Monthly Archives: June 2013

You canna break the laws of Physics Jim!

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Ah yes, the immortal words of Montgomery Scott or just Scotty as anyone who watched Star Trek would know. Played magnificently by the late James Doohan, whose ashes were flown into space in 2007, who in my mind could never, ever be replaced by any other. We see roles of many characters reprised by new actors, but to me it just isn’t the same. Michael Gambon, a remarkable actor, played Albus Dumbledore after the passing of Richard Harris. Now I think Gambon is fantastic. But he isn’t Dumbledore. Richard Harris is my version of Dumbledore. Bah, now I’ve completely gone off track.

So why the physics line? Quite simply this. How many people know the laws of Physics Captain James T Kirk wanted to break?

Sure we all do some physics at school in Science. Some of us take the subject in Year 11 and 12. Even fewer of us do some Science after High School, like I did at University not that long ago. It’s bloody interesting stuff. But to the general populace you mention the word Physics and most people will turn away from you or wonder what you are on. Unless you say the quote in the title. That you can get away with.

So why is it such an unpopular subject? Is it too hard? It can get complicated but the basics are not difficult to grasp. And in reality, the more you learn about it, the more interesting it gets. It’s like a black hole, you get too close and you just get sucked in.

When I was a kid there was a show on television called The Curiosity Show. Wikipedia tells me there were 149 episodes produced. Wow, I didn’t see them all that’s for sure. But it was cool. It was Science. It was stuff I could do if I wanted to. There was also cool demonstrations of stuff I definitely couldn’t do. Freezing things with Liquid Nitrogen is mentioned in the Wiki and I actually remember them doing that. There are now some shows on the ABC Kids TV station such as Backyard Science that do some interesting stuff, but our mainstream television has abandoned any form of science unless it’s part of a documentary. And usually it won’t be shown on any non-government station anyway.

We just don’t seem to have the science educators that existed when I was growing up – filling me with a passion for science and wanting to know the answer to absolutely every bloody thing. Julius Sumner Miller and his eggs into milk bottles routine stuck in my mind for sure. We don’t even have milk bottles anymore to use! Or the Curiosity Show guys. Or the man who made science more accessible than any other, Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan’s series Cosmos utterly blew my mind. I was always into Science Fiction, but his way of communicating was so simple, so elegant, so enlightening and so non-threatening that even my parents couldn’t help but be drawn in by his disarming voice, manner and almost hypnotic charm. We all learned about StarStuff and how we are made of it. How the atoms in my body were created in stars, in massive supernovae, with those atoms blown across the cosmos by the power of these explosions. These atoms eventually coalesced with many other atoms to form the planet I live on, and when I pass onto the next frontier of existence, or it ends completely for me, those atoms will return to that planet and become a part of some other conglomeration. Maybe another person, or another form of life. Perhaps something inert. Who knows. But what a powerful message he gave, that what makes me continues long after my passing, and creates more stuff.

The problem is who is giving that accessible and downright mesmerising message of Science to others now? Not just about my atoms, but about stars, planets, moons, comets, chemistry, biology, ecology, subatomic particles, other theorised forms of life, eggs into milk bottles and everything else in the Cosmos. I have had the distinct pleasure of reading the musings of Wilson da Silva, science journalist of great quality during his editorial role at Cosmos, now sadly ending. I have seen the rather popular Brian Cox doing Science documentaries in the UK, and those I have seen I have enjoyed watching. I listen to podcasts by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist from New York who loves to talk science, and does a fantastic job of showing passion for the ultra cool things that happen in physics, astronomy and cosmology. I also listen to Stuart Gary’s StarStuff (guess where that title came from…) podcast from ABC Radio most weeks. We’ve all seen the incredible work of a lifetime that Sir David Attenborough has produced in the world of natural history. Plus the incredible work of unlikely heroes like Steve Irwin and his love of animals. And if you’ve been really lucky you’ve seen the utterly mental work of Steve Backshall travelling the world looking for animals to place on a list he calls the Deadly 60. To see, read and listen to the passion of these people for their area of expertise is amazing. But the audience is so small, the level of interest so minute. We as a population are more interested in the antics of Brad Pitt on his latest Harbour Cruise than we are about the incredible confirmation of the Higgs Boson. Come on, without the Higgs there is no mass! That’s important guys and gals.

Science education is very, very important for us to continue to develop as a species, especially so we don’t make this place, the ONLY place we have, unlivable. What we need is to inject passion for Science into our kids. At home, at school, in the community. Most especially in the community. We need it, or we’ll never break the laws of Physics Jim.

Australian Politics – Game on.

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After another tumultuous week in Aussie politics we have a new, but not really new, Prime Minister.  And the flow on effects are losing a heap of existing Ministers who reckon they cannot work with the new PM.

Now indulge me a little here as I preempt the kind of rubbish my mother-in-law would come up with – “oh they’ve lost all of these senior people, oh it’s a shambles, oh I can’t stand him” etc, etc.  Let’s attack these first.

1. First of all these senior people.  Yep, very true.  Here is something very important.  Tony Burke, current Minister for Sustainability, Water, Environment, Population and Communities (hereby referred to as Lots of Things) also offered his resignation as Minister for Lots of Things.  It was REFUSED.  Why?  Frankly because the guy is immensely capable, is a terrific communicator, knows what he is talking about before opening his mouth and is a realist. 

Now if I look at some of the names that have gone (ie: resignation ACCEPTED) I see Swan, Conroy, Ludwig, Garrett, Combet and others who I cannot remember.  Peter Garrett to my mind is a big loss, but was in the wrong portfolio anyway.  I have seen Peter speak in Glebe a few years back and was interestingly asked by veteran Labor man John Faulkner who was there to watch what I thought of Peter as a speaker.  On this particular night Peter had a prepared speech, and it went ok.  But then he opened to questions off the floor – and then he excelled.  I told John, leave him off script – let him improvise, ad lib, whatever.  Use his obvious passion and knowledge to spell out to people in his own way what he needs to say.  Peter went from dull on an overcast day to physically glowing with enthusiasm in a golden sunbeam in comparison once he was unshackled from his prepared speech.  Put him in a Ministry where he can be passionate.  Education is important no doubt, but I’d use him somewhere else.  Aboriginal Affairs, Immigration, Attorney General even.

Greg Combet is another big loss, also highly capable, smart, erudite, a terrific communicator and able to deflect the bullshit to get onto the real issues.  These 2 need to be a part of the Rudd team for things to work.  Combet at least will stand for re-election and hopefully will return to a senior position, where he belongs.

But the rest of them are in my mind no loss at all.  Whingers, whiners, poor communicators, smug, arrogant, invisible or downright hopeless.  Categorise them however you like.  If you cannot communicate what you are doing in your Ministry, then you are useless.  End of story.  That is why Rudd is back.  Joe Average loves him.  He talks to us in our language.  But like the equally well respected Malcolm Turnbull, he can turn on the jargon and bamboozle a journalist who doesn’t know their stuff and make them look like an idiot.  They both have a sense of humour, they are both the kind of bloke you could stand next to at a barbeque and be happy to talk to.  Swan?  Conroy?  Ludwig?  No.  Just no.  Seriously, those “senior” people, they are mostly better off without them.

2. It’s a shambles.  Yes, it is.  And when the media get tired of making Julia jokes, rehashing Kevin 07 lines, playing Liberal attack ads, giving time to Alan “I’m a joke” Jones and actually decide to have a look at the dearth of Liberal policies, then and only then will it no longer be a shambles.  We are force fed drivel by the Media, when the policies are popped onto the websites of the political parties to look at.  I had a famous discussion with my previously mentioned mother-in-law about some Murray Darling policy that she had heard about on the radio (don’t get me started about the bloody radio) and she was all hyped up to the gills about disappearing country towns, farmers going broke, all to save a frog species that no one cares about.  Apart from the fact that everything she said was a load of fettered dingoes kidneys (with apologies to the late Douglas Adams) I told her to have a read on the website.  “Oh I can’t be bothered with all that”.  So don’t be bothered about the truth then.  To which she got all high and mighty at me about how I was looking down on people.  Because I could be bothered to read it, and know the policy.  What the hell?

Now you might say, that’s just my mother-in-law being a fruitcake.  Unfortunately the problem is that many, many people listen to the newsreader, shock jock, taxi driver, opposition leader, etc and believe every word as if it came hot on the press from Mount Sinai on a stone tablet.  Not that I believe those stone tablets either but you get the point.  And in a Democracy if the majority of people choose to be ignorant, then the votes of the ignorant carry the day.  They wonder why they don’t trust a politician.  If you don’t read what they say, how do you know what they plan?  They can’t spell out their policies in a 20 second news bite and get all of it in now can they?  So yes it is a shambles.  When the new PM sets out his policy agenda I’ll have some more to read.  And then I’ll again be able to poke massive holes in the musings of our media.  I actually don’t like to call most of them journalists, they are just media crying “look at me, look at me” but that a story for another day.

3. Oh I can’t stand him.  Hmm.  Good, I hope he wins and you get to look at him for years.  I quite like Ruddy.  I like Malcolm Turnbull too.  I’m certainly not a rusted on Labor voter, and I’ve never found a Liberal or National candidate in my electorate yet worth voting for.  I have voted Independent and Green in the past, depending on the candidate.  I’m not too fussed on parties, in fact I dislike them immensely, and my vote is based on the candidate, and what they say they stand for.  I’m not overly fussed about what they look like.  So for me it’s not a decision about picking Abbott in his bike shorts over Ruddy in a blue tie.  I respect Abbott’s fitness and cycling choices, good on him, and as a bloke at a barbecue he probably would be interesting to chat to as well.  But I’m no fan of his negativity and the invisible, or should I say ephemeral, nature of his policies.  In short I don’t care what they look like.  Otherwise we’d end up with Hugh Jackman as PM based on 100% of female voters, and no small measure of Wolverine fans, choosing him.

So yeah, Rudd vs Abbott.  Be more fun if it was Rudd vs Turnbull.  Or Rudd & Turnbull vs Abbott & Pyne.  Tag team wrestling at it’s finest.  Just bring it.

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Decisions, decisions

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It’s just so difficult to figure out what to write about. I see the News headlines, I hear the talk about the workplace, I see the number of people losing their jobs, their homes, their minds and I wonder, how does this become normal? I still don;t know the answer to that one.

Here is one from left field instead. Bats. Yep, cute little buggers that don’t smell particularly nice.

I read a post from a guy I play online chess against stating how much he dislikes bats due to what he admitted was the minimal chance of being bitten, contracting rabies and dying. He also admitted how stupid that was, being something he has possessed for many years, and he then told us how he was feeling much better about them after feeling embarrassed and did some research about them.

Grey Headed Flying Fox - mother and baby

Pteropus poliocephalus – mother and baby

I did some substantial research about this particular endangered species (shown above) in my neck of the woods as a university assignment for an Ecology unit. These guys rock. Massively important pollinators that have become endangered due to urban sprawl and land clearing for agriculture reducing the number of flowering eucalypt trees available for them to feed from. They are nectar eating bats who spread pollen over large areas due to their foraging. Now orchardists are finding these specific bats are raiding their orchards. Why? Not enough of their natural food source left available. So these orchard owners are applying for licences to cull them. An endangered species. Yep, that makes sense.

And there is the town that has a substantial colony of these flying foxes that is now complaining about the noise, smell and disruption that they caused since that colony has grown immensely. Why has it grown? Other colonies were disbanded and reassembled in that town because people complained of the noise, smell and the damage these critters were causing to trees. The Sydney Botanical Gardens, home to a colony for many years, decided they needed to scare the colony away as it was damaging too many of their trees and causing too much disruption to the Gardens with their excrement and raucousness.

And now in Queensland they have been found to carry the Hendra virus. Fatal to horses, and now found to be fatal to humans too, there are all sorts of extreme demands for the removal of these flying foxes from the environment.

So we see the case from a viewpoint of what is the human cost. The cost to fruit crops, the loss of horses, the tragic death from Hendra of people like Vic Rail who contracted the virus from a horse (not directly from a flying fox – to my understanding this is the case in every human fatality so far) and now the cost of development of a vaccine to the Hendra virus. We hear little or nothing of the cost to the environnment for the removal of this species from their natural range. We know little of the other environmental services they may provide, as there is little funding available to study such complex matters. If it wasn’t for the PhD work of a fellow UNE student (Peggy Eby – fantastic work she did by the way, and was happy to help me out with my feeble efforts as well) we would know far, far less about this graceful, seriously cute, and massively important member of the Eastern Australian environment. These little guys are important to our ecosystems continuing to function. God dammit, we need these guys about.

How many people go to our National Parks and go giddy about the natural beauty on show. Think of how great they could be if we didn’t try and wipe out every species we have even a slight issue with? Think how amazing these places could be with a full range of natural environmental services being provided by indigenous fauna and flora without being threatened by recreational shooters, invasive weeds, recreational 4WD’s by people who are clueless how to use them, and that list could go on ad infinitum.

Environmental services – if you don’t know what this is, look it up. And then look at critters like the mother and baby above in a new light. I’m no hippy tree-hugger, but I reckon they deserve it.