Vale Betty

Sorry, a more creative title is not being released by the muse tonight. But that is okay since I might otherwise risk a corny heading to a sober note. Not too sober though, since Betty had a roguish sense of humour and would accuse me of a put on sobriety if I got too serious. We farewelled her in a packed church service yesterday. It was nice to have people who knew her for 30, or 40 or even sixty years talk about the “old times.”  But it was a shame no one mentioned the “new times”  – Betty, in her eighties though you would not guess it if observing her zest and energy, had a genuine interest in and love for our young folk. Each year we cart 30 or 40 of them off for a weekend camp and Betty and her husband loved to mix it up with them. There was no intergenerational condescension. Just a love of sharing life with all of us, even teenagers she did not really know. We saw pictures of lots of amazing things she did over the years, especially her work on behalf of the world’s poor. But this photo captures for me the heart of Betty – away on a weekend and dressed up for kitchen duty with Peter, one of our very fine teens.  Everyone who had anything to do with Betty,even in the new times, are all the richer for the experience.

Australian DNA in Fromelles

I have just finished reading the book by Patrick Lindsay which tells the story of the discovery of Australian soldiers buried in a mass grave at Fromelles. But it is more than a story of that discovery – remarkable in its own right, and poignantly achieved by a Greek born Melbourne school teacher who clearly has Australian DNA well and truly leached into him. It is also a reminder of how poorly our troops were utilised in France. After surviving Gallipoli many of who had survived that madness were killed and wounded in a feint which Haig and his staff believed would distract the Germans from the main Somme battle. Trouble was the Germans knew it was a feint and paid it scant attention – only sufficient to rebuff it. Fromelles remains today our worst military disaster. Read more

Long in the tooth Desert Rats

I love stories of reconciliation and forgiveness. Some of the most powerful are those of soldiers imprisoned and treated in the most appalling way by the Japanese, yet travelling to Japan after the war to convey their forgiveness – in words but also in deeds. (I do too understand those who can never stomach the thought of having anything to do with any Japanese culture whatsoever). But reconciliation and forgiveness is a powerful and poignant story wherever it is set. Reconciliation of former combatants happened recently in the home of my brother (picture here refers) who has done a great job of pulling together the story of foes who once faced off at Tobruk. Their story is told somewhat in this story in the Daily Mirror, and there is a rather compelling podcast here of an interview of two of them courtesy of the BBC. And of course, here is his book.

p.s. there is a fascinating follow up BBC interview with Rudolf Schneider here. And a piece in The Independent which is an interesting read too.

But Was There an Anesthetic?

Impressive for their precision but I do wonder if there was an anesthetic! National Geographic (where else?) story here.

Brain Teaser

While we are talking about remarkable things to do with skulls here is another skull penetration exercise which is even more amazing. Very clever people at Stanford University have wired up this mouse so that the deepest parts of its brain are directly stimulated by light. “Viviana Gradinaru, a graduate student has designed a hybrid instrument called an ‘optrode’, which consists of fiber optics for photostimulation and an electrode for activity recording. By inserting an optrode precisely into a specific brain region, she can simultaneously photostimulate the area and measure electrical activity there.” The beauty of this tool is that it allows researchers to tickle and measure the brain while the mouse is live and scampering around. Whichever way you look at it this is quite an amazing achievement.

If you want to have a closer look at just what Viviana is up to you can see what they are doing to fool the mouse at  Nature Methods 6, 319 (2009) doi:10.1038/nmeth0509-319

Weird yet Intriguing

While it is a truism that “there is nothing new under the sun” sometimes, just sometimes, there is  something that is actually so outlandish you can be forgiven for thinking this is a thing which new and never seen before. Perhaps like this  camera created from the skull of a thirteen year old girl. A working camera, and one of many strange but working designs – from Wayne Martin Belger in California. Have a look at his other cameras at his website. But also the art he creates from them. It is clever and mystical stuff. But don’t you wonder how he gets his hands on a skull of a thirteen year old?

Our Vision of Beauty is Distorted(?)

Sex Selective Abortion Favours Males

The number of boys being born in China is higher than the number of girls. By a long shot. It is a statistic complicated by and exacerbated by China’s single child policy and by sex selective abortion.  According to the British Medical Journal the average ratio of male to female births can be as high as 146. Sadly sex selective abortion, banned by the government, apparently accounts for all of the excess males. And the statistics particularly skew against the girls in second and third order births – as parents strive to produce that son, pregnancies are terminated when they discover a girl is on the way.  What does that mean in real number terms? Read more

Afghan Refugees

Mark Twain enjoined “Let your secret sympathies and your compassion be always with the under dog in the fight – this is magnanimity; but bet on the other one – this is business.” Sadly our government too often confuses the two. Afghan travellers looking for a better life have their boat explode from underneath them, sink, some drowning, others burning and the others somehow being picked up in one piece by our Navy. So I love seeing images such as these (SMH multimedia presentation of Burns Unit) – images of the refugees in high tech, first world health care getting the very best we can give them. Sad that a disaster had to precipitate such compassion but I am proud to be part of a community that can and does provide this sort of care. But can you imagine the dislocation in the minds of these patients, transitioning from the squalor of a crowded refugee boat to a hospital in Perth? I wonder where their journey ends. I hope it is here – the end result of some magnanimity, not elsewhere, the end result of some business.

Top Marketing Lines from my Spam Filter

Marketing is about convincing a potential customer you have a product they need or want. The message which is conveyed has to be convincing, whether you are introducing the product or closing the sale. If you are going to win that sale you want your potential customer to know you are serious, and have a serious product.  Spelling errors, errors of fact, unreal pricing and such are only going to ring warning bells in the mind of a consumer – who today is doubly alert to a con line. Which makes me wonder why anyone ever follows up on the sort of spam links that come through to my in-box. But which can also make for some humourous reading. There are hundreds of bizarre lines out there but these and those like them appeal to my sense of humour. They are all cited verbatim from my spam filter, and no, I have not been tempted to follow any of them up). Read more

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