Weather and growth of plants

We consume a lot of coriander leaves and for the past few years I have been trying to grow coriander in all kinds of seasons; generally summer is supposed to be the good season for vegetables in Melbourne. One year I sowed the seeds in the middle of April so that the plants were established before the onset of winter. Generally they have been lasting until November. Thet start seeding in Ocober but the lower leaves are edible until the middle of November. Generally they seem to grow quite big, some were about 6-7 feet tall this year. Those I sowed in November grew only one foot tall and have seeded already. Time to sow the coriander seeds again.

Cosanguinity marriage and depression

may be related according to a pilot study Relationship between consanguinity and depression in a south Indian population published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry.
P.S. I found this journal through a link in MindHacks. At the moment it is freely available online.

Heat Meditation

From g Tum-mo heat meditation:
"Monks in Tibet-that mountainous country so blessed with oddities-can consciously raise the temperature in their hands and feet 6-7º C (10-12º F), in laboratory conditions (Benson, et al., 1982). There appear to be several methods of g Tum-mo meditation, as described by Alexandra David-Neel (1965), but all seem to involve the visualization of oneself filled with fire. Whether, for adepts, such visualization is necessary for control of body temperature is not clear to me, because Benson reports that one of his research participants began undergoing g-Tummo changes every time he sat down. Monks will even have little contests where they spend a night on a river bank, repeatedly draping themselves with wet sheets, and seeing who can dry the most. I get cold just thinking about it.

It presumably takes some time to develop this ability, but apparently not so much that it is rare in Tibet: David-Neel claims that most Tibetans have the knowledge of how to do it, and that they put it to practical use.

What interests me about this is not simply that the mind has considerable control over the body-that is a familiar refrain from many areas of research. What interests me is that we could have this ability and not know it unless someone teaches us. No one had to teach me how to shiver, or to raise little body hairs, or to contract my blood vessels. So, if we are capable of mentally warming our extremities, why should we not automatically know how to do it? It seems that boundary in the temperature regulation system between what is automatic and what is susceptible to willed intervention is strangely situated."

I hope that this report is not true

Twenty five years after the Bhopal ragedy , this reort India absolves US N-suppliers of damages:
NEW DELHI: The Indian government has absolved American nuclear companies of liability in case of a possible accident during the building and installation of nuclear reactors and facilities in India. A Civil Nuclear Liability bill cleared by the Union Cabinet late on Thursday presents India’s desire to work with the American firms. Washington has been asking New Delhi that the nuclear deal the two countries signed last year would be futile as the American companies, and most Western firms, would not do business with India unless the liability law was promulgated. Most American companies see huge investment potential in India and only want it to have a law to limit the claims for damages in the wake of an accident that may occur before they hand over a nuclear plant to the country. In the bill, the Indian government is seeking to bear the entire compensation for any nuclear accident. iftikhar gilani

A new book about structures

John Levi Marin's Social Structures is drawing some attention from academics RIP levi-strauss, long live structuralism. A nice review by Gagan Sood appeared in the Science Magazine Asking About Origins, but is behind the paywall. Here is the conclusion of Sood's review:
"It is too early to tell whether Martin's explanation of where structures come from will stand. "But if we are to see whether structural analysis can make a contribution to a general sociology, even simple initial accounts are encouraging." From this vantage, there are many reasons to be encouraged by—and to applaud—this work. The value of the book and of its larger research agenda might, thus, lie not in having produced clear answers to the questions posed at its outset but in suggesting powerful and promising ways in which that fundamental topic might be approached. For this alone, Social Structures deserves a wide readership and its ideas a sympathetic hearing."

Life in Auschwitz

The man who smuggled himself into Auschwitz :
"He describes Auschwitz as "hell on earth" and says he would lie awake at night listening to the ramblings and screams of prisoners.

"It was pretty ghastly at night, you got this terrible stench," he says.

He talked to Jewish prisoners but says they rarely spoke of their previous life, instead they were focused on the hell they were living and the work they were forced to do in factories outside the camp.
"There were nearly three million human beings worked to death in different factories," says Mr Avey. "They knew at that rate they'd last about five months.

"They very seldom talk about their civil life. They only talked about the situation, the punishments they were getting, the work they were made to do."

He says he would ask where people he'd met previously had gone and he would be told they'd "gone up the chimney".

"It was so impersonal. Auschwitz was evil, everything about it was wrong." "
P.S. Frontline Vol. 26 :: No. 24 Nov 21 - Dec 04, 2009 has several articles on Dalit life in India.

Problems for pedestrians in India

by Madhav Badami in The Hindu:Where the pedestrian is a third class citizen .
In Hyderabad I have seen people who drove long distances to Brahamanda Reddi Park for safe walking exercise in the mornings.

Two links to Indian writers

Amitava Kumar on Suketu Mehta Suketu Mehta One Story High
Review of Roadrunner: An Indian Quest in America by Dilip D'Souza

Tadepalli about the influence of Sanskrit on Telugu

From [తెలుగుపదం] తెలుగులో క్తాంతాలు - చరిత్ర, కల్పన:
"అచ్చతెలుగులో కూడా ఇలాంటి నిర్మాణాలు చెయ్యడానికి అవకాశం ఉందని కొన్ని పదాల ద్వారా తెలుస్తోంది. కానీ అలాంటి నిర్మాణాల సూత్రీకరణకి సాంప్రదాయిక తెలుగు వ్యాకరణాల్లో స్థానమివ్వడం జఱగలేదు. కారణం - ఒకటి, ఈ అవకాశం ఉన్నట్లు మన పూర్వీకులు గ్రహించక పోవడం. గ్రహించక పోవడానికి కారణం - ఆ పదాల మార్గంలో నూతనపదాల కల్పన అప్పటికే స్తంభించిపోయి ఉండడం. సంస్కృతం నుంచి అన్ని పదాల్నీ యథాతథంగా దిగుమతి చేసుకోవడానికి అలవాటుపడి ఉండడం. రెండోది, మన పూర్వుల్లో అధికసంఖ్యాకులు వల్లమాలిన సంస్కృతాభిమానం చేత అంధీకృతులు. ఈ పిచ్చి అభిమానం మాతృభాషని ఇతోఽధికంగా పరిశోధించడానికి అప్పట్లో ఒక పెద్ద మానసిక ఆటంకం (mental barrier) గా మారింది. ఆ శోధించిన కొద్దిపాటి భాషని కూడా సంస్కృత పద్ధతుల్లోనే శోధించడానికి మొగ్గుచూపారు. తెలుగుని ఒక ప్రత్యేక వ్యక్తిత్వం ఉన్న భాషగా వారు పరిగణించలేదు. తెలుగుభాషకే సొంతమైన, విలక్షణమైన అనేక విషయాలు సంస్కృత వైయాకరణ పరిభాషతో వివరించడానికి సాధ్యం కాకపోవడంతో అవి అపరిష్కృతంగా, అసూత్రీకృతంగా మిగిలిపోయాయి. తత్‌ఫలితంగా ఆంధ్రభాషాభూషణం ఒక్కటి మినహాయిస్తే అహోబలపండితీయము మొ||న మన ప్రాచీన వ్యాకరణాలు సైతం సంస్కృతంలోనే సంస్కృత పద్ధతుల్లో వ్రాయబడ్డాయి."

Science books for kids (and grownups)

"As times have changed, so has the science - and so should science books. Just in time for holiday giving, here's a selection of books for kids (and grownups) that incorporate recent developments on the scientific frontiers". Here is a selection by Alan Boyle Science by the book (via 3quarksdaily).

John Stallings reminiscences

at Notices of AMS Remembering John Stallings.

Sharing information with colleagues

Do academic scientists share information with their colleagues? Not necessarily from a survey of bio=scientists:
"“Every scientist knows that science advances only if knowledge is shared,” (Warnick and Wojick 2009). Science is a cumulative process, so its progress and benefits to society hinge critically on multiple scientists testing and building on each others’ work. However, the contribution to the “scientific commons” (Merton 1973) is challenged by individual scientists’ self-interest. While a scientist who shares her results during the research process provides the stepping stones for discovery by others, they may not acknowledge her contribution. Indeed, misappropriation of scientific research and increased reluctance to share information and materials is considered a major problem in science (Cohen and Walsh 2008, Couzin-Frankel and Grom 2009).................
the higher is the reward for solving the problem, the less willing are scientists to share information through conferences and working papers.
Our models emphasise very different aspects of sharing – with the sole exception of the competitive environment. This is important because it means that the important policy question is not “whether open science” is practiced, but rather is “how open science can be supported in different environments.” We find that in both models the competitive environments reduce the practice of open science. Note that competition increases with value of the returns, or prize, for scientific solutions. This means that introducing valuable prizes may induce scientists to increase their research efforts, but it also is likely to stifle their willingness to openly share – one-on-one or with everyone. It also supports recommendations such as that of Rennie et al. (1997) that papers should acknowledge the work that is done by all contributors, where a contributor is a person who "has added usefully to the work", because such acknowledgement would, to some extent, mitigate competition.

It is also important to realise that both the commercial and intellectual value of prizes may stifle the practice of open science. While concerns over open science have escalated as scientists recognise the commercial potential of their work, the dampening effect of competition on sharing need not depend on commercial value. Prizes that enhance scientific reputation also dampen the incentive to share. Indeed, for the bio-scientists in our sample, intellectual prizes, rather than patents or engagement with industry through consulting (which we would expect to be related to commercial potential), reduce the likelihood of one-to-one sharing. In contrast, patents and consulting both decrease the likelihood of general sharing by the bio-scientists in our sample. Similarly, scientists who consider their research to be applied are less likely to generally share.

Conclusion
These results suggest that increased government research funding is likely to promote information sharing. However, our analysis shows that this is only true to the extent that increased research funding relaxes competition. Increased funding makes it more likely that individual scientists working on a problem will receive funding, but it is also likely to draw more scientists to work on the problem."

In areas like mathematics where data sharing is not so significant, there re other problems. There is a tendency to pre-empt others by putting out sketchy papers and then trying for years to prove them.

Private college fiasco in Australia

From The Age Private college system a fiasco in need of a fix by Sushi Das:
"Even as the rot in international education is laid bare, the Victorian Brumby Government would like us to believe the problems with private colleges are restricted to a handful of small, fly-by-night operators. Rubbish.

The recent closure of nine colleges in Melbourne and Sydney left nearly 3000 stranded foreign students clinging on to nothing more than hope.

Known collectively as the Meridian colleges, some had been operating since 2006, and one since 1999. All were owned by Global Campus Management, which is in turn owned by the big Cayman Islands-based SinoEd Group.

These colleges were neither small, nor fly-by-night. They closed because Global Campus Management went into voluntary administration after investors lost confidence in the colleges' survival on projected student numbers. Undoubtedly, a business decision that not only put profit before the quality of education, but also showed callous disregard for students, some of whom were just weeks away from finishing their courses.

Nobody is saying the bigger private colleges are taking under-the-counter payments for certificates or issuing fake work-experience documents, as some smaller colleges are accused of doing. But the fact remains that students have as many complaints about the big colleges as they do about the small ones.

And many of these complaints arise from college operators putting profits ahead of education and welfare - something federal and state governments have condemned.

Despite the business-led closures, the Victorian Government, which only months ago refused to acknowledge there was a looming crisis, now wants us to believe the mess is being cleaned up by an official crackdown. The truth is the Meridian colleges were not even targets of the Government's current emergency audit of 41 "high-risk" colleges.

So far this year, a total of nine private colleges for domestic and foreign students have closed in Victoria alone: eight prompted by financial concerns and one forced by the education regulator because of failure to comply with course and teaching regulations.

Belatedly, the Government is trying to bring about changes to boost the power of the regulator to close colleges sooner. These measures, while welcome, should have been taken years ago - when industry insiders were screaming about major systemic problems in vocational education; when students were lodging complaints; and when news reports were regularly exposing rorts and scams.

Skills Minister Jacinta Allan has presided over a $5.4 billion export industry that has allowed private college operators to grow rich on the back of exploitation of students from developing countries. And up until about a week ago, she did not lift a finger to improve the workings of the regulator, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority.

The regulator's limp-wristed approach has allowed people to open colleges without rigorous scrutiny. Operating at the moment are colleges whose chief executives know nothing about education, colleges managed by people still in their 20s, colleges that teach automotive training from the ninth floor of a building, colleges that do not keep proper records and colleges that threaten to have students deported unless they pay fees in advance of the due date.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has blamed state regulators for the crisis. But the Brumby Government has yet to acknowledge its part in the fiasco that now undermines Victoria's biggest export earner.

As colleges collapse, and more are predicted to close, increasing numbers of displaced students must be provided with alternative colleges or be given a refund. It is their legal entitlement.

Many are being absorbed by bigger private colleges. But could these colleges collapse too? There is certainly no shortage of students complaining about being ripped off, mistreated and generally messed about by them.

Two of the bigger colleges taking on displaced students are Cambridge International College and Carrick Institute. They have their own problems. In August, The Age revealed that Cambridge, run by Roger Ferrett, was struggling to deal with a crisis in its welfare course. There were allegations that hundreds of students were being shunted through sub-standard workplace training.

Carrick Institute is also dealing with unhappy students, including one who is seeking $90,000 damages in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal after his student visa was revoked and then returned by the Department of Immigration. The visa fiasco resulted from the college's alleged failure to keep proper attendance records.

And, in an unbelievably audacious twist, owner Catherine Carrick wants taxpayers to help bail out private colleges because they are burdened by displaced students.

Turmoil, uncertainty and fear plague the international education industry. Three things are now urgently needed: an industry-wide solution to the crisis; a complete rethink on whether private colleges in a deregulated environment are the way forward for vocational education; and an education regulator that has the power and the will to do its job properly."