Shelley Batts is a Neuroscience PhD candidate at the University of Michigan. She studies hair cell regeneration in the cochlea, and is trying to finish that quixotic quest called 'thesis.' She lies awake at night pondering how science intersects with politics, culture, policy, money, medicine, and religion in an attempt to be more than just a niche scientist sitting in the oh-so-lovely ivory tower. Follow me and my parrot, Pepper, on our quest to finish my PhD, land a post-doc, and stay sane.
Steve Higgins is a psychology graduate student at an online university. He hopes that the three weeks and $29.95 that he is spending on his Ph.D. will get him a job at a Tier 1 research university. Do online universities have postdocs? Ok...just kidding, Steve is really a Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying high level vision. You know... stuff like scene & object perception.
While not an official contributer to 'Of Two Minds,' Shelley's sidekick is an African Grey parrot named Pepper. His heros are Irene Pepperberg, Alex, and Rachel Carson. He spends his time learning Mandarin and writing the Great American novel.
"Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life." ~Rachel Carson
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Sizzle follows Randy Olson as he tries to make a movie about global warming. The main characters are an outrageously stereotypical new age gay couple and the thug life camera crew who are there to supply a comic foil to both Olson and the pretty boring scientists who get interviewed about global warming. It's a very strange contrast between the fake characters (who are REALLY fake) and the scientists trying to sound professional and only talk about global warming.
The movie is billed as a mockumentary but it doesn't quite fit the bill of a mockumentary since it's about a serious topic they are trying to support yet making fun of themselves at the same time. Usually a mockumentary is making fun of the people AND the topic. The movie itself relies on cheap stereotypes and lame jokes and situations where Olson throws temper tantrums to get a laugh.
My overall impression of the movie wasn't great, but there were a number of entertaining or thought provoking scenes. I very much enjoyed the global warming denialist scientist from Honduras (I think) whose name is very long and I can't remember. He was so outrageous and ridiculous that it was hard to believe that he wasn't one of the silly characters that played the comic foil. But he was real. He was crazy looking, crazy acting, just nuts! He bragged about his publications, cigars, his ambasadorship (or something like that), and was just a riot.
Another set of scenes I enjoyed were the New Orleans clips where they talked to the common person about the effect of global warming in the wake of the horrible flooding. The people were honest and pulled at your emotions. While I enjoyed this bit of the movie it made me realize I was ultimately unsatisfied with the earlier part of the movie where the scientists gave their little schticks. I didn't really get enough data from them to know what to think about global warming. I was told what to believe and that global warming delialists are silly people so I should believe the Olson crew. But I was never convinced of what I should believe. Then again, I'm a scientist and I want data... lots and lots of data.
Anyway, Sizzle might be worth a viewing when it comes out. There are a number of interesting viewpoints and stories - even if most aspects of the movie don't ultimately work.
President Bush on Sunday defended his decision to attend next month's Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, saying that to boycott "would be an affront to the Chinese people."
Uhh yeah, wouldn't that be the point of a boycott?
It seems that vegetarians are screwed on multiple levels, they get called hippies by me AND they might be at an increased risk of dementia in old age. The study recently published in the journal Dementias and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders focused on a number of elderly Indonesians who live across a wide range of areas in Java. They discovered that people who ate tofu at least once a day (which is classified as high consumption) had a statistically higher chance of showing dementia. So what could be causing this higher rate? According to BBC News:
Soy products are rich in micronutrients called phytoestrogens, which mimic the impact of the female sex hormone oestrogen.
There is some evidence that they may protect the brains of younger and middle-aged people from damage - but their effect on the ageing brain is less clear.
The latest study suggests phytoestrogens - in high quantity - may actually heighten the risk of dementia.
Lead researcher Professor Eef Hogervorst said previous research had linked oestrogen therapy to a doubling of dementia risk in the over-65s.
She said oestrogens - and probably phytoestrogens - tended to promote growth among cells, not necessarily a good thing in the ageing brain.
Alternatively, high doses of oestrogens might promote the damage caused to cells by particles known as free radicals.
Then again all this might be wrong and you damn hippies have nothing at all to worry about, evidently formaldehyde is used in Indonesia as a preservative. Wow.. getting high while eating tofu - who woulda thunk it!
Hitachi recently announced that they would be producing a 5 TB drive in the near future (2010?). This is totally unexciting to me but what Hitchachi's Yoshiro Shiroishi said was. According to Techradar:
As for what can be stored on such disks, Hitachi's Yoshihiro Shiroishi explains, "By 2010, just two disks will suffice to provide the same storage capacity as the human brain."
In other words, a next-generation hard drive will be able to recall that trip to the seaside in 1976, but never where it left the car keys last night.
Ignoring the faulty memory comment for a moment - Where in the world did Yoshihiro come up with that capacity? How does one calculate what the human brain can store?
Several approximations to this number have already appeared in the literature based on "hardware" considerations (though in the case of the human brain perhaps the term "wetware" is more appropriate). One estimate of 10^20 bits is actually an early estimate (by Von Neumann in The Computer and the Brain) of all the neural impulses conducted in the brain during a lifetime. This number is almost certainly larger than the true answer. Another method is to estimate the total number of synapses, and then presume that each synapse can hold a few bits. Estimates of the number of synapses have been made in the range from 10^13 to 10^15, with corresponding estimates of memory capacity
This gives us an estimate much higher than Yoshihiro's... so what about estimates from traditional psychology without this neuron counting? After all having a certain number of synapses does not mean that they are even being used for 'memory' ... hell we're not even sure all the areas involved in memory. We're pretty sure about some, like the hippocampal cortex, but whether areas involved in processing physical stimuli - like motor areas for tool use, are used as part of the memory representation is up for debate (not for me... I know what I think - and gosh darnit I'm right!)
So here's the psychological estimate from the same source:
Landauer reviewed and quantitatively analyzed experiments by himself and others in which people were asked to read text, look at pictures, and hear words, short passages of music, sentences, and nonsense syllables. After delays ranging from minutes to days the subjects were tested to determine how much they had retained. The tests were quite sensitive--they did not merely ask "What do you remember?" but often used true/false or multiple choice questions, in which even a vague memory of the material would allow selection of the correct choice. Often, the differential abilities of a group that had been exposed to the material and another group that had not been exposed to the material were used. The difference in the scores between the two groups was used to estimate the amount actually remembered (to control for the number of correct answers an intelligent human could guess without ever having seen the material). Because experiments by many different experimenters were summarized and analyzed, the results of the analysis are fairly robust; they are insensitive to fine details or specific conditions of one or another experiment. Finally, the amount remembered was divided by the time allotted to memorization to determine the number of bits remembered per second.
The remarkable result of this work was that human beings remembered very nearly two bits per second under all the experimental conditions. Visual, verbal, musical, or whatever--two bits per second. Continued over a lifetime, this rate of memorization would produce somewhat over 10^9 bits, or a few hundred megabytes.
Hmm... that only comes out to: (10^9) bits = 119.20929 megabytes. We've had that for decades... So where's this number coming from. I know! I'll go to Yahoo Answers maybe they'll have the answer for me there.
I have not heard what science believes the human brain maximum capacity would be in those terms.
I do know they say (barring any cranial/brain trauma) that the brain retains pretty much all information of what it sees and hears.., storing up huge libraries of information. The problem with the majority of peoples is the recall ability. If we based this on our recall ability then computers would have us beat hands down!
Which brings me to this conclusion (although drifting from the primary subject a bit)..., whether a person believes in a God creator or just nature at work.., it would seem to suggest the information is in the old cranial system for a reason. I choose to believe for purposes after this life.
Memory is a very complex system. Its even being considered that some element of memory is stored in the body. Just one point in case among many others is the woman who received a heart transplant.., who never smoked in her life and led an otherwise very conservative life..., had urges to smoke, knew how to ride a motorcycle (something she never did before) and wanted to hang around Biker Bars... and some other quite strange changes in her character.
Eventually they found out the heart donor was a biker. This is a true story.., so whether science acknowledges it or not - I say proof of body-memory is in the pudding.., err..., well.., the heart anyway.
=^)
Ugh... clearly not.
Can someone direct me to something closer to what the hell Yoshi is talking about?
And you know... it's about the software anyway (for creating AI) - not the hardware. The hardware is the easy part.
My Conclusion: Yoshi needs to clarify what he's talking about because I think he's blatantly wrong and the idea of capacity as a meaningful thing when talking about the brain is a mistake.
According to a new survey the USA has highest level of illegal cocaine and cannabis use in the world. Thank goodness the War for Drugs is working so well! Ohh... wait... that's the war ON drugs and it's supposed to protect us from ourselves and our nasty drug habits. Well anyway.. here's the details on the study:
A survey of 17 countries has found that despite its punitive drug policies the United States has the highest levels of illegal cocaine and cannabis use. The study, by Louisa Degenhardt (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia) and colleagues, is based on the World Health Organization's Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) and is published in this week's PLoS Medicine.
The authors found that 16.2% of people in the United States had used cocaine in their lifetime, a level much higher than any other country surveyed (the second highest level of cocaine use was in New Zealand, where 4.3% of people reported having used cocaine). Cannabis use was
highest in the US (42.4%), followed by New Zealand (41.9%).
In the Americas, Europe, Japan, and New Zealand, alcohol had been used by the vast majority of survey participants, compared to smaller proportions in the Middle East, Africa, and China.
The survey found differences in both legal and illegal drug use among different socioeconomic groups. For example, males were more likely than females to have used all drug types; younger adults were more likely than older adults to have used all drugs examined; and higher income was related to drug use of all kinds. Marital status was found to be related to tobacco, cannabis, and cocaine use, but not alcohol use (the never married and previously married having higher odds of lifetime cocaine and cannabis use than the currently married; tobacco use is more likely in people who have been previously married while less likely among the never married).
Drug use "does not appear to be simply related to drug policy," say the authors, "since countries with more stringent policies towards illegal drug use did not have lower levels of such drug use than countries with more liberal policies." In the Netherlands, for example, which has more liberal policies than the US, 1.9% of people reported cocaine use and 19.8% reported cannabis use.
Data on drug use were available from 54,068 survey participants in 17 countries. The 17 countries were determined by the availability of research collaborators and on funding for the survey. Trained lay interviewers carried out face-to-face interviews (except in France where the interviews were done over the telephone) using a standardized, structured diagnostic interview for psychiatric conditions and drug use. Participants were asked if they had ever used alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, or cocaine.
The study's main limitations are that only 17 countries were surveyed, within these countries there were different rates of participation, and it is unclear whether people accurately report
their drug use when interviewed. Nevertheless, the findings present comprehensive data on the patterns of drug use from national samples representing all regions of the world.
So the take home messages... people in the U.S. have a bunch of disposable income for drugs and we really f'n love cocaine! Although (I should really look at the article directly), it doesn't look like they check out the countries in which the cocaine was produced. I'd be curious to see a survey on a wider variety of countries.
And finally... the most important take home message: Drug Policy has NOTHING to do with drug use. We can put users, dealers, producers, cousins of uncles of friends of users, their dogs, cats, guinea pigs, or the lint under their couches in jail or to death and it will have no effect on whether people use drugs or not. Education however... just maybe that will help. Oh.. that and taxation - Heavy heavy taxation. After all tobacco use has gone drastically down in the last decade with more education and higher drug prices.
This is seriously the worst press release I've ever read. It doesn't say how the research was done, it doesn't have the results from the research, it is poorly written (run on sentences?!), and it is pointless. Why was this even released? Does EurekAlerts even have any criteria for releasing press releases? I do know they have criteria for who counts as a journalist - and it certainly isn't bloggers (we can't get embargoed articles from them - but we can from PLOS)
Hi everyone, thought I'd drop by and say hello and remind ScienceBlogs (as well as myself) that I do still exist beyond the lab, and have not yet degenerated into a shadowy specter capable only of writing up data in the bowels of the University of Michigan. I have gotten very pale though, so that may be debatable. Anyway, the thesis work is chugging along and I now have a defense planned for December (of 2008!!!!). I'm currently looking around at post doc positions for after that, but not before I take a good long breather to the tune of 4-5 months playing Wii. Oh, and I'm getting married next May. ;) Oh, but the time does fly!
What pulled me out of my academic stupor long enough to blog was a kind note from Cristiana Senni over at World Parrot Trust, who asked if I would bring some well-deserved attention to their "Save the Greys" initiative. In a nutshell, World Parrot Trust is aiding the rehabilitation of confiscated African Grey parrots in Cameroon, taken from poachers who illegally trap the parrots for sale and export. Wild caught parrots suffer horrible mortality rates from improper handling and shipping (about 50% die in transit). Add to this the fact that wild trapping of parrots contributes to the decline of endangered or protected species.
If you love parrots as I do, please take a moment to visit World Parrot Trust, and if you are feeling generous, give a buck or two towards conservation.
Ok, back to learning style sheets for Word 2007, so I can fit my thesis into UM's odd formatting guidelines....
Grad students do all sorts of funny things on the side to make money. There are the mandatory grad school bands, the bartenders, the tutors, proctor exams, house sit, and a few of us blog ... but this guy really takes the cake:
In the 90s, a typical night for Craig Seymour included G-strings, elbow grease, and dollar bills in his socks.
waiiiiiiit a minute... who shoves dollar bills in socks?! was this a foot fetish club?
Dollar bills go in the G-String!
ok ok... back to the quote:
Between sets at Washington, D.C.'s gay strip clubs - unique institutions while they lasted, where hands-on experiences were encouraged -- he graded papers, "red pen in hand."
"The truth was that stripping had long called out to me. It offered something different from my grad school grind of dealing with students, grading papers, and sitting through seemingly endless seminars."
So Seymour writes in his new memoir, All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C. (Atria, 2008),
One would think that Craig would have issues getting a job after all that grinding and gyrating, but evidently (especially since he published a book and he's an journalism prof) his job prospects are pretty damn good. He's starting a new job at Northern Illinois University as an associate professor of journalism. Hey if Craig can get a tenured job after swinging his pecker around the stage it makes me feel a bit better about blogging and getting a job later ;)
I wonder if Craig keeps in stripper shape? It seems like it would be good exercise!
I haven't been blogging much lately... here's why:
There are some dirty pictures in this set (safe for work...don't worry) - can you spot the theme?
If you don't want to futz with this little widget feel free to check out the park pictures on my flickr site or some of the other great ones like Big Bend National Park, Russia, or Nepal.
Seriously.... wow.....I'd totally forgotten about the brain from the cartoons.
and....
Ohh... Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. How I used to love thee. I actually watched the most recent movie a few weeks ago. Do they really suck that much? I remember them being pretty kick ass. This is why growing up sucks - all your favorite cartoons from childhood blow now. Did you hear they are coming out with a Smurfs movie?
This is seriously the biggest most obnoxious cross I've ever seen. It is on (If I remember correctly) route 70 in Illinois about halfway between St. Louis and Champaign. Praiiiiiiiizzzzze Jeeeezus!!!!
Three out of four people with Alzheimer's will wander at some point during the course of the disease. Wanderers who get lost outdoors may become injured or even die of exposure. This risk increases dramatically if the weather is very cold or very hot.
There's a number of ways that you can protect your beloved family member from trying to walk to Disney World or their house in the old country.
Some of the ways the Mayo Clinic suggests for preventing wandering are:
Alarms and locks
A variety of devices can alert you that your loved one is on the move. Pressure-sensitive alarm mats can be placed at the door or at your loved one's bedside. Warning bells can be used on doors. Childproof covers on doorknobs also are helpful. Many people also install sliding bolt locks up high on doors, out of the average person's line of sight.
Camouflaging doors
Doors to off-limits rooms pose a different problem. Camouflaging a door with paint or wallpaper to match the surrounding wall may short-circuit a compulsion to wander into such rooms. Curtains over the door might also work. A mirror on or near the door stops some wanderers. Sometimes a stop sign on a door is enough.
Some people have had success with creating a visual abyss in front of exit doors, by laying down strips of black tape to form a 2-foot black hole at the threshold.
A senior center in Germany has found a new, somewhat more entertaining way of deterring their confused residents from wandering the exciting city of Dusseldorf - they installed a fake bus stop.
The idea was first tried at Benrath Senior Centre in Düsseldorf, which pitched an exact replica of a standard stop outside, with one small difference: buses do not use it.
The centre had been forced to rely on police to retrieve patients who wanted to return to their often non-existent homes and families.
Then Benrath teamed up with a local care association called the "Old Lions". They went to the Rheinbahn transport network which supplied the bus stop.
"It sounds funny but it helps," said Franz-Josef Goebel, the chairman of the "Old Lions" association.
"Our members are 84 years old on average. Their short-term memory hardly works, but the long-term memory is still active.
"They know the green and yellow bus sign and remember that waiting there means they will go home."
The result is that errant patients now wait for their trip home at the bus stop, before quickly forgetting why they were there in the first place.
"We will approach them and say that the bus is coming later and invite them in for a coffee," said Richard Neureither, Benrath's director. "Five minutes later they have completely forgotten they wanted to leave."
The idea has proved so successful that it has now been adopted by several other homes across Germany.
I'm wondering whether this whole idea could be broadened a bit. I propose putting up fake bus stops around campus, far away from the places I normally drive. This would keep the undergrads from wandering out in front of my car either drunk or on their cell phones. Strangely, it's almost like they have Alzheimer's.
This is actually pretty much the most useful and accurate infographic I've ever seen in my entire life. Thank goodness this appears on an article highlighting the brain region responsible for decoding sarcasm.
Now that you've seen this amazing infographic you know exactly how sarcasm happens in the brain and what area is responsible.... AND!!! that area is lighting up right now as you read this very deep and meaningful post. As a matter of fact after reading this post you might have an aneurysm originating in your right ventromedial prefrontal gyrus. I apologize for the brain deadness I might have caused from reading this post. However, it's not as bad as it could be... just read the bbc news article that the infographic came from ;)
I haven't had a chance to read the real journal article yet... maybe I'll do that and get back to you guys.
I never quite understood the whole NCAA pool thing, or fantasy leagues for that matter. In a non-professional gambling environment the chances of you winning are pretty much chance. You've all heard about the girl picking her teams based on what colors she likes and winning. In any case... there is an interesting study from Naomi Mandel and Stephen M. Nowlis or Arizona State University demonstrating that Office pools make people pretty unhappy. Well except the winner - but there's only one of them (except in my department where there is one for the worst bracket - which I can't even win). Anyway, here's the press release:
Office pools for the NCAA basketball tournament or Oscar contests are fun, right? Not according to the Journal of Consumer Research. A recent study suggests that betting on the outcome actually reduces people's enjoyment of the events. Authors Naomi Mandel and Stephen M. Nowlis (Arizona State University) explore this phenomenon, and why these contests are so common.
"Nobody likes to be wrong. Once a person has committed to a predicted outcome, he's set himself up for the possibility of looking like a fool. In other words, the fear of losing [known as] 'anticipated regret' may actually feel worse than losing itself." Peoples' worry about losing the bet tends to spoil the event for them.
The study was inspired by the researchers' experience of participating in an office pool related to the CBS television show " Survivor." They noticed officemates' increased stress after locking in predictions about the show. They designed a series of experiments where they asked participants to predict or not predict the outcome of game shows and marble games.
How does the unhappiness associated with betting coexist with the growing popularity of office pools and tournament prediction contests? The researchers found that participants expected that betting on events would enhance their viewing experience, though the actual effects were the opposite.
"In a wide range of studies, people have been shown to be poor predictors of their own enjoyment and happiness," write the authors. "Our results imply that a consumer playing roulette might actually enjoy that gamble more if the 'house' rather than the consumer chooses the number to be played."
Win or lose? The authors found it doesn't really matter. "Among those who made predictions, participants who were correct enjoyed the event no more than those who were incorrect," they conclude.
Hi folks. Before you all fall out of your chairs that I am, yes, in fact, blogging, just check out this gem of a story that lured me from the bowels of the UM medical complex. Apparently an African Grey parrot in Japan, a Mr. Yosuke Nakamura, recited his name and address to a vet after he was rescued from a rooftop. This turned out to be his actual address, and was promptly returned to his owners! I think this is a fantastic idea for any owner of a talking parrot, and I really commend the owners of Yosuke for caring enough to make sure the parrot had a surefire way to get home. I'm going to start teaching Pepper his address and name today!
I found it humorous that the bird decided to stay mum with the cops, but happily chatted with the vet. The story doesn't say, but I wonder if the vet was the same gender as the person he is bonded to, and therefore might feel more comfortable vocalizing to them.
867-5309....867-5309.....
Hat tip darkman, karen, and the others who emailed this.
If I like what I see, I'll receive 5 more issues (6 in all) for just $14.95. That's 50% off the cover price! If I'm not completely satisfied, I'll simply write "cancel" on the invoice and owe nothing. The free issue is mine to keep.
While not an official contributer to 'Of Two Minds,' Shelley's sidekick is an African Grey parrot named Pepper. His heros are Irene Pepperberg, Alex, and Rachel Carson. He spends his time learning Mandarin and writing the Great American novel.
Sizzle follows Randy Olson as he tries to make a movie about global warming. The main characters are an outrageously stereotypical new age gay couple and the thug life camera crew who are there to supply a comic foil to both Olson and the pretty boring scientists who get interviewed about global warming. It's a very strange contrast between the fake characters (who are REALLY fake) and the scientists trying to sound professional and only talk about global warming. 
