Wonky's World

Japan Earthquake 2011

2011-03-11T16:22:00.001-08:00

I've lived in Tokyo on and off for about six years and this is definitely the strongest quake I've ever felt. And the longest--the ground must have been shaking for at least 5 minutes.

I had the day off because we were bringing my son to an orientation session for his daycare, which he will start next month. We were in the middle of it when the quake started. Needless to say, that got cut short. My son (who is 2) didn't really understand what was happening but he was quite shaken. I saw cars outside bouncing around on their suspension. After the quake subsided, we went to a big park, the safest thing to do. We waited out a couple of aftershocks then headed home. On the way back, the only damage I saw was a tipped-over flower pot. In our apartment, only a few things were knocked over. (See pic of what happened to my English-language books!) We didn't know the full extent of the damage until we turned on the news. Even now, we are still having aftershocks.

All stores and restaurants closed. The only place we found open was a 7-11, and they were completely out of bread, bottled water, and prepared meals. The trains were stopped and people had to find an alternate means to get home from work. Many people walked.

Our power never went out, but the gas was off this morning. It's back on now.

We were particularly worried about my father-in-law, who lives in a coastal area. We finally heard from him this morning. While he is without power, he is fine. All family members are now accounted for.

Do We Really Need Daylight Savings Time?

2010-03-19T05:04:00.000-07:00

The clocks are about to change again. But is Daylight Savings Time really necessary? I now live in Japan, and we don't use change the clocks here. I thought it was strange at first, but it turns out much of the world doesn't use DST.

Have you ever wondered how DST was started? According to Wikipedia, modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson, whose shift-work job gave him leisure time to collect insects, and made him aware of the value of after-hours daylight.

So, essentially, we continue to use DST to this day because some guy liked collecting bugs over 100 years ago. Are there really any benefits to this practice or is it just an annoyance? It was written into law to save energy…but the trade off is that people might use less energy for lighting, but they'll use more for their air conditioners during that extra hour.

Read more about the history and controversy of DST here.

Shrimp Found Living under Antarctic Ice Sheet

2010-03-16T03:44:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought that life could thrive underneath an Antarctic ice sheet? Not NASA.

Six hundred feet below the ice where no light shines, scientists had figured nothing much more than a few microbes could exist.

That's why a NASA team was surprised when they lowered a video camera to get the first long look at the underbelly of an ice sheet in Antarctica. A curious shrimp-like creature came swimming by and then parked itself on the camera's cable. Scientists also pulled up a tentacle they believe came from a foot-long jellyfish.

If life can exist in such an inhospitable environment on Earth, we can imagine it can exist nearly anywhere...the sands of Mars, the seas of Europa, the skies of Jupiter...maybe even more exotic locales such as the hydrocarbon oceans of Titan or the surface of Pluto.

Thoughts?

Click here for more info on this amazing discovery.

Do Lawns Contribute to Global Warming?

2010-03-15T06:19:00.000-07:00

A new study from UC Irvine suggests lawns may contribute to global warming. How could this be? Grass is green, right? It will soak up CO2, right?

Well, it's not so much the grass -- which does remove CO2 from the air and store carbon in the soil -- but the care that the lawn needs: applying fertilizer, mowing, irrigation, leaf blowing, etc., all of which produce emissions (four times greater than the amount of carbon stored).

You may think this sounds strange...doesn't everyone have a lawn? Could you imagine a house without one? Lawns may in fact be just a Western cultural phenomenon. I remember my wife (who is from Japan) once asked me why all American houses have lawns. Japanese houses don't have lawns, and I'm not just talking about Tokyo. Even out in the country, there is no sign of a layer of green grass, a ride-on lawn mower, etc. The idea of lawns just never took root (ugh, bad pun) here. Could you imagine what your home would be like without a lawn?

Read more here and here.

Recycle that Junk Mail!

2010-03-02T00:45:00.000-08:00

I just saw this article and had to laugh. According to USA Today, the U.S. Postal Service may seem so last century, burning fossil fuel to deliver paper mail, but it's increasingly going green. Its latest endeavor: more lobby recycling bins.

It's adding these bins to encourage customers to "read, respond, recycle" their P.O. box mail while still in the post office lobby, instead of throwing the paper away at home.

What's all this about "reading" and "responding?" Last time I checked, the only things I ever get in the mail are bills (and I'm switching to paperless whenever possible) and ads for credit cards I don't need, lame catalogs for junk I don't want, and sneaky frequent flyer mile offers that are just more cleverly disguised credit card ads. I never even open any of this trash. It goes straight into the recycling bin! There should be a "do not mail" list, the same way there's a "do not call" list for telephone solicitations.

Read more about it here.

Dinochicken Project

2010-02-25T03:14:00.000-08:00

I've posted on this blog before about the link between dinosaurs and birds--birds are technically classified as a surviving branch of theropod dinosaurs. Now, paleontologists are planning to reverse-engineer a chicken into a "non-avian" dinosaur. (You have to call "regular" dinosaurs "non-avian" to differentiate them from birds!)

According to Discovery.com, they'll start off with a chicken embryo. The dinochicken project has the goal of bringing back multiple dinosaur characteristics, such as a tail, teeth and forearms, by changing the levels of regulatory proteins that have evolved to suppress these characteristics in birds.

And before you start screaming "abomination," they say that there is no danger of the proposed dinochicken escaping and populating the world with dinosaurs, Horner said, since only the chicken's development, and not its genome, would have been affected. If the creature did somehow escape and could mate, the result would just be a regular chicken.

Essentially, they'll be re-awakening dinosaur genes in the chicken that modern chickens no longer use. I wonder what this "chickenosaurs" will end up looking like?

Read more about it here.

See the video here.

Pre-historic Hominids=Time Travelling Aliens?

2010-02-20T07:20:00.000-08:00

Discover Magazine reports on a finding of a possible hominid species from the town of Boskop in South Africa that could've had an average IQ of around 150--meaning they would've been much more intelligent than us!

What I find interesting, however, is the description of the faces of these hominids:

These people had small, childlike faces.

The combination of a large cranium and immature face would look decidedly unusual to modern eyes, but not entirely unfamiliar. Such faces peer out from the covers of countless science fiction books and are often attached to “alien abductors” in movies.

Were they alien time travelers, perhaps? Of course, we have no way to prove anything like this but it's always fun to speculate.

Read more about it here.

Only 3,200 Tigers Left in the Wild

2010-02-12T18:17:00.000-08:00

Yes, you've read the headline correctly. In the wild, there are only 3,200 tigers still stalking in the wild. This is half the number of only twelve years ago, and at this rate they could completely disappear within a single generation.

What's causing this? Illegal trade and poaching. Wealthy people sometimes buy tigers as pets. I remember reading once that there were more tigers in Texas than in India. I guess the people who buy them think they're cute when they're babies, but once they get older...

As for poaching, CNN reports: Demand for tiger parts in areas of Asia is a key factor, campaigners said.

"The demand for bones and skin, meat, and even claws and teeth ... is driving a major crime campaign to wipe tigers out in the wild," said Crawford Allan, director of TRAFFIC-North America, which monitors the trade in wildlife.

He warned that in some parts of the world, tigers were valued more for their body parts than as living creatures.

I really don't understand why people think it's ok to eat tiger steaks or whatever they're doing is a good thing.

If things don't change soon, the only place anyone will be able to see a tiger is a zoo.

Biofuel from Wastewater

2010-02-09T05:07:00.000-08:00

Imagine if flushing the toilet could help create biofuel! Sounds ridiculous, of course. What, exactly, are we talking about here? Some think algae could be used as a source of fuel. How does this involve toilets? The algae ponds could be located near wastewater treatment plants. That way, the algae could get all the phosphorous and nitrogen needed to thrive. These nutrients are usually derived from petroleum.

Additionally, according to Newswise, While the researchers found algae production to have a greater environmental impact than other sources, it remains an attractive source for energy. Algae, which are grown in water, don't compete with food crops grown on land and also tend to have higher energy yields than sources such as corn or switchgrass. Additionally, algae's high lipid content makes for efficient refinement to liquid fuels that could be used to power vehicles, according to the research.

What do you think? Is it possible? Is it worth investment? And Exactly how is algae going to be used as a fuel, anyway?

Read more about it here and here.

Moon Rocket - Cancelled!

2010-02-05T22:45:00.000-08:00

NASA's Constellation program, which was supposed to replace the aging space shuttle fleet and eventually send astronauts back to the moon, has been canceled by the Obama administration.

From Space.com: On Monday, President Barack Obama rolled out the 2011 budget request for NASA as part of the nation's larger budget. The request would scrap NASA's current Constellation program, which has been building the Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets slated to replace the shuttle fleet, and set aside $6 billion over five years to support the development of commercial spaceships capable of launching astronauts into space.

Will this leave the United States with no manned spaceflight program? It seems that it's expected that the next generation of manned space vehicles will be built by private industry, not NASA.

What is your view of this? There are those who've thought NASA has been a colosal waste of money since the 60's. (I am not one of them.) Does anyone wish they hadn't voted for Obama now? I'm pretty sure Sarah Palin can see the moon from her house...

Read about it here and here on Space.com.

Japan to Blast Solar Energy to Earth

2010-01-19T07:06:00.000-08:00

What do you think of solar power? Do you think it's a great alternative to fossil fuels? Possibly, you think it's unmanly and weak, unable to power industry?

Well, Japan is planning to put satellites in orbit to collect the sun's rays, which are five times stronger in space than on Earth's surface, and blast the power back to Earth using microwaves or lasers.

An article posted on Pysorg.com states: Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming," researchers at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of the project participants, wrote in a report.

According to a 2004 study by JAXA, the words 'laser' and 'microwave' caused the most concern among the 1,000 people questioned.

What do you think?

Read more about it here.

Dog People vs. Cat People

2010-01-14T19:05:00.000-08:00

I'm probably going to start a thousand-post flame war here, but I found an article on CNN that describes a study done at the University of Texas at Austin which describes the differences between "cat people" and "dog people." The research was done through an online personality test.

According to the study, it turns out that the "dog people" -- based on how people identified themselves, not on what animals they actually own -- tend to be more social and outgoing, whereas "cat people" tend to be more neurotic but "open," which means creative, philosophical, or nontraditional in this context.

Are you a "dog person" or a "cat person?" I've never been much of a dog person...maybe this stems from a bad experience I had as a kid, when I was chased down the street by an insane mutt. To this day that dog is known as "The Black Dog." I don't know what breed it was. I'm also not a fan of getting licked or drooled on. Cats, on the other hand, don't chase, drool, or lick (much.) I prefer cats.

Read the full article here.

Mining Landfills for Methane

2010-01-13T23:24:00.000-08:00

I took this photo last month on a research trip to a lanfill for a project I'm working on. I had no idea what it was so I did a little research. Looks like they're mining the landfill for methane, for use as natural gas. Talk about fossil fuel in the making! This certainly shows that one man's trash really can be another's treasure.

Clean skies discusses a similar project in San Francisco. At the landfill, bacteria break down the food scraps, paper, lawn trimmings and other organic waste dumped there. Over time, the material ferments, releasing methane and other gases. About 50 percent of the gas emitted from landfills is methane. The EPA says it's 21 times more effective than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere.

The Altamont landfill is equipped with more than 100 wells with black tubes that vacuum up the methane.

The LNG is then pumped into the garbage and recycling trucks at a company fueling station in Oakland, while vehicles elsewhere in California get their gas at specially equipped stations.

In 2005, the last year EPA data was available, landfill methane electricity projects made up 10.8 percent of the country's renewable energy output, not including hydroelectric power.

Read more about it here.

What Should Count as a Planet?

2010-01-05T23:49:00.000-08:00

Space.com speculates that a world the size of Earth could exist in the outer solar system. What's interesting is this--would such a world be considered a "planet" or not? You all probably remember Pluto's demotion to "dwarf planet" status in 2006.

From Wikipedia: The definition of "planet" set in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) states that in the Solar System a planet is a celestial body that:

is in orbit around the Sun,
has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape), and
has "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit.

Also, a "dwarf planet" doesn't mean a small planet. It's not a type of planet, but a completely different class of object. BUT--what if a body were discovered in the outer solar system, in the same neighborhood as Pluto, that were the size of Earth or larger? This is the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy bodies out beyond the orbit of Neptune similar to the Asteroid Belt. So far, objects here such as Pluto and Eris are considered dwarf planets and not planets because they have not cleard the neighborhood around their orbits. Would the definition of planet have to change? Would Pluto be able to be counted among the planets again?

Read more about it here.

Happy New Year 2010!

2010-01-01T00:15:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone. In fact, Happy New Decade! Good luck to everyone in all your endeavors in the year of the tiger!

Here in Japan, New Year's is more like Christmas. Instead of partying, the tradition is to first visit a shinto shrine, and then visit relatives and eat traditional New Year's foods.

In this picture is a traditional New Year's Decoration. While back home (USA) we usually see Christmas decorations up for a while after the holiday, here in Japan, they are replaced overnight with the New Year's decorations. This is to pay respects to the Spirits of the New Year. Traditionally it was done by December 12th...I suppose this was before the commercialism of Christmas took over...Christmas in Japan is a commercial holiday only, as only a very small percentage of the population are Christians.

Getting Kids into Reading...as Early as Possible!

2009-12-19T06:17:00.000-08:00

A lot of people wish their kids would read more. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think if kids are around books from a very early age, they won't be able to help but be interested because it'll be something normal for them.

My son is only one and a half, but he looks at his books more than he plays with his toys. I've always been an avid reader myself. Ever since I was a kid, I've carried a book with me at all times. These days I always read on the train while commuting.

So naturally (at least for me!) when my son was born one of the first things I did was start buying books and reading them to him. It didn't matter to me that he'd be too young to understand. I remembered all the books I loved as a kid--the Mr. Men books, Dr. Seuss, Richard Scarry, etc...these days many of the old classics are even available as board books, so no need to worry a baby will destroy them. By the time he was old enough to walk, he already had a big library (see above pic!) Sometimes they do end up in a big pile on the floor, but more often, he's flipping through one and asking me or the Mrs. the names of the letters, numbers, and objects in pictures. It's amazing how fast he is learning. He can already recognize half the numbers from 1 to 10.

Hopefully this interest will continue into the future!

Super Earth Discovery!

2009-12-17T06:58:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure why GJ-1214b is being referred to as a "Super Earth"...I guess because it's nearly three times the size of our own planet? In any case, this is an exciting discovery because it's a rocky, watery world. Most of the planets discovered outside our solar system are more like giant Jupiters...and very very unlikely to be able to support life as we know it.

According to CNN, While the planet probably has too thick of an atmosphere and is too hot to support life similar to that found on Earth, the discovery is being heralded as a major breakthrough in humanity's search for life on other planets.

And for me, the funny part is this: The planet, named GJ 1214b, is 2.7 times as large as Earth and orbits a star much smaller and less luminous than our sun. That's significant, Charbonneau said, because for many years, astronomers assumed that planets only would be found orbiting stars that are similar in size to the sun.

Because of that assumption, researchers didn't spend much time looking for planets circling small stars, he said. The discovery of this "watery world" helps debunk the notion that Earth-like planets could form only in conditions similar to those in our solar system.

I always find it interesting how scientific assumptions can be revealed to be totally wrong. Once I read an astronomy text from the 1800's and some of the ideas presented were pretty naive, to say the least. I remember there was no good explanation for how the sun worked...the book explained it as if the sun were a huge fire, and the author tried to explain the massive amount of material that would have to crash into it every year to keep it from burning up!

Read more about GJ-1214b here and here.

Wind Turbines Give You Cooties!

2009-11-13T04:53:00.000-08:00

Yep, that's right. You can get a whole host of health problems from living near a wind farm, including vertigo, panic attacks, and even heart disease. This "disease" is called Wind Turbine Syndrome, or WTS for short.

From The Independent: This is the disruption or abnormal stimulation of the inner ear's vestibular system by turbine infrasound and low-frequency noise, the most distinctive feature of which is a group of symptoms which (Dr Nina Pierpont, a New York paediatrician) calls visceral vibratory vestibular disturbance, or VVVD.

The thing is, the study only included 38 people, many of which already had pre-existing conditions, which included:

* Seven people with a history of mental disorders.
* Eight people with pre-existing migraine disorder.
* Eight people with permanent hearing problems.
* Six people with continuous tinnitus.
* Twelve people who had previously been exposed to significant noise, such as through work in industrial or construction settings.
* Eighteen people who were motion sensitive.
* Seven people who remembered a history of a single concussion.

So, what do you think? Do you fear wind turbines? Should they be banned from Earth?

Read more here and here.

The Great Space Elevator

2009-11-09T04:54:00.000-08:00

I remember reading Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise when I was in high school. The book was about a space elevator--basically a building thousands of miles tall which can haul cargo into space without the need for rockets. Now, scientists are talking about making this a reality.

According to CNN, The benefits of a fully realized elevator would make carrying people and goods into space cheaper, easier and safer than with rocket launches, proponents say, opening up a host of possibilities.

Restaurants and hotels for space tourists. Wind turbines that provide energy by spinning 24 hours a day. A cheaper, easier and more environmentally friendly way to launch rockets.

Scientists envision all of the above -- possibly within our lifetimes.

Read the full article here.

Ham KILLS

2009-11-02T03:51:00.000-08:00

According to the World Research Cancer Fund, ham may be a cause of cancer.

There is convincing evidence that adults who consume more than 70g of processed meat a week have a higher risk of developing bowel cancer. 70g is about the equivalent of three rashers of bacon. So those adults who enjoy a ham sandwich for lunch every day followed by a full English breakfast of bacon and eggs at the weekend are endangering their health.

So...what are we to make of this? Should ham be banned? Should each town have a big bonfire in the center of town to destroy all evil processed meat? Personally, I do not plan to change my ham eating habits.

Read more here.

Balcony Garden Asparagus Mega-Harvest

2009-10-28T17:28:00.001-07:00

For the past couple of years, we've been growing asparagus out on the balcony. This is the first time we've picked any. My family had a garden in the back yard when I was a kid (they still do!) but this is my first experience with asparagus. Thing is, it actually takes several years to grow into what you buy in the supermarket. We've also grown cucumbers, beans, and tomatoes out there.

Do you have any experience with a balcony garden?

Windows 7 Whopper at Burger King Japan

2009-10-28T08:14:00.001-07:00

Here in Japan, in one of the most bizarre cross-branding efforts I've come across, BK is offering a Windows 7 Whopper. That's a burger with 7 beef patties. Want one?

Making Snacks Stimulates Kids' Brains

2009-10-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

Bad news for dentists! The Japan Times reports a study which indicates that making snacks helps kids' brain development.

From the article: The study found that the prefrontal area became active when the children used devices to mix the dough and roll it out. It was also confirmed that the area strongly reacted to such processes as egg breaking and decorating with chocolate. In the age bracket, the area of third- and fourth-graders became most active.

Should we be telling our kids to make their own snacks?

Read more here.

National Museum of Nature and Science,Tokyo

2009-10-20T19:34:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics I took at the National Museum of Nature and Science here in Tokyo a few months ago.

Pachycephalosaurs

Collection of ceratopsian skulls

T-Rex

Deinotherium, an extinct elephant relative

Smilodon (saber-toothed tiger)

Hachiko. He was a dog who waited for his owner at Shibuya Station every day, long after his owner passed away. You may have heard of the famous dog statue by the station, which is now a popular meeting spot. Here's the actual dog. Stuffed.

For more info on the museum, click here.

Saving the World by Peeing

2009-10-17T23:45:00.000-07:00

No, this story is not a joke. In order to save on fuel costs, ANA (All Nippon Airways) has asked passengers to use the toilet before boarding. Since the planes won't be weighted down with all those full bladders, the airline is also claiming that this will reduce carbon emissions.

What other bodily functions can help save the world?

Read more about it here.