Homo Lardarseus and limits to girth

A recent speaker at Melbourne University gave an interesting perspective on the warning by Thomas Malthus, over 200 years ago, that population tends to increase exponentially until checked by famine, plague and war.

Professor Matthew Connelly of Columbia University notes that in Malthus’s time ...

... the average Englishman was 5 foot 6 and averaged about 135 pounds. And these Englishmen were among the largest and best fed people in Europe.

People today on the other hand, have an average body mass fully a third larger than when Malthus was writing.

So it might be observed, the recent appearance on the evolutionary scene of Homo Lardarseus has introduced a further dynamic in the vexed relationship between humanity and its planetary home.

Put simply, the better fed and nourished we humans become, the more food and nourishment we tend to require.

And as we become healthier and plumper, the carrying capacity of our fair blue planet in terms of our sheer numbers tends to actually diminish.

Now, what was all that some have been saying about an ‘intelligent designer’?

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“Special Bag for Disc”

I was wondering what these things are called. Looked everywhere, but didn’t know what to ask for...

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Lets brief news

This is a really neat idea!!

Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.

There could also be a niche market in those wanting an eco-friendly, self-sufficient energy solution for their cave whilst developing WMD capability.

In other eco-friendly news,

The body heat from hundreds of thousands of people who pass through the Stockholm Central Station each day will be used to heat a new office building nearby. .. The body heat would warm up water that in turn would be pumped through pipes over to the new office building, which will also house a small hotel and a few shops and is expected to be completed by the beginning of 2010.

Meanwhile there has been yet another hunting mishap in Texas:

An overexcited dog accidentally shot and killed its owner on a goose hunting trip in Texas.

Two go out, but only one comes back...

UPDATE

Oh dear. According to the Wikipedia entry for the Toshiba Micro Nuclear Reactor:

The original story describing this device was broken in Next Energy News and rapidly picked up by technology journalists and the blogosphere. However, no web presence from Toshiba has yet been seen, and it is possible that this is a hoax.

We’re through the looking glass when Wiki exposes factoids.

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astronomically useful

Geoscience Australia has a range of online tools that just about anyone, sometime, somewhere, should find very useful.

From their Astronomical Information webpage, you can:

• Compute your own Sunrise/Sunset times
• Compute your own Moonrise/Moonset times
• Compute your own Sun and Moon Azimuth & Elevation
• Browse Moon phase data
• Browse Planet data for the major Australian cities

UPDATE: A colleague referred me to another useful reference page, this one offering metric conversion tables and ready reckoners.

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