Who owns sunken treasure?

Mitch Stacy for Associated Press (AP) has reported that 17-tons of silver and gold coins salvaged from the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish galleon sunk by British warships in the Atlantic, off Portugal, while sailing back from South America in 1804, has been returned to Spain.

Legal action in the United States denied ownership of the find to both the Peruvian government which argued the material was sourced from Peru and the salvage company Odyssey Marine Exploration. See also Newsday and El País (in Spanish - with excellent photographic and video coverage).

Stacy reported that "Peruvian cultural authorities say their country's legal case would have been stronger if it had signed the 2001 U.N. Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, which states that countries of origin have priority in deciding the fate of cultural artifacts found in shipwrecks". However, the text of the convention does not appear to regulate the ownership of wrecks or sovereignty rights.

While Spain has asserted its legal right to the find, surely Peru would also have some moral rights.

When it comes to sunken treasure, it is not a case of finders keepers.

Behind the face and voice of Elmo

From ABC Nightline



Fascinating story.

Kevin Clash has been behind (underneath?) Elmo since late 1985 on Sesame Street.

More on Elmo

2011 Ig Nobel awards

The Ig Nobel is awarded to researchers, whose research should not be repeated. The 2011 winners, announced on 29 September 2011 at Harvard University were

PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE: Anna Wilkinson (of the UK), Natalie Sebanz (of NETHERLANDS, HUNGARY, and AUSTRIA), Isabella Mandl (of AUSTRIA) and Ludwig Huber (of AUSTRIA) for their study 'No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise."
REFERENCE: 'No Evidence Of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise Geochelone carbonaria," Anna Wilkinson, Natalie Sebanz, Isabella Mandl, Ludwig Huber, Current Zoology, vol. 57, no. 4, 2011. pp. 477-84.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Ludwig Huber

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of JAPAN, for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm.
REFERENCE: US patent application 2010/0308995 A1. Filing date: Feb 5, 2009.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Makoto Imai, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami

MEDICINE PRIZE: Mirjam Tuk (of THE NETHERLANDS and the UK), Debra Trampe (of THE NETHERLANDS) and Luk Warlop (of BELGIUM). and jointly to Matthew Lewis, Peter Snyder and Robert Feldman (of the USA), Robert Pietrzak, David Darby, and Paul Maruff (of AUSTRALIA) for demonstrating that people make better decisions about some kinds of things — but worse decisions about other kinds of things‚ when they have a strong urge to urinate.
REFERENCE: "Inhibitory spillover: Increased Urination Urgency Facilitates Impulse Control in Unrelated Domains," Mirjam A. Tuk, Debra Trampe and Luk Warlop, Psychological Science, vol. 22, no. 5, May 2011, pp. 627-633.
REFERENCE: "The Effect of Acute Increase in Urge to Void on Cognitive Function in Healthy Adults," Matthew S. Lewis, Peter J. Snyder, Robert H. Pietrzak, David Darby, Robert A. Feldman, Paul T. Maruff, Neurology and Urodynamics, vol. 30, no. 1, January 2011, pp. 183-7.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Mirjam Tuk, Luk Warlop, Peter Snyder, Robert Feldman, David Darby

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE: Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo, NORWAY, for trying to understand why, in everyday life, people sigh.
REFERENCE: "Is a Sigh 'Just a Sigh'? Sighs as Emotional Signals and Responses to a Difficult Task," Karl Halvor Teigen, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, vol. 49, no. 1, 2008, pp. 49–57.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Karl Halvor Teigen

LITERATURE PRIZE: John Perry of Stanford University, USA, for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which says: To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important.
REFERENCE: "How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done," John Perry, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 23, 1996. Later republished elsewhere under the title "Structured Procrastination." http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~jperry
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Colleague Deborah Wilkes accepted the prize on behalf of Professor Perry.

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Darryl Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the USA) and David Rentz (of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle
REFERENCE: "Beetles on the Bottle: Male Buprestids Mistake Stubbies for Females (Coleoptera)," D.T. Gwynne, and D.C.F. Rentz, Journal of the Australian Entomological Society, vol. 22, 1983, pp. 79-80
REFERENCE: "Beetles on the Bottle," D.T. Gwynne and D.C.F. Rentz, Antenna: Proceedings (A) of the Royal Entomological Society London, vol. 8, no. 3, 1984, pp. 116-7.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz

PHYSICS PRIZE: Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne and Bruno Ragaru (of FRANCE), and Herman Kingma (of THE NETHERLANDS), for determining why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't.
REFERENCE: "Dizziness in Discus Throwers is Related to Motion Sickness Generated While Spinning," Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne, Bruno Ragaru and Herman Kingma, Acta Oto-laryngologica, vol. 120, no. 3, March 2000, pp. 390–5.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: The winners accepted via recorded video.

MATHEMATICS PRIZE: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of KOREA (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of UGANDA (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21, 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.

PEACE PRIZE: Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, LITHUANIA, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank.
REFERENCE: VIDEO and OFFICIAL CITY INFO
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Arturas Zuokas

PUBLIC SAFETY PRIZE: John Senders of the University of Toronto, CANADA, for conducting a series of safety experiments in which a person drives an automobile on a major highway while a visor repeatedly flaps down over his face, blinding him.
REFERENCE: "The Attentional Demand of Automobile Driving," John W. Senders, et al., Highway Research Record, vol. 195, 1967, pp. 15-33. VIDEO
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: John Senders

Compare to 2010 and 2009, which I've previously written.

The mathematics and peace prizes were particularly interesting. Sigh. Or was just a sigh?

Cow on the run

First there was Luna the jumping cow, then Krista the bovine beauty queen. Now, there is a report about yet another cow, Yvonne, who is living life on the run in a Bavarian forest. Reported in the Guardian

A €10,000 reward is being offered in Germany for the safe return of a cow called Yvonne who went on the run in May after apparently sensing she was about to be sent to the slaughterhouse.

Yvonne, a six-year-old dairy cow, has, in the words of one newspaper, become "a kind of freedom fighter for the animal loving German republic" since she escaped from her field in the village of Zangberg, 50 miles north-east of Munich, on 24 May.

Having been fattened up, she was due to be dispatched when she managed to breach the electric fence surrounding her farm. For months she led a quiet life grazing among the fir trees of nearby forests, until she nearly came a cropper crossing a road into the path of a passing police car.

Read more. See also NPR and Der Spiegel.  Ernst, a rather attractive bull has been enlisted to help lure her out of the forest (see video below from ZDF). Ernst, being castrated, might not actually be of much use.



See another video from Der Spiegel.

The German media appears to be obsessed with cows.

Smells like Lithuania

Three enterprising Lithuanian entrepreneurs have created a scent as an olfactory reminder of Lithuania. Reported in the Guardian

Developed by Rutkauskas and two other Lithuanian entrepreneurs and produced by the French perfumery Galimard, Lietuvos Kvapas – literally, "the scent of Lithuania" – is an attempt to create a positive national brand.

"If I say chocolate and watches, what do you think? Switzerland. If I say Guinness and leprechauns? Ireland. Fish and chips? England. But here in Lithuania we don't have an internationally recognised symbol of our identity," said Rutkauskas. Since the £25 scent went on the market earlier this year, 1,000 bottles have been sold – mostly, said Rutkauskas, to local tourist offices and businessmen keen to improve Lithuania's image abroad.

The prime minister's chief of staff ordered bottles to give to the heads of other Baltic states at a recent summit, and the foreign minister sent one to every foreign ambassador in Vilnius, the capital.

The defence minister even flew 20 vials out to Afghanistan to give Lithuanian soldiers a reminder of home.

Read more. See also the Daily Telegraph. From www.lietuvoskvapas.lt

Scent is a strong emotional factor which invokes memories and associations. Therefore, there are no bad or good scents until the moment we grant them a meaning and relate them to our experiences. Our memory can preserve separate scents or their combinations and sequences. Most people can recall the scent of their childhood, homeland, heroic adventures or first love. Scents can remind us of the countries we have visited, the people we have met and the experiences we have had.

When creating the Scent of Lithuania, our goal was not only to impersonate the fragrances of the country, but also to tell a story about its cities and villages, its nature, ancient traditions and cultural heritage, the character and the achievements of its people: everything what we are justly proud of and respected for.

This is how the Legend of the Scent of Lithuania emerged and inspired the Galimard perfumers to select the distinctive scents and incorporate them into the fragrance. Only natural essences and components tested in authorized laboratories were used in the production of the Scent of Lithuania. This finest quality three-note perfume is designed for ambient scenting.

Characteristics of Lithuania are revealed in the perfume notes

Top note
Bergamot, note of wild flower bouquet, ginger, raspberry, note of red berries, grapefruit

Middle note
Lily of the valley, lilac, rose

Base note
Amber, tree moss, cedar, sandalwood, patchouli, musk, note of tree smoke

If other countries 'bottled' a characteristic scent, as an olfactory reminder, it would be interesting to find out what they choose.

There is a particular tropical smell that is characteristic of places like Bangkok and Singapore upon arriving at their airports. It's a thought to consider the next time you arrive in a new place. Close your eyes and take in the smell.

There was an interesting piece by Jason Logan in the New York Times in 2009 about the smells of Manhattan.

Has he lost his noodles?

Reported by BBC News (14 July 2011),

An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as "religious headgear".

Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons.

Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.

Later a police spokesman explained that the licence was issued because Mr Alm's face was fully visible in the photo.

"The photo was not approved on religious grounds. The only criterion for photos in driving licence applications is that the whole face must be visible," said Manfred Reinthaler, a police spokesman in Vienna.

He was speaking on Wednesday, after Austrian media had first reported Mr Alm's reason for wearing the pasta strainer.

After receiving his application the Austrian authorities had required him to obtain a doctor's certificate that he was "psychologically fit" to drive.

Read more. Earlier reporting by AFP in France24 (12 July 2011), Der Spiegel (13 July 2011).

(photo from Niko Alm blog)

See also Niko Alm's blog. His press release

Eine kleine Pressemitteilung.

—-

Morgen 8.30 Ad hoc PK: Die Nudelsieb-Affäre. Die Hintergründe.

Eine Beweisführung darüber, wie absurd Kirchenprivilegien heute sind. Mit Niko Alm und seinem Nudelsieb.

(Wien 13.7.11,) Wie es kam, dass ein Führerschein-Foto des Unternehmers Niko Alm mit Nudelsieb auf dem Kopf von der Behörde akzeptiert wurde – Niko Alm, Atheist und Mitinitiator des Volksbegehrens gegen Kirchenprivilegien, ist bekennender Pastafari und hat 3 Jahre lang um sein Recht auf einen Identitätsausweis mit Nudelsieb am Kopf gekämpft. Der Pastafarianismus wurde 2005 vom US- Physiker Bobby Henderson gegründet, Gottheit ist das Fliegende Spaghettimonster. Niko Alms Führerschein hat dieser Tage großes mediales Aufsehen erregt. Allerdings kann jeder das Privileg einer konfessionellen Kopfbedeckung am Passfoto in Anspruch nehmen. Niko Alm möchte aufzeigen, dass religiöse Privilegien vielfach aus dem Mittelalter kommen, oft skurril sind und im 21. Jahrhundert endlich beendet werden müssen.

Alles über das Recht aufs Nudelsieb und den seit heute laufenden Wettbewerb “Pimp your Head” – zeig die kreativste konfessionelle Kopfbedeckung, präsentiert von den Initiatoren des Volksbegehrens gegen Kirchenprivilegien.

Pressekonferenz und Fotoshooting:
morgen Donnerstag, 14.7., 8.30h

mit
Niko Alm, Unternehmer, Mitinitiator Volksbegehren gegen Kirchenprivilegien,
und
Univ. Prof. Heinz Oberhummer, Physiker und Wissenschaftskabarettist, Mitinitiator des Volksbegehrens gegen Kirchenprivilegien

Café Prückel
Stubenring 24 (Luegerplatz)
A-1010 Wien

Presse-Rückfragen:

FJ PUKARTHOFER PR, Jakob Purkarthofer, +43-664-4121491, info@purkarthofer-pr.at

Strangely, it's not a bad look. Fitting that the appropriate headwear for worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is one that is used to drain spaghetti.

Apples - British to the core

Horticulturalist Chris Beardshaw presented a one hour program on BBC Four about the apple in British history. He also wrote for BBC News Magazine. Excerpt

Some of the world's best-loved apples, like the Braeburn and the Bramley, were discovered growing as chance seedlings, gifts from nature that just happened to taste good. The Granny Smith was discovered growing out of a rubbish heap in Australia.

So while the apple seeks only to multiply rather than reproduce the same delicious fruits, man had to fathom how to clone it with an ancient process known as grafting, which remains the same to this day. With the discovery of grafting we could clone our favourite apple trees again and again.

The Bramley, one of Britain's most prosperous and time-honoured apples, was planted 200 years ago in Nottinghamshire. That first tree was grown from a pip by a young woman, Mary Ann Brailsford, between 1809 and 1815. Since then every single Bramley apple ever eaten and tree planted has originated from it. That's a lot, with the Bramley apple industry is worth £50m today.

The pip most probably came from an apple on a tree at the bottom of her garden. The seedling produced such fine apples that in 1837 a local nurseryman asked the next occupier of the house, Matthew Bramley, for his permission to graft scions from the tree. Bramley agreed as long as the apples bore his name. Ms Brailsford never knew the fame her apples achieved.

Read more.

The Granny Smith can be a rather tart apple but is still very popular in Australia. Other varieties such as Gala and Pink Lady are becoming more popular ahead of Red Delicious.

As much as apples are "British to the core", even the United States has its own Johnny Appleseed legend and apples in the form of apple pie are American as.

Bovine beauty "a perfect Holstein"

In April, I wrote about Luna the jumping cow. Again from Germany is a story of another cow, Krista, who was recently named Germany's prettiest cow. Reporting in Der Spiegel, excerpt

Forget Germany's Next Top Model and Heidi Klum. This week, the German gaze was trained on the country's most beautiful cow. "Krista" became the envy of bovine beauty queens across the land when she won the grand prize at the 2011 German Holstein Show, her second time to take the pageant's top honor.

Krista successfully defended her 2009 title against a field of much heavier competition than that faced by most other beauty contestants. Of some two million hopeful dairy dames, just over 200 were chosen to lock horns over the grand prize, which comes complete with a trophy and cow-sized sash. Eight finalists strutted their stuff for a panel of jurors in the northern German city of Oldenburg on Thursday night. But it was Krista, described by juror Matthias Zens as "a perfect Holstein," who won over the jury with her professional demeanor and pleasing physique.

Krista is indeed a bovine beauty.

(photo by dpa via Der Spiegel)

See also original reporting by Der Spiegel auf Deutsch.

Moo!

Brussels metro bans French and Dutch songs, plays Lady Gaga instead

The Kingdom of Belgium has tenuously united Dutch-speaking Flemish and French-speaking Walloons since 1830. Divisions between the two groups have meant that there has been no new government since the elections of 13 June 2010.

The Brussels metro previously broadcast French music (songs) at its 69 stations. Following complaints from dozens of passengers in April, the operator of the Brussels metro STIB has banned both French and Dutch music to avoid offending customers. Dutch music had actually not been broadcast because they were not popular (in music charts) anyway.

Consequently, most music broadcast by the stations have been in English. This provided an opportunity for the promotion of Lady Gaga's latest album.

Music from French and Dutch musicians is not technically banned, provided it is sung in English.

See reporting in Le Post (in French).

Report from Le Journal on Télé Bruxelles

Lady Gaga dans le métro de Bruxelles by Zoomin_France

Superman, world citizen

In issue #900 of Action Comics published on 27 April 2011, Superman discusses his intention to renounce his American citizenship.

This has generated considerable discussion - see NPR, Reuters, The Weekly Standard, io9, Wired, etc

Associated Press report


Clark Kent may have a fake birth certificate and fake adoption papers arranged by Jonathan and Martha Kent. Surely Clark Kent's real persona Kal-El would not have an equivalent birth certificate from Krypton and then a naturalization certificate and nor would his alter ego Superman.

Questions need to be asked about how Superman, as an alien, became a naturalized US citizen. As a super human of non-Earth origin with special abilities, he must be above politics.

This cowgirl's cow jumps and she's over the moon

From the town of Laufen in Bavaria, 15-year-old Regina Mayer, whose parents are farmers declined her request for a horse, so she did the next best thing, which was to train one of their cows called Luna like a horse. Luna also thinks she is a horse.

Associated Press


Antenne (Bayern)


See also reporting in
- Der Spiegel (English)
- Der Spiegel (Deutsch)
- Nürnberger Nachrichten

Moo!

Sporthocker

Sporthocker (Hockern in Germany) is a relatively new sport that originated in Germany in 2001 where a stool is used to perform tricks used in skating, juggling, acrobatics, dancing and even parkour. The completion of tricks is signified by sitting on the stool.

The sport really took off in late 2007 when a specially designed stool was created by brothers Michael and Stephan Landschütz from SALZIGdesign (priced from €100). Popular contests called Hocktoberfest have been held since 2007.

The Landschütz brothers talk about the sport (as finalists for 2011 ispo BrandNew awards)


From Hocktoberfest 2010, a finals performance


SALZIG Sporthocker Events' Hock Hart 16-18 April 2010
Ein sonniges Wochenende von Hockerern für Hockerer


News report from MDR Fernsehen on 19 August 2010 in which some Hockerer und Hockerin talk about and demonstrate some skills


Skateboards are so yesterday.

Berlin has lately become a centre for new sporting trends. Chess Boxing also originated in Berlin.

It's a pity that the only Australian media reporting of the sport was so disparaging.

The cost of Christmas: PNC's Christmas price index

How much does the 12 days of Christmas cost? PNC has been calculating the cost for the past 27 years and there has been a rise this year. From PNC press release

True Loves Be Warned: Despite Weak Economic Picture PNC Christmas Price Index^® Jumps a Staggering 9.2%

Costs for "The Twelve Days of Christmas" Song Items Spike Due To Price Increases for Commodities, Performers and Birds

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 29, 2010 – Despite a sluggish economy and low inflation, the 2010 PNC Christmas Price Index^® surged 9.2 percent in the whimsical economic analysis by PNC Wealth Management based on the gifts in the holiday classic, "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

According to the 27^th annual survey, the price tag for the PNC CPI is $23,439 in 2010, $1,974 more than last year. This is the second highest jump ever and largest percentage increase since 2003 when the index rose 16 percent. That comes on the heels of a modest 1.8 percent increase a year ago.

"This year's jump in the PNC CPI can be attributed to rising gold commodity prices, represented by the Five Gold Rings which went up by 30 percent, in addition to higher costs for wages and benefits impacting some entertainers," said James Dunigan, managing executive of investments for PNC Wealth Management.

Although these trends affect both indexes, the PNC CPI's surge is in marked contrast to the government's CPI, which grew a mere 1.1 percent, illustrating the difference in size of the two baskets of goods and services.

Among the 12 gifts in the PNC CPI, only four items (Pear Tree, Four Calling Birds, Six Geese a–Laying and the Eight Maids-a-Milking) were the same price from last year.

The 11 Pipers Piping ($2,356) and 12 Drummers Drumming ($2,552) saw modest increases, both up 3.1 percent, however these higher costs give greater weight to the index. Lords-a-Leaping jumped 8 percent to $4,766 but the biggest dollar increase this year was for the Nine Ladies Dancing, up $820, a 15 percent boost. None of these performers received a wage increase last year, and were playing catch-up in 2010.

Birds Soar Higher

After modest increases last year, prices for the birds flew higher in this year's index, in part due to the costs of feed as well as the availability and demand for certain feathered friends that amplified several prices. The Two Turtle Doves increased 78.6 percent to $100 and the Three French hens surged 233 percent to $150.

The Partridge in a Pear Tree is up 1.3 percent to $161. But the partridge alone was up 20 percent to $12 and the pear tree is identical to a year ago at $149.

The cost of the Seven Swans-a-Swimming, which generally provide the biggest swings from year to year in the PNC CPI, rose this year by 6.7 percent to $5,600 following last year's surprising 6.5 percent drop. As the most volatile component in the index, the swans are removed to determine underlying inflation or core PNC CPI, which pushed the rate up 10 percent this year.

As part of its annual tradition, PNC Wealth Management also tabulates the "True Cost of Christmas," which is the total cost of items gifted by a True Love who repeats all of the song's verses. This holiday season, very generous True Loves have to fork over $96,824 for all 364 gifts, an even more eye-popping 10.8 percent increase compared to last year.

No Raise for the Milkmaids

As the only unskilled laborers in the PNC CPI, the cost of the eight Maids-a-Milking is represented with the minimum wage. They received no increase in pay in 2010 as the Federal minimum wage did not rise for the first time in three years. With the minimum wage flat at $7.25 per hour, hiring the maids this year cost $58.

Monetary Policy Based on PNC CPI?

Should the Federal Reserve set policy based on the PNC CPI, given its huge jump? Not so fast, said Dunigan.

"Typically we see more parallels between our index and the Federal government's," Dunigan said. "This year, we hope, is an aberration. But let's keep in mind that we are talking about a small basket of goods and services here compared to the Consumer Price Index."

The PNC CPI's sources include retailers, the National Aviary in Pittsburgh and the Philadelphia-based Pennsylvania Ballet Company.

Cyber Prices: The Cost of Convenience

For those True Loves who prefer the convenience of shopping online, PNC Wealth Management calculates the cost of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" gifts purchased on the Internet.

This year, the trends identified in the traditional index are repeated in the Internet version, with the core rates more than total rates. True Loves will pay a grand total of $34,336 to buy the items online. That is a 9.2 percent more expensive than last year and almost $11,000 more than this year's traditional index.

"In general, Internet prices are higher than their non-Internet counterparts because of shipping costs for birds and the convenience factor of shopping online," Dunigan said.

The interactive pop-up book style presentation can be found here and it is definitely worth a look.

2010 Ig Nobel awards

The Ig Nobel is awarded to researchers, whose research should not be repeated. The 2010 winners, announced on 30 September 2010 at Harvard University were

ENGINEERING PRIZE: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico, for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.
REFERENCE: "A Novel Non-Invasive Tool for Disease Surveillance of Free-Ranging Whales and Its Relevance to Conservation Programs," Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin and Diane Gendron, Animal Conservation, vol. 13, no. 2, April 2010, pp. 217-25.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin, Diane Gendron

MEDICINE PRIZE: Simon Rietveld of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Ilja van Beest of Tilburg University, The Netherlands, for discovering that symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller-coaster ride.
REFERENCE: "Rollercoaster Asthma: When Positive Emotional Stress Interferes with Dyspnea Perception," Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest, Behaviour Research and Therapy, vol. 45, 2006, pp. 977–87.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest

TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PRIZE: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi of Japan, and Dan Bebber, Mark Fricker of the UK, for using slime mold to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks.
REFERENCE: "Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design," Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Dan P. Bebber, Mark D. Fricker, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi, Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Science, Vol. 327. no. 5964, January 22, 2010, pp. 439-42.
[NOTE: THE FOLLOWING ARE CO-WINNERS BOTH THIS YEAR AND IN 2008 when they were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for demonstrating that slime molds can solve puzzles: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero]
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Kentaro Ito, Atsushi Tero, Mark Fricker, Dan Bebber

PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
REFERENCE: "Preventing Winter Falls: A Randomised Controlled Trial of a Novel Intervention," Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest, New Zealand Medical Journal. vol. 122, no, 1298, July 3, 2009, pp. 31-8.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Lianne Parkin

PEACE PRIZE: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University, UK, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.
REFERENCE: "Swearing as a Response to Pain," Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston, Neuroreport, vol. 20 , no. 12, 2009, pp. 1056-60.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Richard Stephens

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Manuel Barbeito, Charles Mathews, and Larry Taylor of the Industrial Health and Safety Office, Fort Detrick, Maryland, USA, for determining by experiment that microbes cling to bearded scientists.
REFERENCE: "Microbiological Laboratory Hazard of Bearded Men," Manuel S. Barbeito, Charles T. Mathews, and Larry A. Taylor, Applied Microbiology, vol. 15, no. 4, July 1967, pp. 899–906. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC547091/?tool=pubmed>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Manuel S. Barbeito was unable to travel, due to health reasons. A representative read his acceptance speech for him.

ECONOMICS PRIZE: The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Eric Adams of MIT, Scott Socolofsky of Texas A&M University, Stephen Masutani of the University of Hawaii, and BP [British Petroleum], for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix.
REFERENCE: "Review of Deep Oil Spill Modeling Activity Supported by the Deep Spill JIP and Offshore Operator’s Committee. Final Report," Eric Adams and Scott Socolofsky, 2005.
<http://www.boemre.gov/tarprojects/377.htm>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Eric Adams, Scott Socolofsky, and Stephen Masutani

MANAGEMENT PRIZE: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
REFERENCE: “The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study,” Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo, Physica A, vol. 389, no. 3, February 2010, pp. 467-72.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo.

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Libiao Zhang, Min Tan, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, and Shuyi Zhang of China, and Gareth Jones of the University of Bristol, UK, for scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats.
REFERENCE: "Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time," Min Tan, Gareth Jones, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, Shuyi Zhang and Libiao Zhang, PLoS ONE, vol. 4, no. 10, e7595.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Gareth Jones

Compare to 2009 - I wrote about it then.

It is so tempting to read some of the research references.

What every suburban chick needs

Rearing chickens was once common in Australian suburban backyards. Chickens were kept as a steady source of fresh eggs. After nearly a generation's absence, keeping chickens has yet again become popular, particularly in the last few years.

Unfortunately, chickens tend to poo everywhere. A smart entrepreneur supplying chickens in the Brisbane area has come up with a chicken nappy. From City Chicks - product information

The perfect accessory for the city chicken. Straight from the catwalk to your home. Our chicken nappies are designed and made to fit most chickens. The nappy is made from pure cotton so it shouldn't irritate any delicate bottoms.

These look ridiculously hard to put on but as long as you have 10 fingers and sense of humour, you will be fine. They come with full instructions on how to put on and we are only a phone call away. I can talk you through my adventures like my escaping white hybrid running down the driveway with her nappy hanging from her neck. That is what happens when you want to work with highly stressed models. I settled in the end with my isabrown, Luscious Legs as my model.

The nappy has a little plastic bag cut to fit and safety pinned to the top of the nappy. This gets thrown away once full and replaced with another bag. Each nappy comes with 1 bag. You also receive an instruction sheet on how to cut the bags so they fit your nappy.

The nappy is fitted by lifting the long strap over the head and then secured to the 2 long flaps on the back of the chicken. The instructions on our sheet are clear and helpful.

Very stylish! Presumably, there are instructions concerning when the chickens wish to lay eggs.

Les Gitans de St. Jacques

FREELENS Galerie, in Hamburg, Germany is exhibiting photographs by Jesco Denzel about Gitans in St. Jacques, a quarter (or neighbourhood) in Perpignan, France. From Christoph Twickel, writing in Der Spiegel

Perpignan, population 120,000, is hardly a must-see on the European tourist circuit. At most, travellers might change trains here on the way from Paris to Barcelona. But the town is home to one of the few quarters in France where Gitans -- as Roma are called in French -- have found a permanent home.

Rejection

They have been there for almost two centuries. In the 15th century, Gypsies arrived on the Iberian peninsula from India via a part of Greece known at the time as "little Egypt." The Spanish referred to the newcomers as "Egiptanos," which eventually became shortened to "Gitanos" -- and in France to "Gitans." Following the French Revolution, Roma began settling on the Mediterranean coast including, in around 1920, in the St. Jacques quarter of Perpignan.

Although the Gitans in St. Jacques are not directly connected to the Roma who are currently being deported from the country by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, discrimination and integration have long been defining issues in their lives. They are all citizens of France, but poverty and illiteracy have been their constant companions. Photographer Denzel noted that the Gitans in St. Jacques prefer to stay among themselves, in part because of the rejection with which they have been confronted by French society.

Read more.


from Der Spiegel (1 of 21) by Jesco Denzel

A fascinating insight into the world of Gitans in France. The exhibition is also timely, but a pity that it is in Hamburg and not Paris.

Counting down to BBC News and an ABC News remix

There is something reassuring about the music counting down to BBC News (or BBC World News). Here is a compilation over time.



In Australia, the music to ABC News was recently remixed.

Playing the beer market

In most pubs and bars, the price of drinks are fixed. Now if the price changed based on supply and demand, it would be similar to a stock market. However, in the case of supply, there would be only one seller with a virtual monopoly.

Hence price variation would only be based on demand.

A bar in Berlin actually operates such a beer market (or Brokers Bierbörse), the Berliner Republik. They have 18 draught beers with changing prices based on demand, after 6pm daily.


photo by Melanie from holidaycheck.com

Another possible variation would be to set prices based on public auction by customers with whoever bid the most purchasing the beer. Of course, it would depend on the customers. While most would prefer to pay the lowest price, others who could afford it might turn an establishment exclusive based on wealth.

Australian Prime Minister back at school

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been reissued his student card from university. Reported by AAP via Sydney Morning Herald

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hasn't been a student for about three decades, but he's just acquired a memento of those heady days at Canberra's Australian National University (ANU).

ANU vice-chancellor Professor Ian Chubb has presented the PM with his very own ANU student card, complete with his original student number: 1466022.

The idea was actually generated by Mr Rudd during a recent visit when he commented that he'd been back to his old campus on so many occasions - four times in the past four weeks - that he should renew his student membership.

"Prime Minister, it gives me great pleasure to give you your student card. It is your original student number but not your original student photograph," Professor Chubb told the bemused PM.

On the card, Mr Rudd is described as a part-time student. It doesn't actually entitle him to cut-price movie tickets and cheap student travel, a university official said.

Mr Rudd's honours thesis, submitted in 1980 was titled Human Rights in China: the Case of Wei Jingsheng (described in SMH in May 2008).

Actually, Mr Rudd is still entitled to borrow from the ANU Library, not that he needs to, as being prime minister, he has access to material from the Parliamentary Library.

Student cards are worthy memento. I still have mine somewhere. In those days, they were cardboard with a passport photo then laminated. There may have even been a barcode on it.

'artificial' life

Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, recently published findings of the first known case of creating 'synthetic' life. Abstract - Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1190719

Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome
Daniel G. Gibson,¹ John I. Glass,¹ Carole Lartigue,¹ Vladimir N. Noskov,¹ Ray-Yuan Chuang,¹ Mikkel A. Algire,¹ Gwynedd A. Benders,² Michael G. Montague,¹ Li Ma,¹ Monzia M. Moodie,¹ Chuck Merryman,¹ Sanjay Vashee,¹ Radha Krishnakumar,¹ Nacyra Assad-Garcia,¹ Cynthia Andrews-Pfannkoch,¹ Evgeniya A. Denisova,¹ Lei Young,¹ Zhi-Qing Qi,¹ Thomas H. Segall-Shapiro,¹ Christopher H. Calvey,¹ Prashanth P. Parmar,¹ Clyde A. Hutchison, III,² Hamilton O. Smith,² J. Craig Venter^1,2,*

We report the design, synthesis, and assembly of the 1.08-Mbp Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 genome starting from digitized genome sequence information and its transplantation into a Mycoplasma capricolum recipient cell to create new Mycoplasma mycoides cells that are controlled only by the synthetic chromosome. The only DNA in the cells is the designed synthetic DNA sequence, including "watermark" sequences and other designed gene deletions and polymorphisms, and mutations acquired during the building process. The new cells have expected phenotypic properties and are capable of continuous self-replication.

¹ The J. Craig Venter Institute, 9704 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, MD 20850, USA.
² The J. Craig Venter Institute, 10355 Science Center Drive, San Diego, CA 92121, USA.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jcventer@jcvi.org

Elizabeth Pennisi's article in Science is also worth a read

For 15 years, J. Craig Venter has chased a dream: to build a genome from scratch and use it to make synthetic life. Now, he and his team at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Rockville, Maryland, and San Diego, California, say they have realized that dream. In this week's Science Express (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1190719), they describe the stepwise creation of a bacterial chromosome and the successful transfer of it into a bacterium, where it replaced the native DNA. Powered by the synthetic genome, that microbial cell began replicating and making a new set of proteins.

This is "a defining moment in the history of biology and biotechnology," says Mark Bedau, a philosopher at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and editor of the scientific journal Artificial Life. "It represents an important technical milestone in the new field of synthetic genomics," says yeast biologist Jef Boeke of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

The synthetic genome created by Venter's team is almost identical to that of a natural bacterium. It was achieved at great expense, an estimated $40 million, and effort, 20 people working for more than a decade. Despite this success, creating heavily customized genomes, such as ones that make fuels or pharmaceuticals, and getting them to "boot" up the same way in a cell is not yet a reality. "There are great challenges ahead before genetic engineers can mix, match, and fully design an organism's genome from scratch," notes Paul Keim, a molecular geneticist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

Read more.

It should be noted that what was 'created' wasn't a new life form, but a constructed copy.

Just some more work and it would a great script for a science fiction film. Hang on, that would be Species, in which SETI transmissions provide information about an alien DNA structure and instructions on how to splice it with a human's, producing a hybrid.