"Online Disinhibition"

One of the best parts about communicating via machines—whether by email, or instant messenger, or Google chat, or text message—is the lack of inhibition. I’ve known this since 10th grade, when I used to stay up late into the weeknight talking, on AIM, to my crushes from math class. The next day, in class and face to face, those same screennames transformed into real, scary boys, and we would barely exchange a few words.

About a week ago, the NYT ran a fun piece about this phenomena, which in the psychological literature is referred to as “online disinhibition.” The article mentions a paper published in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior (yes, that is a real journal, and even peer-reviewed) that lists five factors that lead to online disinhibition:

-the anonymity of a Web pseudonym;

-invisibility to others [I don’t understand how this is a different factor than the previous one…];

-the time lag between sending an e-mail message and getting feedback;

-the exaggerated sense of self from being alone; and

-the lack of any online authority figure.

Thankfully, to dovetail this pop psychology, the article goes on to give a bit of neuroscience:

In face-to-face interaction, the brain reads a continual cascade of emotional signs and social cues, instantaneously using them to guide our next move so that the encounter goes well…Socially artful responses emerge largely in the neural chatter between the orbitofrontal cortex and emotional centers like the amygdala that generate impulsivity. But the cortex needs social information — a change in tone of voice, say — to know how to select and channel our impulses. And in e-mail there are no channels for voice, facial expression or other cues from the person who will receive what we say.

Consequently, as we all know, words are often sent hastily in cyberspace. Words that you didn’t necessarily mean to send. Or words that were taken in an unintended tone. Happily for us, many bold NYT readers submitted their own stories of emails that were sent and later regretted. Here are a few snippets…

I sent an email to my daughter’s boyfriend telling him: “You suck”. He was playing the yo-yo game with her and my mother hen instincts drove me to do something I regret to this day! Even though they are no longer together…I still feel badly. — Posted by RJK

I once sent an email to my congressman and told him he was doing a good job. I wish I had never done that. — Posted by Ralph

I had a roommate, one of several at the time, who, delusional, believed he was “in charge” of our shared house and everything that went on in it. This drove me absolutely mental — the situation was so creepily inappropriate. The guy was sick. Anyway, the morning after a particularly objectionable in-person encounter with him, I woke up early, still seething, and typed up a long, detailed e-mail in which I told him off in technicolor. I was furious and took great satisfaction in hitting “Send”. Hoo, brother. He got me back in the cheapest way. He forwarded my e-mail around to our other roommates for “their insights”, and of course without anyone else’s saying anything he came off wounded and innocent and I came off like a monster. — Posted by Sparks

I was emailing back and forth with a “friend” about our upcoming date, and decided to raise the ante by describing the lovely red eyelet lace bra I would be wearing underneath my dark blue suit….his name and the name of my CEO are similar, and when I pressed send, I realized my smart little name feature had sent it to the CEO.

Fortunately for me, the CEO is a wonderful man with a great sense of humour….and he blushes easily, I have discovered since that day.

Oh - and the red lingerie - it worked! — Posted by Marie

Saturday: Lunar Eclipse!

Tomorrow, for 1 hour and 14 minutes around sunset on the East Coast of the U.S., the Earth--which, from the Moon, will look like a big, black disc--will block all sunlight from reaching the Moon.

Around this black disc, a red glow will appear where the Sun was before, and this glow will turn the Moon's surface a warm red.

If NASA's current plan of sending astronauts back to the Moon actually transpires, then those astronauts will experience lunar eclipses typically once or twice a year.

But how can YOU see it best from Earth? Steinn suggests:

To see it in the US, hope for clear skies, and find high ground with unobstructed view to the east and look for the moon rising right at sunset.

Ali G on Science...

PETA Porn

Feeling salacious? Feast your eyes on PETA's new ad campaign.

The text, in case you can't make it out under those mounting stick figures:

"Your parents do it. They are probably doing it right now. But you don't want to know that. Just like you don't want to know what happens to chicks and chickens on factory farms. You don't want to know that behavioral scientists have discovered that the cognitive abilities of a chicken rival that of cats, dogs, and even young humans. But, whatever, as long as it tastes good, right?"

The text of the ad resonates with me: indeed, if I really thought frequently about how animals are slaughtered, then I wouldn't eat meat. But since I like the taste of meat, I'd just rather not think about those unpleasantries. The problem with the campaign, for PETA, is that this ad doesn't make me think about it more; it doesn't linger. If they're going to take the "guilt trip" approach, then it seems like they should showcase some photo that elicits feelings of guilt: a bloody corpse of a cow, or some other scene out of Fast Food Nation.

(hat tip, Shelley)

Monkey Hugs

When one human meets another for the first time, we gesture: the Americans shake hands, the Japanese bow, the French kiss. New field research in Mexico finds that when groups of spider monkeys want to avoid gang violence, they hug. Aww.

The monkeys, Ateles geoffroyi, live in large forest groups, but split into much smaller gangs when searching for food. When searching, the gangs will run into each other a lot, and sometimes these encounters turn violent. Other times, though, individuals from different groups will embrace.

In the new study, anthropologist Filippo Aureli of Liverpool John Moores University reports that the violent or aggressive encounters were more likely to happen when the monkeys didn’t hug first.

Interestingly, the monkeys don’t embrace members of their own groups, which makes Aureli think that, as he told Nature News, "The embrace could be a way of testing the bond between monkeys, as it exposes vulnerable parts of the body to attack.”

But wait! Wait! We don’t even need to go to Mexico to see this behavior in action...

Evolution (shhhh! that's durrrty)

"Evolution" has become a dirty word in many places in America: Kansas (tho we had some good news there last week) and Ohio public school science classrooms, the White House, Fox News studios, my grandparents' Thanksgiving table...and that's all quite disheartening. But at least, I thought, evolution can plead sanctuary in the domain of real science--on college campuses, talks at scientific conferences, and papers published in scientific journals.

Now, apparently, even this latter asylum is under seige. According to a report released last week in PLoS Biology, when medical journals publish studies about things like antibiotic resistance, they avoid using the "E-word." Instead, antimicrobial resistance is (euphemistically, I suppose) said to “emerge,” “arise,” or “spread” rather than “evolve.”

The authors of the PLoS report searched scientific journals published since 2000 for any papers that discussed antibiotic resistance. They then compared 15 randomly chosen articles from evolutionary journals (such as Evolution, Genetics, and Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B) with 15 randomly chosen articles from medical journals (such as The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy).

The results, in their words:

The results of our survey showed a huge disparity in word use between the evolutionary biology and biomedical research literature In research reports in journals with primarily evolutionary or genetic content, the word “evolution” was used 65.8% of the time to describe evolutionary processes (range 10%–94%, mode 50%–60%, from a total of 632 phrases referring to evolution). However, in research reports in the biomedical literature, the word “evolution” was used only 2.7% of the time (range 0%–75%, mode 0%–10%, from a total of 292 phrases referring to evolution), a highly significant difference (chi-square, p <0.001).

What does it matter, you ask, what terms the scientists use, as long as they understand the process? To find out, the authors did yet another literature search with the E-word--this time in the popular press. They searched for articles about antibiotic resistance in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox News, and the BBC. Then they checked to see if a correlation existed between the number of times the word “evolution” was used in a popular article and the number of times it was used in the original scientific paper that the news report was based upon. And guess what? There was a HIGH correlation (graph at left). As the authors put it:

This clearly shows that the public is more likely to be exposed to the idea of evolution and its real-world consequences if the word “evolution” is also being used in the technical literature.

So bottom line, the E-word is likely to get even dirtier if scientists (or doctors, anyway) skirt around its meaning even within a scientific article. Here's a scarier question: Why does the disparity exist between biology and medical journals? Are doctors actually less likely to "believe" in evolution?! Yikes.

Stunning

Usually I'd say squid is best viewed after it's been cut into small chunks, fried, and dipped in marinara. But this video gives a new perspective: For the first time, Japanese scientists have filmed Taningia danae, a large deep-sea squid, as it attacks its prey.

As you can see, as Taningia swoops in on its prey (the long fish dangling in the middle), its tentacles give off blinding flashes of light to stun and disorient the target, creating a window of opportunity for the squid to mount its attack. Clever calamari!



(Hat Tip, Craig.)

Piggy PR

The Chinese New Year is Thursday, and it’s the Year of the Pig. Though I love bacon, I’ve never been a big fan of the live porkers. They’re smart, sure, but they ain’t much to look at and spend their days rolling around in the mud.

But according to a bizarro press release that landed in my inbox this morning, swine expert Bruce Lawhorn from the veterinary school at Texas A&M (Texas is the biggest ‘show pig’ state in the country) has apparently taken on the weighty task of piggy PR. “There are a lot of misconceptions about pigs, and it’s one animal people don’t really seem to understand,” Lawhorn says.

The press release continues by listing all kinds of facts to make us love pigs. My favorites:

Intelligence. Pigs are highly intelligent animals and are ranked No.4 in the smart department, behind chimpanzees, dolphins and elephants. “They are considered the smartest of the ‘barnyard’ animals and can be easily trained,” Lawhorn says.

Cleanliness. “People think pigs are filthy, but that’s not really true,” he adds. “Pigs can’t sweat because they have few sweat glands, so when they roll around in the mud, they are trying to stay cool. But in most months, they are clean animals.”

Tails. Not all pigs have curly tails – some have straight tails.

Hearts. Pig valves have been used in human heart operations for years and there are more than 40 drugs made from pigs, among them insulin.

And then, toward the end, to really drive the piggy-cuteness point home, Lawhorn notes:

“Pigs have four toes on each hoof but only walk on two of those toes, often appearing as if they are tip-toeing. Also, pigs can easily get sunburned and have sensitive skin.”

(mmm crispy bacon. oink oink)

MJ to brighten your day

Be patient through the first 30 seconds. It's worth it.

Man, my wedding party better be that cool.

MoodJamz

oooo my inner geek is loving the Google Gadget Awards.

The picture here is from My MoodJam--a website created by techies at Carnegie Mellon where users can record their moods with colors and words--which Google deemed the "Gadget most likely to get you a date."

After you register for an account, MoodJam lets you post your moods as often as you like, and then compare your moods with those of other users.

The head developer of MoodJam, computer scientist Ian Li, says he envisioned the gadget as a "visual diary" for self-reflection. But it's also turning out to be (yet another) tool of social networking: more than 2,000 people now share their MoodJam mood choices with family and friends.

To Google: I still don't really understand how using it could get you a date...

....reminds me of one of those Jungian personality tests.

I <3 Dogs

The 2007 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is going on this week at Madison Square Garden. (Judging is next Monday and Tuesday, by the way, and tickets are $40, which I might actually pay if someone would go with me...)

In honor of the event, I took an online quiz to determine which breed of dog I'm most like. The test was fun, though I'm not so thrilled with my result: a poodle. Boooo. I would rather be an Akita or St. Bernard or Sheltie. Or a Pug! Anyway, here's their complete analysis (apparently I'm cold and intimidating):

Virginia, you're a Poodle!

No bones about it, you're a go-ahead-and-spoil-me Poodle. Intelligent and discerning, why should you settle for anything but the best? No good reason comes to mind. You appreciate the finer things in life, from the trendiest clothes to the best restaurants. Maintaining your health and appearance is a must — you owe it to yourself to look and feel tip-top. The result? An impeccable fashion sense, perfect grooming, and the latest must-have "toys" and accessories. Unfortunately, that can be a little intimidating to people who don't know you. They might think you're a bit cold or distant. But your close friends know better. Your nearest and dearest can see beyond the glitz and glamour to the smart, considerate person within. Woof!

(Hat tip: Abbie and Bernie)

For more on dogs, check out the NYT Magazine cover story this week about trendy hybrids (with adorrrrrable photos!)

A "Good" Investment

“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.” –Henry David Thoreau

The question is, an investment in what?

Read Montague, a.k.a. The Hottest Man in Neuroscience, is perhaps best known for his research in decision-making. A few years ago, in what became his most celebrated experiments, he scanned people’s brains while they were looking at Coke and Pepsi advertisements and basically found a neurological basis of the former’s powerful branding. Now in this month’s Nature Neuroscience, Montague, my favorite neuroscientist, writes a delicious commentary tackling my favorite subject: the biological (and specifically, neurological) basis of human altruism.

Within the altruism debate—Is it really for the good of the group? Or is it ultimately just a behavioral ploy where the individual expects a reward, eventually?—I’ve always fallen in the latter, cynical camp. Still, until I read Montague’s piece, I had never actually thought about this idea in purely economic terms… he writes:

“Fairness is easy to understand as a kind of economic computation that all socially interacting nervous systems must carry out. Individuals who depend on one another must share if the group is to be valuable to them.”

Humph. I really have nothing more to say about that quote. It’s one of those ideas that I keep reading over and over without being able to fully process.

By the way, the research article on which Montague was commenting doesn’t really answer any of these fundamental questions about the origin and continued presence of altruism in human society. But its results were still cool. Basically, when humans were asked to watch a computer simulation in which money was raised for charity, a brain region lit up that had been previously linked to the evaluating other people’s motives. And since in order to be altruistic you have to be able to distinguish between yourself and someone else, the authors suggest this brain area is also involved in detecting agency in others.

(This “detecting agency” thing has been proposed by various idiots—oops—as something that makes us “uniquely human.” So I can’t wait until they do a similar computer-simulated charity experiment on macaques and find this brain region lighting up in similar ways….)

Molecules, Motion, and...Markets?

In recent weeks, traveling, editing, and fraternizing with celebs has kept me from updating Sequitur…but a great topic came up the other night when I was out with a cute analyst (and self-described super-geek) who was attempting to teach me basic market theory. Most of it went right over my head, until he dropped a term that I remembered from—of all places—high school chemistry class: Brownian motion.

(Or, if you don’t happen to remember high school chemistry, you might recognize Brownian motion from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where Brownian motion powers a spaceship which is actually just a cup of hot tea.)

In 1827, a Scottish botanist named Robert Brown was looking under a microscope at a previously unstudied species of Australian pollen suspended in water. He noticed with great surprise that tiny particles within the pollen grains were “exhibiting a continuous jittery motion.” At first, he thought this movement might be the essence of life itself. But he later found the same jitterings when looking particles of dust. The phenomena was broadcast throughout the scientific community and, though he never proposed an explanatory theory, ultimately named for Brown. (Incidentally, historians now agree that the crude microscopes Brown was using could not have observed these molecular motions. Lucky break for him!)

It wasn’t until Einstein’s famous papers in 1905 that Brownian motion was fully explained: the random, jerky motions were caused by atoms striking the particles in uneven amounts from different directions. (Here's a cool animation of the process.) And Al being the genius that he was, he figured out mathematical equations (or more accurately, probability distributions) to model these motions. Al’s theory killed two birds with one stone: he not only proved the existence of atoms, but also used the motions to calculate the number of atoms in a particular lump of element and how much each atom weighed.

What’s all that got to do with economic theory?!

It turns out that the mathematical models Einstein came up with to describe the random movements of a particle may also describe fluctuations in stock market prices. And here’s where it stops making sense to me. This website seems to have it explained thoroughly, though, if you’re interested.

What’s more perplexing to me is the notion of one set of underlying rules that governs all aspects of our perceived universe. Though I don’t understand why the Brownian motion probability equations work in market theory, I’ll take Mr. Analyst’s word that they do. But whyyy? Why should a physical process—i.e., atomic motion—be governed by the same dynamic as a market based on human behavior?

Brainlova signing off, from the UK. Cheers!

P.S. I read a fabulous book a couple of years ago that I think touches on similar themes: Chaos by James Gleick.

Virtual Economies

I’m a technology fan, really. Shotgun gene sequencing, faster computers, cars that parallel park themselves…all sweet. But for whatever reason, reading about “virtual worlds”— computer-simulated environments in which human users interact via cartoon avatars—makes me shiver. One of the most famous virtual sets is World of Warcraft, where thousands of players compete against one another, sometimes for months or years, in a weapon-and-token-driven quest to take over the world. These virtual games have taken on lives of their own; on eBay, for instance, real dollars can now buy these virtual tokens.

A piece in today’s Washington Post profiles Veronica Brown, a real person who makes her living--$60,000 a year!—by designing fashions for a virtual world called Second Life. One of her creations is pictured above.

To me, her job in itself is fascinating/creepy. But the Post’s story one-ups even it: Brown’s work is being copied by a “rogue” software program that copies animated objects. Apparently, even virtual entrepreneurs need virtual patents.

As the article explains:

As virtual worlds proliferate across the Web, software designers and lawyers are straining to define property rights in this emerging digital realm. The debate over these rights extends far beyond the early computer games that pioneered virtual reality into the new frontiers of commerce.

"Courts are trying to figure out how to apply laws from real life, which we've grown accustomed to, to the new world," said Greg Lastowka, a professor at Rutgers School of Law at Camden in New Jersey. "The law is struggling to keep up."

I need to get away from my computer. Right now.

(In the blogosphere: Read what Jake has to say about WoW; or Matthew on the pros and cons of virtual communities. )

Ingenius!

Amazing nerd website of the week, or maybe the month: Ingenius, a new site from the UK’s National Museums of Science and Industry (NMSI) that “brings together images and viewpoints to create insights into science and culture.” Ok, sounds cheesy, but I promise it’s, well, ingenius. NMSI puts together a huge collection of well researched—and well-written—articles (when’s the last time you read about Thalidomide? or how a science museum builds its collection?); forums to discuss scientific and cultural ideas (“Should the state pay to make ugly people beautiful?” or “Has technology given us a home life filled with opportunities?"); and best of all, 30,000 science-related images. I know I’ll be spending many future procrastinating hours at this site…here are a few of the cool photos I’ve found so far.


"Jedi" Helmet
Used by Ian Young at the Hammersmith Hospital as an experimental device to get the best possible pictures of a child's brain. The helmets are named after and resemble those used for training by apprentice Jedi knights in the 'Star Wars' films; this name was chosen to encourage children to put them on. The coils on the helmet are 'aerials' for picking up MRI signals. MRI builds up pictures from the magnetic behaviour of water molecules inside the body. It is used to diagnose diseases and injuries affecting the brain, nerves, bones, muscles and internal organs, especially the liver.

First Brain Chemicals
Test tubes with original hand-written labels containing the firstchemicals isolated from the human brain, prepared by John Louis William Thudichum (1829-1901) at St Thomas's Hospital, London, between 1865 and 1871. They are: choline platinochloride; lecithin cadmium chloride; phrenosine; kerasine. These test tubes are icons of the earliest history of biochemistry. J L W Thudichum made a significant contribution to neurochemistry and the Biochemical Society awards a Thudichum Medal to those who have made outstanding contributions to neurochemistry and related subjects.

The Taj Mahal of Astronomical Instruments
This is one of a series of models (scale 1:36) made between 1884-6, showing the astronomical instruments of the Jaipur Observatory in India. Built of masonry, the Jaipur instruments were used to accurately measure the position of the Sun, stars, moon and planets. They did not have telescopes but used naked eye sights and massive, but precise construction. Known as Narivalaya ('Double Equinoctial Dial'), it was built and designed under the supervision of Maharajah Jai Singh II (1686-1743). Finding European, Islamic and Hindu astronomical tables inaccurate, Singh decided to make his own observations to improve matters. As ruler of Rajasthan he built several observatories, starting in 1724 with one near Delhi.

All images credit: Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library

Bored? Browse the collection for yourself!

Holiday Humor

Best Christmas Present…Ever.

I've been window shopping quite a bit lately in this most-fabulous-of-fabulous window-shopping cities. But this year’s hottest gifts—the Gucci black ankle boots, the Pierre Hardy animal print tote, the Tickle Me Extreme (TMX) Elmo, a subscription to Murray’s Cheese-of-the-Month Club—they’re they’re all so stale, so impersonal. I want to give gifts to my nearest and dearest that are perfectly tailored for them. Something that just says, “I know you better than you know yourself. You will never be able to match my good gift-giving ability. I am a better friend than you are.”

And today I’ve finally found that perfect choice: the DNA 11 personal portrait. The description from the company website says it all:

DNA 11 creates personalized and original abstract art from a sample of your DNA or fingerprints. Each piece is as unique as you. Personal. Beautiful. Absolutely one-of-a-kind. Modern masterpieces that are truly the timeless portraits of this millennium.

Basically, after you pick out the color and size of your print, the company will send you a "collection kit" with complete instructions on how to sample your own DNA. (They don't say whether this sample is from a cheek swab, blood, hair...) Then you send your (or your lucky recipient's) DNA back to their labs, where it is electrophoresed in a gel, photographed, and finally printed on canvas.

And the cost? The DNA portraits (like the lovely saffron piece above) start at only $380; “FingerPrints” at $190.

Alas, this king of gifts has a major downside: the process takes about four weeks. So sorry guys, I guess this year you're stuck with cheese.

Ok, this is cute but...

...there is an error in the logic. Points to anyone who catches it! (hat tip, Steve)

Marie Howe

...is such a great poet. And I get to see her read tonight! If you're in the city and interested, come to Hunter College (68th and Lex) at 7:30. from What the Living Do:

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of. It's winter again: the sky's a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living room windows because the heat;s on too high in here, and I can't turn it off. For weeks now, driving, or dropping the bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it. Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss -- we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, say the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless. I am living. I remember you.

Pick-up Lines for Nerds

Anybody who gives me one of these has it made...


Hey baby, that's a nice cleavage furrow, how about we introgress? I promise, no incomplete penetrance.

You're must be like a carbon molecule, 'cause every part of me wants to bond with you.

I'm attracted to you so strongly, scientists will have to develop a fifth fundamental force.

You must know Bernoulli's Principle, 'cause damn, you so fly!

You can put a Trojan on my Hard Drive anytime.

Say, isn't that Schoerdinger's Dress you're wearing? I don't suppose there's a chance that perhaps later on I might get to collapse your waveform?

...and the similar:

I'm like Schroedinger's cat, because every time you look at me, I die.

Wanna recombine our DNA?

I must have a Bunsen burner in my chest, 'cause darlin', my heart's on fire.

I'd like to find the area under your curves.

10001100101000101111010

Dark Chocolate Melts My Heart

Dark chocolate has got to be the finest food on earth. Unlike its sweeter cousins milk chocolate and white chocolate, dark gets its oh-so-bittersweetness because it’s made from at least 70 percent cocoa powder. And now—thanks to a few chocoholics who couldn’t stand to give up their favorite treat while taking part in a heart study—researchers have found that just a few squares a day of the dark stuff can halve the risk of heart attack.

Yeah, yeah, I’ve read this already, you say. And it’s true: since the 80s, researchers have known that the “flavonoids” in dark chocolate can reduce blood pressure. But previous studies had only used massive amounts of flavonoids—equivalent to gobbling up several pounds of chocolate per day (which actually might not be all that improbable…..)

Anyway, this new study, released Tuesday at the American Heart Association conference in Chicago, studied the effects of smaller, everyday doses of chocolate. Researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health used 139 people who had been disqualified from a much larger study about the effects of aspirin on blood platelets. The larger study had required its subjects to stick to a strict regimen of exercise and a modified diet that did not include caffeine. But these 139 just couldn’t keep their hands off of one caffeinated treat—chocolate.

Though these people had to be disqualified from the larger aspirin study, the researchers looked at their blood results anyway, and found a big surprise: even a little bit of chocolate reduces the time it takes for blood to clot in narrow arteries. But before you reach for the Hershey’s, there’s of course a but: This beneficial effect comes from chocolate’s cocoa, not its (equally tasty) butter or the sugar. So how much can we have? The researchers recommend about 2 tablespoons a day—but only of the dark stuff. Mmmmm.

They totally pegged me...

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

The Day After...

So midterms were yesterday, and with the Dems taking back the House, Stephen Colbert was predictably upset. As he lamented on last night's Colbert Report:

"It's a brave new world, a world where the Constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones created in a stem cell research lab run by doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning American flags. Where tax-and-spend Democrats take all your hard-earned money and use it to buy electric cars for National Public Radio and teach evolution to illegal immigrants. Oh! And everybody's high!"

"Get Your Heart Racing"

Just when you thought Harlequin romance novels couldn't get any, well, racier, they're now introducing a new series "set against the backdrop of the thrill-a-minute world of NASCAR."

For your titillation, here's the synopsis of one of the new books, On the Edge (pictured right):

Unknown NASCAR driver Adam Drake has some of the best moves Rebecca Newman has ever seen, both on and off the track.

But she can't afford to feel anything but respect for the new driver she's hired to pilot her race car. With the financial security of her team hanging in the balance and everyone in the series thinking she's nuts, the last thing she needs is lust getting in the way of logic. Too bad Adam has other ideas.

And the publisher's clever tagline for the new series?

"Falling in love can be a blur. Especially at 180 mph."

Knit Your Own Uterus...

Thank you knitty.com

AIM addiction

When people turn to drugs, say alcohol or cocaine, they often abuse to get rid of negative feelings, or to forget their stress. They often abuse by themselves, and hide it from their friends and family. A new study says now something else can be added to the list of highly addictive and socially debilitating substances: the internet. (dun dun dunn)

Neuropsychiatrist Elias Aboujaoude, lead author of the study, says about 1 out of 8 Americans use the internet to “self-medicate,” and often hide their use from others.

The study found that 13.7 percent of respondents found it hard to stay away from the internet for several days at a time, 8.7 percent attempted to conceal non-essential internet use from family, friends and employers and 5.9 percent felt their relationships suffered as a result of excessive internet use.

In Australia, they’re taking action to fight this dangerous addiction. NetAlert, a group organized by the Australian government, even offers a free hotline—like those for potential suicides or rape victims—for those looking for help with their internet addictions.

NetAlert calls instant messaging "particularly addictive."

Hi, my name is Ginny, and I’m an internetoholic.

Space Yogurt

I found out a bit about sending bugs into space when writing my thesis last year. But this tops all: a Japanese daily manufacturer strapped bacteria to a rocket, shot them into cosmic-ray-happy space for 10 days, and then made yogurt (like, to eat) out of the strains that survived. Not only that, but Himawari Dairy says this space yogurt (called Uchu O Tabi Shita Yogurt) has a more full-bodied flavor than yogurts made with terrestrial bugs.

More details at Pink Tentacle.

Making Physics Funny.

...More hilarious webcomics at xkcd

NYC's Latest Evil: Trans Fats

The New York Times reports today that NYC's board of health has decided to ban trans fats from each and every restaurant in the city--including McDonald's. Trans fats, which are derived from partially hydrogenated oils and are found in just about every kind of junk food from doughnuts to french fries, have been shown to increase the risk of heart disease.

As Lynne D. Richardson, professor of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine told the NYT:

“...human life is much more important than shelf life,” she said. “I would expect to see fewer people showing up in the emergency room with heart attacks if this policy is enacted.”

...eh, maybe. But is that grounds for such an obnoxious "Big Brother" policy? I mean, if we banned alcohol then fewer people show up in the emergency room, too. Or cars, for that matter. What happened to personal choices?

I understand the smoking-in-restaurants ban; when you blow smoke in someone else's food, or your waitress's face, then you're not just hurting yourself. But if you choose to eat trans fats when you know they'll kill you (and please, everyone must know that by now)--then chow down.

I held a jewel in my fingers

I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep.
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: "'T will keep."

I woke and chid my honest fingers, --
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.
-Emily Dickinson

Run, little Amish girl, run!

Mark the day, October 18, 2006: Ginny’s going to meet Richard Dawkins! (err, listen to him give a public lecture.) As I’ve said many times on this blog, I love the man and his clever, lucid writing. If you’re in the market for a good read, pick up his new book, The God Delusion, which is now ranked #9 on amazon.com’s bestseller list.

Fair warning: As a large book, it can be a bit awkward trying to hide the cover jacket from nosy (and potentially pious) seat neighbors on the subway…but then again, the book jacket is orange and metallic silver, so the casual observer might just mistake it for Michael Crichton.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes…for the first, I actually laughed out loud.

On the Amish (after explaining why respecting religious “diversity” is a load of crap):

“The rest of us are happy with our cars and computers, our vaccines and antibiotics. But you quaint little people with your bonnets and breeches, your horse buggies*, your archaic dialect and your earth-closet privies, you enrich our lives. Of course you must be allowed to trap your children with you in your seventeenth-century time warp, otherwise something irretrievable would be lost to us: a part of the wonderful diversity of human culture. A small part of me can see something in this. But the larger part is made to feel very queasy indeed.”

(*I had initially planned to write my thesis on the non-electric, and thus “green” agricultural technologies used by the Pennsylvania Amish. However, after spending a few days at the library reading about their faith and seriously deranged customs, I was creeped out enough out to drop the Plain People.)

On religion’s role in the war in Iraq:

“Our Western politicians avoid mentioning the R word (religion), and instead characterize their battle as a war against ‘terror’, as though terror were a kind of spirit or force, with a will and a mind of its own. Or they characterize terrorists as motivated by pure ‘evil’. But they are not motivated by evil...They are not psychotic; they are religious idealists who, by their own lights, are rational. They perceive their acts to be good, not because of some warped personal idiosyncrasy, and not because they have been possessed by Satan, but because they have been brought up, from the cradle, to have total and unquestioning faith.”

Quiz: What City Fits You Best?

Just took this city quiz...and after my wonderful few days in Chicago, I think it may be right-on...

American Cities That Best Fit You::

70% Chicago

65% New York City

65% Philadelphia

60% Boston

60% Washington, DC

Which American Cities Best Fit You?

Why a Pale Blue Dot?

I just spent the last few days in a breathtakingly beautiful Chicago for the Pale Blue Dot III astrobiology conference. I met some brilliant astrobiologists and astrobiology graduate students, who manage to stay motivated and enthusiastic despite NASA’s significant cuts in the field. And they taught me SO much—about the Earth’s climate, the clouds of Venus, the rocks of Mars, the machines that can determine a distant planet’s surface chemistry by looking at just a speck of light, even the odds of getting hit by an asteroid.

But of all the tidbits I didn’t know Saturday and do know now, here’s the one I was most embarrassed not to know (and thought my faithful blog readers would most enjoy):

When viewed from space, the Earth looks like—to quote Sagan—a “pale blue dot,” not because of our vast oceans. No, the astrobiologts patiently explained, the oceans are actually very dark. We look blue for the same reason the sky looks blue when standing on earth: because the oxygen and nitrogen molecules that make up our atmosphere absorb short wavelengths—blue!—and not longer wavelengths like red. It actually gets a lot more complicated, of course, with details about cloud cover, but I'm pretty sure that was the jist.

The photo here shows the Earth and its moon as seen from cameras on Mars.

Unbounded Admiration

I just got my hands on Richard Dawkins’s new book, The God Delusion. As my students from last year can attest, I’m a Dawkins fanatic, and am deeply engrossed in his new tome. Not sure if Dawkins is just less cautious now in his elder years, but this book certainly has a tone more...hostile than the others. Pretty amusing so far, though.

Anyway, I found one of the book’s early passages—a quote from Einstein—quite surprising. Dawkins reminds us of Einstein’s most quoted remarks about the existence of God (like “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind"), and then hits us with this rarely-quoted doozie from Al:

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God any I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

...So much for “God doesn’t play dice with the universe,” right?

From the Annals of Human Behavior Trivia

From Nature News:

“Psychologists have long known that unwritten rules govern our social interactions. Some researchers have found that women stand closer together than men when talking, for example. Men are also less likely to maintain eye contact. And both sexes will reduce eye contact if the person they are talking to gets too close.”

Read the full story, about keeping your “personal space” in virtual reality.

Coma, Schmoma

Creepy news of the week: doctors hooked up brain scanners to a vegetative woman, talked to her, and found out her brain responded exactly as if she were conscious. And this of course immediately reminded me of a season 6 Sopranos episode where Tony comes out of his coma thanks to the sincere pleadings of Meadow….. “Don’t go daddy, we love you. Don’t goooooooo”

Check out all the gory details about the real news on Culture Dish, the fabulous blog of science writer Rebecca Skloot.

Extrasolar Waterworlds

I started my new internship at Seed on Tuesday, and got my first Seed clip at 5:27 p.m. today. Habitable worlds, according to a paper that will be released in tomorrow's Science, might just be spinning in solar systems we already knew about, and more exciting--they're probably covered in global oceans.

Read my full story here.

UPDATE: a one-sentence review of my article, from Knight Science Journalism Tracker. hehe

Top 100 Wikipedia Pages...

Since Wikipedia has so quickly become ingrained in our American culture (with recent feature articles about its creation and evolution in Nature, the New Yorker and the Atlantic), one would think that the list of the 100 most popular Wikipedia pages would reflect those topics that are most important to us. Here's a sampling...

#4: List of Big-Bust Models and Performers
#5: JonBenet Ramsey
#6: List of Sex Positions
#11: Irukandji Jellyfish (what the....?)
#14: World Wrestling Entertainment Roster
#98: Criticism of Family Guy

Time, Un-metered

Once upon a time there was a this, then there was a that, and finally, the end. In today’s Western world, this is how most stories are told. Children’s fables, blockbuster action movies, and even pop songs follow a linear, predictable chronology. And the everyday physical surroundings in our flat, paced, rated, labeled, bounded world are equally predictable. City planners arrange streets in rectangular grids; stoplights turn on, off, on, at timed intervals, to tame the flow of traffic; taxis charge by the mile; buildings are labeled with numbers, and jut from their foundations at 90-degree angles.

James Rouvelle, an artist and technology specialist at the Maryland Institute College of Art, says this metered world affects the way we live, manipulates us, in fact, to behave in a predictable way. “We are wired to scan our environment and adapt to whatever we discover,” he explains, “in other words, we train to the medium.” So we navigate those orderly streets, stop and go when we’re supposed to, wear watches on our wrists. “Our time is monochromic,” he says, “everything is ordered and dictated by a watch.”

And for Rouvelle, this metered sense of time is worrisome. “My concern,” he says, “is that we—Western culture—have, over the past few hundred years, chosen to develop along a trajectory of reductionism, trying to understand things by breaking them down into individuated, component parts whose behaviors are often described as relating to other unique components sequentially, and verified metrically – and often visualized.”

The visual description of time, at least in Western classical art, is often a sequential one. In many of the great Piero Della Francesca's pieces (like The Queen of Sheba's Visit to Jerusalem, above), for instance, the progression of the action is achieved by the viewer looking from left to right. First, then, finally—story told.

But many contemporary artists and architects are looking to break free of this metered perception of time. Rouvelle encourages this change, as he believes an un-metered temporal perspective can enhance both our aesthetic and social experiences. “There are complementary experiences, non-linear experiences,” he says, “where time, for example, is not moving in a specific direction, yet change is evident. I believe that these non-sequential experiences are equally real, however, and that if I could contemplate them more fully my experience overall would be significantly different.” And artists, he says, have the means to create less metered descriptions of the world, and thus make the world a better place. “I believe that if we could improve our understanding of our experience through better and more accurate models,” he argues, “we would experience greater empathy with others.”

Here are a few examples of recent art and architecture that flaunt a non-linear expression of time, and in this way, force their audiences to experience time un-metered…

The Site of Reversible Destiny

On the other side of the world, in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture, two New York artists created an external environment completely unlike the ordered grid in the Big Apple: The Site of Reversible Destiny. In October 1995, architect Shusaku Arakawa and his creative partner, poet Madeline Gins opened this “experience park” of lushly vegetated mounds, inclined planes and maze-like interiors to offer visitors, as the website states, “opportunities to rethink their physical and spiritual orientation to the world.”

If you look at a map of the park, the names of the featured sites sound like some kind of metaphysical Disneyland: the Gate of Non-Dying, the Exactitude Ridge, the Zone of the Clearest Confusion, the Kinesthetic Pass, and even the Destiny House. Then there’s the Critical Resemblance House, which has a labyrinth of hallways with furniture arranged on the floor, under the floor, and on the ceiling. Outside the buildings, scattered throughout the green outdoor landscape, are 24 species of medicinal herbs “that give it a gradually changing complexion from season to season.”

The park also—like Disney’s rollercoasters—disturbs balance; a warning on their homepage, written in red text, reads: “Because the Site of Reversible Destiny-Yoro Park has many steep slopes, we advise that you wear rubber-heeled shoes.” Indeed, since the park opened in 1995, Rouvelle says it has had to set aside funding specifically for medical bills of the dozens of visitors who, just from walking around the disorienting landscape, have fractured or broken bones.

Clearly then, the Site of Reversible Destiny creates an endlessness that we don’t normally experience. Psychologist and art critic Rudolf Arnheim argues that this endlessness, especially when experienced outdoors, grants art and architecture “a high aesthetic value.”

Rouvelle would agree. He says the Site of Reversible Destiny—without flat surfaces, street grids, or 90-degree angles—“forces us to come to terms with physical angles that are becoming less and less common” in Western city life; in other words, it’s exactly the kind of art that can help us break free of a metered sense of time.

Expérience de la Durée, Biennale de Lyon 2005

“Experiencing Duration” was the theme of the 2005 Lyon Biennale, a contemporary art show with venues in Glasgow, Frankfurt, Paris, Milan and Vilnius. The show’s curators, Nicolas Bourriaud and Jérôme Sans, wrote they hoped the hundreds of paintings, film, video, light, and sound installations would “eschew the current temptation of a return to the traditional categories of painting and sculpture and video. We wanted to stress the fact that art is an experience that engages the spectator.”

Echoing the words of James Rouvelle, Bourriaud and Sans explained on the exhibition’s website why time is such a provocative theme to explore in art: “Addressing time was a way for us to draw up an inventory of the 1990s, when art began to function as a sort of editing bay on which artists could reconstruct everyday reality.” These artists, the curators explained, “tweaked the tempo” of their art—displaying videos and sounds that had been paused, looped, or synchronized in unexpected ways. “Time is more a building material than a mere medium,” Bourriaud and Sans argued. More than a static oil painting or stone monument, they wrote, “art is first and foremost an event.”

RIPLTRANE

Both the Site of Reversible Destiny and the exhibits at the Lyon Biennial use art to manipulate the viewer’s experience of time. But other forms of contemporary art—like interactive sound projects—are themselves manipulated by time. One such dynamic project, designed by Rouvelle and Berlin-based artists Innes Yates and Judith Bieseler, is called Research, Instructions, Programs, and Logic for Trans-Robotic Adaptive Networked Environments, or RIPLTRANE. Launched in March 2004 and still going today, RIPLTRANE allows participants in both New York and Berlin to step or dance on pressure sensors in a tiled floor. Their stepping patterns go through a computer, which then creates accompanying sound and lighting effects and relays the patterns, through the internet, back and forth between both cities. In this way, the art is manipulated by the participants themselves (and the time lag between the transatlantic transmissions). As Rouvelle writes about the project on his website, RIPLTRANE is an experiment of layering a physical environment “with information and events occurring locally and at distant geographic and temporal locations…Our intention is to start something that will take on a life of its own.”

Remove Your Watches!

Changing our experience of time—that is, un-metering it—is not an easy task. It may be worth the psychological (and in the case of the Site of Reversible Destiny, physical) effort for an artist who wants to create and appreciate art in new ways. “Artists can definitely contribute to the creation of better models [of time],” Rouvelle says. “The content of our models and their presence in our common spaces is an aspect of our collective development. We must, I think, take the role of objects and their affect seriously as we build our world.”

But even those uninterested in art, Rouvelle continues, should make the attempt. Experiencing un-metered time, he says, will help our interpersonal relationships, help us to better empathize with others. He argues that, “the general public can benefit by having aspects of their lives made more available for their own consideration via aesthetic creations that explore the complementary senses and experiences of non-linearity.”

To Rouvelle, all of human development, in fact, is about the way we choose to perceive and influence time. “If we want to develop along a different trajectory we must take action and do so. We have a responsibility to do so.”

UPDATE: Pluto is NOT a planet!!

So the big dogs met today, and surprise—Pluto is NOT a planet after all! Aw, poor thing. (Read the full story from the Washington Post)

''Yes, Virginia, Pluto is a planet.''

Next week in Prague, a group of astronomers are planning to tell the International Astronomical Union--the body that decides, officially, what is or is not a planet--that there are not nine planets, but 12.
(Read the full story.) Here's what a few Johns Hopkins astronomers had to say about the whole affair (p.s.--dontcha just love nerdspeak?)

Richard Conn Henry, physics and astronomy professor:
"I think the notion that Pluto is a planet is absurd. When it was initially discovered,it was thought to be vastly more massive than it turned out to be. Its orbit is radically different from that of all the other planets. Down with Pluto, is what I say!"

Karl Glazebrook, physics and astronomy professor:
"...if I were in charge, I would insist on a diameter of greater than 1,000 kilometers to define a 'planet' in order to remove Ceres from the list. But that would be an arbitrary cut to preserve the order of the main nine and to save the hassle of rewriting textbooks...Definitions and naming really matter little physically, anyway."

William P. Blair, research professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and chief of observatory operations for NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer Satellite:
"This is really not a burning issue for most astronomers. It really is a 'classification' problem more than an issue of science...From what I can tell, they have tried to come up with a consistent definition: an object roughly spherical under its own gravity, orbiting a star, and not orbiting something else. OK, so far. Then they are apparently willing to immediately bend this relatively simple definition and allow Charon to itself be called a planet, with Pluto and Charon being a 'double planet' system. This goes too far and seems inconsistent to me."

Harold A. Weaver Jr., project scientist at Applied Physics Laboratory:
"...we must not forget that any attempts by us to pigeonhole objects in the universe are bound to have shortcomings. The classification schemes that we invent help us to place diverse objects in context, but we must also recognize that nature often doesn't adhere to our attempts to categorize things...In any case, I doubt that the IAU could come up with a resolution that would please everyone."

Andy Cheng, Applied Physics Laboratory:
"...the new definition of planet does not work for me, because 'hydrostatic equilibrium' is an idealization -- it is approximately correct for planets like Earth but is not exact. There is still no criterion for deciding how far from hydrostatic equilibrium an object can be and still qualify as a planet."

The latest in looking for life on the Red Planet

It's been three months since I finished my thesis on the hunt for life on Mars. Here's a great lil story I picked up on digg about what's next on the horizon...but I'll betcha those sturdy rovers will still be kickin' around up there when the Lander arrives... "The launch of the Mars Phoenix Lander is just a year away. The spacecraft will be aiming for the martian north pole, and if it lands successfully it will dig in snow and ice in one of the few places on Mars where scientists think life could be preserved." read more | digg story

Have we all gone nano-crazy?

Seems like every product in the CVS aisle is trying to jump on the nanotechnology bandwagon. And thanks to a website created by the nonprofit group Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies earlier this year, anyone with a computer can browse the 200+ nano-products now commercially available. (The list includes, among the somewhat mundane face creams and household cleaners, the more surprising odor-eating shoe inserts, foam neck-support pillows, and even chocolate-flavored bubble gum.)

Here are a few of my favorite products, along with the hype they tout on their websites about those teeeeny tiny nano-ingredients (in no particular order):

Fullerene C-60 Day and Night Cream
Zelens, UK

“Fullerene C60 is a naturally occurring microscopic form of carbon, of the same purity as a diamond, which was found to have remarkable anti-oxidant properties. The key to the power of Fullerenes C60 lies in its shape. Its 60 carbon atoms are arranges like a soccer ball, with 32 surfaces. Each of these surfaces attract, and neutralise, the damaging free radicals, leading scientists to call Fullerene C60 the ‘radical scavenger.’”
(http://www.zelens.com/)


Rénergie Microlift
Lancome, France

“Microlifters are made of nano-particles of silica and proteins form a network to immediately lift and tighten skin.”
(http://www.lancome-usa.com/_us/_en/skincare/animations/renergiemicrolift/ discover.aspx?CategoryCode=AXESkincare&&amp;amp;amp;amp;&&)


Nanosilver Antibacterial and Deodorant Insole
Goodweave textiles Co. Ltd., Taiwan

(NB: for this one, I only wonder how much hype was lost in translation…)
“Nanosilver textile fiber has the ultra strong bacteriacidal power. Sterilization rate reaches as high as 99.99%. It may deodorize, stop itching and effectively prevents the athletic foot blood circulation, a moisture absorption and release of perspiration. The high permeable material quality, it can often guarantee the foot dry and neat.”
(http://www.goodweaver.com/)


Nanoceuticals Slim Shake Chocolate
RBC Life Sciences, USA

“NanoCeuticals™, with nanoscale ingredients, allow RBC to create products that:
-Scavenge more free radicals
-Stimulate the source of energy
-Increase hydration
-Balance the body’s pH
-Reduce lactic acid during exercise
-Reduce the surface tension of foods and supplements to increase wetness and absorption of nutrients
(http://813312.royalbodycare.com/Nanotechnology_Revolution.aspx)


Contour-Foam Silver Neck-Support Pillow
Sharper Image, USA

“Ultra-fine silver particles are infused throughout Sharper Image's exclusive space-age Contour-Foam Silver products. Created by advanced nanotechnology ("nano" indicating one billionth), these silver nanoparticles average only about 25nm (nanometers) in diameter — one 200 thousandth of a human hair — invisible to the eye but adding immeasurably to you well-being by making this pressure-free, comforting part of your home environment cleaner, fresher and healthier.”
(http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/productview/sku__ZN004)


Nanover Hair Care
GNS Nanogist, Korea
“NANOVERTM Shampoo using nanosilver technology, ingredients go into hair quickly and deeply, has outstanding moisturizing and dandruff removing effect.”
(http://www.gnsnanogist.com)

NDMX Golf Balls
Nanodynamics, Inc., USA
“The much-anticipated launch of the revolutionary ball based on patented NDMX™ hollow metal core technology is ready for fairways and greens worldwide. Not only that, NanoDynamics™ has added a nano-enhanced polymer companion ball, the NDLiNX™, to its offering!”

(http://www.nanodynamics.com/Home/webstore)

Secret Sharing...

My West Wing wife, crossword puzzle partner, and deepest-secret sharer just moved to California. For five years. So I’m feeling so blue. But! There’s always writing….and Ben & Jerry’s. And! I’ve just discovered a website that made me smile: Share Your Secret. In case you don’t live in NYC and haven’t seen the site’s HUGE metro advertisements, Share Your Secret is a place where anyone can anonymously post any secret (sponsored, of course, by Secret deodorant).  Below are a few goodies…

“I want to keep having babies so I don’t have to go back to work.”

“I am addicted to peanut M&Ms.”

“I want to get over him, but I can’t.”

“I sleep with a teddy bear.”

“Sometimes I pretend I am a cook on a T.V. show in my kitchen.”

“I talk to myself.”

Plan B: Pros and Cons

In 2003, medical advisors at the FDA declared that Plan B--Barr Pharmaceuticals' morning after pill--was safe and effective enough to sell over the counter, to women of any age.

Three years pass.

This Tuesday the FDA met with Barr and finally decided to make the drug available to women 18 or older. It could be on pharmacy shelves in a matter of weeks.

But not everyone thinks this is such a good idea...pro-lifers, overprotective parents, and The Onion have all formed strong objections. Read The Onion's piece if you're in the mood to laugh.