Weekly Science Headlines

[Vene]

Creationists Declare War Over the Brain
from New Scientist

"You cannot overestimate," thundered psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, "how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You're gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about ... how Darwin's explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it ... Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation needs to be understood as part of natural reality."

His enthusiasm was met with much applause from the audience gathered at the UN's east Manhattan conference hall on 11 September for an international symposium called Beyond the Mind-Body Problem: New Paradigms in the Science of Consciousness.

Earlier Mario Beauregard, ... co-author of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul, told the audience that the "battle" between "maverick" scientists like himself and those who "believe the mind is what the  brain does" is a "cultural war."

http://snipurl.com/4lxoj

I really shouldn't have read some of the comments.  Surprise, surprise an IDiot found this.

[Iason Ouabache]

Flying Syringes and Other Bold Ideas
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

BANGKOK, Oct. 22—The charitable foundation founded by Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates has awarded 104 grants, each for $100,000, in a bid to inject entrepreneurial boldness and risk-taking into the often staid world of medical research.

Announced in Bangkok, the grants are the first stage of a $100 million, five-year project the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hopes will encourage research into innovative medical ideas that it feels now have little chance of development, largely because of how funding is distributed.

In making its picks, the foundation has rejected the widespread practice of peer review—assigning other specialists in a field to evaluate research—because, in the words of Tadataka Yamada, the foundation's director of global health, "peer review—by definition almost—excludes innovation because innovation has no peers."

http://snipurl.com/4n37g

 

I hope they are prepared to deal with all the woo-woo that is going to be thrown their way.

Creationists Declare War Over the Brain
from New Scientist

"You cannot overestimate," thundered psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, "how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You're gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about ... how Darwin's explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it ... Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation needs to be understood as part of natural reality."

His enthusiasm was met with much applause from the audience gathered at the UN's east Manhattan conference hall on 11 September for an international symposium called Beyond the Mind-Body Problem: New Paradigms in the Science of Consciousness.

Earlier Mario Beauregard, ... co-author of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul, told the audience that the "battle" between "maverick" scientists like himself and those who "believe the mind is what the  brain does" is a "cultural war."

http://snipurl.com/4lxoj

I'm seriously beginning to think that there is not a single science that these guys will accept. They won't be happy until all of modern science is dead.

[Iason Ouabache]

Molecules That Matter
from the Scientist (Registration Required)

"Molecules That Matter," a traveling exhibit that opened to the public at the newly renovated Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia earlier this month, ties the history of the 20th century to a handful of the most influential molecules of the period.

The goal of the exhibit is simple: to help the public, who typically cringes at memories from high school chemistry classes, to connect chemical discoveries to the products they use everyday.

And connect it does. Brightly colored models of penicillin G, DDT, and Prozac molecules ... hover above visitors from the exhibit ceiling. Contemporary art and artifacts—including marble sculptures of genetically-modified rats and a 1960 magazine cover addressing the controversy surrounding "the pill"—mingle in the museum. A display case of consumer products born out of the 20th century chemical discoveries, like Tupperware and pantyhose, allows visitors to follow a timeline of chemistry's rise to popular prominence.

http://snipurl.com/4j9co

I really hope this makes its way to somewhere in the Midwest because I would love to see it.

[Kai]

A Taste for Blood
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

With his soft voice and friar's manner, Louis Sorkin hardly seems the type to flout the sensible advice of a nursery rhyme. Yet on a recent afternoon at the American Museum of Natural History, Mr. Sorkin, a renowned entomologist, did precisely, luridly that.

He took a glass jar swarming with thousands of hungry specimens of Cimex lectularius, better known as bedbugs. The small, roachy-looking bloodsuckers have been spreading through the nation's homes and hotels at such a hyperventilated pace that by next year they are expected to displace cockroaches and termites as America's leading domestic pest insect. To better understand their habits, Mr. Sorkin has cultivated a personal bedbug colony—very personal.

... Mr. Sorkin and his bedbugs are featured in the newly published "Dark Banquet," a jaunty, instructive and charmingly graphic look at nature's born phlebotomists—creatures from wildly different twigs of the phylogenetic tree that all happen to share a fondness for blood.

http://snipurl.com/4kar4

You haven't heard of traumatic insemination yet, have you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination

Read, read the references, enjoy. 

[Kai]

Flying Syringes and Other Bold Ideas
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

BANGKOK, Oct. 22—The charitable foundation founded by Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates has awarded 104 grants, each for $100,000, in a bid to inject entrepreneurial boldness and risk-taking into the often staid world of medical research.

Announced in Bangkok, the grants are the first stage of a $100 million, five-year project the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hopes will encourage research into innovative medical ideas that it feels now have little chance of development, largely because of how funding is distributed.

In making its picks, the foundation has rejected the widespread practice of peer review—assigning other specialists in a field to evaluate research—because, in the words of Tadataka Yamada, the foundation's director of global health, "peer review—by definition almost—excludes innovation because innovation has no peers."

http://snipurl.com/4n37g

 

I hope they are prepared to deal with all the woo-woo that is going to be thrown their way.

I know, I read that and thought WTF FFS.  Peer review is the reason our scientific journals are not full of bullshit.

[Eve]

A Taste for Blood
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

With his soft voice and friar's manner, Louis Sorkin hardly seems the type to flout the sensible advice of a nursery rhyme. Yet on a recent afternoon at the American Museum of Natural History, Mr. Sorkin, a renowned entomologist, did precisely, luridly that.

He took a glass jar swarming with thousands of hungry specimens of Cimex lectularius, better known as bedbugs. The small, roachy-looking bloodsuckers have been spreading through the nation's homes and hotels at such a hyperventilated pace that by next year they are expected to displace cockroaches and termites as America's leading domestic pest insect. To better understand their habits, Mr. Sorkin has cultivated a personal bedbug colony—very personal.

... Mr. Sorkin and his bedbugs are featured in the newly published "Dark Banquet," a jaunty, instructive and charmingly graphic look at nature's born phlebotomists—creatures from wildly different twigs of the phylogenetic tree that all happen to share a fondness for blood.

http://snipurl.com/4kar4

You haven't heard of traumatic insemination yet, have you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination

Read, read the references, enjoy. 

Should not have read that right before making lunch.

[Vene]

A Taste for Blood
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

With his soft voice and friar's manner, Louis Sorkin hardly seems the type to flout the sensible advice of a nursery rhyme. Yet on a recent afternoon at the American Museum of Natural History, Mr. Sorkin, a renowned entomologist, did precisely, luridly that.

He took a glass jar swarming with thousands of hungry specimens of Cimex lectularius, better known as bedbugs. The small, roachy-looking bloodsuckers have been spreading through the nation's homes and hotels at such a hyperventilated pace that by next year they are expected to displace cockroaches and termites as America's leading domestic pest insect. To better understand their habits, Mr. Sorkin has cultivated a personal bedbug colony—very personal.

... Mr. Sorkin and his bedbugs are featured in the newly published "Dark Banquet," a jaunty, instructive and charmingly graphic look at nature's born phlebotomists—creatures from wildly different twigs of the phylogenetic tree that all happen to share a fondness for blood.

http://snipurl.com/4kar4

You haven't heard of traumatic insemination yet, have you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination

Read, read the references, enjoy. 

It's not any worse than rape flight in mallards.
"When they pair off with mating partners, often one or several drakes will end up "left out". This group will sometimes target an isolated female duck — chasing, pestering and pecking at her until she weakens (a phenomenon referred to by researchers as rape flight), at which point each male will take turns copulating with the female. Male Mallards will also occasionally chase other males in the same way. (In one documented case, a male Mallard copulated with another male he was chasing after it had been killed when it flew into a glass window.)"

[LMNO]

This is great material for when you get all those "nature is the perfect template for human behavior" hippies and wiccans.

"So, I can gang rape you?  Hey, mallards do it..."

[Kai]

A Taste for Blood
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

With his soft voice and friar's manner, Louis Sorkin hardly seems the type to flout the sensible advice of a nursery rhyme. Yet on a recent afternoon at the American Museum of Natural History, Mr. Sorkin, a renowned entomologist, did precisely, luridly that.

He took a glass jar swarming with thousands of hungry specimens of Cimex lectularius, better known as bedbugs. The small, roachy-looking bloodsuckers have been spreading through the nation's homes and hotels at such a hyperventilated pace that by next year they are expected to displace cockroaches and termites as America's leading domestic pest insect. To better understand their habits, Mr. Sorkin has cultivated a personal bedbug colony—very personal.

... Mr. Sorkin and his bedbugs are featured in the newly published "Dark Banquet," a jaunty, instructive and charmingly graphic look at nature's born phlebotomists—creatures from wildly different twigs of the phylogenetic tree that all happen to share a fondness for blood.

http://snipurl.com/4kar4

You haven't heard of traumatic insemination yet, have you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination

Read, read the references, enjoy. 

It's not any worse than rape flight in mallards.
"When they pair off with mating partners, often one or several drakes will end up "left out". This group will sometimes target an isolated female duck — chasing, pestering and pecking at her until she weakens (a phenomenon referred to by researchers as rape flight), at which point each male will take turns copulating with the female. Male Mallards will also occasionally chase other males in the same way. (In one documented case, a male Mallard copulated with another male he was chasing after it had been killed when it flew into a glass window.)"

No, see, thats similar to gang rape. Traumatic insemination is similar to someone jamming a knife into the abdomen of a female bodied person, cutting into their uterus, and then penetrating in with your penis.

Bedbugs are insect gore.

[Vene]

Good point Kai.  I just like pointing out fucked up shit in nature.

[LMNO]

A Taste for Blood
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

With his soft voice and friar's manner, Louis Sorkin hardly seems the type to flout the sensible advice of a nursery rhyme. Yet on a recent afternoon at the American Museum of Natural History, Mr. Sorkin, a renowned entomologist, did precisely, luridly that.

He took a glass jar swarming with thousands of hungry specimens of Cimex lectularius, better known as bedbugs. The small, roachy-looking bloodsuckers have been spreading through the nation's homes and hotels at such a hyperventilated pace that by next year they are expected to displace cockroaches and termites as America's leading domestic pest insect. To better understand their habits, Mr. Sorkin has cultivated a personal bedbug colony—very personal.

... Mr. Sorkin and his bedbugs are featured in the newly published "Dark Banquet," a jaunty, instructive and charmingly graphic look at nature's born phlebotomists—creatures from wildly different twigs of the phylogenetic tree that all happen to share a fondness for blood.

http://snipurl.com/4kar4

You haven't heard of traumatic insemination yet, have you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination

Read, read the references, enjoy. 

It's not any worse than rape flight in mallards.
"When they pair off with mating partners, often one or several drakes will end up "left out". This group will sometimes target an isolated female duck — chasing, pestering and pecking at her until she weakens (a phenomenon referred to by researchers as rape flight), at which point each male will take turns copulating with the female. Male Mallards will also occasionally chase other males in the same way. (In one documented case, a male Mallard copulated with another male he was chasing after it had been killed when it flew into a glass window.)"

No, see, thats similar to gang rape. Traumatic insemination is similar to someone jamming a knife into the abdomen of a female bodied person, cutting into their uterus, and then penetrating in with your penis.

Bedbugs are insect gore.

I think I just came up with another HP slashfic story...

[Kai]

 

[Kai]

October 27, 2008

Half of Doctors Routinely Prescribe Placebos
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Half of all American doctors responding to a nationwide survey say they regularly prescribe placebos to patients. The results trouble medical ethicists, who say more research is needed to determine whether doctors must deceive patients in order for placebos to work.

The study involved 679 internists and rheumatologists chosen randomly from a national list of such doctors. In response to three questions included as part of the larger survey, about half reported recommending placebos regularly. Surveys in Denmark, Israel, Britain, Sweden and New Zealand have found similar results.

The most common placebos the American doctors reported using were headache pills and vitamins, but a significant number also reported prescribing antibiotics and sedatives.

http://snipurl.com/4poxu


Supersonic Car Targets 1,000 mph
from BBC News Online

The British team that claimed the land speed record in 1997, taking a car through the sound barrier for the first time, is planning to go even faster. RAF pilot Andy Green made history in 1997 when he drove the Thrust SSC jet-powered vehicle at 763mph (1,228km/h).

Now he intends to get behind the wheel of a car that is capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h). Known as Bloodhound, the new car will be powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine.

The team-members have been working on the concept for the past 18 months and expect to be ready to make their new record attempt in 2011.

http://snipurl.com/4n4hv


Watching Yellowstone's Wolves
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

... Yellowstone rangers say this is the best place on Earth to watch wolves in the wild. But 13 years after being reintroduced to Yellowstone, they remain polarizing animals, generating endless controversy and furious litigation.

On Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took steps to revive a 2007 proposal to remove the gray wolf of the northern Rockies from the Endangered Species List. Environmentalists howled, calling it a last-gasp effort by the Bush administration to delist wolves.

The Fish and Wildlife Service had officially delisted the wolves in March, and afterward wildlife officials in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana developed management plans that included hunting seasons. In Wyoming, anyone could shoot a wolf at any time in most of the state.

http://snipurl.com/4pqiu


Congress Questions FDA Objectivity on BPA
from USA Today

Congress is stepping in to ask questions about chemical industry influence in drafting a Food and Drug Administration report about the safety of a controversial chemical in baby bottles.

In August, the FDA declared the chemical, bisphenol A, or BPA, safe, a determination greeted skeptically by consumer groups who argue that hundreds of scientific studies suggest it may cause serious harm.

According to a letter to the FDA from Reps. John Dingell and Bart Stupak sent last week, the FDA hired a private consulting group with strong industry ties to perform some of its analyses of BPA.

http://snipurl.com/4pqmi


Two Greenhouse Gases on the Rise Worry Scientists
from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)—Carbon dioxide isn't the only greenhouse gas that worries climate scientists. Airborne levels of two other potent gases—one from ancient plants, the other from flat-panel screen technology—are on the rise, too. And that's got scientists concerned about accelerated global warming.

The gases are methane and nitrogen trifluoride. Both pale in comparison to the global warming effects of carbon dioxide, produced by the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels. In the past couple of years, however, these other two gases have been on the rise, according to two new studies. The increase is not accounted for in predictions for future global warming and comes as a nasty surprise to climate watchers.

Methane is by far the bigger worry. It is considered the No. 2 greenhouse gas based on the amount of warming it causes and the amount in the atmosphere. The total effect of methane on global warming is about one-third that of man-made carbon dioxide.

http://snipurl.com/4qqrg 


The Barnyard Strategist
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

... Proposition 2 [in California], co-sponsored by the Humane Society and Farm Sanctuary, the biggest farm-animal-rights group in the United States, focuses on what are considered the worst animal-confinement systems in factory farms.

The ballot initiative, which [California] voters will decide on Nov. 4, requires that by 2015 farm animals be able to stand up, lie down, turn around and fully extend their limbs. In effect that translates into a ban on the two-foot-wide crates that tightly confine pregnant pigs and calves raised for veal—a space so small that they can't turn around.

... Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University and a leading figure in the animal rights movement, compares Proposition 2 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign, calling Proposition 2 the "other historic ballot this November." If it passes, it would affect more animals—almost 20 million—than any ballot measure has in U.S. history.

http://snipurl.com/4pp2e


Vaccine Reduces Diarrheal Illness in Infants
from the Dallas Morning News (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)—A vaccine against rotavirus, the leading cause of diarrhea in infants, has led to a dramatic drop in hospitalization and emergency room visits since it came on the market two years ago, doctors reported Saturday.

A bonus: the vaccine seems to be preventing illness even in unvaccinated children by cutting the number of infections in the community that kids can pick up and spread. ... Results were reported Saturday at an infectious diseases conference in Washington.

Before the vaccine, more than 200,000 U.S. children were taken to emergency rooms and more than 55,000 were hospitalized each year with rotavirus, which causes vomiting and diarrhea, mostly from January through May. Worldwide, the virus kills 1,600 young children each day.

http://snipurl.com/4pr4b


New Moon Rover Mixes Old-School Smarts With Latest Tech
from National Geographic News

With six-wheel drive, active suspension, and computerized navigation, a new battery-powered truck being field tested this week in Arizona sounds like the next generation of sport-utility vehicles.

But when the final model rolls out in 2019, only an exclusive group of highly trained professionals will get to drive it—the next astronauts to land on the moon.

The new lunar rover, informally known as the Chariot, is a prototype being developed as part of NASA's Constellation program, which aims to put people back on the moon by 2020. The current version combines 35 years of technological advances with lessons learned from the original "moon buggies" used during the Apollo missions of the 1970s.

http://snipurl.com/4prc4


Never Say Die: Why We Can't Imagine Death
from Scientific American

... After all, the brain is like any other organ: a part of our physical body. And the mind is what the brain does—it's more a verb than it is a noun. Why do we wonder where our mind goes when the body is dead? Shouldn't it be obvious that the mind is dead, too?

And yet people in every culture believe in an afterlife of some kind or, at the very least, are unsure about what happens to the mind at death.

... The common view of death as a great mystery usually is brushed aside as an emotionally fueled desire to believe that death isn't the end of the road. And indeed, a prominent school of research in social psychology called terror management theory contends that afterlife beliefs, as well as less obvious beliefs, behaviors and attitudes, exist to assuage what would otherwise be crippling anxiety about the ego's inexistence.

http://snipurl.com/4prhn


The Evidence Gap: Quickly Vetted, Treatment Is Offered to Patients
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

After a surgeon removed a cancerous lump from Karen Medlock's breast in November, he recommended radiation, a routine next step meant to keep cancer from recurring. But he did not send her for the kind of radiation most women have received for decades.

Instead, the surgeon referred her to a center in Oakland, Calif., specializing in a newer form of treatment where radioactive "seeds" are inserted in the tumor site. It could be completed in only five days instead of the six weeks typically required for conventional treatment, which irradiates the entire breast using external beams.

To Ms. Medlock, it seemed an obvious choice. The newer treatment—given through a system called MammoSite—has been performed on about 45,000 breast cancer patients in this country since the Food and Drug Administration cleared it for use in 2002. Only when Ms. Medlock, 49, sought a second opinion did she learn a startling truth: MammoSite is still highly experimental.

http://snipurl.com/4qqiu

[Kai]

October 28, 2008

Seven of the Greatest Scientific Hoaxes
from New Scientist

For this week's issue, New Scientist includes a review of "The Sun and the Moon" by Matthew Goodman, which tells the story of the great moon hoax of 1835.

That got an editor there thinking about other great scientific hoaxes in the past. After doing a bit of digging, she was amazed by how many there were—and at the variety and creativity of the hoaxes. The result is a review of seven of the best.

Of course, there are serious cases of scientific fraud, such as the stem cell researchers recently found guilty of falsifying data and the South Korean cloning fraud. The stories included here, however, are not so serious.

http://snipurl.com/4r4qw


Quantum Chaos
from Scientific American

In 1917 Albert Einstein wrote a paper that was completely ignored for 40 years. In it he raised a question that physicists have only recently begun asking themselves: What would classical chaos, which lurks everywhere in our world, do to quantum mechanics, the theory describing the atomic and subatomic worlds?

The effects of classical chaos, of course, have long been observed—Kepler knew about the motion of the moon around the earth and Newton complained bitterly about the phenomenon. At the end of the 19th century the American astronomer William Hill demonstrated that the irregularity is the result entirely of the gravitational pull of the sun.

So thereafter, the great French mathematician-astronomer-physicist Henri Poincaré surmised that the moon's motion is only mild case of a congenital disease affecting nearly everything. In the long run, Poincaré realized, most dynamic systems show no discernible regularity or repetitive pattern. The behavior of even a simple system can depend so sensitively on its initial conditions that the final outcome is uncertain.

http://snipurl.com/4r4iq


Nearby Star System Looks a Little Like Home
from Science News

In the annals of planethood, astronomers consider the star Epsilon Eridani a member of the fabulous four. Along with Fomalhaut, Beta Pictoris and Vega, Epsilon Eridani is one of the first four stars scientists have found that has an icy ring of debris, an indication that the star has begun the process of forming planets.

Epsilon Eridani just got more fabulous: Researchers have discovered that the star, only 10.5 light-years from the sun, sports two inner asteroid belts in addition to the icy ring on the outskirts of the Epsilon Eridani system.

In both location and mass, Epsilon Eridani's innermost asteroid belt is a virtual twin of the solar system's asteroid belt. The second asteroid belt is farther out and about 20 times more massive than the solar system's belt. This belt circles Epsilon Eridani at a distance roughly that at which Uranus orbits the sun.

http://snipurl.com/4r445


Baby Dinosaur Had Full-Grown Bite
from New Scientist

A rare baby dinosaur skull—only the size of a rat's head—confirms Heterodontosaurus as one of the most unusual of all dinosaurs.

The 45-millimetre skull has features characteristic of a juvenile—large "puppy dog" eye sockets, and a snub nose—but it also sports the meat-tearing canine teeth normally associated with adults. The fossil was newly identified after being examined in a South African museum.

Intriguingly, while it has canines at the front of the mouth, it also has molars behind—a pattern more often seen in mammals.

http://snipurl.com/4prl2


Trail of Odd Anthrax Cells Led FBI to Army Scientist
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

In late October 2001, lab technician Terry Abshire placed a tray of anthrax cells under a microscope and spotted something so peculiar she had to look twice. It was two weeks after the country's worst bioterrorism attack, and Abshire, like others at the Army's Fort Detrick biodefense lab, was caught up in a frenzied search for clues that could help lead to the culprit. Down the hall, Bruce E. Ivins, the respected vaccine specialist, was looking, too.

Abshire focused her lens on a moldlike clump. Anthrax bacteria were growing here, but some of the cells were odd: strange shapes, strange textures, strange colors. These were mutants, or "morphs," genetic deviants scattered among the ordinary anthrax cells like chocolate chips in a cookie batter.

Unknowingly, Abshire had discovered a key to solving the anthrax case. But it would take nearly six years to develop the technology to allow FBI investigators to use it. Ultimately the evolving science led investigators to Ivins and a strikingly original collection of anthrax spores that became the focus of the FBI's probe.

http://snipurl.com/4qqkx 


'New Prostate' Grown Inside Mouse
from BBC News Online

Scientists have grown new prostate glands in mice, in another advance for stem cell technology. The team from San Francisco were able to isolate single cells with the ability to generate an entire prostate.

The technique, reported in the journal Nature, could shed light on how prostate tumours develop. However, any thoughts it could lead to transplants in men who have had the gland removed to beat cancer have been played down.

... The US researchers were able to track down a type of stem cell which divides to form the different cell types in the gland. When these mouse stem cells were transplanted back into mice, they developed into entirely new glands.

http://snipurl.com/4pqrg


Salt and High Blood Pressure: New Concerns Raised
from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Ah, salt. It gives personality to chips, balance to bread and flavor to scrambled eggs, guacamole, tomato sauce and just about everything else that comes in a can, jar or squeeze bottle. Salt is such a mealtime staple it can be hard to imagine life without a shaker on the table.

But as far back as the 1960s, physicians linked salt to high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Today, more than 65 million Americans have hypertension—repeatedly high blood pressure—according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and 59 million more have pre-hypertension, a level higher than normal that can also lead to health problems.

... To help people do what they can't seem to do on their own, in the last few years a consumer advocacy group and several medical organizations and health experts have been pushing for legislation that would regulate sodium content in the foods we buy.

http://snipurl.com/4qw8o


Science Projects for the Real World
from the Boston Globe (Registration Required)

It's great to see young scientists and engineers setting their minds on assistive technologies. Rather than building war-fighting exoskeletons and ray guns, students at two Massachusetts schools are designing prototypes to help people navigate around their workplaces and neighborhoods.

Science students at Bromfield School in Harvard are crafting a "cane" that will alert its carrier to obstacles and drops more than 20 feet away. The cane might not be a cane at all, once it's completed. Sunglasses or a belt buckle embedded with lasers and other sensors are also possible.

The device will talk in one of two ways: either via a changing Braille interface, or with a computerized voice. It might be able to break in on your iTunes listening, to warn you that a subway staircase is ahead, for instance.

http://snipurl.com/4r51a


Ice Sheet Secrets Set to Be Seen
from BBC News Online

The secrets of the largest ice sheet on earth are to be revealed under plans to map the Antarctic landscape in detail for the first time.

A team including Edinburgh scientists is to travel across East Antarctica in a four-year project to explore the land hidden beneath the ice-covered region.

Radar instruments will be used to penetrate the ice, which is several kilometres thick. They hope to examine the composition and density of the underlying rock. The area covers an area that is half the size of the United States.

http://snipurl.com/4r555   


Thoreau Is Rediscovered as a Climatologist
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

CONCORD, Mass.—Henry David Thoreau endorsed civil disobedience, opposed slavery and lived for two years in a hut in the woods here, an experience he described in "Walden." Now he turns out to have another line in his résumé: climate researcher.

He did not realize it, of course. Thoreau died in 1862, when the industrial revolution was just beginning to pump climate-changing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In 1851, when he started recording when and where plants flowered in Concord, he was making notes for a book on the seasons.

Now, though, researchers at Boston University and Harvard are using those notes to discern patterns of plant abundance and decline in Concord—and by extension, New England—and to link those patterns to changing climate.

http://snipurl.com/4rw50

[Iason Ouabache]

October 27, 2008

Half of Doctors Routinely Prescribe Placebos
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Half of all American doctors responding to a nationwide survey say they regularly prescribe placebos to patients. The results trouble medical ethicists, who say more research is needed to determine whether doctors must deceive patients in order for placebos to work.

The study involved 679 internists and rheumatologists chosen randomly from a national list of such doctors. In response to three questions included as part of the larger survey, about half reported recommending placebos regularly. Surveys in Denmark, Israel, Britain, Sweden and New Zealand have found similar results.

The most common placebos the American doctors reported using were headache pills and vitamins, but a significant number also reported prescribing antibiotics and sedatives.

http://snipurl.com/4poxu

I love Placebo studies.  It shows that the mind is better at healing diseases than many medicines are.

Never Say Die: Why We Can't Imagine Death
from Scientific American

... After all, the brain is like any other organ: a part of our physical body. And the mind is what the brain does—it's more a verb than it is a noun. Why do we wonder where our mind goes when the body is dead? Shouldn't it be obvious that the mind is dead, too?

And yet people in every culture believe in an afterlife of some kind or, at the very least, are unsure about what happens to the mind at death.

... The common view of death as a great mystery usually is brushed aside as an emotionally fueled desire to believe that death isn't the end of the road. And indeed, a prominent school of research in social psychology called terror management theory contends that afterlife beliefs, as well as less obvious beliefs, behaviors and attitudes, exist to assuage what would otherwise be crippling anxiety about the ego's inexistence.

http://snipurl.com/4prhn

I can't remember if Dennett mentioned terror management theory in "Breaking the Spell" but he did talk about the idea that man is unable to cope with the fact that at some point our mind/soul/personality will cease to exist.  Many religions have been built up around this fear.