Day: December 26, 2000

Missing Link Fossils Found — Assuming They’re Not Fakes

The BBC reports that remarkably well preserved fossils of tiny winged dinosaurs may be the missing link to resolve the debate over the origin of birds. But the real question is: will anybody believe the fossils are genuine?

As recently as 1999 gullible paleontologists put up $80,000 for an alleged winged dinosaur fossil from China that was featured on the cover on National Geographic. The only real problem was that the fossil was a fake.

Now the BBC ominously reports that,

We drove between parched brown fields and passed low mud-brick farms. An icy wind blew from Siberia to the north. The farmers buttoned up their coats against the chill as they gathered every last scrap of vegetation in the hope that they could keep their donkeys alive through another winter. Two years of drought have also meant these are impoverished people.

But as we came to the little village of Sihetun, there was a subtle difference. There were a few modern villa-style homes and some of the young men were riding new Japanese motorbikes. Clearly, there was an additional source of income here.

With the additional source of income coming from selling the many fossils being removed from nearby hills. We’ll see if these new “missing link” fossils stand up to scrutiny over the long term (and personally the whole story has a “too good to be true” feel to it).

Shame on the BBC

For the most part, I find the BBC’s news web site far superior to American fare such as CNN or any of the American news networks, especially for coverage of international news. Unfortunately with its coverage of the horrific shooting of 7 people in Massachussetts, the BBC seems more than willing to emulate the shoddy reporting so common to American media.

In, Terror in the Workplace, for example, the BBC claims,

The shooting of seven people at an Internet company in Wakefield Massachusetts is the latest reminder that workplace killings are depressingly common in the US.

The only problem is that the BBC doesn’t bother to back this claim up. It lists a grand total of 12 incidents involving violence in the work place dating back to 1997 as if a mere enumeration of anecdotes is more than enough to prove that “workplace killings are depressingly common in the US.”

Lets gets some facts in here, courtsey of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which visited this topic in 1998’s “Workplace Violence, 1992-96.”

  • There are approximately 2 million acts of violence or threats of violence against Americans in the workplace each year.
  • Almost all of those are directed against people who work with the public. Retail sales clerks, law enforcement personnel, teachers, medical personnel, transportation personnel (cab drivers, bus drivers, etc.), and private security forces bear the brunt of workplace violence.
  • Although the BBC is hitting the gun angle heavily, guns are used in workplace assaults only about 7.5 percent of the time, with knives, clubs, bottles, and other weapons being 12 percent of the time. Eighty percent of the deaths from workplace assaults, however, were caused by guns, with the other 20 percent being caused by knives and other weapons.
  • Based on 1992 to 1996 data, the killing in Massachussetts was atypical. From 1992 to 1996 about 1,000 people were murdered on the job. Of those, about 760 each year were murdered as part of a robbery attempt. Only about 11 percent of workplace murders were the result of assaults by co-workers and/or legitimate customers.
  • Workplace violence, like violence in general in the United States, is declining. Workplace homicides fell 13 percent from 1992 to 1996, and have almost certainly fell even further over the last four years. What hasn’t fallen is media hyperpublicity over such events.

Human Trials of Canine Paralysis Treatment to Begin

Human trials will begin shortly on an implantable device that successfully promoted nerve regrowth in dogs and may be able to increase nerve regeneration in people who suffer from some forms of spinal cord injury.

In experiments with dogs, the device stimulated regrowth of nerve cells if the device was implanted within two weeks after certain spinal cord injuries. The device emits a very weak electrical field of about 600 microvolts per millimeter which mimics the electrical field present during rapid nerve growth in human and animal embryos.

In canine trials, about 85 percent of the injured animals showed improvements in bodily functions, including a few who regained the ability to walk after being paralyzed. Whether or not such results will translate to human beings remains to be seen.

“Something will happen,” neurosurgeon Scott Shapiro told the Associated Press. “The question is how robust the response will be. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

As Naomi Kleitman, education director for the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, told the Associated Press,

The fact that they’re going to a clinical trial in Indianapolis is very exciting and it’s good evidence that the field has made progress, but obviously we have to be realistic. There’s no guarantee any of this will work in humans.

But, of course, it is important to go ahead and try, regardless of the outcome.

Source:

Trials begin for paralysis patients. Rick Callahan, The Associated Press, December 10, 2000.

Are Snowmen Too Patriarchal?

Art historian and radical feminist Tricia Cusack is concerned about the patriarchal bent that Christmas is taking. Specifically, there are just too many snowmen appearing on Christmas cards these days, according to Cusack, who is a professor at Great Britain’s Birmingham University.

In a press release put out by Birmingham University, Cusack writes,

In both the UK and US, Christmas has been gendered as women’s realm in its emphasis on children and family…

The snowman’s location in the semi-public space of garden or field reinforces a spatial-social system marking women’s spheres as the domestic-private and the men’s as the commercial public.

In other words, the prevalence of snowmen is evidence that Western culture is regressing into a far more conservative, patriarchal form more akin to the Medieval period.

Who knows how much worse the diagnosis will be should she turn her brilliant mind to the hidden meaning behind Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Source:

Snowmen ‘reinforce gender stereotypes’, says doctor. Ananova, December 20, 2000.