1 + 1 = 2

Over at The Universe of Discourse, Mark Dominus has a nice article on Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica from the viewpoint of a modern computer programmer.  One quotation:

... The notation is somewhat obscure, because mathematical notation has evolved substantially since then. And many of the simple techniques that we now take for granted are absent. Like a poorly-written computer program, a lot of Principia Mathematica's bulk is repeated code, separate sections that say essentially the same things, because the authors haven't yet learned the techniques that would allow the sections to be combined into one.

Me and My Bug

This afternoon BBC Radio 4 is broadcasting the first of a series of 4 short programs in which microbiologists discuss their relationships with their favourite microbes. 

Program 1 (29th August):

Dr Hazel Barton takes Jolyon Jenkins underground in the hunt for Pelagibacter ubique. First discovered in the Sargasso Sea in the 1970s, Pelagibacter lives on practically nothing. But can it survive in cave rocks, deep under the Kentucky countryside?

Program 2 (30th August):

Prof Keith Dumbell has been researching the smallpox virus since 1947 and was part of the successful campaign in the 1960s and 70s to eliminate smallpox from the globe.

In the process, he built up the world's largest private collection of smallpox strains. He tells Jolyon Jenkins about his relationship with the virus, and the sadness he felt when, in the interests of safety, he had to relinquish his collection.

Program 3 (31st August):

Prof Dorothy Crawford tells Jolyon Jenkins about her relationship with the Epstein-Barr virus, an elusive bug that causes neck tumours in African children, nasal tumours in Chinese adults and glandular fever in western teenagers. Despite researching it for 20 years, she still finds it a mystery how a virus can cause such disparate effects.

'I admire it', she says. 'I don't want to give it a personality, but it is very clever, amazing. I also find it rather irritating.'

Program 4 (1st September):

Prof Hugh Pennington at Aberdeen University has studied the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus since the 1960s and was himself infected with it in his nose during an outbreak that swept through British hospitals at that time.

Staph A is now better known as MRSA, the superbug that has evolved resistance to most antibiotics. Prof Pennington tells Jolyon Jenkins about the history of the bug, which was discovered by one of his predecessors in Aberdeen in the 19th century, and the series of mistakes that turned a common or garden bug into a major health threat.

For up to a week after each program is broadcast you should be able to listen to it at the program web page.

Royal Berkshire Hospital Panorama

On Friday afternoon I took the above panorama of our local hospital.  While I was taking the photos the man on the right pointed out a bride and groom going up to the main entrance.  I had been so busy lining up the pictures correctly that I hadn't noticed them.  You can make them out just to the right of the blue and white sign.  A larger version of this panorama can be found here.

Mallard Ducks as Agents of Species Extinction

John Hawks has an article on his blog summarising research that suggests that the spread of mallard ducks around the world is causing the extinction of many closely-related species of duck. Mallards introduced by man are hybridising with the local ducks leading to noticable drops in the numbers of pure-bred local ducks. This is happening with the black duck in North America and Australia, the grey duck in New Zealand, the Hawaiian duck, and the Florida mottled duck.  Notice that this is not a question of the mallards killing off the local ducks, it is just that they are making the local ducks offspring more 'mallardish'.  It is a matter of loss of diversity rather than one of genocide.

Missed Photo Opportunities

Travelling home from work today, on three occasions I saw things that would have made good photos. 

As the train was pulling into Ascot Station I saw a deer.  This was one of the deer that frequent the woodland on the inside of the curve of the Guildford line just outside the station.  It was a larger one, presumably an adult. Last Friday I saw two small ones together.

Then, while we were stopped a Bracknell station, two teenage boys, carrier bags in hand as if they had just been shopping, climbed over the wall and got onto the train.  It was obvious by the way they kept looking along the platform, and by the fact they went straight to the first class compartment at the front of the train (a dead give-away), that they were avoiding paying their fares.  And then, immediately after that, two different teenage boys with mountain bikes got off the train and proceeded to climb over the same part of the wall with their bikes.  Obviously fare-dodging is a big thing in Bracknell.

Later, back in Reading, I was walking past the London Road car park of the Royal Berks Hospital when two young women suddenly started jumping around, punching the air and whooping.  Between them,  they had just managed to jump-start a car.  The celebrations seemed to be part relief and part triumph that they had managed to do it without the help of any men!.  Their obvious happiness quite made my day.

Maybe I should carry my camera rather than my laptop with me when I go to and from work?