2012-01-09T06:34:00.000-08:00

JAN 2012

1. Extinction of cultures (2/1/2012)

It’s not just animals that face extinction.

Human cultures do as well.

Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Writer Gretel Ehrlich explores global warming s effects on culture

2. Difference between North India and South India? (2/1/2012)

Difference between North India and South India?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDB4lN1OJHc

3. Bending to lift an object (9/1/2012)

Dear List,

Could I have you comments on this recommended way of lifting a weight from the ground?

and this image of weight lifting?

My doubt is, could these methods be wrong or second best (we have to play it safe as most individuals have bad posture)?

Why do I say this?

Just recently I observed an energetic corporation worker in my locality lift a basket of leaves from the ground. My suspicion is that the basket may not have been very heavy, even then, when lifting the weight this individual had his head very close to the ground 'cock' fashion I would say, in contrast to the Alexander Technique 'monkey', with back straight, head well back, bending from the pelvis- thigh joint, knees bent.

As a result he was not only bending at the knees but had has arms also in a considerably bent position at the elbows. When I simulate this way of lifting (with my now considerably improved posture) I realise that the individual would have brought to bear the full strength of his arms and legs. In the images posted above the excessively straight position of the arms looks artificial!?

Regards,

Selvaraj

4. High heel hangover (9/1/2012)

"Foot health is a really big issue for people over the age of 40, to the point where one in four can't really walk without foot pain," says U.S.-based bio-mechanics expert Katy Bowman, author of Every Woman's Guide to Foot Pain Relief.

According to Bowman, who is also the director of the Restorative Exercise Institute in California, foot pain is the canary in the coal mine of human health. Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahniks are the poison.

"Your foot pain is like an early indicator of the state of everything," she says. "Every other ailment of the body, from your body composition to even something like depression, all of those ailments are affected by physical mobility. But more than that, foot pain tells us that our knees, hips and back are at risk.

5. The Most Important Video You'll Ever See (10/1/2012)

Arithmetic, Population and Energy

President Carter’s famous speech on energy:

“ And in each of those decades (the 1950’s and 1960’s) moreoil was consumed than in all of mankind’s pervious history”.

President Jimmy Carter

April 18, 1977

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

The complete video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ

6. Population growth (10/1/2012)

Bill Moyers interviewed Isaac Asimov:

Question: What happens to the idea of the dignity of the human species if this population growth continues at its present rate?

Answer: It will be completely destroyed. I like to use what I call my bathroom metaphor; if two people live in an apartment, and there are two bathrooms, then both have freedom of the bathroom. You can go to the bathroom any time you want to and stay as long as you want to for whatever you need. And everyone believes in the freedom of the bathroom; it should be right there in the constitution.

But, if you have twenty people in the same apartment and two bathrooms, no matter how much every person believes in freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up times for each person, you have to bang at the door,"Aren't you through yet?" And so on.

Asimov:

In the same way, democracy

cannot survive overpopulation.

Human dignity cannot survive

overpopulation.

Convenience and decency cannot

survive overpopulation.

As you put more and more people into

the world, the value of life not only

declines, it disappears. It doesn't

matter if someone dies, the more

people there are, the less one

individual matters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ

7. In Search of the Boson (12/1/2012)

Dear All,
Scientist at CERN are hard at work trying to locate theHiggs Boson, dubbed the God Particle by the media. Discovery of this elusiveparticle will confirm the validity of the Standard Model of Particle Physics.
While our scientists are hard at work on this project, Itoo am on a quest to confirm a proper model for the human body. According tothis model adults should hold their heads well back with respect to the spinein order to balance their musculoskeletal system. (While discovery of the HiggsBoson will not immediately alter our lives, understanding the properrelationship of the head with respect to the spine should bring about a revolutionin human health, performance and lifestyle).

Since most adults get their postural balance seriouslywrong, finding a person holding his body properly is almost as elusive as thesearch for the God particle. My eureka moment came when I observed acorporation worker in my city, a middle aged person who is unusually energetic,bend down to pick up a basket of leaves. His head was in a position similar tothat of the boy in the Norman Rockwell painting, though he was leaning furtherdown than the boy.

My posture correction has also taken off in a new trajectory(fast forward) since I realized that human adults are making an extraordinarilyserious mistake by allowing the head to fall forward. There is no way thatproper balance can be achieved this way.

To achieve proper balance:

THE HEAD AND SPINE SHOULD MOVE IN A GENERALLY BACKWARDDIRECTION EVEN AS THE UPPER TORSO LEANS FORWARD AT THE PELVIC-THIGH JOINT.

It is simple logic that any ‘direction’ for balance must saywhat moves forward and what moves backwards, and you should actually try to getthe feel of balance in the whole body.

Just as the discovery of the boson will tie down the theorybehind the standard model for elementary particles, the fact that we aregetting the head position seriously wrong will help to unveil various mysteriesshrouding human efforts to understand human posture over thousands of years.

Let us ask a few questions and seek answers to them:

1. Why do people not realize that clothing tied around thewaist and improper footwear will damage their posture?

Answer: When proper balance is not possible, since theposition of the head is entirely wrong, the body welcomes any support whichhelps stabilize it. Like a tree in a storm which is about to keel over willonly feel relief when supported.

2. Why do people seem to be spending their entire lives correctingtheir posture without making substantial improvement?

Answer: No system of posture correction seems to recognizethat the head should be well back and there should be active balancing takingplace at all times.

3. Why do people curve the spine abnormally to look down(The Class One Visual Space discussed in this website)?

Answer: Proper use of the Atlas and Axis (the two uppermost cervicalvertebrae) and proper coordination of the rest of the spine requires that thehead should be well back and active balance be achieved.

4. What is the probability that an adult human is balancinghis body properly?

Answer: zilch (1) The body should be actively balanced (2)This is possible only if the head position is correct (3) Balance is possibleonly when the lower half of the body is also kept active (4) Clothing andfootwear should not impede natural movement of the body. (5) The mind should bekept actively involved (6) Once posture is allowed to collapse (the process willstart at a very early age due to ignorance of parents and society) it is verydifficult to set it right.

5. Why do people use pillows?

Answer: Because they think there is nothing wrong with the head pokingforwards.

6. Any comments on the sagacity of the medical profession?

Answer: It is difficult to believe that over a hundred yearsof awarding one another Nobel Prizes they have not even tagged this as aproblem (let alone solving it).

7. What about the mind body relationship?

Answer: While most people are simply not aware that the mindplays an important part in proper postural balance, there is another school ofthought which ignores the body to focus on the mind. To achieve proper bodybalance both are equally important.

8. What can we do to improve the posture of children?

Answer: The posture of children gets compromised because adultsdon’t know head or tail of what they are doing. If humans had a clear idea ofthe importance of good posture, we would see most adults behind bars for childabuse :-(

ignorantia legisneminem excusat ("ignoranceof the law excuses no one"). We can paraphrase this as ignoranceabout good posture is no excuse.

9. Why is good posture so important? We have multipleproblems to solve, such as Global Warming, AIDS, population issues, environmentalissues … can we waste our time worrying about our posture?

Answer: Bad posture will make us unhealthy. We will spendour adult years worrying about our health instead of moving proactively tosolve problems. Even if we are not unhealthy in the medical sense, our tensionpatterns will reduce our effectiveness. Admittedly, it is difficult to correctthe posture of adults, but it is very easy to prevent development of badposture in children. We are morally obliged to act.

A Nursery Rhyme Poem for Children

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Regards,

Selvaraj

P.S. I have posted a lot of material in my sites www.humanposture.com and www.humanposture.blogspot.com (whichI update frequently). I have also written a book HUMAN POSTURE, which is worthreading (since there is no one to recommend my book, I have no option but to recommendit myself :-) The more we understand the subject the better it is. I have sofar found it impractical to post all the material in the book on a website –partly due to copyright reasons. I had to obtain permission to quote various authors!!

Presently the book is available only from me sraj99@gmail.com

For postage in India the cost of the book is Rs 450. If youare a student you can have the book for Rs 200. In India the book can be sentby VPP, so you need to pay only when you receive the book. Please ask forquantity discount if you wish to purchase more than one book.

For people outside India the total cost including postage is$ 17. Payment can be made through Paypal. Please ask for quantity discount. Ifyou are a student you can have the book for a discount of $5, so the book willcost you $ 12.

8. Earth council (Interesting idea) (13/1/2012)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: sustcomm <sustcomm@yahoo.com>
Date: 13 January 2012 00:37
Subject: [Emerald-Forest] Earth Council Embassy Video
To: Emerald-Forest@yahoogroups.com

We do have a land base now. Who would like to join us?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZRq3DYOSig&mid=575

9. 'Intellectuals' jump into UP battlefield (15/1/2012)

KANPUR: Armed with MTech, CA, medical and law degrees, this small team of professionals aims at rooting out corruption through the power of the ballot. They have turned down lucrative job offers and floated the Janraajya Party (JANPA) - to free UP of corrupt politicians, criminal elements and poor governance.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/intellectuals-jump-into-up-battlefield/articleshow/11494501.cms

10. The waste mountain engulfing Mexico City (17/1/2012)

The closure of Mexico's biggest garbage dump has highlighted the absence of a comprehensive policy for urban waste collection, disposal and processing, a failure that has serious consequences for health and the environment.

The leftwing government of the Mexican capital decided in December to close Bordo Poniente, the biggest refuse dump, located in the east of the city, without coming up with an alternative solution. Now municipalities adjacent to Mexico City are refusing to accept its waste.

... The Bordo Poniente landfill site has been in use since 1985. It covers an area of 600 hectares and was receiving 12,600 tonnes of waste a day, 7,000 of them from municipalities in the state of Mexico, adjacent to the Federal District (DF) or city proper, according to the capital city's secretariat of works and services.

Moreover, 70 million tonnes of waste are buried underground at the dump, causing serious water and air pollution problems.

.... "We are tossing valuable materials into the trash, and there is the whole problem of the absence of re-use and recycling. The goal is to recycle at least 60 percent of our waste. We must establish sanitary landfills that meet health and safety regulations. You can't just improvise a landfill site," said Restrepo.

... "We are facing environmental and regulatory chaos. Powers vested in the authorities should be turned over to ordinary citizens, without any privatisation of waste management services, so that we can have an organisation with broad representation, including experts, universities, citizens and private companies," said Ojeda, whose term as head of ICEAC is due to end in 2013.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/09/waste-mountain-mexico-city?newsfeed=true

-----------------

People living in Trivandrum are facing similar problems at the moment:

Blame Game Over Delayed Waste Management

Corporation has a crisis on its hands

One problem the news media have not highlighted is that garbage is being burnt left and right, which is dangerous, considering the fact that a lot of plastic is also being burnt.

I agree with the view expressed in the main article; the only way to solve this problem in the long run is for ordinary citizen to get together and organise waste disposal in their own locality. Let's also keep in mind that due to the ever increasing price of petroleum, it will soon become impractical to cart waste outside the city and dump it in someone elses backyard.

What we notice once again is a massive failure of the engineering discipline. (I have commented earlier, engineers are behind 80% of our environmental problems. I would suggest that they close down the engineering colleges for a year; do some hard thinking, and come back with a revised syllabus).

Selvaraj

P.S. When I enquired from a garbage dealer whether he purchases thin plastic waste, the answer was 'No'. One way to facilitate the disposal of various waste is to put a value on it. Each city, town, municipality, even village need to prepare some kind of a document to explain how different kinds of waste will be handled.

(I was surprised when my rain water harvest yielded considerable black carbon deposits: evidently this is landing on my rooftop from all the burning that is going on - this will also be breathed in by the young and the old in the city).

11. More on waste management (18/1/2012)

In Austria, municipal solid waste (MSW) cannot be directed directly to landfills, but needs to be treated before. Direct landfilling of MSW has been effectively banned in Austria since the beginning of 2009.

http://www.environmental-expert.com/news/waste-management-and-landfills-in-austria-interview-with-dr-david-laner-276097

NYC TAKES THE GARBAGE OUT

In 2006, New York City adopted a long-term solid waste management plan that proposed exporting all of the city's garbage, but attempted to develop a less environmentally destructive and less expensive approach than simply trucking the garbage to landfills hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. The goal is to use barges and trains to carry the garbage away and to use waste reduction, recycling, composting and waste-to-energy plants to avoid sending garbage to landfills.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-cohen/nyc-takes-the-garbage-out_b_1210334.html?ref=green

Waste to Energy for Integrated Waste Management in India

The main objective of the study was to find ways in which the enormousquantity of solid waste India currently disposes of on land could bereduced by recovering materials and energy in a cost effective andenvironmental friendly manner.

.. Estimations made by extrapolating this data puts the total MSWgenerated in urban India at 68.8 million tons per year (tpy) or 188,500tons per day (tpd). The data collected indicate a 50% increase in MSW generatedwithin a decade since 2001.

ENVIRONMENT AND WASTE MANAGEMENT FUEL MARKET GROWTH

GIA announces the release of a comprehensive global outlook on the Environmental and Waste Management Industry. Waste management assumes significance in view of the effect it has on environment and global warming. Increasing generation of wastes in urban markets, growing need for conserving natural resources, advent of new technologies, rising government funding for waste disposal are expected to fuel growth in the global environmental and waste management market.

PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP

The Product Stewardship Law requires electronic manufacturers to take on the financial burden of recycling and disposing of the products it makes. Solid Waste and Sanitation Director James Zecca said the long-term goal of the law is to encourage manufactures to design products that can be easily recycled and reused and ensure the ‘end-of-life’ aspects of products are considered.

http://www.madisoncountycourier.com/2012/01/17/new-law-prohibiting-disposal-of-e-waste-in-solid-or-hazardous-waste-facilities-is-old-law-for-madison-county/

FOOD WASTE TO ENERGY

Defra minister Lord Taylor said he wanted to see more plants like this: “The energy that can be created from food waste that would otherwise lie rotting in landfill is astonishing. This £800,000 investment from our £10 million anaerobic digestion fund will help this new plant to be built so we can harness that energy to power our towns and cities and remove a cause of greenhouse gas emissions form landfill.”

http://www.eaem.co.uk/news/%C2%A310m-fund-food-waste-processing-ignored-councils

12. Chiropractors / X rays (19/1/2012)

Dear All,

I am intrigued by the fact Chiropractors are the only professionals in the field of posture correction who actually take X rays to find out where an individual's posture may be out of kilter. (Probably Medical Professions may also be taking such X rays)

While this habit of taking X rays frequently could be dangerous, it should be possible for chiropractors to mine their data base to relate ordinary photographs to probable distortion of the skeletal system!?

Does such software exist? Would it not be useful to have such software?

Regards,

Selvaraj

---------------------
23/1/2012

Hello Mark,

I agree with you that x-rays are of limited use in posture correction. But in my view x-rays will bring objectivity to the whole field of posture correction by displaying the end result in (hopefully) unambiguous terms.

We would still have the problem of interpretation. Fine tuned distortions may be more difficult to interpret; but combined with video recording and other data it may be possible in the future to scientifically evaluate an individual's posture.

I am sure that an x ray of my cervical spine at the moment would show faults (I feel it in my bones :-). Yet, I am sure my cervical alignment is much better now than it was two years back. With the progress I am making, in a few years time I may even have the confidence to have myself x-ray ed.

My belief is that we should exploit any source which gives us a leg up. Although Chiropractors have seen a reaction against their methods, (I am midway through a book by Robin Cook which takes a swipe at alternative medicines in general), it is quite possible that they may have more experience in interpreting x ray data in relation to posture than other professionals. If they have the confidence it would be very useful if they put their data in a public space.

Regards,

Selvaraj

13. Despite abortion laws, 66% of Indians use unsafe route (19/1/2012)

NEW DELHI: Unsafe abortions have become rampant in India. The country recorded 6.5 million abortions in 2008 of which 66% or two-thirds were deemed unsafe.

... Dr Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, said, "These latest figures are deeply disturbing. The progress made in the 1990s is now in reverse. Promoting and implementing policies to reduce the number of abortions is now an urgent priority for all countries and for global health agencies, such as the WHO. Condemning, stigmatizing and criminalizing abortion are failed strategies. It's time for a public health approach that emphasizes reducing harm -and that means more liberal abortion laws."

The authors note also that in 2008, the abortion rate was lower in sub-regions, where large proportions of the female population lived under liberal laws, than in sub-regions, where restrictive abortion laws prevailed.

For example, the abortion rate is 29 per 1,000 women of childbearing age in Africa and 32 per 1,000 in Latin America - regions in which abortion is illegal under most circumstances in the majority of countries. The rate is 12 per 1,000 in Western Europe and 19 in north America, where abortion is usually permitted.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Despite-abortion-laws-66-of-Indians-use-unsafe-route/articleshow/11548995.cms

14. Global warming moving faster, UGA ecologist says (19/1/2012)

Global warming is advancing faster than even the worst predictions of a few years ago, and the pace is likely to pick up sharply, a prominent University of Georgia ecologist said Wednesday.

A few years ago, climate scientists were predicting the Arctic Ocean might be ice-free during summer by about 2040. Now, scientists believe the summer Arctic could be open ocean as soon as next year, ecologist Jim Porter told a crowd of more than 100 on the UGA campus.

http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2012-01-19/global-warming-movng-faster-uga-ecologist-says

------------------------

In my own research on Human Posture (www.humanposture.com), I have found myself increasingly puzzled: how can people be so dumb! Can they not see the distortion in the skeletal system? Why don't they realise that any tight apparel will distort the functioning of the muscular system?

This makes me worried, what chances do we have of solving our many problems?

In this connection I would like to sound a note of caution regarding traditional knowledge (rather attitudes). If Darwin is correct and we did evolve from apes, my graph for the relative contribution of our forebears to our intelligence would look like this:

* Contribution to our intelligence

*IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

*........................................................................II-----> Homo sapiens

************************************************************

5.............4.............3.............2.............1.............O

.........................................<---------- Millions of years

In short, our immediate forebears (may God rest their souls) were too drunk most of the time to think straight. They discovered God and worshipped him, but were so vain that they concluded that God looked like themselves. At one moment they were grovelling in front of their deity and in the next concluding that they themselves were Godlike.

Unfortunately we are the inheritors of this attitude. Unless we change our attitudes (which we have inherited from our illustrious forebears), well ....

Selvaraj

15. Smartphones tied to posture problems? (22/1/2012)

(CBS News)

Smartphones are becoming increasingly common in the U.S., but those hours we spend hunched over our iPhones and BlackBerrys may be wreaking havoc on our posture, CBS This Morning contributor Lee Woodruff reports.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57361723/smartphones-tied-to-posture-problems/

-------------------------

MARKET ECONOMY:

Manipulation of knowledge to make money (It is impossible for any individual to know every thing - we are finally dependent on fellow humans to inform us).

POSTURE BASED ECONOMY:

Primacy given to our posture. Does whatever we are doing likely to harm our posture? If yes, we need to work around the problem. Unfortunately many of our products, services and social interactions are going to fail this test. At this stage we also don't have a clear ides about good posture and how to achieve it.

Selvaraj

16. Rising co2 emissions 'damaging' fish brains (22/1/2012)

"For several years our team have been testing the performance of baby coral fishes in sea water containing higher levels of dissolved CO2 - and it is now pretty clear that they sustain significant disruption to their central nervous system, which is likely to impair their chances of survival," Prof. Munday said.

In their latest paper Prof. Munday and colleagues reported world-first evidence that high CO2 levels in sea water disrupts a key brain receptor in fish, causing marked changes in their behaviour and sensory ability.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/Rising-CO2-emissions-damaging-fish-brains/articleshow/11577077.cms

17. NASA video shows global warming is real (24/1/2012)

If there were any doubt that a real warming trend is upon us, scientists at NASA have produced a visualization that depicts the recent rise in global temperatures as felt over a span of 130 years.

While the video shows a clear pattern of seasonal temperature changes along with momentary spikes throughout the centuries, you can see that it’s only recently that temperatures in most regions of the world (represented with intensified colors) started to really peak. In fact, since the year 2000, we’ve experienced nine of the 10 warmest years on record. And the researchers have noted that within the past 11 years, temperatures were significantly hotter than in the middle and late 20th century. For instance, the average temperature globally in 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 C) warmer than baseline temperatures in the mid-20th century.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/nasa-video-shows-global-warming-is-real/10021

WEAKER SUN WILL NOT DELAY GLOBAL WARMING

A weaker sun over the next 90 years is not likely to significantly delay a rise in global temperature caused by greenhouse gases, a report said Monday.

The study, by Britain's Meteorological Office and the university of Reading, found that the Sun's output would decrease up until 2100 but this would only lead to a fall in global temperatures of 0.08 degrees Celsius.

Scientists have warned that more extreme weather is likely across the globe this century as the Earth's climate warms.

The world is expected to heat up by over 2 degrees Celsius this century due to increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Current global pledges to cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are not seen as sufficient to stop the planet heating up beyond 2 degrees, a threshold scientists say risks an unstable climate in which weather extremes are common.

18. Big Oil You Fracked Up The Planet: Global Warming Worse (25/1/2012)

"The greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas also exceeds that of oil or coal when considered at decadal time scales, no matter how the gas is used."
.................

Gas extracted from shale is a huge contributor of greenhouse gases when both methaneand carbon dioxide are considered, according to a major new study by threeCornell University researchers.
The natural gas industry already accounts for almost a fifth (17 percent) ofthe total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions inventory,when analyzed using recently available new evidence. This percentage ispredicted to grow to almost one quarter (23 percent) as shale gas continues toreplace conventional natural gas.
Methane, which is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, isthe culprit, according to the new report.

... The 20-year time frame is particularly important, the authors explain, because it may well be the timing for a tipping point for climate change if emissions are not brought under immediate control. The new paper builds on major new findings from the United Nations and from researchers at NASA published over the past six months, highlighting the urgent need to immediately reduce methane pollution globally.
Robert W. Howarth, David R. Atkinson professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, said: We believe the preponderance of evidence indicates shale gas has a larger greenhouse gas footprint than conventional gas, considered over any time scale. The greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas also exceeds that of oil or coal when considered at decadal time scales, no matter how the gas is used. We stand by the conclusion of our 2011 research: "The large [greenhouse gas] footprint of shale gas undercuts the logic of its use as a bridging fuel over coming decades, if the goal is to reduce global warming.`
http://thesop.org/story/20120124/big-oil-you-fracked-up-the-planet-global-warming-worse.html

19. Sitting too straight (26/1/2012)

Dear all,

This is just to caution people who think that sitting very erect = good posture. Unfortunately when we begin to correct our posture, there is no option to attempting to sit as erect as possible, but the final goal should be to keep the proper curvatures intact over the whole length of the body to ensure that the body is springy.

The other day I got a real demo of this effect from a rat I had trapped. When I looked inside the trap it looked like a small rat, but when I released it in a nearby gutter (I have no heart to kill these exquisitely intelligent creatures), out it flew from the trap like a gladiator stretching out to its full length. (Human athleticism is basically a farce!)

(I know no one will listen to me (especially westerners); let me however repeat what I have been trying to say repeatedly. Be careful about footwear, the best thing for the feet is to be barefooted. Same thing applies to tying trousers with belts around the stomach - don't do it. Shoulder straps are best. If you wear your shirt un-tucked no will be the wiser that you have one on underneath! Elastic (I know everyone has some elastic in their clothing - it appeared by magic in clothing worldwide about 50 years back); my advice is don't use it (I am sure not even Nobel Prize winning scientists will be able to explain how it will affect your body). THE FOREGOING ADVICE IS TRIPLY IMPORTANT FOR CHILDREN).

Regards,

Selvaraj

20. A Historical Clip from 1945 (27/1/2012)

Most of the movie has been shot in profile, hence from a 'postural' point of view it is very revealing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vcnH_kF1zXc&feature=player_embedded

Selvaraj

21. No Need to Panic About Global Warming (27/1/2012)

The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

........................

Fifteen distinguished scientists have affixed their signature to the above letter.

I have three questions.

1. Is the ice at the Northern Polar region melting?
2. If it is melting, why is it melting?
3. Are our distinguished scientists aware that when ice melts absorbing 80 cal of heat for every gram, there is no increase in temperature?

Selvaraj

22. Singapore raises sea defences against tide of climate change (27/1/2012)

Singapore, the world's second most densely populated country after Monaco, covers 715 square km (276 sq miles). It has already reclaimed large areas to expand its economy and population -- boosting its land area by more than 20 percent since 1960.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/environment/global-warming/singapore-raises-sea-defences-against-tide-of-climate-change/articleshow/11648773.cms

23. India has the most toxic air: Study (28/1/2012)

INDIA HAS THE MOST TOXIC AIR: STUDY

In a study by Yale and Columbia Universities, India holds the very last rank among 132 nations in terms of air quality with regard to its effect on human health.
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/article2837739.ece

..............................

..

If you need proof of this please come to Trivandrum. The waste disposal system has gone out of whack and people are burning waste everywhere. (Even in the best of times people burn waste).

Reasons:

Our cities are basically broken models. Our engineers need to take a blank sheet of paper and think through the waste disposal system once again. This includes the disposal of human waste. And there is no point in taking a flight to USA to find out how to do it. The western countries have determined that it is their God given right to use humongous amounts of energy to maintain their quality of life. Remember how USA and China were hiding behind the Indian Saree in Durban.

The other issues that need to be addressed:

1. Waste disposal cannot be left to the poor and disadvantaged alone, as is the case in India, while the rich zoom around in their expensive cars.
2. Every human settlement needs a waste disposal plan (a lot of waste generated in an industrial society is toxic in nature).
3. Every city probably needs to get rid of their diesel cars.
4. It is good to keep in mind that two wheelers and cars which are polluting (even if there are only 10 of them in the city), are capable of doing considerable damage in a day's zooming around. It is in the Interest of the rich in the city to subsidise the poor to obtain new vehicles.
5. It will also be good if we replace existing two wheelers with electric models.

And not forgetting what I have been saying repeatedly: reconfigure Cities, Towns and Villages in 1Km x 0.5 Km format, allowing motorised vehicles only on the peripheral roads. This will protect the quality of the air, and provide ample space for dealing with garbage.

Selvaraj

24. Barefoot Tech (28/1/2012)

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/zh-tw/bunker_roy.html

25. The importance of Industrial Clusters (28/1/2012)

Why does Apple manufacture abroad, and especially in China? As the article explained, it’s not just about low wages. China also derives big advantages from the fact that so much of the supply chain is already there. A former Apple executive explained: “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away.”
This is familiar territory to students of economic geography: the advantages of industrial clusters — in which producers, specialized suppliers, and workers huddle together to their mutual benefit — have been a running theme since the 19th century.
And Chinese manufacturing isn’t the only conspicuous example of these advantages in the modern world. Germany remains a highly successful exporter even with workers who cost, on average, $44 an hour — much more than the average cost of American workers. And this success has a lot to do with the support its small and medium-sized companies — the famed Mittelstand — provide to each other via shared suppliers and the maintenance of a skilled work force.
The point is that successful companies — or, at any rate, companies that make a large contribution to a nation’s economy — don’t exist in isolation. Prosperity depends on the synergy between companies, on the cluster, not the individual entrepreneur.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/krugman-jobs-jobs-and-cars.html?_r=1

26. Paths to Space Settlements (29/1/2012)

Al Globus wrote:

The price tag depends on when you start. If you start trying to build
one today, maybe something like this. If you develop space tourism,
space solar power, and asteroid detection and deflection first, then
start, the price tag is much low. That's the idea behind http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/PathsToSpaceSettlement2011.pdf

............

Interesting and very readable writeup.

Few points:

1. The author is in favour of settlements around Earth. Could we get all the seven billion pesky two legged creatures off the planet :-) ??

2. According to the author 'we could capture near earth asteroids for as little as 10cm/s delta v'. What is the legal position in this regard? Would we be allowed to put asteroids in Earth orbit? How close would be safe? This looks like a priority experimental activity! Does NASA have any plans in this regard.

3. The author points out that we could be hit by a large asteroid any time; we need to perfect technologies to divert such objects. Looks like a priority activity which needs to be taken up by the U.N. !!

4. The idea of space hotels and entertainment centres to give a fillip to space exploration. Probably, short term visitors will prefer a near zero G environment. Much easier to achieve!! A slowly rotating 100 m dia space hotel can be planned.

5. Space power. Should not someone put up a SPS of say 100m dia to see how the system works?

... very interesting!

Regards,
Selvaraj

27. The Big Blue Marble we call home (29/1/2012)

The Big Blue Marble we call home:
http://www.hawaii247.com/2012/01/29/the-big-blue-marble-we-call-home/

http://www.crazyengineers.com/nasa-unveils-the-blue-marble-beauty-with-a-64mp-image-of-earth-1728/

28. Justice Katju slams media for dumbing down (30/1/2012)

Q: You have been criticised as someone trying to curtail media freedom. How do you respond to that?

A: When someone tries to rectify the market-driven media, the media owners scream and take refuge in Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution (Freedom of Speech). They raise an alarm when anyone questions their irresponsible sensationalised views being peddled as news. The middle class Indians are easily swayed by the peripheral issues the media raises (which are really non-issues, like lives of film stars, cricket, pop music, reality shows, etc) which they dish out with propagandist zeal. When I raise my voice against this, I am branded as a dictator who wants to crush media freedom, someone who wants to impose Emergency. But I am the strongest advocate of freedom.

Q: Wouldn't that give the government the right to censor the media?

A: I don't believe that regulation of the media should be done by the Government. It should be done by an independent statutory authority. The Press Council is not under the Government. It is an independent statutory authority. I am not subordinate to the government.

Q: But should one go back in time to find role models from another culture?

A: There is nothing wrong in learning from historical examples. Like the heroes of that age-Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas Paine, Diderot or Helvetius-I want today's Indian journalists to play a crucial role in transforming Indian society from feudalism into a new age of enlightenment, characterised by reason, science and humanity. This is the "leadership" angle I talked about at a lecture at the Bengal Club in Kolkata on December 5 last year. The traditional roles of the media are two: providing information and entertainment. In the transitional age, there is a third role: that is, giving leadership to the people in the realm of ideas. Media persons, however, can play a great role in this connection only if you correct yourselves. You can show the way and give leadership to the nation, provided you make yourself fit to do so.

29. Contraception / Abortion (30/1/2012)

About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, and about 4 of 10 of those end in abortion, according to the Institute of Medicine report, which was released in July. It noted that providing birth control could lower both pregnancy and abortion rates. It also cited studies showing that women with unintended pregnancies are more likely to be depressed and to smoke, drink and delay or skip prenatal care, potentially harming fetuses and putting babies at increased risk of being born prematurely and having low birth weight.

.. Despite Catholic teachings, surveys have found that 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women, as in the general population, have used contraceptives.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/health/policy/law-fuels-contraception-controversy-on-catholic-campuses.html

KARACHI: It is no secret that abortions are a popular method of family planning for many married women, mostly those who live in Pakistan’s countryside where heath care services are patchy at best.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/329083/family-planning-women-are-using-the-wrong-drugs-for-abortions-as-quick-contraception/

30. A shear model of the human body (31/1/2012)

Dear Friends,

The human body consists of more than 200 bones and morethan 600 muscles; these are coordinated by the nervous system and the brain toproduce the very complex movements that the human body is capable of.
There is sufficient evidence to show that humans unlikeother animals end up distorting their bodies so that they are much weaker thanthey ought to be; they also end up having many ailments that can be traced tothis distortion of the body.

To understand the nature of these distortions we takerecourse to various models. So far we have presented three models:

1. In the guy rope model ( Fig 4, of my website www.humanposture.com) we introduced theidea of treating bones in the body as struts and the muscles as guy ropes. Inthis model we bring out the idea that these guy ropes (muscles) are arrangedvery close to the struts (bones) making the arrangement very fine tuned andcritical.
2. Another guy rope model in Fig 5 of the above website,which brings out the idea that if the struts (bones) were to be distorted beyonda certain limit it would become very difficult for the system to recover on itsown.
3. Super sandwich model in the website http://www.thesupersandwichmodel.blogspot.in/.This brings out the idea that it is very difficult to correct a posturalproblem locally, since the distortions will get related in very complex ways todistortions in the rest of the body.

We will now introduce a fourth model ‘A shear model’ ofthe human body. Using this model we can more easily answer a lot of questionsregarding faulty posture.

If we take a section of the body say, at the upper arm,we will find the following layers: skin (which itself is in multiple layers),then a number of different muscles that overlap and finally the core consistingof a bone. When we move the forearm, these different elements will slide oneover the other to apply force and to produce movement. Force is applied within thissystem by putting the bones in compression and the muscles in tension.

My very strong suspicion based on my own efforts tocorrect my posture is that when our posture becomes faulty this system ofelements smoothly sliding over one another will go haywire in many parts of thebody. The whole setup can sort of congeal, restricting the free relativesliding of the various elements: the system congeals to provide additionalsupport to a system which is no longer in proper balance.

The role played by the skin (which may not be veryelastic) in this process - which facilitates relative sliding motion - needs tobe investigated. If for instance the skin has got overstretched, or perhapscontracted, how is this reconciled with what is underneath in the process ofposture correction? I do not have sufficient knowledge of human anatomy andphysiology to answer these questions myself. (Someone with better knowledge can try to fill in theblanks). With this new model we will now try to answer a few questions.

1. Why is correction of posture so difficult?

The elements in the human body would have sheared todifferent positions. Correcting posture will involve bringing the elements backto their correct relative alignment.

2. Why is correcting posture an issue in the first place?After all people do manage to ‘function’ one way or another.

Practically all adults will be functioning in faultyways. There will be many areas in the body where the free shearing of elementswill be inhibited: these inhibitions will provide support to the parts of thebody where motion is relatively smooth and the shearing action is facile.

3. Could we be stepping into the fire from the frying panin the process of posture correction?

People with bad posture (that is most people) will havetwo distinct areas in their bodies: areas that are arthritic and areas wheremovement is relatively smooth. The danger in starting to correct our posture isthat (when we don’t understand what the heck we are doing - which seems to bemore or less the situation at the moment) we could end up compromising theareas where the movement was relatively smooth so far. In other words we couldend up increasing our level of tension, and in reality have worse posture thanbefore!!

4. How do we solve this problem?

My hope is that once we understand the correct way tobalance the head: http://headbalance.blogspot.in/ we may be able to get out of the gridlock morequickly.

5. Does the above problem give strength to the argumentmade by many that good posture has nothing to do with ‘posture’ per se?

Yes. We must be very sharp about how we plan to correctour posture. In the absence of proper knowledge correcting posture can increaseour level of tension and make us less flexible.

Regards,
Selvaraj

INFORMATION - IDEAS - 2012

Corporation has a crisis on its hands

In Austria, municipal solid waste (MSW) cannot be directed directly to landfills, but needs to be treated before. Direct landfilling of MSW has been effectively banned in Austria since the beginning of 2009.

Waste to Energy for Integrated Waste Management in India

A weaker sun over the next 90 years is not likely to significantly delay a rise in global temperature caused by greenhouse gases, a report said Monday.

Most of the movie has been shot in profile, hence from a 'postural' point of view it is very revealing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vcnH_kF1zXc&feature=player_embedded

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/zh-tw/bunker_roy.html