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After Successfully Killing Hostess, Let's Kill The Remaining Food Companies

After Successfully Killing Hostess, Let's Kill The Remaining Food Companies

Nov 21 2012 | comment(s)

We have a cultural problem brewing.  Business is evil, when you are selling something to voters, but class warfare may have worked too well and so a week after Hostess decided to give up and sell its brands to someone who could make them without having to deal with union labor, and just before airport workers and Wal-Mart workers go on strike to piss off the public who just got done voting for the same candidate unions donated all of their money to, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has introduced a bill to remove federal tax deductions for marketing if that marketing includes 'junk food' aimed at children. 
Asymmetry In Time:

Asymmetry In Time:

Nov 20 2012 | comment(s)

New BaBar results are a strong verification of the predictions of the Standard Model of particles, demonstrating that—at least for some elementary particle processes—the direction of time matters.

Unlike our daily experience, the world of elementary particle physics is mostly symmetrical in time. Run the clock backward on your day and it won't work; run the clock backward on a process in particle physics and things are just fine. However, to preserve certain fundamental aspects of space-time the Standard Model predicts that certain reversible events nevertheless have different probabilities, depending on which way they go.
Let's Talk About The Fidelity Pill

Let's Talk About The Fidelity Pill

Nov 20 2012 | comment(s)

A recent study in the Journal of Neuroscience (here) has conveniently coincided with the announcement of the High Profile Affair of the Year awardee. The two have come together to stir up interest in having some sort of fidelity pill that spoken-for men could take to stop their philandering ways. And, based on science, that pill could be oxytocin. You can see this very topic discussed here, featuring this author as the lone defender of man.

So let's talk about the study. You will be disappointed.
Dear Mayans: Sorry For The Misunderstanding

Dear Mayans: Sorry For The Misunderstanding

Nov 20 2012 | comment(s)

So the only food that we knew could survive the apocalypse has been driven out of business by its own employees, who also teamed up with single mothers, minorities and atheists to overwhelmingly re-elect a guy determined to jump off a fiscal cliff right just before the end of the world was long projected - December of 2012.

Well played, Mayans.
The Quote of the Week: Cohen on the NIL Hypothesis

The Quote of the Week: Cohen on the NIL Hypothesis

Nov 20 2012 | comment(s)

"[...] Given the fact that the nil hypothesis is always false, the rate of Type-I errors is 0%, not 5%, and [...] only Type-II errors can be made, which run typically at about 50% [...] [T]ypically, the sample effect size necessary for significance is notably larger than the actual population effect size and [...] the average of the statistically significant effects is much larger than the actual effect size. The result is that people who do focus on effect sizes end up with a substantial positive bias in their effect size estimation.
Steam From Sunlight - With No Boiling Water

Steam From Sunlight - With No Boiling Water

Nov 19 2012 | comment(s)

Researchers have unveiled a new way to use sunlight to produce steam and other vapors without heating an entire container of fluid to the boiling point. The research could lead to inexpensive, compact devices for purification of drinking water, sterilization of medical instruments and sanitizing sewage. 

Metallic nanoparticles - so small that 1,000 would fit across the width of a human hair - absorb large amounts of light, resulting in a dramatic rise in their temperature. That ability to generate heat has fostered interest among scientists in using nanoparticles in a range of applications. These include photothermal treatment of certain forms of cancer, laser-induced drug release and nanoparticle-enhanced bioimaging.
Not Optics: Invisibility From Incident Surface Waves Of Water

Not Optics: Invisibility From Incident Surface Waves Of Water

Nov 19 2012 | comment(s)

A new approach to invisibility cloaking goes beyond transformation optics and those tiresome Harry Potter analogies. It is instead for us at sea to shield floating objects, like oil rigs and ships, from rough waves and is based on the influence of the ocean floor's topography on the various "layers" of ocean water.

Reza Alam, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, will describe at the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) meeting how the variation of density in ocean water can be used to cloak floating objects against incident surface waves
It's Complicated: Work Hour Limits For Surgical Residents Don't Reduce Risk

It's Complicated: Work Hour Limits For Surgical Residents Don't Reduce Risk

Nov 19 2012 | comment(s)

Work-hour caps for surgical residents designed to lessen complication rates have not accomplished that. Instead, the period after work-hour limits were introduced saw an uptick in complication rates , according to findings which raise concerns that limiting residents' work hours isn't really a benefit.

The analysis was designed to evaluate the patient safety impact of rules limiting the hours worked by residents, a measure introduced in 2003. The goal of the limits, a maximum of 88 hours per week, was to reduce the risk of errors and injury related to resident fatigue.
Lazarus Effect: “Grave Robber” Fossil No Longer A Paleontological Enigma

Lazarus Effect: “Grave Robber” Fossil No Longer A Paleontological Enigma

Nov 19 2012 | comment(s)

An international team of researchers has resolved the evolutionary relationships of Necrolestes patagonensis, the so-called “grave robber” because of its burrowing and underground lifestyle. This much-debated fossil mammal from South America has been a paleontological riddle for 121 years but a recent fossil discovery and comparative anatomical analysis helped researchers to correctly place the strange 16-million-year-old Necrolestes, with its upturned snout and large limbs for digging, in the mammal evolutionary tree.

Does A Full Moon Mean More Psychological Problems?

Does A Full Moon Mean More Psychological Problems?

Nov 19 2012 | comment(s)

The moon is both easy and tough to figure out. Of the many things Galileo got wrong, the moon was the biggest, despite it being studied for millenia by then, unless you think we only have one tide per day.  And last year some people wanted to believe an earthquake in Japan was caused by a 'Supermoon', where our friend Luna was slightly closer to us.
The hierarchy of objects

The hierarchy of objects

Nov 19 2012 | comment(s)

I present you my personal view on the hierarchy of objects that occur in nature. I only treat the lowest levels.

A-- The lowest level is space that is formed by the number system of the RATIONAL quaternions. However, better make it an affine space (a space without an origin). The real part of the quaternions defines progression. Progression conforms to proper time. As a consequence progression steps with a fixed step. Quaternionic numbers exist in 16 discrete symmetry sets

HYPOTHESIS: At its start nature used only one discrete symmetry set for its lowest level objects. This situation stays throughout the history of the model.

Rousseaunian Social Contract? Hobbes And The Fragility Of The Welfare State

Rousseaunian Social Contract? Hobbes And The Fragility Of The Welfare State

Nov 19 2012 | comment(s)

A new annual analysis has again attempted to determine whether society can achieve something similar to the a Rousseaunian social contract. In order to do this, the economists carried out an experiment that reproduced in a laboratory setting some of the important characteristics of the welfare state. 
Chocolate Makes You Smarter, So You Stop Reading BBC News

Chocolate Makes You Smarter, So You Stop Reading BBC News

Nov 19 2012 | comment(s)

UPDATE: BBC radio contacted me to let me know they corrected their mistake. I am very glad to hear that! So you can continue reading BBC after all!

Probability inversion is one of the nastiest mistakes one can do handling the results of a statistical analysis, invalidating to the roots the interpretation of the data to the point that the whole work effectively becomes useless. Unfortunately, it is a very common entertainment for journalists reporting scientific results, and oftentimes scientists themselves fall in the trap.
Eugenics

Eugenics

Nov 18 2012 | comment(s)

A recent article addressing the subject of Nikolas Tesla, chose to focus on his opinions regarding eugenics.  
One of Tesla’s most disturbing ideas was his belief in using eugenics to purify the human race.
Of course, this statement is framed in the modern "correct" view, because it is clearly colored by the Nazi atrocities that followed those decades, and from which everyone invariably wishes to distance themselves.
Statistical Physics Attacks St. Petersburg: Paradox Resolved

Statistical Physics Attacks St. Petersburg: Paradox Resolved

Nov 18 2012 | comment(s)

In the history of statistics, economy and decision theory, the St. Petersburg paradox plays a key role. This lottery problem goes back a full three centuries to the mathematician Nicolas Bernoulli who first formulated the problem in 1713. Twenty five years later, in 1738, his nephew Daniel Bernoulli presented the problem to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. That presentation not only gave the paradox its name, it also created a lot of commotion amongst mathematicians.
 
No Driver License To Anybody Unaware Of Some Consciousness Research

No Driver License To Anybody Unaware Of Some Consciousness Research

Nov 18 2012 | comment(s)

Car accidents are the number one killer of teenagers in America!  There is something that should have been done a long time ago and that would help all drivers and of course their "victims".  We don’t do it, because people are afraid to doubt their own agency and rationality.  Benjamin Libet’s research is not difficult but people refuse to accept the science.  The pet assumption in this case?  That you are consciously aware of what you are doing at the time you are doing it, which you* are not!  Libet’s research [1, 2] quantified how large the problem is, and it is huge when sitting in a ton of metal bolting down a busy street.

Eat Meat? You Are A Liar And A Sex Criminal, Says New Textbook

Eat Meat? You Are A Liar And A Sex Criminal, Says New Textbook

Nov 17 2012 | comment(s)

If you eat meat you "easily cheat, lie, forget promises and commit sex crimes", according to a controversial school textbook called New Healthway, which is on hygiene and health for 11 and 12 year-olds and is printed by one of India's leading publishers.

"The strongest argument that meat is not essential food is the fact that the Creator of this Universe did not include meat in the original diet for Adam and Eve. He gave them fruits, nuts and vegetables," reads a chapter entitled Do We Need Flesh Food?
Acoustic Stimulus: Neural Oscillations Optimize Human Listening Behavior

Acoustic Stimulus: Neural Oscillations Optimize Human Listening Behavior

Nov 17 2012 | comment(s)

We know brain activity changes many times over the course of a day. When listening, this oscillation synchronizes to the sounds we are hearing. Not only that, say researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, this oscillation influences the way we listen.

Hearing abilities also oscillate and depend on the exact timing of one’s brain rhythms. This discovery that sound, brain, and behavior are so intimately coupled will help us to learn more about listening abilities in hearing loss and perhaps people who stutter.
Worrying About 'Frankenfoods' Is Scientifically Precipitous

Worrying About 'Frankenfoods' Is Scientifically Precipitous

Nov 17 2012 | comment(s)

To suggest genetically modified ingredients pose a threat to consumers is scientifically precipitous. Most studies that draw this conclusion are either methodologically unsound or contain flawed data sets. Thus far, science has demonstrated that products containing GMOs are perfectly safe for human consumption. Since they have only been on the market since 1994, however, more research is obviously warranted.
Breast Cancer Deaths Decline, But Disparities Persist In U.S. Women

Breast Cancer Deaths Decline, But Disparities Persist In U.S. Women

Nov 16 2012 | comment(s)

Though breast cancer death rates have been in decline for 20 years, black women had higher death rates than other demographics in the newest Centers for Disease Control report covering 2005-2009. Breast cancer remains the most common cancer and is the second leading cause of cancer death among U.S. women, about 40,000 deaths annually.