Fata Morgana

Today I was talking to a friend about the Great Lakes. I commented on how back home in Northern Ireland you can see the coast of Scotland on a clear day. She said that no matter how clear the day is you can never see the opposite coastline on the Great Lakes. However she also told me that sometimes there are mirages on the lakes which allow you to see the opposite shore even though it is beyond the visible horizon. Such mirages are called Fata Morgana and occur when warm air lies over cold dense air which forms a kind of refracting lens.

Neat, eh?

The virus within

Influenza is a virus, and from what I can remember from high school biology viruses aren't technically speaking alive. Viruses do contain genetic material but they cannot reproduce by themselves. However, scientists now know that around 8% of human DNA is viral in origin with another 40-50% suspected of being viral in origin. It would seem that humanity has a lot genetically in common with viruses.

Celtic Reconstructionists

I recently heard a joke about how many Irish people it takes to change a light bulb, and I was reminded of this joke when I heard about Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism. This is a movement designed to reproduce pre-Christian Celtic religions in modernity. It emerged in the 1980s and 1990s from pagan movements. They admit that some of their practices are modern inventions but try their hardest to reproduce as accurately as is possible the practices and culture of the Celts.

In case you are wondering the punchline of the joke is: Five, one to change the light bulb and four to write a song about how much better the old light bulb was.

Eh?

I am beginning to think that I have spent too long in Canada, for I am starting to find myself developing more than a passing interest in ice hockey, in fact I am now even calling it "hockey". Today happens to be the birthday of Serge Bernier who is a retired hockey player. He was the first draft pick in the history of the Philadelphia Flyers. Bernier then went on to play for the Nordiques (unsurprisingly given his name, Bernier was born in Quebec).

Swine flu

After the problems that Canada had with bird flu a few years ago, the Canadians are treating the Canadian cases of swine flu very seriously. Swine flu is all over the news all over the world. This current version of swine flu appears to be a form of the ordinary flu virus, H1N1, but a mutated form that has material usually found only in bird flu and only in swine flu. The flu virus has the ability to swap genetic material with other forms of the flu virus, and pigs provide a good melting pot for the three strains human, bird and swine to mix.

Tamil Eelam

If you happen to have been in downtown Toronto over the past few days the protest outside the US Consulate cannot have escaped your attention. In fact if you have been in downtown Toronto at all over the past few months the chances are that you have seen protestors along University Avenue. These protesters are Tamils who are protesting against the Sri Lankan civil war. They have been chanting slogans calling on the US and Canada to intervene in the civil war, and chanting slogans accusing the Sri Lankan government of using chemical weapons and committing genocide. The Tamils believe that they will never be treated equally in a Sinhalese (the majority of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese) dominated state, and as such they want their own state. The Tamil state would be called Tamil Eelam.

All I know is that the Sri Lankan Civil War is one of the deadliest ongoing conflicts and the Tamil protesters in Toronto are angry and persistant.

Charley Horse

A friend was telling me a tale of woe today. He was describing walking home from a work-out when he got a charley horse as he was halfway across a road. I did not know what a charley horse was, so I asked him. Turns out that it is a colloquial expression for muscle cramps.