Sleepless in Midland

Don't rush to judgment about Jamestown cannibals

Last night on the PBS News Hour a short segment had an anthropologist named William Kelso tell us that the Jamestown settlers were cannibals. His evidence consisted of cut marks on a female's excavated skull and leg bones, and that was proof enough for him.

So it's refreshing to see some healthy skepticism in the words of Myers Mermel at DailyCaller.com. See The Jamestown Hack Job in which he raises a bunch of unanswered questions:

Do we have any other bones of hers that show cutting marks consistent with attempts to remove flesh?
Do the animal bones next to her remains in the pit show marks of butchering?
Are there any other skeletons in addition to hers discovered with cut marks?
Could she have been a victim of domestic violence?
Could she have been attacked by Indians and her corpse dragged back to the pit to be disposed?
Why was she in a trash pit in the first place?
Was she the hidden victim of a colonial “Silence of the Lambs” killer?

But there's another bigger question. What's so wrong with cannibalism if it's the only means of survival?

To kill someone for food is a definite no-no. However, there have been numerous incidents of humans eating the bodies of the dead after all other food sources were exhausted. The survivors of the plane crash in the Andes lived for months on nothing but melted snow and human meat. There were the members of the Donner Party who, penned in by a blizzard and having eaten all their livestock, ate their dead companions. The survivors of the whaleship Essex ate their dead shipmates as they drifted in their lifeboats around the Pacific Ocean.

Paging Dr. Lector. Paging Dr. Lector. -- Robo-ed.

All I'm saying is that there's an instinct for survival in all living creatures. So in an era in which obesity is much more prevalent than starvation, let's not be too judgmental.

Links:
Jamestown's 'Jane' Reflects Grim Reality of Early Settlers;
The Jamestown Hack Job;
The Andes Accident;
The Donner Party Tragedy ; and
In the Heart of the Sea, The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.

Revenge of the introverts

We've all seen the extrovert take control, delegate duties, then either take all the credit for successes or try to blame someone else for the failures. Well, finally someone has stepped up for the introverts.

It's a study by a couple of profs, Corinne Bendersky of UCLA and Neha Parikh Shah of Rutgers. Here's an excerpt from the abstract:

... we challenge the persistence of extraverts' advantage and neurotics' disadvantage in task group status hierarchies. In a field and an experimental study, we find that extraversion is associated with status losses and disappointing expectations for contributions to group tasks and neuroticism is associated with status gains due to surpassing expectations for group-task contributions. Whereas personality may inform status expectations through perceptions of competence when groups first form, as group members work together interdependently over time, actual contributions to the group's task are an important basis for reallocating status.

Download the full paper here.

Susan Adams gives us an easy-to-read summary at Forbes.com: Leadership Tip: Hire the Quiet Neurotic, Not the Impressive Extrovert.

It turns out that extroverts contribute less than team members expect and the contributions they do make are not valued highly over time. Neurotics, by contrast, are motivated to work hard on behalf of their teams, who wind up appreciating their efforts, in part because they exceed everyone’s expectations. In the end, extroverts decline in the teams’ esteem while neurotics rise in status. ...

The lesson of the study: Bendersky says team leaders should be wary of extroverts. “The core of an extroverted personality is to be attention-seeking,” she observes. “It turns out they just keep talking, they don’t listen very well and they’re not very receptive to other people’s input. They don’t contribute as much as people think they will.” If she were putting together a team, says Bendersky, “I would staff it with more neurotics and fewer extroverts than my initial instinct would lead me to do.”

The extrovert gets the girl, and the introvert gets the job done.

[Is it "extravert" or "extrovert?" Robo-ed. Either one. Sleepless.]

Conforming to please the majority - psychological test

We've all seen the optical illusion with two lines where we're asked which is longer. It's been around so long most of us have seen it numerous times before.  Here it is again:

The two lines are the same length, but many people get it wrong the first time.

The article titled Are These Lines The Same Height? Your Answer Depends On Where You're From contains an interesting excerpt from a book by Adam Alter titled Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave.  Via Presurfer

Apparently, individuals in some African bush tribes aren't fooled by the illusion. Scientists explain that it's because their environment doesn't have many straight lines or right angles, so they aren't conditioned to put things into the same perspective as someone accustomed to the architecture prevalent in Westerner countries.

While that one is interesting, the next one is a knock out. Which of the three lines in the box below is the same length as the line in the target box?

If you said line "C," you're right. However, this experiment was staged in a room in which all but one individual had been previously instructed to pick one of the wrong lines. The test was to see if the individual would go along with the crowd or stick to his guns.

Everyone reading this post would probably have stuck to his/her guns. However, rather amazingly, 30% of Americans who took this test gave up on the right answer and went along with the others. Excerpt:

Across hundreds of trials, Asch found that roughly 30 percent of all American participants conformed, responding with the same manifestly incorrect “Line B” response that the others in the room delivered, one after another. This result is powerful because it shows that although Americans generally place a premium on the individualistic values of uniqueness and self-reliance, they still succumb to the pressures of social influence.

There's a good lesson there. Politicians instinctively know this group-think phenomenon and use it quite successfully. For example, most of us know that getting into debt over our heads is a bad thing. However, there are otherwise smart people who say that a nation can take on as much debt as it wants because the nation can print money. That's wrong, and most people know it. However, if enough people conform to this group-think then we're headed for trouble.

The one redeeming aspect of the results of that experiment is that at least Americans didn't seek conformity to as great an extent as people living in collectivist societies.

Just when we thought moderate alcohol use was good for us

There's an old drinking joke:

One is not enough.
Two is just right.
There is not enough.

Of course, that referred to the buzz not the health benefits. For quite a long while we've been hearing that moderate drinking wasn't just harmless but could actually have some benefit, red wine particular.

So now we get this from Foxnews.com telling us that even moderation is harmful.

Among men, cancers of the upper airway (meaning the oral cavity and pharynx or the larynx) and the esophagus were the most fatal cancers pegged to alcohol. They killed approximately 6,000 men.

Among women, breast cancer was the top cause of cancer death. About 15 percent of breast cancer deaths in 2009 were linked to alcohol.

Although it's not exactly clear why alcohol increases cancer risk, one theory is that it damages DNA material in cells.

Then there's this bit of bad news:

Although the study found that people who drank more alcohol – three or more drinks a day – had the highest number of cancer deaths, even regular, low-dose consumption increased risk. Approximately 30 percent of alcohol-related cancer deaths in 2009 occurred in people who had downed one and a half drinks a day or less.

Dang. How do you make a joke about that?

Meteors, Asteroids add up for a dazzling Friday sky

How could anyone have missed it? But just in case, here's a link to the dash cam vid of that Russian meteor as it entered the atmosphere and lit up the sky. Spectacular.

The asteroid fly-by seemed like an also-ran in comparison. (Actually, it looked like a game of Space Invaders.) Here's the video produced by the Bareket Observatory in Israel.

Somewhere a Mayan calendar maker is screaming, "Hey, we were just early!"

Global warming movement looking more like science fiction

Last night I watched a my favorite Twilight Zone episode titled "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up." Transport yourself back to 1961, and watch the whole thing on Youtube: Part 1; Part 2; and Part 3. Hint: skip to Part 3. You can figure out what led up to that point, and it's only about five minutes, including the credits.

Fifty years ago it must have seemed conceivable that humanoids from Mars and Venus could cleverly conceal their third arm or eyeball, blend with Earthlings, and plan their invasions.

These days the invasion is in the form of global warming -- scientifically proven, according to Al Gore. Problem is, the warmists got the jump on skeptics and deemed it verified before all the facts could be analyzed by scientists not already on board with the theory. Skeptics were blackballed and called "Deniers."

But it's looking more and more like the skeptics are right. Warmists are backtracking, or more to the point, Global Warming Apocalypse Canceled as Patrick J. Michaels notes with a list of scientists who have downsized their predictions about future hotness.

And right on cue here comes The Research Council of Norway with Global warming less extreme than feared?. Excerpt:

After Earth’s mean surface temperature climbed sharply through the 1990s, the increase has levelled off nearly completely at its 2000 level. Ocean warming also appears to have stabilised somewhat, despite the fact that CO2 emissions and other anthropogenic factors thought to contribute to global warming are still on the rise. ...

Professor Berntsen explains the changed predictions:

“The Earth’s mean temperature rose sharply during the 1990s. This may have caused us to overestimate climate sensitivity.

“We are most likely witnessing natural fluctuations in the climate system – changes that can occur over several decades – and which are coming on top of a long-term warming. The natural changes resulted in a rapid global temperature rise in the 1990s, whereas the natural variations between 2000 and 2010 may have resulted in the levelling off we are observing now.”

But there's a caveat:

However, the Council releases this news with the caveat that the findings outlined in this news brief have yet to be verified and that the results will only become significant once they are confirmed by other studies.

But this seems certain: Not all the factors that affect the climate are human. And you read it here first: Martians don't look like humans with three arms.

For a more thorough analysis of the Norway study, see Yet another study shows lower climate sensitivity.

More exercise equals less brain shrinkage

The test involved around 600 people in Scotland who were given an MRI at age 70 then again at age 73. From LiveScience.com:

"People in their seventies who participated in more physical exercise, including walking several times a week, had less brain shrinkage and other signs of aging in the brain than those who were less physically active," said lead author Alan J. Gow of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. "On the other hand, our study showed no real benefit to participating in mentally and socially stimulating activities on brain size, as seen on MRI scans, over the three-year time frame."

Of course there's the possibility that a shrinking brain makes a person less willing and able to exercise.

Italian earthquake scientists convicted for bad prediction

They were members of the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, and they took it upon themselves to try to calm the residents of L'Aquila, Italy, after several tremors shook the ground. Unfortunately, a big one followed, and 309 people died.

This seemed more like a civil matter rather than a criminal one. But the prosecutor made it criminal. And the judge came back with a verdict -- six scientists and one bureaucrat were found guilty and sentenced to six years in the slammer. See BBC. Excerpt:

Prosecutors said the defendants gave a falsely reassuring statement before the quake, while the defence maintained there was no way to predict major quakes.

Both of those statements could be true. The problem was that the commissioners didn't fully explain to the recipients of their advice the risk involved in taking that advice. To quote a helpful explanation from a character in the movie Animal House, "You f***** up. You trusted us."

They should have had some American lawyers on hand to provide a shopworn disclaimer like, "Past performance doesn't guarantee future results."

We talked about this in 2011 when the prosecution commenced the action. See previously. And as we noted then, if this is a crime, those scientists who did all of that scare mongering about man made global warming should be next on the docket.

PBS News Hour on global warming

Global warming skeptics have reached a milestone of sorts. They are seldom referred to as "deniers" these days. That label was used by global warming zealots in an attempt to isolate and ridicule skeptics and brand them as extremists, much like the phrase "holocaust denier" was used against people who tried to claim the holocaust didn't happen.  However, the global warming zealots were the ones who came across as extremists.

Monday evening on the PBS News Hour there was a segment on global warming and in particular about an individual named Richard Muller of U.C. Berkley who recently converted very publicly from a skeptic to a believer of man made global warming. In the interview he even went so far as to say, "In our world, we attribute the warming from 1753 to the present essentially exclusively to humans — not mostly, but exclusively."

The interview seemed to slant toward the warmist side, and note that the only use of the word "deny" in application to skeptics came from the PBS reporter, Spencer Michels.

However, Anthony Watts was given time ample air time to explain the reasons to be skeptical, and a transcript of the program can be found at his website, Wattsupwiththat.com. Watts believes that the climate models are based on flawed data as the temperature information came from measuring stations located in urban areas which are consistently hotter than rural areas.

And there's this observation:

ANTHONY WATTS: Some of the issues have been oversold. And they have been oversold because they allow for more regulation to take place. And so the people that like more regulation use global warming as a tool as a means to an end. And so, as a result, we might be getting more regulation and more taxes that really aren’t rooted in science, but more in politics.

He nailed it. But the good news is that the general population is becoming more skeptical of the warmists' claims, and that might slow the movement for more regulation of our lives on the doubtful premise that we are saving the planet.

HIV silver lining -- making a more effective cancer fighter

There's a gene found in all human cells called *dCK that can be used to activate anticancer drugs. Then there's HIV which inserts its genetic material into the human genome to multiply abnormally.

So researchers in Strasbourg introduced dCK into an HIV genome to make a more effective cancer fighter. Source: Scienceblog.com, and excerpt:

Through HIV multiplication, the CNRS team has selected a “library” of nearly 80 mutant proteins and tested them on tumor cells in the presence of an anticancer drug. The results have enabled them to identify a dCK variant that is more effective than the wild-type (non-mutated) protein, inducing the death of tumor cells in culture. In combination with this protein, the anticancer drugs showed identical effectiveness at 1/300 the dose. The possibility of reducing the doses of anticancer drugs would palliate the problems posed by their components’ toxicity, reduce their side effects and, most importantly, improve their effectiveness.

Alas, human testing is years away.

*deoxycytidine kinase

Remote weapons scanner using terahertz waves

Terahertz radiation fits somewhere between microwave and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum, per Phys.org. It can travel through clothes, but only penetrates a few millimeters of skin. And so devices are being developed that can be used to scan for guns and bombs. See a resulting image here.

The NYPD is anxious to get them mounted on police cars so they can spot gun toting pedestrians from several feet away. Medical issues aside, there's the issue of privacy.

Privacy advocates contend that the use of a scanner has the potential of violating individual privacy if the devices are used surreptitiously or otherwise without the person's consent. See Drive-by Gun Scans Prompt Privacy Questions. The NYPD says it is a good alternative to the police frisking many NY citizens are subjected to when they are stopped. Generally, a person out in public has waived his/her expectation of privacy. However, police still need probable cause to stop and frisk someone. But a car mounted terahertz wave scanner could be used indiscriminately on everyone walking down the street.

The bad publicity over the TSA air passenger scanners seems to have subsided. However, passengers still have the options of the full body scan, a pat down, or not flying. Pedestrians on the street won't have those options. And, if probable cause is lacking, subjecting a person to a device that peeks under their clothes would seem to be rather intrusive. We'll see how tolerant New Yorkers are once the devices go to work.

Finally, the fact that the NYPD is even considering this is a testament to their fear of guns in the hands of citizens.

Bloggers, enhance your credibility with a decorative photograph

Newspaper people have known this instinctively since they learned how to use printing plates to put pictures in the paper. The premise is that a decorative photo accompanying a statement made people more likely to think it's true. From a ScienceDaily.com release:

In a series of four experiments in both New Zealand and Canada, Newman and colleagues showed people a series of claims such as, "The liquid metal inside a thermometer is magnesium" and asked them to agree or disagree that each claim was true. In some cases, the claim appeared with a decorative photograph that didn't reveal if the claim was actually true -- such as a thermometer. Other claims appeared alone. When a decorative photograph appeared with the claim, people were more likely to agree that the claim was true, regardless of whether it was actually true.

(Cat photo added for credibility.)

Via.

Keeping up with the Martians

There's a very ambitious reality show show in the works which will involve people traveling to, living on, and colonizing the planet Mars. Actually Mars One is a scientific mission. But it will cost $6 billion to send the first four pilgrims up there. And the financing will come if someone wants to pay to have the astronaut selection, preparation, launch, landing, and life on Mars televised.

One of the project ambassadors is Paul Römer, co-creator of the TV show Big Brother, so the groundwork is being laid for this hot TV property.

They are hoping to get the first team off of Earth in the year 2022:

All water, oxygen and atmosphere production will be ready by early 2022, which is when the Earth crew gets a go-ahead for the launch of team one. Each component of the Mars transit vehicle is launched into a low orbit, and linked together. September 14, 2022 goes down in history as the first four astronauts are launched on their journey after last checks. Every part of this adventure will be available to watch on our website, 24/7.

They'll extract water from the soil, separate oxygen from the water molecules, and grow food in greenhouses. One question not answered in their FAQ: Where do the players go who get voted off the planet?

Watch Promotional video.

Via.

Speech Jammer

I've gotta get one of these.

Unlike Hillary's "Reset" button or Staples' "Easy" button, this one is a "Shut-up button" that actually works. Or as they call it, a Speech Jammer.

It looks bulky, but once Moore's law catches up with it, it's bound to shrink. Kurzweilai.net explains in an easy to understand what it is and way how it works.

As described in the arXiv reference cited below, the device basically includes a laser pointer, directional microphone, distance sensor, microcomputer for delay, and parametric (directional) speaker. The parametric speaker modulates the voice audio onto an ultrasonic beam, which perturbs the air in a narrow beam, demodulating the audio to generate audible sound to anyone within that beam.

It records a person's voice then plays it back at the speaker at a millisecond delay, and through some mysterious psychological reason, it causes the speaker to be unable talk.

Of course, anyone using one of these devious devices should only use if for practical jokes. We've all seen video of audience members attempting to drown out speakers with whom they disagree politically.  Not very cool.

Updated 9/24/2012:  SpeechJammer takes home the Ig Nobel ACOUSTICS PRIZE!  Congratulations!

If it tastes good it's bad for you -- more red meat bad news

There was a joke from an old movie in which the people in the future scoff at the ancient myth that the consumption of red meat was unhealthy. Unfortunately, those days aren't here yet.

And here's another study showing increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer from red meat consumption and a slightly higher risk with processed meat consumption. Read the study at Archives of Internal Medicine. Via SciTechDaily.com.

Meanwhile, better grab a hot dog before they become extinct.

Wired -- 12% chance of catastrophic solar megastorm within decade

The good news is that it probably won't happen this weekend, per Spaceweather.com.

But according to Wired.com, there's about a 12% chance of an "enormous megaflare" within the next decade.

The last really big one did extensive damage to electronic communication, such as it was in 1859, so we can assume the damage next time will be significant. So there's time to plan.

With all that money the government wasted on worthless stimulus expenditures it's a crying shame the money could not have been put to better use, fortifying the power grid, for example.

Hopefully, the experts will provide advice to on how ordinary people can protect the electrical devices in homes and vehicles in the event a huge solar flare heads this way. And one thing even we can predict: store shelves will be cleared of surge protectors.

Buried, cremated or fed to vultures

Anyone who has ever signed a will has pondered whether he/she wants the dead body to be buried or cremated. There or other options, donation to a medical school for example, so that students can carve you up and make sophomoric jokes about your anatomy.

Here's an option many of us didn't know was available -- feed it to the vultures. This comes to us by way of news.yahoo.com which tells us about an experiment at Texas State University which placed a cadaver out in a field under a watchful camera eye to study the decay. Excerpt:

For more than five weeks, a woman's body lay undisturbed in a secluded Texas field. Then a frenzied flock of vultures descended on the corpse and reduced it to a skeleton within hours.

This could be very significant to homicide investigators. More:

"If you say someone did it and you say it was at least a year, could it have been two weeks instead?" said Michelle Hamilton, an assistant professor at the school's forensic anthropology research facility. "It has larger implications than what we thought initially."

Best part:

...they have a list of about 100 people prepared to donate their bodies to the project...

Liquefaction

There was a documentary about dinosaur bones on the TeeVee the other day, and a new word popped up: Liquefaction. New to me anyway.

Seems that those dinosaurs got caught up in an earthquake that encased them in liquefaction which preserved their bones.

Liquefaction occurs when an earthquake shakes the soil, saturates it with groundwater, and turns it into mud. It acts like quicksand and swallows anything on the surface. Once the shaking ceases and the water subsides, the ground hardens. It's not instantaneous, but if anything got absorbed into the slush and wasn't removed rather quickly it was stuck.

You can see an example of that in this video. It has the appearance of an amateur news report after an earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, roughly one year ago. At about the 16 second mark we see a car with its wheels stuck in the muck. After about another ten seconds in the video we see the hapless owner digging it out with a shovel, and the substance appears to have the consistency of not quite dry cement. Pretty amazing.

Speaking of earthquakes, hold onto something while you read The First 15 Minutes After the Big One, a hypothetical scenario of the minutes following a shift in the San Andreas fault producing a 7.8 earthquake epicentered 100 miles from Los Angeles. Via Newmarksdoor.com.

Mice on smart pills

Last month we talked about experiments in mice in which interference with NCoR1 in muscle tissue resulted in increased mitochondria which kept their little muscles going longer. See Building a better mouse with gene manipulation.

This time they are making mice smarter by genetically inhibiting a molecule called PKR. From BCM.edu/news:

The authors discovered that mice lacking PKR in the brain have a kind of "super" memory. "We found that when we genetically inhibit PKR, we increased the excitability of brain cells and enhanced learning and memory, in a variety of behavioral tests," he said. For instance, when the authors assessed spatial memory (the memory for people, places and events) through a test in which mice use visual cues for finding a hidden platform in a circular pool, they found that normal mice had to repeat the task multiple times over many days in order to remember the platform’s location. By contrast, mice lacking PKR learned the task after only one training session.

And note this:

"These data are totally unexpected, and show that two molecules classically known to play a role in viral infection and the immune response regulate the kind of brain activity that leads to the formation of long-term memory in the adult brain," said Costa-Mattioli.

"It is indeed quite amazing that we can also enhance both memory and brain activity with a drug that specifically targets PKR". Definitely then, the next step is to use what we have learned in mice and to try to improve brain function in people suffering from memory loss, said Costa-Mattioli.  (bold added)

We should live so long. While we wait we'll be plagued with smart, muscular rodents.

Via Kurzweilai.net.

Build a better mouse -- with gene manipulation

Build a mouse that lacks NCOR in its muscle tissue and it can run twice a long as an ordinary mouse. See Researchers Engineer a Mightier Mouse in which Emily Singer explains that NCOR acts as a dimmer switch -- a corepressor that inhibits gene expression.

And from the abstract: "Collectively, our data suggest that NCoR1 plays an adaptive role in muscle physiology and that interference with NCoR1 action could be used to improve muscle function." It seems that removing the NCOR results in increased mitochondria which keeps the muscles going longer.

Engineering a marathon running mouse isn't really their objective, of course. But the discovery might help researchers develop drugs that could reduce old age muscle loss.

And what professional athlete wouldn't want a legal way to get stronger muscles? There goes the record book.

Another study might lead to a better treatment of type 2 Diabetes. People who suffer from that have built up a resistance to insulin. But the mice that didn't have the NCOR1 in fat tissue were more sensitive to insulin.

Finally, news from all of this for we can use, a one liner for do-it-your-selfers: "Fasting brings [NCOR] levels down, while glucose pushes it up." Which brings us right back where we started. We are what we eat.

Scientists prosecuted for manslaughter over wrong predictions about Italian earthquake

The manslaughter charges look like prosecution overreach, but the civil malpractice claims might not be such a bad idea if they were aimed at the government bureaucrats as well.

Here's the story from BBC. The Italian government formed a panel called the "Serious Risk Commission" and assigned it the job of assessing the risks after hundreds of low-level tremors rattled L'Aquila, Italy. The panel reported that there was no reason to believe that the tremors were precursors to a larger event. Everyone quit worrying and sheltered in place when the next tremors hit. Unfortunately, the next tremors were from a major earthquake which caused the deaths of over 300 people.

The scientists should have consulted U.S. lawyers for a good disclaimer. "Caution: We will not be responsible for any loss of life or property that results from following our advice. Our advice is merely for the purpose of placating you, not making you safer."

Bloggers who have addressed this are in an uproar over the fact the scientists have been charged and sued. Examples here and here. But there's another side.

When government bureaucrats and their experts take on the job of assessing a situation, get it wrong, and it cost lives and fortunes, then they should expect some blow back. This brings to mind the global warming hysteria which had scientists finagling the research and stifling the opposition for a goal which would have cost trillions if they got their way. Some of them should be prosecuted.

Updated 10/22/2012: The trial ended, and six scientists were convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. See BBC. Their lawyers said an appeal is planned.

Greetings aliens from outer space

Welcome to Earth. We hear that you are monitoring our global warming and plan to invade our planet because of it. Source and quote:

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.

That's not necessary, because we welcome you with open arms.

We are a very peaceful people, and we love one another regardless of race, color, creed or planet of origin. Sure we get in occasional spats, but for the most part those little skirmishes get resolved peacefully. Some of them continue to fester, but once there's a final resolution, i.e., one side gives the other a royal beatdown, the dispute ends, and the two sides get alone.

It's all just a matter showing who's boss. It's quite simple, really.

Once you arrive we'll treat you with all the respect you deserve. We love all species, even the ugly ones. And we might even be able to love someone, or thing, that looks like you.  Photo souce.

Can I be frank? With that bulbous head and odd shaped eyes you aren't exactly a calendar pinup. Maybe that huge head means you've got a big brain. But down here, size doesn't matter. And what's with those big nocturnal eyes? You live on some planet that doesn't have daytime?

But those spindly arms and legs are the tell. Your planet doesn't have enough gravity stop spit. Here on earth a strong wind just might blow you over. So you had better watch it, dude, if you can even call yourself a dude. We don't even want to know how you tell your sexes apart. And what about reproduction? You probably lay eggs like some kind of slimy reptile.

In these parts, the only reptile that's safe is on the endangered species list. And if you try to invade us you might just end up an endangered species yourself. Just try it. We are armed to the teeth, and it will be open season on you space lizards.

OK, I've tried to be friendly, but noooo. You 're all, "Let's invade Earth, let's invade Earth!" Well, we've got your invasion right here, buster.

Oh, but of course, we would never hurt you. We really are a friendly planet. We just want to make sure you get a good and proper assimilation.

Reading Faces

An interesting article appears at Economist.com titled Facing the Truth -- Why a man’s face can lie but still produce orgasms which tells of two recent studies about guys' mugs.

The more interesting of the two is from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers and is titled Bad to the bone: facial structure predicts unethical behaviour. From the abstract (emphasis added):

Across two studies, we demonstrate that men with wider faces (relative to facial height) are more likely to explicitly deceive their counterparts in a negotiation, and are more willing to cheat in order to increase their financial gain. Importantly, we provide evidence that the link between facial metrics and unethical behaviour is mediated by a psychological sense of power. Our results demonstrate that static physical attributes can indeed serve as reliable cues of immoral action, and provide additional support for the view that evolutionary forces shape ethical judgement and behaviour.

Well maybe. There are probably so many exceptions as to make this study unusable for any real negotiation. A guy with a wide face can be perfectly honest just as a guy with a skinny face can be a big fat liar. So the real life advantage may go to the guy with the skinny face.

The other study came from researchers at Pennsylvania State University -- Men's masculinity and attractiveness predict their female partners' reported orgasm frequency and timing and makes the astonishing discovery that what women want is handsome men. Our research dollars at work -- stimulus money no doubt.

The war against junk science

There's a famous quote out there somewhere about how a person can very easily believe a lie if his/her income depends on that lie. We've seen that demonstrated most recently in the promotion of the man-made global warming theory.  Junk science shows up everywhere.  There's the anti-vaccination hysteria which took years to dispel.  And just a couple of short decades ago the TV show 60 Minutes promoted a trumped up charge against Alar that had mothers of young children convinced they were feeding the little tykes poison apples.

These days we are hearing how cell phones cause brain cancer. Do they? We really don't know, but WHO says, "radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans," right up there with "lead, chloroform and coffee." (Coffee???)

So it's nice to see an article come along like this one from ScientificAmerican.com An Epidemic of False Claims -- Competition and conflicts of interest distort too many medical findings. Quote:

Much research is conducted for reasons other than the pursuit of truth. Conflicts of interest abound, and they influence outcomes. In health care, research is often performed at the behest of companies that have a large financial stake in the results. Even for academics, success often hinges on publishing positive findings. The oligopoly of high-impact journals also has a distorting effect on funding, academic careers and market shares. Industry tailors research agendas to suit its needs, which also shapes academic priorities, journal revenue and even public funding.

Via NoFrackkingConsensus.com.

It takes someone willing to face the truth even if their income depends on a lie. And in the meantime rational people maintain a healthy amount of skepticism.

Scientists: Social activity wards off dementia

Real science or wishful thinking?

This article -- Want better brains? Party! -- tells us that a recent study provided evidence that social activity helps old people keep their cognitive abilities from declining. Excerpt:

The study included 1,138 older adults with a mean age of 80 who are participating in the Rush Memory and Aging Project, an ongoing longitudinal study of common chronic conditions of aging. They each underwent yearly evaluations that included a medical history and neuropsychological tests.

Cognitive function was assessed using a battery of 19 tests for various types of memory (episodic, semantic and working memory), as well as perceptual speed and visuospatial ability.

At the start of the investigation, all participants were free of any signs of cognitive impairment. Over an average of five years, however, those who were more socially active showed reduced rates of cognitive decline. On average, those who had the highest levels of social activity (the 90th percentile) experienced only one quarter of the rate of cognitive decline experienced by the least socially active individuals

It's possible "social activity challenges older adults to participate in complex interpersonal exchanges, which could promote or main efficient neural networks in a case of 'use it or lose it,'" [ lead researcher Bryan ] James said.

It says they tried to rule out the possibility that cognitive decline precedes, or causes, social isolation, however a skeptic might question whether their results actually showed that.

Via Dave Barry who tells us we should obey the prescription to party.

Men are from Mars; Women are from Mars

First they had SETI. Now they have SETG, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genomes.

Some researchers at MIT and Harvard are working on a project that would result in a device that could take samples of Martian soil and examine them for any DNA that might be present in living or dead microbes. Then it would look for genetic sequences common in Earthly life forms. Source: Have we descended from Mars?

If they find similar genomes, the theory would be that microbial life may have traveled from Mars to Earth. What a journey!

"Hey baby, are you from Mars?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"Well, I thought you must be, because you certainly are out of this world. That, and the green skin."

The Arctic is warming! The Arctic is warming! A warming warning from 1922.

Predictions are always tricky, especially if they concern the future.

Some believers of the man made global warming theories will never give up, particularly those with a financial or ego investment in it.

But this is really funny. It's a Washington Post report about global warming in 1922. Here's the link at Snopes.com.

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen, Norway. ...

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.

Hasn't there been an "ice age" in the intervening 90 years? Via.

The mouse that roared

Radioactive mice, nuclear bunnies and atomic tumbleweeds are among the various flora and fauna haunting the area near Hanford, Washington. The source of the radioactivity is supposed to be material the critters ingested from the site of a cleanup of a facility that produced plutonium for nuclear weapons from 1944 to 1987. Even the Wall Street Journal is on it.

Mouse hunters are out looking for radioactive mice. And wouldn't you know, PETA wants to save the mice. Rat to Life might be available if they need a slogan.

I'm sure we are all seeking the answer to a burning question. It's fairly well established that a bite from a radioactive spider can create in humans an "arachnid's relative strength and agility plus a tingling 'spider sense' for danger." So what powers might come from the bite of a radioactive mouse? The ability to sneak undetected into dwellings? A squeak that can shatter glass?

Meanwhile, the nuclear waste dump site in Andrews County, Texas, might someday open for business once all the objections are dealt with. But something tells me there will be so much scrutiny that we won't get single glimpse of a glowing jackrabbit. Whoa, what about a bite from a radioactive rattlesnake? Now there's a superhero for the sliver screen.

Obama on MythBusters pt. 2

The other day we noticed that President Barack Obama will appear on MythBusters to ask Jamie and Adam to retest a myth they've already busted. And that invited a snarky suggestion for the MythBusters to bust President Obama's economic policy myth.  Link.

So in all fairness, we present here another view of the show, ripped from pages of Entertainment Weekly.

If you can't read the text, here's what it says:

9-10PM
MythBusters, TV-PG HD
President Barack Obama makes his cameo asking the 'Busters to revisit a myth they once (sorta) busted: Archimedes' use of polished shields to focus sunlight so intensely on an invading Roman ship that it burst into flames. The prez, a fan of the show, theorizes that if they had 500 real people hold the mirrored surfaces -- the team focused them mechanically last time -- that could make the difference. (And, of course, he wants to plug his science-is-cool campaign.) A good hour of geeky fun -- and a political alternative to Sarah Palin's Alaska. B -- Jenifer Armstrong

[Emphasis mine.]

Yeah, science is cool, especially when politicians aren't twisting it to support an off shore drilling ban or a global warming theory.

And they just had to throw in a jab at Sarah Palin. Is she starting to look like Obama's biggest threat, or what?

Experts: Grumpy people think more clearly -- A father's day gift for dad's everywhere!

Release your inner curmudgeon, pops.

Experiments were conducted after people were put into good or bad moods. BBC link and quotes:

"Negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world."

and

"... sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments, which Forgas said showed that a 'mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style' ".

Positive moods have their advantages, too. But you go to bat with the mood you have, not the mood others wish you had.