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Sleep Paralysis: A Science Excuse In Case You Are Caught With A Succubus

Sleep Paralysis: A Science Excuse In Case You Are Caught With A Succubus

Nov 11 2011 | comment(s)

If you've ever thought you were being abducted by an alien or, if you are 400 years old, seduced by a succubus, and couldn't move, you are not alone.   A new article in Sleep Medicine Reviews says 7.6% of the population has had the same experience and it's called sleep paralysis.
The psychologists define sleep paralysis as "a discrete period of time during which voluntary muscle movement is inhibited, yet ocular and respiratory movements are intact" and it often involves hallucinations.
Magnetized Moon Rocks Mystery

Magnetized Moon Rocks Mystery

Nov 11 2011 | comment(s)

The moon has no global magnetic field yet  Apollo astronauts found magnetized rocks on the lunar surface.

A new hypothesis proposes a mechanism that could have generated a magnetic field on the moon early in its history. The 'geodynamo' that generates Earth's magnetic field is powered by heat from the inner core, which drives complex fluid motions in the molten iron of the outer core.  The moon is too small to support that type of dynamo but the researchers write in Nature that an ancient lunar dynamo could have arisen from stirring of the moon's liquid core driven by the motion of the solid mantle above it.

Narratives In Medicine: The Story Behind The Science Could Help The Public

Narratives In Medicine: The Story Behind The Science Could Help The Public

Nov 11 2011 | comment(s)

Anecdotes are not data, the saying goes, but people sure believe them.  An article in JAMA says doctors should consider the use of narrative, patient stories and testimonials, to boost public acceptance of health issues such as cancer screenings and vaccination mandates.

They advocate "counternarratives" to neutralize personal stories, think celebrities in the news media sharing their health knowledge, that seek to support quackery like homeopathy and anti-vaccine beliefs, along with narratives about the process of scientific study and discovery, to unmask the often hidden work of researchers and guidelines committees.

"Trend" of the Stock Market

Nov 11 2011 | comment(s)

Eco-friendly water bottles, hybrid vehicles, eco-clothes, wearable computing are only a few examples of how science and fashion have been going hand-in-hand over the past decade. A new item was added to the long list in October, when an Austrian designer produced “embrace-stock” bracelets simply by following the stock history using scientific data visualization.

“Pick a random or non-random time period in stock history, visualize the performance of the chosen stocks with a stock line chart diagram and use those lines as lead for the bracelet design,” says the designer, Paul Kweton, on his website.

Kweton said the idea was intuitive to him because of the stock market’s day-to-day effects on many lives.

The

The "Away" Team: Alien Invaders, And How To Combat Them

Nov 11 2011 | comment(s)

It’s going to be a big day tomorrow when the Oregon football team comes to town.  This year, we meet the team that handed us our only loss last season – but on our own turf.  And although Stanford has played (mostly) with convincing dominance this season (and Oregon’s already picked up one loss), we’ll take all the home-field advantage we can get.

Sports fans everywhere understand the merits of playing at home: you know the quirks of the stadium, are acclimated to the local weather, and have a fan base that screams at your opponent and shuts up when you’re on offense.  It’s the classic recipe for success.

But if you’re the rare team that plays best on the road, you might just shake up the league.
Eat Slow, Lose Weight

Eat Slow, Lose Weight

Nov 11 2011 | comment(s)

If you are of a certain age, perhaps your parents told you to eat slowly. They may have said something about better digestion but if you were one of many poor people it also had to do with feeling fuller on less food. 

Common wisdom was your brain did not keep up with your stomach so if you slowed down, your brain had time to realize the stomach was full. In general experience, that seems to hold up. You rarely see obese people who eat really slow.(1) Two new studies by researchers at the University of Rhode Island bear this out and found that men eat significantly faster than women, heavier people eat faster than slimmer people and refined grains are consumed faster than whole grains, among other findings.
Millions Of Dollars To Build A Computer From The 1830s? Yes, Please

Millions Of Dollars To Build A Computer From The 1830s? Yes, Please

Nov 11 2011 | comment(s)

Some folks in Britain want to spend 10 years and millions of dollars to build a computer that goes really, really slow - and I think it's a great idea.

I partly think it's a great idea because it is not Americans spending millions of dollars, the same way I thought the LHC was a terrific idea...for Europe.  People who say you should spend a lot of taxpayer money for 'leadership' in science don't understand that argument when it is applied to military firepower - I don't understand it either way.  In a global world, paying for something does not buy expertise, attaining expertise does.  Silicon Valley was not paid for by taxes, it was paid for by profits, after all.
Measuring Volcano Deformation From Space: InSAR

Measuring Volcano Deformation From Space: InSAR

Nov 10 2011 | comment(s)

This post is the first of a new series I plan to write, on the techniques used to study and monitor volcanoes.  The reason science is the best method we have of investigating the world around us is not so much what we know, but how we know it.  I thought I'd start with a technique that always amazes me; we can measure centimetres of ground deformation over an area of many square kilometres, from an altitude of 800 km.  Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, InSAR for short.
Discovery: Pristine Primordial Gas 12 Billion Years Old

Discovery: Pristine Primordial Gas 12 Billion Years Old

Nov 10 2011 | comment(s)

Scientists have found pristine clouds of the primordial gas that formed just after the Big Bang and it matches the composition made by predictions, which adds to direct evidence in support of the modern cosmological explanation for the origins of elements in the universe. Only the lightest elements, mostly hydrogen and helium, were created in the Big Bang. A few hundred million years passed before clumps of this primordial gas condensed to form the first stars, where heavier elements were forged. 

But astronomers have always detected "metals" (their term for all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium) wherever they have looked in the universe. 

Delving Into The Nature Of Squid Glue

Delving Into The Nature Of Squid Glue

Nov 10 2011 | comment(s)

(That's glue made by squids, not glue made from squids. Don't be mean.)
Yesterday I explained that the little pygmy squid Idiosepius' glue gland produces two different oozes, and so it must be either a duo-gland or an epoxy gland. (By the way, "duo-gland" is a very scientific term. "Epoxy gland" I just made up; glue scientists will probably look at you weirdly if you use it.) 

And then I quoted some data from a paper arguing that it is probably an epoxy gland--that is, the two different oozes mix together to form glue.

The Say Of The Week

The Say Of The Week

Nov 10 2011 | comment(s)

"If we were not ignorant there would be no probability, there could only be certainty. But our ignorance cannot be absolute, for then there would be no longer any probability at all. Thus the problems of probability may be classed according to the greater or less depth of our ignorance. "

Henry Poincaré
A Tax on Einstein?

A Tax on Einstein?

Nov 10 2011 | comment(s)

In his recent article Should We Trust Scientists?, Paolo Ciafaloni wrote:
The words I chose in my articles might seem simple, and possibly they are. But I think they reveal something of the impressive predictive power and the inner beauty of the Theory of Relativity. And of the immense deepness of thought of his creator Albert Einstein, who you might happen to have heard of.
Which immediately brought to mind this idea of G.K.Chesterton*:
Delaying Aging

Delaying Aging

Nov 10 2011 | comment(s)

As we reach old age, our bodies undergo several changes. And not for the better. More and more people are beginning to wonder whether we can do something about this. A lot of research is going on to uncover the mechanisms of aging, which should give us a better understanding of the origin of the changes that occur. Some claim that with this understanding comes the increasing possibility that we will actually be able to do something about it.

Surfing Electrons And The Computer Of Tomorrow

Surfing Electrons And The Computer Of Tomorrow

Nov 10 2011 | comment(s)

Physicists have succeeded in taking a decisive step towards the development of more powerful computers; they were able to define two little quantum dots (QDs), occupied with electrons, in a semiconductor and to select a single electron from one of them using a sound wave, and then to transport it to the neighboring QD.

A single electron “surfs” thus from one quantum dot to the next like a fish on a wave. This manipulation of a single electron will also enable the combination of considerably more complex quantum bits instead of classical bits (“0” and “1” states).

Squid Who Make Glue

Squid Who Make Glue

Nov 10 2011 | comment(s)

I've mentioned the Littlest Squid before: the genus Idiosepius, which contains only a handful of very small, very adorable species. And I commented that they have this habit of gluing themselves to seaweed, to hide from predators.

Well, today I'm here to explain how they do it, because a new paper just came out on the topic of itty-bitty squids and their glue organs.
INCIVO® (Telaprevir) Demonstrates Efficacy And Increased Cure Rates Among Cirrhotic Patients With Genotype-1 Chronic HCV Compared To Standard Of Care

INCIVO® (Telaprevir) Demonstrates Efficacy And Increased Cure Rates Among Cirrhotic Patients With Genotype-1 Chronic HCV Compared To Standard Of Care

Nov 10 2011 | comment(s)

Gifts Of The Islands

Gifts Of The Islands

Nov 09 2011 | comment(s)

I met Makana in August 2005, where an old lava flow meets the ocean in a series of ledges and tide pools on Kauai, one of the Hawaiian Islands. He was a “local” of about my age who got his name (Hawaiian for “gift”) from the old volcano that formed the backdrop of our introduction. He wasn’t in college, but had a good job as a caddy at an upscale golf course, where Bill Clinton had tipped one of his buddies well the day before. In the afternoons, he and his friends came to this spot — still called “The Queen’s Bath” decades after the days of Hawaii’s royal rulers — to “talk story” and swap tales with an endless stream of tourists.
VLP Vaccines: Tobacco That Saves Lives

VLP Vaccines: Tobacco That Saves Lives

Nov 09 2011 | comment(s)

If you're worried about getting the flu, chances are that you got an influenza vaccine; these are created on an annual basis and use a method from the 1950s; it is egg-based technology, literally produced in chicken eggs.  Some vaccines, like polio, are now created using laboratory-grown cell lines that are capable of hosting a growing virus.  The first is inefficient, the second is expensive.(1)

The future of vaccines looks a little different. The race is on to create a universal flu vaccine, one that does not have to be recreated each year, and to also bring the technology cost down to where it is more financially constructive to get people a vaccine than have them in the hospital.(2)
Should We Trust Scientists?

Should We Trust Scientists?

Nov 09 2011 | comment(s)

I am a Science 2.0 newbie: I have written my first article  only a few days ago, and a second one shortly afterwards.  But I have soon realized that there is a sort of underground debate going on, about whether non-scientists should trust scientists about their claims, whether there exists a scientific establishment trying in every possible way to ignore/refute unorthodox ideas, and so on.
Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum - The Methane Hypothesis

Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum - The Methane Hypothesis

Nov 09 2011 | comment(s)

During the last decade, the almost singular focus on CO2 has been something of a puzzle; leaving out methane, with 23X the warming impact of CO2, seemed like a mistake.