Those days seem to have gone forever.

In the name of security we now accept the routine degradation that comes with intrusive pat-downs, small children being frisked by strange men and the impassive reluctance of security staff to use their minds (which is of course what is required of them). I have yet to come across an airport where the time and inconvenience  and hassle of the security process has actually decreased but many where extra layers of hassle with new equipment are added. And it is getting worse. 

We accept the inconvenience to the many in the hope of finding the -presumed – very few who wish to destroy the plane they are travelling on. Airport security has over the years managed to deprive me of two bottles of whiskey, a few lighters, two nail clippers, a bottle of after-shave lotion, one of perfume and a bottle of extra-hot chilli sauce. At Paris my son has been reduced to an incoherent rage when a security female of little mind confiscated his multi-function “Swiss card”. I have been taken out of the security line and hassled for 90 minutes at Frankfurt when I tried to read the name-tag (purposely worn upside down to avoid identification) of the security moron on duty . At Delhi airport I have been taken aside and questioned why I needed two lighters in my bag. At Singapore they confiscated my nose-hair scissors! Twice – at Dresden – my trousers have fallen down without the support of my belt when I was holding up my arms to be patted down.

The idea is that passengers are both protected from potential terrorist attacks and/or at least are reassured that their safety is being considered. In 2010, the BBC lauded the results of a survey that found that the majority of the flying public was in favour of the measure. But can we trust the results? What the BBC failed to mention was that the consulting company which carried out the survey, Unisys, had financial interests in the body scanner industry.

But I wonder whether all this “security” works and even whether it has ever worked? Is there any evidence at all that all this security has ever found an intending saboteur? It seems remarkably convenient that the security industry has no performance criteria to be judged on – for security reasons of course.

And then I comprehend that the airport security “business” is now worth about $100 billion per year and over $30 billion of that is just in Europe. It becomes obvious then that the “security industry” will not permit the easing of the plethora of unnecessary regulations if this volume of business might decrease. They will never admit to how ineffective they are.

So it is encouraging to read that TSA to pull revealing scanners from airports. But I am afraid that my cynical view remains that  after 9/11: airports ‘wasting billions’ on needless security checks for passengers. As Business Week put it Airport Security Is Killing Us.

It is time  to demand that the “security industry” reports on and proves its effectiveness.

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100 million expected at Maha Kumbh Mela starting today

January 14, 2013

It is a festival which has been going on for at least 1500 years and probably much longer. The earliest record of the Kumbh Mela is from the writings of Xuanzang who visited in 629 CE. But similar festivals are known to have been going on hundreds of years earlier.

It could be the largest ever gathering of humanity in one place as the Maha Kumbh Mela begins today at Sangam in Allahabad. The festival will continue for 55 days and is expected to attract over 70 million and perhaps upto 100 million people this year. It is a little mind-numbing to consider that almost 8% of the entire population of India will be in this one location over the next two months.

The 2001 Maha Kumbh – which was was a once in 144 year event – saw around 60 – 70 million attending with an estimated one million visitors from abroad. On Sunday night it was estimated that around 1.5 million people were already in place in various tent cities around Allahabad. Mark Twain was a visitor in 1895 and wrote:

It is wonderful, the power of a faith like that, that can make multitudes upon multitudes of the old and weak and the young and frail enter without hesitation or complaint upon such incredible journeys and endure the resultant miseries without repining. It is done in love, or it is done in fear; I do not know which it is.

The Mela tales place at Sangam at the confluence of the three holy rivers; the Ganga, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. It was here that the Gods spilt a drop of Amrita, the nectar of life and it is by bathing here that one can be washed free of sin (and gain a portion of immortality – though this is not the purpose of the pilgrimage and the rituals). The story goes that the Amrita was contained in a pitcher (Kumbh) over which the gods fought the demons. During the battle which raged across the heavens, the God Vishnu flew away with the Kumbh and in his flight spilt some Amrita in 4 places –  Allahabad, Haridwar, Nasik and Ujjain. The battle between the gods and the demons lasted 12 “divine” days which translates to 12 human years. The location of the Mela is governed by astronomy and astrology. The location depends upon the astrological positions of the Sun and Jupiter and the timing is set by the lunar calendar.

The festivities start today with the ritual procession and bathing of the 13 akharas (sects of Sadhus and ascetics whose existence dates back to 2500 BC). The Naga Sadhus will lead the way. The order in which the 13 akharas participate was fixed during the British Raj (to prevent queue jumping and fighting among the various groups) and continues today. Twenty million people are anticipated on Basant Panchami which falls on February 15th. This year the other particularly auspicious bathing days are January 14th, January 27th, February 10th, February 25th and March 10th.

Times of India: The akharas have been allotted fixed time, ranging from 30 minutes to about an hour depending upon the size of their respective procession, for bathing with routes for going to and returning from Sangam so separated as to ward off possibility of members of rival akharas coming in contact with each other.

The mela administration said it has made elaborate arrangements for devotees who would be flocking to the city over the next 55 days. In fact, around 10-15 lakh pilgrims are already living in Sangam city’s sprawling quarters, day and night. Most of them are in tents, make-shift shelters or with sectoral groups called akharas that are administered by sadhus and mahants.

There are people from virtually every state, with those from rural areas of UP, MP, Gujarat and Maharashtra accounting for the largest numbers. The administration has received applications from more than 100 organizations seeking land to pitch more tents, and their numbers are growing.

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Publicity-hungry lawyers now flocking to defend the Delhi rapists

January 10, 2013

Just a few days ago no lawyer wanted to defend the Delhi six.

But it has not taken long for the worst aspects of human behaviour to again come to the fore. Now some among the lawyers have seen how much free publicity this can bring and that they will not have many such opportunities. They are flocking like vultures to the defence of the Delhi rapists. One of them – a certain ML Sharma –  has also seen the benefit of being as provocative and outrageous as possible and has today claimed that

  1. the victim brought the rape on herself (“I have never seen a respected lady who brought rape on to herself)“!!!
  2. the prisoners are being tortured to confess

AP Singh and VK Anand are the other two lawyers who have presented themselves for the defendants. I am not sure that these lawyers will bring much competence to bear, but they will surely make the most outrageous claims and demands – and that too extremely loudly – so that they at least remain in the public eye. They have no doubt been encouraged when observing how politicians and religious leaders gain a huge amount of publicity by attacking the victim. The defendants cannot be served by more bad publicity (not that it can get much worse) but their lawyers have nothing to lose and everything to gain:

First Post: It seems to be raining lawyers for the Delhi gang-rape accused. Three lawyers have told reporters on Thursday that they will be representing four of the five accused in the case. ML Sharma, a Supreme Court lawyer, told media persons that he will be representing Mukesh, brother of main accused, Ram Singh. Explaining how he became involved in the case, he said, “I have been interested in this case from the very first day. About eight days ago, I got a call from an unknown person and he said ‘Baccho ko bachao’ (save the boys). However, I remained undecided. And it was on January 7 (on the day accused where to be produced before the court), I decided to take up their case.” …. 

…..  Sharma, a member of the Maharashtra Bar Council, says he has been practicing in the Supreme Court since 1990. Asked about some of the cases he has fought, Sharma mentions the PIL enquiring into the assets of former Chief Justice of India (CJI) KG Balakrishnan and another PIL in the Vodafone tax case that claimed that the then sitting CJI SH Kapadia had a conflict of interest in the case. Not only did the apex court dismiss Sharma’s petition in the Vodafone PIL but also fined him Rs 50,000 for it.

Another Supreme Court lawyer, AP Singh told reporters that he was representing two of the accused — Akshay Thakur and Vinay Sharma. Recounting how he came to be involved in the case, Singh said: “The family members of both the accused — Akshay Kumar and Vinay Sharma – met us. This was on 5-6 January. But at the time of the first meeting, I refused to take their case because it was a highlighted case and a number of public persons were protesting against it. The family member of accused contacted my mother again on 6-7 January. And it is not possible for me refuse the order of my mother.”

….. The loudest of the three lawyers is VK Anand, who had created a ruckus in the courtroom on Monday after getting into a heated argument with another lawyer. Anand told reporters that he was representing the main accused Ram Singh.

The advocates told reporters that the next hearing in the case will be on 14 January.

One India: ML Sharma told Bloomberg that the 23-year-old paramedical student’s friend was “wholly responsible” for the savage attack on her. “Until today I have not seen a single incident or example of rape with a respected lady. Even an underworld don would not like to touch a girl with respect,” Sharma said. While making the above statement, the lawyer surprisingly did not even pause to think that he was casting aspersions on the victim. In his professional capacity, he might be entitled to claim that his clients are innocent. However, Sharma cannot be unaware that it is unethical to defame the deceased.

The lawyer was more in his elements when he alleged that the accused had been subjected to brutality. AFP quoted Sharma as saying that “All the accused have been badly beaten by the police and they have used the third degree to extract the statement that suits the evidence they have collected.” He even claimed: “My clients have been forced to confess to crimes that they did not commit.” He was referring to the five men who have been charged with not only raping the paramedical student in a moving bus but also brutally attacking her with a rod on that fateful night. The victim succumbed to her injuries at a Singapore hospital on Dec 29, 2012. 

The Journal:  Speaking to AFP on Thursday, Sharma said he would prove that his clients were not responsible for the attack on December 16 and he denied having tried to blame the victim. …

“I did speak to Bloomberg but did not say anything about the victim. I only told them that women are respected in India, they are mothers, sisters, friends but tell me which country respects a prostitute.”

Asked if that meant that he regarded the victim as a prostitute, Sharma replied: “No, not at all but I have to protect my clients and prove that they did not commit this heinous crime.”

I can’t help thinking that in this case court-appointed lawyers for the defense is called for. These almost self-appointed, publicity seeking lawyers are likely to only bring the court procedures into disrepute.

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Delhi rape victim was moved to Singapore for political – not medical – reasons

January 8, 2013

Jyoti Singh Pandey, the victim of the horrendous rape and violence in Delhi on 16th December, has not been served very well by the Indian Government – in life or in her dying. Just to avoid having her die in the heart of Delhi she was thrown away by a cowardly government to die far away. It was Pilate all over again as the government tried to wash their hands of her death on their watch.

From Safdarganj Hospital in Delhi she was flown to Singapore on Boxing Day to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital which specialises in multi-organ transplant. The 4,000 km journey in an ambulance flight was made even though the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) is just one street-width away from Safdarganj Hospital and has itself a well deserved reputation for excellence. At the time I thought that it was a caring Government which had made the decision to take every possible action to try and save Jyoti’s life – but it appears that this was not so at all. It now begins to become clear that this was the action of a cowardly administration which just did not want her to be in the heart of Delhi when she died. Her life was already forfeit. It was an attempt at damage control. It was almost as callous an act of “throwing her away” to die far away in Singapore as that of the 6 rapists who threw her off that bus. It was entirely a political decision of an embattled and scared Government.

There was no real medical expectation that any intestinal transplant could even be contemplated to be done in Singapore. That was just a theoretical possibility and the cover story for political purposes. She had been written off before the move was made. The decision to move her was apparently made after a Cabinet meeting but I wonder which cowardly Minister(s) came up with this damage limitation plan?

Reuters reports:

… With a deadly infection seeping into her blood from damage done to her intestines during the assault, complicated by a cardiac arrest and damage to the brain, she was just clinging to life when she was flown 2,500 miles from New Delhi to Singapore late on December 26, doctors said.

“It was ethically and morally wrong to have taken her out, given that she was sinking and her chances of survival were next to zero at that stage,” said a doctor at New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), which was advising the team treating the woman at a sister hospital across the street.

“Such a thing raises false hopes in the minds of the family, the community. No doctor in his right mind would do this, unless you want to get the patient off your back,” said the doctor, who declined to be identified, saying colleagues at the government-run hospital who had spoken out had been warned of consequences in what has become a politically explosive case. ….

….. Another doctor who was consulted during the woman’s care at New Delhi’s Safdarjang hospital, where she was taken following the assault, said she had been getting the best possible treatment in India and the question of why she was shifted should be answered by the government.

Many security officials have said they feared the protests would escalate if the woman had died in New Delhi, but the government has said the only consideration was her wellbeing. …..

…… At the time of the transfer, authorities at Safdarjang said her condition was critical which was why they decided to move her to Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital, which specialized in multi-organ transplant.

But a transplant for her damaged intestine, if at all possible, was months away, doctors said. At the time of her transfer, the woman, unconscious since a heart attack the previous night, was in no condition to go through such an operation.

“One cannot think about intestinal transplant at this moment,” Samiran Nundy, the head of surgical gastroenterology and organ transplantation at the Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi, was quoted as saying in newspapers.

“First, the infection spreading in her should be stopped, then one can think about transplant.”

Within 40 hours of her arrival in Singapore, doctors called her family and told them the end was near, even as millions prayed at home in the hope that she would pull through.

“Sepsis followed by cardiac arrest is a terminal event in 99 percent of cases,” said the doctor at AIIMS, referring to blood infection.

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US professors have the least stressful jobs

January 8, 2013

Of course many Professors are outraged but I find CareerCast’s list of The 10 Least Stressful Jobs of 2013 quite convincing. The most stressful job according to CareerCast is that of enlisted military personnel having a stress score of 84.72 compared to the 6.45 of University Professors.

The 3 least stressful are given below:

University professor tops the CareerCast.com Jobs Rated report of least stressful careers for 2013. The field’s high growth opportunities, low health risks and substantial pay provide a low-stress environment that’s the envy of many career professionals.

1. University professors are at the pinnacle of the education field. Their students are largely those who choose the classes they attend, and thus want to be in class. Unlike elementary and secondary educators, the performance of college professors isn’t evaluated based on standardized tests. University professors also have the opportunity to earn tenure, which guarantees lifetime employment. 

MEDIAN SALARY: : $62,050  

JOB OUTLOOK: 17%

JOBS RATED STRESS SCORE: 6.45

2. Seamstresses and tailors mend clothing to personal specifications. For that reason, they must show a great attention to detail, but have the ability to work creatively every day. Most tailors work in a peaceful atmosphere, allowing them to focus on the task at hand without distraction.

MEDIAN SALARY: $25,850

JOB OUTLOOK: 1% 

JOBS RATED STRESS SCORE: 6.5

3. Medical Records Technician. A growing profession in the stable healthcare industry is medical records technician. Medical records technicians work in the office side of hospitals, doctors and dentists practices. 

MEDIAN SALARY: $32,350 

JOB OUTLOOK: 21% 

JOBS RATED STRESS SCORE: 7.5

 

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Indian politicians expose themselves in the wake of the Delhi rape

January 6, 2013

The quality of the political leadership in India leaves much to be desired. What is clear is the medieval and feudal fantasy that many of them still live in. Women politicians included. Rape and murder and torture are all perfectly acceptable if inflicted on victims of the appropriate class or caste or sex or religion. In the 2009 parliamentary elections, 6 candidates had been charged with rape while 34 candidates were awaiting trial for crimes against women. In the state assemblies, 42 members had rape or associated charges against them at the time of their election. India has over 300 such politicians in power.

But even though they make utter idiots of themselves they continue to get the votes which keeps them where they are.

What price democracy!

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat: “There is a theory of social contract in the universe. A husband and a wife are bound by a contract which says – you (woman) look after the household chores and satisfy me, I (man) will take care of your needs and will protect you. Till she delivers her duties without fail, he keeps her on the contract and if she fails to honour the contract, he disowns her. And if it is the husband who is not honouring the contract, she can also abandon him. One can go for a new contract then.”

Congress MP from Jangipur, Abhijeet Mukherjee (son of the President of India): “This is almost like the Pink Revolution. These women who are protesting have no contact with ground reality. These pretty women, dented and painted, who come for protests are not students. I have seen them speak on television, usually women of this age are not students.”

Vibha Rao, Chairwoman of Chhattisgarh State Women Commission and BJP :  “Women, influenced by western culture, send wrong signals through their dress and behaviour and men often take the cue from those signals. Women display their bodies and indulge in various obscene activities. Women are unaware of the kind of message [their actions] generate”. 

Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee President Botsa Satyanarayana: “Just because the country attained independence at midnight, is it proper for women moving at midnight? That particular woman (the Delhi rape victim) should have applied her mind before boarding the private bus. Anyway, it was a small incident”.

BJP, Minister for Commerce and Industry Kailash Vijayvargiya: “Only when Sitaji crossed the Lakshman Rekha, she was kidnapped by Ravan… If Sitaji [woman] crosses the Lakshman Rekha, then Sitaharan [abduction] is bound to take place as Ravans are out there.”

BJP National Youth chief Anurag Thakur: “The difference between India and Bharat is that India is the place where The Dirty Picture gets a national award. India is the place where Mahesh Bhatt talks about sex with his daughter. India is the place where Sherlyn Chopra gets her picture clicked for the cover of Playboy and says had my father been alive, he would have been extremely proud of me. India is the place where the media celebrates the birthday of a foreign porn star. India is the place where a woman like Poonam Pandey openly speaks about stripping herself naked.”

Vishwa Hindu Parishad International President Ashok Singhal: Talking to reporters here at a congregation of saints and sadhus of Tamil Nadu, Singhal described the trend of youngsters in the country imbibing western culture from the US as “alarming”. “We have lost all the values we had in cities,” he said, demanding that India be renamed Bharat. “Let the real name of the country, Bharat, remain. When we call Bharat, it has the culture of thousands of years of this sacred land,” he said

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It is Bharat versus India as Hindu fanatics try to justify the Delhi rapists

January 4, 2013

I have seen the Delhi rape being described as a manifestation of the conflict which arises at the interface between the rural and the urban life-styles. And there is probably some truth in that. There is little doubt that for the young who stream into the cities after leading highly repressed and frustrating lives in rural India it is difficult for them to make the transition from the middle-ages into the 21st century. The concept of women not being chattel is beyond some to grasp. The apparent “anonymity” of life in the city encourages a few to believe that they can prey on other “anonymous” and depersonalised victims with impunity. Most rapes and other crimes against people are rarely given high priority by city police forces struggling against an ever-increasing urban populace.  The speed with which the Delhi rapists have been apprehended and presented in court in this high profile case is the exception – not the rule. But this is not a problem which occurs only when rural meets urban or which only happens in cities. Rural India still abounds with horrendous cases of violence against others – against women,against children, against people of other religions and those of other castes. Most of this rural behaviour goes unremarked and unreported. The Khap Panchayats who use rape as a punishment and support “honour killing” and who are allowed to operate freely by supine politicians is a case in point.

So, I am not sure that this is just an “urbanisation” problem. It goes much deeper than that. The police act (or more correctly – fail to act) as they do in most cases because the political “leaders” give no priority to these. These “leaders” are rarely “leaders” but are mainly parasites. Many are themselves stuck in the attitudes of a few centuries ago and have not made the transition. Many themselves have no wish to make the transition. Many actually still believe that women are chattel. This view of women is not confined to any particular religion. It can be found among Hindus and Muslims alike. But among the Hindus, the parasitic politicians are usually those who continue not only  to believe in “caste” but are mainly responsible for the continued domination of caste politics. And they use the “privileges of caste” or the “perceived disadvantages of caste” to prop up their own out-dated and anachronistic positions. For some it is -paradoxically – the maintaining of the privileges of a “declared disadvantaged caste” which governs.

It is not a case of rural India versus urban India. The transition from rural to urban life and its difficulties could be anticipated by any competent politician or leader. It is surely the job of the leaders to manage and lead this transition. The root cause is a lack of  political leadership and a lack of political management. Fundamentally it is a lack of political competence. For “parasitic politicians” the continuation of a conflict at the interface provides more blood to be sucked out of the masses.

The issue is one of whether to live in a fantasy past or move to the real future. Whether to continue to exhibit the attitudes of  some glorified and completely false view of a Bharat – which never ever existed –  (or of the glorified view of a Moghul Hindusthan which exists only in the Muslim psyche) or to move forward to create the India of the 21st century.

In the particular case of the Delhi rape, the victim and all of the accused were Hindus. It has not taken long for the fanatics of the RSS (who may look utterly ridiculous in their khaki shorts and black caps but are a poisonous influence in the country) and some of the parasitic politicians of the BJP to try and justify the horrific behaviour of the Delhi six.

IBN Live:  Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Friday kicked up a controversy with his remark that rapes happened in cities and not in the rural areas. “Such crimes hardly take place in Bharat, but they frequently occur in India,” Bhagwat said seeming to indicate that “westernization” in Indian cities was the reason behind increasing cases of rapes. 

The remark follows a similar comment by a MP BJP leader who stated that women who did not stay within their limits, paid the price for it just like Sita was abducted by Ravana after she crossed the ‘Lakshman rekha’.

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The first 200 year old human has already been born

December 27, 2012

The journalist Henrik Lennart has a new book out  in Swedish – “Åldrandets gåta” (The Mystery of Aging), where he interviews the worlds leading researchers and demographers about aging. Our descendants will have to learn to have many careers within their lifetimes.

Science has long envisaged a limit to how long a person can live – around 120 years. But now research is catching up with our fantasies. Henrik Lennart interviews the world’s leading researchers specializing in aging. They all come to the same conclusion: We, and especially our children, will live far longer than is common today.

Why? Improved standards of living come into play but also our lifestyles. Advice from the experts can differ: eat fewer calories, stand up when you are working, fast or cut down on meat and sugar. These choices certainly affect the aging of cells, and when researchers finally find the genes that control lifespan and have learned how to control them, the question will become:

How old would we like to be?

Aftonbladet reports:

Some researchers believe that the first human who will live to be 200 years old is already living.

“According to our calculation, half of the children born in Sweden in 2012 will live to be 104 years old”, says demographer James Vaupel.  Life expectancy has increased steadily over the past hundred years. ….. Today, the average life expectancy in Sweden is 83 years for women and 79 for men.

In a new book “The Mystery of Aging” journalist Henrik Lennart has  interviewed demographers and scientists who believe that statisticians world-wide have systematically underestimated the rate of increase of life expectancy and that this has been going on for a very long time.

Statisticians have not fully considered the influence of welfare reforms, better living conditions and more efficient healthcare. To get a more accurate picture one of the world’s best-known demographers James Vaupel, along with a group of prestigious scientists have made new calculations where they have added a factor to reflect the impact of as yet unknown developments – not dramatic but which can be expected in the future.

Their calculations show that half of all the children born in Sweden this year will live to be 104 years old. “In the future, we could live to be ten times older. Why not? It will take time to get there but it is certainly not impossible. In my opinion it is quite likely that there is a rather small child already born somewhere who will live to be more than 200 years old”, says James Vaupel who is interviewed in “The Mystery of Aging.”

Svenska Dagbladet adds:

James Vaupel and Cambridge researcher Jim Oeppen have previously shown that the curve of women’s life expectancy in the Western world has increased at an even and steady pace of three months per year for 160 years. Swedish statistics extend further back than in most other countries, and this increase has been by an average of 2.5 months per year since 1751.

Previously, scientists believed that there was a ceiling for the average life expectancy of  a little over 80 years. Today this ceiling has shifted up at least a decade, and continues to rise.

“We no longer know if there is any ceiling and where it lies if it does exist”, says James Vaupel.

At this rate everybody will be living to around 200 years by 2500.

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NRA – “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” !

December 21, 2012

The NRA certainly does not lack nerve.

That it has been rather pleased by the boost in gun sales following the Sandy Hook massacre is no secret. But the NRA and the gun manufacturers are clearly concerned about any long-term reduction in gun sales that might result from the bipartisan backlash which seems to be forming. They will now be pulling out all the stops to prevent any restrictions on the sale of guns and the campaign has begun. And Rule No.1 is never to be on the defensive.

But the NRA does seem to be rather short on common sense. To put forward a solution for school killings – in the wake of the Sandy Hook killings – as being more guns (of course, in the hands of good guys) is bordering, I think, on the foolhardy.

Reuters: 

The powerful U.S. gun rights lobby went on the offensive on Friday, arguing that schools should have armed guards, on a day that Americans remembered the victims of the Connecticut school massacre with a moment of silence.

National Rifle Association Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre argued that attempts to keep guns out of schools were ineffective and made schools more vulnerable than airports, banks and other public buildings patrolled by armed guards.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre told a news briefing, calling on lawmakers to station armed police officers in all schools by the time children return from the Christmas break in January. ….

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg accused the NRA of “a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country.”

“They offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe,” he said. ……..

Another mass shooting occurred on Friday when a gunman killed three people and wounded three police officers before taking his own life in Frankstown Township, Pennsylvania, the Altoona Mirror reported, citing the county prosecutor.

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