Their subcutaneous fat layer allows elephants not to freeze, even with this weather. And when the ice-age comes we will have woolly elephants before too long.
Tastes interesting- (TIM BRAKEMEIER / AFP / Getty Images)
More pictures at National Geographic:
Yet another German politician’s dissertation is being questioned. But it is particularly ironic when the politician accused of plagiarism is the current German Minister for Education and Research and has been since 2005. Professor Debra Weber-Wulff reports:
Düsseldorf University to open formal revocation investigation
After an almost six-hour-long meeting behind closed doors, the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Düsseldorf voted to open formal revocation proceedings on the dissertation of Annette Schavan, the current German Minister of Education and Research, as noted in a press release issued this evening. Since so many people are interested in this topic world-wide, I am translating it to English here:In May 2012 a public allegation was raised that the doctoral thesis of Prof. Dr. Schavan contained plagiarism. If we as a faculty find substantial evidence of scientific misconduct, we must pursue it vigorously — regardless of the person involved or their social position. There is no legal statute of limitations on such cases.
The Faculty of Arts and Humanities must then determine if the doctorate was correctly granted at the time it was granted.
As part of the process, the doctoral committee of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities conducted a preliminary investigation. They examined Schavan’s written thesis and obtained a statement from her on the situation.
Based on the recommendation of the doctoral committee, I [the dean, Bruno Bleckmann] presented the question to the Faculty Board at today’s meeting as to whether or not we should proceed with a formal revocation investigation.
The Faculty Board discussed all of the issues raised during the preliminary investigation in detail today. They voted by secret ballot with 14 votes in favor and one abstention to open a formal revocation investigation.
In the coming weeks, the members of the Faculty Board will intensively deal with the documents prepared by the doctoral committee and the statement from the person in question. The next meeting of the Faculty Board is set for February 5, at which time the continuation of the revocation investigation will be on the agenda.
I want to emphasize that the process is still open-ended at this point.
Over the last decade or so the sometimes virulent anti-immigration rhetoric has obscured the reputation of Sweden as a land of opportunity for innovators and one offering sanctuary to the politically oppressed and has hidden the reality that:
Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of Sweden.
But once in a while a story such as this one reassures my faith that the real Sweden is not only still present – but alive and well and thriving. And it can be found wherever one looks – just under the surface but sometimes hidden by noisy rabble and hooligans wielding iron bars.
A small-town shopkeeper’s folksy Facebook greeting to newly-arrived Syrian refugees kicked off a big-time media frenzy that continues to reverberate, making Bo Oskarsson of Kaxås our pick for Swede of the Week.
Oskarsson’s unexpected ascent to nationwide recognition began with a humble posting on the Facebook page of the Ica grocery store he runs in Kaxås, a small village in Offerdal, nestled among the hills and forests of the northwestern Swedish county of Jämtland.
“We welcome all those newly arrived from Syria and we hope that you’ll enjoy beautiful Offerdal,” read the post, published on January 18th. …
… By Tuesday, Oskarsson had been featured in several Swedish newspapers, prompting comments from celebrities and commentators mystified over the fact that more Swedes seemed to be talking about a local grocery store than news that Swedish Equality Minister Nyamko Sabuni was stepping down.
“Every now and again you catch a glimpse of a hero. First time I’ve been proud to have an Ica-card,” tweeted author and comedian Jonas Gardell along with a link to the story.
While most of the attention was positive, Oskarsson also found himself the target of criticism and threats from those critical of Swedish refugee policies.
“Someone wrote that I should be hung from a lamp post,” he told the Aftonbladet newspaper.
…. Oskarsson sees the refugees as a needed boost for the area’s dwindling population, but remains baffled that his Facebook experiment has engaged people across the country.
“We only created the page to make it easier to publicize offers to our regular customers,” he said before hastily drawing the conversation to a close.
“I’ve been doing interviews for four days and need to get back to work.”
Of course the loony far-right and their hangers-on are appalled and have stepped up their hate campaign. They would rather not acknowledge that it is the inflow of immigrants which is vital to the future demographics of Sweden. It allows the number of people in the working population to increase. Without this there would be an unsustainable shrinkage of the working-age population as the Central Statistics Bureau writes:
Net migration to Sweden has by and large been positive since the 1930s. As a consequence the number of foreign-born people has risen. The number of people who are born abroad is presumed to increase during most of the forecast period at about the same rate as observed in the last preceding decades. In 2005, 12.4 percent of the population was born abroad. According to the forecast, this percentage is expected to increase to 18.5 percent in 2050. …. The number of people of working age (20-64 years old) is rising but the proportion of people of working age is shrinking. The cause of the shrinking proportion despite an increase in numbers, is mainly that the number of people aged 65 and over is increasing much more relative to other age groups.
What seemed to be “normal” teething problems with a new aircraft now seems to be something more. Two stories this week suggest that
If these stories have any substance, Boeing could be forced to replace the lithium-ion batteries with alternative batteries. The consequences could be that that weight will increase and/or the batteries will not be rechargeable (an operating cost increase). Moving away from lithium-ion should not therefore be technically too difficult or prohibitive as far as cost is concerned. Dealing with the compensation to airlines for the grounding of 50 of their aircraft and for an indeterminate length of time could be the main economic hit for Boeing. There will, of course, be a cost for redesigning a “fix” and introducing the fix into the entire fleet but that should not be catastrophic. What may be more significant in the long run will be the loss of customer confidence and the potential loss of sales (or delay of sales) which would help Airbus to improve its competitive position.
Boeing Dreamliner fires spark new doubts about a green energy technology
…. Technologists and safety experts had long warned of problems with the lithium ion battery when in 2009 the president began betting billions of tax dollars that it should be the green power of choice for cars, trucks, and even aircraft. …. Small lithium ion batteries are widely used in consumer electronics, but powering vehicles like a car or an aircraft is a much greater challenge. The 787, for example, has to generate 1.5 megawatts of electrical power, enough to light up several hundred homes. ….
The problem, according to the MIT Technology Review, is that “because the electrolyte materials used are flammable, no lithium-ion batteries are completely safe.” And last April, the National Fire Protection Association warned that “as lithium-ion battery use increases, so do the concerns related to the fire-safety hazards of these devices.” Some experts believe the batteries have been oversold to the public. “Lithium ion batteries just won’t do the trick in the kind of mass vehicle applications that the environmental community is pushing for,” said Jon Entine, founder of ESG Media Metrics, a Cincinnati-based environmental consulting firm. “It’s kind of glib environmentalism or kind of enviro-romanticism,” said Entine, who is also a senior fellow at George Mason University’s Center for Health and Risk.
…. Before the Dreamliner’s troubles, a Chevrolet Volt caught fire during its crash tests by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in May 2011. The agency gave the Volt a clean bill of health after an investigation. Then last year, electric truck manufacturer Smith Electric Vehicles warned potential investors that the lithium ion batteries “on rare occasions have been observed to catch fire or vent smoke and flames” in the firm’s prototype military trucks.
Even in the smaller consumer electronics applications, lithium ion battery fires were reported in Apple and Dell laptop computers in 2005 and 2006.
U.S. NTSB reviewing whistleblower claims in 787 case
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is looking at issues raised by more than one whistleblower as it investigates battery failures that have grounded the global fleet of 50 Boeing Co 787 Dreamliners for a week.
Michael Leon, one of the whistleblowers, said he spoke with an NTSB investigator this week and gave him extensive materials about his claim that he was fired around six years ago for raising safety concerns about Securaplane Technologies Inc., an Arizona company that makes chargers for the highly flammable lithium-ion batteries at the heart of the probe. In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday and in earlier court papers, Leon said Securaplane was rushing to ship chargers that by his assessment did not conform to specifications and could have malfunctioned. …..
…… Securaplane hired Leon as a senior engineering technician in 2004, the same year it won the contract to work on the 787 parts. The company, which was taken over by Meggitt in April 2011, makes three important battery-related systems for the 787 as a subcontractor to France’s Thales SA .
The lithium-ion battery is made by Japan’s GS Yuasa Corp, while Thales is responsible for electric power conversion on the 787, the world’s newest and most electricity-driven airliner. The auxiliary power unit (APU), which powers the airplane’s systems when it is on the ground, is built by a unit of United Technologies Corp.
The Securaplane spokeswoman declined to give details about the value of the company’s contract with Thales for work on the 787, saying those details were confidential. She said she was not aware of any other whistleblower case filed by a Meggitt or Securaplane employee.
Securaplane said it makes two battery charging units used on the 787, one for the APU battery in an aft bay, and one for the main ship battery used in a forward bay, which provides backup power for flight critical controls. …
…… Leon said he refused to ship chargers that he believed had short-circuits, but company officials told him they needed to rush out the orders or risk losing the contract with Thales.
ScienceNordic reports this research — but this seems to me to be more related to weight rather than to gender.
Crash tests by Swedish traffic researchers show today’s car seats are too firm to protect women against whiplash injuries caused by rear-end collisions. And there’s a good reason for this: the crash test dummies used by car manufacturers to develop safety features are all male.
The Swedes have now created the world’s first female crash test dummy to help manufacturers make vehicles that protect both sexes from whiplash injuries, not just men. ….. “Women are generally lighter than men, so they are catapulted forward more quickly, and subject to greater acceleration. A woman is also thrown forward hard against the seatbelt,” said Anna Carlsson from Chalmers University of Technology in an interview with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK).
But what should car manufacturers do differently? “The seats should be less stiff, more pliant. When a car is hit from behind, the seat back acts like a trampoline and catapults us forward. I’d like to see seat backs that are better cushioned, made a little softer,” Carlsson said.
Male crash test dummies have dominated long enough. Now a female variety is entering the fray. Photo: (Chalmers Technical University)
The female crash test dummy was the brainchild of Astrid Linder of the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI). She is head of the EU project ADSEAT, which has as its goal to provide guidance on the best ways to evaluate seat designs so that they reduce whiplash injuries.
Linder found that new cars with whiplash protection were primarily constructed with men in mind. It’s not surprising, when you think of it, though, since crash test dummies are designed to mimic a male driver’s relative weight and anatomy. …..
The female test dummy BioRID 50 F, developed at Chalmers University of Technology in cooperation with VTI and Volvo, is still just a rough prototype. The researchers hope to develop it into a full-fledged crash test dummy. ….
Of course funding is rather easier to obtain if a “politically correct” spin can be put on a research project and in Sweden anything even remotely connected to eliminating gender difference is generally seen as a “good thing”. If Junior ever becomes reality I’m sure it will happen first in Sweden. I can’t help feeling sometimes that the fight for the elimination of gender prejudice and discrimination has morphed – especially in Sweden – into trying to eliminate gender by legislation!!
Increasing lifespans are real and the period during which we can be productive is increasing and what follows is inevitable. At the present rate of longevity increasing by about 3 months every year, by 2500 most people will live to be 200. Considering that world population is likely to be falling slowly after 2100 it seems not unconnected that any consequent decrease in human economic activity will be (will have to be) compensated for by people having a longer productive life.
A year ago a trial balloon was sent up by the Swedish Prime Minister when he imagined a retirement age of 70 rather than the current 65. Now a suggestion that retirement age will have to be increased to 78 has been floated in Norway. The necessary debate is starting but the result is not in doubt – only the timing is.
But before not too long the human condition of “study for 20 work for 40 and live to 80” which probably applies to me will change to “study for 25, work for 50 and live to 100” and will apply to my children. And probably within another 200 years it would have become “study for 40, work for 80 and live to 160”.
Work until you’re 78. It could become necessary for Norwegians born today if the financial burden on the productive section of the population is not to become too large. The calculation and the challenge is from the Norwegian business newspaper Dagens Industry and has created a heated debate in Norway.
Life expectancy is on the rise in both Sweden and Norway. It will force today’s young people to work longer than today. But to retire at 78 years of age is not what many are convinced about. Sweden had a similar debate when Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt spoke of 75 years as an appropriate retirement age.
In Norway, the suggestion is that 78 years is the appropriate age but Professor Hilde Björnland has doubts: “ The calculation is interesting because it shows the increased pension obligations we face. It is not enough to work up to age 67 if we are to cope with the coming demographic challenges”. But, she says, there is a difference between a long life and increasing mental and physical health. It is uncertain whether we can work much longer than 65-70 years even though we live longer. It depends on how the jobs look like in the future, it depends on how the tasks are suited to us as we get older. Today, only 2.3 percent of the Norwegian population work between 67 and 74 years. After 74 years, it is so small that it is not measurable by the Norwegian Central Statistical Office.
Those who want to raise the retirement age to 78 years at Den Norske Bank believe in any case that today’s young people must be prepared to work much longer than their parents’ generation did. But to get people to work more years in a country that has huge oil revenues and would like to convert income to more leisure time will not be easy. …
Apparently men are more likely than women to commit scientific fraud according to a new study. Of course the study only deals with misconduct and frauds that have been found out.
Important areas that the study does not address are – for example – :
Whatever the reasons this kind of gender inequality should not to be tolerated in a modern society. Further study is clearly needed and I think there is plenty of room here for a number of PhD theses in social psychology. That is not to say that immediate actions to promote gender equality should be delayed. For a start quotas for women found to be committing misconduct could be introduced at all research institutions.
Male scientists are far more likely to commit fraud than females and the fraud occurs across the career spectrum, from trainees to senior faculty. The analysis of professional misconduct was co-led by a researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and was published today in the online journal mBio.
“The fact that misconduct occurs across all stages of career development suggests that attention to ethical aspects of scientific conduct should not be limited to those in training, as is the current practice,” said senior author Arturo Casadevall, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of microbiology & immunology and professor of medicine at Einstein, as well as editor-in-chief of mBio.
He added, “Our other finding – that males are overrepresented among those committing misconduct – implies a gender difference we need to better understand in any effort to promote the integrity of research.”
In a previous study, Dr. Casadevall found that misconduct is responsible for two-thirds of all retractions of scientific papers. The finding was unexpected, since earlier research had suggested that errors account for the majority of retracted scientific papers.
Researchers embarked on the current study to better understand those who are guilty of scientific fraud. They reviewed 228 individual cases of misconduct reported by the United States Office of Research Integrity (ORI) from 1994 through 2012. ORI promotes the responsible conduct of research and investigates charges of misconduct involving research supported by the Department of Health and Human Services.
An analysis determined that fraud was involved in 215 (94 percent) of the 228 cases reported by the ORI. Of these, 40 percent involved trainees, 32 percent involved faculty members, and 28 percent involved other research personnel (research scientists, technicians, study coordinators, and interviewers).
Overall, 65 percent of the fraud cases were committed by males, but the percentage varied among the academic ranks: 88 percent of faculty members who committed misconduct were male, compared with 69 percent of postdoctoral fellows, 58 percent of students, and 43 percent of other research personnel. In each career category, the proportion of males committing misconduct was greater than would have been predicted from the gender distribution of scientists. The gender difference was surprisingly large among faculty, said Dr. Casadevall, who also holds the Leo and Julia Forchheimer Chair in/of Microbiology & Immunology. Of the 72 faculty who committed fraud, just 9 were female – one-third of the expected 27 if females had committed fraud at the same rate as males.
One wonders how the minds of these school officials work.
The Daily Item: January 18, 2013, Mount Carmel: A 5-year-old kindergartner who told classmates she was going to shoot them, and then herself, with her pink bubble gun, was grilled for three hours by Mount Carmel school officials without her mother’s knowledge, then suspended, a family attorney said.
The girl was initially kicked out for 10 days in what the school categorized as a “terroristic threat,” according to the kindergartner’s mother and confirmed by the family attorney. That suspension was reduced to two days and labeled as a “threat to harm others.”
It would take a Lewis Carrol or an Edward Lear to do justice to these ombliferous soldiers in the war on terror.
There was a toddler from Mount Carmel,
Who armed with a bubble gun did go;
But she was put to the rack,
And forthwith had to pack,
To be sent off to Guantanamo.
(with apologies to Edward Lear).
P. Gosselin at No Tricks Zone is quite right in pointing out the enormous political problems in now admitting that the global warming hypothesis which has been accepted dogma for 3 decades may not be correct after all.
The big question now circulating through the stunned European media, governments and activist organisations is how could the warming stop have happened? Moreover, how do we now explain it to the public?
His recent posts got me to making the parallels between the AGW climate “scientists” and Lance Armstrong.
Both
I wonder if the Nobel Peace Committee could revoke their decision and if Al Gore and the IPCC could be stripped of their Nobel prize? They can both afford to give the money back.
