February 2010 Archives

Who needs comic books when Olympic athletes wear outfits that make them look like superheroes?

IT IS such a pity when the fantastic becomes commonplace, if not mundane.

It was about two years ago, before and during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, that the "new breed" of super-aquadynamic - as opposed to aerodynamic - swimsuits like the Speedo LZR Racer were introduced with much controversy.

These swimsuits are a far cry from what you wore when dad threw you off the end of that pier to teach you to swim, and really caused quite a stir, as various tongues wagged about how records were about to be broken, and that it was unfair to teams that did not have this new technology at their disposal.

POLYMERS ON ICE
Technological advances continue to aid athletes in their quest for Olympic victory, but in the short time since the Summer 2008 Olympics, hyper-incredible suits seem to be the norm now.

At the start of the XXI Winter Olympics Games in Vancouver, Canada, the Netherlands-based chemical producers DSM Dyneema touted its contributions towards Dutch skating via Sweden-based athletic clothing supplier, CRAFT.

The companies are using a combination of nylon and DSM Dyneema's Dyneema, an ultra-strong polyethylene fiber, to create a one-layer skin suit for speed skaters. Usually speed skaters must wear a heavier two-layered uniform. DSM Dyneema claims its product is up to 15 times stronger than steel "and up to 40% stronger than aramid fibers."

Meanwhile, the Canadian speed skating team is being outfitted in aerodynamic gear built by Japan-based Descente, from designs created with the organizations Speed Skating Canada and the Canadian National Research Council's Institute for Aerospace Research.

American speed skater Shani Davis competed wearing a special suit created by US-based athletic clothing giant Nike.

So when the speed skating competitions began at the Vancouver Olympics, were the new suits the big topic of conversation?

Hardly: Most chatter seems to be about malfunctioning ice machines, as over the first three days of the Games, three Zambonis broke down, sometimes delaying the meets by an hour or so.

With its zero-carbon emissions, nuclear power has a new ally: environmentalists

IN HIS State of the Union Address on January 27, US President Barack Obama shocked many of his supporters - and quite a few of his opponents - when he came out in favor of nuclear energy.

The president said, "[T]o create more... clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country."

Later, Carol Browner, assistant to the president for energy and climate change, emphasized, "As the world moves to tackle climate change and diversify our national energy portfolio, nuclear energy will play a vital role."

While environmental groups like Friends of the Earth consider the Obama plan a betrayal, and have called the president's statements "a kick in the gut," others once on the environmental vanguard have started to rethink their positions.

Stewart Brand, a creator of the counterculture handbook, The Whole Earth Catalog, has relinquished his anti-nuke past: In his new book, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto, Brand comes out in favor of nuclear energy, and writes, "Radiation from nuclear energy has not killed a single American."

Similarly, Daniel Kessler, senior press officer for Greenpeace, writes, "Many environmentalists are against nuclear power because of waste problems, safety issues and the idea that money spent on nuclear is better spent on renewables like wind and solar. Maybe so, but the drive to reduce global warming emissions is enough incentive for some to overlook nuclear's shortcomings and give it another try."

The last nuclear power plant to be activated in the US was turned on 1996, and Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, tells The Christian Science Monitor, "It's ironic, but Obama could end up being the biggest pro-nuclear power president since Dwight Eisenhower."

A report about a disease thought long gone has uncovered how some newspapers play fast and loose


In late-January, two researchers noted that in the UK, rickets - a disease most had thought vanished with the Victorian workhouse - had returned.

Rickets is caused by Vitamin D deficiency, making children's bones soften, leading to fractures and deformities which in turn cause the kids' to get extreme cases of bow-legs.

In the press release for the report, Simon Pearce and Dr. Tim Cheetham, of Newcastle Biomedicine, call for Vitamin D to be added to milk and other foodstuffs to halt rickets' spread.
Explaining how this almost-forgotten ailment has returned, Pearce and Cheetham write:
"A traditional UK diet often lacks Vitamin D and this could be a big reason for the increasing problem, as well as changes in lifestyle, such as children staying indoors playing computer games."

And then, "Kids tend to stay indoors more these days and play on their computers instead of enjoying the fresh air."

It was this segment of their press release that, with great fervor, the daily papers picked up and ran with - not that I can blame them: Who doesn't love a scientific study that blames computers for the kids' bad health?

However, the doctors are now claiming that their data was twisted and they were misquoted.

"I understand [some newspapers] said that we have linked computers to rickets, whereas we are actually saying lack of outdoor activity in childhood is a risk for poor D nutritional state," Dr. Cheetham told computer gaming website Gamesbrief.com. "We do not say that gaming causes rickets."

He continued, "What we are trying to say is that the Vitamin D status of older kids and teenagers is poor, because they tend to play outdoors less."

So just as I was more than willing to jump on the "blame computers" bandwagon, the angry mob in me wants to jump on the "blame tabloids" bandwagon as well - but on reflection, I will stick with the "blame the press release" bandwagon: It mentions children and computers twice - perhaps not empirical evidence, but certainly the cause for conjuncture.

I think the press release's authors are being a tad disingenuous when they claim a misconstruing of their comments.