THE LATEST IN SCIENCE

In my final few days of this daily blog site, I salute Scientific American, for during my wait between the first and second holes at the Ala Wai Golf Course, I have mostly read this magazine to keep abreast of science.  In the March issue are these three topics:

• Island of Stability (Christoph Dullman and Michael Block)
• Did you know that there are 118 known elements?  Here is the periodic table you might have seen in your chemistry class (there were 102 elements when I started college):

• #118 Og is Oganesson, for Yuri Oganessian of Russia is a pioneer in this field.  Further:
• #113 Nihonium, or Japan, where this element was synthesized.
• #114 is Flerovium, in honor of Russian Georgy Flyorov.
• #115 is Moscovium, and you can guess Russians also were the discoverers.

• #116 is Livermorium, because researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNR) worked with Russians to create this element.  I just learned that Livermore comes from landowner Robert Livermore.  Edward Teller and Ernest Lawrence (right, with Teller to the right) founded LLNR.  I worked at this lab a couple of times way under Teller in laser fusion.
• #117 is Tennesine because Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee provided the Berkelium to synthesize this element.

• The next discovery, #119, is temporarily known as Unanennium, and is especially significant, for it will be the first element in the eighth period.  RIKEN in Japan and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at Dubna, Russia are battling to be the discoverer.  Japan has the current edge.  My lunch guest from Japan earlier this week came to Nihon University from Riken.

• There is a simple recipe now for making babies from skin cells (Karen  Weintraub, at this time, only mice):
• Scrape skin cells from the tail of a donor mouse.
• Add the appropriate cocktail to convert them into stem cells.
• Add more chemicals to transform the above into either eggs or sperms.

• Add ovarian cells, or, in general, attempt to maintain a mouse womb environment.
• Fertilize these eggs with sperms.
• Result:  baby mice.
• Clearly, someday human skins will be used for, guess what?
• The USA and Japan are two countries which prevent that step, but similar morality constraints are not so limiting in China and Israel.

• Shadows of Other Worlds:  the continued search for exoplanets (I will continue this topic tomorrow and toss in my experience going back more than 40 years ago when I help start this field while at the NASA Ames Research Center.)

-

WIMOWEH...The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Some of you are familiar with The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Tight Fit (left), which in 1982 hit #1 in the UK, or in 1961 with The Tokens, which became #1 in the USA.  

The song was recorded in 1939  by Solomon Linda with the Evening Birds in South Africa as Mbube (lion in Zulu).  Linda actually initially wrote the song in the 1920's.  He sold it to Gallo Studios for the equivalent of 87 cents and got a job as a janitor.  The record was the first from Africa to sell over 100,000 copies.

My first recollection of this tune was by The Weavers, recorded in 1951.  But they titled it Wimoweh, which was a mishearing of Uyimbube in the original chorus.  Here they are again at one of their re-unions.  

However, a couple of them were identified as Communist Party members (never confirmed), and they had to disband in 1952 at the height of their career.  Pete Seeger in particular kept dropping out of the group for various reasons when they were able to do anything, but kept returning.  If you really like them, here is their 49-minute Carnegie Hall concert in 1963:  with On Top of Old Smokey, Goodnight Irene, Tzena Tzena Tzena, etc.  Here, a one-hour documentary entitled Wasn't That a Time.

There are many other versions of Wimoweh, and among them:

• Martin Denny with Yma Sumac
• The Kingson Trio
• Miriam Makeba (right)

Then the scads of copyright issues.  That is the dark nature of the business.  After a bunch of lawsuits and concessions, mostly involving Disney (for use in The Lion King), not only Solomon Linda, but Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, George David Weiss and Albert Stanton also got credited for writing the song.

A particular injustice was that while the mess was being handled by lawyers in the courts, Linda's daughter Adelaide died of AIDS at the age of 38 because she could not afford the anti-viral treatment.  

Pete Seeger told the story of the sleeping lion as symbolic of the Zulu people, who would some day wake up to British rule.    The Zulus are the largest ethnic group, mostly in South Africa, exceeding 12 million.

-

A SIMPLE BUT ALMOST ULTIMATE DINNER AT 15 CRAIGSIDE

I live at 15 Craigside, where I'm provided 3 meals/day.  However, I might go down to our dining room only 25 times/month, almost all being dinners with special tables of close friends.  This seems like a huge waste of money, but one's priorities change with age, and I have chosen to Live Life My Way.  Today is a good example of my current lifestyle.

I have six postings left before Planet Earth and Humanity unbecomes a daily, plus I will shortly begin my 20th year of retirement.  Thanks to the support of the director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, Rick Rocheleau, I have maintained an office on the Manoa Campus for almost 46 years now, and I hope to continue this status into the Year 2020, or maybe even into 2022, which would mark half a century of service to the University of Hawaii.  Whether this happens will mostly depend on my health, but, also, progress on the Blue Revolution, one of the reasons why I am still here.

Today I welcomed a faculty member from Nihon University, who will stay with HNEI for a year or so, working on an element of the Blue Revolution.  Nihon has 70,000 students with 32 research institutes and 3 hospitals.  His laboratory on their campus has 72 students.

He will be using my office as his local headquarters.  Can you believe that back in Tokyo he works from mid-morning until an hour or two past midnight, MTuWThF, every weekday night?  He says that is because he has so much to do.  

Nice to have someone actually spend time in my office, although I hinted that this will be his final chance at any kind of vacation for the rest of his professional life.  His family will later join him in Hawaii for short periods.

Here, Hiro Eto and I are having lunch at Orchids in Waikiki:

Both of us had their onaga specialty.

Having taken yet another small step for the Blue Revolution, on the way home, I decided to celebrate by stopping at Marukai, for my Tuesday night table has been dormant while my neighbors visit their son in California.

Every so often I'm known to splurge.  I considered the following:

Note that the beef is from Miyazaki, regular winners of best wagyu in Japan.  The price, after the discount, was less than $80/pound, a bargain when I usually pay around $100/pound.   Oh, you, too, can have some Japanese wagyu through D'ARTAGNAN:  11 pounds for $1,499.99, with free shipping.  You can do the math yourself.  Or try Amazon, only $549.95 for 3 pounds.

The tuna (maguro) chunks were:

• o-toro bluefin tuna at $48.99/pound
• chu-toro bluefin tuna at $28.99
• local yellow-fin tuna at $16.99

The person behind the counter said that some o-toro was coming in tomorrow, but he cut a nice small sliver and made me taste it.  Yes, it was wonderful.  However, as that fish was not the freshest, I chose the chu-toro.

Most of you settle for wasabi out of a tube, including me.  I saw that $119/pound root of a wasabi plant, and decided to skip that option.

Have you ever had a Parker rated wine at 98?  This was my first, which I purchased at Foodland Beretania for my 15 Craigside lanai feast.  This is an affordable (in a manner of speaking) Alvear Ximenez Solera 1927 from Spain, where the 1927 stands for a few drops of that vintage year, which they mix into the bottle.  Frankly, I can't really tell any taste difference from a 99 to what Robert M. Parker, Jr. would refuse to drink.

My meal:

The meal was a surprise, and shows how much I know wines.  First the wine was not red, but kind of brown.  I thought, oh no, it went bad.  I carefully tasted it, and the wine was sweet.  The shock was that this Parker 98-rated wine is supposed to end dinners:

"The impressive 1927 Pedro Ximenez Solera, from a Solera begun nearly 80 years ago, boasts a dark amber color as well as an extraordinary nose of creme brulee, liquefied nuts, marmalade, and maple syrup. Huge and viscous, yet neither cloyingly sweet nor heavy, it is a profound effort priced unbelievably low. It is meant to be drunk alone at the end of a meal." ~ RP

Would have gone great with the Castello Blue Cheese I keep in my refrig.  Well, I have a lot left, so maybe later this week.

People ask me how my papaya plant is doing:

No papayas, but alive.  My basil is doing great:

And one of my mint plants has beautiful purple flowers:

I never before saw flowers on mints.  I took the glass of sweet wine, tossed in a sphere of ice (bought this device at Noritake Garden in Nagoya) and went to play poker, where I won $10 on close to the final hand and ended up ahead by $5.  Ah, life at 15 Craigside.  

-

THE RETURN OF BLUE HAWAII?

Hawaii has always been associated with the color blue.  The song, the ocean...  Fifty years ago, when you flew into Honolulu at night, you gazed at a Blue Hawaii.  This is because street lights then were mostly from mercury-vapor lights.

Then, came those sodium-vapor bulbs, which were more cost effective, but imparted an orange color.  We became Orange Honolulu.

But, a $46.5 million project will change 53,500 street lights all to Light Emitting Diodes (LED).  City officials say they will save $5 million annually just in electricity costs. Plus, these LEDs seem to last forever.

However, there is trouble brewing.  The Sierra Club has argued the selected LEDs are too blue.  This color is said to be detrimental to human health and bird safety.  The City argues that the the cooler color at 4000K (I'll later explain) are cheaper to operate, and, only 10% of the lights will be of this type on busier arterial streets.  The rest of the lights will be at 3000K, imparting a warmer glow.  The lens will only shine down and should not affect migrating birds nor astronomy requirements.

In any case, Honolulu is just among a swarm of cities shifting to LEDs.  Much of this activity began a decade ago.  Seattle has changed color, and so soon will Atlanta.

Back in history, here he is again, but Benjamin Franklin, who was the postmaster of Philadelphia, was the inventor of street lights in 1757.  He used candles.  Natural gas lighting arrived in Britain in 1792, with electric lights in Cleveland/Wabash in 1880.  Why is Broadway nicknamed the Great White Way?  Electric street lights.

From the beginning of electricity, General Electric and Westinghouse fought it out.  Should AC or DC be the national form of this power system?  Edison, who, with J.P. Morgan, founded the predecessor of General Electric, got Nikola Tesla to develop the alternating current (AC) form.  Edison did not like it and let Tesla go, for direct current (DC) seemed safer.  George Westinghouse embraced AC, and ultimately prevailed.  Read about their colorful and deadly rivalry.

Eventually, standard incandescent lamps were used.  In 1948 the mercury vapor bulb was made available, and it was brighter and cheaper to operate.  However, people complained that this light made them look like zombies.


Around 1970, the high pressure sodium vapor light began to replace mercury for economic reasons.  It was initially disliked because of the orange glow.  But Blue Honolulu became Orange Honolulu.

Then, for a while the metal halide lamp looked promising.  Recently, the induction lamp looked hopeful, for the light was close to incandescent, life was long (100,000 hours) and cost reasonable.  Compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), the kind we all now use at home, also made inroads, and the color was an acceptable soft white.

However, light emitting diodes seem now be taking over, for maintenance is low, lifetime high and investment cost rapidly dropping.  Here is a comparison, showing how much the price can vary:

Some additional info for your files:

What about you?  Which bulb should you use today.  You've of course discarded the incandescent option by now, and these will disappear in 2020 anyway.

If you have a nicely working CFL, keep it.  If you need a new bulb, LEDs now are the logical choice.  CFLs are good for 8,000 hours, while LEDs should last you for more than 25,000 hours.  Those hours listed left and right here can be contested.

So just as you now think you can comfortably use LEDs forever, comes OLEDs, or organic light-emitting diodes.  The color is closer to sunlight, and there is no piercing brightness factor.  For now, OLEDs are light panels, with diffuse lighting in sheets.  They are thus for those seeking the latest fashionable option.  Cost?  Don't ask, however, the price has dropped by a factor of ten since 2011.  But, get this, for an equivalent 25 watt incandescent bulb which costs almost nothing these days, the OLED will set you back $300.  Something to keep in mind as you design your new home or office.  You don't want to be stuck with simple ole LEDs.

Aha, but what about television sets?  Should you get OLED or LED?  Well, the jury is still out, but most reviews seem to lean in the OLED direction.  Surely, that's just got to be a clue to the future of lighting.

But just when you thought OLED, owned by LG of Korea, with partner Sony of Japan, was the final answer, here came QLED of Samsung, with the Q having to do with Quantum Dot.

Not unlike golf clubs, sure the technology is improving, but certainly getting people to buy something new must be at play.  Just another marketing conspiracy?  Such is the nature of progress.  Note also that the field of consumer electronics is now being dominated by South Korea.

-