Top of the Ecological Pyramid

What do you think is the strongest animal on earth? The lion No — they are often trampled to death by African elephants. The hippo and rhino are also considered to be strong animals that lions are unable to  defeat in a one-to-one fight. As far as aquatic animals go, crocodiles would present strong competition as well. Meanwhile, many people think that polar bears are the strongest carnivores although taking their habitats into account, they would never meet African elephants. After all, there is no absolute champion on the ground.

Turning the focus to marine animals, on the other hand, orcas reign supreme over the oceanic ecosystem. Also known as killer whales, orcas can swim incredibly fast (approximately 80 km/h; for comparison, great white sharks swim at 25~35 km/h), intelligently communicate with their shoal by means of sound and supersonic, pressure their targets in various clever ways and prey with their sharp fangs. Their habitat ranges across almost the entire ocean, from the polar regions to the equator. Thus they dominate the whole ocean which occupies more than 70% of our planet. 

In addition to preying on aquatic species, killer whales often attack animals living near the seaside. Believe it or not, orcas can sometimes even triumph over polar bears. Once in the water, even polar bears are powerless against killer whales due to significant differences of swimming speed and body size. Although labelled “killer”, however, there have been few reports of killer whales actually killing a human. They have the intelligence to avoid unnecessary, meaningless battles. Along with their beauty, killer whales deserve to be titled king of the vast ocean. 

One Year After the March 11 Earthquake

Tragedies are difficult to overcome, even though one year has passed. Ever since the devastating March 11earthquake occurred, much has been snatched away.

Japan was seriously damaged by the one-two punch of the massive March 11 earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. The ensuing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power plant has been making the situation even worse. For the meantime, all that people can do is stay away from the atomic epicenter and avoid eating foods contaminated by radioactive substances; no one knows how to cope with this disaster. Most Japanese people even do not knowhow large the actual danger zone is because there is little data published. Besides, few studies have been conducted to examine how the radioactive materials used in the nuclear plants affect real humans. When radiation leaks were detected after the reactor explosions, a government dignitary stated that there would be no immediate influence upon health. To the contrary, when he visited Fukushima on April 19, he was wearing protective clothing that covered his entire body and stayed there only a couple of minutes, although citizens around the plant were told to just stay at their homes without adequate countermeasures against the radiation leaks. Apparently TEPCO and the government are concealing the actual hazard map. A Cabinet minister who committed a gaffe by saying “Fukushima is a necropolis,” resigned from his position, probably because of complaints from those outraged by his comment and pressure from other Cabinet members or possibly lobbyists.

Meanwhile, due to an increasing fear of another nuclear crisis, almost all the domestic nuclear plants have been suspended since last March, which triggered an energy crisis across the country. In Japan, there is only one electricity provider in each district, and few alternative energy resources are ready to replace this country's major powers, namely thermal or hydroelectric power. Electricity demand in the capital is so huge that TEPCO, which exclusively provides electricity in the Tokyo metropolitan area and caused the nuclear crisis, cannot supply sufficient energy without atomic power, which led to last summer's energy crisis.

Despite these hurdles, however, the stricken areas are gradually recovering. Some media reported the incredible recuperation in northeastern Japan:

• What a comeback! Eleven months after the tsunami ravaged Japan, a series of pictures reveals the incredible progress being made to clear up the devastation — Daily Mail
• Japan tsunami recovery: Then and now — CBS

I do believe Japan is an amazingly strong country. Despite the fact that many cities were completely obliterated by the tsunami, hopes won't be shattered.

The Origin of Language

Do you know the tale of the Tower of Babel? And do you believe in it? 

Synopsis

There used to be a prosperous place where everyone spoke a single language. To flaunt their huge power, these people attempted to build a tower as high as heaven, using brick and asphalt. God, in anger with their arrogance, gave them a diversity of spoken languages in order to disturb their work. Mixed up with this interference, people couldn't manage to complete the construction and eventually scattered across the world. 

This is just an imaginary story, but it has been largely (at least in Japan) used to explain to children why people living in different places speak different languages. Ever wondered how your language emerged? In spite of years of study, the true answer to this question has not been revealed yet. To fill the linguistic gap, Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, a Polish linguist, invented an artificial language called Esperanto, but this attempt has not fulfilled its ultimate goal of uniting the world with an identical language. Anyhow it has been a focus of interest in how languages differentiate.

Earlier this year, a study conducted by a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand suggested that from a phonemic perspective, the majority of modern languages seem to have originated from a singleton. This theory is interesting in that on contrary to the currently common views that each language locally emerged independently of others, it claims that there is a simple, yet significant phonic pattern which can be considered to have branched off from an African language. According to a review article, a longer migration distance from Africa decreases a language's diversity of phonemes; some African languages have more than a hundred phonemes whereas Hawaiian, toward the far end of the human migration route out of Africa, has only 13.

I think Atkinson's hypothesis is persuasive because australopithecus, the ancestors of Homo sapiens, were born in Africa and so it is natural to think that the language spoken in mother Africa is the mother tongue of the human race. 

Seems like the Tower of Babel existed in Africa. 

References

Phonetic Clues Hint Language Is Africa-Born — The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/science/15language.html

Atkinson, QD: Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from Africa. Science 332(6027):346–349, 2011.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6027/346

 (The full text is available only to subscribers.)

Occupy Wall Street

I once wrote about the unequal society. Now the lower class seems to have reached a breaking point of patience (I don't have the intention of discrimination by saying “lower class”; I just mean average people who do not earn an incredibly tremendous amount of money). On Wall Street in New York City, a large number of US citizens, mainly young people, have been performing a mass demonstration since a couple of weeks ago, blaming banks for causing the financial crisis. They are also calling for saving people from poverty. The US government and police are desperately seeking a way to calm down the demonstration. Of the thousands of participants, more than 700 have been arrested. Social media companies like Yahoo, Google and Twitter began inspecting online documents in order to filter out instigative posts and emails. However, this action is about to spread worldwide, as well as across the US. In addition to the subsequent protests that have been taking place in other major US cities including Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, the leaders are appealing via the Internet to those living in internationally famous metropolises such as London and Tokyo to join an ensuing rally to “occupy” the hearts of their own cities as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Meanwhile, Europe is also suffering from a serious debt crisis. Germany, which runs a rather sound finance among the EU member countries, decided to provide a relief fund for Greece in case Italy and Spain may tumble into a chain reaction bankruptcy and subsequently plunge the whole world into the abyss, let alone Germany's foreign loans may turn to nothing due to Greece's default. However, this is just a temporary deal. Earlier today, the Belgian and French governments announced that the major Belgian bank Dexia fell into a bankruptcy and would be taken over by an official organization. Greece is still amid a long line of debt deadlines.  This emergency was triggered by the discovery of Greek's financial cheats of when it aimed to join the EU. As a consultant, the American bank Goldman Sachs gave the Greek government the sneaky tactic. I think Goldman should be punished and pay the losses with interests.

Apparently capitalism is facing a turning point. I hope everything will start to turn to a right direction.

The Rich Get Richer

According to the Pareto principle, the top 20% billionaires possess 80% of all the property. Similarly, 80% of a company's profits come from 20% of its customers. Known as the 80-20 rule, this describes inequality in the world. But how does this happen?

High-income brackets basically have a longer time frame to make a living due to their richness. Therefore they can afford to invest stocks, real estate, etc., or deposit their extra money into a bank, which can be another source of income besides their earnings. Executives of a company can control their employees' salaries and even may have another option of laying them off when in a financial crisis. Without extra money or higher positions, however, life would be quite harder. All that the poor can do is hang on the edge; there is no room for investment or saving. Thus the wealthy classes have many choices to raise and save money while needy families do not. 

This is why “the rich get richer”. 

Inspired by this notion, Google in collaboration with Stanford University developed an algorithm called PageRank which determines the importance or value of a website by counting up its incoming links to the site from the vast ocean of the internet; the more linked from others, the more important the website should be. PageRank resembles citations of a paper and the impact factor of a journal that are the major criterions in the academia. Highly ranked websites appear in the top of search results when searched with a related word or phrase, and are thus viewed frequently. Web creators may even place a link to the website, which triggers a positive feedback effect that accelerates further access. This is how popular websites become more popular, in other words “rich” from the viewpoint of popularity. For Google it also leads to richness in the original meaning; many enterprises pay a lot to Google to publish an advertisement for the purpose of boosting reach to their own websites, and those ads are the biggest revenue source for the web giant.

The idea of the-rich-get-richer is similar to the “winner-takes-all” process as represented in the SNS market. MySpace used to be dominant with more than 200 million users all over the world, but has been losing its influence after Facebook became the largest community. Instead Facebook now overwhelms other SNS in membership with 750 million active accounts worldwide followed by Twitter's 200 million, and therefore is considered to be the current “winner”. 

Taking these into account, Warren Buffett's insistence upon raising taxes sounds appropriate for the government to redistribute wealth since most successful persons such as executives and high earning investors including himself should own sufficient money aside from their funds, savings and daily expenses. The 80-year-old billionaire stated that his federal tax bill last year was $6,938,744, equal to only 17.4% of his taxable income. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-15/buffett-urges-congress-to-raise-taxes-on-coddled-billionaires.html

Overall, we must accept the inequality; the world is dominated by a mere handful of the privileged class. Income inequality and economic polarization are unavoidable under capitalism. Nevertheless we should tackle the problem somehow in order everyone to live a happy life.

Zuckerberg is on Google+

TechCrunch: “Zukerberg Surprised That People Are Surprised He's On Google+”

Facebook創設者Mark Zuckerbergが後発であり敵対するSNS, Google+に登録したことに対する反応をまとめた記事。

Facebook社CEOのMark ZuckerbergがGoogle+に登録したというニュースはメディアにとって一大事であった。ForbesからThe Daily Mailまで、Facebook創設者がGoogle+にプロフィールを作成し、Facebook共同創設者Dustin Moskovitzや限Facebook社CTOのBret TaylorらとCircleを立ち上げたと報じた。

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg joining Google+ was a major media event, with everyone from Forbes to The Daily Mail covering the fact that the founder established a Google+ profile, building Circles that include former Facebooker Dustin Moskovitz and current Facebook CTO Bret Taylor.

多くの人がホンモノのZuckerbergが敵対するSNSに参加するものかと疑心暗鬼である一方、techブロガーRobert ScobleはZuckerberg本人に確認メールを送り、「お知らせしよう。Zuckerbergがたった今返信メールを送って来た。『なぜ僕がGoogleアカウントを持っていることがそんなに驚きなのか分からない』とのことだ。」とツイートした。 

While many were doubtful that the real Zuckerberg would join a competing social service, tech blogger Robert Scoble texted Zuckerberg himself to confirm, tweeting out “Name drop moment. Zuckerberg just texted me back. Says ”Why are people so surprised that I'd have a Google account?””

ホンモノのZuckがGoogle+にいることにまだ懐疑的な人がいるといけないので、Scobleはこう私に教えてくれた。ZuckerbergはGoogle+アカウントの意味でGoogleアカウントと言っていると。しかしここで本当に聞きたいのは、ZuckerbergがわざわざGoogle+に参加することを選んだことに対してなぜ人々が驚いているのかということだ。

In case anyone is still doubting that it is the real Zuck on there, Scoble tells me that Zuckerberg indeed meant Google+ account when he referred to Google account. But the real question is, why are people so surprised that Zuckerberg would choose to be on Google+?

おそらくその答えはGoogle創設者Larry PageとSergey Brinの前例にある。彼らはFacebook上でやりとりするのを避けたようだ。(Steven Levyによると、Brinは実際には偽名でFacebookに登録している。Google会長Eric SchmidtもMikeがなりすましをしたときとは別にFacebookに登録していると噂されている。)

Perhaps the answer lies in the precedent set by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who seem to have shied away from interacting on Facebook as themselves. (According to Steven Levy, Brin is actually on Facebook as a pseudonym. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is also rumored to be on the service, independently of when Mike impersonated him).

PageとBrinがどうしているかは置いておいて、多くの起業家(例えばMySpaceのTom)の実例から言えば、敵対サービスを利用するのは至って普通のことであり、必ずしも諜報活動とは見なされない。ZuckerbergがGoogle+上では今のTwitter上での状況よりもアクティブにならんことを切に願う。

Page's and Brin's behavior aside, plenty of other founders (MySpace Tom for example) have shown that it's perfectly normal to partake and enjoy competitive services, and that it shouldn't necessarily be considered an act of espionage. I for one just hope Zuckerberg is more prolific on Google+ than he is on Twitter.