Samwise rides again

Follow up to Nebulae.

The actual press release can be found here.

‘Yes, Aunt Dahlia,’ I said, ‘you have guessed my secret. I do indeed love.’
‘Who is she?’
‘A Miss Pendlebury. Christian Name, Gwladys. She spells it with a “w”.’
‘With a “g”, you mean.’
“With a “w” and a “g”.’
‘Not Gwladys?’
‘That’s it.’
The relative uttered a yowl.
‘You sit there and tell me you haven’t enough sense to steer clear of a girl who calls herself Gwladys? Listen, Bertie,’ said Aunt Dahlia earnestly,’I'm an older woman than you are - well you know what I mean - and I can tell you a thing or two. And one of them is that no good can come of association with anything labelled Gwladys or Ysobel or Ethyl or Mabelle or Kathryn.”

Miss Pendlebury is an artist, and, in the opinion of Bertie Wooster, a dashed good one, too. However, he may be slightly biased because at the time of the remarking of the aforementioned statement he was well-and-truly head-over-heels in love with her, so much so that he entrusted her with the heavy task of painting his Aunt Agatha’s portrait. Unenviable though the job was, Gwladys had a dashed good crack at it, but the finished work was dismissed angrily by Aunt Agatha, and Gwladys became rather huffy with Bertie. Jeeves endeavoured to comfort his young, lovesick master by assuring him that the name Gwladys was not a particularly attractive one, on a par with Kathryn and Ethyl, all of which came about as a result of the pennings of Alfred Lord Tennyson.

The name Gwladys is borrowed from one of P. G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster stories, another allusion dropped, in which Bertie falls for a girl named Gwladys. His Auntie Dahlia is appalled. “No good can come of association with anything labelled Gwladys or Ysobel or Ethyl or Mabelle or Kathryn,” she says. “But particularly Gwladys.” You’d have to have read your Wodehouse, or The New Yorker, to know that all those ys imply an anti–Welsh slur. With Ethyl (an anti–knock gasoline additive, tetra–ethyl lead) may come a not–too–thinly veiled anti–petrochemical knock as well.

Through these names, Wodehouse shows the ineptness and unimportance of a label, such as name or class, in the defining of a real person or group of people. In essence, his choice of names serves to break down stereotypes, to show their innaneness, and assault those of the English class system in a humorous manner.

UPDATE : コンニチワ Tomokilog !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUa7BUAjObU

That video of the parasitic fungus Cordyceps from the BBC / Discovery / NHK / CBC documentary series Planet Earth.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1il9u_bbc-planet-earth-jungles-part-2

From Aunty …

The Palmair Boeing 737, bound for Faro in Portugal, took off from Bournemouth at 0810 BST on Thursday.

But after flying into the swarm the pilot experienced an engine surge an hour later and returned the aircraft to the UK for checks.

Engineers ruled it was unsafe to fly and another plane took off at 1915 BST.

It is believed the plane’s engines ingested the bees while flying over Bournemouth but this did not cause problems until later into the flight.

From the Daily Express …

Palmair managing director David Skillicorn said: “It would appear that the engine has ingested a swarm of bees.

“This is not life-threatening because they come out of the back of the engine but we must check each fan for any possible damage.”

From the Guardian …

The Moscow theatre siege of October 2002 was fated to end badly. A group of militants demanding Russia’s withdrawal from Chechnya invaded the theatre, taking more than 850 hostages. They threatened to blow everyone up; negotiation brought little benefit, apart from the release of some children. Abruptly, as the siege was entering its third day, the Russian secret service pumped a mysterious gas into the theatre, intending to knock out the militants.

It worked - too well. Though 750 hostages were saved, more than 100 died and hundreds more had serious after-effects including deafness and amnesia. The “non-lethal” weapon had proved lethal, with a death toll of 13%. By contrast, with battlefield weapons the overall expected death rate is just 1 in 16, or 6.25%.

Some of the deaths and disabilities arose because doctors on hand outside to help the hostages as they were brought out did not know precisely what drug had been used. Although the best reckoning now is that it was some form of fentanyl - used widely as a general anaesthetic - only the Russian authorities know. The details have never been published.

The use of that chemical weapon in peacetime could be justified by Russia, which is a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, as being for “domestic law enforcement” - an allowed exemption.

military interest in incapacitating biochemical weapons has grown, as the capabilities of pharmaceutical companies have been transformed by developments such as the unravelling of the genome. What once were seen as distinct chemical and biological processes - the function of the lungs or the brain - can now be targeted with increasing precision.

Molecules can be engineered to target processes such as nerve and cardiovascular function. New agents can be designed to act as delivery mechanisms, while not themselves causing disease. New variants can be explored via a mixture of combinational chemistry (which can enable high-capacity screening for thousands of potential functional chemical groups), knowledge of gene structures, microarrays that can be used for rapid testing on DNA examples, artificial intelligence predictions of toxicity, directed evolution, information about what proteins a gene codes for, bioinformatics and computer modelling of chemical receptor structures.

These developments represent magnificent possibilities for curing disease - but they also facilitate new possibilities for weapons that induce paralysis, fear, pain and subjugation.

The convention does not permit the use of riot agents for waging war. However, “law enforcement” is undefined; and the role of incapacitating agents as counter-terror weapons has opened up a significant loophole. That is being exploited by the fast-expanding field of “non-lethal weapons” - especially in the US, via the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at the US Marine Corps’ Quantico base, where incapacitating chemicals are presented as humane weapons. Drug syringes that can be fired like bullets, most often used for animal control, are now available in the commercial sector as narcotics guns.

However, as the Moscow siege showed, one person’s tranquillisation is another’s lethal dose. Yet much larger devices for mass delivery of chemical agents are being prepared, including mortars. There’s no way to conceive of that as riot control.

In Britain, the development of law-enforcement chemicals is ostensibly guided by the Himsworth Committee principles, which say riot chemicals should be treated more like drugs than weapons, with full publication of results in scientific journals prior to authorisation. So a British doctor called to a siege where knockout gas was proposed as a solution should, in theory, be able to refer to published medical literature.

From Legal & Medical …

The BMA’s report, The Use of Drugs as Weapons, looked at governments’ beliefs that it is possible to use drugs to ‘non-lethal’ effects in law enforcement situations.

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, BMA Head of Science and Ethics, said: “It is important to remember that target groups are likely to comprise people of varying weights, sizes and ages; some may be pregnant or have pre-existing medical conditions. It is virtually impossible to control the amount of a drug delivered or to ensure it acts without producing toxic effects or causing death.

“It is disingenuous of governments to describe drugs as non-lethal – there is no difference between a drug and a poison except the dose. Using drugs as a method of law enforcement may constitute a violation of international conventions which prohibit the use of chemical weapons. This is of great concern to the BMA.”

From the BBC …

doctors needed to be aware that their medical knowledge might be called upon for the development of drugs for military purposes, as well as antidotes and treatments.

She urged medics to advocate against the use of drugs for law enforcement and not be involved in the training of military or law enforcement personnel in the administration of drugs as weapons.

According to the report, some experts in some countries, including America and China, are pushing for legislation to allow the use of chemical weapons beyond the current narrow definition of riot control.

Dr Nathanson said: “It is absolutely essential that we do not allow an extension of the use of chemical weapons or a re-writing of the law that bans them. If we do, that will put all of us at risk.”

One of the main reasons for advocating pharmaceuticals over non-pharmaceuticals in the medical industry is to do with dose, pharmaceuticals tend to have an exact measured dose, which is not available in non-pharmaceutical preparations. As the BMA report mentions, dispersing drugs into the air or similar removes this advantage and moves it into the category of dangerous and most likely lethal. There are many other reasons why pharmaceuticals are often advocated in medicine that are not as good for the public such as patents and consumer confidence, the latter has more in common with the placebo-effect in that the public has either been conditioned or have conditioned themselves into believing that medication in pill form is often the cure, for example the difference between eating an orange or taking a Vitamin C tablet ( I actually have a real world example not too dissimilar to this, which is why I mention it. )

Synthetic THC is a reasonably good example of a pharmaceutical which is actually considered worse than it’s herbal equivalent. Users say the herbal preparations allow them to control the dose and also find the effect more beneficial than the synthetics, it also has the added benefit that they can produce their own medication for very little cost. Interestingly the median lethal dose of THC is extremely high, no pun intended, honest, and could be relativly safe to vaporise over a crowd to subdue a riot, the worse case scenario being that the rioters would whip out guitars and start playing Donovan songs. Scary, but not lethal.

While we are on the subject of rioting, the German authorities are predicting a riot for the G8 summit in June and are using sniffer-dogs to hunt out known violent protesters in the crowd from a database of human scents, a technique used by the East German Secret Police.

Via Aunty …

A man from Cornwall has been attacked by a bird of prey while riding his bike in north Devon.

Euan Mahey was left covered in blood after the bird, thought to be a buzzard, sank its talons into his head.

The attack happened just outside Holsworthy - in the same place were there has been a series of attacks in the past three years.

Mr Mahey was left with small puncture wounds to his scalp and bird experts said he could have been badly injured.

“I was cycling along this very quiet road when I felt this awesome thud.

“I turned round and saw this bird with its talons outstretched retreating away from me. It was quite incredible.

“They’re about the same weight as a bag of sugar - imagine that coming from the trees about 50ft above you,” he said.

“Their talons are razor sharp, so if it hit you on the back of the head it could be very serious.”

One idea is that this bird has perhaps lived in captivity and is used to humans.

Buzzards can live for more than 25 years, so it is thought likely to be the same bird attacking cyclists.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has previously advised cyclists to avoid the area during the nesting season and members of the public have been reminded that all birds of prey are protected by law.

Those who scoffed at Immaculate Conception are about to look pretty foolish.

Aunty reports …

Female hammerhead sharks can reproduce without having sex

The evidence comes from a shark at Henry Doorly Zoo in Nebraska which gave birth to a pup in 2001 despite having had no contact with a male.

Genetic tests by a team from Belfast, Nebraska and Florida prove conclusively the young animal possessed no paternal DNA

Well no one said that the Second Coming would involve the Messiah returning in human form.

The type of reproduction exhibited had been seen before in bony fish but never in cartilaginous fish such as sharks.

Parthenogenesis, as this type of reproduction is known, occurs when an egg cell is triggered to develop as an embryo without the addition of any genetic material from a male sperm cell.

The puzzle over the hammerhead birth was reported widely in 2001, but it is only with the emergence of new DNA profiling techniques that scientists have now been able to show irrefutably what happened.

The scientists say the discovery raises important issues about shark conservation.

In the wild, these animals have come under extreme pressure through overfishing and many species have experienced sharp declines.

If dwindling shark groups resort to parthenogenesis to reproduce because females have difficulty finding mates, this is likely to weaken populations still further

The reason is that asexual reproduction reduces genetic diversity and this makes it harder for organisms to adapt - to changed environmental conditions or the emergence of a new disease, for example.

With normal sex, the mixing of maternal and paternal DNA introduces genetic novelty which can give animals new traits that might be advantageous in their new circumstances.

Vertebrates in general have evolved away from parthenogenesis to boost genetic diversity and enhance evolutionary potential.

“The concern for sharks is that not only could we be reducing their numbers but we could be making them less fit as well.”

“Our findings will now have to be taken into consideration for any conservation management strategy, especially for overexploited species.”

The birth of the hammerhead (of the bonnethead species, Sphyrna tiburo) at Henry Doorly was as tragic as it was puzzling.

The new pup was soon killed by a stingray before keepers could remove it from its tank.

At the time, some theorised that a male tiger shark kept at the zoo could have been the father - but the institution’s three bonnethead females had none of the bite marks that are usually inflicted on their gender during shark sex.

Some even suggested that one of the females could have had sex in the wild and stored the sperm in her body - but the three-year period in captivity made this explanation highly unlikely.

The new tests on the dead pup’s tissues now show the newborn’s DNA only matched up with one of the females - and there was none of any male origin.

Although extremely rare in vertebrates, parthenogenesis (out of the Greek for “virgin birth”) occurs in a number of lower animals. Insects such as bees and ants use it to produce their drones, for example.

UPDATE : Looking at the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Immaculate Conception, it appears that it is Mary who was immaculately conceived, that is born without Original Sin, a singular privilege and grace granted by God in order for her to be the mother of his son Jesus.

So Immaculate Conception and Virgin Birth are completely different.

From the International Herald Tribune …

A hulking orangutan escaped from his cage and terrified restaurant patrons Wednesday, at the same Taiwan zoo where a crocodile recently chomped off a veterinarian’s arm.

The latest incident at the Shaoshan Zoo in the southern city of Kaohsiung began when the orangutan pushed his way out of his cage and wandered into a nearby restaurant courtyard.

As zoo officials scurried to bring the animal under control, he gleefully overturned picnic tables and motorbikes, forcing terrified diners to cower inside the eatery.

The orangutan was finally subdued when an official shot him in the upper body with a a stun gun. He was then carted off for treatment in the scoop of a small bulldozer.

Wednesday’s incident occurred just six weeks after a 200-kilogram (440-pound) crocodile chewed the forearm off veterinarian Chang Po-yu at the same zoo.

The limb was reattached in a seven-hour surgery.

http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/04/13/mn_croc_attack_xtpe801.jpg

Someone mentioned that the population of bees in Britain was wiped out during the first world war, and that all bees in Britain today are actually imported from Mexico.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that such things are of keen interest to me, the disappearance of bees in North America and the ( possibly related ) infestation of honeybee mites here in Hawai’i are both serious causes for concern.

The story does appear to have a large degree of truth to it, in 1915 during the First World War the British Black Bee was hit by what was known as the “Isle of Wight epidemic”, an infestation of Acarine Mites that was regarded as having wiped out the British Black Bee, and 90% of all bees in Britain. The mites were not identified as the problem until 1921.

The British Ministry of Agriculture for a time during the 1920s imported Italian queen bees from America, however these bees also proved susceptible to the mite.

With respect to security concerns, the connection with the First World War appears to be coincidental as the epidemic was first observed in 1904, though I am not sure that proves anything, I don’t think this detracts from the point of the story.

One of the important things to note, and where this story differs greatly from the current threat to bee populations is that the UK imported fifty five million tons of food a year into the UK at this time from the Empire which included fifty percent of its meat, seventy percent of its cheese and sugar, around eighty percent of it’s fruits and around ninety percent of all cereals and fats, utilising only five percent of the British labour force on farms. During the Second World War importation of foods decreased due to bombing of shipping, a practice that started during the First World War.

In 1916 a German Benedictine monk called Karl Kehrle at St.Mary’s abbey in Buckfast started developing a hybrid honeybee which would be resistant to the mite, and by 1917 he had the first Buckfast bees through selective breeding of Carniolan and Italian queen bees that had mated with native black drones, the only bees at Buckfast to survive the mite infestation.

In 1919 Karl Kehrle, known as Brother Adam, was appointed to manage the abbey’s apiary and set about the task of creating a hybrid honeybee with which to repopulate the hives of Britain.

The traits Brother Adam was looking for in his hybrid were are described as a bee keepers delight :-

• Good-temper
• Disease-resistance
• The ability to produce plenty of off-spring
• A propensity for hard work
• Disinclined to swarm

He appeared to be successful, and even today bee keepers are disinclined to want to cross other races of bee with the Buckfast bees as any benefit are outweighed by the instability caused by upsetting the bloodline, however the Buckfast bee, like any other bee, gives the best result when crossed, the best crossing seems to be a crossing followed by a recrossing of Buckfast drones giving a seventy five per cent Buckfast heritage. High resistance to the mite was not really achieved until 1927 and Brother Adam claimed that he saw the last visible case of trachea mite disease in a Buckfast colony in 1947. It takes at least seven years to develop a new crossing into a line that will show a reasonable genetic stability.

If you are interested in building your own brood of Buckfast Bees, they are available for purchase. Apparently a royalty for every mated and laying Buckfast queen is paid to the abbey. No pun intended. Honest.

From what I know I know of it, it is a rather strange experience receiving bees through the post, in my limited experience bees are shipped in boxes containing holes they can technically escape from but rarely are they inclined to, but what is most notable is the buzzing emanating from the boxes, especially when ordering en masse.

http://www.honighaeuschen.de/typo3temp/pics/7cb37953e7.jpg

Before I start, may I just say a quick “what …” and follow it up with a rather emphatic “the fuck ….”

Yet more involuntary mass surveillance in the UK reported by Aunty …

Merseyside police are using the “spy drone”, fitted with CCTV cameras, mainly for tackling anti-social behaviour and public disorder.

The machine is 1m wide, weighs less than a bag of sugar, and can record images from a height of 500m.

Originally used by the military, it is due to be operational by June for a full three-month trial, which is the “first of its kind” in the UK.

The drone will also be used for monitoring traffic congestion and investigations are to be made into its possible role in firearms operations.

The machines, which are flown by remote control or using pre-programmed GPS navigation systems, are silent and can be fitted with night-vision cameras.

The images they record are sent back to a police support vehicle or control room.

“Our drone will be used primarily to support our anti-social behaviour taskforce AXIS, in gathering all important evidence to put offenders before the courts.

“For us, this is a cost-effective way of helping to catch criminals and supports similar technology we’re already using in our vans and helicopter.”

You have got to be kidding me.

UPDATE : Drones were used at this years V festival.