What’s the News: Trouble sticking to your diet? It may not be entirely your fault. Scientists, reporting in the journal Cell Metabolism, have now learned that when you starve yourself of calories, your brain cells also starve, causing your neurons to begin eating parts of themselves for energy. The self-cannibalism, in turn, cranks up hunger signals. This mouse study may lead to better treatments for human obesity and diabetes.

What’s the Context:

Autophagy, which literally means “self-eating,” is a common process in the body where cells form internal sacs of digestive enzymes to break down and recycle used parts. Cells will ramp up the process when they are starved of nutrients and need a boost of energy. In 2008, researchers found that a certain protein can induce autophagy in ovarian cancer cells, essentially causing the cancer to cannibalize itself.
While the self-eating process occurs throughout the body, scientists previously believed that autophagy in brain ...

The New York Times is reporting on the first documented case of fracking directly–rather than indirectly–leading to groundwater contamination.

The report is not recent — it was published in 1987, and the contamination was discovered in 1984. Drilling technology and safeguards in well design have improved significantly since then. Nevertheless, the report does contradict what has emerged as a kind of mantra in the industry and in the government.

The report concluded that hydraulic fracturing fluids or gel used by the Kaiser Exploration and Mining Company contaminated a well roughly 600 feet away on the property of James Parsons in Jackson County, W.Va., referring to it as “Mr. Parson’s water well.”

“When fracturing the Kaiser gas well on Mr. James Parson’s property, fractures were created allowing migration of fracture fluid from the gas well to Mr. Parson’s water well,” according to the agency’s summary of the case. “This fracture fluid, along with natural gas was present in Mr. Parson’s water, rendering it unusable.”

Asked about the cause of the incident, Mr. Wohlschlegel emphasized that the important factor was that the driller and the regulator had not known about the nearby aquifer. But in comments submitted to the E.P.A. at the time about the report, the petroleum institute acknowledged that this was indeed a case of drinking water contamination from fracking.

“The damage here,” the institute wrote, referring to Mr. Parsons’ contaminated water well, “results from an accident or malfunction of the fracturing process.”

Later on the Times suggests that the mechanism by which contamination occurred may have involved fracture communication with an abandoned well shaft in the area–allowing fluids to travel upwards into drinking water.

How big a deal is this? Well, it is an older case, with older technology, which may limit its relevance. Still, industry is not going to be able to say any longer that fracking has never led to groundwater contamination–a very favorite talking point.

Carl pointed me to this really strange interview in New Scientist, Susan Greenfield: Living online is changing our brains. If you removed it from the New Scientist website and put it on the The Onion it wouldn’t really need much editing. Some of the things Susan Greenfield says make you scratch your head. First paragraph:

You think that digital technology is having an impact on our brains. How do you respond to those who say there’s no evidence for this?

When people say there is no evidence, you can turn that back and say, what kind of evidence would you imagine there would be? Are we going to have to wait for 20 years and see that people are different from previous generations? Sometimes you can’t just go into a lab and get the evidence overnight. I think there are enough pointers that we should be talking about this rather than stressing about not being able to replicate things in a lab instantly.

Happy-slapping? Seriously? That was so mid-2000s. It’s going to be really hard to escape the oncoming rush of the “wall of information” in the near future. If it drives our world insane, there are always the residents ...

In my DeSmog post that is getting a lot of traction right now, I talk about conservative white males’ “smart idiocy” when it comes to thinking they’re equipped to overturn modern climate science. Now, I learn that xkcd beat me to the punch with respect to this particular type of hubris:

Um, yeah. That says it all. Dudes, I know you want to argue and everything, but Einstein still wins.

And so do the climate scientists.

I was alerted to Samuel’s Arbesman’s new paper, The Life-Spans of Empires, by the fact that he pointed to his research on his weblog. Interestingly I’m not the only one who was interested, as after I pointed to it on my link round up a few people asked if they could get a copy of the paper (yes, I almost always send papers if I have access). Luckily it’s a nicely elegant piece of work, basically quantifying what we’ve already probably known qualitatively. There isn’t that great of a value-add to quantification as such, but with a mathematical understanding of a topic one can engage in an algebra of mental manipulations so as to construct models with which one can project other facts. Quantitative information is often an excellent way to generate “free information” from theoretical models. The figure above is the primary result of the paper. Basically Arbesman took a data set which was laying around which measured the lengths of various empires (N = 41), and showed that the rise and fall of these political entities tends to follow an exponential distribution: e??t . ...

The spitting behavior of two species of spitting cobras.
“Spitting cobras defend themselves by spitting their venom in the face of a harasser. Although it is common belief that spitting cobras direct their venom at the eyes of an aggressor, this has never been investigated. Here, we show that the spitting act of cobras (Naja nigricollis and N. pallida) can readily be triggered by a moving human face or by a moving real size photo of a human face. In contrast, a stationary human face (real or photo) or a moving or stationary human hand does not trigger the spitting act. If threatened, spitting cobras aim their venom, ejected either in two distinct jets (N. pallida) or in a fine spray (N. nigricollis), either between the eyes or at one eye. In both cobra species investigated, the width and height of the area hit by the venom was independent of eye distance (test range 5.5 cm and 11 cm). During the spitting act the cobras performed fast undulating head movements that lead to a larger distribution of their venom. This behavior increases the probability that at least one eye of ...

Culture of Science. The peripatetic Sheril Kirshenbaum’s new weblog. Though I think she’s going to stay put for a while now.

The Life-Spans of Empires. I’ll be talking about this paper soon.

Academics ‘Guest Authoring’ Ghostwritten Medical Journal Articles Should Be Charged With Fraud, Legal Experts Argue. Crankery in the area of medicine flourishes in part due to natural cognitive biases, but also because there are many cases of crookedness and manufactured science.

First Large Study to Find HIV Epidemic Among Gays in the Middle East. Seems to be following the Western model.

Are Pet Owners Healthier and Happier? Maybe Not… Would that it were true.

Is Our Universe Inside a Bubble? First Observational Test of the ‘Multiverse’. I’m too ignorant to comment.

Copy Number Variation in Familial Parkinson Disease. More than SNPs.

Drunken Ben Bernanke Tells Everyone At Neighborhood Bar How Screwed U.S. Economy Really Is.

Germany Investigating Facebook Tagging Feature. Unless there’s a “Bulterian Jihad” the transparent society is inevitable.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Animal Enhancement as a Tool of Liberation. Remember the Uplift Universe?

Are Smart People Getting Smarter?. Alas, I don’t see it in the comments of this weblog ...

Left: normal rat disc. Right: engineered disc.

What’s the News: Researchers at Cornell University have now bio-engineered synthetic spinal discs and implanted them in rats. The implants provide as much spinal cushioning as authentic discs do, and improve with age by growing new cells and binding to nearby vertebrae, according to the study recently published in the journal PNAS. The research could someday help people with chronic lower back and neck pain from conditions like degenerative disc disease.

What’s the Context:

In your spine, intervertebral discs provide cushioning between individual vertebrae. But when those discs start to tear or rupture from age or injuries, it can put you in a lot of pain, often requiring medications and physical therapy. In more extreme cases, surgeons sometimes remove the diseased disc(s) and fuse the remaining vertebrae together; this severely hampers back flexibility.
In the past few years, surgeons have also started offering intervertebral disc arthroplasty, which ...

For large swathes of the brain, the neurons we’re born with are the ones we’re stuck with. But a few small areas, such as the hippocampus, create new neurons throughout our lives, through a process known as neurogenesis. This production line may be important for learning and memory. But it has particularly piqued the interest of scientists because of the seductive but controversial idea that it could protect against depression, anxiety and other mood disorders.

Now, by studying mice, Jason Snyder from the National Institute of Mental Health has found some of the strongest evidence yet for a connection between neurogenesis and depression (or, at least, mouse behaviours that resemble depression). He found that the new neurons help to buffer the brains of mice against stress. Without them, the rodents become more susceptible to stress hormones and they behave in unusual ways that are reminiscent of depressive symptoms in humans.

Snyder brought the hippocampus’s production line to a screeching halt by targeting the cells that produce new neurons. He loaded these cells with a protein that sensitises them to a drug called valganciclovir, but only when they’re multiplying. With a ...

What’s the News: While most people think of dyslexia as primarily a problem with reading, people with dyslexia seem to have trouble processing the spoken language, as well. A new study published last week Science found that people with dyslexia have a harder time recognizing voices than other people do.

How the Heck:

Participants in the study–half of whom were dyslexic–watched and listened to cartoon characters on a computer. Each character had a distinct voice, and spoke either English, the participants’ native language, or Mandarin Chinese.
The participants were then played a clip of each voice and asked to match it to the correct character.
People without reading difficulties were better at recognizing voices speaking their native language. They could correctly pick out which character went with a voice about two-thirds of the time if the voice was speaking English, and only about half the time if it was speaking Mandarin.
Dyslexics, on the other hand, showed no native language boost. It didn’t matter if a voice was speaking English or Mandarin: they correctly matched it with a character around half the time either way.

What’s the Context:

Researchers are increasingly finding that reading problems, while the most well known feature of dyslexia, are ...

I sometimes post about things that make people mad. Sometimes it’s because they disagree with my politics, or my stance on pseudoscience, or the idea that I think science-based medicine is better than quackery.

No matter what you think or believe, there is something on the web that will make you angry. When this happens, I suggest you peruse the web comic "So you’re MAD about something on the Internet…" by Rosscott, Inc (NSFW drawings and perhaps language if you’re tetchy). That way you can rate where you stand with the Flowchart of Internet Argumentative Spittle-Flecked Keyboard Banging Trollery.

They’re selling posters of the comic, too. I can think of lots of places it should be hung prominently…

Related posts:

- Don’t Be A Dick Part 1: the video (also see Part 2 and Part 3)
- Interview with Suicide Girls
- A reasonable mug

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Juno spacecraft is on its way to Jupiter after being launched on Friday at 11:25 am ET.

Funny thing about space, while going from point A to point B in a straight line maybe the shortest route this does not mean it is the most fuel efficient one.  Jupiter at the time of launch is 445 million miles / 716 million km away, however Juno will make what amounts to a couple of loops that will take it on a 1.74 BILLION mile/2.8 BILLION km journey.  See NASA’s cartoon of the path.

So in about two years (October 9, 2013) the spacecraft will actually fly past Earth again and at one point will only be 311 miles away.  This is done in order to gain a gravity assist in order to boost the spacecraft’s speed by about 16,300 miles per hour.  There will be another engine burn by the spacecraft to fine tune the trajectory after Juno is past Earth and all of these adjustments should put Juno into orbit on July 4, 2016.

The “DSM” you see on the graphic linked above is a Deep Space Maneuver, there are two and as far as I know one is to use the high gain antenna and checking and calibrating the science instruments.

And just for fun, when Juno gets to Jupiter we won’t know it for 48 minutes and 19 seconds as that is the time for the radio signals to traverse the one way distance from Juno to us.

Video source

Today is James Randi’s birthday, so happy birthday, O Amazing One!

It’s hard to believe that I’ve known that guy for over 8 years now. When I wrote my first book, my editor said we needed blurbs for the cover (the "This book cured my warts!" kind of thing), and we could use someone who was a big skeptic. Naturally I thought of Randi. I sent him a note, he agreed happily, and sent a great quote that immediately went on the back cover of the book. Shortly after that he invited me to talk at the very first Amaz!ng Meeting, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Randi is formidable, and as Carl Sagan said, "We may not always agree with Randi, but we ignore him at our peril." Sagan was a pretty smart guy.

Randi’s a pretty smart guy too, and does a lot of good for the world. Now, I’m not saying he’s 900 years old and wise, but the resemblance to Yoda can sometimes be uncanny…

Likely presidential candidate Rick Perry’s college transcript at Texas A & AM has been published. Here are the highlights:

…In his freshman and sophomore year, Perry struggled with core science classes, earning D’s in several organic chemistry classes and C’s in general chemistry and physics.

But after Perry switched his major at the beginning of his fall semester in 1970, his grades didn’t improve. Perry got a C in Reproduction in Farm Animals, a C in genetics, a D in Feeds & Feeding, a C in Sheep & Angora Goat Production and two C’s in animal breeding classes.

Many of Perry’s other classes involved military education. Perry has previously credited his time in the A&M Corps of Cadets with giving him the necessary discipline to complete school.

Perry got two C’s in Development of Air Power and took four levels of World Military Systems, earning two C’s, a B and an A. The A was one of only two Perry earned at college — the other was for a class called Improv. of Learning.

The future governor only took one political science class while he was in school — American National Government, for which he earned a B. Other classes outside of Perry’s ...

The prince of neurobloggers Jonah Lehrer has a good if curious column up at the Wall Street Journal, Social Networks Can’t Replace Socializing. He concludes:

This doesn’t mean that we should stop socializing on the web. But it does suggest that we reconsider the purpose of our online networks. For too long, we’ve imagined technology as a potential substitute for our analog life, as if the phone or Google+ might let us avoid the hassle of getting together in person.

But that won’t happen anytime soon: There is simply too much value in face-to-face contact, in all the body language and implicit information that doesn’t translate to the Internet. (As Mr. Glaeser notes, “Millions of years of evolution have made us into machines for learning from the people next to us.”) Perhaps that’s why Google+ traffic is already declining and the number of American Facebook users has contracted in recent months.

These limitations suggest that the winner of the social network wars won’t be the network that feels the most realistic. Instead of being a substitute for old-fashioned socializing, this network will focus on becoming a better supplement, amplifying the advantages of talking in person.

For years now, we’ve been searching for ...

Top picks

Watch the entertaining sexual displays that cause flamboyant male Houbara bustards to age faster. I especially liked Wired’s coverage

Inside Nature’s Giants dissects a sperm whale. This is the best nature programme on modern TV bar none.

John Rennie has a great post about 3D Printing and the era of Downloadable Objects.

Too detailed to be true? Serious concerns have been raised about the accuracy of the New Yorker’s piece on the bin Laden raid. Where was their fabled fact-checking?

WOW! Neuroscience of a ragtime pianist who can follow 4 symphonies simultaneously

What Home Looked Like For Seven Million Years – Carl Zimmer on where humans evolved

What happens when journo students have to make a newspaper with no computers? Brilliance ensues. Don’t miss the rest of the experiment as students struggle to type 2011 on a typewriter

From Catch-22 to Wikipedia. A cool list of 10 great moments in editing

The delightfully beautiful world of lichens, by Jennifer Frazer. White Worms and Pixie Cups in Colorado

“Toxic goo” from Apollo-era rockets will cost NASA about $1 billion to clean up. The dark side to all that hype and optimism.

God’s blog. Oh the comments.

Adam Rutherford ...

Just a quick shout-out to the folks at Earth Science Picture of the Day, which featured my Angry Cloud pic in today’s post.

EPOD is a pretty cool site, with a different shot of some Earth sciencey thing every day (duh). I keep it in my RSS feed reader along with several other such sites; besides providing beautiful pictures, there’s always some science nugget there I didn’t know about before.

If I weren’t an astronomer, I’d be a geologist or meteorologist. I love both those fields! Of course, both are related to astronomy; the former due to planetary physics (and asteroid/comet impacts), and the latter because it’s hard to observe unless it’s clear (or you’re a radio or space astronomer).

Looking up, looking down… it’s all related. It’s science, and it’s cool.

UPDATE:  Solved by Alex at 12:10 CDT

Welcome to Saturday.  It is Saturday, right?  I went around all day yesterday thinking it was Thursday, so I’m currently suspended somewhere between Friday and Saturday.  Like a bug stuck in amber.

So!  With that charming visual to work with, let’s get going on that riddle.

The answer to today’s riddle will be found in reality:

Mmmmmmm - looks nummy

You shouldn’t look too far away, all things considered.

On one hand, this has to do with hope and inspiration…

… on the other hand, it’s just flat stealing something which doesn’t belong to you.

Painting by Jacob Jordaens 1593 - 1678

It looks like this has been cranking up for at least 32 years.

While it’s not exactly the tip of an iceberg, it very well may be the tip of an ocean.

This has something significant in common with burning hair.

(yes, it really is a feather)

It owes a lot to being sandwiched between a rock and a hard place (that’s not so hard, really)…

… and to being perturbed.

As distinct as this thing is in itself, it sits on something that really draws comments.

Image by Koomori No Kisaki

There you go.  How’s that for a fine collection of confusion?  You know where to find me.

complex math problem solved

I somehow totally missed the fact that the mid-season premier of Doctor Who will be August 27, in just three weeks! Yay!

Still, for us squeeing Whovians, that seems like ages. So why not fill this long, dark tea-time of the soul by looking over Bob Canada’s cheeky Doctor Who infographic? It’s pretty good, and has some solid stuff in it for newbies and Who veterans alike. He also has one for the 1960s and 70s era villains, too.

As for the premier, I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible — I haven’t even watched the trailer for the next series. The past two series have opened up a lot of questions that remain unsolved, but I’ve been a Steven Moffat fan for a long time (have you watched the adult sitcom "Coupling"? Brilliant!) so I know patience will pay off.

BTW, Buzzfeed has a great gallery of Doctor Who graffiti too. And of course, there’s also this from your humble host.

Related posts:

- An observatory that’s bigger on the inside
- Blastr: My favorite ...

By Jon Winsor

The Daily Show–still pretty funny. (The Atlantic Wire has a play-by-play on this story.)

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Update: Is John Stewart “tone trolling” here? Maybe there’s something new atheists (gnu atheists, neo-atheists, etc.) miss in dismissing criticisms of “mere tone”?