Yes, your mother was right all along. According to a study conducted at Yale, viewing erotic or gory images causes the brain to stop processing visual input for a period of time, up to 800 milliseconds.
Dr. Most showed volunteers a series of images, one of which, the target, was rotated. Amongst the images shown were those of violent images or mutilated bodies, and if the target image was too close in sequence to the violent image, the viewer failed to perceive it. The same results were obtained when the violence was replaced by erotica.
Dr. Most began working on the problem of rubbernecking, where a traffic accident will cause long backups as everyone stops to get a good peek, but these findings have greater implications for traffic safety, as drivers could well be distracted by billboards long enough to get into accidents of their own.
Home, home on the range, where the lions and elephants play
OK, so that’s not quite how the song goes, but it could, should a plan proposed by a group of ecologists and conservationists in Nature be adopted. Conservationists often aim to restore the ecosystem to a pre-Columbian state; here the authors argue that this is an arbitrary baseline and that the late Pleistocene era, when human colonization of the Americas began, would be a better goal to aim for.
Prior to the arrival of humans in the Americas, around 13,000 years ago, many species of megafauna used to grace the landscape, with large cats, mammoths, and mastodons a common sight until their extinction, presumably due to overhunting by humankind. Their proposals are based on several observations:
First, Earth is nowhere pristine; our economics, politics, demographics and technology pervade every ecosystem. Such human influences are unprecedented and show alarming signs of worsening. Second, environmentalists are easily caricatured as purveyors of doom and gloom, to the detriment of conservation. Third, although human land-use patterns are dynamic and uncertain, in some areas, such as parts of the Great Plains in the United States, human populations are declining which may offer future conservation opportunities. Fourth, humans were probably at least partly responsible for the Late Pleistocene extinctions in North America, and our subsequent activities have curtailed the evolutionary potential of most remaining large vertebrates. We therefore bear an ethical responsibility to redress these problems.
The article proposes using lions, elephants, camels and other species as proxies for their extinct ancestors, with the added benefit of preserving the biodiversity of these large mammals, many of whom are under increasing danger of extinction as humankind encroaches on their existing habitats.
Although the plan has not met universal acclaim, I think it’s an astounding idea. Cross-country road trips across the North American plains would be enlivened no end by the chance to spot cheetahs or herds of elephants, and the benefits from both environmental stewardship and increased tourism revenues would greatly benefit all concerned. Perhaps one day I shall be able to take my children on safari in Montana.
Nanosheets
We often hear a lot about the coming "nanotech revolution," yet as is often the case, the hype tends to exceed the reality. That might not be the case for too much longer. Reporting in Science this week, a team of researchers from Texas and Australia have devised a process to create ultrathin, ultrastrong sheets of carbon nanotubes, in effect creating an aerogel fabric.
Nanotubes are a type of fullerene, molecules of carbon that are distinct from either diamond or graphite that resemble the truncated icosahedrons popularized by the architect Buckminster Fuller. The discovery of this novel form of carbon resulted in the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry being awarded to Sir Harry Kroto, Robert Curl and Richard Smalley. These nanotubes are grown in a forest-like configuration, whereupon they can be spun into sheets that have the same strength as an equivalent sheet of steel, yet weigh many times less, and are highly transparent. As an added feature, they are also excellent conductors of electricity.
"Rarely is a processing advance so elegantly simple that rapid commercialization seems possible, and rarely does such an advance so quickly enable diverse application demonstrations," said the article's corresponding author, Dr. Ray H. Baughman, Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry and director of the UTD NanoTech Institute.
The applications possibilities seem even much broader than the present demonstrations, Baughman said. For example, researchers from the Regenerative Neurobiology Division at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, Dr. Mario Romero, Director, and Dr. Pedro Galvan-Garcia, Senior Researcher Associate, and Dr. Larry Cauller, associate professor in UTD's neuroscience program, have initial evidence suggesting that healthy cells grow on these sheets - so they might eventually be applied as scaffolds for tissue growth.
Baughman said that numerous other applications possibilities exist and are being explored at UTD, including structural composites that are strong and tough; supercapacitors, batteries, fuel cells and thermal-energy-harvesting cells exploiting giant-surface-area nanotube sheet electrodes; light sources, displays, and X-ray sources that use the nanotube sheets as high-intensity sources of field-emitted electrons; and heat pipes for electronic equipment that exploit the high thermal conductivity of nanotubes. Multifunctional applications like nanotube sheets that simultaneously store energy and provide structural reinforcement for a side panel of an electrically powered vehicle also are promising, he said.
Perhaps this technology will bring about the foldable laptop screen I’ve been dreaming of?
And the debate rumbles on...
Just like Jaws in "The Spy Who Loved Me," every time you think it’s dead, it pops back up again. Several weeks ago, President Bush stated publicly that, in his opinion, intelligent design deserved a place alongside the theory of evolution in high school science classes in the US. Eager to placate the hordes of outraged scientists and laypeople opposed to having their children intentionally mislead in the classroom, and no doubt anxious to stem fears of a US decline in scientific standing, the White House denied that the President was considering having the curriculum altered to reflect his religious views.
Now, Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN), a Harvard-educated cardiac surgeon who really ought to know better threw his hat in the ring, no doubt in order to curry favor with the portion of the electorate he offended when he came out in support of embryonic stem cell research. Ever the political opportunist, Sen. Frist displayed to the world the kind of doctor he really is after diagnosing PVS patient Terri Schaivo as lucid, after having watched an edited videotape supplied by her parents. Speaking to a Rotary Club gathering, Frist opined that in his opinion, ID ought to be taught alongside evolution.
"...exposing children to both evolution and intelligent design "doesn't force any particular theory on anyone. I think in a pluralistic society that is the fairest way to go about education and training people for the future."
Presumably Sen. Frist also believes that children ought not to have other scientific theories forced on them either. I always felt chemistry and physics lessons would benefit from a rejection of atomic theory, and if equal time was devoted to explaining to high schools that all matter was made up of a combination of fire, earth, wind, and water, the scientific base of the US would be strengthened immeasurably. Or something.
In a move that defies belief, Frist tried to explain how he could support stem cell research and ID at the same time:
Frist said his decision to endorse stem cell research was "a matter of science," but he said there was no conflict between his position on stem cell research and his position on intelligent design.
"To me, I see no disconnect between that and stem cell research," Frist said. "I base my beliefs on stem cell research both on science and my faith."
Personally I think he neglected to mention his polling data, but then I have been accused of being a cynic. Lest you think me a lone voice in the wilderness in opposing these egregious attacks on science education and rationality, four leading scientific societies, The American Society of Agronomy (ASA), the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), and the American Chemical Society (ACS) have come out against the teaching of ID in classrooms
Interestingly enough, just as with the stem cell debate, the GOP leadership are not quite marching in lockstep on this issue. Rick Santorum, the staunchly Catholic Republican senator from Pennsylvania, and possible rival to Frist in the 2008 Republican Presidential primaries, takes the opposite view:
"I'm not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom."
For the time being, Santorum is in line with mainstream Catholicism, which for now accepts the scientific validity of the adaptation of species to niches over time, although there are worrying noises coming from Cardinals close to the new Pope about a rejection of established scientific wisdom.
The New Republic has a great article about exactly what is wrong with ID, noting that there is not a single shred of evidence behind the claims, and that it does not qualify as a science:
Finally, the reliance of ID on supernatural intervention means that the enterprise cannot be seen, strictly speaking, as scientific. In his rejection of scientific creationism in McLean v. Arkansas, Judge Overton described the characteristics of good science:
(1) It is guided by natural law;
(2) It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law;
(3) It is testable against the empirical world;
(4) Its conclusions are tentative, i.e., are not necessarily the final word; and
(5) It is falsifiable.
By invoking the repeated occurrence of supernatural intervention by an intelligent designer to create new species and new traits, ID violates criteria 1 and 2; and in its ultimate reliance on Christian dogma and God, it violates criteria 3, 4, and 5.
Sadly, I don’t think this will be the last we’ll be hearing about this. Just this week the Kansas School Board voted again to include strong criticism to the teaching of evolution in the state curriculum. In 1999 the same state banned teaching of evolution, geology and cosmology. There’s a reason Kansas doesn’t have a biotech industry, but it escapes me right now...
In other news
- Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs draws flak
- H5N1 now endemic amongst bird populations in Asia
- Merck loses its first Vioxx lawsuit
- Despite fears, GM Maize is not spreading to surrounding farms
- Sperm whales show increasing pollution of the oceans. Good job, humankind
- The powerful crocodile immune system may help in the fight against HIV
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