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Romancing The Paleo

Romancing The Paleo

Feb 25 2013 | comment(s)

Other than simple curiosity about our ancestors, why do we care whether an adult from 4,000 years ago could drink milk without getting a stomachache? The answers could change our ideas about the speed at which our evolution has occurred and if we are stuck with ancient genes and ancient bodies in a modern environment.

It's reasonable to speculate that humans aren't suited to our modern lives, and that our health, our family lives, and perhaps our sanity would all be improved if we could live the way early humans did. Our bodies may have been better suited to how we spent the first 99% of our existence, the claim goes. In short, we have what the anthropologist Leslie Aiello, president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, called "paleofantasies."
Music Does Not Make Your Child More Intelligent

Music Does Not Make Your Child More Intelligent

Feb 23 2013 | comment(s)

If your child likes playing an instrument, or you want them to be well-rounded, by all means get them music lessons; but parents who bought into social science claims that it makes kids more 'intelligent' are basically wasting money.

Music is great, I have played guitar for 35 years, but I never bought into the hype that music was a contributing factor in making me much smarter than you.
Turkish Astrophysicist Faces Jail - For Religious Intolerance

Turkish Astrophysicist Faces Jail - For Religious Intolerance

Feb 22 2013 | comment(s)

Turkey is the most secular of the Muslim countries in the world - some women wear headscarves (hijab), some do not. They are optional.

So when Turkish astrophysicst Rennan Pekünlü, who teaches at Ege University in Izmir, told women they could not wear headscarves in his classroom, he was bought up on criminal charges after a woman complained. He was found guilty of violating the freedoms and rights of women at the university.  He argued that he was upholding the Turkish constitution, which prohibits the display of religious symbols or affiliation in government offices and institutions supported by government funding. He was also found to be taking pictures of women who entered wearing headscarves, which is a cultural no-no, but he said he had permission. 
4 Recommendations For The Next Energy Secretary

4 Recommendations For The Next Energy Secretary

Feb 22 2013 | comment(s)

Pity Department of Energy workers. They are often demoralized; among the cynical, DOE’s motto is: “Ashamed of our past, afraid for our future.”

Instead of working on clean energy for the 21st century and beyond, they are stuck subsidizing technology from the 13th century, and maybe the 1950s, and wrapping themselves in the flag of anti-nuclear environmentalism. 
Is Muzzling Federal Scientists Legal In Canada?

Is Muzzling Federal Scientists Legal In Canada?

Feb 22 2013 | comment(s)

"In sharp contrast to past Canadian practice and current U.S. Government practice, the federal government has recently made efforts to prevent the media and the general public from speaking to government scientists,” Tyler Sommers, coordinator of Democracy Watch, wrote in a statement about a complaint they filed Wednesday, citing Canada's Access to Information Act.
Psychology Literature Littered With Conclusions That Aren't Real

Psychology Literature Littered With Conclusions That Aren't Real

Feb 21 2013 | comment(s)

If you have watched the strange, sad decline of psychology over the last decade, you may have started to wonder if any conclusions are legitimate. With evolutionary psychology claiming voting Republican is an adaptive function and social psychologists claiming people can predict the future, there is a lot of woo getting published.

While scientists are sort of gracious about it - psychology departments are usually in the humanities buildings, not the science ones - the downside science is only starting to realize is that it damages the credibility of all science to have nonsense lumped in.
Get The Hint: As Coffee Drinking Increases, The Risk Of Death Decreases

Get The Hint: As Coffee Drinking Increases, The Risk Of Death Decreases

Feb 19 2013 | comment(s)

We're all going to die eventually, the overall mortality rate is still at 100%, but there are ways to postpone it. Coffee may be one of those ways.

A large study (nearly 500,000 older adults) found a clear trend after 12 years: as coffee drinking increased, the risk of death decreased.  

Chelyabinsk Meteor: Once In A Century Event

Chelyabinsk Meteor: Once In A Century Event

Feb 19 2013 | comment(s)

There are once-in-a-lifetime events and once-in-a-century ones as well. The meteor that exploded over the Chelyabinsk region in Russia was that second one; it has been confirmed as the largest such explosion in the last hundred years.

The new estimates of its size make it the largest reported meteor since the one that hit Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. Researchers say it was about 55 feet in diameter, was composed of ordinary chondrites, like most meteors, and weighed around 10,000 tons. When it disintegrated, it unleashed nearly 500 kilotons of energy, more than 30 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. 

So far, researchers have collected 53 fragments, the largest of which was 7 millimeters. 
Get Naked, Stab A Stuffed Animal - Now You Know Quantum Mechanics

Get Naked, Stab A Stuffed Animal - Now You Know Quantum Mechanics

Feb 19 2013 | comment(s)

Prof. Emlyn Hughes of Columbia University believes that in order to understand quantum mechanics, you have to get rid of everything you know - 'strip to your raw'.  So he did just that, he got naked and against a backdrop of 9/11 and Nazi Holocaust images, he remained in a fetal position as two people dressed as ninjas blindfolded stuffed animals.

Then one of the ninjas impaled one of the stuffed animals.

Students paying $3,840 to take the course were likely thrilled that they had a whole semester of that to look forward to. Let's hope he already has tenure.

Since it's New York City, half them likely thought it was pretty clever. Growing up in a place where crosses dipped in urine is considered art will do that to you.
Dartmoor: Ancient Tomb Made From Materials Not Then Discovered In Britain

Dartmoor: Ancient Tomb Made From Materials Not Then Discovered In Britain

Feb 19 2013 | comment(s)

Dartmoor is a moorland in south Devon, England and human remains and Bronze Age artifacts discovered there have been called "one of the most significant findings of at least the last 100 years" by a team of researchers.

They found cremated human bones, wrapped in a type of animal hide, as well as what appear to be intricately designed jewelry and textiles. They were discovered within a granite tomb-like casing known as a cist, are made from materials not discovered in Britain at the time and hint at trading links between the area and the continent farther back then archaeologists had previously known.
World's Oldest Porn - 3,000 Years Ago And Bi-Curious

World's Oldest Porn - 3,000 Years Ago And Bi-Curious

Feb 17 2013 | comment(s)

If you want to see sex stuff as part of your job, go into archeology. The ancient world is littered with images of a phallus, a Venus figurine worthy of Hugh Hefner, and even a vulva painting.

Still, most prehistoric erotic art is abstract, disembodied. It doesn’t explicitly depict sex-crazed ancients screwing their brains out for fun and fertility.

But one little-known, mysterious archaeological site does. The Kangjiashimenji Petroglyphs are bas-relief carvings in a massive red-basalt outcropping in the remote Xinjiang region of northwest China. The artwork includes the earliest—and some of the most graphic—depictions of copulation in the world.
How Often Do Meteorites Hit Earth?

How Often Do Meteorites Hit Earth?

Feb 15 2013 | comment(s)

How often do meteorites and objects from space hit us?  

Actually, pretty often, we just don't have cameras and detection equipment everywhere, so when a sonic boom-inducing event like in the Ural mountains of Russia occurs, it is big news.  It blew out windows and injured hundreds.

The scariest part; the Chelyabinsk region a thousand miles east of Moscow is home to not just factories and homes, but also a nuclear power plant and the Mayak atomic waste storage and treatment center.
Science Held Hostage: For A Carbon Tax

Science Held Hostage: For A Carbon Tax

Feb 13 2013 | comment(s)

Despite passing every scientific review, the Keystone XL project, which would bring lots of new  jobs and lower energy costs for Americans, became a lightning rod for American activists when it looked like President Obama might side with unions over greens and approve it.

What was never a consideration was the scientists who have to be baffled that the president stood up in his State of the Union address and invoked science and reason numerous times, but has been engaged in efforts to undercut it every time it deviates from his world view.
Anti-Science Food Actrivism Didn't Raise Prices, But Health Care Will

Anti-Science Food Actrivism Didn't Raise Prices, But Health Care Will

Feb 10 2013 | comment(s)

The billions of dollars that the food industry won't have to spend on pointless GMO labels isn't simply money saved for consumers- we are actually lucky they aren't spending billions on top of the billions they will already have to spend on pointless labels that could be required by the Obama administration under its health care reform provisions. Because it will all be passed through to us so someone, somewhere can get something for free.
French Industry Annoyed About Higher Energy Costs Due To Political Theater Of Nuclear Power

French Industry Annoyed About Higher Energy Costs Due To Political Theater Of Nuclear Power

Feb 09 2013 | comment(s)

French businesses are not thrilled that their safe nuclear power, which they took decades to create and which was highlighted as the wave of the future in 1990s Kyoto CO2 emission treaties, has been hijacked by anti-science activists.

Because their already expensive cost of doing business is now even higher.

French companies’ tenuous competitive advantage due to energy cost has been whittled down by American natural gas improvements and German subsidies to offset higher electricity costs due to their solar power experimentation. 
Energy Secretary Steven Chu's Parting Salvo More Like A Term Paper

Energy Secretary Steven Chu's Parting Salvo More Like A Term Paper

Feb 08 2013 | comment(s)

The farewell letter written by departing Secretary of Energy Steven Chu will be remembered as one of the most thorough, detailed and outspoken ever crafted by a departing Cabinet member.

It's his actual tenure running America's energy policy we wish we could forget. In his parting 3,781- word term paper he takes credit for the Bush administration's ARPA-E (that's the energy version of DARPA) yet doesn't mention the things he actually should take credit for, like steering American energy research into an expensive morass of feel-good fallacies and solar activism while refusing to stand up to his boss on anti-science policies designed to make energy across the board more expensive for poor people.
DNA Confirms Leicester Bones Are Richard III

DNA Confirms Leicester Bones Are Richard III

Feb 04 2013 | comment(s)

Using DNA passed down from a 17th-generation descendant of Richard III's sister, researchers have been able to confirm that the bones found under a Leicester parking lot are the former king.

The DNA they were looking for was found in Joy Ibsen of Canada, died several years ago and her son, Michael, who now works in London, provided a sample.  Good thing too. The DNA they needed is only handed down through the female line and her only daughter has no children so the line was about to stop.
Farm Bill Cuts $22 Million From Organic Food Sticker Funding

Farm Bill Cuts $22 Million From Organic Food Sticker Funding

Jan 30 2013 | comment(s)

When Congress passed the newest farm bill extension at the beginning of this month, they cut $22 million being paid under the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program, along with several other subsidies to organic farmers. 

That means you and I and everyone else no longer have to pay so organic farmers can put that sticker on organic food.  After all, if traditional food was going to have to suck it up and put GMO warning labels on food, and the $29 billion organic industry thought that was a great idea, it doesn't seem right taxpayers should have to bankroll stickers for anyone else.
Gluten-Free: Another Form Of Extreme Dieting

Gluten-Free: Another Form Of Extreme Dieting

Jan 28 2013 | comment(s)

When I wrote Celiac: The Trendy Disease For Rich White People, it made a lot of people mad.  Not actual celiac patients, they knew where I was coming from, but rather the fad diet contingent who put up websites linking to articles claiming wheat causes vaccines and what-not.

When even sites like The Daily Beast, who are almost Dr. Oz-ish in their willingness to embrace pseudoscience, note that the gluten-free thing is not helping a whole lot of people and harming some, this particular fad diet movement is officially dead.
Beer Science: Now With More Coffee!

Beer Science: Now With More Coffee!

Jan 26 2013 | comment(s)

Making a coffee beer has always been tough but not for obvious reasons - it isn't like people don't enjoy foam, cappuccino has been around forever. Lipids in coffee just don't seem to make a lot of sense, though.

But without coffee and beer, science would grind to a halt - a $140 billion a year industry would be paralyzed - so it was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to put them together.

Loowit Brewing and Torque Coffee Roasters in Vancouver have been working on just such a coffee stout that they introduced at the "Drink This!" artisan beverage festival. Torque co-owner Ryan Palmer also created a coffee pale ale beer with Mt. Tabor Brewing's owner Eric Surface. A stout is a natural fit to get going on coffee-beer hybrid.