"We did it because of Barack Obama. He said all those people in the Midwest, you’ve got to have compassion for them because they’re clinging to their guns and their Bibles. I found that quite offensive. We all go to church on Sunday and we all carry guns."
–Mark Muller, car salesman, quoted by BBC News
Obesity needs to be tackled in the same way as climate change, a top nutritional scientist has said.
In that case, let me get my soapbox…
You know, there is absolutely no proof that people are getting fatter. Sure, there are fat people around, but that’s just part of the long term historical trend towards people being better fed.
The occasional truly fat person is just a statistical blip. You’d expect to see a few around. That doesn’t mean there’s some sort of country-wide fattening.
Remember back in the 1970s and 80s when people were talking about “Live Aid” and the like? Back then, the big danger was getting thinner–and now they want us to forget about that and believe that the big danger is getting fatter! Hah!
There’s no proof that eating Big Macs makes you fat. Scientists are still undecided. There are a lot of possible alternative explanations. There’s no causal link, it might just be that fat people prefer the taste of Big Macs.
There’s a well-funded health industry conspiring to plant stories in the media suggesting that being obese and sedentary is bad for you, so that they can make more money selling diet aids and exercise equipment.
We can’t afford to do anything about obesity. If we did what the lunatic fringe wants, we’d destroy the fast food industry, Hershey’s, the TV and couch industries, and so on. We’d send America into another recession!
A recent BBC Panorama documentary has suggested that wifi Internet might be a major health hazard. Scary quotes about chromosome damage and radiation exposure have appeared all over the Internet.
Unfortunately, the documentary’s conclusions are junk science.
Let’s start off by noting the inverse square law, a piece of basic physics which applies to electromagnetic radiation exposure. Basically, the strength of a signal varies in proportion to the distance squared.
The people who put together the documentary measured the wi-fi signal at a distance of 1m, and the cell phone tower signal at a distance of 100m. From their measurements, they concluded that the wifi signal was “three times the highest level of the mast”.
Well, no, it wasn’t. Because the cellphone signal was measured 100x further away, it was attenuated by a factor of 100×100 = 10,000×. So an accurate quote would be that the wi-fi signal was “three times the level of the cell phone mast divided by 10,000″. Not as exciting, though, is it?
You might argue that it’s reasonable to measure at different distances because people don’t tend to sit close to cell phone masts, but they do tend to sit close to wi-fi equipment. However, think for a moment about how a cell phone works. Yes, the mast transmits a signal to your phone, which is 10,000× weaker by the time it gets to you. However, you don’t just listen to your phone; hence, it must also transmit your voice back to the network. And the same physics works the other way: the signal your phone transmits is 10,000× weaker by the time it gets back to the mast.
So as you might guess, the radiation your phone emits is much, much more powerful than the radiation that reaches you from any nearby mast. That’s the radiation levels the BBC program should have been measuring and comparing with wi-fi.
While raw power is measured in watts, the relevant measurement for assessing radiation danger levels is the Specific Absorption Rate or SAR, which is measured in watts per kilogram. An adult’s body has much more bulk to dissipate the electromagnetic field, hence it’s less susceptible than (say) a lab rat’s body.
The US limit on radiation from consumer mobile phones is 1.6W/kg. (That’s lower than the European limit, so we’ll take that as our guideline.) The limit for devices like wifi is a mere 0.08W/kg. (Figures are in FCC OET Bulletin 56.)
Those are the maximums. The actual SAR ratings of common mobile phones are well documented. A value of 0.9 is fairly normal, with few phones below 0.5. So already, it’s clear that the average mobile phone actually exposing you to 0.9W/kg is likely far more dangerous than the 0.08 W/kg theoretical maximum allowed for devices like wi-fi.
Let’s look at some actual figures for wi-fi output compared to phones. I haven’t managed to find SAR ratings for wi-fi (if you have any, let me know), so we’ll have to compare power output in both cases. Peak power output from a phone is around 2W, with the average being around 250mW, according to a handy page from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency.
Coincidentally, 250mW is the absolute maximum power output you can get from my wi-fi router (a Linksys WRT54GS). But to get that, you have to hack the firmware. The default power output for the router is around 20mW, 100× less than the phone. Now add in the fact that mobile phones are held against your head, whereas your wifi antenna is likely at least 30cm away from you at all times, and invoke the inverse square law again. The end result is that the electromagnetic radiation you get from wifi is a tiny fraction of that which you get from mobile phones.
As a UK Health Protection Agency scientist puts it in The Times, “a year sitting in a classroom near a wireless network is roughly equivalent to 20 minutes on a mobile.”
Aha, you say—what if you don’t use the mobile phone much? I’m afraid you still get irradiated. As you travel around, the signal from the nearest cell will get weaker. The phone checks signal strength every 7 seconds. If it drops off too far, the phone sends out an “I’m here!” transmission in order to locate another cell.
Given that each cell covers a square km or two, or as little as a few blocks in cities, taking a quick drive across town can involve your phone transmitting dozens of times. So wi-fi is a pretty negligible concern compared to carrying a mobile phone, let alone using one.
Wi-fi and phones aren’t the only sources of electromagnetic radiation, though. Wi-fi operates at 2.4GHz, which just happens to be the same frequency as your microwave oven. In fact, you may have noticed that your wi-fi signal strength is lower if you’re cooking something in the microwave, especially if your laptop is in the kitchen.
You might wonder why wi-fi operates at the same frequency as microwave ovens. Well, microwave ovens operate at 2.4GHz because that’s the frequency that’s best for heating up water molecules. For the same reason, it’s a bad frequency for long distance telecommunications through damp air, so it hadn’t been grabbed for any major commercial purpose. Hence, it was declared as free unlicensed spectrum for local low-power radio. This lack of regulatory hurdles led to innovation such as cordless phones, wireless video surveillance systems, and (eventually) wi-fi.
This also means that the effect of microwave exposure at wi-fi frequencies is simply heat. It’s not like nuclear radiation, it doesn’t mutate your genetic material; it simply warms up your water molecules a bit. From a scientific perspective, people are having a hard time coming up with theories to explain why localized warming of the body might cause damage. (In fact, it’s reported anecdotally that sailors on night watch on deck during WW II would stand in front of the radar in order to keep warm. They got hundreds of times the electromagnetic radiation warming you could ever get from a phone, yet they apparently didn’t suffer major damage.)
But let’s head back to the kitchen. Microwave ovens are allowed to leak up to 5mW/cm² at 5cm distance. A leaky oven may expose you to 0.256W/kg, at the same 5cm distance, according to measurements of leaky microwave ovens from the Australian Radiation Protection Agency. So at typical watching-lunch-rotate distance, it’s about the same level of danger as the radiation from your wifi router. So if you’re worried about wi-fi, you should be worried about your microwave oven too.
But there’s a much larger source of microwave radiation in your life. It’s called the sun. Summer sunlight at ground level can be up to 100mW/cm² of electromagnetic radiation. So standing outside on a sunny day irradiates you with 20× the radiation of a leaky microwave or wifi router, and a good chunk of it is microwave frequency.
So if you’re worried about electromagnetic radiation, perhaps the rational thing to do is what us computer scientists do—stay inside and browse the Internet via wi-fi, but never emerge blinking into the daylight…
Meanwhile, there are a growing number of people who believe that they are sensitive to low levels of microwave radiation like that found in wi-fi and sunlight. They call the phenomenon “electrosensitivity”. They claim that wi-fi and mobile phones give them headaches, make them nauseous, and so on, after just a few minutes. So, what’s the evidence?
Well, so far there have been at least 7 separate scientific trials in which allegedly electrosensitive people were asked to tell researches whether a mobile phone signal was present. In proper double-blind trials, “electrosensitive” people were unable to detect a mobile phone signal even after 50 minutes of continuous exposure. (Update: Here’s a very recent one.)
And even if they could have detected the signal—which they couldn’t—that wouldn’t have proved that the signal was responsible for their reported symptoms.
So if you believe wi-fi or mobile phones are making you ill, please do see a doctor—specifically, a psychiatrist. You may have a psychosomatic illness, you may be schizophrenic and believe you are picking up radio waves with your teeth, but you are not being made sick by people’s wireless Internet. If you truly believe you can tell when a mobile phone or wi-fi system is transmitting, sign up for a research study and prove it. You’ll be the first.
The sad thing is, though, that there are crackpots in even the highest levels of government. So expect to see more scare stories about wi-fi in the next few years.
I’m old enough to remember that back in the 80s, the scare story was about overhead power lines. They were making us nauseous, giving us cancer and leukemia, causing headaches. Funny how that risk seemed to vanish.
Someone has unearthed video footage from 9/11 of BBC news announcing the fall of the WTC7 building, in detail…half an hour before it happened. The reporter announces the fall of the building, adding details like exactly how many floors it has, when it’s still visible in shot.
The BBC say that it’s all just an innocent mistake due to confusion. And that their reporter can’t remember who might have told her that WTC7 had fallen. And that anyway, due to another innocent mistake, they’ve apparently lost all copies of all the video recordings of their 9/11 coverage.
So, nothing suspicious there, then. I mean, 9/11 was only the biggest news event of the past 50-odd years, I expect it was on an unmarked tape and someone just recorded over it with the football or something. Happens all the time.
As a result of the latest alleged foiling of a terrorist plot, new restrictions have been placed on airline travelers flying between the UK and US. Specifically:
As someone used to flying, I don’t set foot on a plane without at least a book, an audio player to drown out the screaming children, and a large bottle of water. Now, they say everything on the above list must be checked in to the hold.
An 8 hour flight, plus 2+ hours at the airport, with no music, no video games, not even a paperback book? Check my SLR and laptop in, so the baggage throwers can destroy them or steal them, like they stole my iPod charger and camera charger? Are they insane?
Yet according to the BBC, they’re thinking about whether to make these restrictions permanent. If they do, I think the airline industry is finished. I can’t imagine voluntarily flying anywhere with those restrictions in place.
I’ve had some pretty hellish flights. Like being trapped for 4 hours on a motionless plane stuck on the runway with no air conditioning. Like flying across the Atlantic, with the ‘flu, on a plane full of cheerleaders. (Really.) Try to make me go through something like that with no books and no music and I’d be a wreck.
I’ve been watching Life on Mars. The setup is: Manchester police inspector is in the middle of a very tense investigation and turbulent personal situation, when he’s hit by a car. He wakes up, apparently in the same spot, but in 1973. As far as he can tell, he’s really in the past—but from time to time, he also hears sounds that suggest that it’s all his imagination, and he’s really in a coma in a hospital bed in 2006.
He discovers he’s a police officer in 1973 also, and tries to make the best of the situation. The series reconstructs the Britain of 1973 in pretty exacting detail, and plays off the modern sensibility and policing techniques of the protagonist against the Sweeney-style approach. Manchester in the 70s was notorious for police corruption, and so bribery and fit-ups are standard operating procedure for some of his colleagues. The plots are twisty enough that I can’t predict the outcome, there’s a dose of humor now and again, and the series provokes thought about how much has changed in just 30-odd years. It’s the best TV show I’ve seen in years; I’d put it on a par with the new Dr Who. Thank goodness for the BBC.
BBC America will apparently be showing it later this year, so US readers should look out for it. Or, you could watch the inevitable shitty US network TV remake.
The original story in New Scientist:
Goth subculture may protect vulnerable children
About half of teenage goths have deliberately harmed themselves or attempted suicide, a new study suggests. But joining the modern subculture – which grew out of the 1980s gothic rock scene – may actually protect vulnerable children, researchers say.
Goths ‘more likely to self-harm’
Teenage Goths are more likely to self-harm than those in other social groups, a study has found.
[...]
The Glasgow study found that belonging to the Goth subculture – as 25 people did – was strongly associated with a lifetime risk of self harm (53%) and attempted suicide (47%).
The Independent then spins further:
Teenage ‘goths’ are four times more likely to self-harm
Teenage goths are more likely to self-harm than any other youth culture group, a study has found.
Rates of self-harm among goths under the age of 19 are almost four times higher than for other young people of the same age.
Not only do they say the same thing three times over to increase the emphasis, they also omit any reference to the possibility that self-harming kids might be more likely to be attracted to goth thus explaining the statistic, or that the community might actually protect them.
That’s probably why MedPage Today is now trying to combat hysteria by starting with two action points:
Explain to parents that this study did not determine whether Goth culture leads to self-destructive behavior or whether adolescents with those tendencies gravitate to Goth.
Advise parents that the researchers suggested that rather than posing a risk, Goth culture may offer young people valuable social and emotional support from their peers.
It’ll be interesting—or perhaps horrifying—to see how this plays out once the even-less-reputable news outlets pick it up.
From Russia via the BBC, news that a pack of squirrels joined forces and killed a dog that had been barking at them. Let’s just say I’m a bit skeptical.
Meanwhile, not much sign of The Twins recently. I think one of them might have been the squirrel I saw flattened down the street. Longtail and Blacktip visit regularly. Tiny too, though he doesn’t like the feed box, and we’ve run low on corn cobs.
Blacktip is still bulking up for winter. He now has jowls, and rolls of fat across his belly. The other squirrels don’t seem to be fattening up nearly as much. He brought the surviving twin with him once to feed, and the two of them climbed in the feeding box together. Incredibly cute.
A couple of days ago we had a brand new squirrel appear. A female, I think—I couldn’t see any nuts. She has a somewhat stripey tail, and patches of dark fur above her eyes which make it look like she has big bushy eyebrows. I’ve named her Frida, after Frida Kahlo, whose image is scattered all over Austin.
So it’s a total disaster in New Orleans. Three levees are breached, one of them has a hole over 150 meters across. 80% of the city is under water up to 6 meters deep. The entire city is without electrical power or water supply. It’s estimated that it will be 9–12 weeks before they can even get rid of the water, much less get the city habitable. Interstate 10 is broken chunks of floating concrete; there’s no route into the city for trucks and other major vehicles. Mississippi reports at least 110 dead; Louisiana hasn’t even begun counting—but there are bodies floating in the water-and-sewage filled streets. It’s estimated that up to 100,000 people were unable or unwilling to leave the city. The death toll could be in the tens of thousands by the time it’s all over. The official message is simple: everyone must leave New Orleans.
The Red Cross has around 40,000 people in emergency shelters. Another 25,000 are going to be sleeping in the Houston Astrodome. They won’t be going home any time soon, as once the water is drained from the streets every building will have to be checked for structural soundness and shored up; every sewer line will need to be inspected. Then, of course, there will be the electrical infrastructure to replace, and the leaking gas lines to fix. In the mean time, some of the people left alive in the city are looting. Police are finding it hard to stop them, what with meters-high piles of debris that they have to cut through with chainsaws even to be able to patrol on foot.
So the residents of New Orleans who evacuated might get to go home to a ruined shell of a home with no electricity, by Christmas if they’re lucky. But right now, the water’s still rising… the Army engineers who were trying to repair the levees have been forced to abandon the city. The National Guard is facing the problem that most of its members were shipped out to Iraq to make up for low troop numbers, so the city is basically lawless at this point.
The New Orleans aquarium is gone; sealions are wandering the empty space where it used to be. The President’s Casino is missing too. The public library is paper maché. Boats weren’t safe either, with an 8 meter wall of water hitting the coast.
It’s not just New Orleans either. The BBC have a photograph of an oil rig that was smashed into the Cochrane Bridge in Mobile, Alabama. Most of Mobile is apparently without electricity too. Biloxi, Mississippi is without electricity, water and sewerage.
Damage estimates so far are around $25 billion, it’ll probably be the worst hit for the insurance industry ever. Since the worsening storms over the last few years had already brought many insurance companies close to bankruptcy, I imagine a few will collapse this year.
2004’s hurricane season was close to the worst ever. This year’s hurricane season is only half over and has already surpassed it. It appears that the severity of hurricanes may be directly linked to global warming, while the frequency of them is rising with the natural periodic rise in ocean surface temperature. Combine the two and you have a deadly combination. Katrina was more than 300 km across, and meteorologists say things could have been much worse. If you think the Kyoto protocol would harm the US economy, that’s nothing compared to what a decade of steadily-worsening hurricanes will do to it.
Now let’s set the wayback machine to February 2005:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has identified millions of dollars in flood and hurricane protection projects in the New Orleans district.
Chances are, though, most projects will not be funded in the president’s 2006 fiscal year budget to be released today.
In general, funding for construction has been on a downward trend for the past several years, said Marcia Demma, chief of the New Orleans Corps’ programs management branch.
In 2001, the New Orleans district spent $147 million on construction projects. When fiscal year 2005 wraps up Sept. 30, the Corps expects to have spent $82 million, a 44.2 percent reduction from 2001 expenditures.
Of course, all the levee construction in the world wouldn’t have saved New Orleans from this disaster—but it might have reduced the death toll and damage a bit. But hey, at least we all got our wartime tax cuts, right?
Will this tragedy be enough to silence the people who say that everything is OK, that global warming is a myth, that it’s a good idea to send the National Guard to Iraq, that we should keep cutting spending on infrastructure and emergency planning so we can finance a war and still have tax cuts?
I’m betting it won’t. They’ll keep shrieking their denails, and ultimately they’ll get away with it because their beliefs are so much more palatable than the unpleasant reality. I predict that the Climate Change Science Program and NASA’s studies of climate change will still get their budget cut next year. Why even study whether global warming might be causing these disasters, when you can just choose to believe it isn’t?
And remember, this is not a partisan issue. Democrats supported the major budget cuts for the US Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans, and the cancellation of a study into what would happen if a hurricane hit the city. Democrats voted for the war in Iraq. When the Senate voted 95-0 against the Kyoto protocol on the grounds that it would result in economic harm to US industry and would exclude some nations (Senate Resolution 98 in 1997), those voting included John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.
New Orleans in particular is a problem people have known about for a long time. It was just waiting to happen, like the big earthquake in San Francisco, or Mount Rainier showering Seattle with ash and red hot debris. The big question in my mind is whether people will learn, or whether they’ll carry on as before and build a New New Orleans right where the last one was. Either way, I never got to see New Orleans, and now I never will.
From the BBC:
Police in Malaysia are hunting for members of a violent gang who chopped off a car owner’s finger to get round the vehicle’s hi-tech security system.
I guess he was lucky it didn’t use iris recognition.