Experimental Blog # 207

Notes on "The Story of the World in 100 Species" by Christopher Lloyd

Although Christopher Lloyd is not a scientist himself, he certainly seems to be an excellent science writer most of the time. Besides that, the copyright date of this book is 2009; and the sciences covered in this book are very often being updated.

"The central purpose of this book is to cultivate a richer understanding of all history - not just as chronology - but as seen through the lens of the natural world itself."
"It is ironic, though, to consider that were it not for the successful pursuit of immortality, perhaps begun by viruses at the dawn of life billions of years ago, human history may never have emerged at all."

The original natural world that was formed by "natural selection" began to come to its end, maybe, about 10,000 years ago. Especially, in recent centuries, "natural selection" has been increasingly replaced by the "artificial selection" of the interference of homo sapiens, that is, people. This interference had been true for a long time even before the life and work of Charles Darwin.

"Today, pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world. More than a hundred million tonnes of pig meat is farmed, mostly in intensive warehouses ..."
"By 1830 there were over two million sheep in Australia. Today the continent hosts more than a hundred million, second only to China's 160 million. New Zealand has a more modest 40 million but, < > that represents a staggering ten sheep per person. In the UK the ratio currently stands at about two people per sheep."
"The success of cows is reflected in their present populations. Estimated at 1.3 billion individuals, these are the most well kept, highly bred, populous domestic farm species of all time."
"Today there are an estimated twenty-four billion chickens worldwide."
"Horses are, in fact, among the most sensitive creatures on Earth. < > The upshot is that today horses are another of the modern world's most numerous species. China has an estimated eight million, Mexico 6.2 million, Brazil 5.9 million and the US 5.3 million."
"Camel-herders still survive, however, especially in Somalia and Ethiopia, which between them host as many as half of the world's fourteen million population. While two-humped varieties are in decline{1.4 million}, in Australia wild populations of one-humped camels < > are thought to number as many as 700,000 in the central outback. With their populations growing at an impressive rate of 11 per cent per year, it seems that, like pigs, these are creatures that can readily re-adapt to life in the wild."

"The impact of domestic dogs on human culture therefore reaches far beyond their wide-ranging usefulness to mankind. From the rise of the movement for animal rights to the dark experiments of modern eugenics, these are creatures that have been, like horses, true protagonists in the turbulent history of human civilizations."
" ...domestic cats have recently eclipsed even dogs in terms of their populations, now estimated at 600 million individuals worldwide. < > Unlike other domesticated farm animals, cats do not seem to have been 'selected' by humans for any specific purpose. In fact, cats are just as likely to have chosen to live with humans in a process known as 'self-domestication'."

Obviously, since the book is about "100 species", many other life forms of mammals, invertebrates, non-flowering plants, bacteria, fish, fungus, virus, flowering plants, protoctists, reptiles, and birds are included.

Experimental Blog # 206

Notes and comments on "People of the World" - Cultures and Traditions, Ancestry and Identity by Catherine Herbert Howell with K. David Harrison

"Currently, 7.3 billion of us live on Earth. < > We belong to more than 10,000 distinct ethnic groups and speak some 7,100 documented languages."
"This book describes in detail some 220 ethnic groups arranged and sequenced to reflect the migration of modern humans out of Africa, through time and into the world's regions."

There are 7 regional divisions:
# 1 is Sub-Saharan Africa with 27 ethnic groups: from the Hadza, with fewer than 1000 people to the Yoruba, with about 38 million people.
# 2 is North Africa and the Middle East with 12 ethnic groups: from the Nubians, with about 605,000 people to the Arabs, at about 377 million people.
# 3 is Asia with 42 ethnic groups: from the Yukaghir, at about 1,600 people to the Han, at 1.2 billion people. For some reason, although the Armenians, at 5.9 million people, and the Azeris{in Azerbaijan}, at 8.8 million people, are described; the people of neighboring Georgia are not.
# 4 is Oceania with 30 ethnic groups: from the Wurundjeri, at about 60 people to the Australians, at about 22.5 million people. "Today, 22.7 million Australians, of whom only 2 percent are Aboriginals, live in an area the size of the contiguous United States, making Australia the least densely populated country in the world."
# 5 is Europe with 37 ethnic groups: from the Faroese, at about 66,000 people to the Russians, at about 166 million people. For some reason, although the Lithuanians, at 2.3 million people and the Finns, at about 5.1 million people, are described; the people of Latvia and Estonia are not.
# 6 is North America with 30 ethnic groups: from the Havasupai, at about 1000 people to the Americans, at about 321 million people. "Today, Native Americans, also called American Indians, make up only 1.2 percent of the population."
# 7 is Central and South America with 42 ethnic groups: from the Amahuaca, the Kuikur, and the Tapirape', all at about 500 people each; to the Brazilians, at about 204 million people. Although the Euro-Caribbeans, at about 12 million people located in the Caribbean island nations and within the Germanic language family are described; as well as the Argentines, at about 43 million people, and the Chileans, at about 17.5 million people; no other European Latin Americans seem to be described in this National Geographic book.
   There are, at least, 8 Native American groups who are described and whose populations total somewhat less than 7 million people, and they are located in Mexico; but the population of Mexico is over 122 million people. Also, the populations of the Dominican Republic and Cuba together total close to 22 million people.

Experimental Blog # 205

Quotations from and comments on "East of the Oder - A German Childhood under the Nazis and Soviets" by Luise Urban

From the publisher's introduction: "Stalin, Churchill, and Truman - also agreed to the expulsion of the German population beyond the new eastern borders. This meant that almost all of the native German population was killed, fled or was driven out."

"This is the story of my childhood. Sadly, it is not suitable to be read by children."
The author's amazing memory begins with pleasant descriptions from as early as 16 and 18 months of age! Luise Urban was born in October of 1933.

The title to chapter 7 is "Raus! Uhodi! , which probably means "Get out now! in Russian.
"One night a soldier shot another young mother < > She had a little boy. The next morning < > I saw the little boy crawl out of the front door < > At that moment I < > decided that I would take that soldier's life, he was too much of a danger to all of us. < > I recognized the soldier who had shot the toddler's mother, he was actually called Ivan. He was known to all of us as a brutal bully and greatly feared. I got Bubi{another little boy} to somehow get Ivan into the barn that day < > There I was waiting, hidden by bales of straw. There was no shortage of weapons of all kinds. < > When Ivan entered I shot him."!!

"I was in a group of people that were sprayed with bullets, as was routine in those days, < > But I got away. < > I turned round and saw a soldier coming towards me. < > Perhaps no more than four steps away. I had a weapon in my hands. < > I pulled the trigger. The bullet went through the figure's right hand. < > The figure stopped moving. < > I allowed the face to come as close to me as was safe. < > I pulled the trigger for a second time."!!

So Luise Urban describes how she shot and killed 2 Soviet soldiers when she was only eleven years old!!

"Someone had to bury the mountains of dead. Their bodies had been lying along the roads < > and as days and weeks went by, more and more were added. < > And that is how I ended up on a lorry together with lots of other children - most even younger than me .."
"Dealing with rotten bodies is not an easy matter. < > You dig a hole or a depression in the ground close to the body and then, using your spade, you fearfully scrape or lever it into the hollow you have made, then hastily cover it and move on to the next."
"I was not surprised when I met up again with the 400 or so German POWs I had seen marching towards Soldin not so long ago. They had all been shot before they had reached Soldin. Mere children themselves. It was a long job, my group worked for two days in that area. The 400 were not the only ones that needed burying."

"The indiscriminate bombing of the civilian population was official British war policy as formulated and carried out by Winston Churchill. < > To make this policy acceptable to the British public it was sometimes rephrased as 'de-housing the German population'. A neutral observer might describe it as 'the burning alive of tens of thousands of children'."
"It took Hitler several years to murder 6 million innocent Jews and only a few Nazis were hanged for this crime. No one was punished for the crime that was planned and carried out in the East of Germany and Poland. It took the victorious leaders a mere five months between January and May 1945 to murder millions of equally innocent Germans and Poles"

This is only a small sample of the horrifying experiences that this amazing 11 year old girl went through in 1945 and after.

Experimental Blog # 204

Quotations and comments on "Black Hole" - How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein,, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved by Marcia Bartusiak and "Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space" by Janna Levin

From "Black Hole" by Marcia Bartusiak:

"After a flurry of excitement in 1919 < > the noted physicist's new outlook on gravity came to be ignored. Isaac Newton's take on gravity worked just fine in our every day world of low velocities and normal stars, so why be concerned with the minuscule adjustments that general relativity offered? < > By the time that Einstein died, in 1955, general relativity was in the doldrums."
"Not until astronomers revealed surprising new phenomena in the universe, brought about with advanced technology, did scientists take a second and more serious look at Einstein's view of gravity. Observers in 1963 identified the first quasar, a remote young galaxy disgorging the energy of a trillion suns from its center. < > With the detection of these new objects"{pulsars, neutron stars, black holes},"the once sedate universe < > metamorphosed into an Einsteinian cosmos, filled with sources of titanic energy that can be understood only in the light of relativity."

In papers published in 1767 and 1783 the English scientist John Michell first theorized about double stars, which rotate about each other, and stars "when the mass of the star would be so great that "all light ... would be made to return towards, by its own proper gravity"_"
"In 1796 < > the {French} mathematician Pierre-Simon de Laplace independently arrived at a similar conclusion."

"And from his equations alone, Maxwell had revealed a new, fundamental constant in nature - the speed of light."
"Einstein didn't completely overturn Newton's law of gravity. Newton got us to the moon and back just fine < > Newton's equations can handily deal with gravity in that environment."
"In Zwicky's day, neutron stars remained theoretical fabrications, which astronomers figured would never be seen even if they did exist, due to their extremely small size. {That all changed when the first bona fide neutron star, beeping away as a radio pulsar, was first discovered by the British astronomer Jocelyn Bell in 1967}."

"Ultimately, physicists want a theory to connect with the world. You could argue that quantum mechanics was just as weird < > Why was it so readily accepted and general relativity snubbed? It's primarily because quantum theorists worked hand in hand with experimentalists. There was a deep pool of experimental data to support quantum mechanics' predictions on the nature and behavior of matter{weird as it was} on very small scales."

"The high-stability clocks aboard the Global Positioning System{GPS} satellites, perched high above the Earth, run a bit faster. As a result, periodic corrections for general relativity must be programmed in to make sure the navigation of our cars, boats,and planes down here on Earth doesn't go awry{perhaps the first time that general relativity was needed to help us in our everyday lives}."

And from "Black Hole Blues" by Janna Levin:

"Summarizing the decades of contributions < > Stars like our sun will die as white dwarfs, a cool sphere of degenerate matter comparable in size to the Earth, the pressure of densely packed electrons enough to resist total collapse. Heavier dead stars will stably end as neutron stars, an even denser sphere of nuclear degenerate matter around 20 to 30 kilometers across, the pressure of densely packed neutrons enough to resist total collapse. But the heaviest stars have no more recourse to nuclear pressure. Unhindered collapse is inevitable."

"Conceptually, gravitational waves are required out of respect for the speed limit. As one black hole orbits another, the curves in the shape of spacetime must drag around with them < > As the black holes move, the curves shift and adjust, and those changes wave outward incrementally and at the speed of light, carrying energy away from the violent astrophysical motions."

"quasars, bright radio sources that looked as small as stars{formerly, quasi-stellar radio objects}"
"Pulsars are highly magnetized rapidly spinning neutron stars."
"White dwarfs and neutron stars are extremely faint. We cannot see them if they're far away, extragalactic. We can see evidence for them in our own Milky Way galaxy.."

"In the Milky Way, there may be one neutron star collision with another neutron star every ten thousand years <> There may be one neutron star collision with a black hole every few hundred thousand years. There may be one black hole collision with another black hole every couple million years."
"LIGO must record the ringing of space originating from within millions of galaxies in order to record black hole collisions on a scientifically reasonable scale ..."

Experimental Blog # 203

Quotations from "This Brave New World" - India, China, and The United States by Anja Manuel

"While many Chinese modernizers would like to forget Mao and his atrocities and move on, his symbolic power remains. With the original Communist Party philosophy that he stood for dead, Mao's symbolism as a man who navigated China back to the center of world affairs is all that remains."
" < > power is constantly being negotiated: it is not based on the rule of law. The Communist Party is in control, so change happens from the top down."

"In contrast to China, India has an astonishing diversity of ethnic, religious, geographic, political, and caste affiliations. < > This led to the complex coalition politics and relatively weak central government that we see today. < > Competing factions and the short term outlook that comes with elected politics makes it more difficult for India to reform and to project a strong image to the world."

"In a one-party state, it is not surprising that in each region or city the Communist Party secretary is the most important person."
"As in America's democracy, it is sometimes difficult for Indian leaders to push through difficult reforms. Infighting between political parties, politicians focused on short-term election wins instead of long-term solutions, and the fact that many key policies < > are determined by India's states, all make the Indian government a slow-moving beast."

"Overall, almost 70 percent of Chinese women are employed outside the home, compared to 25 percent of Indian women, and 58 percent and declining in the United States."
"China also has 29 million female entrepreneurs - a quarter of the nation's total - and more self-made female billionaires than any other country."
" ... in India just 3 million women own {or partially own} small enterprises across the country ..."

" < > domestic violence in India is depressingly high. According to a government survey, 40 percent of women have experienced it, but experts believe the figure is over 84 percent {!} of women. < > This compares to between 25 and 40 percent in China, and about a quarter of women in the United States."

"It is most astounding that in recent years, China alone loaned more to developing countries than the World Bank < > In the next three decades China plans to build a dizzying mesh of infrastructure around Asia and, through similar initiatives{ to One Belt, One Road}, around the world."
"One Belt, One Road will be < > funded through a number of vehicles, most importantly through the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank {AIIB} < > New Silk Road Fund < > New Development Bank < >The China Development Bank"
""China is going where the West is reluctant to tread." < > The countries that rely most on Chinese investment read like a list of the world's outcasts: Zimbabwe, North Korea, Niger, Angola, Myanmar, and other unsavories. Of course China doesn't just invest in pariah states. More than a third of China's investments actually go to developed countries"

"In recent years, China, India, and other large developing countries have wanted more say in the running of the World Bank and IMF to reflect their growing importance in the world economy."
"Additionally, many developing countries feel that the IMF and World Bank conditions for loans are unnecessarily harsh. The organizations often impose painful austerity measures on countries that are already suffering."

"The world's institutions are outdated. They have been terrible at accommodating ascending powers, especially the largest ones: China and India. There is no easy, one-size-fits-all solution."

Experimental Blog # 202

Quotations and comments on "Where the Indus is Young" - A Winter in Baltistan and "Eight Feet in the Andes" by Dervla Murphy

"Where the Indus is Young" was published in 1977 and it is about a 'trek' that the author took with her daughter, Rachel, in Baltistan; which is also known as Kashmir. Their journey began about December 19, 1974 and ended on March 24, 1975. Mother and daughter were accompanied by a pack mule that they named Hallam, and Rachel rode on him most of the time.

"When we left for Pakistan Rachel was not yet six < > Had that journey{an earlier journey of four months in South India}not been so successful, from her point of view, I would never have contemplated taking her to Baltistan. < > Rachel is a natural stoic, and a muscular and vigorous little person, well able to walk ten or twelve miles a day without flagging."!!
   "To me it seems that the five-to-seven-year-old stage is ideal for travelling rough with small children. < > over-sevens tend to be much less philosophical in their reactions to the inconveniences and strange customs of far-flungery. By the age of eight, children have developed their own {usually strong} views about how they wish life to be, and are no longer happy automatically to follow the parental leader." Dervla Murphy reveals herself to be an original child psychologist.


"Eight Feet in the Andes" was published in 1983 and it is about another 'trek' that mother and daughter took in Peru that started about September 3, 1978 and ended on December 22.

"When we walked across the border bridge from Ecuador into Peru my daughter Rachel was aged nine years and eight months. < > We planned to buy a riding-mule in Cajamarca{which they did, and named Juana}. Then I would walk while Rachel rode the 1300 miles {or so} from Cajamarca to Cuzco."
"I looked past Juana to Rachel in the lead, her short legs covering the last stage of{for her} a 900-mile walk." Apparently, the 900 miles is the actual distance that Rachel actually walked of the 1300 mile 'trek'. On this journey the author writes that her 9, turning 10, year old daughter did walk 20 to 22 miles a day!

The extreme physical and mental stresses and risks that Dervla Murphy endures, and her daughter, too, are many times alarming, annoying, and, sometimes, make tedious reading; but really serious calamities always seem to be barely avoided, somehow. The very lengthy excerpts and quotations from Rachel's diary of this journey are among the most impressive parts of this book. For a nine year old Rachel wrote extremely well. Rachel was never revealed as a "captive" of her mother; and whenever any occasion arose, she always staunchly defended her.

Experimental Blog # 201

Comments on "On a Shoestring to Coorg" - An Experience of Southern India and "Wheels Within Wheels" by Dervla Murphy

"On a Shoestring to Coorg" - An Experience of Southern India is Dervla Murphy's 5th book, and it was published in 1976. The author is traveling, for the first time outside of Europe in 5 years, she says; and she is traveling with her daughter Rachel. Their trip lasted from November of 1973 to March of 1974.
Dervla Murphy's many detailed and vivid descriptions of everything about this journey in southern India, including many histories, are far too numerous to try to relate.
It appears that the author had her 42nd birthday at the beginning of this trip, in November. Very soon Rachel, too, had her birthday, in December. Rachel became 5 years old! Throughout their journey Rachel demonstrated that, like her mother, she was born to be very strong, mentally, as well as physically.

"Wheels Within Wheels" was published in 1979 and was Dervla Murphy's 8th book. The book is the story of the author's life from the beginning right up to the death of her father at 60 years of age in February of 1961, soon followed by the death of her mother, probably at 55 years of age, in August of 1962; and then comes the publication of her first book, "Full Tilt - Ireland to India With a Bicycle", in 1964.
"Wheels Within Wheels" is filled with unexpected events and narratives of all kinds. The result could hardly be more thought provoking.
At about 47 years of age Dervla Murphy was not yet half way through her life of extra arduous travel and travel writing.

Experimental Blog # 200

Comments on "Through the Embers of Chaos - Balkan Journeys" and "The Island That Dared - Journeys in Cuba" by Dervla Murphy

"Through the Embers of Chaos - Balkan Journeys"

The first few pages of this book describe a trip the author took to Croatia in 1991. At that time Yugoslavia had not yet disintegrated.
Part II of the book is about 50 pages, and it describes the author's visit to Serbia in 1999, about 8 years later.
Part III is about 280 pages, and it describes the author's journeys around Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, and Kosovo in 2000. During this time Dervla Murphy was 68 years old, and she traveled by bicycle! She often pedaled over 50 miles in one day, and went up and down who knows how many thousands of feet; and, it seems, on trails and roads that no one else would ride on.

Dervla Murphy's physical and mental stamina are extraordinary, and she seems completely fearless. She was attacked and thrown to the ground twice, but she continued to take risks that, probably, no one else would take. She did not carry a weapon, a gun, although she could pretend that she had one.


"The Island That Dared - Journeys in Cuba"

For about the first 100 pages of this book, in 2005, the 73 to 74 year old Dervla Murphy is traveling in Cuba with her daughter and her three granddaughters, aged 6, 8, and 10. She is not averse to requiring unusual physical and mental effort from them, but they don't seem to mind; and they apparently accept these things as "normal".

For the rest of this book, in 2006 and 2007, Dervla Murphy is "trekking" by herself, not riding a bicycle as she did on so many other of her journeys.

In the "Island That Dared" Dervla Murphy reveals her very "left-wing" sympathies probably more than in most of her previous travel books. However, people do not have to share the author's politics to be captivated by this book. She is very highly informative about many matters, including: Fidel Castro and Che' Guevera. Ultimately, however, Dervla Murphy is not always very clear, about Cuban "participatory democracy", for instance; or completely persuasive in her arguments.

Experimental Blog # 199

Comments on "Full Tilt - Ireland to India With a Bicycle" and "In Ethiopia With a Mule" by Dervla Murphy

These 2 books are the first and fourth books written by Dervla Murphy. They were published in 1965 and 1968 and are about trips that she took in 1963 and 1966-67 when she was 31 and 35 years of age.

The continuous abundance of so much detail and so many superlatives that the author uses in both books to describe her surroundings and the events of her travels, day after day; and the complete absence of photographs, even though the author took pictures with her camera, probably cause some readers to assume that her writing should not be considered to be 100% reliable. However, her writing certainly is captivating and informative. Both of these books receive very high reviews, even 40 years after they were written.

Dervla Murphy obviously has amazing strength and endurance for physical and mental pain and exhaustion, and challenges and dangers of all kinds. She also has remarkable ability to communicate and establish relationships with all kinds of people who are completely alien to her, even when they do not understand each others' languages. She also knows how to manage all kinds of animals, both friendly and domestic, as well as, dangerous and wild.

Experimental Blog # 198

Quotations and comments on "Silverland - A Winter Journey beyond the Urals" by Dervla Murphy

Here is one quotation from a very interesting summary, of about 4 pages, of the history of Belarus:
"A year later{1922} eastern Belarus became a Soviet Socialist Republic < > During the 1930s collectivized farms, artificial famines, heavy industries and Stalinist purges arrived; no one knows how many mass slaughterings took place. In the Kurapaty Forest, near Minsk, the bodies of more than 100,000 men and women were exhumed in 1988."

Joseph Stalin is mentioned on at least 17 pages in this book; and Vladimir Putin is written about on at least 27 pages.
The author clearly does not like the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, and she mentions it on at least 10 pages.

"What Soviet citizens did enjoy was freedom from worry about jobs, housing. heating, education, health care, pensions. Although the implacable pursuit and punishment of dissidents continued after 1956, the mass of the population could then lead a notably less stressful life than their forefathers.."

"Thus the IMF, World Bank and US Treasury begat an unrestrained oligarchy eager to stamp on those seedlings of democracy - visible in corners of the Kremlin - which the West claimed to be nurturing."
Even more convincing, the author quotes the World Bank Chief Economist, Joseph Stiglitz, "For the majority of those living in the former Soviet Union, economic life under capitalism has been even worse than the old Communists had said it would be ...By siding so firmly so long with those at the helm when huge inequality was created through the corrupt privatization process, the USA, IMF and the international community have indelibly associated themselves with policies that, at best, promoted the interests of the wealthy at the expense of the average Russian.""

"In 2005 a reviewer < > diagnosed me as 'a typical old Irish Leftie [who] cannot disguise her sneaking regard for the Soviet Union'. Not quite a bull's-eye but Mr Thompson didn't quite miss the target."

"Stalin therefore expended human lives, instead of capital, on his gigantic development projects. At its zenith the gulag system, begun in 1930, controlled twenty-one million prisoners and was administered by 800,000 officials. < > During the Great Terror{1937-38} more than a million were executed and seven or eight million sent to camps. < > In contrast, between 1876 and 1904 the czar's regime imposed the death penalty on 486 criminals and terrorists, an annual average of seventeen."

Dervla Murphy is ideological about the world in the extreme, but she has virtually amazing physical and mental strength. She has traveled, very often by bicycle, all over the world; and she made this journey at about 71 years of age! And, besides that, during the winter!

 It seems a little bit surprising, however, that in spite of her apparently life-long interest in virtually everything left-wing, including the Soviet Union, that she has never bothered to study Russian. However, because of her age, she was born in 1931, she might be entitled to an allowance.