November 15, 2011
Not entirely unexpected that Yoshiaki Ito would be exonerated by the National University of Singapore but the speed of the investigation and the exoneration is noteworthy.
ScienceInsider:
The National University of Singapore (NUS) announced today that it has found no evidence of research misconduct by Yoshiaki Ito, a high-profile cancer researcher accused of data fabrication. However, the finding does not resolve the underlying—and long-running—scientific dispute over whether a gene known as Runx3 is a tumor suppressor.
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Tags: National University of Singapore, Runx3, Scientific misconduct, Weizmann Institute of Science, Yoram Groner, Yoshiaki Ito
Posted in Academic misconduct, Singapore | Comments Off on National University of Singapore exonerates Yoshiaki Ito of misconduct
November 15, 2011
There are some simple and rather obvious matters that the “green” lobbies prefer to ignore.
- In spite of twenty years of subsidies wind power is still not commercially viable without subsidy. Solar thermal power plants enjoy feed in tariffs some 3 times higher than the cost of conventional fossil power generation. Wherever renewables have been used to any extent, electricity prices for the consumer have increased.
- Intermittent sources of power (which cease when the wind does not blow, or blows too hard or when the sun does not shine at night or when clouds appear) are – by definition – unreliable. They do not add to the reliable, base-load, generating capacity that any electricity grid requires and must be backed up. In Scotland for example – as Professor Colin McInnes points out – wind power capacity now exceeds nuclear capacity but only produces about one-third of the energy.
- Electricity is energy in motion and cannot be stored as electricity. For any electrical grid, at any instant, generation must, perforce, equal demand – and pumped storage schemes are merely devices to try and ensure such balance. Since the outages of wind and solar power are unpredictable (though it is generally predictable that solar power will not be available at night), and cannot be relied on to meet load demand fluctuations, “balancing power” (usually from gas turbines) must be arranged for whenever wind or solar capacity is added.
- In addition to the direct subsidies, whenever wind or solar power is available at times when there is low load, the subsidised regime forces the turning-down of other capacity – to the detriment of that capacity – and adds to the total cost of the grid.
Now – finally – some of the real numbers are beginning to be acknowledged but not, of course, by the green lobbies. KPMG has produced a new report
“Thinking about the Affordable” and
Power Engineering International reports that:
Tags: Business, Energy, grid balancing, KPMG, rnewable power, Scotland, wind power
Posted in Business, Energy, Environment, Renewable Energy | 3 Comments »
November 14, 2011
Yet another case of predatory behaviour by sports people in authority over young boys. Peter Roebuck committed suicide in S. Africa by jumping out of his hotel window after being questioned by police about drugging and sexually assaulting a young boy. Many people must have known anout his behaviour.
He wrote very well and I always enjoyed his articles. But he had some dark secrets and they are not very pretty. In 2001 he was found guilty of caning 3 young S. African cricketers he was training.
Daily Telegraph Australia: In 2001, the former Somerset cricket captain was given a suspended jail sentence after admitting caning three young cricketers he had offered to coach. Roebuck, of Exmouth in Devon, pleaded guilty to three charges of common assault involving three South African teenagers between 1 April and 31 May, 1999. He had pleaded not guilty to three counts of causing actual bodily harm, which was accepted by the prosecution. Roebuck was sentenced to four months in jail for each count, with the sentences suspended for two years, at Taunton Crown Court. Judge Graham Hume Jones told Roebuck he had abused his power and influence over the boys, who were far from home and far from friends and family.
Update! I see that tributes, and here, are flowing in about his writing and his cricket career. But I am afraid that whatever he may have done well, his sexual predations and the lives of all the young people he has traumatised is too heavy a price.
Better that he had never written a single word if that would have meant that his horrible behaviour to young cricketers under his authority could have been avoided.
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Tags: Australia, Cape Town, Fairfax Media, Peter Roebuck, sexual assault, South Africa, suicide
Posted in Australia, Behaviour, Corruption, Cricket, Sport | 2 Comments »
November 14, 2011
I have faith in Japanese resilience and will still stick my neck out and stay with my forecast that the Japanese economy will become a global “driver” through 2012 and 2013.
Japanese Gross Domestic Product grew by 1.5 % over the 3rd quarter (July – September) representing an annualized growth rate of 6 percent. This is the fastest rate of growth for 18 months. The Cabinet Office said today in Tokyo that at 543 trillion yen ($7 trillion), the economic output was back to levels last seen before the March 11th Great Tohoku quake and tsunami.
The growth seems to have been led by exports rather than the domestic impetus measures to recover from the earthquake or the subsequent spending on rebuilding infrastructure. These probably need 2 more quarters to kick-in but that means that this growth is still vulnerable to current global weaknesses.
However the optimistic “glass half full” view would be that Japanese exports have grown mainly to Asia and the earthquake rebound has yet to come. Moreover this has happened in spite of a very high Yen. Any recovery in Europe and N. America would be a further boost to an economy which is large enough to then act as a global motor.
NY Times:
The rebound underscores the speed at which Japanese industry has been able to get back on its feet after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, rebuilding factories and re-establishing supply chains severed by the destruction.
Exports jumped 6.2 percent as manufacturers got production back on track. Private consumption, which accounts for almost two-thirds of Japan’s economy, grew 1 percent, helped by a rebound in consumer sentiment and replacement demand in the tsunami zone.
Still, policy makers and economists also worry that the punishingly strong yen of recent months as well as weak growth in major trading partners, like the United States and China, will take a toll on Japanese exports. The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, meanwhile, has thrown the country’s energy policy into disarray and cast a pall over Japan’s recovery.
Related: Could the disaster in Japan power a wave of sustainable growth?
Tags: Economy of Japan, GDP growth, Great Tohoku quake and tsunami, Gross domestic product, Japan
Posted in Economy, Japan, Natural Disasters | Comments Off on Japan back to growth with a bang with GDP up 1.5% in 3 months
November 12, 2011
Phobos-Grunt is still circling Earth at an altitude between 128 miles and 210 miles after launching Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for Mars buit is dead and silent. The jinx goes on and it is now 21 Russian missions to Mars which have failed their main mission goals:
Information from http://www.russianspaceweb.com 
- Soviet / Russian Mars Missions
Phobos-Grunt
SpaceflightNow: Major General Vladimir Uvarov, a former space expert in the Russian military, told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper he has lost optimism in Phobos-Grunt’s chances for recovery.
“In my opinion, the Phobos-Grunt probe has been lost. This probability is very high. At any rate, it is much higher than the chances for reactivating the probe,” Uvarov told the newspaper. ….
With 11 tons of toxic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellant still in its fuel tanks, Phobos-Grunt’s potential re-entry is stirring concerns of space experts after two high-profile returns of large satellites in September and October.
Tags: Mars, Phobos, Phobos-Grunt, Russia, Russian Mars jinx
Posted in Russia, Science, Space | 3 Comments »
November 11, 2011
The greatest fear I have of getting old is not so much the pain or suffering or sickness or debilitation but the degradation one may have to undergo.
I have always perceived the care of the elderly (and children) in Sweden as being perhaps the most compassionate and advanced in the world – especially the care from the public sector. The best care anywhere in the world is no doubt when it happens – and it does not always happen – within the family environment. In times past it was the care of the elderly within extended family groups, where up to 4 generations lived together, which probably provided the best care possible. But as family groups have become smaller, the wherewithal for the best geriatric care possible has shifted to institutions.
But recent events within the Swedish system where the public sector has been outsourcing geriatric care to private enterprise are not pretty. In the chase for profit margins the level of degradation being meted out seems to have increased. The equation is no longer “the best care possible at the lowest allowable cost” and it seems instead to have become “not more than the cost absolutely necessary to avoid public complaints”. And in this new equation the level of degradation that the elderly are subjected to carries no weight. And the degradation is of relevance only if it leads to noisy complaints from others.
Something is not quite right and and it only reinforces my equating ageing with degradation.
The case of the private care company Carema has been the subject of a series of investigative articles by Dagens Nyheter and the latest episode of weighing diapers is not only degrading to the elderly patients but also, I think, for those being forced to implement Carema’s profit objectives:
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Tags: Carema, Dagens Nyheter, Degradation of the elderly, Elderly care, Geriatric nursing, Old age, Sweden
Posted in Business, Ethics, Sweden | Comments Off on Degradation of the elderly in Sweden’s privatised care system
November 10, 2011
The last few days have been full of headlines about a UN report that showed that Iran was getting help from foreign scientists to develop nuclear weapons. Speculation has been rife about pre-emptive strikes by Israel or the US against Iran’s “weapons facilities” and the consequences of such a strike. Discussions about sanctions have been wide-spread from nations to US Presidential candidates. But now it seems that the so-called UN evidence is actually nothing more than information manufactured by an intelligence agency (probably Mossad) and speculation from a Washington “think tank” which is just another lobby group. The so-called foreign nuclear scientist does not exist and is actually a prominent Ukrainian nanotechnology and nanodiamond expert, Vyacheslav Danilenko who has been in the same field all his career.
Moon of Alabama first revealed the background of Danilenko.
November 7th: The Washington Posts alleges that the IAEA says foreign expertise has brought Iran to threshold of nuclear capability. This is of course, well, a lie. The IAEA has said nothing like that. It is simply an assertion made by the reporter and some “nuclear Iran” scare propagandists based on misinterpreting some factual points in the IAEA “evidence”. What that “evidence” says is: Iran is working on nanodiamond production.
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Tags: Danilenko, David Albright, Gareth Porter, IAEA, intelligence disinformation, Inter Press, Iran, Nanotechnology, nuclear weapons, United States
Posted in Alarmism, Iran, Politics, Technology | 1 Comment »
November 9, 2011
The jinx on Russia’s probes to Mars continues.
Phobos-Grunt launched successfully last night but failed to enter its departure trajectory when two engine burns failed – presumed due to computer problems. It is now in a “parking” orbit and the problem needs to be fixed within 3 days when its batteries will run out. The fuel tanks are still in place for the craft’s own thrusters and there is still thought to be some hope. If the problem cannot be fixed it will be the fourth successive failure of a Russian Mars mission.
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Tags: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Mars, Phobos, Phobos-Grunt, Ria Novosti, Russia, Vladimir Popovkin
Posted in Russia, Science, Space | Comments Off on Russia’s Mars jinx continues: Phobos-Grunt in big trouble; 3 days in parking orbit to fix computer problem
November 8, 2011
Much Russian news just now from the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic going live today to an ambitious and critical Mars mission which will launch late today (November 8th).
Russia’s last interplanetary launch of a probe to Mars in 1996 failed at launch. Prior to that in missions to the larger of Mars’ 2 moons, Phobos 1 was launched on July 7, 1988 and Phobos 2 on July 12, 1988. Communication with Phobos 1 was lost in September 1988. Phobos 2 operated normally till it was within 50m of the surface of Phobos and again communication was lost in March 1989.
In the meantime the US Mars Rover has operated on Mars for thousands of hours, Chinese and Indian probes have reached the moon and a Japanese probe has brought back some minute quantities of matter from an asteroid. The Russians have been short of financing and are now trying to regain the pre-eminence they once had. To have the Chinese planting flags on the moon in 3 or 4 years would be unbearable.
Russian missions to Mars have never yet been completely successful and the launch on November 8th as part of the Phobos-Grunt (Фобос-Грунт meaning Phobos -soil) project is carrying a great deal of Russian prestige and – more importantly – the future of the Russian space program.
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Tags: Mars, Mars missions, Phobos, Phobos-Grunt, Russia
Posted in Russia, Science, Space, Technology | 5 Comments »
November 8, 2011
The Russian gas pipeline bypassing all transit countries to Germany by being routed under the Baltic Sea goes live today.
RT: After 13 years of planning and two years of construction, the Nord Stream pipeline will deliver its first supplies of Russian gas to an estimated 26 million homes in the EU on Tuesday.
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Tags: Baltic Sea, Dmitry Medvedev, European Union, Gazprom, Germany, Nord Stream, Russia, Vladimir Putin
Posted in Business, Energy, Gas, Germany, Russia | Comments Off on Nord Stream gas goes on-line today
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