When art says something troubling

More dangerous than the Henson exhibition to some people’s view of what civil society is and should be is an exhibition currently open in the US.  It goes to the heart of civil rights… and I’m not talking about censorship.

Have a look at the pictures.  Anyone care to comment about the aesthetic?  (They remind me vaguely of something Asian, with the Panbanisha seeming distinctly calligraphic.)  Details of the artists and more paintings over the fold, although I can say their talents may be familial: Kanzi and Panbanisha share a parent.

"Pillow Painting" by Kanzi

"Untitled" by Panbanisha

Senate inquiry into gene patents open

I’m a traditionalist in that I believe patents should encourage invention, should cover inventions, and not discoveries of what is already here, waiting for anybody to stumble on it, or, in religious terms, already invented by an alleged creator.

So I’m glad that the senate has opened an inquiry into gene patents.  Gene patents (unless they are of inventions, with genes designed in a lab, not discovered in the field) are a pet peeve of mine, along with mathematical algorithms.  (When we hook up with the Alpha Centauri Patents Office, there will be a hell of a fight about algorithmic "inventions").

So… especially those of you who don’t want nature "owned" by Big Pharma, who want third world countries with indigenous crops that have disease-resistance genes ransacked, or who object to the lax standard of patents review (remember the Australian Innovation Patent granted for "The Wheel", a.k.a. a "Circular transportation facilitation device"?), get your submissions prepared, even if it is a one-para objection to the things are going.

Details and summary of terms of reference over the fold, but first, is there any reader who knows their way around the Patents Act 1990, how it can be tightened up to differentiate between discovery and invention, and how it might be fixed to prevent abuse by Big Pharma?

Immoral purity

"Cleanliness is next to godlessness" (2008-11-20) in The Economist, with the subheading "Soaping away your outer dirt may lead to inner evil" is a good read.  Mind you, I don’t think it supports the idea that OCD sufferers are evil, or women are more evil than men.

From the article in The Economist, there are two key observations:

• Instilling disgust, therefore making people feel "unclean", made subjects more picky about what actions they considered ethical.
• Priming with words associated with cleanliness made subjects label the same actions as more unethical than labelled by the disgusted group.

Mind you, as noted in "Interpreting disgust and contempt" (2008-11-06) , which notes gender differences in sensitivity to disgust (males take more notice of contempt, women of disgust), I’d like to see a gender breakdown of the strength of the ethical changeafter the article about gender specific sensity to disgust and contempt, with male brains more reactive to disgust than females.

Green infrastructure stimulus call

Via Ars Technica comes a link to the Google CEO’s call for green infrastructure to stimulate the economy.  (Video available on YouTube.)

Yep, it’s the exact opposite of what the Oz government is doing: supporting a dying industry that has a track record for making things worse.

So you think you can dance, geek!

While I’m a dance-blind geek (when young and choreographed, I could dance in a chorus line, but I’ve never been able to "read" dance), it was worth watching a Gonzo Labs Dance Competition for Ph.D. theses.

The videos of the dances are available on YouTube.

The winner from the Garvin Research Centre in Sydney, playing "The Sugar Plum Fairy" from the "Nutcracker", danced "The role of vitamin D in beta cell function"

Anyway… here is a selection from the top contestants as judged by professional dance teachers and the popularity on YouTube.

CO2 emissions changes since 1990

The Economist daily chart (2008-11-19) and the article "A climate of change" has the sub-heading "How countries’ greenhouse-gas emissions have changed since 1990"

Sobering stuff for Australians (up nearly 30%), and a lot of self-congratulating Latvians (down over 50%).

National changes in CO2 emissions since 1990