Likes Alter energy

Paul Hawken has an interview in Metropolis magazine which is partly interesting and partly annoying (he seems to be confusing regular solar PV with thin film solar, which does use various poisonous minerals, however if the manufacturing process is sound they would hopefully all end up in the actual panels - though perhaps he is talking about improper disposal of silicon tetrachloride and the need to properly recycle used panels) - Ecology and Commerce, Revisited.

One of the trends that wasn’t apparent in 1993 was the emergence of China as the world’s next industrial power. Is China the key to the world’s ecological salvation or its destruction?

China is so complex that you almost need ten words for it instead of one. We are Asia-illiterate in America. You constantly hear catchphrases about China as if it were one thing. There is politburo China, entrepreneurial China, cultural China, peasant China, Western China, Hong Kong China, not to mention Mongol, Uighur, Tibetan, and Manchu China. I see America 50 years ago: on steroids, a country able to raise abundant capital, move quickly, expand its infrastructure, support research and science, study hard, work hard, take the world by economic storm, concentrate capital. In renewables they’re a juggernaut, but their goal is to be the leader in virtually every industry in the world, and anyone who doubts their capacity to do so might want to rethink that.

China is industrializing at warp speed, and in the process, it reveals how our governance system is broken. In America, we’re nearing the threshold of a failed state. We don’t fund our schools, don’t have an ethic of learning. We’re shockingly in debt. We’re a divided nation breathing its own exhaust. Although China’s form of governance is unacceptable and will bite it in the end, it can adapt faster to ecological exigencies than we can. They may be building coal-fired power plants at a blistering pace, but they do not have political leaders who are skeptical of science, deny climatology, or doubt evolution. I might add that it is not just China that is burgeoning. The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are all growing phenomenally.

The American era is over, which is fine, but it behooves us to do some soul-searching and seek a future that is not a Ronald Reagan parody of our putative past glory.

Does industry still hold the key to environmental progress?

Business is the hand of destruction and must become the guardian. It is one world, indisputably. What business does and doesn’t do determines the fate of the earth.

Do you think we have enough time to make the changes outlined in the book?
I do. Humanity is not stupid, but we’re some-times slow to evolve. There comes a time when we must change what it means to be humanity, and this is such a time. Regardless of our profession, predilections, or biases, when confronted with the real problem of what it means to live together here on earth—and I do mean together as one people, dependent on each other’s knowledge and goodwill for our own survival—we know what to do. That wisdom is innate. It has never gone away.

You’ve started a solar-power company called OneSun. How is it different from other companies?

I founded it with Janine Benyus, the biologist who coined the term biomimicry and wrote the book of the same name; and John Warner, the man who coined the term green chemistry and coauthored a book of the same name. We don’t talk about it in public or in the press for a couple of reasons. One, in the solar business there is a fair bit of exaggeration, with science projects masquerading as viable technologies. We will have a lot to say when and if we succeed, which we think we will. But if we fail, then at least we didn’t make fools of ourselves.

Is solar power the answer to our energy problems?

There needs to be more thought about the physics of renewables. Right now, we give solar PV a hall pass, as if it was the clean and green answer. I believe the denial seen on the right about climate change is matched by denial on the progressive side as to technical solutions. Solar PV is nearly the most toxic source of energy per kilowatt hour there is, save for the tar sands, including nuclear and coal. The concept of solar is certainly correct—harvesting streaming photons—but current execution involves a witch’s brew of toxins and greenhouse gases. Even if that were not true—were the world to ratchet up its solar production as proposed—it would require a very significant increase of fossil-fuel consumption because solar requires high inputs of intense energy for sintering, tempered glass, metals, etc. The energy return on energy invested for solar PV—the actual net energy, subtracting inputs—is between 3:1 and 10:1, with most silicon PV coming in at the lower end. This is abysmally low. If we became a solar world, it would mean 20 percent of our GDP would be spent on energy to make energy. With PV, we’re making low-intensity energy generators out of high-intensity energy sources (i.e., coal in China and Germany) and calling that renewable. It’s not remotely renewable. Until there is a solar-PV technology that can be made with minimal, nontoxic, abundantly available inputs and be made entirely with solar energy, incumbent solar does not move the ball down the field but diverts us from achieving the critical energy transformation required. ...

Can we innovate our way around the problem, or do we have to fundamentally change the ways we live?

I think that changing the ways we live is the heart of innovation. One of the keys to under-standing our current situation is to understand how 150 years of cheap energy has created the unsustainable dilemma we’re in. We occupy James Kunstler’s “geography of nowhere,” spending inordinate amounts of time and re-sources on roads and badly designed remote buildings in order to create lifestyles that are deeply dissatisfying. So when we think of innovation, the way we live and the technology we use are handmaidens to a better life with a radically reduced footprint. If we don’t do that, we are truly putting lipstick on a piggy lifestyle, and it won’t work. Nature favors those creatures that direct available energy most efficiently to channels that favor the species. That is not a description of our freeways, suburbs, or food system. We’re taking the rich inheritance of resources, the 100-million-year gift of biomass and living systems, and spending it on annihilation. Not a good strategy. For me, there is only one guiding principle for business, economics, design, community, education, government, and urban planning, and that is captured in Janine Benyus’s brilliant maxim: life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. Being conducive to life means to work toward the benefit of all beings. The one true creative response when every living system is in decline is to plan, design, and make every-thing on behalf of all living beings. This is not sentiment but biology, the famous John Muir statement about everything in the universe being hitched together, and that means we have to be hitched together.

Being conducive to life is what every religion has tried to teach us: the Golden Rule, the 99 Attributes of Allah, the Six Paramitas of Buddhism, the Sermon on the Mount. These teachings are religious, but they’re also pure biology. Nature is not about competition in the mistaken Darwinian sense. What holds the living world together are mutualisms, the innate altruism of life itself. In other words, altruism is lifestyle. It’s truly in our self-interest.

The Independent has a report on discussions between the British government and BP in the lead up to the Iraq war - Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq. Hands up if you are surprised by this. More at Empty Wheel and Patrick Cockburn at The Independent - They denied it was about Iraqs resources. But it never rang true, along with another article at The Indy on Iraqs "untapped potential" - Black gold rush was fuelled by enormous untapped potential.

Plans to exploit Iraqs oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the worlds largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britains involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blairs cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time.

The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UKs involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as "highly inaccurate". BP denied that it had any "strategic interest" in Iraq, while Tony Blair described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd".

But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture.

Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraqs enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blairs military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BPs behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: "Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis."

The minister then promised to "report back to the companies before Christmas" on her lobbying efforts.

The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity."

After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Offices Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: "Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their long-term future... We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq."

Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had "no strategic interest" in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was "more important than anything weve seen for a long time".

BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElfs existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the worlds leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take "big risks" to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.

Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002.

The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraqs reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq.

Last week, Iraq raised its oil output to the highest level for almost decade, 2.7 million barrels a day – seen as especially important at the moment given the regional volatility and loss of Libyan output. Many opponents of the war suspected that one of Washingtons main ambitions in invading Iraq was to secure a cheap and plentiful source of oil.

Heres the next installment of our series on algebraic number theory. In the last installment we had a quick look at groups and rings. Now its time to look at field theory, with special emphasis on what is known as Galois theory. The latter is all about developing a concise description of the relations among the roots of an irreducible polynomial equation using group theory. Some of this theory was famously sketched out in 1832 by Évariste Galois on the night before a duel in which he died.

Galois theory makes it possible to prove several well-known results, such as the impossibility of expressing the solution of some fifth degree polynomial equations in terms of radicals and the impossibility of trisecting some angles with straightedge and compass. We wont go into that, but instead we will eventually see Galois theory used frequently in algebraic number theory.

A field is simply a ring whose multiplication is commutative, has an identity element, and has multiplicative inverses for all elements except the additive identity element. Weve already mentioned several examples of fields, specifically number fields, which are algebraic extensions of finite degree of the rationals Q. (I. e., each element of a such a field is an algebraic number in some finite extension of Q.) More exotic examples of fields certainly exist, though, such as finite fields, fields of functions of various kinds, p-adic number fields, and certain other types of local fields. If you go far enough in algebraic number theory, youll encounter all of these.

The most important set of facts about fields for our purposes lie in what is known as Galois theory. This is the theory developed originally by Évariste Galois to deal (among other things) with the solvability or non-solvability, using radicals, of algebraic equations. It tells us a lot about the structure of field extensions in terms of certain groups – called Galois groups – which are constructed using permutations of roots of a polynomial which determines the extension. (Permutations are 1-to-1 mappings of a set to itself that interchange elements.) A little more precisely, a Galois group consists of automorphisms of a field – i. e. maps (functions) of the field to itself which preserve the field structure. All such automorphisms, it turns out, can be derived from permutations of the roots of a polynomial – under the right conditions.

The importance of Galois theory is that it sketches out some of the "easy" background facts about a given field extension, into which some of the more difficult facts about the algebraic integers of the extension must fit.

Before we proceed, lets review some notations and definitions that will be used frequently. Suppose F is a field. For now, we will assume F is a subset of the complex numbers C, but not necessarily a subset of the real numbers R. If x is an indeterminate (an "unknown"), then F[x] is the set of polynomials in powers of x with coefficients in F. F[x] is obviously a ring. If f(x)∈F[x] is a polynomial, it has degree n if n is the highest power of x in the polynomial. f(x) is monic if the coefficient of its highest power of x is 1. If f(x) has degree n, it is said to be irreducible over F if it is not the product of two (or more) nonconstant polynomials in F[x] having degree less than n.

A complex number α, which is not in F, is algebraic over F if f(α)=0 for some f(x)∈F[x]. f(x) is said to be a minimal polynomial for α over F if f(x) is monic, f(α)=0, and no polynomial g(x) whose degree is less than that of f(x) has g(α)=0. (Note that any polynomial such that f(α)=0 can be made monic without changing its degree.) A minimal polynomial is therefore irreducible over F. F(α) is defined to be the set of all quotients g(α)/h(α) where g(x) and h(x) are in F[x] and h(α)≠0. F(α) is obviously a field, and it is referred to as the field obtained by adjoining α to F.

If E is any field that contains F, such as F(α), the degree of E over F, written [E:F], is the dimension of E as a vector space over F. (Usually this is assumed to be finite, but there are infinite dimensional extensions also.) It is relatively easily proven that if α is algebraic over F and if the minimal polynomial of α has degree n, then [F(α):F]=n. Of course, more than one element can be adjoined to form an extension. For instance, with two elements α and β we write F(α,β), which means (F(α))(β). (Or (F(β))(α) – the order doesnt matter.)

We will frequently need one more important fact. Suppose we have two successive extensions, involving three fields, say D⊇E⊇F. This is called a tower of fields. Then D is a vector space over E, as is E over F. From basic linear algebra, D is also a vector space over F, and vector space dimensions multiply. Consequently, in this situation we have the rule that degrees of field extensions multiply in towers: [D:F]=[D:E][E:F].

Now were almost ready to define a group, called the Galois group, corresponding to an extension field E⊇F. However, Galois groups cant be properly defined for all field extensions E⊇F. The extension must have a certain property. Here is the problem: The group we want should be a group of permutations on a certain set – the set of all roots of a polynomial equation. But consider this equation: x³-2=0. One root of this equation is the (real) cube root of 2, 2^1/3. The other two roots are ω2^1/3 and ω²2^1/3 where ω=(-1+√-3)/2. You can check that ω³=1 and ω satisfies the second degree equation x²+x+1=0. ω is called a root of unity, a cube root of unity in particular. (Roots of unity, as well see, are very important in algebraic number theory.) Now, the extension field E=Q(2^1/3) is contained in R, but the other roots of x³-2=0 are complex, so not in the extension E. This means that it isnt possible to find an automorphism of E which permutes the roots of the equation. Hence we cant have the Galois group we need for an extension like E.

The property of an extension E⊇F that we need to have is that for any polynomial f(x)∈F[x] which is irreducible (has no nontrivial factors) over F, if f(x) has one root in E, then all of its roots are in E, and so f(x) splits completely in E, i. e. f(x) splits into linear (first degree) factors in E. An equivalent condition (as it turns out), though seemingly weaker, is that there be even one irreducible f(x)∈F[x] such that f(x) splits completely in E but in no subfield of E. That is, E must be the smallest field containing F in which the irreducible polynomial f(x)∈F[x] splits completely. E is said to be a splitting field of f(x). The factorization can be written

f(x) = ∏_1≤i≤n (x - α_i)

with all α_i∈E, where n is the degree of f(x). (Remember that we are assuming f(x) is monic.) When this is the case, E is generated over F by adjoining all the roots of f(x) to F. In this case it can be shown that the degree [E:F] is the same as the degree of f(x).

An extension that satisfies these conditions is said to be a Galois extension, and it is the kind of extension we need in order to define the Galois group G(E/F). (Sometimes the type of extension just described is called a normal extension, and a further property known as separability is required for a Galois extension. As long as we are dealing with subfields of C, fields are automaticaly separable, so the concepts of Galois and normal are the same in this case.)

Suppose E⊇F isnt a Galois extension. If E is a proper extensions of F (i. e. E≠F), if α∈E but α∉F, and if f(x) is a minimal polynomial for α over F, then the degree [E:F] of the extension is greater than or equal to the degree of f(x). The degrees might not be equal, because all the roots of f(x) must be adjoined to F to obtain a Galois extension, not just a single root. If α is (any) one of the roots, [F(α):F] is equal to the degree of f(x). But this is the degree [E:F] only if α happens to be a primitive element for the extension, so that E=F(α), which isnt usually the case, and certainly isnt if E isnt a Galois extension of F.

In the example above with f(x)=x³-2, we have E = Q(ω,2^1/3) = Q(ω)(2^1/3), [Q(ω):Q]=2 and [Q(ω,2^1/3):Q(ω)]=3, so the degree of the splitting field of f(x) over Q is 6, because degrees multiply. Q(2^1/3)⊇Q is an example of a field extension that is not Galois. But Q(ω,2^1/3)⊇Q(ω) is Galois, since f(x) is irreducible over Q(ω) but splits completely in the larger field. Likewise, Q(ω)⊇Q is Galois, and in fact all extensions of degree 2 are Galois. (If f(x)∈Z[X] is a quadratic which is irreducible over Q and has one root in E, then the roots are given by the quadratic formula and involve √d for some d∈Z, so if one is in E, both are.)

Well come back to this example, but first well look at a simpler one to get some idea of how Galois groups work. Consider the two equations x²-2=0 and x²-3=0. The roots of the first are x=±√2, and the roots of the second are x=±√3. We will start from the field Q and adjoin one root of each equation. This yields two different fields: E₂=Q(√2) and E₃=Q(√3). If we adjoin a root from both equations we get a larger field that contains the others as subfields: E=Q(√2,√3).

Consider the field extension E₂⊇Q first. We use the notation G(E₂/Q) to denote the Galois group of the extension. In this example, call it G₂ for short. We will use Greek letters σ and τ to denote Galois group elements in general. G₂ consists of two elements. One of these is the identity (which we denote by "1") which acts on elements of the field E₂ but (by definition) leaves them unchanged. This can be symbolized as 1(α)=α for all α∈E₂. The action of a Galois group element can be fully determined by how it acts on a generator of the field, meaning √2 in this case. So it is enough to specify that 1(√2) = √2. This Galois group has just one other element σ₂, which is defined by σ₂(√2)=-√2. An important property that a Galois group must satisfy is that the action of all its elements leaves the base field (Q in this case) unchanged. A Galois group is an example of a group that acts on a set – a very important concept in group theory. But there is an additional requirement on Galois groups: each group element must preserve the structure of the field it acts on. In technical terms, it must be a field automorphism. Well see the importance of this condition very soon.

As you can probably anticipate, the Galois group G₃=G(E₃/Q) has elements 1 and σ₃ defined by σ₃(√3)=-√3. We can now ask: what is the Galois group of the larger extension E⊇Q? It must contain 1, σ₂ and σ₃. We have to think about how (for instance) σ₂ acts on √3. The clever thing about Galois theory is that its easy to say what this action should be: σ₂ should leave √3 unchanged: σ₂(√3)=√3. In particular, σ₂(√3) cannot be ±√2 The reason is that σ₂ leaves the coefficients of x²-3=0 unchanged, and because σ₂ is a structure-preserving field automorphism it cannot map something that is a root of that equation (such as √3) to something that is not a root of that equation (±√2).

For any finite group G, the order of the group is the number of distinct elements. We symbolize the order of G by #(G). In Galois theory it is shown that the order of a Galois group is the same as the degree of the corresponding field extension. Symbolically: #(G(E/F))=[E:F]. Basically this is because we can always find a primitive element θ such that E=F(θ), and θ satisfies an equation f(x)=0, where the degree of f(x) is [E:F]. The other n-1 roots of that equation are said to be conjugate roots. We get n automorphisms, the elements of G(E/F), generated from mapping θ to one of its conjugates (or to itself, giving the identity automorphism). Since the degrees of field extensions in towers multiply, so too do the orders of Galois groups in field towers, as long as each extension is Galois. That is, if D⊇E⊇F, where each extension is Galois, then #(G(D/F)) = #(G(D/E))#(G(E/F)). In our example, the degree of the extension is [Q(√2,√3):Q] = [Q(√2,√3):Q(√2)][Q(√2):Q] = 4. So this is also the order of the Galois group G=G(Q(√2,√3)/Q), and therefore we need to find 4 elements.

Weve already identified three of the elements (1, σ₂ and σ₃). Its pretty clear that the remaining element must be a product of group elements: τ=σ₂σ₃. The product of Galois group elements is just the composition of the elements, which are field automorphisms (which happen to be derived from permutations on roots of equations), and hence they compose like any other function (or permutation). (Composition is just another term for the the function which is the result of applying one function after another.) Because of how σ₂ and σ₃ are defined, it must be the case that τ(√2)=-√2 and τ(√3)=-√3. Since E⊇Q is generated by √2 and √3, and τ is a field automorphism, we can figure out what τ(α) must be for any other α∈E. For instance, τ(√6)=√6, since √6=√2√3.

(Remember that we specified σ₂(√3)=√3. You may have been wondering why we didnt just define the action of σ₂ as an element of the full Galois group G=G(E/Q) by σ₂(√3)=-√3. Had we done that, σ₂ would have been what we found as τ, while the τ we got as the product of σ₂ and σ₃ would turn out to be the "old" σ₂, so the only difference would be a relabeling of group elements.)

For a slightly more complicated example, suppose f(x)=x²+x+1 and g(x)=x³-2, with roots ω and 2^1/3 respectively, as above. Then in the tower Q(ω,2^1/3) ⊇ Q(ω) ⊇ Q both the extensions are Galois. (We already saw this isnt so with the tower Q(ω,2^1/3) ⊇ Q(2^1/3) ⊇ Q – order matters.) So the full extension E=Q(ω,2^1/3) ⊇ Q is Galois. Its Galois group G=G(E/Q) has order 6, because 6 is the degree of the whole extension, since the intermediate extensions are of degree 3 and 2 and the degrees of the extensions multiply.

It turns out to be easy to determine the Galois group of this extension, although there are some tedious calculations needed to verify this. So bear with us a moment here. We can define two automorphisms of E that leave Q fixed, as follows. It suffices to specify them on generators of the field. Let one automorphism σ be defined by σ(&omega)=ω² and σ(2^1/3)=2^1/3. Let the other automorphism τ be defined by &tau(2^1/3)=ω2^1/3 and τ(ω)=ω. σ and τ are defined to leave elements of Q unchanged. For sums and products elements of E, σ and τ are defined to preserve the field structure, so they really are automorphisms (though, to be rigorous, this should be checked). So σ and τ are elements of the Galois group G=G(E/Q).

We can also see that σ²(ω) = σ(σ(ω)) = σ(ω²) = ω⁴ = ω, because ω³ = 1. So σ² is the identity automorphism. (Note that the exponents on σ and τ refer to repeated composition, not ordinary exponentiation, because composition "is" multiplication in the group G.) If we compute τ² and τ³ in the same way, applied to 2^1/3, we find that τ²(2^1/3) = ω²2^1/3, and τ³(2^1/3) = 2^1/3, again because ω³ = 1. Thus τ² isnt the identity automorphism, but τ³ is.

Now lets compute with the composed automorphisms στ and τσ. First, στ(2^1/3) = σ(ω2^1/3) = ω²2^1/3. However, τσ(2^1/3) = τ(2^1/3) = ω2^1/3. So we have στ ≠ τσ, because ω≠ω². Instead, we will find by a similar calculation that στ(2^1/3) = ω²2^1/3 = τ²σ(2^1/3). Hence στ = τ²σ. A little more checking will show that 1 (the identity automorphism), σ, τ, τ², τσ, and στ give a complete list of distinct automorphisms that can be formed from σ and τ. Thats just right, because G must be a group of order 6.

In abstract group theory there are only two distinct groups of order 6. (That is, distinct up to an isomorphism, which is a 1-to-1 structure-preserving map between groups that shows they are essentiall the "same" group.) One is the cyclic group of order 6, denoted by C₆. This is isomorphic to the direct product of a cyclic group of order two and one of order 3, i. e. the group C₂×C₃. However, since στ ≠ τσ, G isnt abelian, it cannot be C₆, which is abelian. The only other group of order 6 is (up to isomorphism) S₃, the group of permutations of three distinct objects, also known as the symmetric group. (An isomorphic group is the dihedral group D₃, the group of symmetries of an equilateral triangle.) Since this group is the only nonabelian group of order 6, G(E/Q) must be isomorphic to it.

Theres a whole lot more that could be said about Galois theory, but that would take up quite a bit of space, and the intention here is only to give a feel for what it is about. The basic idea to take away is this: A great deal is known about abstract groups and their subgroup structure. Galois theory is a way to "map" extensions of fields to groups and their subgroups in such a way that most of the interesting details about the extension are reflected in details about the groups, and vice versa. The group structure is sensitive to relationships among elements in the subextensions of a Galois extension. In Galois theory it is proven that there is a precise correspondence between subextensions and subgroups of the Galois group.

It thus becomes possible to infer facts about field extensions easily from a knowledge of their Galois groups. One example of the power of this method is that it made possible proving facts that had remained mysterious for hundreds of years – for example, the unsolvability by radicals of general polynomial equations of degree 5 or more, and the impossibility of certain geometric constructions by straightedge and compass alone (trisecting angles, for example).

Galois theory is an absolutely indispensible tool in algebraic number theory. It will come up again and again. We will mention other results in the theory when they are needed.

In the next installment well circle back to take a deeper look at ring theory, which is the most basic tool used in algebraic number theory – because there are generalizations of "integers" in an algebraic number field, and they are rings analogous to the familiar ring Z of ordinary integers.

Tags: algebraic number theory, field theory, Galois theory, Galois group

At first this may seem an odd coincidence, but maybe it isnt. P53 is the protein which plays a critical role in preventing runaway division in cells with damaged DNA, and hence inhibiting cancer. Unless p53 itself becomes faulty – which happens in the majority of cancerous cells. It does its job by stopping the cell division cycle if damaged DNA is detected.

But apparently p53 is also implicated in tanning of human skin by the sun.

Guardian Of The Genome Protein Found To Underlie Skin Tanning

A protein known as the "master watchman of the genome" for its ability to guard against cancer-causing DNA damage has been found to provide an entirely different level of cancer protection: By prompting the skin to tan in response to ultraviolet light from the sun, it deters the development of melanoma skin cancer, the fastest-increasing form of cancer in the world.

In a study in the March 9 issue of the journal Cell, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report that the protein, p53, is not only linked to skin tanning, but also may play a role in peoples seemingly universal desire to be in the sun -- an activity that, by promoting tanning, can reduce ones risk of melanoma.

"The number one risk factor for melanoma is an inability to tan; people who tan easily or have dark pigmentation are far less likely to develop the disease," says the studys senior author, David E. Fisher, MD, PhD, director of the Melanoma Program at Dana-Farber and a professor in pediatrics at Childrens Hospital Boston. "This study suggests that p53, one of the best-known tumor-suppressor proteins in our body, has a powerful role in protecting us against sun damage in the skin."

Of course, people who tan easily or have dark pigmentation may also be less inclined to spend time in the sun for the purpose of acquiring a tan, so any other factors in an individual that might be responsible for tannning or dark pigmentation would also indirectly reduce the statistical liklihood of melanoma.

However, the research shows that p53 does influence tanning directly.

Other reports:

• Gene behind tanning comes out of hiding
  
• A Protein Twofer That Triggers Tanning and Protects against Skin Cancer
  
• Anti-Cancer Gene Triggers Tanning
  

Update 8/3/08: There is related news about this here.

Tags: p53, sun tanning, melanoma, skin cancer, cell cycle

Inflammation is a part of the bodys immune response that has been implicated in a number of disease conditions, such as atherosclerosis, diabetes, osteoporosis, and cancer. Previous posts on the subject can be found here, here, here, and here.

Much of the research discussed in those posts reports on some correlation found between markers of inflammation and occurrence of disease. What we really want, however, is to understand the underlying mechanisms that might explain the correlation. Here well take a look at one of the hypothesized mechanisms.

This article: The Interleukin-6 inflammation pathway from cholesterol to aging – Role of statins, bisphosphonates and plant polyphenols in aging and age-related diseases is a fascinating but technical and difficult review article that makes the daring claim that

Inhibition of the signal transduction pathway for Interleukin 6 mediated inflammation is key to the prevention and treatment of aging and age-related disorders including atherosclerosis, peripheral vascular disease, coronary artery disease, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, dementia, Alzheimers disease and some forms of arthritis and cancer.

Be forewarned, if you undertake to read the article, that it presumes at least a passing knowledge of biochemistry, the mammalian immune system, and the physiology behind diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disorders. In addition, it could be better written, with clearer development of its central arguments. Finally, its contention as quoted above is a sweeping, far-reaching hypotheses that will require much additional research to establish securely.

It is also possible that there is some element of hype in the claims made. One should always adopt a skeptical attitude towards a declaration that anything like a potential "fountain of youth" has been discovered.

This hypothesis may well be too broad. Nevertheless, the paper provides an excellent means of focusing discussion on a number of important topics that seem to be linked inevitably to strategies for preventing or delaying the onset of the aging and age-related diseases listed above. Who could fail to find that prospect interesting?

So well begin with some setting of the stage. Inflammation is a major feature of the mammalian immune system, which employs the vascular system (among other things) to mount a response to infections, damaged cells, and other harmful stimuli. For example, signaling proteins, known as cytokines, are dumped into the blood stream to attract the attention of other components of the immune system, such as white blood cells (leukocytes), which then migrate through the blood stream to the site of the problem.

Several cytokines play an important role in the inflammatory process. The list includes Interleukin-1 (IL-1), Tumor Necrosis Factor α (TNF-α), and Interleukin-6 (IL-6). Of these, the last, IL-6, is singled out for special attention, because it appears to be especially important in the inflammatory process itself. Control of the process is important, because research implicates an excessive or overactive inflammatory response as a significant factor in the diseases of aging listed above.

Control of IL-6, in turn, may depend on control of the protein NF-κB (Nuclear Factor κB), which is a transcription factor that is thought to be necessary for the expression of the gene for IL-6. NF-κB is an essential part of the signaling pathway through which IL-6 is produced. Without activated NF-κB there may be no IL-6. However, NF-κB is also implicated in a number of other physiological processes as seemingly independent from the inflammatory response as synaptic plasticity and memory. This poses a challenge to any attempt to regulate the inflammatory response by regulating NF-κB.

As we shall see in subsequent postings, theres a lot of very interesting research going on related to the role of inflammation in disease in general, and with the involvement of NF-κB in particular.

Well describe here just a couple of the recent examples.

Key To Out-of-control Immune Response In Lung Injury Found

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, or ARDS, is an often fatal complication of severe traumatic injury, bacterial infections, blood transfusions and overdoses of some medications. In ARDS, the lungs become swollen with fluid and breathing becomes impossible. ...

Sepsis, an overwhelming bacterial infection of the blood and organs, is the most common cause of ARDS. When the immune system responds to the infection, molecules called inflammatory cytokines and chemokines are released. These molecules attract inflammatory white blood cells and destroy bacteria, but also lead to fever, swelling and other symptoms of shock and can wreak havoc on the patient in the course of fighting off the infection.

The researchers worked with a strain of mice that lacked a gene called Cblb. This gene codes for a protein that disables a cell surface receptor. Unless this receptor is disabled it will keep NF-κB activated, and therefore leads to the overproduction of inflammatory cytokines. The result is a "cytokine storm" that leads to ARDS-like symptoms and greater likelihood of fatal results for the Cblb-deficient mice:

When sepsis was induced in mice with and without the Cblb gene, there was a marked difference in the level of the inflammatory response and survival. Mice lacking the Cblb gene were much less likely to survive than control mice.

It shouldnt be concluded, however, that NF-κB (or IL-6 for that matter) is intrinsically harmful. If that were the case, it would not be so widely conserved in evolution, as it is. NF-κB is found even in the simplest of animals, such as corals, sea anemones, and sponges.

As noted, NF-κB is a transcription factor for a number of genes besides IL-6. Some of these genes code for proteins that promote cell survival and proliferation. This, too, can be a double-edged sword, as with inflammatory cytokines. In particular, it appears that NF-κB plays a non-trivial role in various types of cancer. Well write about that in another article. However, the following research seems to demonstrate a case where the cell survival role of NF-κB predominates:

Researchers Identify Molecular Basis Of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

[Researchers] generated a mouse model that does not express NEMO, a protein needed to activate NF-κB, in intestinal epithelial cells. As a result, these mice developed severe chronic intestinal inflammation very similar to Colitis in humans.

"A close look at the mice revealed that their gut epithelium was damaged," says Manolis Pasparakis, who recently moved from heading a lab at EMBL to becoming a professor at the University of Cologne. "NF-κB acts as a survival signal for cells. Without the molecule cells are much more likely to die and this is what happened in the intestines of our mice; individual epithelial cells died disrupting the gut lining."

Through these gaps bacteria could penetrate the intestinal wall. Right behind the gut epithelium lie cells of the intestinal immune system, the biggest immune system of our body. It detects the invading bacteria and generates a strong immune response to fight off the invaders. In the process of combating the bacteria, the immune cells secrete a cocktail of signals that bring about the symptoms of inflammation.

"This is where the vicious cycle closes," explains Markus Neurath, professor at the University of Mainz. "Inflammatory signals also reach the epithelial cells that due to the lack of NF-κB are very sensitive to them and die. The death of more epithelial cells creates bigger gaps in the gut lining so that more bacteria enter. The result is a constant immune response leading to chronic inflammation as we know it from inflammatory bowel diseases in humans."

Tags: inflammation, immune system, IL-6, interleukin-6, NF-kB, aging

LUCA stands for "last universal common ancestor". It refers to the presumed common ancestor of the three presently recognized "domains" of life – Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya.

This common ancestor must have been very primitive, of course. One is tempted to think it might resemble modern-day religious fundamentalists, but in fact it was probably even more primitive, if you can imagine such a thing.

Its not absolutely clear there was actually one common ancestor, but thats what evidence currently indicates. But assuming there was, its fascinating to speculate about what this ancestor was like.

Heres a very detailed blog post that discusses the issue: Ur... Again (Sort of).

Its based on an original research paper: The origins of phagocytosis and eukaryogenesis. The paper is open access and appears to be great reading, though its conjectural and requires a little familiarity with fundamental biochemistry and cellular biology. Probably a good excuse to learn some of the details if you need to. These are topics that everybody ought to know about, even though our public educational system is way too inadequate to have done a good job of that.

Try reading at least the blog post, with a copy of Wikipedia close at hand.

Scientists have identified a number of genes that seem to have some effect on an animals longevity. Mostly they have been found in small, short-lived creatures whose longevity is easily studied, such as mice, fruit flies, or roundworms (C. elegans), though they frequently have analogues in humans. See here for an earlier discussion.

Of course, any gene which is important for inhibiting cancer, such as the well-known p53, will tend to improve longevity, for obvious reasons. But surprisingly, there are some longevity genes which dont have such an obvious relation to cancer, and may lengthen expected life span even when cancer is present.

Longevity genes fight cancer at its source

Over the years, biologists have discovered a handful of genes in roundworms, mice and flies that bestow a dramatic increase in lifespan on the organism that carries it – sometimes up to twice their normal life expectancy.

These genes are involved in diverse biochemical pathways including those for growth hormones, insulin, food intake and caloric restriction. But it is thought that they are all have a role in how the body responds to stress.

Julie Pinkston at the University of California in San Francisco, US, and colleagues, wondered if these longevity genes had something else in common: the power to fight cancer – a notoriously age-related disease.

Pinkston manipulated a C. elegans gene to make the worm more susceptible to cancer, and she also introduced a mutated version of the daf-2 insulin-like receptor gene, known to be longevity-enhancing. Worms with both mutations, even though they developed tumors, still lived twice as long as unmutated worms. Apparently the mutated daf-2 was doing something in addition to preventing tumors from forming.

The something else seems to be related to apoptosis:

Daf-2 seemed to protect against the lethal cancer by stimulating apoptosis – programmed cell death – which tumour cells usually avoid, the researchers say.

Its understandable that a gene which stimulates apoptosis helps fight cancer. The question is whether stimulating apoptosis also has harmful side effects. Apparently not so much in this case, if longevity is doubled anyhow.

But theres more to it than that:

One hallmark of cancerous growth is a rapid acceleration of cell division. Daf-2 also decreased the number of cell divisions in the roundworms by 50% compared to what was expected for those with the gld-1 gene, Pinkston says.

Other longevity-releated gene mutations are known in C. elegans, and when these mutations were present, the longevity effect also occurred:

The team then used the same process to test three other known longevity genes in turn against the life-shortening gld-1 gene. These three double-mutant worms also lived longer than normal roundworms. Each of the three genes (eat-2, isp-1 and clk-1) suppressed cell division, even though they did not appear to increase apoptosis.

Again, it would seem that suppressing cell division with these mutations is a net benefit for longevity, despite the need for some cell division outside of tumors. Perhaps they simply cause an animals life cycle to proceed at a slower pace.

But roundworms are rather simple animals. One wonders how such an effect would play out in a human...

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Other references:

Longevity genes fight back at cancer - subscription required

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Tags: cancer, longevity, lifespan, medicine, aging

Im experimenting with Twine.com, which is a newish bookmarking and social networking site. That is, its a combination of Del.icio.us (and the like) and (a rather simple) Facebook sort of thing.

The social networking isnt anywhere as nearly comprehensive as Facebook, but its the same idea. The bookmarking, on the other hand, is as spiffy as Del.icio.us and others of that genre, with extras.

Bookmarks are organizied into groups called "twines", which can be public or private, and typically cover some recognizable topic area, or whatever people want to use them for. Each bookmark can also have a description and any number of tags, specified by the user creating the bookmark. Each bookmark also allows for comments, which anyone may add.

Underlying all this is "semantic web" technology. Its a cool computer-sciencey set of concepts and conventions for organizing heterogeneous collections of data in a way that (supposedly) is easier to search and navigate than the existing anarchy of Web pages, blog posts, etc. But Im still waiting to see some compelling practical results...

In any case, Ive set up some twines that I will use for bookmarking interesting scientific articles I come across. These items tend to be fairly non-technical, intended for an interested but not highly specialized audience, rather than articles from professional, refereed journals.

If you follow any of the links below, you will have to register with Twine, and should then get to see the various bookmark collections. You may choose to "join" any of the twines, which simply means that the system will keep track of the ones you have joined so you can visit them later. There is an option for receiving email notification of additions to individual twines. You can start your own twines too, if you like.

The social networking part is that you can set up a personal profile for youself, with whatever information you are willing to share. You can find out which other users have joined the same twines as you have, and "connect" with them if you have shared interests, as on Facebook or similar systems.

So, this is just an experiment to see if there is interest in something of this sort for groups of bookmarks to possibily interesting articles that deal with many of the topics written about here. If there doesnt seem to be much interest, or if I find its too time consuming to be worth the effort, Ill stop.

On the other hand, if people give it a try, suggesting bookmarks of their own that are appropriate for one of the following twines, if desired, then maybe the experiment will yield something worthwhile.

You can leave comments to this post if you have questions or suggestions. Alternatively, you can send messages to other users on Twine itself.

Current twines Ive started:

Scientific Readings: Neuroscience

Scientific Readings: Medical Biology and Biotechnology

Scientific Readings: Physics

Scientific Readings: Mathematics

Scientific Readings: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology

The growing energy demands of the urban and rural areas of the developing and developed nations can be met by the use of conventional energy resources as well as the alternative energy sources. It is known that the use of both types of energy sources side by side is the only effective means of fulfilling the energy requirements.

The various conventional sources of energy are coal, petroleum and natural gas. The alternative energy sources that are known to the mankind are solar energy, tidal energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, thunder bolt energy etc.

We can make a comparison of conventional and alternative energy sources to know which ones are better and efficient.

Conventional sources of energy like coal and petroleum are exhaustible whereas the alternative energy resources are renewable and cannot come to an end.

The conventional sources of energy cause pollution whereas the alternative energy resources are popular for not causing environmental pollution.

Traditional sources of energy are not available everywhere. They are available at a central location from which they are distributed and so these cannot be put to use everywhere in the world apart from locations where they are abundantly available.. On the other hand, alternative energy sources are decentralized and are available for use in all places in the world whether the area is a rural area or an urban area..

The cost of using renewable alternative energy sources is less as compared to the use of conventional energy sources. Electricity can be generated from alternative energy resource at a comparatively lower cost as compared to the generation of electricity from conventional sources which is very expensive.

ReNew Economy has a pair of articles looking at the benefits provided by solar power during the recent heatwave in southern Australia - Solar saved southern states from new and costly demand peaks.

Victoria and South Australia have just finished a week which put the highest stress on the electricity grid since a similar heatwave occurred on 28th-30th January 2009. Despite the population of Victoria and South Australia increasing at least 7%2 since then, the electricity demand supplied by the grid during the heat wave was just lower than the peak usage reached on the 29th of Jan 2009.

Electricity demand from the grid in the recent heatwave peaked on Wednesday. There were initially warnings of potential load shedding1 from the grid operator after the usually baseload Loy Yang A3 brown coal unit and one of the Torrens Island gas units tripped offline on Tuesday. However, demand came in slightly lower than forecast and apart from some minor local transmission outages, demand was fully supplied. ...

If no solar had been installed, Victoria would have set a new demand record of 10,675MW at 1:55pm today 17th-Jan-2014, higher than the metered demand of 10,572MW used at 12:35pm on the 29th-Jan-2009. South Australia would have set a new demand record of 3,549MW at 4:30pm yesterday 16th-Jan-2014, higher than the metered demand of 3,441MW set 4:25pm on the 29th-Jan-2009. Solar reduced the maximum combined VIC & SA demand by 448MW.

Asking what happens when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow ignores the spare capacity built into the grid to handle record demand days like yesterday and today. For the majority of the year, spare generation capacity can backup variations in solar or sudden failures at fossil fuel plants. Record demands, where there is little spare capacity, are caused by hot conditions and strong sunlight. Solar is now a critical component of the generation fleet that reliably supplies our power.

An the second from Giles Parkinson - Solar puts heat on big generators as demand peaks subside.

There seems no doubt that solar is playing a key role in moderating demand and stress on the grid.

It’s interesting to note that the differences between the peaks of previous years – such as in 2009 when there was little solar – correspond with the amount of solar that has been installed (notwithstanding the need to add in population and air-con growth, offset by more energy efficient appliances and less manufacturing).

On Wednesday, for instance, the interval peaks were 10,110 MW in Victoria and 3,108MW in SA. The corresponding numbers on January 29, 2009, were 10,446 MW and 3,270 MW. According to the APVI’s Live Solar website, the PV contribution at the peak times was around 220 MW in each state. Some suggest that without solar, Victoria would have hit record demand from the grid on Thursday – and prices to boot.

In WA, the peak in electricity demand has fallen well short of previous years, despite the record-breaking streak of temperatures, rising population and growing use of air conditioning.

In 2011 and 2012, peak demand peaked at more than 4,000GW. In the past week, it made it only as high as 3,733. How much solar does WA have on its rooftops? About 340MW.

This has had an impact on peak pricing events. In 2009, the average spot price between 8am and 4pm was over $6,000/MWh. The average price – despite a few peaks – in the latest period has been about one tenth of that.

On Thursday, the volume weighted pool prices between 08.00 and 16.00 yesterday were $299/MWh in Victoria and $377/MWh in South Australia, despite the huge levels of demand. The reaching of super peaks of $12,000/MWh or more in Victoria occurred mostly when Loy Yang A – the biggest brown coal generator – had one of its four units off-line for urgent repairs .

Generators and retailers use elaborate hedging policies to reduce their exposure to such fluctuations – which can be triggered as much by bidding tactics and other factors as much as weather – but the fact remains that a large revenue pool has been evaporated by the impact of solar.

In the same way that one third of the network costs are to cater for about 100 hours of peak demand a year, generators source a huge amount of their annual revenue from similar events. The problem for many coal generators is that they grew to rely on these peak pricing events to boost their revenue, and inflate their values. Solar eats into those revenues whenever they produce – because the output comes during the day-time period, when prices are normally higher.

Stuart at Early Warning has a look at the growth in solar power globally compared to that of wind power - Wind and Solar Global Stats.

On Friday, I discussed the BP statistics for global solar installations. Today, I compare that to the wind installation capacity from the same source. As you can see above, the world has installed significantly more wind than solar capacity.

Before we go further, a reminder that both these sets of numbers are for nameplate capacity, and all renewables suffer from intermittency issues meaning that the fraction of full power they produce, averaged over time, is a lot less than 100%. Several readers corrected me on Friday that my assumption of solar capacity factor of 30% is probably too high. I still havent found any good global statistics, but it does seem likely they are right, and solar capacity factors are probably more like 15-20%. Wind capacity factors are in the range 20-40%. So in terms of actual delivered energy, the difference is probably greater than the capacity graph above would suggest.

However, in recent years, solar has been growing much faster ...

Wind has been growing in the range 20-35% for 15 years now, and had a not so great 2010 (weve already discussed the collapse of US wind installation last year). Solar was growing in the same range until the early 2000s, but has lately taken off and had an unbelievable 2010.

Large and small stars in harmonious coexistence (8/14/06)

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of one of the hundreds of star-forming stellar systems, called stellar associations, located 180,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The LMC is the second closest known satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, orbiting it roughly every 1.5 billion years. Earlier ground-based observations of such systems had only allowed astronomers to study the bright blue giant stars in these systems, and not the low-mass stars.

Star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Click for 1280×1280 image

I want to call attention (somewhat belatedly) to a series of three very good tutorial blog posts at The Daily Transcript. Although they are nominally about changing views regarding cancer and its causes, they actually provide a nice overview of a number of important topics in molecular biology. Reading these posts will be a big help in understanding a lot of things written about here, in particular topics such as:

• cancer, and how it is "caused" by various factors like metabolism and genetic mutations, and indirectly affected by other biological systems like the immune system
  
• metabolism in general, and how problems with metabolism lead to disease conditions like diabetes and metabolic syndrome, perhaps even Alzheimers disease
  
• calorie restriction, and how it seems to play a role in longevity
  
• stem cells – what makes them special, how they function biologically and may play a role in the process of cancer
  
• important processes in cell biology, such as apoptosis, autophagy, and (of course) the cell cycle itself
  
• general topics in molecular biology, such as growth factors, transcription factors, signaling cascades, and cell surface receptors
  

So here are the links, with a brief summary of each:

From Metabolism to Oncogenes and Back - Part I (3/17/08)

Historical introduction to the subject. Explains how Otto Warbug had the idea, 100 years ago, that the way to understand cancer was through metabolism. Somewhat later, the discovery of the Rous Sarcoma Virus (1916), and much later, after the revolutionary understanding of DNA and modern molecular biology came about, the focus shifted to the role of oncogenes, tumor suppressors, and genetic mutations in cancer.

From Metabolism to Oncogenes and Back - Part II (3/21/08)

More detailed look at the molecular biology of cancer, protein signaling pathways in general, and TOR signaling in particular. This part includes a great diagram of some of the more important signaling pathways as far as metabolism and cancer are concerned. Besides TOR, it clearly emphasizes the importance of the MAP kinase Ras, and the phosphoinositide signaling proteins PI3K, PTEN, and AKT.

From Metabolism to Oncogenes and Back - Part III (4/2/08)

An even more technical summary of recent discoveries about metabolism, and the peculiar kind of metabolic activity found in cancer cells. It appears that a type of enzyme called pyruvate kinase, which occurs in various forms, plays a big role in cell metabolism and whether a cell uses available energy for making sugars, fats, or DNA.

Tags: cancer, TOR signaling

We continue to learn more about the neuropsychological basis of moral thinking and moral emotions in humans:

Justice In The Brain: Equity And Efficiency Are Encoded Differently (5/8/08)

Which is better, giving more food to a few hungry people or letting some food go to waste so that everyone gets a share" A study appearing in Science finds that most people choose the latter, and that the brain responds in unique ways to inefficiency and inequity.

The study, by researchers at the University of Illinois and the California Institute of Technology, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of people making a series of tough decisions about how to allocate donations to children in a Ugandan orphanage.

There are two main issues regarding moral decision making here.

The first involves two separate principles often used in analyzing moral/ethical problems related to the distribution of goods within a group of people. (The group might be children in a family or different classes of people in a society, among many possibilities.) On one hand, it is generally regarded as "good" to maximize "equity" in moral decisions, so that some individuals are not favored over others without significant justification. (I prefer the term "fairness" for this.)

On the other hand, it is also regarded as "good" to maximize "efficiency", so that the greatest total amount of benefit accrues to a group as a whole. (I prefer the term "utility" for this.)

But these principles can come into conflict, and the research discussed here investigates a contrived, but sharp, example. Philosophers of ethics call such dilemmas the problem of "distributive justice".

The second issue concerns the style of thinking that a decision maker faced with this kind of dilemma does use, and also, perhaps, what style the decision maker "should" use. On one hand, the decider might try to systematically and logically apply some standard set of rules that are considered appropriate for the situation. But on the other hand, the decider might rely more on emotional factors that indicate what "feels right", the "gut feeling", about what seems "right" in a concrete situation.

Philosophers often describe these two alternatives as "cognitivist" vs. "sentimentalist". The former is sometimes associated with the philosopher Immanuel Kant, and the latter with David Hume.

What emerges from the research is (not surprisingly) that individual decision makers differ in the degree that they favor "equity" vs. "efficiency", and also whether they tend to rely more on logic or emotion to make their decisions.

More interestingly, most people normally process considerations of both equity and efficiency in order to reach a decision, but different parts of the brain are used for the two. Likewise, in making the decision, distinct parts of the brain which normally handle emotional or logical processing can become involved in processing the equity/efficiency trade-off.

One way to think of this is that there are separate calculations of both equity and efficiency that are made for each available choice. And then the result of those calculations are fed to separate subsystems to weigh the alternatives.

The different moral and ethical decisions that different people will arrive at can be attributed to individual differences as to how the various stages of the decision process are handled. For instance, an individual may favor equity over efficiency, and tend to use emotion rather than logic to reach the decision.

Heres what the study found:

In these trails, subjects overwhelmingly chose to preserve equity at the expense of efficiency, Hsu said. "They were all quite inequity averse." The findings support other studies that show that most people are fairly intolerant of inequity.

The animation, in conjunction with the fMRI, allowed the researchers to view activity in the brain at critical moments in the decision-making process. After analyzing the data, they found that different brain regions -- the insula, putamen and caudate -- were activated differently, and at different points in the process, Hsu said.

Activation of the insula varied from trial to trial in relation to changes in equity, while activity in the putamen corresponded to changes in efficiency, he said.

In contrast, the caudate appeared to integrate both equity and efficiency once a decision was made.

The role of the insula (or, more formally, insular cortex) is especially interesting, since this brain region has been associated with quite a few other types of social-emotional mental processing. Well come back to that in a moment. But here are the conclusions of the researchers:

The involvement of the insula appears to support the notion that emotion plays a role in a persons attitude towards inequity, Hsu said.

The insula is known to play a key role in the awareness of bodily states and emotions. Studies have shown that it is activated in people experiencing hunger or drug-related cravings, and in those feeling intense emotions such as anger, fear, disgust or happiness. Other research has implicated the insula in mediating fairness. ...

Together, the results "show how the brain encodes two considerations central to the distributive justice calculus and shed light on the cognitivist/sentimentalist debate regarding the psychological underpinnings of distributive justice," the authors wrote.

Heres how another report about this research summed it up:

Your Brain on Ethics (5/8/08)

The fMRI scans contain hints of how these two factors might be encoded by the brain. The insula, a brain region linked to processing emotion, became more active when subjects considered more inequitable distributions of meals; it was also more active in subjects whose choices suggested a greater-than-average aversion to inequity. Activity in another region, the putamen, seemed to track the common good, rising in proportion to the total number of meals that could be donated in a given case.

Now lets have a quick overview of the insula. Turns out that its involved in a lot more than just moral decision-making. Heres a general article from a bit over a year ago:

A Small Part of the Brain, and Its Profound Effects (2/6/07)

According to neuroscientists who study it, the insula is a long-neglected brain region that has emerged as crucial to understanding what it feels like to be human.

They say it is the wellspring of social emotions, things like lust and disgust, pride and humiliation, guilt and atonement. It helps give rise to moral intuition, empathy and the capacity to respond emotionally to music. ...

If it does everything, what exactly is it that it does?

For example, the insula “lights up” in brain scans when people crave drugs, feel pain, anticipate pain, empathize with others, listen to jokes, see disgust on someone’s face, are shunned in a social settings, listen to music, decide not to buy an item, see someone cheat and decide to punish them, and determine degrees of preference while eating chocolate.

Damage to the insula can lead to apathy, loss of libido and an inability to tell fresh food from rotten. ...

Of course, like every important brain structure, the insula — there are actually two, one on each side of the brain — does not act alone. It is part of multiple circuits.

The insula itself is a sort of receiving zone that reads the physiological state of the entire body and then generates subjective feelings that can bring about actions, like eating, that keep the body in a state of internal balance. Information from the insula is relayed to other brain structures that appear to be involved in decision making, especially the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortices.

Stay tuned. Well be discussing the insula quite a bit more here, I think.

Further reading:

The Right and the Good: Distributive Justice and Neural Encoding of Equity and Efficiency – Original research report published 5/8/08 at Science Express (sub. rqd. for full access)

Which Orphans Do You Want to Starve? – Blog article by Sharon Begley at Newsweek

How Fairness Is Wired In The Brain – 5/28/08 press release about the research dealing with fairness and the insula

Tags: morality, fairness, utility, neuroscience, neurobiology, insula, insular cortex

ZNet has a look at the Iraq oil law - Iraqi Oil: What is hidden inside the Oil Contracts from the 1st and 2nd Bid Rounds ? (via Energy Bulletin). I found the point that the international oil companies will get additional payments for *not* producing oil kind of interesting, given their long history of suppressing Iraqi oil production.

Over eleven months have passed since the signing of the oil contracts between the Federal Ministry of Oil in Baghdad and the International oil companies (IOCs) resulting from the first and second bid rounds. However, to this date none of these contracts have been publicly released or published in any foreign language. Amazingly, all the contracts are written in English and none of them have even been translated into Arabic by the oil ministry in Baghdad, for the Iraqi people or even their representatives in the Federal parliament in Baghdad to look at and to see how their future is going to be shaped.

I have now obtained access to some of the contracts. My sources have specified that I cannot publish them in full, but I can discuss several aspects of them, which I shall do here.

My analyses will not cover the consequences of these contracts for the future of the Iraqi oil and gas industries or the future relations between Iraq and OPEC and its effect on international oil prices, as I already have covered these important topics in my previous articles [Iraqi Oil: The influence of the 1st Bid Round on the Future of Iraqs National Oil and Gas industries and [Iraqi Oil: Are the 1st and 2nd Bid Rounds Part of A Wise Resource Development Strategy Or Could They Turn Out To Be Steps in the Wilderness? ]

... Conclusions

1. Articles 12 and 37 explain the reasons for the secrecy surrounding the 1st and 2nd bid round oil contracts and the lack of real transparency by the Federal Ministry in Baghdad. Not only have the contracts not been made public, but they have not even been translated into Arabic, which should make every Iraqi suspicious of the motives behind all the secrecy covering the contracts to this date.

2. Article 12 shows that the margin of profits which were agreed on officially with the IOCs contractors does not represent the only profit that the IOCs will receive from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, as the Ministry of Oil will compensate the contractors for the quantity of oil that they do not produce, which will in itself represent a penalty on the Iraqi people, whilst the IOC will receive additional profits for doing nothing.

3. Article 37 is a very significant article in terms of setting up the economic future of the Iraqi people and their future sovereignty. Therefore it is not wise to leave these vital decisions in the hands of bureaucrats in the Ministry of Oil or, for that matter, in the hands of a very weak government, without allowing the Iraqi people to have their say on their future by ensuring that such laws can only turn into lawful contracts if they are at least passed by an elected parliament, as required by existing Law number 97 dated 1967 which is still in force, or by a public referendum.

4. There are some analysts who believe that the US oil companies lost out from the awarded contracts, since only two of them, Exxon Mobil and Occidental have been awarded contracts. In my judgment this was not the case, as today what we call the International Oil Companies are really no longer national oil companies operating in the international market, as was the case up to the 1970s. In todays market, what we call IOCs are in fact multinational oil companies (MOC), owned by the multinational financial institutions (mostly US), with share holders from around the globe, and not by one nations share holders. It is more likely today that the external size of operations and profits of theses companies comes from projects from all over the globe rather than from one nation, as shown by the cases of BP, Shell and most others including CNPC.

5. The contracts awarded in the 1st and 2nd bid rounds confirm that the US occupation of Iraq which started in 2003 did achieve some of its targets. In particular the occupation succeeded in ensuring that the future control of Iraqi oil stayed in the hands of the multinational oil companies and not in the hands of the Iraqi people and their legislative body.