Introduction

Green Pastures And Still Waters


The most fascinating episode in my entire life was the day I witnessed ice growing from needle-like frazil through all phases into white ice.  There had been no snow, and I had seen no ice elsewhere that day. 

The location was a canal in the English countryside.  There was a classic stone arch bridge, a gentle cold breeze and a venturi effect. 

Unfitted Up ?


This article starts off with some serious points about science and law.

It will become apparent soon enough why I have posted this under 'humor'.

Please bear with me.


Unfitted up?

Being 'fitted up' means being 'framed' - being on the receiving end of criminal charges founded on false evidence.

It occurs to me that if a person is acquitted through the framing of a defence based on false evidence, or the bad 'framing' by the judge of good evidence then the expression 'unfitted up' might be apt.


Means, motive, opportunity + ?

actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea

The 2010 World Cup will be watched online by nearly a third of British football fans, according to a survey released today by PC World. They questioned over 3,000 Brits in the run up to the World Cup following a surge in sales of its wireless networking and video streaming gadgets.

What did they find?

 30% of fans, which equates to over 14 million of those expected to watch the World Cup live, are planning on doing so over the Internet.

Nearly a quarter (23%) revealed they would be using laptops or desktop PCs.

In the tragic Huntsville shootings reported in Nature News Feature (Life after Death. http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100512/full/465150a.html. Nature 465, 150-155; 2010), Amy Bishop, an Assistant Professor in the University of Alabama’s biology department, methodically shot her colleagues during a departmental meeting, killing three and seriously injury three others.

Long after the shots rang out during that fateful departmental meeting, the ordeal still continues to haunt the victim’s families as well as students and trainees in the now shattered department. While colleagues pitch in to bring the department back to life, one could not help but ask why this horrible crime was committed. Why would an assistant professor do the unthinkable?

Is Eyjafjallajökull Playing Possum?



Since the April and early May grounding of aircraft in much of Europe, the Eyjafjallajökull eruption has been producing - relatively - much less plume and appears to be dying down.  It is natural to ask: is Eyjafjallajökull playing possum, or does the volcano still pose a risk to European airspace?


Southern Iceland. Part of MODIS/ Terra image:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r01c03.2010153...

Players, most loudly in Brazil, are not happy with the Jabulani ball in use for World Cup 2010 and have made no secret about it recently - despite it being in use for months.    There hasn't been this much controversy over a World Cup ball since ... well ... the last World Cup, when the ball was called too smooth.

So will things get even weirder since the 2010 ball has new ridges and grooves?    They sure will, say physics experts at the University of Adelaide who believe the new Jabulani ball will play "harder and faster", bending even more unpredictably than its predecessor.

But why, and what will it mean for the World Cup?

No one says, "I am in favor of pollution" but how would anyone know who really cares?   Body language, claims a new book.

Professor Geoff Beattie, from The University of Manchester, says mismatches between gestures and speech will allow us to identify ‘green fakers’, regardless of what they actually say.

His research for the Sustainable Consumption Institute used video recordings to examine the gestures and speech of people with differing views on the environment while they talked about carbon labeling, global warming and their lifestyles.  By examining their gestures, each speaker showed a connection between what they were saying and what they actually believed, Beattie says.

How geeky do you have to be to attend a mathematical meeting every 4 years - and think India in August is a cool place to do it?   Pretty geeky.   The ultimate geeks.

If that is you, we know where you will be August 2010, when the largest gathering of geeks ever will happen in Hyderabad.   It's the International Congress of Mathematicians, the biggest and most prestigious international mathematical meeting, which takes place once every four years. No meeting in any scientific discipline has the kind of wide sweep that ICMs have: every branch of mathematics is covered and emphasis is on the essential unity of all mathematics.