OUR NEXT FRONTIER: THE OCEAN--Why OTEC?

This is part 2 of the Ocean as our next frontier.  Much of this information can be found in SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth.  

From the beginning of time, our lands have supported humanity.  In many parts of the world, we have now reached the limits of terrestrial applications.  Whether it's pollution or lack of freshwater or the ire of society, the resources to support more than 7 billion people are about to be exceeded.

With Sputnik in 1957 came the Space War between the Soviet Union and the USA.  In 1969 Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon, and the romance of outer space became contagious.  Even I was so infected, as I once worked for NASA on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.  There was huge value to our space program because, with Soviet overspending on this, but also on defense, the country went bankrupt in 1989, ending the Cold War, the closest mankind came to extinction.  

However, there continued to be some hysteresis about space, as the International Space Station (ISS) began orbiting in 1998 and various companies are only now beginning to invest in orbital tourism.  With the end of the Space Shuttle Program, however, the current discussion is when the ISS will crash into the Pacific Ocean.  This ambitious effort spent $150 billion to essentially produce nothing.  Space tourism will only be an option for the very rich, and if there is any terminal accident, that will be it for another century.

The real unknown is the ocean around us.  Ninety nine percent of ocean microorganisms cannot be grown in a typical laboratory.  There is more bacteria and archaea (left, a new microbe type just discovered in 1977) mass in our seas than the total of whatever (you, me, trees, everything) lives on land.  Worse, there are more marine viruses than bacteria.  Then, there are seafood, algae, etc.  The point is, there is a lot of life in the ocean.

Seventy one percent of our globe at the surface is water, with our seas having an average depth of more than two miles (13,124 feet).   Only 3% is fresh, half being ice, and if this all melts, the sea level will rise by around 250 feet.  Even with accelerated global warming, though, it will take a very long time for this to unfold, and the maximum increase projected for 2100 by the International Panel on Climate Change is 6 feet.  

Ocean surface temperatures do not change that much, as most locations only vary by approximately 20 degrees F, compared to land, which ranges from minus 126 F to plus 136 F.  However, in the tropics, the difference between surface and 3000 feet deep fluid temperatures can be more than 20 F.  This temperature gap can be used by an ocean thermal energy conversion  (OTEC) device to produce electricity and freshwater, with the nutrient rich effluent being particularly favorable for marine biomass growth.

Why?  Marine life expires, drops to lower depths, and decomposes into the elements of new life, with nitrogen 78 times higher in concentration at 600 feet than at the surface, and phosphorous 15 times  higher at that depth.  However, sunlight can only penetrate to this depth, so natural upwelling  brings nutrient rich fluids into this euphotic zone.  Unfortunately, this only occurs in limited portions of the seas, where most of the fish is harvested, but worse, is undependable.   In any case, OTEC effluents are equivalent to free fertilizer for biomass growth, with free irrigation water tossed into the system,and can freely be provided by grazing OTEC plantships. 

Ocean developers have long favored this particular marine pathway for economic development because the result is a cornucopia of products:  electricity and freshwater, certainly, but also renewable biofuels, green chemicals, marine biopharmaceuticals, next generation fisheries and the potential to remediate global warming and prevent the formation of hurricanes.  All this can lead to Disney at Sea, Wynn Marine Casinos, floating cities, and more.  Wavepower, offshore windpower and current power only can generate electricity.

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After looking good for much of the day, the Dow Jones Industrials suddenly fell in the final two hours, minus 62 to 12,240, with world markets mixed, although the Japan Nikkei sunk 146 to 9901.  Gold increased $2/toz to $1617, while oil slid a tad, the NYMEX at $97/barrel and the Brent Spot at $117/barrel.

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Tropical Storm in the Gulf will not attain hurricane strength, but will bring much rain and some winds to southern Texas, while of the two storms in the West Pacific, Tropical Storm Nock-Ten will crash into Hainan at 65 MPH, but Tropical Storm Muifa, east of the Philippines, is showing signs of moving north and becoming a typhoon heading towards Japan:

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OUR NEXT FRONTIER: THE OCEAN--Early History

Hawaii is the most isolated population center on Planet Earth.  We are surrounded by the largest ocean, the Pacific, holding more than half of the fresh and salt water.  Why, then, is the sea around us largely ignored by decision-makers as an economic development opportunity?  A good part of the reason is that government officials and the public at large mostly want to protect it.  Today, I initiate a series to analyze why the riches of the seas are not commercialized in harmony with the marine environment.

I was cc'd today on a virtual dialogue between Joe Vadus (second from the left above) and Bob Cohen (left), long time friends, pioneers for ocean development and two brave federal officials who sailed against official policy to provide funds for OTEC in the early days of research.  Bob will wave the OTEC flag in Dalian at an upcoming international conference and Joe attached (see below) a memo inspiring Abraham Lavi and Clarence Zener 38 years ago, for  Lavi went on to publish a sea solar power article featured in a 1976 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on "The Coming Age of Shortages:  Can America Last Another 200 Years (remember, we were 200 years old that year)?" and Zener, a Stanford graduate and theoretical physics, brought academic credibility to this technology.

If there is an ending, it was not attached.

Jules Verne suggested the concept of ocean thermal energy conversion in "20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" in 1870, although Jacques d'Arsonva (left) in 1881 was credited with this idea, and his student Georges Claude (right--what a life, as he did succeed in inventing neon lights, developed liquid chlorine as a weapon in World War 1 and was convicted of collaborating with the Nazis in WW II, spending some time in jail) only failed, a couple of times, in attempting to make it work.  However, the French invented this technology.

In 1979 I found myself on the staff of U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga when Jim Wenzel of Lockheed succeeded in producing net positive OTEC on Mini-OTEC (net 18kW) off Keahole Point, Hawaii.

The original OTEC legislation, which I helped draft, immediately passed Congress and was signed into law.  The Act indicates that 10,000 MW of OTEC might be operating by 1999 (in case you were wondering, today, zero MW).

Japan on Nauru (1981, gross 120 kW, above) and the staff I recruited for the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (1993, net 103 kW, right) at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii constructed open-cycle powerplants, both succeeding in producing electricity and freshwater, but the Japanese facility was wiped out by a hurricane and the American effort was dismantled under project requirements.  No one has since then built a net positive OTEC system, although there are signs that efforts to construct much larger (5-10 MW) plants could be operating in a year or two in La Reunion Island, Honolulu, Okinawa and/or the Caribbean.

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The Dow Jones Industrials are sinking, down 199 to 12,302, with world markets also almost all decreasing.  Can't believe debt fears are jangling nerves.  Gold fell $8/toz to $1614 and the NYMEX crude is at $97/barrel, with the Brent Spot at $118/barrel.  

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Tropical Storm Don in the Gulf of Mexico should not become a hurricane and is headed for Texas, while Typhoon Nock-Ten killed 20 in the Philippines, weakened, then strengthened back into a typhoon and is headed for northern Hainan Island.

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SIMPLE SOLUTION ESSAYS: Energy and Global Warming

The following continues the serialization of SIMPLE SOLUTION ESSAYS:

On 24June08 came simple solutions to Peak Oil and climate change.  We are so flummoxed by politics and conflicts that the result is nothing.  So, let’s start with something simple, and work at it.

Simple Solutions to Energy and Global Warming

The June 19th (2008) issue of The Economist very well captured the state of energy and global warming today, with vague hints on future directions. Some consensus, though, appears to now be forming about the current situation and potential pathways:

1.     The global economy is unsustainable and possibly headed towards collapse.

2.      Peak Oil plus surging demand will continue to increase the price of petroleum.

3.     Global Warming will result in a Carbon Tax.

4.     It will take improvements in energy efficiency and a range of sustainable energy resources to minimize the coming pain, and nuclear power will no doubt be included.

The problem is that society suffers from a fatal flaw: we can't seem to make smart decisions until it is too late. Thus, we will agonize, then suffer, but, somehow, again recover. Is there a better way?

We should have done something after the first energy crisis in 1973, but did not even do anything much after the second energy crisis in 1979. Part of the problem is that Ronald Reagan decimated the American solar program when he became president in 1982, and the world followed suit. Understandably, too, there was no need for panic, as gasoline (in 2005 dollars) cost about $2/gallon in 1950, jumped to $3/gallon in 1980, but dropped to $1.30 in 1998. (Go to SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth for details on this paragraph and much of the following.)

Thus, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change came at the worst time possible when oil prices were nearing an all-time LOW. Again, in 2005 dollars, oil cost $18.76/barrel in 1972, $89.48/bbl in 1980, $14.38/bbl in 1998... and is now somewhere over the rainbow in the range of $135/bbl, in 2008 dollars. The fact that China and India were excused made it easy for the incoming George W. Bush administration to also opt out in 2000. No matter how conscientious you want to be, reducing carbon dioxide became a joke when those countries conforming to those environmental rules began to lose investments and jobs, made all the more hilarious when just the additional coal power plants of China, the U.S. and India dwarfed all the carbon dioxide savings accrued by the 182 parties who signed and took steps. By the way, India and China did ratify the protocol. It's just that they don't have to follow the strictures.

In 2006 came the 600-page Stern (Nicholas Stern, right) report commissioned by British Chancellor Gordon Brown. The solution was simple: annually invest 1% of the World Gross Domestic Product to stabilize greenhouse gas concentration over the next 50 years to prevent a global recession. In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said we might need to invest as much as 3% of the GDP by 2030 to limit long-term global warming. This is serious money, as a household in the UK with a weekly income of $700/month would be taxed an additional $91/month (or $3 per day) for this program.

Then on June 6 of this year, the International Energy Agency indicated that the world would need to spend $45 trillion by 2050 just to meet the target of a 50% cut in emissions suggested by the G8 nations, where the atmospheric temperature would still probably increase by a little more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit. The 2008 U.S. Federal budget is $2.66 trillion, so we are talking really big money, and not even getting close to solving the problem.  To the left, Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the IEA.

International study groups can suggest all they want, but someone has to make a decision. The G8 nations next meet from July 7-9 in Japan, where the main theme is the environment. Will there finally be a firm resolution to Peak Oil and Global Warming? No! No! No! No! No!

Our leaders will dialogue and express sincere concerns, but we might need to wait until 2012 when those heads of countries meet in the United States, when someone like, perhaps, Barack Obama, will be in his 4th year of presidency. It will take all that time, anyway, to gain some consensus and arrive at a workable plan. But actual decisions will be made only if the world is by then in the midst of depression, where, maybe millions have succumbed to a particularly hot summer, and oil rests at $250/barrel. But, then, isn't that a bit too late?

So what is the SIMPLE SOLUTION? Read my SIMPLE SOLUTIONS books. The first action step I took was reported in my first HuffPost of 29May2008, entitled, "Well, Barack, We Have a Problem." But what was I thinking when I only suggested only a trillion dollar solution.

 Comments (8):  Some agreed and some didn’t on whether solutions can be simple.  I’ll say it again, the solutions are simple, but the process to get there could be impossible.

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The Dow Jones Industrials sunk 92 to 12,501, with world markets also mostly down.  Believe it or not, gold hit another all-time high, up $8/tox to $1622, while the NYMEX crude is at $99/barrel and the Brent Spot at $118/barrel.

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Nock-ten just became a typhoon and is about to crash into Luzon, north of Manila:

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DOES SEAFOOD CAUSE ALZHEIMER'S?--PART 2

My Saturday blog on whether BMAA (above) from seafood or bodies of water contributes to neurological diseases got more personal mail than from anything I've ever posted.  Several sent testimonials that the fisherman in their family did contract some form of dementia, and now they are worried that they regularly ate the assortment of sea products given to them.  Let me say, though, that about half of those who survive to the age of 85 have neurological disease problems.  So if your fisherman was old, age could have been the primary reason.

Alzheimer's is responsible for 60% of dementia, and those with Parkinson's eventually suffer from this ailment.  Your brain has 100 million brain cells (also called neurons) and 100 trillion connection points, or synapses.  In Alzheimer's, the failure occurs at these linkages.  Many will disagree with me, but I think the worse part about Alzheimer's is that the incurable patient continues to live, for the whole family also suffers.  When my wife Pearl passed away two years ago, her death was a kind of blessing, for if she had survived, her lung conditions were such that she almost surely would have been on a ventilator the rest of her life...which, for her, would have been worse than death.  The afternoon of her passage, I submitted an article to the Huffington Post, which they immediately published, entitled, Gratitude...Not Grief.

The most unexpected trail of discussion from respondents to this topic had to do with coconuts.  Yes, coconuts.  This fatty food that increases your cholesterol count, is bad for your heart and is also associated with obesity in  Polynesia (unfairly, for other factors contribute a lot more to this problem) has been touted as a miracle food by some.  There seems to be something about caprylic acid (found in coconuts) and ketone bodies, derived from this acid, that promote the use of glucose, the brain's chief energy source.  I do worry, though, when ads say coconut oil is an antioxidant, prevents AIDS, heals your gut and has antimicrobial properties.  This might all be true, but it begins to sound like snake oil.

Bob Bidigare sent me a cutting edge article (which he co-authored with a bunch of others, including other University of Hawaii colleagues I know, Paul Bienfang and Ed Laws), dealing with health impacts from marine microbes, and one sentence in particular initially caught my attention, for I previously indicated there was uncertainty about this matter:

For free-living cyanobacteria, Cox et al. [71] found that BMAA was produced by members of all five cyanobacterial morphotypes as well as 95% of the genera and 97% of the strains that were screened.

Later in the paper, though, is this statement:

Since the initial report of the widespread distribution of BMAA in representatives of all five cyanobacteria mor- photypes by Cox et al. [71], there have been a number of conflicting studies published regarding the detection and quantification of BMAA in cyanobacteria (including blue green algae nutritional supplements). 

So, I guess, we remain unsure if ALL cyanobacteria are potentially dangerous.  This article also talks about ciguatera and shellfish poisoning.

It's possible that the problem, if there is one, could be site specific or genus focused.  Perhaps you need serious algal or bacterial blooms to push the magnification threshold up.  There are signs that BMAA per se might not be the culprit, but that BMAA carbamate, which forms when in contact with a bicarbonate, could well be the form that can disrupt the synapses function.  I'm joking here, but wouldn't it be something if it turns out that people who eat seafood live longer, so much so that age catches up with them, and they are statistically overcome by Alzheimer's?  Or maybe not.

I am allergic to shrimp, crab and lobsters, so this subject has long been of special interest to me.  I don't think any cyanobacteria is affecting my condition because only the decaying flesh of these crustaceans affect me.  If I cook a live specimen and eat it, there is no reaction.

All this leads to a good, and true, story.  A little more than a decade ago both my knees began to hurt and I could barely walk up a flight of stairs.  I went to see a specialist, and he indicated that he would like to do some arthroscopy to see what was wrong.  I told him I was scheduled to fly to Southeast Asia the next day, so I would return in a few weeks.  Well, on my final day in Singapore, I picked a lobster out of a tank, but the plate that came looked like a different one.  While at the table, a rash formed on my cheek.  By the time I returned to Hawaii the next day, my body was the worst case medical journal photo of body rash you can imagine.  I thought I was especially clever in sneaking by various immigration and custom officials to get home.  Well, the doctor prescribed steroid pills to take for five days.  The rash went away, and so did my knee pain.  I think they were inflamed, and those pills cured my ailment.  I have not since then had any problems with my knees.  (By the way, that Kona Cold Lobster photo above shows that their lobster comes from the Atlantic, as Pacific lobsters don't have claws.)

Okay, that had nothing to do with seafood and Alzheimer's, but something else is worthy of note.    Apparently, those who have allergies generally have a vigilant immune system, which not only overreacts to pollen and the like, and tends to liberally release certain histamines, but might also protect the body against nascent cancer cells.  Ergo, maybe it's good to have a few tolerable allergies.  Another plus for my body.

A clarification for educational purposes seems useful, as suggested by David Kyle.  People get confused about Cyanobacteria being called blue-green algae.  Cyanobacteria are strange microbes:  while they are bacteria, they also have photosynthetic pigments, which bacteria in general don't, and can fix nitrogen.  Bacteria are smaller than Cyanobacteria, which can actually fossilize, and have been found to be 3.5 billion years old.  At one time, Cyanobacteria were classified with algae.  But not now, even though they're called blue-green algae.

I made a further check of the virtual world and I quote from a Rush University Medical Center (Chicago) report on diet and Alzheimer's:

They also found that people who eat fish at least once a week were 60 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than those who rarely or never ate fish. The key ingredient, the Rush team believes, is the n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in fish.

The Bastyr Center for Natural Health (Seattle) also says the same:

Elderly people who consume fish or seafood at least once a week may have a significantly lower risk of developing age-related (senile) dementia or Alzheimer’s disease (AD), according to a study in British Medical Journal(2002;325:932–3). This is the latest study to demonstrate the health benefits of regular fish consumption.

So who is right?  What is what?  As I initially indicated, the matter of BMAA is relatively new with respect to the ocean.  Reassured by these two reports, some of you can now be more comfortable with your normal diet, which might include seafood...for now.

Finally, I noticed there will be a gathering in a couple of weeks:

Cyanobacteria and Human Health: Workshop on Merging Ecology, Epidemiology and Neurologic Disorders Aug. 4-6

Researchers from across the country are coming to Bowdoin August 4-6, 2011, for a conference to discuss the links between ALS and other neurologic disorders to cyanobacteria blooms in fresh and marine waters.

Read More »

Elijah Stommel will be there, and Paul Allen Cox (left, that reference #71 above) will give the keynote address.  I wonder if I can participate and fly back to Honolulu for my 7PM cruise departure on the 6th?  The cost seems reasonable:


Standard registration for the workshop is $200 and includes the short course and meals. Undergraduate students can attend free of charge; graduate student registration is $100. On-campus housing is available on a limited basis for $30 per night. The registration deadline is Friday, July 29.


I haven't had a room for $30/night in a long time, maybe never.  But Maine is so far away.

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The Dow Jones Industrials sunk 88 (0.7%) to 12,593, with world markets also mostly down, especially Shanghai at minus 3%.  I guess the Chinese are worried that America will default.  Yes, gold again hit an all-time high, up $7/toz to $1614, while oil seems steady, the NYMEX at $99/barrel and Brent Spot at $118/barrel.

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FRIENDS, CAPTAIN AMERICA AND HARRY POTTER

I went to three movies today.  Let me explain that there are things in life that I don't fully appreciate, as, for example, Italian operas, Shakespeare, parsley and rap music.  Some of this is generational, as further exemplified by my avoidance of vampire movies, Harry Potter and comic book rehashes.  Hate to say it, but Batman is returning, and I can already predict it will be #1 when it appears next year. Thus, it is no surprise that I found Captain America mostly boring and the final Harry Potter totally out of my element.

The first film I saw, Friends with Benefits (Rotten Tomatoes Audience Rating = 78%) was okay, maybe even mildly entertaining, compared to the other two, and should end up third for the week in attendance.  There was an attempt to make sex seem like tennis.  See the movie to understand.  There were bed scenes beyond the normal fluff of this type, deserving an R rating.  Linked to my previous posting dealing with Alzheimer's, this film also weaved in this disease.  It almost seems like I previously saw this movie, and No Strings Attached comes to mind.  That's Justin Timberlake (New Mickey Mouse Club, lead singer in 'N Sync--look for a reunion tour someday--former boyfriend of Britney Spears, met at the Club, you remember his incident with Janet Jackson at the 2004 Super Bowl and recently in Social Network and Bad Teacher) and Mila Kunis (born in the Ukraine, Lily, rival to Natalie Portman, in Black Swan).

The number #1 movie of the week should be Captain America (RT = 85%).  I tried to get a ticket when I got to the box office, and it was sold out (this is why I had to see the above first), so I purchased one for the next showing, which also became sold out in this gigantic auditorium.  You ask, if I don't like these comic book flicks, why did I even bother?  First, I never heard of Captain America when I once read comic books.  Second, I read that this one was different and the best of the lot.  It was, but not by much.  As the 85% audience rating shows, though, people must enjoy noisy gunfire and battles.  I appreciated the computer graphics, which showed Chris Evans (before to the left and after on the right).  Oh, one thing I liked:  the ending was cool, and you can believe that CA#2 will operate in circa 2012.  Hydra leader Red Skull was interesting, because he looked like the villain of the Potter film, Lord Voldemort (that's Ralph Fiennes, right), with the main difference being the color:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, secured a 93% RT audience rating.  I can't believe I spent any money on this film.  Count me among the 7%.  I not only fell asleep, but the lady sitting to my left nudged me to stop snoring.  Surprisingly, this large theater was only about a quarter filled.  However, this was the THX 3D version, which is expensive.  I would not be surprised if Harry significantly drops in attendance this week.  This was a dark movie, in theme and technically, for I've noticed that 3Ds are not bright enough.  As the photo to the right shows, Daniel Radcliffe did not grow much.  He is at least 5'5", maybe an inch taller.  Emma Watson is about the same height, but she must be wearing heels.  There have been eight HP films, if you count Part 2 as #8, and the first, Philosopher's Stone, was ten years ago.  

J.K. Rowling published her first HP in 1995, and now has sold 400 million HP books, making her a billionaire. Will there be future HP films?  Of course, it's making too much money.  This latest has only been out about a week and already made $834 million.  The clue of who will be in these films comes in the final scene when the children of the above three are sent off to Hogwarts.

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DOES SEAFOOD CAUSE ALZHEIMER'S?

Only this month I've already asked three provocative questions:

 IS THIS THE END OF NASA?  (no)

  IS SALT BAD FOR YOUR BODY?  (yes, but it might not kill you)


  IS THIS GLOBAL WARMING?  (nah)

The question today could well become a shocking revelation, but is just the beginning of the discussion on the matter of eating seafood, or living near bodies of water.  I suspect, when all is said and done, the answer to the question of the day will be that eating seafood should be relatively safe and it is okay to live in Hawaii.  BUT THE LATEST INFO IS STARTLING!

We already know (announced by the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency in 2004) that pregnant women and young children should be careful about eating too much fish because of mercury contamination.  The highest concentration was found in bigeye tuna, popular in sushi restaurants:

If you want more information about the levels in the various types of fish you eat, see the FDA food safety website or the EPA website.

What happens is that certain species tend to retain in their flesh minerals from what they eat.  Those higher on the trophic level, like shark, swordfish and tuna, accumulate the most.  Very few in Japan and around the world were influenced by this information.  I certainly wasn't.

Well, the current issue of DISCOVER magazine suggests that seafood can cause Lou Gherig's, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.  The most dangerous might well be those that eat cyanobacteria, for they sometimes (all the time??) contain a neurotoxin, beta-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA).

However, the BMAA biomagnification connection was first determined on land.  Naturally growing at the root of the cycad plant on Guam is this special genus of cyanobacteria, which results in the fruit containing BMAA. Fruit bats feed on them and Guamanians eat fruit bats.  The incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS--Lou Gherig's disease) / parkinsonism-demential is up to a hundred times higher among the Chamorro people of Guam compared to the U.S.

Nearly a quarter century ago there was a New Scientist article on false sago palms being associated with Lou Gherig's disease, but this bit of news faded away.  I recall because one of the early offices of the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research had these palms growing close by and I remember saying, doesn't this plant cause dementia?  People generally laughed it off.  See that palm growing above?  Similar versions are grown all over Hawaii.

So recently, Elijah Stommel, a New Hampshire neurologist, had his students run a Google Earth check on where his 200 ALS patients lived.  They clustered around lakes and other bodies of water.

The study has not been made yet if this high incidence is caused by those living close to these waters eating more seafood, swimming in cyanobacteria infested waters or just breathing the air in this environment.  Are lakes worse than oceans?  Early reports indicate that it does not seem to matter.   I HATE TO SPOIL YOUR WEEKEND, BUT THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF WHAT COULD BECOME A MAJOR HEALTH ISSUE.

Anchovies and clams are very low in mercury because they only eat microbes--that is, it is the biomagnification that concentrates methyl mercury--so can be consumed in quantity if mercury was your concern.  The data are being sorted, but, with respect of BMAA, it appears that:

1.  Bottom-feeding seafood (interesting, but there appears to be no synonym for SEAFOOD) contains higher concentrations of this toxin.  Thus, mussels and oysters, plus shrimp and goatfish, are particularly bad.

2.  Zooplankton feed on cyanobacteria (above--with sizes in the range of 0.1 to 5 microns, said to be the most successful group of microbes), apparently biomagnifying the concentration of BMAA.  We don't eat zooplankton (they are too small, 10 to 1000 microns--right), but lower trophic level seafood do?

3.  The brain of certain fish species is especially high in BMAA, while the flesh can have  higher concentrations in others.

4.  Not sure if this is absolutely true, yet, but it also appears that high trophic level pelagic fish should be biomagnifying this neurotoxin.

Thus, tuna and swordfish are now additionally more dangerous to your memory.  Let's see now, I was planning to drop by Tamashiro's and pickup an aji, then to...hmm...forgot the name of that Japanese department store...  Maybe I'll have a steak tonight!

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Super Typhoon Dora is now Tropical Storm Dora and weakening far off the west coast of Baha.

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After 18 holes of golf at the Ala Wai, I did have a steak for dinner while watching a beautiful sunset from my panoramic table on the lanai:

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HOW SAFE AND LIVABLE IS YOUR CITY?

On my travels, I thought one of the safer cities in the world was Oslo.  I was, though, somewhat surprised to see so many beggars on almost all the city corners.  

My sense was that "aliens" were better accepted by Norwegians.  It was almost like Vancouver, Canada and Portland, Oregon, which lean towards de-criminalizing drug use, resulting in blocks you enter only at your peril.  Norway appears to maybe be too socially tolerant.  An African American from Detroit, who moved here and was working at a market, said to me that he was better respected here (in Oslo) and planned to make this move permanent.

So what happened today in Norway?  First a car bombing just outside Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's office, then a shooting on Utoya, an island just west of the city, where he was scheduled to visit this weekend.  Deaths are approaching 100, mostly at the summer camp retreat. There was the usual claim by a terrorist group, indicating that this was payback for Norway being in Afghanistan (also involved with Libya), but it is turning out that 32 year old Norwegian, Anders Behring Breivik (left), might have been solely responsible, although there is speculation of a second person.  He recently bought enough fertilizer ( twelve thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate??) to build a bomb and gave himself up to authorities on the island after the killings.  He is a Christian fundamentalist who hates Muslims.  This is sounding more and more like Oklahoma City.  But why did he pick on the Labor Party?  My best guess is that Herr Breivik was so dementedly pissed off at the government for being too kind to immigrants that he took it upon himself to purify Norway.

This matter of government being humane can incur a backlash.  For example, the countries most improved in the the UN Human Development Index over the past decade are Tunisia, China and Egypt. So what happened to Tunisia and Egypt.  Is China next?  Morocco, India and Pakistan are #4-#6.

Last night I was reading a recent issue of TIME magazine, and was stunned that there have been 24,000 unidentified murder victims in Rio de Janeiro over the past decade  and 60,000 murders remain unsolved.  Here is a city I've long avoided because of perceived safety problems.  Since I had to go to Machu Picchu anyway, I thought, what would be the least inconvenient way to get there.  A Globus tour that started in Rio seemed best. I thought the coming World Cup and Olympics had improved conditions.  Unfortunately, those events are years away and I just finalized my Fall global adventure.

Mind you, Mexico had 1400 murders just in this month of April.  So where do they rank?  Far below in world killings at #44.  Brazil is only #20, but Rio is where people tend to get terminated and that is where I'm going.  By the way, from TIME, here is that border fence separating Arizona from Mexico.

On 11October2008 I started my serialization of Chapter 1, Crime and Wars, from SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity.  Here is an extension of global homicide rates, and Central/SouthAmerica dominate (homicides/100,000 population):

#1    El Salvador     71

#2    Honduras        67

#3    Jamaica           60

#4    Guatemala       52

#5    Venezuela       49

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#12  South Africa   34

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#20  Brazil              22

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#44  Mexico           15

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#81  Thailand          5.9

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#84  Argentina         5.5

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#89  USA                 5.0

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#93  Peru                 3.2

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#162 Japan              0.86

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#167 Norway           0.60

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#176 Iceland            0

         Monaco            0

         Palau               0

Keep in mind, though, as my book says, that these numbers can be deceiving, as some countries are just not honest.  There are other idiosyncracies, such as, if you don't want to be robbed, don't go to #1 Spain.  I almost was once in Madrid, in broad daylight in a crowded square, but they were good natured about it, for  Spain is nowhere to be seen in the top ten on assaults and murders.  Colombia has 15 times more crime/capita than the USA. Can you believe that North Carolina has the highest incidence of burglaries?  Four times more than North Dakota. 

But let's look at the plus side of travel.  My Fall odyssey stops at the following, ranked in terms of quality of living, which includes personal safety (while one is the best, any crime problem significantly drops these locations in the evaluation).  These numbers come from the 2010 Mercer Quality of Living Survey:

Honolulu            31

Bangkok          109

Tokyo                 40

Zurich                   2

Amsterdam        13

Stockholm          20

London               39

Sao Paulo       114*

Rio                   115*

Buenos Aires    78

Lima                 120*

Houston             68*

Reno                    ?

Las Vegas           ?

San Francisco   32

* older rankings (did not have time to find the new rankings--surely Reno and Las Vegas can't be any worse than Houston)

Oslo ranks #24 and Vienna is #1.  Baghdad (right) is #221, the worst. Sixteen of the top 25 are European.  Honolulu is the highest and Houston is the worst rated of U.S. cites.

Last year I spent some time in Nairobi (#150*), Hanoi (#155*), New Delhi (147*), Ho Chi Minh City (#148*), Shanghai (#100*), Seoul (#87*), Los Angeles (#55*), New York City (#49), D.C. (#45), Osaka (#51*), Barcelona (#44), Singapore (#28), Helsinki (#35), Copenhagen (#11), Munich (#7), Frankfurt (#7) and Vancouver (#4). 

Of course, there are other rankings, and Best Life Magazine predicted the best cities in 2027:  #1 Vienna (sacher torte to left), #2 Oslo, #11 Mumbai (what????), #12 San Jose (no, not Costa...California, and I can appreciate this because San Jose was a dump in 1958 when I first visited, and Silicon Valley has made this city exceptional), #17 Sao Paulo (great, for I'm going there this year), #27 Kailua (not sure which one, but doesn't matter, wow), #28 Baton Rouge (go Tigers!), #34 Sapporo (how's that, Maria?).  Notice that neither Honolulu nor San Francisco made the list.

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The Dow Jones Industrials dropped 43 to 12681, with major world markets all increasing.  Gold jumped $15/toz to $1607, short of the all time high $1610/toz set on Monday of this week.  NYMEX crude is a few cents below $100/barrel at $99.87, while the Brent Spot is at $119/barrel.

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Super Hurricane Dora did not last long, as she is now a mere Category 1 storm, and will further lose strength, dissipating in the East Pacific away from land.

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