When the Lights Go Out, Aliens Arrive

In many major cities across the world, there have been periodic blackouts when all power is lost.  New York and Los Angeles are examples and it has an incredible effect on the population.  Apart from the sheer inconvenience there are major side effects that are unexpected.   Here are some examples of blackouts giving numbers affected, location and causes.  The scale of these is hard to get your head around.

One interesting side effect of such blackouts is that the authorities regularly get phone calls about aliens at such times.  Particularly noticeable in urban areas, people tell of unusual headlights in the sky.  Strange shapes and brightness that they have never seen before.  They are actually seeing something that fewer and fewer of us ever get to see – the Milky Way.  The light interference from city life means the majority of us will never see our galaxy clearly.  It is spectacular and breath taking.  If you manage to get out into the country on a clear moonless night you will see what is just above us but invisible to so many.

Like so much of the good things in life the noise blinds us to their existence.  Despite the light and sound noise around, it’s important to find that quiet place that let's us really see where we are and who we are.

“One hour’s reflection is preferable to seventy years of pious worship” 

Baha'i Writings

Natives and Dancing

There is so much beauty in native populations.  A richness of culture and history that we have often destroyed throughout the centuries.  Australia and New Zealand are examples of what happens when such cultures are encountered.

The original inhabitants of Australia came from Africa 60,000 years ago.  It is thought because of a lower sea level they managed to make their way almost to Australia.  The actual distance, by sea, between Australia and New Guinea and Timor may have been as little as 90 kilometers.  Humans at that time did not have boats so it is thought that initial arrivals came by accident perhaps carried on drifting debris or on flotsam driven across by a tsunami.  Given the genetic homogeneity of the aboriginal population it is reckoned that perhaps a single pregnant female made the journey.

When Captain Cook arrived on the coast of Australia it had had a dramatic effect on the local native population.  The number of aborigines dropped from 300,000 to 60,000 and their lands were taken and they were not allowed to vote until 1967.  The aborigines did not have any idea of land ownership so the white settlers took over their land with relative ease.  Smallpox and other diseases, brought by the invaders, decimated the native population.  The decimation of the local inhabitants was dramatic and severe.  They suffered discrimination and on Tasmania they were eradicated completely, as if they were an unwanted infestation.

When Captain Cook later landed in New Zealand they may have expected a similar non-aggressive response from the natives of this smaller island east of Australia.  However, a very different type of native was encountered.  The Maori’s were far from the peace loving aborigines and had a warrior culture. This meant their reaction to the visitors was so hostile it would be 127 years before any white man would again attempt to enter their territories.  It must have become instantly apparent this particular native population would be no easy walk over.

Everyone is familiar with the All-Black’s rugby teams dance at the start of every match.  But the use of Maori dance to express a wider range of emotions is less well known.  I found the use of this art form to express grief unusually moving.  The release of anger and rage is dramatically felt as well as the powerful spirit of respect to their colleague.

Knowledge of the richness of such native cultures should enrich our understanding and development. They have much to teach us in terms of respect of both human nature and the environment.

Arsine, you don't smell it, you just die!

Arsine is an unpleasant gas and I had a big cylinder full of it.  We used it in gas deposition chambers to dope semi-conductor surfaces in our microelectronics lab in Queens. The main route of exposure is via inhalation although poisoning through the skin has been documented.  This gas attacks the haemoglobin in the red blood cells causing them to be destroyed by the body.  

Most people are more familiar with hydrogen cyanide as a means of killing.  Hydrogen cyanide irritates the eyes and the respiratory tract.  There is a faint smell of almonds that around 50% of the population will be able to detect.  In forensics, both gases will leave the victims with particularly red blood, a usual indicator that some sort of poisoning has occurred.  Unfortunately, with Arsine you will be dead long before you smell it.  There may be a slight smell of garlic on the breath of a victim of arsine poisoning and for cyanide poisoning that sweet almond smell can sometimes be detected.  It is particularly scary that Arsine does not smell, you know your nose will not alarm you to its presence.  

I reckon arsine even looks ugly, but that could be my paranoia. This flammable gas, ignites spontaneously in air, and as well as being highly toxic is one of the simplest compounds of arsenic. Here is a picture of a molecule of the stuff.  Perhaps, you are more familiar with its other form arsenic?  

Years ago they used the Marsh test to determine if arsenic had been used on a corpse.  This test produces arsine as an intermediate product. Despite its lethality, it finds some applications in the semiconductor industry.  Which is why, when I worked in university in N. Ireland, I had a huge canister of the stuff in the access corridor of our laboratory.  Not a small tiny campsite gas cylinder a huge one a meter and a half high.  

Remember that exposure to arsine concentrations of 250 ppm is rapidly fatal: concentrations of 25–30 ppm are fatal for 30 minute exposure, and concentrations of 10 ppm can be fatal at longer exposure times.  That is 10 parts per million, not an awful lot of the stuff is needed to take you down, silently without a smell not even a sniff of warning.  So, to have a huge tank of the stuff sitting in plain view was giving the fireman heart palpitations.  He had come to do the yearly fire inspection of the building and had reached the tenth floor without any major complaint.  Finding a corridor full of some of the most toxic gases, on this the last floor, was like a nightmare.  Part of their job is knowing when they are called to a building, in the event of a fire etc, exactly what the major dangers are.  Being aware that here in a quiet innocent corridor such dangers lurked was very important.  I felt sorry for him filling in all his papers.  For firemen it must seem the rest of the world is just trying to be difficult, lighting fires in forests, putting oil on stoves and forgetting, or buying in huge quantities of extremely toxic gas.  

He was a reasonable man in an unreasonable world.  I sympathised, he shrugged his shoulders and said not to worry.  They had just done a safety analysis on a Monsanto factory in N. Ireland and had found there, the biggest store of mustard gas in Western Europe.  That is the stuff used during the world war I.  Mind you that it turns out is the tip of a very unpleasant iceberg.  Among the many achievements of this company Monsanto has:

1.   Produced rBGH, also known as Bovine Somatotropin. It is a synthetic hormone that is injected into cows in order to increase milk production. However, many studies have shown that this produces adverse effects, behaving as a cancer accelerator in adults and non-infants. This biologically active hormone is associated with breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer.

2.   Other major products have included the herbicides 2,4,5-T, and DDT. The excitotoxin aspartame, and the controversial PCBs were also developed and produced by Monsanto. The company was sued, for the side effects of its Agent Orange defoliant used by the US military in the during the Vietnam War. More than 21,000,000 US gallons (79,000,000 L) of Agent Orange were sprayed across South Vietnam. According to the post-war Vietnamese government official statistics, 4.8 million Vietnamese  were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with some form of birth defect.  Furthermore, internal documents from the companies that manufactured it reveal that at the time Agent Orange was sold to the U.S. government for use in Vietnam, it was known that it contained a dioxin. 

3.     Its most recent pesticide Round-up is thought to be worse than DDT. Monsanto is the world’s largest producer of the herbicide “Glyphosate”, commonly used in “Round-Up”. (Glyphosate is the most used herbicide in the USA, and Roundup is the number one selling herbicide worldwide since at least 1980.) Roundup is also at the heart of much controversy in the scientific and health community, concerning human and mammalian side effects. A 2008 scientific study has shown that Roundup formulations and metabolic products cause the death of human embryonic, placental, and umbilical cells in vitro, even at extremely low concentrations.

  

I remember being reassured, all the years ago, that whatever horrors we had in our university Microelectronics Lab at least we were not the worst offenders.  Several decades later I am no longer reassured and am wondering what these guys are doing to us and our environment.  I won’t call it the most evil company on earth but some do.   Mind you be warned this article is a bit over the top!

See http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-complete-history-of-monsanto-the-worlds-most-evil-corporation/5387964

Desperation, perspiration, information and inspiration,

Exams are tortuous.  We have all been there, paper before us, the clock ticking.  The terrifying sound of others asking for more writing paper, while you stare mesmerised by your single blank sheet. There are the rare few of us who, from this dire situation, conjure up magic.  To those that pull that off, I salute you.  For example, the high school student who when asked to write a concise expressive essay on stubbornness, put pen to paper and wrote,
"No!"
But there are the even more creative that aught to be remembered.  This student was really putting his back into solving this equation and then at a certain point found an expressive way to sum up his despair.  Just love that little man hanging on the last integral sign.

Of course, the artists among us have a real opportunity to vent their frustration eloquently.  After all, they have the three basic necessities, a paper, pencil and hours of time!  Here's one who obviously decided this subject was not for him.

Then, there are those who use quirky dry humour to answer what defeats them otherwise, as Peter so brilliantly accomplished here.

I just have to admire their tenacity and application, instead of putting their head down in despair, from somewhere within a revolt occurred.  In the scariest of all places they found an answer.  Mind you, I cannot believe this student actually got an A+ for the following response!

Just occasionally, in this education system that is so questionable, sausage factory filling and exam driven, a question can elicit a response that makes the whole dire business worthwhile.  Here, was a student determined to fight back!

Finally, exams are a metaphor for life in many ways.  Our response to them both usually requires the same attitude.  This last one summarises it all nicely.  So, if you too are facing tests remember this useful guidance.