Monthly Archives: April 2019

The Japanese diet, a recipe for stomach cancer.

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Japan has the highest life expectancy in the world, an average about 84.1 years, compared to 78.6 years for the US. That difference is used to suggest that the Japanese diet must be far healthier than the American. We should all drink green tea and eat such: rice with seaweed and raw or smoked fish. Let me begin by saying that correlation does not imply causation, and go further to say that, to the extent that correlation suggests causation, the Japanese diet seems worse. It seems to me that the quantity of food (and some other things) are responsible for Americans have a shorter life-span than Japanese, the quality our diet does not appear to be the problem. That is, Americans eat too much, but what we eat is actually healthier than what the Japanese eat.

Top 15 causes of death in Japan and the US in order of Japanese relevance.

Top 15 causes of death in Japan and the US in order of Japanese relevance.

Let’s look at top 15 causes of deaths in Japan and the US in order of significance for Japan (2016). The top cause of disease death is the same for Japan and the US: it’s heart disease. Per-capita, 14.5% of Japanese people die of this, and 20.9% of Americans. I suspect the reason that we have more heart disease is that we are more overweight, but the difference is not by that much currently. The Japanese are getting fatter. Similarly, we exceed the Japanese in lung cancer deaths (not by that much) a hold-over of smoking, and by liver disease (not by that much either), a holdover of drinking, I suspect.

Japan exceeds the US in Stroke death (emotional pressure?) and suicide (emotional pressure?) and influenza deaths (climate-related?). The emotional pressure is not something we’d want to emulate. The Japanese work long hours, and face enormous social pressure to look prosperous, even when they are not. There is a male-female imbalance in Japan that is a likely part of the emotional pressure. There is a similar imbalance in China, and a worse one in Qatar. I would expect to see social problems in both in the near future. So far, the Japanese deal with this by alcoholism, something that shows up as liver cancer and cirrhosis. I expect the same in China and Qatar, but have little direct data.

Returning to diet, Japan has more far more stomach cancer deaths than the US; it’s a margin of nine to one. It’s the number 5 killer in Japan, taking 5.08% of Japanese, but only 0.57% of Americans. I suspect the difference is the Japanese love of smoked and raw fish. Other diet-related diseases tell the same story. Japan has double our rate of Colon-rectal cancers, and higher rates of kidney disease, pancreatic cancer, and liver cancer. The conclusion that I draw is that green tea and sushi are not as healthy as you might think. The Japanese would do well to switch the Trump staples of burgers, pizza, fries, and diet coke.

The three horsemen of the US death-toll: Automobiles, firearms, and poisoning (drugs). 2008 data.

The three horsemen of the US death-toll: Automobiles, firearms, and poisoning (drugs). 2008 data.

At this point you can ask why our lives are so much shorter than the Japanese, on average. The difference in smoking and weight-related diseases are significant but explain only part of the story. There is also guns. About 0.7% of Americans are killed by guns, compared to 0.07% of Japanese. Still, guns give Americans a not-unjustified sense of safety from worse crime. Then there is traffic death, 1.5% in the US vs 0.5% in Japan. But the biggest single reason that Americans live shorter lives  is drugs. Drugs kill about 1.5% of Americans, but mostly the young and middle ages. They show up in US death statistics mostly as over-dose and unintentional poisoning (overdose deaths), but also contribute to many other problems like dementia in the old. Drugs and poisoning do not shown on the chart above, because the rate of both is insignificant in Japan, but it is the single main cause of US death in middle age Americans.

The king of the killer drugs are the opioids, a problem that was bad in the 60s, the days of Mother’s Little helper, but that have gotten dramatically worse in the last 20 years as the chart above shows. Often it is a doctor who gets us hooked on the opioids. The doctor may think it’s a favor to us to keep us from pain, but it’s also a favor to him since the drug companies give kickbacks. Often people manage to become un-hooked, but then some doctor comes by and re-hooks us up. Unlike LSD or cocaine, opioid drugs strike women and men equally. It is the single major reason we live 5 1/2 years shorter than the Japanese, with a life-span that is shrinking.

Drug overuse seems like the most serious health problem Americans face, and we seem intent on ignoring it. The other major causes of death are declining, but drug-death numbers keep rising. By 2007, more people died of drugs than guns, and nearly as many as from automobile accidents. It’s passed automobile accidents since then. A first suggestion here: do not elect any politician who has taken significant money from the drug companies. A second suggestion: avoid the Japanese diet.

Robert Buxbaum, April 28, 2019.

Qatar, unbalanced but stable

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Doha Airport, Qatar.

Doha Airport, Qatar.

I visited Qatar twice this month, just passing through and only visited in the airport, but there were several things that so impressed me that I had to write. What impressed me most was not so much the size and richness of the airport, but the clothes of the locals. All of the local men wore the same, very sharp robes: blindingly white, long sleeved, and floor-length. They’re called Thobes. While other nations wear something similar. Here, every one was unwrinkled, and unstained. They all looked new, with no signs they’d ever been washed. Some were worn with cuff-links (gold), and most had a pen sticking out of the breast pocket (gold). White pants peak from underneath and a headress usually sits on the head. It’s a really dramatic look, like seeing dozens of Ricardo Montaubans of Fantasy Island in one place. Local women and children were these too, but I found the thobes so dramatic that the women and children disappeared from my mind-space almost immediately. There is a local woman in the picture above, but you hardly notice.

Not everyone wears the thobes. There are lots of stores filled with gold and technology, beer and coffee, and these are maned by non-locals, Moslems mostly, almost all men. The non-locals wear western garb, not particularly sharp; none wear thobes of any sort. Some months ago, I wrote that China had severe imbalance and speculated that it was ripe for revolution. As it happens the large number of foreign worker means that Qatar is far more unbalanced. To some extent this is shown by the male-female population pyramid below.

Qatar demographic pyramid. Vastly more males than females, mostly foreign workers.

Qatar demographic pyramid. The imbalance is caused by the presence of vastly more male than female foreign workers.

Qatar is a country of 2,500,000 residents, of whom 310,000 are locals — citizens and permanent residents. The rest are foreign workers; long term inhabitants without permanent residency or citizenship. They make up 85% of the population. They are  recruited from poor, English-speaking Muslim countries mostly: Egypt, Malaysia, Tunisia. They do all the work, as best I could tell. I saw no one who looked like a local working, male or female.

Foreign workers have very few rights, but don’t seem unhappy. There is no right to unionize, and not even the right to roam around the country. For the most part, they live in employer-owned housing, and are transported back and forth to work in employer vans. They sign up for year-long contracts, and at the end of the year, they have the choice to re-up or leave. Up a year ago, foreign workers could not become permanent residents. As of last year, the Emir’s order 10 authorized permanent residency status for as many as 100 foreign workers who had sufficient means, had been in Qatar for 10 to 20 years (depending on whether they were born there), had stayed out of trouble, and who otherwise were considered desirable. It’s a step.

I suspect that the foreign workers feel lucky to have good pay, decent hours, and a clean bed. Then again, the workers are recruited for positive outlook. And the ones I saw might have had more rights than most. The airport is part of the Umm Al Houl, free enterprise zone. These are areas of Qatar where westerners and their vices like alcohol are tolerated and welcome.

Qatar natural gas production. Natural gas provides 90% of the country's income as best I can tell.

Qatar natural gas production. Natural gas provides 90% of the country’s income as best I can tell. That’s half the GDP almost, the rest of the GDP is Qataris spending the money

There are three “free enterprise zones” in Qatar; the name for the one near the airport, “Al Houl” interestingly enough means “bird trap”. What’s going on with them, as best I can tell, is diversification. Qatar is the worlds second largest exporter of natural gas, with most going to Europe, and a significant portion to India and China. But the gas will run out eventually. They are trying to supplant this income with tourism, industry and transport: running a major airline, a bustling, air hub, and tourist hotels. The airline is only marginally profitable, and though I didn’t see the hotels, I imagine they are luxurious and marginally profitable too. Saudi Arabia, next door, is trying to diversify the same ways, aiming to control west-east, air-traffic via Emirates air.

The GDP of Qatar is $191 B as of last year at the going exchange, and over $450 B at price parity. That suggests a few things. For one that the Qatari currency is undervalued. It also suggests a per-capita GDP of at least $76,400, or perhaps of $616,000 or higher depending on how you count buying power and foreign workers. This money buys a nice lifestyle, if not republican freedoms.  In terms of government, Qatar is a real monarchy, Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani’s is an absolute ruler who came to power the traditional way: he overthrew his father. Similar to this, his father, Khalifa al-Thani, came to power by overthrowing his cousin. Supporting the Emir’s rule, there is an Advisory Council. The 35 ministers are mostly relatives, and as in North Korea, it has only advisory power. The Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs is Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir al-Thani; the Deputy Prime Minister is Abdallah Al-Thani. The Economy and Commerce minister is Fahd Al-Thani, and the Communications and Transport minister is Ahmad Al-Thani. Nasir al-Thani heads Cabinet Affairs; Hamad al-Thani is the Secretary of State, and the Governor of the Central Bank is Abdallah bin Saud al-Thani.

Qatar main mosque. Residents stand out from the foreign workers.

Qatar main mosque. Residents stand out from the foreign workers.

My sense was that Qatar was the Disneyland version of Islam. Life in the Qatari free zones resembled normal Islamic life the way that Main Street of Disneyland resembles an actual main street in the US. Every citizen is well dress and rich without having to work. Western visitors are welcome, and not forced to follow the local customs with vices in their own zones. And the state supports all ecological and left-wing causes except for unionization. It’s anti Israel, pro revolution (elsewhere of course) and virulently against petroleum production in all counties outside of Qatar. Al Jazeera, the Emir’s left-leaning news agency, spreads money and influence world-wide. Left-flavored news is presented with high-quality graphics, and different versions of the news story published in different languages. The Emir acknowledges that Al Jazeera is a money-losing propaganda agency, but as with Disneyland, most people seem happy to live the fiction.

Qatari woman and shop. They blend into the scenery compared to the resplendent men

Qatari woman and shop. They blend into the scenery compared to the resplendent men

The local Qataris seem happy with their lot, as best I can tell. The next world soccer tournament will be held in Qatar, 2022, and Qatari’s are excited, as best I can tell. There is a lot of building going on, some for the world cup, the rest for general tourism and the free enterprise zones. The free enterprise zones may catch on, but there is a cold war going on with Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi’s are doing what they can to pour cold water on the programs. So far Qatar seems to be winning the propaganda war at home and abroad. Its people are happy, it shows a beautiful, progressive face to the west, and it seems to have the majority of the middle east travel. Stable but for how long?

Robert Buxbaum April 15, 2019. As I side note, I just bought a Qatari Thobe.

Speed traps penalize the poor

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On a street corner about 1/4 mile from my house, at the intersection of the two busiest of the local streets, in the center-median of the street, is parked a police car. He’s there, about 18 hours a day, looking to give out tickets. The cross-street that this officer watches is where drivers get off the highway. In theory, they should instantly go from 65 mph on the highway to 35 mph now. Very few people do. The officer does not ticket every car, by the way, but seems to target those of poor people from outside the city limits. The only time ai was ticketed, I was driving a broken-down car while mine was in the shop. As best I can tell, he choose cars for revenue, not for safety. It’s a speed trap. It’s appalling. And our city isn’t alone in having one.

Speed traps are an annoyance to rich, local folk who sometimes get ticketed, but they’re a disaster for the poor. Poor people are targeted, and these people don’t have any savings. They don’t have the means to pay a suddenly imposed bill of $150 or more. Meanwhile, the speed-trap officer is incentivized to increase revenue and look for other violations: expired registrations or insurance, seat-belt violations, open alcohol, unpaid tickets. Double and triple fines are handed out, and sometimes the car is impounded. A poor driver is often left without any legal way to get to work, to earn money to pay the fines. Police officers behave this way because they are evaluated based on the revenue they generate, based on the number of tickets they write. It’s a horrible situation, especially for the poor

Speed traps to little and cost much.

An article on the effect of speed traps. It appears they do little good and cause much pain, especially to the poor. Here is a link to the whole article.

The article above looks at the impact of speed traps on poor people. The damage is extreme. The folks targeted are often black, barely holding it together financially. They are generally not in a position to pay $150 for “impeding traffic,” and even less in a position to deal with having their car impounded. How are they supposed to pay the bill? And yet they are told they are lucky to have been given this ticket — impeding traffic, a ticket with no “points.” But they are not lucky. They are victims. Tickets with no points is are money generators, and many poor people realize it. If they were to get a speeding ticket, they would have the opportunity to void the penalty by going to traffic school. With a ticket for impeding traffic, there is no school option. Revenue stays local, mostly in that police precinct. Poor people know it, and they don’t like it. I don’t either. After a while, poor people cease to trust the police, or to even speak to them.

In what world should you pay $150 for impeding traffic, by the way? In what world should the police be taken from their main job protecting the people and turned into a revenue arm for the city? I’d like to see this crazy cycle ended. The first steps, I think, are to end speed traps, and to limit the incentive for giving minor tickets, like impeding traffic. As it is we have too many people in jail and too many harsh penalties. 

Robert Buxbaum, April 10, 2019. I ran for water commissioner in 2016, and may run again in 2020.

Let’s visit an earth-like planet: Trappist-1d

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According to Star Trek, Vulcans and Humans meet for the first time on April 5, 2063, near the town of Bozeman, Montana. It seems that Vulcan is a relatively nearby, earth-like planet with strongly humanoid inhabitants. It’s worthwhile to speculate why they are humanoid (alternatively, how likely is it that they are), and also worthwhile to figure out which planets we’d like to visit assuming we’re the ones who do the visiting.

First things first: It’s always assumed that life evolved on earth from scratch, as it were, but it is reasonably plausible that life was seeded here by some space-traveling species. Perhaps they came, looked around and left behind (intentionally or not) some blue-green algae, or perhaps some more advanced cells, or an insect or two. A billion or so years later, we’ve evolved into something that is reasonably similar to the visiting life-form. Alternately, perhaps we’d like to do the exploring, and even perhaps the settling. The Israelis are in the process of showing that low-cost space travel is a thing. Where do we want to go this century?

As it happens we know there are thousands of stars with planets nearby, but only one that we know that has reasonably earth-like planets reasonably near. This one planet circling star is Trappist-1, or more properly Trappist 1A. We don’t know which of the seven planets that orbit Trappist-1A is most earth-like, but we do know that there are at least seven planets, that they are all roughly earth size, that several have earth-like temperatures, and that all of these have water. We know all of this because the planetary paths of this star are aligned so that seven planets cross the star as seen from earth. We know their distances from their orbital times, and we know the latter from the shadows made as the planets transit. The radiation spectrum tells us there is water.

Trappist 1A is smaller than the sun, and colder than the sun, and 1 billion years older. It’s what is known as an ultra-cool dwarf. I’d be an ultra cool dwarf too, but I’m too tall. We can estimate the mass of the star and can measure its brightness. We then can calculate the temperatures on the planets based their distance from the star, something we determine as follows:

The gravitational force of a star, mass M, on a planet of mass, m,  is MmG/r2, where G is the gravitational constant, and r is the distance from the star to the planet. Since force = mass times acceleration, and the acceleration of a circular orbit is v2/r, we can say that, for these orbits (they look circular),

MmG/r2 = mv2/r = mω2r.

Here, v is the velocity of the planet and ω is its rotational velocity, ω = v/r. Eliminating m, we find that

r3 = MG/ω2.

Since we know G and ω, and we can estimate M (it’s 0.006 solar masses, we think), we have a can make good estimates of the distances of all seven planets from their various rotation speeds around the star, ω. We find that all of these planets are much closer to their star than we are to ours, so the their years are only a few days or weeks long.

We know that three planets have a temperatures reasonably close to earths, and we know that these three also have water based on observation of the absorption of light from their atmosphere as they pass in front of their star. To tell the temperature, we use our knowledge of how bright the star is (0.0052 times Sol), and our knowledge of the distance. As best we can tell, the following three of the Trappist-1 planets should have liquid surface water: Trappist 1c, d and e, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th planets from the star. With three planets to choose from, we can be fairly sure that at least one will be inhabitable by man somewhere in the planet.

The seven orbital times are in small-number ratios, suggesting that the orbits are linked into a so-called Laplace resonance-chain. For every two orbits of the outermost planet, the next one in completes three orbits, the next one completes four, followed by 6, 9 ,15, and 24. The simple whole number relationships between the periods are similar to the ratios between musical notes that produce pleasant and harmonic sounds as I discussed here. In the case of planets, resonant ratios keep the system stable. The most earth-like of the Trappist-1 planets is likely Trappist-1d, the third planet from the star. It’s iron-core, like earth, with water and a radius 1.043 times earth’s. It has an estimated average temperature of 19°C or 66°F. If there is oxygen, and if there is life there could well be, this planet will be very, very earth-like.

The temperature of the planet one in from this, Trappist-1c, is much warmer, we think on average, 62°C (143°F). Still, this is cool enough to have liquid water, and some plants live in volcanic pools on earth that are warmer than this. Besides this is an average, and we might the planet quite comfortable at the poles. The average temperature of the planet one out from this, Trappist-1e, is ice cold, -27°C (-17°F), an ice planet, it seems. Still, life can find a way. There is life on the poles of earth, and perhaps the plant was once warmer. Thus, any of these three might be the home to life, even humanoid life, or three-eyed, green men.

Visiting Trappist-1A won’t be easy, but it won’t be out-of hand impossible. The system is located about 39 light years away, which is far, but we already have a space ship heading out of the solar system, and we are developing better, and cheaper options all the time. The Israeli’s have a low cost, rocket heading to the moon. That is part of the minimal technology we’d want to visit a nearby star. You’d want to add enough rocket power to reach relativistic speeds. For a typical rocket this requires a fuel whose latent energy is on the order mc2. That turns out to be about 1 GeV/atomic mass. The only fuel that has such high power density is matter-antimatter annihilation, a propulsion system that might have time-reversal issues. A better option, I’d suggest is ion-propulsion with hydrogen atoms taken in during the journey, and ejected behind the rocket at 100 MeV energies by a cyclotron or bevatron. This system should work if the energy for the cyclotron comes from solar power. Perhaps this is the ion-drive of Star-Trek fame. To meet the Star-Trek’s made-up history, we’d have to meet up by April, 2063: forty-four years from now. If we leave today and reach near light speed by constant acceleration for a few of years, we could get there by then, but only as time is measured on the space-ship. At high speeds, time moves slower and space shrinks.

This planetary system is named Trappist-1 after the telescope used to discover it. It was the first system discovered by the 24 inch, 60 cm aperture, TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope. This telescope is operated by The University of Liége, Belgium, and is located in Morocco. The reason most people have not heard of this work, I think, has to do with it being European science. Our news media does an awful job covering science, in my opinion, and a worse job covering Europe, or most anything outside the US. Finally, like the Israeli moon shot, this is a low-budget project, the work to date cost less than €2 million, or about US $2.3 million. Our media seems committed to the idea that only billions of dollars (or trillions) will do anything, and that the only people worth discussing are politicians. NASA’s budget today is about $6 billion, and its existence is barely mentioned.

The Trappist system appears to be about 1 billion years older than ours, by the way, so life there might be more advanced than ours, or it might have died out. And, for all we know, we’ll discover that the Trappist folks discover space travel, went on to colonize earth, and then died out. The star is located, just about exactly on the ecliptic, in the constellation Aquarius. This is an astrological sign associated with an expansion of human consciousness, and a revelation of truths. Let us hope that, in visiting Trappist, “peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars”.

Robert Buxbaum, April 3, 2019. Science sources are: http://www.trappist.one. I was alerted to this star’s existence by an article in the Irish Times.