Holmes, I have a sore neck....

Another wonder of the world is genetics.

Genetics appears to be the science of studying the very building blocks of life.

It involves this: all living things are made up of stuff called DNA. DNA is just an abbreviation for a very long molecule (molecule = collection of atoms), called De-oxy ribo-nucleic acid. The wonderful thing about DNA is basically that all DNA is quite similar.

DNA is made of only four different types of smaller molecule (Cytosine, Guanine, Thymine and Adenine, or C, G, T and A, called "bases") and it is the way these are combined that make each bit of DNA different.

Surprising thing is, the DNA is just like a line of these, all in a row, and it is the order of these four that determines what the DNA does. Trouble is, the DNA is very long, miles long, in fact if a hyperbole is needed.

So what's with this DNA? Well, it is just an ordinary molecule, except that it is very long.

One more thing, and this is the good bit, the scientists found that DNA could make other molecules of DNA, all by itself.


How can that be? I can hear the reader ask. Good question, I must say, because if a molecule is going to make another molecule, it could be anything and indeed, if statistics are anything to go by, physics says it WOULD be anything.

However, DNA is very special, in that the molecules it makes are exact copies of the sequence of bases it uses itself. In other words, DNA make copies of itself, the exact copy.

This is why things grow, because the "lifeform" makes more DNA for itself to add on to the original.

The Big Question is: why does DNA make a copy of itself and not some other useless molecule, and how does it do it?

This is a question asked by scientists ever since we discovered that DNA was the molecule of life.

The answer was provided by scientists Watson and Crick in the 1950's.

It was a code!.

What happens is this: The DNA sequence makes another molecule called an enzyme, and this enzyme gathers the correct bases to stick to one half of the DNA, which is divided into two. The whole process creates two molecules of DNA, which are exact copies of one another.

So how does the DNA know which enzyme to make? Simple, a code!

The sequence of the bases in any DNA molecule is a code to create the correct enzyme that enables a copy to be made.

Wait a minute! A code? Aren't codes a thing of design?

Hmmmm.

Here's us scientists thinking that evolution brought about all life by chance! But if that were so, how come a code got in there?

Maybe, just maybe, there is a designer after all, and the world have been calling HIM names from antiquity, names like Yahweh, Brahmin, Buddha, Allah without knowing why.

Makes you think, does it not?

Beware of the Phone!

In England, where I am based now (Oxford University, actually), there is a major Government policy towards people who DO NOT smoke cigarettes, cigars, pipes, etc in public placees.

It is now law for places like pubs and restaurants to have designated areas for those people who do not indulge.

The reason, which has only come to light because of research, is that cigarettes give off smoke, as does the smoker, which is pssively inhaled by those who do not smoke if they share the same space on a bus, etc.

It is a phenomenon called "passive smoking" and has been proven to cause death just like normal smoking does, but taking longer.

The late, great Roy Castle, who came from Liverpool and who was a great comedian, entertainer and dancer (he was once in the Guinness Book of World Records for recording a song during which the performer played the most solo musical intruments), died from passive smoking, having performed, in his youth, in many, smokey Jazz bars and clubs. His speciality was the trumpet.

However, he was diagnosed with lung cancer owing to smoking, even though he had never touched a cigarette in his life. A research center in Liverpool for this condition was built in his memory.

It is now a fact of life in some places and rules have been introduced to countermand the practice of "passive smoking".

Now we come to the strange effects that perhaps mobile phones have on us. Researchers claim that overuse of the mobile phone, or cellphone, will harm the brain, owing to the proximity between the head and the microwaves entering the units. Of course, effects will not become apprarent for another 25 years or so, just like smoking kills in that time. However, despite this, it hasn't stopped so-called "eco-aware" companies from selling us hands-free headphones/earplugs so that we can talk without the handset being close to our heads.

Far-sighted, or just plain politics gone mad?

Either way, this writer is willing to hazard a bet that there will eventually be areas designated especially for those who do not use cellphones, not because of the noise all these talkers produce, but because of the "passive radiation" they would be giving the rest of us.

What may they call it - - - - "passive personal microwaving"?

Persistence, Palindromes and 196

Here is a long-promised post - the "persistence of the intergers"!!!

"Peristence" is easy to define - just take a number and multiply all its digits together and continue until you are left with just one.

Example - 39. 39 becomes 3 x 9 = 27, then 27 becomes 2 x 7 = 14, and 14 becomes 1 x 4 = 4. Three steps, so the "persistence" of 39 is 3.

You can do it with any number you like. Obviously, numbers with a zero in have persistence 1, so they are not very interesting. Try finding the persistence of 6,788.

What IS interesting though is finding the SMALLEST numbers of a certain persistence. 39 is an example, and is the smallest number of persistence 3. 6,788 is the smallest of persistence 6.

That is, all numbers lower than 39 have persistence 2 or 1, and all higher than 39 have peersistence 3 or higher. For 6,788, all numbers LOWER than 6,788 have persistence 5 or less, whilst all higher have pertistence 6 or more.

Now, here's where it gets really interesting, because it is widely believed that there is absolutely NO number whatsoever with a peristence higher than 11. That, is, no number has been found to take more than 11 steps to reduce to one digit. I find this staggeriing, simply because you can invent any number as long as you like, say with 500 digits, and when you apply the persistence rule, it reduces to one digit in less than 11 steps. Try it!

Incidentally, this is just multiplicative persistence. The other one is additive persistence, where you add instead of multiply the digits, but is not quite as interesting.

Like I have said before, numbers facinate me. On a related topic, there are the palindromes, numbers like 121 and 3443 that read the same forward and backwards. If you take any number, and add it to its reversal, this produces another number. Do it again and again until a palindrome is produced. Example: 456: 456 + 654 = 1110: 1110 + 0111 = 1221 a palindrome. Try it with any number - you will eventually, after only at most 24 reversals, get a palindrome,

BUT NOT FOR 196 !!! Despite an enormous amount of computer power, 196 has still not produced a palindrome.

Nobody has the foggiest idea why 196 is special this way, but it is deeply fascinating to speculate why it is 196 and not 197 or 195, say. Try them! They both produce palindromes easily!

Watch this space for the emirps, Kaprekar numbers, and the Weird numbers!

England Soccer "Blues"!!!!!!

First, England Soccer Club had this:







He was called Emlyn "crazy horse" Hughes. (the seventies)








Then, they got this:



He was called "Gazza" and was famous for crying. (the nineties)



























NOW, in the "noughties", (or should it be said "Naughties"?) they have this:



HE is just known as "LOONEY", whoops, sorry, Rooney.

This man is almost entirely responsible for England's defeat at the hands of Portugal in the World Cup. He committed a foul by stamping on another player's Family Allowance, and then, in a fit of petulance, pushed another player out of his way so that he could argue with the referee, only a yard away!!! First foul - Yellow Card. Second foul, for just being too stupid to know better, the Red Card. I say well done referee. I bet Sven Goran had a few choice words afterwards, and maybe even a boot flew in somebody's forehead's direction. (Ask David Beckham about that one) .

The England Team consist of One Genius (Gerrard), 8 or 9 fools, and one Looney, Whoops! I meant complete Idiot! Sorry Mr Roooooney!

All in the in the Best POSSIBLE taste!

Anybody who susses all the allusions in this one gets a Green Card.

Maria Full of "Grace"? Purrlease!!!

"Maria Full of Grace"


Thursday, 29 June, 2006

...." Ever since she won Wimbledon two summers ago Maria Sharapova has become accustomed to first-class attention, even in the courts allocated for her to play on. Show courts most of the time, naturally.

Today she won her second round match against Ashley Harkleroad on Court Two, the notorious ‘Graveyard of Champions’ where many top names have crashed to defeat in the past. For Sharapova, it was more a playground than a graveyard as she romped home for the loss of four games and it brought forth a few sentimental memories.

On her Wimbledon debut as a wild card in 2003, Sharapova was beaten on Court 18 by Svetlana Kuznetsova in the fourth round. "People were walking back and forth, just like on Court Two today," she said. "But it's good, the fans can get to see up close and personal......"

....or so says journalist Ronald Atkin on the official Wimbledon website. In the picture, he says she is "trying to "suppress" her emotions" during a bout of sniffles.

What a laugh!

His Headline was "Maria full of Grace"

If it is grace she has, she ejaculates it with her every tennis shot, from her mouth, throat and her other "nether" regions. I would hardly call a pretty girl vomiting non-verbal abuse with her every "stroke" the least bit graceful.

But then again, I am just a girl myself, who cannot watch this "graceful one" because of the distrsaction she causes with the noise. I mean, it must rate close to a jackhammer on the decibel level.

Poor opponents, who actually have to face this across the net!

I must confess, I cannot recall any other sport abused in this mannner.


Give me Ping Pong anytime. I challenge anyone at that, and I don't so much as "regurgitiate" anything, not even between points, despite any sniffles!

The Children are our Future

I have to say this because I really feel strongly about it.

Four years after the Korea/Japan World cup had thousands upon thousands of Koreans on the streets, AT NIGHT, with their LITTLE CHILDREN upon their Dad's shoulder's, watching the most exciting games, completely safe, England decide to copy the format.

England's first game in this World Cup was against Paraguay, at 2pm, in the afternoon, and England had large screens (Just like Korea did) in city centers for the fans to watch.

Seems it failed. Some stupid "fans" decided it would be a "good idea" to throw bottles at the screens because they did not like the soccer.

This resulted in unrest and the police were forced to intervene. City center shops were forced to close their doors (in Liverpool) in fear of looting. This took place at about 3pm, in the AFTERNOON.

The screens were closed down and the decision was made to not do it again for any other World Cup matches.

Nothing even LIKE this happened at any of the big screens last time here in Korea. All kids were safe, all adults were well-behaved, and all "minor elements" were non-existent. Infact, all parties were joyous.

What Korea achieved during the last World Cup was a "United Nation".

England's attempt failed miserably because there are still some people there in England who do not belong to the social enclave, but in the caves instead, and that funnily enough, have just been discovered beneath Liverpool's sandstone bedrock...... Sorry, unintentional pun there!

I feel honoured to have lived in Korea, but am ashamed now to have even known England as a place to live in.

Long live the public giant screens of Korea!

May they teach the World a thing or two about unification.

My point being, here in Korea, Dads and Mums can take their Children out to a public place late at night, to enjoy a family event. They can even walk home in the dark streets safely. ...

Can the West claim similar?

Hailstones do NOT "reign"

Numbers are fascinating. I don't mean "sheer" numbers, I mean the properties of the integers, ie whole numbers.

Twin primes, for example. Numbers like 29 and 31, numbers separated by a difference of 2, yet are prime numbers. 11 and 13 are another example of a twin prime set. There was recently a proof that the numnber of twin primes is infinite, but only recently.

Math guys are always inventing new ways to look at numbers. Twin primes is just an example.

I started this post with the intention of looking at the "persistence" of numbers, but I think I will tell about yet another invention of the mathematicians, the "hailstone" numbers.

Actually, they are not numbers at all, just the way they behave.

They way you do it is this: Select a number, any number, say, 13. The instructions are as follows.......if your selected number is even, halve it. If it is odd, like 13, triple it and add 1. For 13, this gets us to 40. Then, continue, and in this case, we have to halve it to get 20, and then again to get 10, and so on to 5. But 5 is odd, so we triple it and add 1 to get 16. This number is even again, so we halve it, to get subsequently 8, then 4, 2 and finally 1.

....and that was just 13. It took 10 "steps" to get to 1. You can do it with any number you choose.

The question is: Do ALL numbers end in 1? The math guys still do not know the answer. Some numbers take an enormous amount of steps to get to 1. Try 4173!

The reason they are called "hailstone" numbers is that the behaviour is similar to that of hailstones in a cloud, which oscillate up and down until they become heavy enough to fall to the ground, or, in our case, 1.

No-one has ever proved or disproved that all numbers end up as 1, which puts this possibly in the "Godel-like" category (see previous post). However, it is fun to try, and it not only is applicable to the "triple and add 1" rule; you can use other rules like "multiply by five and add 3" for instance.

The results are the same. ALL numbers seem to end up as 1, but there is no proof that they are infinite, unlike the twin primes.

Who is to say that someone, somewhen, somehow, will come up with a proof.

Much like Wiles did with Fermat's Last Theorem, but that is another post!

The World Cup suddenly gets "interesting"....

We are nearing the latter stage of stage 1 in the World Cup of Football (Soccer).

It is at this point that things really start to HOT up, so to speak. For example......

If Ecuador beat Germany then England will play them in the next round if they draw with Sweden or beat them. However, if South Korea draw with Switzerland then they MAY meet Ukraine if the Ukraine beat Spain.

If South Korea beat Switzerland then they may meet Spain if Spain beat Ukraine. If the price of tomatoes on Thursday increases by $0.39 per pound by Saturday in Caracas, then global warming will not take place unless any President’s birthday falls on a Friday AND there is an R in the month of the Judaic calendar, unless OJ Simpson confesses, in which case, it will only happen when Krakatoa erupts again and there is peace in the Middle East with Albert Einstein as the next Astronaut to go to Mars on consecutive missions.

....and even then, they may lose....!

Oh Woe is ME

It may have been a remarkable turnaround for Australia and the neutrals, but not for me.

The team from the country of my birth (Ok, ok, so I am supporting three!) got beaten yesterday in a remarkable first round World Cup Soccer match. My country, Japan, scored a lucky goal early on in the first half to go 1-0 up, clearly against the run of play. Despite heavy pressure from the Roos (Socceroos, nickname they have given themselves), Japan maintained this advantage.

That is, until the 84th minute (out of 90), when we conceded a goal.

During the next eight minutes, Japan were put through the wringer and two more goals for Australia were scored. The one in the 93rd minute, however, I have to say, was an absolute cracking long range shot.

Result: Australia 3, Japan 1.

However, we are not downhearted, to use a classic English idiom. We still have to play Croatia and Brazil (gulp!). We may manage a draw against Brazil (Yeah, right!), but we MUST beat Croatia to stand any chance at all of progressing. If we do, we may not "Roo" any of this!

Well, South Korea play Togo tonight, and I will be supporting the Koreans of course.

The bottom line is, though, that Football should be the real winner, not just individual teams.

....and it was last night.

The Death Star is real ! ! !

Which image seems more familiar? The one on the left or the one on the right?

Well, we all know the Death Star, as invented by George Lucas in Star Wars in 1977, the left image, but what is the right-hand image all about?

The right-hand image is, in fact, a real photograph of one of Saturn's moons, and her name is Mimas. This moon was unknown in 1977 when Star Wars came out, and was not discovered until 1981 when the Voyager spacecraft (launched in 1977!) visited the Saturnian system.

When scientists first saw the huge crater, now named Herschel, they were quite literally astonished out of their shoes. Had George Lucas some prior knowledge? Was he, in fact, an alien himself?

This image of Mimas was taken with the Cassini craft's cameras and is the best we have. The angle by which the camera has caught Mimas is no accident.

Notice how, in the photo of Mimas, there is no "star-background", like the Death Star has. This is because the light from the "star-background" is so faint, AND out of focus, you cannot see it in the image.

Sometimes science kicks up something which almost defies description in terms of surprise and wonderment. This is just one of them, and one of the reasons why I love my physics.