The Iranian-born architect and humanitarian Nader Khalili died of congestive heart failure March 5th, 2008. Best known as the founder of the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture (Cal-Earth), he invented a green construction method he called Super Adobe, particularly for use as emergency housing, but also as an alternative construction method for third world communities. He also invented the Geltaftan Earth-and-Fire System known as Ceramic Houses, but energy costs and pollution concerns have made that method less popular than the Super Adobe.
In Super Adobe construction, walls are constructed from bags filled with damp soil, preferably soil with fairly high clay content. This is basically a variant on the tried and true sand-bag used by military and flood control agencies for the past 100 years or so. The difference is the bags are piled high — a feat enabled by strands of barbed-wire between each layer to keep the bags from slipping — then the damp soil is tampered down to form an adobe-like packed earth inside the bag. When covered with a layer of plaster the resulting walls are visually identical to brick structures, but the walls are much thicker, resulting in a high thermal mass that is ideal for sub-tropical and desert environments.
My only complaint with this construction method is the name — I mean if you fill sandbags with dirt instead of sand, don’t you have dirtbags?
It is hard to believe, but mucho-macho Mexico has passed legislation in the capitol city to protect women from the lascivious male. For the most part, this is much-needed reform that outlaws obscene language, unwanted touching and familiarity, and other unwanted expressions of a sexual nature.
In the ever-present Mexican tendency for excess, however, this law goes way too far. First, it only protects women, making it sexist and stereotypical itself. The real problem, however, is that it even makes it a crime to look at a woman lasciviously. When asked who was to judge if a look were ‘lascivious’ an official explained that if it made a woman feel uncomfortable that was enough to qualify.
So basically, if a woman thinks a man is looking at her lustfully, he can be arrested and jailed. Now, so far as I know, there is no scientific evidence that women can read minds — though I know many who think they can. Lasciviousness can not be read infallibly from a face — it is as much in the perception of the viewer as in the subject. So, not only can men be arrested for what they are thinking — but there is no way to prove their innocence — and Mexican law presumes guilt until innocence is proven. This has to be the most absurd law I have ever heard about.
Scientists have discovered that certain cyanobacteria (formerly called blue-green algae) use a different chemical process to extract energy from sunlight than that used by green plants. It seems that large areas of the oceans are too poor in iron to support large-scale photosynthesis, so these single-celled organisms have evolved a means of getting energy from the sun without using iron.
The down side to the discovery is that this alternate process does not absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, like normal photosynthesis. That means global models of oceanic carbon dioxide absorption are probably wrong, and so global-warming predictions are understated. This may provide part of the explanation for why things seem to be warming-up faster than was predicted.
There are thousands of known psychotropic substances available from nature — plants, fungi and WalMart all supply chemical substances that have an impact on the brain and brain function. Chocolate, which comes from an orchid native to Mexico is a good example, though not yet outlawed. The focus today is on Salvia divinorum, another Mexican native said to have LSD-like effects when smoked, eaten or drunk in a tea. Effects last only about an hour, but can be highly subversive to the Establishment, such as uncontrolled laughter or hallucinogenic effects.
Nicknamed Salvia, Sally-D, Magic Mint, Diviner’s Sage (Salvia de los Adivinadores), Maria Pastora, Sage of the Seers, Lady Salvia, Purple Sticky, and/or Sage, this plant and products produced from it have been outlawed in eight states in the U.S., and 16 more states are considering legislation to protect us from this noxious weed. No need to wait for any scientific research, or evidence that it might be harmful in some way — people like it — that is reason enough to outlaw it. Land of the free, home of the rave…
Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have photographed a white killer whale off the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Not quite Captain Ahab’s giant, it is only about eight meters long and 4500 kg, typical size for an adult of that species. Nor is it a true albino, apparently, as parts of its body has a light yellowish-brown tinge.
I suppose some Japanese whaling boat will slaughter this poor beast (for research purposes only, of course…) before it reaches its potential old-age of 70 or 80 years. Killer whales are normally black and white, so the white is really not so odd — it is that yellowish part, which should be black, that is the anomaly. Moby Dick was probably not a killer whale (i.e. Orca species), though he was a killer of a whale with an appetite for sailor hors d’oeuvres.
Samantha Power resigned as Obama’s foreign policy adviser after calling Hillary Clinton a monster. What’s this, an attempt to re-introduce civility into political campaigns? Power made the slip in an interview with The Scotsman, saying:
… in Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio’s the only places they can win. She is a monster, too- that is off the record- she is stooping to anything.
Well, well … Power’s job was an unpaid, volunteer sort of position, so I guess she won’t be put out on the street. Now if we could just get the politicians themselves to clean up their acts!
In an effort to stem the degradation of the Grand Canyon ecosystem, the government has decided to try a little experiment — if you can call 1.3 billion gallons of water ‘little’. Nature created periodic floods in the canyon until man came along and built huge hydro-electric dams along the river course. Glen Canyon Dam, for example, has been blocking the natural floods since the early 1960s, and since then the sandbars along the river have gradually washed away without being replaced.
Today the government opened the spigots on that dam, releasing 300,000 gallons of water per minute, with a plan to leave the flow open for three days. They hope this will help restore the sandbars and other flood-dependent features of the environment. It will also help wash out the accumulating sediment from behind the dam, which in time would fill the reservoir if left unchecked. I suspect they must have started the paperwork in the 1970s to get such an unorthodox project approved.
Hey, life is popular. The Encyclopedia of Life found that out when they went on-line yesterday. It didn’t take long for word to spread, even though they launched before their scheduled opening date. With more than 11 million hits in their first few hours, the site soon crashed.
It is back up and running. So far, it has information on something in excess of 30,000 species, out of an anticipated 1.8 million. They could probably double their content immediately by scarfing up all the species covered in Wikipedia — isn’t sharing what the GNU license is all about?
It is certainly a very ambitious project, and like other I hope they succeed, though I have my doubts. The experts whose input is needed are busy folks with their own agendas, who has the time for volunteer work that will doubtless generate more bickering than gratitude? OK, specialists in a particular species might want to ‘curate’ a species page — but are there 1.8 million specialists available? You might get a few hundred volunteers for that obscure Homo sapiens critter, but how many experts are available for each of the more than 8,000 algae species? And the 10,000+ living diatom species? And … etc., etc. Buena suerta.
The Turkey Point nuclear plant in Florida closed down all five reactors today. Some reports claim the problem started with the nuclear plant and spread into the local grid, while others say the local grid had a problem and the nuclear plant went into automatic shut-down in response, as a safety precaution. Within a few hours three of the five reactors are back online.
Whichever way the trouble flowed, it is no big deal — there was no meltdown or breach or anything dramatic. So a couple hundred thousand Floridians are without power — it’s winter time, it is not as if they really need their air-conditioners.
This is another little reminder, however, of how intertwined modern systems are — a minor problem in one can cascade into bigger things. You should always be prepared to go without electricity, gas, food or water for several days. Do you have enough stored away to get you through? I’m not talking about survivalist, eat the poodle type stuff, just a few days to a week’s supply of basics, in case an earthquake, flood, tornado, volcano or man-made disaster comes your way. It happens to thousands around the world every day, and no place is totally immune. It can happen to you, so be prepared like a good boyscout.
No doubt you have seen people walking around carrying little dumbbells in their hands (no I’m not referring to their children). Others have weighted ankle-bracelets. Both of those help tone specific muscles and incidentally contribute a slight increment to calories burned when walking.
Now the talk is about Walkvest, which shifts this idea up to the center of the body. A heavy (and hot) looking vest is worn while walking or exercising, and it has little pockets where you can put weights. They claim it will help you lose weight. In fact, they say:
In our studies, individuals who walked on a treadmill for 45 minutes without the WALKVEST (and with no coaching by Debbie) burned from 150 to 230 calories. Those same individuals walked on the same treadmill while wearing the WALKVEST with 4 to 6lbs. and they burned 250-330 calories in 45 minutes. When they walked on the treadmill wearing the WALKVEST with 4 to 6lbs. and working out with Debbie on CD, they burned between 370-540 calories in 45 minutes.
Now most people burn about 50-60 calories per mile walking for each 100 pounds they weigh. So for simplicity, say a person weighing 100 pounds walked three miles in those 45 minutes on the treadmill (a fast pace but it keeps the math simple, for illustration sake), and burned the 150 calories given as the low-end example. Add six pounds of weight, and the same walk, and they should burn 159 calories — but here they claim 250 or even 370!
Of course, the only difference, besides the weight, is the “coaching by Debbie”, which apparently accounts for the other 91 calories burned. Hmmm. Vest adds 9 extra calories burned, coaching adds 91. I think I’d skip the $60 vest and just take the $15 coaching CD (that is if I really believed these figures).