Learning from Dogs

Seeking your feedback, dear reader.

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by WordPress saying that Learning from Dogs had been selected for a trial of a new service on WordPress known as WordAds.  I can do no worse than by quoting from that WordPress webpage.

Introducing WordAds

by jonburke

Over the years one of the most frequent requests on WordPress.com has been to allow bloggers to earn money from their blog through ads. We’ve resisted advertising so far because most of it we had seen wasn’t terribly tasteful, and it seemed like Google’s AdSense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad. You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better.

Well we think we’ve cracked it, and we’re calling it WordAds.

Blogs are unique and they shouldn’t be treated like every other page on the internet. There are more than 50,000 WordPress-powered blogs coming online every day, and every time I explore them randomly I’m always surprised and delighted by how people are using the platform to express themselves.

As a WordPress user you’re breathing rarefied air on the internet: the Creators, the Independents. Creative minds aren’t satisfied being digital sharecroppers on someone else’s domain, and you want to carve out your own piece of the internet and have a space that you’re proud of because it’s so… you.

If you’re going to have advertising on your site, it darn well better be good, and beginning with our partnership withFederated Media we’re ready to start rolling out WordAds here on WordPress.com.

I see that in the last hour that the trial has commenced and now when you access Learning from Dogs you will see the advertisement, including one inserted to this Post

So please after a few days do let me have your views, as a comment to this post.  All comments will be published assuming, of course, they accord with my comment rules.

Thank you.

Revisiting the wonderful NASA time-lapse film.

Last November, I published a Post on Learning from Dogs under the title of This is rocket science!  It included the film Walking on Air shot from the International Space Station.

Anyway, a few days ago, Ginger I. here in Payson, sent me an email with the YouTube version of the film and I decided to include it as the only item in today’s post.

Enjoy.

Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a 4K-camera by Ron Garan fragileoasis.org/bloggernauts/Astro_Ron and the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011. All credit goes to them, who to my knowledge shot these pictures at an altitude of around 350 km.  I intend to upload a FullHD-version presently.

HD, refurbished, smoothed, retimed, denoised, deflickered, cut, etc.  All in all I tried to keep the looks of the material as original as possible, avoided adjusting the colors and the like, since in my opinion the original footage itself already has an almost surreal and aestethical visual nature.

Music: Jan Jelinek | Do Dekor, faitiche back2001 w+p by Jan Jelinek, published by Betke Edition janjelinek.com | faitiche.de

Image Courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center, The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth eol.jsc.nasa.gov

Editing: Michael König | koenigm.com

Shooting locations in order of appearance:

1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night
2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night
3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia
4. Aurora Australis south of Australia
5. Northwest coast of United States to Central South America at Night
6. Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean
7. Halfway around the World
8. Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East
9. Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East
10. Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night
11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay
12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night
13. Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam
14. Views of the Mideast at Night
15. Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea
16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night
17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean
18. Eastern Europe to Southeastern Asia at Night

With thanks to Dan Gomez for sending me the YouTube link.

It’s a crazy old world but sometimes that craziness provides a relief from the ‘serious’ side to life.

This week the Dutch company PAL-V announced the first flights of its prototype “flying car”.
This unique vehicle is called the PAL-V One, or the ‘Personal Air and Land Vehicle’, and It marks the start of a new era.

On the ground the vehicle drives like a sports car. Within minutes its rotor is unfolded and its tail is extended: then it is ready to take off thanks to the advanced gyrocopter technology.

With these successful test results it is proven that it is not only possible to build a flying car but also that it can be done within existing international rules for both flying and driving.

Having passed this important milestone the company is now inviting investors to join them in creating the future.

The next step will be the design of the first commercial production model of the PAL-V, and first deliveries are expected in 2014.

For 100 years people have dreamed of a flying car, and many attempts have been made to realize this dream, but now it has truly become a reality.

www.PAL-V.com

Nothing stays the same for very long!

I wanted to call this post Change out of hope but that title was used on March 17th so opted for Turning corners instead!

Either way, this Post is prompted by a recent item published on the Earth Policy Institute website.  While Lester Brown’s book World on the Edge is a tough read, Lester is President of the Earth Policy Institute, it’s all too easy to think that the future for humanity is wall-to-wall gloom.  So here’s the article that was recently published, reproduced here under the copyright terms of the Earth Policy Institute.

Hope turning on the wind!

Wind Tops 10 Percent Share of Electricity in Five U.S. States

by J. Matthew Roney

A new picture is emerging in the U.S. power sector. In 2007, electricity generation from coal peaked, dropping by close to 4 percent annually between 2007 and 2011. Over the same time period, nuclear generation fell slightly, while natural gas-fired electricity grew by some 3 percent annually and hydropower by 7 percent. Meanwhile, wind-generated electricity grew by a whopping 36 percent each year. Multiple factors underlie this nascent shift in U.S. electricity production, including the global recession, increasing energy efficiency, and more economically recoverable domestic natural gas. But ultimately it is the increasing attractiveness of wind as an energy source that will drive it into prominence.

Wind power accounted for just 2.9 percent of total electricity generation in the United States in 2011. In five U.S. states, however, 10 percent or more of electricity generation came from wind. South Dakota leads the states, with wind power making up 22 percent of its electricity generation in 2011, up from 14 percent in 2010. In 2011, Iowa generated 19 percent of its electricity with wind energy. And in North Dakota, wind’s share was 15 percent.

The two most populous U.S. states are also harnessing more of their wind resources. While adding more than 900 megawatts of new wind farms in 2011 to its existing 3,000-megawatt wind capacity, California was able to increase its wind electricity share from 3 to 4 percent. Texas has the most wind installations of all the states, with 10,400 megawatts. In fact, if Texas were a country, it would rank sixth in the world for total wind capacity. Figures from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the independent service operator that delivers 85 percent of the state’s electricity, show that wind’s share of electricity in the ERCOT region jumped from 2.9 percent in 2007 to 8.5 percent in 2011.

Even though the cost of generating electricity from the wind has fallen substantially, certain policies have been needed to help it compete with the longtime support and lack of full-cost accounting for fossil fuels. Through so-called renewable portfolio standards (RPS), 29 states now require a percentage of utilities’ electricity to come from renewables by a certain date. This includes 8 of the top 10 states in total installed wind power capacity. For example, California’s RPS requires one third of the state’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020. But the biggest policy driver of U.S. wind power growth thus far has been the federal production tax credit (PTC) for each kilowatt-hour of electricity a wind turbine generates. When Congress has allowed the PTC to expire, as it is scheduled to do again at the end of 2012, wind installations in the following year have plummeted.

In the short term, extending the PTC will be critical for the U.S. wind industry, which boasts more than 400 turbine component manufacturers and employs some 75,000 people. Ultimately, moving away from the recurring boom-bust threat by establishing a national RPS or a carbon tax would encourage even greater manufacturing growth and wind installations.

In a country where wind resources could power the entire economy, there is still great potential to be realized. Four states in northern Germany have set the mark, with each getting more than 40 percent of their electricity from the wind. Which U.S. state will get there first?

For more information and data on wind energy in the United States and around the world, see Earth Policy Institute’s Wind Indicator, “World Wind Power Climbs to New Record in 2011,” at www.earth-policy.org.

Copyright © 2012 Earth Policy Institute

This video is well worth watching as well as going to that link at the end of the essay above.

Lester Brown, Thomas Friedman, and Paul Krugman discuss the need for a carbon tax in order to price carbon emissions at their true cost.

The “Journey to Planet Earth” series continues with a special program, hosted by Matt Damon, which features environmental visionary Lester Brown and author of “Plan B.” This documentary delivers a clear and unflinching message — either confront the realities of climate change or suffer the consequences of lost civilizations and failed political states.

I will see how much material there is available online with regard to that programme hosted by Matt Damon and, maybe, present some of it on Learning from Dogs.

Finally, the picture of the wind turbine at the head of this Post came from a website called www.windgeneratorblog.com.  Fancy a home wind generator?

But not quite as you might expect!

Big thanks to Katie S. from here in Payson for emailing me this hilarious clip.

The challenge of what to ‘farm’ from our planet.

Last Sunday, after the mid-morning service, one of the congregation passed me a letter she had received from the Natural Resources Defense Council.  It was all about the proposed mine in Alaska known as the Pebble Mine.  She asked if I might write about it on Learning from Dogs.  WikiPedia introduces the project thus,

Pebble Mine is the common name of an advanced mineral exploration project investigating a very large porphyry copper, gold, and molybdenum mineral deposit in the Bristol Bay region of Southwest Alaska, near Lake Iliamna and Lake Clark. The proposal to mine the ore deposit, using large-scale operations and infrastructure, is controversial. Proponents argue that the mine will create jobs, provide tax revenue to the state of Alaska, and reduce American dependence on foreign sources of raw materials. Opponents argue that the mine would adversely affect the entire Bristol Bay watershed; and that the possible consequences to fish populations, when mining effluents escape planned containments, are simply too great to risk. Much of this debate concerns the tentative plan to impound large amounts of water, waste rock, and mine tailings behind several earthen dams at the mine site.

Proposed mine location

My instinct is to join the side of those protesting because, once again, it seems like another example of mankind working hard to exhaust every natural jewel in the planet’s crown.

Yet, I was also conscious that I’m sitting in front of a computer that will have it’s fair share of copper inside it and that we, as in Jean and me, use a whole range of sophisticated materials in our daily lives, ergo leading a life that genuinely reduces our footprint on Planet Earth is easier said than done.

Here’s one ‘protest’ website that sets out the reasons for not proceeding with this mine,

1. Bristol Bay is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run.
2. Pebble mine would generate toxic waste in a seismically active region.
3. A majority of the people of Bristol Bay do not want the mine.
4. Native people live in Bristol Bay, and they subsist off the land.
5. Bristol Bay is home to an abundance of animals that need pristine habitat.
6. Bristol Bay has thousands of rivers and streams that would be degraded.
7. Commercial and sport fishing jobs would be jeopardized.
8. Wild salmon provide us with omega-3 fatty acids.
9. The Pebble Limited Partnership is untrustworthy.
10. Future generations depend on us to protect their most important and lasting legacy–the land.

There is a website that supports the project, where you will read their ‘core value’ expressed as, “Responsible mining technologies that actively support a healthy, respectful and sustainable co-existence with the environment and Southwest Alaska culture.“

Ultimately, it all comes down to there being too many people competing for too few resources.  Nay, worse than that.  It comes down to too many people living on this small planet, over-consuming what the planet can deliver and running out of time.  There are millions who instinctively feel very uncomfortable about the future but, as yet, no global movement with real political power to make a difference.

That, I regret, is the core issue for humanity.

A peek at a very interesting article in the February issue of National Geographic magazine.

Big thanks to Bob T. here in Payson for sending me a recent email that contained the one line, “There is a lengthy article entitled “Mix, Match, Morph” in the February issue of National Geographic.  I strongly suspect you will find it of interest.”   Understatement big time!  The article is wonderful.   It is also available online!

The premise behind the article is, as the opening words reveal,

Three breeds, Copyright National Geographic, photo by Robert Clark

How to Build a Dog

Scientists have found the secret recipe behind the spectacular

variety of dog shapes and sizes, and it could help unravel the

complexity of human genetic disease.

As is made clear early on in Evan Ratcliff’s text, the huge variety in the breeds of dogs is a very recent occurence,

For reasons both practical and whimsical, man’s best friend has been artificially evolved into the most diverse animal on the planet—a staggering achievement, given that most of the 350 to 400 dog breeds in existence have been around for only a couple hundred years.

And later Ratcliff writes,

The breeders gave no thought, of course, to the fact that while coaxing such weird new dogs into existence, they were also tinkering with the genes that determine canine anatomy in the first place­. Scientists since have assumed that underneath the morphological diversity of dogs lay an equivalent amount of genetic diversity. A recent explosion in canine genomic research, however, has led to a surprising, and opposite, conclusion: The vast mosaic of dog shapes, colors, and sizes is decided largely by changes in a mere handful of gene regions.

What is critically being discovered is,

Already, more than a hundred dog diseases have been mapped to mutations in particular genes, many of them with human counterparts. Those diseases may have a whole array of mutations leading to a risk of disease in dogs, as they do in us.

It would be wrong, without permission to reproduce the article, to include more but you can quickly go here and read it yourself.  Except I can’t resist closing with the last sentence from the article,

After all, he points out, there are millions of dog lovers out there willing and eager to help with the fieldwork.

Ain’t that the truth!

And don’t miss the fabulous photographs of dogs taken by Robert Clark which you can see here, another example of which is below.  Robert Clark’s website is here.

Chesapeake Bay retriever, 48, Photograph by Robert Clark

We are what we eat! A sobering assessment of the food industry this Friday, the 13th!

This saying, which has been around for some time, reminds us that the foods we eat break down into elements that our bodies absorb. What we eat literally becomes part of us, and not just us humans but our dogs and cats as well.  That’s why I haven’t differentiated between us humans and our pets in this Post.

Let’s start off with our pets.

On the 28th December, just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about the possible harm to dogs from Jerky treats coming in to the USA from China.  Kenneth Bryant of TriPom Chews added a comment that included a link to a news story about 353 dogs possibly being made sick.  Since then he and I have been in email correspondence including Ken passing the web address of Susan Thixton’s website Truth about Pet Food.  If you have a pet, go to this website!

I’m sure Susan wouldn’t mind me giving you a flavour (pardon the pun!) of what she has on this important website.  Try this.

Is there Chicken in Chicken Pet Foods?

One of the newest trends of pet food marketing is a tag line something like ‘Chicken is the first ingredient’.  Sounds good doesn’t it?  Chicken, first or second on the ingredient list surely means this pet food contains lots of quality meat doesn’t it?  No wonder this ‘chicken’ pet food is a little more expensive – it contains more meat.  Right?  Maybe not.

Just because petsumers think meat when the ingredient ‘chicken’ is listed on a label, doesn’t mean the pet food actually contains chicken meat.  Pet food can have a very different definition of ‘chicken’.  Thanks to very broad Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) ingredient definitions, the ingredient ‘chicken’ listed on a pet food label could be nothing more than skin, bone, cartilage, and maybe a few tiny fragments of meat.

Here is the AAFCO definition of poultry (quoting the 2011 AAFCO Official Publication): “Poultry is the clean combination of flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, derived from the parts or whole carcasses of poultry or a combination thereof, exclusive of feathers, heads, feet and entrails.  It shall be suitable for use in animal food.  If it bears a name descriptive of its kind, it must correspond thereto.”

Problems with this pet food ingredient definition…
#1  This ingredient (which includes all types of poultry including chicken) can be “a combination thereof” of any part of poultry.  This means that a pet food, proudly claiming Chicken as the #1 ingredient, can include ONLY chicken bones and/or skin (left over from the human food industry).

#2  “It shall be suitable for use in animal food” means that animals rejected for use in human food for reasons including (but not limited to) disease and drug residues are approved for use in pet food.  This we can thank the FDA for.  Federal Food Safety Laws should make it illegal for pet food to include whole or parts of diseased or rejected animals, but FDA Compliance Policies tell pet food it is acceptable to use diseased and drugged animals in pet food [My emboldening, PH.] (“it shall be suitable for use in animal food”).

Chicken Meal/Poultry Meal is very similarly defined – except ‘meal’ implies moisture removed.  However the very same end result can apply – the meal can consist of little more than skin and bones — no meat.

Other pet food meat ingredient definitions are a bit more descriptive, however all meat pet food ingredient definitions include the “it shall be suitable for use in animal food” disclaimer.  Thus any pet food meat ingredient – thanks to FDA Compliance Policies and AAFCO ingredient definitions – can be the same quality as human meats or can be sourced from diseased, rejected animals.  But, regulations do NOT provide petsumers with a means to determine which is which.

Read the rest of this article on Susan’s website.  Even better subscribe to her newsletters.

I could go on and on but will close this section by saying ‘thanks’ to Ken of TriPom for providing this awareness of what we all may be feeding our beloved cats and dogs.

So, humans next!

Just a few days ago there was an article on The Atlantic magazine website about The Very Real Danger of Genetically Modified Foods.  It’s a detailed article that, nonetheless, needs to be read by the widest possible audience.  Here are some extracts,

Chinese researchers have found small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the blood and organs of humans who eat rice. The Nanjing University-based team showed that this genetic material will bind to proteins in human liver cells and influence the uptake of cholesterol from the blood.

The type of RNA in question is called microRNA, due to its small size. MicroRNAs have been studied extensively since their discovery ten years ago, and have been linked to human diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. The Chinese research provides the first example of ingested plant microRNA surviving digestion and influencing human cell function.

Should the research survive scientific scrutiny, it could prove a game changer in many fields. It would mean that we’re eating not just vitamins, protein, and fuel, but information as well.

Later on the article says,

Monsanto’s claim that human toxicology tests are unwarranted is based on the doctrine of “substantial equivalence.” This term is used around the world as the basis of regulations designed to facilitate the rapid commercialization of genetically engineered foods, by sparing them from extensive safety testing.

According to substantial equivalence, comparisons between GM and non-GM crops need only investigate the end products of DNA translation: the pizza, as it were. “There is no need to test the safety of DNA introduced into GM crops. DNA (and resulting RNA) is present in almost all foods,” Monsanto’s website reads. “DNA is non-toxic and the presence of DNA, in and of itself, presents no hazard.”

The Chinese RNA study threatens to blast a major hole in that claim. It means that DNA can code for microRNA, which can, in fact, be hazardous.

And the closing two paragraphs,

The OECD’s 34 member nations could be described as largely rich, white, developed, and sympathetic to big business. The group’s current mission is to spread economic development to the rest of the world. And while that mission has yet to be accomplished, OECD has helped Monsanto spread substantial equivalence to the rest of the world, selling a lot of GM seed along the way.

The news that we’re ingesting information as well as physical material should force the biotech industry to confront the possibility that new DNA can have dangerous implications far beyond the products it codes for. Can we count on the biotech industry to accept the notion that more testing is necessary? Not if such action is perceived as a threat to the bottom line.

Please read the whole article as my extracts do not give justice to the importance of these findings.

Finally, let me turn to a recent item on the BBC website about the decline of brain function from as soon as age 45!  (I’m 67!)  The item starts,

The brain’s ability to function can start to deteriorate as early as 45, suggests a study in the British Medical Journal.

University College London researchers found a 3.6% decline in mental reasoning in women and men aged 45-49.

What caught my eye were these concluding paragraphs,

Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said he wanted to see similar studies carried out in a wider population sample.

He added: “Previous research suggests that our health in mid-life affects our risk of dementia as we age, and these findings give us all an extra reason to stick to our New Year’s resolutions.

“Although we don’t yet have a sure-fire way to prevent dementia, we do know that simple lifestyle changes – such as eating a healthy diet, not smoking, and keeping blood pressure and cholesterol in check – can all reduce the risk of dementia.”

Professor Lindsey Davies, president of the Faculty of Public Health, said that people should not wait until their bodies and minds broke down before taking action.

“We need only look at the problems that childhood obesity rates will cause if they are not addressed to see how important it is that we take ‘cradle to grave’ approach to public health.”

Let me repeat this sentence, “we do know that simple lifestyle changes – such as eating a healthy diet, not smoking, and keeping blood pressure and cholesterol in check – can all reduce the risk of dementia.”

Understanding what food is healthy for us and our animals ought to be straightforward.  But it’s not, when one understands the terrible lack of integrity in the industries that make our food!

A couple of stupendous spectacules!

Neil K. from South Devon sent me these, a little too late to put in my NY Post that came out yesterday.  But they were too good to leave to next week-end so here they are.  First Berlin.

Beginning with a countdown on a giant hourglass and a greeting from an “Android,” LG’s huge presentation took viewers on a thrilling 3D ride that included — among other things — whales, ice skaters, giant octopi and steaming jungles.

Second London.

One of the most amazing firework displays ever!

A fascinating talk by Luis von Ahn about new and powerful ways of collaborating.

Before moving on to this Post, just a quick word about the next seven days.  I’m going to take a small break over Christmas, not by ceasing to publish Posts but by offering you a number of light-hearted items that have come my way.  Hope you enjoy them and a very big thanks for the support of Learning from Dogs that you have shown over the year; it means a great deal.  Have a wonderful Christmas vacation.

This particular Post focusses on a talk given (as below) by Luis von Ahn that is on TED Talks.  The TED website is a fabulous resource.  The interview was brought to my attention by Lee Crampton of Softdev.  Lee and I go back a number of years, to the time when he and I were part of a small group that started up a company that offered online flight briefing services to the airline industry; still running today as it happens.  So very happy to recommend Lee, more details of the services he can offer are here.

After re-purposing CAPTCHA so each human-typed response helps digitize books, Luis von Ahn wondered how else to use small contributions by many on the Internet for greater good. At TEDxCMU, he shares how his ambitious new project, Duolingo, will help millions learn a new language while translating the Web quickly and accurately — all for free.

Watching this video made me muse about the potential for this level of transformation in other areas.  Fascinating!