Monday, December 31, 2007

Has Tom Robbins Had It Right All Along?

pan, nymphIn one of my favorite books, author Tom Robbins makes a case for a way to promote longevity which doesn’t require vitamins or supplements of any kind. In “The Jitterbug Perfume” he follows the 1000 year life of King Alabar during the 10 centuries prior to the 21st. During feudal times it was customary to execute the king by means of a poisoned egg. All that was necessary for this to occur was a single strand of grey hair or a flagging performance in the private chambers of the king. This policy was to ensure a strong and virile leader sat on the throne, since his job was to lead knights to battle to protect the kingdom. His success was rewarded with a generous harem to assure bountiful heirs to the throne.
As the story goes, when the time came, the job of administrating the fatal poisoned egg fell to the king’s number one consort, or queen. Because of his unusual wisdom and compassion, Alabar’s queen decided to conspire with him to circumvent his death. When a traitorous grey hair was discovered by the court magician the king’s execution was ordained. As planned, the egg’s lethal dose was diluted, and after his faked death the queen dug him up and he fled the kingdom. He traveled East, and after spending an enjoyable time with Pan and his nymphs, he wandered into a secret sect who had discovered the secret to eternal life. He spent enough time with them to learn the basics of their ways and so was able to maintain himself in the prime of life. Although breathing properly and eating right were cornerstones of this sect’s secret, the Tom Robbins twist for a long life was to fool the body’s genes into believing a man’s reproductive powers were still necessary and in use.
The basic premise is that our DNA has but one function; to assure the survival of the species. To this end our DNA will perform the job of cellular cleansing and faithful cell replication as long as they believe the body is still performing it’s procreative function. Once our DNA determines we are no longer procreating it slacks off and ageing and cellular degradation begin.
Tom Robbins’ theory received an unexpected confirmation from an anthropology study of hunter/gather societies. A mathematical model by Stanford University biologist Shripad D. Tuliapurkar and colleagues affirmed that human evolution would have preserved genes that favor both male and female survival for as long as they can reproduce.
So the moral of the story is to use it or lose it. It seems our sex lives may have a great deal to do with the health and length of our lives. Sounds fair to me.
Bob Parmelee parmsplace.com

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Science to the Rescue

After the E-Coli /Spinach disaster of 2006 which caused several deaths and many severe illnesses in over half the states, little has been heard. However, the repercussions are still reverberating throughout the farming community. In a typical display of overkill farmers have been subjected to hoards of auditors. Among their duties these auditors roam the fields looking for animal feces. Crop circles are then drawn around these “piles” and no crops within 25 ft. are supposed to be harvested. I am no farmer but I can imagine trying to dodge a field full of circles and trying to make a living out of what is left. At great cost fences are being erected to keep the free roaming animals out of the crops. Animals known to carry the E-Coli bacterium include cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and deer. Ponds are being filled in and huge buffer zones are being established around irrigation water sources and livestock waste depositories. However, the invasion doesn’t stop with land animals. We need also to be concerned with snails, frogs and tadpoles, slugs, rats and field mice, and, of course, air born attacks from flies butterflies, and birds, etc.
Obviously we cannot protect ourselves from anything which might carry a disease. To suggest we can sterilize everything roaming millions of acres along with the ground they cover is ridiculous. However, science may soon provide a way to do one better. It seems E-Coli and other bacteria have a sweet tooth. Tests have indicated these bugs have an affinity for particular types of sugars. When nanoparticles of iron are coated with a pathogens’ particular favorite, they readily bond to the coating. Passing these solutions by a magnet can draw away an astounding 88% of the pathogens in as little as 45 minutes of exposure.
Because nanoparticles are extremely cheap to produce they could assist in decontaminating not just food, but blood reserves, water sources, etc. Virtually anything the little bugs live in we can trick them out of. Isn’t science grand?

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Let's Talk About Accuracy

A recent article in Science News discussed the latest satellite used to measure earth’s ice sheets. To calibrate the altitude measuring instruments on board the satellite the scientists use a salt flat in Bolivia. This salt flat was determined by previous tests to be flat over an area approximately 25 miles wide by 30 miles long. This New Jersey sized area was crisscrossed by SUVs with GPS antennas mounted to their roofs. The scientists collected data every 100 meters (about the length of a football field). What amazed me most about the survey is not that they discovered that the field wasn’t flat. What blew my mind was that they were able to tell that the vehicles were riding about 5mm (less than ¼ of an inch) higher off the ground at the end of the day when their fuel tanks were almost empty. The salt flat results indicated that the highest point was actually about 30 inches higher than the lowest point, about 30 miles away.
Now let’s talk about global warming. The same degree of accuracy is telling us the world temperature is rising at unprecedented rates. However, large numbers of senior legislators (read George Bush and cronies) are still disputing these results and their urgency. The ice caps are, in fact disappearing, and the oceans are indeed rising. These people who dispute the findings have no scientific background and are therefore able to doubt the accuracy of the scientists and their instruments.
What surprises me most about our country is not that these people can deny or bury anything contrary to their belief system under a mountain of B.S. What most amazes me is that we continue to elect these ignorant people to the highest offices in the land. If we don’t wake up soon, the damage we continue to do to the environment will be our undoing. Who cares if alternative energy development costs the oil ticket a few billions? They didn’t deserve the money anyway. Our children deserve better.
Bob Parmelee parmsplace.com

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Political Wit and Satire

"If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." -Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot; And suppose you were a member of Congress....But then I repeat myself. -Mark Twain

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. -Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. - George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -G Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. -James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. -Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. -Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it, and if it stops moving, subsidize it. -Ronald Reagan (1986)

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. -Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now; wait until you see what it costs when it's free! -P.J. O'Rourke

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politic won't take an interest in you! -Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. -Mark Twain (1866

Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it. -Unknown

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. -Ronald Reagan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. -Mark Twain

There is no distinctly Native American criminal class...save Congress. -Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. -Edward Langley, Artist (1928 - 1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. -Thomas Jefferson

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Are Science and Religion Forever Mortal Enemies?


Imagine a black hole, if you can. There is one or more in every galaxy. These cosmic sized vacuum cleaners suck everything in their neighborhood down a funnel much like water going down the drain. As matter enters the vortex it’s structure becomes more and more compressed.
This is possible because matter primarily consists of empty space. Space between molecules, space between atoms in molecules, space between electrons and nuclei, etc. As the space between these particles of matter decreases the process generates heat. Tremendous amounts of heat. In fact, the trillions of degrees of heat are so intense the particles actually revert to their primal form, energy. Einstein’s theory tells us that the amount of energy created equals the material mass times the speed of light squared.

Now lets assume the process occurred on a universe sized scale billions of years before the birth of our universe. Every single gram of matter became a part of a soccer sized ball of pure energy and there is no physical matter left. All knowledge, time, and matter are encompassed in this ball of energy….God, if you will. Then, for reasons not even guessed at yet, the ball blows up. We have the big bang. Energy is spewed out in all directions in a trillion degree heat wave. Our universe is born. As the energy becomes dissipated things begin to cool off. Millions of years later matter begins to form in a process similar to water vapor condensing to steam, and then water droplets. Clouds of the simplest from of matter, one electron circulating one proton, hydrogen, begin to form in galaxy sized clusters.

Which brings us to today. Billions of years after the big bang we find ourselves living on the third rock from our sun in the Milky Way galaxy. We begin to look outward with ever more powerful instruments. But we are not just looking away from our planet; we are looking back in time. Because light takes time to reach us, the light we see tells us the way things were when it first began to travel in our direction. If we look back far enough we can glimpse the birth of our universe.

China is now developing an array of antennas about two miles long in a high plains desert area where a clear and undistorted view of the heavens is possible. This antenna array is a form of radio telescope which permits detection of something called background microwave radiation. This is radiation believed to be left over from the big bang. When information begins flowing from this giant instrument we should be able to determine the circumstances surrounding the birth of our universe.

There is an interesting conflict growing as a result of the increase in knowledge provided by instruments of this sort. Our increasing wealth of knowledge is creating an ever widening gulf between science and conventional western religions. Christian based religions believe the world we live in was created a mere 6000 years ago by a single act of a supreme being. This doctrine, however, is being contradicted by an ever increasing body of evidence supported by mathematics and science which, interestingly enough also give us our laptops and IPODs.

At some point, perhaps today, these opposing points of view will have to be resolved if the world is to move forward without conflict. As any student of history knows, religious conflicts have been the reason for some of the biggest bloodbaths in human history. We must begin to put superstition and mysticism at rest. The world of make believe served the organizers of man well for centuries but inevitably leads to an ungodly amount of blood shed.

It is time to move on; time to give peace a chance.
Bob Parmelee