Research
terrasig | June 7, 2009
Since last December, we've been involved with a number of good friends in Key West, Florida, on a green initiative that includes the investigations of medicinal plants of the Florida Keys and northern Caribbean. Following from these interactions with students and colleagues at Duke University and in Key West itself, I had the good fortune of being interviewed last week together with conservation biologist Stuart Pimm on KONK-1630AM community radio by Erika Biddle for her biweekly Eco-Centric World program.
Raised in Germany, she participated in the formations of the first political Green…
dmunger | June 4, 2009It's pretty obvious to most people that the two shoes in this picture are the same size:
But if you actually took a ruler to your computer display it would show that the image of my right shoe is nearly twice as wide as the image of my left shoe. Young children will mistakenly say that the real left shoe is smaller than the right shoe; it's only gradually that we learn to take the context of the photo into account and conclude that the shoes are the same size: the shoes appear to be a matched set; the left shoe is a bit out of focus, the railing to the left shows that the left shoe is…
dmunger | May 28, 2009Take a look at this video. Your job: decide which person speaks first:
Click to view Video 1 (QuickTime required)
Let's make this a poll:
Which person in Video 1 speaks first?(web poll)
Now, try another one. Once again, decide which person speaks first:
Click to view Video 2 (QuickTime required)
Make your response here:
Which person in Video 2 speaks first?(opinion polls)
David Rose and Tanya Clark showed videos like this to 17 student volunteers, and asked the same question: who spoke first in each video? The videos are point-light displays, which show movements of particular points on…
dmunger | May 27, 2009A common defense in murder cases is "focal retrograde amnesia": the defendant claims to have simply forgotten what occurred around the time of the crime (perhaps due having consumed too much alcohol or other drugs). In fact, "amnesia" is claimed in as many as 45 percent of murders. Psychologists know that this sort of amnesia is actually quite rare, so it's very likely that most, if not all of these defendants are faking amnesia.
We can confirm that many of these cases are faked: when defendants are given multiple-choice questions about the crime, they get the answers wrong too often. Think…
dmunger | May 25, 2009[This article was originally posted in December, 2006]
I'm not bitter about this, honest I'm not, but it does often seem that people who know you very well end up buying really lousy gifts. What I really want to find out is this: why do they do that? It turns out, market researchers want to know, too. How can they have a prayer of selling people things they don't want when people can't even convince their loved ones to buy them things they do want?
Davy Lerouge and Luk Warlop have designed a clever study to examine this very issue. They wanted to know whether couples who've been together for…
dmunger | May 21, 2009Last night in the U.S. many televisions were tuned to one of the biggest spectacles of the year: the American Idol finale, where America would learn which singer had been chosen as "America's favorite" (or, more cynically, who inspired the most teenagers to repeatedly dial toll-free numbers until all hours of the night). Greta and I are suckers for this sort of thing, so we watched along with the rest of the nation.
What impressed me about the show wasn't so much the prodigious vocal talents of the two finalists, but how everything was put together so hastily: there had been only six days…
dmunger | May 20, 2009When I was in elementary school, we had two recesses every day: 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon. Plus, we had a 30-minute lunch period, and as soon as we finished eating we were free to go outside and play until the bell rang.
So I was a little surprised when our kids started elementary school 30 years later and found that there was almost *no* recess. Even at lunchtime, they all lined up and headed straight for the lunchroom. When they finished (after just 20 minutes), they had to march right back to the classroom for more lessons. The only physical activity they…
zooillogix | May 19, 2009
by Katie the Lowly Intern
Does the sinking feeling of knowing you could have gotten what you wanted had you made better choices in life sound familiar? Like how if in college, had you gotten a real degree, set goals for yourself, and not tried to buy friendships with your credit card, you could possibly now have a steady job, ambition, and friends? If it does, then you may rest easier tonight knowing there is a term for that: "fictive thinking". And guess what... monkeys get it too!
Researchers at Duke University have concluded that monkeys don't respond solely to direct punishment or…
dmunger | May 18, 2009If, like me, you grew up in the U.S. in the 1970s and 80s, you probably remember the game show Name That Tune, where contestants heard brief snippets from popular songs and had to name them as quickly as possible. Even though I didn't know most of the music, which was primarily American Standards from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, I still found the show fascinating. My favorite part of the game was when the two contestants engaged in a bidding war, where a clue was given and the contestants bet on how few notes it would take them to recall the title of the song. Sometimes a contestant could actually…
dmunger | May 13, 2009A few weeks ago, a new study made headlines in major newspapers across the country: Study Finds Some Youths 'Addicted' to Video Games, proclaimed the Washington Post. The Post article cited a figure of 8.5 percent of gamers age 8-18 nationwide showing signs of a behavioral addiction. Since the study found that 88 percent of children play video games, the scale of this problem is potentially vast -- as many as 3 million kids, addicted to video games.
The claim of "addiction" is quite serious. Just doing something a lot isn't enough to qualify as an addiction, it must have a detrimental effect…
dmunger | May 11, 2009I'll never forget the one and only time my mom made quiche for dinner. I was in fourth grade, and she had proudly followed the recipe in "Joy of Cooking" to create an exciting gourmet treat. Naturally, my sister and I absolutely hated it, but mom made us clean our plates. Choking down that quiche (which I now love) is one of my most vivid childhood memories.
This scene, or some version of it, has been repeated countless in kitchens around the world as parents try to introduce new foods to kids who prefer the tried-and-true meals they've grown accustomed to. For some, it might be Brussels…
dmunger | May 7, 2009Joe and Michelle are having dinner at a romantic restaurant. It's their first anniversary, and everything is perfect -- until an attractive woman walks past the table. Michelle notices that Joe casts a quick glance at the woman. Michelle flashes an annoyed glare at Joe, who knows he's in trouble. "I didn't mean to look at her," he pleads, "guys just can't help it when a pretty woman walks by." Michelle gasps. "B-but she's not as pretty as you," Joe stammers, unpersuasively.
Is it really true that we can't help looking at a pretty face? There's a lot of research suggesting that we notice…
terrasig | May 7, 2009The US National Cancer Institute (NCI) has long had programs to make available to researchers any variety of compounds, natural and synthetic. These offerings are administered by the Developmental Therapeutics Program (DTP) of the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD).
So, I was very happy to see this e-mail last evening:
Dear Colleague,
I am pleased to announce that the NCI Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis can now bring a new, important resource to drug discovery efforts. Oncology drugs that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration are being offered…
zooillogix | May 6, 2009I cannot train my dog Mathman not to pee on the damned carpet but New England Aquarium's senior trainer, cryptically known simply as "Erin", can teach a lobster to score higher on the GRE than me.
As some readers of this blog may know, I have long been concerned with growing Lobster / Human tensions as illustrated in this alarmist Geocities site I created in 2000 while hungover in Belgium at "work." So the question I pose is this: will training lobsters lead to mutual understanding or merely create more efficient killers ala the CIA and Taliban circa 1985?
Although it might not make…
dmunger | May 4, 2009The SNARC effect is a fascinating phenomenon (and no, it has nothing to do with cheeky one-off blog posts). When asked to recognize numbers, people react faster with their left hand for low numbers, and faster with their right hand for high numbers. Take a look at this graph:
This shows the results of an experiment led by Samuel Shaki: Twelve Canadian university students were shown a series of single-digit numbers. Their task was simple: as quickly as possible, press one button if the number is odd, and another button if the number is even. This graph charts reaction time of the right hand…
dmunger | April 29, 2009When you selected the college or university you planned to attend, how did you do it? Did you read narratives offered by college guides? Did you compare relevant statistics such as the student/teacher ratio and percent of students who went on to graduate school? Did you listen to the advice of older friends who had attended the school? Or did you visit the school in person? And which of these factors had the most impact on your decision?
For many students, the campus visit is the deal-maker (or breaker). Here at Davidson I've met many students who said they had been undecided, but when they…
bioephemera | April 29, 2009Mark Buchanan, quoting Lee Smolin, on how big science may be biased against innovative iconoclasts:
Some scientists, he suggests, are what we might call "hill climbers". They tend to be highly skilled in technical terms and their work mostly takes established lines of insight that pushes them further; they climb upward into the hills in some abstract space of scientific fitness, always taking small steps to improve the agreement of theory and observation. These scientists do "normal" science. In contrast, other scientists are more radical and adventurous in spirit, and they can be seen as "…
dmunger | April 27, 2009Last year's movie Changeling tells the story, from the late 1920s, of a mother whose son is kidnapped. Then, six months later, the police say they've found the boy and return him to his mother, who immediately claims that the boy they returned was not her son. She's then coerced into taking this child in, and doctors are brought forward to convince her that this is really her son. People change, she is told, and she's has been through severe mental trauma. Surely the best medical minds in the country know better than a single mother.
The film ends up being a scathing indictment of the LAPD,…
dmunger | April 23, 2009Imagine the following scenario:
Matthew is playing with his new kitten late one night. He is wearing only his boxer shorts, and the kitten sometimes walks over his genitals. Eventually, this arouses him, and he begins to rub his bare genitals along the kitten's body. The kitten purrs, and seems to enjoy the contact. How wrong is it for Matthew to be rubbing himself against the kitten?
Or how about this one:
You find a wallet with several hundred dollars in cash, along with credit cards including an American Express Gold Card and ID locating the owner's home in the richest neighborhood in town…
dmunger | April 22, 2009I was a member of my high school debate team, and I did fairly well, but my partner, Glenn, always got better marks from the judges. Most often, they praised his hand gestures, which were proclaimed to be "expressive" and "informative." One year our topic was arms control, and our opponents were arguing that "NATO standardization" could help reduce U.S. arms sales. Glenn didn't understand their argument, so during our precious three minutes of preparation time, I explained it to him. Then he stood up and delivered his rebuttal, using the most graceful hand gestures imaginable. The judges…