You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March, 2007.
I have no idea how I missed what was a very exciting piece of information to learn. (link) Simply put, plants emit methane. It calls for a revision of many of our views on how methane levels have fluctuated in the past and how unaccounted levels of methane actually have its culprit. I cant belive plants would actually do that to us. Dump a whole load of fart into the environment while we spend all our time cleaning it! Ok that was for comic relief and nothing more. The key finding really is not an anti- plant , pro- deforestation thing, but rather points to a means to explain why methane levels, carbon dioxide levels and vegetation in general fluctuated over time in an earlier earth. Now days the only fluctuations are those when we decide to fell forests. The counter intutive aspect relates to how methane emissions, attributed to anaerobic metabolism occurs in oxygen rich environments such as ours. I think the next few years should be interesting as this finding has some potential to revise our understanding of basic biochemistry. I might be extrapolating to places where I have no data points but I prefer to use the word ‘foresight’. It makes the whole thing sound more dignified.
References:
Methane Emissions from Terrestrial Plants under Aerobic conditions. Frank Keppler, John T. G. Hamilton, Marc Brass and Thomas Röckmann in Nature, Vol. 439, pages 187–191; January 12, 2006.
Its always nice to encounter an interesting question. It makes you think about blurred realities and try to draw disticntions across the borders of objects in this blurred field. That was just an excercise in complicated sentence construction which essentially means, its fun to think. Not that it means anything.
At what point do individuals blur for me? – that was the key question of the article. (link) Coming to think about it, its true that we are able to empathize lesser with masses rather than individuals. The article claims that the reason has to do with our ability to analyze numbers while disregard logic and reason when it comes to one person.
Our abilities are not superhuman and a rationalization of our senses leads to one to think that we are more likely to be able to help one person rather than a crowd of people. Of course, if you were Gandhi the defining units change. The mass becomes the individual. The boundaries are blurred and in some cases I guess things are best left that way.
In the broader scheme of things I wonder how this explains crowd behaviour or in more political terms, mobocracy. Where the individual has lost all logic and reasoning and blends into the crowd. This seems to be the opposite of the situation I have talked about before. Why does the individual in this case empathize with crowds and their ideals?
Auto insurance is a really big hassle. Incidentally while shopping for my auto insurance, here is what the Progressive website said at some point:
- Where you can find it
- Obviously, you know most of this stuff (if you need help figuring out your gender, you’re on your own).
(link)
I dont understand if thats supposed to be funny or not but it sounds a helluvalot politically incorrect to me.
Its funny that in order to understand what lateral thinking really means I have to turn to an unlikely source- Winnie the Pooh
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head…It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.
—A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
I read today that what matters as far as attractiveness goes is the way people walk. I realized immediately that I needed to do something about my walk. I walk in a slighlty duckish manner except that I rarely say quack quack. I usually have much more to say than that. At least Im glad someone didnt say that the way you walk also determines your personality. In that case I would have been a good swimmer and would have to like sea food. Of course added to that would be the additional aches of the ugly duckling that lays golden eggs. Ask a fairy tale for optimism and it will be laid out on a platter, hot and ready to eat. Wine might also be served on request.
What does walking truly reflect? I think it provides a means to get from one end to the other. Any additional advantages are purely coinicdental. Sometimes I wish, things were simply more than coincidences.
The compelling urge to write has been drowned in part by a conference. Now that its conveniently out of the way, I have to start seriously contemplating what I can do with all my spare time. I’m quite sad at the moment that time needs to keep moving and I need to peer into the future sooner than I wish I could. Everytime the clock ticks by it seems as if I want to turn it back one second. If only time were that malleable to twist around. The entropy of time doesnt have a fourth law of thermodynamics.
On the other hand, the bright side of things is that spring is busy perming its hair and should be ready to come out into the open anytime soon all ready to be photographed by the waiting paparazzi. The thought of spring brings about a mild reminisence to Wordsworth’s Daffodil’, “….tossed their heads in a sprightly dance..”
And perhaps life shall begin to look up and in some sense maybe hope will not be a useless indulgence after all but instead turn out to be the fabric that ties together every moment of our lives.
