Rotundus.com

Flavor Is Price of Scarlet Hue of Tomatoes, Study Finds

"researchers have discovered a genetic reason that diminishes a tomato’s flavor even if the fruit is picked ripe and coddled. The unexpected culprit is a gene mutation that was deliberately bred into almost all tomatoes because it conferred an advantage: It made them a uniform luscious scarlet when ripe."

Conspiracy Theory Theory

"Let’s turn now to computer and complexity based conspiracy theories. We are kidding here—let us repeat, we are just having fun. We do not really believe any of these on our 'Top Ten' list—or do we?" (HT: MR)

Accident: Tianjin E190 near Hotan on Jun 29th 2012, foiled hijack

What you can expect from a post-9/11 hijacking attempt: "Cabin crew, air marshals and passengers subdued the attackers, the aircraft returned to Hotan for a safe landing about 16 minutes after departure."

Market booms for men's cosmetics — but don't call it makeup

"Retailers angling to attract men have come up with a variety of skin-care products with creatively masculine names, packaged in cigar boxes and containers mimicking liquor bottles."

More from the New York Times book review of Jonathan Haidt's book ‘The Righteous Mind':

Haidt found that self-described liberals, especially those who called themselves “very liberal,” were worse at predicting the moral judgments of moderates and conservatives than moderates and conservatives were at predicting the moral judgments of liberals. Liberals don’t understand conservative values. And they can’t recognize this failing, because they’re so convinced of their rationality, open-mindedness and enlightenment.

Haidt isn’t just scolding liberals, however. He sees the left and right as yin and yang, each contributing insights to which the other should listen. In his view, for instance, liberals can teach conservatives to recognize and constrain predation by entrenched interests. Haidt believes in the power of reason, but the reasoning has to be interactive. It has to be other people’s reason engaging yours.

Biologists Reveal Potential 'Fatal Flaw' in Iconic Sexual Selection Study

"A classic study from more than 60 years ago suggesting that males are more promiscuous and females more choosy in selecting mates may, in fact, be wrong" - basically an argument that male and female fruit flies are equally promiscuous. The scientist's view on why people didn't address the problems in the study before: "Our worldviews constrain our imaginations. For some people, Bateman's result was so comforting that it wasn't worth challenging. I think people just accepted it."

Boy, 4, bids on $29,990 train

How would Darren's parents have survived if he had internet access at age 4?

Germany the Euro Winner? Hardly

This'll give you the flavour of the piece: "But has the euro benefited Germany more than other countries? ... if the euro was so vital to Germany’s external trade, then the increase in exports to euro zone members would have been greater than the increase to other countries. In fact, the reverse is the case."

The Shirt From Hell: The appalling rise of the smelly, sweaty, scratchy no-iron shirt.

I own a bunch of these and really don't mind them, but I found this rant a bit amusing. It was also interesting to read that: "this really is a guy thing; men's clothing last year was 11 times likelier than women's to be marketed as no-iron or wrinkle-resistant, based on figures from Cotton Incorporated, the trade group."

Shortly after I picked up a Dutch passport I discovered that the Dutch seemed to be further rethinking the whole dual-nationality thing - although apparently the most senior governmental advisory body thinks that getting rid of the dual-nationality thing is a bad idea. (That same article also noted that "The new rules, if they become law, will not affect people who currently hold multiple passports.")

So far the Dutch parliamentarians' behaviours have seemed a bit farcical at times. e.g.

Both [dual-nationality and a burqa ban] are difficult [issues] for caretaker home affairs minister Liesbeth Spies who is charged with piloting the legislation through parliament. Spies said earlier this month in an interview with the Volkskrant that as far as she is concerned, both pieces of legislation can be dropped.
But several days later, the minister stressed she was speaking then as a candidate for leadership of the Christian Democrats. 'I can and will defend both pieces of legislation,' Spies said.

Now we've got the latest installment - Ruling parties back dual nationality escape clause for Dutch expats. There you find the following:

On Thursday D66 parliamentarian Gerard Schouw won support from the ruling VVD and CDA parties for his plan to amend legislation aimed at stopping dual nationality. The amendment would allow Dutch expats to take a second nationality without losing their Dutch passports. ... 'We are proud of those Dutch nationals who export our knowledge and expertise,' CDA parliamentarian Mirjam Sterk is quoted as saying. According to the D66 website, a second proposal from Schouw, which would have made dual nationality possible for more people, was not backed by the ruling parties. 'If someone comes to the Netherlands, we think he or she should renounce their other nationality,' VVD MP Cora van Nieuwenhuizen is quoted as saying by Nos television.

Ever so slightly inconsistent isn't it?

There are certain issues related to dual-nationality that seem to me to be somewhat reasonable to insist on - (eventually) being able to communicate in a national language for one and, secondly, having some personal tie to the country. The current Canadian requirements for obtaining citizenship by descent actually seem to me to be one of the more reasonable way of dealing with this. Under the current Canada law, to quote Wikipedia:

Individuals can now only become Canadian citizens by descent if one of their parents was either a native-born citizen of Canada or a foreign-born but naturalized citizen of Canada. This effectively limits citizenship by descent to one generation born outside Canada.

This has produced some quirky results with the possibility of children being born stateless, but it would seem to that these situations could be dealt with through a fairly minor amendment to that legislation. At the moment there's somewhat of an accelerated process to obtain Canadian citizenship to try to deal with such cases.