Implicit Self
Images from my soul, dedicated to the world that makes me
So, how is the weather out there?
If you are one of those people like me, who (used to) get quite annoyed at this conversation starter, ice breaker, segway to a different topic, means to fill a pregnant silence, I am sorry to inform you of my defection to the other side.
It happened suddenly, when I realized that my persistent blurry vision, got some respite as the weather improved for a day. I have had to guess what the computer is writing when I type, for over three weeks now. Thankfully, I have not had to perform any analysis at work during this time. When suddenly, as the thermometer rose last saturday, I saw clearly for a whole two hours. That was all, but still.
Now I see ( from my mind’s eye only) how important this conversation starter would have been in different times, when conversation started between individuals who really had no idea what was happening in distant places. Then they met someone from that place, and wanted to know the most important thing, the thing that mattered to them everyday where they lived. Might have even governed their livelihood. The way to show concern, true real world concern ( not a response to a FB status update), would have been to enquire about the weather.
Then, there are several other health conditions, asthma, arthritis, other allergies, that get worse or better with the weather. So hey, an indirect way to inquire about health, to be polite, or discreet. Is it too humid (for your knees)? “is it raining nonstop again?”
I don’t think that natural disasters are exactly the ‘weather; but they are often related to it. Like, in Oklahoma, tornado weather is preceded by thunderstorms and rain.. So, do you think there is a possibility that all that you condsider yours can be flattened to the ground tomorrow?
I can imagine that for the scientists of the past century, climate may even have determined the success of their experiments. For naturalists, it no doubt still does. Geologists, conservationists, all affected by the climate.
So, next time someone asks you, even if you know they don’t care about the answer, about the weather. Reply with care. It affects them and you more than you think.
I am not going to get into climate change, today. But clearly, it maybe soon that the weather will begin to determine where we can live, and eat and travel to, more than it does now. And while I am at it, I just want to say that I hate winter. Really. Can’t see the big deal about snow! It is inconvenient, may cause accidents, is ugly when it begins to melt or begins to freeze.. What is the big deal? pppffff and now I can’t see well when it is cold. Though, I don’t know if I ever will, it has only started last month.
The doctor told me today that I have eyes as dry as the Sahara desert ( or any other desert that I prefer when he saw my sad face). I recall the old adage, at least in India, when they used to tell me not to cry too much. I could run out of tears. Then, how would I cry the next time? That was when I was maybe 8 or 9. I remember imagining a tank behind my eyes, which could get empty, like the tank that supplied water to our apartment that needed to be filled every morning. But, since clearly, I had no way of filling this tank in my head, it was even more likely to run out. I think it did have an effect on me, has not stopped my tears over the years, but I still remember thinking all this. Again. Wives tales or old wisdom, clearly came from somewhere.
Bird Diversification and Hubble’s Law
AN INTERNATIONAL team of scientists has ruffled the feathers of old beliefs on evolution in birds. Using rigorous taxonomical classification and DNA-sequence data, the researchers have developed world’s most comprehensive phylogenetic tree linking all the 9,993 identified bird species. The tree shows that contrary to popular belief the diversification rate in birds is accelerating.
The study, published in Nature on October 31, uses the branching pattern of the tree to represent the evolutionary relationship between different bird species. As the tree developed, scientists observed interesting diversification patterns in bird species. They had expected to find geography and lineage-specific variations in different bird species. Several experts had suggested that the rate of evolution would be higher in the tropics, as up to 75 per cent of all bird species are found there, and that birds living in the islands would show more diversity due to a restricted gene pool ( see below for the correct reason and why I left this on here). The results, however, quashed some of these beliefs.
“We did find increased diversity in islands, like the song bird species that populate the Pacific, North Atlantic and Caribbean islands. However, we did not find any increase in the rate of evolution in the tropics with respect to the world wide rates,” says Arne Mooers of Simon Fraser University in Canada. He is one of the researchers behind the study that provides experimental data to test existing theories about bird diversification.
While it was expected that the diversification rate would be slowing down, the scientists found it is accelerating instead, especially in North and South America.
Alternatively, the rate was lower in Australia, Southeast Asia, Africa and Madagascar. Other than the song birds, rapidly evolving species include types of waterfowl, such as ducks and geese, gulls and woodpeckers, the study said. “I believe we have to devise new tests to understand various factors that regulate the production of species. Future studies need to be designed keeping that in mind,” says Mooers.
Initial steps towards building the tree involved comparing DNA sequences of all known bird species. Those with similar sequences were placed together on the tree, as most of the similarity is due to shared ancestry. Mooers says closely related species differ only at a few base positions. Researchers used fossil data to find an anchor or the original ancestor and age of a group.
Albert Phillomore, a scientist at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology of the University of Edinburgh in UK, says, “This paper represents the biggest advance in our understanding of the bird tree of life in two decades. It builds on the contribution of hundreds of small studies and I think this tree will be used in hundreds of future studies.” He says a good aspect of the study is that species lacking DNA sequence data too are inserted into the tree.
This story was published in the Indian science and technology magazine called Down To Earth, where I free lance sometimes.
My title differs ( they titled it as: All birds in one tree) because the increase in diversification rate reminded me the universe expanding, somehow. Even if this universe seems to be limited to islands and far off lands, rather than the tropics. I am sure there are several grammatical errors in the story, which I failed to correct. In my defense, it is hard to correct mistakes you did not make and therefore do not anticipate. But still, it is at least partially my fault, for not fighting enough. Apologies.. If there aren’t any.. then we all know who likes to act superior don’t we. Other than grammatical errors, I always also find reality errors, and here again the copy editor or whoever it is that wrote this says, ‘ more diversification in the islands due to a restricted gene pool’, only the really imaginative people can arrive at the correct meaning of that sentence. I have no idea why a restricted gene pool was thought to be the right choice for an explanation when I had clearly stated it to be exposure to a new environment. I wonder if science writers from other countries face this problem? Or is it just India.
I was told that I should make final changes before they made the final draft, which cannot be corrected for further errors, especially if the errors were too big. They may not have come out and said this in these many words. Of course. Not to be left behind, I told them that I had to correct scientific mistakes as I preferred not to appear like a fool. However, irrevocably, I always, always, always do. This one sentence would have led to two nights of sleeplessness, so I didn’t read this when it came out. It was too late to change anything anyway. I had had to correct several other errors in this draft, which in my defense, was why I missed this. They had a rate of formation of “one new species every 700 yrs (when I asked, how? and who calculated this, no response) and rate of diversification as evolution, which is understandable, albeit, incorrect. Finally, they didn’t mention song birds at all. The most diversified species that exist, with the highest no. of species. Seriously. They mentioned ducks and geese and woodpeckers. I absolutely HATE it when a small point of any scientific article is given more importance, even if it was incorrect (scientists are people too, you know) while the MAJOR point is lost. Especially, if the MAJOR point was arrived at without any scientific misconduct or errors. A lot of it may be caused by media and science writers, a lot by other scientists. But whoever causes it, it just annoys me immensely. Hence, I missed this restricted gene pool mention. Sweat….
I hope that if the copy editor or the editor ever reads this, they don’t take offense, this is not personal. But it is MY story and I am a scientist who cannot be trusted by other scientists if she writes these ridiculous things..
So, why do I write for them at all? Well, they let me write for them when no one in the U.S. would have. I was told in the U.S. that my skills were not up to even taking an undergrad course. So, I have a loyal streak.. But that was three yrs ago, and loyalty wears thin with time.
Both the birds shown above are song birds, the blue backed manakin (top) and the violaceous euphonia (bottom).
Capitalism and democracy, where there is compassion..
A lot of people believe that somehow capitalism and compassion do not go together. Also, capitalism and democracy. Some of these people are considered to be great thinkers of our time or history, others are my friends, yet others are no one in particular. I have only just realized that free market and capitalism are different things, given how definitions seem to change over time and are promiscuous like that. Something Orwell enshrined as Newspeak. However the repercussion of words and their changing meaning begins as soon as they are spoken. Not even waiting for a few minutes they begin to get misconstrued almost as soon as they leave anyone’s thoughts and enter the world through air or matter.. Put out of context, they get further mutilated and magnified to celestial levels or belittled. Perhaps even before they are spoken, because what are we if not products of half imagined and half fantasized with a topping, even if inedible, of educated beliefs. After all, what is noble to me, may seem greed to some.
Additionally, who am I to distinguish between the two most talked about and apparently least understood terms in economics, least understood even perhaps by people who talk most about it, though not by everyone of course. I am sure a lot of people you know think that give consumerism, in other words, the act of going and buying something off a shelf somewhere, somehow makes the economy better. If people don’t have money to buy then things don’t go off the shelf and thats what makes the economy bad. I personally knew many people who think that. However, it is not true. Manufacturing or producing the things that go on the shelf is the backbone of economy. Manufacturing more and exporting, thats good for the economy and the ever increasing trade deficit for the US. Producing more than you spend and saving it in a form that can grow with time, thats what makes an economy good. You cannot clearly make more cars and save them for the future, but you CAN sell as many cars as are going to be needed and use the profit for something else that will provide long term benefit, for example in innovation. Just getting people to buy more stuff, most of which they cannot afford, is only bad for the economy as they are buying it on ‘credit’ and financial credibility is often something they don’t have. Plus they are also often buying things that are poor in quality and demonstrably bad choices. But apparently, only someone with no compassion can point that out to them.. If they cannot have a something of high quality because it is expensive, surely, they should be allowed to have a cheaper version of it. Yes, that is surely true, especially since the idea is that innovation will drive the prices down eventually, until the intellectual property acts and patents start providing all kinds of special favors to companies and essentially give rise to monopoly, because competitors can use nothing that their priors have used to design better options. Neither capitalism nor free market can ever justify such a thing and yet, that exists. With monopoly, people can maintain the price tag or enhance it and not invest in innovation that should be working on making things better and or cheaper. Such stagnation and monopoly is evident in how medical tests costs, MRIs etc., using technology that has been around for a while, show no signs of actually reducing over time. Unlike every other technology on the planet. The reasons are merely political and ‘capitalistic’.
There are two sides to that coin as well, if you developed the idea you clearly have no wish what so ever to give it away for free. Or to ever lose sight of it and stop making money off of it. But here, you are an individual and do not be in any doubt that should you ever have an idea that can change the world in any small part, you are not going to own it for very long, even if you own it at all. Only companies and big companies at that, have the power and resources to hold on to patents for time immemorial. Not that they don’t deserve it, because no doubt they build some things that made them big. Or something like that, they probably got it off an individual who sold it to them, for the lack of a better alternative, but anyhow they do stand for some technology or product. At least, they are supposed to. The extent to which the big company’s intellectual property, so to speak, should be protected by laws, however, is debatable. Because costs of things, should only be going one way and that, we all agree, should be down. Consumer goods that is, not the value of a dollar or gold. That should in the ideal world, be going up. It never does that for paper money, especially since enlightened past presidents of the US thought that the ‘gold standard’ is not good enough for USD.. Hence the coin is actually heavily loaded towards one side, and its not the side of the individual at all and neither is the coin made of gold..
That does not mean that no one should build companies because as soon as they get big they become monsters. They should in general, be aware from the outset that they cannot become monsters, so build products with such quality and innovation that they compete in the free market and still stand out. Utopia. However, some German cars do that. Apple itself still makes good products, but things like the iPad and then the iPad mini that simply have no real value, don’t solve any new problems, are priced based on their attractiveness or how much they are coveted in society, rather than usefulness and more over produced in other countries ( who clearly, have found a way to use consumerism to their benefit, and will no doubt find a way to make it work, even in a free market). Can buying them possibly make the economy better??? In the same way, buying anything that does not solve a problem and is poor quality, does not make sense. Instead invest in something that can get better with time, or be useful later, like retirement funds.
As for lack of compassion in the capitalist ( the one who believes in free market) at heart. Really, any body who is good with money acts responsibly and has perhaps had previous generations that have acted responsibly, they cannot be blamed for doing so. It is true that poor people should not be taxed because they don’t make enough money, as it happens, they are not taxed. What is truer is, no one should be taxed. Because if an individual cannot always be considered to be financially responsible, how can the government elected by many such individuals be more responsible? So if a person making money does not want to spend it in charity, it really should be his or her own choice, however, millionaire philanthropists do exist, so it is not like all rich people are heartless. As a corollary, compulsive gamblers, alcoholics and drug addicts also exist and no one is trying to get them to do charity either, they often fall in the category of people who expect charity because of their habits. Claiming that it is circumstances that drove them to it, because they have not been given a ‘fair’ chance in the world, that is dominated by the rich. The world is dominated by the rich because, unlike in a true free market, the rich have political power that can be wielded in any direction they like. Take the political power away, and they will have to bend to the norms, making good their claim of manufacturing products or services they are supposed to be providing for the benefit of investors or consumers. Nothing less could capture and hold a market, because compassionate or not, majority of people can tell the difference between a good product and a bad one, technology and services after all, do not need a seasoned critic to analyze their beauty. However, like art, there are and always be takers for different types of products, some for their color, or uniqueness or how well it goes with their lifestyle.
Therefore, the only resort is to oppose every possibility of government encroachment of individual freedom. Especially when someone tries to tell you what they believe to be is good for you, and you believe and have demonstrated that you are fully capable of determining that yourself. At the very least, you should not be paying for the folly and profligacy or ruthless pursuit of world domination or covert actions conducted in the name of peace that no one can put a finger, of others. It is true that a lot of people are not able to determine what is best for them.It would be astonishing to find someone who has never made a mistake. However, that is a lesson life, family and friends teach, certainly not someone you are never likely to meet. The right to choose and independence, while respecting others’ rights and lives, can only be appreciated when one has fought for their own..
Weekly Photo Challenge: Renewal
This image are from Trinidad and either just after or during it was raining! The hummingbirds, especially the White necked Jacobins ( like the one above) frolick around in the rain, as if to show off that unlike other birds, hummingbirds are not afraid of catching a cold! They can shrug off all the rain water with a mighty shake and be good as dry in a few seconds ( actually milliseconds!).
For details of my Trinidad and Tobago trip, with more photographs, you can follow these links
https://implicitself.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/in-trinidad-when-it-pours-you-reign-part1-of-2/
https://implicitself.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/in-trinidad-and-tobago-part-2-of-2/
Growing up and electing a president
Politics and economics, two fields mostly misunderstood and misrepresented and permanently shrouded in mystery for the average person. The very person most manipulated and affected by them, even as he or she either accepts ignorance, claims injustice or expresses disdain for one or both. Justice: another tough word. When we were young, we were taught to be fair and not take sides when making a decision that can affect the handing out of moral justice. The only kind of justice left in the hands of individuals to dissipate. We were also told, that is the most important kind. After all, who doesn’t want to be told they are important in matters that matter and things that count.
Your vote counts.. go and cast your vote if that is indeed the only thing you do! It is the most important thing you can do in your adult life for society, the society that does so much for you, the government you must participate in if you call yourself a responsible citizen of this world, of democracy. The very society that is mostly a silent invigilator, maintaining vigil in a manner mostly inconsequential because it will never herald a change by speaking out of turn. In India, all middle class kids are taught at some point in life, whether at home or school, that the country comes first. Remember the freedom fighters who fought for this freedom you enjoy, remember their sacrifice. Be them, and if you cannot, love your country more than you love yourself. Some of us, grow up believing that. I did.
The businessmen in India, are often looked down upon as culturally and morally inferior. Basically corrupting society with their money-making mind sets that do not respect laws among other finer things in life. For the longest time Gandhi had such a presence in Indian society of being incorruptible ( which for all intents and purposes, we can assume he probably was) that he changed the entire outlook for generations, as political leaders came out as being the ‘true’ leaders of a nation. Thats what an individual can do. A society, other than the mass movements in French revolution historically, Egypt and Libya more recently, doesn’t really do much. Almost never, for anything that can last for generations. The power of an individual, over society, nations and even the whole world – Hitler being a notorious example, can and should never be understated. Karl Marx is also only slightly less notorious. The power of an individual is not moving with the herd, it is always in leading a herd. Small or large. Without a herd there can be no leader of course, but evolutionarily, living in a herd provided us enough benefit to make one, something anyone with some talent and a lot of will can accomplish, easier still, if its the other way around.
Even if, today, we are much more aware of the corrupting forces and their burgeoning power in the government , we are not in a position to choose a better future for us. That is because an individual vote doesn’t count, not in India and not in the U.S., and they can never be counted on to bring such changes that will actually change the world for a better place.The leaders with power, corporations, lobbyists, powerful supporters for an incumbent president, easily over- ride the power of a vote. They should, they worked hard to get where they are or their previous generations did by hook or crook, they will not allow something as simple as a vote ballot to overpower them. Not even if it is in thousands. Because once the vote is cast, it is on its own, even less powerful than a powerless person casting it. The people of Florida know that. Elections will always be close in this world of sophisticated liars and delusional or misinformed and self absorbed people, which is not the same as self empowered people. So in such high stake games, the results are rigged. On the other hand, if these business men were left to themselves and had to work for profit- basically in a real free market, without being assured political maneuvers that could come to their rescue whenever they needed, they would make better informed decisions, work more efficiently and not be able to forcibly acquire valuable land with absolutely no form of reimbursement to the displaced, like Salwa Judum is meant to, in tribal areas in India. Criminal justice, economics and politics, best left unmixed.
So vote at your peril, because anyone who believes it will not have to get much worse before it gets better, is going to vote and that may not be the herd you want to belong to. They will vote either for or more likely against someone and then complain that they didn’t vote for this. Doug Casey says to vote for a lesser evil, is still voting for evil. Instead, be a leader. Not a political one at the out start, one that first leads their family. Be responsible first to the people who will not stand by in the crowd as men tear your clothes off or cut you to pieces. Be responsible to the money you make for the future you worked for. Because it is the responsible people that are in the most danger of losing the most. The people with sub prime mortgages, had never really thought of the future or planned for it. The people who thought their houses and their stocks were an investment, who were a product of previous generations of hard working people, acting responsibly, are still paying the mortgage of a house that lost a lot of its value and stocks that were wiped out. Then find more people like you, to lead or follow. But that, much later. The current situation is such that no matter what the most optimistic economist predicts, no matter who becomes president of the U.S. and prime minister of India, the vicious circle formed and propagated by groups with political power can and will change the economic future for you, you who thought their vote counted. You, who has to now rethink many things and teach their family different ideals. Probably, of putting yourself first. If you can vote for public officials responsible to maintain law, then vote carefully, if you can’t then be vigilant.
And for you, who always has put yourself first, never believed in over all society or government, reveled in individual rights, small businesses, you my friend, you need to think economically and work practically and plan ahead to be what you thought you have the right and freedom to be. The opportunity maybe arriving soon.
I, the scientist, taught to think so far into the future, that economically does not make any sense, I am not sure what I should do. So seriously, do not believe anything I write.. or believe it. You probably know better! If the USD no longer remains valuable in the future, houses are not investment, I might just spend it all on travel now, because given the state of the world, traveling may no longer remain possible in the future, once all the airlines have declared bankruptcy and the governments don’t allow anything to be made in China and cannot hold a manufacturing unit together anywhere else.
Implicit Self 