Monday, September 14, 2009
Sigmund Freud's 10 Steps to Great Fish
Narwhal Magazine is running my "Sigmund Freud's 10 Steps to Great Fish" as its featured Absurdist List this week.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Oedipus Schmoedipus
June 21 is Fathers Day 2009, and time once again to do battle with Sigmund Freud, for 2009 is the centenary of the Oedipus Complex, the idea that all sons fantasize about killing their fathers and having sex with their mothers.
Freud formalized the Oedipus Complex after treating a patient whom he called Rat Man, so nicknamed because thoughts of a rat preoccupied the patient. Whenever strong sexual cravings visited him, Rat Man conjured up an idea that a jar with a live rat was being strapped to his naked behind. The rat would use its teeth to tunnel through to his….
Perhaps Rat Man couldn't say it.
"Anus?" Sigmund Freud may have had to suggest.
"Yes. Thank you," Rat Man might have gasped in reply. We do know, anyway, that "anus" was the word upon which he settled.
In addition to longings (and fears) about a jarred rat, Rat Man hoped (and hoped not) that his thoughts determined peoples' fates. There was a third layer of anxieties and desires about unpaid debts and a fourth, too, and this is the one that formed Rat Man's psychoanalytic legacy. Rat Man told Sigmund Freud that he had wanted to kill his father. He told him that, again and again, he had imagined taking the jarred rat and strapping it to his father's backside whence the rat, once released, could tunnel through to his father's….
"Anus?" Freud may have again had to suggest to his verbally reticent and all a-quiver patient.
Anyway, somehow from the epiphany of such a clinical moment, Freud formulated the Oedipus Complex. All boys, Freud said after one year of analyzing Rat Man and two more years of thinking about him, want to kill their fathers and have sex with their mothers in the same way that Oedipus of Greek myth did and Rat Man of turn-of-the-century Vienna aspired.
That Freud had found no evidence at all that Rat Man wanted to have sex with his mother didn't figure into Freud's calculus. All that Freud factored into his ideas about Oedipus were two items from Rat Man's history. First, when Rat Man was six years old his father caught him masturbating and beat him in punishment. Rat Man was filled during that beating with murderous rage. The second item: Rat Man's account of his first sexual dalliance. At the moment of climax, Rat Man had thought, "But this is wonderful! For this one could murder ones father!"
"And one could, couldn't one?" Freud apparently thought.
Freud's own father was Jacob Freud, a wool merchant of no particular talent. After he went bankrupt, he moved the family from Moravia to Vienna, where he rented a series of increasingly dismal apartments in what had been Vienna's Jewish ghetto. Jacob may have been involved in a counterfeit scheme. Regardless, he was disappointing as a provider and protector, or so Freud remembered.
Freud's mother, Amalia, on the other hand, was a paramount protector, a lioness, and one of the great loves of Freud's life. She was beautiful, for starters, and willful, and she favored Freud (her firstborn son) over all of his siblings. Amalia was Jacob's third wife, about the same age as Jacob's sons from his first marriage. Writers have, for years, imagined the lust that Freud's grown brothers must have felt for their bodacious stepmother and the lust that little Sigmund, emulating the big boys, must have felt for the woman who pinched and pampered him so.
"For this one could murder one's father!"
Fathers Day is one year younger than the Oedipus Complex. Nine-nine years into its celebration, perhaps its time to wonder whether the Oedipus Complex is a universal male tendency that Freud identified or merely the abiding bathtub ring of Freud's own psyche. After all, the original Oedipus myth is about a young man who only inadvertently killed his father and bedded his mother. Never aware that he was abandoned by birth parents (King Laius and Queen Jacosta of Thebes), he loved and honored as parents King Polybus and Queen Periboea of Corinth, for they had raised him lovingly and instructed him so well that, as an adult, he and he alone could solve the Riddle of the Sphinx.
For the next ninety-nine Fathers Days, perhaps we could talk about a Polybus Complex when we talk about fathers and their sons. Actually, the conversation needn't exclude daughters. We could define the Polybus Complex as describing the immense love and occasionally ambivalent feelings that even the best fathers have for their children and the immense love and occasionally ambivalent feelings that even the best children have for their fathers. The Polybus Complex would be about fealty, forgiveness and the willingness of imperfect people to move on together in life.
Isn't that what we've been celebrating all of these Fathers Days, anyway?
Freud formalized the Oedipus Complex after treating a patient whom he called Rat Man, so nicknamed because thoughts of a rat preoccupied the patient. Whenever strong sexual cravings visited him, Rat Man conjured up an idea that a jar with a live rat was being strapped to his naked behind. The rat would use its teeth to tunnel through to his….
Perhaps Rat Man couldn't say it.
"Anus?" Sigmund Freud may have had to suggest.
"Yes. Thank you," Rat Man might have gasped in reply. We do know, anyway, that "anus" was the word upon which he settled.
In addition to longings (and fears) about a jarred rat, Rat Man hoped (and hoped not) that his thoughts determined peoples' fates. There was a third layer of anxieties and desires about unpaid debts and a fourth, too, and this is the one that formed Rat Man's psychoanalytic legacy. Rat Man told Sigmund Freud that he had wanted to kill his father. He told him that, again and again, he had imagined taking the jarred rat and strapping it to his father's backside whence the rat, once released, could tunnel through to his father's….
"Anus?" Freud may have again had to suggest to his verbally reticent and all a-quiver patient.
Anyway, somehow from the epiphany of such a clinical moment, Freud formulated the Oedipus Complex. All boys, Freud said after one year of analyzing Rat Man and two more years of thinking about him, want to kill their fathers and have sex with their mothers in the same way that Oedipus of Greek myth did and Rat Man of turn-of-the-century Vienna aspired.
That Freud had found no evidence at all that Rat Man wanted to have sex with his mother didn't figure into Freud's calculus. All that Freud factored into his ideas about Oedipus were two items from Rat Man's history. First, when Rat Man was six years old his father caught him masturbating and beat him in punishment. Rat Man was filled during that beating with murderous rage. The second item: Rat Man's account of his first sexual dalliance. At the moment of climax, Rat Man had thought, "But this is wonderful! For this one could murder ones father!"
"And one could, couldn't one?" Freud apparently thought.
Freud's own father was Jacob Freud, a wool merchant of no particular talent. After he went bankrupt, he moved the family from Moravia to Vienna, where he rented a series of increasingly dismal apartments in what had been Vienna's Jewish ghetto. Jacob may have been involved in a counterfeit scheme. Regardless, he was disappointing as a provider and protector, or so Freud remembered.
Freud's mother, Amalia, on the other hand, was a paramount protector, a lioness, and one of the great loves of Freud's life. She was beautiful, for starters, and willful, and she favored Freud (her firstborn son) over all of his siblings. Amalia was Jacob's third wife, about the same age as Jacob's sons from his first marriage. Writers have, for years, imagined the lust that Freud's grown brothers must have felt for their bodacious stepmother and the lust that little Sigmund, emulating the big boys, must have felt for the woman who pinched and pampered him so.
"For this one could murder one's father!"
Fathers Day is one year younger than the Oedipus Complex. Nine-nine years into its celebration, perhaps its time to wonder whether the Oedipus Complex is a universal male tendency that Freud identified or merely the abiding bathtub ring of Freud's own psyche. After all, the original Oedipus myth is about a young man who only inadvertently killed his father and bedded his mother. Never aware that he was abandoned by birth parents (King Laius and Queen Jacosta of Thebes), he loved and honored as parents King Polybus and Queen Periboea of Corinth, for they had raised him lovingly and instructed him so well that, as an adult, he and he alone could solve the Riddle of the Sphinx.
For the next ninety-nine Fathers Days, perhaps we could talk about a Polybus Complex when we talk about fathers and their sons. Actually, the conversation needn't exclude daughters. We could define the Polybus Complex as describing the immense love and occasionally ambivalent feelings that even the best fathers have for their children and the immense love and occasionally ambivalent feelings that even the best children have for their fathers. The Polybus Complex would be about fealty, forgiveness and the willingness of imperfect people to move on together in life.
Isn't that what we've been celebrating all of these Fathers Days, anyway?
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Literary Magazines and Ezines
Miranda Literary Magazine has published a short humorous essay of mine. "Phoenix Complaining" is at http://ad.vu/bft2.
JMWW, a literary ezine out of Baltimore, has posted my microfiction, "Early Thoughts on the Oedipus Complex."
Vancouver's
Narwhal Magazine is running my "Sigmund Freud's 10 Steps to Great Fish" as its featured Absurdist List this week (week of September 14, 2009).
JMWW, a literary ezine out of Baltimore, has posted my microfiction, "Early Thoughts on the Oedipus Complex."
Vancouver's
Narwhal Magazine is running my "Sigmund Freud's 10 Steps to Great Fish" as its featured Absurdist List this week (week of September 14, 2009).
Shaky Reasoning
Last summer, the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vermont began storing high-level radioactive waste in 19-foot tall dry casks outdoors, on a concrete slab 254 feet away from the bank of the Connecticut River.
That's a foot and a half beyond what Dr. Leslie Kanat, a Geology Professor at Johnston State College, calls the "Probable Maximum Flood Level."
Maybe I ought to feel relieved--even if a foot and a half doesn't sound like much. Maybe I also ought to feel relieved that Holtec International, the company supplying the casks, reports that their casks stay operational even when submerged at 50 feet for 8 hours. But while Holtec's tests have reassured me that river water would not be a problem for those dry casks, I'm not so sure about river mud.
Holtec's dry casks have vent holes at top and bottom. They are designed for air to enter at bottom, cool the waste, and exit at top.
What would happen if those vents were blocked? Did Holtec run tests for that?
It did not. But in 2002, Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, an international consultant on radioactive waste management, was asked by The Connecticut Yankee Decommissioning Advisory Committee how long it would take for a cask to overheat if vents were blocked. His answer: Maybe a week.
"Maybe." And, again, maybe I should feel relieved. After, all, there's a nice margin of safety in that hypothetical week. I can imagine fire engines arriving at the high-level radioactive waste storage slab right after helping little old ladies out of their collapsed homes, and taking care to hose down the casks after hosing down the fires decimating Main Street. But what about the fact that guesses are sometimes off the mark? What if there were not a week to spare but only two days or three? Would emergency workers even know to abandon their attempts to help survivors and begin to frantically deal with muddy dry casks?
And what about the fact that, during his testimony to the Connecticut Yankee Decommissioning Advisory Committee, Dr. Resnikoff explained that each dry cask contains a Cesium and Strontium inventory equal to 10 Hiroshima bombs?
Entergy has never actually acknowledged that mud could reach the vents of the dry casks at Vermont Yankee. They keep the conversation focused solely on water. But Ray Shadis, technical director for the anti-nuclear watchdog group New England Coalition, is concerned about the combination of Cesium, Strontium, and high temperatures due to a failed, mud-dependent cooling system. In a not-too-difficult-to-imagine scenario, Shadis suggests that the ground surrounding the concrete slab that holds the casks could become wet with river water. Consequently (he says), the slab could become unstable.
And then what?
Well, if you shake even relatively dry soil really, really hard, its strength and stiffness are reduced. That's called "liquefaction." It's responsible for much of the damage during earthquakes. If you actually add liquid to the mix, you create something like quicksand.
What if the Connecticut River Valley suffered a double whammy of flood plus even a minor earthquake? Could the ground around the slab holding the dry casks become like quicksand? Could an edge of the slab shift or, worse, tip?
Even Entergy has suggested that the ground around the concrete slab could get an occasional and maybe even regular soaking soaking from river water. What they haven't gone out of their way to point out is that Vermont is in a bit of an earthquake zone. We have been significantly rattled 15 times since 1900.
Most scientists agree that we are entering an unstable time weather-wise, with melting ice caps, rising waters, and the possibility of more frequent flooding. Given that, I can't help but question Entergy's foresight in creating another 20 years of radioactive waste, only to store it in an earthquake zone near a population center at river's edge.
This is adapted from a Vermont Public Radio commentary
That's a foot and a half beyond what Dr. Leslie Kanat, a Geology Professor at Johnston State College, calls the "Probable Maximum Flood Level."
Maybe I ought to feel relieved--even if a foot and a half doesn't sound like much. Maybe I also ought to feel relieved that Holtec International, the company supplying the casks, reports that their casks stay operational even when submerged at 50 feet for 8 hours. But while Holtec's tests have reassured me that river water would not be a problem for those dry casks, I'm not so sure about river mud.
Holtec's dry casks have vent holes at top and bottom. They are designed for air to enter at bottom, cool the waste, and exit at top.
What would happen if those vents were blocked? Did Holtec run tests for that?
It did not. But in 2002, Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, an international consultant on radioactive waste management, was asked by The Connecticut Yankee Decommissioning Advisory Committee how long it would take for a cask to overheat if vents were blocked. His answer: Maybe a week.
"Maybe." And, again, maybe I should feel relieved. After, all, there's a nice margin of safety in that hypothetical week. I can imagine fire engines arriving at the high-level radioactive waste storage slab right after helping little old ladies out of their collapsed homes, and taking care to hose down the casks after hosing down the fires decimating Main Street. But what about the fact that guesses are sometimes off the mark? What if there were not a week to spare but only two days or three? Would emergency workers even know to abandon their attempts to help survivors and begin to frantically deal with muddy dry casks?
And what about the fact that, during his testimony to the Connecticut Yankee Decommissioning Advisory Committee, Dr. Resnikoff explained that each dry cask contains a Cesium and Strontium inventory equal to 10 Hiroshima bombs?
Entergy has never actually acknowledged that mud could reach the vents of the dry casks at Vermont Yankee. They keep the conversation focused solely on water. But Ray Shadis, technical director for the anti-nuclear watchdog group New England Coalition, is concerned about the combination of Cesium, Strontium, and high temperatures due to a failed, mud-dependent cooling system. In a not-too-difficult-to-imagine scenario, Shadis suggests that the ground surrounding the concrete slab that holds the casks could become wet with river water. Consequently (he says), the slab could become unstable.
And then what?
Well, if you shake even relatively dry soil really, really hard, its strength and stiffness are reduced. That's called "liquefaction." It's responsible for much of the damage during earthquakes. If you actually add liquid to the mix, you create something like quicksand.
What if the Connecticut River Valley suffered a double whammy of flood plus even a minor earthquake? Could the ground around the slab holding the dry casks become like quicksand? Could an edge of the slab shift or, worse, tip?
Even Entergy has suggested that the ground around the concrete slab could get an occasional and maybe even regular soaking soaking from river water. What they haven't gone out of their way to point out is that Vermont is in a bit of an earthquake zone. We have been significantly rattled 15 times since 1900.
Most scientists agree that we are entering an unstable time weather-wise, with melting ice caps, rising waters, and the possibility of more frequent flooding. Given that, I can't help but question Entergy's foresight in creating another 20 years of radioactive waste, only to store it in an earthquake zone near a population center at river's edge.
This is adapted from a Vermont Public Radio commentary
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
What Are Little Boys Made Of?
My boy used to make sense to me. That was when he was one year old and loved to vacuum the rug. “Big noise!” he’d shout as the vacuum roared.
Ben no longer does rugs. He still likes big noises, though—much more than I like them. He likes bangs and explosions. He loathes predictability. He wants to make sudden, full-body motions and to hunt big game and fish big fish.
I, on the other hand, detest big noises and love predictability. I want to type small words on a small computer. I don’t even eat meat much less hunt. If I were to fish, I would use plastic bait. So, at age 7, Ben no longer makes perfect sense to me. Quite literally he sometimes seems to be from Mars while I am from Venus. Already.
Ben does make sense to his father, also from Mars. Trouble is, his father is gone a lot of nights and weekends. Then it’s just me and two kids—the quiet, sensible girl and the loud boy. There’s no way around it; that’s how I react on some level, even though I try not to. On good days we laugh about it together.
Ben’s plight in our mother-dominated house has gotten me to thinking about boys in general. An increasing number of mothers are single moms. Do their boys grow up feeling from the get-go like Martians on Venus? If so, how many become toughs and miscreants, just in ego-defense?
Try as I might I can’t find scholarly answers to those questions. I have found studies showing that helping boys feel less alienated can keep them out of jail. The Cornell Consortium for Longitudinal Studies goes so far as to say that the earlier we help boys feel less alienated, the better—and that the best “boy-saving” programs link overwhelmed parents and children to community resources and supports.
Last Spring I was feeling both overwhelmed and shy on support. Ben was feeling boyish—you know, impulsive, impish, wonderful to watch but difficult to keep up with. And then he wanted to go fishing. He was crazy with desire.
See? I said “crazy.” What does that tell you about the intensity of his urge and the rigidity of my perceptions?
Out of blue sky, a community support appeared. The local gun club was sponsoring a fishing derby for kids. I don’t think I have to help you imagine what my let-me-be-alone-with-my-computer, knee-jerk reaction is to ideas like “gun clubs.” But at that point I was desperate to help Ben feel good about being a boy—and I liked the idea that someone from the gun club might bait our hook.
We showed up with a line and reel, my plastic worms, and some live worms of Ben’s. I quickly learned that fish don’t eat plastic but that they do love the rich smell of a freshly impaled member of the genus Lumbricus.
Ben—whose genetic material, after all, is 50% mine—had some trouble learning that fishing is not the same as hitting “enter” on a computer keyboard. There’s a lot of disappointed waiting involved. In fact, while kids right and left hauled in trout, Ben had to wait to catch one of the last fish of the day. A man I only know as “Mike from the Gun Club" showed Ben how to kill the fish and clean it. Mike did both the killing and cleaning with respect for the fish and with respect for Ben. And Ben noticed. In those very few minutes my boy saw in Mike that it’s OK to do guy things and that manliness can also be gentleness.
As we left I watched for a moment while one of the gun club volunteers worked patiently on fly fishing technique with one of our school’s young toughs. Mind you, that volunteer was a pretty big guy.
By the way, have you ever seen fly fishing? I hadn’t. It’s fantastically beautiful to watch the line whip and weave. As I watched the big volunteer and his tiny new pal practice their fly fishing I retired a few of my prejudices about fishing—and about gun clubs (though not about guns). I thought, “Thank goodness for men like that big guy and Mike. I even thought, “Long live the Putney Gun Club.”
This was broadcast in 2000 as part of the Vermont Public Radio "Commentary" series.
Technorati Tags:
boys, mothers, single mothers, fishing, Venus and Mars, community supports, family
Ben no longer does rugs. He still likes big noises, though—much more than I like them. He likes bangs and explosions. He loathes predictability. He wants to make sudden, full-body motions and to hunt big game and fish big fish.
I, on the other hand, detest big noises and love predictability. I want to type small words on a small computer. I don’t even eat meat much less hunt. If I were to fish, I would use plastic bait. So, at age 7, Ben no longer makes perfect sense to me. Quite literally he sometimes seems to be from Mars while I am from Venus. Already.
Ben does make sense to his father, also from Mars. Trouble is, his father is gone a lot of nights and weekends. Then it’s just me and two kids—the quiet, sensible girl and the loud boy. There’s no way around it; that’s how I react on some level, even though I try not to. On good days we laugh about it together.
Ben’s plight in our mother-dominated house has gotten me to thinking about boys in general. An increasing number of mothers are single moms. Do their boys grow up feeling from the get-go like Martians on Venus? If so, how many become toughs and miscreants, just in ego-defense?
Try as I might I can’t find scholarly answers to those questions. I have found studies showing that helping boys feel less alienated can keep them out of jail. The Cornell Consortium for Longitudinal Studies goes so far as to say that the earlier we help boys feel less alienated, the better—and that the best “boy-saving” programs link overwhelmed parents and children to community resources and supports.
Last Spring I was feeling both overwhelmed and shy on support. Ben was feeling boyish—you know, impulsive, impish, wonderful to watch but difficult to keep up with. And then he wanted to go fishing. He was crazy with desire.
See? I said “crazy.” What does that tell you about the intensity of his urge and the rigidity of my perceptions?
Out of blue sky, a community support appeared. The local gun club was sponsoring a fishing derby for kids. I don’t think I have to help you imagine what my let-me-be-alone-with-my-computer, knee-jerk reaction is to ideas like “gun clubs.” But at that point I was desperate to help Ben feel good about being a boy—and I liked the idea that someone from the gun club might bait our hook.
We showed up with a line and reel, my plastic worms, and some live worms of Ben’s. I quickly learned that fish don’t eat plastic but that they do love the rich smell of a freshly impaled member of the genus Lumbricus.
Ben—whose genetic material, after all, is 50% mine—had some trouble learning that fishing is not the same as hitting “enter” on a computer keyboard. There’s a lot of disappointed waiting involved. In fact, while kids right and left hauled in trout, Ben had to wait to catch one of the last fish of the day. A man I only know as “Mike from the Gun Club" showed Ben how to kill the fish and clean it. Mike did both the killing and cleaning with respect for the fish and with respect for Ben. And Ben noticed. In those very few minutes my boy saw in Mike that it’s OK to do guy things and that manliness can also be gentleness.
As we left I watched for a moment while one of the gun club volunteers worked patiently on fly fishing technique with one of our school’s young toughs. Mind you, that volunteer was a pretty big guy.
By the way, have you ever seen fly fishing? I hadn’t. It’s fantastically beautiful to watch the line whip and weave. As I watched the big volunteer and his tiny new pal practice their fly fishing I retired a few of my prejudices about fishing—and about gun clubs (though not about guns). I thought, “Thank goodness for men like that big guy and Mike. I even thought, “Long live the Putney Gun Club.”
This was broadcast in 2000 as part of the Vermont Public Radio "Commentary" series.
Technorati Tags:
boys, mothers, single mothers, fishing, Venus and Mars, community supports, family
Monday, March 09, 2009
International Women's Day
In honor of International Women's Day I decided to create my post about women inventors in the language that for centuries was the international language of respectability. That being said, please understand that I speak French haltingly. Consider this French essay a best effort offered with good intentions.
Spécial Journée de la femme
Où serions-nous, en tout cas, sans technologie de rayons X, Nystatin, le téléphone informatisé le système échangeant, le Snugli, le médicament luttant contre leucémie 6-mercaptopurine, Kevlar, les poupées de Barbie, Actar 911 (le mannequin CPR) et les sacs en papier chargés-plats? Chaque année, les centaines de milliers de femmes demandent et reçoivent un brevet. Pendant la période de vingt ans 1977-1996, environ 83% des brevets décernés aux femmes étaient pour les brevets utilitaires, 16.5% pour les brevets de design, et 0.5% pour les brevets d'équipement.
Les appelons les "mères d'invention." La décade après la décade quelques inventions créé par les femmes a aidé des autres femmes sur leur voyage vers l'émancipation. Par exemple, le Costume d'Émancipation de flanelle a été inventé par Susan Taylor Converse. Elle a reçu un brevet le 3 août 1875. Les femmes qui ont porté le Costume n'ont pas eu besoin de porter un corset. Par conséquent, ils ne se sont pas évanouis comme leurs "soeurs." D'autre part, quelques inventions créé par les femmes ont été utilisées par plus d'hommes que les femmes. Le Kevlar de Stephanie Kwolek est un exemple. Kevlar est une fibre. Par le poids c'est cinq fois plus fortes que l'acier. C'est la composante protectrice primaire dans les gilets pare-balles.
Certain des femmes qui ont inventé ont été l'équivalent femelle du geek mâle solitaire. Mais certains ont été des succès de ce monde. L'actrice de film Hedy Lamar a travaillé avec un partenaire pour développer un "Système de Communications Secret" utilisé par les forces armées pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale pour transmettre le code. L'actrice Julia Newmar a joué la Femme de Chat dans le film. Mais elle a aussi inventé le collant ultra-absolu, ultra-douillet.
Une des créations que j'aime le mieux est la "Maison qui se nettoie," conçu en 1915 par Frances Gabe. Chaque pièce avait sur son plafond un artifice qui a lavé et a séché les contenus de la pièce. (Tous les murs, les plafonds, les étages et les meubles dans la maison étaient imperméables.) Il n'y avait aucun tapis. Tous les étages étaient slanted. "Au fond" des étages étaient des trous. L'eau vidée dans ces trous et a été emportée par les pipes.
Un inventeur que j'admire particulièrement est Ada Lovelace. En 1843 elle a écrit un papier scientifique qui s'est attendu au développement de logiciel, intelligence artificielle, et musique informatique. Elle a aussi créé une méthode pour utiliser des cartes perforées pour calculer des nombres Bernoulli. Cela l'a faite, essentiellement, le premier programmeur informatique. En 1980, dans son honneur le Ministère de la défense américain a appelé sa langue informatique "Ada."
C'est tout. Ayez un magnifique Spécial Journée de la femme.
Technorati Tags:
Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamar, Julia Newmar, Kevlar, Spécial Journée de la femme, Système de Communications Secret
Où serions-nous, en tout cas, sans technologie de rayons X, Nystatin, le téléphone informatisé le système échangeant, le Snugli, le médicament luttant contre leucémie 6-mercaptopurine, Kevlar, les poupées de Barbie, Actar 911 (le mannequin CPR) et les sacs en papier chargés-plats? Chaque année, les centaines de milliers de femmes demandent et reçoivent un brevet. Pendant la période de vingt ans 1977-1996, environ 83% des brevets décernés aux femmes étaient pour les brevets utilitaires, 16.5% pour les brevets de design, et 0.5% pour les brevets d'équipement.
Les appelons les "mères d'invention." La décade après la décade quelques inventions créé par les femmes a aidé des autres femmes sur leur voyage vers l'émancipation. Par exemple, le Costume d'Émancipation de flanelle a été inventé par Susan Taylor Converse. Elle a reçu un brevet le 3 août 1875. Les femmes qui ont porté le Costume n'ont pas eu besoin de porter un corset. Par conséquent, ils ne se sont pas évanouis comme leurs "soeurs." D'autre part, quelques inventions créé par les femmes ont été utilisées par plus d'hommes que les femmes. Le Kevlar de Stephanie Kwolek est un exemple. Kevlar est une fibre. Par le poids c'est cinq fois plus fortes que l'acier. C'est la composante protectrice primaire dans les gilets pare-balles.
Certain des femmes qui ont inventé ont été l'équivalent femelle du geek mâle solitaire. Mais certains ont été des succès de ce monde. L'actrice de film Hedy Lamar a travaillé avec un partenaire pour développer un "Système de Communications Secret" utilisé par les forces armées pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale pour transmettre le code. L'actrice Julia Newmar a joué la Femme de Chat dans le film. Mais elle a aussi inventé le collant ultra-absolu, ultra-douillet.
Une des créations que j'aime le mieux est la "Maison qui se nettoie," conçu en 1915 par Frances Gabe. Chaque pièce avait sur son plafond un artifice qui a lavé et a séché les contenus de la pièce. (Tous les murs, les plafonds, les étages et les meubles dans la maison étaient imperméables.) Il n'y avait aucun tapis. Tous les étages étaient slanted. "Au fond" des étages étaient des trous. L'eau vidée dans ces trous et a été emportée par les pipes.
Un inventeur que j'admire particulièrement est Ada Lovelace. En 1843 elle a écrit un papier scientifique qui s'est attendu au développement de logiciel, intelligence artificielle, et musique informatique. Elle a aussi créé une méthode pour utiliser des cartes perforées pour calculer des nombres Bernoulli. Cela l'a faite, essentiellement, le premier programmeur informatique. En 1980, dans son honneur le Ministère de la défense américain a appelé sa langue informatique "Ada."
C'est tout. Ayez un magnifique Spécial Journée de la femme.
Technorati Tags:
Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamar, Julia Newmar, Kevlar, Spécial Journée de la femme, Système de Communications Secret
Monday, March 02, 2009
Family Mysteries
Remember that Thanksgiving when Uncle Ed fell down the stairs? Does everyone remember his fall the same way? No. Some say Ed was drunk when he fell. Others say he got drunk later to dull the pain. Some say Ed tumbled down two flights. Aunt Ruth says he only missed a bottom step. Twenty years later, the whole family disagrees about what happened, and they do it loudly every Thanksgiving.
According to researchers at New York University, that family mystery will never be solved. That’s because the worst thing you can do to a memory is recall it. In fact, remembering is a “practice makes imperfect” kind of thing.
It was standard rat research: Phase I. Rats. A short tone followed by an electric shock. Rats learn that tone means shock.
Phase II: Same rats. Next day. Short tone. Rats still show fear even though they’re not shocked. Short-term learning has become long-term memory.
Phase III: Same rats. Same tone. Again no shock. This time inject rats’ brains with a drug that blocks protein synthesis. Do it at the very moment that they look fearful.
I know. Poor rats. But why the protein-blocking drug?
It’s an axiom of brain biology that memory is encoded indelibly when the chemical bonds between the nerve cells holding it are protein-enriched. The scientists wanted to test that axiom. Are the bonds really indelible? Are the memories? If protein bonds were indelible the drug that blocks protein synthesis would have no effect—because no new protein would be needed. If protein bonds need to be re-made each time a memory is recalled, injecting the drug would interfere with the memory.
Which brings us to Phase IV. Same rats. Same tone. Again no shock. But this time, no fear behavior. Interfering with protein production at the moment of a memory’s recall erases the fearful memory. Which, according to the scientists, means:
First, the physical circuitry of a memory changes when a protein is replaced. Memory is no more than circuitry. Change the circuitry, you change the memory. Second, at the very moment of recall, any long-term memory is lacking its protein-enriched bond. It is extremely labile. Any sort of present sensory input could get wrapped up in the memory.
Now what does all this mean to us bigger rats?
Every time you tell the story of your Uncle Ed’s Thanksgiving tumble, the memory itself is changed—and you are open to suggestions from others. Whatever your Aunt Ruth says can get seamlessly recorded in your brain as part of what you think is pristine memory.
Does this rat research shed any light on the argument about true and false accusations? Obviously. Families that have long debated the truth of certain accusations should realize that the more they try to remember what happened the farther they may be from knowing. And the more they talk about the mystery together the muddier things may become.
What about the supposed epidemic of false memories? Sorry. No illumination. This new research says that the worst thing you can do to a memory is to recall it. But the true and false memory debate was mostly about memories that allegedly lie dormant until they are recalled years later for the very first time.
In fact, studies show that about half of such supposedly “iffy” memories can be independently verified.
Truth or lies? Lots of people would like simple answers. But in old family mysteries, it’s actually getting tougher to tell.
This was originally a Vermont Public Radio commentary.
Technorati Tags:
memory, remembering, brain research, laboratoroy rats, long-term memory, short-term memory, protein bonds, recovered memory, truth, lies
According to researchers at New York University, that family mystery will never be solved. That’s because the worst thing you can do to a memory is recall it. In fact, remembering is a “practice makes imperfect” kind of thing.
It was standard rat research: Phase I. Rats. A short tone followed by an electric shock. Rats learn that tone means shock.
Phase II: Same rats. Next day. Short tone. Rats still show fear even though they’re not shocked. Short-term learning has become long-term memory.
Phase III: Same rats. Same tone. Again no shock. This time inject rats’ brains with a drug that blocks protein synthesis. Do it at the very moment that they look fearful.
I know. Poor rats. But why the protein-blocking drug?
It’s an axiom of brain biology that memory is encoded indelibly when the chemical bonds between the nerve cells holding it are protein-enriched. The scientists wanted to test that axiom. Are the bonds really indelible? Are the memories? If protein bonds were indelible the drug that blocks protein synthesis would have no effect—because no new protein would be needed. If protein bonds need to be re-made each time a memory is recalled, injecting the drug would interfere with the memory.
Which brings us to Phase IV. Same rats. Same tone. Again no shock. But this time, no fear behavior. Interfering with protein production at the moment of a memory’s recall erases the fearful memory. Which, according to the scientists, means:
First, the physical circuitry of a memory changes when a protein is replaced. Memory is no more than circuitry. Change the circuitry, you change the memory. Second, at the very moment of recall, any long-term memory is lacking its protein-enriched bond. It is extremely labile. Any sort of present sensory input could get wrapped up in the memory.
Now what does all this mean to us bigger rats?
Every time you tell the story of your Uncle Ed’s Thanksgiving tumble, the memory itself is changed—and you are open to suggestions from others. Whatever your Aunt Ruth says can get seamlessly recorded in your brain as part of what you think is pristine memory.
Does this rat research shed any light on the argument about true and false accusations? Obviously. Families that have long debated the truth of certain accusations should realize that the more they try to remember what happened the farther they may be from knowing. And the more they talk about the mystery together the muddier things may become.
What about the supposed epidemic of false memories? Sorry. No illumination. This new research says that the worst thing you can do to a memory is to recall it. But the true and false memory debate was mostly about memories that allegedly lie dormant until they are recalled years later for the very first time.
In fact, studies show that about half of such supposedly “iffy” memories can be independently verified.
Truth or lies? Lots of people would like simple answers. But in old family mysteries, it’s actually getting tougher to tell.
This was originally a Vermont Public Radio commentary.
Technorati Tags:
memory, remembering, brain research, laboratoroy rats, long-term memory, short-term memory, protein bonds, recovered memory, truth, lies
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