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Head For the Cool

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is about to release its newest edition of its report on global warming. In this AP report, one of the scientists who co-authored part of the IPCC study promises that it will contain much more than a smoking gun. It will contain "a batallion of intergalactic smoking missiles." The IPCC has been strengthening its conclusions about human responsibility for the rise in global temperatures for a few years now. One thing that apparently will set this new edition apart will be a section that looks at the impact global warming is having on nature--plants…

The Beast Takes a Break

On the last day of December, I turned in the final draft of my book about E. coli and the meaning of life. This is the sixth time around for me, and I'm getting familiar now with the havoc the experience wreaks on my nerves. In the final few weeks, the book becomes a monster that follows me around to every room of the house, out on the walks I take with my family. It crouches in the movie theaters and restaurants where I go with my wife to take a break. It just sits there, rumbling and wheezing, making me aware that it is still with me. I work late into the night, trying to get it out of the…

The Sixty-Million-Year Virus

How do we know that we are kin to chimpanzees and howler monkeys and the other primates? For one thing, it's by far the best explanation for the fossil record. For another, our DNA shows signs of kinship to other primates, much like the genetic markers that are shared by people from a particular ethnic group. There's a third line of evidence that I find particularly fascinating: the viruses carried by humans and other apes. Every day, viruses traffic in and out of human bodies. They invade people's cells, make new copies of themselves, and then, if they're lucky, infect a new host. Some…

Traditional Norms, Animal-style

"March of the Penguins," the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is "the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing." --from an article describing how some religious leaders and conservative magazines are embracing the blockbuster documentary. Well, it's 2010, and what a remarkable five years it's been. The blockbuster success of March of the Penguins in 2005 triggered a flood of wonderful documentaries about animal reproduction, all of which provide us with inspiring…

Getting Sexier All The Time

I have a short piece in today's New York Times about how male swallows are evolving longer tails, which female swallows find sexy. Here's the original paper in press at The Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Measuring the effects of natural selection is tough work, the details of which are impossible to squeeze into a brief news article. Scientists have to document a change in a population of animals--the length of feathers, for example--but then they have to determine that the change is a product of genetic change. We are much taller than people 200 years ago, but it's clear that most, if not…

The Cost of Smarts

In tomorrow's New York Times, I take a look at the evolution of intelligence. Or rather, I look at its flip side. Scientists and the rest of us are obsessed with intelligence--not just the intelligence of our own species, but any glimmer of intelligence in other animals. I've written plenty of stories myself on this research, from the social brilliance of hyenas to the foresight of birds. But if these faculties are so great, then why aren't more animals smart? The answer, experiments suggest, is that learning and memory have nasty side-effects. They can even shorten your life (at least if you…

SFN blogging: Jake's been deflowered

Almost too cute for words. Poor SFN conference virgin Jake just got his cherry popped. I tried to warn him that this conference is nuts, but does anybody ever listen to me? NOOOOO. This afternoon had a good run of posters relating to transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer's Disease. Got me thinking a bit about the utility of these models and what we're really testing with them. Ok ok, so I already thought about all this stuff before but I realized that I need to do a blog post on them. I'll collect my thoughts on the matter and get back to you, dear reader. In the meantime, I got to hit…

One Night In Bangkok

Another interesting twist in my life is at the gym. It turns out that Kru Scott is sufficiently satisfied with my progress and prior exposure that he's going to let me skip the Level I test and go straight to Level II. This means I get to cut at least a full year off my training time! Likely I will be able to test for my Muay Thai Assistant Instructor certification in the next year to year and a half. That is freakin' awesome. What is not freakin' awesome is the physical condition I'll have to be in for the test, which will likely occur in November. I've got about 3 months to get in the…

The Synapse vol 1, issue 4

Welcome to the 4th edition of The Synapse, a blog carnival for all things mind and brain held every two weeks. A little shorter than normal this round, due to the fact that there's a grant deadline tomorrow and a lot of regulars are busy busy little monkeys, self included. The neurophilosopher presents Artificial animals controlled by a "brain" in a culture dish posted at The neurophilosopher. Nifty pics of rat cortical neurons grown on an electrode array are included. Mind Hacks brings us a poignant topic, the Neuropsychology of combat and chemical warfare where the effects of chronic…

Blogging on the Brain: 1/04

A downright amazing post on cognitive dissonance at Mind Hacks. Gesturing unlocks children's math skills. An entertaining review of new work on inner speech. A new case of simultagnosia (the inability to see more than one object at a time). Repressed memories: a "culture-bound" syndrome? Tabloid language in Nature Neuroscience? Frontal Cortex discusses a new book on electroconvulsive therapy (but I disagree this is a contrarian perspective - ECT has always been known to be highly effective). PsychCentral discusses the collected videos of a guy who's documenting his ongoing…

On My Way

In less than 24 hours I'll be going through security checks, hoping my stopover in Warsaw will go smoothly. Nothing is packed yet, but the credit card that was eaten by a voracious ATM at the beginning of the  week has been replaced, gifts have been purchased for various people, included the couple who will be hosting me for three nights, pants have been hemmed. Still not convinced that the new card will work in Danish machines. My cell phone company has just replaced my trusty old "dumb" phone with a brand new "smart" one in hopes I'll use lots of apps and  internet services. That smart…

An Academic Love Story

Four years ago today a young researcher at the beginning of his graduate program in primatology sat down with the most intelligent, engaging, and downright beautiful fellow primate he'd ever had the opportunity to share a beer with. Freshly minted with her Master's degree in women's studies (emphasizing public policy), our conversation quickly moved to a discussion of evolution and male vs. female strategies. It's only in hindsight that it seems bizarre to be talking about theories of male promiscuity and female choosiness on a first date. I had recently returned from my first primate…

The Scientific Revolution is Open

Scientific innovation relies on open communication and always has. It has only been through the free exchange of information and ideas that scientific pioneers have expanded the boundaries of knowledge. Through books, pamphlets, letters, journals, and now blogs, scientists communicate their results and imagine new frontiers in the natural world. But even as we reach our highest point of scientific achievement have we failed to learn the lessons that history teaches? The barriers to science have always come in the form of restricting information. Figures such as Copernicus, Kepler,…

I Got the Swine Flu Vaccine, Falling for Obama's Socialist Plot

Here I am getting the H1N1 vaccine. With a four-month-old infant I am in the high-risk group that Health Canada recommends should receive an earlier dose as flu season kicks in. After all of the concern about debilitating side effects or even getting the virus from the vaccine (which would be impossible), I can report that I only experienced a brief feeling of light headedness and a mild headache. However, the latter may have been produced by the headline I saw that business executives on Wall Street got access to the limited supply of the vaccine ahead of many health clinics. According…

Kea "laughter" is contagious too

Photo of a kea by Mark Whatmough - Milford Sound, Key Summit, The Divide, Queenstown, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Most of us have heard the phrase: Laughter is contagious. When we hear other people laughing, we often smile even if we have no idea why they are laughing. Dr. Sophie Scott from the University College of London and her colleagues played both positive sounds (like laughter) and negative sounds (like retching or screaming) to subjects and found the sounds activated the premotor cortical region of the brain. This area of the brain is responsible for preparing facial muscles…

Sex Differences in Stress Responses

A recent study published in the American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology presents evidence that altering the sex of just the fat body in heads of fruit flies (Drosophila) causes them to have stress responses similar to the opposite sex. Males and females vary in their response to stress. It turns out that this difference is not unique to mammals as male and female fruit flies also show similar variations. In fruit flies this is thought to be due to differences in the neuronal circuits between the sexes, which may also explain some of the variability…

Lottâs letter to the Economist

Kevin Drum is dismayed that the Economist has printed a letter from Lott: Contrary to your claims of the Americanisation of armed robbery in Britain, one could only hope that robbery in England and Wales was truly becoming Americanised ("You're history", January 3rd). The International Crime Victimisation Survey shows that for 2000, the latest year available, the robbery rate in England and Wales was twice America's rate. Equally tellingly, your figure shows that armed robberies stopped falling in England and Wales in 1997 and started rising…

A mechanism behind increased body temperature with stress

Shivering is one mechanism by which heat is produced in the body. Heat production is called thermogenesis. Another mechanism is through nonshivering thermogenesis regulated by brown fat (i.e. adipose). This second type of heating mechanism kicks in when we need extra heat production such as a postnatal infant, someone developing a fever, an animal arousing from hibernation, eating, or in the case of the current study, stress. A recent study published in the American Journal of Physiology provides evidence that during stressful events brown adipose tissue can elevate body temperature through…

Oh, wait, that's right, I have a BLOG

Um, hi. Apparently I've been gone for a while. Yeah. Sorry about that. Life's been a bit crazy around here lately, and I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water. I'm not sleeping. I'm not taking care of myself. I'm sick. I'm stressed to the gills. I have way too much to do. I feel like I work all the damn time. Hmmm, maybe that's because I *do* work all the damn time. In addition to not having time to breathe blog, I haven't really been in the headspace to blog. I have a ton of stuff on my mind, but I'm not sure how to blog it. It's all about tenure, of course: the…

An open letter to my circadian rhythm and my brain

Dear Circadian Rhythm and Brain, Cut it out, both of you. I don't know if this is your idea of a sick practical joke or what, Circadian Rhythm, but I really, really, really do not appreciate being jolted wide awake at 4am. The first time it was regrettable, but now that it's been happening for several days running....well, I am not amused. It's not like I'm going to bed super-early lately---no, bedtime has been our same old, normal time. So what gives? Are you bored? In a bad mood? Did I piss you off somehow? It's not funny. Stop it. And you, Brain....you know, I expected better from…

Research Blogging Editor's Selections

As many of you probably know, when I am not working in the lab or posting here at Obesity Panacea I am also a content editor at ResearchBlogging.org. Each weekday a different Research Blogging editor selects their favourite posts from the past week in their area of expertise, and you can find my favourite posts on Health and Clinical Research here every Wednesday. Since there are always great Health-related posts on Research Blogging that don't necessarily overlap with obesity/fitness/nutrition, I don't usually cross-post my Research Blogging selections here on Obesity Panacea. But this…

Donohue on multiple victim public shootings

In footnote 40 of his article The Impact of Concealed-Carry Laws (in Evaluating Gun Policy), John Donohue comments on Lott's claims about multiple-victim public shootings: In the wake of a recent school shooting in Germany that killed 14, Lott summarized his finding from the Lott and Landes study: "multiple-victim public shootings fell on average by 78 percent in states that passed [right-to-carry] laws." John Lott, "Gun Control Misfires in Europe," Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2002, A16. Although the results may at first seem persuasive, there is a major…

One interface for everyone for every need?

Is it possible or even desirable to have one search interface that serves every need? I have about 10 minutes to write this placeholder of a post. Hopefully, I'll get the opportunity to revisit this topic near and dear to my heart later. I've often railed against naive librarians and administrators who insist we need "google boxes" as our only interface for every system, for every need, regardless of what is behind the box. In fact, we just fought this battle had this discussion with our enterprise search consultants, but anyhoo. This particular post was prompted by Martin Fenner's discussion…

Ta-da!

So there I was... merrily blogging along for 5 years... when all of the sudden... the borg needs librarians (and who doesn't?). Please allow me to introduce myself. I am a librarian in a university-affiliated research lab. Our lab does mostly physical sciences and engineering. My favorite things to research go BOOM or WHOOSH! I wrote a long post on what librarians do, but what you need to know about me, is that I do in-depth literature searching and I'm embedded in some teams. In-depth means that I might work 40 hours or so on something and the completed product is an annotated…

Baby Peter: Why protect the criminals

From BBC News: The extra cost of providing security for the three people identified as allowing the death of Baby Peter could rise to £1m a year, a union has said. For those outside in UK, this is a heart-wrenching case of a baby being tortured to death. After reading the above news, I wonder how far a society can push The Law before The Law reaches its breaking point. What is the justification for protecting those who tortured and killed a baby? If the criminal mother after release decides to have another baby, is it OK? When I started this post, I was seething with anger. But, one must…

We The Hypocrites

TV in India is mostly cricket, pelvic thrusts, incessant family drama prattle and rivers of tears, bored religious pundits fleecing eager supplicants, passionate debate about nothing by know-nothings, and more recently, the shameless exploitation of the terrorist attacks in Bombay. The carnage in Bombay is impossible to comprehend and the grief impossible to console, but for the commercial media all of this is great television. Nissim Mannathukkaren writes in The Hindu of the hypocritical outrage and the selective amnesia that plagues the well-to-do citizens of our great fucking nation and…

You Don't Understand Our Audience

John Hockenberry on the big Media Networks and what he learnt by working for them, at TR. A passionately written account of why they are so fucked up. The most memorable reporting I've encountered on the conflict in Iraq was delivered in the form of confetti exploding out of a cardboard tube. I had just begun working at the MIT Media Lab in March 2006 when Alyssa Wright, a lab student, got me to participate in a project called "Cherry Blossoms." I strapped on a backpack with a pair of vertical tubes sticking out of the top; they were connected to a detonation device linked to a Global…

Astrology, Indian Marriages and Silly Beebs reporters

Once again the perennially aggravating subject of Indian marriages is in the news at the beebs. The reporter sez No Indian wedding can even begin without a visit to the astrologer, who for centuries, read the charts and mapped the planetary alignments to pick the best matches. Now, even they have had to adapt. "Many of my clients have very specific requests," says NS Murthy, one of the city's top astrologers. "Last year, I saw more than 6,000 horoscopes. My clients want to know about the prospects for the future, their prosperity, happiness, the number of children they'll have, and even their…

Winner of the Unintelligent Design Contest

Ladies and gentlemen! The Flounder! If you look closely, the flounder fish has a rather remarkable head. There's something amiss with the placement of its right eye and the way its mouth opens. Its as if it was a normal fish like, say the discus fish, that lived a normal life and one day some crazy demented person came along and said, "So you are a normal fish, eh? Let's see. I'll drop you on the sea floor and make you move about on your sides flat on the floor. That eye you are now dragging in the mud, let me twist your head around to bring it to the same side as the eye facing the sky. Of…

An excerpt from a famous scifi novel

THE year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to mention rumours which agitated the maritime population and excited the public mind, even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were particularly excited. Merchants, common sailors, captains of vessels, skippers, both of Europe and America, naval officers of all countries, and the Governments of several States on the two continents, were deeply interested in the matter. For some time past vessels had been met by "an enormous thing," a long…

Holidays in Hell by P J O'Rourke

Like most people who don't own Bermuda shorts, I'm bored by ordinary travel. See the Beautiful Grand Canyon. OK, I see it. OK, it's beautiful. Now what? And I have no use for vacation paradises. Take the little true love along to kick back and work on the relationship. She gets her tits sun-burned. I wreck the rental car. We've got our teeth in each other's throat before you can say 'lost luggage'. Nor do attractions attract me. If I had a chance to visit another planet, I wouldn't want to go to Six Flags Over Mars or ride through the artificial ammonia like in a silicone-bottomed boat at…

We have not yet begun to fight!

Today is the last day in the month of June, and so the last day that you can click on these awesome blogs, and have the proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders. So click once, or twice, or many many times! The Intersection On Becoming A Domestic And Laboratory Goddess Aetiology Neurotopia Bioephemera The Questionable Authority Adventures in Ethics and Science DrugMonkey Blog Of The Moderate Left Seattle Grassroots Examiner the rugbyologist Sciencewomen And of course, a huge thank you to the many, many blogs who helped spread this around. Sci hopes that this is just the beginning, that we…

Get inside mind-bloggers' heads with this interview series

Research Digest blog, the highly useful and content-rich site that tracks all things psych, just opened its "The Bloggers Behind the Blogs," series, which will run ten interviews with bloggers of mind and brain. It's with a nice interview of Jesse Bering, of Bering in Mind. It's a dandy line-up (of which I'm happy to be part), and I look forward to reading them as they come out, about one a day, over the next couple weeks. Here's who's coming, in alphabetical order. Jesse Bering of Bering in Mind -- already posted Anthony Risser of Brain blog. (coming soon) David DiSalvo of Brain spin and…

Gulf drilling got free pass. Now they tell us.

 A Times story this morning reports that, according to both documents and scientists in the US Minerals Management Service (MMS), the MMS routinely silenced safety and environmental warnings from staff in order to grant permits for even huge, high-risk drilling permits, including the BP rig that blew. It's a good (and nauseating) story, and I'm tempted to say it's timely. Yet this story would have been a lot more timely before the rig blew, no? As I read it, I wondered why I had not read it weeks ago, when the Obama administration started proposing an expansion of drilling off US coasts.…

H5N1: Canada: "An epidemic of confusion"

September 30, 2009 Canada: "An epidemic of confusion" Via the Globe and Mail, Caroline Alphonso writes: Provincial flu strategies all over the map. Excerpt: Two provinces and a territory have split ranks with the rest of Canada's health authorities in their fall immunization plans, sowing public confusion and raising questions of whether Canadians are being offered the safest options.  The hodge-podge of vaccination strategies comes after a controversial, unpublished study suggested that people under 50 are twice as likely to contract the H1N1 virus if they have received a seasonal…

It's always the man's fault.

Women know this is true. Men know it, too, I think, they just don't want to admit it. Now it's supported scientifically. New research out of the University of Michigan suggests that the economic crisis could really be the fault of you horny dogs - so there! The study sought to determine if men's financial habits, aka overspending and conspicuous consumption, were related to his desire to impress possible mates. They compared data taken from men aged 18-45 about their past, current, and desired future physical encounters with their degree of financial consumption. "It gives an ultimate…

DNA - the next duct tape!

Everyone knows there are a million uses for duct tape. But did you know that DNA does a lot more than just store our genetic blueprints? Yeah, it turns out that the structure of DNA can be used for all kinds of things. Like optic cables, for example. A team of Swedish scientists has come up with a new technique that allows DNA strands to be converted to microscopic fiber optic cables. The wires literally build themselves - using the nature of DNA's structure to create helices - from a mix of DNA and molecules called chromophores that can absorb and pass on light. The team used single type of…

No Relief For Whales

This week, two different announcements have given the whales of the world the right to be upset. It seems they can get no relief from the constant pressures we place on their populations. Firstly, the US Supreme court decided that Navy sonar was more important, so they overturned a lower courts ruling that forced the Navy to restrict sonar practices within 1.5 miles of a whale. It sets a precedent that shoots down activist attempts at whale protection. While I understand the need for national security, it just sucks for the whales off the coast of California. Then, all hopes of reduced…

M&M Evolution on Craigslist

An entertaining posting on craigslist: Survival Of The Fittest Date: 2007-08-30, 2:03PM EDT Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels. Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round. I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically…

How to make Brainzzz for Halloween

Ahh Halloween - when neuroscientists find all sorts of fake brains for sale and recipes to create them. This is our yearly reposting of the greatest brain recipe of all time. This recipe was inspired by the one Alton Brown did a few years back. I liked the idea but wasn't thrilled with the recipe, so I came up with my own. By the way, I would suggest getting this mold - it looks a lot more lifelike. Panna Cotta (brain style) with Pomegranite Sauce Get the recipe below the fold! 1 cup milk 5 teaspoons unflavored gelatin 4 cups heavy cream 1 cup + 1 Tb sugar, divided pinch salt 2 Tablespoons…

Why the belief that Autism and Vaccinations are linked will never go away

There is a great article today on Slate about why the pretty ridiculous idea that vaccinations containing trace amounts of mercury cause autism will never go away. Here's the first little part of the article: At the recent 12-day hearing into theories that vaccines cause autism, the link between the disorder and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine came across as shaky at best. As for the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which was used in other vaccines, witnesses showed that in all known cases of actual mercury poisoning (none of which caused autism), the dose was hundreds or…

Gorillas in the fog - Not a case of inattentional blindness

We all know, thanks to Dan Simons and Chris Chabris (unless you've been living under a rock), that if we're really paying attention to something we can miss something else entirely... like a gorilla walking into the middle of a room and banging on its chest. Check out the video here. (Clearly this won't work for you now since you know what to look for, but there are some other examples on Dan Simons'' site that you can check out as well.) In any case ... on to the main story here which is really the complete opposite of Inattentional Blindness. This time the gorilla suit was meant to bring…

Want to start your week pissed off? Here ya go!

Is this an April Fools Joke?! Here's a challenge for everyone - see how many you can debunk! 1. Men's brains are larger, but as they age, they also shrink faster than women's brains. 2. Women's brains operate at a higher temperature, due to burning more glucose. 3. Women use more of their brains when they think. 4. In general, men are better at math and women are better at language skills. This is suggested by research on the brain that has found that the "gray matter" in men's brains is more active during thought while the "white matter" in women's brains is more active. Gray matter is the…

Overfishing, Rising Fuel Costs, and Subsidies

As Josh just mentioned, overfishing is an underestimated problem. Furthermore, new research from UBC Fisheries Centre economist Rashid Sumaila (and one of my esteemed committee-members!) shows that rising fuel costs may not keep fishers, big or small, off the water, to the extent that governments continue to subsidize fuel costs (which account for 60 percent the cost of fishing). At present, fuel subsidies account for roughly 20 percent of the $34 billion in annual fisheries subsidies. These subsidies are taxpayer monies redirected to fishermen often in the form of grants, loans, tax…

Banner a la Buell

Everyone has a bad Monday every now and then, right? Here's one for you: at 7a.m. spilled an entire cappuccino on my laptop and at 7p.m. I hit some black ice on the highway and rolled (and totaled) my truck. That is what I call a rough Monday...but what a banner, no? Carl Buell is one of the most sought after paleo-artists. He brings life to fossils. Been looking for a ground sloth painting for your living room? Carl Buell is your man. Carl and I first crossed paths back in 2004. If you start researching scientific illustrators that specialize in ecological history, it doesn't take long to…

The Environment & Mod Squad

Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org As this Wall Street Journal piece points out, Rep. Wayne Gilchrest's primary loss two weeks ago accelerated the decline of another endangered species: the Moderate Republican. Organizations like the Club for Growth, which raised and spent over $1 million for Gilchrest's primary opponent, have aggressively targeted what they refer to as "RINO's" (Republicans In Name Only), with the explicit goal being to run them out of the party. The result is an increasingly uni-polar Republican party that brooks no dissent from party orthodoxy, rather…

Politics Tuesday (on Wednesday): Gilchrest Under Assault From the Right

Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org I know I promised last week to talk about why we aren't planning to endorse anyone in the presidential race, but there's a Congressional primary coming up that really needs attention right now. The Politico has a great story up about the primary race being faced by Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-Md.), one of the best Republican champions the oceans have in Congress ("Maryland incumbent receives right jab"). Gilchrest is one of a dying breed - the moderate Republicans - and he's frequently been out of step with his party on environmental issues (he once…

Shifting World Records for Fish Sizes

When I posted about the top shifting baselines stories of 2007, including the story on smaller Euro series spearguns (to shoot smaller fish), one kind reader wrote to me asking if I'd heard how, in 1996, the International Underwater Spearfishing Association reset world records, creating 20th century records and a new 21st century category. I had not. And I'm floored. The world record reset is likely a result of most fish getting smaller and changes in species for which hunting is encouraged. Here is a quote from the IUSA: As part of the reorganization, the Board of Directors had to address…

Sweet Testes Lead to Trouble for Urchins

They look as appetizing as a cactus and taste like low tide, but not even that has been enough to keep New Brunswick's green sea urchins out of a prickly predicament.This was the lede to an interesting story on urchin overfishing in yesterday's Seafood News. The article goes on to explain the sea urchin fishery off of New Brunswick and how the Japanese penchant for sweet urchin gonads (sometimes called 'roe') are leading this urchin to an overexploited status. [Green sea urchins] were once considered a nuisance by some of the same men who now pursue them. Indeed, lobster fishermen once…

E.J. Dionne on the Arne Duncan choice

E.J. Dionne makes an interesting observation about Obama's pick of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education. Because Duncan gets along with teachers unions but is also seen as a reformer, his selection was interpreted as a politically shrewd, split-the-difference choice. But that is not the whole story. Lurking behind Obama's talk about getting beyond ideology and stale disputes is an effort to undercut the success that conservatives have enjoyed in framing arguments that leave Democrats and liberals at an automatic disadvantage. To declare that the only test of a politician's commitment to…