Science

Two recent articles from Al-Jazeera show the misinformation that is widespread about Swine Flu.

The first was an article lamenting how some Arab countries has imported pork meat, including Egypt, Bahrain, and the UAE. The article implies a connection between consuming pork, and catching swine flu. An avalanche of equally uninformed comments from visitors as response to the article. Many of the comments are focusing on the Islamic ban on consuming pork.

The other article is about Egypt's parliament considering discontinuing pig farms, with the approval of the Coptic Orthodox Church. At issue are the jobs affected by that, including the garbage collectors and recyclers providing feed for the pigs.

The Economist has a fascinating article on research by Dr Mark Levine of Lancaster University in the UK.

He analyzes footage from the now famous/notorious CCTV cameras in Britain, and finds that crowds can have an effect on escalating into violence or diffusing it depending on how the first few bystanders respond to the aggressor.

Over the years, I have written a lot about internet scams and pseudoscience. This happens mainly because of the frustration I experience seeing gullible people being taken advantage of by criminals who work across international borders to avoid the long arm of the law.

An article about a Manitoba man who died after being attacked by a swarm made it to the CBC today.

The image attached to the article was not that of a wasp though, but rather, a hoverfly. These are dipteras, meaning "two wings", as all other true flies. Also the bulging eyes and very short antennae are very characteristic of all flies.

For the longest of time, I have had this aversion to incense. It is occasionally used in the Middle East, in homes, mosques, wedding halls, guest reception areas in homes, and the like. My chest and my tummy do not like the smell of incense, and the smoke it produces.

I have long thought of incense as being identical to second hand tobacco smoke, minus the foul smell.

Now a study published in the journal: Cancer, confirms that incense is indeed a cause for cancer, after prolonged exposure. 

Humans hard wired for optimism

Research in the USA and the UK has found that humans are hard wired for optimism. Research participants were found to expect that good things would happen to them sooner, often underestimating that bad things would happen.

Sea ice in the Arctic has sunk to its lowest level since satellite record-keeping began, fully opening the most direct route through the Northwest Passage, the European Space Agency said Friday.

The much-coveted shortcut connecting Asia to Europe through the Canadian Arctic has been historically impassable.

This could save around 5,000 kms per trip from Europe to Asia, as opposed to the Panama Canal route. This also adds to the growing evidence of global warming.

Researchers at Purdue University build a scientifically accurate 3D simulation of the World Trade Center tower when the airplane hit it.

Among their conclusions:

The University of Guelph developed a technique called DNA barcoding that can identify species. They intend to catalog the world's estimated 10 million species via this technique.This is cool stuff, given that when I was studying biology in high school and university, identifying a species and putting it in a place in the taxonomy involved morphology and anatomy, and nothing more. Very similar to what Linnaeus did in the 18th century.Now there is a more accurate way!