The greatest hurdle before committing suicide is the fear of dying and death as well as the fear of hurting people we care about. In order to assist suicide, Suicidal Philosophy alleviates these fears rather than stoking them like traditional Philosophy of Suicide does. Suicidal Philosophy is much more science than philosophy, as the following outtake of a long article aimed at helping people in distress exemplifies. It explains why it is that if you jump out of a 20 story building, your life already ends peacefully more than six meters before impact with the ground:

Written with Kathleen Leopold and originally posted at Autism Blogs Directory (and edited for a wider audience)

Arctic Ice April 2011


The Nares ice bridge is still blocking the strait.  My forecast of breakup on April 07 ± 3 days was wrong.  A forecast is only as good as the assumptions it is based on.  My forecast was based on valid assumptions, but I missed something vital: the 'plug' in the ice bridge isn't just consolidated ice: it is homogenous ice.  It is likely also that it is less salty than ordinary first year sea ice.  That would mean that the ice bridge is much stronger than average.

Liaoconodon hui, a complete fossil mammal from the Mesozoic, has been found in China and includes a long-sought transitional middle ear. The specimen shows the bones associated with hearing in mammals (the malleus, incus, and ectotympanic) decoupled from the lower jaw, as had been predicted, but were held in place by an ossified cartilage that rested in a groove on the lower jaw.

 The paper in Nature also suggests that the middle ear evolved at least twice in mammals, for monotremes and for the marsupial-placental group.

When we are 'up', we are happy, 'down' not so much.  'Right' is trustworthy while 'in left field' not so much, according to language and culture. 

But we don't all think right is right. Take handedness - people associate 'goodness' with the side they can act more fluently on.   Right-handed people prefer the product or job applicant positioned to their right. Lefties prefer the opposite. And those linguistic tropes? They probably "enshrine the preferences of the right-handed majority," says psychologist Daniel Casasanto, who believes "We use mental metaphors to structure our thinking about abstract things.   One of those metaphors is space." 

White Dwarfs

Fancy a trip to Sirius?  This is what you might see as you are approaching your destination.

For 20 years, some seismologists in Japan, such as Katsuhiko Ishibashi, now professor emeritus at Kobe University, have warned of the seismic and tsunami hazards to the safety of nuclear power plants. 

Yet in the immediate aftermath of the magnitude-9.1 earthquake that struck Tohoku on 11 March, pundits could be found on many Japanese TV stations saying that it was “unforeseeable”.

That's because the 'foreseen' earthquakes were using flawed methodology, argues Robert J. Geller in a Nature Comment piece.   Geller is in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, and he calls on seismologists in Japan to stop

Only a moment ago, young James Clerk Maxwell asked Mrs. Murdoch to fetch his parents. Now all three are standing in the kitchen doorway, but he is watching the reflection that dances above the stove, across the ceiling. When he notices the adults, he mischievously flashes sunlight in their eyes.

Mr. Maxwell squints and raises a hand to block the glare, but his voice is indulgent. "What are you up to now, Jamesie?"

"It's the sun, papa. I got it in with this tin plate."

A study of twin veterans has linked antidepressant use to thicker arteries and therefore possibly increased risk of heart disease and stroke, according to data presented last week at the American College of Cardiology meeting in New Orleans.

The study included 513 middle-aged male twins who both served in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. Twins are genetically the same but may be different when it comes to other risk factors such as diet, smoking and exercise, so studying them is a good way to distill out the effects of genetics.