Sunday, January 27, 2013

The Middle East conflict at 35,000 feet

By Paul Moss BBC News

It is not just the election results that show that Israelis have different views about who should be running the country: a flight to Tel Aviv can provide a glimpse into some of the simmering tensions in the Middle East.

The conflict was awfully familiar.
The Israelis were arguing with the non-Israelis, and indeed with each other - over who was entitled to what territory.
Some were polite, but others more hostile. It was an ugly scene. At one point, I thought people might well come to blows.
And still they could not sort it out. Who was supposed to be in what seat? The plane had not even taken off yet, but already Flight 2085, from Luton to Tel Aviv, had become a microcosm of the Middle East.
Some argued from a point of legal entitlement. They held up their boarding passes, the seat number clearly visible.
"I have a right to be here," they protested. But others simply pointed out that they had got there first. I felt I had heard this before somewhere.

From Our Own Correspondent

Insight and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world
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Meanwhile, bolder passengers were simply shoving their luggage - and themselves - into the places they wanted. You might call it "establishing facts on the ground".

They ignored the would-be occupants towering above them, now waving boarding cards in their faces, like title-deeds to a house.
"Sit down," yelled the exasperated air stewardess, sounding like a teacher dealing with unruly children on a school bus trip. But no-one was listening to teacher that day.
Eventually, the captain's voice came over the intercom, more imploring than commanding.
"If you do not take your seats soon, we will miss our slot, and take-off could be delayed by a very long time." In other words, if the fighting continued, everyone would lose.
That kind of reasoning has never seemed to work too well in the Middle East, and it certainly did not make an impression on Flight 2085. The stand-off continued.
Tensions rose and so did voices in English, in Hebrew and in Russian. I only speak one of those languages but I am quite sure I was being treated to a crash course in their finest insults and for the first time I found myself awfully glad that metal implements are no longer permitted in carry-on luggage.

“Start Quote

The stewardess had brought unexpected calm to a conflict-ridden flight”

And then she appeared. The heroine of the day. I do not know her name, I guess I never will, but she seemed like Florence Nightingale and Mother Teresa all rolled in to one.

A clever, sensitive stewardess came up with a compromise. "Sit down where you are for now," she said, "and we can sort out who goes where, once we are up in the air."
Brilliant. The passengers looked at her, they looked at each other, and they meekly obeyed. Those wanting a window seat accepted an aisle; couples hoping to travel together agreed to be rent asunder.
It reminded me of the Oslo Agreement, back in the day when that seemed like a solution to the Middle East problem. Let us all calm down for a bit, live in our respective places for now, and sort out the final agreement later on in the day.
I thought of telling the stewardess she had missed her metier, that instead of serving gin and tonics to rude passengers, she should be working for the United Nations - she certainly could not have made a worse job than others who have tried.
I drifted off into a reverie, imagining this diplomatic wonder-woman circling the globe, perhaps still wearing her Easyjet uniform - she would shuttle between North and South Korea, between the US and Iran - everywhere bringing her home-spun approach to international crises.
But I soon snapped out of my fantasy, because a while after take-off, a new problem arose.

Benjamin Netanyahu narrowly won the election this week and now faces building a coalition

A group of Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews had been given space at the back of the plane to hold a prayer meeting. They bowed, and recited, but in the process they attracted more worshippers and, who knows, perhaps new worshippers converted to the faith by this stirring display of mid-air religiosity.
Eventually there were so many offering their thanks to God that they were blocking the aisle, and the non-observant passengers found they could not reach the toilet.
One unfortunate lady found herself stuck inside the lavatory, pushing on the door but meeting resistance from the mini-congregation now gathered outside.
Soon the secular bladders were causing real problems to their owners, who began to complain that the religious people were getting things all their own way.
Now that is a complaint you will hear in Israel itself where there have been furious quarrels between zealous followers of God and those of a more sceptical inclination.
But here we were nearly a thousand miles from the Holy Land and quite a few thousand feet up in the sky.
I searched in vain for Easyjet's unappreciated ambassador-of-peace - the stewardess who had brought unexpected calm to a conflict-ridden flight.
But she had gone back to serving gin and tonics - and it looked like this time, she just did not want to get involved.

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Sunday, January 20, 2013

'Quadruple helix' DNA seen in human cells

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

A representation of the four-stranded structure (L) and fluorescent markers reveal its presence inside cells (R)

A representation of the four-stranded structure (L) with fluorescent markers revealing its presence inside cells (R)

Cambridge University scientists say they have seen four-stranded DNA at work in human cells for the first time.

The famous "molecule of life", which carries our genetic code, is more familiar to us as a double helix.
But researchers tell the journal Nature Chemistry that the "quadruple helix" is also present in our cells, and often in functions related to cancer.
They suggest that control of the structures could provide novel ways to fight the disease.
"The existence of these structures may be loaded when the cell has a certain genotype or a certain dysfunctional state," said Prof Shankar Balasubramanian from Cambridge's department of chemistry.
"We need to prove that; but if that is the case, targeting them with synthetic molecules could be an interesting way of selectively targeting those cells that have this dysfunction," he told BBC News.
Tag and track It will be exactly 60 years ago in February that James Watson and Francis Crick famously burst into the pub next to their Cambridge laboratory to announce the discovery of the "secret of life".
What they had actually done was describe the way in which two long chemical chains wound up around each other to encode the information cells need to build and maintain our bodies.
Today, the pair's modern counterparts in the university city continue to work on DNA's complexities.
Balasubramanian's group has been pursuing a four-stranded version of the molecule that scientists have produced in the test tube now for a number of years.
It is called the G-quadruplex. The "G" refers to guanine, one of the four chemical groups, or "bases", that hold DNA together and which encode our genetic information (the others being adenine, cytosine, and thymine).
The G-quadruplex seems to form in DNA where guanine exists in substantial quantities.
And although ciliates, relatively simply microscopic organisms, have displayed evidence for the incidence of such DNA, the new research is said to be the first to firmly pinpoint the quadruple helix in human cells.
'Funny target' The team, led by Giulia Biffi, a researcher in Balasubramaninan's lab, produced antibody proteins that were designed specifically to track down and bind to regions of human DNA that were rich in the quadruplex structure. The antibodies were tagged with a fluorescence marker so that the time and place of the structures' emergence in the cell cycle could be noted and imaged.
This revealed the four-stranded DNA arose most frequently during the so-called "s-phase" when a cell copies its DNA just prior to dividing.
Prof Balasubramaninan said that was of key interest in the study of cancers, which were usually driven by genes, or oncogenes, that had mutated to increase DNA replication.
If the G-quadruplex could be implicated firmly in the development of some cancers, it might be possible, he said, to make synthetic molecules that contained the structure and blocked the runaway cell proliferation at the root of tumours.
"We've come a long way in 10 years, from simple ideas to really seeing some substance in the existence and tractability of targeting these funny structures," he told the BBC.
"I'm hoping now that the pharmaceutical companies will bring this on to their radar and we can perhaps take a more serious look at whether quadruplexes are indeed therapeutically viable targets."

Prof Shankar Balasubramanian in front of a painting by artist Annie Newman that represents quadruplex DNA

Source

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Immune system 'booster' may hit cancer

By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

Two T-cells on the surface of a cancerous cell

Two white blood cells attacking a cancer

Vast numbers of cells that can attack cancer and HIV have been grown in the lab, and could potentially be used to fight disease.

The cells naturally occur in small numbers, but it is hoped injecting huge quantities back into a patient could turbo-charge the immune system.
The Japanese research is published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Experts said the results had exciting potential, but any therapy would need to be shown to be safe.
The researchers concentrated on a type of white blood cell known as a cytotoxic T-cell, which can recognise telltale markings of infection or cancer on the surfaces of cells. If a marking is recognised, it launches an attack.
Teams at the University of Tokyo and the Riken Research Centre for Allergy and Immunology used advances in stem cell technology to make more T-cells.
One group extracted T-cells which targeted a patient's skin cancer. Another group did the same for HIV.

“Start Quote

The next step will be to test whether these T-cells can selectively kill tumour cells, but not other cells in the body”

Dr Hiroshi Kawamoto Researcher

These T-cells were converted into stem cells, which could dramatically increase in number when grown in the laboratory. These were converted back into T-cells which should also have the ability to target the cancer or HIV.

New weapon? The groups have proved only that they can make these cells, not that they can be safely put back into patients or that if would make a difference to their disease if they did.
Dr Hiroshi Kawamoto, who worked on the cancer immune cells at Riken, said: "The next step will be to test whether these T-cells can selectively kill tumour cells, but not other cells in the body.
"If they do, these cells might be directly injected into patients for therapy. This could be realized in the not-so-distant future."
Dr Hiromitsu Nakauchi from the University of Tokyo said it was "unclear" whether this technique would help in treating HIV and that other infections and cancer may be a better place to start.
'Very exciting' Experts in the field said the findings were encouraging.
Prof Alan Clarke, the director of the European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute at Cardiff University, said: "This is a potentially very exciting development which extends our capacity to develop novel cell therapies."
He said it was important that cells could be tailored for each patient so there would be no risk of rejection.
Other experts said the findings were still at an early stage, but were still very promising and represented a strong foundation for future research. However, Cancer Research UK said it was still too early to know if any therapy would be safe.
Prof Sir John Burn, from the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Newcastle University, said: "This is a very appealing concept and the research team are to be congratulated on demonstrating the feasibility of expanding these killer cells.
However he added: "Even if these T cells are effective, it could prove very challenging to produce large quantities safely and economically.
"Nevertheless, there is real promise of this becoming an alternative when conventional therapies have failed."

Source

Totally blind mice get sight back

By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

Totally blind mice have had their sight restored by injections of light-sensing cells into the eye, UK researchers report.

The team in Oxford said their studies closely resemble the treatments that would be needed in people with degenerative eye disease.
Similar results have already been achieved with night-blind mice.
Experts said the field was advancing rapidly, but there were still questions about the quality of vision restored.
Patients with retinitis pigmentosa gradually lose light-sensing cells from the retina and can become blind.

“Start Quote

It's the first proof that you can take a completely blind mouse, put the cells in and reconstruct the entire light-sensitive layer”

Prof Robert MacLaren University of Oxford

The research team, at the University of Oxford, used mice with a complete lack of light-sensing photoreceptor cells in their retinas. The mice were unable to tell the difference between light and dark.

Reconstruction They injected "precursor" cells which will develop into the building blocks of a retina once inside the eye. Two weeks after the injections a retina had formed, according to the findings presented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
Prof Robert MacLaren said: "We have recreated the whole structure, basically it's the first proof that you can take a completely blind mouse, put the cells in and reconstruct the entire light-sensitive layer."
Previous studies have achieved similar results with mice that had a partially degenerated retina. Prof MacLaren said this was like "restoring a whole computer screen rather than repairing individual pixels".
The mice were tested to see if they fled being in a bright area, if their pupils constricted in response to light and had their brain scanned to see if visual information was being processed by the mind.
Vision Prof Pete Coffee, from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London, said the findings were important as they looked at the "most clinically relevant and severe case" of blindness.

“Start Quote

This is probably what you would need to do to restore sight in a patient that has lost their vision”

Prof Pete Coffee University College London

"This is probably what you would need to do to restore sight in a patient that has lost their vision," he said.

However, he said this and similar studies needed to show how good the recovered vision was as brain scans and tests of light sensitivity were not enough.
He said: "Can they tell the difference between a nasty animal and something to eat?"
Prof Robin Ali published research in the journal Nature showing that transplanting cells could restore vision in night-blind mice and then showed the same technique worked in a range of mice with degenerated retinas.
He said: "These papers demonstrate that it is possible to transplant photoreceptor cells into a range of mice even with a severe level of degeneration.
"I think it's great that another group is showing the utility of photoreceptor transplantation."
Researchers are already trialling human embryonic stem cells, at Moorfields Eye Hospital, in patients with Stargardt's disease. Early results suggest the technique is safe but reliable results will take several years.
Retinal chips or bionic eyes are also being trailed in patients with retinitis pigmentosa.

Source

Friday, January 4, 2013

Does confidence really breed success? - No

Does confidence really breed success?

Comments (495)

By William Kremer BBC World Service

A composite image showing (clockwise): A woman powdering her face, a woman applying red lipstick, a woman looking at her own reflection in a window, a man pulling his muscles and a man wearing sunglasses with his collar turned up. All images THINKSTOCK

In today's Magazine

Research suggests that more and more American university students think they are something special. High self-esteem is generally regarded as a good thing - but could too much of it actually make you less successful?

About nine million young people have filled out the American Freshman Survey, since it began in 1966.
It asks students to rate how they measure up to their peers in a number of basic skills areas - and over the past four decades, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of students who describe themselves as being "above average" for academic ability, drive to achieve, mathematical ability and self-confidence.
This was revealed in a new analysis of the survey data, by US psychologist Jean Twenge and colleagues.

Graphic showing how the the percentage of American students rating themselves as "above average" has gone up. Measures shown: Drive to achieve, social self-confidence, intellectual self-confidence, leadership ability and writing ability

Self-appraisals of traits that are less individualistic - such as co-operativeness, understanding others and spirituality - saw little change, or a decrease, over the same period.

Self-esteem and confidence

Psychologists rarely use the word confidence. They have separate measures for:

self-esteem - the value people place on themselves
narcissism - definitions vary, but essentially a negative, destructive form of high self-esteem
self-efficacy - the ability to achieve personal goals

Twenge adds that while the Freshman Survey shows that students are increasingly likely to label themselves as gifted in writing ability, objective test scores indicate that actual writing ability has gone down since the 1960s.

And while in the late 1980s, almost half of students said they studied for six or more hours a week, the figure was little over a third by 2009 - a fact that sits rather oddly, given there has been a rise in students' self-proclaimed drive to succeed during the same period.
Another study by Twenge suggested there has been a 30% tilt towards narcissistic attitudes in US students since 1979.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines narcissism as: "Excessive self-love or vanity; self-admiration, self-centredness."
"Our culture used to encourage modesty and humility and not bragging about yourself," says Twenge. "It was considered a bad thing to be seen as conceited or full of yourself."

The Freshman Survey

A nationally representative sample of first-year college and university students in the US
Conducted every year since 1966
Questions on a range of topics - including values, financial situation, and expectations of college

Not everyone with high self-esteem is a narcissist. Some positive views of the self may be harmless and in fact quite justified.

But one in four recent students responded to a questionnaire, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, in a way which leaned towards narcissistic views of the self.
Though some have argued that narcissism is an essential trait, Twenge and her colleagues see it as negative and destructive.
In The Narcissism Epidemic, co-written with Keith Campbell, Twenge blames the growth of narcissistic attitudes on a range of trends - including parenting styles, celebrity culture, social media and access to easy credit, which allows people to appear more successful than they are.
"What's really become prevalent over the last two decades is the idea that being highly self-confident - loving yourself, believing in yourself - is the key to success.
"Now the interesting thing about that belief is it's widely held, it's very deeply held, and it's also untrue."

Find out more

Jean Twenge was speaking to the BBC World Service programme Health Check

This bewitching idea - that people's lives will improve with their self-esteem - led to what came to be known as The Self-Esteem Movement.

Legions of self-help books have propagated the idea that we each have it within us to achieve great things - we just need to be more confident.
Over 15,000 journal articles have examined the links between high self-esteem and measurable outcomes in real life, such as educational achievement, job opportunities, popularity, health, happiness and adherence to laws and social codes.
Yet there is very little evidence that raising self-esteem leads to tangible, positive outcomes.
"If there is any effect at all, it is quite small," says Roy Baumeister of Florida State University. He was the lead author of a 2003 paper that scrutinised dozens of self-esteem studies.

All about me, me, me...

In a recent paper Jean Twenge examined changes in pronoun use in American books published between 1960 and 2008, using the Google Books ngram database
She found that first person plural pronouns (we, us our etc.) decreased in use by 10% while first person singular pronouns (I, me, my etc.) increased in use by 42%

He found that although high self-esteem frequently had a positive correlation with success, the direction of causation was often unclear. For example, are high marks awarded to people with high self-esteem or does getting high marks engender high self-esteem?

And a third variable can influence both self-esteem and the positive outcome.
"Coming from a good family might lead to both high self-esteem and personal success," says Baumeister.
"Self-control is much more powerful and well-supported as a cause of personal success. Despite my years invested in research on self-esteem, I reluctantly advise people to forget about it."

Am I a narcissist?

Close-up of a woman wearing red lipstick

The Narcissistic Personality Inventory asks 40 questions, then ranks you on a narcissism scale

Take the narcissism test

This doesn't mean that under-confident people will be more successful in school, in their careers or in sport.

"You need to believe that you can go out and do something but that's not the same as thinking that you're great," says Twenge. She gives the example of a swimmer attempting to learn a turn - this person needs to believe that they can acquire that skill, but a belief that they are already a great swimmer does not help.
Forsyth and Kerr studied the effect of positive feedback on university students who had received low grades (C, D, E and F). They found that the weaker students actually performed worse if they received encouragement aimed at boosting their self-worth.
"An intervention that encourages [students] to feel good about themselves, regardless of work, may remove the reason to work hard," writes Baumeister.
So do young people think they are better than they are?
If they are, perhaps the appropriate response is not condemnation but pity.
The narcissists described by Twenge and Campbell are often outwardly charming and charismatic. They find it easy to start relationships and have more confidence socially and in job interviews. Yet their prognosis is not good.

How self-esteem become a movement

The Self-Esteem Movement is said to have its roots in the civil rights movement, which promoted group solidarity - but also the rights of individuals to be who they want
A series of seminars were held in the 1960s on achieving happiness and fulfilment by tapping inner potential - it was called The Human Potential Movement
First popular book on self-esteem published in 1969 - The Psychology of Self-Esteem by psychologist Nathaniel Branden
Werner Erhard (above) held sessions aimed at boosting self-esteem in US prisons in the 1970s - there were similar programmes in the 1980s to try to reduce teen pregnancy rates and crime
Interest is still high - there were more than 40,000 articles about self-esteem in newspapers and magazines between 2002 and 2007

"In the long-term, what tends to happen is that narcissistic people mess up their relationships, at home and at work," says Twenge.

Narcissists may say all the right things but their actions eventually reveal them to be self-serving.
As for the narcissists themselves, it often not until middle age that they notice their life has been marked by an unusual number of failed relationships.
But it's not something that is easy to fix - narcissists are notorious for dropping out of therapy.
"It's a personality trait," says Twenge. "It's by definition very difficult to change. It's rooted in genetics and early environment and culture and things that aren't all that malleable."
Things also don't look good for the many young people who - although not classed as narcissists - have a disproportionately positive self-view.
A 2006 study led by John Reynolds of Florida State University found that students are increasingly ambitious, but also increasingly unrealistic in their expectations, creating what he calls "ambition inflation".
"Since the 1960s and 1970s, when those expectations started to grow, there's been an increase in anxiety and depression," says Twenge.
"There's going to be a lot more people who don't reach their goals."
Jean Twenge spoke to Health Check on the BBC World Service. You can listen to the programme or download the Health Check podcast.

Source

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Republicans Fire Back At Boehner For Delaying Sandy Relief Vote

Monday, December 31, 2012

Homelessness Abolished in Scotland!

New rights for the homeless come into force

The deputy first minister called it a "landmark" day in the fight against homelessness

Legislation which aims to effectively end homelessness in Scotland has come into force.

The change entitles anyone finding themselves homeless through no fault of their own to settled accommodation.
Previously, only those classed as being in priority need - often families with children - had that right.
It meets Scotland's historic 2012 homelessness commitment, first set 10 years ago by the Labour/Lib Dem government.
The change, passed unanimously last month under the Homelessness (Abolition of Priority Need Test) (Scotland) Order 2012, will give an estimated 3,000 more people a year the right to settled accommodation.
As the changes came into force, the deputy first minister also announced £300,000 would be spent over the next two years to help councils with their efforts to prevent homelessness.
'Heartache and trauma' Nicola Sturgeon said: "This is a landmark day in the fight against homelessness.
"I know the heartache and trauma of homelessness from working closely with households faced with the prospect of losing the roof over their head.
"Meeting our 2012 commitment guarantees that those who lose their home from no fault of their own will be guaranteed settled accommodation.
"It is absolutely right to offer this guarantee in a time of crisis for people. It sends the signal that we are there to help, there is hope and that the state will do what it can."
Official figures from February 2012 suggested the number of homeless people in Scotland is at its lowest for a decade.
Graeme Brown, director of the housing and homelessness charity Shelter Scotland, said: "Scotland can be very proud that it is making history by meeting the 2012 commitment - which is internationally regarded as the cutting edge of progressive homelessness reform.
"I congratulate all the local authorities who have made widespread changes in order to meet their new responsibilities to homeless people."

Source

Friday, December 28, 2012

Owen jones BBC Question Time (Gaza)

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

A Tale of Perseverance: A Youth Testimonial from Year Up

Monday, December 3, 2012

Plastic bulb development promises better quality light

By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News

US researchers say they have developed a new type of lighting that could replace fluorescent bulbs.

The new source is made from layers of plastic and is said to be more efficient while producing a better quality of flicker-free light.
The scientists behind it say they believe the first units will be produced in 2013.
Details of the new development have been published in the journal Organic Electronics.

“Start Quote

What we've found is a way of creating light rather than heat”

Prof David Carroll Wake Forest University

Brighter white

The new light source is called field-induced polymer electroluminescent (Fipel) technology. It is made from three layers of white-emitting polymer that contain a small volume of nanomaterials that glow when electric current is passed through them.

The inventor of the device is Dr David Carroll, professor of physics at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He says the new plastic lighting source can be made into any shape, and it produces a better quality of light than compact fluorescent bulbs which have become very popular in recent years.

The new light source is said to be twice as efficient as fluorescent bulbs

"They have a bluish, harsh tint to them, " he told BBC News, "it is not really accommodating to the human eye; people complain of headaches and the reason is the spectral content of that light doesn't match the Sun - our device can match the solar spectrum perfectly.
"I'm saying we are brighter than one of these curly cube bulbs and I can give you any tint to that white light that you want."

Lighting up the world

Lighting accounts for around 19% of global electricity use
A worldwide switch to low-energy bulbs could save the output of around 600 power plants

There have been several attempts to develop new light-bulbs in recent years - Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) have come a long way since they were best known for being indicator lights in electronic devices. Over the past decade, they have become much more widely used as a light source as they are both bright and efficient. They are now often used on large buildings.

Light not heat Another step forward has been organic LEDs (OLEDs) which also promise greater efficiency and better light than older, incandescent bulbs. Their big advantage over LEDs is that they can be transformed into many different shapes including the screens for high-definition televisions.
But Prof Carroll believes OLED lights haven't lived up to the hype.
"They don't last very long and they're not very bright," he said. "There's a limit to how much brightness you can get out of them. If you run too much current through them they melt."
The Fipel bulb, he says, overcomes all these problems.
"What we've found is a way of creating light rather than heat. Our devices contain no mercury, they contain no caustic chemicals and they don't break as they are not made of glass."
Prof Carroll says his new bulb is cheap to make and he has a "corporate partner" interested in manufacturing the device. He believes the first production runs will take place in 2013.
He also has great faith in the ability of the new bulbs to last. He says he has one in his lab that has been working for about a decade.

Source

Friday, November 30, 2012

Bread that lasts for 60 days could cut food waste

By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News

An American company has developed a technique that it says can make bread stay mould-free for 60 days.

The bread is zapped in a sophisticated microwave array which kills the spores that cause the problem.
The company claims it could significantly reduce the amount of wasted bread - in the UK alone, almost a third of loaves purchased.
The technique can also be used with a wide range of foods including fresh turkey and many fruits and vegetables.
World of waste Food waste is a massive problem in most developed countries. In the US, figures released this year suggest that the average American family throws away 40% of the food they purchase - which adds up to $165bn (£102bn) annually.
Bread is a major culprit, with 32% of loaves purchased in the UK thrown out as waste when they could be eaten, according to figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

The machine uses similar technology to a home microwave

One of the biggest threats to bread is mould. As loaves are usually wrapped in plastic, any water in the bread that evaporates from within is trapped and makes the surface moist. This provides excellent growing conditions for Rhizopus stolonifer, the fungus that leads to mould.
In normal conditions, bread will go mouldy in around 10 days.
But an American company called Microzap says it has developed a technique that will keep the bread mould free for two months.
At its laboratory on the campus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, chief executive Don Stull showed off the long, metallic microwave device that resembles an industrial production line. Originally designed to kill bacteria such as MRSA and salmonella, the researchers discovered it could kill the mould spores in bread in around 10 seconds.
"We treated a slice of bread in the device, we then checked the mould that was in that bread over time against a control, " he explained.
"And at 60 days it had the same mould content as it had when it came out of the oven."
Question of taste The machine the team has built uses much the same technology as found in commercial microwaves - but with some important differences, according to Mr Stull.
"We introduce the microwave frequencies in different ways, through a slotted radiator. We get a basically homogeneous signal density in our chamber - in other words, we don't get the hot and cold spots you get in your home microwave."

20th-Century history of bread

1928: First bread slicing machine, invented by Otto Rohwedder, exhibited in US
1930: Large UK bakeries take commercial slicers and sliced bread first appears in shops
1933: About 80% of US bread is pre-sliced and wrapped, and the phrase "the best thing since sliced bread" is coined
1941: Calcium added to UK flour to prevent rickets
1942: The national loaf - much like today's brown loaf - introduced to combat shortage of white flour
1954: Conditions in bakeries regulated by the Night Baking Act
1956: National loaf abolished
1961: The Chorleywood Bread Process introduced

Source: The Federation of Bakers

The company's device has attracted plenty of interest from bread manufacturers - but it is worried that it could push up costs in an industry where margins are very tight.

And there is also a concern that consumers might not take to bread that lasts for so long. Mr Stull acknowledges it might be difficult to convince some people of the benefits.
"We'll have to get some consumer acceptance of that," he said. "Most people do it by feel and if you still have that quality feel they probably will accept it. "
Mr Stull believes that the technology could impact bread in other ways. He said that bread manufacturers added lots of preservatives to try and fight mould, but then must add extra chemicals to mask the taste of the preservatives. If bakers were able to use the microwave technology, they would be able to avoid these additives.
While a wholesale change in the bread industry might be difficult to achieve, there may be more potential with other foods, including ground turkey.
In 2011, food giant Cargill had to recall 16 million kg of the product after a salmonella outbreak. Mr Stull believes that using microwaves would be an effective way of treating this and several other products ranging from jalapenos to pet foods.
The only fruit that his device was unable to treat effectively were cantaloupes.
"We've used our tumbler machine to treat them, he says "but you can't tumble cantaloupes because they damage."

Source

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Yang Jisheng: The man who discovered 36 million dead

Comments (78)

In the era whose secret he uncovered, a journalist's office would have looked just like the one where Yang Jisheng works now. The tiled floor, the grimy window panes, the desk piled two feet high with papers, envelopes and books. The Mao-era radiators. The cigarette ash and the dust.

Under Mao Zedong, Yang's good fortune was to find a job as a reporter with China's state-run Xinhua news agency. His misfortune had been to see his father die of hunger in 1961, at the height of the famine that killed an estimated 36 million people:
"When my dad died, I thought it was just my family's problem. I blamed myself because I hadn't gone back home to pick wild plants to feed my dad. Later on, the governor of Hubei province said millions of people had died. I was astonished," Yang says.
In the 1990s Yang, by now a senior editor at Xinhua, used his status to secretly research the truth about the famine in 12 different provincial archives:
"I could not say I was looking for data about the famine, I could only say I was looking for data about the history of China's agriculture policy. In the data, I found a lot of information about the famine, and people who starved from it. Some of the libraries allowed me to take photocopies; some only let me write the information down. These," he gestures casually at a teetering pile of brown envelopes on the floor, "are the photocopies".

Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong visiting farm workers in Zhejiang, China, 9 Feb 1958

Chinese communists launched the Great Leap Forward campaign under Mao Zedong's leadership

The result was Tombstone: The Untold Story of Mao's Great Famine, published in the West this year to high acclaim.
Yang, aged 72, is neat, small, swaddled in two jumpers despite the shafts of winter sunlight that stream across his desk. He is rummaging through his shelves on the hunt for a book whose title is important: by a Western author whose name has slipped his mind.
"Something about slavery?" he says. I try the name Hayek and after a bit of transliteration it works. He had stumbled on Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom in a library and chuckles with mild scepticism when I tell him it is probably the most influential book in Western economics:
"Before I read Hayek, I had only read works the party wanted me to. Hayek says that to use the state to promote a utopia is very dangerous. In China that's exactly what they did. The utopia promoted by Marx, even though it is beautiful, it is very dangerous."
Even now, 50 years on, Chinese official history insists the famine of 1958-61 was a natural disaster. Yang's work demonstrates the famine's massive scale and its direct, political causes.
Agriculture was brutally collectivised, leaving peasants dependent on centrally distributed grain. Local cadres ordered the forced pooling of family kitchens, confiscating all ladles and punishing those who kept private food supplies.
Then, as Mao ordered rapid industrialisation during the Great Leap Forward, the grain supplies disappeared. Simultaneously local officials, terrified of failure, began to report fictional bumper harvests. Mao, meanwhile, publicly humiliated any party leader who voiced doubts. The result was the greatest famine in modern history.
It is Yang's refusal to duck the parallels with today that make his book unpublishable in mainland China. The famine happened because the party was all-powerful, he argues - just as numerous disasters visited on China by today's leaders - from the HIV-infected blood selling scandal, to the spread of Sars, to the shoddy buildings that collapsed during the Sichuan earthquake - are the result of unfree politics and an unfree press.
Despite its samizdat status, Yang thinks there may be around half a million copies of the Hong Kong edition circulating in China. His own copy, discreetly kept in a cupboard, is a black-market version of the latter: its pages are photocopied, its binding stiff, shiny and amateur.

“Start Quote

We learn a lot about history. However, most of it is fake. It is full of made up stories to meet the needs of ideology. Once you realise you've been cheated, you'll begin to pursue the truth. ”

Yang Jisheng

"It is estimated that there are about 100,000 of these knock off copies in circulation," he says. "People try to bring the real ones from Hong Kong but they get confiscated, so they make these. The response is very strong, I have received lots of letters from readers telling me the stories of relatives who died from the famine."
The English language version has made a massive impact, with some calling Yang the Chinese Solzhenitsyn. To me, however, he seems more like the Chinese equivalent of Vasily Grossman: though he believes Marxism is a dangerous fantasy he remains a party member. His haunting prose - like Grossman's - defends the power of memory:
"China has undergone an enormous transformation. But… the abuses under the exclusive profit orientation of a market economy and the untrammelled power of totalitarianism have created an endless supply of injustice, exacerbating discontent among the lower class majority. In this new century I believe that rulers and ordinary citizens alike know in their hearts that the totalitarian system has reached its end." (Tombstone, p22)
What is it like, I ask, to be an historian in a country where historical memory is so completely suppressed?
"Very painful," he says. "We learn a lot about history. However, most of it is fake. It is full of made-up stories to meet the needs of ideology. Once you realise you've been cheated, you'll begin to pursue the truth. That's what I did: I've been cheated, so I want to write the truth - however risky it is."
Though retired from Xinhua, Yang is still active. The small political magazine he runs out of this tiny office seems, from piles of unsold copies stacked up in the corridors, not massively influential. He thinks it will take 10 years to publish Tombstone in the People's Republic, if the political reform process keeps to its current glacial pace.
But like all dissident writers in China, he has learned not to hurry.
He pinches green tea leaves for me into a paper cup, and pours hot water from a flask. There is a barely-touched and ancient computer in one corner of the room, but Yang's conquest has been made in the world of analogue information: photocopies and scribbled notes.
He pats the English edition contentedly, still stunned by the price the publishers Penguin are charging for each one:
"Tombstone has four layers of meaning. The first is for my father who died in the famine, another is to remember the 36 million people who died during the famine. The third layer is a tombstone for the system that killed them."
And the fourth?
"The fourth is - the book has put me at political risk, so it's a tombstone for myself if anything happens to me because of writing it."
See Paul Mason's report on Yang Jisheng and other writers whose work is banned in China, on Newsnight Wednesday 21 November at 2230 on BBC Two, then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer.

Source

South Pacific Sandy Island 'proven not to exist'

Cartographers everywhere are now rushing to undiscover Sandy Island for ever

A South Pacific island, shown on marine charts and world maps as well as on Google Earth and Google Maps, does not exist, Australian scientists say.

The supposedly sizeable strip of land, named Sandy Island on Google maps, was positioned midway between Australia and French-governed New Caledonia.
But when scientists from the University of Sydney went to the area, they found only the blue ocean of the Coral Sea.
The phantom island has featured in publications for at least a decade.
Scientist Maria Seton, who was on the ship, said that the team was expecting land, not 1,400m (4,620ft) of deep ocean.
"We wanted to check it out because the navigation charts on board the ship showed a water depth of 1,400m in that area - very deep," Dr Seton, from the University of Sydney, told the AFP news agency after the 25-day voyage.
"It's on Google Earth and other maps so we went to check and there was no island. We're really puzzled. It's quite bizarre.

"How did it find its way onto the maps? We just don't know, but we plan to follow up and find out."
Australian newspapers have reported that the invisible island would sit within French territorial waters if it existed - but does not feature on French government maps.
Australia's Hydrographic Service, which produces the country's nautical charts, says its appearance on some scientific maps and Google Earth could just be the result of human error, repeated down the years.
A spokesman from the service told Australian newspapers that while some map makers intentionally include phantom streets to prevent copyright infringements, that was was not usually the case with nautical charts because it would reduce confidence in them.
A spokesman for Google said they consult a variety of authoritative sources when making their maps.
"The world is a constantly changing place, the Google spokesman told AFP, "and keeping on top of these changes is a never-ending endeavour'.'
The BBC's Duncan Kennedy in Sydney says that while most explorers dream of discovering uncharted territory, the Australian team appears to have done the opposite - and cartographers everywhere are now rushing to undiscover Sandy Island for ever.

Source

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Another Youtube post on Palestine Conflict

Okay look at the big picture.
Israel shouldn't even exist, they TOOK the land from the Palestinians after WW2 and have OCCUPIED it with a constant expansion ever since. They threw the Palestinians out of their OWN land and isolated them to the west bank and the ghetto known as Gaza where they live in poverty !
You wonder why they are attacking Israel? They're resisting the 60+ year occupation and repression of their country. They get treated like shit.
Justify that..

ItsJUSTaPLANTguys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKv1iRBo9iA

A youtube comment on the Palestine Conflict

Look, boys, the problem is in the phrase "Jewish democracy." Such a construct forbids the equal rights of non-Jews, and it will never work. So forget about "racism." There is no Jewish gene. Judaism is a set of cultural choices and practices like any other religion. If Zionist Jews want to persecute and punish people for not making the same cultural choices, let them punish OTHER self-professed Jews who don't measure up. But get the holy boot of the necks of the Palestinians!
-----37Dionysos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFBWqO_gXjU&feature=g-all-u

Monday, November 19, 2012

Anonymous message to pro-Israeli groups

Greetings from Anonymous,

It has come to our attention that conservative and pro-Israeli groups throughout the blogosphere have taken advantage of Operation Israel, attempting to solidify public opinion against Anonymous.

TheOtherMcCain.com posted an editorial this morning which stated the following: “If you ever doubted that Anonymous was a terrorist organization, they have now removed all reason for doubt.” The article only contained 55 words of original content by the site itself, the other 90 percent of the article was selected quotations by mainstream media sources.

Let us once again be perfectly clear: Anonymous does not in any way support the use of violence. Anonymous is a world wide collective of individuals whose means pursue human rights, justice, and universal equality for the citizens of every nation.

Pro-Israeli groups throughout the world have grown from a foundation of Israeli/US propaganda and lies.
They arbitrarily dismiss the apartheid system of racial segregation and oppression imposed by the Israeli government on the Palestinian people. The fact of the matter is, in the eyes of the media, only the United States and it’s allies are capable of labeling another state or organization as a terrorists. Throughout our campaign, we’ve been inundated with one response in particular; references to Hamas hiding in school buildings or using women and children as human shields. Selective memory seems to have given pro-Israeli organizations the ability to forget that in 2005 Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz appeared in court to defend the practice of using Palestinians as human shields in combat after a supreme court outlawed the practice, noting it violated International Law.

The reasons for Anonymous intervention through #OpIsrael should be abundantly clear: What is happening in Palestine is oppression. They have no navy, no army, or air force. There is no war in Gaza. There is only the continuous application of military force by Israel in an attempt to push every last person out of the Palestinian state, despite international laws that make these efforts illegal. This illegal expansion of territory by Israel in to the Palestinian state has been ongoing since1948, making refugees of over 700,000 Palestinians. Today,
Palestinians are not permitted to live in Israeli settlements, drive on Israeli roads or even travel is the “security” areas surrounding them. These Israeli only housing developments are being built on stolen land, even while being called illegal settlements by the International Court of Justice.

The violence inflicted upon the civilian residents of Gaza is well documented, despite the fact that Israel has adamantly opposed intervention by human rights organizations and the IDF constantly blocks and harasses international journalists.

Despite these facts, Anonymous has not used any anti-Semitic language during our campaign. Nor have we vocalized any support for Palestinian military operations or resistance groups. Our goal was to protect the rights of Palestinian people who are threatened with silence as Israel has made attempts to shut down cell phone and internet service throughout Gaza. We know what happens to victims of oppression when the lights go dark.

It is also worthy to note, that as of yesterday, members of Anonymous participating in #OpIsrael were making attempts to augment our Gaza Care Package for civilians in Tel Aviv by translating the same documents in to Hebrew in the event that they lose access to internet service as well. We do not racially or geographically differentiate between victims of violence or oppression anywhere in the world.

Both Palestinians and Israelis need to find common ground and end the violence that has already resulted in the deaths of innocent people, including children. Israel’s advancement on Palestinian Territories and the racist oppression of Palestinian people needs to end.

We are not terrorists. Governments that fund wars, practice deceit against their own citizens, condone corruption, and turn a blind eye to the deaths of innocent people are terrorists. The word terror does not belong to Israel or the United States. We will judge you by your actions.
Peace and Freedom to all,
#OpIsrael
#Anonymous
Anonymous Gaza Care Package
#OpIsrael Information and Tools
Original PR source

Source

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Will we ever… have safe cigarettes?

(Copyright: Getty Images)

For decades the tobacco industry has tried to come up with alternatives that people would want to smoke, but this is much harder than you would think.

There’s an old saying among people who work in public health: Tobacco is the only legal product that, when used as intended, will kill you. Decades of research have thoroughly documented the health problems that result from inhaling tobacco smoke – more than a dozen different types of cancer, heart disease, stroke, emphysema and other respiratory diseases, among others. Are these risks an inevitable part of smoking? Or is there a way of creating safe cigarettes without any of these hazards?
“I think it’s very unlikely,” says Stephen Hecht from the University of Minnesota Cancer Center, who studies tobacco carcinogens – substances that cause cancer. Tobacco smoke is a complex cocktail of at least 4,000 chemicals including at least 70 known carcinogens. No one has made a “cigarette that is significantly decreased in all of these [chemicals] and is still something people would want to smoke, even though the industry has worked on this for around 50 years,” says Hecht. “There’s no indication that it’s possible.”
As Hecht says, it’s not that the industry hasn’t tried. Journalist Will Storr recently documented a history of bungled attempts to create a safer cigarette, from one that passed the carcinogenic smoke through a filter made of another carcinogen – asbestos – to another that heated tobacco rather than burning it, but tasted of sulphur, charcoal, and burning plastic.
The problem is that no single step in the production or consumption process fills cigarette smoke with its dangerous constituents. Some constituents are in the tobacco leaves themselves at the point of harvesting. The plants can absorb metals and metalloids like arsenic and cadmium from fertilisers and the surrounding soil, while sticky hairs on their leaves can gather particles from the air, including radioactive elements like polonium-210.
When the harvested leaves are cured and dried, compounds within them are converted into tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs), a class of well-known and intensely studied carcinogens. And when the smoker lights up, chemical reactions in the burning leaves fill the smoke with carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide and a cocktail of carcinogens – the infamous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and vapour-borne “volatiles” like formaldehyde and benzene. As long as you’re burning plant matter and inhaling the smoke, you’ll get a lungful of carcinogens. “There’s no getting around that fact,” says Neal Benowitz, a pharmacologist from the University of California, San Francisco.
Potent drug
As always with toxicology, it’s the dose that makes the poison, and a laundry list of ingredients is a poor way of assessing a product’s true risk. But it’s clear that many of the substances in cigarette smoke, particularly the well-studied TSNAs, PAHs and volatiles, are found at significant levels in both the smoke and the bodies of smokers who inhale it . And, they cause similar patterns of DNA damage to those seen in actual tumours.
The route of exposure also matters. Many of the chemicals in tobacco smoke are also found in other everyday sources, including foods. But there’s a big difference between taking these substances into your guts, where they pass through a soup of enzymes before being actively transported into the bloodstream, and sucking them directly into your lungs where they can passively diffuse into your blood.
There are some measures that could individually reduce the number of carcinogens in smoke: modifying the blend of tobacco; refining the curing process; including charcoal filters to absorb some of the volatiles; and so on. “But there’s no evidence that this does any good,” says Hecht. None of these measures completely deletes the full spectrum of carcinogens, and Hecht adds, “We tend to focus on the compounds that we know are dangerous, but that’s maybe only a few hundred of the 4,000 that are identified. There could be other things going on that we’re not aware of.”

And then there’s nicotine. This highly addictive drug isn’t a carcinogen, but it’s not entirely benign either. It increases heart rate, constricts blood vessels, and contributes to high levels of cholesterol. There’s some evidence that it could stop cancerous cells from self-destructing or promote the growth of blood vessels that bring oxygen and nutrients to tumours. But both of these claims come from studies in lab-grown cells. “It’s not clear if any of this works in a live animal,” says Hecht. “The big thing [about nicotine] is the addiction.” Nicotine is a potent drug – it’s the one chemical that keeps smokers inhaling all the rest.
Nicotine’s addictive properties have led to some spectacular backfires in attempts to create safer cigarettes. From the 60s and 70s, the tobacco industry marketed “low-tar” cigarettes as safer versions of their normal cousins. These so-called “mild”, “smooth” and “light” alternatives contained tiny vents in their filters, which were meant to allow fresh air to dilute the tar – the collective term for the chemical gunge in smoke.
These cigarettes were tested with machines that, sure enough, measured a lower concentration of tar in the ensuing smoke. But, surprise, people aren’t machines. As the smoke from these brands also contained less nicotine, smokers would get their fix by taking longer drags, smoking more frequently, or simply blocking the filters with their fingers. They ended up inhaling more smoke, and despite the industry’s claims, exposed themselves to the same level of carcinogens.
Safer options?
Smokeless tobacco products fare little better. Even though they are sucked, chewed and sniffed, and never set on fire, they still contain many of the same carcinogens as cigarettes, and have been linked to mouth, oesophageal and pancreatic cancers. The one possible exception is snus, a Swedish product that’s not unlike a “tobacco-stuffed teabag” that you stick under your lips. It’s manufactured according to rigorous standards that limit the amount of nitrosamines in the final product, while still retaining that craving-satisfying nicotine. Snus is billed as the reason for Sweden’s low rates of lung and oral cancers, compared to countries where cigarettes are the dominant tobacco product.
“It’s much safer [than smoked products] but not entirely safe, and there’s a possibility that it still poses a cancer risk,” says Benowitz. Indeed, some recent studies have suggested that snus users have a higher risk of pancreatic cancer, and a higher risk of dying from cancer. “If you simplistically said everyone stopped smoking and used snus, there’d be a tremendous health benefit, but the question is whether they would do that,” says Benowitz. His concerns are that snus could make it harder for active smokers to give up their habit by fuelling nicotine addiction, or act as a gateway drug that entices non-smokers to start. “It’s probably better than smoking, but you probably don’t want to put it in your mouth,” says Hecht.
The same arguments apply to e-cigarettes – battery-powered devices that look like cigarettes, and release a nicotine vapour without any of the accompanying carcinogens. At least, that’s the theory – there’s scant data on what they actually release, and how that varies from brand to brand. An analysis from the US Food and Drug Administration showed that some still contained detectable traces of nitrosamines. “In theory, they could be safer than snus,” says Benowitz. “But there’s been hesitation around them because they are unregulated, so who knows what you’re getting.”
The use of both snus and e-cigarettes will probably remain highly controversial, even after more data comes in. This reflects a tension in public health circles: given smoking is so addictive and damaging, is it acceptable or even ethical to reduce that harm by advocating products that are safer, but still not safe? “If we’d never heard of cigarettes, we’d look at a smokeless tobacco product and say, ‘This thing should be banned’,” says Hecht. In a world where tobacco never existed, these arguments would be moot. But that world does not exist; what do we do in this one?

Source

Monday, November 12, 2012

Vegetative patient Scott Routley says 'I'm not in pain'

By Fergus Walsh Medical correspondent

A Canadian man who was believed to have been in a vegetative state for more than a decade, has been able to tell scientists that he is not in any pain.

It's the first time an uncommunicative, severely brain-injured patient has been able to give answers clinically relevant to their care.
Scott Routley, 39, was asked questions while having his brain activity scanned in an fMRI machine.
His doctor says the discovery means medical textbooks will need rewriting.
Vegetative patients emerge from a coma into a condition where they have periods awake, with their eyes open, but have no perception of themselves or the outside world.
Mr Routley suffered a severe brain injury in a car accident 12 years ago.
None of his physical assessments since then have shown any sign of awareness, or ability to communicate.
But the British neuroscientist Prof Adrian Owen - who led the team at the Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario - said Mr Routley was clearly not vegetative.

Panorama: Find out more

Fergus Walsh presents The Mind Reader: Unlocking My Voice - a Panorama Special
BBC One, Tuesday 13 November at 22:35 GMT

Then available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer

"Scott has been able to show he has a conscious, thinking mind. We have scanned him several times and his pattern of brain activity shows he is clearly choosing to answer our questions. We believe he knows who and where he is."

Prof Owen said it was a groundbreaking moment.
"Asking a patient something important to them has been our aim for many years. In future we could ask what we could do to improve their quality of life. It could be simple things like the entertainment we provide or the times of day they are washed and fed."
Scott Routley's parents say they always thought he was conscious and could communicate by lifting a thumb or moving his eyes. But this has never been accepted by medical staff.
Prof Bryan Young at University Hospital, London - Mr Routley's neurologist for a decade - said the scan results overturned all the behavioural assessments that had been made over the years.

FMRI SCANNING

Prof Adrian Owen and team with patient at scanner

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging measures the real-time activity of the brain by tracking the flow of oxygen-rich blood
The patients were repeatedly asked to imagine playing tennis or walking around their home
In healthy volunteers each produces a distinct pattern of activity, in the premotor cortex for the first task and the parahippocampal gyrus for the second
It allowed the researchers to put a series of yes or no questions to severely brain-injured patients. A minority were able to answer by using the power of thought
In 2010 Prof Owen published research showing that nearly one in five of the vegetative patients were able to communicate using brain activity

"I was impressed and amazed that he was able to show these cognitive responses. He had the clinical picture of a typical vegetative patient and showed no spontaneous movements that looked meaningful."

Observational assessments of Mr Routley since he responded in the scanner have continued to suggest he is vegetative. Prof Young said medical textbooks would need to be updated to include Prof Owen's techniques.
The BBC's Panorama programme followed several vegetative and minimally-conscious patients in Britain and Canada for more than a year.
Another Canadian patient, Steven Graham, was able to demonstrate that he had laid down new memories since his brain injury. Mr Graham answers yes when asked whether his sister has a daughter. His niece was born after his car accident five years ago.
The Panorama team also followed three patients at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability (RHN) in Putney, which specialises in the rehabilitation of brain-injured patients.
It collaborates with a team of Cambridge University neuroscientists at the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre at Addenbrooke's hospital, Cambridge.

Panorama's Fergus Walsh meets Professor Adrian Owen to learn what the brain is like when in a vegetative state

One of the patients is diagnosed as vegetative by the RHN, and he is also unable to show awareness in an fMRI machine.
A second patient, who had not been fully assessed by the RHN, is shown to have some limited awareness in brain scans.

The Mind Reader: Unlocking My Voice - a Panorama Special - will be broadcast on Tuesday 13 November at 22:35 on BBC One. Or catch up later on the BBC iPlayer using the link above.

Source

US to become 'world's biggest oil producer'

$Oil fracking operation in North Dakota$

Shale oil and gas is now big business in the US

The US will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil producer "by around 2020", an International Energy Agency (IEA) report has said.

The IEA said the reason for this was the big growth and development in the US of extracting oil from shale rock.
This has enabled the US to gain significantly more extractable oil resources.
As a result, the IEA predicts the US will become "all but self-sufficient" in its energy needs by around 2035.
The US shale oil industry has grown significantly in recent years.
It extracts oil from the ground using a method called fracking - pumping down a mixture of sand, water and chemicals at high pressure.
The industry says the method is safe, but critics say it could cause earthquakes and pollute water sources.
The IEA predicts that the US will be producing 11.1 million barrels per day by 2020, compared with 10.6 million from Saudi Arabia.
Currently the US imports about 20% of its total energy needs.
The IEA also expects that the US will overtake Russia as the word's biggest gas producer by 2015, again thanks to fracking, which can also be used to extract natural gas.
It warns that the big growth in US oil and gas production could have significant geopolitical implications, as it may make the US less concerned about the Middle East.

Source

Sunday, October 28, 2012

A Point Of View: China and multiculturalism

The vast majority of the Chinese population regard themselves as belonging to the same race, a stark contrast to the multiracial composition of other populous countries. What effect does this have on how China views the world, ask Martin Jacques.

I was on a taxi journey in Shanghai with a very intelligent young Chinese student, who was helping me with interviews and interpreting. She was shortly to study for her doctorate at a top American university. She casually mentioned that some Chinese students who went to the US ended up marrying Americans.
I told her that I had recently seen such a mixed couple in Hong Kong, a Chinese woman with a black American. This was clearly not what she had in mind. Her reaction was a look of revulsion. I was shocked. Why did she react that way to someone black, but not someone white? This was over a decade ago, but I doubt much has changed. What does her response tell us - if anything - about Chinese attitudes towards ethnicity?
China's population is huge.

Find out more

Martin Jacques is an economist and author of When China Rules the World
A Point of View is usually broadcast on Fridays on Radio 4 at 20:50 BST and repeated Sundays, 08:50 BST

What people aren't generally aware of, though, is that more than nine out of 10 Chinese people think of themselves as belonging to just one race, the Han. This is remarkable. It is quite different from the world's other most populous nations: India, United States, Indonesia and Brazil. All recognise themselves to be, in varying degrees, multiracial and multicultural.

True, a country that is the size of a continent has obviously been home to countless different races down the ages. But that is not how the great majority of Chinese see themselves today.
Why is this?
The answer takes us back to the birth of modern China more than 2,000 years ago. China is extremely old - the longest continuously existing country in the world. The eastern half of China - where the vast majority of Chinese live now and lived then - has been more or less united ever since 211BC.
Over that extraordinarily long period - as a result of war, occupation, absorption, assimilation, ethnic cleansing and government resettlement - the sense of difference between the many races that lived in the eastern half of China was slowly eroded.
Fundamental to this process was the gradual emergence of a shared cultural identity.

Han Chinese

Trace ancestry back to Huaxia people who lived along northern China's Yellow River
Name comes from Han Dynasty that ruled a unified China from 206BC til 220
Han have absorbed many ethnic groups, taking on aspects of their culture and language
Speak a variety of dialects and even distinct languages, but share a common writing system based on Mandarin
Traditional Han beliefs are Confucianism and Daoism

China, along with part of today's Middle East, was home to the first settled agricultural communities in the world. They gradually supplanted nomadic culture and ushered in the beginnings of centralised governance.

Over the last two millennia, China has generally been one of the most advanced, often the most advanced, civilisation in the world. It is hardly surprising that, with a rich history like this, the Chinese have a very powerful sense of their cultural identity.
Every country has its own unique story of ethnicity. Take the US. It starts with arrival of the European settlers and the near extermination of the native American population, to be followed later by large-scale African slavery. Not surprisingly, these experiences have profoundly influenced American attitudes and the country's behaviour as a global power.
How did China evolve? It is essentially the story of the Han and the way in which over a period of two millennia they came to absorb the great majority of other ethnic groups.

Ethnic minorities in China

Of the 55 recognised ethnic minority groups, the 10 largest are:

Zhuang (16.9 million)
Hui (10.59 million)
Manchu (10.39 million)
Uyghur (10.07 million)
Miao (9.43 million)
Yi (8.7 million)
Tujia (8.35 million)
Tibetan (6.28 million)
Mongol (5.98 million)
Buyei (2.87 million)

Source: 2010 China census

Before the victory of the Qin dynasty in 221BC, China was divided into many different states. The process of its subsequent unification was the creation of an empire. But whereas all the other great empires of the world have long since broken up, China remains united. Why? In one word - the Han. The Han identity has served as the glue which has kept a geographically and demographically vast country together. Without that shared identity, China would long ago have fallen apart.

The China I have been talking about is the eastern half of present-day China, where more than 90% of the population lives. What then of the western half? This is a different story. It accounts for over half the territory of China but contains only about 6% of its population.
Whereas the eastern half of China dates back about two millennia, the western part is far more recent, having only been incorporated about 300 years ago.
From the mid-17th Century, large tracts of the western region were conquered by the Qing dynasty in a series of brutal wars. The inhabitants of these lands were not Han. With their different physical appearance, darker skin, distinctive customs and lower level of development, the Han saw them as the Other, as "barbarians".
Not surprisingly, the Chinese government, both imperial and communist, has long had a troubled relationship with parts of the western regions, notably Tibet and Xinjiang.

Tibetans protest against Chinese domination

If the strength of the Han identity is that it has held China together, its weakness, I would argue, has been its relative lack of respect for difference, an underlying assumption that the non-Han should become like the Han - indeed eventually be absorbed into the Han. This attitude is not difficult to understand, it is how the Han became almost, but not quite, synonymous with being Chinese, or, to put it another way, how China was created.
Ethnicity is a powerful determinant of how societies perceive others. So is China, as a global power, likely to view the rest of the world?
Just as with the US, China will naturally tend to see the world in its own image. An unusual feature of China, in this respect, is that its history is so atypical: a huge population who overwhelmingly consider themselves to share the same identity. This helps to explain why the Chinese have tended to think of Africa as one, just like China, rather than a complex mosaic of different ethnicities and cultures.
The fact that China has had little experience of, or exposure to, the rest of the world until very recently - the past 30 years to be exact - has served to reinforce a tendency to see other countries through a Chinese prism.

Bear in mind, too, that the Chinese have a deep pride in their own cultural achievements, many believing that, for understandable reasons, their civilisation, and their history, is greater than all others. Such an outlook also tends to accentuate a China-centric view of the world.
When I first got to know the Chinese, one of the things I most enjoyed about them was their powerful sense of who they were, their confidence in who they were. They did not defer to white people. I liked that and respected them for it. It was as if their remarkable history resided in each and every one of them and made them walk tall.
Despite the fact that for the best part of two centuries China came to suffer hugely at the hands of the West, and to lag badly behind the West, the Chinese never stopped believing in themselves. Such pride and confidence is to be admired. In my view, though, it can also have a downside - a tendency to look down on others. If the Chinese have always considered themselves to be at least the equal of white Westerners, a common, though by no means universal, attitude has been to regard those of darker skin as inferior.
My horrified student friend was a case in point.
But why is this? Its roots are deep. For many centuries, white has had positive connotations in Chinese culture and black negative ones. Perhaps the reason is that those who toiled all day in the fields became dark while the aristocratic elite, protected from the sun, remained pristine white. To this day, interestingly, skin whitening products are enormously popular amongst Chinese women, as they also are in Japan and Korea and elsewhere.

Didier Drogba helped up by Shanghai Shenhua goalkeeper Dong Guangxiang

Didier Drogba now plays in Shanghai

Over the past two centuries, the Chinese have been hugely aware of the fact that white societies around the globe have been dominant while those of colour, especially African, have been poorer and much less developed. Success breeds respect, failure can all too easily attract scorn. Remember, those of African descent, until the past few decades, have been remote and distant from the Chinese, far removed from their knowledge and experience, a situation which can foster ignorance and prejudice.
There are small signs of change.
Didier Drogba, the Ivory Coast footballer who now plays for Shanghai Shenhua, has spoken in glowing terms about how the Chinese have received him.
As China becomes increasingly familiar with the world - as is now happening in such a dramatic way, from Africa to Latin America, and South Asia to Central Asia - parochial if deep-seated prejudices will come under growing pressure.

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