Understanding the universe: ‘A must for science’…

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Climate Change: The Role of Particles and Gases

 
July 1, 2008 Berkeley Lab lecture:
A member of the Atmospheric Sciences Department in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD), Surabi Menon’s work focuses on the human contribution to increasing impacts of climate change. Her talk will focus on what humans can do about the effects of global warming by examining [...]

Hadron experiment and the ‘Big Bang’…

RECREATING THE ONSET OF THE UNIVERSE
THIS MONTH, scientists launched the “Big Bang experiment“. It was an attempt in recreating the start of the universe using the biggest and most sophisticated machine yet built.
After decades of careful preparation and planning and $10 billion of investment, scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (known as CERN) [...]

Investment Banking…

DOES IT HAVE A FUTURE?
HOW BANKING, and the world has changed. Up until recently, when banks did quaint things like making money, the Wall Street mantra was: “Be like Goldman Sachs”. Investment banks often peered enviously at the risk taking prowess that generated huge profits for Goldman Sachs. Hardly is that the case today. In [...]

North Korea and the Yongbyon reactor…

U-TURN ON DISARMARMAMENT PROGRAMME
UN INSPECTORS insist that North Korea has removed UN nuclear watchdog monitors, seals and cameras from its previously shutdown atomic bomb-making factory. North Korea aims to reintroduce nuclear material at the complex within days. The announcement given in the last day was made by a senior official of the International Atomic Energy Agency [...]

Bon Jovi: ‘It’s my life’…

‘True and fair’ view…

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
COMPANIES such as Enron that collapsed in the aftermath of the internet bubble demonstrated with pinpoint accuracy the central role of accounting in good corporate governance. Enron, and others like it such as WorldCom, deliberately manipulated their accounting figures and then persuaded their auditors (Arthur Andersen) to sign-off accounts that were, at best, misleading and distorted, [...]

Global warming: ‘The methane threat’…

TICKING TIME BOMB
SCIENTISTS are uncovering a new global warming threat as melting permafrost releases millions of tons of methane gas, calculated to be 20-times more damaging than carbon dioxide.
Early findings suggest that huge deposits of subsea methane are bubbling to the surface due to the Arctic region having become warmer and its ice retreating through the [...]

Can a ’surge’ work in Afghanistan, like it did in Iraq?

REFLECTION & STRATEGY

THIS TIME LAST WEEK, General David Petraeus, stood-down as the US military commander in Iraq. One of the most impressive qualities of General Petraeus has been his modesty over his own success. US politicians, including President Bush, will no-doubt embrace General Petraeus as a saviour, which politically speaking he has been for the [...]

Luther Vandross: ‘Dance with my father again’

Climate Change and the Developing World…

GREEN CAMPAIGNERS and environmentalists have long argued that the world should concentrate on preventing climate change, not adapting to it. Is that premise now changing?
 Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States and Nobel-Prize winner, said:
… I used to think adaptation subtracted from our efforts on prevention. But I’ve changed my mind.
… Poor countries are [...]

Rewriting the rules of banking…

BIG IS BEAUTIFUL?
AS SHOCKING as the collapse of HBOS has been, and the takeover by Lloyds TSB an immediate relief for its 22 million depositors, some financial commentators are suggesting that we may not have seen the worst of the problems in the banking sector. Many analysts ponder as to whether the merger between Lloyds TSB [...]

Radical court reforms for Scotland…

JURIES FACE AXE
JURIES could be scrapped for long-running and complex fraud and murder trials under reforms being considered by Scottish ministers.
Such cases would instead be overseen by a panel of judges, following the precedent set in the Lockerbie trial, where three judges convicted Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi of bombing Pan-Am flight 103.
A set of ideas [...]

HBOS: ‘Questions that need answers’…

SERIOUS CONCERNS OVER THE COLLAPSE OF A SCOTTISH INSTITUTION
IN THE WAKE of the collapse of the Bank of Scotland, there are a whole series of questions that must be answered. Up until last Thursday, the Bank of Scotland was Scotland’s second largest publicly quoted company. The consequences of the merger between Lloyds and the Halifax have repercussions [...]

Lightning Seeds: ‘The Life of Riley’

Financial regulation: is it needed?

WHILST it is easy to cast bankers and hedge funds as the villains in the credit crisis, the fundamental weakness within the financial sector is that bank lending has seized up. But, in the view of some financial commentators more regulation will harm, not help, economic recovery.
BLAME?
In the previous journal posted to this site it was [...]

Banking and reality: Science or not?

MANAGING FINANCE
WITHIN the space of a week the world has witnessed the disappearance from the financial landscape of such venerable firms as Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and the Bank of Scotland. It is inevitable that people will question the competence of bankers. Along with many financial mathematicians, in both the financial sector and academia, many [...]

Poetry: ‘The Bee Orchid’…

THE BEE ORCHID
We returned to the Byzantine path’s
Camomile-strewn marble pavement
And dusty oregano to look again,
Before the snails, for the bee orchid.
 
Pollineum like a brain, the brainy
Bumble-bee disguise. On our knees
Among wild garlic, almost at prayer,
We forgot about adder and lizard,
 
And nearly missed in a juniper
The blackcap’s jet black. We waited
And waited for his connoisseur’s
Restrained aria [...]

Toto: “Africa”…

How we understand climate…

INTRODUCTION
SCIENTISTS have used many methods to determine whether and how human activity is changing earth’s climate. They begin with careful observations of climate conditions, past and present, around the world. Pursuing further knowledge, they also pore over historical records, study ice cores, run statistical analyses, evaluate climate models and look at classifications of large geographic [...]

Global Finance: ‘Maelstrom in the markets’…

FINANCIAL MARKETS
The Guardian’s Editorial, dated Tuesday September 16 2008, concerns the crisis within financial markets, the recent collapse of Lehman Brothers and what actions are now required.
The Editor of the Guardian writes:
… “It is a moment Karl Marx would have relished. From every angle financial capitalism is taking a battering. Late on Sunday one of [...]

Human impacts on climate…

INTRODUCTION
From prehistoric times until the relatively recent past, all people had at least on thing in common. Whether people lived in ancient China or 18th century Europe, they could not affect the climate on a large scale; climate affected them. Today, though, something fundamental has changed. Through people’s actions – particularly the burning of fossil [...]

NATO and the Taliban threat…

A ROBUST NATO IS ESSENTIAL GIVEN HISTORICAL PRECEDENT
With each passing day, Afghanistan is a given a reminder of how the threat from the Taleban is a continued and menacing threat. The reminders are clear for all to see: burnt-out lorries appear beside the road, abandoned vehicles hit by missiles and tankers that never made it [...]

Does Britain need a proper written constitution?

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
Many commentators, such Robert Hazell, argue, rightly, that it is time for a second wave of constitutional reforms in following the first wave that was one of the great achievements of Blair’s first term in office. Mr. Hazell has frequently listed a series of radical reforms which ought to be included in this second-wave, [...]

Joe Jackson: Steppin’ Out

Bacteria and climate change…

ESSAY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BACTERIA AND CLIMATE CHANGE
THE FIRST ORGANISMS known from the fossil records are bacteria. Ubiquitous today, bacteria are single-celled organisms that possess a cell-membrane and deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA – the chemical carrier of genetic information but lack a cell nucleus – that part of a cell in more complex organisms that function’s [...]

Book review: ‘Die Hard, Aby!’…

DIE HARD, ABY!
RECENT BOOKS, many by Pen and Sword such as Shot at Dawn, have highlighted the often shocking cases of young British soldiers in the Great War being executed by their own side. All too frequently their trials were cursory, the evidence flimsy and the defence wholly inadequate. Such scandals has appalled right-minded people [...]

Climate change and the coriolis effect…

INTRODUCTION: WEATHER AND CLIMATE
WITHIN the Earth’s large-scale system of winds, air circulates around the globe and drives currents of water on the surface of the seas and oceans. This global circulation of air arises from the Sun’s unequal heating of the Earth. This, in turn, leads to differentials within air pressure and a redistribution of [...]

The Cost of Carbon…

MANAGING CARBON EMISSIONS

ATTEMPTS to control emissions of carbon dioxide in the UK are in a muddle. Until the issue is better managed, it will be needlessly difficult in meeting the national target reduction of 60% in emissions, by 2050.
Most environmentalists accept that a financial penalty be attached to carbon dioxide emissions, because mere exhortation is [...]

My Flight on a Blackhawk helicopter in Iraq…

 
 
- The Black Hawk series of helicopters can perform a wide array of missions, including the tactical transport of troops, electronic warfare, and aeromedical evacuation. Primarily operated by the US Army.

Taking liberties with DNA…

AN ESSAY ON THE LAW RELATING TO DNA STORAGE
Attribution for this article has been given at the foot to this journal. The article presented here is in my own words and includes a personal testimony: 
BRITAIN requires stronger laws in how it sets limits on how genetic-data can be used. This is a view that is [...]