Category Archives: Miscellany

Animals Make Us Human – Creating the Best Life for Animals

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Animals Make Us HumanDr. Temple Grandin is a professor at Colorado State University.  She studies animal science and is a consultant to the livestock industry and to zoos.  She is also known as an autistic person who leads a successful, even famous, life.  After I recently heard her interviewed on a Commonwealth Club radio broadcast, I picked up the first of her books (coauthored with Catherine Johnson) I came across: a 2009 book well worth reading today.

Animals Make Us Human is an insightful book.  Her clear-headed, factually based observations are compellingly presented in accessible language.  Both adults and students will appreciate this book.  Grandin seems open to learning in a way all scientists are supposed to be.  She describes times when her experiments contradicted her own beliefs and even contradicted her doctoral advisor’s own work.  I admire her willingness to follow the data where they lead.

Grandin explains what animals need:  a good mental life as well as physical health.  Animals need to be happy.   Continue reading →

It’s Cool, But Does It Work?

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India Golden TempleI am a great fan of technology, but an even greater fan of things that work.  A recent article in Forbes tells how an inexpensive “vinegar test” for cervical cancer is saving lives in India, in places where the western standard pap smear is too expensive to use.  “This is a striking example of how a low-tech, low-cost intervention can sometimes take the place of a more high-tech innovation.”

Simpler technology did not mean a simpler project.  Continue reading →

Surprising Benefit of Marijuana Debate

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medical marijuana signThe legalization of marijuana is a controversial topic.  One positive aspect of the debate was pointed out in a recent Washington Post piece http://wapo.st/14bcRyj (which contains several links to the underlying studies).

“There is a strong minority in each party that breaks with its side’s dominant view – which does not happen on public issues as often as it used to. Thus do 37 percent of both conservatives and Republicans favor legalization. Thus do 39 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of liberals oppose it.”

Here is a benefit I would never have expected.  Anything that creates allies across the toxic red/blue line in American politics can’t be bad.

Picnic Time

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Summer_Picnic_Spread_Free_Clip_Art_01mdSummer is coming and it will soon be time for picnics.  As reported by Word Detective and confirmed on NPR, “picnic” first appeared in English in 1748.  It seems to have come from a French word “piquenique,” which appeared in 1692.  This was a nonsense rhyming word and roughly meant to pick a trifle. The first picnics were what we today would call pot-luck dinners. Only in the mid-19th century did “picnic” come to mean a meal eaten outdoors.  For wealthy Victorians, a picnic was hardly a “trifle”.  They staged elaborate outdoor gourmet meals on tables set with linens and crystal; all tended by servants.  My sense of today’s usage is that “picnics” carry prepared foods away from home, while “barbeques” include cooking and occur in the back yard.

An unpleasant rumor spread in the late 1990’s, confirmed by Word Detective and Snopes, that the word originated as a racist term related to lynchings.  I wonder how a pleasant family-oriented “picnic” inspired such a rumor?

Radiation What It Is, What You Need to Know

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radiation-what-it-isThis is an excellent book for both student and adult readers by Robert Peter Gale, M. D., PH. D. and Eric Lax.  Gale is a scientist and physicist who has been involved in treating victims from every major nuclear accident in the past twenty-five years.  Lax is an author of non-fiction books.  Together they have written a book that is factual and easy to read, and that does not push any political position.  My one complaint is the lack of an index.  The authors provide a fine discussion of topics including terminology, medical issues, irradiation of food, how people access risk, and discussions of several high-profile incidents (including Hiroshima, Chernobyl, and Fukushima).  They have written an excellent reference book, including a website with links to articles on their main topics, and an index would make it easier to use.

The authors say “we live in a sea of radiation… Because radiation touches every aspect of our lives – it is, in fact, responsible for our lives – it is essential to know what radiation is, how it works and what it can and cannot do.”  People “know very little about radiation… [and] most of us are unaccustomed to carefully weighing competing risks and benefits.”  They address topics we read about in the media:  nuclear power and power plant accidents, fallout from nuclear bomb tests, food irradiation, cancer, and birth defects.

The authors are concerned that people’s fears are disproportionate to the risks. People worry about the wrong things and can, therefore, ignore real risks.  For example, people should not worry about radiation from their TVs or cell phones, but should worry about radiation from medical procedures and, in some areas, radon gas in their homes. Continue reading →

Carbon Dioxide Concentrations in the Atmosphere

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Those who advocate that there is global warming caused by the activities of man are eager to find any measurement that gives them hope their ideas are correct. There were news reports that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere “surged” from 2011 to 2012. Carbon dioxide concentrations did increase 2.42 parts per million to just under 395 parts per million by the end of 2012/  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that increase was the highest since 1998, “…which saw a rise of 2.93 ppm.”

CO2-levels

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/geekquinox/global-carbon-dioxide-levels-show-biggest-spike-15-131534825.html

The inference is that we are on a destructive path to global warming because of man’s insistence on burning fossil fuels. There are so many misleading aspects that it is difficult to know where to begin. Meteorologist Bill Collins warned against taking too much from the recent data. He gave some facts that would give hope to global warming advocates, such as his acknowledgment that 2012 was a “hot year.” He then observed that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is strongly influenced by plant activity, since plants use carbon dioxide as a food. He wrote that “…year to year variability is often caused by uptake of plants and trees.” Continue reading →