8
POPSVitamins Don't Work - Or Worse An interesting article listing clinical trial and meta-study results of vitamin usage. It may be that not only are vitamin supplements not needed - they may hurt you.
10
POPSSea rise 'to exceed projections' Once again the IPCC has been shown to be wrong. And once again they are 'wrong' on the side of being too conservative about the impact of climate change.
21
POPSSocial Interactions Can Alter Gene Expression In Brain, And Vice Versa A critical insight came in 1992, in a study of songbirds led by David Clayton. He and his colleagues found that expression of a specific gene increases in the forebrain of a zebra finch or canary just after it hears a new song from a male of the same species. This gene, egr1, codes for a protein that itself regulates the expression of other genes.
5
POPSStatistics and the Dancing Cockatoo "On each trial he actually dances at a range of tempos," says Patel. But in each case the slower end of Snowball's range seemed to correlate with the tempo of the music. "When the music tempo was slow, his tempo range included slow dancing. When the music was fast, his tempo range didn’t include these slower tempos," Patel explains. A statistical check on these variations showed that the correlation between the music’s rhythm and Snowball’s slower movements was very unlikely to have happened by chance. "To us, this shows that he really does have tempo sensitivity, and is not just ‘doing his own thing’ at some preferred tempo," says Patel. Via Andrew Sullivan
16
POPSBacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab In the meantime, the experiment stands as proof that evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome. Instead, a chance event can sometimes open evolutionary doors for one population that remain forever closed to other populations with different histories.
26
POPSPolitical Junkies: Why it Feels Good to Be an Extremist In The Political Brain , psychologist Drew Western summarizes fMRI experiments exploring the neuro-psychology of systematic bias and rationalization in the brains of political extremists. Finding ways to dismiss contradictory evidence triggers pleasant emotional releases in partisans' brains, eventually becoming a pleasurable, learned behavior. Once partisans had found a way to reason to false conclusions, not only did neural circuits involved in negative emotions turn off, but circuits involved in positive emotions turned on. The partisan brain didn't seem satisfied in just feeling better. It worked overtime to feel good, activating reward circuits that give partisans a jolt of positive reinforcement for their biased "reasoning." These reward circuits overlap substantially with those activated when drug addicts get their "fix," giving new meaning to the term political junkie.
5
POPSMeet The Cuttlefish - Science If you have never heard of the cuttlefish, you are in for an amazing discovery. This animal has evolved some astonishing survival strategies. If this doesn't convince you of the scientific theory of evolution, NOTHING WILL. Watch, Listen and Learn. Carolyn View Video Here http://www.thethinkingblue.com/swf/maddiecousin.html
48
POPS26% of Americans don't know that earth revolves around sun (my understanding is that the 71.2% who correctly said that it takes the earth 1 year to revolve around the sun is actually 71.2% of the 73.6% of respondents who correctly said the earth revolves around the sun. That means that only 52.4% of all Americans know it takes the earth one year to revolve around the sun. That noise you just heard is my jaw hitting the floor. Via Kieran Healy at Crooked Timber
4
POPSTB Patient ID'd as an Atlanta GA lawyer ...I'm guessing that the guy and his soon to be father in law dont have a close relationship...well they probably dont anymore. Wonder if the father slipped him a TB mickey at the rehersal dinner.
0
POPSSexual emulation and rivalry I don't know how much stock to put in a psychology experiment that used 59 non-randomly selected participants, but this is interesting nonetheless.
10
POPSNeurology vs. free will At the moment, the criminal law—in the West, at least—is based on the idea that the criminal exercised a choice: no choice, no criminal. The British government, though, is seeking to change the law in order to lock up people with personality disorders that are thought to make them likely to commit crimes, before any crime is committed. Via Mobius at JewSchool
8
POPSGorillas May Have Played Role in AIDS Epidemic The origin of HIV has been a mystery since 1984, when researchers first conclusively showed that it causes AIDS. Over the past 20 years, evidence has accumulated that points to Africa and a similar virus in chimpanzees. Many scientists suspect that the chimp virus jumped into humans who hunt and butcher these great apes. Now a group led by virologist Martine Peeters of the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement in Montpellier, France, has found that gorillas may have played a supporting role in the origin of the AIDS epidemic.
3
Clips
Latest Pops
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Tags
Print
Save
Turn on live update