purepedantry

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June 6, 2007
Simon Baron Cohen writes in entelechy on theories of imagination (scroll down): In what sense might something as intrinsically human as the imagination be biological? How could the products of the imagination - a novel, a painting, a sonata, a theory - be thought of as the result of biological…
June 5, 2007
A great article in the NYTimes about the debate over a sensory integration disorder: The problem, these therapists say, is in the brain, which is not properly integrating the onslaught of information coming through the senses, often causing anxiety, tantrums and problems in the classroom. Such…
June 5, 2007
How the brain codes numbers is a challenging problem. We know that certain parts of the brain must code numbers because they are involved in numerical calculation. Some of them -- such as the prefrontal cortex (PFC) -- are also involved in the calculation of reward, so it would be good if we knew…
June 5, 2007
Michael Blim wrote a column at 3 Quarks Daily about when his doctor decided to drop him in a move to a boutique medicine practice. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is a family medicine practice where the physician has a limited number of patients who pay an annual fee in addition…
June 4, 2007
Encephalon #24 is up at The Phineas Gage Fan Club.
June 4, 2007
Sarah Silverman slams Paris Hilton at the MTV Movie Awards. Too bad Paris was in the audience at the time. Video below the fold: Hat-tip: WWTDD.
June 4, 2007
Thorpe and colleagues, publishing in the journal Science, have performed a study of orangutan movement that is turning the traditional view of the evolution of walking on its head. The traditional view is that walking upright on the ground -- terrestrial bipedalism -- was preceded by a phase of…
June 4, 2007
God, what is with me today and women's health? You would think I had girls on the brain. I happened across this the other day, and it is simply the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. They are now selling chewable mint-flavored birth control. Perhaps, the women out there can chime in on this…
June 4, 2007
This falls into the rather broad category of things I will post but about which I will not comment. This is in part because I think the results are relatively self-explanatory. Maybe it is because I am a big prude. But mostly it is just because I am not touching this. No way...not with a ten-…
May 30, 2007
Researchers have discovered cows with genes that allow them to make skim milk: Herds of cows producing skimmed milk could soon be roaming our pastures, reports Cath O'Driscoll in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. Scientists in New Zealand have discovered that some cows have genes…
May 30, 2007
Research in army ants has shown that they will plug holes in the road using an interesting technique: Certain army ants in the rainforests of Central and South America conduct spectacular predatory raids containing up to 200,000 foraging ants. Remarkably, some ants use their bodies to plug potholes…
May 30, 2007
Memory for computers is getting pretty large, but it is still based on basically the same system that it was several years ago. They have just gotten better a fabricating them. It is an interesting question to ask whether we could store memories in alternative substrates such as biological ones.…
May 29, 2007
The NYTimes has an excellent article about the controversy concerning hurricanes and global warming: Perhaps the best known proponent of the idea that warming and hurricanes may be connected is Kerry A. Emanuel, an atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His conclusion…
May 29, 2007
Ilya Somin from the Volokh Conspiracy has this post on a resurgent paternalism -- using as its justification new findings from behavioral economics: "Libertarian Paternalism" is all the rage in law and economics circles these days. To slightly oversimplify, libertarian paternalists claim that…
May 23, 2007
The latest issue of Science magazine (May 18) has several reviews devoted to the coming of age of behavioral neuroscience. However, one by Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg caught my eye. The review is entitled "Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science," and their core argument is…
May 21, 2007
Daniel Lazare, writing in the Nation, has an interesting article about differences of opinion even among atheists: This is the problem, more or less, confronting today's reinvigorated atheist movement. For a long time, religion had been doing quite nicely as a kind of minor entertainment. Christmas…
May 18, 2007
A new journal for case reports only, The Journal of Medical Case Reports, has spawned an discussion at The Scientist about whether we should even have case reports in journals: Does the medical literature need more case studies? A new journal is betting it does, even as editors at other journals…
May 17, 2007
The NYTimes has an interesting article on the increasing amount people are willing to pay for donor eggs: A survey published this month in the journal Fertility and Sterility, "What Is Happening to the Price of Eggs?" found that the national average compensation for donors was $4,217. At least one…
May 17, 2007
Not good news for people who think low carbs is the answer. A recently published study has shown an increase in mortality associated with low-carb/high-protein diets. Studies looking at the comparative effectiveness of different diets have shown that basically all diets are equivalent. (…
May 17, 2007
Neat. One of the moons of Saturn, Enceladus, has cracks and eruptions that couldn't be explained by heat. (It is much too small to have volcanic actiivty.) They think that the cracks might be caused by tidal forces from Saturn's gravity: In 2005, the Cassini spacecraft flew by Enceladus and saw…
May 16, 2007
Whoa. Check out the Senate Judiciary Committee testimony by Former Justice Department Deputy James Comey. Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales accosted John Ashcroft in his ICU bed to get him to change his mind the legality of the Administration's dosmestic surveillance program: The room was dark. Mrs…
May 16, 2007
If my job was to debunk poorly justified herbal remedies, I would eat well for life. Here is the newest one: stem cell enhancers. As covered in the Scientist: A California company is marketing the latest in dietary supplements, an extract from algae they claim will boost the number of circulating…
May 16, 2007
No, this is not like voodoo prediction where they will know what will happen 12 years hence. All of us, however, are capable in degrees of predicting what is going to happen over short time scales. This predicition falls into two general categories. First, we can predict the behavior of…
May 16, 2007
You remember how in The Day After Tomorrow global warming leads to a shutdown of the Gulf Stream and catastrophic cooling of Europe. (This would be before the scene where the cold chases the kid down the hallway of the New York Public Library.) Well, just in case you didn't know, that isn't going…
May 15, 2007
Paul Rubin has an editorial in the Washington Post about how evolution may result in a proclivity towards economic and social conflict: Conflict was common in the environment in which humans evolved. As primates, which are a very social order, our ancestors lived in relatively small groups in which…
May 14, 2007
Science has an article this week (sadly behind a subscription wall) about a rare disease called Mobius syndrome. Mobius syndrome is a developmental disorder of facial muscle innervation with a variety of presentations; however, the presentation often includes facial paralysis and difficulty in…
May 10, 2007
The NYTimes ran an excerpt of a book called Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss -- and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Gina Kolata. Having read the excerpt -- I haven't read the whole book -- I take issue with how Kolata frames the issue of the genetics of obesity. My problem…
May 8, 2007
Less than a week after I had to correct myself on autism and face perception, I read another article on the subject that has me skeptical. Let's see if we can apply what we learned before. The conclusions from my earlier piece were a couple: 1) people with autism do not seem to possess a global…
May 8, 2007
Call me a self-centered, but I thought that the school voucher wars were an exclusively American issue. I guess not. The Economist summarizes voucher programs in other countries. Apparently several have met with a great deal of success. Money quote: Harry Patrinos, an education economist at the…
May 7, 2007
I know some of the others (among them Jason) have talked about this, but I thought I would mention it. The May 4th issue of Cell has an article by Laura Bonetta about scientific blogging. Money quote: The concept of scientists reaching out to a lay audience is not new. "Scientists are an…