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Interview with Virginia Woof

Interview with Virginia Woof

Jan 28 2015 | comment(s)

Oh, yes.  I absolutely adore meeting with the media, it's my chance to give something back, don't you know, to give aspiring young journalists a paw up, as it were.  It's the least I can do.

I understand, dear.  Of course you feel that way.  I'm sure I would too, if I were in your shoes.  Sorry! I can't resist these little jokes.

Yes, I think we should.  What would you like to ask me?
Weaponizing Insulin - Predatory Sea Snails Do It

Weaponizing Insulin - Predatory Sea Snails Do It

Jan 28 2015 | comment(s)

As predators go, cone snails are slow-moving and lack the typical fighting parts. They've made up for it by producing a vast array of fast-acting toxins that target the nervous systems of prey. A new study reveals that some cone snails add a weaponized form of insulin to the venom cocktail they use to disable fish.

"It is very unlikely that it is serving a different purpose," said lead author Helena Safavi-Hemami, a research assistant professor at the University of Utah.

"This is a unique type of insulin. It is shorter than any insulin that has been described in any animal," said senior author Baldomero M. Olivera, a distinguished professor of biology at the University of Utah. "We found it in the venom in large amounts."

Genetic Mutations In Autism Disorders

Genetic Mutations In Autism Disorders

Jan 28 2015 | comment(s)

Recent research has linked autism with a lack of "pruning" in developing brain connections, but a new Dartmouth study suggests instead it is the excessive growth of new connections that causes sensory overload in people with the disorder.

The results, which have broad implications for understanding the neurobiological basis of autism spectrum disorders, appear in The Journal of Neuroscience. A PDF of the study is available on request.

Archaic list of

Archaic list of "Fields"

Jan 28 2015 | comment(s)

This is my first posting, and already I'm in trouble.  The pull-down menu for "Field" belies an excruciatingly conventional taxonomy of human endeavour.  If I want to deliver a critical comment on Economics, it'll have to go under "Random Thoughts".  Same with Sociology, Science Fiction, ... most everything I want to talk about now that I'm retired and no longer constrained to discuss only Physics.  I suppose I could just list everything as Physics, since that will always be my model for everything, but then no one would read any of it. 
Collectivism Ruins Creativity

Collectivism Ruins Creativity

Jan 28 2015 | comment(s)

Every business wants to capitalize on imagination and innovation - but a corporate structure may be the wrong way to promote it. And if you really want to kill creativity, have social authoritarians in government controlling your culture.

Collectivism is bad for the imagination. It's hard to think about art when you have to think about the good of the state, according to a paper in the Journal of Business Research, which compared nearly 300 individuals from Taiwan, a collectivist society, and Canada, slightly more individualistic.

Juvenile Hormone Antagonists: Natural Plant Compounds Work Against Pests

Juvenile Hormone Antagonists: Natural Plant Compounds Work Against Pests

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

Scientists may be on the way to genetically modifying plants to naturally protect against pests in new ways. That is good news for people in developing nations and fans of the environment. Older insecticides present environmental and health risks and insects develop resistance to them, complicating pest-control strategies. 

Along with that, millions of deaths result from diseases transmitted by insects each year, not to mention economic losses totaling billions of dollars annually.
Should Anti-Vaccine Parents Be Jailed?

Should Anti-Vaccine Parents Be Jailed?

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

If you make an arbitrary decision not to vaccinate your child, and a bunch of people get sick, should you go to jail, just like if you starve a child or let them live in feces?
Easter Island Mystery: What Really Happened To Rapa Nui Society?

Easter Island Mystery: What Really Happened To Rapa Nui Society?

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

In 1722, when Europeans arrived on Easter Island, nearly 2,300 miles off the west coast of Chile, the native Polynesian culture known as Rapa Nui were already in a demographic tailspin from which they would not recover.

Pick a fad belief of the moment, and someone has correlated it to Easter Island. Environmental damage? Easter Island. Climate change? Easter Island. Add in political partisanship and lifestyle diseases and you can also find a correlation-causation arrow being abused. 

Will there ever be an answer? Hard to say, but a new paper attempts at least some clarification.

Outsourcing: 3 Ways To Stop Medical Research Brain Drain

Outsourcing: 3 Ways To Stop Medical Research Brain Drain

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

Throughout the 20th century, medical research and public health science was primarily done by corporations - the United States, with 5 percent of the population, generated more than 50 percent of the money and a whole lot more of the science.

No more. Medical research has declined in the United States. It's a win for multiculturalism and a win for globalization but a loss for the U.S.  Yet we have no one else to blame. We are not being out-competed by China when it comes to science, we are losing medical research because we have been taught to hate drug companies and that new drugs should be cheap. That has had substantial impact on our policy.
Soup From A Can Does Not Create Risk From BPA

Soup From A Can Does Not Create Risk From BPA

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

Coating the mouth with foods stored in containers that used bisphenol A (BPA), like soup, does not lead to high levels of BPA in blood.

BPA is used to make some plastics and to seal canned food containers against bacterial contamination. Food which picks up trace amounts of BPA from packaging is the major source of human exposure, according to environmental critics, and the health concerns about BPA center on potential to mimic certain hormones at really high exposures.
Why Climate Scientists Shouldn't Testify Before Congress

Why Climate Scientists Shouldn't Testify Before Congress

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)


Climate scientists will be either ineffectual or counter-productive if they testify before Congress. EPA

By Mathis Hampel, University of East Anglia

Western liberal democracies believe that in difficult political decisions science serves as a referee and arbiter of truth.

Adult Stem Cells Used To Grow New Hair

Adult Stem Cells Used To Grow New Hair

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

Researchers have used human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to generate new hair, the first step toward the development of a cell-based treatment for people with hair loss. 

In the United States alone, more than 40 million men and 21 million women are affected by hair loss. The research team developed a protocol that induced human pluripotent stem cells to become dermal papilla cells. They are a unique population of cells that regulate hair-follicle formation and growth cycle. 

Human dermal papilla cells on their own are not suitable for hair transplants because they cannot be obtained in necessary amounts and rapidly lose their ability to induce hair-follicle formation in culture. 
Ghrelin Hormone Supplement Increases Sex Drive

Ghrelin Hormone Supplement Increases Sex Drive

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

New studies have found that a supplement of ghrelin - the "appetite hormone" - increased the sexual activity of mice.

Ghrelin is a gastrointestinal hormone that is released from the stomach, and is involved in the stimulation of our appetite by activating the brain's reward system. Since the brain's reward system also motivates us to seek a partner and to have sex, a group of researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy decided to investigate whether ghrelin may also affect sexual behaviors. 

The answer is: yes, at least in mice.
Heroin Users 6X As Likely To Die Prematurely

Heroin Users 6X As Likely To Die Prematurely

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

In the largest study of opioids users done to-date, scholars analyzed records of 198,247 people in England who had been involved in drug treatment or the criminal justice system between 2005 and 2009. 

They found that opioid users were six times more likely to die prematurely than people in the general population. Almost one in ten of these deaths were due to suicide, more than four times the rate in the general population. The data recorded 3,974 deaths and their causes during this period. The study is the first to record age trends in opioid users' mortality and with age, the gap gets even wider. In the oldest 45-64 age-group, homicide was 27 times more common than in the general population. 
Multiculturalism Is Not Dead

Multiculturalism Is Not Dead

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

Multiculturalism was once a good thing - people learned about the world outside their own neighborhoods - but it has become bad. Instead of being a positive, multiculturalism is often invoked by people with an agenda; people who want to promote division among their constituents note that the majority will homogenize their beliefs while people against immigration complain about pockets of foreign nationals with unknown motivations inside their cities.
Carhacking: Computerized Vehicles Are More Vulnerable Than Ever

Carhacking: Computerized Vehicles Are More Vulnerable Than Ever

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)


Who's really driving your car? Saad Faruque, CC BY-SA

By Andrew Smith, The Open University and Blaine Price, The Open University

Outreach Needed? Boys Lag Behind Girls In Academic Achievement

Outreach Needed? Boys Lag Behind Girls In Academic Achievement

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

A lot of cultural angst and even more money is tied up in the notion that girls are somehow being left behind and more awareness of the issue, along with programs against sexism, have become common, even at the graduate levels of universities. But the origin of that belief in the last two decades has been a mystery. There are some differences, areas where girls achieved less than boys, and vice-versa. No Child Left Behind was a successful reform of education that led to girls achieving parity with boys in the only area they lagged, mathematics, and a new analysis finds that the concern may have been misplaced all along, individual variance aside.
Want To Know How Long You'll Live? Ask Your Friends

Want To Know How Long You'll Live? Ask Your Friends

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

Your closest friends are advocates and see the best in you, but they are also observers of the personality traits that could send you to an early grave, according to a new paper.

The authors say that that your personality at an early age (20s) can predict how long you will live past 75 years - and that close friends are usually better than you at recognizing these traits. 

Male participants seen by their friends as more open and conscientious ended up living longer. Female participants whose friends rated them as high on emotional stability and agreeableness also enjoyed longer lifespans, the study in Psychological Science found.

2004 BL86 - 'Near Miss' Asteroid Even Has Its Own Moon

2004 BL86 - 'Near Miss' Asteroid Even Has Its Own Moon

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

The first radar images of asteroid 2004 BL86, which made its closest approach today at 8:19 a.m. PST - a distance of only 745,000 miles (3.1 times the distance from Earth to the moon) - reveal that it even has its own small moon.

The closeness did not take anyone by surprise. Asteroid 2004 BL86 was discovered on Jan. 30, 2004, by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey in White Sands, New Mexico and its trajectory is well understood. Monday's flyby was the closest approach the asteroid will make to Earth for at least the next 200 year and is the closest a known asteroid this size will come to Earth until asteroid 1999 AN10 flies past us in 2027.
Wiggles: Inconsistencies Undermine Model Reliability For Projecting Decade-To-Decade Warming

Wiggles: Inconsistencies Undermine Model Reliability For Projecting Decade-To-Decade Warming

Jan 27 2015 | comment(s)

A new study finds that most climate models may have wiggles that undermine accuracy - but they are likely underestimating the degree of decade-to-decade variability occurring in mean surface temperatures as Earth's atmosphere warms.

The models also provide inconsistent explanations of why this variability occurs in the first place and such discrepancies undermine the models' reliability for projecting the short-term pace as well as the extent of future warming, the study's authors warn.

As such, we shouldn't over-interpret recent temperature trends, no matter what blizzard his New York City and leads to exploitation of climate science to generate media pageviews.