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Sweet Potato Is Being Improved

The sweet potato is a hotel counter-lunch filling. It is something you have when there is no other vegetable left. Most people eat it because it is on the plate. It's flavour can be described as sugary. The only vegetable anything like it is fresh baby peas that can be quite sweet. The sweet potato, however, is far too "sickly" for most palates. This humble vegetable is being revamped.

Researchers in Queensland are trying to find varieties that can be grown more economically and which are more suitable for consumers - diametrically opposed goals one would assume. They are looking for more brilliantly coloured kinds, a silly aspiration considering people don't eat colour. It is the taste that is the problem. Seeing pretty red, purple, orange and white skin while you are peeling them is hardly, well, "appealing". Scientists are saying the colours are exciting. Wow! They are also saying that there are interesting flavours. This claim is not soundly based because no formal taste tests have been done.

A fatter kind is being worked on. A quick perusal of the local greengrocer would indicate that size is not really an issue. There are some monsters out there already. Like giant pumpkins such monstrosities are usually only fit for the rubbish bin.

Those doing the study admit that the sweet potato being produced is of very high quality. If that is the case why bother working on improvements? Surely, research on more main-stream vegetables like the standard potato is more logical than trying to improve a vegetable that is at best only a fill-in on the dinner plate.

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Science

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Funny Animal Photos

Ancient Marsupial Found With Specialised Teeth for Eating Snails

Evidence of the existence of specialised ancient marsupials have been found in Australia. They had teeth that were "hammer-like" for crushing snail shells. Lizards living today in rain forests have similar teeth. They had premolars like the teeth in humans located between the molars and canines. Researchers could not determine at first what the strange teeth were used for. It was the first time that such teeth had been found in marsupials.

Like the Tasmanian tiger a marsupial which filled the role of native dog in Australia, so this marsupial more than 10 million years ago, lived in the niche that the pink-tongued skink holds today. This wet rain forest lizard is quite large, about 40 cm in length, so it's ancestor would have been a tough competitor.

The extinct marsupial became extinct when the weather changed in Australia and inland rain forests receded toward the coast. Lizards could survive in the new environment. The marsupial could not.

Riversleigh in northern Australia, a rich source of marsupial fossils, was where the find was made. Indication are that the marsupial was not plentiful even in prehistoric times because so few fossils of the animal have been found.

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Science

Squirrel Piano Player

"How does that tune go?"

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Funny Animal Photos

Australian Saving Means a Change in the Retail Structure

Why is Australia in such a bad way? The country is exporting at record levels. China is paying up front for these exports. Interest rates are not too high. Remember the Keating days of 14 per cent? We do have a "dual" economy with manufacturing doing it tough due to the high dollar, but Australia never has been a strong exporter of manufactured goods.

Retailers are saying people aren't spending. You would think that people can only spend what they earn and no more. However, due to the multiplier effect, according to economic theory, when a person spends a dollar that one dollars turns over about five times. In other words the money supply, the real paper dollars out there, is actually only about a fifth of the money on the books in an economy. So what happens when a consumer saves? Think about it. The money in circulation "shrinks" by four more dollars. This is what is happening in Australia. We all envied Japan in its good years when they had very high rates of saving per head of population. Now Australians are adopting this way of living.

Australians are doing the right thing and being told by retailers that they are doing the wrong thing. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You either spend now or you don't. The real problem of course is that there are far too many retailers in Australia. Particularly today where many shops sell broad lines of goods. Years ago shops really specialised. Each town had one grocer, one greengrocer, a chemist shop, fish shop selling fresh and fried fish, butcher, Garage and so on. When you are in a shopping centre today you pass several shops selling the same thing while walking.

Australians were in personal debt for decades. Many warned about the lingering debt levels. It is a good thing that people are changing their ways. Unfortunately, the whole retail structure must change as well. This will only occur reluctantly and with great hardship. Many buy businesses and think their future is made. The reality is different. Owning a business is now very tough. Not only do you have local rivals, many Australians buy from oversees on the Internet. Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman may be calling for GST to be placed on Internet purchases. What he really wants is a ban on buying in this way. Things will change. More businesses will go bankrupt.

Australia's future lies in commodity exports. It always has; it always will. Manufacturing motor vehicles in this country was a mistake. Sell iron ore and coal then buy cheaper imports. This has always been the way to go. The main question for us all now is whether we should abandon food production and import most of it? Australia is a major exporter of wheat. This is a commodity. Perhaps Australia should continue. Growing food generally, however, is an important issue for the future. We cannot keep out cheap, high quality food imports from New Zealand for ever with questionable import barriers. Just why Australians still bother producing poor quality sheep is a mystery. The wool is good. The meat is inedible.

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Economics

Accordian Cat

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Funny Animal Photos

Beware the Ozone

Ten years ago the ozone layer was a major topic. "The ozone is decreasing," headlines proclaimed. Then, it was just as quickly forgotten. It may not be growing so much but the ozone layer is still causing problems. The weather has been altered. Wet and dry extremes are the result. Desalination programs have been put on the backburner for now. They will be needed soon as the cycle swings back to dry.

The ozone hole shifts high-altitude wind circulation southward. Most notable for Australia has been the movement of the Southern Hemisphere jet stream to the south. This has severe effects. For example, in the north Britain has got very cold winters in recent years due to blocking of the Northern stream. Estimates are that Australia's weather has changed by a magnitude of 35 per cent. More rain has been brought here. With the impact from greenhouse gases this water evaporates very quickly, so the overall impact is dryness.

With the combination of ozone, greenhouse gases and El Nino the weather has become chaotic for Australia. Chlorofluorocarbon reduction has been successful. Nonetheless, we should not become complacent. Damage still persists in the Arctic. Besides, greenhouse gas emissions is doing more damage now than the depleted ozone. Australians need to consider the country as a whole. Eastern states are now soaking in water. Western Australia, however, is in drought.

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Science

Gorilla Treat

"There is not enough for two son."

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Funny Animal Photos

Chimeras Have Been Identified

What is a chimera? You can be a chimera and not know it. A chimera is the product of two embryos in one individual. A person with this "complaint" is absolutely normal and can live most of their lives without knowing they are "afflicted". They are usually diagnosed in a medical examination.

A case in point was a woman who was found not to be the mother of one of her sons. Tests indicated that genetically the child was not hers. Further test, however, showed that she a chimera and the child was hers.

Human chimeras are not common. In some species they are more the norm. In dahlia anemones, for example, it was noticed that their larvae were fused together like conjoined twins. Out of a batch of 27,169 young, 120 were visibly chimeric. Most of these died. The true chimeras live don undetected. It is believed that 90 per cent of young can be affected There may an evolutionary benefit from this. It appears that chimeras grow faster and are more aggressive than normal larvae. Dahlia anemone are certainly at the halfway point between colonial organisms and individuals.

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Health

Cat Danger

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Potential Future Disaster From Nanotechnology

There is danger from future widespread use of nanotechnology. It is seen as the new savior to save the world from food shortages and so on. But like bio-fuel production it could do more harm than good. CSIRO is calling for more study of nanotechnology. This is despite the fact that no country has yet examined safety issues involved with it.

Nanotechnology creates "micro-fine" products that have no safe disposal system. If they get into the environment there is not telling what damage they could do.

Risks are seemingly endless: use by terrorists; environmental damage; self-reproduction (goo everywhere); even the future of Mankind on this planet could be under threat.

Once a material has been modified or a new nano-product created it becomes a permanent structure. It must be chemically altered to make it safe. A nano-substance is not inert. It will act on the environment if it can. At the moment there are no restrictions. Developers can do what they wish. Let's hope regulations are put in train before a disaster occurs.

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Science

Baseball Animal

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Funny Animal Photos

Pharmcists Should Stay Out of Mental Health

Pharmacists should stay out of health treatment and do what they do best - glorified clerks. They have no training in curing disease. Their education is solely based on chemical analysis. They are scientists not physicians. Ask their advice and they tell you what is written on the packet.

Now the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia is saying pharmacists are qualified to treat people with mental illness. They may "give" drugs to such patients but they do not prescribe them. Heaven help us if they get involved will-nilly in advising those with mental disorders. Having someone continually talking in your ear about how to take your prescription medicine it not going to help one recover.

Doctors need direct contact with a patient to give the greatest assistance. Having a pharmacist in the middle is only going to mess things up. A mental patient is already stressed. Saying pharmacists will reduce medication errors is implying that they have qualifications to oversee physicians. Obviously, they do not have such expertise.

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Health

Rat in Charge

"Since we agreed to stop fighting you've become a real pain George."

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Funny Animal Photos

Shop Frequently and Live Longer

More silly research comes to useful conclusions. A survey has found that older people, men and women who go shopping "frequently" live longer. This is true for Taiwanese anyway. Subject women were 28 per cent less likely to die in the 10 years after the study. Men were 27 per cent less likely. Apparently, going shopping once a week is absolutely no good whatsoever. One has to shop, shop, shop to have a positive outcome.

Researchers reached the following conclusion: "Shopping captures several dimensions of personal wellbeing, health and security as well as contributing to the community's cohesiveness and economy, and may represent or actually confer increased longevity." This conclusion is not soundly based on the data, however. It is just drawn "out of the air". In other words it is just an opinion. Maybe shopping is an ideal way of getting regular exercise. Note, those who lived longer were healthier to begin with. And poor health meant less shopping, thus inadequate diet.

Another problem is the finding that companionship via shopping leads to better health. This has no foundation at all. Grumpy old men do have the adjective "old" clipped onto them.

It makes one wonder whether researchers have conclusions determined before they begin a study. It is worrying that longevity was tested for only 10 years after data was provided.

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Health

Nosey

"Oh hello. I was just looking."

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Funny Animal Photos

Telstra Should Not Have Been Compensated for the NBN Using Fibre Instead of Copper

It seems odd for the Government to compensate Telstra for building the National Broadband Network considering fibre optic cable is a modern version of old copper. If a rival company in the market place builds a new factory with modern equipment established firms are not paid a cent. Besides, the copper was funded by Australian citizens and not by Telstra per se.

Selling Telstra was a stupid idea anyway. People who bought shares should have known that the monopoly would eventually die. Perhaps John Howard saw the writing on the wall and decided to sell it. In recent times Testra has barely made a profit so it could no longer be relied upon as a cash cow.

The Australian Government is paying Telstra $11 billion in compensation. Laws should have been changed to prevent this public liability taking place. Telstra's ownership of the copper should have been changed before the sale. It's control should have been altered to protection of the copper network which was paid for by Australian taxpayers.

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Communication

Cat Fly Swat

"Damn flies."

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Funny Animal Photos

Australian Will Have a Higher Cost Of Living With a Carbon Tax

What has happened to Australian society that the support for a carbon tax, so high when Kevin Rudd was in charge, has vanished? It seems everyone thought that a tax on pollution wouldn't really mean a financial burden. With the sudden hits from water and electricity price increases they know that it will cost - a lot. Kevin is crying into his handkerchief saying they made me do it - his cabinet told him to give up his push for a carbon tax, so he says. Julia Gillard has apparently had a change of heart and it is now her baby.

Australians will have to accept that they will get less for their money in the near future. All countries will have to join the carbon club eventually. Not using as much petrol is a possibility, but doing without air conditioning particularly the wealthy that will be difficult. It seems the pillars of capitalism will be challenged. This is the kind of post-capitalism that twenty years ago hardly anyone would imagine. A society that really cares for the environment? That is something new. We have spent two centuries running rough-shod over the countryside, dumping pollutants everywhere. The time has arrived to get out the shovel and broom and start cleaning up.

Lower consumption will not be a problem. Permanent prices rises are in order across the board, with national GDP remaining at about the same level. The cost of living will be significantly higher. House prices will probably fall, though, due a lower capacity to pay. The problem lies in convincing those in developing countries that they will never enjoy the standard of living we in the West had for such a long time.

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