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India Unlimited in Sweden

October 25, 2013

Banashri Bose Harrison

“Swedes are well-travelled, they are well-educated. They really have no excuse to know so little about India,”  – India’s ambassador Banashri Bose Harrison.

And so the Indian Embassy is organising India Unlimited to create a platform with the objective of promoting better economic relations and connecting the peoples of India and Sweden.

The intention is to connect to a broad Swedish public by showcasing Indian food, art, philosophy, culture and design capabilities through film screenings, music and dance
performances, literature evenings, fashion shows, art exhibitions and, specially, children & youth-friendly cultural programs and to present the diversity of India for travel & tourism.

The program for the next few weeks includes

31st October 2013 – Fusion-concert by a 9 member troupe from India led by legendary violinist Dr. L. Subramaniam at Berwaldhallen. Tickets are now available at Berwaldhallen.se.
3rd November 2013 – A tribute to Ravi Shankar, Stallet/Stockholm, 14:00 – 18:00. Read more at www.stallet.st and buy your tickets at www.tickster.com.
November 2013 – “India-Your cup of Tea” Business Seminar with tea tasting
Further events including  an India Unlimited Week  next year (21-27 April 2014) are being planned. 

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Snow sweeps in very early this year

October 19, 2013

Snow has already come to Bavaria. Parts of Russia and the US have also seen some very early snow. Now, in just the 3rd week of October, snow has swept over northern Sweden. I have not had to clear any snow yet but I have had ice to scrape of the windshield for the last few mornings. I had only planned to change to winter tyres at the end of the month but I might have to bring this forward (to prepone it).

It is only weather of course! I wish somebody could tell me of any effects of global warming that could actually be experienced.

Autumn over as winter snow sweeps Sweden

Snow and sub-zero temperatures hit widespread parts of Sweden on Thursday night and will carry on through Friday and beyond, with meteorologists warning motorists that now is the time to change to winter tyres.

The coldest temperature of the season was recorded on Thursday night in Karesuando, in far northern Sweden near the Finnish border, where the mercury dropped to -12.5ˆC. Snow fell in Västernorrland, Dalarna and Gävleborg, and in many areas further north, but experts said the snow is nothing to worry about. 
“I believe that in most places it’s only been a few centimetres of snow that have settled,” Sandra Andersson of Sweden’s weather agency SMHI told the TT news agency. SMHI issued a class 1 warning, stating that motorists should beware of slippery roads, although no damage was reported throughout the night.

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Sweden, Weather, Winter | 1 Comment »

Have Green Parties in Europe been hijacked by the Far Left?

October 15, 2013

I have a theory that the fall of communism and the subsequent meltdown and demise of the Communist Parties in Western Europe (most immediately dropped the word “communist” from their names) then led to many of the core supporters of the communists hijacking the Green Parties to gain a measure of respectability. This infiltration of the green parties by the forces of the hard-left was enabled by the relative inexperience of the do-gooding environmental enthusiasts who had initially set up the Environmental parties.

It is my thesis that the take-over by the hard left of the Greens started after about 1995 (with the wall falling in 1990) and has been going on ever since. Not just the political parties but even organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and even the WWF have all effectively been taken over by the Far Left. The current behaviour of Greenpeace is a case in point. Today most Green Parties in Europe are indistinguishable in their policies from the Communist Parties of old (in Western Europe) though usually hidden under a cloak of environmentalism.

A recent analysis of voting patterns in the Swedish Parliament seems to support my hypothesis. The Environmental Party (MP) seems to be much more closely aligned to the Far Left Party (V) than to the Social Democrats (S) and closer than the Social Democrats are to the Far Left. This same picture spans all the main policy committees; Traffic, Justice, Foreign Affairs, Business and Industry and Environment and Farming.

Voting Patterns in the Swedish Parliament

In the diagram above the red bars indicate the level of agreement between the Greens (MP) and the Far Left (V) compared to the alignment of MP with S and of S with V.

Environmental parties would like to claim that this is because the Far Left has come closer to them but that doesn’t hold water. In issues of jobs or employment or industry or business or health, the Environmental Party policies are often just traditional Marxist dogma.

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Posted in Behaviour, Europe, Politics, Sweden | Comments Off on Have Green Parties in Europe been hijacked by the Far Left?

Are leaves redder this year? A sign of a hard winter to come?

October 13, 2013

Autumn in this part of the world (Sweden at 58.7000° N) is always a riot of colour. A kaleidescope with every possible shade of yellow and brown with a small splash of red. Never quite the dominating reds of New England but glorious in the late autumn sunlight. But this year I felt that there was much more red around than “usual”. A purely subjective perception of course and one which I put aside as being just the vagaries of visual memory.

Autumn October 13, 2013

Autumn October 13, 2013

But yesterday the local paper reported that this was a perception being shared by many others. Trees and bushes did seem to be redder than usual. And “reds”were  varying from deep rusts and maroons to bright scarlets and bleeding crimsons. But science did not really know why the colours might vary from year to year – just that they did vary.

Is it due just to how the weather has been through the summer?

Or is it because of the weather anticipated for the winter?

The three main pigments that color leaves are, chlorophyll (green), carotenoid (yellow, orange, and brown), and anthocyanin (red). Chlorophyll and carotenoid are always present in leaf cells. More sunlight means more chlorophyll and green summers. The reducing sunlight in autumn reduces the chlorophyll allowing the yellows and browns of carotenoid to show through more strongly. But high levels of sunlight may lead to an increase of anthocyanins.

In photosynthetic tissues (such as leaves and sometimes stems), anthocyanins have been shown to act as a “sunscreen”, protecting cells from high-light damage by absorbing blue-green and ultraviolet light, thereby protecting the tissues from photoinhibition, or high-light stress.

This summer of 2013 started late after a long winter and a very late spring. The number of sunshine hours have not been unusually high nor the amount of rain unusually low. Temperatures have not been particularly noteworthy. So just the number of sunshine hours seems inadequate as an explanation of the greater levels of red I perceive.

The Daily Green: Unlike the ever-present yellows that simply become unmasked when chlorophyll recedes, red pigments are actually created as a tree is going dormant. But why would a tree expend energy to produce a new pigment just as it’s hunkering down for the winter? And why do some trees make red pigments, when others don’t? Further, the reds of New England are so famous in part because they are unique to the new world. Why are European autumns so predominantly yellow? 

…… yellow trees are those that colonize open land first – so-called pioneer species that are tolerant of direct sunlight. Those that turn red are species that follow in the succession of species that come to dominate a landscape, and they tend to benefit from more protection from the sun. It’s not that the red leaves lack the yellow pigment; the red pigment is an addition, and in fall it is so intense that it masks the yellow, just as green does in summer. Those pioneer species are less susceptible to light damage, 

But why are European trees more yellow? It could be that falls there tend to be warmer and cloudier, so there was never any selective advantage for trees to evolve red pigments that would be protective of the sun.

According to the U.S. Forest Service:

A succession of warm, sunny days and cool, crisp but not freezing nights seems to bring about the most spectacular color displays. During these days, lots of sugars are produced in the leaf but the cool nights and the gradual closing of veins going into the leaf prevent these sugars from moving out. These conditions-lots of sugar and lots of light-spur production of the brilliant anthocyanin pigments, which tint reds, purples, and crimson. Because carotenoids are always present in leaves, the yellow and gold colors remain fairly constant from year to year.

So I don’t really know why the leaves look redder this autumn.  But I think trees may be better predictors of weather than we give them credit for. There are some signs that Europe may be in for another hard, long winter this year. Perhaps the trees already know this and are busy storing nutrients in their roots. Therefore they need more anthocyanin to allow them to do this.

The trees already know what to expect this winter. At least, that’s what I would like to think!

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Swedish Academician rebuked for talking too much

October 10, 2013

The fuss around the Nobel Prize in Physics  is taking its toll.

Svenska Dagbladet (free translation):

Anders Bárány, Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, has been reprimanded for revealing why the announcement of the Physics Prize was an hour late. But Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Presidium, would not comment. The delay on Tuesday of the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Physics by one hour was unprecedented and quite unique. 

 Mr Anders Bárány had revealed that the delay was caused by heated discussions within the Royal Academy of Sciences (KVA) whether the nuclear research organization CERN would share the prize,His statement had an impact already on Wednesday.

“I was called up to the Academy’s Presidium and given a real scolding” said Anders Bárány.

And I blame the CERN publicity machine for their hype and their blatant lobbying and for causing the controversy in the first place. But Anders Bárány has to take his share of the blame for falling for the publicity machine. He deserved his telling off – not so much for talking to the press after the event but for his support of CERN sharing the award!

What was he thinking?

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Posted in Advocacy, Behaviour, Physics, Science, Sweden | Comments Off on Swedish Academician rebuked for talking too much

Heated dispute within Nobel Committee delayed the Physics prize

October 9, 2013

I observed yesterday that the delay in awarding the Nobel prize in Physics could have been due to some committee members wanting to award the prize also to CERN. That supposition seems to have been correct. The PR apparatus of the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN is responsible for a lot of hype based on a somewhat inflated opinion of the organisation. They have been lobbying hard for over a year for the Physics Nobel. The PR and lobbying by CERN had clearly got to at least one member of the award committee (Anders Bárány). His view was rejected and he is now complaining that the award was “unfair”

And despite all the PR spin and all the hype they have not yet found the Higgs particle. And there are more questions left to be answered than ever before.

Big Science hype to keep Big Science funding going arouses my suspicions. For an organisation like ATLAS or CMS or CERN to have been named would have been a travesty. Almost at the level of naming the EU or the IPCC for a Peace Prize.

Fortunately good sense prevailed and the Physics prize still maintains some brand value – which the Peace Prize has lost.

Svenska Dagbladet reports (my free translation):

There was a major altercation between the members that postponed yesterday’s announcement of the Nobel Prize in Physics was postponed by over an hour according to Vetenskapsradion . Before the vote, several members questioned why no part of the award was for the two laboratories which had detected the Higgs particle.

One of those objecting was Mr Anders Bárány who wanted more than just theorists  Peter Higgs and Francois Englert to be rewarded  rather than the two research teams , ATLAS and CMS being merely mentioned in the Academy of Sciences press release.

“I think it is extremely unfair. It is the first time that the explanatory text has made such a mention. I do not think they should be happy with it “, he said to Vetenskapsradion.

Peter Higgs and Francois Englert  were praised for their discoveries about the Higgs particle – but other heavyweight Higgs scientists, Carl Hagen, Gerald Guralnik and Tom Kibble were excluded. Their names had been mentioned in preliminary discussions on the physics prize, because they are considered to have made ​​significant finds around the particle around the same time as Higgs and Englert.

Carl Hagen, admitted yesterday that he was disappointed at the Academy’s decision. “The wind went out of me, of course, a little bit because the Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to stick with their old rule of three winners. It is not a true picture of how things are , but I congratulate Higgs and Englert , they must be very pleased”, Hagen said to TT.

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Posted in Behaviour, Physics, Science, Sweden | 1 Comment »

Svante Pääbo an outsider for the Chemistry Nobel today

October 9, 2013

I leave it to real Chemists – such as here – to make predictions. And one can always fall-back on Thomson Reuters who correctly predicted the Physics prize yesterday:

CHEMISTRY

A. Paul Alivisatos  and Chad A. Mirkin and Nadrian C. Seeman
For contributions to DNA nanotechnology

Bruce N. Ames
For the invention of the Ames test of mutagenicity

M.G. Finn and Valery V. Fokin and K. Barry Sharpless
For the development of modular click chemistry

But based on a throw-away comment by somebody on Swedish Radio this morning and based on my interest in paleo-anthropology, Svante Pääbo may be an outside bet. He is a participant in Nobel Week in December and this bio is from there:

Svante Pääbo

A Swedish biologist specializing in evolutionary genetics, Dr Svante Pääbo investigates ways that the archaic genome can be explored to understand our own history better.

Svante Pääbo has developed technical approaches that allow DNA sequences from extinct creatures such as mammoths, ground sloths and Neandertals to be determined. He also works on the comparative genomics of humans, extinct hominins and apes, particularly the evolution of gene activity and genetic changes that may underlie aspects of traits specific to humans such as speech and language.

In 2010, his group determined the first Neandertal genome sequence and described Denisovans, a sister group of Neandertals, based on a genome sequence determined from a small bone found inSiberia.

Pääbo has received four honorary doctorates and several scientific prizes and is a member of numerous academies. He is currently a Director at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and a Guest Professor at the University of Uppsala, Sweden.

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Physics Nobel today – Higgs? but (hopefully) not CERN! Update – awarded to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs

October 8, 2013

UPDATE 2!

There is more speculation doing the rounds as to why the awards were delayed by one hour.

There are some suggestions that this time was used to kill the ridiculous notion of having CERN – the organisation – as the third award winner! If that was the reason then it was time well spent!

The deliberations of the awards committee will not be released for 50 years.

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UPDATE!

The Physics Nobel award has been awarded to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs

NO CERN thankfully.

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  • 106 Nobel Prizes in Physics have been awarded between 1901-2012.
  • 47 Physics Prizes have been given to one Laureate only.
  • 2 women have been awarded the Physics Prize so far.
  • 1 person, John Bardeen, has been awarded the Physics Prize twice.
  • 25 years was the age of the youngest Physics Laureate ever, Lawrence Bragg, when he was awarded the 1915 Physics Prize together with his father.
  • 55 is the average age of the Physics Laureates the year they were awarded the prize.

==============================================

The speculation this morning on Swedish Radio is that the Higgs Boson will be recognised. There was some speculation that Higgs himself could lose out but that CERN – as an organisation – could be a winner. I hope not. The Radio commentators all seem to have the impression that the Higgs particle was discovered by CERN last year. But my understanding is that nothing was actually found. Something – not inconsistent with a Higgs particle – was indicated and the Higgs particle was “tentatively confirmed to exist on 14 March 2013” (though “tentative” and “confirmation” is a contradiction in terms).

In any event, I think the Nobel should stick to individuals and not go the way of the discredited Peace Prize and name an organisation like CERN. Professor Higgs would be acceptable even though it would be preferable to wait – but not CERN.

We shall see. (The announcement is due in about 3 hours).

Thomson Reuters predictions:

PHYSICS

François Englert and Peter W. Higgs
For their prediction of the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson

Hideo Hosono
For his discovery of iron-based superconductors

Geoffrey W. Marcy and Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz
For their discoveries of extrasolar planets

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Posted in Physics, Science, Sweden | 1 Comment »

Nobel Prize time again: Medicine to Rothman, Schekman and Südhof

October 7, 2013

UPDATE:

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2013 was awarded jointly to James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof“for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells”.

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It is that time of the year again. But the Nobel Peace Prize and that for Economics are a travesty and ought to be discontinued. The Peace Prize especially takes more away from the Nobel brand than it offers. Without the Nobel brand to prop it up the Peace Prize would be considered a nonsense with very little to do with Peace. The Literature prize is also very politically correct which detracts from its importance to literature.

My hope is that the blatant lobbying by the PR apparatus of the CERN group will NOT be recognised with a Nobel.

The schedule beginning today is:

Monday 7 October, 11:30 a.m. at the earliest – The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The prize will be announced by Göran K. Hansson, Secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine.

Tuesday 8 October, 11:45 a.m. at the earliest – The Nobel Prize in Physics
The prize will be announced by Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Wednesday 9 October, 11:45 a.m. at the earliest – The Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The prize will be announced by Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Friday 11 October, 11:00 a.m. – The Nobel Peace Prize
The prize will be announced by Thorbjørn Jagland, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Monday 14 October, 1:00 p.m. at the earliest – The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel
The prize will be announced by Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The Nobel Prize in Literature
According to tradition, the Swedish Academy will set the date for its announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature later. The Prize will be announced by Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.

Thomson-Reuters have made their predictions:

The 2013 Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates by Nobel Prize category are:

CHEMISTRY

A. Paul Alivisatos  and Chad A. Mirkin and Nadrian C. Seeman
For contributions to DNA nanotechnology

Bruce N. Ames
For the invention of the Ames test of mutagenicity

M.G. Finn and Valery V. Fokin and K. Barry Sharpless
For the development of modular click chemistry

PHYSICS

François Englert and Peter W. Higgs
For their prediction of the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson

Hideo Hosono
For his discovery of iron-based superconductors

Geoffrey W. Marcy and Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz
For their discoveries of extrasolar planets

PHYSIOLOGY or MEDICINE

Adrian P. Bird and Howard Cedar and Aharon Razin
For their fundamental discoveries concerning DNA methylation and gene expression

Daniel J. Klionsky and Noboru Mizushima and Yoshinori Ohsumi
For elucidating the molecular mechanisms and physiological function of autophagy

Dennis J. Slamon
For his pioneering research identifying the HER-2/neu oncogene, leading to more effective cancer therapy

ECONOMICS
Joshua D. Angrist and David E. Card and Alan B. Krueger
For their advancement of empirical microeconomics

Sir David F. Hendry and M. Hashem Pesaran and Peter C.B. Phillips
For their contributions to economic time-series, including modeling, testing and forecasting

Sam Peltzman and Richard A. Posner
For extending economic theories of regulation

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Swedish appeals court frees 6 of gang rape: Another case of when the law is an ass

October 2, 2013

Swedish rape law is an ass in many ways. Prosecutions are often brought or sought even in trivial and ridiculous cases (as in the case of Julian Assange for example). But real rapists generally go free. And apparently even in a case of gang rape ( 6 of them) where a teenage girl was raped and the rapists found guilty, they are set free by a higher court “because she was not sufficiently incapacitated”! 

Of course even with asinine laws it needs a judge to confirm and compound the law’s failings. According to the judge who released the rapists “The intercourse that took place can very well have happened against her stated will but if it didn’t take advantage of an incapacitated state it’s not rape.”

The rapists were all apparently immigrants. So was their victim it seems.

I wonder if that had any part to play in the judge’s determination?

The Local:  … six teenage boys were cleared by an appeals court of the alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old, ….

The boys admitted to having sexual intercourse with the girl at a party in Tensta, northern Stockholm, in March this year. Five were convicted of aggravated rape by the Solna District Court later that month. The sixth boy, who had given out condoms to the other boys, was convicted of attempted aggravated rape.

Sweden’s sex-crime legislation was amended on July 1st of this year, however, and included a rewrite of the term “incapacitated state” to “particularly vulnerable situation”, which in effect re-classifies certain types of sexual assault as rape.

But the Svea Court of Appeal (Svea hovrätt) ruled according to the old law as it was phrased prior to July 1st, 2013, arguing it was the law that applied at the time of the incident. In its ruling, the court found that the girl could not have been deemed to be in an “incapacitated state,” although it did recognize that she was in a vulnerable situation.

“She could have very well said no, but even if that was the case, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s rape,” judge Sven Jönsson told the Aftonbladet newspaper.

“The intercourse that took place can very well have happened against her stated will but if it didn’t take advantage of an incapacitated state it’s not rape.”

… “I said no,” the victim told the Aftonbladet newspaper over the weekend, saying she no longer went out but only spent time with her closest friends. “Do they mean it’s my fault?” 

With this kind of law the Delhi rapists could have been convicted of murder but not of rape. And the four surviving adult rapists received the death sentence because it was considered a particularly heinous crime. Without the rape conviction they would have escaped that sentence.

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