posted by Jonathan Golob on January 10 at 12:40 PM
Is there an objective, biological basis for the experience of beauty in art? Or is aesthetic experience entirely subjective? Using fMRI technique, we addressed this question by presenting viewers, naďve to art criticism, with images of masterpieces of Classical and Renaissance sculpture.
First up: take a picture of a sculpture and modify it to be "uglier" by distorting away from the golden ratio.
(Pretty in the middle, uglier on the left and right.)
Volunteers were shown each image, and the brain responses compared.
The result? The original images, of the sculptures closely conforming to the golden ratio, activated the brain in ways that the modified images could not. The primary visual cortex, the shape recognition centers, and even the motion analyzing centers of the brain all were more activated by the original images. Finally the insula, one of the key emotion processing centers of the brain, gets drawn up and activated.
Obama, Clinton or Edwards? McCain, Huckabee or Romney?
What are they saying on the stump, and how would they govern? This special report tries to answer those questions by examining the leading contenders among the Democrats and the Republicans, in alphabetical order, based on recent polls identifying those with a plausible shot at their respective nominations. (We've also provided basic information on the rest of the field.) Although none of the campaigns afforded us direct access to the candidates themselves--a telling indicator of the importance of science in the campaign, perhaps--we've talked to some of their advisers, as well as to colleagues, friends and foes alike, who are familiar with their careers.
This series, put together by the AAAS journal Science, is worth a serious read.
Among the leading democrats a few things are held in common: increased funding for research in general, with a focus on environmental technologies and less interference of scientists by political appointees. Any would be vastly better than Bush and preferable to anyone in the Republican field as far as science policy.
For Hillary:
However, supporting good research isn't just about money, says physicist David Moncton, director of the Nuclear Reactor Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former administrator at two national laboratories. Just as important as any budget, says Moncton, who is not advising the campaign, are "competent individuals managing [science policy]." And Moncton thinks "that might be more likely to happen with a Hillary Clinton [presidency].
Against Edwards:
In a 1985 case, for example, Edwards addressed the jury in the voice of a brain-damaged child, describing from within the womb how she waited for a doctor to perform a cesarean section as a fetal heart monitor signaled her distress. The doctor was accused of waiting too long; the jury awarded $6.5 million. Many such suits were "fueled by bad science," says neurologist Karin Nelson of NIH, who concedes she has not reviewed the specific cases that Edwards handled. She says that the same type of cerebral palsy litigation has now spread to Europe--to the detriment of children's health, she believes. Nelson sat on a panel of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that in 2003 found that most cases of cerebral palsy are not caused at birth.
And now Obama, who has an intriguing mixture.
The bad:
Last year, for example, Obama introduced a bill to subsidize the conversion of coal to liquid fuel, arguing that it would make the United States less dependent on foreign oil. But environmentalists saw it as a sop to the multi-billion-dollar coal industry in his home state. Obama then backtracked, saying he would support liquefying coal only if the net carbon dioxide emissions from producing and burning the fuel were 20% lower than levels generated by petroleum-based fuels.
Observers say the awkward shuffle reflects Obama's relative inexperience in national politics. "It was naďve of him to think that he could side with the coal industry to please voters in his home state and not land in a frying pan on the national stage," says Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. Nonetheless, O'Donnell says, the senator's green credentials are still pretty solid.
and the good:
Eric Whitaker, a research administrator at the University of Chicago and former director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, points to a 2004 proposal before the state legislature to offer free flu shots to everyone without health insurance during a shortage of the vaccine. Obama, then chair of the Health and Human Services Committee in the state senate, pressed Whitaker and others on their advice that the shots be limited to high-risk groups. "He pushes you to defend your data," says Whitaker. In the end, Obama was convinced by their argument that vaccinating everybody would be economically unwise and bucked the majority in voting against the proposal.
(Emphasis added by me.)
Now for my opinion. If we consider science as not just a series of findings but rather as a process, Obama was the most scientific of the three. He demonstrated a willingness in two cases to go against the obvious and intuitive choice, to listen to the evidence, to challenge findings, to come to a different conclusion and to take an empirically supported but politically difficult position.
After eight years of Bush, more than anything I want a president who is willing to consider the evidence--all of the evidence--in an honest manner, who will take politically sticky positions based upon the evidence and who remains willing to change his or her mind as the evidence changes. Senator Clinton will likely be such a president. Obama has been such a Senator.
A dream researcher at the University of Turku, in Finland, Revonsuo believes that dreams are a sort of nighttime theater in which our brains screen realistic scenarios. This virtual reality simulates emergency situations and provides an arena for safe training. As Revonsuo puts it, "The primary function of negative dreams is rehearsal for similar real events, so that threat recognition and avoidance happens faster and more automatically in comparable real situations."
It's a lovely idea, one that neatly fits most of the available evidence. Rats denied REM sleep fail at basic survival tasks; humans placed in real crisis situations feel as though they're in a dream; people who dream about their relationships tend to stay together better than those who do not; humans have about one to four negative dreams a night. And so on.
Some things don't fit. Recall of dreams, for example, is terrible. How could one use something that cannot be recalled by the conscious mind?
Like many arguments about why a particular trait evolved, it is essentially unprovable. Still, fun to think about.
posted by Jonathan Golob on December 31 at 6:19 PM
Global warming is actually caused by growing numbers of CO2-emitting bacteria on the sea floor, says a study published online on 3 November in the Journal of Geoclimatic Studies [pdf]. "Those who subscribe to the [human-caused climate change] theory have overlooked the primary source" of CO2 emissions, write Daniel Klein and colleagues at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
The problem is that Klein and his team don't exist. Neither does their Department of Climatology; Okinawa University, where the journal is purportedly published; or its editor, OU climatologist Hiroko Takebe
Um..
It's a hoax designed "to expose the credulity and scientific illiteracy of … 'climate skeptics,' " according to "Mark Cox," the self-described real author of the article. Cox says several anti-global warming Web sites cited the paper but hastily erased their coverage when the hoax was revealed.
"There isn't any question about it -- they made me a much better player," said Paul Phillips, 35, who credited the attention deficit drug Adderall and the narcolepsy pill Provigil with helping him earn more than $2.3 million as a poker player.
The medicine cabinet of so-called cognitive enhancers also includes Ritalin, commonly given to schoolchildren for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and beta blockers, such as the heart drug Inderal. Researchers have been investigating the drug Aricept, which is normally used to slow the decline of Alzheimer's patients.
Although the appeal of pharmaceutical cognitive enhancers — to help one study longer, work more effectively or better manage everyday stresses — is understandable, potential users, both healthy and diseased, must consider the pros and cons of their choices. To enable this, scientists, doctors and policy-makers should provide easy access to information about the advantages and dangers of using cognitive-enhancing drugs and set out clear guidelines for their future use.
The Nature editorial goes on to ask a few good questions:
When imagining the possible influences of efficient cognitive enhancers on society as a whole, there can be many positive effects. Such drugs may enable individuals to perform better and enjoy more achievements and success. However, cognitive enhancers may have a darker side. Fears have been raised of an overworked 24/7 society pushed to the limits of human endurance, or of direct and indirect coercion into taking such drugs. If other children at school or colleagues at work are taking cognitive-enhancing drugs, will you feel pressure to give them to your children or take them yourself? What if a perfectly safe and reliable cognitive enhancer existed, could society deny it to healthy individuals who may benefit from it?
If others at school are taking these drugs, will you feel pressure to give them to your children?
At present, relatively safe cognitive enhancers with clear effects in healthy individuals are available. Today, in healthy individuals, most cognitive-enhancing drugs yield only moderate effects, and enhance only a subset of cognitive abilities. In the case of some drugs, such as methylphenidate, there are improvement in some domains such as attention, but there may be impairments in others, such as previously learned spatial tasks. Consequently, we believe that current debates must focus on the risks and harms at the level of the individual.
(emphasis added.)
How do a surprising number of medical professionals and academics vote with their own bodies?
In academia, we know that a number of our scientific colleagues in the United States and the United Kingdom already use modafinil to counteract the effects of jetlag, to enhance productivity or mental energy, or to deal with demanding and important intellectual challenges...For many, it seems that the immediate and tangible benefits of taking these drugs are more persuasive than concerns about legal status and adverse effects.
Compare this relatively nuanced discussion--tilting heavily in favor of safe, legal and inexpensive access to brain-enhancing drugs--to the hysteria around body enhancing drugs in athletics.
Do we value the mind more or less than the body? What would you take?
posted by Jonathan Golob on December 26 at 3:30 PM
I. Consider the three ways scientific understanding of the world to progresses:
1. A new observation
2. A new technology for making observations
3. A new way of thinking about existing observations
Of the three, the last is the most powerful and profound, the most unpredictable and precious.
A properly conveyed conception can rewrite our sense of the universe without changing a single fact. With a new interpretation that better fits human knowledge we can better predict outcomes and gain mastery.
II. Darwin developed few new techniques, observed few new things. Even the concepts behind evolution were simmering before his time.
Darwin's achievement was one of presentation, of setting the ingredients into a formidable whole, of a crystal clear distillation of complex ideas.
1. Life, through random mutation, generates variation.
2. The most successful variants reproduce more than the less successful.
From these concepts, all of the rest follows.
III. The political action of the modern creationist is to prevent untainted exposure to these ideas, until it is too late.
Our exposure to the Christian creation story is early and pervasive--in art, in popular culture, in song, in school and in our homes.
The observations behind creationism fit better in an evolved world. An evolved world explains more, of what we've observed since, of what we've observed with new abilities and of what we'll observe in the future.
Denial of this is as hopeless, requiring an adult's capacity to disassociate a sense of reality from reality itself.
This is scary: An online university that requires Master's in Science Education candidates who wish to minor in biology to take courses like BI 504 Advanced Comparative Anatomy/Lab ("There is a limited discussion of embryology and accompanying histology, specifically in regards to evolutionary theory and its alternative--the creation of fully functional major groups of animals") and BI 505 Biological Concepts ("A survey focusing on the various theories of biological origin and diversification, their historical development, current versions and their impact on biological thought. The evolutionist and creationist models of nature are reviewed in light of contemporary biological knowledge. Emphasis is placed on distinguishing between observation, hypothesis, evidence, and confirmation as applied to evaluating evolutionists and creationist paradigms and their implications") is asking the state of Texas for approval to dispense degrees. The Dallas Morning News has the story. (Via The Volokh Conspiracy.)
The nonprofit Institute for Creation Research in Dallas wants to train future science teachers in Texas and elsewhere using an online curriculum. A state advisory group gave its approval Friday; now the final say rests with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which will consider the request next month.
Seems these jokesters have been popping out science teachers in anything-goes California for years.
In 1988, California education officials tried to remove the institute's authority to grant master's of science degrees, arguing that the program didn't pass academic muster. The institute sued the state, arguing that the decision violated its constitutional rights. The school received $225,000 in a 1992 settlement. By then, a new state panel was in charge of evaluating such private schools.
But wait--how did I miss this?
The institute's search for approval in Texas comes just weeks after the science director of the Texas Education Agency resigned under pressure over allegations that she had inappropriately endorsed evolution. She had forwarded an e-mail about a talk in Austin by a professor and author who opposes teaching creationism in public schools.
posted by Brendan Kiley on December 21 at 11:15 AM
"Science is the practice of obscuring, then rediscovering, what we already know." —Unattributed
Some claim drinking eight glasses of water a day leads to good health, while reading in dim light damages eyesight. Others believe we only use 10% of our brains or that shaving legs causes hair to grow back thicker.
But a review of evidence by US researchers surrounding seven commonly-hold beliefs suggests they are actually "medical myths".
Studies suggest that adequate fluid intake is often met by drinking juice, milk, and even caffeine-rich tea and coffee.
And the belief that hair and fingernails continue to grow after death may be an optical illusion caused by retraction of the skin after death.
The belief that we only use 10% of our brains appears to be completely untrue.
The stubble resulting from shaving grows out without the finer taper seen at the ends of unshaven hair, giving the impression of thickness and coarseness.
Technology Has Enabled Us To Make Significant Progress. We need to continue with important research into plug-in and advanced hybrid vehicles, and expand the use of high efficiency clean diesel vehicles and biodiesel fuel. We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol and other biofuels. We must further expand the use of clean coal technology, solar and wind energy, and clean, safe nuclear power.
Congressional Democrats are heeding the call to arms! Surely basic science funding will increase, particularly in energy technology. Crisis! Not a time to cave in to a veto threat.
The White House and Congress delivered a heavy blow to the hopes of the U.S. science community yesterday as part of a long-delayed final agreement on the 2008 federal budget. As a result, what began as a year of soaring rhetoric in support of science seems likely to end with agency officials and research advocates shaking their heads and wondering what went wrong.
NIH? "The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would receive a 0.5% increase after high hopes for a slice that would at least keep up with inflation." (For you, David Wright.)
Ok, but what about the Energy Department? Surely energy research will be properly funded; everyone--the president, the Republicans and Democrats in congress--agrees this is the only way out of the mess.
The bill set the budget at DOE's Office of Science at $4.055 billion--$342 million short of the requested amount--and the shortfall comes mainly out of two programs: fusion sciences and high-energy physics. Congress realized some savings by allotting nothing for U.S. participation in the international fusion reactor experiment, ITER, which is set to begin construction next year in Cadarache, France (ScienceNOW, 21 November 2006)
...
DOE's largest program, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), gets $1.282 billion, $217 million less than requested. That could translate into less beam time at the x-ray sources and other facilities BES runs for research in materials science, structural biology, chemistry, and other areas.
I see a cell as a chassis and power supply for the artificial systems we are putting together," said Tom Knight of MIT, who likes to compare the state of cell biology today to that of mechanical engineering in 1864. That is when the United States began to adopt standardized thread sizes for nuts and bolts, an advance that allowed the construction of complex devices from simple, interchangeable parts.
If biology is to morph into an engineering discipline, it is going to need similarly standardized parts, Knight said. So he and colleagues have started a collection of hundreds of interchangeable genetic components they call BioBricks, which students and others are already popping into cells like Lego pieces.
BioBricks has the potential to be simply amazing—the life sciences equivalent of the GNU or BSD tools underling the internet, linux and even the Windows networking stack.
This is biology as it should be done, open and freely available. How? If you want to accept federal funds for your research, you’re required to publish and provide what you learn for free to other researchers. Check out the NCBI: Your tax dollars at work.
The workhorse of modern molecular biology is the E. coli bacteria—available for free from your colon. If you want a strain better suited to lab work, stick DH5-alpha. Most of the troublesome bacterial genes are removed, the bacteria ready and willing to pump out your synthetic DNA. Cheap and free, after the initial purchase.
The NIH model works brilliantly, keeping the scariest research under the glare of public oversight, the most interesting and useful results well distributed between scientists worldwide. Free, carefully regulated, and effective—can’t be left alone in Bush’s America. The NIH budget, in real dollar terms, steadily shrinks each year.
With public funding increasingly scarce, companies are moving in. By definition, it’s difficult to patent existing living things; the e. coli are doing most of the work, right? So, in comes synthetic organisms!
Some experts are worried that a few maverick companies are already gaining monopoly control over the core "operating system" for artificial life and are poised to become the Microsofts of synthetic biology. That could stifle competition, they say, and place enormous power in a few people's hands.
Who?
In the past year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been flooded with aggressive synthetic-biology claims. Some of Venter's applications, in particular, "are breathtaking in their scope," said Knight. And with Venter's company openly hoping to develop "an operating system for biologically-based software," some fear it is seeking synthetic hegemony.
"We've asked our patent lawyers to be reasonable and not to be overreaching," Venter said. But competitors such as DuPont, he said, "have just blanketed the field with patent applications."
Poor him. The publicly funded human genome project ruined his profit model last time. Perhaps he’ll be luckier this time.
Science
re: “On the first day of Christmas the liberals gave to me…”
posted by Jonathan Golob on December 14 at 3:19 PM
Just to prove that conservatives aren't the only ones inept at singing, please enjoy this Stem Cell Pagent, presented at the lab's Christmas talent show.
Three warnings:
1. This is nerdiest thing I've ever written, by far.
2. It was written by a Jew and performed by two Jews, a Mormon, a Hindu and two practitioners of Shintoism--all secular humanist stem cell researchers. You will go to hell for reading it.
Never have these impassioned proponents of science and adherents to Biblical literalism come to blows.
Until now.
A fruit-picking expedition to New South Wales climaxed in a debate between creationist Alexander Christian York and scientist Rudi Boa. It ended with Boa dead.
Watch your back, people. Creationists lurk even in the most bucolic vacation destinations. And they have kitchen knives.
Cautions:
With provocation, Chameleon Framiliaris can convert into any of a variety of trollis forms.
Scientists hypothesize this is due to the increased anonynimity of the commenter, an application of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theorem thesis.
Compulsivaris Insightfulian Distinguishing Characteristics:
Consistent commenting, on nearly every post, but with something interesting, enlightening or entertaining to say Sample Comment:
I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what the actual effects of steroid use on a BASEBALL player are -- how many home runs, exactly, how many strikeouts, and how that's different than the drugs that Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle took; or how trying to win with steroids is worse than trying to win with biomechanical research, high-tech composites in your shoes, and so forth; and what it says about the era immediately PRECEDING this one, when steroids were much more prevalent -- and more primitive -- but no one ever got caught.
And of course the coming era, which has probably already started, when players take substances that work ten times better than steroids but can't be traced or tested for. There's no test for HGH, even, and that's old school already.
Cautions:
Can be provoked to extreme fits of anger by imbecilic comments.
Compulsivaris Framiliaris Distinguishing Characteristics:
Consistent commenting, on nearly every post, generally entertaining and obnoxious Sample Comment:
I honestly don't believe in addiction, Judah. Sorry. Not me. And I've had this argument 3,000,000 times already, so let's just agree that you're right and I'm wrong.
Done.
Posted by Mr. Poe | December 4, 2007 1:38 PM
Cautions:
May lack self-awareness. (See comment above as well as the definition of addictive behavior.)
Compulsivaris Insightfulian Crankus Distinguishing Characteristics:
Persistent commenting on many posts, but with a contrarian’s bent. Frequently viciously obnoxious, but also interesting to read. Sample Comment:
So because you don't wear proper attire and are scared of making a claim on your insurance and hence refuse neccesary medical care, we need to avoid building mass/rapid transit?
Sorry dude, you're the dumbass. Stay out of the ruts, duh...
Cautions:
The voice of this group is remarkably similar to A Birch Steen. Some have hypothesized that these “many” commenters are in fact Mr. Steen under various guises.
Trollis Framiliaris Distinguishing Characteristics:
Obnoxious off-topic comments designed to provoke. Often repetitive, noise-like. Sample Comment:
Jews can be athiests and still believe that g-d gave us Israel. Judaism is a much more sophisticated religion. If Bill Nye had said G-d didn't give Israel to the Jews, that would be something to worry about.
The idiot Christians must be forced to give up their g-d, but the Jews will always have Israel because g-d gave it to us. This cognitive dissonance is beyond the intellectual capabilities of most goi, and especially shiksa.
posted by Gillian Anderson on December 11 at 3:05 PM
Nipper came in a little while ago and gave us a demonstration of his new baby's "milk drunk" face. It reminded me of this week's Dear Science column about the benefits and drawbacks of drinking raw milk.
Some people say that drinking raw milk is better for you, but Science claims that humans don't really benefit from drinking the milk of other species raw.
There are no health benefits in drinking raw milk—the nutrients easily survive the heating. Only breast milk for a baby is better raw, health-wise, so the white blood cells are allowed to live and do their job.
He also lays out some of the dangers, which don't sound fun at all.
In this week's Dear Science podcast he discusses the matter at more length and experimentally drinks some raw goat milk.
Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their views on the issues of The Environment, Health and Medicine, and Science and Technology Policy.
posted by Charles Mudede on December 10 at 11:08 AM
I finally got around to the I.Q. debate ignited by William Saletan's three-part article in Slate, "Created Equal." Here is the skinny: With almost no effort, Saletan organizes human intelligence into this racial order: Asians are very smart; Europeans are smart; Africans are not so smart. His confidence in this order, in the research that confirms it, is itself impressive. He is confident that the matter of the human mind, its development, and constantly changing relationship with this or that environment is crystal clear to science. The mind is no longer a mystery but something whose workings are apparent to those who have the nerve to break out of the limits of culture and see it with no medium, see it immediately, see it as it is. The workings of the Asian mind is better and bigger than the workings of a European one, and the workings of A European are better and bigger than the workings of an African one: that is the final reality. And it is a reality that demands a new morality, one that goes beyond egalitarianism.
Actually, I have no problem with any scientific conclusion that proves once and for all that whites are smarter than blacks--the core and historical issue of this I.Q. debate (Asians have been dragged into it for no other reason than to neutralize the most powerful line of criticism--that it is cultural and not scientific--against this form of thinking).One can only laugh at those (usually conservatives) who support this theory, this belief that whites are smarter than blacks. Why? Because intelligence (real intelligence) is not prized in this society and, particularly, by those on the Christian right. In fact, intellectuals are mocked, treated like aliens, regarded with suspicion. Watch any major political debate: Politicians bend over backwards to look stupid. They know the American game: If you are intelligent, express intelligence, you will have little or no access to real political power. So what does it matter that blacks have less intelligence when the society they live in doesn't give shit about it? When most of its cultural (literary, cinematic, musical) products are simple and intellectually weak? There is even a powerful, cultural war against scientific intelligence in this society. So, the whole effort to prove which race is smart and which is dumb is laughable in the American context.
Indeed, to be the ideal consumer, the ideal subject of capitalist exploitation and consumption, intelligence is the very last thing you need. Desire, envy, an insatiable appetite--these are the prime states for life in a consumerist society.
So why visit? Well, there's the curiosity of it all. According to the traffic director in the museum's parking lot, more than 500,000 people have visited the museum since it opened six months ago. That's a whole stink of a lot of people to see a little animotronic cavegirl feeding velociraptors carrots. Maybe I don't see them as enemies, but if ever I am going to be an informed contributor to the dialogue on science and religion, shouldn't I have visited the crown jewel of creationist science? The guy (Matt) who checked my paperwork as I left the Alamo rental car lot told me that the museum was totally worth my time. Museums are, after all, the place where (insert topic here) comes alive.
The Creation Museum, to those of you who might be blissfully unaware, depicts the biblical creation story as literal truth. Did you know the universe is about 6,000 years old? Created in six days you say! Dinosaurs drinking from the rivers of Eden? Tell me more--over a burger at the Noah's cafe, of course.
In a delicious bit of irony, the Creation Museum is built on top of one of the richest fossil beds in the world and near the birthplace of vertebrate paleontology. Want to find an at least 500-million-year-old fossil? Head over to the nearby Wal-Mart parking lot.
I hedged my bets that I could find something good if I sought out that beacon of American consumption. I was hoping for something like I bought as a 10 year old from the Field Museum of Natural History. I wasn't disappointed with the 45 minutes I spent scrambling over clay-slickened rocks behind the bargain center's loading dock...In under an hour, I had unearthed ample evidence of life extinct for more than 500 million years
Discovery Institute senior fellow William Dembski is defending himself from plagiarism charges on his blog:
Back in September of 2006 I announced at my blog UncommonDescent that a "breathtaking video" titled "The Inner Life of Cell" had just come out [....] The video was so good that I wanted to use it in some of my public presentations, but when I tried to purchase a DVD of it (I sent several emails to relevant parties), I was informed it wasn't ready. Moreover, at the time, the video did not have a voiceover explaining the biology of what was being shown.
A few months later I found on the Internet a version of the video that did have a voiceover and was in a format that allowed me to incorporate it into my PowerPoint presentations. I used the video a handful of times, including at a talk in Oklahoma this September. In consequence, some biologist(s) in the audience contacted the makers of the video, falsely suggesting to them and on the web:
(1) That I myself had modified the video and given it a new soundtrack.
(2) That I had stripped it of its copyright information.
(3) That I had retitled it "The Cell as an Automated City."
Each of these allegations is false. Regarding (1), I took a version of the video that I found on the Internet, one with a voiceover that I thought would have the best educational value for my listeners. The version I used took the original soundtrack, which simply had some music, and added a voice. The voice, just to be clear, is not mine. I had nothing to do with modifying or recrafting the video. I received it, as it were, "off the shelf."
Regarding (2), the version I used omitted the opening credits (a fact about which I became aware only in the last few days), beginning instead with the actual animation; however, at the end of the video that I showed, there is the following copyright notice:
Conception and Scientific Content
by Alain Viel and Robert A. Lue
Animations by John Liebler / XVIVO
Supported by the Howard Hughest Medical Institute
Copyright (c) 2006. The President and Fellows of Harvard College
[...]
Finally, regarding (3), the phrase "The Cell as an Automated City" was simply a caption for the video as it appeared in my PowerPoint presentation (a caption I used in context with the preceding slide). It was never meant to be a retitling of the video. Indeed, that caption never bled into the actual video but was always separate from it in my PowerPoint presentation.
I continue to this day to think that "The Inner Life of the Cell" is the best animation illustrating cellular activity. But there are other videos that make the same point. From now on, I will no longer use it and instead go back to using a clip from "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" [a Discovery Institute video].
Interesting. I'm not sure I buy that Dembski/the DI had nothing to do with the alternate soundtrack--can anybody find a copy of the DI version on the internet from September or before? Moreover, according to the XVIVO website, the full-length version with narration was available for educational use as of October 26, 2006. But Dembski does correct some of the sloppier blog reporting out there--Slashdot was under the impression that the narration had been stripped off the long version, which was then reedited by the DI, when in fact a shortened version with no narration had been made available as well.
But Dembski's claim about the final copyright notice? It certainly isn't apparent on the video of the presentation. (Start watching around 4:25.) In any case, the "scientific content" of the DI version of the video was obviously not supplied by Harvard's Viel and Lue. It was written by Dembski's mystery internet friend, or something.
Science
Discovery Institute: Ripping Off Harvard's Computer Animation?
posted by Annie Wagner on November 26 at 1:22 PM
Over at Horse's Ass, Goldy directs our attention to a blog complaint about a video used in Discovery Institute presentations to dazzle audiences into thinking natural selection couldn't have produced complex cell processes. Turns out the video is the short version of "The Inner Life of a Cell," an animated film originally produced by Harvard University and partner animation company XVIVO. (Watch an ABC News report about the project.) The Discovery Institute opted out of the long version, with its science-heavy narration. Instead, it added its own voiceover interpretation of events--listen for loaded words like "motors."
So is it wanton copyright infringement or fair use (XVIVO posted the video online "for educational use")? Take a look:
It's impossible to feel sorry for the hacks who promote intelligent design, especially after you hear the evidence presented at the famous Dover trial (if you haven't watched it yet, NOVA has its complete Judgment Day episode up online--I recommend Chapter 11, in which the roots of ID are located in a Supreme Court decision rejecting the teaching of creationism in schools).
IDers clearly know they're misleading the public, if not with regard to their beliefs, then at least with how those beliefs are described and marketed. It's infuriating.
But I am not so cruel that I can't see the tragedy in today's New York Times Magazine article about young-earth creationists who have also earned legit PhDs. Their cognitive dissonance is heartbreaking:
Given the difficulty of their intellectual enterprise, the creationist geologists often have a story about the time they nearly gave it up. For [Kurt] Wise the crisis hit when he was a sophomore in high school. He was already an avid fossil collector who dreamed "an unattainable dream" of going to Harvard to study paleontology and then to teach at a big university. But as he told a friend, he couldn't reconcile the geologic ages with what he read in his Bible. So he set about figuring this out: every night, for months, he cut out every verse of the Bible he'd have to reject to believe in evolution. "I dreaded the impending end," he writes in a collection of essays called "In Six Days: Why 50 Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation." "All that I loved to do was involved with some aspect of science."
When he was done, he tried to pick up what was left. But he found it impossible to do that without the Bible being "rent in two," he writes. "Either the Scripture was true and evolution was wrong or evolution was true and I must toss out the Bible." In the end, he kept his Bible and achieved his unattainable dream. But it left him in a strange, vulnerable place. "If all the evidence in the universe turned against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand."
[...]
If Wise still has doubts, or unhappiness, he has learned to put them aside. When consulting for the Creation Museum, he considered his most important duty to be presenting a "coherent story line about the earth's history," he said. "Even if it's wrong, it's a starting point. We use coherence as a criteria. It ought to fit together not as a set of random processes but something coherent orchestrated by God."
From searching for truth to fumbling after coherence. It's so sad.
But the articles don’t even mention how the scientists actually made those controversial embryos. They made them by cloning.
The process for creating embryos to create stem cells worked like this: Cells were taken from a patient and injected into the emptied out nucleus of a donated egg cell. That egg cell then grew into a blastocyst-stage embryo that produced genetically identical stem cells to the original patient. Those stem cells could be used for therapeutic purposes.
That embryo could have also been used to make a clone. Exciting!
Wrong. 100% wrong.
Cloning human being by the process described above--hollowing out and egg, sticking in an adult cell nuclei--proved so impossibly difficult that the South Koreans resorted to fraud after failing hundreds of times at the task.
Every single human embryonic stem cell in existence today was created from a leftover embryo from an in vitro fertilization clinic. How were these embryos made? An egg and sperm met, fell in love and fused to form a zygote. In a dish or in a fallopian tube it's the same basic idea--no cloning involved.
But, Josh, here's the silver lining. This new technique, that can reprogram adult cells to become like embyronic stem cells, that is adored by conservative Christians everywhere,could be used for cloning.
In fact, I'd say it's likely to work if you wanted to create a chimeric human being and has a decent chance of working if you wanted to create man-animal hybrid. So, look up Josh. Your dream has actually just became a bit closer.
And I haven't even talked about using the four magic genes to make a cancer bomb. What an excellent supervillain weapon!
Science
A Gigantic Breakthrough in Stem Cell Research
posted by Jonathan Golob on November 20 at 12:45 PM
(Image from Takahashi et al., Induction of Pluripotent Cell form Adult Human Fibroblasts by Defined Factors, Cell (2007), doi:10.1016/j.cell.2007.11.019)
Okay. Now I believe.
Two groups working independently--Dr. Yamanaka's lab in Japan and Dr. Thomson's Lab in Wisconsin--have converted human cells into embryonic stem cell-like cells. This tremendous accomplishment is on par with the initial creation of human embryonic stem cells about ten years ago, the completion of the human genome project and development of gene knockdown technology.
With this trick, skin cells can be converted into embryonic stem cell-like cells that can become any cell type in the body, including difficult to acquire human heart and brain cells.
I've written about this technique rather skeptically in the past. All of the previous work was with mouse cells. Now with two groups independently showing it works also with human cells, I'm pretty convinced. Yes, these two papers are pretty sloppy. The Thompson one reads like it was written over the weekend and the Yamanaka paper has a few glaring flaws. Still, the evidence has tipped in this case.
If you want a more detailed scientific breakdown of what these groups did, keep reading here. Else, what this all means is after the jump.
Science
Imagine Microwave Oven Accidents at your Office, but with Plutonium
posted by Jonathan Golob on November 19 at 2:40 PM
Ever since high school, one of my guilty pleasures is to read the Nuclear Regulator Commission's Operating Experience Summaries. Every workplace dealing with significant amounts of radioactive material must report any accidents that could result in injury. The best are compiled and archived.
Something about the combination of ordinary foolishness, incredibly dangerous substances, absurdly convoluted environments and the disgusted passive voice of the anonymous governmental authors--as if written by the love child of Charles Mudede and A. Birch Steen--leads me to giggles.
posted by Erica C. Barnett on November 19 at 1:03 PM
Global-warming pessimist Jonathan Golob, AKA Dear Science, talked with me last week about the failure of roads and transit, the future of transportation in this region, and whether we should all just give up and buy SUVs and a heavily fortified home in the suburbs. Listen to the latest Dear Science Podcast here.
Sweaty feet are a good place to start. Having an orgasm, at least to your autonomic nervous system, is akin to being chased by a lion or getting into a drunken bar fight. For men and women, the medical school mnemonic (you'd be horrified to find out how most medical students pass their tests) for sex is "point and shoot," because it's the parasympathetic nervous system—the feed-and-breed regulator—that handles arousal, getting all hot and bothered, erect and wet. Only at the moment of orgasm does the sympathetic nervous system—the fight-or-flight, adrenaline-rush regulator—take over and end the show. If you want an objective measure of an orgasm that doesn't require specialized equipment, graduate students to operate it, and a multiple-Tesla magnet, Science suggests you look for sympathetic nervous system signs: a jump in heart rate, a sudden dilation of the pupils, or sweaty palms and feet.
You Reply:
my girlfriend pointed out to me a long time ago that our tongues are cold right after the event? (we're dykes). this has always been the case, but it's always the case i.e. there isn't a warm tongue to compare it to... i mean sometimes there could be but we don't check.
keep up the good work. i love your column and the stranger even though you guys are all popular and don't write back and shit.
hugs and nipple pinches
I have been under the impression that goosebumps are a necessary consequence/indicator of authentic orgasms in men or women. My extensive research has yet to prove otherwise.
From one of my friends at a bar: "As a dyke, I'm telling you behind-the-knees sweat is the best sign."
And my all time favorite, from one of my ex-girlfriends: "How in the hell would you know?" Ha! Ouch.
Three observations:
1. All are sympathetic nervous system signs. Hurray for science!
2. Lesbians appear to be the population for female orgasms, with both the largest prevalence as well as the most high risk behaviors.
After the failure to produce an infection-blocking vaccine, some groups have taken on a more modest goal: Make a vaccine that triggers a more vigorous counterattack, slowing or preventing the progression to AIDS and reducing the risk of transmission. Like being introduced to a blind date by a guy who mugged you last week, these vaccines give the immune system a memorably nasty reintroduction to the HIV proteins. The most promising vaccines stuff multiple HIV proteins, including less variable internal machinery proteins of the virus, in a cold virus engineered to be harmless. In animal tests and preliminary human trials these vaccines work better than initially expected, both slowing infections and in some cases even blocking initial infections. The results from human trials against wild virus are not complete—one major phase II trial's results should be out in 2008.
Seattle is host to the NIH-funded HIV vaccines trial unit--the largest anti-HIV vaccine clinical trials unit coordinating trials worldwide. For the STEP trial, testing one of these cold-viruses-carrying-HIV-protein vaccines, three thousand volunteers were recruited worldwide, including 119 gay men in Seattle.
The HIV-negative volunteers were randomized to either receive the experimental vaccine or a placebo. After the three injections, the participants were followed to compare what percentage of the vaccinated versus non-vaccinated got HIV, and how their HIV progressed. Everyone received HIV-avoidance counseling.
Back in September, the STEP trial testing this vaccine was "discontinued [PDF] because the vaccine was not effective." By this point, all the men randomized to receive the vaccine in Seattle had received all three injections.
The current STEP results suggest that those who received the vaccine might have an increased susceptibility to acquiring HIV infection, particularly those volunteers who had higher levels of pre-existing immunity to Ad5 because of prior natural exposure to Ad5. However, there are a number of confounding factors that make it very difficult to draw conclusions about this finding.
In other words, if you've had a very common adenovirus cold virus infection in the past, and received the experimental vaccine, you might be more susceptible to HIV infection. Perhaps for the rest of your life.
One criticism of the Adenovirus 5 based vaccines is something known as original antigenic sin. An immune system previously exposed to a wild version of Adenovirus 5 retains a memory of the infection. When exposed to the vaccine, the immune system might simply reactivate against the cold virus proteins rather than the new HIV proteins, and therefore fail to properly protect against HIV. These concerns seemed to be true.
Seattle--young, gay--has hosted many vaccine trials, including several failed HIV vaccines, the Herpes vaccine still undergoing testing and the successful HPV vaccine. Volunteering for any experimental treatment is a deeply altruistic act--risking your health to help those in the future. We owe a debt of gratitude to the STEP volunteers, as well as the people around you who volunteered for the other vaccine trials. Given the disastrous results of this trial will--or should--Seattlites continue to volunteer?
This blog chronicles the life of a Seattle resident as she attempts to green her life. Basic premise, but the execution is brilliant. Her writing is sharp and smart, the case she makes is compelling, and, most importantly, she comes off as normal and sane. I especially dig the audits she does of her waste, water and energy use. Anybody want to do one of those for me?
But Wednesday's claim appeared to go further, with Ahmadinejad's words and the tone and setting of his Wednesday speech suggesting he meant all 3,000 were running.
...
The number 3,000 is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear enrichment program that is past the experimental stage and can be used as a platform for a full industrial-scale program that could churn out enough enriched material for dozens of nuclear weapons, should Iran chose to go the route.
As many of the news reports point out, the same centrifuges can be used to make a bunch of weakly enriched power plant fuel--aww, environmental--or a small amount of bomb-grade Uranium highly enriched for U-235--aww, we're all gonna die; invade!
Iran claims the enrichment is for nuclear power applications only. I say it doesn't matter. Almost all nuclear power plants produce Plutonium-239 as a waste product. If you--angry, scary nation full of non-Christians--want to build a bomb quickly, reprocessing used power plant fuel to extract Plutonium is the far easier path to take. Just ask North Korea.
I'm certain this story will be used to beat the drums of war. My odds on bet is the only people to be irradiated, suffer or perish from the enriched Iranian Uranium will be Iranians.
In a speech at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, he challenges big pharma companies, many of which haven't had an important new compound approved in ages, and academic researchers who are content with getting NIH grants and publishing research papers with little regard to whether their work leads to something that can alleviate disease, to change their ways.
Ouch.
Grove, as he continued his thoughts in the interview with Newsweek.
The peer review system in grant making and in academic advancement has the major disadvantage of creating conformity of thoughts and values. It's a modern equivalent of a Middle Ages guild, where you have to sing a particular way to get grants, promotions and tenure...There is no place for the wild ducks. The result is more sameness and less innovation. What we need is a cultural revolution in the research community, academic and non-academic. We need to give wild ducks the opportunity to emerge and quack their way to success...
(Emphasis added.)
Up to the mid-1970's academic and industrial computer engineering could be subjected to the same criticism. Despite dramatic advances in technology--including Grove's own microprocessor--computers were still thought of as mainframes, with extremely limited military and business applications. It took groups like the Homebrew Computer Club--literally a bunch of unshaved guys in a garage--to create the personal computer and really revolutionize the world. It took guys setting up BBS's in their basement, and noodling around with GOPHER to usher in the internet era. While Andy is correct: computers have become ever faster, they haven't really become more capable since the paired birth of the PC and the Internet.
Why hasn't there been a Homebrew Molecular Biology Club? The technology behind molecular biology has arrived--equivalent to where computer components were in the mid-1970's. Well designed commercial kits are available for just about any task.
I've considered posting directions on Slog, using these kits, for a variety of projects one could do at home or in a garage: make glow-in-the-dark sourdough bread, detect rodent DNA in food, check your DNA to see if you're related to Ghengis Khan.
I've held off because molecular biology is inherently dangerous, much more so than building a computer or programming an Apple IIe. The same tools used to label, cut or modify experimental DNA would be glad to chew up yours--many are potent cancer-causing agents. Your glow-in-the-dark yeast could easily spread to your neighbor's kitchen. Do you really want to know if there is rat shit in your dinner? KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Based on growing evidence, there is high confidence that the following effects on hydrological systems are occurring:
* increased runoff and earlier spring peak discharge in many glacier- and snow-fed rivers [1.3];
* warming of lakes and rivers in many regions, with effects on thermal structure and water quality [1.3].
…recent warming is strongly affecting terrestrial biological systems, including such changes as:
* earlier timing of spring events, such as leaf-unfolding, bird migration and egg-laying [1.3];
* poleward and upward shifts in ranges in plant and animal species [1.3, 8.2, 14.2].
...observed changes in marine and freshwater biological systems are associated with rising water temperatures, as well as related changes in ice cover, salinity, oxygen levels and circulation [1.3]. These include:
• shifts in ranges and changes in algal, plankton and fish abundance in high-latitude oceans[1.3];
• increases in algal and zooplankton abundance in high-latitude and high-altitude lakes [1.3];
• range changes and earlier migrations of fish in rivers [1.3].
…The uptake of anthropogenic carbon since 1750 has led to the ocean becoming more acidic, with an average decrease in pH of 0.1 units [IPCC Working Group I Fourth Assessment]. However, the effects of observed ocean acidification on the marine biosphere are as yet undocumented [1.3].
(Emphasis added.)
“Are occurring.” These aren’t speculative, possible consequences. These are happening now. What will the world be like in ten, twenty or fifty years? Fucked.
Why not listen to the climatologists? By a few good mathematical estimates, there is about a 1/5 chance that current atmospheric carbon levels “will result in dangerous interference to climate system.” The most aggressive proposals, involving so far impossible to muster levels of cooperation and sacrifice, have the goal of merely doubling the pre-industrial carbon level in the atmosphere—estimated to have a 50:50 chance of still resulting in massive damage to the global climate. Fucked.
The Kyoto Accord, the most successful agreement thus far, merely attempts to hold us to 1990’s levels of emissions. It omits the largest areas of growth in emissions (in the developing world, particularly India and China.) To top it off, even the most progressive of countries are failing to meet these modest goals. Fucked.
What about the developing world? China—the fastest growing economy in the world, the one virtually certain to overtake ours in the coming decades—is almost exclusively fueled with the dirtiest coal-fueled power plants imaginable. This is a country that cannot prevent deadly infant formula from being distributed, keep antifreeze out of toothpaste, or keep lead out of children’s toys. What are the odds of a strongly enforced and highly effective carbon tax or cap being implemented? Fucked.
What will climate change do to us? What should we be doing now to prepare? Damn good questions to ask. Rather than endlessly debating if climate change exists, or how to prevent it, we should start thinking and talking now about what we need to do. Changing building codes, securing water supplies, preparing public health measures, building buffering infrastructure are all good places to start. Let’s avoid the trap we’ve fallen into with the Iraq war, of endlessly autopsy of past failures rather than dealing with the problems of the present. By being ready, through good local policy, we can avoid panicked responses later, and even create a competitive advantage for ourselves.
TV
Finally! Vulcan Productions Does Something Useful
posted by Annie Wagner on October 31 at 2:26 PM
I've gotten used to seeing Vulcan Productions (the film-production wing of Paul Allen's axis of weevil) turn out the deeply misguided and the merely mediocre. (OK, fine, you liked Bickford Schmeckler's Cool Ideas. But the slobbered-over Far From Heaven was a desiccated tribute to melodrama, and I'll fight anybody who disagrees.)
So I'm intrigued to see Allen fly his nerd flag and back NOVA's Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. I like the idea of focusing on the Dover decision--the propagation of intelligent design is, after all, a legitimate topic for legal debate, whereas it's outside the proper scope of science. The episode will air on PBS on Tuesday, November 13 at 8 pm.
posted by Charles Mudede on October 29 at 10:43 AM
Not even the stars are safe from the hunger and madness of capitalism:
From the BBC:
Some of the world's most famous meteorites have gone under the hammer at a New York auction house in what is said to be the first sale of its kind.
Recall Cecil Rhodes:
To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far.
Dr. Watson, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for describing the double-helix structure of DNA, and later headed the American government’s part in the international Human Genome Project, was quoted in The Times of London last week as suggesting that, overall, people of African descent are not as intelligent as people of European descent. In the ensuing uproar, he issued a statement apologizing “unreservedly” for the comments, adding “there is no scientific basis for such a belief.”
The 79-year-old geneticist said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.". He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”.
This lamentable quote skewers JDW for how he thinks, or doesn’t think, when venturing beyond the laboratory he hasn't seriously occupied for many years. His biased utterance really competes quite well with just about every other anti-_____ statement recorded since the printing press was invented...
Amazingly, JDW’s statement mirrors a major public misconception of how genetics works, namely that skin color and other easily recognizable external-trait genes are not necessarily closely linked to any of the thousands of kinase, phosphatase, transcription factor, and other genes that affect neuronal development and function. And, that over the
many eons of human evolution, migration, and hybridization, the variant forms of all these genes are inherited quite independently -- albeit still being subject to evolutionary selection.
Science blogger Greg Laden wrote a delightful post titled "James Watson: Please bend over while I kick your freakin ass."
It may seem odd that the guy who, with others, “discovered DNA” could be a moron, but a brief analysis suggests that this is in fact quite possible. There are at least three factors that could explain James Watson’s obvious dullness, in spite of his professed brilliance: The Nature of the Academic Free Market; the Swinging Dead Cat Phenomenon; and the Benefits of Teamwork.
and
When you analyze the data, you find that the latter — SES and Home Environment — are the main predictors of IQ across a given contemporary population, not skin color. It happens that skin color and SES and skin color and Home Environment, in the US and over the last few decades, are intertwined realities....
a group of American “Whites” brought forward in a time machine from the 1920s would test perhaps 20 points lower than a matched comparative set of “Whites” living in the first decade of the 21st century. That is not a genetic change … Rather, it is some other kind of change that has not been satisfactorily explained, but probably relates to factors like Home Environment and the vagaries of this kind of testing.
Intelligence is clearly, in part, a genetic trait. With socio-economic factors, the intelligence of your parents are the most important factors determining your intelligence. Claiming otherwise cedes human intelligence to the creationist crowd--such a belief assumes that the human mind could only be a divine gift rather than an evolved structure. Discovery Institute, meet a David Brin SciFi series.
To argue that human intelligence, assuming it is somehow definable, is NOT genetic is itself "specist." Animals are routinely bred for intelligence or lack thereof, why would our species be different? Evolution presents huge amounts of data that our fore-brains evolved. So the only sensible argument that the human brain is NOT genetically variable implies that human intelligence is housed in the soul or some other magical entity that was infused into our species by some magical being. In other words, claiming that intelligence is not genetic is very much part of the intelligent design agenda.
What is the best cut of human meat? Why is science anti brain eating? Want advice on how to win a Nobel prize or a MacArthur Award? David Schmader and I discuss the latest Dear Science column on this week's podcast.
