Who is chilled out about warming? | Gene Expression

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Chris Mooney pointed me to a report on a study which finds that white males are the most sanguine in relation to climate change. Unfortunately there wasn’t a link to the full report that I could see. But no worries, the GSS added a variable, TEMPGEN1, which asks: “In general, do you think that a rise in the world’s temperature caused by climate change is….”

1 – Extremely dangerous for the environment
2 – Very dangerous
3 – Somewhat dangerous
4 – Not very dangerous, or
5 – Not dangerous at all for the environment?

Below is a bar plot which illustrates the result by demographic:

Use Your Brain to Brake, Not Your Leg | Discoblog

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Scientists may soon give your braking leg a break. In a recent study in the Journal of Neural Engineering, researchers at the Berlin Institute of Technology monitored the brain signals of drivers and found that they could detect the study participants’ intent to stop before they actually stomped on the brakes. The findings could someday lead to automated braking technologies that help avoid devastating car crashes.

In the study, the researchers had 18 participants drive along virtual roads in a racing simulator that includes winding streets and oncoming traffic—the drivers had to maintain a certain distance behind the computer-controlled cars in front of them, which braked at random intervals. While the participants drove, the researchers tracked their brain signals using caps fitted with EEG sensors.

With the EEG data, the researchers saw when the drivers were going to brake a whole 13 hundredths of a second (or 130 milliseconds) before they did it. At 65 mph, this tiny difference in reaction time can reduce braking distance by 12 feet. “While this may not seem [like] much, it may be enough to prevent accidents,” computer scientist and co-author Stefan Haufe told ABC News. The researchers are now planning ...


Calling All Egyptology Geeks: Help Decipher Ancient Papyri | 80beats

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transcribe
Is that an alpha or a beta?

Sometimes you need a little help from your friends. Taking a leaf from reCaptcha‘s book, archaeologists from the Egypt Exploration Society and Oxford University have taken a voluminous store of ancient Egyptian papyri online in a bid to have web users transcribe the fragments, which come from a lost city known to its inhabitants as the City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish.

The papyri were discovered in the early 20th century, and among them have been a lost version of the gospel, in which Christ exorcises demons, and literary works by Euripides and others. But other texts in the cache, which dates from an era three centuries after the birth of Christ when Egypt was ruled by Greeks, appear to consist of household notes, records of contracts, and other mundanities (including a loan taken out by a sausage maker), prompting the team to call their project Ancient Lives. Want to find out what else was going on in 300 AD Egypt? Just zoom in on a scrap, type out the Greek letters, and click save—once they are transcribed, translators can get to work. Join in here.

(via Wired)


No, new data does not “blow a gaping hole in global warming alarmism” | Bad Astronomy

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I received a few emails, tweets, and comments on the blog yesterday asking about an Op/Ed article in Forbes magazine that claims that new NASA data will "blow [a] gaping hole in global warming alarmism".

Except, as it turns out, not so much. The article is just so much hot air (see what I did there?) and climate scientists say the paper on which it’s based is fundamentally flawed and flat-out wrong.

It’s clear after reading just a few words that this article is hugely biased. The use of the word "alarmist" and its variants appeared no fewer than 14 times, 16 if you include the picture caption and the headline. The word "alarmist" is pretty clearly slanted against the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that the Earth is warming up, and that humans are the reason*.

Still, what is the article actually saying?

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less ...


Cool Dudes: Climate Denial Among Conservative White Males | The Intersection

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Someone had to say this eventually, and now, someone has.

It has been apparent for a while (at least anecdotally) that conservative white men (CWM) in the U.S. are more prone than the average bear towards climate change denial. Now, based on new research by social scientists Aaron McCright and Riley Dunlap, we have the figures to back that up, including the following:

— 14% of the general public doesn’t worry about climate change at all, but among CWMs the percentage jumps to 39%.

— 32% of adults deny there is a scientific consensus on climate change, but 59% of CWMs deny what the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists have said.

— 3 adults in 10 don’t believe recent global temperature increases are primarily caused by human activity. Twice that many – 6 CWMs out of every ten – feel that way

Such are the data, but what are the underlying reasons? I’m going to say more about this on Monday–speaking from my unique white male perspective–but for now, just check out the study.


A nearly perfect circle in space | Bad Astronomy

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I don’t get a chance very often to combine two previous posts, but I was thinking recently about planetary nebulae — winds of gas blown off by dying stars — and remembered my very favorite one in the whole sky, Abell 39:

[Click to ennebulenate.]

Isn’t that awesome? It’s like it’s right out of Star Trek. I’ve written about the giant haloes surrounding some planetary nebulae before, and also about why some objects look like smoke rings. In a (nut)shell, as a star like the Sun begins its long, slow path to dying, it expands into a red giant and blows off a thick wind of matter. This material expands spherically in most cases, streaming off in all directions into space and forming what’s called a giant outer halo.

limbbrighteningIn most planetaries (like the famous Cat’s Eye nebula, and the less famous but also cool NGC 6826) the outer halo slams into material floating in interstellar space, causing it to get all clumpy or form a bright rim as the surrounding matter gets plowed up. But the ...


Our patchwork origins – my new feature in New Scientist | Not Exactly Rocket Science

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The sequencing of the complete Neanderthals genome was one of the highlights of last year, not just because of the technical achievement involved, but because it confirmed something extraordinary about our own ancestry. It showed that everyone outside of Africa can trace around 1-4% of their genes to Neanderthals. Our ancestors must have bred with Neanderthals on their way out of Africa.

Then, later in the year, the same team revealed another ancient genome. This one belonged to a group of people called Denisovans, known only from a single finger bone and a tooth. They too had left genetic heirlooms in modern people. Around 5-7% of the genes of Melanesians (people from Papua New Guinea, Fiji and other Pacific islands) came from the Denisovans.

In this week’s issue of New Scientist, I’ve got a feature that explores our patchwork origins. I looked at what these ancient genomes mean for our understanding of human evolution. I also considered some intriguing questions like whether other Denisovan fossils have already been found, whether this human pattern is applicable to other animal species, how much you can tell from modern genomes alone, and whether we’ll ever ...

Powerful Magnetic Waves Help Make Sun’s Atmosphere Hotter Than Sun Itself | 80beats

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spacing is important

What’s the News: An international team of researchers, led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has learned that large magnetic waves are partly to blame for the Sun’s immensely hot corona. The study, published in the journal Nature, also suggests that the waves could be the driving force behind the solar wind.

What’s the Context:

The corona is the outer atmosphere of the Sun, which is only visible by the naked eye during a solar eclipse. It has fascinated solar physicists for decades because it’s over 20 times hotter than the surface of the sun—you’d expect that the further away you get from a heat source, the cooler it gets.
One possible explanation for the corona’s extreme temperature has been Alfvén waves, first proposed by Nobel Prize-winner Hannes Alfvén. Alfvén waves are high-speed magnetic oscillations thought to travel along the Sun’s magnetic field lines, transporting large amounts of energy (in the ...


The ocean microbe within us | The Loom

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Our cells are packed with various protein-stuffed sacs, each dedicated to carrying out essential tasks. One kind of organelle is peculiar, though. Mitochondria are jellybean-shaped structures whose jobs include making the fuel that our cells use to power everything they do. What makes mitochondria strange is that they carry their own DNA. It’s not a lot of DNA–just 37 genes–but mitochondria can make extra copies of it as they grow and divide. In other words, they act an awful lot like bacteria.

About a century ago, Russian biologists proposed that mitochondria actually started out as bacteria, which set up house in our single-celled ancestors. In the 1960s, University of Massachusetts biologist Lynn Margulis resurrected the idea, pointing to certain features in mitochondria, like their double membrane, found in bacteria but not in other organelles. In the 1970s, biologists began to invent the tools that allowed them to look at the DNA in mitochondria. As predicted, that DNA matched DNA from bacteria, not from animals.

Acquiring mitochondria over 2 billion years ago was a pivotal moment in our evolution. We are eukaryotes, as are trees, mushrooms, and amoebae. We all carry mitochondria (or ...


NCBI ROFL: Airplane vacuum toilets: an uncommon travel hazard. | Discoblog

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“Each year, millions of people travel aboard airplanes and cruise ships. A significant portion of the newer larger airplanes (the Boeing 767 and the Aerobus) and cruise ships now have vacuum toilet systems. There have been no reports in the medical literature on the frequency of injuries associated with the use of these toilets, but serious injury, including soft tissue trauma and organ evisceration, may be associated with the use of such devices.) The investigators report a case of significant perineal injury accompanied by hypotension associated with the use of a vacuum toilet on an airplane.

A 37-year-old white female was using a vacuum toilet on board an airplane. The toilet seat was upright. The woman was sitting directly on the commode. After flushing while still seated, she experienced pain in the perineal area. She was unable to remove herself from the toilet because of the created suction and she required assistance from the flight attendants. The patient experienced vaginal bleeding, and bright red blood was noted in the toilet. Paramedics were called when the plane landed. There was no diversion of the aircraft…

…Two risk factors for vacuum toilet injury can ...


A fiery angel erupts from the Sun | Bad Astronomy

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When you build and launch a high-resolution solar observatory that stares at the Sun 24 hours a day, you’re bound to catch some pretty cool stuff. As proof, check out this video of a stunning prominence erupting from the Sun’s surface on July 12, 2011, as seen by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory:

[Make sure you set the resolution to at least 720p.]

That’s really graceful, especially considering that tower reached the staggering height of about 150,000 km (90,000 miles) above the Sun in just a few minutes!

The gas on the Sun is ionized, which means it’s had one or more electrons ripped away from its atoms. Technically called a plasma, this makes it sensitive to the Sun’s strong magnetic forces. That becomes really obvious after it starts to collapse; it doesn’t follow a ballistic trajectory like you’d expect (the path a ball thrown up in the air would follow), but instead flows along the Sun’s magnetic field lines. This video is in the ultraviolet, where such a plasma glows brightly.

For a moment there, just at its peak, it coincidentally looks like a classic angel with wings spread. Of course, once the angel dissolves it forms more of ...


Quest for the Malagasy genotype | Gene Expression

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I would like to throw out the word that I am looking for a person with Malagasy ancestry for the African Ancestry Project. To my knowledge there are no thick marker autosomal analyses of the Malagasy people. After my recent exploration of Southeast Asian genetics I think even one individual would be highly informative.

As usual I would guarantee that these data are entirely private, and I do not share it with anyone. But in this case I would like to make an exception and stipulate that Joseph K. Pickrell, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, would also be very interested in access to a Malagasy genotype for the purposes of research. Since this is an undersampled population the marginal returns to a Malagasy genotype would be enormous for science, a public good rather than just a private gain.

Also, I am still looking for a Tutsi genotype so that I can ascertain the origin of this population.

Please contact me at africanancestryproject -at- gmail -dot- com.

Francais:
Je recherche une personne d’origine malgache dans le cadre du projet “l’African Ancestry Project”.

A ma connaissance, il n’existe à ce jour aucune analyse des marqueurs autosomiques du peuple malgache. ...

Larger Beaks Help Birds Beat the Heat | 80beats

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spacing is importantThe marsh-loving song sparrow uses its beak to stay cool.

What’s the News: Scientists have long known that the size and shape of a bird’s beak is largely dependent on its diet. A hummingbird’s long, thin beak, for example, allows it to reach deep down into a tubular flower to get nectar. But in a new study in the journal Ecography, scientists have found that birds in warm climates have evolved beaks larger than their cooler-climate counterparts as a means of staying cool (birds, like most animals, don’t sweat). The new study adds weight to past research suggesting the same thing.

What’s the Context:

Allen’s Rule, a scientific theory coined by zoologist Joel Asaph Allen in 1887, states that warm-blooded animals will have longer appendages in hotter climates than those living in colder climates. The greater surface area allows the animals to give off more heat and keep cool.
A study last year showed that the rule may apply to birds’ beaks, too. ...


Smart educated men less likely to think cheating always wrong | Gene Expression

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Lots of commentary below on my post about extramarital sex. I guess that’s fine, but I’m really not too interested your theories, I can do basic logic after introspection too. In fact, I can go down the street and ask a random person and I’m sure they could offer up after the fact rationales for the results I reported (people are always interested in sex and sharp about models to explain it). Instead, here’s the variable you need to use in the GSS: XMARSEX. I assume forms and graphical user interfaces worthy of 1997 are not too intimidating to readers of this weblog even if they perplex Matt Yglesias?

In any case, here’s some more results. First, I wanted to double check that there was in fact decreased tolerance of extramarital sex over the years. Let’s break it down by sex:

Some of you were curious about the demographic correlates of this behavior. Please note that all the following charts are limited to the year 2000 and later. The sample sizes for XMARSEX were rather large, so I saw no ...

Vine lures bats with leaves that act as sonar dishes | Not Exactly Rocket Science

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Pollination is the process whereby plants turn animals into sex toys. With nutritious nectar, striking flowers (and the odd bit of deceit), they lure in animal carriers that can transport their pollen to another flower. These partnerships have painted the world in a resplendent palette of flowery hues. But pollination can create other feasts for the senses that are oblivious to us visually focused humans.

The Cuban rainforest vine Marcgravia evenia is pollinated by bats, which find their way around with sonar rather than sight. They make high-pitched clicks and time the returning echoes to “see” the world in rebounding sound. And M.evenia exploits that super-sense with a leaf that doubles as a sonar dish. It reflects the bats’ calls into strong, distinctive echoes, creating a sonic beacon that stands out among the general clatter of the forest.

The vine also has a ring of red and white flowers, sitting over a cup full of nectar. But above the flowers, it has one or two dish-shaped leaves that are twisted upwards, so the concave side faces out towards approaching pollinators. In cross-section, they could form the cap of ...

Charity Update | Cosmic Variance

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It’s been a while, and I’ve been meaning to provide an update on our little charity suggestion bleg. If you’ll recall, I wanted to take my ill-gotten gains from the 3 Quarks Daily Prize and send them to a worthy charity, but rather than just defaulting to my usual favorites I sought from new wisdom from the collective intelligence out there.

The bad news — in some sense — is that there are far too many truly worthy causes. Apparently we have a way to go before achieving a utopian condition throughout all the countries of Earth. Who knew?

Nevertheless I was happy to learn about GiveWell, an organization whose purpose it to figure out what kinds of charitable donations actually have the greatest impact. (It was advocated by Ian, Edgar, and Rationalist.) It’s obvious that different types of giving can have disparate impacts, but it’s very hard to figure out what approach is most effective, and having an organization dedicated to doing the hard work of figuring that out is invaluable.

Just to get an idea of what we’re talking about: to rate the relative effectiveness of different programs, GiveWell uses a metric called Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY). It’s a well-known (in these circles) number, also used by the World Health Organization and others. The idea is to make some attempt — as hard as this may be from a rigorous philosophical perspective — to boil different kinds of good deeds to a single number. Maybe you actually increase someone’s lifespan, or maybe you prevent blindness — DALY boils it all down to one quantity.

And what you then find is — an extraordinary range of different values for different forms of charity. At the extreme end, consider supporting improved water sanitation to prevent diarrhea, which certainly sounds like a good idea to me. That gets you $4,185/DALY, so it takes about four grand to do the equivalent of giving someone an extra year of life. Compare this to deworming programs, which come in at $3/DALY. In this metric, in other words, deworming is about a thousand times more cost-effective than water sanitation. Obviously this is a crude measure, but it gives some idea of the range of possible outcomes.

When it comes to messy human problems, I don’t actually valorize “metrics” and “data” above all else; sometimes things work but it’s hard to quantify how much good they are actually doing. Nevertheless, in a situation of relative ignorance it’s really wonderful to have an organization trying to work out these numbers the best they can. My favorite part of the GiveWell website was the page labeled Shortcomings — not other people’s shortcomings, but their own shortcomings. They want to be as upfront and transparent as possible about their mistakes, and strive to do better. Yay!

After all that, I didn’t actually give the donation to GiveWell itself. Rather, I just followed their advice and gave to their highest-ranked charity: Village Reach, an organization that works to improve access to healthcare in remote and underserved areas in Africa and elsewhere. (Immunization programs, in general, are extremely cost-effective ways of improving health in poor communities.) It’s a relatively new, still quite small program, but with impressive effectiveness. I was very happy to donate, and certainly will continue to do so.

Which doesn’t mean that there still aren’t many other great choices. Thanks to everyone for chipping in with suggestions.


Building New Life in a Lab May Succeed Before We Find It Among the Stars | 80beats

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Early Earth’s chemical seas are presumed to have given rise to the first life, but how could anything so complex have come from such a disorganized stew of molecules? That’s the question Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute is exploring with his swarms of self-replicating RNA, which can evolve over time. Along with Steve Benner, Craig Venter, Jack Szostak, and others, he is on the road to creating life in the lab, thus giving us insight into both our origins and what, exactly, “life” is. As Dennis Overbye writes in a look at the field in the New York Times:

The possibilities of a second example of life are as deep as the imagination. It could be based on DNA that uses a different genetic code, with perhaps more or fewer than four letters; it could be based on some complex molecule other than DNA, or more than the 20 amino acids from which our own proteins are made, or even some kind of chemistry based on something other than carbon and the other elements that we take for granted, like phosphorous or iron. Others wonder whether chemistry ...


Researchers Induce Hibernation in Squirrels (But Only When the Time’s Right) | 80beats

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spacing is important

Researchers at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks have discovered a way to induce hibernation in arctic ground squirrels—by administering a substance that stimulates the brain receptors of adenosine, a molecule involved in slowing nerve cell activity. Induced hibernation could someday be used to preserve the brain functions of human stroke victims, though that’s still a ways off as the current technique only works on the arctic ground squirrels during hibernation season.

[Read more at the Australian and ScienceDaily]

Image: Flickr/Threat to Democracy


Announcing the Next Point of Inquiry: David Frum and Kenneth Silber | The Intersection

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Clarification: This show does not air until Monday. I was getting reader suggestions for interview questions. We pre-record the show, usually the week before it airs. Stand by for the link…

In about three and a half hours, I interview David Frum of FrumForum.com and Kenneth Silber, a frequent contributor on science over there. The topic of the show is conservatism, science, and reality–and I’ve gotten two conservatives, albeit pretty much the opposite of Tea Partiers, to talk about it.

It is my perception that across a wide array of issues–from health care to, uh, light bulb policy–the U.S. political right today just views the world differently, and has a different set of facts (which, I’m afraid, tend to be wrong). I want Frum, and Silber, to tell me to what extent I’m right, and to what extent I’m wrong–and also to show me where the liberal blind spots are.

But of course, you may also have questions for them–so suggest away. They’ll be considered if posted in the next three hours or so….

By the way, here is a piece by Silber, entitled “How I Joined the Vast RINO Conspiracy.” And here is Frum’s classic article taking on Rush Limbaugh.