22 July posts:

Astronomy: a heavy main sequence star has been discovered:

A newfound star has shattered the record as the most massive stellar monster ever seen, astronomers announced today.

Weighing in at a whopping 265 times the mass of our sun, the behemoth may have actually slimmed down since birth, when it likely tipped the scales at 320 times the sun’s mass.

The discovery could rewrite the laws of stellar physics, since it’s long been thought that stars beyond a certain mass would be too unstable to survive.

“We are really taken aback, because up until now the astronomical community at large has assumed that the upper size limit for stars would be around 150″ times the mass of the sun, said study co-author Richard Parker, an astronomer at the University of Sheffield in the U.K.

“This giant could really revolutionize the way we think about how stars form and die in clusters and galaxies.”

Parker’s team found the stellar monster in images taken with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. The star is tucked inside a dense cluster of other hot, young, massive stars in one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Dubbed R136a1, the record-breaking star is so massive that it burns its hydrogen fuel at an unprecedented rate—fast enough that the star is considered middle-aged at about a million years old. By contrast, our sun is about five billion years old and still has another five billion years to go.

“Because there are so very few places where there is enough gas that can collect and form such massive stars, we may very well be seeing the limit of how large a star can get,” Parker added.

Time travel There is a way to mathematically model time travel in a way that only certain kinds of time travel could occur (e. g., you couldn’t go back in time and kill your parents before they conceived you; this is taking quantum “entanglement” into account:

he model of time travel proposed by Seth Lloyd, et al., in a recent paper at arXiv.org arises from their investigation of the quantum mechanics of closed timelike curves (CTCs) and search for a theory of gravity. In simple terms, a CTC is a path of spacetime that returns to its starting point. The existence of CTCs is allowed by Einstein’s general relativity, although it was Gödel who first discovered them. As with other implications of his theories, Einstein was a bit disturbed by CTCs.

In the new paper, the scientists explore a particular version of CTCs based on combining quantum teleportation with post-selection, resulting in a theory of post-selected CTCs (P-CTCs). In quantum teleportation, quantum states are entangled so that one state can be transmitted to the other in a different location. The scientists then applied the concept of post-selection, which is the ability to make a computation automatically accept only certain results and disregard others. In this way, post-selection could ensure that only a certain type of state can be teleported. The states that “qualify” to be teleported are those that have been post-selected to be self-consistent prior to being teleported. Only after it has been identified and approved can the state be teleported, so that, in effect, the state is traveling back in time. Under these conditions, time travel could only occur in a self-consistent, non-paradoxical way.

“The formalism of P-CTCs shows that such quantum time travel can be thought of as a kind of quantum tunneling backwards in time, which can take place even in the absence of a classical path from future to past,” the researchers write in their paper. “Because the theory of P-CTCs relies on post-selection, it provides self-consistent resolutions to such paradoxes: anything that happens in a P-CTC can also happen in conventional quantum mechanics with some probability.”

Or put another way, Superman couldn’t really save Lois Lane by traveling backwards in time.

News of the strange: is it rape if you lie to a woman who, upon believing your lie, voluntarily sleeps with you? In some countries, it is:

A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew.

Sabbar Kashur, 30, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday after the court ruled that he was guilty of rape by deception. According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left.

When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault.

Although Kashur was initially charged with rape and indecent assault, this was changed to a charge of rape by deception as part of a plea bargain arrangement.

Handing down the verdict, Tzvi Segal, one of three judges on the case, acknowledged that sex had been consensual but said that although not “a classical rape by force,” the woman would not have consented if she had not believed Kashur was Jewish.

The sex therefore was obtained under false pretences, the judges said. “If she hadn’t thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated,” they added.

(hat tip: The Edge of the American West)

Ok, here is my question: what about the other way? Example: what if a man has sex with a woman who claims to be Jewish but then really isn’t?

(note: this is a different case than having sex with someone who knowingly has a disease but says that they don’t)

Economy
Robert Reich: we aren’t in a double dip recession yet but rather a 1.5 dip…for now. But will we act?

Political Humor: Tea Party Medical Care (via: Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, who talks about getting disinvited from a Tea Party gathering as he pointed out that the census is mandated by the Constitution; for example it is used to apportion Representatives in the House.)

Back to the cartoon:

These people (the tea party types) are ignorant in the extreme:

22 July 2010 knee rehabilitation

This morning, the knee was sore and a bit swollen. So, no “longish” walk today though I might go to campus. I’ll do PT like I did yesterday. Yesterday: walk, zoo, hospital visit (lots of standing), and PT was a bit too much.

I’ll do PT though.

Update PT: 10 minutes easy on the bike, 3 sets of 10: leg raises, VMO exercises, weightless quarter squats, weightless toe raises, extending the leg with resistance while standing. Then abs: 20 yoga leg lifts, 20 scissors, 20 twisted crunches, 20 sit ups, 20 regular crunches.

Big progress Yes, the knee is swollen (at the incision points). But I can straighten it to make sliding the 2 CD case underneath difficult (have to force it); I can’t quite touch 1 CD case though.

21 July 2010 (pm)

Free will? It doesn’t seem to jibe with science. Jerry Coyne and friends discuss here.

Frankly, I see “free will” (whatever that means) as a decent approximation to what we have but not much more than that and nothing precise.

Democrats: note that many of the cut-backs to social safety nets are/were done by Democrats. So, what will happen with the Social Security retirement age? We’ve talked about this here; I’ve pointed out that “expected life remaining” at age 65 and 70 to be the more relevant statistic. But Mano Singham takes it a bit further; he points out the variation in this statistic and also that those who work at physically demanding jobs might need to retire earlier than those of us with white collar occupations. For example, one of my math department colleagues retired at 80 and only reluctantly.

Mathematics and statistics: yes, “rare coincidences” occur frequently. Think about it: suppose there are, say, 20 independent events that occur say, with probability of .001 on a given day. So the probability of two events has happening is: C(20,2)*.001^2*.999^18 = .0001866. So “not 2 events” is .999813. So, in a 1000 day period (less than 3 years), the chances of two of these rare events happening on the same day is 1 – .15385 = .84614. In other words, there is about an 85 percent chance that we’ll get at least one coincidence in a 1000 day period. Now imagine more than 20 events that could be coincidental.

Financial Reform:

21 July 2010

Rep. Alan Grayson is a sure a lot of fun.

Actually, this is good medicine for upset liberals. Yes, the Democrats have not done as well as I had hoped (especially the Senate), but he is right.

Republicans: talk about “no intelligence allowed”; Ben Stein makes an ass of himself:

Former Nixon speechwriter, actor and television personality Ben Stein attacked the unemployed in an American Spectator article. (h/t Think Progress)

The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job.

In other words, the unemployed, by and large, “deserve it”.

Knee Rehab 21 July 2010 (early am)

Restful night, but when I woke up the swelling was down some more. But there was some very mild, sporadic “in the joint” pain which was a first in a long time. The joint is still slightly warm to the touch. It feels loser though I’ll have to measure to be sure.

Workout: am, walked 1.7 mile course (warm and humid; some puddles but there was lots of sunshine) in 25:32 (3 minutes faster than on Sunday) then 4:40 more on the treadmill to get 2.0 miles. My gimpy knee makes me slow down when the surface is even slightly uneven (cracks on sidewalks, curbs, potholes, etc.) and the treadmill just feels a little bit better, but also gives me a false sense of what I can really do.

Leg extension: about the same (2 CD case, light touch) though bending it feels easier.

Update: back from the physical therapist. Here are the particulars: bike (8 minutes to loosen up), 3 sets of 10 VMO squeezes (down!), 3 sets of 10 leg raises (foot pointed out at 45 degrees from being straight), 3 sets of 10 quarter squats (no weight, both legs), 3 sets of 10 toe raises, 3 sets of 10 straighten the leg against band resistance while standing. In all cases, stay in control in both directions.

Update: walked around the zoo for a couple of hours; I had to stop and rest a couple of times; I have to watch stepping off of curbs. But walking on the grass felt good; I might do my walking on the grass over the next couple of days.

The Science, the Silly and the Serious (20 July 2010: evening)

The silly: the Boulder City council doesn’t care if a woman gardens in her gloves and thong bottom (only) but doesn’t want you addressing the council in your underwear:

The days when a citizen could address the Boulder City Council wearing only underwear may be over.

The council will vote on new decorum rules in September, seven months after a resident stepped up to a microphone in his boxers.

The rules were already under review, but that incident led to a proposed ban on undressing during meetings. [...]

But the council declined to outlaw topless females, despite complaints about a woman who gardens in a thong and gloves.

The science: what is behind the skin color in the skin that you show (excepting Rep. John Boehner)? It isn’t as easy a question to answer as you might think:

These differences among populations almost certainly represent more than one evolutionary event. First, although we don’t have fossil skin from our African hominin ancestors like Homo erectus, it’s likely that they were dark, as are African populations now. But even earlier ancestors may have been lighter. If you look at our closest relatives, chimps and gorillas, you see that their skin (at least those parts under the hair) is unpigmented. Only the exposed parts are pigmented. The ancestral color of humans, then, was probably light (but not as light as, say, Swedes) and then, as we became “naked apes,” evolved to a darker shade. (The evolution of hairlessness in our species is another matter, perhaps involving our ability to sweat.)

Then, as the presumably dark populations of humans moved into the Middle East and Europe, they evolved lighter skin color. But when those populations colonized Australia, skin color got dark again. This almost certainly happened, too, when humans moved from northern Asia across the Bering Strait and down into the Americas: those populations that reached Central and South America likely re-evolved dark pigmentation.

What were the selective pressures that caused these changes? For a long time I accepted the “classic” story that was taught in school: populations getting more sunlight evolved darker skin as protection against UV-induced melanomas and the toxic effects of too much vitamin D3, which is produced only by sunlight striking the skin. In low-light areas, skin evolved a lighter shade because we need fair amounts of vitamin D3 to build strong bones (without it, children get rickets, which is why foods like milk often have added vitamin D). Thus, dark-skinned ancestors in the tropics would have reduced vitamin D toxicity and fewer melanomas, while lighter ancestors in the temperate zones would have stronger bones. This could cause differential mortality or reproduction that would explain the differences in pigmentation.

The problem with this story is just that—it’s a story. Although this scenario sounds plausible, there wasn’t much hard evidence supporting it, at least not when I was in school. A recent paper in PNAS by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin summarizes the latest evidence and comes to some different conclusions about the evolution of human skin color.

Surf to the link to find out what those conclusions are, and what Jerry Coyne thinks of them. Evolution isn’t easy!

The serious It sure appears that President Obama screwed up by being too eager to fire Shirley Sherrod; he fell for the heavily edited video which appeared to show her not doing her best to help a white farmer with his financial situation because of his race.

In fact, these clips were taken out of context from a longer video in which she made the point that we need to move beyond race:

Admit the mistake, Mr. President.

What is wrong with this Picture (Dick Morris in action)

From here:

I have spent the last ten days out on the campaign trail in Colorado, Virginia, and Arkansas. Under the aegis of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative voter education group, I have been preaching the gospel that we cannot tolerate big spending liberals in Congress and that we need to elect conservatives who will oppose higher taxes.

Ok, so far. He is a conservative and thinks that taxes should be lower and government should be smaller. I disagree, but that is a position that many hold. That is why we have elections. But read on:

In Arkansas, the situation is just as positive. Democratic Congressman Mike Ross deserves a special place in Dante’s inferno for voting to pass Obamacare in committee, where his vote was the decisive one. Then, having passed on the opportunity to kill the bill when he could have, he blithely voted against it twice on the floor when his vote didn’t matter so he could fool his district into believing that he is a conservative. His opponent, Republican Beth Anne Rankin, http://www.bethannerankinforcongress.com, – a former Miss Arkansas – amassed a very strong record getting federal grants for Arkansas and developing innovative programs for education. If there is one race that deserves your support – and needs your donations – this is it!

Hmm, amassing a strong record for grants means that the government is funding something…and the money comes from…???? WHO is the conservative here?
(ps: why is being Miss Arkansas a political qualification? )

Such hypocrisy!

20 July 2010 (knee rehab)

30 minutes on the home treadmill: 2.3 miles or about 13 minutes per mile average. 10 minutes on the bike afterward; also crunches, leg lifts, scissor kicks, stretches. While completely warm I can touch the 2 CD case with the back of the knee but I can’t when “cold”.

Progress continues; there is still some warmth and swelling but less of it.

20 July 2010 (non-knee edition :-) )

Photos and stories: this story about “watching porn makes women more likely to be raped” is worth reading. Note: I have no stake in this; I don’t read/watch porn. The reason is that what I enjoy seeing is out there at any beach volleyball match, yoga class, swim meet or running race. But I understand that isn’t the same for everyone.

But I admit that I enjoy the photo that came with the article:

To be honest, when I see this photo, I don’t think of a woman watching porn; I see a woman on a business/conference trip just catching up on e-mail, facebook, browsing her favorite sites, etc.

Nutrition: it is a paradox that in the United States, many of the poor people are fat. One reason is that it can be expensive to eat nutritiously:

She noted that almost a third of U.S. children are overweight.

“Good nutrition at school is more important than ever,” she told the chefs. “A major key to giving our children a healthy future will be to pass a strong child nutrition bill.” [...]
n an exchange at a House hearing this month with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) raised other concerns.

“I have no doubt there are kids that go to school hungry,” he said. “But I have to admit, every time I hear that we have an obesity problem and everybody’s going hungry, how do you reconcile the two?”

Vilsack said they’re not all that different. He said there’s a similarity between low-income families trying to stretch scarce food dollars with high-calorie processed foods, “and youngsters who are just flat out not getting fed because their parents don’t have the resources to feed them.”

Cassidy said he wasn’t sure he followed that reasoning. And he might still be confused if he took a trip to the Williamsons’ kitchen in Carlisle, where contradictions swirl about like stew. The refrigerator and pantry are often filled with food — but the family sometimes has to go to the local soup kitchen to make ends meet.

Hard To Make Good Decisions When You’re Hungry

When asked, Alex says he worries about food all the time, and that he’s always hungry. But later, he admits he has enough to eat. It’s just not always what he wants. He says he especially doesn’t like it when his mother makes Brussels sprouts for dinner.

His 14-year-old sister, Beanna, tries to explain.

“He more or less just worries about if there’s going to be enough food that he likes or if we have something that he likes,” she says. “He’s really picky about what he wants.”

As Beanna talks, Alex goes to the refrigerator for some chocolate. He gets upset when his sister tells him he can only have one piece.

It’s not that uncommon for an 8-year-old to prefer chocolate over Brussels sprouts. But Livas, of the local food pantry, says a good diet is especially important for the poor, as a first step toward addressing their other problems, with things like work, health care and education. She says it’s hard to make good decisions when you’re hungry.

Think about it: I eat bagels (3.50 for 6), orange juice (usually on sale for 5 dollars a gallon), soy milk (3.25 for a half gallon), fresh bananas (50 to 70 cents a pound), apples, and sugar free peanut butter (2.75 per jar). Those prices add up if one has a large family.

But nutrition is one reason I can hold a job and stay physically active, which enables me to stay healthy (save a orthopedic injury or two that most of us eventually get).

More on health
Remember the controversy over breast cancer tests for women in their 40′s (yes, this headline is misleading, at best)? The idea is that testing women via a mammogram at too young of an age yields lots of false positives which might be causing more harm than good.

This article demonstrates one of the problems with false positives:

Now she was being told the pathologist had made a mistake. Her new doctor was certain she never had the disease, called ductal carcinoma in situ, or D.C.I.S. It had all been unnecessary — the surgery, the radiation, the drugs and, worst of all, the fear.

“Psychologically, it’s horrible,” Ms. Long said. “I never should have had to go through what I did.”

Like most women, Ms. Long had regarded the breast biopsy as the gold standard, an infallible way to identify cancer. “I thought it was pretty cut and dried,” said Ms. Long, who is a registered nurse.

As it turns out, diagnosing the earliest stage of breast cancer can be surprisingly difficult, prone to both outright error and case-by-case disagreement over whether a cluster of cells is benign or malignant, according to an examination of breast cancer cases by The New York Times.

Advances in mammography and other imaging technology over the past 30 years have meant that pathologists must render opinions on ever smaller breast lesions, some the size of a few grains of salt. Discerning the difference between some benign lesions and early stage breast cancer is a particularly challenging area of pathology, according to medical records and interviews with doctors and patients.

In short, even competent pathologists can do everything right and STILL make a wrong diagnosis; the diagnosis process itself, at too early of a stage, is plagued by randomness.

Science

It is the adults that have the problem with superstition:

Politics
This is a great ad by the Democrats:

19 July 2010: Posts for the day

Sarah Palin’s latest “hits”: yes, she really did say these things.

A sample:

“[Barack and Michelle Obama] have power in their words. They could refudiate what it is that this group is saying.”
—On the NAACP charge of racism in the Tea Party movement, The Sean Hannity Show, Fox News, July 14, 2010

“We have a President, perhaps for the very first time since the founding of our republic, who doesn’t appear to believe that America is the greatest earthly force for good the world has ever known.”
—Facebook note, June 30, 2010

Economics
The Republicans are claiming that President Bush left the economy in good shape. Paul Krugman writes:

OK, even by contemporary standards, this is rich: the official Republican stance is now apparently that Bush left behind a budget that was in pretty good shape. Mitch McConnell:

The last year of the Bush administration, the deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product was 3.2 percent, well within the range of what most economists think is manageable. A year and a half later, it’s almost 10 percent.

They really do think that we’re idiots.

So, that 3.2 percent number comes from here (pdf). Where’s the bamboozle? Let me count the ways.

First, they’re hoping that you won’t know that standard budget data is presented for fiscal years, which start on October 1 of the previous calendar year. So this isn’t the “last year of the Bush administration” — they’ve conveniently lopped off everything that happened post-Lehman — TARP and all.
[...]

Can we agree that the deficit in the first quarter of 2009 — Obama didn’t even take office until Jan. 20, the ARRA wasn’t even passed until Feb. 17, and essentially no stimulus funds had been spent — had nothing to do with Obama’s polices, and was entirely a Bush legacy? Yet the deficit had already surged to almost 9 percent of GDP. Even in 2009 II, Obama’s policies had barely begun to take effect, and the deficit was already over 10 percent of GDP.

What this chart really tells us is what you should have known already: the deficit is overwhelmingly the result of the economic slump, not Obama policies. But the usual suspects want to fool you.

I’d like to think that the raw dishonesty of this latest Bush defense would be obvious to everyone. But after the past decade, I’ve stopped believing such things. They think we’re idiots — and they may be right.

FAIL
Driving FAIL, but tight jeans WIN.

Parenting FAIL (aka “Natural Selection in action”)