The Thinking Zygote

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2011-07-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

Please visit the new blog at: thinkingzygote.com

5 things Jellyfish have in common with Satan

2010-07-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

"Jellies."

That one threw me a bit when I heard the word used in a recent episode of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Much like the fact that Pluto is no longer a planet, this is a something-that-makes-me-feel-old. Although it is true that jellies are not fish, and that calling them "jellyfish" is just as erroneous as calling sea stars "starfish", it still doesn't SOUND right. So, for today at least, I'm going to stick with the old term.

On that note, guess what today's topic is?

No, Patrick. Go away.

According to the unintentionally hilarious Simple English Wikipedia Entry: "Jellyfish are animals that eat fish and float in the sea." They are 98% water, and appear in four distinct classes: Scyphozoa (True jellyfish, whose tentacles hang all around the exumbrella[dome] and move by relaxing and contracting the muscles of said anotomical structure), Stauromedusae, Hydrozoa and as Box Jellies (Cubozoa).

Also, they are clearly servants of the devil.

Don't believe me? Here are 5 ways in which jellyfish resemble the lord of darkness.

1. Immortality. The species turritopsis nutricula, is basically immortal. This is because individuals of the species do not, unless they are killed or eaten, ever die of old age. Instead, the creatures revert from a mature form to that of polyp once they have reached sexual maturity. This process can go on indefinitely, provided cells from the exumbrella (dome) and gastrointestinal system remain intact.

2. Giant nightmare fuel. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story entitled "The Horror of the Heights" in which a pilot travels up to an "air jungle" and encounters enormous jellyfish-like creatures once he hits 40,000ft. While the story describes these things as being "far larger [...] than the dome of St. Paul's", the largest living species of jellyfish is the Lion's Mane Jellyfish. An arctic species, the largest recorded Lion's Mane had a bell the size of a smart car and tentacles 120 feet long.

3. Omnipresence. Jellyfish are found in every ocean, and in both salt and fresh water, from tropical water to the arctic (which is where the giant ones live), and from shallow waters to the sea floor (where they hang out by the thermal vents). You'd think that would be enough, but no. Their reign knows no bounds. They've managed to invade the continents proper. Here's a map of the mainland US, with the territory of Craspedacusta sowerbyi highlighted in red.

Oh god! They're EVERYWHERE.

4. The capacity to inflict unspeakable pain. Everyone's favorite land of deadly critters, Australia, is home to the box jellyfish. An animal whose sting is so painful that the sheer pain of it cause a human to immediately enter a state of shock and can induce cardiac arrest within minutes of contact. It's best buddy, the Irukandji jellyfish, is the size of a thumbnail and takes the less direct rout to torturing people. Instead of instantaneous pain, the sting of a Irukandji is only mildly irritating at first, but thirty minutes later victims of an Irukandji sting will begin to experience "severe pains at various parts of the body (typically excruciating muscle cramps in the arms and legs, severe pain in the back and kidneys, a burning sensation of the skin and face), headaches, nausea, restlessness, sweating, vomiting, an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, and psychological phenomena such as the feeling of impending death." There is no anti-venom.

and

5. Beauty.
You were the seal of perfection,
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

You were in Eden, the garden of God;
Every precious stone was your covering:

The sardius, topaz, and diamond,
Beryl, onyx, and jasper,
Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.

The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes
Was prepared for you on the day you were created.

-Ezekiel 28:12-13

Ga-ROOVY.

Applied Kinesiology is a big. fat. hoax.

2010-06-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

"ThiZ," you say "what is Applied Kinesiology (Hereafter shortened to "AK" which is, coincidentally, the noise I make when choking on my own bile.)?"

AK, my friends, is a "chiropractic diagnostic method" that was invited by one George Goodheart Jr. and is based on the premise that physical ailments, and even allergies, can be tested for, and diagnosed by, how the body moves. Practitioners believe that by asking participants to do things like resist movement, or eat/smell something while moving a target muscle, they can determine what is wrong with their "patient" and whether or not the product they are trying to sell will help the aforementioned mark.

A review of the available data has shown that these claims are entirely without support.

Let's watch a video from our wonderful friends in Australia, shall we?

Now the tl;dw: Let's say you want to make some money with a cheap piece of Chinese plasticrap or your left-over vegetable stock.

Good for you, GIR.

Begin by asking the subject to perform a certain, awkward, physical action. (E.g. Standing on one leg and being asked to keep their balance while you press on their arm.) Most people will find the requested action at least somewhat difficult to perform, as it is not something to which they are accustomed.

Then, introduce the product you are trying to sell. It can be anything, really, even food, you don't even have to give them a sample.

(Seriously, when I tried this, the guy just asked me to hold it in my hand. The explanation I got was that the "energy" would reach my body even without you consuming the product itself. "Imagine how much more effective it will be when you actually take them!" ..."Imagine" indeed.)

Then, introduce your product and ask subject to repeat the activity. They'll perform better. Amazing!

But why?

In the case of the first activity, the balance-on-one-leg-test, the subject's ability to resist your push is entirely dependent on HOW you apply force to their arm. The first time around, forced is applied in a downward fashion, perpendicular to the ground. The second time you try, you will take advantage of the body's center of gravity. You can put your arms in the exact same spot as before, but if you push towards their center of gravity, they will find it much easier to resist.

In the case of flexibility tests, you can get better results from your subjects, simply by NOT allowing them to go back to a resting position. Have them turn, or stretch, then introduce your product while they are still in that position. The extra seconds of rest will allow their muscles to loosen up a bit, allowing them to go even further when you say "Now try just a little bit more."

Are you a liar? Yes.
Are all practitioners consciously lying? Not exactly...

The problem is, half the time you run into these people, they really do think they're helping, and that their products really are effective, and that the "testing methods" they're using really do measure physical changes in the body's performance and health.

Both practitioners and their "patients" usually come into such situations already carrying a belief in the paranormal. The practitioners probably learn the tricks of AK through unconsciously learning which actions result in the "correct" response from their subjects. The patients, on the other hand, may even put more effort into their resistance, for example, if they already believe that the product works, even subconsciously.

The belief in the paranormal is of emotional importance to both parties, and practitioners take advantage of that need to believe, and any objections from the scientific community are likely to be met with aggression, and drive the two closer to each other.

And then, you know, there are the people who know EXACTLY what they're doing.

Posts Updated

2010-06-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

And here we go.

How ____ Works:

Weed (THC)
Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors
Alcohol
Magic Mushrooms (Psilocybin)
Amphetamines 1
Amphetamines 2

Other Sequences

Oh yeah, and I have a profile now.

Profanity is @#$%& great!

2009-08-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

Warning: Contains swearing, obviously.

We miss you Mr. Carlin
More than any other form of humiliation, possibility the most damaging, and most human, is that of saying something inappropriate. It is the single situation in which you cannot shift the blame away from yourself and are instead forced to accept your mistake. The shame is almost physically painful.

Eg. Saying infants are unpleasant when there is a mother nearby. Her kid wasn't with her at the time, ok?

Despite this, we generally do not stop swearing or voicing our opinions with people with whom we feel comfortable speaking in that manner. Despite its bad reputation, the benefits of swearing a worth the risk of making an ass of one's self .

Let us first consider swearing in a single-person system. While the topic of exactly why stubbing one's toe hurts like a sonovabitch (See? Told you.), how we deal with pain is not a matter of conscious control, we instinctively withdraw our injured body part from the offending object, and, in a fabulous expression of our species' affinity for language, vent our frustration orally. While it may not have developed explicitly for this purpose, I am particularly fond of this phenomenon in that it prevents us from attacking others or putting our fists through a wall.

In the August 5th Issue of NeuroReport, researcher Richard Stephens et. al. from Keele University School of Psychology published the results of a study in which participants were found to perceive less pain if they were allowed to swear while they kept their hand submerged in freezing water. In addition to the perceived pain tolerance among the test group (the exception to this trend being men who "catasthrophise" or believe things are worse than they actually are) researchers noted increased heart rates in the swearing group, and hypothesized that this may be a result of the verbal cue actually triggering one's fight-or-flight response and in doing so, allows the speaker to dull their sensations of fear and pain.

Ow, dammit.

Expanding beyond control of one's emotional and physical response, we find that profanity acts as a social lubricant, a common language into which one may lower their usual vernacular in a such as way as to mimic their peers and promote social bonding. This phenomenon was explored in 2007 by Yehuda Baruch and Stuart Jenkins of the University of East Anglia in Swearing at work and permissive leadership culture in which the researchers suggest there are cicumstances under which businesses and work-groups should allow for a "permissive leadership culture" (i.e. an environment in which swearing is permissive so long as it is not used to harm others) as it may promote greater group cohesiveness and allow workers to become more productive.

The paper further describes swearing as two separate classes: Social Swearing, and Annoyance Swearing. The latter form are those words and expressions that are used conversationally. As groups grow closer, so too does their manner of speaking. Here, swearing is a positive form of social interaction which indicates trust and comfort in one's environment. Annoyance swearing, in contrast, is triggered by negative occurrences or behavior, but as mentioned above, the result can be positive as it provides a means of expression without any large physical manifestation of that same emotional state.

I love this graph. The key even makes a little face.

My favorite places to observe these interactions isn't in meatspace, but online. Through the veil of anonymity, we are all able to interact as equals. What we know and who we are guides us to others like ourselves, but it is not until one is able to inject a bit of humor, or hyperbolic swearing, that we actually begin to appreciate the existence of the person on the other end.

Click for an intelligent conversation.

It is also exceptionally useful in making a point, as the use of these words adds to the hyperbolas one may create for either humorous, parodist, or even educational purposes. Many of my favorite examples of this can be found in the reviews of The Nostalgia Critic, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's "Zero Punctuation", in YouTuber Thunderf00t's "Why People Laugh at Creationists" series and in one of my favorite shows of all time: Penn and Teller's "Bullshit ".

However, it is necessary to call attention to a critical fact: all benefits from swearing stem from a pre-existing relationship with those in whose company one chooses to speak.

Despite how much I love the damn things, they are destructive when used around people with whom one has no common ground. It's fun to remark about how "fucking amazing" a black-and-white cow is to someone who gets the joke, but doing so around someone you don't know is assumes you are allowed to interact with them on an intimate level. If one has not earned the necessary (implied) permission, swearing is jarring. In contrast, when one chooses not to swear they present themselves in a passive position. The speaker assumes nothing, and in doing so is forced to slow down. This allows us to speak and write eloquently, and gives us time to actually consider the opinions of our opponents, and those with whom we are attempting to build a relationship.

"It's the words you use, not the ones you don't, that show what you know."
-Penn Jillette

Part Two: Expectations Meet Reality

2009-08-06T14:39:00.001-07:00

If one person freaks out when they visit your city, they may be just a nutter, if it's a group, they may all be drunk, but when the number of freak-out sessions goes over a couple hundred then you might want to look into it a bit more closely.

1. Stendhal Syndrome
You've planned this trip for months, finally you have the chance to go see what you have so often drooled over in travel magazines. You're ready, off you go, excited to see the art and architecture of your dream city. Then you make the mistake of actually looking around... Oh my GOD! That's the most BEAUTIFUL ALLEY EVER! Holy crap-and-a-half! This is the best- Aaand now you've passed out.

Holy crap-and-a-half!

First described by Marie-Henri Beyle (aka. Stendhal), a guy who really had a thing for architecture, Stendhal Syndrome is a psychosomatic response characterized by an increase in heart rate, as well as feelings of vertigo and nausea, in response to art.
Here's how the guy describes his experience in Florence:

"I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty ... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations ... Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call 'nerves.' Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.''

For centuries it was known only through this and similar anecdotes, and it wasn't until the publication of Dr. Graziella Magherini's book "La sindrome di Stendhal" that it was finally recognized by the psychological community. The topic has since been investigated by James Elkins' "Pictures and Tears: [...]" and used in a 1996 movie which now floods all search results.

2. Paris Syndrome
It seems everyone has a fairly romantic view of France, specifically Paris. Even those who claim to hate the smooth talking "frogs" can't help but to think of beautiful farmland, gorgeous people, and delicious food, and "the city of lights". This view has been fostered by hundreds of years worth of art, writing, and most importantly in recent years, film.

Mmm. Pixar.

Given the high expectations placed upon it, no wonder people feel disappointed when they finally visit, only to run into your standard culture shock and the same travel hassles that exist everywhere else in the world. Added stress (especially for travelers from countries where societal approval is considered extremely important) can come from the accidental elicitation of disapproving stares if one breaks certain unspoken social constructs (e.g. ladies should never pour their own wine, sorbet should be eaten with a fork and NEVER utter the phrase "bon appetit" in polite company -Constance Reitzler).

Westerners are lucky, in a way. Although we may not fully comprehend what we are getting into when we head to Paris, we've all heard enough horror stories to know that we should brace ourselves for the worst. Whether it's tales of riots, rude waiters (apparently most people just don't know the waiter-code) or shopkeepers from hell ("I wouldn't bother if I were you - it'll never fit!") We go in there braced, ready for action, Grr, watch us be tough. The Japanese however...

Ever since the Meiji restoration Japanese students have travelled to France as a means of assimilating western culture and use this knowledge to shape the changing nation of their birth. These trips were held in high esteem, as they were seen as symbols of wealth, and such expeditions remain in fashion today. The imagery of Paris itself, depictions of models in cafes ringed by flowers, is often used to sell high fashion and expensive goods to young Japanese consumers.

This is bad enough.

According to Japan Market Intelligence:

Currently around one million Japanese of all ages travel to France every year. Not only for tourism either - an increasing number are choosing to settle in their romantic idyll. But the reality of coming to terms with the profound culture shock after realising that their ideals about the French capital are unrealistic sees around 100 Japanese expatriates a year consulting a psychiatrist, and a quarter of that number hospitalised.

These problems are believed to be the result of several contributing factors: the language barrier, the aforementioned cultural differences, the disparity between expectation and reality, and overall physical and mental exhaustion. Desperate to reconcile their ideals with reality, many people may not be able to sleep or eat until they find a way to make themselves feel comfortable. If such a thing cannot be found, they will, of course, suffer physical symptoms.

Most victims of Paris syndrome seem to young women in the 30s, and while a 24-hour hotline has been established for Japanese tourists suffering from extreme culture shock, "the only permanent cure is to go back to Japan - never to return to Paris. "

This is France. Yes, the country. No, I'm not making this up.

Now allow me to make a prediction. This phenomenon is going to repeat itself, but not with Japanese tourists. Instead, I predict that American and British anime fans (now in the teens) will experience something similar to this when they finally get old enough (or just get the money) to travel to japan, their dream country.

Massive dissapointment in t-5 years.

3. Jerusalem Syndrome
Characterized by religiously-themed obsessions and delusions, Jerusalem syndrome kicks in during visits to the city and seems to affect only those whose religions place significance on the site (i.e. No Buddhists have had to have been pried from the Western Wall with the jaws of life).

This is EXACTLY what I'd see if I went to the Western Wall.

According to Yair Bar-El MD (and owner of a bad-ass name) et al. in their paper addressing Jerusalem Syndrome in the British Journal of Psychiatry:

When people dreamof Jerusalem, they do not see the modern, politically controversialJerusalem, but rather the holy biblical and religious city.Since 1980, Jerusalem's psychiatrists have encountered an ever-increasingnumber of tourists who, upon arriving in Jerusalem, sufferpsychotic decompensation.

Over the course of their 13-year study, Bar-El's team examined the cases of 1200 tourists who exhibited "severe, Jerusalem-generated mental problems" and from this were able to classify those suffering from Jerusalem syndrome into three categories.

Type I: Came to Jerusalem for a "religious mission" of some sort, had a history of pre-existing mental illness/family problems and usually traveled alone. They tend to identify with characters from their holy book, obsess of a certain political of religious idea, and develop "magical thinking" about health and healing.
Type II: Travel in groups to Jerusalem either out of curiosity or on "a mission". Although they may lack pre-existing psychotic disorders, they have tended to have already been focused on a fixed idea before arriving. Here, Jerusalem Syndrome can affect either the entire group, or just one individual within the group.
Type III ("Jerusalem Syndrome discrete type"): Regular tourists with no history of mental disorders traveling with their families or simply a tour group.

Although it seems a bit dull, Type III is by far my favorite. Apparently Type III cases have been so dramatic, that Bar-El et al. actually had to classify them into seven stages:

Anxiety, agitation, nervousness and tension, plus other unspecified reactions.
Declaration of the desire to split away from the group or the family and to tour Jerusalem alone. Tourist guides aware of the Jerusalem syndrome and of the significance of such declarations may at this point refer the tourist to our institution for psychiatric evaluation in an attempt to pre-empt the subsequent stages of the syndrome. If unattended, these stages are usually unavoidable.
A need to be clean and pure: obsession with taking baths and showers; compulsive fingernail and toenail cutting.
Preparation, often with the aid of hotel bed-linen, of a long, ankle-length, togalike gown, which is always white.
The need to scream, shout, or sing out loud psalms, verses from the Bible, religious hymns or spirituals. Manifestations of this type serve as a warning to hotel personnel and tourist guides, who should then attempt to have the tourist taken for professional treatment. Failing this, the two last stages will develop.
A procession or march to one of Jerusalem's holy places.
Delivery of a ‘sermon’ in a holy place. The sermon is usually very confused and based on an unrealistic plea to humankind to adopt a more wholesome, moral, simple way of life.

This has got to be pure schadenfreude, but this is BRILLIANT. Wheee hee hee hee. Oh don't look at me like that, it's not permanent.

Their condition usually returns to normal within5-7 days; in other words, a short-lived episode followed bycomplete recovery. These individuals clearly need treatment,and often receive it, but recovery is quite often spontaneousand not necessarily due to the treatment. Experience has taughtus that improvement is facilitated by, or dependent on, physicallydistancing the patient from Jerusalem and its holy places.On the whole, major medical intervention is not indicated; minortranquillisers or melatonin (as in cases of jet-lag psychosis)usually suffice. Our main treatment strategy is to facilitatereturn to the group or the renewal of family ties (includingwith family overseas), or, if deemed appropriate, access toa priest. [Ed. LOL] Crisis intervention psychotherapy plays an importantpart in the recovery process.

See?
Now I'm gonna continue giggling, thank you very much.

Heh heh heh...

Everyone Has Unreasonable Expectations: Part One

2009-07-07T13:42:00.001-07:00

If you ever want to turn the population into living zombies, I know JUST the drug.

You're hungry. REALLY hungry. The kind of where your mouth begins to get sour and your peripheral vision begins to fade. You rub your eyes, feeling the grains of sleep digging into your delicate face, you need a break, and so, like the silly little monkey you have become, you go to the store on an empty stomach, and there it is...
Cue the heavenly choir. I mean, look at it! It's two things in one: pizza and Caesar chicken. Om nom nom nom nom. You run home as fast as you can, tear open the box and...

Via Consumerist (I love these guys sometimes)

Ooooh Nooooooooooooo! This is a bigger letdown than when you got that Furby a few years back.

DIE, Childhood disappointment! DIE!
As you've probably realized by now, today's topic is what happens when what you expect meets reality.

Part One- Unrealistic expectations:
We humans are lucky, not only do we have built-in self-preservation instincts and the ability to learn from past experiences, but we can also plan ahead. (As a side note, this may not be entirely unique to our species.) Planning ahead allows us to mentally "time travel", our brains actively work to predict what may or may not happen in the future, usually as a result of a certain course of action. It's a great system, but unfortunately it's not all that accurate past a certain point.

Take, for example, the case of how we perceive future happiness:

TL;DW:

We should have preferences that lead us into one future over another. But when those preferences drive us too hard and too fast because we have overrated the difference between these futures, we are at risk. When our ambition is bounded, it leads us to work joyfully. When our ambition is unbounded, it leads us to lie, to cheat, to steal, to hurt others, to sacrifice things of real value. When our fears are bounded,we're prudent, we're cautious, we're thoughtful. When our fears are unbounded and overblown, we're reckless, and we're cowardly.

Imagining yourself running off a cliff, seeing yourself go splat, and then deciding against it, is one thing, but the creation of a mental model for an entire culture or even just another person, is simply beyond us.

Unless you're this guy. Rwar. You solve those mysteries.

"Well screw you Imma do it anyway!" Say our brains, and that's exactly what they do. The result? Totally unrealistic expectations about other people and places which are exaggerated positively or negatively. Once reality hits expectation, the result is often jarring enough to result in culture shock.

"How are you?"

TL;DW: There are four stages. The Honeymoon Stage ("Everything is new and bloody fantastic!"), the Negotiation Phase ("What do you mean we're having durian... again? And I want some ice cream... No... real ice cream."), the Adjustment Phase ("Meh, this is life now.") and upon return: Re-entry/Reverse Shock ("TAKE OFF YOUR F*ING SHOES! Friggin people trompin' around my house...")

But it's not just individuals that have these problems, sometimes these shocks are so severe, and so common, that they become a phenomenon in and of themselves.

A magical tour through my brother's brain

2009-04-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

Brain stem! Brain stem! Also available in German. Nyah.

This is my little brother:

Aww, look at his grumpy little face, he thinks he's such a badass.

Now unfortunately for all of us, this kid gets headaches, and for a long time we had no idea why. Many tests were conducted to find the cause, but my personal favorites, by far, were the ones that dealt with his brain directly, let's have a look inside his head, shall we?

One of the things that's always bugged me about diagrams of the brain is that most of the pictures I saw as a child had the sections all clearly labeled and colored differently, similar to what can be found on this site from the Nemours foundation. Now, I knew that the brain wasn't multicolored and clearly labeled, however, when I finally got my hands on a real brain (long story)...

Sing it, Picard.

Can YOU tell the difference between the frontal, parietal and occipital lobes? Neither could I, not right away anyway. The whole cerebrum looked like one big squishy smelly mass. The rest of the brain was admittedly easier to separate, physically and conceptually. Fun with knives, yay!

As fun as it was, the one thing that was most useful in learning to differentiate the different parts of the brain, and their various functions was not playing with the thing itself. In contrast to my usual method of learning, wherein I need to touch and interact with something to understand it, the act of simply studying brain scans has been more useful than anything else.

Looking at brains in their all their living wonder, safe inside their bodies, working, the blood surging from one region to the next, it's fascinating. Even in the quiet black and white of a CT scan, this fascinating system shows itself for what it is, not a compilation of separate parts, clearly divided, but as an interconnected system.

That smells really bad when you take it out.

This is where my brother comes in, and so, we now turn our attention inwards for a quick dissection of a still-operational brain.

Ooo facinatin'.

a. Left hemisphere.
b. Right hemisphere.
c. Cerebellum.
e. Brain stem.
f. Cerebrospinal fluid.

a. Thalamus
b. Hypothalamus joins the nervous system to the endocrine system
c. Midbrain. Looks kinda like a hook.
d. Pons. Note how it swells forward a bit.
e. Medulla Oblongata.
f. Brain stem.
g. Pituitary gland. Notice how mushed it looks in comparison to the textbook versions, here location is more important for identification than shape.

a. and b. Lower parts of the frontal lobes.
c. The eye, specifically the vitreous humour.
d. Lens.
e. Sinus cavity.
f. Lower parts of temporal and occipital lobes connected via the corpus collosum.

Bonus: One of my favorite TED Talks; Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

Cuttlefish are awesome

2009-02-05T07:38:00.000-08:00

My brain is tired, my body is tired, and after a few mini-crises I'm just pissed. This is one of the few things I actually enjoy doing and I've been unable to do it.
EY! This is BULLCRAP!
Any-way...

Today we're all going to take a break and enjoy one of the aquatic world's more interesting creatures, the cuttlefish! (Which isn't actually a fish.)
When I first heard the name of this creature, long long ago, my first thought was "what the heck is a 'cuttle'?" This is because I had not learned to swear, you see. A bit of research later, and it seems the word has its origins in the middle German term "kudel" or pouch, which is indeed what the creature resembles.

That is, unless you read any Lovecraft, then then all look like little severed Cthulhu heads swimming about.

These little guys are members of the order Sepiida, why "Sepiida"? Think "sepia" as in as in "Hey look! That thing makes ink! GET IT!" That right folks, we used to use these guys as inkpots, now we just use the ink for cooking.

This is pasta. I actually want to try this...

As my cuttlefish knowledge-quest progressed, I learned some facinating things:

Cuttlebones are made of porus calcium carbonate, and helo the cephlopod maintain bouyancy. Squids don't have them, and almost all of ys have seen them already.
"Where?" You ask. They're parakeet toys! The great old ones are going to be SO pissed.

Their W-shaped eyes are incredible. Although they look superficially similar, this is actually an example of convergent evolution. They can't see in color (ironic, ain't it?), but their ability to detect the polorization of light means they can see in much higher contrast than the pathetic air-breathers.

Vulcans! Cuttlefish blood is green because it uses hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin to carry oxygen.

Despite the aswesomeness of these things, one element gets me more than anything else, their ability to change color and use gestures to communicate.

Is this not awesome‽

Anime cuttlefish understands that animation costs money, and makes use of speed lines.

Also:

The Hitchen vs. D'Souza Twitter feed

2009-01-28T18:21:00.000-08:00

Here are the texts I sent during the Hitchens vs. D'Souza debate. They have been rearranged (by order in which they were originally sent) and I have added a bit of commentary.

"No large bags or backpacks" Hmm... This poses a problem, I shall have to get creative. 4:53 PM Jan 26th from web

There are people here already. I think, however, that I may have found a solution to the bag problem. 5:23 PM Jan 26th from txt

You should have SEEN the security. Big guards and cops everywhere.

Ticket info: What's so great about god? A debate between D'Souza and Hitchens. Macky auditorium. 6:30 PM Jan 26th from txt

Just ran into a reporter. Said she's been having a hard time finding atheists. 6:41 PM Jan 26th from txt

I helped her find several, and even answered a few questions myself. "How did you hear about this?" "Why are you here?" The usual.

Intro by aquinas' priest. 7:29 PM Jan 26th from txt

Priest doesn't know what an ipod touch is. 8:24 PM Jan 26th from txt

Hitchens is writing something. D'Souza looks like a bird. 7:31 PM Jan 26th from txt

Moderator Dan Kaplace -proper spelling unknown- takes mike. 7:46 PM Jan 26th from txt

Turns out it's "Dan Caplis", I am not good with spelling names.

D'Souza starts. 15 min given. Says he's going to make non-biblical arguments. 7:16 PM Jan 26th from txt

D'Souza: atheists care about the individual, science, equality. It is christianity that brought these into western civ and even the world 7:34 PM Jan 26th from txt

Jerusalem and athens roots of western culture. Life not important to greco romans. 7:49 PM Jan 26th from txt

Right about here was my first "...wait, what?"

We ought to respect the pillar of christianity upon which we stand. Even science is based on three faith based propositions. 7:47 PM Jan 26th from txt

1. Rational universe. 2. Lawful universe. 3. Your brain can think rationally 7:35 PM Jan 26th from txt

I actually didn't catch the third "proposition" the first two times. It seemed a little too odd. Probably blocked it out subconsciously.

God is great because he have us a finely tuned universe. 7:35 PM Jan 26th from txt

'Universe is a giant conspiracy to produce, well, us.' laughter 7:27 PM Jan 26th from txt

Only humans have free will. Morality is strange and militates against self interest. 7:29 PM Jan 26th from txt

1. Youtube celebrity Thunderf00t has an excellent video on the "fine tuning" argument.
2. On altruism: If you've got time to kill, read this. If not, watch this or this or just do a flippin' google search. We aren't that special.

Atheists- you would be better people if you lived like there was a god 8:27 PM Jan 26th from txt

When this was on twitter, a couple people thought this was me talking opinion. I shudder.

Hitchens' turn: he it could be shown that there religious figures were entirely man made, would you become without morals? 7:34 PM Jan 26th from txt

We would be exactly where we are now without religion. Religion weans you must believe god has made his wishes public. We are created sick. 7:45 PM Jan 26th from txt

Here, Hitchens is referring to the idea of original/ancestral sin.

Our shortcomings can be taken by someone else. Personal responsibility is negated. 7:45 PM Jan 26th from txt

Religion tells us we have no innate knowledge of how to be. To D'Souza: how long do you think homo sapians have been here? 8:31 PM Jan 26th from txt

His point being; how did we not do all the things we've done as a species over the last few thousand years? We must not have been divinely blessed yet, or the earth is a young thing. To this, Hitchen responds by pointing out what that would mean, if it were true. (And yes, he did interrupt.)

A life of fear and want. Heaven watches, indifferent for the majority. Them decides to intervene to illiterates in the middle east. 7:50 PM Jan 26th from txt

Whoever is responsible for this is incompetant, tinkering or cruel. 7:47 PM Jan 26th from txt
Morality is innate. So are evils. We invent another supernatural entity for this. And continue doing so. 7:47 PM Jan 26th from txt

These are the roots of tyranny. 7:45 PM Jan 26th from txt

I'll admit, this got a "Whoo" from me.

D'Souza again. On hitchen's response 'A point here a point there and a lot of bull in between' 7:47 PM Jan 26th from txt

This was prefaced by: "Growing up, I saw a lot of rodeos, and your response reminded me of those experiences." Ha. Ha. Ha.

We get morality from within, not religion. Christianity, however, makes it better. 7:48 PM Jan 26th from txt

History begins around 3000 bc. How did humans do nothing for 95 thousand years? 7:51 PM Jan 26th from txt

A transcendent creature breathed into man. Then humans took off. 7:52 PM Jan 26th from txt

Clearly.

Hitchens- the bull joke is old, and not funny. 7:53 PM Jan 26th from txt

Slavery in antiquity, you lose, you work for us. 9:00 PM Jan 26th from txt

Holy books teach that certain groups are superior, and can take others as slaves to build these civilizations. 9:00 PM Jan 26th from txt

Bible. Quran.

It was never NOT the case that all the justifications for slavery were also religious. 7:56 PM Jan 26th from txt

Would you prefer a baby born today become a secularst or a wahabi islamist? 7:59 PM Jan 26th from txt

Head to head. D: do you believe in alexander the great? Socrates? Aristotle? 8:01 PM Jan 26th from txt

H: socrates may have been made up. But it doesn't matter, it's a question of ideas. 9:02 PM Jan 26th from txt

Meaning he likes the Socratic method and the ideas attributed to him, and Socrates' actual, physical existence, is not relevant to their usefulness or importance.

D: you apply a stricter standard to jesus than any other historical figure 8:02 PM Jan 26th from txt

H: why are you doing this to yourself? 8:03 PM Jan 26th from txt

This was almost comedic, D'Souza was really emotional and expressive. Hitchens stood there just drinking his water.

D: did religion ruin dante? H: yes, he spent too much time describing hell. 8:05 PM Jan 26th from txt

H: the heavens are empty. We must deal with each other here on earth. 8:07 PM Jan 26th from txt

That last one was my favorite quote of the night.

D: you are a talented evader. 8:07 PM Jan 26th from txt

H: do you think there is only one church? D: that is not the catholic position 9:04 PM Jan 26th from txt

D: the idea everyone who hasn't accepted jesus will in to hell isn't what we believe now. 9:05 PM Jan 26th from txt

H: ok, then are you more likely to get into heaven as a christian? D: yes 9:05 PM Jan 26th from txt

When Hitchens said that catholics believe only they will be allowed into heaven, while everyone else was damned, he was booed, loudly.

D: to get to heaven. Islam: 5 pillars. Judaism: dietary restrictions. 8:14 PM Jan 26th from txt

D: to close the gap between what is and what should be you need christianity. 8:16 PM Jan 26th from txt

D: mohammad is considered to be just a man to muslims 8:17 PM Jan 26th from txt

Oh really?

Crowd question time. 9:07 PM Jan 26th from txt

How do you define a person? How should we treat each other? 8:24 PM Jan 26th from txt

In a word without god, would we still act the same? 9:09 PM Jan 26th from txt

H: we are programmed to be superstitious. We can't escape it as a species. But there are some of us who aren't attracted to that. 9:10 PM Jan 26th from txt

...and we are citizens too. 8:30 PM Jan 26th from txt

This made me very happy as well.

D: we don't know if there's an afterlife. We can't talk to dead people. H: That's not what you say. 9:11 PM Jan 26th from txt

D: you've been going on a bit, can I continue? H: if you admit dead people don't come back to life. 8:35 PM Jan 26th from txt

And this was my favorite back-and-forth of the evening.

Does religion provide a survival advantage? 8:42 PM Jan 26th from txt

D: religion provides hope in cosmic justice. 8:42 PM Jan 26th from txt

D: religion is the transmission belt of morality. 8:43 PM Jan 26th from txt

H: that is wishful thinking. If there's a god that really loves you, what is a small question like slavery? 8:46 PM Jan 26th from txt

Meaning, if you know god loves you, why do you care that you are a slave while you are alive?

Honestly, a lot of this is a bunch of reiteration by D'Souza. Different metaphors though. 8:51 PM Jan 26th from txt

Wrapping up. 8:56 PM Jan 26th from txt

Some last statements, a bit of fidgety security, and that's all folks. 9:07 PM Jan 26th from txt

Four Facts about Sleep Deprevation

2009-01-14T10:02:00.000-08:00

The fire alarm went off in my apartment building late the other night. Someone burned chicken. It was fairly unpleasant, but timely, as I had actually been planning this topic already.

Sleep deprivation: The lack of the necessary amount of sleep for any given person. Although people love to throw prescriptions left and right (8 hours! No six! Naps only!)It really does depend on each individuals needs and obligations. Apart from being the curse of insomniacs, sleep deprivation is also a well known form of torture. ...And even if you aren't torturing someone in that way on purpose it still works just as well as if you did... However, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we must first understand what actually happens when you sleep.

As sure as everybody poops, everybody sleeps. Well, when it comes to animals anyway, and we are animals.

In mammals and birds, sleep can be divided into two categories: REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and NREM (Non-Rapid Eye Movement). You need both. While people can survive without REM sleep for a little while, as a mammal, you are going to need REM sleep to stay sane. Really.

Edit: It IS more complicated than that, as mentioned in the comments:

The brain begins in beta/alpha (depends on how hard you're concentrating or thinking as you "drift off") then descends through theta into the black dreamless depths of delta. This process takes roughly an hour. Then, over a 15-30 minute span, your brain waves jump back to theta for REM, then back down to delta to resume sleep as usual. Sleep is more about getting the full cycle than any one portion. Why? Because in delta stage of sleep you get your physical recovery. In theta REM you get all that wonderful dreaming and mental acuity.

He even provided a chart!

I can hear you now: "Oh god I know this already, booooo-ring." Well fine Mr. Smarty-pants, I'm sure you're also aware of the stories that Ben Franklin, Leonardo DeVinci and Thomas Edison were polyphasic sleepers (naps only) and that if it takes less than 10 minutes to fall asleep at night you may not be sleeping enough.

However, you may not be aware (and I'm kind of hoping you aren't) of the following:

1. If you are sleep deprived, and begin talking funny, you are not alone. According to author Suzanne Boyce of the University of Cincinnati, drowsy people speak in "blurred" rather than "slurred" (like they would if they were drunk) patterns. The result is a distinct lack of emphasis where emphasis and accents would usually fall and a lack of awareness of how one actually sounds to other people. (I'm actually quite guilty of this one. According to my family if I'm really tired, I'll start talking in a way that sounds vaguely British.)

2. There is a distinct separation between "awake" and "asleep" which can be seen when monitoring one's brain waves. The idea of "drifting off" to dreamland is actually erroneous. However, asleep != lying down all peaceful like. Everyone knows about sleepwalking, and the hilarity which can ensue from the use of drugs like Ambien, but there is another group as well. People like my mother can actually be mentally asleep, and will continue to do things like talk and move around. Sometimes it can be pretty mean, but in general it's just rants about penguins and doing chores.

Wut?

3. The lack of sleep can lead to a decreased ability to metabolize glucose, which leads to a lack of energy in the best of cases, and in the worst:

4. Some techniques for keeping animals and humans sleep deprived include: gentle handling and play (Look at the keys! Look at the keys!), putting the animal on a platform in water so it can't fall asleep without drowning and if it starts to slack off it'll get a nose full of water, rocking the animals back and forth, rocking out, and coming into a shared room at random intervals, turning on all the lights, making noise and scaring the crap out of your roommate.

And don't forget about such lovely things as brain damage, constipation, eye twitching, depression, psychosis, growth stunting, weight gain, slowed healing, delirium and looking fug-ugly. All of which are supported by empirical evidence and scientific studies I am too tired to look up and cite right now. HA!

I will NOT starting singing the Time Warp, no no no no no

2008-11-20T10:26:00.001-08:00

Slow:

(Wa ha ha ha ha)

Fast:

Hello, I'm David Attenborough...

2008-10-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

...and I hate nature.

And just in case you were wondering:

Intro: Lions, dolphins, kangaroos, otter, some kind of bird.

- The are KOALAS, not "Koala bears", that just sounds ignorant. Don't call them that. Ever. They're marsupials, thus the pouch. Ko-a-las. Koala, Drop Bears."koala, koala, koala, koala.

- Termite mound.

- Pangolin -aka. Scaly anteater. Not actually an anteater. While they were originally classified as such, more recent genetic evidence puts them in the order Pholidota, not Pilosa. That means they're all alone. Poor things... I want one!

- Numbat. Actually a native of western Australia. This one is all alone in its genus AND family. Ha ha ha. Wait, that's sad.

Flying Rods and blinking illusions

2008-10-08T17:43:00.001-07:00

No, not that kind, get your head out of the gutter you perverts.

Whooo, spooky. Click the photo, it's crazy-sprinkler-lady special.

Also known as "Sky Fish", "Solar Entities" or "Wut?"

Just for laughs, I'm going to pass on adding a description of my own and quote the first page I come across when searching for these things on Google, because I'm feeling lucky. "Sky fish" go!

[...]a rather new entry in the field of cryptozoology. They are said to be creatures which flit about in the air at such a high speed as to not be seen by the naked eye.

It's Wikipedia, of course it's Wikipedia, but thankfully, it continues:

However, rods appear to be observational artifacts produced by rapidly flying animals. Practically all sightings of rods are based on video evidence, due to the propensity of video cameras to produce characteristic stroboscopic artifacts when imaging rapidly flying animals, especially insects, but also including birds.

My own personal objections to the term cryptozoology aside, ("Hidden Zoology"? Really? Doesn't that mean you will NEVER have a real job? Once you find it, it becomes Zoology, just regular old zoo- Argh.) these silly things have a bigger following than I had originally assumed when I first went out to research this stuff. I had originally hoped to just use them as an introduction to the effect of shutter speed on still photos and video, but then I ran into things like this:

Biologist Ken Swartz has been investigating the rods phenomenon since 1998 and says 'Rods appear to be biological, but without a physical specimen it is difficult to say anything conclusively. They seem to be amphibious, as they have been seen entering and leaving water. Perhaps they are born in the sea and emerge into the air?' Speculating from the eyewitness testimony of people who have seen them, Swartz maintains that they appear to have some similarities to the family of creatures known as cephalopods, such as squids. 'There have been descriptions of them expanding like a balloon and rapidly deflating,' he states 'so they could be using a mechanism similar to a squid which sucks in water and jets it out for propulsion.'

You know what? I'm just going to move on.

The term "Shutter Speed" refers to the amount of time a camera's shutter is allowed to stay open in a single shot. Measured in seconds (eg. 1) or fractions of a second (eg. 1/1000), shutter speed affects both the amount of light that is captured, as well as how motion appears in a single shot.

When something moves while the camera shutter is open, it will appear blurred in the final image, because light reflecting off the object is captured for the entire duration. (See also: light graffiti) You can actually create your own rods by finding a place with a dark background, and bugs, like shooting into the mouth of a cave. Take one shot at a high shutter speed and you'll only see the bugs, or if they're small, little dots. Then take another at a lower shutter speed and you'll see... Holy crap! You're surrounded! RUN!

But what of the video you say? You couldn't possibly use that explanation on videos you say? Oh yes I can, but someone, a whole group of someones, has beaten me to it already.

Find the whole episode on your own! Pssh. So lazy...

Shall we continue? BEHOLD! The miraculous fixed-wing helicopter!

Woooaaaaahhh.

There are explanations for this effect on the video comments, but I'll reiterate them here: If one were to sync the frame rate of the camera with which they were shooting (frames per second) to the rotation speed of the propeller (that is the helicopter rotor's rpm/60 seconds). Replace frames in a camera with light blinking on an off, and we get the the Stroboscope effect, we and we don't even need a camera-middleman. It's just our brain trying to make sense of what it's receiving and the same thing that allows humans to experience the coolness that is the Time Fountain:

Me want!

What we experience in all these circumstances, including even the still photos of rods, is the result our brains' attempts to interpret the information we are getting from our eyes. When information is missing, the only thing we can do is work with what we do have, even if out conscious brain is left there going "What the hell is this madness?"

For additional video-debunking awesomeness, check out this guy and just try not to be distracted by his makeup, just try: Captain Disillusion

Phagocytosis

2008-10-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

Go squishy, go squishy, SQUISHY WINS!

Accidentally perpetuating misunderstanding- The Zygote falls victim to one of the classic blunders

2008-09-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

"You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha-"

Somewhere on that list lies "Never make scientifically inaccurate jokes." People who know you are wrong will call you on it, and people who don't won't get it, and that's a problem.

Allow me to elaborate. I was visiting my little sister and began complaining about how she is taller than me and has longer fingers and arms and "why must I be the short one?" when I made the following statement: "What happens if I get stranded on jungle island? Evolution would not favor me." and mumbled something about having "little paw hands." Without skipping a beat, or even looking up from what she was reading, she curtly responded "Evolution affects populations, not individuals."

She was right, she was 100% right, and somewhere in the back of my mind Vizzini was laughing. We see things like this every day, oversimplification of many scientific theories is a way of life. Even if it is funny...

Now imagine the whole population doing this, we'll be a little more accurate, and a lot more entertained.

...To someone who isn't familiar with the theory, all this does is reinforce their existing misconceptions. Same thing goes for that ever-so-famous and overly-parodied image of the early primates morphing into modern man from left to right. To those of us who "get" it, they are be entertaining, or unbearably lame, but to the ignorant there is no such frame of reference.

It's not just evolution that suffers from this sort of thing. Just look at happens anytime anyone talks about the LHC-

Two motivational posters in a row? What is this madness?

Or quantum teleportation-

Or genetic engineering-

Or the fact that any breakthrough in optical camouflage is called an invisibility cloak... I should stop now.

Now I'm not saying we should stop, nor should we. Instead, let's just be a little more conscientious of our surroundings, especially when dealing with small children and those who are unfamiliar with critical thinking. We all do these kinds of things, almost on a daily basis. I've confessed mine, what's your most recent violation?

Shimmering bees

2008-09-17T09:34:00.001-07:00

3, 2, 1, WHoooOOOooo!

I actually learned about this behavior entirely by accident thanks to the most recent podcast of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. This behavior apparently evolved as a defense mechanism and is unique to the South-East Asian honeybee, a.k.a. the "holy crap what is that giant throbbing mass over there?" bee. Invader of yards, builder of open nests and stingers of many things.Research has shown the shimmer to be an effective method of deterring hornets and calling the drones in the colony to arms.

Domino Logic Gates!

2008-09-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

Another video in the not-my-usual-thing-but-still-awesome category.

Badass.

A Ruben's Tube- Awesome

2008-09-08T07:23:00.000-07:00

It's not my usual thing, but as a visual learner, I need things like this.
I neeeeeed them.

A scary chart from the National Science Foundation

2008-09-07T07:26:00.000-07:00

Belief in Paranormal Phenomenon 1990-2001

Click to embiggen.

On Vampires II: The top 3 diseases which may make your neighbors think you are a vampire

2008-08-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned earlier, after getting the basic information from my little sister concerning the possible origins for the modern vampire mythos, I was determined to find more information. It is my personal belief that all legends have some seed of truth way back in their history, or even multiple sources. So I looked.

The Runners-up:
Schizophrenia: For the ability to induce hallucinations, leading to strange behavior, cause social isolation and trigger a retreat from society.
Plague: For killing lots and lots of people in a way which was not at all understood by those left behind... also blood-vomiting.
Mania: For triggering extreme, almost superhuman energy, a decreased need for sleep and the occasional psychosis.
and Death: For being misunderstood.

But enough of that, here are the winners.

THE TOP 3 DISEASES THAT MAY MAKE YOUR NEIGHBORS THINK YOU ARE AN UNDEAD, BLOOD-DRINKING FIEND

3. Hemotophaegic pica
Simply put, Pica is a medical disorder which causes people to crave and eat things that most (make that "all") healthy people would not. These cravings can be for anything from food ingredients such as flour, salt, raw potatoes, etc. to the more well known variant in which sufferers crave non-food items. Among the most common non-food cravings in this category: paper, wood, dirt, paint, fecal material and burned things (matches, coal, ashes...) Interestingly, incidences of Pica have been closely tied to people with deficiencies of iron (ie. Anemia) and/or zinc.

Depending on who you ask, Hemotophaegia may not be considered abnormal. The consumption of blood is quite normal in many cultures including the Masai of Kenya and the English of the United Kingdom. Hemotophaegic Pica however, especially in areas where eating blood is not part of the culture, is more often indicative of an extreme iron deficiency (seek medical help!) than just a penchant for eating blood in all its delicious forms.

Combine this with a mental disorder or an inhibition-lowering substance, and you've got a bloodthirsty drunkard stalking about the countryside.

2. Tuberculosis
When it comes to the "things people yell out when they think of vampires" game, Tuberculosis, or TB, goes greatly unnoticed, mainly because people tend to neglect the historical element and because rates of TB contraction have been dropping since the creation of a vaccine in 1921.

First, let us consider the symptoms: chronic cough, spitting up blood, weight loss, insomnia, loss of color in one's skin and chronic fatigue. "Wait a minute" you say "fatigue and a cough? That does not sound very vampire-y. What gives?" Ah, well there lies the rub. You have to die first. Tuberculosis won't make people think you are currently a vampire, but it certainly made people think you were well on your way.

You see, TB has this nasty little habit of going dormant, one sick member of a family can infect everyone, and they won't even begin to feel anything until after the first unfortunate soul has passed away. When the symptoms started coming back many people, especially in 17th century New England, began to blame the dead, reasoning that they had become a vampire, and had returned to suck the life from everyone else.

1. Rabies
You've gotten your pets vaccinated for it, but what will actually happen to if Spot goes Cujo and bites Timmy? In the middle of the woods, with no help for days in any direction, and Timmy is a orphen so no one will notice if he goes missing, also he has no friends. Poor Timmy. He will have somewhere between one and three months before symptoms even manifest, and by then it will be too late.

Symptoms of the rabies virus in humans first appear similar to the flu, but as the disease progesses, both the behavior and appearence of the infected begin to change. They become more sensitive to light and sound, experience halucinations, develop insomnia, become extremely anxious and adgitated, suffer brain damage and will eventually become unable to swallow due to muscle spasms in the throat, leading to a constant, unquenchable thirst. Eventually, sufferers fall into a deep coma and expire.

If you are bitten by a wild animal, get the rabies vaccination as soon as possible, as far as we known the disease is fatal in humans, with one notable exception: a girl who was placed in an artificial coma and injected with four different antiviral drugs. However, the treatment has failed to help anyone else since.

On Vampires I, in which I visit an authority on the subject

2008-08-22T18:38:00.000-07:00

My decent into the darkness was slow, and the mind begins to play tricks when the wind and the settling of the house work in unison to achieve an optimum level of creepiness. Where I was going, uninvited guests were punished, but I had questions, questions about things with pale skin, superhuman abilities and a penchant for a certain hemoglobin-y bodily fluid. There was only one person who could answer them. The queen of all things macabre.

My little sister.

My sister won't let people take pictures of her, so here's a girl with a skull.

Eventually I plan I get to the evolution of the Vampire mythos, but I needed a place to start. When did vampires really begin to become part of the popular consciousness? Why are they said to have pale skin, near (or even full) immortality and superhuman strength?

This was her response, she even typed it out for us.

Vampire myths exist in one form or another in almost every culture around the world. Some believe that many of the western ideas about vampires originated in the east from stories about monsters such as the vrykolakas (Greek) and the strigoi (Romainia). Once these stories have infected the collective minds of a society, there could be many different things that ignite a vampire legend of their own.

Take for instance a small peasant village living under a noble family. Let's say 13th or 14th century. Most peasants lived as farmers and suffered from malnutrition and weakness. Therefore to them, a well fed and strong noble man would seem almost superhuman by comparison. He could (if he were in good shape and he wanted to) run faster and lift more, super speed and strength. As farmers, the peasants would naturally have built up dark tans, while the nobles (seeing paleness as a status symbol) would not have. Thus, by comparison a noble would seem unnaturally pale. The nobles would not have much, if any, contact with the peasants which would allow for rumors to grow and spread unchecked. Throw in a nobel's body, and we're halfway to a vampire.

Not your hand! Poke it with a stick! A stick!

During normal stages of decomposition, intestinal bacteria break down tissues and cells, releasing fluids into the body cavity (ie:blood) as well as creating gases such as methane which will give the body a bloated appearance. Sometimes, the pressure of the gases from said bacteria will force the fluids out of the mouth. Also during normal decay, a body goes through hemolysis* (the destruction of red blood cells) giving the corpse a "rosier" appearance than it should have.
And thus, a scenario arises: When grave robbers come and open the tomb of a deceased noble, they find that the body appears to have been "drinking" blood, that it is a bit plumper than they remember, and that it has a little more color than they would have liked to have seen. One change of pants later, they're down at the pub recounting their terrifying story (adding a few exaggeration here and there in order keep the ale flowing in their direction) and low and behold, our town has a vampire.

I am so proud of my siblings.

Next, my sister pushed me in the direction of modern vampire literature. Most importantly, this list includes John William Polidori's "The Vampyre" the first story in which we can find a modern, human-type vampire, as opposed to just a beast. This is followed by the most famous of all vampire novels, Bram Stoker's "Dracula", and the first instance in which vampires are shown to fear sunlight: the film Nosferatu.

Armed with my sister's analysis, I set out to examine a second set of questions in my own territory. When did vampirism start being thought of as something contagious (As opposed to just being a curse)? Are there any diseases we can blame for the behavioral traits of vampires?

Yes.

And the rates of diagnosis go boom, ADD- part 3b (final installment of ADD series)

2008-08-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

(With more apologies to Mr. Bill Watterson-the-wise.)
Just for the hell of it, I popped on over to PsychCentral and took the Jasper/Goldberg Adult ADD/ADHD screening test. Which is the first results one encounters when doing a search for "ADD screening". Interestingly, the most recent copyright on this adaptation (from the original in-print screening guide) is from 1993. However, there is an additional note stating the quiz, (which, by it's very nature, is entirely based on self-reporting) was last reviewed in September of 2007 by site CEO and publisher John M. Grohol.

Take it yourself. Take it again as if you were your childhood self if you want. Go ahead. I'll wait here.

Go on.

Done yet?

Good.

My results? 66. According to Mr. Chart-at-bottom-of-page that's Moderate ADHD.

"You appear to be suffering from a moderate amount of attention and concentration difficulties according to your responses to this self-report questionnaire."

However, and lucky for anyone else who takes this test and actually reads all of what's written in the results and pays attention, it continues:

"You should not take this as a diagnosis of any sort, or a recommendation for treatment. However, it would be advisable and likely beneficial for you to seek further diagnosis from a trained mental health professional soon to rule out a possible attention disorder."

Good for them, but how many people actually follow that advice? How many people simply assume they have ADD and go to psychiatrists primarily seeking medication and treatment? Won't someone think of the children?

Yes... the children.

Looking at the criteria for diagnosis, I'm fairly certain that, had I been tested as a child, I would have met the required criteria for an ADHD diagnosis. Just to be sure however, I asked a psychologist. Although it is to late now to ever be completely certain, she too believed that my (admittedly self-reported) behavior during elementary school would have been consistent with ADHD.

So why am I talking about me? Because it's opinion time, that's why.

If ADHD is suspected, the diagnosis should be made by a professional with training in ADHD. This includes child psychiatrists, psychologists, developmental/behavioral pediatricians, behavioral neurologists, and clinical social workers. After ruling out other possible reasons for the child’s behavior, the specialist checks the child’s school and medical records and talks to teachers and parents who have filled out a behavior rating scale for the child. A diagnosis is made only after all this information has been considered.

- The National Institute of Mental Health

There! You see that part in there about ruling out other possible reasons for the child's behavior? They don't do that. People have started assuming that children who don't act like the majority of their peers have ADD unless proven otherwise. Because, hey, "What else could it be? Children can't be depressed or anxious, they're KIDS! What do they have to be depressed about? Psychological issues? They're too young for that."

This was me growing up.

There a hundreds of reasons why people act differently from their peers. There is no gold standard for what is normal. In my experience growing up in the 1990s watching those around me, and now watching my younger siblings and their peers, that reports of the ADHD severity and population frequency in the media and popular culture have been greatly exaggerated. It's inherent appeal is what keeps it going. A diagnosis of ADD or ADHD is neat and tidy and Ritalin works, it makes people concentrate. There is very little incentive to seek the roots of behavioral issues when a solution is readily available.

Now I'm not saying that ADD/ADHD isn't real, or that there aren't people who really do have problems functioning in society who would benefit from Ritalin use, or that the a Attention Deficit diagnosis hasn't helped many people since it's classification as a mental disorder. That would be just silly.

However, over-diagnosing ADD and ADHD may not seem like a problem at first, but consider the consequences. With everyone and their brother claiming to have some form of Attention Deficit, those who really do have problems to the extent where it severely affects their daily lives, are being grouped with those who are just taking the easy route.

There. I said it. I don't believe everyone who has been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD really needs medication, special treatment, or should be exempt from taking personal responsibility for their actions. Let the flames begin.
What I am urging, is closer consideration of ourselves and our families. "Ooohh but that takes too much time." Tough. Deal with it. Make time for yourself and your kids. If you are looking for a solution to your child's behavioral issues, don't just drag them to a psychiatrist seeking the easiest answer. Look at your kid, look at how you interact with your kid, and for you adults out there with these symptoms, look at yourself.

Being especially weird can be difficult, but it isn't all bad.

And the rates of diagnosis go boom, ADD- part 3a

2008-08-04T11:23:00.001-07:00

With all this talk of how amphetamines work and why Ritalin is such a common prescription, it's finally time to examine the diagnosis itself. What are the actual diagnostic criteria for Attention Deficit Disorder?

According to the United States Center for Disease control's page of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) the diagnostic criteria (DSM-IV) are separated into two categories: inattention and impulsive behavior.

If at least six of the listed symptoms of either category "have been present for at least 6 months to a point that is disruptive and inappropriate for developmental level" then the person in question is identified as having ADD or ADHD. If the majority of the symptoms are from the "inattention" category the condition is "ADHD predominately inattentive type", if from "Hyperactivity/Impulsivity" then "Predominately Hyperactive-impulsive type" and if it's a fairly equal combination of the two it's "Combined type" ADHD.

Oh, you want some examples and quotes do ye? Too busy to visit our friends at the CDC? Ok fine. Here are some excerpts.

Symptoms of ADHD

Inattention

Often does not give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities.
Often has trouble keeping attention on tasks or play activities.
Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.
Often does not follow instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace (not due to oppositional behavior or failure to understand instructions).
Often has trouble organizing activities.
Often avoids, dislikes, or doesn't want to do things that take a lot of mental effort for a long period of time (such as schoolwork or homework).
Often loses things needed for tasks and activities (e.g. toys, school assignments, pencils, books, or tools).
Is often easily distracted.

Hyperactivity

ften fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat.
Often gets up from seat when remaining in seat is expected.
Often runs about or climbs when and where it is not appropriate (adolescents or adults may feel very restless).
Often has trouble playing or enjoying leisure activities quietly.
Is often "on the go" or often acts as if "driven by a motor".
Often talks excessively.

Impulsivity

Often blurts out answers before questions have been finished.
Often has trouble waiting one's turn.
Often interrupts or intrudes on others (e.g., butts into conversations or games).
Some symptoms that cause impairment were present before age 7 years.
Some impairment from the symptoms is present in two or more settings (e.g. at school/work and at home).
There must be clear evidence of significant impairment in social, school, or work functioning.
The symptoms do not happen only during the course of a Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Schizophrenia, or other Psychotic Disorder. The symptoms are not better accounted for by another mental disorder (e.g. Mood Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, Dissociative Disorder, or a Personality Disorder).

Also of note:

Research suggests that children with difficulty in their peer relationships, for example, being rejected by peers or not having a close friends. [...] Parents of children with ADHD may be less likely to report that their child plays with groups of friends or is involved in after-school activities, and half as likely to report that their child has many good friends. Parents of children with ADHD may be more than twice as likely than other parents to report that their child is picked on at school or has trouble getting along with other children.

Well well well, this is starting to look a bit more interesting.

(PS. Apologies to the GREAT Bill Watterson for using his art)

Ritalin on, and in, the brain, ADD -part 2

2008-08-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

The above image comes from the South Park episode Timmy 2000 in which the children, thinking they can get out doing homework, are diagnosed with ADD and immediately prescribed Methylphenidate, better known as Ritalin. Here we see Cartman smacking Kenny with a frying pan in an attempt to defeat a little pink Christina-Aguilera-headed monster which he begins to hallucinate soon after beginning the drug.

Pink monsters (and an unnatural affinity for Phil Collins) aside, it's time to investigate how Ritalin is believed to affect the brain and why it is prescribed as a method of treating ADD.

As I mentioned previously, while initially approved over 40 years ago, and used for decades to treat "distractability, short attention, hyperactivity, impulsivity and emotional lability," behaviors which are viewed as symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It was only in the 1990s when this particular drug rose to fame due to the explosion of these diagnoses.

Methlyphenidate proved to be reliable drug for decreasing the severity and intensity of the aforementioned behaviors, but why? As a stimulant, it seems almost paradoxical.

According to a study conducted by the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2001, dopamine (as explained earlier) floods the brain about an hour after the ingestion of methlyphenidate. According to researcher Nora Volkow "[...]by increasing the levels of extracellular dopamine, you can activate these motivational circuits and make the tasks that children are performing seem much more exciting." (Emphasis mine)

The results of the PET scans used in the research also seem to indicate that this flood of dopamine suppresses the firing of neurons not associated with dopamine and task and reward pathways. Because the "random activation of other cells" can be distracting, the shut-down of other activity restricts cognition to the task at hand, whatever that may be.

Before

"Look at all the coffee. I wonder how many beans there are here. One, two, three... Well this is kinda pointless. Oh, hey, one is darker than the others. I wonder why."

After
"I'm supposed to find something here, and the face in the beans at the bottom stands out."

Concerning the matter of the "Highs"and physiological dependency associated with methylphenidate use, Volkow et al. hypothesized the one hour delay time between ingestion of the drug and the achievement of peak levels of dopamine was too slow to create a high.

"We've found that for drugs of abuse to be effective, they must get into the brain very quickly, and for that reason, when injected, Ritalin can become addictive [...] So, it is the speed at which you increase dopamine that appears to be a key element in the addiction process."

One last thing, about Cartman's hallucination, there's actually something to that. In fact, in 2006 the United States Food and drug administration was officially advised to add warnings to ADD/ADHD drugs about the risks of the hallucinations experiences by up to 5% of users.

Reeh!

How Amphetamines work, ADD- part 1

2008-07-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

Today's topic- This generation's most common learning disorder and favorite prescriptions used to treat it: ADD and Amphetamines!

Amphetamines are a group of stimulants which have been used to treat the symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) since the 1960s. It's popularity exploded in the 1990s and has remained popular ever since.

To understand the special relationship between those that grew up during the 1990s and amphetamines. It is important to examine both the social factors, as well as the drug's history and ADD diagnoses. However, before that can be accomplished it is important to first understand how amphetamines work in the first place.

Under normal operating conditions, dopamine is usually only released when needed. After the neurotransmitters have completed their function (by attaching to the dopamine receptors and triggering the appropriate neurological reaction) the remaining dopamine is removed from the synaptic cleft by dopamine transporters so the brain may return to normal.

However, when amphetamines enter the brain, they too are taken up into the pre-synaptic cell by the dopamine transporters. This is due to the structural similarity of amphetamines to dopamine. Once inside the cell, amphetamines move into the dopamine vesicles, forcing dopamine out.

Now overfull, the dopamine transporters begin to work backwards to force the "excess" dopamine out. In reality, there is no excess of the neurotransmitter, just a lack of space. Having no where else to go, the dopamine binds with the dopamine receptors on the post-synaptic cell. Without any space in the pre-synaptic cell, the neurotransmitters are stuck in the synapse. This causes the dopamine pathways to fire repeatedly.

While dopamine seems to be the neurotransmitter most affected by the presence of amphetamines in the system, the actions of sero tonin and norepinephrine (another neurotransmitter) are also affected by the amphetamines' ability to prevent reuptake of these molecules via the neural transporters. In the case of serotonin, the areas of the brain most affected are those relating to the brain's reward pathways, while in the case of norepinephrine there is an effect on adrenaline.

It is this combination which leads to the physical and psychological effects associated with amphetamine use, and it is these effects that will be examined in more detail as we continue.

How magic mushrooms work

2008-07-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

This post has been updated

Today we're diving into the realm of psychotropics (Wheee) to investigate psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms.

While the title of "magic mushroom" has been given to many different species of mushroom, today we are only going to focus on those of the genus psilocybe, and eschew those such as Fly Amanita in which the active compound is Muscimol.

Now, to the brain!

The most common way of using psilocybin is through the consumption of psilocybin mushrooms, however, extracted psilocybin (in pill form) has been used in lab experiments as a means of controlling dosage. Almost immediately after being eaten, the body's enzymes begins metabolize Psilocybin into Psilocin by removing the molecule's phosphate group, thus rendering it structurally similar to serotonin.

Today the role of Psilocin will be played by munchkin cats, and serotonin will be represented again by welsh corgis.

This physical similarity allows the Psilocin to bind with serotonin receptors, thus exciting the nerves and causing the brain to activate as if a flood of real serotonin has been released.

Normal brain

With the addition of psilocin in the brain, the postsynaptic cell is able to fire without the presence of any actual serotonin on the receptors themselves.

(And for those of you who recognize it; yes, longcat is a munchkin)

Because serotonin receptors are present throughout the brain, the effects of psilocin are extremely variable. The molecule is capable of reaching all parts of the brain within 40 minutes of ingestion, but small amounts begin interacting immediately upon absorption through the tissue of the mouth and stomach. The brain's neural pathways begin to fire in ways in which they normally would not, as they have been excited independently of each other and without a natural (external) stimulus.

In low dosages this can lead to mild hallucinations (such as the enhancement of colors, sounds and/or smells), while larger quantities are said to lead to "spiritual" experiences in which users claim to feel connected to nature and the universe. Bad trips, in contrast, are said to correlate with people who are already emotionally distressed before ingestion. This seems to indicate that use of the drug amplifies the user's pre-existing emotions and thoughts, similar to the effects reported by many people taking SSRIs.

As for long term effects, let's ask the scientists at John Hopkins University.

In 2006 ago a team of researchers from the university's School of Medicine set out to investigate the "acute and persisting effects" of psilocybin use. The results of the study were then published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. According to the researchers, when psilocybin was administered to "hallucinogen-naive adults" who were self-reported to have "regular participation in religious or spiritual activities":

Psilocybin produced a range of acute perceptual changes, subjective experiences, and labile moods including anxiety. Psilocybin also increased measures of mystical experience. At 2 months, the volunteers rated the psilocybin experience as having substantial personal meaning and spiritual significance and attributed to the experience sustained positive changes in attitudes and behavior consistent with changes rated by community observers. -Griffiths et. al.

Additional details included in the university's original press release report that more than 3/5 of subjects experienced a "Full mystical experience". Two months later 79% of participants who had been given psilocybin reported increased "life satisfaction" when compared to the control group.

This same study has appeared in the news, when the team released the results of their two year follow-up. The numbers are still high, with 58% stating the experiences as being one of the "five most personally meaningful" experiences of their lives and 64% reporting increased life satisfaction.

The fact that just one experience with psilocybin has had such a drastic impact on the lives of the participants in this study is promising. I agree with the researchers at John Hopkins, in that I hope this information will give the scientific community to incentive it needs to reopen their investigations into the world of psychedelics.

Things that are fascinating: Ladybugs

2008-06-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

(I took this photo)

Look at this. Do you know what this is? It's a Coccinella pupa. A ladybug (aka ladybird or lady beetle) metamorphosing! I'm been looking for one of those in the wild for years! And while I did want to investigate it closer, I was afraid to harm the contents.

I like ladybugs. They're sufficiently strange enough to have captured my interest early in life, and have held it since I first discovered a swam of ladybug larvae erupting from the steps in front of my house.

(This one is from wikipedia)

I had been aware of ladybugs for a long time before then, but they just weren't that interesting to me. I was too used to seeing cartoon versions of the creatures, and their constant personification as meek female stereotypes was off-putting.

Then came the alien step-swarm, and I haven't switched back since.

The larval stage of these beetles only lasts about two weeks, but during that time they wreak havoc. Upon emerging from their eggs, the insects immediately proceed to consume the remaining (often unfertilized) eggs in their clutch. If the larvae are lucky, the parent beetles will have laid them near an aphid-infested plant, and so apocalypse fall upon the hapless pests. Consumed by an unstoppable wave of a vicious alien species.

After they have consumed their fill and grown to an acceptable size, the larvae enter the pupal stage, and emerge fully grown and ready once again to terrorize the garden as top predators. Well, in insect terms anyway. Just take a look at this one taking out an aphid with its mandibles of doom.

The aphid struggles, but it is already too late. The strength of the beetle's is mandibles is massive. I've actually been bitten by one, and while it doesn't really hurt, you can definitely feel it.

Not only is the ladybug a formidable carnivore, but as prey the species has adapted wonderfully in ways that make it extremely unappealing prey. The bright red elytra (wing covers) are a form of aposematism, a visual warning based on color telling predators to stay away. While some beetle species exhibit such marking as a means of tricking predators into thinking they are potentially dangerous, ladybugs actually do produce a noxious yellow toxin from their legs that smells like someone is cooking cabbage in jock-sweat.

Which leads to me to discuss the species' interactions with humans. While ladybugs are generally considered helpful creatures to have around and protect one's garden/crops from pests, there are consequences from being in close contact.

Harmonia axyridis, the Asian Lady Beetle (aka. Harlequin Beetle) and most well-recognized ladybug in North America, has been linked to facial angioedema and respiratory allergies in certain people who have come into contact with the insect or the insect's secretions. This usually occurs when the beetles begin to invade houses by the hundreds, seeking shelter and a hibernation-space.

(I took this one too)

So what can we conclude about ladybugs? I personally feel we should use them as an example. Sometimes things turn out to be pretty fascinating. Instead of just accepting generalizations, look closer, it's worth it.

More on Atheism

2008-06-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

I found the video of Richard Dawkin's February, 2008 lecture at the University of Liverpool earlier and I wanted to post it as a follow-up to yesterday.
The following excerpts contain Dawkin's explanation of the spectrum of religious behavior, as well as a brief discussion of how one can be atheistic, and still be "religious" about nature and the cosmos at the same time.
Part 1.

Part 2. (discussion of belief ends at about 3:11)

Should you desire to see the lecture in its entirety, the full version is available through both the University of Liverpool's website and Google video.

Atheism: It's complicated

2008-06-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

I was browsing Reddit earlier today when I came across a couple articles (including this one from the LA Times)l discussing the results of a recent poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public life. In every article I've seen today there is some variation of "90% of Americans believe in God" in the headline.

Let's analyze this claim, shall we? As with all things, be skeptical.

First, consider the sources. While the Pew Forum itself does appear to try for a neutral position, we must also keep in mind that, like all businesses, the newspapers want to sell. They need pithy headlines and stories that will attract the attention of the public.

Now to the actual poll results. According to the available information, the survey consisted of 35,000 Americans. (Why wasn't I polled? I demand a do-over! Include more people! More comprehensive information!) Of that total, about 92% (due to rounding) was classified as "believe in God".

However, only 60% is classified as "[believe in] personal God." The other two categories, and this is important, were "Impersonal force" at 25% and "Other/Don't know" at 7%. Furthermore, the categories into which the statistics are organized is based upon self-reported classification. That is, people responded with what they considered themselves to be (in terms of a religious title), before giving any further information. This leads to a bit of confusion when considering the "Unaffiliated" subgroup, in which we find percentages of 21% "believe in God" under "Atheist" and 5% "Other/Don't know" under "Agnostic."

Possible intentional self-mislabeling and misunderstanding of titles aside, I believe the categories are too vague, to the point where they are actually very misleading. The data itself shows only 60% of people believing in a personal god, that is: "a person with whom people can have a relationship." (The survey was done by phone, did people even have access to these definitions?) With 1/4 of participants believing instead in an "Impersonal" and therefore ineffable "force" and 7% (And WHY are "Other" and "Don't know" even together in the first place?) not even knowing how to respond, it is irresponsible and misleading to claim 9 out of every 10 people on the street "believes in god."

Additionally, each article I've seen seems to repeat the claim "1 out of 5 atheists believes in god." What? They do? Really? The religious people have been right all along! Atheists are secretly religious! They're just hiding it and rejecting fill-in-the-blank god of our choice!

Bullsh*t.

Look at the numbers. 15% of that 21% figure answered "Impersonal force" or "Other/Don't know" and I'm willing to bet that a handful of people answered "Personal God" because they personally felt "spiritual. Even if we get rid of that "Don't know" category, we're still left with 12% who believe in a "force" of some kind. It's ridiculous to try to just shove them under the giant believers' umbrella.

It's a common misconception that Atheism means that you believe there is no god, and this is just untrue. Atheism is not a statement, but a rejection. The word itself, a combination of the prefix "a-" (without) and "theos" (a god) indicates nothing more than a lack of belief in any particular deity. Over time this has come to encompass a lack of belief in even the concept of deities, and has gained a great amount of additional baggage from both religious and secular speakers throughout the world.

Being an atheist doesn't mean you reject the idea of order in the universe. It doesn't mean you can't still experience wonder and joy. It doesn't mean you are militant, angry, or lashing out. It doesn't mean you can't still see the world and it's wonders and be just as moved and just as amazed at this incredible place in which you have been lucky enough to be born as anyone else. All it means is that you don't believe in an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day

All this talk about Atheism is especially pertinent today (at least, it is to me), in light of the passing of comedian George Carlin. The man was, and still is, one of my heroes, and I'm genuinely saddened that I will never get a chance to meet him in person.

Beware the ghost fish! ...or not.

2008-06-20T19:49:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write about this story, even though it's from last December, because during a half-hour program, I saw three commercials for the show "Ghost Hunters."
Now, if the producers want to call it entertainment, fine, but they cross a line when they call it "paranormal investigation." As if, what this show depicts is any sort of critical investigation of the situations presented. As if normal people are not capable of investigating the "supernatural" without the aid of uniforms and "psychic-hotline gurus".

By the way, if it exists, it's natural, by default. Ok? A ha ha.

Investigation, of anything, is the pursuit of truth. It's having the drive to understand the fantastic world in which we live, and the courage to try to find the truth, even if you're all alone.

Which is where the ghost fish come in. (I traced this as far back as I could to the original source, but it was in Chinese. So, once step back and we're where I originally encountered the story, Weird Asia News.)

(It's the Catatafish, hells yeah)

For ten years a five-story building had gone virtually uninhabited. Not because of any fault of the building, but because it sounded scary. Four different people purchased the property, only to be scared away by the sounds of the "haunted" building emanating from the very walls.

Ooo, spooky.

Only not.

Valued at $34,000 USD, the building sold for $6,500 to a couple brothers (family name Chan) who, unlike the previous owners, were skeptical enough not to accept the "ghost" explanation.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and if we apply the philosophy of Occam's razor we can also, usually, assume the the solution requiring the fewest assumptions is usually correct.

This left the brothers with two possibilities: 1. That ghosts exist, that ghosts can cause noises and affect the physical world, AND that they were the owners of the only truly haunted house in the world OR 2. Something else was causing the noise.

Something else was causing the noise.

After numerous nights of searching, they figured out the noise sounded like something flapping in the water and it came from the bathroom pipe on the first floor.

The decided to break the pipe open and immediately found what was haunting the house.
About 10 catfish were found swimming in the sewer. Two were about 10 pounds and the rest were about 5 pounds each.

How did they get there? Well, as it turns out, further research showed that the original owner of the building liked catfish, and had once brought back a bucket of live fish for dinner. At least two of them escaped down through the toilet, and "made a happy family of 10 living in the sewage pond."

The Weird Asia News article ends with the comment that the value of the house subsequently skyrocketed, but to me, that's not the most important part. The most amazing thing to me was that these men, after ten years and four owners, were the only ones to even bother investigating.

I wish that more people would be this willing to put their critical thinking skills to good use, but until that day all I can say is congratulations to the Chans! Great job!

Homeopathetic part 2

2008-06-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

Here's another way of looking at things: Let's say that there is a 1/500 (7 days/week, 4 weeks/month x 18 waking hours/day = 504 hours/month in which to begin taking homeopathic pills/liquid/salve/what-have-you) chance that someone begins a homeopathic "treatment" at the exact time as their body is already beginning to heal itself. At first the odds seem pretty low.

According to an ABC poll, 16% of poll-takers had tried homeopathy for "chronic pain." If we extrapolate that 16% figure (heck, let's be conservative and say 15%) and apply it to the United States general population we get 304,367,000 x .15 = 45655050. Multiply that by our 1/500 and we get a little 91,310 people each month who were lucky enough to begin treatment when they were already starting to get better, and who will then sing the praises of homeopathy to all their friends.
In addition to this, we have the standard: "But I/my sister/my friend/an acquaintance swears by homeopathy. I/They took this-thing when I/they were suffering from that-thing and I/they got better!"
While it may seem convincing at first, such thinking suffers from the fact that the conclusion (i.e. that homeopathy works) is reached through several logical fallacies. These include, but are clearly not limited to:

1. Confirmation bias. Humans don't remember non-events. Our brains are set up to remember things that we consciously consider significant. If the person in question took a homeopathic remedy when they were sick, and then got better, they would remember it. However, people would not remember times when the remedy did not "work" as quickly, or at all; Especially if the person in question takes such things on a regular basis.

and

2. Assuming Correlation implies Causation. Let's say your friend takes a homeopathic remedy for a bruise, and lo and behold the bruise heals "faster than when [your friend] didn't take it." First we must consider that this occurrence is self-reported, and we cannot be objectively sure the bruise healed more rapidly. More to the point however, humans are not perfectly controlled subjects.

Please, consider the following questions when evaluating both the claims of others, and your own assumptions:
What other things was this person taking/doing at the time?
Were they "supplementing" the oral homeopathic remedy with some sort of ointment or herbal remedy?
Were they eating a different diet/exercising more/getting more sleep than the last time they were injured?
How does the general lifestyle of users of homeopathy (or people who are attracted to alternative medicine in general) compare to non-users?

There are countless factors that affect individuals and which influence the body's healing processes and it is for this reason that it is critical to examine homeopathy from a scientific perspective. Controlled experiments must be undertaken, not only to validate the extraordinary claims of homeopathic practitioners, but also to protect the name of other alternative approaches, such as the use of herbs, which do in fact have legitimate evidence to support their claims.

Homeopathetic part 1

2008-06-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

Let me make something clear: I am not on anyone's side when it comes to the matter of "modern medicine" and alternative/complimentary/new age/what-have-you treatments. I do, however, constantly remind myself to investigate the extraordinary claims I often come across, and I encourage everyone else to do the same.
Now on to the matter at hand.

Living where I am, I am surrounded by people that consider themselves to be part of some kind of "alternative" culture, especially when it comes to medicine and religion. Since moving here, I have spent an almost ridiculous amount of time speaking with (and subsequently investigating the claims of) everyone from self-proclaimed spiritualists to tongue readers.
Yeah, tongue readers.
Usually I let things come and go as they occur, but there is an exception. Homeopathy.

Homeopathy was invented by a German physician named Samuel Hanemann in the 1700s. Operating under the idea that "like cures like" he sought a way to treat his patients with ingredients that, in a healthy person, would cause the same (or at least similar) symptoms as were caused by the afflictions plaguing his patients. This, he believed, would cause the body to fight against the new stimuli and simultaneously "treat" the existing condition.

The trick was not killing his patients while he was at it.

Hanemann's solution was, well, a solution. By diluting something potentially harmful in a solvent such as alcohol, water, or even by mixing it with sugar, and then diluting the whole thing multiple times, he (and other homeopathic practitioners) ended up with solvents which were indistinguishable from ordinary alcohol/water/sugar. There are essentially NO molecules of the original solutes in the final product.

So-called "homeopathic" products in which the dilution is something like 1:10 (aka. 1X) are not "true" homeopathic products, but rather, diluted herbal ones which have adopted the "homeopathic" label. The popular homeopathic flu "remedy" Oscillococcinum for example, has a concentration of 1:10⁴⁰⁰. Chemically, it is extremely improbable that anything with a dilution greater than 1:10²⁴ will have any molecules of the original solute left at all.

To it's credit, this whole process and method of "treating" disease was superior to the most popular alternative at the time.
If only because, instead of actively harming a sick person, it allowed sick people a chance to heal on their own.

The idea behind the process of repeated dilution was that even if there was no longer a physical trace of the solute left behind, the process would still leave the "essence"/"memory"/"energy" of the solute behind. Which doesn't even make sense because "energy" is a measurement of a physical thing's ability to do work. At least practitioners of "Chi/Qi manipulation" and acupuncture have a built in escape plan, they can just say that "energy" is an inappropriate translation, and that Chi is more like a "life force". No such luck for you, homeopathy!

Another thing about this is the ignorance I seem to keep encountering about the placebo effect, the measurable or otherwise observable improvement in health which is seen to occur in control populations who have been given "fake" treatments (such as sugar pills in place of the actual drug being tested). This is considered to be a subject-expectancy effect, as the individuals being tested improve seemingly due only to their personal belief that they will do so, and has been recognized since the early 1900s.

Regarding both homeopathy and "mainstream" medication, it means that one must always be skeptical about claims about any treatment's effectiveness. Unless there is a significant difference between the control group and the experimental group, then we can assume the thing being tested is not an effective solution to the problem at hand.

Which is exactly what we see in most experiments designed to examine the effectiveness of homeopathy. In examinations of seemingly effective homeopathic remedies, additional research into the ingredients themselves has shown that the "non-active" ingredients in the final product, are actually more effective than the solute itself, and as such one may conclude that it is these ingredients (in non-"pure" homeopathic remedies- those that contain more than just the solute and solvent), and not the solute in question, that are "treating" the condition, whatever it may be.

But there's more, stay tuned for part two.

Geekwear

2008-06-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

From this wonderful series.
Heh.
Turtles. Turtles all the way down.

In the beginning...

2008-06-11T18:04:00.000-07:00

I hate being sick, I never used to get sick, so why does it happen so often now?

I love this video. I must admit I have some objections to the ending parts, as I do with the "atoms of the # kind" repetition, but when it comes down to it, I love this way of telling the story of creation.

However, my reasons are different than those the original creator cites. His argument seems to center on the fact that it would have been possible to write an "accurate" creation story using ancient concepts. But my love for it comes from this: Too often those who see the world from a scientific perspective allow the wonders of nature to seem boring, cold and harsh, especially when they are presented to others. Then there are those like myself, who sometimes find it difficult to express the love and admiration we have for the incredible universe in which we all live.

I welcome anything that can help me convey that sentiment with open arms.

Things that are fascinating: technological telekinesis

2008-06-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

Today's topic is a two parter. The first bit involves a monkey.

According to an article from New Scientist, two monkeys have been able to successfully feed themselves using only their brains (in contrast to prosthetics which are activated by the triggering of muscle cells) to control a robotic limb. Although previous research has shown that both monkeys and humans are capable of mentally controlling the movement of virtual objects and some robotic things (i.e. a hand), the combination of movements required for the monkey to actually reach out, grasp the treat, and return to feed itself, is much more complicated.

One thing that did bug me was that although the article mentions that the electrodes were implanted, we don't get much information about the invasiveness of the procedure. From what I can tell it doesn't seem too extreme, but I would still like to see more information about the process. Not only because I would hope that the monkey's weren't negativly affected, but also because invasive and dangerous operations may put off those who would otherwise benefit from such technology.

Ideally, technology-mediated telekinesis would be minimally invasive, and easily manageable, like the headgear designed for this guy. Using only three contact points on a headband, researchers at Keiko University were able to construct a mechanism through which an unnamed patient was able to fully manipulate a second-life avatar.

The article mentions the technology's potential to be used in therapy, but why stop there? Why only use to for therapy? This technology should be made available for anyone who has lost their mobility. As humans, we crave interaction with other people, we're a social species, and the loss of the ability to interact normally with others is an extremely devistating psychological blow. There are people out there who sincerely need this.

...and then there's also the fact that fully immersive games would be incredibly awesome for anybody. I'm imagining a future where I'll have my digital butt handed to me by a quadraplegic, and I'm looking forward to it.

How Alcohol works

2008-06-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

Alcohol is defined chemically as being composed of a hydroxyl group and an alkyl group held together at the carbon atom of the alkyl group. For the purposes of my "how things work" series, in which I have been focusing on how drugs interact with the brain, we shall focus only on ethanol, which comes from plants and is the alcohol in "alcoholic beverages". ( ) Which looks like this:

Today it will be represented by a sloth.

Now, back to the brain!

As I mentioned previously in "How weed works", under normal circumstances our brains produce and distribute inhibitory neurotransmitters such as GABA. These control the release of chemicals such as Dopamine in the system so that the amount being released is appropriate for the circumstances. This system is again represented here by cats and dogs.

And again, this is roughly how the system should operate under normal circumstances:

Some, but not all, of the available dopamine is being released. Just enough for the brain and body to function properly. The remainder is unable to escape into the synaptic cleft due to the presence of the inhibitory neurotransmitters.

Another important neurotransmitter to know about here is glutamate, which is a general excitatory transmitter, and the most common one in mammals. It's released from one cell, triggers the next cell, and continues the transmission of the nervous impulse.

The signal (the dude) arrives through the nerve to the synapse. Glutamate is present in the end of the pre-synaptic cell, and does not travel with the impulse.

The arrival of the electrical signal through the nerve triggers the release of glutamate into the synapse, where it comes into contact with the post-synaptic cell.

Triggered by the arrival of glutamate at a binding site, the second nerve fires.

Both systems are thrown off by the arrival of alcohol in the body. Alcohol's small size allows the molecule to easily cross the blood-brain barrier and begin to interact with the brain almost immediately.

Unlike THC, which simply prevents the release of the inhibitory transmitters responsible for controlling the release of dopamine, alcohol causes the GABA inhibitors to make them extremely inhibitory, so that little or no dopamine is released.

Elsewhere, alcohol (due to it's size and shape: blame the hydroxyl group) ends up binding to glutamate reception sites. This in turn prevents the reception of glutamate by the post-synaptic cell and as such it never receives the signal necessary to fire, stopping the impulse.

The end result? The whole brain is unable to function properly. The areas which suffer the most however are those related to impulse control and self-awareness (The frontal lobe), memory creation, emotions (both in the temporal lobe) and eventually one's motor skills and the entire limbic system.

Research, completed through the use of brain imaging and published in The Journal of Neuroscience this past April, 2008, has also illustrated that the presence of alcohol in one's system dampened one's ability to detect potential threats and increased activity in areas associated with reward and positive emotions. Although this particular study focused mainly on social drinkers, the activation of these reward pathways indicates that all drinkers have similar reactions in terms of which particular regions of the brain are affected. One would expect that in alcoholics, or even people with a history of alcoholism in their families, would demonstrate heightened responses in these reward centers, especially when compared to a similar demographic of non-alcoholics.

Platypuses are like platypuses

2008-05-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

The top news of the scientific world today seems to be the completion of the sequencing of the platypus genome. This is some fascinating stuff, the results of this research provide us with clues about the evolution of mammals. While platypuses are classified as mammals due to their fur and the fact they produce milk to feed their young, their skeletal structure (look at the shoulders) and egg laying ability are more akin to those of birds. They also posses ten sex chromosomes, in comparison to standard two of most mammals, and even though they are designated X and Y because of the platypus's mammal classification, these chromosomes are actually more structurally similar to the ZZ/ZW chromosomes of birds.
But there is one thing I have to rant about, and that is the insistence of almost every author I've read today to describe the platypus as a "mix" or a compilation of certain traits from other species. The platypus is a remarkable creature in it's own right. Surely one of the only two remaining types of monotremes deserves more respect than being referred to as a beaver with a duck's bill.
Saying the platypus has ____ like a ____ does nothing but confuse people who aren't familiar with platypus physiology and give people fodder for the "well something put-together like that couldn't have evolved on it's own." argument.
Let us examine some of these egregiously oversimplified comparisons, shall we?

1. "The platypus has venom like a snake."
No. The venom of a platypus is produced in the ankle spurs of the male, and unlike the venom of snakes, is not produced at all by the female. This sexual trait seems to suggest that the spurs are used by the males to assert dominance, a task with which the females need not concern themselves. Unlike snakes. Furthermore, the venom itself is entirely unique to the platypus and is composed of 250 different chemicals, four of which are not found in any other animal. That includes snakes. Also, they can squirt it at you, from their feet. Spitting cobras may spit, but how would you like to be holding a cute little platypus when suddenly it gets pissed off and starts karate-kicking poison in your face?

2. "The platypus has a tail like a beaver."
Yes they serve the same purpose, acting like a kind of rudder in the water in addition to helping the animal to swim, but to understand how inaccurate this is, we have to look at both tails.
Here we have an adorable baby platypus:

See the fat, furry tail?

And here we have a hideous rat monster with ginormous teeth.Please note the lack of fur on the tail and the comparative flatness and inflexibility of the beaver tail.

and finally...
3. "The platypus has a duck's bill."
When was the last time you saw a duck hunting like a shark? The answer is "never" duck bills just aren't that sensitive, they're hard. The bill of a platypus on the other hand is fleshy and extremely sensitive. So much so in fact, that platypuses are the only mammals that use electroreception (meaning they sense, like sharks, the minute electrical fields given off by the muscle movements of other animals) to hunt for prey. Mechanoreceptors, touch receptors, are located throughout the bill. By combining their sense of "Hey... something is moving" with their ability to sense "That thing's got muscles, therefore it's alive." They are able to come to the following conclusion "I'll eat it."

Like I said before, these are amazing, unique creatures, and they deserve to be recognized for the wonders they are.

The Zygote is not converted

2008-05-01T12:41:00.000-07:00

"To illustrate the vain conceit that the universe must be somehow pre-ordained for us, because we are so well-suited to live in it, he [Adams] mimed a wonderfully funny imitation of a puddle of water, fitting itself snugly into a depression in the ground, the depression uncannily being exactly the same shape as the puddle."
-- Richard Dawkins, in "Lament for Douglas" (14 May 2001)

Earlier today I met with a group of Christians, as I usually do about once a week. Now when I tell people this, I occasionally get the following response (from religious, and non-religious people): "Why?"
To be perfectly honest I see it as a kind of anthropological study, and it helps me to understand the kind of religious extremes in which people can exist. I have studied different religions all my life, thanks to my parents, this is just another way of exposing myself to them, and attempting to correct their (often alarming) misunderstandings about other religions and their understanding of science as best I can.

Sometimes it works. I was able to convince them that bombardier beetles won't spontaneously 'esplode, and explain the original peppered moth experiments... However, I often feel it's ultimately a fruitless endeavor. Especially on days like today.

Lots of different groups have tried to recruit me over the years, all for their own reasons. By now I'm kinda used to it, but that fact doesn't make me feel any less awkward.

Today was the first time I've gotten a version typed up for me.

The paper included three selections from the Christian bible, and the arguments went as follows:

1. You don't believe in god because your sins have hidden god, so you can't see him.

2. You haven't accepted that our god is right so your heart has a veil on it. Therefore you have to just [basically pretend to] believe in god and then you'll be able to believe in our god.

3. Satan has made it so you can't see god.

There was even a prayer at the bottom instructing me to ask the christian god to make me believe in him.

It's not going to happen.

Most of the members of the covent were old-fashioned Satanists, like their parents and grandparents before them. They'd been brought up to it and weren't, when you got right down to it, particularly evil. Human beings mostly aren't. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow. -Good Omens

I know it must be hard for people like these to understand that, while I do find the most basic ideas of many religions to be "good". There are many things that I do reject, about almost all religions I have come across, I find things such as blind faith and the results thereof horrific. I can't just "believe" in anything without evidence, especially if I find a particular "anything" to be repulsive.
I refuse to go along with anyone's efforts to convert me not only because of my own mind, but because I wish to live my life without unduly harming anyone else. To pretend to believe something around people who do believe such things, with all their hearts, would be a lie. Furthermore, I think the laws and dogmas of organized religion pervert the "good" ideas upon which they are based and I call bullshit on anyone who claims you can't know right and wrong without a sense of obligation to a "higher authority" figure of some sort.
In fact, I think people who do are frightening.
Not only do these organized systems, created by men who were just as mortal and flawed as the rest of us, twist people's views of the world and how one may live in it, but from what I've seen, they actively stunt intellectual growth and the ability to question anything they have been told, labeling the act of doing so as heresy.

I could never accept anything like that. Ever.

To quote the great Douglas Adams: "I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day."

How SSRIs work

2008-04-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

Today we're going back into the synapse, (see: How weed works) to examine how Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors affect the brain.

The neurotransmitter Serotonin is found primarily in the gastrointestinal tract, but it plays an extremely important role in human brain function. Studies have linked the activity of Serotonin in the brain with the expression of anger/aggression, mood, sleep, appetite, and even sexual drive.

In cases of clinical depression, the amount of Serotonin available in the brains of affected individuals is lower than that of the general population. This is especially true of people who suffer from eating disorders or loose their ability to eat due to depression. Lower caloric intake necessarily results in decreased energy production; and the less you produce the worse you feel.

So, to deal with this problem, people suffering from the symptoms of depression are often prescribed Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors.

Today the role of Serotonin will be played by Welsh Corgis.

Normally, the brain is able to produce sufficient amounts of serotonin to maintain normal brain function, and the owners of said brains are able to maintain a relatively stable outlook on life. This is because, when serotonin is released into the synapse, enough binds to the post-synaptic cell to trigger the cell to fire.

Here's a neutral view:

Now in a normal brain, it doesn't matter if all the serotonin molecules end up binding to the post-synaptic receptors. As long as there is enough to continue the neural chain reaction, it doesn't matter if the remaining Serotonin is taken up again into the pre-synaptic cell.

In depressed brains, where there isn't very much Serotonin available, or ones that are simply unable to release enough in time to continue the reaction, this is a problem. Unless all the receptors necessary are activated, the impulse fails.

This is where SSRIs come in. Like putting a slide out front, the Serotonin can get out, but they can't get back in. They have nowhere else to go but the post-synaptic cell because their tiny little Corgi legs make them too short to get back up.

Ha ha haaa... I made myself sad.

Hades and Tartarus

2008-04-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

Hades: The name of an ancient Greek god, ruler of underworld of the same name, home to the "shades of the dead".
Tartarus: A sunless abyss below Hades. Holding-pen of Titans and the wicked.

Recently I've been hearing these words being tossed around by some Christians in reference to their land of the dead, while the simultaneously tell me that it's not "hell" (the lake-of-fire yet at the same time not really a lake-of-fire). In fact, several have even told me these were originally "Hebrew" words.

As this is all very confusing, especially to an outsider, I decided to do more research.

Apparently, "Hades" and "Sheol" are all basically the same thing, an underworld of sorts in which souls are separated from god, hell comes later. According to the doctrine I've been able to find: When people die they go to "Hades" where they suffer in "Tartarus", or they might not. Eventually they'll all be judged, and if they don't pass then they all get dumped into a lake of fire.

What bothers me however, is that Hades and Tartarus were already well-established concepts long before Christianity hit the scene. There are thousands of fascinating stories about the adventures of Greek heroes through these lands, of the creatures the lie within and many of them contain some very real, very practical advice about how to live your life. These ancient stories are parables that teach people to be kind to one another, to be patient and live honorable lives. Hades and Tatarus were settings, not some terrible threat meant to be used as a form of horrible persuasion. Even Tartarus, eternal home of the wicked, was not a place to which you were condemned from birth, if you were a good person, you wouldn't go there, simple.

It is for that reason that I feel upset when someone, of any religion, usurps the language of another history or religion. By using roughly analogous definitions for Hades and Tartarus, the transliteration of these terms went smoothly. However, in doing so, the original translators, and those who continue to ignore the Greek history behind them, have tainted people's views of the original stories, obscured their histories, and ultimately cheapened the values for which they used to, and still do, stand.

Tribble fiiiiiight!

2008-04-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

In a lecture given earlier this week at George Washington University, the great Steven Hawking (physicist, professor, author, and guest star on Futurama) stated he is of the opinion that life, albeit very possibly privative or simply unintelligent, probably does exist elsewhere in the universe.

One option is that there likely isn't life elsewhere. Or maybe there is intelligent life elsewhere, but when it gets smart enough to send signals into space, it also is smart enough to make destructive nuclear weapons.
Hawking said he prefers the third option:
"Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare," he then quickly added: "Some would say it has yet to occur on earth."

Concerning the matter of extraterrestrial life, I share the same opinion on this matter. High intelligence is not common, as evidenced by the animals of our own planet. As I have explained before, evolutionary fitness is not a matter of any kind of physical, on in this case, mental strength, but rather the ability to pass successfully on one's genetic material so that the population as a whole adapts to the environment in which it finds itself.
And so enters the Tribble.
Tribbles, as first introduced in Star Trek's original series, are little fuzzballs
that don't really do much of anything except for eat and purr and reproduce, exponentially.

Which is why they are also, as Jack Cohen (biologist) and Ian Stewart (mathematician) write in their book What Does a Martian Look Like?, most likely the most "realistic" alien life form ever depicted in the series and its various spin-offs.
Tribbles are clearly not intelligent creatures, but they survive, and they do it well. The inspiration behind them came from the invasion of rabbits in Australia. Another unintelligent species, rabbits eat, poop, eat their poop, and reproduce, and lo and behold the population exploded and there is absolutely no threat (at the moment) to the continued existence of rabbits, and all that without any sort of high intelligence whatsoever.

If humanity continues to think life outside of earth must be like us, then it will probably be a let-down when we do find something that isn't just life in the form of a microbe. Life, and all its fascinating, wonderful manifestations, did just fine for an extremely long time before human intelligence hit the scene. As long as we're looking out and up for signs that we may not be alone, how about taking a minute to appreciate the unbelievable variety of life that exists alongside us, and then brace ourselves for the discovery of headless, legless cat bodies.

Dopamine and the monkey sphere

2008-04-20T16:27:00.000-07:00

(I love this image more than I should)
April 20th. A day loaded with a variety of different anniversaries associated, good and bad. For today however, let's just focus on the 4:20 4/20.
At the 4:20 celebration at the University of Colorado (one of the largest of it's type) one thing stands out. Once high, people usually like each other, even total strangers.
This is different from just getting high with friends because it introduces the element of people with whom the user has not previously formed any type of friendly relationship.
Once sufficient amounts of THC are present in the system it is the release of, and subsequent flooding of neural synapses with, Dopamine that causes the marijuana high. (see: How weed works) For most people, this manifests as a dulling of physical pain and mental anxiety (or even feelings of depression) and an increase in feelings of contentment, security and peace.
Your first experiences with this high, and yes we've all felt it (even if you've never smoked pot), were completely driven by your own, internally-produced, neurotransmitters. These first experiences took place during infancy, and continue to happen throughout your life (but to a much less impressive extent) when you are in contact with close members of your monkey-sphere.

I first encountered the idea of the monkey sphere in David Wong's article "Inside the Monkeysphere." The basic idea of the article being that humans, as a primate species, have a set number of people we consider to be our extended family. In Wong's article this extended article is referred to as a "Monkeysphere" while in the BBC documentary "The Human Animal" host Desmond Morris refers to this group (in part III), perhaps more eloquently, as a tribe.

Humans are not built psychologically to exist in colonies, instead, we form groups within our larger societies. Large groups may be united by common behavior and traits, but on a smaller scale people only truly concerned with about 150 people maximum.
So what does this have to do with Dopamine?

Dopamine has been shown to be directly linked with human sociability. In people who suffer from psychological disorders resulting in social withdrawal and/or a lack of interest or empathy in other humans have also been shown to have low levels of dopamine binding in the brain.
On the other hand, when a mother holds an infant, both of their brains get flooded with Dopamine, therefore solidifying their bond as time progresses. Same thing happens with fathers and their babies as well.
The whole process is much more complex than this of course, but the important thing to get out of all this is that: Dopamine that makes you happy. It floods the brain when you around someone you love. It does the same thing in couples as it does between a parent and child, it tells your brain that you absolutely-freakin'-LOVE whatever the hell is with you.
With pot, the process is just running in reverse. Instead of getting a rush of Dopamine because you love something, you get the rush, and then your brain, having associated this physical state with a certain mental condition, (i.e. love) rationalizes it by coming to the conclusion that whatever you are around at that moment is just FANTASTIC.

Of the efficiency of counting one's blessings and religion

2008-04-19T18:53:00.000-07:00

Oh Science Blogs. How I love thee.
Today I stumbled upon an article in Cognitive Daily discussing the recently released paper "Counting Blessings versus Burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life." The purpose this particular investigation, if you couldn't tell from the title, was to determine what effect, if any, planned expressions of gratitude have on subjective well being.
From Cognitive Daily:

Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough figured it would be worthwhile to explore this notion. Their method of study was both ingenious and simple: they would ask 201 students in a health psychology class to respond to a weekly questionnaire. Everyone rated their well-being, was tested on a measure of gratefulness, and reported on their physical health and level of exercise. The key to the study was a division into three groups. The first group listed five things they were grateful for each week. The second group listed five hassles or irritants from the past week. The final group simply wrote down five "events or circumstances" from the past week. This continued for ten weeks.

At the end of those ten weeks, the data was complied and examined. As one may have predicted, it was the "gratitude" group which scored higher than the "hassles" group. Although, it must also be noted that these differences were not mathematically significant (thank you for reminding me, oh memory of my high school biology teacher). The two scientists suspected this was because the participants only did the reflections once a week.
So they repeated the study, having participants do a journal/reflection every day and it was then that a significant difference was observed, and the researchers were able to conclude that positive reflection does seem to have an effect on overall emotional well-being.

So what does all this have to do with religion?

Although so have already speculated that this improvement in perceived well-being supports the idea that religious people are happier because they acknowledge the things for which they are grateful, or just the things that make them happy, as part of their religion itself.
That being said, I do not entirely support this idea, as in many circumstances these expressions of thanks, such as saying a token prayer before a meal, can become nothing more than repetition.
Just like repeating the same word over and over makes it start to sound strange and lose significance (try it sometime, eventually you may even forget the correct spelling) so too does the repetition of memorized prayers. If however, one makes a conscious effort to recognize the significance of what they are actually saying, then the speaker will be able receive these psychological benefits.

Again, however, none of this is unique to just the religious, or to members of any specific religious group. Anyone who takes a moment to realize not only when they are happy, but what has caused them to be so, will begin to react in the same manner as the participants in this study.

Take time to notice the little things around you, it's addicting.

How weed works

2008-04-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

UPDATED VERSION HERE

Let's look at how Tetrahydrocannabinol, THC (a phytocannibinoid) does what it does in humans.

This is a THC molecule:
Now I could go into detail and be very scientific about all this, but instead, let's have some fun, shall we?

Ooo, nerve cells. Neurons are cool, but we need to get closer.

That's better, but we have to get into the synapse: the gap between the individual nerve cells. I'll just draw it.

Here we see the synaptic cleft. On the right we can see the inhibitory neural transmitters, (represented by dogs). On the left is Dopamine, (represented by cat heads), and at the bottom the dopamine receptors (the headless cat bodies).
Now, normally, the synaptic cleft looks like this:

Without the presence of a cannabinoid (either a self-produced Endocannabinoid, or one from an outside source) the inhibitory neurotransmitters prevent the release of dopamine into the synaptic cleft. As such, the dopamine remains contained.

However, if your body is injured or feels the need to react, your brain will allow the release of an inhibitory chemical like GABA into the synapse.

Here represented by the leash, the inhibitory-transmitter-inhibitor (here, the cannabinoid) prevents the release of the inhibitory neurotransmitters and in turn Dopamine is released into the synaptic cleft where it binds with the dopamine receptors of the promixal neuron. While dopamine is constantly being released in healthy brains, a sudden increase in dopamine levels results in a decrease in activity levels and an increase in feelings of relaxation which allow the organism to temporarily cope with injury.

Naturally-produced inhibitory-transmitter-inhibitors such as Anadamine break down fairly quickly in the body, which is why you don't usually get a lasting high when you get hurt.
Unlike chemicals like Anadamine, which are like the leash, easily destroyed, THC is more like one of those metal stake things that you dig into the ground when you're mad at the dog for pissing on you while you slept.

Those guys aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Peace.

Re: The Zoo, an open letter to parents

2008-04-12T06:04:00.000-07:00

Dear Parents,

After a recent visit to the zoo for a photo shoot, and much unintential eavesdropping, I feel the need to remind you, yes you, of the following: It's perfectly acceptable to admit your don't know something, especially when it comes to educating your children around you.
A red river hog is not a "pumba." The smaller of any given species is not always a female. There are differences between the "kitties", fairly obvious ones. And for the love of all things please don't just guess, or you'll end up with a child who thinks that the dwarf mongoose exhibit is filled with "baby porcupines."
While I will admit that describing all of the felines encountered at the zoo as cats can indeed be helpful for the development of the child's "cat" schema (warning: PDF), you should not be oversimplifying things, or worse, guessing, because you want to make things "easier" for your child. It's insulting to your child's intelligence and our human penchant for the acquisition of knowledge about the things that interest us, especially as children.
If you don't know about something that has captured the imagination and interest of your child, use that as a learning experience, don't just say "I don't know" or make something up. Instead, admit your lack of knowledge to your child, there is no shame in doing so, and turn it into a learning experience, for both of you.