Majik of Thijs

A silica sol–gel design strategy for nanostructured metallic materials go.nature.com/bpEBT3

— Majikthijs (@majikthijs) April 10, 2012

" He who would make proposals as to the future must not content himself with a knowledge of life that merely touches life's surface: he must investigate its depths. Life in its entirety is like a plant. The plant contains not only what it offers to external life; it also holds a future state within its hidden depths. One who has before him a plant only just in leaf, knows very well that after some time there will be flowers and fruit also on the leaf-bearing stem. In its hidden depths the plant already contains the flowers and fruit in embryo; yet by mere investigation of what the plant now offers to external vision, how should one ever tell what these new organs will look like? This can only be told by one who has learnt to know the very nature and being of the plant. So, too, the whole of human life contains within it the germs of its own future; but if we are to tell anything about this future, we must first penetrate into the hidden nature of the human being. And this our age is little inclined to do. It concerns itself with the things that appear on the surface, and thinks it is treading on unsafe ground if called upon to penetrate to what escapes external observation. In the case of the plant the matter is certainly more simple. We know that others like it have again and again borne fruit before. Human life is present only once; the flowers it will bear in the future have never yet been there. Yet they are present within man in the embryo, even as the flowers are present in a plant that is still only in leaf. And there is a possibility of saying something about man's future, if once we penetrate beneath the surface of human nature to its real essence and being. It is only when fertilised by this deep penetration into human life, that the various ideas of reform ...can become fruitful and practical." "Now man possesses a fourth member of his being; and this fourth member he shares with no other earthly creature. It is the vehicle of the human ‘ I ,’ of the human Ego. The little word ‘ I ’ - as used, for example, in the English language - is a name essentially different from all other names. To anyone who ponders rightly on the nature of this name, there is opened up at once a way of approach to a perception of man's real nature. All other names can be applied, by all men equally, to the thing they designate. Everyone can call a table ‘table,’ and everyone can call a chair ‘chair’; but it is not so with the name ‘ I .’ No one can use this name to designate another. Each human being can only call himself ‘ I ’; the name ‘ I ’ can never reach my ear as a designation of myself. In designating himself as ‘ I ,’ man has to name himself within himself. A being who can say ‘ I ’ to himself is a world in himself. Those religions which are founded on spiritual knowledge have always had a feeling for this truth. Hence they have said: With the ‘ I ,’ the ‘God’ - who in the lower creatures reveals himself only from without, in the phenomena of the surrounding world - begins to speak from within. The vehicle of this faculty of saying ‘ I ,’ of the Ego-faculty, is the ‘Body of the Ego,’ the fourth member of the human being." What Steiner is saying is that whilst the concept or principle of a plant is apparent and present in every example of the sort, each human being is a concept or principle in himself and this is separate from his adherence to the general concept of a human being. In contrast to the idea of an omnipotent and external force (or God) acting upon him, each man who has come to know his real nature has the power over himself and the ability to guide his own actions.

My very good friends got married recently and they threw a party this weekend at the http://www.landgut-strumpffabrik.de in Kerpen, Germany. This is a beautifully renovated sock factory (built by Hitler for training house-servants for the new elite). The Dutch couple who own it (Erwin and Kiki) are friends of Krista and they made us feel like guests in their house.

Highlight for me was accompanying Krista on guitar and vocals during a small ceremony to celebrate the wedding. Kiki came up with the idea on Saturday afternoon and provided a guitar and music. Krista and I rehearsed 'feel my love' (Bob Dylan / Adele) for about an hour until we got it off-pat. It sounded pretty good due to our complimentary voices and Devanand was as much moved as surprised when we performed. The guests all stood in a ring around the couple, Krista sang and they both received flowers and good wishes from everyone. It's times like these that I'm really glad I can play music :)

As someone with an inactive pituitary gland, I find this kind of pseudo-scientific rubbish offensive. The author clearly does not understand how the body works. For instance they state that cartilage is a hormone, but this is completely incorrect as cartilage is a type of tissue made up of specialised cells, whereas a hormone is a chemical released by certain cells and glands in order to regulate or stimulate processes in other cells/ glands. One of the most important sources of hormones is the pituitary gland. This gland produces not only the human growth hormone (under stimulation from the hypothalamus, by the way), but also a number of important hormone releasing hormones regulating e.g. the thyroid, the adrenal system and the gonadotropins.

So, let's go back to the issue of height: let's stick to growth in children for the moment; we'll get to the adult bit later. There are a number of reasons for a child to be smaller than his/her peers: genetics (small parents); any of the types of dwarfism; an underactive or inactive pituitary gland or hypothalamus. In the first two cases there is unfortunately not much to be done. You can't outgrow your genetics by much; although nutrition has played a significant part in increasing the average height over many decades, the effect on any individual compared to the parents is relatively negligible, as far as I am aware. (if anyone has any evidence for this I'd be much obliged)

Dwarfism has many causes, but the most common type (achondroplasia) is typified by proportionally short limbs due to either bone or cartilage development. Extreme shortness where the limbs are proportional to the trunk is due to a hormonal deficiency. You see where I'm going with this, can't you? The treatment for a bone or cartilage disorder is by definition different to that for a hormonal disorder: that's because cartilage is NOT a hormone.

Furthermore, what I find particularly insidious about this advertisement is that way it treats human growth in isolation. When human growth disorder is the result of a dysfunctional pituitary gland, this will have an enormous impact on the total endocrine system, affecting metabolism, the imune system and sexual development. This takes the claims of this advertisement out of the realm of 'mostly harmless' to potentially life threatening.

The first Wonders series was re-run on BBC2 this week. I didn't catch it the first time round, but my mind-boggling respect for the second series meant I just had to watch the first. Due to the time difference Wonders of the solar system was broadcast at a hideously late hour, thus necessitating recording (which I was planning on doing regardless of the time) Anyway, I watched the first episode and there it was: the answer to my question about the birth of our sun. And that's why I love physics... classic tv moment of the decade, by the way; even better than the total solar eclipse.

What do you know? It was a swirling cloud of matter just hanging around in our part of the galaxy waiting until things starting getting heavy enough for gravity to do its thang. After that it was just a case of 'we have ignition!' and the lights go on for the next 10 billion years. Glad I'm not paying that celestial electric bill.

So it's a big thank you to @ProfBrianCox for answering my question before I even knew I was going to ask it. Who says Brian Cox doesn't know everything? Top bloke, even if he is an uncaged northern monkey.

Got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this one. On the one hand, something intuitively tells me that nuclear waste is not completely kosher; I mean how can we be sure that all the waste we are generating can be stored safely for generations, nay hundreds of generations, to come? On the other hand, I want to base my decisions and thinking on objective observations and measurements, insofar that is possible. Coupling this to good theory, the laws of physics and our engineering capability is the basis of science. If we are to emerge from the dark ages of nuclear campaigning, we have to know not only what the facts are, but also what they mean.

So, I'm on a crusade to find out the following information on nuclear waste:
1) how much nuclear waste is produced by a nuclear power plant in a) one year and b) its entire life time?
2) what types of waste are there and how much of each type is generated?
3) what is the radioactivity of each type of waste and how does that change with time: for example iodine isotopes are intensely radioactive but have a short half-life, whereas plutonium is not so radioactive but has a very long half-life (thousands of years). The problem is, how long does the plutonium remain harmful to humans and how do we define that?
4) what are the safe long and short-term exposure limits for different types of radiation (alpha, beta and gamma) and what is the effect of over-exposure in the short and long term.
5) are there any ways of shortening half-lives or treating radiation sickness (apart from the iodine tablets necessary to combat exposure to iodine-131
6) what is the environmental impact of producing the fuel eg. CO2 generated by uranium production when compared to savings on the generation side

This site is a good place to start, so I'm gonna try to glean the information I need and post it here. There are a couple of other good sites: one from the US.NRC and another from a bunch of physicists, if I can find it again.

I think I should nail my colours to the mast (if I hadn't already) by saying that I am a nuclear sceptic, but open-minded about the investigating the facts. I might get tempted to cherry pick, but I won't mind too much if that gets pointed out.

I left this post in answer to @RichardWiseman's request for favourite mnemonics (aid to memory - ezelbrug);

@ddunbar @RichardWiseman #mnemonic 'lefty loosey, righty tighty' good 4 explaining 2 less technically endowed how to un/tighten screws/nuts

@ddunbar had posted the lefty loosey, righty tighty bit as a mnemonic for prop positions in Rugby football, and that reminded me of the excellent mnemonic for unscrewing jars, screws, nuts etc. I got a whole bunch of comments about how it should really be clockwise or anti-clockwise, or is dependent on spanner position or viewpoint and that got me thinking about the general applicability of the advice.

My first thought was that the mnemonic was generally applicable in all cases where a right hand thread is used, which is by far and away the most common. In some cases a left hand thread is used when the natural motion of the joint is anti-clockwise (as in the case of the pedal on the left-side of the bicycle) and would lead to loosening of the joint. Ok, exception number one found and agreed upon.

But is that the only exception I asked myself, and why? Well the answer is simple, but as always in these cases, took me some time to arrive at due to my natural bias: as a right-handed person. In most cases where I would have to turn something to loosen or tighten it, I would place my right-hand thus that the natural turning motion of my hand to give maximum torque would always lead me to turn my hand to the left in loosening operations, and to the the right during tightening. The default spanner position and point of view plays no part in it, because to do the opposite would force me to put my hand in an unnatural position i.e. upside down and that would also mean that I would not be able to exert maximum torque. Job done, so I thought; but then I realised that this is only valid for right-handed people and for left-handed people it would be exactly the opposite. So there you have it, exception number two.

So, lefty loosey, righty tighty is valid for right handed people and right-handed threads. Still, you have to admit that as a mnemonic it did its job superbly...

Zo ja, dan volg de link naar de website een laat je naam achter. Greenpeace is met een actie begonnen tegen uitbreiding van kernenergie in Nederland. Er is een landelijke manifestatie gepland op 16 april om te protesteren tegen nieuwe kerncentrales. We moeten ons goed beseffen dat we bezig zijn met het maken van radioactief afval dat nog schadelijk is tot in de lengte der jaren. Op dit moment is het zo dat kernafval nog 10,000 jaar schadelijk blijft voor de gezondheid, er van uit gaande van de minst strenge schattingen over schadelijkheid (US Environmental Protection Agency)¹. In Europa zijn de normen strenger, wat als gevolg heeft dat kernafval bijna 1 MILJOEN jaar schadelijk geacht wordt.

Dit feit, gekoppeld met het feit dat het ontwerpen en bouwen van een kerncentrale minimaal 10 jaar nodig heeft en bijna altijd door de overheid gefinancierd moet worden ivm het afbreukrisico, geeft mij niet echt een goed gevoel voor de houdbaarheid van het concept. Of liever, ik geef mijn geld eerder uit aan een innovatieve energieoplossing die mij binnen een aantal jaren weer rendement gaat opleveren en waarvan ik weet dat de kosten van de opruiming niet gaat uitsmeren over een periode die gelijk is aan de hele mensengeschiedenis tot nu toe.

Maar dat is niet de enige oplossing; wij als consumenten moeten ook verantwoordelijkheid nemen voor de energie die wij gebruiken. We moeten ook kritischer zijn in het kiezen voor schonere goederen, minder vliegvakanties nemen, vaker de trein of fiets ipv de auto nemen, minder vlees eten en minder etensresten weg gooien. Als iedereen 10% direct minder energie verbruikt dan zijn we heel goed onderweg naar CO2 reductie. Doe je televisie (of je computer) uit en ga appelmoes maken, of kippensoep met de resten van de geroosterde kip. Speel een bordspel met je kinderen of ga vrijen met je partner of een willekeurig iemand. Word je nog blij van ook!

¹ Vandenbosch, Robert, and Susanne E. Vandenbosch. 2007. Nuclear waste stalemate. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 248

I still have one burning question after watching wonders of the universe, which is: how did OUR sun get born? In the third episode, you explained how the elements were formed in progressively larger stars in a cycle of fusion, expansion, exhaustion, contraction and re-ignition. Iron is finally produced in the death throes when all the available fuel is spent, thereby allowing gravity to do its work. Since, according to NASA, our sun is made up of fractions of a percent of iron and other elements, excluding hydrogen and helium, it must therefore have been produced from the matter of a dying giant star. Is that correct so far? If so, and all of the hydrogen and helium were expended, how or where did our sun acquire new fuel and ignition for further fusion?

Furthermore, iron appears in the first third of the periodic table of elements, so how did the heavier elements get produced after the death of the star?

OK I admit, strictly it's more than one question, but they all address the same issue. Cool programme by the way, it's only a shame that we can't get the iPlayer in the Netherlands which means I can't get to see Wonders of the solar system until it repeats or gets sent out over here. Or is the DVD already out?

De stralende zon duldt geen lelijkheid:
hij glinstert op zwevende spinnenrag,
maar hij laat mijn stoffige ramen zich schamen.

Als een ongeduldige minnares,
maakt de lente haar entree
met oogverblindende schoonheid

Alle donkere hoeken
die maanden in verlegenheid rustten
worden genadeloos bloot gesteld