I had better get back to work

Workout notes 8+ miles of racewalking (to the Hike and Bike, 4.2 mile loop in 57, back; it was 31:24 out and 28:35 back for 1:56:56 total.) I also stopped to do some pull ups (stopped the watch).

I had a pleasant surprise: I encountered top masters racewalker Alberto Medina on the loop; he is training for a world master’s competition. We both got DQ’ed at the John Evans 50K; in my case I became too tired to keep straight knees (mile 22) whereas Alberto was pushing to make the Olympic Trials qualifying time of 4:45 and went over the edge just a little bit.

Speaking of racewalking, check out this video, which discusses various styles of racewalking.

Frankly, I don’t see how judges can judge the faster walkers; to me they look as if they are running with a somewhat stiff legged gait, until you see them in slow motion.

Note: the rules say that there must be one point of contact at all times (as judged by the human eye in real time) and that the support leg must have a straight knee from the time the foot hits the ground until the leg passes beneath the body.

One foot on the ground is self explanatory, and the straight knee rule is described here; to see an illegal knee, click here.

Note: these rules apply to races from 1500 meters to 50 Km; the longer ultra walks usually allow for a “soft knee”.

Social There are literally millions of people around the world who are “stateless”; that is, they don’t have a citizenship in any country.

Evolution: Anthropology.net has a nice article about who colonized Europe first: Africans or Asians.

This hat tip goes out to Razib, who just broke the news of a soon to come out publication which analyzes human fossil teeth. The findings suggest that ‘Asian populations played a larger role than Africans in colonizing Europe millions of years ago’… so we’re still on a multiregional hypothesis kick as far as human evolution goes, and this one seems to be pretty bold.

Why did they study teeth? Because the,

“tooth fossil record of modern man’s ancestors [has a] high component of genetic expression. (Huh? What does that really mean?)

The investigators examined the shapes of more than 5,000 teeth from human ancestors from Africa, Asia and Europe dating back millions of years.

They found that European teeth had more Asian features than African ones.

They also noted that the continuity of the Eurasian dental pattern from the Early Pleistocene until the appearance of Upper Pleistocene Neanderthals suggests that the evolutionary courses of the Eurasian and African continents were relatively independent for a long period.

“The history of human populations in Eurasia may not have been the result of a few high-impact replacement waves of dispersals from Africa, but a much more complex puzzle of dispersals and contacts among populations within and outside continents,” the researchers wrote, as reported by AFP. [...]

Attack on superstition Richard Dawkins takes on unproven “new age” therapies and health remedies.

Known as “Darwin’s rottweiler”, Prof Richard Dawkins caused a furore with a stinging attack on religion. Now the evolutionary biologist has turned his wrath on “new age” alternative therapies, describing them as based on “irrational superstition”.

Prof Dawkins says that alternative remedies constitute little more than a “money-spinning, multi-million pound industry that impoverishes our culture and throws up new age gurus who exhort us to run away from reality”.

The 66-year-old scientist has investigated a range of gurus and therapists, including faith healers, psychic mediums, angel therapists, “aura photographers”, astrologers, Tarot card readers and water diviners, and concluded that Britain is gripped by “an epidemic of superstitious thinking”.

It isn’t just Britain, sir. You should see my church (Unitarian Universalist)!

Mathematics I got a referee’s report back which stated, in effect: “we like your result but your write-up sucks, so we are rejecting it.” Serves me right.

So, to all of my friends and family members who read this blog: if you see me writing much at all, you have the freedom to tell me to shut up and get back to work. I love working on math, but I hate writing it up! (no, I am not alone here.)