New Website Of PBS Really Sucks

Posted: 2/20/2016 Updated: 3/6/2016

Update Of 3/6/2016

Today, I chose to watch the third episode of American Experience Prohibition. What is the PBS website confronting me with: “This video is only available in ArizonaPBS Passport. ArizonaPBS Passport is an additional member benefit that provides extended access to quality PBS streaming video.” It appears, there is no alternative option available.

NO THANKS! Incredible, and this is paid for with taxpayers money as well!

Blog Post

Since about the beginning of this year (i.e. 2016), I noticed that pbs.org has a heavily redesigned website. One of the only things, I am interested in is full length videos with historical, scientific or nature as content.

This new design is awful in various respects:

1. When you select genre History (http://www.pbs.org/shows/?genre=history&layout=grid), you are presented with hundreds of icons, each representing single or multiple videos. Each icon pops up a text in your face when the cursor hovers about them and you cannot filter by full episode anymore. Instead, many of these icons would offer only short video clips.
2. When you search for particular videos, e.g. Unforgivable Blackness by Ken Burns, then the website shows you part 1 & 2 of full length videos to select, but when you then click on the play button following nonsensical message comes up “This video is unavailable in your area. Visit the PBS FAQ page for more information.” The PBS FAQ page does not provide any helpful information on this issue.

I have actually contacted PBS by e-mail to bring the second issue to their attention, but I am not sure the staff who answered my e-mail understood what this was about despite a brief exchange and follow up.

Hot Recent Science & Technology Articles (24)

Posted: 2/17/2016

1. Fluorescent biosensors light up high-throughput metabolic engineering. Genetically encoded fluorescent biosensors allow researchers to see how products form in real time in microorganisms, and to test billions of candidates at a time
2. These bacteria are actually tiny eyeballs (Fascinating insights into the evolution of eyes. What took scientists so long to discover that! “The method was obvious when - staring through the lens of a microscope at a slide full of  - the researchers saw that each cell contained a tiny point of light in the same location, where the bacteria were focusing the source. The researchers were even able to trick the bacteria into moving in the opposite direction by shining a laser at them, mimicking the concentrated point of light that the bacteria create themselves. The size of the point suggests that Synechocystis can see at a resolution of nearly 20° - about a hundred times less precise than a human eye, but still impressive for a single-celled organism. Scientists say this light-focusing strategy may be widespread among bacteria.”)
3. Horses understand human facial expressions (Scientists are lazy and blind otherwise they would have long ago discovered there are even more animals who can do that. “The discovery that horses as well as dogs - the only two animals this has been tested in - can read our facial expressions spontaneously and without training suggests one of two things”)
4. Nitrogen Supercharges Supercapacitors  Quick-charging devices might finally match lead-acid batteries for energy storage (“These reactions enhanced the capacitor’s ability to store energy roughly threefold without reducing its ability to quickly charge and discharge. Their devices could store 41 watt-hours per kilogram — comparable to what lead-acid batteries can store.”)
5. What Little Babies See That You No Longer Can Before developing perceptual constancy, three- to four-month-old babies have a striking ability to see image differences that are invisible to adults. They lose this superior skill around the age of five months
6. Computer helps researchers tackle multiple flu strains at once (“Today in PLOS Pathogens, scientists report that they’ve designed small molecules to target a particularly vulnerable region of hemagglutinin, one of the two proteins that jut from the viral surface like a flower. They home in on the stem of the flower, a portion of the protein that remains conserved between varied strains of the virus. ... The researchers began with a small protein called HB36.5, which is known to bind to influenza’s hemagglutinin. Using a combination of laboratory assays and computer algorithms, the team tested various mutations in HB36.5, looking for single amino acid changes that would increase how tightly the protein bound to a diverse group of hemagglutinins. Eventually the tests converged on a protein with nine mutations, which the researchers dubbed HB36.6. The scientists gave HB36.6 to a group of mice both before and after infecting them with a lethal dose of flu virus. When given prophylactically, all of the mice survived and lost less weight than control animals infected with the same virus. When administered after infection, the protein was less effective, but still significantly reduced death and weight loss.”)
7. Human Brain's Bizarre Folding Pattern Re-Created in a Vat Scientists have discovered exactly how the human brain gets its crinkly, wrinkly appearance in utero (“The team coated the outside layer of the mock brain with a stretchy elastomer gel to mimic the cortical layer. They placed this fetal-brain replica in a vat of solvent. The brain quickly soaked up the solvent, and its outer layer ballooned outward more quickly than its inner layer. This uneven swelling caused compression and buckling, and within minutes, the team had recreated the gyri and sulci of the brain. What's more, the formation pattern was shockingly similar to that found in real brains, the researchers reported today (Feb. 1) in the journal Nature Physics.”)
8. Biological Origin of Schizophrenia Excessive ‘pruning’ of connections between neurons in brain predisposes to disease (“The findings were based on genetic analysis of nearly 65,000 people. ... It also helps explain two decades-old observations: synaptic pruning is particularly active during adolescence, which is the typical period of onset for symptoms of schizophrenia, and the brains of schizophrenic patients tend to show fewer connections between neurons. The gene, complement component 4 (C4), plays a well-known role in the immune system. It has now been shown to also play a key role in brain development and schizophrenia risk.”)
9. Plants with biosensors may light the way  Engineered into living detectors, they can be programmed to emit fluorescence when encountering progesterone or digoxin (“...  team of researchers developed a new method for engineering a broad range of biosensors to detect and signal virtually any desired molecule using living eukaryotic cells.”)
10. Hack-proof RFID chips could secure credit cards, key cards, and pallets of goods
11. Potential diabetes treatment advances  Device shields beta cells from immune system attack (“... developed an implantable device that in mice shielded insulin-producing beta cells from immune system attack for six months — a substantial proportion of lifespan. ... rings the promise of a possible cure for type 1 diabetes within striking distance of phase 1 clinical trials, providing a way to implant in diabetics insulin-producing beta cells developed from stem cells ... ”)
12. First Monkeys with Autism Created in China They spin in their cages and don’t interact. The scientists who created autistic monkeys say they’ll now try to cure them. (“The Shanghai team sought to copy a disorder that is closely related to Rett syndrome, in which a person is born with too many copies of the MECP2 gene. To do so, it used a virus to insert copies of the human gene into monkey eggs, just as they were fertilized. The eight monkeys ended up with between one and seven extra copies of the gene.”)
13. Equation shows that large-scale conspiracies would quickly reveal themselves (I am not sure this study took into account distinctions between closed and open societies as I suspect that conspiracies in closed societies (e.g. former Soviet Union) have survived without detection for years if not decades. “While we can all keep a secret, a study by Dr David Robert Grimes suggests that large groups of people sharing in a conspiracy will very quickly give themselves away. ... 'It is common to dismiss conspiracy theories and their proponents out of hand but I wanted to take the opposite approach, to see how these conspiracies might be possible. To do that, I looked at the vital requirement for a viable conspiracy - secrecy.' … an equation to express the probability of a conspiracy being either deliberately uncovered by a whistle-blower or inadvertently revealed by a bungler. This factors in the number of conspirators, the length of time, and even the effects of conspirators dying, whether of old age or more nefarious means, for those conspiracies that do not require active maintenance.”)
14. Computer Beats Go Champion for First Time Google's DeepMind program, which has mastered the 2,500-year-old board game, is a big achievement in artificial intelligence
15. When chemical cues disappear, ants rely on memory (“But a new study suggests that pheromones aren’t the whole story: Ants’ individual memories of the path also encourage these repeat visits. Researchers observed captive black garden ants (pictured) as they discovered and fed on a weak sugar solution. Then they removed the ants, erased the pheromone trails, and added a second, sweeter food source. When they returned the ants to the enclosure, the insects stuck with the original sugar solution even though their previous pheromone trails leading to it had disappeared. Without a chemical map, they relied on their memory of the old route instead of scouting new food, ”)
16. Can Roundworms Show the Key to Slowing the Aging Process? (“But now, a team of TSRI scientists has discovered that the antidepressant drug mianserin can increase roundworms' overall lifespan by up to 40 percent by extending the "young adult" period of their lives.  … This new metric revealed that treatment with mianserin can suppress transcriptional drift, but only when administered early on. By intervening with mianserin on their first day of life, the researchers could prolong a worm's lifespan by seven to eight days. ”)
17. Super-Vaccine To Eradicate The Flu, Including Bird Flu (“In contrast to current vaccines, which are strain-specific, BiondVax‘s new vaccine was designed to contain small doses of the flu virus, which are enough to teach the human immune system to recognize all flu strains, so that the body quickly stops the virus from causing illness. ”)
18. Inside the Eye: Nature’s Most Exquisite Creation (Great summary article!)
19. Brewer’s yeasts mate inside the guts of hibernating wasps (“Now, researchers have found that different strains of the yeast mingle and mate like crazy inside the guts of hibernating wasps. The findings suggest that wasps might help to foster yeast biodiversity, with important implications for ecology and industry. ... It’s the first evidence that shows that in the gut environment, S. cerevisiae can [produce spores], germinate, and mate ... The findings suggest that wasps may be much more important than usually thought, ... “What’s often perceived as a pest species by humans can have incredible relevance, ... but in terms of having real commercial and industrial value,” she says. ... For instance, beers and wines have regional flavor difference influenced in part by their microbes, including yeasts.”)
20. To hear a pitter-patter from afar: Catching heartbeats with millimeter-wave radar (“Heartbeats can now be measured without placing sensors on the body, thanks to a new technology developed in Japan. Researchers at the Kyoto University Center of Innovation, together with Panasonic Corp, have come up with a way to measure heartbeats remotely, in real time, and under controlled conditions with as much accuracy as electrocardiographs.”)

On American Experience "The Mine Wars"

Posted: 2/13/2016

Recently watched this new feature documentary. Much to my dismay it portrayed the events and developments extremely one sided as you would expect from a leftist PBS.

Following quote from the Introduction gives you an idea what this documentary is about: “In the first two decades of the 20th century, coal miners and coal companies in West Virginia clashed in a series of brutal conflicts over labor conditions and unionization. Known collectively as the "Mine Wars," the struggle included strikes, assassinations, marches, and the largest civil insurrection in the United States since the Civil War.” (Source 1)

Some time has passed since I watched this documentary, so my memory is unfortunately beginning to fail me … (wish our scientists would finally come up with ways to improve human memory)

Notes

1. The documentary interview at least a dozen different historians, but each one of them seemed to be a clone of socialist historian Howard Zinn taking as if they were co-authors of “A People’s History of the United State”
2. To its grace, the documentary scarcely mentions that the coal mining business during those years was a margin business and that there were coal mines in other states in an intense competition with each other.
3. The documentary is an exaggerated glorification of Mary Harris Mother Jones “a notorious labor organizer known as "the miner's angel," and a self-proclaimed "hellraiser."”. This would be a subject for another blog post.
4. The documentary does not mention that the people who worked at those coal mines worked there voluntary and it did not research whether the compensation was so bad in comparison.
5. To its grace it mentions that many black Americans migrated to the coal mines in West Virginia from southern states. To its grace, the documentary shows that the racial conditions between white and black Americans were fairly good and compensation was equal, if I remember correctly
6. The documentary only tells the story of one particular mining worker union (i.e. United Mine Workers of America), while there was at least one other, much more aggressive and militant labor union trying to organize mining workers. Thus, the owners of mining companies had every reason to be concerned.
7. The documentary only in passing mentions that the mining workers resorted to severe sabotage of mining operations, assassinations (e.g. of so called strike breakers) and other violent acts, but the violence against mining workers by their employers is duly noted
8. Unfortunately, I do not remember, how the documentary portrayed the intervention of federal or state government, but I believe, the federal government exceeded its powers
9. “Thousands of men [evicted striking miners], women and children ended up in makeshift "tent colonies" set up by the UMWA on small strips of land not owned by the coal companies. These tent colonies included a trash dump, sanitary ditches, and cellars for storage and shelter. Water often had to be imported in barrels on wagons. With no running water or permanent homes, and no income to support their families, many miners returned to work, and the strike was broken.” (Source 1).
   The obvious question, why did the UMWA not ship the workers to other mining companies for better salary etc.? Why did the UMWA not offer these workers to find better jobs or even better establish a union owned mining company?
10. “With little protection from the state, [up to 3,000] strikers [in 1912] began buying guns, while sympathetic miners from neighboring coal camps smuggled weapons and ammunition into Paint Creek and Cabin Creek. They stashed rifles, pistols, bullets, and gunpowder in the woods, dynamited railroad tracks, and fired on trains -- anything they could do to stop mine production or kill a mine guard. ” (Source 1)
    Sorry, but these were criminal activities committed by the mine workers. Nothing to glorify here or to be proud of!
11. “However, in 1933, as the Great Depression threatened to undermine American Capitalism, Congress passed legislation guaranteeing the workers' right to unionize. It also outlawed the practice of blacklisting, private police forces like Baldwin-Felts, and industrial spies. This finally granted miners the full recognition of the union that they had fought and died for in the decades-long mine wars.” (Source 1)
    When democracy decays to become a tyranny of the majority or the mob! All this happened under the most socialist president the U.S. ever had, i.e. Franklin D. Roosevelt! What about the employers’ right to refuse unionization?

Sources

1. American Experience website: Introduction: The Mine Wars