Wednesday, June 21, 2006


IT WAS not the most important event to honour the reign of the world's longest-serving monarch. But it means Thai fishermen have taken an essential step to saving the world's largest freshwater fish, the Mekong giant catfish.

Royal reprieve for Thailand's giant catfish


On 9 June, Thailand marked King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 60th year on the throne. A crowd of over half a million people gathered in the nation's capital, Bangkok, prisoners were released, and fishermen in the north of the country declared they would no longer catch the Mekong giant catfish. Instead, they will hand over their nets to the government, in return for $500 per net.

According to the CITES red list of endangered species, numbers of the Mekong giant catfish (Pangasius gigas) have fallen by 80 per cent in the past 13 years, and the species is listed as critically endangered. The fish can grow to 3 metres in length while one specimen caught last year (pictured) weighed 293 kilograms. Its huge size and slow reproduction mean it is likely the population will not recover for at least 30 years.

In a further bid to safeguard the species, the Thai Department of Fisheries has released approximately 10,000 captive-bred individuals into the Mekong river since 2000.


Link

The Deepest Hole

Over forty years ago, researchers in the Soviet Union began an ambitious drilling project whose goal was to penetrate the Earth's upper crust and sample the warm, mysterious area where the crust and mantle intermingle– the Mohorovičić discontinuity, or "Moho." So deep is this area that the Russian scientists had to invent new ways of drilling, and some of their new methods proved quite inventive. But despite the valiant effort which spanned several decades, the Russians never reached their goal, and many of the Earth's secrets were left undiscovered. The work done by the Soviets did, however, provide a plethora of information about what lies just beneath the surface, and it continues to be scientifically useful today. The project is known as the Kola Superdeep Borehole.

Beginning in 1962, the drilling effort was led by the USSR's Interdepartmental Scientific Council for the Study of the Earth's Interior and Superdeep Drilling, which spent years preparing for the historic project. It was started in parallel to the Space Race, a period of intense competition between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. The survey to find a suitable drill site was completed in 1965 when project leaders decided to drill on the Kola Peninsula in the north-west portion of the Soviet Union. After five more years of construction and preparations, the drill began to nudge its way into the ground in 1970.

Inside the project's 200-foot-tall enclosure resides a unique drilling apparatus. Most deep-drilling rigs use a rotating shaft to bore through the ground– using a series of extensions which are incrementally added as the hole grows deeper– but such a method was unworkable with a hole as deep as Kola was planned to be. To overcome this, the Russian researchers devised a solution where only the drill bit at the end of the shaft was rotated. They accomplished this by forcing the pressurized "drilling mud"– the lubricant pumped down the drill shaft– through the specially-designed drill bit to cause it to spin.

Today, the deepest hole ever created by humankind lies beneath the tower enclosing Kola's drill. A number of boreholes split from the central branch, but the deepest is designated "SG-3," a hole about nine inches wide which snakes over 12.262 kilometers (7.5 miles) into the Earth's crust. The drill spent twenty-four years chewing its way to that depth, until its progress was finally halted in 1994, about 2.7 kilometers (1.7 miles) short of its 15,000-meter goal.

The Soviet's drilling rig was designed such that core samples would be provided along the entire length of the drill shaft, providing researchers on the surface with an intimate look at the composition of the Earth as the drill ventured further downward. Before the superdeep borehole project was undertaken, practitioners of Geology had reached a number of conclusions regarding the Earth's deep crust based on observations and seismic data. But as is often the case when humans venture into the unknown, Kola illustrated that certainty from a distance is no certainty at all, and a few scientific theories were left in ruin. One scientist was heard to comment, "Every time we drill a hole we find the unexpected. That's exciting, but disturbing."

To the surprise of the researchers, they did not find the expected transition from granite to basalt at 3-6 kilometers beneath the surface. Data had long shown that seismic waves travel significantly faster below that depth, and geologists had believed that this was due to a "basement" of basalt. Instead, the difference was discovered to be a change in the rock brought on my intense heat pressure, or metamorphic rock. Even more surprisingly, this deep rock was found to be saturated in water which filled the cracks. Because free water should not be found at those depths, scientists theorize that the water is comprised of hydrogen and oxygen atoms which were squeezed out of the surrounding rocks due to the incredible pressure. The water was then prevented from rising to the surface because of the layer of impermeable rocks above it.

Another unexpected find was a menagerie of microscopic fossils as deep as 6.7 kilometers below the surface. Twenty-four distinct species of plankton microfossils were found, and they were discovered to have carbon and nitrogen coverings rather than the typical limestone or silica. Despite the harsh environment of heat and pressure, the microscopic remains were remarkably intact.

The Russian researchers were also surprised at how quickly the temperatures rose as the borehole deepened, which is the factor that ultimately halted the project's progress. Despite the scientists' efforts to combat the heat by refrigerating the drilling mud before pumping it down, at twelve kilometers the drill began to approach its maximum heat tolerance. At that depth researchers had estimated that they would encounter rocks at 100°C (212°F), but the actual temperature was about 180°C (356°F)– much higher than anticipated. At that level of heat and pressure, the rocks began to act more like a plastic than a solid, and the hole had a tendency to flow closed whenever the drill bit was pulled out for replacement. Forward progress became impossible without some technological breakthroughs and major renovations of the equipment on hand, so drilling stopped on the SG-3 branch. If the hole had reached the initial goal of 15,000 meters, temperatures would have reached a projected 300°C (572°F).

When drilling stopped in 1994, the hole was over seven miles deep (12,262 meters), making it by far the deepest hole ever drilled by humankind. The last of the cores to be plucked from from the borehole were dated to be about 2.7 billion years old, or roughly 32 million times older than Abe Vigoda. But even at that depth, the Kola project only penetrated into a fraction of the Earth's continental crust, which ranges from twenty to eighty kilometers thick.

Kola was not the first nor the last attempt at drilling a superdeep borehole, but it has been the most successful so far. In 1957 the United States embarked on a similar project dubbed Project Mohole, but that attempt to drill through the ocean floor was cancelled due to lack of funding. Today, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program seeks to penetrate the much thinner crust of the ocean floor to probe the Earth's lower crust.

The Kola Superdeep Borehole is still a scientifically useful site, and research there is ongoing. The huge repository of core samples are housed at Zapolyarniy, about 10 kilometers south of the borehole. Today the site is managed by the State Scientific Enterprise on Superdeep Drilling and Complex Investigations in the Earth's Interior as the Deep Geolaboratory.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Bayview Subway Station, Toronto








Perspective art at a subway

Friday, June 16, 2006



World royalty feasts with Thai king on 60th anniversary

Royalty from across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa joined Thailand's king at a state banquet to celebrate his 60th year on the throne as the world's longest-reigning monarch.

Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej will welcome royals from 25 nations at a sparkling new throne hall on the grounds of the Grand Palace, a glittering compound of golden temples in central Bangkok.

The 78-year-old monarch, who made his reputation by helping poor farmers rather than hosting extravagant parties, will serve his guests seafood and vegetables produced by projects he sponsors to help ease rural poverty.

The guest list includes Japan's Emperor Akihito, Britain's Prince Andrew, Spain's Queen Sofia, Jordan's King Abdullah II, Brunei's Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, and Monaco's Prince Albert II.

Royals also came from Bahrain, Belgium, Bhutan, Cambodia, Denmark, Kuwait, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Swaziland, Sweden, Tonga and the United Arab Emirates.


Nearly a week of festivities for the jazz-playing king have highlighted his enduring popularity in a country that has undergone tremendous political and social change during his reign.

One million people flocked to Bangkok's marble palace on Friday to hear him give only the third public audience of his rule.

Millions more around the country have worn yellow shirts and wristbands for a week to honor the king with the color associated with Mondays, the weekday he was born in 1927.

At that time, Thailand was still the Kingdom of Siam and monarchs ruled with absolute power.

As Bhumibol took the throne amid the ashes of World War II, he redefined the role of the king in a nation that had become a constitutional monarchy but faltered -- sometimes violently -- as it evolved into a democracy.

Link

Friday, June 09, 2006

Worldcup 2006 fever !

Brasil fan Francis at Fan Fest Berlin

Brasil fan Francis, works in a beer tent at Fan Fest Berlin. She seemed confident about Brasil's chances.

Author: WorldCupBlog
Keywords: WorldCup WorldCupBlog Football Berlin BrasilFan Francis
Added: June 8, 2006

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Geotagged Photos

Zooomr 2.0 Screenshots, New Features

Zooomr, the company launched by 17 year old Kristopher Tate (he’s now 18) in March, will be releasing a new beta version 2.0 sometime around the end of June. The biggest focus of the new release will be increased stability and speed - Zooomr was taken down repeatedly by massive traffic spikes around its launch.

There’s a lot I like about Zooomr, but where they are really pushing the envelope is on photo metadata, particularly geotagging via a mashup with Google maps. Zooomr is also creating technology to help people understand when events are occuring, possibly via photos from users that don’t even know each other. When Zooomr sees photos being uploaded within a time window that are similarly geotagged, it assumes an event is occuring and groups those photos accordingly. The only difficult part of all of this is that it takes a lot of time for a user to associate location information with a photo…and that means many users won’t do it.

Look out for smart sets in version 2.0 as well, giving users the ability to create dynamic albums on the fly based on tags, users and other information. I really like this feature in the new Yahoo Photos and expect it to be widely copied by all of the photo sites over time.

Zooomr is also focused on creating localized version of the service in as many different languages as possible. In the 2.0 release they’ll add Romania and Norway to the sixteen other versions they currently support. For non English speakers, Zooomr may be the most compelling photosharing option.

There are lots of other feature additions as well. I’ll update as the new version is released.

Screen shots are here.

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Thursday, June 08, 2006


Etsy Gets Funded by Web’s All-Stars

Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade items, received a small funding round last week. The participants included Flickr founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter, Albert Wenger (former president of del.icio.us) and Union Square Ventures. The money is going towards a redesign, some new hires and managing Etsy’s growth. But the gesture itself is more significant: the web’s all stars think Etsy is a winner.

Link

Wednesday, June 07, 2006


Can you feel the force?

We all know alternative health has something to do with the floatier side of medicine: acupuncture, herb-wielding Chinese men, that kind of thing. Often the word "holistic" crops up and - depending on what sort of company you're in - some eye-rolling.

But just how floaty is alternative health? More people are looking beyond the gym and the GP for help with pain-relief, stress-management and spiritual wellbeing. The Open University now provides a course on alternative health, Prince Charles has sung its praises to the WHO and more NHS trusts are offering complementary therapies. They can't all be nutters, can they?

Link

Tuesday, June 06, 2006


Picture Perfect

Which Web sites create the best photo albums?

I have never been much of a picture taker, but after my daughter was born two months ago, I started snapping photos at every sniff, yawn, and burp. Soon after I entered this Richard Avedon phase, however, I discovered the Catch-22 of digital photography: The more pictures you take, the harder they are to share. Gather everyone around your computer monitor? Boring. E-mail your online slide show? Grandma complains she can't log in.

Link

Monday, June 05, 2006


Thai Elephant Orchestra (Mulatta Records)

This is, I believe, the first CD ever recorded of instrumental music featuring non-human players. It's a project of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, a government facility in which domestic elephants are making the transition from forest workers to interspecies ambassadors. In keeping with the center's exploration of human-elephant interaction, a set of instruments were designed with the elephants' particular dexterity and strength in mind. The resulting music is uniquely fascinating.
Link

Friday, June 02, 2006


what you'll look like in the future

Accenture's Persuasive Mirror - shows you what you'll look like in the future.

Accenture have just officially unveiled their "Persuasive Mirror" today, the idea being that instead of being a true mirror, a camera picks up your image and after some processing, shows you how you will look in the future.

Now, if that isn't terrifying enough, a small army of cameras in your home will have been picking up your eating, sleeping, smoking, sunbathing and exercising habits. The information gathered from these cameras will then influence how your future-face is processed, i.e. more wrinkles due to too much sun, yellow teeth from smoking, etc. A virtuous week of course should be rewarded by a more flattering middle-aged you.

Link ( via Shiny Shiny )

Thursday, June 01, 2006


Old monitor = cat bed

Oskay2 turned an old monitor into a cat bed, seems like the cat likes it, or it's just a clever background image - "JellyBean hangs out in Harley's converted Apple Two-Page Monochrome Monitor, which has been repurposed into a cat bed. I removed the CRT, circuit boards, and added the towel and some catnip. " - Link.

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