Winter on Michael’s Domain

Winter cycling is not for the faint of heart

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Helsinki planned to make private car ownership unnecessary by 2025 . In the image, you can see reason no. #534 why this won’t work: The streets and pavements are kept snow-free in winter, but the bicycle roads are made for storing snow and parking cars. Cycling to the city center is always a pain, but in winter, it’s only for suicidal masochists. About every 50 meters, you encounter an obstacle that requires utmost alertness and creativity to bypass unharmed. Helsinki city center is dying as a result of Covid-19. Good so! The less I have to visit it, the better. The cycling conditions South of Sörnäinen are prohibitively appalling, with the only exception of the 1.3 km long baana between Kiasma and the edge of Ruoholahti (where I rarely need to go). Transport and food are the two biggies when it comes to the responsibility of the individual for global warming. Consequently, Helsinki - a pioneer in sustainable urban development - will increase ticket prices for public transport next year to encourage people to switch from car to bus or metro.

Kilometrikisa

Fri, 08 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Kilometrikisa (“kilometre competition”) is a cycling competition for workplaces, which aims to encourage bicycle commuting and cycling in general. Team members record their daily cycled distance on the website https://www.kilometrikisa.fi and the team with the most kilometers wins. Additional prizes are raffled between all participants (I actually for the first time got lucky this year and won a free massage at UniSport ).There is a summer competition, running from May to September, and a winter competition (“talvikilometrikisa”), running mostly throughout January and February. Do not ask me why there are no spring and autumn events. I have been riding throughout all year for the last decade, with the exception of winter 2012/2013, because I broke my leg when cycling home from work. For me, October, November and December as as good cycling months as January and February. Actually they are better because due to global warming they tend to be snow-free in the recent years. If you commute early in the morning, before the snowplough has removed 30 cm of fresh snow, you know that you will get stuck many times, even with the 57-622 Schwalbe Ice Spiker Pro tires.My performance in this competition has collapsed since my lab moved from Biomedicum in Meilahti to the Biocenter 2 in Viikki, because my commute has shrunk from 14 km/day down to a meager 4.5 km/day. I still score very high on the list when it comes to the number of cycling days (109 for the last season), but according to the cycled distance, I am just slightly above average (place 58 with 1031 km). Our team (“Helsingin Yliopisto”, University of Helsinki) placed 143th this year in the competition for big workplaces.I am always wondering whether the total amount of cycled kilometres and the number of participants are increasing over the years, which should be the case if we are serious about combatting global warming. The first kilometrikisa event was held in 2014, so there is enough data to see trends. Unfortunately, the website does not give this information. It would be possible to scrape it and calculate it from the individual results, but I have enough other things to do atm. Maybe sometime in the future.

Cycling during the Finnish winter

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Finally, snow has arrived in Helsinki! So far I was using my summer bicycle and it does not look nice. My daily commute has only perhaps one kilometer of dirt road, but during the mud months, that’s enough to undo any cleaning in a few seconds and to remove any lubrication from the chain. The mud months are nowadays in Helsinki at least three - thanks to global warming: October, November, and December. Cyclists who advise cleaning one’s bike weekly have just too much time on their hands… Most of the bicycles that are sold are not really built to be used all-season and I am still looking for something, that is really low-maintenance also during the mud months. And I am getting worried about the amount of chain lubrication that I distribute into the environment. I have heard that some cyclists are using biodegradable chain saw lubricant, and I will probably try that out.

TRANSMED - the most medical research education for your buck

Sat, 25 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Starting from this autumn term, even Finnish universities, so far the strongholds of free education, have started to demand study fees from students from outside the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA). Between 13k€ and 18k€ per year, the tuition fees are still modest compared to some other universities. At the moment, compared with other universities, you probably get the best returns for your money at the University of Helsinki .The TRANSMED Master’s Program is perhaps the best example. Given the real costs of a research-oriented medical MSc education in a world class environment, the 15k€ tuition fee per year is a bargain compared to similar programs at other universities. And even better: the chances to be accepted are surprisingly good. Some have proposed to increases the fees, but no concrete plans exist at the moment.So what is keeping foreign students from flocking to Finland? The cold winters cannot be blamed anymore. Thanks to global warming, most of the recent Christmases have been snow-free here in Helsinki. In fact, global warming seems to hit Finland harder than most other countries. Need more reasons to come? Have a look here: http://www.visitfinland.com/article/greatest-things-about-finland/

Air humidifiers

Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

What is the optimal relative humidity (RH) for humans? Opinions differ, but mostly the estimates for “optimal” indoor relative humidity are concerned about the house and not the people living in it. Optimal values for human health fall in between 40 and 70% ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1474709) . The humidity in a rain forest never falls below 80% and even in the savanna the RH is mostly above 50% if that is any reference of a RH that humans have become adapted to. But mostly people deploy air humidifiers when they observe symptoms and the requirements to relieve those symptoms might be different to the requirements for healthy people. Anecdotal evidence has it, that some types of cough only disappear under a hot shower above 37°C, where the RH is close to 100%. Under those conditions, water will probably condensate inside the airways thus thinning the mucus resulting in a better debris removal and reduced postnasal drip*. However, there is evidence that not all respiratory tract infections benefit from higher humidity, e.g. croup (Finnish: kurkunpääntulehdus) seems unaffected by humidity despite common longstanding believe of the opposite ( http://www.cjem-online.ca/v6/n5/p357 versus http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1906598) . Interestingly, the use of both humidifiers and dehumidifiers appears positively associated with childhood asthma ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2966669) , which could indicate a hygienical problem with such devices in general. Also for asthma too high humidity is contraindicated, although this recommendation seems to be based mostly on the indirect effect via increased mold and mite infestation or bacterial contamination. I could not find much evidence for a direct negative effect of high RH on asthma and some asthma experts have nothing against a reasonable increase of the RH by means of a humidifier provided that the device is maintained clean and that the humidity is kept within safe limits to ensure that it does not contribute to increased allergen exposure (e.g. http://asthma.ca/corp/services/pdf/asthma_humidifiers_vaporizers2_eng.pdf) . For more info about the relationship of relative air humidity and asthma see https://books.google.fi/books?id=ehuYVX2-hWYC&num=10.The problem with relative humidities between 40-70% is, that they can promote mold growth. However, the situation is a bit complicated. Even 70% RH is not much of a concern if there are no temperature differences between indoors and outdoors. Mold needs water to grow and water condensates when the RH reaches 100%. With relative humidities of 40-70%, that happens when cold surfaces meet warm air (windows, outer walls). When this condensation zone cannot buffer (wrong material) nor conduct the humidity away (airtight materials), you’ll have a problem (see e.g. http://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/a1416111843440 , article in Finnish). Therefore indoor mold is a more severe problem in colder climates and “optimal” air humidity for the house differs from season to season being the lowest for the cold season. For countries with cold winters even low relative humidities can cause mold to grow. At -30°C the recommendation is that the RH be not above 15%. That is a level so low that I guess that even otherwise healthy individuals will start to experience health problems*. Estimates are that about 20% of all buildings in Finland have a mold problem ( http://uutiset.hometalkoot.fi/component/dpcontentplugin/files/download/20/Kosteus-%20ja%20hometalkoot%20toimenpideohjelma.pdf , article in Finnish).Due to this, buildings in Finland use nowadays mostly forced circulation to ensure that dry air is constantly blown through all rooms. When the temperature drops to -20°C or lower, the relative air humidity can get indoors as low as 15%. This is so low that most people start to complain about respiratory symptoms and dry, cracking skin. Off they go to buy a humidifier. But do those really make a difference?There are mainly two different types of humidifiers for home use on the market: those that evaporate water by heating and those that create a water mist by ultrasound ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humidifier) . I found the heating type utterly useless: In order to achieve any appreciable increase of humidity (from the typical winterly 30% or less in Finnish apartments to anything above 40%), I had to reduce the air change rate by partially blocking the air vents that blow the air into the room like this . By doing this the room got unbearably hot because the humidifier not only evaporates water but also acts as a quite efficient heating element (I tried the UFOX 3S: http://www.ufox.fi/ilmankostuttimet with a power of 165W, which can evaporate up to 150 ml per hour.So the only alternative was an ultrasound evaporator. How well they raise the relative humidity depends mostly on the air change rate (ACH, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_changes_per_hour , in Finnish “ilmanvaihtokerroin”). That’s a number that tells you how many cubic meters of air are exchanged per hour for each cubic meter of room space (m3/h/m3). There is some provision here in Finland, that this number has to be at least 0.5, but mostly the real numbers in residential homes are nowadays much larger. However, in the context of this minimum, the health effects on the inhabitants are usually discussed (radon, gassing-out from furniture, etc.), but not the effects on the building (see e.g. here: https://www.rakennustieto.fi/Downloads/RK/RK070304.pdf , article in Finnish).I have made a quick and dirty calculation of how much water evaporation is needed to keep the RH in a small room above 40% and then checked these values against what I observed when we did use the air humidifier in my daughter’s room to reduce her coughing during the night. The data points:

The car is in the garage

Tue, 30 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Finally Claudia’s car is in our heated garage. After moving two thirds of our cellar’s content and half of our apartment’s content to our garage, it appeared questionable whether a car would still fit. I installed many additional shelves and relocated my and Marzena’s bicycles to the condo’s common bicycle storage. The other 7 bicycles and the bicycle trailer were hanged to hooks along the garage walls. Then we lifted Tobias’ 3.5 meter long cardboard rocket tightly under the garage ceiling. Finally I was able to drive it in. I drove in sort of blindly because the car had been snowed in so badly that me and Tobias could not really make any difference by scratching its windscreens half an hour (we had to stop because our fingers were too cold to continue). The snow and the cold had arrived here in Helsinki quite exactly together with the winter solstice.