Fish may respond to sound

Scientists are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by swimming into a net when they hear a tone that signals feeding time.

If it works, the system could eventually allow black sea bass to be released into the open ocean, where they would grow to market size, then swim into an underwater cage to be harvested when they hear the signal.

What's next, teaching them to coat themselves in batter and hop inside a fryer?

"It sounds crazy, but it's real," said Simon Miner, a research assistant at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood's Hole, which received a $270,000 grant for the project from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Miner said the specially trained fish could someday be used to bolster the depleted black sea bass stock. Farmed fish might become better acclimated to the wild if they can be called back for food every few days.

The bigger goal is to defray the costs of fish farming, an increasingly important source of the world's seafood. If fish can be trained to return to the farmer after feeding in the open ocean for several days, farms could save money on feed and reduce the amount of fish waste released in concentrated areas.

The key question for fish farmers: How many fish will actually return, and how many will be lost to predators or simply swim away?

Randy MacMillan, president of the National Aquaculture Association, said fish farmers won't be easily convinced to adopt open-ocean ranching.

"The commercial side is going to be skeptical," said MacMillan, who works on a trout farm in Idaho.

The Massachusetts project is one of several experiments funded by the federal government last year as part of aquaculture research.

"We're looking for innovations that will actually make a difference for coastal communities and the environment," said Michael Rubino, manager of NOAA Aquaculture. "It fits in both."

Previous experiments have used sound to train a fish to feed — similar to what Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov did in his famous dogs that salivated at the sound of a bell, expecting food.

In Japan, scientists have used sound to keep newly released farmed fish in certain areas, where they could be caught in traditional ways.

But no one has ever tried to get fish to leave and return to an enclosure where they can be scooped up.

The project began last summer using 6,500 black sea bass, a stout, bottom-dwelling fish that lives between Florida and Cape Cod and in the winter is generally not found north of New Jersey. The species grows up to 3 pounds and 20 inches long and has a thick, white flesh that can be filleted for broiling or cut into nuggets for frying.

Miner said the first objective was to see if the fish could truly be trained. He got his answer after keeping the fish in a circular tank, then sounding a tone before he dropped food in an enclosed "feeding zone" within the tank that the fish could enter only through a small opening.

Researchers played the tone for 20 seconds, three times a day, for about two weeks. Afterward, whenever the tone sounded, "you have remote-control fish," Miner said.

"You hit that button, and they go into that area, and they wait patiently," he said.

Miner is now trying to figure out how long the fish remember to associate the tone with food. He feeds the fish outside the feeding zone without a tone for a few days and then tests if they will still head for the feeding area when the tone sounds again.

Some fish forgot after five days. Others remembered as long as 10. Miner said the strength of memory seems tied to how long the fish are trained.

By May, researchers hope to bring about 5,000 black sea bass to a feeding station called an "AquaDome," a structure about 33 feet across and 16 feet high that will be anchored to the ocean floor in Buzzards Bay, 45 miles southeast of Boston.

The sea bass will be fed in the dome after a tone sounds. After researchers feel they've been sufficiently trained, they will be freed from the dome. A day or two later, scientists will sound the tone again and see how many bass return. They'll do the experiment again around summer's end.

The tone will have a range of about 100 meters in every direction. Miner said sea bass are a territorial fish that prefer a rocky bottom, like in Buzzards Bay, where they can forage for food. He doesn't think they will stray too far from the dome.

MacMillan is not convinced the fish won't just swim away.

"My experience with fish is they will wander far and wide," he said.

MacMillan said getting farmed fish to supplement their diets with ocean feeding is intriguing, but farmed fish now get a steady diet that produces reliable growth.

He also expects large numbers of released fish to be lost to predators.

Scott Lindell, the project leader, said losing fish is a concern. But the savings of using the trained fish and the AquaDome is potentially huge: Even if only half the fish come back after reaching market size, the operation would be more profitable than current methods. The dome, for instance, is 10 times cheaper than a standard aquaculture sea cage.

Miner said real answers won't start coming until the fish hit Buzzards Bay this spring. "There's probably 18,000 ways for it to go wrong and only one way to go right."

merokok

Apakah pandangan ustaz tentang merokok dan hukumnya menurut pandangan Islam, saya ada mendengar ada pendapat yang mengatakan terdapatnya ulama silam yang hanya menghukumnya sebagai makruh dan tidak haram, adakah ia benar?- Klang-

Jawapan :

Sebelum saya memasuki jawapan, suka saya mengingatkan bahawa pemerintah kerajaan Islam silam, Sultan Murad ke-4 (memerintah 1623-1640 m) sangat kuat memusuhi rokok, sehinggakan beliau pernah melaksanakan undang-undang bunuh bagi penjual-penjual rokok dan perokok aktif di dalam Negara.

• Adapun dari sudut hukumnya ; sebagai asasnya, para ulama berbeza pandangan dalam menentukan hukumannya berdasarkan berbezanya tanggapan masing-masing terhadap keburukan (mudarat) yang terhasil dari rokok. Hakikatnya, dalam hal ini, sebarang fatwa mestilah dirujuk kepada “ahl az-zikr” dalam halnya, “ahli az-zikr” dalam hal rokok adalah doktor perubatan (selain ulama) yang mampu mengenalpasti impak buruk dari rokok kepada tubuh dan kehidupan. Maka sebarang fatwa ulama yang tidak dibuat berlandaskan maklumat lengkap dari para doktor perubatan atau pakar kimia adalah kurang tepat dan tidak sepatutnya dijadikan pegangan.

Secara ringkasnya ulama terbahagi kepada 2 kumpulan dalam hukum rokok. Ia seperti berikut :-

1) Kumpulan yang Memfatwakan Haram

Ulama kontemporari yang mengatakan demikian adalah Dar Al-Ifta Mesir, Lajnah Fatwa Saudi, Lajnah Fatwa Azhar, Seluruh ahli persidangan Mencegah rokok ( persidangan di Madinah pada 2-5 Mac 1982) , Dr Yusof Al-Qaradawi, Syeikh Mahmud Syaltut, Syeikh Sayyed Sabiq, Syeikh Ahmad Syurbasi, Mufti Mesir Syeikh Ali Jumaat, Syeikh Atiyyar Saqar. ( Akhbar al-Jumhuriyyah, 22 Mac 1979 ; Fatawa Muasiroh, 1/667; Al-Fatawa li Muhd Syaltut, Yasalunaka oleh Syurbasi dan Fiqh As-Sunnah

• Ulama silam yang mengatakan haram pula adalah Syeikh Muhd Alauddin Haskafi al-Hanafi, Syeikh Sulaiman al-Bujairimi as-Syafie, Syeikh Mustafa ar-Rihbani, Syeikh Ibrahim al-Laqqani al-Maliki dan ramai lagi. (Al-hukm as-Syar’ir fi at-Tadhin, Kumpulan Ulama, Kementerian Kesihatan Sedunia, 1988, hlm 25-26)

• Kumpulan ini semakin kuat mengharamkan apabila terdapat maklumat yang menyebut terdapat unsur arak dan racun di dalam rokok, maka ia adalah seperti darah dan bangkai yang diharamkan kerana unsur kotor dan racun ( seperti nikotin, tar, alcohol methnol, karbon monoksida, ammonia dan lain-lain ) yang terkandung di dalamnya. ( Abu Ubaidah al-Mashur, At-ta’liqat al-hisan dzayl tahqiq al-Burhan, hlm 28 ; Dr Abd Sabur as-Shahin, As-Sajayir Halalun am Haramun,hlm 34-35 )

• Pada tahun 1962, Fakulti Perubatan Diraja Britain mengesahkan kesan buruk rokok terhadap kesihatan, pada tahun 1964 Fakulti Kedoktoran Amerika mengeluarkan satu kajian setebal 387 halaman dan diterbitkan kandungannya di akhbar yang menyebut “Merokok memudaratkan kesihatan secara pasti, ia juga menyebut “rokok menjadi penyebab pelbagai penyakit membunuh ” ( Rujuk Mahmud Nazim, At-Tibbun An-Nabawi Wal ‘Ilmi al-Jadid, 1/346 )

• Maka dengan kenyataan-kenyataan ini Allah SWT menyuruh kita agar merujuk kepada ahli dalam sesuatu ilmu sebagaimana erti firman Allah SWT: “Maka hendaklah kamu bertanya kepada yang berpengalaman” ( Al-Furqaan : 59 ) ; Justeru, pandangan pakar perubatan dalam hal ini tidak boleh diketepikan oleh para ulama dalam membuat sebarang fatwa.

• Selain keburukan dari sudut kesihatan, ia juga boleh memudaratkan hubungan kemasyarakatan dengan sebab baunya yang kuat dan busuk. Hal ini tidak dibenarkan oleh Islam berdasarkan sabda Nabi SAW ertinya : “Tiada boleh memberi mudarat dan membalas mudarat” (Riwayat Malik, 1/122; Ad-Dar Qutni, 4/228; Al-Hakim 2/66 ; Sohih kata Hakim, dan di atas syarat Muslim kata Az-Zahabi, Albani : Ia punyai banyak jalan yang menguatkan satu sama lain sehingga naik ke darjat Sohih)

Hadith lain pula menyebut : “Sesiapa yang memakan dari pokok ini , berkata bawang merah, bawang putih maka janganlah mendekati masjid-masjid kami, sesungguhnya (bau yang busuk) itu menyakiti Malaikat sebagaimana ia menyakiti manusia” ( Riwayat Al-Bukhari, KItab al-Azan, no 807 ; Muslim, Kitab Masajid wa Mawadi’ as-Solat, no 876 )

2) Kumpulan yang Memfatwakan Harus atau Melihat secara tafsil (terperinci)

Ulama yang di pihak ini adalah Syeikh Abd Ghani an-Nablusi, Syeikh Muhd Amin Ibn ‘Abidin, Syeikh Hasanain Makhluf (berpendapat hukumnya secara terperinci menurut keadaan), Syeikh Hasan Makmun.

• Antara dalil mereka adalah asal segala sesuatu yang tidak mudarat adalah halal dan beberapa dalil yang lain. Bagaimanapun, kesimpulan dalil mereka adalah lemah kerana ia bersandarkan pandagan mereka tanpa maklumat berkenaan keburukan dari sudut perubatan pada zaman itu. Hasilnya mereka memberikan fatwa hanya berdasarkan bau asap rokok yang busuk dan menggangu, justeru, sudah tentu bau yang busuk sahaja tidak mampu menyebabkannya menjadi haram. Jelaslah pandangan mereka tidak mengambil kira maklumat baru perubatan.

• Justeru, pada hemat dan kajian saya, hukum yang lebih tepat adalah Haram merokok kerana mudarat yang pelbagai dari sudut kesihatan tubuh sendiri, orang lain, dan baunya yang mengganggu orang lain. Malah kaedah Islam menyebut : “Ad-Darar Yudfa’ Bi Qadaril Imkan” ; ertinya : “Kemudaratan hendaklah ditolak sedaya upaya dan kemampuan” (Al-Madkhal Al-Fiqhil ‘Am, Syeikh Mustafa Az-Zarqa, 2/992)

Cuma Syeikh Al-Qaradawi di dalam Fatawanya (Fatawa muasiroh, 1/667) menjelaskan hukumnya berkata (dengan pindaan) :-

• Sekiranya seorang perokok cuba sedaya upaya memberhentikan tabiat rokoknya, bagaimanapun ia gagal, maka ia patut terus mencuba dan diberikan uzur setakat yang ia gagal. Perlulah ia menghalang dari menyebarkan tabiatnya kepada orang lain.

• Walaupun ianya haram, tapi tidaklah haramnya besar seperti zina, mencuri dan lain-lain dosa besar. Setiap perkara haram ada tahapnya di sisi Shariah, ada yang dikira dosa besar dan ada yang kecil. Dosa hasil rokok bolehlah di katakan termasuk dalam dosa kecil. Bagaimanapun perlu diingat, Ibn Abbas r.a menegaskan bahawa dosa kecil pasti menjadi besar apabila berterusan atau kesannya benar-benar memudaratkan. Kesimpulan Al-Qaradawi, rokok adalah haram secara pasti bagi yang belum merokok, dan makruh bagi seisap yang telah terjebak sehingga sukar untuk keluar darinya. Apa yang pasti, segala jenis usaha bagi memberhentikan aktiviti buruk ini mesti dicari segera.

Wallahu a’lam.

kemalangan bas

basikal vs kereta

pocong

kemalangan ngeri

How to be a fearless negotiator

The Wish-Want-Walk method has three simple steps:

• Conjuring up your Wish result for this negotiation;
• Understanding your Want (where you think the negotiation is most likely to end up in light of everything you know about the market and the person you are negotiating with);
• Setting your Walk Away point.

When you have your Wish, Want, Walk firmly in your head before you start negotiating, you know that the deal will have to fall within those parameters or you will not agree. No matter how the person on the other side of the table may scream or bully or put you down, it is not going to change your Wish, Want, Walk.

You know that you are a not going back to the office with a deal that is outside the Wish-Want-Walk plan that everybody agreed to before the negotiation started. When you have made your plan beforehand, you may have to waste some time enduring bad behaviour, but you won't make a bad deal. If you stick to your Wish, Want, Walk, that can't happen.

You might have thought that you really wanted this deal, but now you have an independent reason not to do the deal with this individual. He or she behaves badly. That creates a toxic atmosphere. You don't want that person in your life. You know now that for the deal to be attractive to you, you will have to close it at the top of your Want or even closer to your Wish, because of the nature of the person across the table.

Your Personal Action Plan

Wish, Want, Walk will not keep your blood pressure down and will not make these nightmare situations be the way you want to spend your afternoons. Here is exactly what you should do in these situations:

• Ask questions
• Listen
• Take a break

These are the three silver bullets you can use in response to unacceptable behaviour. They work their magic in a nonthreatening manner. You will see why as you read on.

In the face of unacceptable behaviour, the first thing to do is ask questions and listen carefully to the answers. In most instances, you will be well served to do some probing. Find out whatever you can about the statement that surprised you. Showing some genuine interest in the statement can evoke a further explanation.

The person already is talking. Get him or her to talk some more. It is a powerful tool. Later, you can review the responses that have been provided. Questions are like trowels in the garden. They help you dig up information, examine the soil, and find out what will make the garden grow.

Asking questions produces much more solid results than trying to make an instantly brilliant definitive statement that leaves the other person without a response, flat-footed, befuddled, and running from the room screaming for help. Only in the movies do those ready responses flow so freely from the lips.

Of course, a highly paid scriptwriter had months to come up with the lines that the actor says so spontaneously on screen. You don't have that kind of time. Forget the clever quip. It's not going to happen.

Questions get you past the awkward moment when the other party ahs stepped over the line. They form a break in the dialogue. The answers should give you some information that will help you build a consensus in spite of the other party's bad behavior.

When you have asked any questions that come to mind at these awkward moments and listened to the response all the way through, take a break. Don't try to be brilliant. Don't come back until you are ready. I call this pushing the pause button.

In a negotiation, the pause button works exactly like the pause button on a DVD player. It freezes everything in place so that we can step away from the negotiation. We can see the picture clearly from every angle. We can leave the room. We can take a break that is as long or short as we need. We can get ready to resume negotiating.

It is our internal pause button that helps us maintain our emotional distance. It is the pause button that prevents us from falling in love with the process so that we lose sight of our Wish, Want, Walk.

Everybody has a pause button. Some people just forget to use it or don't even think about using in a negotiation. One you realize what a lifesaver it can be in a negotiation, you will never leave home without it.

In every negotiating seminar, we go around the room and talk about the best way to create a break. People use a wide range of techniques to give themselves room to breath. Some people tell a joke, some "need to go to the bathroom," and some "need to make a phone call." The list is endless.

What is your favourite pause button? Take a moment to think about your own pause buttons. At seminars, participants list a variety of techniques to break things up from telling jokes to asking for a bathroom break - now who could refuse that?

I like to take a break without labeling it in any way. That way, there is no mistake that the reason for the break is the conduct of the other party, not some artificial reason. Whatever works for you to interrupt the flow is what you should do. Do not try to deal with the problem before you take a break. You will not come up quickly with that devastating statement that turns your opponent into a withering mass of Jell-o. Don't even try.

This is also an opportunity to use a tool I've occasionally found effective. It's difficult for some people, but you might want to try it next time you are across the table from a person who is misbehaving. Sometimes, when someone lies, bullies, curses, or screams, I call him or her on it.

I tell that person coolly that this behaviour is unacceptable and that if it continues, our negotiations will be suspended. Calling a person on bad behaviour usually stops it -- not always but often enough to make this technique useful. Remember, that person wouldn't be negotiating with you if you didn't have something he or she wanted.

These people can rein in their unacceptable behaviour if they are convinced that it is in their best interest to do so. If you try this technique, you must take a break if the behaviour continues. You cannot make idle threats during a negotiation without threatening the entire negotiation and any deal that grows out on it.

Wish, Want, Walk will not insulate you from unpleasant experiences in the negotiating room, but it will help you deal with those situations. IT helps you by giving you a framework you can rely on. You simply won't be pushed past your Walk regardless of the trick or tactic or tirade.

If you find yourself in such a position, don't try to be a hero. Ask some questions. Listen to the answers. Then take a break. You are not gong to change the person on the other side. Your job is to close the deal as soon as possible. Maybe you can send someone else to negotiate with this person next time, but if you do, be sure to warn your replacement.

If you haven't been in one of these tight spots during a negotiation, maybe you are just blessed. But then, why would you be reading this chapter? Or maybe you are a screamer yourself, and you don't mind or notice when someone else screams. If that is the case, your problem is beyond the scope of this book, but I hope - for your sake - that you are working on the problem.