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Tuesday, May 13, 2003
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Timothy Wilken, MD writes: The human story cannot be understood separate from the story of Universe. It is really one story. As Albert Einstein explained: "A human being is part of a whole, called by us the "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. " (05/13/03) | |
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Jonathan Schell writes: The twentieth century produced the most extreme violence that the human species has ever visited upon itself. ... Rejecting a choice between accommodation and violent, all-or-nothing revolution, the Eastern Europeans decided upon the incremental pursuit of revolutionary ends with peaceful, reformist means. Acting on the basis of common principles yet without any blueprint--"in cooperation without unification," in the phrase of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu--they pooled the variegated forces of society to achieve a radical renewal of their political lives. ... The larger question, facing not just the United States but any country that might be eager to establish an empire, is whether the connection between military and political power--snapped by the world revolt of the twentieth century--can be restored. Does power still flow from the barrel of a gun or a B-2 bomber? (05/13/03) | |
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BBC Science -- A British mammal redolent of a bygone countryside idyll, the otter, is steadily returning to parts of England it had abandoned. A study of English otters has found the area they inhabit grew fivefold in 25 years. ... Otters declined steeply across Europe in the 1960s, with conservationists blaming the widespread use of certain pesticides. Apart from remnant populations clinging on in remote parts of England, their British strongholds were reduced to Wales and Scotland. But improved water quality and fish stocks, coupled with changes in riverbank management, have reversed the English otters' fortunes. ... The study, the National Otter Survey of England, is the work of the Environment Agency (EA) and the Wildlife Trusts, with help from English Nature and the privatised water companies. The survey, the fourth since the late 1970s, found the areas otters now live in has increased by 527% since the first survey. Of 3,327 riverbank and wetland sites surveyed, 1,137 (almost 35%) showed evidence of otters, either paw prints or spraints (droppings). The 1977 figure was 5.8%. (05/13/03) | |
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BBC Science -- Bacteria are being used to help protect penguins in UK zoos threatened by avian malaria. Dozens of birds in the country have been wiped out by the parasite responsible for the disease. Now, scientists at the University of Cardiff have deployed the microbes in a spray to kill off the larvae of the insects which spread the parasite. Tests at Bristol zoo - which had already lost two king penguins - have had encouraging results, with no fresh infections since the introduction of the bacteria. (05/13/03) | |
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New Scientist -- Two species of beetle are credited with saving the economy of Benin in West Africa $260 million over 20 years. Between them, they have overpowered an aquatic super-weed that kills fish, interferes with boats and changes the ecology of lakes. It is a familiar story. Foreign travellers develop a penchant for an exotic flower and take it home. There it escapes and runs amok, having no natural predators. In this case, the rampaging pest is the water hyacinth, which was transported from Brazil by 19th-century horticulturalists. It has now become a major problem in tropical waterways, having spread to 50 countries. Floating mats of the weed can double in size in less than two weeks, with the sheer density of its foliage making fishing and boating all but impossible. What?s more, it gives cover to crocodiles, making it hazardous for local people to collect water. A bigger problem, though, is that water hyacinth removes oxygen from the water and increases its acidity. It also slows the flow, increasing the amount of silt that is deposited. "You end up with a major ecological change," says Roger Day, a water hyacinth expert at CAB International in Nairobi, Kenya. ... The most effective weapons have been the weevils Neochetina eichhorniae and N. bruchi, which eat water hyacinth and nothing else. Setting them onto the weed can cut coverage by up to 90 per cent. The beasts were first introduced to Sudan, but have now been deployed across Africa. (05/13/03) | |
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New Scientist -- The world's first crewed aircraft powered by fuel cells could be ready for test flights by December 2003. The experimental one-person craft, being built by US aerospace company Boeing, will rely entirely on two 25-kilowatt fuel cells for propulsion once airborne. The fuel cells will provide electrical power for propeller motors. However, the aircraft will need to use batteries to accelerate to the required speed during take off. "If there was ever a way to demonstrate that fuel cells are safe and usable, this is it," says Judith Agar of Intelligent Energy, the UK company chosen by Boeing to build the fuel cells. (05/13/03) | |
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BBC Science -- Iraq's great oil reserves will ease the way to a better future for this downtrodden country, we are told. But the "black gold" is more often a curse than a blessing, according to a new report. There can be few jackpots in this world quite as big as striking oil. As the fuel that drives the world's economy, the "black gold" ranks top of the list of natural resources a government would wish for in its backyard. Perhaps the luckiest of all winners in this lottery of buried wealth is Iraq. While Saudi Arabia is the only country thought to have bigger reserves, the average cost of bringing a barrel to the ground in Iraq is less than half that of Saudi. ... A report by the charity, called Fuelling Poverty - Oil, War and Corruption, outlines how countries "blessed" with oil often end up worse off than poor nations with no natural resources to draw on. Striking oil is akin to turning on a tap gushing with billions of dollars. But, like a rags-to-riches lottery winner who goes crazy on his winnings, poor countries lack the experience to manage this sudden surge of money. ... The charity's report finds developing countries dependent on oil have a higher incidence of these interconnected problems: mass poverty, corruption, war, or civil strife, and dictatorial government. At the root of it all are the weak institutions, governance and democracy that prevail in developing countries. Instead of being strengthened through years of sustained economic planning and development, these structures are suddenly subverted by huge sums of money. (05/13/03) | |
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New York Times: Science -- Terry Clark, whose family runs a pest-control empire in Lodi, Calif., believes he has a better way to find termites: monitoring the methane they expel. "Termites eat a lot of roughage, so they have a huge gas problem," Mr. Clark said. Many different technologies — from sonar to X-rays — have been deployed to detect termites, with varying success. What makes termites so insidious is that they can munch their way through the innards of a house undetected. ... In 1982, four scientists from three continents collaborated on a paper published in Science magazine that estimated that flatulence from termites might be responsible for as much as 30 percent of the methane in the earth's atmosphere. Since then, the level of termite-produced methane (and its possible contribution to global warming) has been a matter of fierce scientific contention. The pest-control industry, however, seems to agree that the presence of methane is a legitimate way to track termites. Some specialists use trained beagles to detect it. And some hand-held electronic termite "sniffers" are already on the market. (05/13/03) | |
5:45:13 AM 
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© TrustMark
2003
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
6/3/2003; 5:44:49 AM.
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