Excellence in illustrations

June 4, 2014

A picture is worth ten thousand words — but only when the picture is the right one. Having been involved with presentations and teaching and lectures I can vouch for that.

With the ubiquitous PowerPoint slides, it is quality and certainly not quantity that counts. Using the “right” illustration is extremely powerful and – above all – enables the speaker/presenter to stay on topic and get the message across. When I first started giving lectures I tended – as most beginners do – to have far too many slides to illustrate my talks. I used to try and have almost as many slides as I had minutes to speak. I tried- as beginners are wont to do – to try and get everything I wanted to say onto my slides. I forgot to focus on the message(s) I wanted to leave in the listener’s head.

But that temptation to broadcast rather than to communicate soon changed and the number of slides quickly reduced. I think I really learned the lesson on a trip to Japan when my baggage didn’t arrive and I was forced to make about 5 presentations – each about an hour long – with no PowerPoint slides and only 2 overhead projector illustrations available to me. Nowadays I tend to have at most one illustration for about 5 – 8 minutes of lecture/presentation time. That puts much greater pressure on selection of the right illustration. Paradoxically the “right” illustration is nearly always simpler, less cluttered and more focused.

There is also a downside. Images are so powerful that even one “wrong” illustration out of very many can completely destroy a lecture or a presentation.

John Hopkins celebrated 100 years of medical illustration a few years ago .

The exhibition will make you marvel at the amazing intricacy of the human body, the enormous talent of medical illustrators, and the trajectory the profession has taken over the past 100 years to produce art for medical science. The collection includes an array of subjects — anatomy, pathologic specimens, surgical techniques, textbook illustrations, magazine covers, and more — created with pen and ink, carbon dust, watercolor, photography, and digitized media.

Dr. Levent Efe specialises in medical illustrations and this pregnant elephant is one of their many fascinating works:

"Pregnant

Pregnant Elephant Image Credit Dr. Levant Efe

h/t: Science is Beauty

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Art, Communication, Medicine | Comments Off on Excellence in illustrations

Lest we forget — Tiananmen Square 25 years

June 3, 2014

Martial Law was imposed on 4th June 1989.

Some have identified the “Tank Man” as Wang Weilin but this has not been confirmed and his fate is unknown.

Most likely his body died that day – along with thousands of others – when he faced the tanks and he was then hustled away — 5th June 1989.

But the Tank Man of Tiananmen Square is now immortal.

File:Tank Man Long Shot by Stuart Franklin.jpg

Tank Man Long Shot by Stuart Franklin

Tank Man (AP Photo - Jeff Widener)

Tank Man (AP Photo – Jeff Widener)

You Tube Video here.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in China, History | Comments Off on Lest we forget — Tiananmen Square 25 years

Trousers were invented for riding horses

June 3, 2014

Trousers were invented at least 3,000 years ago – for riding

The Tarim Basin in Central Asia with its hot but exceedingly dry climate has yielded a number of well preserved mummies and over 500 tombs have been found and excavated in the last 50 years. A new paper describes the finding of well preserved trousers from 3,000 to 3,300 years ago.

Whether these were the first ever trousers cannot be determined of course. But these remains found in Central Asia tell us that horse riding is at least 3,000 years old (and herding, capturing, breaking and training horses must have been “invented” well before that).

Chinese trousers 3000 years old - photo M Wagner, German Archaeological Institute

Chinese trousers 3000 years old – photo M Wagner, German Archaeological Institute

Tags: ,
Posted in Anthropology, Archeology, History | Comments Off on Trousers were invented for riding horses

Mystical threes and magic scaling number of the Efimov State

June 3, 2014

The number three has long been attributed with mystical and divine properties.

trinityTime and Life itself is a matter of threes. Birth, life and death. The past, the present and the future. Third time lucky. Three wishes. The Holy Trinity. Three daughters. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The three primary colours. A Troika. Brahma,Vishnu, Shiva. The Creator, the Preserver, the Destroyer. Three monkeys. Three wise men. Three Kings.

Three has its place in Physics as well. Pascal’s triangle and the Golden Number and the Fibonacci series. A theoretical prediction that fundamental particles in sets of three give rise to stable arrangements of infinitely scaleable, nesting sets has now been shown to be real – the Efimov State.

Wired: More than 40 years after a Soviet nuclear physicist proposed an outlandish theory that trios of particles can arrange themselves in an infinite nesting-doll configuration, experimentalists have reported strong evidence that this bizarre state of matter is real. 

n 1970, Vitaly Efimov was manipulating the equations of quantum mechanics in an attempt to calculate the behavior of sets of three particles, such as the protons and neutrons that populate atomic nuclei, when he discovered a law that pertained not only to nuclear ingredients but also, under the right conditions, to any trio of particles in nature.

While most forces act between pairs, such as the north and south poles of a magnet or a planet and its sun, Efimov identified an effect that requires three components to spring into action. Together, the components form a state of matter similar to Borromean rings, an ancient symbol of three interconnected circles in which no two are directly linked. The so-called Efimov “trimer” could consist of a trio of protons, a triatomic molecule or any other set of three particles, as long as their properties were tuned to the right values. And in a surprising flourish, this hypothetical state of matter exhibited an unheard-of feature: the ability to range in size from practically infinitesimal to infinite. 

Efimov had shown that when three particles come together, a special confluence of their forces creates the Borromean rings effect: Though one is not enough, the effects of two particles can conspire to bind a third. The nesting-doll feature — called discrete scale invariance — arose from a symmetry in the equation describing the forces between three particles. If the particles satisfied the equation when spaced a certain distance apart, then the same particles spaced 22.7 times farther apart were also a solution. This number, called a “scaling factor,” emerged from the mathematics as inexplicably as pi, the ratio between a circle’s circumference and diameter.

Now it seems 3 different research teams have shown the existence of Efimov nesting.

“With just one example, it’s very difficult to tell if it’s a Russian nesting doll,” said Cheng Chin, a professor of physics at the University of Chicago who was part of Grimm’s group in 2006. The ultimate proof would be an observation of consecutive Efimov trimers, each enlarged by a factor of 22.7. “That initiated a new race” to prove the theory, Chin said. 

Eight years later, the competition to observe a series of Efimov states has ended in a photo finish. “What you see is three groups, in three different countries, reporting these multiple Efimov states all within about one month,” said Chin, who led one of the groups. “It’s totally amazing.”

Read the article.

Related: Physicists Prove Surprising Rule of Threes

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Mathematics, Physics | Comments Off on Mystical threes and magic scaling number of the Efimov State

A second language – even if acquired as an adult – can help resist the onset of dementia

June 2, 2014

Being cognitively active has long been suggested as a key element in slowing down the onset of age-related conditions such as dementia and Alzheimers. And being multilingual – it is thought – increases the potential for cognitive activity.

Marian and Shook (2012) – Cognitive benefits of being bilingual

The bilingual brain can have better attention and task-switching capacities than the monolingual brain, thanks to its developed ability to inhibit one language while using another. In addition, bilingualism has positive effects at both ends of the age spectrum: Bilingual children as young as seven months can better adjust to environmental changes, while bilingual seniors can experience less cognitive decline.

And – it would seem from a new study – that having the ability to speak a second language, even if the ability was acquired as an adult, helps in this process.

“Does Bilingualism Influence Cognitive Aging?” Thomas H Bak, Jack J Nissan, Michael M Allerhand and Ian J Deary. Annals of Neurology; Published Online: June 2, 2014 (DOI:10.1002/ana.24158).

Press Release (EurekAlert): New research reveals that bilingualism has a positive effect on cognition later in life. Findings published in Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society, show that individuals who speak two or more languages, even those who acquired the second language in adulthood, may slow down cognitive decline from aging. 

Bilingualism is thought to improve cognition and delay dementia in older adults. While prior research has investigated the impact of learning more than one language, ruling out “reverse causality” has proven difficult. The crucial question is whether people improve their cognitive functions through learning new languages or whether those with better baseline cognitive functions are more likely to become bilingual. 

“Our study is the first to examine whether learning a second language impacts cognitive performance later in life while controlling for childhood intelligence,” says lead author Dr. Thomas Bak from the Centre for Cognitive Aging and Cognitive Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh. 

For the current study, researchers relied on data from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936, comprised of 835 native speakers of English who were born and living in the area of Edinburgh, Scotland. The participants were given an intelligence test in 1947 at age 11 years and retested in their early 70s, between 2008 and 2010. Two hundred and sixty two participants reported to be able to communicate in at least one language other than English. Of those, 195 learned the second language before age 18, 65 thereafter. 

Findings indicate that those who spoke two or more languages had significantly better cognitive abilities compared to what would be expected from their baseline. The strongest effects were seen in general intelligence and reading. The effects were present in those who acquired their second language early as well as late. 

The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 forms the Disconnected Mind project at the University of Edinburgh, funded by Age UK. The work was undertaken by The University of Edinburgh Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, part of the cross council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing Initiative (MR/K026992/1) and has been made possible thanks to funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Medical Research Council (MRC). 

“The Lothian Birth Cohort offers a unique opportunity to study the interaction between bilingualism and cognitive aging, taking into account the cognitive abilities predating the acquisition of a second language” concludes Dr. Bak. “These findings are of considerable practical relevance. Millions of people around the world acquire their second language later in life. Our study shows that bilingualism, even when acquired in adulthood, may benefit the aging brain.” 

 

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Aging, Brain, Language | Comments Off on A second language – even if acquired as an adult – can help resist the onset of dementia

It is time to take the 2022 World Cup away from Qatar

June 1, 2014

If FIFA is to retain any semblance of credibility they need to re-run the selection process for the 2022 World Cup. This time without Qatar participating.  That won’t stop the corruption of course but at least it could clean out the stable before it is despoiled again.

The latest revelations in the Sunday Times (paywalled but reported by the BBC) merely confirm that Qatar did buy selection.

BBC:

Fifa is facing fresh allegations of corruption over its controversial decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

The Sunday Times  has obtained millions of secret documents – emails, letters and bank transfers – which it alleges are proof that the disgraced Qatari football official Mohamed Bin Hammam made payments totalling $5m to football officials in return for their support for the Qatar bid.

…….. the Sunday Times alleges Bin Hammam’s strategy was to win a groundswell of support for the Qatari bid which would then influence the four African Fifa executive committee members who were able to take part in the election.

The Sunday Times also alleges that it has documents which prove Bin Hammam paid 305,000 Euros (£250,000) to cover the legal expenses of another former Fifa executive committee member from Oceania, Reynald Temarii.

Temarii, from Tahiti, was unable to vote in the contest as he had already been suspended by Fifa after he was caught out by a Sunday Times sting asking bogus American bid officials for money in return for his support.

But the paper now alleges that Bin Hammam provided him with financial assistance to allow him to appeal against the Fifa suspension, delaying his removal from the executive committee and blocking his deputy David Chung from voting in the 2022 election.

The paper claims that had Chung been allowed to vote he would have supported Qatar’s rivals Australia. Instead there was no representative from Oceania allowed to vote, a decision which may have influenced the outcome in Qatar’s favour. The paper also makes fresh allegations about the relationship between Bin Hammam and his disgraced Fifa ally Jack Warner, from Trinidad. ….. 

That Qatar bought its selection was already known.

But what now becomes obvious is that many of the FIFA officials currently in power and including Sepp Blatter have known about this for some time. Some of them were probably involved themselves.

A Qatar World Cup will probably break all records in the number of deaths per goals scored. The competition will probably have to be shifted to the winter.

It is time for FIFA and Sepp Blatter to bite the bullet and take the 2022 World Cup away from Qatar. Blatter will probably try to pin the blame for Qatar on Michel Platini.

It would be best if neither Platini or Blatter stood for the FIFA Presidency next year.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Corruption, Sport, World Cup | Comments Off on It is time to take the 2022 World Cup away from Qatar

Ayatollah Khamenei’s 14 point plan to avoid a population implosion

May 31, 2014

It is becoming increasingly obvious that population implosions in many countries  – not population explosion – is what faces humans by 2100.

Iran has seen its fertility rate reduce from close to 7 children per woman in 1960 to around an implosion level of 1.8 per woman  at the current time. For a stable population the replenishment rate required is 2.1 children per woman. Through the 1980’s Iran ran a free contraception program and the birth rate plummeted. So much so that Iran is facing a coming crisis of population implosion.

The Ayatollah Khamenei has taken notice and issued a 14 point plan to increase the fertility rate.

Reuters: In his 14-point decree, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said increasing Iran’s 76 million-strong population would “strengthen national identity” and counter “undesirable aspects of Western lifestyles”.

“Given the importance of population size in sovereign might and economic progress … firm, quick and efficient steps must be taken to offset the steep fall in birth rate of recent years,” he wrote in the edict published on his website.

Khamenei’s order – which must be applied by all three branches of government – in effect replaces the “Fewer Kids, Better Life” motto adopted in the late 1980s when contraception was made widely available.

The 14 points are (AlMonitor):

  1.  Fertlity rate to be increased above replacement level
  2. Barriers to marriage are to be eliminated, the allowable age for girls to marry will be lowered and young couples will get state support for housing
  3. Improved medical facilities during pregnancy and medical treatment for male and female infertility will be made available and health insurance will cover childbirth.
  4. Public education will emphasise the importance of the family
  5. Islamic-Iranian values and lifestyle will be promoted and undesirable influences from abroad will be discouraged
  6. A healthy lifestyle is to be encouraged and addiction to drugs and pollution will be attacked
  7. Care for the elderly shall be improved
  8. Public education shall equip students with relevant and marketable skills
  9. An equitable distribution of dwelling space must be achieved across the population
  10. Actions shall be taken to retain the rural poulation in their villages and near the borders
  11. Immigration into and out from Iran shall be actively managed
  12. The Iranian diaspora outside of Iran must be encouraged to invest in Iran and for the country to make use of their skills and abilities
  13. A national identity must be strengthened and propagated to encompass especially those living in the border regions and even those outside the country
  14. The population policy is to be closely monitored

The slogan of “Fewer Kids, Better Life” has now changed to “More children, a Happier Life”

Iran - Israel total fertility rate Google public data

Iran – Israel total fertility rate Google public data

It certainly has not escaped notice in Iran that Israel has a steady fertility rate of about 3 children per woman.

Whether this will halt the trend is not certain.

Iran will not be alone in encouraging higher fertility rates. For some countries the population implosion is already approaching and a matter of great concern.

BusinessWeek: Japan is expected to see its population contract by one-fourth to 95.2 million by 2050 … making it the fastest-shrinking country in the world. Former Eastern Bloc nations Ukraine and Georgia came in second and third …. 

……. “Europe, Korea, and Japan have gone into panic mode,” says Carl Haub, a senior demographer at the Population Reference Bureau. A declining population impacts a country’s economic growth, labor market, pensions, taxation, health care, and housing, according to the U.N. Globally by 2050, the number of older persons in the world will exceed the number of young for the first time in history, according to the U.N. The imbalance will create havoc in the pension systems and make it difficult to support retired and elderly persons, Haub says.

Related:

Without immigration OECD populations will be in decline and in crisis

The inexorable numbers – 10:10:10:100 is inevitable around 2100

China relaxes highly successful one-child policy

ktwop posts on demographics

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Demographics, Iran | 1 Comment »

Sangeang Api erupts – and an intensity 5+ eruption is well overdue

May 31, 2014

Another volcanic eruption in Indonesia. The odds that the next volcanic eruption of intensity 5 or greater will occur in Indonesia must now be quite significant.

This time the eruption was at Sangeang Api.

VolcanoDiscovery: A major explosive eruption occurred at the remote volcano this morning at around 08:30 UTC. A subplinian eruption column quickly rose to an estimated 50-65,000 ft (15-20 km) altitude and drifted several hundred km to the east and southeast. 
Ash fall was reported in areas up to 30 km downwind from the volcano. 
Luckily, the island itself is largely uninhabited although visted by farmers who cultivate some land. Evacuations were ordered within 1.5 km radius from the volcano. 
Seismic activity preceding the eruption, including a nearby magnitude 4.5 earthquake at 03:05 UTC, was reported felt in the nearby city of Bima (Sumbawa Island) and even on Flores. 
Today’s explosion was the first at Sangeang Api volcano since its eruptions during 1997-99. Increased steaming and a number of earthquakes in recent years might have been precursors to today’s event.

sangeang-api-30may14 photo Bambang Bimawan

sangeang-api-30may14 photo Bambang Bimawan

It has now been 23 years since the eruption of a volcano with an eruption index of 5 or greater. Through the last century, intervals between VEI5+ eruptions were 7 years on average.

ktwop: During the 19th century there were volcano eruptions having a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 5 or greater on average every 11 years. During the 20th century the average was 7 years with the greatest interval between VEI5 eruptions being 23 years. The last VEI5 eruption was in 1991 and now – 22 years on – a VEI5 eruption is overdue.

Mt. Pinatubo and Mt. Hudson (both VEI6) erupted in 1991.

For climate, the net effect of volcanic eruptions – especially those with large dust clouds and aerosol producing gas emissions – is usually of global cooling. We have seen a standstill (and a slight decline) in global temperatures even through this relatively long interval without a VEI5 eruption.  The effects of the 1991 eruptions probably subsided around 1994. The effects of a single eruption on global temperature probably last 2 to 3 years. But any significant, single eruption may well be able to trigger a particular, semi-stable, climate regime. And when the next VEI5+ eruption does occur we are likely to see a more intensive global cooling regime.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Climate, Natural Phenomena, Volcanos | 2 Comments »

Polar bear numbers systematically underestimated by 25-30%

May 31, 2014

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a conservation lobby group. As with all advocacy groups (WWF, FoE, Greenpeace….) much of their “science” has to be taken with a large bushel of salt. Needless to say they have “observer” status at the UN. In any event they have a Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) and much of the unfounded alarmism about the polar bear being a threatened species originates with them. As with other advocacy groups they systematically ignore data which does not advance their theses. They are not averse to data manipulation when it suits them.

In fact polar bears are thriving. The IUCN -PBSG now admits – in a little footnote – that their numbers in 5 large zones have just been ignored and set to zero for lack of data. Actual polar bear numbers are probably well in excess of 30,000. Since 2001, the PBSG has systematically ignored 5 large sub-populations of polar bears as Dr. Susan Crockford reports on her blog:

…. none of these ‘global population estimates’ (from 2001 onward) came anywhere close to being estimates of the actual world population size of polar bears (regardless of how scientifically inaccurate they might have been) — rather, they were estimates of only the subpopulations that Arctic biologists have tried to count.

For example, the PBSG’s  most recent global estimate (range 13,071-24,238) ignores five very large subpopulation regions which between them potentially contain 1/3 as many additional bears as the official estimate includes (see map below). The PBSG effectively gives them each an estimate of zero.

Based on previous PBSG estimates and other research reports, it appears there are probably at least another 6,000 or so bears living in these regions and perhaps as many as 9,000 (or more) that are not included in any PBSG “global population estimate”: Chukchi Sea ~2,000-3,000; East Greenland, ~ 2,000-3,000; the two Russian regions together (Laptev Sea and Kara Sea), another ~2,000-3,000 or so, plus 200 or so in the central Arctic Basin. These are guesses, to be sure, but they at least give a potential size.

I find the entire thrust of Conservationism to be fundamentally flawed. Threatened species are genetic and evolutionary failures in the sense that they do not have the genetic variability necessary to continue in a changing world. Trying to stop the change they cannot cope with is a futile exercise. If conservation of a species has to mean anything, then selected, threatened species have to be helped to adapt to the inevitable change – genetically if necessary.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Alarmism, Animals, Evolution, Wildlife | 1 Comment »

Marc Hauser actively manipulated data

May 30, 2014

Marc Hauser – and his supporters – have generally maintained that his misconduct was – at worst – negligence and certainly inadvertent. But the Boston Globe today reports on an internal Harvard report (obtained under FoI) which details wrongdoings rather more deliberate and sinister than Hauser and his friends have ever acknowledged or admitted.

The report is fairly damning.

Boston Globe:

But a copy of an internal Harvard report released to the Globe under the Freedom of Information Act now paints a vivid picture of what actually happened in the Hauser lab and suggests it was not mere negligence that led to the problems. 

The 85-page report details instances in which Hauser changed data so that it would show a desired effect. It shows that he more than once rebuffed or downplayed questions and concerns from people in his laboratory about how a result was obtained. The report also describes “a disturbing pattern of misrepresentation of results and shading of truth” and a “reckless disregard for basic scientific standards.”

A three-member Harvard committee reviewed 40 internal and external hard drives, interviewed 10 people, and examined original video and paper files that led them to conclude that Hauser had manipulated and falsified data.

Their report was sent to the federal Office of Research Integrity in 2010, but it was not released to the Globe by the agency until this week. ……… Much has been redacted from the report, including the identities of those who did the painstaking investigation and those who brought the problems to light.

Hauser, reached by phone Thursday, said he is focused on his work with at-risk youth on Cape Cod and declined to comment on the report.

The manipulation reported dates back at least to 2002 where he reported (presumably manufactured) data on a videotape of monkey responses which did not exist. In 2005 he altered data to make what was statistically insignificant become significant. Also in 2005, he discarded data after it had been found by a subordinate to have been inconsistent (presumably manipulated). Later, he tried to claim his mail ordering the discarding of the data as evidence of his innocence:

“These may not be the words of someone trying to alter data, but they could certainly be the words of someone who had previously altered data: having been confronted with a red highlighted spreadsheet showing previous alterations, it made more sense to proclaim disappointment about ‘errors’ and suggest recoding everything than, for example, sitting down to compare data sets to see how the ‘errors’ occurred,”

In 2007,

 a member of the laboratory wanted to recode an experiment involving rhesus monkey behavior, due to “inconsistencies” in the coding. “I am getting a bit pissed here. There were no inconsistencies!” Hauser responded, explaining how an analysis was done. 

Later that day, the person resigned from the lab. 

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Academic misconduct, Behaviour, psychology, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Marc Hauser actively manipulated data

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »