Seed Media Group

October 31, 2006

Depression Induces Bone Loss

Category: Culture

So much for the body-brain duality. Researchers in the new PNAS claim that the sympathetic nervous system in depressed rodents causes a loss of bone mass. Treatment with anti-depressants rescues the situation. These results define a linkage among depression, excessive...

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Marijuana Factoid of the Day

Category: Culture

This survey gives me hope: 78 percent of Americans support medical marijuana: When Californians approved one of the first medical marijuana laws, in 1996, drug warriors were so convinced it would lead to a catastrophic spike in illegal use by...

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The Best Science Books (Redux)

Category: Culture

Last week, I mentioned that the Royal Institution in London had come up with short list of the best science books of all time. After some excellent feedback from readers, and because I love making lists of my favorite things...

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The Moral Mind

Category: Culture

There's an odd article in the NY Times today on Marc Hauser's hypothesis that the human mind contains a "moral grammar," somewhat akin to a Chomskyan linguistic grammar. The article is odd because, while it acknowledges that Hauser's idea is...

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Starvation and Longevity

Category: Culture

Sometimes, it seems as if science reporters just decide to make something a big story, even if there's no new news to report. In the last week, the link between calorie reduction and increased lifespan has been everywhere. New York...

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October 30, 2006

Testosterone and Comedy

Category: Culture

Men are getting less manly: our testosterone levels continue to decline. Given the Hobbesian state of the world, that might not be a bad thing. (Unfortunately, falling testosterone levels have negative medical consequences. So world peace might require a reduction...

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Gas Tax Again

Category: Culture

I'm like a broken record, but if I could implement one policy change right away it would be to raise the gas tax: See the full image over at Foreign Policy. The latest people to support a phased increase in...

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In Defense of Rick Santorum

Category: Culture

If the polls are accurate, Senator Rick Santorum is about to lose his re-election bid. That's a good thing. Santorum is a bad cliche of the culture wars, a powerful politician who actually believes that the earth is 6,000 years...

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October 27, 2006

Dylan and Tharp

Category: Culture

What would happen if you combined Bob Dylan's greatest hits with the choreography of Twyla Tharp? It turns out that you get something truly awful, an alchemical concotion that is both surreal and boring. Here's Ben Brantley: And now for...

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Atheist Evangelists

Category: Culture

Richard Dawkins has been everywhere lately. Dawkins is even keeping an online journal while on his book tour. It's full of amusing, if slightly mean-spirited, vignettes like this: The large hall at Randolph Macon Woman's College was packed. I gave...

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Martians, Revisited

Category:

Only when it comes to alien life forms can the absence of decent data - the 1976 Viking mission did not not detect any organic molecules - seem so exciting. Here's Sharon Begley, from behind the WSJ firewall: When scientists...

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October 26, 2006

And the Best Science Book Ever Written Is...

Category: Culture

Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, at least according to the Royal Institution in London. The shortlist Primo Levi The Periodic Table Konrad Lorenz King Solomon's Ring Tom Stoppard Arcadia Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene Other nominations James Watson The Double...

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Lower Uppers and Status Anxiety

Category: Culture

I've always been impressed by America's lack of interest in class issues. Having spent a bit of time in England - a country where class is transposed onto every little social interaction - it was a shock to return to...

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Record Oil Profits (Again)

Category: Culture

Another fiscal quarter, another record profit: Exxon-Mobil reported earnings of $10.49 billion today. These earnings are eclipsed only by the $10.71 billion profit posted by Exxon in last year's fourth quarter, which saw oil prices spike because of hurricanes Katrina...

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October 25, 2006

The Solution to the Flu Pandemic Is...

Category: Culture

Nylon hosiery and surgical masks? While I always assumed that the flu virus spread mainly through dirty door knobs and friendly handshakes, I was wrong. According to Lawrence Wein, "the dominant mode of virus transmission for influenza is aerosol --...

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Parking Tax for Gas Guzzlers

Category: Culture

It is a shame more American cities with mass transportation aren't emulating London, and charging drivers who use their cars in the central city during the day. (The London "congestion charge" is about $10). After all, the London scheme has...

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How Dilbert Got His Voice Back

Category: Culture

Here's an uplifting story of neural plasticity, a sweet reminder that our brain is always capable of changing itself. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, lost his voice more than a year ago due to spasmodic dysphonia, a mysterious neurological...

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Fat People Use More Gasoline

Category: Culture

I never would have guessed that a few extra pounds of flesh can have such a strong effect on fuel economy: A new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says that 938 million more gallons of gasoline go...

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More Porn Leads to Less Rape

Category: Culture

A few days ago, I linked to an article documenting a connection between reduced crime and increased exposure to violent movies. Now it appears that porn has a similar effect, and that the increased availability of porn has led to...

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October 24, 2006

The Dog Who Loved to Suck on Toads

Category: Culture

Why, you ask, did the dog suck on toads? Because the amphibians secrete a hallucinogenic toxin. Lady, a seemingly staid cocker spaniel, was actually a closet stoner. I'd love to see The Dog Whisperer fix this one: "We noticed Lady...

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Airbags Make You Less Safe

Category: Culture

When cars are stocked with airbags in every possible direction - are there ceiling airbags yet? - drivers become more aggressive: A Purdue University research team that studied five years of motor vehicle accidents in Washington State concludes antilock brakes...

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Novels and Empathy

Category: Culture

George Eliot famously declared that "If Art does not enlarge men's sympathies, then it does nothing." Eliot would be glad to know that she was right: reading novels really does make us nicer. As the British Psychological Society Digest notes:...

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Wikipedia Wants To Know

Category: Culture

Jimmy Wales has a question for you: Imagine there existed a budget of $100 million to purchase copyrights to be made available under a free license. What would you like to see purchased and released under a free license? Hmmm...I'd...

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Obama

Category: Culture

I've got a serious man-crush on Obama. I swooned during his Meet the Press interview - my girlfriend was getting jealous - and couldn't help but yelp when he announced that he is considering a run for president. (Given his...

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The Cost of Iraq

Category: Culture

With so many dead and dying in Iraq, it seems crass to complain about the financial cost of the war. But the price tag is enormous, and will burden us for decades to come. Here's Nick Kristof (Times $elect): For...

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October 23, 2006

Do Violent Movies Increase Crime?

Category: Culture

Apparently not. If you believe these economists, a bloody blockbuster might actually reduce crime, at least temporarily: Laboratory experiments in psychology find that exposure to media violence increases aggression. In this paper, we provide field evidence on this question. We...

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Water Facts

Category: Culture

From Michael Specter's article in the New Yorker (not online): Nearly half the people in the world don't have the kind of clean water and sanitation that were available two thousand years ago to the citizens of ancient Rome. More...

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October 21, 2006

Stem Cells and Plastic Surgery

Category: Culture

From Alex Kuczynski's new book, Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession With Cosmetic Surgery: The synthetic collagen called Cosmoplast is manufactured from fetal foreskin stem cells harvested from a single baby boy, who would now be a teenager. (It's...

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October 20, 2006

Shakespeare Goes Multiplayer

Category: Culture

I've been hankering for Hamlet: The Game for a long time now. Imagine the possibilities: a first-person-shooter (FPS) that lets you inhabit some of the most famous characters of all time. I'd be Hamlet, but I wouldn't stab Polonius. Or...

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Politcally Incorrect Factoid of the Day

Category: Culture

Via Joel Waldfogel: James Feyrer and Bruce Sacerdote, both of Dartmouth College, consider the effect of a particular aspect of history--the length of European colonization--on the current standard of living of a group of 80 tiny, isolated islands that have...

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Republicans for Raising the Gas Tax

Category: Culture

Here is the best argument yet for raising the gas tax, and it comes from George Bush's former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. (Sorry Thomas Friedman, you'll just have to try harder.) With the midterm election around the...

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String Theory and God

Category: Culture

Try this fun game. In the following paragraph, clipped from Brian Greene's elegant defense of string theory in the NY Times, I've taken the liberty of substituting a "belief in God" for "string theory": To be sure, no one successful...

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Everything Must Converge?

Category: Culture

Brian Greene mounted a lengthy defense of string theory today in the NY Times. He maintains that string theory is the grand finale of physics, the logical bridge between the contradictions of quantum physics and general relativity. Central to this...

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October 19, 2006

Somebody Pissed Off The Stingrays

Category: Culture

First, they go after the beloved Steve Irwin. Now, they've begun attacking us outside of the water: An 81-year-old boater was in critical condition Thursday after a stingray flopped onto his boat and stabbed him, leaving a foot-long barb in...

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Violence and Nutrition

Category: Culture

Is there a connection between omega-3 fatty acids and violence? Does a shortage of essential nutrients cause thuggish behavior? I'm skeptical of any direct causal connection - human behavior just isn't that simple - but I'm still going to eat...

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No More Menstrual Cycle?

Category: Culture

Wyeth is currently waiting on FDA approval for a new birth control medication that stops women from menstruating. It's called Lybrel, and it delivers an uninterrupted flow of hormones (there is no week of placebo pills). As Sarah Richards notes,...

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David Brooks on Obama

Category: Culture

David Brooks annoys me just as much as the next Democrat - I especially dislike his oversimplifications of neuroscience - but he has a great column today on Barack Obama. Since it's behind the wall of Times $elect, I'll quote...

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October 18, 2006

Frum and Gore

Category: Culture

David Frum, the speechwriter and conservative pundit behind Bush's "axis of evil" line, has officially endorsed Al Gore's latest policy proposal: a tax on carbon. What's even stranger is that Frum endorses this policy without believing in global warming: You...

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Space and Unilateral Action

Category: Culture

Because our foreign policy of unilateral action has worked out so well here on earth, the Bush Administration has decided that we should also apply it to the rest of the universe. Just think how many distant solar systems will...

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Killing Mosquitoes with Sugar

Category: Culture

Mosquitoes like blood, but they love sugar. A team of Israeli scientists are exploring how to use this sweet tooth against them: We have all suffered the irritation of being the food source for hungry mosquitoes. While it is generally...

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Allofmp3.com and Piracy

Category: My So-Called Life

I'm probably breaking some obscure copyright law by simply mentioning this website. For those who don't know, allofmp3.com features ridiculously cheap mp3 files: a song usually costs a dime, not a dollar. The catch? They are a shady Russian company...

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Neuroeconomics and Paternalism

Category: Neuroscience

In response to my recent post on governmental regulation and energy conservation, an excellent debate has started in the comments. On the one hand, there is a long list of areas in which governmental regulation has forced corporations into making...

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October 17, 2006

Sunni or Shiite?

Category: Culture

Here we are, enmeshed in a low-grade civil war, and our fearless leaders can't tell the two sides apart. Jeff Stein has been asking assorted congressmen, intelligence analysts and counterterrorism officials a fundamental question: "Do you know the difference between...

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Alaskans Don't Like Global Warming

Category: Culture

This is encouraging: Alaskans actually care about their own destruction. According to a new survey led by Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz, the citizens of the state most directly affected by global warming have actually noticed what is happening, and they don't...

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Blue Eyes Are Obsolete

Category: Culture

The danger of being a recessive trait: Once a hallmark of the boy and girl next door, blue eyes have become increasingly rare among American children. Immigration patterns, intermarriage, and genetics all play a part in their steady decline. While...

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Medicine, Pregnancy and Empiricism

Category: Culture

Are doctors like scientists? Are their practices primarily guided by experiments and empiricism? Or are doctors more like artisans, unwilling or unable to test the effectiveness of many of their treatments? The Washington Post provides an interesting example of the-doctors-as-artisan...

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Manufacturing Beauty

Category: Culture

This ad is awesome. In sixty seconds, you watch a pretty-but-ordinary looking woman become a supermodel. All it takes is a little makeup, some hairspray and a few seconds of photoshopping. Instead of selling something impossible to achieve, this commercial...

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Commuting and Adaptation

Category: Neuroscience

When I lived in London, I used to have to take the bus to Oxford. Without traffic, the ride took 70 minutes, which was just long enough to catch up on my reading and iPOD playlists. But as anyone who...

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October 16, 2006

Breathing Earth

Category: Culture

Breathing Earth is a map that shows, in real time, births, deaths and tons of carbon dioxide emitted by countries all over the world. If it weren't so depressing to watch, I could stare at it for hours......

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Energy Conservation

Category: Culture

Here are some facts about energy conservation. They all suggest that when it comes to reducing energy consumption what we need is more governmental regulation, not less. And these facts come courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, which is not...

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Television Causes Autism

Category: Neuroscience

A few months ago, I offered a completely speculative hypothesis on television and autism: So how might TV be one of the causes of the "autism epidemic"? A possible answer focuses on the way the newborn brain organizes itself in...

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Can Science Predict Hollywood Hits?

Category: Culture

In his latest New Yorker article, Malcolm Gladwell profiles a group of shady entrepreneurs who claim to have devised an algorithm that can predict which movies will become blockbusters. They simply "interpret" the script, breaking it down into a discrete...

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October 15, 2006

The Best Stem Cell Ad

Category: Culture

This is one manipulative television spot. Although I'm afraid it indulges in some serious scientific hype - stem cell cures for diabetes and Alzheimers remain a distant dream - it effectively humanizes a scientific issue. If we are ever going...

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October 13, 2006

Repeal the 22nd Amendment

Category: Culture

I want Bill Clinton to be president again. First there was this savvy framing of the upcoming election: "This is an election unlike any other I have ever participated in. For six years this country has been totally dominated -...

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Primo Levi on Carbon

Category: My So-Called Life

While we are on the theme of consilience, here's a pretty perfect paragraph of prose that captures the kind of Third Culture I fantasize about. It's from Primo Levi's The Periodic Table: Carbon is again among us, in a glass...

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A Real Global Warming Controversy

Category: Culture

Since Mooney is off writing a book about hurricanes, I thought I would point your attention to a nice article in Slate on the continuing controversy over whether or not global warming is making hurricanes worse. It's worth noting that...

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Consilience?

Category: Culture

In the new Seed, there's an excellent profile of E.O. Wilson, and his recent attempt to get evangelicals to embrace environmentalism. Good luck, Professor Wilson. I have a single (and very minor) quibble with the article, and it's a common...

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Floyd Landis, Again

Category: Culture

The defense is now presenting its case. I've sifted through Landis' online powerpoint, and I'm not that impressed. For starters, he still maintains that his abnormal testosterone ratio was simply a matter of too much whiskey. Sure. And while he...

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Americans Get Wise to Energy

Category: Culture

James Carville thinks he knows what Americans care about. Via Thomas Friedman: "Energy independence," Carville said. "It's now the No. 1 national security issue. ... It's become kind of a joke with us, because no matter how we ask the...

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October 12, 2006

Rove and Foley

Category: Culture

Pardon my schadenfreude: Yesterday, a source close to Foley explained to THE NEW REPUBLIC that in early 2006 the congressman had all but decided to retire from the House and set up shop on K Street. "Mark's a friend of...

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Electrons Have Free Will?

Category: Culture

A plea for help. I'm trying to write something about this paper, by John Conway and Simon Kochen of Princeton. Any guidance from physics experts would be greatly appreciated. I'm afraid that when it comes to these sorts of papers...

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Church on Sunday

Category: Culture

Apparently, the easiest way to reduce the percentage of churchgoers is to allow retail activity on Sundays. In this recently published paper on NBER, economists Jonathan Gruber and Daniel Hungerman examined the effect of repealing "blue laws" on church attendance...

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A Feline Musical Masterpiece

Category: Culture

Alex Ross, music critic for the New Yorker, thinks that he has found a great new composer. There's only one catch: this composer doesn't even know how to read or write music. (Did I mention she's also a kitten?): It...

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