TIZER'S SCIENCE NEWS

[PanBiker]

Far cry from the days of CRT based screens handling interlaced 404 and 625 lines at VHF and UHF frequencies. The recommended viewing distances were a minimum of 10 feet from a 20" screen, 12 feet from a 22" and over 15 feet from a 26". Hard to achieve in the average living room, most folk had oversized TV's and in the early days of colour TV complained that the colours hurt their eyes. Most had the saturation turned up way to high and had to be re-taught how to correctly adjust their sets for a colour display. In the USA with their early colour TV some folk actually got mild radiation sickness from the early receivers until sufficient safety measures were developed for the CRT displays. When I look at the current generation sets and the brilliance of the pictures they all appear to me to be somewhat artificial and over saturated, brilliance at all costs, even when displaying a picture of a dull day.

[Stanley]

I must have been lucky and hit just the right combination of screen size and definition. Change from old CR screen to LED was a great improvement. Mind you, all screens seem to speed clouds up these days.....

[Stanley]

Ever seen the experiment where someone pors molten lead over their hand without getting a burn? I had a demonstration of this early this morning. I had filled my Zippo lighter with petrol and had been a bit careless, I didn't realise I had an index finger covered with petrol when I lit my pipe. (All right, Crumblies and kids with matches!) I had the interesting experience of a flaming forefinger but it soon went out and I ran the cold tap over it. An hour or two later and apart from very slight tenderness, no ill effects. Due of course to the skin temperature not rising because of the cooling effect of the evaporation of the petrol as it burns. Don't try this at home.....
On another subject, close to my heart because of my exposure in the past to asbestos. There is an interview on R4 at the moment with a man who has been refused compensation for Mesothelioma because a time limit has been set on diagnosis, I think it was July 2012 and he was officially diagnosed after that. The crucial thing about this horrible disease is that it can take so long to rear it's head so this sounds to me to be very unfair. If you want to learn more about asbestos and the diseases it causes read 'Magic Mineral to Killer Dust' by Geoffrey Tweedale. His father worked for Turner's at Rochdale and died from the disease and during his research into the matter he got access to the whole of the TBA archive due to disclosure in a class action against the firm in the USA, it wouldn't have been possible to do this here. He shows that during a period when, at one time, TBA controlled over 80% of world asbestos production, they knew the dangers but ignored them. The problem reared its head a few years ago when a firm of developers tried to build on the old Turner works site in Rochdale after 'proving' that there was no asbestos on the land. This was proved to be incorrect and the land is still sterile. Add to this the shameful way the workers at the asbestos mines were treated and the whole is a terrible story of neglect and callous disregard of the consequences. As far as I am aware none of the management ever suffered from what was a clear case of corporate malfeasance. Do a Google search for Acre Mill at Hebden Bridge (LINK) and refresh your memory about the marvellous programme 'Alice. A Fight for Life'.

[Whyperion]

I cannot find a time limit for Insurance Claims regarding asbesos related diseases. There is a time limit generally for bringing court proceedings is within 3 years from when you were told about your asbestos related condition. If you are outside of this 3 year time limit then the courts have a discretion to still award you damages provided there is good reason for the delay. The Queen's Speech announced ( she read it as ' a particular type of lung cancer related to working with asbestos ) - It establishes a payment scheme for those people who cannot trace their employer or their employer’s insurance company, where the employer was responsible for the asbestos exposure. Anyone diagnosed with mesothelioma from 25 July 2012 will be able to make a claim. The bill will be funded by a levy on insurance companies, and it will apply to the whole of the UK. (From BBC Website and possibly simplifies the detail in the proposed bill ) There are some additional compensation and benefit schemes already in place outside of claims against known insurers and employers for persons in the UK. A quick review of literature ( mostly from Manchester University ) indicates that Asbestos production and use is still rising particulary in parts of the former Soviet Union , India and China.

[Bruff]

The current estimate is asbestos-related ill health kills well over 10 folk a day in this country. As the latency period is up to 50 years, it will continue to do so for some years, but then start to decline as the controls and prohibitions of the past decades work through. People are still at risk - largely tradesmen like plumbers and sparks who access pipework and pillars where the stuff is hidden. Asbestos is OK so long as it is not disturbed. If you have it, leave it and manage it, until you have to get shut

One particularly tragic consequence is the para-occupational link. Many workers came home covered in the stuff and hugged their children and spouses and partners exposing them too. Mesothelioma is a really nasty cancer.

Richard Broughton

[chinatyke]

How did they clean up and decontaminate Butts Mill and the area around it after Carlsson/T.B.Ford left there? Was there a high incidence of mesothelioma in Barlick?

[Stanley]

They didn't, Carlson's are still there but modern regulations and inspections cut down the possibility of stray fibres and contamination so no great cause for concern.
Bruff is quite right, there are many thousands of tons still out there. Look at garage sites, still some with asbestos sheeting roofs. Perfectly safe as long as they are undisturbed, the problem arises when they have to be removed. This has to be done by a licensed contractor under controlled conditions and is very expensive. I've had my share of asbestos problems. The last one was when I found asbestos at Ellenroad after it had been certified asbestos-free. My solution was to get funding for the clearance, convince the Environment department at Rochdale MBC it was their responsibility and go to Oz for a month's holiday. Recommended procedure.....

[Whyperion]

I think there are a few bits of broken asbestos cement roofing and watergoods products around Barnoldswick , I cannot remember where I was walking and saw some on what appeared to be on public land ( a private garage appeared to have been part vandalised ).

[Stanley]

My attention was caught by this item LINK. You can be too careful about protecting your kids.....

[Stanley]

Have a look at this LINK to see the Daily Mail's latest attempt to cheer us up. Basically they are saying that retirement can be bad for you, shorten your life and render you more likely to get certain illnesses. Thanks Lads!

[Stanley]

In our time is on as I write and they are discussing cosmic rays. This reminds me of a contract we once had at the dairy to deliver water to a facility near Harrogate. We didn't know what for but we were told we had been selected because we had the cleanest stainless steel tanks. I was told there that the tanks the water was used in were made of steel from ships sunk prior to WW1 because they were the only source of steel that hadn't been contaminated by modern levels of radio-activity. Listening to the programme this morning makes me think that what they were doing was investigating cosmic rays.

[Tizer]

Have a look at this LINK to see the Daily Mail's latest attempt to cheer us up. Basically they are saying that retirement can be bad for you, shorten your life and render you more likely to get certain illnesses. Thanks Lads!

It's another example of the present obsession with averages, especially in the news media. Reading the article you'll notice phrases such as `on average' which completely mislead the reader. I'm sure if we were invaded by aliens made up of 2 ft dwarves and 12 ft giants they'd report an invasion by 7 ft tall aliens! But the problem also extends well beyond the media and to people who should know much better. I've been boring people for years now, repeating what an eminent nutritionist was saying in the late 1990s - we spend far too much time aiming nutritional advice at the `average person' when we should be giving personally-tailored advice. It's one of the reasons why so much health advice goes unheeded - it's obviously wrong for many people, therefore it's not sufficiently convincing which means even the correct target people don't listen to it.

[Bodger]

Tizer,I seem to remember doing a production management course fifty yrs ago that included information that humans came in three body types, endomorph, mesormorph, and ectomorph
http://www.nutralegacy.com/blog/general ... etabolism/

[Stanley]

I had a look at it Bodge. Call me Marvin, I think I'm a paranoid android......

[Bruff]

I love averages. Did you know that the 'average' number of arms of the British population is a little under two. Who would have thought......

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

If you take the average of a bloke stood with one foot in a bucket of boiling water and the other in ice water he's just comfortable thank you.

[David Whipp]

"Head in the oven, feet in the fridge" sort of temperature.

[Stanley]

Another area I love is the use of statistics to 'prove' a correlation between seemingly unconnected matters. There used to be an index that showed and almost exact relationship between the number of barrels of Guinness brewed in Ireland and the number of RC priests ordained.
Did you see the report yesterday on the use of time-lapse photography to monitor the viability of stored eggs for AF? Using it saves taking them out of the fridge and gives a good idea of viability so the best can be selected.

[Bodger]

Are we Lancs. Yorks, Viking, or Indian ?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... ongue.html
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes ... griculture

[Stanley]

All the above.....

[Stanley]

News from a fire brigade (LINK) Eccles cakes can catch fire if micro-waved. The BBC report said that they had contacted 'an Eccles Cake expert' and he said that they should never be warmed in a micro-wave but gently in a conventional oven. So be warned! Eccles Cakes can be dangerous if overcooked!

[Stanley]

Warning this morning (LINK) in the Lancet about the dangers of low iodine levels in the diet of pregnant women. It can lead to lower brain activity levels in the child.

[Stanley]

I see that large herds of cows and pigs on farms are being discussed again. They should have a word with the Dickinson Brothers at Longley Farm, Holmfirth, who, many years ago fed pigs on skim from their dairy operation and piped the effluent out onto the poor upland fields round about, including neighbour's land. It worked like a charm for a while, pasture improved and yields increased but then a decline started. I can't clearly remember the reason but my memory is that there was a Boron build-up in the soil which locked in the natural nutrients and in effect stopped normal micro-biological activity and nutrition processes in the soil. Nature seems to have a limit based on the proportion of animals the land can sustain by grazing naturally, in other words, a natural balance. We ignore Mother Earth at our peril!

[Stanley]

Interesting comment on Farming Today in a piece about the value of roadside verges as a reservoir for rare species. The man from the council said that what they find is that seeds are spread in the direction of travel by the slipstream from passing cars. So, instead of relying on the wind or being transported on animal fur, Mother Nature is using traffic flow for dispersing seeds. Wonderful!
Another scientific snippet. During a report on how cockroaches are rewiring their brains to reject glucose which is the base of the most popular poisons used against them, it came out that the well-known 'fact' that cockroaches would survive a nuclear holocaust that killed all humans may be wrong as they are totally dependent on humans for food and warmth. Not sure about this, do animal dens not contain food and warmth? Of course they would be killed as well so the theory may be right.

[Tizer]

News from a fire brigade (LINK) Eccles cakes can catch fire if micro-waved.

Just got back from holiday and catching up - is this Eccles cake problem perhaps due to the resulting high content of electric currants?