Standard oxygen treatment may cause brain damage

From Scientific American, based on the article in PLOS Medicine.
One of those things that probably should have been obvious but nobody ever thought of. The brain stem constantly keeps check on the CO2 concentration in the blood and adjusts bodily function accordingly. When levels are low, a situation known as hypocapnia, the individual begins to hyperventilate, as well as undergo vasoconstriction:

But pure oxygen causes rapid breathing, meaning that as it is pumped into the lungs, more carbon dioxide is exhaled, "and that makes the blood vessels much smaller," says Ronald Harper, a neurobiology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and senior author of the study published today in PLoS Medicine. The shrunken vessels "cannot deliver as much blood—or the oxygen that's in the blood—to the brain" or the heart.

This can cause a cascade of physiological problems. On the plus side, this can be solved by switching standard emergency care from 100% O2 to 95% O2/5% CO2. One caveat though; this study was done only in healthy children. Though I wouldn't expect a difference, it is possible that adult physiology is better capable of handling such a situation. It would be nice to see this same study in adults and some case studies from hospitals with compromised, rather than healthy, individuals.

Blog posts on this topic:
Serial Procrastination

Morality and the modern brain

Take this information either way you like: the more detailed story from Science Daily or the watered down version from MSNBC. I'll be quoting from the MSNBC version.

Grafman and others are using brain imaging and psychological experiments to study whether the brain has a built-in moral compass. The results -- many of them published just in recent months -- are showing, unexpectedly, that many aspects of morality appear to be hard-wired in the brain, most likely the result of evolutionary processes that began in other species.

This would not surprise me at all. Dawkins has already talked about kin selection (thirty years ago in "The Selfish Gene") as a basis for some aspect of altruism. While he was against the idea of group selection, I give it some credit in a society such as ours where it is nearly impossible for the individual to be successful outside of a group setting. But of course this may trouble some:

The research enterprise has been viewed with interest by philosophers and theologians, but already some worry that it raises troubling questions. Reducing morality and immorality to brain chemistry -- rather than free will -- might diminish the importance of personal responsibility. Even more important, some wonder whether the very idea of morality is somehow degraded if it turns out to be just another evolutionary tool that nature uses to help species survive and propagate.

I can understand the point about personal responsibility. But degradation of morality? Please excuse me as I wax poetic, but is the sunset any less beautiful because you understand light refraction? Are lakes and valleys less awe filling because you know of glacial recession? It doesn't matter to me if morality is based on the material brain. It is part of who we are and that is what amazes me.

Blog Posts on this topic:
Debunking Christianity
Grey Thoughts

Professor paid for research favorable to religious education?

So here is a news article that, for some reason, has not yet been making the rounds.

The White House has embraced a researcher whose work suggests religion can do what ample federal nourishment has not -- narrow the achievement gap between white and minority students. The gap narrows by 25 percent in religious schools, said William Jeynes of Cal State Long Beach in the current issue of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion.

I don't know anything about William Jeynes, but here is his information from Baylor University. Apparently this is old news as there was a previous press release and blog reactions already (I particularly like this one for inanity). Nor do I know anything about the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. So I go to the source wondering about their publication policies and find this information under their "Purpose":

Payment. IJRR pays $1,000 for each article upon publication (to be shared among coauthors).

Huh???? Is this standard practice for non-scientific journals? If it is I went into the wrong field. I have never heard of academic journals paying authors for publication and, in fact, I sometimes have to pay just to have my article considered. Since the authors claim to conduct a scientific analysis here, rather than simply offer an opinion piece, does this not cause a conflict of interest? Here I was, planning to write a small post about how correlation does not mean causation (standard bad science fare), and instead this. Looks like I don't need to say anything, as commenters in the news article do a nice job of dissecting the research. But the White House likes this work:

"It's had a lot of impact," said Jeynes, who related his findings at the National Press Club in April. "I received an e-mail the next day from someone who wants me to speak at the White House." The Bush administration also invited Jeynes to hold a forum for the U.S. Department of Education and another for religious leaders.

I need a drink.

Food items in the news

There is a dilemma I have been turning over in my mind. Is it better to buy organic produce produced elsewhere in the world, or local food which is not organically grown? Both have a greater impact on sustainability than local, organic food. So which should I choose? I'm not sure, but in the UK some people are pushing to have air-trafficked food stripped of its organic certification.

In other news, there is the question of what to do with all that fat that is skimmed from cow milk. I myself drink skimmed milk, and would like to know that it is not wasted. In the future, that may not be necessary, as farmers in New Zealand seem to have found a cow that produces milk without saturated fat.

Creation Museum Carnival

The premiere, antepenultimate, penultimate, and ultimate issue of the Creation Museum Carnival is up over at Pharyngula.

And look for the link to the thoughts of yours truly on this monstrosity under the link to "Creation Mausoleum".

Great thanks to PZ for taking on the gargantuan responsibility of putting together this collection!

The lab is a lonely place

I work in a basement. I am literally underground and not many people come by daily to see me. But, at least I don't work in this laboratory.

Perched on a windswept ridge amid the fjords and mountains of Ellesmere Island stands the world's northernmost atmospheric research station - a rugged outpost of frontline science with the delicate name of Pearl.

Brr.

Fallacious arguments in support of the Creation Museum, courtesy of the editorial staff at The Paducah Sun

Here is the article. Let's see how many we can spot using this reference guide.

Which is no small feat given the hostile environment in those universities to anyone who questions the dogma of evolutionary theory. Or, for that matter, any of the other PC dogma of academia.

Red Herring. They are claiming a conspiracy exists.

Pointing out the irony of a science (cosmology and astrophysics) professor reaching his conclusion before looking at the data, ...

Lies. The evidence has been considered and refuted.*

The organization circulating the petitions is called The Center for Rigorous Scientific Research. Oops. No, scratch that. Too logical. The organization is called the Campaign to Defend the Constitution (DefCon), a spectacularly misnamed coalition of religion opponents...

Ad Hominem. And sarcasm too.

But they contend that every view of origins is rooted in faith. One cannot observe macroevolution (change from one species to another) taking place, and therefore anyone who accepts evolution of species must rely on faith.

Oh geez, Straw Man, Lies, Non Sequitur, take your pick.

And, according to creationists, some of the tenets of evolution require considerable faith. Among them: The emergence of living organisms from nonliving matter, something that cannot be replicated.

Non Sequitur. Abiogenesis is not part of the theory of evolution.

The absence of transitional species in the fossil record.

Outdated Information and Lies.

The mathematical improbability of countless species evolving from simple to complex levels through trillions of mutations, which weaken rather than strengthen organisms.

Misunderstanding the Nature of Statistics. Well, math and probability in general.

Does anyone find it ironic that the Creation Museum uses scientific data based on independent research while its opponents resort to intimidation and name calling, using political rather than scientific methods to oppose it?

Appeal to False Authority.

Okay, I'm done. I can't sit here all day and do this, but needless to say I left many others out. Creationist must be excellent magicians because all of their arguments involve distracting the audience from what they should really be looking at, their own sleight of hand.

*See the Talk Origins Archive for answers to the lies made in this editorial.

Brain cells grow following transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

Read the article from New Scientist or the watered down version from BBC. This was an experiment done in mice and the area of interest was the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. There is a good reason the authors were looking in this area. There was already a theory that TMS improved conditions in humans because it enhanced long-term potentiation (LTP), a process which is believed to be the foundation of memory.* If you are looking at LTP and memory, the hippocampus is the goto structure of the brain. So TMS was applied to the hippocampi (?) of these mice and not only was LTP enhanced, but stem cells in this area proliferated at an increased rate. This may be limited, however, just to certain areas of the brain, and to those areas which have experienced decline:

Battaglia thinks TMS could eventually be used to improve learning and memory in people with age-related memory decline and Alzheimer's - which is associated with a loss of neurons in the hippocampus, among other areas. His team is now running a trial to test this theory.

*Although this isn't entirely certain, given the data it would be quite surprising if LTP had nothing to do with memory formation.

Could Intelligent Design be correct?

My mind wandered as I heard this piece on NPR this morning so bear with me while I pull on this thread. Several nations and private groups are creating seed banks as a step to preserve biodiversity in case of mass extinction. What really got me thinking was this part:

But as any gardener knows, put the wrong plant in the wrong place and you're courting catastrophe. For instance, water-loving iris resents being high and dry. Yet if it can't keep up with the fast pace of climate change, how will that iris survive?

Perhaps by borrowing a little DNA from some next-of-kin cactus. And that's what gene-splicing scientists with access to seed banks may some day want to do.

Please indulge me in my science fiction scenario. Let's say there is an environmental cataclysm and Modern Scientists rush to create hybrid plants to fill the new environmental niches. Biodiversity is restored, but civilization crashes and most present knowledge, including the manufacture of these hybrids, is lost. Several generations later, Future Humans relearn genetics and find that many plants are uniquely adapted to their environment. In fact, you can see where I am going with this, many plants seem to have genetic code that specifically helps them, but not related plants. In other words, there does not seem to be a pattern of common descent. Future Humans hypothesize that these plants must have been "intelligently designed" (by the long forgotten Modern Scientist). And that would be absolutely right. But would that be scientific?

I suppose the answer comes down the idea of "belief" versus "acceptance". I don't believe in evolution; I accept evolution as the best explanation of the available data. If Future Humans do not ask questions about who the intelligent designer was and how the designer made these changes, then they have a belief. But if Future Humans seek answers to these questions, they would be rejecting belief in favor of, if they found the evidence, acceptance of the same theory. In both cases Future Human would be right, but in only one case would Future Human be a scientist.

I suppose that is what I expect from modern day subscribers to the hypothesis of Intelligent Design. Who is the designer? What methods did the designer use? Until they seek answers to these questions, they are expressing a belief. If they are right (which they almost certainly are not), then it would be through sheer dumb luck.

Some Jewish parents break ranks

I was happy to see this article about Jewish parents choosing to not circumcise their young children:

The couple, of Berkeley, Calif., are among a small but growing number of American Jews who are questioning what is arguably the most sacred rite in Judaism. Despite an often strong affiliation with the Jewish community, they believe circumcision is inconsistent with the Jewish ethical imperative not to harm another human being.

And it only took several thousands of years for people to start to realize that and write books on the subject. Again, from the article:

But it would be difficult to overstate the significance of the practice in Jewish life, even for the non-observant. There are 613 commandments in Judaism, said Rabbi Moshe Kushner, director of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, but "that single commandment [to circumcise] is equal to the other 612 combined."

This is a mentality that I simply cannot fathom. In a day in age when an increasing number of Jews identify themselves as belonging to an ethnic group rather than a religion, why should God enter into it? Isn't there a voice of reason?:

"They're a little in hiding," she said. "But when people find out we didn't, they come out and say, 'Oh, we didn't either.' People are starting to realize it's not really that important. There are lots of biblical traditions we no longer follow, such as animal sacrifice and polygamy. Circumcision may be another one we don't all follow.

Oh, good. Let's look at this procedure for what it is, cultural body modification. Would we, in our modern society, look away if any group decided that their infants should be branded, tattooed, pierced, lip-disked or otherwise altered(1)? No. So why should this procedure be any different(2)?

(1) Okay, as a society we do accept ear piercings on infants, but I also find that practice deplorable.

(2) Islam, that question goes for you too.

Creation Mausoleum

There is an architectural word for buildings, homes, and monuments whose design elements are expensive, unusual, and, ultimately, without purpose. They are called follies. These include such places as le Palais Ideal, the Winchester House, and Neuschwanstein Castle. They are a testament to designers who had too much time, too much money, or too little brain.

Or possibly all three. In Kentucky, where rolling hills give way to low lying plains and bluegrass waters slowly replenish the Ohio River, lies the town of Petersburg. There, through a union of enough time, enough money, and not enough thought, arises an edifice known as The Creation Museum. It promises enjoyment for any who may pass its doors. Entertainment will surely follow, both for those who consider it austere and those who think it fatuous. For one visit, and then no more.

After that first visit, what value is there in a return to this monument of theology? The British Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the Louvre, all of these rotate exhibits, add new information, remove discredited work. But this can not be so with the Creation Museum. How do you add something new if the Bible itself cannot be added to? How do you update what you believe to be inerrant? How do you further educate if all knowledge of history is fixed? How do you expect to find more than one way to sputter "God did it"?

Of course, you can't. This monument to cultural inertia is misnamed. Behold the Creation Mausoleum. In it are the discarded ideas, naivety, and fears of the youth of mankind. Reject these beliefs, but know them, for there are those who would see them resurrected. But make no mistake. It is a tomb. It is a folly.

Some, unfortunately, may never realize that.

Corticopia: Journal of Neuroscience, 16 May 2007

There is an article about coupling between the pre-frontal cortex and dopamine neurons in the VTA. The VTA receives many inputs, but this may be one part of the feedback loop that is important for reinforcement (or possibly important for initiation of goal-directed learning). One problem I have with this is procedural. They studied this effect in anesthetized animals and we have reason to believe that brains work differently under this condition than when the animals are awake. Plus, chloral hydrate seems to be better known for this effect than other anesthetics. But if all you want to do is establish the circuitry, then this doesn't matter.

Then there is an article looking at exercise in nigro-striatal lesioned animals and whether this improves functioning in striatal neurons. Turns out, not so much. Animals with exercise improved their motor abilities, regardless of lesioning or not. However, exercise only increased levels of dopamine in the striatum of the saline, not lesioned, animals. So, if exercise is beneficial to those suffering from Parkinson's, which it is, then it is through some other mechanism.

American Red Cross still looks good at 126

Today is the anniversary of the founding of the American Red Cross by Clara Barton in 1881. So how do I celebrate? By exsanguination of course!

That was unit 34, so I am 1/3 of the way to my lifetime goal of 100 units. While I would like to encourage everyone to donate blood, I don't do so actively. Many people are not eligible for reasons that they would rather not discuss (former iv drug use, sexual activity, etc.). But if you are interested, look to see if you are eligible and then find a blood drive near you. If you can't or choose not to donate blood, your time or money would also be appreciated.

Those sun-worshipping Amish

I just used up all my cognitive dissonance for today.

Down a curvy road and past square fields, gray barns, still plows and grazing cows, a visitor will eventually arrive at Andrew Stoltzfus' workshop. This is Amish country -- the horse and buggy out back are a dead giveaway -- yet there, in the middle of his shop's rusty metal roof, sits a tiny nod to contemporary society.

A solar panel.

This does help to clear up a misconception that I had:

In the early 20th century, the Amish rejected the enticements of the public power grid, deciding they did not want to be too directly linked to, or dependent on, the outside world, said Donald Kraybill, a senior fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist & Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.

I was always under the impression that Amish eschewed modern conveniences, but it is dependence upon the outside world which they eschew. Then it makes sense why they don't use cars (you have to depend on someone for gas and oil). Maybe they would be in favor of electric cars?

James Dobson rejects Guiliani

Could it be that a Republican candidate is starting to look better to me? James Dobson says that if Rudy Guiliani wins the Republican nomination he may be forced to not vote for any presidential candidate. When I look out at the field of Republican candidates, Rudy is really the only one I would consider possibly voting for.* He was written off by religious and social conservatives before this race started, so I don't think this will affect too much. If anything, it may result in a "Dobson bump" for Rudy from the moderates and non-religious right.

* Things don't look too much better on the Democratic side. It's tough being an independent. And yes, I do know that I ended that sentence with a preposition.

Perhaps hotel business is down

The Gideons are passing out free Bibles ... to school children.

A federal civil rights lawsuit filed Thursday charges that Loranger Middle School administrators lined up all fifth-graders at the Tangipahoa Parish school earlier this month and improperly allowed Gideons International representatives to hand each child a pocket Bible. The suit was brought in U.S. District Court at New Orleans, by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Roman Catholic parents of a fifth-grader given one of the Bibles on May 9.

So what's the big deal? Well, a couple of things come to mind. Does the school plan to make several versions of the Bible, as well as the Koran, Torah, Bhagavad Giti, and any number of other religious texts freely available to all schoolchildren? Do you think that lining up students in the open and then publicly offering them a copy of the New Testament from an authority figure is coercive? Does this have anything at all to do public education?

I personally find those Gideon Bibles in my hotel room annoying. Although I have thought of several things I could do with them, I just leave them alone. Invariably they have a thick layer of dust on them, and I think it would be inappropriate of me to remove that symbolic irony.

Two things from Panda's Thumb

Nick Matzke has something to say about students suing the University of California to force acceptance of their Christian perspective, high school textbooks as sufficiently rigorous. The problem is that, according to this old article, many of these textbooks are not only biased in their viewpoints, they also put religion ahead of the subject matter. Which raises an interesting question: How exactly do you teach a college student to think for themselves when their previous teachers taught them to follow orthodoxy without question?

Then, Nick posts about a review in Science which explores the roots of adult cynicism towards science. While I agree with the sentiment of the authors, I thought the article itself was rather sloppy. First, it is published as a review but could have just as easily been written as an opinion piece. The data is all crammed together into two pages and the authors jump from point to point without really explaining what they mean. Those are the restraints put on a Science article though. I think this could have been a good review article if planned out and given enough length. Second, I hate to say this, but the writing is rather, well, not as great as it should be. It reads like some of the things I wrote as an undergraduate student. It's not bad, it just looks like it was written as a term paper, mindlessly reiterating facts until you convince the prof you have researched enough to get you a passing grade. Just my opinion though.

Update: There is a post at Pure Pedantry that iterates how I fell about the second article much better than I did here. There are also reviews at the Denialism Blog and Mixing Memory, both of whom I think are being a bit too gracious to the writers.

Frank Tipler says God is an incredibly small, dense piece of matter

You will have to read this story to see Frank Tipler's proof of God's existence. Actually after reading the story, I still don't see his proof:

According to the laws of physics, matter, energy, movement and force make up everything in the world, but they all go back to one thing -- what physics calls the cosmological singularity.

Tippler says that cosmological singularity is God.

"What you can show using physics forces this universe to continue to exist," Tipler said. "As long as you're using general relativity and quantum mechanics, you are forced to conclude that God exists."

Okay, first of all somebody has never read criticisms of the anthropic principle. I know this is a pet theory of Tipler's but do people take it seriously anymore? Second, how is assigning a Christian god to a single mass at the beginning of the universe any different from the ancient Greeks assigning Gaia to a single mass (the Earth) at the (presumed) beginning of time? But wait it gets stranger:

In Tipler's equation, even the holy trinity is illustrated.

"The initial singularity, the final singularity, and yet another singularity which connects the two. So they're really three singularities in one," Tipler said.

Tipler is pushing one of his other pet theories here, The Big Crunch, which he calls the Omega Point. And what is this connective singularity he is babbling about? Given the fact that most cosmologists reject the Big Crunch theory and now believe the universe will expand forever, there is only one cosmological singularity, the Big Bang. Looks like Tipler should convert from Christianity to one of those monotheistic religions.

Hey, but I can go along with this. You know all those smaller singularities called black holes? Why those are the saints and angels! And the Crab Nebula? That is Satan himself! Globular Clusters? Silly goose, that's the souls of purgatory, of course!

Simplifying Occam

A recent post on Developing Intelligence has moved me to post on a subject that has bothered me for some time, the misquoting of Occam's Razor. If you speak Latin, here it is:

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

Now, I don't speak Latin, so here is the English translation:

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.

Usually this is restated as:

The simplest answer is usually the correct answer.

This is inaccurate. The simplest answer to anything is that a magical man made everything instantaneously out of thin air, but such an answer certainly has no real value as a theoretical starting point. More accurate, but still incomplete is the following:

Of two equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred.

Better, but not my favorite. The key to Occam's Razor is the emphasis on the entities, not simplicity. If the entities are necessary (like multiple dimensions for String Theory; more entitites and more complicated) this is fine; but if new data renders the entities useless (like aether after Einstein's Theory of Relativity; fewer entities but not necessarily simpler) then they should be discarded. This I why I would prefer Newton's summation:

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

In the end, I must blame someone for this misrepresentation. I choose Lisa Simpson.

Jerry Falwell takes leave

I didn't want to write a post about this, but listening to Hannity on the way home today (yes, that's right, but I only do it for the entertainment value) callers chastised liberal bloggers who were saying men-spirited things about the passing of Jerry Falwell. I just happen to agree with the callers. A man has died, and certainly that is trying for his family and friends. Anyone who takes advantage of death to spout venom and further their agenda is beyond contempt. Such as a person who would say this about 9/11:

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

Of course, he apologized later. As I am sure he did for supporting racial segregation in the US and apartheid in South Africa. His was a heart filled with hate. I am sorry for the loss that his family must endure. But I am not sorry that a voice which preached the gospel of fear is now silent on this green Earth.

Out of Africa ...

The Lancet asked several researchers and doctors to submit opinion pieces in response to the HIV/male circumcision studies recently conducted in Kenya and Uganda. The result? Not nearly as positive as I thought they would be. (These are just summaries mind you, as not everyone on the interwebs is a subscriber.) While two pieces are clearly biased, one implying it's a miracle cure and the other implying it's pure quackery, the other three are reserved. They question the lack of a mechanism, how much the data can be generalized, and whether or not an extensive program of surgical intervention would be cost effective and feasible. It's a case of the scientific data being extended too far by the researchers involved and the press in general. And the opinion pieces were a rather balanced approach to the data I would say.

Punk Science

One way to make a name for yourself in the public sphere is to be a contrarian, a curmudgeon, someone who stands against practically all the conventional wisdom, and even unconventional wisdom, and says "You're wrong." Exhibit 1, Steve Milloy, the director of the ironically titled JunkScience.com. Source Watch tabulates his funding sources and others iterate the errors in his scientific conclusions. Recently he made several claims about the safety of CFLs, almost all of which are of dubious veracity. Now he has written a new piece for Fox News claiming that the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth", which is required viewing for a Roger Williams University science course, is just one viewpoint that should be balanced with videos touting alternative explanations of global warming.

I'm all for skepticism. That's one of the reasons I am in the scientific biz. But when 2,000 international climatologists sign on to a report saying that climate change is real and humans are the cause, it is time to step back and question whether you are missing something. Understand that I am not making an appeal to authority, or saying majority rules. Within science however, if you have little expertise in a field and you are one of a few voices shouting against the mainstream, maybe the problem is with you. Scientific consensus is already a pretty rare thing; despite popular belief, scientists do not sit around in cabals, decide on a particular dogma, and declare it true by fiat. Science thrives on reasonable dissent.

Of course the key word there is reasonable. Take this snip from Mr. Milloy's piece:

Last March, the prestigious New York debating society Intelligence Squared sponsored a debate on global warming. On the alarmist side of the debate were the Union of Concerned Scientists Brenda Ekwurzel, NASA climate modeler Gavin Schmidt and University of California oceanographer Richard C. J. Somerville.

The skeptical view of global warming alarmism was presented by Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorologist Richard S. Lindzen, University of London bio-geographer Philip Stott, and “State of Fear” author Michael Crichton, who is also a Harvard-trained physician and an instructor at Cambridge University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A pre-debate poll indicated that, by 2-to-1 (57 percent to 29 percent, with 14 percent undecided), the audience believed that manmade global warming was a crisis. But in the post-debate poll, the audience reversed its pre-debate views — the ranks of the skeptics swelled to 46 percent, the believers plummeted to 42 percent and the undecided declined slightly to 12 percent.

That’s the power of debate. (1,2)

And not at all how science works. Facts are established with research involving several methodologies and much back and forth, not by some forensic society, dog and pony show. Real scientific debates take place over the course of several years, with long-winded review articles and with even longer winded presentations to the scientific community. Being a persuasive debater may change public perception, but it does not alter scientific conclusions.

(1) Okay two things. First, I love the way Milloy labels the sides as "alarmist" and "skeptical", as if skepticism isn't a prerequisite for scientists. Great way to project how objective you are. Second, he points out that Michael Crichton is a physician; a Harvard trained physician. As if the combination of being a physician (professionals who receive little if any research training, and certainly not in the environmental sciences) and having a Harvard education (which has a public perception being being infallible, though it of course is not) had any impact on the truth value of climatologists conclusions.

(2) Note also that public debate, rather than scientific debate, is the modis operandi of creationists. They choose to persuade citizens in a panel discussion rather than engage scientists in research journals. This is because, quite frankly, if all you want to do is win the most people to your point of view regardless of their expertise or the correctness of your point of view, this is the path of least resistance.

How about a shiraz with that Happy Meal?

The Guardian reports an interesting survey.

It found that teenagers who illegally bought their own alcohol were six times as likely to drink in public, in parks and on the streets, three times as likely to be regular drinkers and twice as likely to be binge drinkers.

By contrast:

People who drank with their parents, and received less than £10 pocket money a week, exhibited the safest behaviour.

Ten pounds? I don't even give myself that much allowance.

Today's findings contrast sharply with a recent call from Alcohol Concern to prosecute parents who give their under-15s alcohol. Professor Bellis said that this evidence showed that approach was flawed. "I don't think prosecuting parents is the way forward. It's possibly the worst thing you can do to a child at that stage."

One of the many things that bugs me about American culture is our perfidious nature when it comes to explaining alcohol. We simultaneously give our children the message that alcohol is an evil, evil thing that should not be touched until you are 21, at which point it is perfectly fine to drink, preferably to the point of complete intoxication.

I don't drink to intoxication. I don't like the feeling. But I do like alcohol. Many compounds in the food we eat are alcohol, but not water, soluble. Drinking alcohol with a meal brings out flavors that would otherwise be missed, thereby serving not only a social but a physiological function.

It ain't easy being green ...

Previously I talked about what lifestyle changes my household has made in an attempt to reduce our environmental impact. Using CFLs, cloth diapers, a reel mower, and composting. Relatively easy, but they all require a little bit of effort. So what could we do that that we won't, and why not?

Solar Panels - I would love to have solar panels on the roof of my house. There are several small problems. Community associations aren't always in favor of them. They aren't necessarily considered an asset when it comes time to sell a home. And the big one, cost. A system generally runs in the range of $30,000. I'm sorry, but that's some serious scratch, and I just can't do it right now.

Vegetarianism - Okay, so we could reduce our environmental impact by not consuming animal products, or at least not farm raised animal products, or at least not farm raised meat. My opposition to this is mostly biological; our digestive system has evolved around an omnivorous diet. Granted, Americans eat more animal products than they should, but veganism is practically untenable from a physiological standpoint. Plus, I like meat. But, the beef I buy is local and grass fed, and I eat beef no more that once per week. Plus, I try to have at least one vegetarian (or nearly vegetarian) meal per week. So, I try my best but don't try to take away grilled muscle from me completely.

Alternative Fuel Cars - Two of the greenest options would be natural gas and electric. Honda has a CNG car available for consumers, the Civic GX, which gets a slightly better green rating than the Prius. But it is only available in some areas of California and New York. As for electric cars, the only option now is to build your own, which can easily run tens of thousands of dollars. Plus, I don't have a driveway. I would need to significantly alter my property in order to have a place to plug in or fuel up my car at night. I'll stick with my current car until I can buy a Prius.

Voluntary Human Extinction - Great, I've already messed that one up.

Corticopia: Neuron, 3 May, 2007

Clapcote et al. report on a possible genetic mechanism behind the psychiatric disorders of schizophrenia and depression. DISC1 is a protein that has been linked to schizophrenia in humans. It is involved in molecular scaffolding, making sure that other proteins are linked together within the cell structure. It just happens that in the case of DISC1, the scaffolding is wrong, leading to problems in neuronal development. The authors note two mutations of this protein in mice. Mice with one present with depressive behaviors (i.e. increased immobility during forced swim, a standard test for anti-depressant efficacy) while with the other they present with schizophrenic behaviors, particularly impaired pre-pulse inhibition (i.e. the inability to learn that a soft sound precedes a loud one, and therefore do not exhibit freezing following the "pre-pulse" tone as do normal mice).

It has long been known that schizophrenia has a genetic component. However, most theories of schizophrenia have concentrated on the environmental, social, and neurological factors that may be involved in its development. While this is interesting news, and it does show that putatively different psychiatric syndromes may have a common genetic basis, I'm not sure what practical uses it may have. We are talking about cell architecture here, something that is laid done in utero. How that could be repaired, I'm not sure. It may be important for embryonic screening though.

Local Produce article in Mother Jones

This is a few days old, but Mother Jones has an article about buying local, organic food and what it means to the community. It rambles a bit but is fun to read. It also makes a point that this is not a left/right political issue, but a moral issue. As evidence for this, read a little about Crunchy Cons.

Worse than Ann Coulter

This is for all the 80's kids who still have recurring "Nintendo thumb". It is long, hilarious, and not at all safe for work.

Super Mario Bros. Frustration Pt 1
Super Mario Bros. Frustration Pt 2
Super Mario Bros. Frustration Pt 3

"Who builds a castle like this?"

Darwinism and D'Souza

Over at Pharyngula, PZ has dismantled the most recent blog post by Dinesh D'Souza, in which he shows almost complete misunderstanding of Darwinian evolution. If you have time, and some brain cells you want to destroy, you can read Mr. D'Souza's post yourself.

But I do think that PZ has missed one important aspect of what Mr. D'Souza is arguing for here. Remember how several anti-science, religious zealots started to argue that Darwinian evolution was responsible for such ills of the twentieth century as genocide, eugenics, communism, and fascism? James Kennedy even made a video about it. Well here's the thing: there was a force behind those ills but it was not called evolution; it was called Social Darwinism. And that is almost exactly what Mr. D'Souza is advocating. This is the philosophy that has justified forced sterilization, internment, genocide, and subjugation of the working poor. Mr. D'Souza, probably through historical ignorance, seems a little too willing to go along with it.

A letter to Michael Egnor

Dear Michael Egnor,

I almost forgot, there was one more lecture in the NIH "Evolution and Medicine" series, "Evolution and Disease". Please watch and post your thoughts.

Sincerely,

Tantalus Prime

Misinformation handed out in sex ed

In light of the previous news that abstinence-only sex education does not prevent young people from having sex I offer the following news story. Information about condoms is inaccurate for these same programs.

From what I recall, condoms have varying levels of effectiveness against STDs and pregnancy depending on proper usage. So rather than tell students this, abstinence-only programs seem to adopt the worst case scenario to scare the bejeezus out of students. If the effectiveness of condoms vary based on improper usage, then this is a strong reason why we should teach students how to properly use them; so that prophylactics are as effective as possible.

By the way, I thought it was interesting that condoms were 80-87% effective in preventing HIV transmission. Hey, remember that study released in PLOS Medicine? The one that said circumcision was 61% effective in preventing HIV prevention? Just in males? Who are heterosexual? If engaging in vaginal intercourse? Do you remember that one? The one in which they said that 61% was "equivalent to ... a vaccine of high efficacy"? Even though we know that "[m]ost routine childhood vaccines are effective for 85% to 95% of recipients"? Yeah that study? I wonder what they think of the fact that condoms are 80-87% effective at preventing HIV transmission? Plus the fact that they are also effective at reducing transmission of other STDs? For both males and females? Oh, and homosexuals too? Oh, and regardless of the form of intercourse engaged in? Oh, and plus they help prevent that whole pregnancy thing, which I am pretty sure circumcision does not?*

*Before any one gets all over me, yes I think they are on to something with this study. But this is being touted as some sort of miracle cure that will wipe out AIDS in Africa. In reality its benefit is limited, and there are much better alternatives currently available.

Unexplained illness

There are few things as annoying in life as waking up in the middle of night and having to vomit violently.

I won't feel well enough to post again today, I think. Your homework, read Hans Selye's work on stress and the immune system; then write a report on why having a two year old is stressful enough to make me this ill three times in two years.