Synaptic Sugar

A mysterious single blast of radio waves was observed in archived imagery data from 2001 detailing the portion of space containing the Small Magellanic Cloud; its cause: unknown. The burst may look insignificant at first, a single 5-millisecond blip during a 480-hour observation, but what makes astronomers excited is the fact that its location and wide dispersion indicate it must come not from the Cloud, but rather from very far away, about 3 billion light years from Earth; unfortunately, it’s impossible to pinpoint it to any galaxy or celestial object, making it harder to find out what caused it. However, Duncan Lorimer, an astrophysicist at West Virginia University in Morgantown and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory who led the team behind this discovery, says events like this could be detected a couple hundred times per day, if only they were looked for with the right equipment.

Why is a finding like this important? One hypothesis is these waves were emitted when two neutron stars collided or during the death of a black hole, meaning their observation could help find proof of the existence of the gravitational waves predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity (which theoretically should be emitted by titanic events like those) but were never directly observed. In turn, these could teach us something more about black holes and ultimately about the inner workings and origin of the Universe — surely no small result for a 5-millisecond blip and worthy of ending up in my gallery of Mysterious Mysteries.

This post was going to appear days ago but for various reason it’s been delayed. However, I thought I’d still publish it even if late, and say a few words especially because these issues have been discussed at length lately.

Warren, Ohio: a police officer tasers a woman a whole seven times on September 2, two of those times being after she had been handcuffed, and at least one when she was already in the officer’s cruiser. The woman had been escorted out of a bar, charged with violent behavior under the influence of alcohol.

Gainesville, Florida: police officers take away a student attending a forum, on September 17, with John Kerry as guest, and taser him while pinning him to the floor. On this episode I’d like to spend a few more words, since so many newspapers had the brilliant idea of crying out that the student was taken away because he “asked too many questions”. From the video of the incident (on YouTube) things seem to have happened in this order: the student asks Kerry his questions (provocative questions, but it’s still in his right to ask them); his microphone gets cut off and he is asked to leave (which is wrong); he refuses, so police officers try to take him away (which is also wrong), and he begins to struggle to set himself free (which doesn’t help his situation at all); as he keeps trying to resist any way he can and screams for help, the officers, three at first, then suddenly six, pin him to the floor and handcuff him; but at this point, the situation has escalated so much that I don’t think there’s anything else they could do, and handcuffs are probably just the logical consequence (and mandated by police “rules of engagement”). The subsequent taser discharge, however, isn’t logical; no matter how much he might have, whether with premeditation or not, tried to create an “incident” (it looks like he, in part, has), I don’t understand the need for the taser, nor honestly why most of his fellow students just sit still and watch, only to blog in outrage about what happened later and upload videos all over the Web.

(Some of the) Police officers involved in both cases are now on leave while matters are investigated. Perhaps there are people who are too taser-happy; tasers may be useful in extreme cases (such as to incapacitate an armed felon?) but should they be used so liberally? What if the victims have some sort of heart condition? How much more force do you need to stop an unarmed student when you’re already employing six officers and a pair of handcuffs, or to arrest a woman who has been drinking too much? Really, people, chill.

I watched the Emmys last night, that’s to say the show that distributes awards to television productions for outstanding performances and allows casts and crews to briefly speak on stage, whether to announce winners by reading pre-cooked jokes or to show their disbelief for a few seconds before being politely invited to leave by a soft musical crescendo. I was quite disappointed to see my favorite TV shows lose again to others of lesser quality (obviously, or they would be my favorites) and debatable impact and meaning (even for TV). That’s how House MD got no awards even with its three nominations (and for some reason it seems to get one less nomination each year), and The Colbert Report was subject to the same fate with four (exactly like last year), with Stephen Colbert losing the award for Outstanding Individual Performance to singer Tony Bennett for the NBC Special Tony Bennett: An American Classic. Peculiarly enough, last year Colbert had to surrender the award to Barry Manilow for a similar one-time special! I begin to see a pattern here, and although pseudo-random, it makes no sense to me.

At least The Daily Show with Jon Stewart managed to bring home one Emmy out of its whopping six nominations, but it’s nothing new for Stewart as the show had already won nine more throughout the years. Happy endings also for Steve Carell, some miniseries and productions I never heard of before, and others of colossal fame but that I never watched like The Sopranos, which won the most prestigious award for Outstanding Drama Series (and two more), bringing its history total to 19 and officially waving the screen farewell.

With 12 nominations in three years, House MD has so far only won one Emmy for its writing. I think it’s time to let Hugh Laurie add one to his impressive collection of individual awards, and while they’re at it, they should try not to give out Colbert’s awards, for a show that’s all new everyday four days a week throughout the year, to more one-night music specials.

What a nice time to be outside and play. The sun is shining, the grasses are golden and the sky is gray and thick with the smoke and ashes from wildfires that have been burning for days up on the mountains. There’s no wind in sight, therefore the smoke adds up to the usual daily amount of pollution and just sits quietly where it is, generously offering its healthy gifts to our unsuspecting and eager-to-breathe lungs. People are advised to stay indoors if they can, while, after the first few critical days, television news programs happily celebrate the improvement of the air quality from a rusty “Unhealthy” to a luminous “Moderate”, champion knight of all our dreams of relieved bronchi, showing that, notwithstanding our negative skepticism, once again we managed to return to the dose of aerial poisons we’re used to. Hold your breath if you really want to persist in having any instinct of self-preservation — the utility of breathing is overrated, in any case.

V-Day will come in two days, and it seems to have grown to be a worldwide event, present in all five continents and in over 180 cities in Italy (where it originated). I already wrote about it ("V-Day") so this time I will only be highlighting Italian comedian Beppe Grillo’s posts where the main world cities holding the event Saturday are listed. There are also two maps on Google that give a good visual impression of how widespread the phenomenon is, both in Italy and the rest of the world. Congratulations, the topic the event revolves around is worth discussing, and hopefully something good will come out of this.

Edited on September 9 at 1:36 PM to add: The following day, V-Day shows to have been a great success worldwide, with over 300,000 signatures gathered in Italy (at least 50,000 were needed) to support the law proposal aimed at cleaning up the parliament. Attacked as demagogic by many politicians and their personal media outlets, the event and the months spent in preparation nevertheless proved that people DO want to take part in the decision-making process, if offered the possibility of deciding on actually meaningful matters rather than ratifying pre-cooked and pre-packaged arrangements.