Entries Tagged 'Science' ↓

Inventorspot reported on this monumental finding: Study Shows Bullies Enjoy Seeing Others in Pain.

In a recent book review discussing a book on lonliness and its negative impact on health, there was this curious passage.

If subjects are told for the purposes of experiment that they will face a lonely future, they score lower on intelligence tests and abandon tasks sooner. If cookies are set before subjects who have been told that no one else in the experiment wants to work with them, they eat twice as many as those who have been told that everyone else in the experiment wants to work with them.

I’ve always argued against the idiocy of half the ethics guidelines but this seems a good case for a query. Its not hard to imagine a long lasting, let’s say a haunting continuing echo, of a directive that you are lonely and will die alone in your apartment, your body not being discovered for days, and possibly being partially eaten by cats.

And in other health related news…

This courtesy of InventorSpot
…the shopping cart wash…capitalizing on all the germophobes out there.

You gotta end with something good…great animal portrait from the best nature photography of the year at NationalGeographic

Video from TED, (via WebUrbanist) Theo Jansen’s kinetic sculptures….science and art, and above all, amazement.

Once in a blue moon something comes along that challenges your limited sense of what is possible, and this, for me, Don’tClickIt certainly qualifies. Visit this site to see how simple navigation without a mouse, without clicking, is possible.

And then some new and unusual ways of telling time via GrowaBrain:

TimeBeat

Filling Grid Clock

PulseClock

WordClock

In an entirely different realm but of potentially life saving consequence is the invention of the Peepoo bag, a portable toilet (via the David Report Blog), a bag that soon after it is used, sanitizes the feces and thus prevents further contamination of the environment. Any natural disaster disturbs existing infrastructures, and even barring such events, many urban slums are ill equipped to deal with human waste; this is a major contribution toward reducing disease under those conditions.

And the craziest and most disturbing invention in some time:

From LoveHoney, the Touche Womanizer Shaver and Silicon Massager. “The magnificent Womaniser is not only smooth to the touch - it’ll leave you smooth and strokable, too! This intimate shaver is hidden inside a single speed silicone massaging vibrator - the perfect combination for a night of orgasmic personal pleasure.” I’d love to read the warning label.

With that recent study of the magpie recognizing itself in the mirror and thus joining the select group of humans, some apes, bottlenose dolphins and Asian elephants, and another on whether apparently grieving animals really perceive death (the latter concern voicing the opinion that quite a few humans seemed to have trouble with that particular concept as well), the human/non-human intelligence gap seems to be blurring.

One thing that seems true over the decades is that humans, or should I say certain academics, are so obsessed with delineating all the things they can do and animals cannot, that when these supposed specialties are being broached by certain species, the investigators tend to then develop new barriers to joining the smart club. Though I am wary of anthropomorphizing, and do feel from time to time that my dog is so utterly alien that its a wonder than we share space, I also believe that same dog to take pleasure in existence, to make decisions, to have an aesthetic sense. Its so much easier than coming up with reasons as to why its brain would preclude those possibilities.

But what I really want to say here is that everytime someone waxes on about how amazing humans are, they tend to hold up the Einsteins as examples when the Einsteins are not what you call typical. Whenever I read someone writing about an animal failing some intelligence test I can only think that quite a few people might have done the same.

I’m not saying we’re not smarter as a species. But we seem to be a little too obsessed with not only being at the top of the food chain but also being tops in gray matter. And I am pretty pleased magpies came to the dance. As annoying as their chatter is, I love those birds. They are the definition of street smart.

My girlfriend sent me this cool image which in turn was sent to her. This originated with Nobuyuki Kayahara and can be found on Michael Bach’s site of illusions. Most people will find a preference for one direction over another.  (Bach cautions that some places on the net use this to argue for different brain dominances but there is no real basis for that connection).

Once she starts spinning, see if you can get her to change direction.

This little amble lies somewhere between “I’m just saying” and “if I were king”. Its also partly throwing something out there and seeing if there’s some huge problem with what I’m thinking…if so, give me the virtual slap but give me good reasons why.

So this is it. I’ve no doubt that global warming is taking place and no doubt that plenty of it is human driven. What I don’t see is why that is a problem for non humans, and specifically how it is bad for the planet. The planet has gone through many changes and you can’t really say that one era is any better than another. Even if you use the debatable measure that life is better than no life, life has stayed pretty constant through all the changes. Yes, species come and go, prosper or decline but that’s the way things go, weather changes or not. And yet, on the news yesterday I heard that global warming was not good for the planet.

Humans will suffer if there is climate change. And unfortunately it will hit those who are already the most disadvantaged. (And I guess my point it that if every human died, the planet itself would be just fine….man is not the measure of all things).

Here’s the thing: We may not be successful with all the programs we are attempting to put into place. They work best with everyone on board and that just doesn’t seem to be happening. It may be a colossal waste of time and money.

Might it not be better to go with the flow? Assume that things are going to get worse and throw efforts in the direction of coping with that change. Direct the efforts towards those who need it rather than spreading it into places where the effect will not matter as much.

Fighting global warming the way we are right now seems to me like trying to perpetuate outmoded manners of existence for as long as possible when we should be thinking about alternatives.

I’m not saying go out there and burn up as much fuel as possible because that supports a very wasteful infrastructure that really does destroy life (unlike global warming which just kind of shifts it around).

Thoughts?

A few months ago I wrote about the absurd justification for hunting in that it taught you a respect for life. In the latest Harpers‘, Christopher Ketcham writes about the culling of the Yellowstone bison herds because they might impact on the marginal profitability of the cattle herds which by the way are being supported by free access to government (read public) lands, supported by American taxpayers to the tune of about 120 million dollars a year (the most conservative estimate).

The cattleman associations around Yellowstone complain about the possibility of interspecies infection despite that according to the Trade Environment Database “there has never been a verified case of brucellosis transmission in free ranging bison to grazing cattle.”

I won’t go into too much detail here, get a copy of the magazine and read the rest (as with every issue, there’s plenty more in there worth reading as well). It has one of those passages that is both wondrous and tragic, reminiscent of those descriptions of passenger pigeons blotting out the sun for hours as they passed overhead. And then the next year none.

Between 1870 and 1880, at least 10 million buffalo, and possibly as many as 20 million, were killed. Two hundred thousand hides were sold in Fort Worth in a single day. West of Fort Dodge, Kansas, it was said, one could walk a hundred miles along the Santa Fe line hopscotching the dead. Army Colonel Richard Dodge, stationed in Kansas in 1873, wrote that “the air was foul with a sickening stench, and the vast plain, which only a short twelve months before teemed with animal life, was a dead, solitary, putrid desert.

Once again, we never seem to run out of reasons for saddling up, grabbing a rifle, and taking out a few of a population that really cannot afford to lose any members.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be out at the beach?

Check out this set of photos illustrating A Day at the Beach in Korea. You’d need to get away from getting away.

But speaking of impact, this paper called Environmental Lifestyle Analysis has taken an interesting and sobering look at the costs of existing in a high energy use society, with the realization that even the homeless will not get their energy use below a certain level. Its all about the costs of the supporting infrastructure being shared by anyone who ever uses them. It does not buy into any sort of conclusion that this means that cutting back doesn’t help but helps to show there is a basic system cost below which you cannot sink without a radical tinker.

However, one cannot help but come to the conclusion that the necessary response is to change the system; our individual energy expenditure levels are to a substantial degree attributable to an inefficient system. Having just experienced the European model (extensive transit and denser housing combined with smaller more numerous shops and streets which make walking a pleasure) where the most reasonable and pleasurable personal choices are also more environmentally friendly than the alternatives common here in Canada, it is obvious things could change for the better. My city encourages wastefulness and degradation in the way it subsidizes and continually improves avenues of personal auto use. Unless you are in either the few older neighborhoods or in the green spaces, walking is not all that pleasant. (Not that Spain is all peaches here; recycling is rare and the current water shortage is a result of unrestrained consumption in a fairly arid land.)

The Goblin Shark. Its liver may account for up to a fourth of its weight. Found in deep sea but rare enough that little is really known about it other than its good looks.

An arresting image but no information about the type.

The Greenland Shark. Largest specimen ever caught was over 1000 kilograms. The flesh is poisonous.

So I might not want to be in the water but would love to be at this underwater restaurant in the Maldives.