Cleared but under a cloud, lecturer ignites freedom row – Times Higher Education

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Cleared but under a cloud, lecturer ignites freedom row
Times Higher Education
He added: "I am challenging (Professor Murphy) to a debate on the limits of academic freedom." Professor Pinker denounced the actions of UCC as "absurd and ...
The Morning After: Offensive Bat Fellatio EditionWashington City Paper (blog)
Academic freedom stifled, alleges lecturer censured over showing paper on bat sexIrish Times
Academic disciplined over fruit bat sex paperTelegraph.co.uk
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all 62 news articles »

“This is what your healthcare is going to look like.”

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Last month I was in a post office standing in a particularly long line for that location. The line eventually extended beyond the lobby and outside the doors. The delay seemed to stem from the fact that this was between 12 and 1 PM when there were several customers and only 1 staff member during a busy day and time. The situation was made worse by the fact that the staff person was trying to assist an elderly customer who was asking for an unusual denomination for a particular stamp to go to a particular place somewhere in the world. And she wanted to write a check and appeared to have a terrible tremor which made writing clearly difficult. Plus you have to retrieve and show valid photo ID when presenting the check to the post office.

These things happen. It was going to cost me an extra 10-15 minutes.

An equally elderly customer about 5 people behind me yelled out “This is what your healthcare is going to look like”.

I disagree. We can only hope healthcare reform allows for what I consider a normally efficient service.

For some of the shortcomings of the US mail, with its rigid policies and procedures I can count on 1 finger the number of times an intended delivery or sent item was not received over several decades of using the US mail for pen pals, college applications, med school applications, licensing forms and business transactions. Of course, e-mail and other electronic services have minimized the necessity for traditional “snail mail” services which has affected the bottom line for the quasi-governmental organization. I find the need for delivery confirmation or certified letters to be negligible given the time and accuracy of mail delivery.

Let’s assume some components of the healthcare reform do look governmental or quasi-governmental if you don’t have “private insurance”. Having worked and received care in military, VA and large academic institutions, my experience is that quality overall is the same, the speed (meaning wait time from definitive diagnosis to definitive care/management) varies greatly with access issues and beaurocratic inefficiencies sometimes causing delay between getting seen and getting treated. While commerical hospitals are not immune from their own inefficiencies, generally access is simplified and referrals are timely.

So, while your health and your mail are not the same, if 42 cents buys you 2-3 day delivery at the expense of a few minutes to get it going, perhaps cost can be controlled with quality outcomes with reasonable wait to get the necessary service particularly for those who would not normally be afforded these services or for whom alternatives are not available.

Would it be so bad if healthcare ran like the post office?

Case of the Week 52

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The following images were taken from a Giemsa-stained peripheral blood smear. The different stages of the organism shown represent a single species, and each stage is characteristic for this species. The stages are so characteristic, in fact, that each has an ‘unofficial’ name (e.g. nick-name) or description.

Question 1 – What organism (genus and species) is shown?
Question 2 – What is the nick-name of each stage?

Grantourismo! An Interview with Lara Dunston & Terence Carter

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Paris In The Spring
Paris In The Spring

In 2008, Lara Dunston was <a href="interviewed about her life as a travel writer and her experiences traveling with her husband, Terry Carter, who is also a travel writer, photographer and now – an expert in the art of eggs – culinary-style. (You think I’m kidding…)

Together, they have taken on a new project, Grantourismo!, which has them traveling from their home-base-storage-unit in Dubai to a new destination every two weeks over a twelve month period (February 1, 2010 through February 1, 2011). Not only are they investigating new destinations, Terry has found some new egg recipes and still travels with his trusty cleaver.

Being avid travel writers, you’ve just begun yet another journey around the world. How did you choose which countries to visit considering HomeAway Holiday-Rentals’ numerous available locations?

Lara: We’re two months into a 12-month grand tour of the globe, an experiential-cum-local travel project we’ve called Grantourismo. It’s a ‘contemporary’ grand tour, which means rather than learning to paint or do archery as the original grand tourists did way back we’re doing and learning things with contemporary relevance.

Terence Macaron Cooking Class Paris
Terence Meets Macarons

As Terry is into cooking, he’s learning how to cook a quintessential dish in each place we visit (in Marrakech a local cook taught him how to make tajine) and I’m learning anything from languages to learning about immigration in Paris from an academic who just finished her thesis on the subject. We’re staying in each destination for two weeks, so we’ve traded hotel rooms for rentals this year and partnered with HomeAway Holiday-Rentals. HomeAway Holiday-Rentals had a long list of destinations they wanted us to cover so our choices were based on a combination of places that are popular where they have a lot of properties, destinations that are not as popular that they want to inspire people to visit, and destinations that show the variety of places they have from sleek apartments in Buenos Aires to rustic trullo in Puglia.

You’ve written about “voluntourism”. What types of volunteer opportunities have you planned for yourselves during this endeavor?

We’re ‘parachuting’ into places and using our skills to quickly learn about the place, meet people, get tips as to what we should do and learn, and then arrange things.

Terence: We haven’t planned anything because for Grantourismo we’re not planning much ahead of time. We’re ‘parachuting’ into places and using our skills to quickly learn about the place, meet people, get tips as to what we should do and learn, and then arrange things. One of our missions is to give something back and promote sustainable travel, so they take in a whole lot of things, not just volunteering. The easiest way for people to give something back is to buy, eat and drink local/regional products, to shop locally in small businesses and direct from producers rather than chains owned by multinationals, and to then spread the word about those products by telling their friends, writing about them on their blogs, Facebook pages etc, so that’s what we’ve been doing. In each place we’ve visited so far, we’ve sought out and have raised awareness about local cultural products, local traditions, green initiatives – everything from an ethical fashion boutique in Paris to some small designers in Ceret using a very traditional Catalan fabric, and we’ve just talked to a sustainable travel agent in Montenegro specializing in local travel who is also a member of the Local Travel Movement.

…finding short-term volunteer experiences has actually been one of our greatest challenges…

Lara: Volunteering is another way to give back and can take many forms but we’re mainly looking for short-term volunteer experiences that we can promote, anything from participating in an environmental clean-up day to volunteering to read books to kids at an orphanage to working for a day in a soup kitchen. But finding short-term volunteer experiences has actually been one of our greatest challenges so far because we’re looking for the things that people on holidays could just do for one or two days, as not every one can commit to a 6-week, 3-month or even one year experience. It’s been a challenge finding experiences we can actually *do* in a day or two but we want to get a taste of these things before we write about them. If anyone has any ideas we’d love to hear about them!

You both are passionate about “local produce, local products” and the globalization of crafts. How does one go about discovering the truth behind the souvenirs they’re buying?

Souq Walk Marrakech Morocco
Souq Walk Marrakech Morocco

Lara: The best thing people can do is simply talk to the owners of shops or the people working on stalls at a market. I think it’s fairly easy to tell who is legit and who isn’t, but key questions to ask are “which town/region is this product from”, “who made it”, “what is it made from” etc. From the answers you can easily tell who is a real producer or who knows the producers as they will come out with the answers straight away and probably speak at great length and passionately and knowledgeably about them, whereas someone who is dodgy and selling things made in China in Paris will probably go “um… well…” Although I will never forget having an argument with a woman in Petra, Jordan, who was selling junk made in Korea and swearing that it was locally made. People should also look for information on tags and labels of course.

You have also written of location independence. What single piece of advice do you have for people wanting to do what you’ve done?

Terence: Take a look at this piece we did for Matador but to be honest we didn’t really think of what we’re doing as location-independent work until a few people started using the term when they asked us about what we do and how we manage what we do. In our opinion there isn’t really any other way to be travel writers except to travel and if you treat your work seriously and you’re a professional and it’s your main source of income you cannot do it any other way than to travel and to travel with all your gear. The best investment anyone can make is to buy a good laptop and use technology they trust. We use Macs and they essentially serve as our offices – we can’t live or work without them.

Do you find it easier to write about your days’ activities the same day, or at a later time?

Lara: It’s not always possible to write up what we’ve experienced on the same day, cause we’re simply so busy sometimes with full schedules from early in the morning right through the day until late at night, so we might have a backlog of work, especially on the Grantourismo trip at the end of a two-week stay when the last few days are really frantic. The key is detailed note-taking and memory-shots. As long as I take detailed notes and take photos, any kind of pics to prod that memory, then I’m fine. Without them though, it can be a challenge.

How easy or difficult has it been to find new external hard drives “on the road”? Or do you pack 10 of them ahead?

…for instance, when Lara’s hard drive in her MacBook (not a portable drive) died when we were in Nicosia, so we searched high and low and eventually found a computer shop that had loads of dust-covered boxes of software we’d never heard of and found a no-name drive, opened and covered in dust, but it was cheap and it worked just fine.

Terence: Our bags are heavy enough as they are, mainly due to the technology, laptops, camera equipment, books and research materials, so we buy hard drives as we go. They’re not always easy to find of course. We had a lot of trouble in Cyprus, for instance, when Lara’s hard drive in her MacBook (not a portable drive) died when we were in Nicosia, so we searched high and low and eventually found a computer shop that had loads of dust-covered boxes of software we’d never heard of and found a no-name drive, opened and covered in dust, but it was cheap and it worked just fine.

Lara in Wadi Rum
Lara in Wadi Rum

In your extensive travels, have you found the world becoming a smaller place, with globalization such as it is, or is there still sufficient variety in countries and cultures to warrant a continued sense of wonder and awe?

Lara: I definitely have a sense that the world is becoming smaller because there is greater connectivity and I’m continually seeing connections, especially cultural, social and economic connections between places and people, and I kind of like that in a way, that I meet people who know other people far far away. But then there are many things about the world that are becoming ’smaller’ in that they’re becoming the same, such as fast food and the stuff sold at markets. You’ll see the same junk in Jerusalem that you’ll see in Paris that you’ll see in Thailand and Beijing. We found that very depressing, especially as so much of it is being sold as being from that destination, and that’s another reason we embarked on this project. When we travel these days we don’t necessarily have to have that sense of wonder and awe all the time as we did when we were younger. We’re happiest when we learn new things and meet new people and really go away feeling more familiar with a place, its people, and its culture.

On a side note – Terence, how DO you explain carrying a cleaver in your luggage to Customs officials?

Terence: As long as the cleaver goes in the bag under the plane, it’s not a problem – you just can’t take sharp objects on board – but I also carry a couple of grinders of my favourite salt and peppers, and a few other kitchen utensils that not all holiday rentals seem to have, so I think they’d get that I was simply into cooking and not a terrorist!

Editor’s notes: All photos courtesy of Lara Dunston and Terence Carter at Grantourismo. Lara also runs the Cool Travel Guide blog.

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New Data on Cell Phones and Cancer

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This is a science and medicine story we have been following for a while – out of personal and scientific interest, and the need to correct confused or misleading new reporting on the topic. Are cell phones linked to an increased risk of brain cancer or other tumors? New data are reassuring.

David Gorski and I have both written on this topic. To give a quick summary, there is no convincing data to link cell phone use and brain cancer. Epidemiological studies have not found an increase in the incidence of brain cancer following the widespread adoption of cell phones in the mid 1990s – as one would expect if there were a causal relationship. Further, large scale studies have not found any consistent correlation between cell phone use and brain cancer.

It is clear from the literature that there is no measurable increased risk from short term cell phone use – less than 10 years. There is no evidence to conclude that there is a risk from long term use (> 10 years) but we do not yet have sufficient long term data to rule out a small risk. Further, the data is somewhat ambiguous when it comes to children – still no convincing evidence of a link, but we cannot confidently rule out a link.

Further, the plausibility of a connection is quite low. While electromagnetic radiation from cell phones is a physical mechanism that can potentially have an effect, it is generally too weak to have any plausible biological effect. This by itself is very reassuring, but still cannot rule out a possible effect from cell phones through some as yet undiscovered biological effect of cell phone radiation.

So the claim for a link between cell phones and brain cancer has low plausibility, good epidemiological evidence for a lack of association for less than 10 years of exposure in adults, and equivocal but generally negative evidence for children and greater than 10 years of exposure in adults. Longer term studies will hopefully address these latter issues more definitively.

With that as background, we have the newly published results of the Interphone study. This is an epidemiological study involving 13 different countries looking for any correlation between cell phone use and two common types of brain tumors – glioma and meningioma. Parts of this data have been previously published, but this is now the first time data from all 13 participants is published – including “2,708 people with glioma, 2,409 with meningioma and 7,658 matched controls.”

The overall findings of the study were negative – no clear association between cell phone use and gliomas or meningiomas. However, there were two interesting subgroup findings. For those with regular use of cell phones there was a 20% decrease in risk of tumors compared to those without any use of cell phones.

As implausible as it is that cell phones cause brain cancer, it is even more implausible that they protect against cancer. So, it’s possible this is just noise in the data. However, epidemiologist Anthony Swerdlow, who was involved in the UK arm of the study, gives another explanation:

“We have evidence that the people who refused to be controls are people who didn’t use phones. This meant that the control group, consisting of people without cancer, was rather skewed, appearing to have more mobile-phone use than would be found in a representative sample from the general population. “The controls were over-represented with phone users.”

These results, therefore, were very likely due to a systematic bias in the data – such are the perils of epidemiology.

The other correlation found was a 40% increase in risk of brain tumor among the top 10% of mobile phone users. This is an interesting result, because it suggests a dose response effect. However, this result is also questionable and may be due to methodology. It turns out that many of the people answering the survey used in the study reported improbable amounts of cell phone use – such as 12 hours per day. It was therefore considered to be an unreliable method of determining cell phone use. Number of calls made per day gave more realistic results, and therefore may be easier for people to understand or remember. When the data is looked at with number of calls made instead of time per day, the correlation with brain tumors disappears.

So at the end of all this, we are pretty much where we started. There is still no evidence to link cell phone use and cancer. This data has a few quirks in it, but in the final analysis is probably negative. So we can be a bit more confident in the lack of correlation – or we can think of it as shrinking a bit further the upper limit of any possible effect from cell phone use.

The study does extend the duration of our data somewhat as well – to about 15 years. But we still lack long term data for exposure greater than 15 years.

Unfortunately, the wrinkles in this study lead to some confusion among the media. While reporting this study it is possible to emphasize the increased risk among the highest cell phone users, while either missing or glossing over the fact that further analysis shows this correlation is probably not real. For example, Science News reports: “Interphone study finds hints of brain cancer risk in heavy cell-phone users.” Many other outlets repeated the headline that the study was “inconclusive.”

Conclusion:

Cell phones are an increasingly common tool of modern society. It is certainly necessary and valid to carefully study their safety and monitor for possible adverse health outcomes from their regular use. I am reassured by the current evidence, however, that there is no large risk from cell phones. There is either no risk or a very small long term risk.

Consider, however, that you are probably at greater risk of premature death from using your cell phone while driving, or from driving at all. So as individuals we always need to balance a small risk against the convenience of new technology. The better data we have and the better we understand that data – the better we will be able to make informed decisions for ourselves.


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XMM-Newton detection of two clusters of galaxies with strong SPT Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect signatures*

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Authors: R. Šuhada, J. Song, H. Böhringer, B. A. Benson, J. Mohr, R. Fassbender, A. Finoguenov, D. Pierini, G. W. Pratt, K. Andersson, R. Armstrong and S. Desai.<br />Astronomy and Astrophysics Vol. 514 , page L3<br />Published online: 18/05/2010<br />
Keywords:
galaxies: clusters: individual: SPT-CL?J2332-5358? ; galaxies: clusters:
individual: SPT-CL?J2342-5411? ; surveys ; X-rays: galaxies: clusters .

Riding the Wave — The Shock Wave!

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Supernovae (plural for supernova) are such intense, powerful events, we can never seem to get enough of them.  Some things in the universe are so overwhelming that we return to them again and again, trying to encompass them.  Supernovae grab us on all levels; the science is there, the beauty, the drama… they even appeal to the child in us; you know, the one that likes to set off fireworks and watch them go “boom”.

I couldn't resist

Folks, you don’t get much bigger “booms” than supernovae.

There are several types of supernovae, and in this post I talked about the mechanics of supernovae (if you’re interested).  As talked about in the linked post, getting as close as 6,000 light years to a supernova may be a really bad idea, but let’s pretend we’re in a special spacecraft that lets us get right up next to a supernova.

Hush.  I can pretend whatever I want.

NASA/JPL Hubble ST - SN1994D

Okay, we’re skimming along the surface of a star at least 10X the size of our sun.  Let’s say we’re studying it as we know it’s a candidate for supernova.  We’ve known for thousands of years.  Now, all of a sudden, the trigger is pulled.  The core begins runaway nuclear fusion, and at this point nothing known in the universe will stop the inevitable.  The core collapses.

As we have been skimming along the surface, the star’s gravity has us and we’re suddenly pulled inward toward the core, along with the rest of the star’s mass.   Almost instantly the core rebounds, and we’re blasted out at about 30,000 km/s, along with most of the star’s mass.  During the initial shock wave, you’ll be surrounded by a light greater than that of an entire galaxy, with its millions and billions of stars.  You are surrounded by as much energy as our sun will radiate in its entire life span, all being blasted out into space.  You are riding a wave like none other.

NASA/JJ Hester/ Hubble ST -- Cygnus Loop SN Remnant -- What a beauty!

There’s a probability of one supernova every 50 years in a galaxy the size of  the Milky Way.  So… until we get intergalactic space travel, you’re stuck with just one supernova…

… but what a ride!

Lizards Can’t Take the Heat, but Are They Really Going Extinct? | 80beats

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SceloporusWhither the lizards?

That’s what biologist Barry Sinervo has been asking lately. In a study published on Friday in Science, Sinvero’s team raised the alarm about lizards around the world, saying that at the very least 6 percent of lizard species will go extinct by 2050, and as many as 20 percent could disappear forever by 2080.

Sinervo and his colleagues make this claim based in part on surveys they did in Mexico.

Sinervo and his team surveyed 48 species of spiny lizards at 200 sites on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico that had been studied in detail from 1975 to 1995 and found that 12 percent of that population had already become extinct by 2009.

The lizards lived in well-protected areas like national parks, so it wasn’t habitat destruction that caused the population decline, Sinervo said. Instead, it was a tale of rising temperatures disrupting lizard lives [San Francisco Chronicle].

A lot of studies point the finger at global warming in one way or another, but Sinervo’s team says that there’s a good reason why lizard populations would fade in a warmer world.

Global warming appears to be lengthening the period of the day when lizards must seek shelter or risk fatal overheating. In the breeding season, that sheltering period is now so long that females of many species are unable to eat enough food to produce eggs and offspring [Washington Post].

To bolster their claim, the team created their own fake lizards equipped with thermometers and set them out in the Mexican sun. In two areas where the lizards seem to have disappeared, Sinervo says, there were more than 9 hours a day on average that would’ve been too hot for the lizards to come out of hiding. In two areas where lizards still remained, the midday heat was far less brutal.

In an accompanying essay in Science, Raymond Huey writes that the case is a strong one, and worrisome. However, he wonders, can you really make extinction predictions based on these findings?

Huey warns that not seeing lizards doesn’t mean that they’re not there. They may just have been overlooked. “Populations go up and down,” he says. Still, he notes, Sceloporus [a Mexican lizard] is very conspicuous. “It would be hard to miss” [Nature].

Only follow-up surveys can truly confirm that the lizards’ slow disappearance is real and not “psuedo-extinction,” Huey says. Sinervo and his team are presently in Spain, preparing to do a survey in the Pyrenees Mountains.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: 10 Studies That Revealed the Great Global Amphibian Die-Off—And Some Possible Solutions
80beats: How All-Female Lizards Keep Their Genes Fresh Without Sex
80beats: Gecko to Its Severed Tail: “Quick, Make a Distraction!”
80beats: Australian Lizards Can “Pop Wheelies”

Image: Fausto Mendez de la Cruz


NCBI ROFL: Gentlemen prefer blonde hitchhikers. | Discoblog

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Hitchhiking women's hair color. "To test the effect of women's hair color on the frequency of offering help, male (n = 1,508) and female (n = 892) French motorists were tested in a hitchhiking situation. Five 20- to 22- yr.-old female confederates wore a wig with blonde, brown, or black hair. Each confederate was instructed to stand by the side of a road frequented by hitchhikers and hold out her thumb to catch a ride. Blonde hair, compared with brown hair or black hair, was associated with a small but significantly larger number of male drivers who stopped to offer a ride (18 vs 14%). No difference was found for those with brown and black hair (14 and 13%, respectively). No effect of hair color was found for female drivers who stopped. The greater attractiveness associated with blonde hair for women appears to explain these data." Photo: Wikimedia commons/Roger McLassus Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Bust size and hitchhiking: a field study.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Women's bust size and men's courtship solicitation.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Eye Tracking of Men’s Preferences for Female Breast Size and Areola Pigmentation. WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!


Evolution is false, the Bible tells me so | Gene Expression

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In the post below I pointed to various differences in regards to acceptance of evolution by demographic. One of the issues is that just because X correlates with Y, does not entail that X causes Y (and of course, if X correlates with Y, and Y correlates with Z, that does not entail that X correlates with Z). You can use the GSS to run some regressions and see what the strongest predictive variables. Because of this I know that the variable BIBLE is very predictive of skepticism of evolution. Additionally, even smart people with college educations who have a literal inerrant view of the Bible are skeptical of evolution. To show the power of Biblical fundamentalism I thought it would be useful to plot differences in regards to the Index of Creationism by various demographics for both Fundamentalists and non-Fundamentalists. So below I have a set of charts which have two series, one for Fundamentalists, and one for non-Fundamentalists, of a given demographic. So for example one chart has Fundamentalists and non-Fundamentalists separated by attainment or non-attainment of college educations.

The primary variables are BIBLE & SCITEST4.

BIBLE is:

Which of these statements comes closest to describing your feelings about teh Bible? 1. The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word. 2. The Bible is the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally, word for word. 3. The Bible is an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by men.

I recoded so that responses 2 and 3 are classed as non-Fundamentalist.

SCITEST4:

For each statement below, just check the box that comes closest to your opinion of how true it is. In your opinion, how true is this? d. Human beings developed from earlier species of animals.

I created the Index of Creationism = (% “definitely not true”) X 3 + (% “probably not true”) X 2 + (% “probably true”) X 1, from three of the four responses to SCITEST4.

In the charts below the blue squares = Fundamentalists. The red diamonds = non-Fundamentalists. I rescaled so that 1 is the minimum for the Index of Creationism on all charts.


evowordsum

evocollege

evoincome

evoregion

evoreligion

Reminder: blue squares = Fundamentalists, red diamonds = non-Fundamentalists. A few notes. For stupid, average and smart, I simply recoded the WORDSUM vocabulary test. Stupid = 0-4, Average = 5-7 and Smart = 8-10. For region, it’s pretty self-explanatory, though do note that I placed Texas and such in the South, not the West. The West are the Pacific & Mountain regions only. Those with no college degree includes all those without bachelor’s degrees (non-four year degrees).

Do you notice the counterintuitive pattern when it comes to intelligence and Creationism, and income and Creationism? The sample size for SCITEST4 isn’t that hot, so you could chalk it up to noise, but I’ve done enough poking around the GSS to trust this. There is a pattern where very intelligent and/or high socioeconomic status Fundamentalists adhere to the viewpoint which in the general population is correlated with lower intelligence and socioeconomic status. I think the dynamic here is partly the same one when it comes to political polarization: stupid and lower status people tend to be less ideologically coherent because they don’t spend much time thinking about abstract questions. From what little field investigation I’ve performed dull human tends to fixate on sensory or interpersonal questions, not intellectual ones. In other words, very stupid Fundamentalists may not even understand what they’re being asked. Very stupid people also tend to agree that they’re political moderates more often than the intelligent; moderate seems like a good thing to say for someone who never thinks about politics. I think this issue to some extent explains the lack of effect among Roman Catholics. Unlike Protestants views about the Bible are less emphasized in Roman Catholicism traditionally, so many Catholics may not have well thought out opinions on the topic. Those who answer that they believe the Bible is the literal and inerrant Word of God may not really even know what this really should mean. The question is geared toward those with Protestant presuppositions.

There may also be the secondary effect of self-selection when it comes to intelligence and income for Fundamentalists. Fundamentalism tends to correlate with lower intelligence and income, and those who choose to remain Fundamentalists despite higher intelligence and income may self-select for the most extreme and rigorous subset of this class. More theologically liberal and lax Protestant denominations tend to be biased toward wealthy and well-educated individuals, some of whom have switched denominations as they go up the class hierarchy. Those who refuse to switch as they ascend the class ladder may be a peculiar subset. By contrast, lower class status denominations may include more lax individuals in relation to belief or practice who would not feel comfortable in a liberal denomination because of their class status.

This pattern of social sorting probably explains the fact that region still has a significant predictive power even controlling for Fundamentalism. Northeastern Fundamentalists are equivalent in skepticism toward evolution as Southern non-Fundamentalists. I have seen similar tendencies among black Americans in relation to social issues and religion; secular individuals who are black are invariably more socially conservative that secular individuals who are white. I think this is a function of the fact that secular blacks are embedded in a more socially conservative cultural milieu. Similarly, non-Fundamentalist Southerners are embedded in a more Creationist culture, as Fundamentalists are numerically more preponderant in the South than non-Fundamentalists. New Englanders exhibit the inverted tendency. Someone who is a conservative, Fundamentalist or Republican in New England may actually be liberal, theologically moderate and a Democrat in the South.

Variables: Region, Wordsum, Relig, Income, Degree, Scitest4

Shiny New Neuroscience Technique (Optogenetics) Verifies a Familiar Method (fMRI) | 80beats

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MRI_brainAfter a quarter-million scientific papers, you’d better hope your methodology was solid.

Most of the studies you’ve probably heard of that try to tie a specific region of the brain to an action or feeling probably relied on a functional MRI technique that tracks the flow of oxygenated blood–so when you see a region “light up” on an fMRI image, that’s not the fMRI picking up the actual neurons firing. Rather, it watches for small changes in blood oxygen levels in the region. This method, called blood oxygenation level-dependence (BOLD), presumes that active neurons use more energy and thus require more oxygen. Now, in a study in Nature, researchers at Stanford Medical Center have provided direct evidence that the inference is correct.

Lead researcher Karl Deisseroth employed a technique called optogenetics to prove the point. He and his colleagues engineered brain cells that respond to a flash of blue light; when they did this trick on cells in the motor cortex of rats, the flash of light acted as a trigger to active the neurons there. The idea was that they would examine these rats with fMRI at the same time they stimulated those motor neurons with the blue light. If the fMRI lit up in the same places where the researchers knew they were stimulating neurons, they could be confident that fMRI was really picking up brain activation.

Sure enough, when the neurons were turned on with a pulse of blue light, the researchers detected a strong BOLD signal emanating from the motor cortex neurons’ neighborhood. The BOLD signals were exactly what was expected. “It was very compelling and reassuring,” Deisseroth says. “Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief” [Science News].

Still, the brain’s complexity never ceases to amaze: While the optogenetic stimulation produced neuron activity that the fMRI scans registered as a BOLD signal, there was other activity besides that showing up as BOLD activity. But, Deisseroth says, those seem to be secondary signals caused by the initial neuron activity.

“We’re certainly not saying that other processes don’t contribute to these signals,” he says. “We’re saying that driving these excitatory neurons kicks it off” [Science News].

Besides reassuring neuroscientists, the Stanford work could also open doors for them, like allowing them to see when brain activity is one region is connected to activity on the other side of the brain.

Optogenetics works at micro scale and fMRI covers wide regions of the brain—together this means that scientists have a way to intervene and experiment with entire brain circuits, to finally see how a certain type of brain cell affects the wider global activity of the entire brain [Scientific American].

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Image: NASA


Shutting off a single gene could improve fertility by activating dormant egg-producing cells | Not Exactly Rocket Science

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FollicleRight from the moment of birth, women face a ticking clock, counting down to the end of their life’s fertile phase. In their fourth month in the womb, their immature ovaries begin to develop primordial follicles, the structures that will eventually give rise to egg cells. At birth, each ovary has around 400,000 follicles and won’t make any more. During each menstrual cycle, around a thousand of these cells become activated per ovary. By the time a woman goes through menopause, she has less than a thousand left and her chances of being a biological mother are slim to none.

Follicles stay in a dormant phase that can last for months or even years, until they are gradually activated. Now, a team of Chinese, Japanese and American scientists, led by Jing Li from Stanford University, have found a way to activate these dormant cells at will. It’s a step that could help infertile women, or those who freeze their ovaries before cancer treatments, to eventually have their own children.

Li’s work shows that despite their ability to slumber for decades, follicles only need a gentle nudge to awaken. She managed to activate dormant follicles in the ovaries of newborn mice using chemicals that shut off a single gene called PTEN. When she transplanted these clusters into mice whose ovaries had been removed, they developed into mature follicles. From these came eggs that could ultimately be fertilised and develop into healthy pups.

As with most such discoveries, Li’s work hinges on a lot of previous research. In particular, two years ago, Pradeep Reddy from Umea Universit showed that PTEN controls the steady activation of follicles. If mice lack the gene entirely, all of their dormant follicles become activated at once and their entire supply is exhausted in early adulthood. This dramatic switch means that their ovaries fail prematurely. Li wanted to see if she could achieve the same ends in a more controlled way.

Rather than knocking out the PTEN gene altogether, she temporarily blocked it by soaking ovaries from newborn mice in a chemical called bpV(pic). PTEN works by holding back another gene called PI3K, so Li also tried a chemical called 740Y-P, which activates PI3K. In normal ovaries, the unleashed PI3K targets a protein called Foxo3, which is then removed from the nucleus of follicle cells. This is the trigger that activates them, and that’s exactly what Li saw in her chemically treated ovaries. Foxo3 left the building and the follicles matured, particularly if they were transplanted into a living host.

None of the cells ever developed into a tumour, which is a real concern since one of PTEN’s role is to keep cancer at bay. Instead, the activated follicles eventually produced oocytes, the precursors of egg cells, which seemed normal in every important respect. They showed the standard patterns of methylation – chemical ‘Post-it’ notes that add onto genes and affect how, when and where they are activated. When fertilised, the oocytes grew into healthy embryos and eventually into 20 healthy pups. And best of all, these pups were themselves able to bear live young of their own.

Li showed that the same trick might work in humans too, but with more technical challenges. During operations on women with ovarian cancer, she managed to get pieces of ovary containing primodial follicles. She treated the tissues with the same chemicals as before and transplanted them into mice. The result: mature follicles and oocytes. These weren’t fertilised for obvious ethical concerns, but they seemed to show some problems with their nuclei – that will need to be checked in studies using other primates before this technique could ever be used safely in people.

Reference: PNAS http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1001198107

More on fertility:

A Scientist Finds out That Discussion of Bat Fellatio Is NSFW | Discoblog

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According to Dale Evans, a professor at University College Cork in Ireland, he just wanted to bring up an interesting tidbit of animal behavior while chatting with a colleague. But the journal article he referenced, "Fellatio in fruit bats prolongs copulation time," didn't just cause raised eyebrows, it also prompted a sexual harassment complaint. New Scientist reports:
As part of what he says was an ongoing discussion on human uniqueness, Evans showed a copy of the fellatio paper to a female colleague in the school of medicine. "There was not a shred of a sign of offence taken at the time," Evans says. "She asked for a copy of the article." A week later he got a letter informing him that he was being accused of sexual harassment. The female colleague later said that she asked for a copy of the article only to cut short the conversation, which she found disgusting and offensive. Let's just hope that she didn't take a look at the video the original researchers put together of the bats in action. Related Content:
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Study: Common Pesticides Linked to Attention Deficit Disorder | 80beats

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Child with learning difficultiesAdd one more to the list of environmental factors that could contribute to the rise in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): pesticides. A new study out in Pediatrics argues that there’s a connection between high exposure to common pesticides and increased risk for children developing ADHD.

Maryse Bouchard and colleagues looked at more than 1,100 children aged between 8 and 15. All of them had been sampled by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2000 and 2004, and 119 had been diagnosed with ADHD. Bouchard’s team studied their urine samples for chemicals called dialkyl phosphates, which result from the breakdown of organophosphate pesticides used to protect fruits and vegetables.

For a 10-fold increase in one class of those compounds, the odds of ADHD increased by more than half. And for the most common breakdown product, called dimethyl triophosphate, the odds of ADHD almost doubled in kids with above-average levels compared to those without detectable levels [Reuters].

According to the researchers, there are about 40 organophosphate pesticides in use in the United States, the most famous of which is malathion. It was heavily sprayed in California in the early 1980s to try to kill the Mediterranean fruit fly, and also about a decade ago to try to stop the spread of West Nile virus.

In 2008, detectable concentrations of malathion were found in 28 percent of frozen blueberry samples, 25 percent of fresh strawberry samples and 19 percent of celery samples, a government report found [MSNBC].

Using the large sample of children from NHANES allowed the researchers to adjust for location, race, and other factors that have confounded studies like this trying to link an environmental factor to a particular condition. However, the scientists admit, the weakness of their study is that using NHANES data allowed them to see just one urine sample taken at one point. Thus, they couldn’t determine the source of contamination, nor could they see how levels of the chemicals in question built up over time. And since that buildup over time is what would spur the potential neurochemical changes that would increase ADHD risk, Bouchard and colleagues write, their study shows correlation but not causation.

Bouchard’s analysis is the first to home in on organophosphate pesticides as a potential contributor to ADHD in young children. But the author stresses that her study uncovers only an association, not a direct causal link between pesticide exposure and the developmental condition. There is evidence, however, that the mechanism of the link may be worth studying further: organophosphates are known to cause damage to the nerve connections in the brain — that’s how they kill agricultural pests, after all [TIME].

So there’s a lot left to be proven. But Bouchard’s study is another reminder in favor of the old stand-by: wash your fruits and vegetables thoroughly.

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Image: iStockphoto


Texas congressman uses porn to kill science funding | Bad Astronomy

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I know that there are rules to the way laws are made by our government here in the U.S., and that sometimes these rules seem weird and arcane. In general, these rules have evolved to make sure that the majority doesn’t stomp on the minority, and the minority still has a voice.

TXRepRalphHallBut it’s also clear that those rules can be abused. In the case of U.S. Congressman Ralph Hall (R-TX), “abuse” isn’t nearly a big enough word. “Cynically manipulated” might be a bit better. He killed a bill that would fund science innovation and education by tying it to punishing people who look at porn at work.

Seriously. This is truly disgusting, and has to be seen to be believed. Please read that link above.

Basically, the America COMPETES act, instituted under the Bush Administration in 2007, funds a lot of technology and other endeavors to keep the US competitive in the world market. Of course, in the current economic market, we don’t have a lot of money to go around. But this bill would have re-authorized that earlier act, funding what is essentially seed corn, making sure that in the years to come we have a robust investment in our own economy. I wasn’t that familiar with it, but after reading about it I’ll say it’s one of the few things done by the previous President I think is a good idea. So did a lot of others: this reauthorization bill had over 100 co-sponsors in the House.

I say “had”, because after the shameful and politically transparent move by Rep. Hall, the bill is basically dead.

This bill would have extended funding for several more years in key places, including science education. Hall is the ranking Republican on the House Science and Technology Committee that prepped the bill. There had been objections by Republicans on the committee to the amount of spending of the bill. The Democrat-controlled committee made some concessions in that area (shaving 10% of the spending off), but still passed the bill out of committee. The next step would be a vote on the floor of the House.

However, right before it was to go to the floor, Rep. Hall called a Motion to Recommit. Because of those weird rules I mentioned above, this meant that Congress would either have to agree to the Motion and have the bill sent back to committee — where it would die — or overrule the Motion. Now follow this carefully: part of the Motion Rep. Hall submitted was language added to the bill that said that it would prevent the government from paying salaries to employees who looked at porn on government computers.

By doing this, Hall basically bet all his chips. Hall’s move left Congress, notably Democrats, with two options: kill this much-needed bill that invests in America’s future in science and technology, or overrule a motion punishing people for downloading pornography. If they did the latter, the far right noise machine, always eager for red meat in the political arena, could then say Democrats voted to continue paying employees who looked at porn.

Facing this sort of choice, a large number of Democrats backed off. Hall’s Motion passed, and the bill went back to committee where it’s now essentially dead.

Of course, watching porn on the government’s dime has nothing to do with this bill. The only reason I can think of that this language was added is that it was a gambit where Hall wins either way: the bill dies, or Democrats put their head in the right-wing media guillotine. Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN), who is the Chairman of the committee, agrees:

We’re all opposed to federal employees watching pornography. That is not a question; but that’s not what this was about… The Motion to Recommit was about gutting funding for our science agencies.

And while Representative Hall pulls this deplorable stunt, our nation is suffering mightily in scientific education. In this heart-rending post by my friend, astronomer and educator Pamela Gay, she laments how we’re letting our teachers and our children down by not funding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Read her post, then read again what Hall did.

Our future is more important than being a chip in a political game of poker. Unfortunately, in this case, Congress folded.


Seeing Blindness | Visual Science

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This photograph of a young man born without eyes is from Stefano De Luigi’s new book “Blanco”. Photographer Stefano De Luigi said that this moment was one of the most difficult in his five-year project. “When you are confronted with blind people there is always the question-shall he/she become sighted some day? In this case the answer was straight and standing in front of me, and this lack of hope was very hard.”

Aiming to raise awareness of the daily battle blind people face, De Luigi started began his project in 2003. With the support of “Vision 2020: The Right to Sight”, an initiative spearheaded by the World Health Organization and a broad coalition of international, non-governmental and private organizations seeking to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020, he photographed blind people in 14 countries – Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Congo, Laos, Liberia, Lithuania, Nigeria, Peru, Rwanda, Thailand, Uganda and Vietnam.

A boy without eyes—birth defect from exposure to Agent Orange—seen at the Nguyen Dinh Chieu school in Hanoi, Vietnam.