A disaster that science brought upon itself

The jailing of scientists for failing to predict an earthquake is the sad conclusion to the scientific community’s depiction of itself as soothsayer.

http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13016/

 

 

Tools for brain hackers

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/11/features/seeing-the-light?page=all

Ed Boyden, an engineer turned neuroscientist, makes tools for brain hackers. From his lab at MIT, he is building technology that will vastly expand the range of experiments that other scientists can pull off. His latest invention is a classic example: a robot that patch-clamps as well as a human scientist, with none of the fatigue or variability. It works all day. It does not need lunch breaks. It has transformed a technique that had only been mastered by an elite few into something that anyone can do, and hundreds of labs are queuing up to buy or make an auto-patcher of their own. Boyden published a description of the robot in May this year. He says, "After our paper came out, I got an email saying, 'I just spent a year learning how to do that. Thanks. There goes that'."

Ray Kurzweil’s Dubious New Theory of Mind

Ray Kurzweil is, by all accounts, a genius. He holds nineteen honorary doctorates, has founded a half-dozen successful companies, and was a major contributor to the field of artificial intelligence. He built some of the first practical systems for recognizing speech and scanning text. Time magazine recently featured Kurzweil on its cover, and Fortune described him as “a legendary inventor with a history of mind-blowing ideas.” And now he has a new book, with a subtitle that suggests he has found another such idea: “How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed.”

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/11/ray-kurzweils-dubious-new-theory-of-mind.html#ixzz2D8IFJYt3

New publishing ventures aim to make peer review easier and less painful | Inside Higher Ed

New publishing ventures aim to make peer review easier and less painful | Inside Higher Ed

Measured Innovation in Peer Review

Steve Kolowich Inside Higher Ed

Conversations about the future of academic publishing often revolve around the pros and cons of open peer review. Would a new mechanism for vetting research that relies on the wisdom of crowds, rather than a select few editors and reviewers, lead to a scholarly renaissance or to chaos?

Now several publishers are trying to find a balance. Drawing from both the traditional peer review and open-access models, PeerJ and Rubriq are looking to use the architecture of the Web to build community-oriented platforms that are accessible and empowering, yet stable and habitable — walled gardens, but with windows that open from the outside.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/11/01/new-publishing-ventures-aim-make-peer-review-easier-and-less-painful#ixzz2B2STnIQW

No result is worthless: the value of negative results in science

No result is worthless

http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2012/10/10/no-result-is-worthless-the-value-of-negative-results-in-science/

Ontology and Methodology Conference

CFP: Ontology and Methodology (May 2013, Virginia Tech)

FIRST CALL FOR CONTRIBUTED PAPERS FOR CONFERENCE:

Ontology and Methodology

http://www.ratiocination.org/OM2013/

Dates: May 4-5, 2013

 

Science News

Great link:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/

Half of the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong

A review of The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date by Samuel Arbesman.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/10/02/half-of-the-facts-you-know-are-probably

Dinosaurs were cold-blooded. Vast increases in the money supply produce inflation. Increased K-12 spending and lower pupil/teacher ratios boosts public school student outcomes. Most of the DNA in the human genome is junk. Saccharin causes cancer and a high fiber diet prevents it. Stars cannot be bigger than 150 solar masses. And by the way, what are the ten most populous cities in the United States? In the past half century, all of the foregoing facts have turned out to be wrong (except perhaps the one about inflation rates). We'll revisit the ten biggest cities question below. In the modern world facts change all of the time, according to Samuel Arbesman, author of The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date.

'8 reasons I rejected your article'

A journal editor reveals the top reasons so many manuscripts don’t make it to the peer review process

 

http://elsevierconnect.com/8-reasons-i-rejected-your-article/

 

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Psychiatry's Transformation of Natural Anxieties into Mental Disorders

“Why is psychiatry forced to rely on a grab bag of symptoms to make its diagnoses? Because, fundamentally, it has nothing else to offer”

All We Have to Fear: Psychiatry's Transformation of Natural Anxieties into Mental Disorders

by:	Allan V. Horwitz and Jerome C. Wakefield

Review:

http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=812&fulltext=1&media=#

http://www.organizedwisdom.com/Category:Quizzes

A collection of interesting health quesetionnaires to help answer some common questions.

Why Do We Say That Someone Is “Hot”?

Scientists are discovering the primal links between physical warmth and our emotions

What do a chilly reception, a cold-blooded murder, and an icy stare have in common? Each plumbs the bulb of what could be called your social thermometer, exposing our reflexive tendency to conflate social judgments—estimations of another’s trust and intent — with the perception of temperature. Decades of fascinating cross-disciplinary studies have illuminated the surprising speed, pervasiveness and neurobiology of this unconscious mingling of the personal and the thermal.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-do-we-say-someone-is-hot

By Kai MacDonald | July 10, 2012 |5

Older Drivers at High Crash Risk Are 'More Distractible,' Reports Optometry and Vision Science

Page Content

Drivers with Limited 'Useful Field of View' Should Avoid In-Car Distractions

Philadelphia, PA (April 2, 2012) – Older drivers rated at high crash risk on a computerized vision test are more likely to have driving problems related to distractions in the car, reports a study in the April issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

Older drivers who show limitations on the "Useful Field of View" (UFOV) test make more driving errors when distracted, suggests the new research, led by Joanne M. Wood, PhD, FAAO, of Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. "This finding provides a basis for predicting those older adults who will be more distractible on the road, and therefore also those who might benefit most from minimizing distraction while driving," the researchers write.

UFOV Predicts Driving Problems Related to Distraction
The study included 92 drivers, average age 74 years, who underwent the computerized UFOV test. Useful field of view is defined as "the area over which a person can extract information in a single glance without moving his or her head or eye." Drivers with limitations in UFOV are more likely to have problems in demanding driving situations, with an increased risk of crashes.

After the UFOV test, the drivers performed a closed-course driving test three times. On two occasions, they did the driving test with in-car visual or auditory distracters, consisting of simple math problems presented on a video screen or audio speaker.

Drivers who had limitations in UFOV were most likely to have problems on the driving test related to both visual and auditory distracters. They also took longer to complete the driving test—possibly reflecting slower driving speeds, which are common among older drivers.

In particular, drivers who scored lower on the "selective attention" subtest of the UFOV had decreased performance on the driving test in the presence of distracters. Drivers with lower scores for selective attention were also more likely to be rated at high crash risk on the UFOV. "This finding suggests that the driving problems elicited in the presence of visual or auditory distracters are greatest for those who are rated at most risk for crashing overall," the researchers write.

In contrast, older drivers who did better on the selective attention subtest had better overall performance on the driving test, even with distracters. The selective attention subtest was a better predictor of performance on the driving test than the other two UFOV subtests (visual processing speed and selective attention).

Older Drivers at Risk Should Minimize Distractions
Previous research has shown that the UFOV test is highly effective in predicting crash risk among older adults, with or without vision problems. The new study suggests that distractibility is an important contributor to problems in driving performance and to crash risk predicted by the UFOV test. That's consistent with recent research on the effects of increased distraction while driving—especially for auditory distractions and cell phone use in cars.

"Our results have important implications for the design of in-vehicle devices, such as satellite navigation devices and mobile phones (even when hands free)," Dr Wood and coauthors write. "The effects of distracters are likely to be exacerbated as the driving environment becomes increasingly complex." They believe that older drivers with "more extensive constriction" of their UFOV should be warned of their possible increased risk of driving errors—and perhaps especially to minimize distractions while driving.

"The result is consistent with the observation that many have made that as you age you find in-vehicle distractions (like a radio or noisy conversation) to be more annoying," comments Anthony Adams, OD, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Optometry and Vision Science. He adds, "It certainly raises even more questions about the wisdom of in-vehicle screen displays and cell phone use!"

New ‘Friends of Science in Medicine’ combating pseudoscience in Australian universities

Iridology: who knew diagnosing cancer could be like spotting the shape of a bunny rabbit or a sailing ship in a cloud. Image:iridology.com.cn

The recently formed “Friends of Science in Medicine” (FSM) has quickly acquired 300+ members, including influential supporters from overseas,  and is growing fast.

FSM is hoping to influence universities (at least the reputable ones) to declare their support for science courses that are in fact evidence-based and adhere to accepted scientific methodology. It will then have a go at trying to influence the government, which helps fund these courses and uses taxpayers’ money to allow health fund rebates for “treatments” with these demonstrably ineffective pseudoscientific therapies.

19 out of Australia’s 39 universities now offer these pseudoscience degrees and courses as science or health science, including  Homeopathy, Iridology, Reflexology, Kinesiology, Healing touch therapy, Aromatherapy and ‘Energy Medicine’.

See the Facebook page for ‘Friends of Science in Medicine’

Paola Bressan Why babies look like their daddies: paternity uncertainty and the evolution of self-deception in evaluating family resemblance

http://www.psy.unipd.it/~pbressan/papers/why_babies.pdf

Abstract

It has been suggested that in a socially monogamous system where fathers invest in their mate’s offspring but paternity is far from certain, it will be adaptive on the part of infants to conceal their father’s identity; but the opposite claim has also been made that this is against the genetic interests of the fathers, and a high frequency of adulterine births will select instead for paternal resemblance. In this article, I present a simple theoretical model that suggests that neonatal anonymity benefits fathers, mothers, and children. Once anonymity becomes established, however, all babies start paying the cost of paternity uncertainty, that is, the reduction in paternal care due to fathers not knowing whether they have truly sired their mate’s offspring. By diminishing the fitness of babies, such a cost bounces back as lowered fitness for parents as well. We should then expect the evolution of maternal strategies directed to decrease paternity uncertainty, in the form of instinctive and unsolicited comments on babies’ resemblance to their putative fathers. In contradiction to the widespread belief that it would be in fathers’ interest to be skeptical of these allegations, the model suggests that, under conditions of infant anonymity, fathers will actually promote their own fitness by believing their spouses.

Keywords Resemblance · Confidence of paternity · Parental investment · Kin recognition · Evolutionary psychology

Review

Neurobiology of overeating and obesity: The role of melanocortins and beyond

Rahul Pandita,

Johannes W. de Jong a,

Louk J.M.J. Vanderschuren a, b,

Roger A.H. Adan a

a Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Universiteitsweg 100, 3584 CG, Utrecht, The Netherlands

b Department of Animals in Science and Society, Division of Behavioural Neuroscience, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, Yalelaan 2, 3584 CM Utrecht, The Netherlands

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejphar.2011.01.034, How to Cite or Link Using DOI

Abstract

The alarming increase in the incidence of obesity and obesity-associated disorders makes the etiology of obesity a widely studied topic today. As opposed to ‘homeostatic feeding’, where food intake is restricted to satisfy one's biological needs, the term ‘non-homeostatic’ feeding refers to eating for pleasure or the trend to over-consume (palatable) food. Overconsumption is considered a crucial factor in the development of obesity. Exaggerated consumption of (palatable) food, coupled to a loss of control over food intake despite awareness of its negative consequences, suggests that overeating may be a form of addiction. At a molecular level, insulin and leptin resistance are hallmarks of obesity. In this review, we specifically address the question how leptin resistance contributes to enhanced craving for (palatable) food. Since dopamine is a key player in the motivation for food, the interconnection between dopamine, leptin and neuropeptides related to feeding will be discussed. Understanding the mechanisms by which these neuropeptidergic systems hijack the homeostatic feeding mechanisms, thus leading to overeating and obesity is the primary aim of this review. The melanocortin system, one of the crucial neuropeptidergic systems modulating feeding behavior will be extensively discussed. The inter-relationship between neuronal populations in the arcuate nucleus and other areas regulating energy homeostasis (lateral hypothalamus, paraventricular nucleus, ventromedial hypothalamus etc.) and reward circuitry (the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens) will be evaluated and scrutinized.

Keywords: Obesity; Leptin resistance; Addiction; Craving; Melanocortin

Article of the month

Rational drug design

European Journal of Pharmacology

Volume 625, Issues 1–3, 25 December 2009, Pages 90–100

Soma Mandala, Mee'nal Moudgila, Sanat K. Mandalb, c, , ,

Abstract

In this article, current knowledge of drug design is reviewed and an approach of rational drug design is presented. The process of drug development is challenging, expensive, and time consuming, although this process has been accelerated due to the development of computational tools and methodologies. The current target based drug design approach is incomplete because most of the drugs developed by structure guided approaches have been shown to have serious toxic side effects. Otherwise these drugs would have been an ideal choice for the treatment of diseases. Hence, rational drug design would require a multidisciplinary approach. In this regard, incorporation of gene expression technology and bioinformatics tools would be indispensable in the structure based drug design. Global gene expression data and analysis of such data using bioinformatics tools will have numerous benefits such as efficiency, cost effectiveness, time saving, and will provide strategies for combination therapy in addition to overcoming toxic side effects. As a result of incorporation of gene expression data, partial benefit of the structure based drug design is slowly emerging and rapidly changing the approach of the drug development process. To achieve the full benefit of developing a successful drug, multidisciplinary approaches (approaches such as computational chemistry and gene expression analysis, as discussed in this article) would be necessary. In the future, there is adequate room for the development of more sophisticated methodologies.