Corpus Callosum is written by a psychiatrist at a small community hospital somewhere in midwestern USA. Email to cc.scienceblogger at gmail dot com.
November 30, 2007
Category: Neuroscience
A great deal of evidence has accumulated that there is a problem with regulation of cortisol levels in persons with posttraumatic stress disorder. Several years ago, it was demonstrated that adult offspring of persons with PTSD had lower circulating cortisol...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 12:08 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 29, 2007
Category: Science News
For years, universities have struggled to find ways to move esoteric technologies from the lab to the commercial sector. Now, scientists at UC Merced have begun to grapple with another problem: how to move technology from the toy shop into...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 12:36 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 27, 2007
Category: Armchair Musings
1. Good music can neither be created, nor destroyed. All the good music already exists. It does not matter how many hours you spend at the keyboard trying to come up with something new. All of your efforts are in...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 9:44 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 26, 2007
Category: Social Commentary
I've rarely linked to Kos before; this is probably the second time (I'm a liberal, just not that kind of liberal). However, the recent post on the reality of the Iraq war demands some commentary. Plus, there is no point...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 7:17 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Neuroscience
Using my new Firefox search box to search ScienceBlogs, I learned that Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) retards neural growth, screws up the circadian clock, is the subject of moralistic cartoons, and that it cannot be cured. True enough, it...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 8:02 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 25, 2007
Category: Photos of Interest
Bosque del Apache is a somewhat famous site for people to go to see migratory birds as they (birds) fly south. I believe these are snow geese (Chen caerulescens), but I am not sure. Flickr has a lot of...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 11:01 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Neuroscience
Agomelatine is a new chemical entity that is nearing approval for treatment of depression. It was developed by Servier Laboratories; they have entered into an agreement with Novartis for commercialization of the product (Valdoxan®). This represents a new approach to...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 8:28 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 24, 2007
Category: Humor
The treehuggers at TreeHugger saw right through this one. Safeway is now selling "organic water." I find the last point especially amusing: "No Genetic Modification." Greenwashing to the extreme. HT: J-Walk Blog Beta...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 10:58 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Social Commentary
On 24 November, 1859, Charles Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, was published. Things haven't been the same, ever since. For example, the...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 7:12 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 23, 2007
Category: Energy
Apparently, it is not only possible to run a household with a battery, but to run 25,000 with a battery: a battery that uses uranium hydride. The device is being developed from technology from Los Alamos National Laboratory, by a...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 8:29 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Turkey is considering adding the letters "Q," "W," and "X" to their alphabet. The idea is that it would appease the Kurds. Gov’t reform envisages including X, Q, W in Turkish alphabets Changing the Turkish alphabet to include the...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 4:35 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Meta
Why use Google, which will give you ten million irrelevant hits, when all you really want to do, is to find the juicy stuff on ScienceBlogs? Well, you can navigate to the ScienceBlogs home page, and search there, or go...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 2:19 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 21, 2007
Category: Chatter
MTV is taking some heat for its refusal to broadcast an advertisment for Buy Nothing Day. MTV, the channel that markets itself to hip youth, has decreed that our Buy Nothing Day public service spot "goes further than we are...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 11:51 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chatter
We found a recipe for pecan pie that does not use corn syrup. I would not try to argue that this confection is salubrious, mind you, but at least there is no corn syrup. Most pecan pie is so sweet...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 9:56 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 20, 2007
Category: Politics
Here is a part of a screenshot, showing the most-viewed pages: Notice that the page on homosexuality has 78% as many visits as the main page. The site? Conservapedia: "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia." It is a wiki, like Wikipedia, but for...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 6:13 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Medicine
Any time something related to a medical use for cannabis is found, it makes headlines. Mostly, the interest is generated by the relationship to an illegal drug. Sometimes, though, the media do a decent job of reporting the real issue....
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 9:01 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Environment
America missed her chance to elect a sane pro-environmental candidate in 2000. Or rather, the Supreme Court missed its chance. Whatever. The critical point is that environmentalism cannot be understood as an isolated issue. Pro-environmental thinking must pervade everything we...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 7:35 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 19, 2007
Category: Medicine
It is common for tension to occur in the doctor-patient relationship occurs when the patient reports symptoms that are distressing to the patient, but which do not seem serious to the doctor. Each instance of this is different, so it...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 5:25 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Social Commentary
According to the Guardian: ...because it minimally adheres to certain superficial conventions, it can masquerade as a "news" outfit and enjoy all the rights that accrue to that......
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 4:33 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chatter
Video of Pandas cooperating so one can escape:...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 12:15 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 18, 2007
Category: Energy
Sun Microsystems is planning to put a data center in an old coal mine. The idea is to save on energy costs. In fact, they expect nine million dollars per year on electricity. This is because much of the electrical...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 10:57 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Photos of Interest
The Golden Retriever is the finest breed of dog in the world. These dogs are smart, and noble. I don't have any dogs right now, but if I do get a dog, it will be a Golden Retriever....
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 7:20 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Medicine
The cost of health insurance has been increasing, typically at double-digit annual rates. With the expansion of information technology, particularly electronic claims processing, one would expect that the insurance companies would be operating much more efficiently now that they...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 12:35 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 17, 2007
Category: Neuroscience
Simon N. Young, PhD, the Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, has written an editorial: How To Increase Serotonin In The Human Brain Without Drugs. In is published in this month's edition of the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience....
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 10:20 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Humor
The term "Freudian Slip" has been the subject of innumerable puns. This one is new to me: It's the perfect holiday gift for shrinks in cold climates. HT: Mental Floss...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 8:36 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Computing
According to Google, we are heading into a bad season for Science: This is from Google Trends. Every December, there is a steep drop in the number of searches conducted for "science." Plus, there has been a year-to-year decline. What...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 7:04 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 16, 2007
Category: Environment
The environmental consequences of shopping catalogs have been well documented. For example, over eight million tons of trees are consumed each year in the production of paper catalogs. Now there is a website where you can go to opt out...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 11:19 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chatter
The San Antonio Express-News reports that "Reviewers have found 109,263 errors in sample copies of math textbooks to be used next fall in Texas." One second-grade math book, for example, has 4 plus 7 equaling 10. OK, anybody can make...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 5:20 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Medicine
In 1984, the Hatch-Waxman Drug Price Competition and Patent Restoration Act was passed. This was an important development that changed forever the economics of the pharmaceutical industry. NEJM has a nice, short, open-access article on the history and consequences...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 12:51 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chatter
Computer graphics allow a person to see what a tattoo will look like, before going under the needle.
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 10:08 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Armchair Musings
Currently, both the House and the Senate are leaning away from granting immunity to telecommunications companies that were involved in warrantless domestic spying. In an unrelated debacle, the State Department tried to grant immunity to Blackwater personnel who shot...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 7:50 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 15, 2007
Category: Armchair Musings
I haven't gotten to the actual research paper yet, but this is sufficiently interesting that I wanted to put up a quick post about it. Live Science has an article about some research, showing that persons who think of themselves...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 3:04 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Propaganda
This is strange. A person with a Ph.D. in molecular genetics, Georgia Purdom, wrote a post in which she claims to have shown that the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria is not an example of evolution. Antibiotic Resistance of...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 7:28 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 14, 2007
Category: Chatter
The all-new, completely free LOLCats calendar for 2008 is here. It is a 2MB PDF download....
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 4:43 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Psychiatry
The Department of Defense appears to be making a real effort to determine the scope of the problem. They now have published the results of a second screening of 88,235 returning soldiers. In their most recent study, they acknowledge that...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 12:56 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Armchair Musings
Click for full-sized version From: Dilbert Internet Archive There is elitism, and anti-elitism. In pure form, both are bad. I recommend, as an alternative, something called mutual respect. In politics, there is a long history of us-versus-them-ism. In the...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 8:25 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 13, 2007
Category: Humor
In his article about what is wrong with Windows Vista, PC Mag's John Dvorak unintentionally disrespects northern Michigan: Until now, Microsoft could sell code better than anyone, but it seems the company would rather sell services: software as a service,...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 8:27 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Remember, this guy ran for office claiming that he was going to "restore dignity" to the office. Now, 64% of persons surveyed think "has abused his powers as president." 55% think he has committed impeachable offenses, although they are split...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 7:46 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Photos of Interest
Tilly is an eagle that has been trained to fly with a pair of video cameras. The cameras weigh less than 30 grams and can transmit video signals more than a mile. I gather this was shown on Aminal...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 11:26 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Armchair Musings
The Norman Lear Center recently commissioned a Zogby poll regarding the relative media preferences of liberals, moderates, and conservatives: The Zogby/Lear Center Survey On Politics And Entertainment. The typology revealed three significant clusters of respondents: "conservatives," as we decided to...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 8:51 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Photos of Interest
The Chinese pistache, Pistacia chinenesis, is the most frost-tolerant of the Pistacia, and is relatively drought-tolerant as well. It is prized for the vivid autumn color of the leaves....
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 7:25 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 12, 2007
Category: Photos of Interest
There are just a few splashes of color left in the garden....
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 8:45 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 11, 2007
Category: Photos of Interest
Yes, it is a Darth Vader ballon. Photo by Vincent Maurin. Taken in St-Julien-lès-Gorze, Lorraine, France. The caption: "Created by a Belgian."...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 11:11 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chatter
This is a neat project; I hope more people participate. The map below shows the USA divided into regions, based upon their emotional ties to particular areas. Thus it is not based upon borders or any other typical geographic boundary....
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 9:15 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 10, 2007
Category: Medicine
Is it just me, or do others find this article to be offensive? When the Patient Is a Googler By SCOTT HAIG Thursday, Nov. 08, 2007 We had never met, but as we talked on the phone I knew she...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 9:47 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Energy
People who advocate alternative energy (i.e. not oil or natural gas) often fail to appreciate the true cost of developing the necessary technology. Courtesy of Cryptogon, I now present a chart that illustrates these true costs, in proper perspective. As...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 8:24 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
A Nobel-winning economist has some comments about our current fiscal situation: The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E....
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 7:55 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 9, 2007
Category: Meta
O excellent! I love corpus callosum better than figs.Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?Get your own quotes:...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 10:17 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Humor
This is a highly amusing podcast, for nerds anyway. Tweaking a few genes here and there will not alter our fundamental humanness. But is this what we really want? Go to the page and click on the Listen: MP3 format...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 9:48 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Fife Symington III, former governor of Arizona, is planning a press conference to discuss UFOs. He plans to discuss the Phoenix Lights incident. Symington is a former Air Force pilot, which he feels lends him some credibility. Symington: I...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 5:07 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Humor
I was thrilled to note that the Journal of Geoclimatic Studies offered open access to their papers. But as of today, the website is down, with no explanation. Whois shows that their site was created on 11/2/2007. Pity, it...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 4:25 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 8, 2007
Category: Bioethics
Athletic regulatory bodies have a new headache. This time, the pain is being caused by placebos (an unexpected side effect!) As reported in New Scientist, athletes have found that they can exert themselves to a greater extent, while under...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 12:14 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
This story originally ran in the New York Times, 40 years ago. It is behind a pay wall now, but it is reprinted in Harper's; I found it from a link at Project for an Old American Century: "We Do...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 9:12 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Computing
Neil Bush's "COW" is probably the closest the Bush family ever has come to real ranching. Now the COW may be going the way of the Dodo This may turn out to be one of the best things that could...
Posted by Joseph j7uy5 at 7:40 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
