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Science by the pint - get your science and drink it too

Local announcement for folks in the Boston area: Science by the Pint is back in full force for its second season at a new venue, the Tavern in the Square in Porter Square. Science by the Pint is SITN's own science cafe - a fun, informal event where scientists mingle with the general public to talk about their research, why they do it, and how it affects the world. Join us the second Tuesday of each month from 7-9pm. In our next Science by the Pint, Elizabeth Thomas and her colleagues from Brown University will chat about their work studying climate change in the recent past and present. Join…

Impact of the Japan earthquake and tsunami on animals and environment

I've got a new piece over at the Scientific American Guest Blog: On Friday, March 11, Japan was rocked by an earthquake. People were displaced, a nuclear reactor was in trouble, and the world watched as a tsunami flooded Japan, threatened the islands of the Pacific, and ultimately hit the western coasts of North and South America. Chris Rowan pointed out that "Very little of the devastation resulting from this earthquake was from the initial shaking. This is partly because of Japan's stringent building codes. But mainly because any damage from the seismic waves that sent skyscrapers in Tokyo…

Sequencing Venter's Microbes

Jonathan Eisen reveals the real motivations behind Craig Venter's ocean metagenomics project. It was just a few years ago that Dr. Venter announced that the human genome sequenced by Celera Genomics was in fact, mostly his own. And now, Venter has revealed a second twist in his genomic self-examination. Venter was discussing his Global Ocean Voyage, in which he used his personal yacht to collect ocean water samples from around the world. He then used large filtration units to collect microbes from the water samples which were then brought back to his high tech lab in Rockville, MD where he…

Yo, Dudes, Surf's Up on this Meme

Everyone's jumping on this meme, but I'm not gonna do it. Ooops . . . Looks like I just did it. Anyway, blogging's been light recently. Hopefully I can get my act together and have some posts up later this week. And by "get my act together" I mean procrastinate from doing real work by writing blog posts. They're also all doing this meme. Turns out, I'm a "SoCal surfer". Makes sense -- I grew up a few blocks from the ocean. Of course, it could be worse. I could have grown up in Huntington Beach. Then I'd really sound like Spicoli. What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West…

Amelia Earhart's Finger Found in Pacific?

If you go to a place where humans have lived for hundreds of thousands of years and bone happens to be well preserved, you will find bits and pieces of people on a regular basis. If you go to a Polynesian island and look for bones you are more likely to find a turtle or fish bone than a human bone. Thus, when I see .... ... an array of artefacts from the 1930s and bones found on the uninhabited Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro suggest that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, endured lingering deaths as castaways on a desert island and were eventually eaten by crabs. Advertisement: Story…

More on Kansas Voter Intimidation by Republicans and Teabaggers

The Kansas Democratic Party has leveled a charge of voter intimidation and has filed a complaint with the Kansas Attorney General's office. According to the Kansas Democratic Party, they received allegations from "individual" voters from around Kansas who claimed to have received a robo-call from who they called an "as yet named Republican organization" reminding them to bring their voter registration card and proof of home ownership with them to the polls on Nov. 3. First, the election is slated for Nov. 2 and second, Kansas voters are not required to bring a voter registration card nor…

A learned fool

It seems to be a theme here lately: people with serious credentials in science and medicine who then profess their belief in gods and magic and make public asses of themselves. Next up: Brad Harrub. Dr Harrub has a Ph.D. in neurobiology and anatomy from the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee. He is a member of the Church of Christ, director and founder of Focus Press, Inc., co-editor of 'Think' magazine, and a featured writer in various Christian journals. Books he has co-authored include 'Diamonds in the Rough: Nuggets of Truth from God's Word', 'Investigating Christian…

"It would be as if any discussion of intercontinental navigation required a preliminary discussion of why the evidence shows that the earth is not flat"

I've been ranting lately about how I don't like the term "risk aversion," and I was thinking it might help to bring up this post from last year: This discussion from Keynes (from Robert Skidelsky, linked from Steve Hsu) reminds me of a frustrating conversation I've sometimes had with economists regarding the concept of "risk aversion." Risk aversion means many things, but in particular it is associated with attiitudes such as preferring a certain $30 to a 50/50 chance of having either $20 or $40. The standard model for this set of attitudes is to assume a nonlinear function for money. It is…

Is Palin a Young Earth Creationist?

OMG! The LA Times has an article from over the weekend that details a 1997 interaction between a Wasilla resident, Philip Munger, and then Mayor Sarah Palin. Now this is one man's story from a decade ago, but if it is true, then she is officially a worse candidate for VP than Dan Quayle ever was. There has been a lot of talk about Governor Palin's faith, but believing in God is a far cry from believing that man walked the earth with dinosaurs. Obviously Mr. Munger has a bone to pick with the Governor, but the story, if true, disturbs me to the core nonetheless. From the article: Palin told…

Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life

What a great title for a book. Here's a review of Nick Lane's latest from the March 31st edition of Science (subscription required). From the review: Lane [a science writer whose previous book Oxygen (1) was well received and whose doctoral research involved free radicals and mitochondrial function in organ transplants] is clearly fascinated with the origin of the eukaryotic cell. He devotes considerable attention to (frequently controversial) theories for that origin as well as to the beginnings of life itself and to the ways in which mitochondria have subsequently evolved within the cell.…

More Enjoying The Ocean

So obviously this challenge is easier for some. But don't hesitate to be creative! CK and MikeG have it easy. As CK notes this is a "photo on the walk back from lunch today. Don't hate us because we work here... (note this is one of our crappy beaches, so as not to make people up north or inland feel too bad)." Sounds like a challenge to me! But don't let this get you down! I happen to know MikeG's office is a broom closet with no windows. CK also dragged some friends to the beach for a picnic. BarnOwl fulfilled this week's challenge in a creative way. I managed to enjoy the ocean this…

Thumbs Down on Rimonabant

Following up on the wacky tobaccy post, the FDA advisory panel voted 14-0 against recommendation of rimonabant to move forward as a treatment for obesity, citing the need for further safety studies. As noted, the primary concerns are psychiatric/neurological issues. I really can't resist a "No shit, Sherlock!" as pertains to the psychiatric and neurological issues. The endocannabinoid system is under scrutiny for psychiatric indications, i.e., new antidepressants and anxiolytics. It's not exactly unexpected that such adverse effects might arise given the different responses among…

Friday Flower Porn: Metal Leaf

Today's offering is a departure from the usual floral genitalia. I found this specimen at Marquand Park in Princeton. This park sports a variety of ornamental trees. I believe this is a leaf of Fagus sylvatica, the European beech, likely the atropunicea variety, the same species as the "copper beech" shown in todays Orgasmic sparklers and single cask malt Scotch entry. Carotenoids and anthocyanins contribute to the coloration. The Wellesley College Web of Species has a good description of Fagus sylvatica. Beeches of both European and American origin have smooth grey bark, and have…

Ann Molineux and Donald Ewert

President-elect of Austin Geological Society. PhD from UT, masters from Cambridge "hence my strange accent." Reads a letter from Geol. Soc. They reiterate NAS definition of science: "The use of evidence to construct testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the knowledge generated through this process." Asks that amendments from January be dropped. Don't blur the boundary between science and pseudoscience. No questions. Ewert: Insists that his work on bacteria proves that evolution is wrong. Bacteria stay bacteria, etc. Not if you ask Richard Lenski. Anyway…

Light Drinking and Pregnancy

It's one of those modern taboos: pregnant women must abstain from alcohol. Even a sip of wine in a restaurant can lead to menacing glances from passerby, as they imagine a fetus drunk on Chardonnay. According to a new study, however, the taboo has it backwards: women who drink lightly while pregnant are less likely to have children with behavioral and cognitive problems. The research, led by a team at the University College of London, analyzed thousands of pregnancies drawn from a large British government survey. As expected, heavy drinking mothers put their offspring at serious risk for a…

SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Report for 10/28-11/3/2009

The latest of volcano news from around the world, brought to you by the USGS and Smithsonian Institute Global Volcanism Program (and especially Sally Kuhn Sennert!) Highlights this week include: Karangetang in Indonesia produced a couple 3 km/10,000 foot steam-and-ash plumes according to reports from pilots. Soufriere Hills on the island on Montserrat has had quite a few pyroclastic flows over the last few weeks since the volcano started erupting again. Mix that with some heavy rainfall and lahars were produced as well. The alert level is still at Orange at Karymsky in Kamchatka, which…

Halema`uma`u rockfall update: Lava wins again!

A quick update on the rockfall in the Halema`uma`u (got it right this time!) Crater at Kilauea. Last week a rockfall blocked the vent that had been glowing for most of the year from the lava below, but the debris clogged the vent, producing minor accidental tephra explosion. Lava in the recently "clogged" Halema`uma`u vent at Kilauea. Taken July 6, 2009, courtesy of HVO. Well, it didn't take long for lava to retake the "clogged" vent. New video from HVO shows lava bubbling back up through the clogged vent (see the video in the above link). The lava has formed a small lava and even produced…

REPRISE: Dead Birds Do Tell Tales

tags: lories, Loriinae, Loriidae, ornithology, molecular biology, natural history museums A young pair of Meyer's Lories (Lorikeets), Trichoglossus flavoviridis meyeri. Image: Iggino [larger view]. "Can you help us identify a mystery lory in our collection?" I was pleasantly surprised to find this email request from Donna Dittmann, Collections Manager and Museum Preparator for the Section of Genetic Resources at Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. "Sure," I wrote back. "Send it to me and I'll see what I can do." I, and some of my lories,…

Tangled Bank #77

Welcome to another edition of Tangled Bank, a round-up of the best science blogging of the past fortnight: Top story--mammals and the KT event Since the previous Tangled Bank, a few big stories hit the blogosphere. One that generated a lot of attention was a paper in Nature analyzing mammalian diversity, and its relation to the K-T extinction. This was picked up by: Greg Laden: Mammals and the K-T Event RPM of evolgen for his Phylogeny Friday. PZ's "Don't Blame the Dinosaurs" Grrl Scientist: Mammals Began to Diversify Prior to K/T-Boundary Nick Matzke at Panda's Thumb: Mammalian…

Challenging the Chip

By David A. Sonnenfeld It is rare that public health professionals, labor advocates, community activists, and university scholars come together at one place and time to discuss the past, present, and future of health and environmental challenges of a major industrial sector. It is even rarer that we manage to sustain a years-long collaboration in analyzing, documenting, and discussing such challenges, resulting in the publication of a peer-reviewed handbook for workers and advocates focused on that sector. Yet that is exactly what has been accomplished with last year's publication of…

Scientific Perspectives on the Greenhouse Problem?

So: "Scientific Perspectives on the Greenhouse Problem" by Jastrow, Nierenberg and Seitz, published by the Marshall Institute, has turned up. Now I have to read it. I got mine from abebooks, if you're interested. One thing to note is that it was published in 1990, and so has access to IPCC '90: they explicity acknowledge this in the preface, and ref it in chapter 1. I'm expecting that to be relevant, excuse-wise. Preface: largely neutral; small "skeptic" slant due to over-emphasis of uncertainties. Chapter 1 - reliability of the predictions All is going fairly sanely until Bang! Suddenly,…

Time to Start Watching The Simpsons Again

I used to be a big fan of The Simpsons, but like a lot of people I started losing interest a few years ago. After more than a decade on the air the show seemed to have lost its spark. Well, maybe it's time to start watching regularly again. Tonight episode was first rate. The following synopsis is from memory, so forigve me if I get some details wrong. In tonight's episode, Ned Flanders becomes outraged that the local natural history museum promotes evolution while presenting the Biblical story as a myth. His children are plunged into spiritual confusion by seeing the display.…

Speed bumps for our understanding of ant evolution

The chaotic evolution of colony size in ants.  (Tree re-analyzed from Brady et al 2006, colony data taken from Hoelldobler & Wilson 1990 and other sources) This tree depicts how colony size evolves in ants.  The purple/blue colors represent small colonies with only a few to a few dozen ants, while the yellows and oranges represent species with enormous colonies of tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals.  What's exciting about this rainbow-colored figure? If you were expecting ant evolution to be an inexorable march towards larger and more complex societies, this tree should…

City mockingbirds can tell the difference between individual people

While the rapid expansion of human cities has been detrimental for most animals, some have found ways of exploiting these brave new worlds and learned to live with their prolific inhabitants. The Northern mockingbird is one such species. It's very common in cities all over America's east coast, where it frequently spends time around humans. But Douglas Levey from the University of Florida has found that its interactions with us are more complex than anyone would have guessed.  The mockingbird has the remarkable ability to tell the difference between individual humans, regardless of the…

Being Complementary About Uncertainty

This semester I took a course on quantum optics. I'm an AMO guy and quantum optics is one of our department's particular strengths, so it was both a very useful class and a pleasure to take. One of the graded requirements of the class is to write a paper from a list of quantum optics with the stipulation that it couldn't be from our own research. Essentially the paper is supposed to be sort of a review article / tutorial on that topic for our own edification, graded for clarity and grasp of the topic. I wrote on which-way detectors and quantum erasers. It's a bizarre and fascinating topic…

Science in the courtroom: is 'made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar' false advertising?

The July 9 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (alas, behind a paywall -- but worth checking to see if your library has an institutional subscription) has an interesting piece [1] on the recently-settled trial in which the makers of Equal (an artificial sweetener based on aspartame) sued the makers of Splenda (an artificial sweetener based on sucralose) over their claim in advertisements, "Splenda is made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar." The makers of Equal (a company called Merisant) asserted that this claim was deceptive. Most of the C&E News piece focuses on the ways the two…

More projectile motion than you can shake a stick at

I don't really know what that title actually means. So, I have been having problems with my PASCO projectile launcher devices. I will just call them launchers (they are really cannons). In my previous post, I looked at the launch speed from a launcher shot horizontally and vertically. The problem was that I was getting different launch speeds for the vertical and horizontal shot. So, here is my plan: shoot the ball and a variety of angles from 0 to 90 degrees and see how the launch speed changes. I will only use the data from video analysis (of course using Tracker Video Analysis)…

Epidexipteryx: bizarre little strap-feathered maniraptoran

Today sees the formal publication of the bizarre little Chinese maniraptoran theropod Epidexipteryx hui Zhang et al., 2008 from the Daohugou Formation of Ningcheng County, north-eastern China. Unfortunately the publication of this new species is not quite the surprise it should be, as the authors inadvertently submitted their manuscript to the wrong venue a few weeks ago, thereby making the article visible to the whole world some time before it was ready to be published. Anyway, we'll just have to pretend that never happened. Belonging to a recently discovered group called the…

Stupidly large snakes, the story so far

It has always been rumoured that some snakes grow to sizes that exceed the 10 m record generally accepted as the authenticated maximum: this was for a Reticulated python Python reticulatus shot on Sulawesi in 1912. Numerous stories and anecdotes discuss Reticulated pythons and anacondas Eunectes murinus that far exceed this, with the most famous of these stories being Major Percy Fawcett's 19 m long anaconda that he claimed to have shot in the Brazilian Rio Abuna in 1907 [scene depicted in adjacent image]. Despite its immense length, Fawcett reported that this snake had a width of just 30 cm…

Dark origins: the mysterious evolution of blood-feeding in bats

Continuing the vampire theme, I here want to discuss another of those really, really interesting things about vampire bats: namely, how did their blood-feeding behaviour evolve in the first place? First off, a big thank you to everyone who's been visiting, commenting and generally saying nice things. The Speculative Zoology post in particular generated a lot of recent interest, and as of yesterday Tetrapod Zoology was the third most-hit site in the scienceblogs community (though still way way behind Pharyngula of course). For some reason I'm unable to post new comments on the Speculative…

From The White House Blog: Robots, Solar Cars and Rockets at the White House Science Fair

Check out the live stream from today's Science Fair at the White House today. Find the full post on the White House Blog. Middle school and high school students from across the country descended on the State Dining Room at the White House today with their award-winning science fair projects in tow. From a robot that plays soccer to a smart toilet that conserves water and an innovative approach to treating cancer, these student projects represent most cutting edge science, technology and engineering.

What is a Word Cloud?

A word cloud is a visual depiction of content (words) used in a body of text. The words in this cloud, are arranged alphabetically and depict more frequently used words in progressively larger fonts. This word cloud (pictured) was generated from my blog. You can generate your own word cloud, from your blog or website, or from a favorite passage of text, and print it on a t-shirt, either for yourself or for your favorite friend blogger. I am almost tempted, myself. [your results will vary]

Beware BlogBurst, Part Deux

More news from Medgadget regarding those misbehavin' blog boyz, BlogBurst, who are apparently in cahoots with several of our nation's newspapers who ought to know better .. tsk, tsk. Dear Blogger: [The] Nation's leading newspapers continue to profiteer, together with BlogBurst service, from an intellectual capital produced by bloggers. In addition, they continue a shameful practice of hot-linking images from bloggers' servers. In essence, newspapers are stealing (!) other peoples' bandwidth. Spread the message and let your readers know! Thanks! Editors Medgadget

Hubble Wrap Up

Hubble is let go, and NASA puts out some new must see video from the Solid Rocket Boosters. Absolutely astonishingly staggering awesome video of the launch, separation, fallback and splashdown. video shot from one of the Solid Rocket Boosters, during launch up to and including drop off and splashdown! The last few seconds are dizzying. Watch all of it, it is worth it, trust me! These videos from the NASAtelevision channel on youtube are amazing. also Hubble release bye (click to embiggen)

Help: 2200 Stern

Stern (presumably to inflate his damage estimates (or am I being unfair? After all, climate change will continue beyond 2100...) runs scenarios out to 2200 (see fig 6.5). But if you look at those pics, the lines are suspiciously straight from 2100 to 2200. So they are interpolated. But from what? SRES only runs out to 2100 (doesn't it?). Do they assume constant CO2 emissions, or levels, from 2100 on? In short, can anyone tell me what fig 6.5 is based on?

It's not really that hard to understand

"It's not really that hard to understand" is the catch phrase in this YouTube video featuring Herman Daly, the subject is the insanity of the economic cult of perpetual growth: I got this from the most recent posting at Things Break, which you should read and be sure to follow the links. I would also offer here the very compelling image from New Scientist that isn't actually clickable from TB's post. (this image is courtesy of New Scientist and is part of this article)

Paddy K's Swedish Extravaganza

Dear Reader, you no doubt have a skewed and seasick perspective on Stockholm, Sweden, from too much of my blogging. What you need is a blog written from Stockholm by a humorous, skeptical Irishman. This genre is of course quite the jungle, with more blogs than anyone can reasonably attempt to evaluate. But take it from me: the one you want to read is Paddy K's Swedish Extravaganza. Another really good blogger who just needs to learn to illustrate and market his writing.

Links for 2010-02-04

From Fish to Infinity - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com I'll be writing about the elements of mathematics, from pre-school to grad school, for anyone out there who'd like to have a second chance at the subject -- but this time from an adult perspective. It's not intended to be remedial. The goal is to give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it's so enthralling to those who get it. (tags: math education science society culture blogs)

Is this all there is then?

I was wondering to myself what posts from 2006 still get significant views. After poking around in the statistics, here is what I found (in order of visits as of May 22nd): pictures of polar bears & mutant beasts from Maine, penis parasites from Grey's Anatomy, Ann Coulter as dashund (I was going to type "weiner dog" but ...), rainbows, shipwrecks that feature cannibalism, clouds, girls playing Tic-Tac-Toe, dumb Americans, and killer wasps. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the public wants.

Beautiful images of our closest living relative

Image of bonobos from www.freewallpaperspot.com Photographer Graham McGeorge has captured remarkable images of bonobos, our closest living relative that share 98.7% of human DNA. The photos depict bonobos engaging in similar behaviors as humans, like the image above from another photographer of bonobos embracing each other. McGeorge also captured images of bonobos caring for their young as well as a bonobo who lost his hair with advancing age. Truly a must-see! Click here to view images from this touching display.

links for 2008-07-03

The Associated Press: AP IMPACT: Race profiling eyed for terror probes We have met the enemy, and he is us. Tropical Depression TWO Forecast Discussion There's a system that's being watched, and may become a tropical storm or hurricane over the next few days. Stop the Presses: Kids Like Cool Animals | Wired Science from Wired.com Time permitting, I may have more on this potential future Ig Nobel winning piece of research. Laelaps : Geese from barnacles A nice history of science piece from Brian ad Laelaps.

Man dies after 3-day online gaming binge

From Yahoo! News: A Chinese man dropped dead after playing Internet games for three consecutive days, state media said. The man from the southern boomtown of Guangzhou, aged about 30, died on Saturday after being rushed to the hospital from the Internet cafe, local authorities were quoted by the Beijing News as saying. "Police have ruled out the possibility of suicide," the newspaper said, adding that exhaustion was the most likely cause of death. It did not say what game he was playing.

Mercury Has been Copyrighted

NASA will no longer be making photographs from its latest Mercury probe available on the internet. Recent evidence from the nearest planet to the sun (that we know about) clearly indicates that the planet has been copyrighted. Legal experts are working on the case now, but feel that a resolution is unlikely. Even stranger evidence has come from Mars, where it has been discovered that Martian Sentient Beings are very, very silly. See this new evidence here at Bad Astronomy. [source of Mercury Photograph]

Gilbert White's pet tortoise, and what is 'grey literature' anyway?

Within recent years, the Palaearctic tortoise fauna has undergone a radical change. If you're interested in the recognition and discovery of new species, in controversy and argument about the status of species, in neat evolutionary stuff such as resource polymorphism and resource-mediated dwarfism, and, least of all, in tortoises, then you should find this a fascinating area. I shall point out to start with that I'm referring specifically to the testudinid tortoises of the genus Testudo, an Old World taxon most closely related to the Asian tortoises (Indotestudo) and the Pancake tortoise…

Comments of the Week #117: From peeking inside a black hole to magnetic monopoles

“According to well-known electrodynamic laws, an electron moving in a magnetic field is acted upon by a force which runs perpendicular to the direction of motion of the electron and to the direction of the magnetic field, and whose magnitude is easily determined.” -Pieter Zeeman We're now full-on into summer here at Starts With A Bang, but that doesn't mean that science slows down at all! Our podcasts are killer with a new one coming soon, the 4th of July has just passed giving way to a huge slew of fantastic outdoor activities, and we've spent the first half of last week focused on astronomy…

Freedom Marches On...

A Republican political operative about to give the First Amendment a rectal exam (photo from here) ...well, not exactly. From the BBC comes this heartwarming story of fear of everything Arab (italics mine): Raed Jarrar said security officials warned him his clothing was offensive after he checked in for a JetBlue flight to California on 12 August. Mr Jarrar said he was shocked such an action could be taken in the US. US transport officials are conducting an inquiry after a complaint from the US Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. JetBlue said it was also investigating the incident but a…

Neandertal & humans - introgression

I've been talking about introgression for a year right now. I've been waiting for the papers on this topic to come out, and the first has. If you haven't, please read the posts from Greg and John Hawks. Another paper is on the way, and Hawks promises something within this week. I strongly suspect that the Paabo group also has something up their sleeves. As I noted earlier the paper from Lahn et. al. is open access, free to the public. Read it, it's an elegant and compact piece of work, and I think they make a compelling case for introgression of an allele implicated in brain development…

Cats in Iraq with H5N1

Avian influenza is capable of infecting mammals other than humans. Like domestic cats. Cats are companion animals ("pets") in Europe and North America and live as closely with humans as birds do in Indonesia, southeast asia and China, perhaps even more closely. They are thus potential bridge vectors from birds to humans, contracting the disease by eating birds and then nestling with people. So far there have been a number of reports of naturally acquired infections probably from birds to cats and from cat to cat but not yet from cats to humans. The possibility that cats might be involved in…

Environment and Humanities Weekly Channel Highlights 9-23-08

In this post: the large versions of the Environment and Humanities and Social Science channel photos, comments from readers, and the best posts of the week. Environment. The ocean off Jamaica. From Flickr, by rappensuncle Humanities and Social Science. A crowd in Venice Beach, California. From Flickr, by Joseph.S Reader comments of the week: The big news in the Environment this week was Hurricane Ike and the destruction it wrought in Texas. Greg Laden's Blog captured the magnitude of the hurricane best in his post 'Flee Ike or Face Certain Death' (What you need to know about Hurricane…

Occupational Health News Roundup

Shortly before the 48th Super Bowl, Hall of Famer and former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Rayfield Wright acknowledged publicly for the first time that he suffers from dementia. "If something's wrong with you, you try to hide it," he told the New York Times' Juliet Macur, explaining why he had concealed his problems. Wright, who sustained more concussions than he could count during his football career, is one of more than 4,500 players who have sued the NFL for hiding what it knew about the health risks from repeated head trauma. The NFL has agreed to pay $765 million to settle the suit,…