Up in the Air - North Korea

One again, the regime of Kim Jong Il has tested the international community's tolerance with long range missile launch tests. As the Bloomberg news summarised " North Korea tested its second nuclear device on May 25, defying international condemnation that built up after a ballistic-missile launch in April. Two days ago, Kim Jong Il’s regime threatened an armed strike against South Korea for agreeing to participate in a U.S.-led program to stop and search ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction".

North Korea is the world's most isolated, totalitarian state and operates at the edge of brinkmanship to attempt to gain some yet not well understood advantage. The World strongly relies on neighbouring states such as the People's Republic of China to try and intercede with the North Korean leadership yet often China finds that it has no greater influence than anyone else in dealing with the paranoid regime.

North Korea under its current leadership is unlikely to adopt any change in direction and each step forward in developing improved relations is often superceded by two steps back. Impoverished, dependent on aid from other countries, paranoid and with unaffordable military spending North Korea sits in stark contrast to its more prosperous neighbour in the South. The only real chance for improvement sits with the departure of its current leader Kim Jong-Il and a transition leadership which is willing to accept that no-one in the international community is interested in invading their country. Far more is the opposite as the region craves stability and peaceful co-existence.

The value of social linkers

In his international bestseller book, 'The Tipping Point', Malcolm Gladwell refers to 'Connectors' or people 'with a special gift for bringing the world together'.... 'the kinds of people who know everyone' and their real importance is not only the number of people they know, but the kinds of people they know. In Gladwell's definition, Connectors are 'people whom all of us can reach in only a few steps because, for one reason or another, they manage to occupy many different worlds and subcultures and niches'. Gladwell's description fits a group of people who may not be necessarily known in high end business or political circles or celebrity/social pages of magazines and electronic media however their influence and 'connecting' may be profound. Everyone in their life may run across local connectors and from time to time, and occasionally people who traverse much greater boundaries. 'Connectors' however are not networkers as a connector is someone who can span many different worlds not merely within one profession or industry.

Impressions from the Past

Over the past two years, Egyptologists, Archaeologists, Ancient Historians and generally those with an interest in Ancient Egypt will have been following the recent claimed discovery of the mummy of arguably one of the most important figures of that long passed civilisation, Hatshepsut (pictured) of the 18th Dynasty. Pharoahs in Ancient Egypt passed through male lines as they were meant to be both man and god and although women could and did govern Egypt this was only as Regents where the male heir was deemed too young to ascend the throne. This was not the case with Hatshepsut where, as a woman, she was able to move beyond the position of Regent to the underage heir Thutmose III and actually become Pharoah in her own right and actually co-ruler with Thutmose III when he came of age. Her reign which lasted from 1473 BC to 1458 BC heralded a period of considerable stability and prosperity in Egygt.

As Pharoah, Hatshepsut adopted the normal regal image including wearing a false stylised beard in public and religious ceremonies and the serpents crested crown of Egypt.

Yet in all other ways, Hatshetsup's image was feminine. She remains one of the most intriguing figures of Ancient Egyptian history most notable due to the fact that images of her and references to her were erased from monuments years after her death most likely on the instructions on Thutmose III. Recent research undertaken in Egypt has now shown that references to her as Queen were not erased, only those as Pharoah. Her royal cartouche is shown (at right).

In order to be Pharoah in any guise, Hatshepsut would have needed the acceptance of the priesthood, the army, the nobility and the royal court to succeed. Her story from 3,500 years ago still has a resonance today for women also navigating their way through the corridors of power and business.

Tourists to Egypt can be thankful for Hatshepsut's reign for she constructed many of the most stunning monuments and temples still visible there. Her mortuary temple in the desert at Deir el Bahri remains one of the great wonders of the Ancient World.

Opinion - Swine Flu H1N1

The latest animal to human virus mutation, the Mexican Swine Flu or H1N1 again demonstrates the capacity of viruses to mutate and literally jump species with relative ease. New Scientist (2 May 2009) points out that the virus was genetically stable until 1976 as a mild, purely swine flu. In that year it affected people at a military camp in New Jersey and by 1998, the virus had hybridised with human and bird flu viruses. The current version of H1N1 in Mexico has surface proteins from Swine flu virus, five swine flu genes, two avian flu genes and one human flu gene (shown above). The surface protein being the swine version means that human antibodies will not recognise it.

The other matter which comes to mind is the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry - the use of antibiotics is widespread in farming and while it prevents animals from becoming sick, it does not prevent initial infection nor the transmission of disease. Connected to this aspect is the potential risk of an infection becoming antibiotic resistant as large scale farms become in effect, incubation laboratories.

An example which springs to mind is 'Golden staph' or Staphylococcus aureus which is mostly associated with hospital acquired infections, mainly post-operative. Since the mid 1990s antibiotic resistant 'Golden Staph' has been detected in abattoirs in the meat and livestock industry and also in site sampling in the general community.

The high use of antibiotics with animals has been in use for decades but with some bacterium common to various species and also humans and some viruses developing the capacity to leap between species, how long will it be before such a step takes place and humans face an infection (viral or bacteria), created in farming and resistant to any treatment?

How many degrees of separation?

It was in the late 1960s that the psychologist, Stanley Milgram, ran his small experiment to determine how many steps it would take for 160 people living in Omaha, Nebraska to use their social acquaintances to direct a mail package to a stockbroker located in Boston, Massachusetts. On average, he found the exercise took five to six stages of social contacts to eventually result in the mail packages arriving to the stockbroker. This result led to the concept of six degrees of separation.

In an interconnnected world, now dominated by convergent technology in telecommunications and the internet, the six degrees of separation paradigm would appear to be shifting to a series of cross connections which may mean in many respects that six degrees may often be much less.

In a simple example of this new interconnected reality, I placed a simple quiz on one of the latest social networking sites, Facebook and uploaded it to the main directory of the site. The number of quizzes on Facebook runs into the hundreds and so this item could be easily lost. Without any marketing or promotion, just interconnected communities of people, over 42,000 persons undertook the quiz online spread throughout a dozen different countries over two weeks. All of this was effectively electronic word of mouth and social networking.

Eye into space

Later this month the European Space Agency will launch the Herschel Space Observatory (formerly called Far Infrared and Sub-millimetre Telescope or FIRST) into remote orbit 1.5 million kilometres from Earth (or four times the distance to the moon). The telescope has the largest single mirror ever built for a space telescope. At 3.5-metres in diameter the mirror will collect long-wavelength radiation from some of the coldest and most distant objects in the Universe. In addition, Herschel will be the only space observatory to cover a spectral range from the far infrared to sub-millimetre.

Herschel is only the latest in a list of similar heat sensing telescopes placed in orbit outside of Earth the others being IRAS (1983), ISO (1995-98), Spitzer (2003-09), Akari (2006-2007).

While admiring these efforts to boldly go where no-one has gone before, its almost axoimatic that the large funds spent on space exploration would equally be valuable being focussed on the declining environmental situation back on planet Earth. Its almost ironic that as science explores the outer reaches of space and the formation of the universe, our own home planet is heading for an atmospheric decline which may render much of this exploration as redundant.

How much money is needed?

The G20 summit in London concluded this week and the leaders of the member countries have committed to $1.1 trillion in new funds which will greatly increase the capital available to the International Monetary Fund. The goal in mind is a revival in trade, which is expected to contract this year for the first time in 30 years. Of note however the combination of loans and guarantees fell short of an injection of fresh fiscal stimuli into the world economic system — this was due to division between Continental Europe and the United States over whether to act now or wait to see whether existing spending measures took effect.

Most member countries have already committed major funding outlays and released vast sums of funds into their economies through various mechanisms - in the US this has meant buying up the bad debts and loans which their banking system had both created and then shared with the world. In Australia, the strategy is to stimulate consumer spending by providing actual cash payments to families earning under $100K per annum. The question is whether these levels of payments are sufficient to compensate for the loss of economic activity due to the mismanagement in part of the world (and US in particular) banking system. Will it be enough?