The Live Earth extravaganza took place around the world on Saturday, and featured all the big names in music doing their bit for climate change. But while everyone else was swanking it up in their posh trailers at Wembley Stadium and the other venues around the world, one band were perched on the edge of an iceberg in their parkas and cosy gloves, waiting for their big moment. That band was Nunatak. They are a five-piece band who are truly at the sharp end of climate change, as they are made up of the crew of the British Antarctic Survey. There are only 20-odd people out there at any one time, a fifth of whom are in the band. Somehow, word spread about them, and they ended up performing live to the thousands of people watching Live Earth. When asked what they thought of it all, they said that as far as they were concerned they were only performing to a sell-out crowd of 17 so it wasn’t that big of a deal. What a humble bunch. And their music’s not half bad too. 

(PHOTO: Sanja Gjenero)

Health care systems fascinate me. Endlessly. I could read about the policy and practice of socialized or privatized medicine until my eyeballs burst. And with the US presidential campaigns underway, I have ample opportunity. That is, for my eyeballs to burst.

I MEAN SERIOUSLY. I understand the basic tenets of Republicanism: lower taxes, keep the government out of things and when it doubt, let market forces dictate. But it just doesn’t work for health care. It doesn’t. So when I started scrolling down this page from the New York Times, which sums up each of the major players stances on health care reform to this point, my eyes certainly began to get a little twitchy around the edges. Democrats, shocker, are generally pushing for universal health care coverage, with slight variations on the theme - some stress insuring the not insured, or insuring children; some stress bringing costs down for everyone; not everyone thinks it should be mandatory.

But all the freakin’ Republicans are like..market forces, competition, choice BLAH BLAH BLAH. I know they believe what they are saying, that they are not mentally handicapped sociopaths (a special place in hell is reserved for Mitt Romney, however, who signed onto universal health while the governor of Massachusetts and now doesn’t like it so much...). But one look at the World Health Report from 2000 (available in it’s full glory here, press release here) will tell you that that US system is broken and merely tinkering with the tax incentives and opening up insurance choices cross-borders will not do it.

Let me summarize the numbers (remember these are based on late 90’s data) for the rankings and expenditures of 191 countries:

France ranked 1st in its health care system and 4th in population health. Health care consumed 9.8% of the GDP. It spent, on average $2369 per person per year on health, of which about 77% was publicly funded.
The US ranked 37th in its health care system and 72nd in population health. Health care consumed 13.7% of the GDP. It spent, on average $4187 per person per year on health, of which about 44% was publicly funded.

I find this contrast particularly amusing as most conservative Americans would rather die than be French (freedom fries anyone?); most French people would rather die than have to speak with an American, so fair’s fair).  But these statistics show that Americans spent a lot more money and ended up a lot less healthy. While the World Health Report has about a million suggestions, one of the clearest is that healthy countries have universal health care, that everyone should try to insure as many people as possible and that private medicine does come at the cost of public.

But you already knew all that. For more research and news check out this site: Physicians for a National Health Program, particularly the research page. They advocate a single payer system (which basically means federally operated insurance, but not necessarily public hospitals, doctors). I think I might actually quit being a journalist and try to work for them. Handing out fliers or something.

Like I said, these are not new figures or new ideas. What is new is that we have a whole bunch of powerful people campaigning to run the United States of America with the promise of changing the way it does health care. It is an opportunity to do something radical. Something amazing: to do away with HMOs, pre-approved treatments, co-pays, deductibles, the uninsured and the underinsured.

The tragic thing is, even IF a Democrat gets in, judging by their position statements, it’s unlikely that a universal, single-payer system will evolve (the only one really up for it is Dennis Kucinich and who’s he, eh?). Many people who advocate for single-payer universal coverage (which yes! is expensive!) see the only way to finance the system is through healthcare savings from basically stripping the overhead/profit margins of private companies (this study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that around 30% of health care costs are administrative, compared to about 17% in Canada’s single payer system; likewise Medicaid and Medicare operate with much lower overhead costs compared to private insurance companies).

My personal opinion, disregarding the political difficulty of completely killing off for-profit US health care companies, is that the whole enchilada is the only way to go. And as much as I want to give Republicans a swift kick in the hiney (Mr. Romney would get something even better), I have to admit that at my darkest moments, I think that they halfway measures of weeny-assed Democrats might actually be as bad if not worse in the long term.

If you find yourself at a loose end in Germany, you should swing by the Stukenbrock Safaripark and visit new arrival Eclyse - the brand new zorse. Is it just me, or does she look slightly like a conker that wasn’t ready to emerge, like she’s going to turn properly brown pretty soon?  Click on the photo (by AP) to see a few more.

This category was MADE for men like Jonathan Meiburg, Austin Texas band Shearwater‘s front man. For those of you who don’t know, Shearwater produces big landscape driven folk music, akin to Arcade Fire’s lets-all-join-in with-triangles-and-tambourines sound. He’s the only man dubbed a “singer-songwriter-birder” by the New York Times. The only thing that could beat that in my books is if David Attenborough picked up the harmonica and played Beatles covers together with the inimitable and eery duets of Indonesian orangutans.

But what I’m writing to tell you is that just because I missed the band here in Vancouver, doesn’t mean you have to. Why? Because they’re playing for free tomorrow night in Battery Park in NYC. Let me repeat that. They. Are. Playing. For. Free. Tomorrow. In NYC. And it’s bound to be a kickass show. Don’t believe me? Well, believe the NYTimes review instead that raved about their Brooklyn show last year and was especially enamoured with their song White Waves “dedicated to the largest hammerhead shark that was ever caught with a rod and reel.”

Sure, naming your band after a bird (think: A Flock of Seagulls) does not a birder make. But Meiburg is the real mccoy. He spent 2001 in Tierra del Fuego studying the Striated Caracara (ding). And shared his experience with the audience of NPR in the same beautiful prose that peppers his songs (DONGGGggg).

Ear candy via iTunes: White Waves (about aforementioned tragic Hammerhead that was pregnant!)

And their latest album Palo Santo: Expanded Edition features the beautiful and catchy Red Sea, Black Sea. 

You know the times when you don’t think you’re that tired or bored, but you’re concentrating really hard (for me, usually in a meeting or a lecture) and for some reason you just can’t stop yawning? You know people can see you, you know it’s rude, but you can’t stop. Nightmare. Happens to me all the time. Ok, sometimes I AM bored, but most times I’m not. But the next time I see someone looking at me mid-yawn, I’ll tell them that I’m not bored, that my subconscious is busy cooling my brain, can they please not interrupt.

(PHOTO: HAGIT)

I equate Etsy with crafty DIY goods that range from lacquered collages to one-of-a-kind earrings that I could make from a visit to the local bead shop. But really, it’s like that fab boutique that you want to outfit your new apartment from: funky silk screened dish towels, gorgeous candles, chic bric-a-brac, and some random items of affordable art.

But that’s all boring. Because look! How do the rest of Etsy’s wares not pale in comparison to the chemistry love notes pictured above.

If that’s not creative geek genius drop me a line and if you can sway me to the contrary, I’ll go jump in the nearest lake I can locate.

Here’s a fast and easy (and untested) way to lose weight. Take a small white pill with a glass of water, and wait for a short while as it turns into a large ball of jelly, keeping you nice and full all day and stopping you wanting to eat. So say the team from Italy’s National Research Council. Now I’m as keen as the next person to find a simple way to lose weight, but this idea sounds moderately disturbing. Not necessarily more disturbing than, say, a gastric band or eating paper tissues to fill yourself up, but still not so great. Even though the pill is made of cellulose, which is easily broken down inside the body, what if the pill gets stuck in your oesophegus? Or passes through your stomach and inflates inside your intestine? Scary. They admit that they’ve only tried it on 20 people (including their researcher, who suprise suprise said it was great), and their next move is to do some proper testing. Hmm.

PS - If it inflates into a ball of jelly in your stomach, what’s wrong with just eating, er, JELLY (or Jello to you folks across the pond)? Jelly’s nice! Orange flavour in particular. Just a suggestion.

(PHOTO: BLOODYPIXY)

One of the perks of being a scientist is that sometimes you discover something, and get to pick the name. One of the serious drawbacks is that if you pick a dumb name it will haunt you forever. Cool names include the naming of a mesozoic reptile Attenborosaurus conybeari after David Attenborough because it had previously been misnamed. Or naming a bunch of bunnies after the Playboy king himself when he funded some key research.

For naff names, you need look no further than this site. My personal favourite is the brainbox who named the magnesium iron silicate hydroxide molecule after his hometown, Cummington. Put an ite on the end of that word and you’ll see why. And while you’re there, look for the origins of penguinone, apatite, draculin, arsole, moronic acid, traumatic acid, and fucitol. 

(PHOTO:MARKENUB)

I was on the digg swarm today and I found this story about bath toys which has 943 diggs and counting. It’s been floating around in the news ever since it happened, and it’s just bobbed up again. It’s basically the latest installment in a delightful saga that began on a dark and stormy night in 1992.

A container ship en route to Hong Kong got caught in a storm, and shed some of its cargo into the Pacific Ocean. Amongst other things (including Nike trainers and green plastic frogs) 24,000+ yellow plastic duckies were tipped out into the sea, and have been drifting ever since. But not aimlessly, oh no. They have been closely monitored by Curtis Ebbesmeyer and his team of oceanographers, who have been learning masses about ocean currents by watching the ducks. We don’t know much about what happens out there in the wild and watery oceans of our globe, and this is a good a method as any. He has faithfully recorded every sighting, and is now convinced they are about to arrive on our shores, via the North Pole, the Bering Strait, and more.

No ducks have yet been reported, but Ebbesmeyer just wants to make sure that the British beachcombing public is ready for the invasion. Apparently, the ducks are no longer yellow, having been bleached by the sun. If you find one, you could even be eligable for a reward of $100 per duck. So eyes peeled, people.

(PHOTO:5STAREMPTY)

I do love a good time lapse. And this one is a doozy. It comes to you via Antzarctica, and it’s called A Year On Ice: Antarctica Time Lapse. It’s divided into two sections, Summer and Winter. The music is slightly questionable, the Summer segment features what sounds like a Scottish jig on speed, and the Winter segment has the woo oo oo Edward Scissorhands music. But the images are amazing, particularly the aurorae and clouds. Enjoy.