| Consuming our morbid thoughts away | 12:48 AM |
This doesn't seem like new research because it seems to me that it's a given that eating and shopping are relatively common coping mechanisms. It's not unusual to hear stories about women addicted to shopping or food. I suppose men share these same problems but perhaps 1) less numerously, 2) less excessively, or 3) less conspicuously (but I haven't researched this so I'm just stabbing blindly).
There was a recent New Scientist article about how thinking about death or dying can spur buying or consuming behavior. Students wrote essays about either their own death or a trip to the dentist (I think it's funny that the options were death or dentist). After these kids wrote these essays, they found that people who had written about their death ate more cookies when given the opportunity, and also hypothetically purchased more items than those who wrote about the dentist.
But they also evaluated the students' self esteem. The ones that had low self esteem and had to write about death were more excessive in their behaviors -- ate more cookies, bought more things -- as a way of "subconsciously escaping self awareness, which is heightened by thoughts of dying". Those with high self esteem weren't really affected by the thoughts of death.
For those affected, it wasn't just the thought of their own death, but watching clips of death related news also stimulated this consumption. I love the quote at the end the piece which has one of the research professors (who, btw, has a PhD in psychology and is a professor of Marketing at his university) saying, gosh, I hope marketing folks don't exploit this by placing food ads right after the news. Really? But isn't that your job -- to teach people how to best market their goods?
Thoughts of death make us eat more cookies full article at New Scientist
| My favorite drug | 1:37 AM |
My favorite hormone is back in the news! And this time it might cure some mental illnesses. Oxytocin stimulates pair bonding, affection, and breast milk. It helps you associate good feelings with social interactions and to be able to empathize with others. Mothers who have their oxytocin production interfered with stop nursing and caring for their young; children who are neglected in their youth grow up with stunted oxytocin receptors. Researchers now think that oxytocin could help those with mental illnesses that affect sociability or empathy (like autism).
It's coincidental that I just read Above the Thunder and was thinking that I must have a lack of oxytocin in my system -- my mothering and nurturing instincts are low.
It's also coincidental that I was just talking to a friend of mine about how some really intelligent tech geeks are sort of autistic in that they aren't very good socially -- they can't read signals, they don't know how to interract with people, or sometimes even don't know why they should bother.
Perhaps we could all use a little extra oxytocin: I love you, you love me; let's take care of our family.
| Our Multiverse | 10:21 PM |
I've been obsessed with this New Scientist article I read recently about how there is not one universe, but there are multiverses. If you're familiar with Schrödinger's Cat, the multiverse theory implies that it doesn't matter if the cat is dead or alive when you open the box, there is another universe where the cat is the opposite.
So in the simplest scenario, imagine the world you live in, the world you know -- or at least the reality you know -- and that there is another one of you that does the exact opposite of what you do. That's the simple version because it implies binary choices. Now imagine how many multiverses there really must be. And then imagine what this means morally? The better a person I am in the universe I know, there must be another entangled me in different universe that is just as evil as I am good. So what's to compell me to be good?
Last week, Ed and I were talking about an article he'd read about how this world could be a simulation. I found a few papers out there on the topic so I'm not sure exactly which one he read, but it stuck with me. And now I wonder -- would you bother to run a simulation if the multiverse theory were true? Wouldn't the simulation spawn the extra multiverses it needed, then what would be the point of observing one over another?
Then, there's Dexter. I'm beginning to think that watching that show is actually taxing my mental health, but all of this ties in together. Dexter. What's wrong with being a serial killer? If, say in another universe, you're a doctor helping people live? There's a scene in the episode called Circle of Friends, where Dexter is talking to another killer in jail and asks, What do you normally feel?, and his friend answers, Nothing. Fucking nothing at all. So empty. But in our multiverses, there'd be a him somewhere that didn't feel empty. Would emptiness mean anything then?
| Liberals Are Smarter! | 10:47 PM |
I mentioned (only semi jokingly) recently that liberals were smarter than conservatives. Now I have research that backs me up! Please note, though, that I admit that a) I have a slanted view of this issue, and b) am not a scientist. Real scientists in New York have shown that brain scans could eventually predict voting patterns.
Study participants had to push two buttons based on whether they saw the letter "M" or "W", but each person was shown the same letter 80% of the time. For the other 20% of the time, conservatives only managed to hit the right button 53% of the time, while liberals were better at adapting to the change and hit the correct button 63% of the time. I personally think that being able to quickly adapt to change means you can think better on your feet, adjust arguments to be more appropriate for the conversation at hand, handle crises without melting down, better see someone else's point of view (e.g. empathy), etc. Isn't that a sign of greater intelligence?! I'd bet you Daniel Goleman would think so.
This finding supports another study that conservatives stick to what they know and are habitual creatures (I'd link to the article, but it's only available for a fee). If you are stuck in your ways of thinking and unable to adapt, doesn't that also mean you are less likely to evolve? And therefore less fit to survive? See how this all fits in with my theory?
The article also says that voting predilections could arguably be genetic -- but what about learned behaviours? What about how neural pathways change with different stimuli? I can't imagine that how you vote is *all* genetic. And another caveat (in my opinion) is that the study only contained 43 people -- that seems like an awful small sampling of people. But again...I'm not a scientist.
| Part Cow, Part Human | 3:11 PM |
Conservative Americans are gonna love this: embroynic research gets a boost in the UK -- there's a new bill that would allow licensed researchers to create animal-human hybrid embryos. I especially love that this bill also includes getting rid of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority at the same time.
| Eureka! | 11:53 PM |
I've finally discovered what proteins are responsible for my post meal/post candy splurge wipe outs: orexin! I've been wanting to find out for years (not enough to try to look it up, but enough to be excited about finding this article two days ago :)
| Thirst For Young Blood | 6:27 PM |
This headline is straight out of a sci-fi/horror film! Young Blood Makes Muscles Spry. It's simultaneously funny and creepy.
Researchers at Stanford University have found that an infusion of young blood has significant benefits.
It's about stems cells in old muscles being activated by blood from a younger host -- so the environment those stem cells are in can affect their ability to be therapeutic. But what fodder for the imagination, too!
| Loss of Language | 1:06 AM |
I read this today on Nature about the ability to understand math grammar versus the ability to understand language grammar. Aphasia is a disorder caused by damage to the temporal lobe or higher up in the frontal lobe -- usually caused by a stroke or other brain injury -- that impairs a person's linguistic abilities. Words don't make sense -- people with this disorder sometimes can't speak or read or write or understand what's being said to them. But they seem to be able to do mathematical calculations with pen and paper. They understand the Arabic numeral 30 when they see it on paper, even though they don't understand the word thirty when they hear it or see it.
Grammar is an innate ability for humans. Research has shown that spontaneous language development, without external influence, develops grammatical rules within a single generation. And while some of the same cognitive regions are used for both language and math grammars, it appears that our brain's ability to understand math grammar (think about the rules of nested equations) isn't dependent on the same regions as linguistic grammar is. Which is why people who can't understand language in any form can still do math.
It's an interesting exercise -- trying to imagine what the world would be like without words. How do you understand other people? How do you make sense of your senses? The things you hear, see, smell and feel -- how do you organize that data into coherent and meaningful sets? I was reading about alexithymia in Goleman's Emotional Intelligence. It's the inability to express your emotions in words. People can't explain what they're feeling because they don't understand what feelings are and don't have the language to adequately describe them. Many people who suffer from it often go to the doctor because they think they're ill or have some physical disorder when they feel upset, angry, or start crying. They can't differentiate the physical sensations they feel when they feel intense emotions from physical pain.
Being able to talk about my emotions, to express myself in words, to appreciate the beauty of language when it's used well -- I can't imagine living without these things. But I guess if the worst were to happen and I were to lose all of that -- I'd still have math :)
| Broken Heart Syndrome | 5:15 PM |
This is interesting. Emotional trauma can result in cardiomyopathy, aka broken-heart syndrome, and is physiologically similar to a heart attack.
It's especially interesting to me right now because I'm reading Emotional Intelligence and Goleman writes at length about the various physiological effects of peoples' negative emotions. He cites study after study on such topics as the effects of anger on the heart, optimism and pessimism and how one's tendency to be one or the other is a better prognosticator of recovey (for example from cancer or a major medical procedure) than a person's physical condition, and hope and its affects on recovey as well. And it seems like this should be common knowledge, but you can't base medical or scientific treatments on 'common knowledge'.
I picked this book up after reading The Gift of Fear in which Gavin de Becker recommends we listen to our intuitions. Because our brains and our bodies are primed to survive -- whether we are cognitive or not of what our impulses are or how our intuition makes us feel, there's probably a good reason for it. He also cites example after example, sometimes chilling and sometimes simply creepy, of cases he's worked on in which peoples' intuitions accurately warned them of impending danger.
De Becker cites Emotional Intelligence several times and the first section of EI is the most interesting to me because it essentially explains the mechanics of the brain and how it generates an intuitive sense (or a 'gut feeling' if you prefer). The most interesting tidbit from that section is this: signals from our sensory organs get sent to the thalamus which then sends them on to the neocortex of our brains which processes those signals into something we understand. But, there is a shorter, single synaptic neuronal pathway between the thalamus and the amygdala, a primitive center of emotions, which allows the amygdala to receive a smaller subset of the signals sent to the neocortex and allows it to immediately process and generate an emotional response (when significant) *before* we fully understand what it is we're experiencing or seeing, or why we feel the way we do. A telling example cited in the book is about a young man who sees a woman standing at the edge of the water looking down with a distressed look on her face, and before he knew what he was doing, he'd jumped into the water to save a child who'd fallen in.
Our brains are endlessly interesting little things. So are our hearts. Today's Nature, along with the article about cardiomyopathy, also has an article about the regenerative ability of certain heart cells and how this could potentially help patients with heart attacks.
| Virtual Brokers | 11:50 PM |
Another interesting tidbit (no online article to link to)...a physicist and a mathematician at the University of Oxford designed a model that predicts the stock market. They equipped multitudes of intelligent agents with strategies that real life traders use to make decisions, then ran the model using historical stock market data, tweaked the agents so that predictions were more in line with the market's actual behavior, and now they're using it to predict the stock market and they claim it's accurate to the minute! And the model can be used to mimic other multi-component systems like medicine, using cells as agents, or ecosystems. A friend of mine was working on something along these lines...I wonder if he's still working on it and how he's doing :)
I always thought that seemingly chaotic systems had predictability in them, but it still seems surreal that you can predict the stock market. Wouldn't you be filthy rich?
| Name Recognition | 11:28 PM |
I was reading the new New Scientist and saw a quote from this guy I went out on a date with months and months ago. He was a graduate student at Berkeley studying genetically modified maize. And it's sort of cool to recognize someone's name in a magazine you religiously read. Because even if he's not a celebrity, he sort of becomes one at that moment. It made me think of this article I read months ago on scanning the brain to predict a person's behavior in economic games. It was a long ass Newsweek article about how, for humans, the emotional and rational parts of their brain affect their decisions, and how primates appeared to be hard wired to act according to mathematically derived formulas of economy.
The monkeys used Berry Berry juice as their currency. And looking at a "celebrity" monkey was worth paying for:
Male monkeys have a distinct dominance hierarchy, and Platt has found they will give up a considerable quantity of fruit juice for the chance just to look at a picture of a higher-ranking individual.
So it makes sense that humans do it, too -- because we do things like pay to go to movies, buy magazines and cable tv to see celebrities, pay for expensive dinners with politicians. And "celebrity" is subjective. Your celebrities might be actors or politicians or scientists or writers or musicians or tech geeks. Whatever your thing is, there's someone you consider a celebrity.
There's been a lot of research in the last few months about predicting behavior. And there's almost always a mention of what this means for marketing. Seems like in the end, we're all paying to look like or live like a celebrity. Whoever that celebrity is.
The end of that long article makes some interesting notes about the differences in the decision making process in men and women. Which I think is funny because I was just thinking about this article the other day when I was going over how long it took me to come to my final decisions -- even after I'd already made them.
| Urine Sniffing Dogs | 11:39 PM |
Taking advantage of dogs' innate desire to sniff at urine, scientists and trainers in the UK teamed up to form a cancer sniffing dog team. At a 41% success rate, they did pretty well. One sample was consistently identified by the dogs as coming from a cancerous bladder though it came from a donor without bladder cancer -- a reexamination found a kidney tumor instead.
| Dreamless | 11:28 PM |
Dreamless woman feels fine. Dreams are fascinating. There is a load of research material on sleep, but not so much on dreams. How the brain functions is a fascinating subject of its own, but dreams have all sorts of nonscientific associations with them. There are prophetic, mythic, romantic notions about dreams. They're scary; they're sweet. I had two bad dreams last night. They both stemmed from what Ed says is my intense fear of rejection. Sometimes when I'm thinking really hard about someone, I dream about being rejected by that person. And they're almost like nightmares.
| P Not Equal NP | 12:49 AM |
This article was on slashdot today. Uninteresting little article about NP problems and how once we build our magic NP box, our current methods of encryption will be rendered useless. I particularly liked this statement: The Internet would be vulnerable to hackers and computer viruses. As though it currently isn't vulnerable. Once we build a quantum computer or perhaps a cellular computer, it'll be our magic NP box. No one can say when that'll be, but I'm certain the day will come. The only interesting tidbit I garnered in that article is that Adleman is at USC.
What I don't understand is why Garfinkel wrote the article (and spelled Adleman's name wrong). Is this new information to him? He mentions last month's Crypto conference, but did they have anything new to say about P vs NP problems? Probably not. And if they did, he doesn't mention it.
And this makes me think how interesting it is to watch things go from rigorous scientific publications to mass media. How trendy some topics get. For a little while. Then you realize how long lived said topic is and the public loses interest again. Until the next cycle.
| Experimenting on Primates | 1:44 AM |
I was reading this article in New Scientist (do I read anything else anymore? Those things come so fast in the mail...I'm halfway through one and the next one arrives) on research done with monkeys. And I'm an animal rights supporter. I don't think animals should be mistreated, experimented on unnecessarily, tortured, maimed, hunted for sport, etc., etc. But I'm also a huge proponent of research and testing and making new discoveries. It isn't even really a question -- given the option of testing new drugs or procedures on animal or human subjects, no one is going to say, let's test experimental drugs on humans. No one.
You should've seen this photo in the magazine. This sad, little monkey sitting in the corner. For a moment, I become really emotional about the animal imagining what it must undergo. But I completely anthropomorphize, too. Because that monkey isn't necessarily sad. I project those emotions onto him. The editor chose that photo for that layout specifically for that effect. That isn't to say that I don't think monkeys and other animals don't suffer some sort of trauma when they undergo tests and drug trials and various invasive and non-invasive procedures. I'm sure they do.
The quandry, I think, is balancing the needs of research against being as humane as possible. How do we ensure that we have enough resources to conduct all the research we need in order to progress in our scientific endeavors, and still treat animals humanely by decreasing stress, minimizing physical pain, and limiting use in trials. As a concrete example, we can talk about re-use of monkeys in research. Primates are currently in short supply. Often they are re-used in multiple experiments. From a humanitarian point of view, we want to limit the amount of suffering it undergoes by using it for one trial/one experiment, but from the same point of view, we want to limit the number of monkeys and apes being used for experiments. Where do we draw the line between those two? Do we experiment again and again with the same resource? Or bring in new resources? And at what point we bring in new resources? After one trial? Two, three? Four if they're minor, two if the experiments are particularly harrowing?
Whatever the balance, it sounds like there should be something done to change the current situation -- not only so that we can keep on conducting these trials, but also so that we can learn as much as possible out of the trials we do. There is a bad shortage of primates available and attainable for experimentation. AIDS research, for example, isn't moving as fast it could. The Indian rhesus monkey is virtually unavailable, but critical in AIDS research because these Indian origin monkeys develop AIDS from SIV as humans do from HIV.
More data should be gathered on primates while in experimentation -- history of the primate (what other trials, if any, has it been a part of? where did it come from?), gender, health, daily living arrangements (do they get exercise? have room to move around? live in a tiny cage?). These things are just as important when evaluating the data from experimentation -- these can have an impact on that data, yet it's not kept track of or published. If a monkey is stressed out from having been transported halfway around the world from a breeder to a lab, surely his immune system is suppressed, his biochemical balance is slightly altered -- these things affect one's reaction to a drug or ability to heal. It isn't trivial. How can you ignore it?
| The Evolutionary Role of Religion | 2:35 AM |
Interesting article by Dawkins. I read the article because I thought it would attempt to answer that question -- what the purpose of religion was. What evolutionary advantage does belief in a religion give us? But it doesn't really answer that question. A friend of mine pointed out that it doesn't answer the question of the title so much as makes you think about the way we ask ourselves these questions. I like how Dawkins uses computer viruses as an analogy for religion.
On another religious note: _Cheap Complex Devices_. I've been meaning to write about this book because I found it so fascinating. You probably don't want to read any more if you intend to read the book because I don't want to spoil it for you. But I was really excited about the book when I got it and read the cover. I even read the forward and part of the intro before I read the story (I always do that afterwards so I don't know too much going in). The meta story about the story is great in and of itself. But it's not what the forward makes you believe it is -- you get that much before you finish the story, but apart from the disappointment in that, it was still a fabulous read. An interesting and complex intermingling of sexual thoughts, religious thoughts, and computer thoughts -- specifically, system level functioning. What is it about the these basest of things that seem to inextricably combined? Sex and religion have been intertwined for as long as humans have been around. Sex has an obvious evolutionary role, and so does religion or it wouldn't still exist. Is technology the next evolutionary step? As base and as fundamental as sex and god? Or is the mix more cultural -- that these things are so pervasive now and so personal that writing about one leads to writing about the other? I think it's both. I've been meaning to research this topic more...will write more when I do.
| Francis Crick Passes Away | 12:00 PM |
God, 51 years ago, Watson and Crick published their paper on the molecular structure of DNA in Nature. Francis Crick, 88 years old, passed away last night in La Jolla.
| Monkey Walks Like Humans | 1:36 PM |
Five year old black macaque in Tel Aviv walks upright like a human after suffering brain damage. I think that's funny -- unwittingly makes a funny little comment on humankind.
| Mind Control | 8:28 AM |
This is slightly old: Monkeys Master "Mind Control". Researchers have already developed chips that can translate signals from the brain's motor cortex and can anticipate movement and convert that intent into action. But now they're working on the parietal cortext which plans for movement.
They wired up the parietal cortex in a few monkeys and monitored signals. The monkeys had to touch a point of light on a computer screen. In a day or two, the monkeys learned that thinking about their plan to touch the monitor, without even having to actually do it, was enough to be rewarded.
"It's an exciting study. They know what the monkey is going to do before it even does it."
I'm interested because I'm completely fascinated by prosthetic limb technology. This ability implemented with the latest, greatest mechanical and materials technology could really result in lifelike prosthetic limbs. I'm eagerly awaiting that day. I'm not sure why because I'm not missing any limbs. But I don't have a fear of losing any of them either (probably because I'm so fascinated by prosthetics).
Like any new study, it'll be a while, if ever, before it becomes an applicable technology. In April of this year, Cyberkinetics started a pilot trial implanting chips in the motor cortext of quadriplegics to see if and how useful the technology will be. Results are expected to start surfacing later this year.
| So... | 2:46 PM |
I hate blogging when I can't think of anything to say and blog just for the sake of blogging. I don't want to paraphrase news like with the last entry. That's worthless; you don't need me to do that. What I really wanted to blog about was how interesting the complications were. That you look at the superstrong superbaby and the first thing you think is yeah, myostatin blockers -- good for muscular disorders. But it's not that simple. For example, you might do more damage than good using myostatin blocking antibody treatments with young children because myostatin not only regulates muscle development, it also regulates muscle progenitor cells (the cells that form muscles). So in the case of muscular dystrophy, you could actually hinder new muscle development in children. And there aren't any extensive studies about the long term effects of such treatments, either.
If you think about it, the human genome was completed in just early 2003. That's only about a year ago. But just because we have the full sequence doesn't mean we know it all. Research on mutations in humans happens sometimes by accidental luck -- the superbaby is the first of his kind and he will be studied and monitored for the rest of his life. And he will provide new empirical data that we would not have gotten otherwise. More systematic researchers collect mutations. IVF embryos that test positive for genetic defects are discarded, and their cells collected and studied -- genetics teams are creating stem cell lines with disease causing mutations so they can study the effects of the mutations on humans -- the animal studies only go so far in explaining how these things affect people. You learn a lot by watching how things go wrong -- sometimes they help you understand how things go right.
| Supertot | 11:47 PM |
Speaking of genetic mutations, did you see the Super Baby? A German superbaby, born with a genetic mutation that increases his muscle growth. The mutation blocks production of myostatin, a protein that regulates the size of muscles in embryonic development and throughout your life. It inhibits the growth of muscles and prevents them from getting too large.
The baby is four 1/2 now and appears very healthy. DNA testing of his mother (who was a professional athlete before giving birth), showed that she had a mutation in one copy of the myostatin gene (both the baby's copies are mutated). No word on the father in any of the articles.
Obvious worry is for his heart, but he's healthy for now.
| Cyclops Babies | 1:23 AM |
I was reading an interesting article in New Scientist about genetic mutations and came across this interesting genetic defect: cyclopia. Cyclopia is one of the most common of all brain deformities, and is also always fatal. 1 in 16,000 babies are born this way. And it's exactly what you think it is: babies born with one giant eye. The one gene responsible for the condition is called sonic hedgehog (I was really curious about who named it that, but couldn't find anything -- the hedgehog family of genes comes from fruitfly genetics -- fruitfly embryos with a mutant hedgehog gene look like hedgehogs, and I think there are 3 human hedgehog genes).
Sonic hedgehog is fascinating though, because it's responsible for cleaving our brains into the two distinct regions. The brain starts off as a lump at the end of a neural tube and later forms into the two halves we know so well. The sonic hedgehog protein hangs out by the lump of brain, then seeps upwards and splits the brain in two. In the extreme case of sonic hedgehog mutation, it doesn't split. The reason there is only one eye in infants afflicted with cyclopia is because sh is also responsible for the topography of the optic field -- the optic region starts off as one band across the forebrain and the presence of the protein encourages the formation of two smaller optic fields on either side of our heads.
On the flipside, sh is also responsible for shaping facial width by setting the spacing between our ears, eyes and nostrils. Extra sonic hedgehog means extra wide faces. A disorder caused by the mutation of a gene that limits sh forms extra wide noses, noses with two tips, or even two noses in humans -- as a face gets wider and wider, features begin to replicate. Ditto (whose head is in a jar at UCSF), is a pig that was born in Iowa with two snouts, two tongues, two esophagi, and three eyes.
It's so fascinating that the lack of one protein can change a human being into something that no longer seems human. You would never look at a baby with one eye in the middle of its head and think of it as human. And yet, the only detail that separates that baby from you is the production of a single protein. If you think about it, who we are is really just the balance of our biochemistry. Look at schizophrenia, bipolar illnesses, ADD. Fucked up people can function normally on the right medication. But look, also, at the recent research on vole monogamy. Monogamy isn't necessarily an ideal with moral implications; it's our bodies' reaction to oxytocin and vasopressin. It's interesting to see how some of the publications -- including science publications -- talk about monogamy and love like the two are the same thing. Sometimes in flowery language that seems somehow inappropriate in an article published in a science journal.
But I'm not judging. I'm as much a sucker for love as anyone can get, and have never cheated on anyone or tolerated cheating. But I can be hard headed and hard hearted when I need to be about it. I guess I must be pretty good at producing and responding to oxytocin, and have perhaps slightly more testosterone than your average female adult :)
| Proof Positive? | 11:18 AM |
French mathematician at Purdue claims to have proved the Riemann hypothesis is true.
| Stem Cell Bank | 11:58 AM |
First stem cell bank opened!
| A Mother, And Another Mother | 8:39 AM |
Slightly old, but I'm catching up on news slowly: A viable embryo (then a full mouse!) was created from two female eggs producing a genetically different baby mouse who was able to mature into adulthood and have offspring of her own. Eggs and sperm are genetically programmed to behave in certain ways. Parthenogenesis (reproduction via an unfertilized egg) is blocked by this imprinting (during development certain genes are turned off in eggs, others turned off in sperm. In Mammals, there are about 30 genes that are imprinted). By genetically modifying one of the eggs to be more 'masculine', Tomoshiro Kono and his team at the Tokyo University of Agriculture were able to fertilize the second egg without sperm.
The technique is complicated and has a high failure rate so it doesn't appear to be easily applicable to humans any time soon. And I believe the same technique could be used to create a viable embryo using two males.
Biology fascinates me; all the sciences do. But biology especially, in part because of the moral questions so much of its research raises. If a homosexual couple wanted to have a child, why wouldn't you allow them this if it was a real possibility for humans? It would involve genetic engineering, though and I don't think we've answered that question fully. Many people find it objectionable, but perhaps the there will be a time in the future when they won't. I think some conversations are better when they take place at the right time.
Nature article here, and there's also a good article in last week's New Scientist.
| Another Reason Why Bush Sucks | 12:03 AM |
I tend not to engage in political discussions because I don't pay enough attention to politics. I try to stay up on current news and have a general idea of what's going on in the world and in politics, but it's not an area of heavy interest to me. Science, however, is of greater interest to me. This month's Scientific American has a great letter from the editors regarding the Bush administration's debilitating and negligent impact on scientific research and the application of research in policy decisions.
Three months ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report called Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making and stated that the Bush White House has disregarded valid scientific input in making public policy decisions. It has misrepresented scientific findings, meddled in scientific discussions, suppressed research studies, and dropped independent scientists from advisory committees to fill their places with industry allies.
Bush has hindered embryonic stem cell research time and time again, preaches an abstinence only message and squashes any information that may run contrary to it, has basically prohibited research from "hostile" nations to be published in the U.S., and continuously interferes with the EPA.
Bush's policy decisions affect the environment and our long term health. Is it really safe to let him continue ignoring valid research so that he can push his own agenda?
| Marrying Father | 2:03 AM |
The article wasn't as nearly good as the title, Women marry men who look like dad. Basically, women who have a warmer connection with dad tend to choose a husband that looks more like the old man than those who don't. I think my father's an attractive man and feel very warmly towards anyone that looks somewhat like my father -- for example, my girlfriend has a father who physically resembles mine (though he's caucasian and mine, of course, is not), and is also quiet and has a good sense of humor like my dad, and I feel extremely fond of him though I haven't spent much time with him or talked much with him. She's also told me lots of stories about her dad so I'm sure that taints the amount of affection I feel for him -- I tend to absorb some of the intensity my friends feel for other people and it breeds that much more affection in me for those people.
So, I'm not particularly close to my father. And I don't find him a particularly communicative man -- and I like communicative men. I suppose then, that the chances I'd end up with someone that looked like dad would be lessened by those facts. I do however feel an irrational amount of affection for him -- I wonder if that tips the balance oddly...
| Testing Einsten's Theories | 10:26 PM |
NASA satellite launched today to test a couple of predictions by Albert Einstein as part of his general theory of relativity. The spacecraft will send back data on changes in spin axis of the four ultra sensitive gyroscopes onboard to test two assertions about the amount the Earth warps the space time in which it resides and the amount it drags it by its rotation.
Space time is an interesting concept. There's a visual aid that I use to think of space time that I read once and has stuck with me and might help figuring out what they're looking for with these measurements -- think of a piece of fabric pull somewhat taut -- like there are four kids holding the corners, then imagine someone throws a basketball in there -- then think of the way the fabric is warped while the ball is just sitting there, and then way the fabric drags a bit when the ball rolls around and that's what I imagine they're trying to figure out above (though I don't really know much about physics so you should probably go read something else if you're really interested).
| Eye Jewelry | 10:50 PM |
Ugh. I was reading my New Scientist and there's a little blurb about eye jewelry -- little glittery pieces of metal in the shape of hearts and stars implanted in the membrane that protects the surface of the eye. Called JewelEye, the 15 minute procedure has been performed on seven people and underwent no safety trials because of regulatory blind spots.
Of course all I can think is why?, and who would find that attractive? And correlate this with the disturbing new trend of glamourizing and mainstreaming plastic surgery. All those reality shows. It's tough to stay on top of pop culture without access to television programming, but when I go to the gym I get glimpses of current television. There's Extreme Makeover and I Want a Famous Face. I've seen the MTV one (though without sound :) and it's a little troubling to see such young kids doing something that I consider drastic. What about figuring out who you are without the plastic surgery? Getting comfortable with yourself without succumbing to mass commercialism and consumerism...the Bush machina for stimulating the economy. And the mantra of capitalism.
What I consider drastic may not be what you consider drastic, and trust me, I'm just as much a sucker for consumerism as the next guy, except I have much more guilt about it at times. But plastic surgery still bothers me -- the cutting, the implanting, the potential for death (highly unlikely I'm sure, but surgery's not a trivial thing). Is a smaller nose, or those higher cheek bones worth the risk? Worth the money and the pain? What about the next time -- how soon are you going to go back wanting to fix something else? Or, god forbid, you want to make that nose even smaller, those cheekbones higher and rounder still? Haven't we learned anything from the freakish looking creature that is now Michael Jackson?
I'd really like some bigger breasts. I've thought about it. A lot. My little, post childbirth 'A's are too small in my opinion. I miss the breasts I had before I had my son -- though I'd like even bigger ones -- perhaps some 'C's? But I can't wrap my mind around having a foreign substance intentionally implanted in my body that only serves to enhance my physical appearance and does nothing for my mental or physical capabilities. I take great pride in being a completely natural human being -- attractive in my own way without any adjustments or enhancements. Besides, that's why god made padded bras.
| Awareness Monitor | 12:45 AM |
One in 1000 surgeries are performed while the patient is consciously aware but anesthetized. Imagine having heart surgery with your chest literally split open and being able to hear the conversation your doctor is having as he hovers over you -- he could be talking about golf, or his new Harley, or the nurse he's banging. Or worse, he's talking about you and your "condition" and as he extracts bits and pieces and sews them back together in different configurations, he's also predicting that you probably won't live much longer anyway.
But now a device may soon be put in much wider use that will monitor whether or not you are "aware" and your doctor will adjust his conversations more suitably. Awareness is measured by the BIS (bispectral index) monitor by measuring the electrical activity in the brain -- it's basically a kind of electroencephalogram (EEG). The BIS monitor uses bispectral analysis to come up with a number up to 100 (wide awake) which is representative of how aware a person is. For patients under anesthetic, the BIS should be between 40 and 60.
It looks like limited global trials have gone well, and it's already in use in some hospitals in the US, and will probably continue to be used more and more in the future. Interestingly, there are simultaneously fears that regular use of the BIS monitor might lead to higher dosing of anesthetics (to ensure that the patient is not aware), and evidence that using the monitor helps decrease the amount of anesthetic used.
| Size Matters, Tongues Like Fat, Dancing Robot Conductor | 12:34 PM |
I hate blogging news items without commentary, but I couldn't pass these up...
- Size Does Matter -- Mammals that live in cold climes have larger penises because they mate less often -- the longer penises help deposit sperm closer to eggs and increases the chances of successful fertilization.
- Texture matters when it comes to the foods we want to eat. Eating fat triggers pleasure zones in our brain that overlap with the pleasure zones triggered by taste. I myself am a huge fan of eating according to texture -- I'm particularly fond of chewy foods -- like the texture of cooked squid and really, really stale gummy bears.
- And my favorite...robot conductor -- not only can it conduct a Beethoven symphony, but it can dance, too! I love dancing robots.
| Delaying Fertility | 11:16 PM |
It's been a big week for reproductive related news. First, on Monday, news that an an embryo was produced from frozen ovarian tissue was released. What does that mean for women? That fertility and reproductive functioning can be delayed by freezing ovarian cells and re-implanting them/grafting them back onto the host donor (back onto the person we originally culled those cells from). When they grafted the defrosted ovarian tissue, which had been frozen for 6 years, beneath the skin of the abdomen, it resumed its normal functioning -- producing estrogen and eggs. And while that bit's not exactly new, the fact that they produced an embryo with the collected eggs is new.
Then on Wednesday, Nature printed an article on the virtual womb -- a computer simulation of the womb that is detailed and realistic enough to be able to predict premature births in order to prepare both mothers and doctors and thereby giving the baby a greater chance of surviving. This isn't actually new news -- the University of Leeds, where the research is being conducted, released the news a couple of weeks ago. Their report contains a funny little quote about Professor Holder, "perhaps the only man in Britain able to talk of 'his' uterus..."
Today, then, astonishing news that, hey -- we can make more eggs! It's been a long held belief that women are born with a finite number of eggs. Now a study indicates that stem cells in mice ovaries actually produce new eggs. Whether human ovaries contain similar stem cells remains to be seen, but if it turns out to be true, then it could greatly alter infertility and menopause treatments. Along the lines of the first story from this Monday, women can opt to have ovarian stems cells frozen when they're young and healthy, and then have them re-implanted when they're ready to have children.
Women could potentially delay motherhood. Cancer patients could possibly increase the likelihood that they can have children. Infertile women might have a better chance at getting pregnant. How does this affect us? I don't know. If it were a commonly done and safe procedure, would I think about it? At 30 years old, yeah, I'm thinking about reproduction -- and wondering -- if I had the ability, would I make the choice to delay it if I could until the right person came along and I got hitched? Or would it allow me to forever delay making that decision? Men and women are staying single slightly longer now -- would the upward trend continue if fertility could be put on hold? And how would that affect our children -- to grow up with older parents -- hopefully we'd be older and wiser -- I know I'm wiser now than when I had my first child, but will I be just as physically capable of minding a child in 10 years as I am now? I'd like to think so, but that would require a lot of upkeep :)
| Robot Powered by Heart | 5:21 PM |
A silicon robot half the width of a human hair, powered by the thud, thud, thudding of a human heart. The "first time muscle tissue has been used to propel a micromachine."
Picture a little rainbow shaped piece of silicon 50 micrometers wide. Underneath it now picture some heart muscle fibers -- the contraction and relaxation of the heart muscles cause the piece of silicon to bend and stretch.
I have fantasies about wetware/hardware hacks and we move yet closer to this end. Sci fi fantasies aside, though, the practical applications of this new discovery include assisting patients with phrenic nerve damage to breathe on their own -- rhythmic flexing to generate a slight electric charge to stimulate the phrenic nerve (the phrenic nerve supplies the diaphragm; the diaphragm is the main muscle in breathing).
| Subjective Pain | 6:34 PM |
Empathy is the ability to feel someone else's pain like it's your own. I have loads of it. And it turns out the closer you are to someone, the more you feel it - and your brain actually reacts physically as though you were indeed the one in pain. Pain has both a physical and emotional component. In this study, researchers showed that women's brains lit up in the same emotional areas when they watched their partners getting electrical shocks as when they were shocked themselves. And the closer they were to their partners, the more intensely their brains reacted.
I think that empathy is strongest when you've personally experienced physical or emotional pain and then watch someone else suffer through similar pain. And I think this is why when I got that email from my teenager yesterday I burst into tears, and continued to burst into tears whenever I thought about her throughout the day.
| Darwin's Birthday and Cloning! | 11:39 AM |
Happy Birthday to Charles Darwin - I think he's almost 200 years old now...let's see...195 to be exact.
In other news...Korean scientists (yay Korea!) have cloned human embryos for stem cells. Why the fuss over stem cells? It's because stem cells can develop into any type of cells - blood cells, tissue cells, bone, cartilage, etc. Human bodies are designed to fight off and kill foreign substances. This includes foreign tissue detected by the immune system from grafts and transplants. By grafting stem cells cloned from an individual patient's own DNA, patients have a better chance of regenerating damaged tissue that should hypothetically not be rejected by their immune systems.
| Fat Breasts! | 2:11 PM |
Soon you may be able to use your own fat to augment your breasts instead of saline implants. Fat often gets relocated from hips to faces for cosmetic purposes, but never to breasts because some of the transplanted tissue dies and hardens and gets mistaken for tumors on mammograms.
But now, they might be able to mix a fat cell/stem cell cocktail and create new fat cells in the breast that happily circulate blood. Suck fat out of the tummy, and inject it into the breasts. How many women are going to line up for that when it becomes viable?
| Periodic table grows | 9:30 AM |
I missed this from a couple of days ago - two new heavy elements created, possibly expanding the periodic table. Even as an adult, the regular and gridlike image of the periodic table is somehow very evocative.
| Penis size vs. amygdala size | 8:24 PM |
Scientists have discovered that it's not penis size, but amygdala size that's important in sex drive. Of course, whenever they discover anything that has the potential for increased sex drive, people are excited about the possibilities of allieving sexual dysfunction. I was listening to something the other day on NPR (or was it Live 105?) about premature ejaculation, but they never used the term "premature ejaculation". It must now be politically incorrect to use that term. They called it "ejaculate dysfunction".
Brain research always fascinates me. I think part of it is the almost accidental nature of it becuase scientists can't purposely inflict brain damage on research subjects. And of course, animals don't give the perceptual feedback that human beings do, so research is conducted on patients who've had accidents and need to have either parts of their brain removed or severed or have suffered irreparable damage. The research that led to the amygdala size discovery was done via interviews and questionaires with a group of patients who suffered from severe epilepsy and had to have a portion of their brains removed. Those with a larger portion of their amygdalas intact had a higher sex drive. Now, what I want to know is if they knew the amygdala was involved in emotional response, why wouldn't they have already known it contributed to sex drive?
On a lighter note: A robot that can bow is very important in Japanese society". Lucy Liu, belly dancing, and robots. Like a little slice of heaven :)
