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Monday, March 10, 2003
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J. Peter Vajk writes: It has been observed frequently that cultural evolution has, by and large, become more important for humans than biological evolution. It is, in any case, far faster: a new cultural idea or mutation can spread through all the individuals in the same generation which invented the new idea. A genetic mutation, on the other hand, can only begin to spread when the next generation is born, and it will take many generations before the mutation has any chance of being expressed in a significant fraction of the population. It is thus of much more than passing interest to consider how ideas are transmitted; whether and how they compete; and what effects they have on the survival machines, originally built to help genes propagate, which house the minds in which ideas are born and live. Roger W. Sperry writes: Ideas cause ideas and help evolve new ideas. They interact with each other and with other mental forces in the same brain, in neighboring brains, and, thanks to global communications, in far distant, foreign brains. And they also interact with the external surroundings to produce in toto a burstwise advance in evolution that is far behind anything to hit the evolutionary scene yet, including the emergence of the living cell." (03/10/03) | |
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Joseph George Caldwell, Ph.D. writes: It should be recognized that the significant catastrophe that is happening now is not the imminent collapse of human population from many billion to a few hundred million or less. The significant catastrophe that is happening now is the sudden mass species extinction that is taking place. A big change in the human population is of no long-term significance, as long as the biosphere remains intact, i.e., the balance of nature remains essentially the same as that in which the human species evolved. Under these conditions, future generations of mankind can continue to live meaningful lives, for millions of years, in the rich environment in which it evolved. As long as the biosphere is essentially intact, mankind as a species continues to thrive, and all options remain open. But the mass species extinction can render mankind extinct, or, what is infinitely worse, make his planet-home a much less interesting and desirable place to live, for millions of future generations. As long as the biosphere is preserved intact, mankind may continue to experience and enjoy life on a marvelous planet for a very long time. If the biosphere is substantially damaged, some doors, some varieties of experience, some alternative futures, will have been closed forever. ... Will the industrial age end with a destroyed biosphere and the extinction of mankind and other large species? Or will further damage to the biosphere be averted, and a synarchic government of a minimal-regret population be established to ensure the long-term survival of mankind and the biosphere as we know it? I believe that it will, but bringing it about will take much hard work and decisive action. This goal will not be accomplished by the weak of heart or the weak of mind or the weak of body. (03/10/03) | |
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BBC Science -- By 2020, the average water supply per person worldwide is expected be a third smaller than now. ... The warning comes from the World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP), which combines the efforts of 23 UN agencies. It is based in Unesco, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. The programme has prepared a report - Water For People, Water For Life - for the third World Water Forum, to be held in the Japanese city of Kyoto from 16 to 23 March. The report's chapter on agriculture says about 25,000 people die daily from hunger, with an estimated 815 million people suffering from malnutrition. ... It says another 45 million hectares (111 million acres) will be under irrigation by 2030, requiring an increase of 14% in water used in this way. Irrigation already accounts for about 70% of global water use. Yet 20 of about 170 countries covered in the report are already using more than 40% of their renewable water resources for irrigation. It describes this as "a threshold used to flag the level at which countries are forced to make difficult choices between their agricultural and urban water supply sectors". So, many countries may decide they cannot afford the water they will need to grow the food that could end hunger. (03/10/03) | |
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BBC Science -- Scientists say they have proof that it will one day be possible to prevent diseases such as vCJD and BSE. It is thought that these diseases, and others that also progressively destroy the brain, are caused by rogue particles called prions. A team from Imperial College in London has discovered the development of prion disease can be prevented in mice using molecules produced by the immune system called monoclonal antibodies. Prions are proteins that bind to normal proteins in the brain and twist them into abnormal shapes. These then clump together, causing brain damage. Monoclonal antibodies work by binding to both prions and normal proteins, blocking them from binding to each other. Although the work is in its infancy and clinical studies with patients are some years away, the results raise the real possibility that a similar therapy might work on humans. (03/10/03) | |
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We featured this link earlier this year, but you might have missed it. If you haven't seen this internet game done with flash animation, you are missing out on the fun. (03/10/03) | |
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CNN News -- The presence of a large number of uninsured people in a community can affect the availability of medical care for everyone, the Institute of Medicine reported this week. Paying for uncompensated medical care puts a strain on the community and can lead to cuts in preventive medicine, surveillance and other programs. "It is mistaken and dangerous to assume that the prevalence of uninsurance in the United States harms only those who are not insured," said Dr. Arthur L. Kellermann of the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. Providing uncompensated care can put a severe strain on emergency and trauma care and other community health facilities. That can worsen emergency room overcrowding and hospitals may decide to close these facilities in response to financial stress, said Kellermann, co-chairman of the committee that prepared the study. "The insured and the uninsured have a shared destiny," he said. (03/10/03) | |
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New York Times -- As Barbara Freese makes abundantly clear in her engrossing and sometimes stunning ''Coal: A Human History,'' man's relationship to coal has ever been thus. Coal is not merely a big employer, like Wal-Mart or Costco, only grimier; wherever it has been discovered and mined, it has become that place's metaphor and stipulated its destiny. And its power has not been merely regional. ''The industrial age,'' Freese writes, ''emerged literally in a haze of coal smoke, and in that smoke we can read much of the history of the modern world.'' Overstatement? It's impossible to think so after reading this strongly argued and thoroughly researched book. London became the modern world's first great metropolis because of coal: Britons agreed by the late 1500's that coal heated homes and workplaces much better than wood, which London was fast running out of anyway. And coal's plenitude in Britain produced the wealth -- and the reliable warmth that cold-weather societies had not theretofore known -- that made the building of a muscular city possible. Shipbuilding technology advanced rapidly because of coal, since moving it from Newcastle and Wales to London was most easily accomplished on the seas and rivers. (Roads, then, were a nightmare. Freese offers an illuminating and spirited disquisition, of which there are so many in this lively book, on the problem of mud in 18th-century society; the ruts in the road from London to Birmingham, carved by thousands of wagon wheels over many years, were 12 to 14 feet deep in places.) Canals were built chiefly to move coal. Ditto railroads -- the world's first fully locomotive-driven public one, running between Liverpool and Manchester, was constructed more with a bituminous cargo in mind than a human one. James Watt's steam engine -- the Industrial Revolution's beating heart -- was invented chiefly ''to solve the novel problems posed by having to delve ever deeper into the earth for what had become a life-sustaining daily necessity.'' (03/10/03) | |
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New York Times -- A lot of publications marshal facts and figures to influence car-buying decisions. The latest, 2003 edition of "ACEEE's Green Book" is no exception, though it doesn't provide the usual fodder of top speeds or zero-to-60 acceleration times. Rather, the publication offers lesser-known measures like the "environmental damage index" of a car, plus estimates of the health care costs to society from the pollution produced by a particular model. The Green Book is published by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, an environmental group in Washington. The Green Book also ranks cars by environmental standards. "The mantra of our book is to encourage consumers to buy the greenest vehicle that fits their needs and their budget," said James Kleisch, the co-author (with John DeCicco). "We don't say, `Stay away from pickup trucks.' We say that if you're going to buy a pickup, here's the greenest one on the market." The Environmental Protection Agency ranks vehicles based on fuel economy and emissions, too, but the Green Book assigns a "green score" that includes a life-cycle assessment, taking into account factors like how much energy is used to build a particular model. (03/10/03) | |
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Peter Russell writes: Sustainable Development is one of those terms that seems to have leapt into our vocabulary from nowhere. Five years ago no one, apart from a few green philosophers, had ever heard of the term. Today, thanks largely to the publicity it received from the 1993 ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio, it has become common parlance. Politicians speak passionately about the need for it and the steps we must take to achieve it; corporations bend over backwards to show their dedication to it; while the media enthusiastically tries to explain what sustainable development means. But what exactly does it mean? At the last count there were over a hundred different definitions of the term, and there has been much debate over their varying merits and relevance. But one principle common to most of them is that it we should leave the planet in as good a state as we found it. The Brundtland Report’s definition is typical. It defines sustainable development as ‘development that meets the need of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ The goal is certainly worthy. Many argue that it is also an imperative. If such principles are not put into practice we could do irreparable damage to the planet’s biosystem. But amidst all the clamor for sustainable development, few stop to ask whether it is possible. The consequences of an environmental catastrophe are so frightening – the end of civilization as we know it; perhaps the end of humanity itself – that people seldom question whether our current conceptions of sustainable development are adequate or realistic. (03/09/03) | |
5:54:19 AM 
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© TrustMark
2003
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
4/1/2003; 5:16:53 AM.
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