Apophis

News today that British scientists are at the forefront of contingency plans to divert the asteroid Apophis. Apophis, believed to be a 250 - 400 m diameter piece of space rock (not 240 miles as reported in the Telegraph), is heading towards Earth at a rate of 30 km per second. At its current rate it'll just be a gnat's knacker away from hitting Earth in early 2039. Following its current path Apophis is likely to glance the Earth's atmosphere at a distance of 22,400 miles - not far at all in space terms. Contrast this is the distance of the Moon, about 240,000 miles away, and that of communication satellites, about 22,300 miles for a geosynchronous orbit.

The chances of it hitting the Earth are currently estimated at 1:45,000, corresponding to a Torino scale value of 1. These odds are subject to regular refinement as the progress of Apophis is tracked and have stood as high as 1:37 back in December 2004. If Apophis were to hit the Earth the impact would have the equivalent force of one hundred thousand Hiroshima bombs.

Stevenage-based engineers at the space company Astrium have today submitted plans for a satellite to track the final approach of Apophis. The data collected will be used to formulate an asteroid diversion plan, if it seems Apophis is drifting too close to Earth for comfort.

Dr Mike Healy, the Astrium space science director, said: "It is imperative to collect data on Apophis as soon as we can because once we know it's on a collision course the safest way to avoid disaster is to nudge the asteroid to change its orbit. We think that by 2036 there is a significant risk of collision. Up until around 2025, it would be relatively painless to do something about it. You could ram it hard with a one-tonne spacecraft and it would change momentum enough to shift it. If you leave it any later you either have to use much more mass or use a nuclear bomb to achieve greater impact."

The International Planetary Society is offering a cash reward to the researchers who come up with the best plan for collecting data on Apophis.

Prison Strike

In a snap decision today the Prison Officers' Association (POA) has called a strike of their members across the entire HM Prison Service (HMPS) managed estate. The strike, for a minimum of 24 hours, is in response to poor working conditions and a below inflation pay award. There is much discontent within HMPS that the government has decided the 'independent' pay review body's recommendation of a 2.5% pay award should be phased in over 2 years instead of one year as intended. In effect, this decision reduced the value of the pay award to only 1.9% which is slightly below the current rate of inflation - in real terms HMPS staff would be taking a pay cut.

Another area of concern is that attacks on HMPS staff have risen by 34% over the last 5 years. According to Colin Moses of the POA, it currently stands that an average of 8 prison staff are assaulted every day. Furthermore, despite the prison population being at an all time record high, the government has asked HMPS to reduce its budget by £60 million next year. The POA argue that HMPS will only be able to make the saving by cutting back on essential searches and security checks.

Nick Herbert, the shadow justice secretary, said: "This is a crisis of the Government's own making. Prison officers are having to deal with appalling overcrowding because of Gordon Brown's refusal to provide sufficient resources and capacity to deal with offenders. Labour's management of the prisons has become a national disgrace."

Norman Brennan, of the Victims of Crime Trust, said: "The government should not have let it come to this. The number of prisons and staff have not increased in line with the number of prisoners and the system is in meltdown. If police are drafted in, who will look after the general public? There will be an explosion in crime."

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice said: "We regret this action by the Prison Officers' Association, which is illegal and a breach of the Joint Industrial Relations Procedural Agreement."

My opinion, for what it's worth, is as much as it is wrong for the POA to be staging illegal industrial action it is just as wrong, probably more so, for the government to be making derisory financial provision for an already overstretched prison service. This isn't a problem that has just crept up on the government - there have been years of underinvestment in the prison infrastructure and the morale of prison staff has been wavering for quite a while.

The 2006/07 report by the Prison Service Pay Review Body can be downloaded here.

Veteran Disgrace

This should be a familiar topic to older readers after my 'The Battle of Trafalgar' post of a few months ago. Back then I was talking about a BBC documentary which charted the progress of UK veterans trying to gain adequate recompense for the pain and suffering they had endured while serving in our armed forces. Predictably, in a nation which places more value on the suffering of convicted criminals than its service personnel, they were facing an uphill struggle - in some cases receiving no support or recognition whatsoever. If I were in government I would be ashamed to have performed so ineffectively in recognising the ongoing support and debt of gratitude we owe each of our veterans. This government has no shame and is a disgrace.

Today I read a similar article which pushed me even closer towards apoplexy. It was the story of 23-year old ex paratrooper Ben Parkinson. Fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province Ben was blown up by a landmine. In the blast he sustained horrific injuries, consequently losing both legs as well as severely injuring his skull, spine, ribs, spleen and pelvis. Ben lies in a hospital bed lucky to be alive. At what price does the Ministry of Defence value the years of pain, discomfort and immobility that lie ahead for Ben? Only £152,000.

Contrast Ben's £152,000 with the following payouts:

• £484,000 for an RAF typist who suffered from repetitive strain injury.
• £248,000 for the convicted lag who fell over in a prison shower. He claimed the injury left him with numb legs and impotent, although he subsequently fathered a daughter.
• £575,000 for a young prisoner who unsuccessfully attempted suicide.
• £750,000 to 197 heroine addicts whose treatment was withdrawn or cut short when they were in prison.

Words fail me. Anyone for a coup?

Endangered Species

I read today that the common starling, Sturnus vulgaris (emphasis on the 'vulgaris' bit), may not be quite so common after all. I don't like starlings. I think their hotchpotch of colour is ghastly and they're filthy creatures. I detest them almost as much as I do pigeons. I think my dislike of starlings stems back to when I was much younger - say 3 or 4 years old. Little Tom lived in the small Northumberland coastal village of Seahouses back then - a place so remote from civilisation that people had coal fires to heat their homes. Mains gas has still not arrived in Seahouses even to this day - a fact symptomatic of the desolate, unevolved little place it is. One day a starling flew down our chimney, popped out of the fireplace and flapped around the living room in a frantic state. Being only small myself the irate bird appeared very large and very scary and I was absolutely terrified.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. In addition to the starling it appears the personable little house sparrow is also under threat. The population of both starlings and sparrows has more than halved over the last 25 years - a time period spookily similar to my current age. I remember in my childhood how I used to feed sparrows, blue tits and black birds in the back garden. As I sit here today I can't remember the last time I saw a sparrow in the back garden. It is believed the decline in sparrow numbers is due to a shortage of insects in the summer months. The starling's decline is attributed to a loss of meadowland to agriculture. No doubt, as it's the trendy thing at the moment, there'll be claims that global warming is also a contributory factor.

The complete Species and Habitat Review Report can be downloaded here.

Rewriting the History Books

Wikipedia - cut and paste paradise.

A couple of weeks ago I was reading an interesting article about how a new software program had been developed by researchers at Caltech. The program, Wikipedia Scanner, allows the tracing of organisations and individuals who attempt to rewrite the history books by changing their Wikipedia entries. Several high profile organisations have been left red-faced by the revelation that they have doctored their entries to cast a more positive glow on their achievements or bury bad news that was otherwise included. The scanner works by trawling though Wikipedia edits, matching them to IP addresses and retrieving the corresponding Whois data.

Among the big names being caught out by the new technology are Wal-Mart, who altered their entry by replacing "wages at Wal-Mart are about 20 percent less than at other retail stores" with "the average wage at Wal-Mart is almost double the federal minimum wage". Also in the US, someone using a Republican Party computer changed the 'Post-Saddam' section of the Ba'ath Party entry to read "US-led liberation" instead of "US-led occupation". Earlier this year Microsoft attracted widespread criticism for hiring a programmer to correct details on Wikipedia about some of its products. In particular the Corporation was dissatisfied with the coverage Open Office, a rival product, was receiving on the encyclopedia and sought to "provide more balance" by correcting "slanted language".

Meanwhile in the UK computers at the Labour Party's Milbank headquarters have been used to sanitise an entry related to 'Labour Students'. The deleted text originally read: "It is sometimes claimed that Labour Students has helped the rise of careerists within the party at the expense of more radical leftwingers".

The latest individual to be left with egg on his face is Australian prime minister John Howard. According to today's Telegraph article aides of Mr Howard were responsible for scores of edits relating to his administration. One of the entries was amended to remove the unflattering 'Captain Smirk' nickname of government treasurer Peter Costello. Modifications were also made to an entry related to the 'children overboard affair', in which the Howard government falsely accused the asylum seekers on a sinking boat of throwing their children into the sea so that they would be rescued by the Australian navy. But it's not just political entries that have been targeted by the Howard administration - in a random fit of juvenility the prime minister's aides also added bizarre statements like “Freemasonry is the work of Satan” and “Jesus is god” to various entries.

Ann Widdecombe Tackles Benefit Cheats

Ann Widdecombe MP.

Mick Philpott.

Ann Widdecombe is one of my favourite Conservative MPs. She is a shining beacon of good Conservatism - a Conservative who is tough on crime and a strong supporter of traditional family values. She's also a good Christian lady who has done a lot for the people of Maidstone and The Weald over the last twenty years she has represented them at Westminster. It's Ann's strong belief in traditional family values, combined with her refreshingly candid approach to often controversial issues, that undoubtedly made ITV choose her for the role of presenting 'Ann Widdecombe Versus the Benefits Culture', screened earlier this evening.

In the show Ann spent a week living with father of eighteen Mick Philpott, branded a super-scrounger by The Sun newspaper. Philpott has a rather unorthodox lifestyle sharing his home with his wife, girlfriend and eleven of the children and raking in a whopping £510 in benefits every week. Although physically capable of working Philpott ardently refuses to get a job, favouring instead to wallow in front of the TV and shamelessly live off the state. Why does he do that? Because the nanny state allows him too. When asked what others might think of his sponging antics he snorts "if the public don't like it they can get f*cked." According to Philpott it's okay to have so many children because it's the basis of human existence - to reproduce and populate the planet. But after years of physical and mental degradation has this couch potato finally met his match in Ann? Unfortunately, it would appear not.

Despite numerous profanities being hurled in her direction Ann attempts to get Philpott a job. She's keen to lift him from his vegetative state and promote him from the roll of feckless dole waller to that of self-sufficient hunter gatherer. For a moment it looks as if he will rise to the occasion, when he responds positively to the idea of working as a barrel maker. But his enthusiasm is short lived and he has cried off before even reaching the brewery on day one.

I was rather hoping for a positive outcome with Philpott but sadly it was unforthcoming. A message to all bus drivers in Derby - if you see the man pictured above in the middle of the road please be sure not to take avoiding action!

Degree or Not Degree, That is the Question

Continuing my education theme (lacking in inspiration as I am) today I write about the recent Taxpayers' Alliance (TPA) report entitled 'Non-Courses 2007'. The TPA brands itself as Britain's independent grassroots campaign for lower taxes. It describes non-courses as those which lend the credibility of scholarly qualifications to non-academic subjects - in a nutshell Mickey Mouse degrees. In the preamble to the report the Alliance cites the government's drive to get 50% of school leavers into higher education for the proliferation, arguably dumbing down, of the degree courses on offer.

The top 25 non-courses are as follows:

• Activity and Play Leadership (Swansea Institute of Higher Education)
• Advanced Practices in Beauty Therapy (Bradford College)
• Adventure Recreation (University of Bedfordshire)
• Adventure Travel (University of Central Lancashire)
• Aromatherapy and Therapeutic Bodywork (University of Greenwich)
• Baking Technology Management (London South Bank University)
• Beauty Therapy (UHI Millennium Institute)
• Commercial Floral Design (Myerscough College)
• Cricket Coaching (East Lancashire Institute of Higher Education)
• Culinary Arts and Adventure Tourism (University of Derby)
• Equestrian Psychology (Welsh College of Horticulture)
• Fashion Buying (Manchester Metropolitan University)
• Floristry Design (Bishop Burton College)
• Food and Drink Management (Askham Bryan College)
• Golf Management (UHI Millennium Institute)
• Lifestyle Management (Leeds Metropolitan University)
• Martial Arts and Adventure Tourism (University of Derby)
• Modelmaking (University College for the Creative Arts)
• Outdoor Adventure with Philosophy (Marjon - The College of St Mark and St John)
• Professional Practice - Hairdressing and Media (Blackpool and The Fylde College)
• Science: Fiction and Culture (University of Glamorgan)
• Specialist Make-up Design (University of Bedfordshire)
• Stop-motion Animation and Puppet-Making (Staffordshire University)
• Visitor Attractions (Blackpool and The Fylde College)
• Watersports and Adventure Activities Management (Swansea Institute of Higher Education)

The TPA summarise their findings by saying that the worst offending institution is the University of Derby, which offers 41 non-courses. The total cost to the taxpayer of funding the non-courses is £41 million, which would be sufficient to offset the fees of real-course students by £104 or buy them a pint of beer every week (now there's a good idea). By the TPA's reckoning the lamest of the non-courses is Outdoor Adventure with Philosophy, offered by Marjon College in Plymouth.

On a positive note Britain is set to be equipped with the brightest minds in hairdressing, beauty management and flower arranging in the future. On the downside, these practical subjects could be better learned by hands-on experience in the workplace, rather than sapping funding from more academic degree programmes.

Read the report in full here.

Death Tax

As Benjamin Franklin once said "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." New proposals by the Conservative led Competitive Challenge working group recognise that, although death and taxes are inevitable, people should not be taxed merely for the act of dying.

Death duty has existed in the United Kingdom in one form or another since the late eighteenth century. Back then the duty focused primarily on real estate, but now it encompasses personal property, savings and gifts made by the deceased in the 7-years prior to death. The current incarnation of the duty, known as inheritance tax, has a rate of 40% of the value, at death, of a person's tax estate over the value of £300,000. For example, if someone died with an estate worth $400,000 they would be taxed at 40% of the £100,000 over the minimum threshold, so would end up paying £40,000. There are some exemptions from the tax estate including the first £55,000 left to a spouse or civil partner, gifts up to the total value of £3,000 in any given financial year and assets left to charity. A point to note is that the £55,000 exemption does not apply to the children of the deceased - if a single person or widower dies their children are liable to face the full inheritance tax bill.

Conservative former Cabinet minister John Redwood, leading Competitive Challenge, described inheritance tax as "not a popular tax." He went on to say "This has become even more true as the swift rise of house prices in much of the country has resulted in many people, who could not in any sense be described as rich, suddenly finding that their family will be liable to pay quite substantial amounts upon their estate." The average house price in the UK now stands at just shy of £211,000 leaving a relatively modest £89,000 buffer zone until the tax threshold is met. The Competitive Challenge report concluded that "We recommend the abolition of inheritance tax." Mr Redwood told Radio 4's Today programme that the group's proposals would not require cuts in public services because they would be financed by the proceeds of economic growth.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne, speaking to BBC News, confirmed that he was taking a keen interest in the group's proposals, cautiously saying "I've got to make sure that we can afford it, that the country can afford it, that it is consistent with economic stability, that it's part of a coherent economic programme... we are looking very closely at reform of inheritance tax and capital gains tax."

It would be nice to see some firm agreement on this one - why should someone who has been taxed from cradle to grave be taxed after death too?

The Gold Standard?

Today is a major milestone in the life of some 310,000 UK learners. It is a day that will either see their university and college places secured, or cast uncertainty on their future education, employment prospects and maybe even their soundness of mind. Today is A-level results day.

The General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (GCE A-level) is a qualification aimed at school sixth formers (in years 12 and 13 of their school education). It was introduced in 1951 and underwent its first major overhaul in 1987, with the introduction of the Advanced Supplementary Level (AS-level). The AS-level, broadly equivalent to half an A-level in terms of content, was introduced in an attempt to widen the knowledge of students by offering them an enhanced curriculum. More recently Curriculum 2000 saw further reforms of the A-level. This time the A-level was split into 2 parts - the Advanced Subsidiary (AS) examination, taken by students at the end of school year 12 and the A2 examination, taken by students at the end of school year 13. Successful completion of both the AS and A2 components leads to the award of a full A-level. A-level performance is one of the key academic criteria that universities use for selecting new undergraduates.

The national pass rate, the percentage of students achieving at least grade E, has risen annually for the past 25 years. Statistics provided by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), an organisation representing the GCE awarding bodies, shows the pass rate now stands at 96.9%, which is up 0.3% on that of the 2006 summer session. The percentage of entries receiving a top A grade has increased to 25.3%, which is up 1.2% on the 2006 summer session. With an ever increasing proportion of grade A passes and decreasing proportion of failures speculation naturally comes to the fore that the A-level is being dumbed down. But is it really?

Sadly for this year's A-level successes the answer is probably yes it is. The Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre (CEM) based at Durham University has been monitoring the academic ability of A-level students since 1983. It uses a system called the Test of Developed Ability (TDA) to monitor the performance of A-level students. The TDA has questions of a consistent format and difficulty each year and data stretching back to 1988 is available. TDA data reveals an interesting trend - students who obtain a TDA score of 50 have been achieving successively higher A-level results year on year.

But even this evidence doesn't prove that exams are getting easier. Could it be that students of today are more diligent? Maybe teachers are delivering higher quality lessons? Or maybe the exams are just delivered in a more candidate friendly format? Dr Robert Coe of CEM seems to think the latter point is the most influencial factor. He uses the analogy of climbing Mount Everest - the height (difficulty) is the same but modern day lightweight equipment makes the ascent slightly easier. Perhaps the most lightweight of today's A-level equipment is modularisation, meaning students have less to learn before cutting and pasting the answers. There's no need to cram the voluminous amounts of information that their counterparts sitting terminal examinations did a decade ago. Another advantage of the modules is that a student can resit, normally without penalty, if they perform badly - another luxury the class of the 1980's were lacking. Because examinations are marked in a more transparent and accountable manner students are more likely to appeal any injustice and have their marks revised. In theory marks can be revised either upwards or downwards, but in reality it is rarely to the detriment of the student.

Another consideration is that the examinations business is just that - a business - and a cut-throat one at that. The four UK awarding bodies (AQA, Edexcel, OCR and WJEC), all in competition with each other, have very individual styles of question and examination format. Most schools are very discerning about which awarding body they choose for each exam subject - quite simply, in the days of the league table, schools can not afford for students to be unsuccessful at A-level. The awarding bodies also have a vested financial interest in making their exams easy to understand and complete, without dropping the academic standard - for example, by breaking longer questions into smaller, easier to manage chunks.

Congratulations to everyone with A-level success today and good luck for the future. You can be assured that your grade accurately reflects your performance in this year's exams. However, what we can't be sure of because of changes in the examination format is that this year's exams are of the same 'gold' standard of those in years gone by.

Foot and Mouth Update

The FMD virus
(Oxford University).

So it now appears that it might not be impending doom after all. When I first heard about the recent FMD outbreak in Surrey I had flashbacks to 2001 - country paths being closed, car tyres disinfected, cattle being culled and the putrid smell of burning animal carcass drifting on the breeze. That's how it was in the north of England back then, but it's not like that this time. It appears, touch wood, that the latest occurrence of FMD has been quickly detected and nipped in the bud before it's had a chance to spread.

The latest suggestion is that the strain of virus found in Surrey, very similar to that of the 1967 UK outbreak, may have originated from a nearby research facility. The question now is which one? Was it the Institute for Animal Health, a government funded body seeking cures for FMD and other animal diseases, or was it Merial Animal Health, a large commercial producer of FMD vaccines. Professor Martin Shirley, director of the IAH, confirmed that a similar virus had been used in their research within the past 4 weeks, but insisted that there had been "no breaches of our procedures." David Biland, Merial's managing director, also issued a statement to the effect that "our initial investigation shows no breach of our procedures." Merial had produced a batch of FMD vaccine using this particular strain of virus on 16th July and yesterday took the step of voluntarily stopping production.

The FMD virus has an 8 day incubation period so people should remain vigilant for a while longer.

UK Braces for Foot and Mouth Epidemic

Just when I was struggling for something to write about it appears that foot and mouth disease (FMD) is back in the UK. The latest outbreak was confirmed at a Surrey farm this evening. DEFRA has been very quick to implement a 3 km protection zone and 10 km surveillance zone around the farm in question.

The outbreak is sure to bring back memories of the 2001 outbreak in the north of England. Back then it was dubious hygiene in a pig finishing unit at Hedon on the Wall in Northumberland. The 2001 virus spread quickly and some 2030 cases were reported. A total of 6 million animals were culled trying to bring the disease to a standstill. A report by the Royal Society, Britain's premier independent scientific knowledge base, estimated the financial loss to the food chain and agriculture as being £3.1 billion. A futher £2.5 billion was paid by the Government towards compensation and clean up costs.

The disease itself spreads from animal to animal by either direct contact, in a shared field or pen for example, or indirectly via contact with exhaled air, urine, faeces or milk. Cows, sheep and pigs can be infected with the virus. The main symptoms are blistering of the animal's tongue, lips and feet (see below), sudden lameness and the animal may want to lie down more than usual.

The early signs of blistering on the tongue of a cow.
Within a day or two the blisters may redden and burst.

An early blister on the hoove of a cow.

Increased biosecurity measures will help to prevent the spread of the disease. It's probably best to keep well away from livestock and agricultural land and premises if you can. If you work with cattle, sheep or pigs be sure to keep your equipment, boots and clothing spotlessly clean with disinfectant. Visitors should also take suitable precautions to guard against cross contamination.

Signs of the disease must be reported to DEFRA at the earliest opportunity.