BEIJING – China censored its translation of President Barack Obama's inauguration speech, removing references to communism and dissent, and quickly halted state television's live broadcast of the address when Cold War-era animosities were mentioned.
One television official tried to downplay the cutaway as a normal break in programming while an editor with the China Daily newspaper's Web site said staff who censored online versions of the speech likely did so because they were "duty-bound to protect the country's interests."
The news channel of state broadcaster China Central Television broadcast the speech live early Wednesday local time, but appeared caught off-guard by Obama's reference to how earlier generations of Americans had "faced down fascism and communism."
The audio quickly faded out from Obama's speech and cameras cut back to the studio anchor, who seemed flustered for a second before turning to ask a U.S.-based CCTV reporter what challenges the president faces in turning around the economy.
China's ruling Communist Party maintains a tight grip over its entirely state-run media. Beijing tolerates little dissent and frequently decries foreign interference in its internal affairs.
Wang Jianhong, deputy director of the CCTV general editing department, said he did not stay up to watch the inauguration broadcast but suggested the transition was a normal part of the program.
"There are breakaways even when broadcasting China's own meetings," he said. "Americans might care a lot about the presidential inauguration, but Chinese may not be very interested."
The China Daily Web site, the official Xinhua News Agency and popular online portals Sina and Sohu all used a translation of the speech that omitted the word "communism" from the same sentence that tripped up the news anchor.
The translation was also missing Obama's remarks on free speech when he said "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent — know that you are on the wrong side of history."
An editor at the China Daily Web site said managers did not order the censorship.
"Our translators and editors on the evening shift would make those decisions independently," said the editor, who refused to give his name as is common in China. "As Chinese, we are duty-bound to protect the country's interests."
Another popular online portal, Netease, carried a translation that was missing the paragraph mentioning communism, though it retained the part about dissent.
Rebecca MacKinnon, a journalism professor who teaches about media and the Internet at the University of Hong Kong, said this kind of censorship was common in China, though she could not say why the government would want to do so.
"I can't attribute motives to it, I can't get inside their head and explain what they're thinking. But this is standard practice," she said.
The full translation of Obama's speech could be viewed on the Web site of Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Satellite Television, which has a reputation as a more independent news source. The China Daily Web site posted Obama's full remarks in English only.
China has previously altered the words of U.S. officials. A 2004 speech in Shanghai by former Vice President Dick Cheney was broadcast live on state-run television at the insistence of U.S. officials, but the Chinese transcript of the remarks deleted references to political freedom.
In 2003, the memoirs of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's nominee for secretary of state, were pulled from publication in China after the government-backed publisher removed references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests and altered Clinton's comments about human rights activist Harry Wu.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Smarter Men Have More Sperm
Women tend to like smart men because they're usually more successful and better providers. But here's another reason: Their sperm is better, a new study says.
Researchers at King's College London, the University of Delaware and the University of New Mexico recently compared results from five intelligence tests given to 425 Vietnam War vets in 1985 as part of the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention's Vietnam Experience Study. These vets, aged 31 to 44, also provided sperm samples, so the researchers analyzed the sperm per milliliter of semen, plus how many of the sperm swam normally, and other measures of sperm health.
The smarter the men were, the more sperm they produced and the better their wee ones swam — and it didn't matter how old the men were or whether they smoked, drank or were obese.
But why might these two seemingly unrelated traits be linked? Why would calculus aces or business consultants make better sperm?
Turns out that intelligent people are generally healthier than their less-clever peers — studies have shown that brainiacs are, for instance, less likely to suffer from heart disease and Alzheimer's. Scientists have suggested that smart people may score less stressful jobs in safer places and that they may make better lifestyle choices, for instance by exercising more and eating better. In other words, maybe bright people actually listen to the Surgeon General.
But these newest findings, to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Intelligence, found that negative habits had little effect on sperm quality, so they don't support that theory.
The researchers instead speculate that intelligence might be passed down as part of a larger package of good attributes. One gene can influence multiple traits, so the genes involved in smarts may somehow improve sperm quality — and perhaps other characteristics as well.
This could help explain, then, why intelligence can be so sexy: It could simply be an indicator that a person has a lot of good genes and traits, says study co-author Geoffrey Miller, a psychologist at the University of New Mexico.
Researchers at King's College London, the University of Delaware and the University of New Mexico recently compared results from five intelligence tests given to 425 Vietnam War vets in 1985 as part of the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention's Vietnam Experience Study. These vets, aged 31 to 44, also provided sperm samples, so the researchers analyzed the sperm per milliliter of semen, plus how many of the sperm swam normally, and other measures of sperm health.
The smarter the men were, the more sperm they produced and the better their wee ones swam — and it didn't matter how old the men were or whether they smoked, drank or were obese.
But why might these two seemingly unrelated traits be linked? Why would calculus aces or business consultants make better sperm?
Turns out that intelligent people are generally healthier than their less-clever peers — studies have shown that brainiacs are, for instance, less likely to suffer from heart disease and Alzheimer's. Scientists have suggested that smart people may score less stressful jobs in safer places and that they may make better lifestyle choices, for instance by exercising more and eating better. In other words, maybe bright people actually listen to the Surgeon General.
But these newest findings, to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Intelligence, found that negative habits had little effect on sperm quality, so they don't support that theory.
The researchers instead speculate that intelligence might be passed down as part of a larger package of good attributes. One gene can influence multiple traits, so the genes involved in smarts may somehow improve sperm quality — and perhaps other characteristics as well.
This could help explain, then, why intelligence can be so sexy: It could simply be an indicator that a person has a lot of good genes and traits, says study co-author Geoffrey Miller, a psychologist at the University of New Mexico.
Delete 10 Facebook friends, get a free Whopper
Facebook's developer platform has been used for a zillion marketing campaigns so far, but this one is actually dead-on hilarious.
Fast-food chain Burger King has created "Whopper Sacrifice," a Facebook app that will give you a coupon for a free hamburger if you delete 10 people from your friends list.
Burger King has put out some interesting campaigns as of late ("Whopper Virgin," "Subservient Chicken"), but this one piques our interest because of how gleefully it pokes fun at our social-networking obsessions. "Now is the time to put your fair-weather Web friendships to the test," the Whopper Sacrifice site explains. "Install Whopper Sacrifice on your Facebook profile, and we'll reward you with a free flame-broiled Whopper when you sacrifice ten of your friends.
The funniest part: The "sacrifices" show up in your activity feed. So it'll say, for example, "Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper." Unfortunately, you can't delete your whole friends list and eat free (however unhealthily) for a week. The promotion is limited to one coupon per Facebook account.
My Facebook friends had better appreciate the fact that I made a New Year's resolution to cut out red meat. Hint, hint.
Fast-food chain Burger King has created "Whopper Sacrifice," a Facebook app that will give you a coupon for a free hamburger if you delete 10 people from your friends list.
Burger King has put out some interesting campaigns as of late ("Whopper Virgin," "Subservient Chicken"), but this one piques our interest because of how gleefully it pokes fun at our social-networking obsessions. "Now is the time to put your fair-weather Web friendships to the test," the Whopper Sacrifice site explains. "Install Whopper Sacrifice on your Facebook profile, and we'll reward you with a free flame-broiled Whopper when you sacrifice ten of your friends.
The funniest part: The "sacrifices" show up in your activity feed. So it'll say, for example, "Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper." Unfortunately, you can't delete your whole friends list and eat free (however unhealthily) for a week. The promotion is limited to one coupon per Facebook account.
My Facebook friends had better appreciate the fact that I made a New Year's resolution to cut out red meat. Hint, hint.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Love spray being developed by scientists
It may not be the most romantic gesture but scientists are developing drugs that can boost that most human of emotions.
They are studying the brain chemistry responsible for the complex feelings that draw us to a particular member of the opposite sex and help keep us monogamous.
Animal testing is beginning to shed light on the complex neural and genetic components of love in the same way they have led to pharmaceutical therapies for anxiety, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorders.
The behavioural scientist Professor Larry Young, of Emory University, Georgia, writing in the journal Nature, said: "For one thing, drugs that manipulate brain systems at whim to enhance or diminish our love for another may not be far away."
Experiments have already shown a nasal squirt of the hormone oxytocin enhances trust and tunes people into others' emotions.
Websites are marketing products such as Enhanced Liquid Trust, a cologne-like mixture of oxytocin and chemical scents called pheromones "designed to boost the dating and relationship area of your life".
Prof Young said: "Although such products are unlikely to do anything other than boost users' confidence, studies are under way in Australia to determine whether an oxytocin spray might aid traditional marital therapy."
Prof Young said: "The hormone interacts with the reward and reinforcement system driven by the neuro-transmitter dopamine – the same circuitry that drugs such as nicotine, cocaine and heroine act on in humans to produce euphoria and addiction.
"Dopamine-related reward regions of the human brain are active in mothers viewing images of their child. Similar activation patterns are seen in people looking at photographs of their lovers."
They are studying the brain chemistry responsible for the complex feelings that draw us to a particular member of the opposite sex and help keep us monogamous.
Animal testing is beginning to shed light on the complex neural and genetic components of love in the same way they have led to pharmaceutical therapies for anxiety, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorders.
The behavioural scientist Professor Larry Young, of Emory University, Georgia, writing in the journal Nature, said: "For one thing, drugs that manipulate brain systems at whim to enhance or diminish our love for another may not be far away."
Experiments have already shown a nasal squirt of the hormone oxytocin enhances trust and tunes people into others' emotions.
Websites are marketing products such as Enhanced Liquid Trust, a cologne-like mixture of oxytocin and chemical scents called pheromones "designed to boost the dating and relationship area of your life".
Prof Young said: "Although such products are unlikely to do anything other than boost users' confidence, studies are under way in Australia to determine whether an oxytocin spray might aid traditional marital therapy."
Prof Young said: "The hormone interacts with the reward and reinforcement system driven by the neuro-transmitter dopamine – the same circuitry that drugs such as nicotine, cocaine and heroine act on in humans to produce euphoria and addiction.
"Dopamine-related reward regions of the human brain are active in mothers viewing images of their child. Similar activation patterns are seen in people looking at photographs of their lovers."
Zuckerberg: New year, 150 million Facebook users
It was only a matter of time. Social network Facebook says it has hit the milestone of 150 million active users, just more than two months after reaching 120 million and about four months after reaching 100 million. The site hit 140 million in the middle of December.
The announcement was made on the Facebook company blog by founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Should Facebook sustain this rate of growth, the 5-year-old site could hit 200 million users before Zuckerberg reaches his 25th birthday this spring.
Nearly half of those 150 million members, Zuckerberg wrote, use Facebook every day. Most of the site's new members now come from outside the United States. "This includes people in every continent--even Antarctica," the post read. "If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia, and Nigeria."
But Facebook Nation wouldn't be a financial heavyweight just yet. The company has made it clear that right now, it's focusing on growth over revenues.
That can be precarious, especially during difficult financial times, when Facebook's deep-pocketed backers may find those pockets a bit shallower. As some critics have pointed out, server power and other infrastructure costs are not as cheap internationally as they are in the States.
Reaching a milestone like this is obviously a big victory for Zuckerberg and the rest of Facebook, and the company insists that it's in solid financial shape to handle this kind of growth. That said, it'll only escalate the speculation--did anyone really believe that gossip about Facebook would end along with 2008?
The announcement was made on the Facebook company blog by founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Should Facebook sustain this rate of growth, the 5-year-old site could hit 200 million users before Zuckerberg reaches his 25th birthday this spring.
Nearly half of those 150 million members, Zuckerberg wrote, use Facebook every day. Most of the site's new members now come from outside the United States. "This includes people in every continent--even Antarctica," the post read. "If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia, and Nigeria."
But Facebook Nation wouldn't be a financial heavyweight just yet. The company has made it clear that right now, it's focusing on growth over revenues.
That can be precarious, especially during difficult financial times, when Facebook's deep-pocketed backers may find those pockets a bit shallower. As some critics have pointed out, server power and other infrastructure costs are not as cheap internationally as they are in the States.
Reaching a milestone like this is obviously a big victory for Zuckerberg and the rest of Facebook, and the company insists that it's in solid financial shape to handle this kind of growth. That said, it'll only escalate the speculation--did anyone really believe that gossip about Facebook would end along with 2008?
Black holes lead galaxy growth, new research shows
Peek into early universe sheds light on cosmic chicken-and-egg problem
Astronomers may have solved a cosmic chicken-and-egg problem -- the question of which formed first in the early Universe -- galaxies or the supermassive black holes seen at their cores.
"It looks like the black holes came first. The evidence is piling up," said Chris Carilli, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Carilli outlined the conclusions from recent research done by an international team studying conditions in the first billion years of the Universe's history in a lecture presented to the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Long Beach, California.
Earlier studies of galaxies and their central black holes in the nearby Universe revealed an intriguing linkage between the masses of the black holes and of the central "bulges" of stars and gas in the galaxies. The ratio of the black hole and the bulge mass is nearly the same for a wide range of galactic sizes and ages. For central black holes from a few million to many billions of times the mass of our Sun, the black hole's mass is about one one-thousandth of the mass of the surrounding galactic bulge.
"This constant ratio indicates that the black hole and the bulge affect each others' growth in some sort of interactive relationship," said Dominik Riechers, of Caltech. "The big question has been whether one grows before the other or if they grow together, maintaining their mass ratio throughout the entire process."
In the past few years, scientists have used the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array radio telescope and the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in France to peer far back in the 13.7 billion-year history of the Universe, to the dawn of the first galaxies.
"We finally have been able to measure black-hole and bulge masses in several galaxies seen as they were in the first billion years after the Big Bang, and the evidence suggests that the constant ratio seen nearby may not hold in the early Universe. The black holes in these young galaxies are much more massive compared to the bulges than those seen in the nearby Universe," said Fabian Walter of the Max-Planck Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR) in Germany.
"The implication is that the black holes started growing first."
The next challenge is to figure out how the black hole and the bulge affect each others' growth. "We don't know what mechanism is at work here, and why, at some point in the process, the 'standard' ratio between the masses is established," Riechers said.
New telescopes now under construction will be key tools for unraveling this mystery, Carilli explained. "The Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) will give us dramatic improvements in sensitivity and the resolving power to image the gas in these galaxies on the small scales required to make detailed studies of their dynamics," he said.
"To understand how the Universe got to be the way it is today, we must understand how the first stars and galaxies were formed when the Universe was young. With the new observatories we'll have in the next few years, we'll have the opportunity to learn important details from the era when the Universe was only a toddler compared to today's adult," Carilli said.
###
Carilli, Riechers and Walter worked with Frank Bertoldi of Bonn University; Karl Menten of MPIfR; and Pierre Cox and Roberto Neri of the Insitute for Millimeter Radio Astronomy (IRAM) in France.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
Astronomers may have solved a cosmic chicken-and-egg problem -- the question of which formed first in the early Universe -- galaxies or the supermassive black holes seen at their cores.
"It looks like the black holes came first. The evidence is piling up," said Chris Carilli, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Carilli outlined the conclusions from recent research done by an international team studying conditions in the first billion years of the Universe's history in a lecture presented to the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Long Beach, California.
Earlier studies of galaxies and their central black holes in the nearby Universe revealed an intriguing linkage between the masses of the black holes and of the central "bulges" of stars and gas in the galaxies. The ratio of the black hole and the bulge mass is nearly the same for a wide range of galactic sizes and ages. For central black holes from a few million to many billions of times the mass of our Sun, the black hole's mass is about one one-thousandth of the mass of the surrounding galactic bulge.
"This constant ratio indicates that the black hole and the bulge affect each others' growth in some sort of interactive relationship," said Dominik Riechers, of Caltech. "The big question has been whether one grows before the other or if they grow together, maintaining their mass ratio throughout the entire process."
In the past few years, scientists have used the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array radio telescope and the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in France to peer far back in the 13.7 billion-year history of the Universe, to the dawn of the first galaxies.
"We finally have been able to measure black-hole and bulge masses in several galaxies seen as they were in the first billion years after the Big Bang, and the evidence suggests that the constant ratio seen nearby may not hold in the early Universe. The black holes in these young galaxies are much more massive compared to the bulges than those seen in the nearby Universe," said Fabian Walter of the Max-Planck Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR) in Germany.
"The implication is that the black holes started growing first."
The next challenge is to figure out how the black hole and the bulge affect each others' growth. "We don't know what mechanism is at work here, and why, at some point in the process, the 'standard' ratio between the masses is established," Riechers said.
New telescopes now under construction will be key tools for unraveling this mystery, Carilli explained. "The Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) will give us dramatic improvements in sensitivity and the resolving power to image the gas in these galaxies on the small scales required to make detailed studies of their dynamics," he said.
"To understand how the Universe got to be the way it is today, we must understand how the first stars and galaxies were formed when the Universe was young. With the new observatories we'll have in the next few years, we'll have the opportunity to learn important details from the era when the Universe was only a toddler compared to today's adult," Carilli said.
###
Carilli, Riechers and Walter worked with Frank Bertoldi of Bonn University; Karl Menten of MPIfR; and Pierre Cox and Roberto Neri of the Insitute for Millimeter Radio Astronomy (IRAM) in France.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
Al Qaeda message blames Obama, Egypt for Gaza violence
An audio message reportedly from al Qaeda's deputy chief vows revenge for Israel's air and ground assault on Gaza and calls the Jewish state's actions against Hamas militants "a gift" from U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.
The speaker, identified as Ayman al-Zawahiri, addresses Muslims in Gaza. He said the violence "is one part of a series of a crusade war against Islam and these air strikes are a gift from Obama before he takes office, and (Egyptian President) Hosni Mubarak, that traitor, is the main partner in your siege and killing."
The message, posted Tuesday on various Islamist Web sites with a picture of al-Zawahiri next to an image of a wounded child, urges militants to rally against Israel.
"My Muslim brothers and mujahedeens in Gaza and all over Palestine, with the help of God we are with you in the battle, we will direct our strikes against the crusader Jewish coalition wherever we can."
The 10-minute message also address Muslims worldwide, claiming that Obama was portrayed as "the savior who will come and change American policy" during the U.S. election but is now "killing your brothers and sisters in Gaza without mercy or even pity."
Obama's transition team did not immediately respond to the message. Earlier Tuesday, the president-elect said he was "deeply concerned" about the loss of life in Gaza and Israel, and he promised to make the issue a top priority in his administration.
It was Obama's first public reaction to the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, which began with Israeli air strikes 11 days ago. He reiterated that only one president can speak for the United States at a time.
"Starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to engage effectively and consistently to try to resolve the conflicts that exist in the Middle East," Obama said.
CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson said the al Qaeda message speaks to al-Zawahiri's cause in two ways: It bashes the new U.S. president before he takes office and it criticizes Mubarak, who has drawn al-Zawahiri's ire for not allowing goods and aid through Egypt's border with Gaza.
Al-Zawahiri is a native of Egypt who has served jail time there.
Robertson, who is reporting from the Israeli-Gaza border, noted on CNN's "Situation Room" that al-Zawahiri got the message out quickly -- "within 12 days, that's very fast." He said that indicated "there's many issues there that are dear to him."
The speaker, identified as Ayman al-Zawahiri, addresses Muslims in Gaza. He said the violence "is one part of a series of a crusade war against Islam and these air strikes are a gift from Obama before he takes office, and (Egyptian President) Hosni Mubarak, that traitor, is the main partner in your siege and killing."
The message, posted Tuesday on various Islamist Web sites with a picture of al-Zawahiri next to an image of a wounded child, urges militants to rally against Israel.
"My Muslim brothers and mujahedeens in Gaza and all over Palestine, with the help of God we are with you in the battle, we will direct our strikes against the crusader Jewish coalition wherever we can."
The 10-minute message also address Muslims worldwide, claiming that Obama was portrayed as "the savior who will come and change American policy" during the U.S. election but is now "killing your brothers and sisters in Gaza without mercy or even pity."
Obama's transition team did not immediately respond to the message. Earlier Tuesday, the president-elect said he was "deeply concerned" about the loss of life in Gaza and Israel, and he promised to make the issue a top priority in his administration.
It was Obama's first public reaction to the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, which began with Israeli air strikes 11 days ago. He reiterated that only one president can speak for the United States at a time.
"Starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to engage effectively and consistently to try to resolve the conflicts that exist in the Middle East," Obama said.
CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson said the al Qaeda message speaks to al-Zawahiri's cause in two ways: It bashes the new U.S. president before he takes office and it criticizes Mubarak, who has drawn al-Zawahiri's ire for not allowing goods and aid through Egypt's border with Gaza.
Al-Zawahiri is a native of Egypt who has served jail time there.
Robertson, who is reporting from the Israeli-Gaza border, noted on CNN's "Situation Room" that al-Zawahiri got the message out quickly -- "within 12 days, that's very fast." He said that indicated "there's many issues there that are dear to him."
Milky Way and Andromeda will collide sooner than expected
According to the most detailed measurements yet, scientists have discovered that our solar system, the Milky Way, is moving at 600,000mph, 100,000mph faster than originally thought.
The speedier rotation also means its mass must be similar to that of Andromeda, around 270 billion times the mass of the sun.
It means that the gravitational pull the Milky Way exerts on its neighbouring galaxies is stronger, meaning a collision would happen sooner than expected.
The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are the two largest in our cosmic neighbourhood, with the former 100,000 light years across, which is still only half the width of the latter.
Our solar system is around 28,000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way; Andromeda is around two million light years away.
The research, presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California, argues that the collision will happen around the same time our sun is due to burn up the last of its nuclear fuel, within the next seven billion years.
It is thought rather than planets and stars colliding, the two galaxies will merge to form a new, large galaxy.
Karl Menten, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, and Mark Reid at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Massachusetts used a radio telescope called the Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA) to make precise measurements of the Milky Way as it moved through space.
"These measurements are revising our understanding of the structure and motions of our galaxy," said Dr Menten.
Gerry Gilmore, at the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University, who was not involved in the study, said: "The galaxies will be dramatically stirred up, but they are very squidgy, so they will stick together and eventually all the stars will die out, and it will become one huge, dead galaxy."
Health Hazard Alert: Head-Banging May Hurt Your Brain
It’s bad enough that loud music can potentially harm your hearing. But now it turns out that head-banging, a violent and rapid form of dancing, can put you at risk for brain injury, whiplash, and even stroke.
There have been isolated reports of head-banging injuries in the past: When guitarist Terry Balsamo of Evanescence had a stroke, his doctors attributed it to his on-stage thrashing. But until now, scientists really haven’t studied the effects of head-banging since it first started back in 1968 with Led Zeppelin.
According to Australian risk and safety researchers Declan Patton and Andrew McIntosh from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, head-banging is pretty much guaranteed to give you brain damage if you’re not careful. To test their theory, the researchers went to a variety of metal and hard rock concerts (the best way to test any scientific theory) and observed the head-thrashing techniques used by artists.
Then they created a “theoretical head-banging model” and plugged in various possible head angles and intensities. Using the top 11 “head-banging songs” chosen by a focus group, they measured an average tempo of 146 beats per minute, which they combined with head-banging arcs of more than 75 degrees from a person’s upright stance. They concluded that the typical death-metal tempo combined with a head-banging arc of at least 45 degrees will likely “cause mild head and neck injury.”
So is there hope for death-metal lovers? Yes, according to Patton and McIntosh, who offer the following advice:
“To minimize the risk of head and neck injury, head bangers should decrease their range of head and neck motion, head bang to slower tempo songs by replacing heavy metal with adult oriented rock, only head bang to every second beat, or use personal protective equipment.”
Monday, January 5, 2009
Oxford Univ. math exam question
I came accross this little math problem in a new biography of Lewis Carroll. It was on a math final during the 1850's at Oxford University. I believe that any budding mathematician in the 9th grade should be able to figure it out.
Problem: Let m and n be arbitrary odd integers (m>n). Prove m^2 -n^2 is divisible by 8
Problem: Let m and n be arbitrary odd integers (m>n). Prove m^2 -n^2 is divisible by 8
Katie Holmes spends $14m in six months in New York
The actress arrived in the New York in July to appear on Broadway in the Arthur Miller play, All My Sons.
She is living in a Manhattan apartment owned by her husband Tom Cruise and has become a regular fixture on the city's social circuit.
As well as regularly frequenting the city's best restaurants, Holmes is often photographed with her daughter Suri carrying purchases from some of New York's most expensive shops.
The New York Post's Page Six magazine estimates that, mainly due to her real estate purchases, she has spent more than $14 million (£9.6 million) since being in the city.
"While ordinary city dwellers are cutting back, Mrs Cruise has been valiantly doing her bit to boost our economy," the magazine said.
"We tally up a conservative estimate of her 24-week NYC spending spree, and crown her Manhattan's Most Valued Shopper."
Holmes has reportedly spent a reported $13,987 (£9,600) on child care and taking Suri out over the last six months
According to the publication, she and Cruise have bought three new apartments in the building where he has owned his home since 1985.
A spokesperson for Cruise has denied the purchases but real estate executive Barbara Corcoran claims they bought a trio of lofts last year.
The magazine says a similar, three-bedroom home on the same street is on the market for $4.8 million, (£3.3 million) and calculates that the Cruises would have spent $14.4 million (£10 million) on their apartments as a result.
Meanwhile the couple is reported to have spent an additional $7,000 (£4,800) on installing gym equipment in their home.
The publication also claims that Holmes, 30, and Cruise, 46, have spent an estimated $7,315 (£5,000) on dining out at top restaurants such as brasserie Balthazar, and sushi restaurant Nobu and more than $17,000 (£11,700) on clothes for Holmes and Suri from shops like Hermes and Bonpoint.
She is living in a Manhattan apartment owned by her husband Tom Cruise and has become a regular fixture on the city's social circuit.
As well as regularly frequenting the city's best restaurants, Holmes is often photographed with her daughter Suri carrying purchases from some of New York's most expensive shops.
The New York Post's Page Six magazine estimates that, mainly due to her real estate purchases, she has spent more than $14 million (£9.6 million) since being in the city.
"While ordinary city dwellers are cutting back, Mrs Cruise has been valiantly doing her bit to boost our economy," the magazine said.
"We tally up a conservative estimate of her 24-week NYC spending spree, and crown her Manhattan's Most Valued Shopper."
Holmes has reportedly spent a reported $13,987 (£9,600) on child care and taking Suri out over the last six months
According to the publication, she and Cruise have bought three new apartments in the building where he has owned his home since 1985.
A spokesperson for Cruise has denied the purchases but real estate executive Barbara Corcoran claims they bought a trio of lofts last year.
The magazine says a similar, three-bedroom home on the same street is on the market for $4.8 million, (£3.3 million) and calculates that the Cruises would have spent $14.4 million (£10 million) on their apartments as a result.
Meanwhile the couple is reported to have spent an additional $7,000 (£4,800) on installing gym equipment in their home.
The publication also claims that Holmes, 30, and Cruise, 46, have spent an estimated $7,315 (£5,000) on dining out at top restaurants such as brasserie Balthazar, and sushi restaurant Nobu and more than $17,000 (£11,700) on clothes for Holmes and Suri from shops like Hermes and Bonpoint.
The people on the bus are ... of diverse personalities
Forward-minded people tend to sit at the front of the top deck, according to Dr Tom Fawcett of Salford University, the independent-minded in the middle and those with a rebellious streak at the rear.
He came to his conclusions after watching people on hour-long bus trips between Bolton and Manchester.
His research would appear to indicate that companies which spend large amounts on psychometric tests to ensure they recruit the right people are wasting their money.
All they need to do is jump onto public transport.
Dr Fawcett, a lecturer on mental toughness who has helped train Olympic athletes, said there were definite patterns in people's behaviour depending on where they sat.
He said: "With something as habitual as getting on a bus people may find it surprising that their choice of seat can actually reveal aspects of their personality."
He concluded that bus passengers fell into seven distinct groups.
Those at the front on the top deck are generally forward thinkers and those at the back are rebellious types who do not like their personal space being invaded, he found.
Sitting in the middle are independent thinkers - usually younger to middle-aged passengers more likely to read a newspaper or listen to a personal music player.
On the bottom deck at the front tend to be gregarious meeters-and-greeters while those in the middle are "strong communicators". Travellers who automatically head for the rear downstairs are said to be risk-takers who like to sit on elevated seats because it makes them feel important.
He defined a final group as chameleons - travellers who do not care where they sit because they feel they can fit in anywhere.
He did not say what happened to forward thinkers on a single-decker bus - presumably they wait for a double-decker.
Dr Fawcett said the study was an "observational" one.
He said: "It was carried out as an observational survey - we noted people's body language and whether there was any interaction with other passengers, if they were sociable or withdrawn or even anti-social."
Buses have long been thought of as vehicles for social observation and not only a means of getting from A to B.
The 19th century journalist Walter Bagehot, who edited The Economist, coined the phrase "the bald-headed man at the back of the Clapham omnibus" to describe a normal Londoner.
The phrase was later used in legal cases to describe what a hypothetical, reasonably intelligent, middle-of-the-road person might think.
Later Loelia Ponsonby, the third wife of the Second Duke of Westminster, stigmatised those who have to use them by saying that "a man who, beyond the age of 30, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure."
Political legend wrongly attributed the quotation to Lady Thatcher.
Despite the subsequent damage to their reputation, our affection for these mobile communities remains strong, to the exasperation of the likes of motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson.
Boris Johnson's nostalgic election pledge to bring back the traditional Routemaster models in a modern form, and banish Ken Livingstone's bendy-buses "to an airport in Scandivania", arguably helped him become mayor of London.
He came to his conclusions after watching people on hour-long bus trips between Bolton and Manchester.
His research would appear to indicate that companies which spend large amounts on psychometric tests to ensure they recruit the right people are wasting their money.
All they need to do is jump onto public transport.
Dr Fawcett, a lecturer on mental toughness who has helped train Olympic athletes, said there were definite patterns in people's behaviour depending on where they sat.
He said: "With something as habitual as getting on a bus people may find it surprising that their choice of seat can actually reveal aspects of their personality."
He concluded that bus passengers fell into seven distinct groups.
Those at the front on the top deck are generally forward thinkers and those at the back are rebellious types who do not like their personal space being invaded, he found.
Sitting in the middle are independent thinkers - usually younger to middle-aged passengers more likely to read a newspaper or listen to a personal music player.
On the bottom deck at the front tend to be gregarious meeters-and-greeters while those in the middle are "strong communicators". Travellers who automatically head for the rear downstairs are said to be risk-takers who like to sit on elevated seats because it makes them feel important.
He defined a final group as chameleons - travellers who do not care where they sit because they feel they can fit in anywhere.
He did not say what happened to forward thinkers on a single-decker bus - presumably they wait for a double-decker.
Dr Fawcett said the study was an "observational" one.
He said: "It was carried out as an observational survey - we noted people's body language and whether there was any interaction with other passengers, if they were sociable or withdrawn or even anti-social."
Buses have long been thought of as vehicles for social observation and not only a means of getting from A to B.
The 19th century journalist Walter Bagehot, who edited The Economist, coined the phrase "the bald-headed man at the back of the Clapham omnibus" to describe a normal Londoner.
The phrase was later used in legal cases to describe what a hypothetical, reasonably intelligent, middle-of-the-road person might think.
Later Loelia Ponsonby, the third wife of the Second Duke of Westminster, stigmatised those who have to use them by saying that "a man who, beyond the age of 30, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure."
Political legend wrongly attributed the quotation to Lady Thatcher.
Despite the subsequent damage to their reputation, our affection for these mobile communities remains strong, to the exasperation of the likes of motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson.
Boris Johnson's nostalgic election pledge to bring back the traditional Routemaster models in a modern form, and banish Ken Livingstone's bendy-buses "to an airport in Scandivania", arguably helped him become mayor of London.
Did Palin abuse power again for future son-in-law?
A critic of Gov. Sarah Palin claimed the Alaska politician may have once again abused her power to obtain an apprenticeship for her soon-to-be son-in-law Levi Johnston.
Dan Fagan, who also publishes a Web site called the thealaskastandard.com, said federal regulations require all apprentices to have a high school diploma, which Johnston does not have.
"So how is it that the governor's soon-to-be son-in-law is working in an apprentice program?" Fagan wrote in an column. "Is this another case of the governor believing the rules don't apply to her or her family?"
Called "Troopergate" by the media, an investigation of Palin concluded in October that she abused her power as an Alaska governor in the firing of the state public safety commissioner.
Palin defended her daughter's fiance from what she considers inaccurate descriptions of Johnston as a high school dropout. Palin said he is working for his diploma through a correspondence program.
Palin said she is "over the moon" about her future son-in-law.
"You need to know that both Levi and Bristol are working their butts off to parent and going to school and working at the same time," Palin said in her first public statement about the father of her grandchild.
But Fagan questioned how Johnston gained entrance to the apprenticeship program when similar programs have long waiting lists. There are only three in the state, according to Fagan, and at least one of them has a waiting list of at least 100 people.
"I believe 2009 will be the year more and more Alaskans will come to realize Sarah Palin is in way over her head as governor, doesn't always play by the rules, and is, at times, less than honest," Fagan wrote.
Dan Fagan, who also publishes a Web site called the thealaskastandard.com, said federal regulations require all apprentices to have a high school diploma, which Johnston does not have.
"So how is it that the governor's soon-to-be son-in-law is working in an apprentice program?" Fagan wrote in an column. "Is this another case of the governor believing the rules don't apply to her or her family?"
Called "Troopergate" by the media, an investigation of Palin concluded in October that she abused her power as an Alaska governor in the firing of the state public safety commissioner.
Palin defended her daughter's fiance from what she considers inaccurate descriptions of Johnston as a high school dropout. Palin said he is working for his diploma through a correspondence program.
Palin said she is "over the moon" about her future son-in-law.
"You need to know that both Levi and Bristol are working their butts off to parent and going to school and working at the same time," Palin said in her first public statement about the father of her grandchild.
But Fagan questioned how Johnston gained entrance to the apprenticeship program when similar programs have long waiting lists. There are only three in the state, according to Fagan, and at least one of them has a waiting list of at least 100 people.
"I believe 2009 will be the year more and more Alaskans will come to realize Sarah Palin is in way over her head as governor, doesn't always play by the rules, and is, at times, less than honest," Fagan wrote.
Conn. man's last lotto ticket wins $10M for widow
DANBURY, Conn. – On the day that Donald Peters died, he unknowingly provided financial security for his wife of 59 years and their family.
Peters bought two Connecticut Lottery tickets at a local 7-Eleven store on Nov. 1 as part of a 20-year tradition he shared with his wife Charlotte. Later that day, the 79-year-old retired hat factory worker suffered a fatal heart attack while working in his yard in Danbury.
On Friday, his widow cashed in one of the tickets: a $10 million winner which, in her grief over her husband's death, she had put aside and almost discarded before recently checking the numbers.
"I'm numb," Charlotte Peters, 78, said at Connecticut Lottery headquarters in Rocky Hill.
Donald Peters usually bought the tickets for 10 weeks at a stretch, so the winning ticket he bought Nov. 1 for the Dec. 2 drawing was among several that Charlotte Peters put aside as she, their three children and two grandchildren coped with his sudden death.
"I was in the grocery store and I had it checked and they told me I was a winner," she said. "I had no idea how much it was."
She said she thought she had won $6 million but was surprised to learn from lottery officials she'd won $10 million.
Charlotte Peters has 60 days to decide whether to take a $6 million pre-tax lump sum payment or stretch the winnings into 21 yearly payments of almost $477,300 each.
She does not yet know what she will do with the money.
"I've always wanted a Corvette, but I don't think I'll buy one. I'll stick to a small car. I might go to Mohegan Sun," she said, referring to the casino in Connecticut. "I'm going to go home and sit and think."
The Peters children think their father would have appreciated the irony.
"He'd be very mad, he just passed away and she won a lot of money," said Brian Peters, one of the couple's three children. "He'd say, 'Figures!'"
Peters bought two Connecticut Lottery tickets at a local 7-Eleven store on Nov. 1 as part of a 20-year tradition he shared with his wife Charlotte. Later that day, the 79-year-old retired hat factory worker suffered a fatal heart attack while working in his yard in Danbury.
On Friday, his widow cashed in one of the tickets: a $10 million winner which, in her grief over her husband's death, she had put aside and almost discarded before recently checking the numbers.
"I'm numb," Charlotte Peters, 78, said at Connecticut Lottery headquarters in Rocky Hill.
Donald Peters usually bought the tickets for 10 weeks at a stretch, so the winning ticket he bought Nov. 1 for the Dec. 2 drawing was among several that Charlotte Peters put aside as she, their three children and two grandchildren coped with his sudden death.
"I was in the grocery store and I had it checked and they told me I was a winner," she said. "I had no idea how much it was."
She said she thought she had won $6 million but was surprised to learn from lottery officials she'd won $10 million.
Charlotte Peters has 60 days to decide whether to take a $6 million pre-tax lump sum payment or stretch the winnings into 21 yearly payments of almost $477,300 each.
She does not yet know what she will do with the money.
"I've always wanted a Corvette, but I don't think I'll buy one. I'll stick to a small car. I might go to Mohegan Sun," she said, referring to the casino in Connecticut. "I'm going to go home and sit and think."
The Peters children think their father would have appreciated the irony.
"He'd be very mad, he just passed away and she won a lot of money," said Brian Peters, one of the couple's three children. "He'd say, 'Figures!'"
Did Carpet Cleaning Kill John Travolta's Son?
As celebrity actors John Travolta and Kelly Preston mourn the death of their 16-year-old son Jett, they raise questions about the potentially lethal effects of past exposure to toxic chemicals in carpet cleaners, as well as about the mysterious Kawasaki Disease -- which their son reportedly suffered from.
According to CNN, Jett died while on vacation in the Bahamas with his parents and other family members. He reportedly had a seizure and hit his head, though an autopsy has been scheduled for Monday to better determine exact cause of death. For years, Travolta and Preston have blamed their son's ill health on a poorly understood condition known as Kawasaki Disease, a noncontagious problem that is thought to be associated with a failure in the immune system, and which affects many organs, including the skin and mucous membranes, lymph nodes, blood vessel walls and heart.
Kawaski diease was first described in 1967 by Dr. Tomisaku Kawasaki in Japan. The disease is most prevalent in young children, especially boys and most commonly in Japan, though its incidence is reportedly rising in the U.S. as well. It affects 15 out of 100,000 U.S. children under the age of five, and is the country's leading cause of acquired heart disease. In Japan about 175 out of 100,000 kids get it.
Kawasaki disease is thought to have a component of genetic susceptibility. Yet like other autoimmune and similar problems, it may have an environmental trigger. These days the medical community is most focused on looking for an infectious agent, though no specific one has yet been found. For some time, experts thought an environmental toxin could be to blame, particularly one found in carpet cleaners. In fact, Travolta and Preston have long pointed to that route, since they say they used carpet cleaners extensively in their home when Jett was young.
However, the carpet cleaning link has lost favor among many investigators, since the results of an early study have not been replicated. A relationship between Kawasaki Disease and carpet cleaning was first reported in a case-control study published in 1982 in the medical journal Lancet (Vol. 2 No. 8298 pp 578-80). Researchers found that 11 out of 23 Denver children with Kawasaki Disease (48%) were living in homes where carpets had been shampooed within 30 days of the onset of symptoms; 10 of these children had played on the carpets two hours after they had been shampooed. In the control group (those who did not have the disease), only nine of 86 families (10%) had also shampooed carpets within 30 days. Some suggested that Kawasaki Disease could be caused by hypersensitivity to the detergents used, or by inhalation of an infectious agent (such as a bacterial toxin or virus) that becomes suspended in the air during cleaning.
When subsequent studies were done, the picture became more muddled. Three additional studies did find an association between exposure to freshly cleaned carpets within 4 hours of the cleaning process and Kawaski disease -- however, the results were the same if the carpets or upholstery were cleaned with chemicals or simply plain water. Four studies found no associations at all. When researchers tried to follow up and determine if the causative agent might be disturbing of dust mites, which they reasoned might harbor disease agents, that lead did not pan out (Can Med Assoc J. 1984 October 1; 131(7): 720.).
Currently, there is not enough evidence to suggest a causal link between carpet cleaners and Kawasaki Disease. However, there are other reasons to avoid using strong cleaning chemicals in your home, including suspected increases in susceptibility to allergies, respiratory trouble and other concerns. To be safe, a number of concerned parents are giving green cleaning a try instead.
Further complicating the issue, some pundits have argued that restriction of medical care for Jett due to his parents' Scientology beliefs may also be to blame. There has also been speculation that Jett may have suffered from autism, which isn't recognized by Scientology.
Clearly, there are more questions than answers in the unfortunate case of Jett Travolta.
According to CNN, Jett died while on vacation in the Bahamas with his parents and other family members. He reportedly had a seizure and hit his head, though an autopsy has been scheduled for Monday to better determine exact cause of death. For years, Travolta and Preston have blamed their son's ill health on a poorly understood condition known as Kawasaki Disease, a noncontagious problem that is thought to be associated with a failure in the immune system, and which affects many organs, including the skin and mucous membranes, lymph nodes, blood vessel walls and heart.
Kawaski diease was first described in 1967 by Dr. Tomisaku Kawasaki in Japan. The disease is most prevalent in young children, especially boys and most commonly in Japan, though its incidence is reportedly rising in the U.S. as well. It affects 15 out of 100,000 U.S. children under the age of five, and is the country's leading cause of acquired heart disease. In Japan about 175 out of 100,000 kids get it.
Kawasaki disease is thought to have a component of genetic susceptibility. Yet like other autoimmune and similar problems, it may have an environmental trigger. These days the medical community is most focused on looking for an infectious agent, though no specific one has yet been found. For some time, experts thought an environmental toxin could be to blame, particularly one found in carpet cleaners. In fact, Travolta and Preston have long pointed to that route, since they say they used carpet cleaners extensively in their home when Jett was young.
However, the carpet cleaning link has lost favor among many investigators, since the results of an early study have not been replicated. A relationship between Kawasaki Disease and carpet cleaning was first reported in a case-control study published in 1982 in the medical journal Lancet (Vol. 2 No. 8298 pp 578-80). Researchers found that 11 out of 23 Denver children with Kawasaki Disease (48%) were living in homes where carpets had been shampooed within 30 days of the onset of symptoms; 10 of these children had played on the carpets two hours after they had been shampooed. In the control group (those who did not have the disease), only nine of 86 families (10%) had also shampooed carpets within 30 days. Some suggested that Kawasaki Disease could be caused by hypersensitivity to the detergents used, or by inhalation of an infectious agent (such as a bacterial toxin or virus) that becomes suspended in the air during cleaning.
When subsequent studies were done, the picture became more muddled. Three additional studies did find an association between exposure to freshly cleaned carpets within 4 hours of the cleaning process and Kawaski disease -- however, the results were the same if the carpets or upholstery were cleaned with chemicals or simply plain water. Four studies found no associations at all. When researchers tried to follow up and determine if the causative agent might be disturbing of dust mites, which they reasoned might harbor disease agents, that lead did not pan out (Can Med Assoc J. 1984 October 1; 131(7): 720.).
Currently, there is not enough evidence to suggest a causal link between carpet cleaners and Kawasaki Disease. However, there are other reasons to avoid using strong cleaning chemicals in your home, including suspected increases in susceptibility to allergies, respiratory trouble and other concerns. To be safe, a number of concerned parents are giving green cleaning a try instead.
Further complicating the issue, some pundits have argued that restriction of medical care for Jett due to his parents' Scientology beliefs may also be to blame. There has also been speculation that Jett may have suffered from autism, which isn't recognized by Scientology.
Clearly, there are more questions than answers in the unfortunate case of Jett Travolta.
114-year-old U.S. woman to be world's oldest
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Gertrude Baines, a 114-year-old California resident, will likely be crowned the world's oldest woman, according to the organization that keeps track of such honors.
Gertrude Baines told CNN two years ago that she has taken good care of herself, "the way (God) wanted me to."
The previous oldest woman was Maria de Jesus, who died this week in Portugal at age 115, Guinness World Records said.
Baines -- born to former slaves in a small town south of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1894 -- now lives in a Los Angeles nursing home.
Baines appeared cheerful and talkative when the Los Angeles Times interviewed her in November as she cast her vote for Barack Obama for president, whom she said she supported because "he's for the colored people."
"I'm glad we're getting a colored man in there," she said.
Baines apparently prefers using the older term for her race. She was well into her 70s when "African-American" became the common reference in the United States. Watch Baines speak to CNN
She told the Times she spends most of her time "doing nothing but eating and sleeping."
When CNN interviewed Baines two years ago, she was asked to explain why she thought she has lived so long.
"God. Ask him. I took good care of myself, the way he wanted me to," Baines said.
Her only child, a daughter, died of typhoid fever at age 18.
Much of her long life was lived in Ohio, where she worked as a "house mom" at a state university. She eventually divorced and traveled to Los Angeles, where she retired.
Baines will not officially be given the title until after Guinness World Records completes an investigation, the organization said.
"Maria was crowned the world's Oldest Living Woman by Guinness World Records on 28 December upon the death of Edna Parker," the group said.
Parker -- an American -- was 115 years, 220 days old when she died November 26, 2008, in an Indiana nursing home, it said
Gertrude Baines told CNN two years ago that she has taken good care of herself, "the way (God) wanted me to."
The previous oldest woman was Maria de Jesus, who died this week in Portugal at age 115, Guinness World Records said.
Baines -- born to former slaves in a small town south of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1894 -- now lives in a Los Angeles nursing home.
Baines appeared cheerful and talkative when the Los Angeles Times interviewed her in November as she cast her vote for Barack Obama for president, whom she said she supported because "he's for the colored people."
"I'm glad we're getting a colored man in there," she said.
Baines apparently prefers using the older term for her race. She was well into her 70s when "African-American" became the common reference in the United States. Watch Baines speak to CNN
She told the Times she spends most of her time "doing nothing but eating and sleeping."
When CNN interviewed Baines two years ago, she was asked to explain why she thought she has lived so long.
"God. Ask him. I took good care of myself, the way he wanted me to," Baines said.
Her only child, a daughter, died of typhoid fever at age 18.
Much of her long life was lived in Ohio, where she worked as a "house mom" at a state university. She eventually divorced and traveled to Los Angeles, where she retired.
Baines will not officially be given the title until after Guinness World Records completes an investigation, the organization said.
"Maria was crowned the world's Oldest Living Woman by Guinness World Records on 28 December upon the death of Edna Parker," the group said.
Parker -- an American -- was 115 years, 220 days old when she died November 26, 2008, in an Indiana nursing home, it said
Many delta islands may be lost
Two decades ago, water breached a levee on Tyler Island, 8,800 acres along the northeastern edge of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, wiping out crops, damaging buildings and nearly destroying the Mello family's farming business. Steve Mello worries the same thing may happen again - with the approval of state policymakers who are considering whether to save some islands if increasingly fragile levees fail. It's a familiar scenario for Mello, who has heard proposals in the past to flood the land in the name of restoring a sensitive ecosystem that also serves as the hub of California's water supply.
"I feel like a lamb surrounded by wolves, and every time you turn to deal with one, another one is nipping at you," said Mello, who farms about 2,500 acres of alfalfa, corn, pears, potatoes and wheat.
Fewer structures have been more critical to California's development than the 1,100 miles of earthen levees that help funnel water through the 1,300-square-mile confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. That water, mostly runoff from mountain snowpack, flows through a web of channels to mammoth pumps in the southern delta, sending billions of gallons of water to 25 million Californians.
But the levees are in trouble, experts say. Rising seas, earthquakes, subsiding land and floods pose dire threats on top of the escalating repair costs to the state. Rather than allowing nature to decide when and how the levees give way, many researchers and policymakers say, California should manage the inevitable reshaping of the delta by deciding which levees to repair after a disaster.
No rules exist yet. But beginning this year, government, scientists, planners, environmentalists and water agencies will attempt to reconcile their views on the barriers that have defined the delta for so long.
"The delta is two or three different places," said Will Travis, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. "From the perspective of the environmentalists, the delta is a piece of geography like San Francisco Bay or Yosemite that is near and dear. For water users, the delta is really a broad, leaky ditch and the water has to get from one side of delta through south side of delta."
Levee failures common
Over the last 100 years, delta levees failed 166 times and all but three were restored. In the next century, according to a recent, influential report by the Public Policy Institute of California, the average island at the core of the delta has a 99 percent chance of being inundated by levee failure.
The study concluded that as many as 19 islands in the delta's central area should not be repaired, depending on whether their property value includes land, structures and equipment. Many of those islands have infrastructure that includes railroads, bridges, aqueducts and energy facilities. As many as a dozen should be repaired, according to UC Davis scientists who wrote the report, while 11 are undetermined.
Tyler Island, where land and assets are worth about $126 million, may not be worth saving, they say.
The 2004 flooding of one island - Jones Tract - provided a stark example of the analysis that should go into a decision on any island, the experts say. A levee along the western side of the island collapsed, resulting in six months of repairs and pumping that cost $90 million, including $60 million in tax funds. The island's land was valued at $42 million, while assets on the island were worth about $500 million.
The cost of buttressing all delta levees to widely used standards runs into the billions.
"The delta means a lot of things, but what it doesn't mean (is) that all levees that presently exist must continue to exist and be maintained at taxpayers' expense without regard for benefit, difficulty or rationality of doing so," said Phil Isenberg, chairman of the governor's Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, a panel tasked with developing a sustainable delta management plan.
Sinking land biggest risk
A colossal earthquake, a 100-year rainstorm and the forecast of a 4 1/2-foot rise in the sea level by 2100: Each poses threats to the delta's levees, many of which sit below the level prescribed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
But scientists say one weakness compounds all of those calamities: land subsidence.
In the 150 years since some of the levees were first carved out using horse-drawn dredgers, the land protected by the levees has sunk dramatically - pushing some of it 25 feet below sea level. Scientists say such differences are putting huge stress on the levees, raising the possibility of breaks or seepage. Fears grew after the catastrophic collapse of New Orleans' levees after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
A drive around Tyler Island shows that some of Mello's fields sit near the island's average elevation of 9 feet below sea level. But Mello, whose family first bought land on Tyler in 1968, believes most delta islands are not as vulnerable as some experts suggest. The lowest subsidence occurs at the center of most islands, not up against the levees, Mello said, and farmers who cultivate two-thirds of the delta's 740,000 acres are using techniques to prevent erosion. Those include less-intensive farming, less burning to level land and growing fewer crops like white asparagus, which turned the topsoil "to flour," Mello said.
In addition, reclamation districts are spending millions to upgrade their levees, including about $6 million in the last eight years to raise 7 miles of levees on Tyler Island by about a foot. "I believe many of these farms, if not all of them, can be farmed indefinitely," Mello said.
He said forcing or allowing the levees to dissolve poses other major dangers, including the release of mercury accumulated in the levees during the region's strip-mining days. While environmentalists say creating tidal marshes and open water could boost important fish and plant populations, Mello and others say islands act as buffers for each other.
"There are difficulties finding one of the major islands you could flood and leave flooded without having a domino effect," said Tom Zuckerman, a retired Stockton water lawyer who now works with the Central Delta Water Agency. "You won't just lose one island; you'll lose the adjacent ones downwind."
Scenarios for the future
The debate over the delta levees will take on new urgency in the coming years as the state grapples with how to fix a water system plagued by leaky plumbing, booming demand and concerns over ecological damage.
A controversial proposal to construct a so-called peripheral canal - which would route water from the Sacramento River around the delta to pumps in the south - dovetails with the idea to let some delta islands return to marsh or open water. In such a scenario, any increase in salty water from the broader bay-delta estuary wouldn't affect the fresh Sacramento water streaming through the separate canal.
But many of the 6,000 people who live in the delta's interior say that option doesn't recognize important transportation lines, historic communities, schools, Victorian hotels, sought-after recreational activities and family farms.
Today's delta is a far cry from the tidal marsh that pre-dated modern development or the early operations of the Gold Rush. Many experts agree the delta's mix of islands and waterways has harmed native fish and plants that depended on the ebb and flow between river and bay.
Radical change is coming, they argue, whether forced by man or nature.
"With the delta, the natural systems are very dynamic and changing rapidly now," Travis said. "It's hard to have a political, legal, regulatory system that embraces that kind of change. It's hard, but we need to make some decisions."
After working for two years away from the ranch, Mello's son Gary, 22, came back to drive combines, work on irrigation systems and learn the intricacies of accounting. Mello, 53, hopes the island survives long enough for the next generation to take over.
"I'm trying to make sure it evolves and passes to them as a viable business," Mello said. "I think they're pulling the plug way too early."
Which levees should be saved?
Researchers at UC Davis say it may not make financial sense to save all of the at-risk Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta levees.
"I feel like a lamb surrounded by wolves, and every time you turn to deal with one, another one is nipping at you," said Mello, who farms about 2,500 acres of alfalfa, corn, pears, potatoes and wheat.
Fewer structures have been more critical to California's development than the 1,100 miles of earthen levees that help funnel water through the 1,300-square-mile confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. That water, mostly runoff from mountain snowpack, flows through a web of channels to mammoth pumps in the southern delta, sending billions of gallons of water to 25 million Californians.
But the levees are in trouble, experts say. Rising seas, earthquakes, subsiding land and floods pose dire threats on top of the escalating repair costs to the state. Rather than allowing nature to decide when and how the levees give way, many researchers and policymakers say, California should manage the inevitable reshaping of the delta by deciding which levees to repair after a disaster.
No rules exist yet. But beginning this year, government, scientists, planners, environmentalists and water agencies will attempt to reconcile their views on the barriers that have defined the delta for so long.
"The delta is two or three different places," said Will Travis, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. "From the perspective of the environmentalists, the delta is a piece of geography like San Francisco Bay or Yosemite that is near and dear. For water users, the delta is really a broad, leaky ditch and the water has to get from one side of delta through south side of delta."
Levee failures common
Over the last 100 years, delta levees failed 166 times and all but three were restored. In the next century, according to a recent, influential report by the Public Policy Institute of California, the average island at the core of the delta has a 99 percent chance of being inundated by levee failure.
The study concluded that as many as 19 islands in the delta's central area should not be repaired, depending on whether their property value includes land, structures and equipment. Many of those islands have infrastructure that includes railroads, bridges, aqueducts and energy facilities. As many as a dozen should be repaired, according to UC Davis scientists who wrote the report, while 11 are undetermined.
Tyler Island, where land and assets are worth about $126 million, may not be worth saving, they say.
The 2004 flooding of one island - Jones Tract - provided a stark example of the analysis that should go into a decision on any island, the experts say. A levee along the western side of the island collapsed, resulting in six months of repairs and pumping that cost $90 million, including $60 million in tax funds. The island's land was valued at $42 million, while assets on the island were worth about $500 million.
The cost of buttressing all delta levees to widely used standards runs into the billions.
"The delta means a lot of things, but what it doesn't mean (is) that all levees that presently exist must continue to exist and be maintained at taxpayers' expense without regard for benefit, difficulty or rationality of doing so," said Phil Isenberg, chairman of the governor's Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, a panel tasked with developing a sustainable delta management plan.
Sinking land biggest risk
A colossal earthquake, a 100-year rainstorm and the forecast of a 4 1/2-foot rise in the sea level by 2100: Each poses threats to the delta's levees, many of which sit below the level prescribed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
But scientists say one weakness compounds all of those calamities: land subsidence.
In the 150 years since some of the levees were first carved out using horse-drawn dredgers, the land protected by the levees has sunk dramatically - pushing some of it 25 feet below sea level. Scientists say such differences are putting huge stress on the levees, raising the possibility of breaks or seepage. Fears grew after the catastrophic collapse of New Orleans' levees after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
A drive around Tyler Island shows that some of Mello's fields sit near the island's average elevation of 9 feet below sea level. But Mello, whose family first bought land on Tyler in 1968, believes most delta islands are not as vulnerable as some experts suggest. The lowest subsidence occurs at the center of most islands, not up against the levees, Mello said, and farmers who cultivate two-thirds of the delta's 740,000 acres are using techniques to prevent erosion. Those include less-intensive farming, less burning to level land and growing fewer crops like white asparagus, which turned the topsoil "to flour," Mello said.
In addition, reclamation districts are spending millions to upgrade their levees, including about $6 million in the last eight years to raise 7 miles of levees on Tyler Island by about a foot. "I believe many of these farms, if not all of them, can be farmed indefinitely," Mello said.
He said forcing or allowing the levees to dissolve poses other major dangers, including the release of mercury accumulated in the levees during the region's strip-mining days. While environmentalists say creating tidal marshes and open water could boost important fish and plant populations, Mello and others say islands act as buffers for each other.
"There are difficulties finding one of the major islands you could flood and leave flooded without having a domino effect," said Tom Zuckerman, a retired Stockton water lawyer who now works with the Central Delta Water Agency. "You won't just lose one island; you'll lose the adjacent ones downwind."
Scenarios for the future
The debate over the delta levees will take on new urgency in the coming years as the state grapples with how to fix a water system plagued by leaky plumbing, booming demand and concerns over ecological damage.
A controversial proposal to construct a so-called peripheral canal - which would route water from the Sacramento River around the delta to pumps in the south - dovetails with the idea to let some delta islands return to marsh or open water. In such a scenario, any increase in salty water from the broader bay-delta estuary wouldn't affect the fresh Sacramento water streaming through the separate canal.
But many of the 6,000 people who live in the delta's interior say that option doesn't recognize important transportation lines, historic communities, schools, Victorian hotels, sought-after recreational activities and family farms.
Today's delta is a far cry from the tidal marsh that pre-dated modern development or the early operations of the Gold Rush. Many experts agree the delta's mix of islands and waterways has harmed native fish and plants that depended on the ebb and flow between river and bay.
Radical change is coming, they argue, whether forced by man or nature.
"With the delta, the natural systems are very dynamic and changing rapidly now," Travis said. "It's hard to have a political, legal, regulatory system that embraces that kind of change. It's hard, but we need to make some decisions."
After working for two years away from the ranch, Mello's son Gary, 22, came back to drive combines, work on irrigation systems and learn the intricacies of accounting. Mello, 53, hopes the island survives long enough for the next generation to take over.
"I'm trying to make sure it evolves and passes to them as a viable business," Mello said. "I think they're pulling the plug way too early."
Which levees should be saved?
Researchers at UC Davis say it may not make financial sense to save all of the at-risk Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta levees.
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