Author Archives: curiouscat

South Pacific to Stop Bottom-trawling

A quarter of the world’s oceans will be protected from fishing boats which drag heavy nets across the sea floor, South Pacific nations have agreed. The landmark deal will restrict bottom-trawling, which experts say destroys coral reefs and stirs up clouds of sediment that suffocate marine life. Observers and monitoring systems will ensure vessels remain five nautical miles from marine ecosystems at risk.

From my previous post, Fishy Future?:

The measured effects today should be enough for sensible people to realise the tragedy of the commons applies to fishing and obviously governments need to regulate the fishing to assure that fishing is sustainable. This is a serious problem exacerbated by scientific and economic illiteracy. The obvious scientific and economic solution is regulation. Determining the best regulation is tricky (and political and scientific and economic) but obviously regulation (and enforcement) is the answer.

Granted I have a very limited knowledge of this area, but this ban seems like a good idea to me.

Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act

I agree with restricting the use of genetic information for things like insurance – US to outlaw corporate prejudice based on genes:

Soon it will be illegal to deny US citizens jobs or insurance simply because they have an inherited illness, or a genetic predisposition to a particular disease.

On 25 April, the House of Representatives voted 420 to 3 to pass the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). The Senate is expected to endorse the act within a few weeks, which is also supported by President Bush. “I am so stunned by the majority,” says Sharon Terry, president of the Genetic Alliance, a charity lobbying for the rights of people with inherited illnesses.

Genetic information can provide valuable information about risks. It is not often that I am for saying people should be prohibited from using information that would aid them in making better decisions. However it can be the best public policy to require insurance companies to be prohibited from using information that would allow them to better access risks and price insurance accordingly. So those that know they have such genetic risks will be paying less than they would if the insurance companies were allowed to use that information and everyone else will pay more (to cover for those with the increased risk). I think that is the best policy for the society. However it is not really about outlawing corporate prejudice it is about saying that we will have everyone is society share the cost of risks rather than those that can be identified as greater health risks.

Thinking this is about preventing bad corporate behavior seems to me an attempt to change the focus of the real issue. And that is not a good idea because this is a complex area that we are going to have to make a wide number of decisions about as a society. Pretending the issue is simple does society a disservice. This is an large economic issue and what choices various societies decided to make will be debated extensively for quite some time I believe..

Related: Improving the heath care system posts (from our management blog) – post about health care (from this blog)

Purple Frog Delights Scientists

Purple Frog photo

This interesting looking frog (N. sahyadrensis), discovered in India in 2003, has is in its own taxonomic family and represents the only known living example of frogs that lived alongside dinosaurs 65 million years ago, Purple frog delights scientists:

Its head appears too small for its body and it looks more like a squat, grumpy blob than a living creature.

But to the scientists who describe it in the journal Nature, the frog is a beautiful find because of what it tells them about Earth history.

“It is an important discovery because it tells us something about the early evolution of advanced frogs that we would not know otherwise because there are no fossil records from this lineage,” says Franky Bossuyt, of Free University of Brussels, Belgium.

Bee Colony Collapse Disorder

Bee Die-Off Threatens Food Supply:

In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Still threatening the food supply seems like an extreme claim to me, but maybe I am just too optimistic.

Colony Collapse Disorder podcast:

In our first episode, hear from Senior Extension Agent and Honey Bee Specialist, Maryann Frazier, about honey bees and why they are such important pollinators in Pennsylvania and the United States. Find out why this die off is getting the attention of experts, and learn about the characteristics and extent of the collapse. Finally, get a preview of who the key players are and what is being done to investigate Colony Collapse Disorder.

Being Bad is Best for Bacteria

That conclusion is based on the first experiments investigating how natural selection influences the transmission of infectious disease. The outcome of those experiments defies old assumptions that pathogens evolve to become less infectious
…
The scientists analyzed the patterns of disease transmission and found that strains of bacteria with the greatest damage to their virulence genes were slowest at spreading from one host to another. The strain of pathogen with all of its virulence genes intact spread the fastest. Strains of pathogen lacking the ability to inject any proteins into the host were completely unable to spread between hosts, suggesting that these swapped virulence genes are essential for spread.

Design for the Unwealthiest 90 Percent

Design for the unwealthiest 90 percent by Alice Rawsthorn:

Many humanitarian designers focus on helping the needy to enhance their earning potential by setting up new businesses, or running existing ones more efficiently. The Bamboo Treadle Pump enables poor farmers in countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia and India to pump up groundwater during the dry season. The Big Boda Load-Carrying Bicycle provides cheap transport in Kenya and Uganda to carry hundreds of pounds of cargo or two passengers using pedal-power. And thanks to the KickStart MoneyMaker Block Press, eight workers can produce up to 800 building blocks a day from soil and a small quantity of cement.

Home Experiments: Quantum Erasing

Do your own experiment on quantum erasing – Quantum Erasing in the Home (for instructions). From the accompanying article, A Do-It-Yourself Quantum Eraser:

The light patterns that you will see if you conduct the experiment successfully can be accounted for by considering the light to be a classical wave, with no quantum mechanics involved. So in that respect the experiment is a cheat and falls short of fully demonstrating the quantum nature of the effect.

Nevertheless, the individual photons that make up the light wave are indeed doing the full quantum dance with all its weirdness intact, although you could only truly prove that by sending the photons through the apparatus and detecting them one at a time. Such a procedure, unfortunately, remains beyond the average home experimenter.

Backyard Wildlife: Turtle

I took this photo in my back yard yesterday. It is the first time I have seen a turtle there. I saw a chipmunk today – I have see them occasionally but can’t get a photo of them – they move quite quickly 🙂 Other wildlife I have seen in my backyard: possum, raccoon, mole, fox, squirrels, rabbits, many birds including hawks and/or falcons, robins, starlings, doves, a humming bird once (front yard), butterflies, bats, lightning bugs, all sorts of bees, ants, praying mantis, and many more birds. And I see several cats prowl the yard frequently.

Funding for Science and Engineering Researchers

To authorize programs for support of the early career development of science and engineering researchers, and for support of graduate fellowships, and for other purposes. passed the house on a vote of 397 – 20 and was forwarded to the senate. From the majority whips talking points:

supports outstanding researchers in the early stages of their careers through grants at the National Science Foundation (NSF)
and the Department of Energy of $80,000 per year for 5 years
…
enlarges an existing program at NSF supporting graduate students in multidisciplinary fields of national importance

This bill started with the same name as the Sowing the Seeds Through Science and Engineering Research Act – though seems to be missing much on fellowships now.

Fruit Better Than Vitamins

Fruit proves better than vitamin C alone. Tests show that it isn’t just the vitamin that protects the body.

Other nutrition researchers have suggested that sugars in juice interact with vitamin C to generate the antioxidant effect2. But Guarnieri suspects that the phytochemicals found in oranges (cyanidin-3-glucoside, flavanones and carotenoids) are the substances that need further study. “But how they are interacting is still anyone’s guess,” she adds.