Random Thoughts

Historians at University College London say they have discovered part of an ancient Roman law code called the Codex Gregorianus, or Gregorian Code. The discovery was made after researchers pieced together 17 fragments of previously incomprehensible parchment. The fragments were being studied at UCL as part of 'Projet Volterra' – a ten year study of Roman law in its full social, legal and political context. Corcoran and Salway found that the text belonged to the Codex Gregorianus, a collection of laws by emperors from Hadrian (AD 117-138) to Diocletian (AD 284-305), which was published circa…

Star formation and star death are wonders that never cease – and never cease to fascinate. Every day, at least once, my wondering attention is drawn outwards into the Universe's astounding billions of galaxies of billions of stars that shine for billions of years. Out there, uncountable numbers of celestial bodies are, during every moment of all earthy troubles, coalescing and igniting and collapsing and dimming, wildly or weakly transforming space, time, matter and energy. Scientists in many fields focus their questioning gazes on Earth's only close-up star, in part, to figure this planet…

Sing A Song Of Science : You, Me And Us The song "You, me and us" popped into my head today.  When a song pops into my head like that it most commonly triggers a train of scientific thoughts rather than associated memories. The song "You, me and us", to the tune of Cielito Lindo (Ay, ay, ay ay.) was recorded in 1956 by Alma Cogan.  You can listen to it here. The first line goes: "You, me and us, we are my favorite people."  It just occurred to me that from a perspective of human psychology, that might well be a universal truth.  Most certainly we form groups which have…

At the start of every work day, I browse a short list of online resources to get a fresh sample of the happenings and themes of my universe (a teeny-tiny subset of the Universe) to get a new "gist" of everything, from my perspective. Just for fun, I have posted a short list of web favorites for checking the state of everything, with an apology to anyone who finds my collection old news. My suggestions appear under this web-like "visualization of the Universe as it condenses around fluctuations in the density of dark and ordinary matter," by Argonne National Laboratory. Credit: Argonne…

The presumption that children need both a mother and a father may be readily accepted by many people today, but there is little evidence to support the idea, say sociologists from USC and NYU. In a new Journal of Marriage and Family study, the team argues that "fatherless" children are not necessarily at a disadvantage and that men do not provide a different set of parenting skills than women. Extending their prior work on gender and family, Timothy Biblarz and Judith Stacey analyzed relevant studies about parenting, including available research on single-mother and single-father households,…

Today's National Science Foundation (NSF) news release about the high-tech armor inspiring "scaly-foot gastropod" mollusk, Crysomallon squamiferum, included better pictures of this deep-sea wonder. So I am posting the pictures in this brief update to my blog, "Exoskeletons to Envy," published January 18. The scaly-foot snail inhabits the Kairei Indian hydrothermal vent field, two-and-one-half miles below the central Indian Ocean, according to the press release. Yesterday while I was writing about this extra-tough snail from the earlier MIT press release, here and elsewhere, I was unable to…

We human primates evolved and innovated extreme flexibility of body and mind, partly because we grow flesh around, instead of within, a bony framework. Yet we envy and copy the crusty, scaly or shelly attire of many biological predecessors. Who sports the best exoskeleton? Echinoderms grow some of the most fancy and flashy. Mollusks grow plenty of ornate, effective examples. According the California Museum of Paleontology website, arthropods have advanced within their chitinous armor to become the real rulers of our world. Three fourths of all known living organisms are arthropods, the…

That we should be judged by the content of our characters and not the color of our skin. I don't think so.  The way other "black" people treat each other says no. America has still defaulted on the promisory note he spoke of in his "Dream Speech".   The racism has only changed, not gone away. Consider this video and the racial preconceptions thrown around just between African American's of different shades. This is not so much different than the issues I brought up in relation to Haiti and it's population of people whom we in the USA would regard as 100% African.  But…

The Greening Of Domestic Arguments It seems that trying to go green can be a cause of domestic arguments.  I can see why.  Not everyone has the ability to see the big picture.  From a global perspective, a 'green' measure can seem to be a good thing.  From a parochial perspective, it can appear to be a complete waste of time and money.  I take it as fairly certain that our remote ancestors didn't evolve mating rituals and family support practices from a global perspective. Therapists report increase in green disputes Credit:Thanks to Al Gore for the link to the NY…

The Crooked Casino Pension Payments Paradigm Imagine going to a casino and winning six equal bets in a row. You then lose a bet.  After winning six more bets in a row, and then losing one, you go to collect your winnings, only to be told that the casino owes you nothing according to the house rules. You would think the rules were absolutely designed to favor the house most unfairly, wouldn't you? Well, rules like that are being used in the U.K. to determine who gets, and who does not get, extra benefits payments for extreme cold weather. Cold weather payments are paid out when the…