Australia will create an agency to monitor the conduct of scientific research, since it doesn’t have any right now, and there is dissatisfaction at the system in place, which allows universities to handle questions of researcher misconduct internally. Or so says The Australian, which has a good post on the topic:
Down Under
A new book on Isaac Newton, yes another one, covers his years as Warden of the Royal Mint, and his energetic pursuit of counterfeiters. Old Sir Isaac never did things by halves, so if his job entailed getting rid of “false moneyers”, he jumped into it with both feet. The Newtonian feet were directed with paricular zeal toward the neck of one William Chaloner, a notorious counterfeiter and spectacular rogue, rather like the Long John Silver of Treasure Island. Maybe it was his brazeness that attracted Newton’s particular spleen, but in any case, the Warden was relentless in tracking him down, reeling him in and stringing him up. Counterfeiting was a capital offense, as was almost everything else in those days, and Chaloner paid for his skill and enthusiasm in his trade at the end of a noose. 1699, it was, and the poor bloke didn’t get to live out the century. The book is Newton and the Counterfeiter, by Thomas Levenson.
The End is Near! We’re Running out of…..Phosphorus? Yep. If things have been going too well for you recently,then you can worry about the decline in the world’s phosphorus supply. We’re mining it faster that Mother Earth can form it, so, inevitably, there will be a Phoshporus Crisis. It’s not entirely a joke, since the stuff is crucial for agricultural productivity, but at a time when so much else is going wrong, it seems , well, rather minor. If we don’t get some of this other business sorted out, the Phosphorus Question will not even be raised.
Phosphorus
If you want to pick the next hot spot for a High-Tech boom, think about….Cuba! No, I’m not kidding, and neither is the guy in WIRED who wrote the piece. He compares it to Ireland in the Seventies, in that the population is well-educated even though the country is poor. The people are very, very interested in improving things for themselves, and so so open to challenges. Of course, a few things have to change…the two Castro boys for example…but the whole thing does make a kind of sense, once you think about it. That would not be good for the mainland workforce, which would have another very tough competitor.
Cuba
Note: A tech boom would be a good way for any post-Castro Cuba to defeat what I think will be a major problem, and that is the efforts of the Mob to get back and restore the Good Old Days of the 1930s and 1940s, when they pretty much ran the place. Throw in the Drug Mafia and you’ve got some pretty nasty customers, so a tech industry would be a counterweight to a Mob takeover effort.
This weekend we celebrate the 233rd year of our independence from the Crown of England. Have a safe and sane holiday.