The internet has matured into a world of its own, and like the real world, it obeys certain immutable laws. Here are 10 of the most important.
By Tom Chivers via www.telegraph.co.uk
Any internet user will know that the web, like the outside world (or “meatspace”), follows certain rules.
We take a look at 10, with the most well-known and widely used towards the top and some of the lesser lights lower down. We should state that we are not endorsing these laws or the views they imply, merely reporting them.
1. Godwin’s Law
The most famous of all the internet laws, formed by Mike Godwin in 1990. As originally stated, it said: “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” It has now been expanded to include all web discussions.
It is closely related to the logical fallacy “reductio ad Hitlerum”, which says “Hitler (or the Nazis) liked X, so X is bad”, frequently used to denigrate vegetarians and atheists.
Common Godwin’s Law appearances include describing women’s rights campaigners as “feminazis”, comparing the former US President George W Bush to Hitler, or saying Barack Obama’s proposed healthcare reforms are the new Holocaust.
In its broader sense it can be used to describe any situation where a poster loses all sense of proportion, for example describing New Labour as “Zanu-Labour” after Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwean political party Zanu-PF.
As well as the descriptive form, it can be used prescriptively: so if any poster does mention the Nazis in a discussion thread, Godwin’s Law can be invoked, they instantly lose the argument and the thread can be ended.
If this is done deliberately to end the argument, however, it does not apply. This codicil is known as “Quirk’s Exception”.
2. Poe’s Law
Not to be confused with the law of poetry enshrined by Edgar Allen Poe, the internet Poe’s Law states: “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.”
It was originally formulated by Nathan Poe in 2005 during a debate on christianforums.com about evolution, and referred to creationism rather than all fundamentalism, but has since been expanded.
Poe’s Law also has an inverse meaning, stating that non-fundamentalists will often mistake sincere expressions of fundamentalist beliefs for parody.
Examples abound – one particularly difficult-to-judge site claims that “Heliocentrism [the belief that the Earth orbits the Sun, rather than the other way around] is an Atheist Doctrine”.
One that must, surely, be a parody is sexinchrist.com (WARNING: link contains adult material), a site that offers Christians advice on the rights and wrongs of such activities as threesomes and pubic shaving, among much more.
However, it is hard to be entirely certain, given the existence of christiannymphos.org (WARNING: link contains adult material), an apparently entirely serious site.
Here is an example of a parody site that embodies both Godwin’s and Poe’s Laws.
3. Rule 34
States: “If it exists, there is porn of it.” See also Rule 35: “If no such porn exists, it will be made.” Generally held to refer to fictional characters and cartoons, although some formulations insist there are “no exceptions” even for abstract ideas like non-Euclidean geometry, or puzzlement.
For obvious reasons it is not appropriate for lengthy discussion in a family newspaper, but the recent appearance of Marge Simpson on the cover of Playboy, pictured above, was a (very mild) example of the law in action, and going mainstream.
The spread of fanfic, slash fiction and hentai around the internet, as well as the rise of furries, are making this law more and more accurate every day.
The other 33 rules change frequently, except one and two, which are “Do not talk about /b/” and “Do NOT talk about /b/”, respectively, referring to a message board on the 4chan.org website.
4. Skitt’s Law
Expressed as “any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself” or “the likelihood of an error in a post is directly proportional to the embarrassment it will cause the poster.”
It is an online version of the proofreading truism Muphry’s Law, also known as Hartman’s Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation: “any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror”.
Language Log quotes the following example, from Paul Ordoveza’s How Now, Brownpau? blog:
“For too long, we linguistic pedants have cringed, watching this phrase used, misused, and abused, again, and again, and again. ‘This begs the question…’ [we hear], and we must brace ourselves as the ignoramii of modern society literally ask a question after the phrase.”
While Mr Ordoveza’s point is entirely valid (“begging the question” is a logical fallacy, meaning to “beggar the question”, or assume your conclusion in your premise – not to raise the question), the plural of ignoramus is ignoramuses.
It was apparently first stated by G Bryan Lord, referring to a user named Skitt, on Usenet in 1998.
5. Scopie’s Law
States: “In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses the argument immediately, and gets you laughed out of the room.” First formulated by Rich Scopie on the badscience.net forum.
This law makes little sense without a background knowledge of Whale.to, a conspiracy theory site which includes such items as the complete text of the anti-Semitic hoax Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as well as claims that Aids is caused by vaccination programmes, and that Auschwitz never happened.
It has been expanded by posters on rationalwiki.com to include any use of Answers in Genesis in an argument about creationism and evolution.
6. Danth’s Law (also known as Parker’s Law)
States: “If you have to insist that you’ve won an internet argument, you’ve probably lost badly.” Named after a user on the role-playing gamers’ forum RPG.net.
Danth’s Law was most famously declared in “The Lenski Affair”, between microbiologist Richard Lenski and the editor of Conservapedia.com, Andrew Schlafly, who cast doubt upon Prof Lenski’s elegant experimental demonstration of evolution.
After what is widely held to be one of the greatest and most comprehensive put-downs in scientific argument from Prof Lenski, Mr Schlafly declared himself the winner.
7. Pommer’s Law
Proposed by Rob Pommer on rationalwiki.com in 2007, this states: “A person’s mind can be changed by reading information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.”
8. DeMyer’s Laws
Named for Ken DeMyer, a moderator on Conservapedia.com. There are four: the Zeroth, First, Second and Third Laws.
The Second Law states: “Anyone who posts an argument on the internet which is largely quotations can be very safely ignored, and is deemed to have lost the argument before it has begun.”
The Zeroth, First and Third Laws cannot be very generally applied and will be glossed over here.
9. Cohen’s Law
Proposed by Brian Cohen in 2007, states that: “Whoever resorts to the argument that ‘whoever resorts to the argument that… …has automatically lost the debate’ has automatically lost the debate.”
Has also been stated in the much longer version, “Whoever resorts to the argument that ‘whoever resorts to the argument that… ‘whoever resorts to the argument that… ‘whoever resorts to the argument that… ‘whoever resorts to the argument that … ‘whoever resorts to the argument that… …has automatically lost the debate’ …has automatically lost the debate’ …has automatically lost the debate’ …has automatically lost the debate’ …has automatically lost the debate’ has automatically lost the debate.”
10. The Law of Exclamation
First recorded in an article by Lori Robertson at FactCheck.org in 2008, this states: “The more exclamation points used in an email (or other posting), the more likely it is a complete lie. This is also true for excessive capital letters.”
It is reminiscent of the claim in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels that the more exclamation marks someone uses in writing, the more likely they are to be mentally unbalanced.
According to Pratchett, five exclamation marks is an indicator of “someone who wears their underwear on the outside”
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Did we evolve because of cooking?
A new book claims that cooking food enabled mankind to develop. But what happens when we stop, asks Jemima Lewis.
By Jemima Lewis
There are many reasons to learn to cook, and here’s the latest: a hot dinner, apparently, is what separates us from the apes. Richard Wrangham, a primatologist and anthropologist at Harvard, has written a book arguing that the human species could never have evolved so successfully had we not discovered fire, and mastered the art of turning raw food into cooked.
Eating raw food is time-consuming and, in calorific terms, unrewarding. Some things, such as meat or tubers, require exhausting levels of mastication (chimps spend up to five hours a day gathering and chewing their food), and much of it is indigestible anyway, passing straight through the system. Cooking these ingredients breaks down the molecular structures, releasing the calories and making them easier to get through.
Thus, says Wrangham, our forefathers were liberated from the chore of chewing, and given sufficient calories to grow a bigger brain, which in turn enabled them to become sophisticated social animals. Thus, too, were the foundations of marriage laid down: men would offer to protect women’s stores of food from hungry rivals, in return for a hot meal at the end of the day. Early man, it seems, was less interested in romance than in filling his boots. Plus ça change.
TOP TEN IG-NOBEL AWARDS FOR SILLY SCIENCE
As the government prepares to crack down on ‘irrelevant’ research, we look at some of the things we’ll be losing, courtesy of the Ig Nobel awards.
By Tom Chivers via www.telegraph.co.uk
The government has unveiled plans to allocate research funding according to how much “impact” the research has.
The plans have come under fire from academics, who say that curiosity-driven, speculative research has led to some of the most important breakthroughs in scientific history, including penicillin, relativity theory and the theory of evolution.
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More than that, though, it might bring an end to the quirky, sometimes daft, sometimes weirdly inspired research that brings harmless entertainment and occasional enlightenment to armchair boffins and science nerds everywhere.
Below, we take a look at a few of the best. We have selected our favourites from the winners of the splendid Ig Nobel Awards – take a look yourselves. The next award ceremony is in October.
Digital rectal massage is a cure for hiccups, winner, Medicine, 2006
“Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage”, Annals of Emergency Medicine, August 1988
In our day we used to be told to drink a glass of water backwards. But research now suggests that, for intractable hiccups, a simple finger up the bottom can work wonders. As it can for so many things.
It is not made clear whether or not the treatment should be administered unannounced for greatest effect.
(We mock, but intractable hiccups can be a genuine problem for sufferers, and this treatment may be preferable to the powerful anti-spasmodics and other drugs that are often used.)
Chinstrap penguins can squirt poo up to 40cm, winner, Fluid Dynamics, 2005
“Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh — Calculations on Avian Defaecation“, Polar Biology, 2003
Rather sweetly, the researchers end their conclusions by saying: “Whether the bird deliberately chooses the direction into which it decides to expel its faeces or whether this depends on the direction from which the wind blows at the time of evacuation are questions that need to be addressed on another expedition to Antarctica.” No doubt governments will be falling over themselves to fund that trip.
Ducks can be homosexual necrophiliacs too (winner, Biology, 2003)
“The First Case of Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae)”, Deinsea: Annual of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam, 2001.
One of the greatest sentences in modern science writing: “Next to the obviously dead duck, another male mallard… mounted the corpse and started to copulate, with great force.” Take that, March Of The Penguins.
Suicide rates are linked to the amount of country music played on the radio, winner, Medicine, 2004
“The Effect of Country Music on Suicide”, Social Forces, 1992
If you knew there was something profoundly unacceptable about Billy Ray Cyrus, but you could never quite put your finger on what it was, here is your answer. The man makes people kill themselves.
Dog fleas can jump higher than cat fleas, winner, Biology, 2008
“A Comparison of Jump Performances of the Dog Flea, Ctenocephalides canis (Curtis, 1826) and the Cat Flea, Ctenocephalides felis felis (Bouche, 1835),” Veterinary Parasitology, 2000
Presumably the research team set up some sort of tiny high-jump bar for the fleas to Fosbury-flop over. It’s not entirely pointless; knowing which that dog fleas jump higher tells you that buying a dog is more likely to lead to getting bitten yourself.
Lap dancers get higher tips when they are ovulating, winner, Economics, 2008
“Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers: Economic Evidence for Human Estrus?” Evolution and Human Behavior, 2007
This research might be hard to put into practical use – unless you’re a lap dancer – but you imagine the (all male) research team put in an awful lot of field work.
Rats can’t always tell the difference between Japanese spoken backwards and Dutch spoken backwards, winner, Linguistics, 2007
“Effects of Backward Speech and Speaker Variability in Language Discrimination by Rats,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 31, no. 1, January 2005
The Linguistics Ig Nobel winner in 2007. In fairness to the researchers, they were trying to find similarities between human infants and other mammals, in order to better determine the evolutionary origins of speech. But what they actually did was show the world that rats don’t speak backwards Japanese. A miss, really.
You can extract vanilla flavouring from cow dung, winner, Chemistry, 2006
“Novel Production Method for Plant Polyphenol from Livestock Excrement Using Subcritical Water Reaction,” International Journal of Chemical Engineering, 2008
Maybe you can, but would you eat it?
(Note: a Massachusetts ice cream parlour introduced a new flavour in honour of this research, which was presented alongside the award. The ice cream was called “Yum-a-Moto Vanilla Twist”, after the lead researcher Mayu Yamamoto)
Why woodpeckers don’t get headaches – winner, Ornithology, 2006
“Woodpeckers and Head Injury,”, Lancet, 1976; “Cure for a Headache,” Ivan R Schwab, British Journal of Ophthalmology, 2002
It is pretty baffling, when you think about it. Woodpeckers headbutt trees for a living, experiencing impact deceleration of more than 1000 times the force of gravity. So how do they prevent catastrophic brain injury? The difference between ordinary people and good scientists is that where we just wonder, the scientist finds out.
(The answer, if you were wondering, is: brain more tightly packed into the skull; a smooth brain surface to maximise impact surface area; and minimal side-to-side movement. So there you go.)
Malaria mosquitoes are as attracted to limburger cheese as they are to human foot odour – winner, Biology, 2006
“On Human Odour, Malaria Mosquitoes, and Limburger Cheese,” The Lancet, 1996 (paper requires log-in)
Next time you go to Africa, don’t bother with insect repellent or mosquito nets – just take a nice ripe limburger, leave it outside your tent, and presto! A bite-free night. (Note to readers: please do bother with insect repellent and mosquito nets.)
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Office Worker Sacked For Writing “Shouty” Emails
An office worker has been sacked for sending emails in block capitals, in a case that highlights the social minefield that is email etiquette.
Vicki Walker was forced out of her job as an accountant at a healthcare company after colleagues complained that her emails were too “shouty” and confrontational.
A tribunal heard that she spread disharmony among her co-workers by sending missives with entire sentences in block capitals.
She also behaved “provocatively” by highlighting key phrases in bold or red, her employer ProCare Health claimed.
In one office-wide email presented as evidence at her tribunal, she had typed in bold blue letters: “TO ENSURE YOUR STAFF CLAIM IS PROCESSED AND PAID, PLEASE DO FOLLOW THE BELOW CHECK LIST.”
Mrs Walker, from Auckland, New Zealand, claimed it was “ridiculous” to describe the email as confrontational, saying that she was only trying to ensure that her colleagues filled out their forms correctly.
She has now been awarded £7,000 ($17,000 NZD) after the tribunal found that she had been unfairly dismissed by ProCare in December 2007.
The panel found that while she had caused friction in her office, her conduct did not amount to grounds for dismissal.
Her firm also had no email style guide, meaning employees could not be certain about what kinds of communication were deemed unacceptable.
Mrs Walker’s case comes amid widespread uncertainty about professional “netiquette”, particularly over the use of abbreviations and emoticons in emails.
Over-familiar or misjudged emails to clients can costs firms tens of thousands of pounds in lost orders, experts have warned.
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2012 – THE END OF THE WORLD?
Will the world end in 2012 as some believe the calendar of the ancient Maya predicts? Here we examine the fact and the fiction behind the most poplar doomsday scenarios
A forthcoming film by Roland Emmerich, the director behind the disaster movies Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, is renewing interest in predictions of a major calamity to strike the Earth on December 21, 2012. The film – 2012 – focuses on a series of disasters which force man to flee the planet in order to survive.
Evidence for the 2012 prediction is… er… patchy although it does centre upon the end of the what is known as the long run of the Mayan calendar. Here we assess the likely and unlikely risks that may face the Earth on or around the winter solstice three years from now.
- Crop circle may predict end of the world
- Mayan crop circle appears
- Dutch prepare for Mayan apocalypse
1. Alien invasion/government confirmation of extraterrestrial contact
Where do you start? Alien invasion has been the subject of great works of fiction since HG Wells published War of the Worlds in 1898. Fear of such an attack, be it from Mars, a species from outside our galaxy or beings from other dimensions, tends to wax and wane with the general state of anxiety on Earth – researchers have found that fear of attack by aliens tends to rise at times of heightened fear about more terrestrial threats. Believers cite increasing numbers of UFO sightings, the supposed crash of a disc at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 and several seemingly credible photographs and videos of strange craft in our skies as evidence that such a threat is increasing.
Evidence: Photographs, videos, official releases that prove how governments around the world have monitored UFO activity for more than 50 years, stories by abductees… the list goes on and on. But do any of these suggest that we’re about to be taken over by a race of grey humanoids with large black eyes at any time in the future, let alone in 2012?
Likelihood: 0.1/10
2. Nibiru/Planet X/Wormwood
Thousands of web forums and sites propose the belief that sometime in the early years of the 21st century, a previously undiscovered planet will collide with or pass very close to the Earth destroying civilisation or causing a massive planetary cataclysm. Nibiru was invented in the late 1960s by Zechariah Sitchin in a book. According to Sitchin, Nibiru is a planet in our solar system which follows an erratic orbit bringing it into the inner system every 3,700 years. But Sitchin never suggested that it would threaten the Earth.
Some even suggest that Nibiru is a brown dwarf sister to our own sun and will first be seen towards the end of this year.
Evidence: Very little. Some point to the 2005 announcement by Nasa that a 10th planet had been discovered on the outer fringes of our solar system and many think that it will pass close to the Earth in 2012. But this 10th planet is most certainly not moving into the inner solar system.
Likelihood: 0.2/10
3. Solar catastrophe
This is one of the few doomsday scenarios connected with the end of the Mayan calendar that may actually be based on some science. In this scenario a vast solar flare or expulsion of gases from the sun in December 2012 will engulf the Earth wreaking havoc upon mankind and the planet’s ecosystems. There is no evidence that such catastrophic events happened in the past.
Evidence: There may be some correlation between the observed 11-year solar cycle and the time cycles seen in the Mayan calendar although this evidence is rather weak. But whilst a solar flare from the sun could cause problems such as satellite damage and injury to unprotected astronauts and blackouts, the flare itself would not be powerful enough to destroy Earth, certainly not in 2012. In the far future, when the sun runs out of fuel, most scientists accept that it will swell into a red giant and engulf the Earth. But rather than happening in 2012, this event will happen no sooner than five billion years from now.
Likelihood: 0.3/10
4. Magnetic pole shift
A large body of doomsday believers think that a dramatic reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles is imminent and that it will trigger a reversal of the planet’s rotation and the subsequent catastrophic events. They point to evidence of pole shifts in Earth’s past and claim that these reversals can be calculated by studying sunspots or magnetic field theory. Many believe that the Mayans and the ancient Egyptians discovered evidence of pole reversal events in the future and that the secrets have been covered up by today’s governments.
Evidence: Some. Work by scientists at Princeton University and Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, indicates that Earth did rebalance itself 800 million years ago. They studied magnetic minerals in sedimentary rocks in Norway and found that the north pole shifted by more than 50 degrees (a quarter the distance from pole to pole, in effect) in under 20 million years. Other scientists have also discovered that seasonal movements in both polar regions do effect the positioning of the poles. But where the scientists and the “doomers” differ greatly is over the timescale of any potential pole shift – while the apocalyptic visionaries believe such a switch could happen in a very short time scale, geologists think that it would happen over a period of one million years.
Likelihood: 1/10
5. Supervolcano
A supervolcanic eruption would be larger than any volcanic eruption in man’s history and would happen when magma rose into the Earth’s crust but would be unable to break through. The resulting build in pressure would mean that at some point a huge area of land would be devastated as the magma blasted skyward. Such an event would, it is postulated, blast millions of tons of debris and poisonous gases into the atmosphere, and could either plunge the world into a so-called nuclear winter triggering an ice age or, at worst, wipe out life in parts or all of the planet.
Evidence: Most of the concern about 2012 and supervolanoes centres on the so-called super-caldera underneath Yellowstone Park in the United States. Satellite images have, in the last few years, shown changes in the the movement of molten rock 10 miles under the surface. Wayne Thatcher of the US Geological Survey told Nature magazine: “We know now how mobile and restless the Yellowstone caldera actually is.” Nobody actually knows whether the caldera will blow or, if it does, when such an event could take place.
Likelihood: 1/10
6. World War III
Almost as soon as the Second World War in 1945 ended and with a standoff between the Western Allies and the Eastern bloc in place through the middle of Europe, there was rising anxiety that the world would be consumed by another epic conflict. When Russia exploded its first atomic bomb just two years later, a nuclear arms race between East and West began. The invention of hydrogen (thermonuclear) devices only accelerated the race which peaked in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world came closest to an all-out nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. The build-up of weapons continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s but a dedicated hotline between the Kremlin and the White House and some arms control treaties reduced the threat of an accidental nuclear war. The threat diminished in the 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Evidence: Today, the fears of a nuclear exchange centre on the rising power of China and the American response and the possibility of wars between India and Pakistan or North and South Korea escalating into global conflicts.
Likelihood: 1.5/10
7. Mass casualty terrorism
Since September 11, 2001 and the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in New York and Washington DC there have been fears about al Qaeda or another terrorist network acquiring weapons of mass destruction and devastating a major western city or releasing a chemical or biological attack. Statements by governments about the risk of such an attack have done little to lessen the anxiety with both the British and American administrations raising the spectre of a stray nuclear weapon being detonated in a major city. Dick Cheney, the former US vice president, is reported to have stated that he is haunted by thoughts of a mushroom cloud rising over an American downtown skyline. Many conspiracy theories, particularly those who believe that the 9/11 attacks were actually planned and executed by rogue elements in the US administration, believe that there will be a so-called “false flag” nuclear attack to divert attention from the west’s woes and usher in an era of martial law and totalitarian government.
Evidence: Osama bin Laden famously declared a few years ago that his organisation has several nuclear devices but they were only a “deterrent”. There has been some concern about several “loose” nukes from the former Soviet Union, particularly six so-called “suitcase” nukes. But there is no evidence that al Qaeda or anybody else holds nuclear weapons and several attempts by terrorists in the UK to make nerve or biological agents have proved inept failures. Nevertheless, concern now centres upon the instability of the Pakistan regime – a nuclear-equipped country – and fears that al Qaeda or a Taliban group could topple the government and get its hands on nuclear weapons.
Likelihood: 2/10
8. Peak oil
The reduction of global oil stocks is, of course a reality, with the world’s economies consuming – financial collapses excepted – ever-increasing amounts of the black gold. But peak oil theory centres around supply and demand and postulates that, at some point, demand will outstrip supply. When is this likely to happen? Some believe that it already has while others think that it is likely to happen some time between now and 2020. A number of doomer sites link peak oil with the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. Demand for oil outstripping supply would have huge consequences around the world given that most economies are powered by oil, agriculture is completely dependent upon it for fertilisers and pesticides and the plastics industry is based on oil extraction. A collapse in social order following a peak in oil production is, therefore, something to be taken seriously.
Evidence: Peak oil is a near certainty but two questions remain: when will it happen and will the world have developed alternative sources of fuel in time? M. King Hubbert created the theory behind peak oil in 1956 to accurately predict that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. The theory has successfully predicted the decline from oil fields and regions subsequently. Optimistic observers do not believe that peak oil will occur before 2020 but admissions by some oil companies that they have overstated the reserves held underground have raised fears that we are at or may already have passed the peak. A decline in investment in new oil fields and plant during the global recession has only served to emphasise our total dependence upon a finite resource.
Likelihood: 4/10
9. Bee colony collapse
Thirty-six per cent of the commercial beehives in the US were lost to colony colapse disorder [CCD] in the winter of 2008. The syndrome, in which all of the worker bees in a colony die off suddenly, leaving nothing but a solitary queen wandering alone on empty frames, has spread to several countries in Europe already including France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Several causes of the disease have been suggested, including the almost universally present varroa mite, certain pesticides, Israeli acute paralysis virus, climate change and mobile phone broadcasts, but none have yet been proved to be the culprit. No cure has been found either, and as cases are reported in new countries the likelihood of a global pandemic leading to the extinction of the honeybee becomes a real possibility.
Evidence: Apart from the loss of the honey crop, without the honeybee several crops key to human life would be wiped out, including the soya bean, cotton, brassicas, several kinds of nut including brazil nuts and almonds, grapes, apples and sunflowers, the source of a large proportion of the world’s vegetable oil. Thirty per cent of the world’s food is directly traceable to the action of bees. If they became extinct severe shortages, starvation, violence and riots would surely follow.
Likelihood: 7/10
10. Environmental collapse
Today’s mantra is climate change or man-made global warming. In previous decades pollution, soil depletion, the destruction of the ozone layer and an imminent ice age were the ecological catastrophes that faced us. There is, of course, no doubt that man’s impact upon his environment is getting worse although a large body of opinion believes that global warming is a liberal conspiracy and that the world has actually been cooling over the last decade. A total environmental collapse brought about by runaway warming, toxic poisoning of the seas of parts of the inhabited areas of the world or a tipping point with some of the most crucial species (see Bee colony collapse above) would have a huge impact upon civilisation and could render parts of the world near uninhabitable.
Evidence: Few scientists dispute that the global average temperature has been rising for at least a century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001 report concluded that the average surface temperature of the Earth had risen by 0.6C during the 20th century. The IPCC found that, in terms of the global average temperature, the 1990s were very likely (a 90-99% chance) to have been the warmest decade since records began in 1861, and that 1998 was the warmest year.
Likelihood: 7
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Male… or female?
A fascinating paper reaches us from the Royal Society of Medicine, which shows how long the gender question has vexed international sport and questions whether gender testing should be carried out at all. The issue of “intersex” conditions (often called DSDs, or disorders of sex development) has resurfaced with the recent case of Caster Semenya, the South African middle-distance runner who came from nowhere to snatch gold in the 800m at the World Championships earlier this month.
The week before her appearance, the sports world was abuzz with rumours about Semenya’s background; later, the IAAF revealed she was to take gender verification tests.
Since then, there have been “nude parades”, the highly unsatisfactory Barr body detection test, which looked for a chromosomal marker associated with the female XX combination (but also picked up men with Klinefelter’s syndrome, which results in XXY) and the SRY gene test, which used to be thought essential in testes development and therefore absent in women. But at the 1992 Barcelona games, 15 women tested positively for SRY; eight at the 1996 Atlanta games. All had DSDs and all were allowed to compete; their identities remain a secret.
The authors, led by Robert Ritchie, a urologist, note that gender testing has never uncovered an athlete who has deliberately competed as the wrong gender. “For those female athletes with DSD, it seems far more likely that they are doing their best to compete as the sex chosen for them at birth rather than attmepting to gain unfair advantage through masquerading their gender. As such, compulsory gender verification seems unfair, humiliating and unproductive in the majority of situations.”
So, given the sorry history of gender testing in sport, should we be doing it?
Picture: John Giles/PA
Posted by Anjana Ahuja on August 26, 2009 in Genetics
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MORE AND MORE BABY BOOMERS
EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY
by Jen O’Neill
Digital Immigrants
A recent study conducted by TV Land revealed that 78 million adults who are labeled “baby boomers”—people between the ages of 44 and 63—are compelled to embrace technology, and entertainment is their primary reason for doing so. According to the study, growing up with television helped shape the boomers’ attitudes toward technology.The four C’s—choice, control, clarity and community—are what matter most to the group as they evaluate and make decisions related to new technology, says TV Land. Meanwhile, the baby boomer generation still remains an “underserved market as far as the entertainment industry goes.”
This should not be the case, as senior vice president at TV Land Tanya Giles points out. She explains that there are standing misconceptions that boomers are tech phobic, and asserts, “65% (of boomers) have tried out new technology in the last three years.”
Perhaps it’s the way that technology reaches boomers that will catch their interest. The study discovered that boomers are most inclined to use technology when it follows emerging trends, keeps them connected with others, or introduces them to new gadgets or types of entertainment.
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Are Men Going Extinct?
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:18 PM on 21st May 2009
Men are on the road to extinction as their genes shrink and slowly fade away, a genetic expert warned today.
The researcher in human sex chromosomes said the male Y chromosome was dying and could one day run out.
However readers shouldn’t worry just yet – the change is not due to take place for another five million years.
The future? How an all female society may look like if scientists predictions that men will die out are correctProfessor Jennifer Graves revealed the bleak future to medical students at a public lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) in Ireland.
But all is not lost. She said men may follow the path of a type of rodent which still manages to reproduce despite not having the vital genes that make up the Y chromosome.
‘You need a Y chromosome to be male,’ said Prof Graves.
‘Three hundred million years ago the Y chromosome had about 1,400 genes on it, and now it’s only got 45 left, so at this rate we’re going to run out of genes on the Y chromosome in about five million years.
‘The Y chromosome is dying and the big question is what happens then.’
The male Y chromosome has a gene (SRY) which switches on the development of testis and pumps out male hormones that determine maleness.
In her lecture, entitled The Decline and Fall of the Y Chromosome and the Future of Men, Prof Graves discussed the disappearance of the Y chromosome and the implications for humans.
She said it was not known what would happen once the Y chromosome disappeared.
‘Humans can’t become parthenogenetic (asexual), like some lizards, because several vital genes must come from the male,’ she continued.
‘But the good news is that certain rodent species – the mole voles of Eastern Europe and the country rats of Japan – have no Y chromosome and no SRY gene.
‘Yet there are still plenty of healthy male mole voles and country rats running around. Some other gene must have taken over the job and we’d like to know what that gene is.’
The scientist said there were several candidate genes which could take over from SRY, adding whichever one did take over was sheer chance.
‘It is even possible that two or more different sex-determination systems based on different genes could arise in different populations,’ she added.
‘These could no longer reproduce with each other, leading to two different species of humans.’
The work of Prof Graves, of the Australian National University, Canberra, on the evolution of sex determination has paved the way for developments in diagnosis of gender disorders and gender-related disease in humans.
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The New Device Which Enables You To
Grow Your Own Fruit And Veg Without Using Soil
By Gwenneth Reece via www.dailymail.com
Many of us would love to be able to cut down the weekly shopping bill by growing our own food.
But with slugs, dirt and physical labour to contend with, not to mention a lack of time, it’s often an unrealistic aim.
Now scientists have come up with a solution by inventing a machine which grows crops and flowers without any soil.
The Power Plant uses technology invented by Nasa for astronauts to grow fresh fruit and vegetables while in space. Seeds are placed on to a ‘grow sponge’ and a mains-generated microjet system sprays them with oxygenated, nutrient-rich water.
The device can be used to grow fruits such as strawberries and small vegetables such as beans and peas, and is also perfect for herbs such as basil and coriander.
Anthony Freedman, group sales director of Oakthrift Corporation Ltd, which sells the Power Plant, said: ‘There is no soil or dirt, no slugs or worms and no need for pest killers or added fertiliser. Weeding is non-existent and bad weather such as frost won’t cause damage as it’s an indoor machine.
‘It can also be used any time of year so seasons become irrelevant. Even the most dreadful gardener couldn’t possibly kill off plants in one of these.’
The device measures 8in x 6in so it fits on a window sill, though it doesn’t require a lot of sunlight
On average, the seeds will germinate in a week and bloom in roughly two months.
It is available from www.fire box.com for £34.95.
EYEBROW HAT DEVELOPED
How robots could look more dignified
31 July 2009 17:59 GMT / By Duncan Geere
You may or may not be familiar with Arduino – the open-source microcomputer that lets you use a basic programming language to control electronic circuits. If you’re not, that last sentence probably went whooshing over your head, so click play on the video above to see what it’s all about. Royal College of Art Animation student Tom Judd created the eyebrow hat as part of his final body of work. Judd says: “The concept came about whilst thinking about botox users and their wonderfully emotionless faces. The eyebrow hat allows its wearer to express themselves by altering the pitch and height of each synthetic brow using the lightweight controller. The result is a dignified look that friends and family will admire”. We agree completely, and hope that the eyebrow hat goes into production in the near future.__________________________________________________________________ Metal Detecting Sandals
8 June 2009 13:12 GMT / By Duncan Geere Love the idea of metal-detecting, but not the hassle? Want to discover lost troves of roman coins, but can’t be bothered with all that swishing nonsense? Take the pain out of metal-detecting with this pair of sandals. A 9-volt battery strapped to your shin provides the power to a copper coil mounted within the right sandal. Using “beat frequency oscillation technology”, the sandals will buzz, vibrate and flash if there’s a metal object within 2 feet. You’ll get six hours of use out of one 9V battery. The sandals are made from polyurethane foam, and come in medium and large unisex sizes. Taking inspiration from Henry Ford, they only come in black. They cost $60 and the sellers will ship to Britain, but expect to pay a premium on the postage. Still, think how much money that stash of antique Saxon swords you find will be worth. It’s an investment… right?
Helga,
my pet bee (yes, she is a queen) Consuela read this over my shoulder, and now she’s given up all hope of her colony returning. She thought they were just mad at her for spending so much time with me, and would eventually come back, but now she’s convinced they went off to die somewhere. and she’s inconsolable.
i bought her a new flowering plant to pollinate, the type u mentioned above, that requires no dirt, only to discover that it wanted SUNSHINE as well as water.
now, since its death, consuela is even more depressed, and is refusing to suck cutflowers.
Thanks a lot!