Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!
Nature in all its splendorific glory cannot answer the fundamental question asked by mankind, “Why are we here? Why are we here?”
Nature does offer answers of course, we are to eat, to reproduce and to survive for another day. This would be fine if the opposite were not just as true, that we are here to be eaten, to die and to fertilize the soil – The Cycle of Life.
Appealing at first, seemingly unfair later, is perhaps the greatest driving behind all of human knowledge, what we learn of the world, what we teach our children, what we discover in the darkness of the unknown and light the torch of the future generations to blah, blah, blah, see clearly.
Is knowledge part of ourselves that outlives flesh and bone, propels our minds beyond the limitations of nature’s life cycle? And while propelling reproductive questions – much like the following hour programming – does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.
Think deeply from the fountain of immortality knowing that knowing will connect you not only to the here and now, but to the past and the future as well. For it is knowing that allows us to live in happiness on This Week in Science. Coming up next.
So check it out. I’m going to release this new album.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: It’s going to be – it’s going to be a double-sided CD, four hours of this.
Kirsten: I think that’s hell a little bit much. I think it really would be a little bit much. But, you know, good experimental stuff.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Not as experimental as the science we talk about though…
Justin: Wooh.
Kirsten …on This Week in Science.
Justin: And we have – we have a bunch of it today. But you are aren’t here – where are you? What happened?
Kirsten I am in the Bay Area. There was construction on the Bay Bridge this weekend. And they didn’t open the bridge until 7am this morning…
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten …and I just didn’t know how traffic was going to be. So it is a little bit hard to get to Davis today.
Justin: And – so hard you didn’t make it. It was impossible apparently.
Kirsten It was impossible. I mean, I might have made it if I’d rushed and, you know…
Justin: You mean…
Kirsten … really pushed.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten But then, you know, there’s the problem that you might get in an accident because you’re in too much of a hurry. And you know…
Justin: Oh, let’s not – let’s not worry.
Kirsten …I think it’s not really worth putting my life on the line like that.
Justin: Go boldly into the darkness, Kirsten. Go! Well I’m glad…
Kirsten Well I do…
Justin: …you’re safe.
Kirsten I do think it’s really neat though that this week, we had huge fires down in Los Angeles and firefighters saved the Mt. Wilson Observatory. Yay! And also we have a part of the bridge, the Bay Bridge, has been replaced for structural purposes and they repaired.
And while they were doing it they found a problem with one of the chain links from the bridge on the eastern span. And they replaced it, fixed it and things should be even stronger than they were before.
So we’ve got engineering, we’ve got fighting the forces of nature. Humanity prevails this week.
Justin: Right on.
Kirsten: Yeah, very positive, right? California positivity – that’s what I’m going for.
Justin: Well, what do you got? You’ve got the big story to lead us off today.
Kirsten: I know. We’ve got – I brought a couple of stories. I have brains, evolution and magnets in the lineup for today.
Justin: Oooh.
Kirsten A big story for today deals with modern humans and their…
Justin: That’s us.
Kirsten: …evolution.
Justin: That’s us, that’s about us. Woohoo!
Kirsten: It is.
Justin: I’ve got stories. I don’t even know what I have now, just looking through this. I’ve got brains and evolution, too. Looks like we have the…
Kirsten Well then…
Justin: …same stories. Uh-oh.
Kirsten You know, it’s just a brainy week today, huh?
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Yeah. All right, so evidence is coming forward, has been published, that you and I are products of evolution and not just evolution from many, many years ago but current ongoing evolution. Humanity is still evolving.
Justin: Well, I should hope so because if this was it, well, hmm.
Kirsten Well the question is then with medical science, “Have we really gotten past the powers of natural selection to change humanity, to make any changes to the human animal as we are?”
And a lot of people think that because of medicine and technology we’re not evolving anymore, that basically the technology has taken over and it’s the technology that’s evolving.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten But these researchers took a look at what’s called the Framingham Heart Study, and it was a study from back around 1950 that looked at around 5,000 people from New England. And checked out all sorts of factory around developing heart disease.
So it looked at their weight, obesity, cholesterol, smoking or not smoking, aspects of heart health, cardiovascular health, etc. All sorts of medical parameters were measured and they were able to actually – this Framingham Heart Study – actually was one of the first that really gave us the idea that smoking, obesity and cholesterol are linked to heart disease.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: But now 50 plus years later, this researcher Raju Govindaraju – I’ll see if I can pronounce that right. He’s at Boston University, he’s taking a look at the data again, looking at the genetics underlying the study.
They took out all sorts of social factors, got controls for those, got rid of social factors and just looked at people having babies. And looking at the fact that some people just happened to have more babies than others.
And if you get rid of the social aspect of that, maybe that’s increased fitness or the increased ability to have babies has to do with the genetic factor.
Justin: Well, but they, hmm…
Kirsten: But took a look at it, yeah. So they took a look at it. And what they say that it looks as though – let’s see if I can find the actual – they measured the statistical associations between the traits and family size in the first two generations of Framingham women estimating the strength and natural selections and the potential genetic response to selection.
And they found that women with lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, lower blood glucose and who conceived earlier in life and reached menopause at a later age, all had more offspring.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: So, that kind of having more offspring with lower cholesterol levels potentially would predict that cholesterol might lower – generally in the population throughout the future – that we might be actually selecting for lower cholesterol level.
Justin: Interesting.
Kirsten: Yeah, so they kind of linked these genetics, these factors, these physiological factors to the genetic factors. And, you know, the one thing that it’s going to predict whether or not traits are going to survive is you having more babies, more offspring and having those offspring surviving to reproduce themselves. That’s a huge, huge aspect.
Justin: Very interesting. Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Yeah, but they also say that, you know, there’s probably a lower limit to lowering the cholesterol levels because cholesterol actually is very important to creating things like nerve cells, brain cells…
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: …that kind of stuff, yeah.
Justin: I wonder if it’s just a counter to our current diet, like…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …we’re becoming cholesterol resistant in some way because of all the cholesterol in our foods. Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe. I don’t think so, though. I don’t think that’s happening at all. The cholesterol – I mean, we probably love high cholesterol food because it’s good for producing nerve cells. Mm hmm.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Another cool kind of evolution mutation study published in Current Biology this week, it suggests that every single one of us has at least 100 new mutations in our DNA…
Justin: What?
Kirsten: …so that we’re constantly mutating…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …and changing.
Justin: Interesting. So we’re not…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: …we’re not the same humans even. I mean, you go through a couple of generations and you’re talking about, you know, several hundred mutations.
Kirsten: Right. If your mutations are passed on to the next generation and…
Justin: Mixed with…
Kirsten: …they have different mutations then.
Justin: …the mutated genes of, you know…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: …the other parent and then, yeah.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: This is big.
Kirsten: And one of the things…
Justin: We might not even resemble humans of a thousand years ago. We may be completely different.
Kirsten: Well, we’re not completely different but yeah, there are definitely differences as we separate through time from our ancestors.
Justin: Mm hmm. Well according to a new study, the researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, cities also are undergoing evolution that is very much like that of the human brain.
Kirsten: Really?
Justin: Yes. What they did was like just as advanced brains require a robust neural network to achieve richer or more complex thought, large cities require advanced highways, transportation systems to allow larger, more productive populations.
This study has been looking at the similarity between how larger brains and cities deal with maintaining the interconnectedness of it all.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: And what’s kind of interesting here is, this was – I’m going to mess up the name – but it’s Mark Changizi, who’s a neurobiology expert and assistant professor of the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer. He led the study and it seems both of these factors have arrived at a similar conclusion: brains and cities, as they grow larger, must be similarly, densely interconnected to function optimally.
And what he did was sort of a scalar model, too. So he looked at cities that had very large sort of surface areas and their interconnectedness and compared it with smaller cities that were also dense. So like a Seattle versus a Chicago. Chicago is very sprawled out, Seattle’s in about a third of the space of Chicago.
And sort of taking a part of their highway systems and showing that there would be too many highways, too few exits and lanes that were too narrow, if you move one city’s highway system into another.
So as also, the surface areas of brains in humans versus mammals, the size of the brain determines that interconnectedness and the density of it as well. It’s a very interesting sort of comparison there. And he found that the similarities were there too, where the – when you compare different size of mammal brain to different size cities.
The level of interconnectedness moves at about the same exponent. So very interesting. And this is actually something where I think we should interview at some point, but…
Kirsten: Yeah, that sounds really interesting. So…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …it’s like cities can be an analogy for brain development in different species, so different size animal brains have different density and interconnectedness of the different brain regions…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …comparable to cities.
Justin: And then…
Kirsten: Is that what it is?
Justin: Yeah. And then – but the level of interconnectedness is as, yeah, what he was looking at in, you know, neural connections versus freeways and that sort of thing. But then…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: …I think it’s kind of interesting because you can take it further down to just in all of, you know, human societies just emulating some form of nature thing.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: And say that like, well, okay, then we have depositories, we have libraries which is like memory – like our long-term memory.
And, you know, and we have all these regulatory, you know, the government buildings and such that are meant to regulate our – the actions of the body and then waste removal.
I mean, it’s all – becomes this large organism at some point.
Kirsten: Yeah, and that something that’s an idea of a lot of network biologists kind of investigate. Looking at how things are connected and how they function together to create a greater hole. So the emergent properties aspect of a system.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Mm hmm. And there’s been an idea put forward probably ten years ago. Now that even the internet when it reaches a certain number of users, that the Internet, because of the interconnectedness of it will function as a brain.
And that all of a sudden the internet itself may potentially gain some kind of consciousness.
Justin: Yeah, yeah. That would be…
Kirsten: That it…
Justin: …that’s pretty interesting. I sort of think the interconnectedness of the internet more is like train of thought. Like not the organism of the brain, but sort of like thought and connotation. It’s just like what takes place in the brain but not the brain itself. I don’t see it having…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …you know what I mean? I see it sort of it’s like – it’s like I have running dialog of thoughts that run through a brain. But I think, I don’t know, I don’t see it becoming conscious in a way that…
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: …my own thoughts don’t become conscious just because I have lots of connections and thoughts. I’m conscious the system’s there but the thoughts themselves, they’re not going to take over.
Kirsten: Right, exactly, yeah. The thoughts are not going to be the thing that actually go and act and do something…
Justin: Unless, unless…
Kirsten: …and contemplate themselves.
Justin: …unless of course, the internet turns out to be schizophrenic. It could have thoughts that seemed to be generating themselves within its own, you know, anyway.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: I just like the idea where it’s all connected.
Justin: It’s up.
Kirsten: We’re all connected, it’s all a big system.
Justin: Right, yeah. What’s the, wait no. That’s the internet, so far this is what the internet’s come up with, which isn’t a bad message but…
Kirsten: Live in happiness. I’m going to be humming that all day long.
Justin: I’m kind of addicted, I don’t know what I’m going to do if I actually take this record needle. I don’t know if I’m ruining the record player by allowing it to do this for hours. But I’ll buy a new needle just to be able to listen to this. I really got to get this on a track like four-hour extended. Play it like softly and when I go to bed at night and sort of…
Kirsten: No, I think we can do that for you.
Justin: …positive affirmation.
Kirsten: Yeah, I think I can make that happen, especially after I have the recording of this show.
Justin: Uh-oh.
Kirsten: We’ll make it happen. So in more brain, brainy news; researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have published in the journal, Cell, about a brain protein that changes cell shape by bending the membranes of the nerve cells…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …and allowing them to make connections and branch to meet other neurons or hold them back. So that they can go in long extensions and not branched too early. So this brain protein is called srGAP2 and it’s part of a family of proteins that have been implicated in mental retardation and may also play a major role in how the brain builds itself.
And so understanding this protein and how it works could – could give us some insight into how to combat mental retardation. How do we know if the brain is developing correctly or incorrectly? Can we find a way through understanding the proteins to be able to change the way that a brain is building itself?
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Yeah, it’s kind of neat. What they ended up looking at, they were turning the gene on or off. And in the protein there is an area that’s called the F-BAR domain. And they learned how to turn this area of the srGAP2 protein on or off. And they grew nerve cells in a dish.
They worked with slices of mouse brain and were able to induce electrical current that would either turn up or turn down the activity of this F-BAR domain in the srGAP2 proteins. And they pretty much found that when they increased the F-BAR protein expression the neurons migrated.
So that they stretched out and extended themselves faster and they had fewer branches. And then when they increased the expression of protein the F-BAR domain of it. It started sending out lots of branches and extending as if it were looking to make connections with lots of nerve cells around them.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Yeah, so this seems to be a very important protein in how nerve cells get in contact with each other. How they find other nerve cells and how they make the very important connections that allow brain cells to talk to each other.
Justin: Through social networking. Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Yeah, that’s exactly, yes.
Justin: That’s…
Kirsten: This is like a control factor for nerve cell social networking.
Justin: We are just basic biology, there really – nothing new has happened. I can’t think of anything new that’s happened that isn’t just biology, isn’t already there. Just a big emulation.
Kirsten: Well by the, yeah, by that extension it’s anything, everything is physics, too.
Justin: Yeah, well there’s, yeah, yeah. I guess, you know, I’ll get along with that.
Kirsten: You know, it’s all…
Justin: It’s all physics.
Kirsten: …connected.
Justin: Except anything to one thing that, there’s one thing that does defy physics – that’s the human imagination.
Kirsten: Oooh.
Justin: Oooh, yeah, that’s a message for the kids there, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, it’s the coldest, driest, most climatically calm location on planet earth. No human is known to have traveled there. Even a proper name has eluded it. Leaving it all the unknown to the outside world as anything other than simply Ridge A.
Kirsten: Ridge A, ooh.
Justin: Ridge A; over two miles high upon the Antarctic Plateau, with average temperatures of below minus 70, I think that’s Celsius.
Kirsten: Cold.
Justin: Ridge A is remote, barren, inhospitable, the sort of spot only an astronomer could love.
Kirsten: Wooh.
Justin: “Why an astronomer?” you ask because researchers have pinpointed Ridge A is an ideal observatory spot. It’s about a mile up, mile high on the plateau there. It is not only particularly remote but extremely cold and dry.
The water content of the entire atmosphere become sometimes less than the thickness of human hair. It’s very dry. It’s a cold but it’s a very dry cold. The joint US-Australian research team combined data from satellites, ground stations, climate models in a study to assess many factors that affect astronomy observatories from cloud cover, temperature, sky-brightness, water vapor, wind speeds and atmospheric turbulence.
So it’s also extremely calm, there’s very little turbulence, very little wind and it makes the stars appear to twinkle, normally would make the stars appeared twinkle. This one apparently can see it so clear, it is so calm, there’s almost no wind, no weather at all. That they’re saying that they can get images from earth of the stars that will rival Hubble.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: So no need to be in space with the telescope, which I love Hubble, actually. Hubble is my favorite piece of space technology ever. But that’s pretty amazing so there’s other couple of places out here.
A lot of interest is generated because 2004 the UNSW Astronomers published a paper in journal Nature, confirming that a ground-based telescope at a location of Dome C, which is another Antarctic plateau site, could be capable of taking images nearly as good as those from the space Hubble telescope.
And this spot, this Ridge A they’re saying is the most ideal spot on all of planet earth to put an Observatory. So I cannot feel, I mean, this is one of those things, that like I know there’s observatories and telescopes and things in like Hawaii, Chile, you know, there’s some nice beautiful places that astronomers get to hang out and do their work.
This might be the least exciting location outside of the observatory. Like, “What are you going to do on your break, sir,, you know, downtime. But I think if you’re an astronomer you are probably more concerned about the view up than you are about the view around, so…
Kirsten: Exactly and that kind of a remote area it’s just, you know, there’s going to be no pollution. It’s going to be the most beautiful view of the sky.
Justin: And it can be such, I mean, I imagined a full Arctic experience like that would be pretty amazing to be in the middle of, especially with no weather…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: …because it’s all clear and you’re up on a mile-high plateau looking around. Oh my goodness, actually now I want to go, now I think that’s going to be a really beautiful spot. You going to rid of this.
Kirsten: Now, now it’s time to go.
Justin: Now I want to unpacking a bag, I’m going to get my, am I getting invite?
Kirsten: You’ll love it.
Justin: When they break the ground, I want to be there. Oh my goodness.
Kirsten: Well, maybe, maybe we can find a way to make that happen.
Justin: Yeah, send Justin to…
Kirsten: You want to go and report live for TWIS? That would be good.
Justin: That would be great at 70 below Celsius. Oh man, that’s cold.
Kirsten: People might question my sending you there.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: If that would have to happen.
Justin: I would go though – I would totally go. I think going to very remote crazy places like that on earth is really where it’s at. Because it’s like going to another planet without the, you know, the awkward space travel stuff in between.
Kirsten: Right and we all know how you feel about sending people into outer space.
Justin: That’s not, other people so much.
Kirsten: That would be perfect.
Justin: I don’t mind other people thinks. I just would never want to go. I think the whole thing sounds horrible, right? Look being in that little sardine can looking back at my planet as it’s getting further and further away. I don’t care where almost it is this planet that I’m at as long as I’m on my planet I’ll be totally happy, and.
Kirsten: Well, that’s good.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: That’s good.
Justin: Because I’ve learned the lessons. And that’s all I need.
Kirsten: That’s all you need, that’s good.
Justin: We’re approaching the break, however, as the special edition to today’s broadcast that seems the technology to studio has removed the normal messages which we would be listening to. We have.
Kirsten: Yeah, we should still go to a little break…
Justin: You think
Kirsten: We should.
Justin: …we should, that’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to push buttons. Where’s that, okay, hang on now. Talk for a minute amongst yourselves well Justin…
Kirsten: Amongst yourselves, you touched the buttons.
Justin: …tries to figure out. What the buttons.
Kirsten: So what I was going to also say that there’s an interesting study related to genetics and biology. PLoS…
Justin: Mm hmm?
Kirsten: …Computational Biology has used the computer to model the spread of lactase persistence dairy farming and food gathering practices and genes in Europe. What does that mean? Well they’re looking at whether or not people being able to digest milk coincided with the actual farming of cattle, raising cattle and sheep to create milk to drink.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: And they actually found the highest portion of people that are able to digest milk are found in Northwest Europe. However, the model also suggests that the genes didn’t actually originate there. And that they may actually come from Central Europe, instead, so more, yeah, more Central Europe.
There are also individual mutations that have origin in different places, in different areas of Africa where people also farms for cattle for milk. And they found among Nilo-Saharan speaking people in Kenya and Tanzania. And they’ve also found them in Northeast Eastern Sudan tribes of the same language family in Northern Kenya.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: So these genes have appeared separately around the world. However, the European gene seems to have come from Central Europe and then spread do the more northern region. And the average percentage of people who can digest milk, only a little bit less than 40% around the world.
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: However, 90% of Northern European are able to, and I’m not one of those.
Justin: You’re not?
Kirsten: No.
Justin: Ooh, ooh.
Kirsten: I am part of the 10% of non-lactase persistent people.
Justin: Mm hmm. Are you listening to This Week in Science? We’re going to go to a pretend break for a couple of minutes and then we will pretend to come back.
Kirsten: Okay.
Justin: Those of you.
Kirsten: Let’s use of an imagination.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: If you are enjoying today’s show, if you learned something new or if you would just like to support our attempt at infotaining you, feel free to donate to the podcast by visiting www.twis.org and clicking on the donate button. Donations of any size are always welcome. Thank you for listening.
Justin: And we’re back for more of This Week in Science.
Kirsten: I’m back.
Justin: Doctor Kiki how are you doing?
Kirsten: I’m doing great. How are you? Do I sound a little better?
Justin: That’s sounds awesome, yeah.
Kirsten: Yehey, I realized my connection was awful. Time to change it.
Justin: Upgrades, so what have we got? Did you want to bring out the mail, I mean, mail bag? You’ve got more stories in there, I got a couple of more I can go to.
Kirsten: Do we have more stories? Then why don’t we do the Minion Mailbag and then get the stories after that. If…
Justin: If.
Kirsten: …you know, if we have the time to get to it, because we’ve been holding to this mail bag and shaking it at it people for a month, I think.
Justin: Could be about that long, yeah.
Kirsten: Yeah, so Minion Mailbag time, Barbara from Australia, she wrote in. and I think the first group of this are in reference to a request to find out what people were reading this summer? And what books, you know, get them excited?
And so Barbara from Australia wrote in and said, “I listened with interest about the segment on “Bat Sonar and Moth Jamming Signals.” I remember reading about this in a book called “Supernature” some 30 years ago…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …the book has long been disappeared from my library, but I think the author was Lyall Watson. It was at least three decades ago and my brain isn’t quick as it once was. Anyway the book postulated that evolutionary changes to the predator-prey situation occurred relatively small time period.
The order of years or decades instead of ten thousand years that were mentioned on your show. If you get more minion interest in this article you might like to check this book out. As I recall it has an extensive bibliography to other journals, papers, referencing the science they did discuss in the book.
It also shows that we – Science – have known about this sort of things for quite a while. It isn’t a new idea. My mother put me on to this book when I was in high school. I since went on to become an Avionics Engineer with a Radio Specialty.”
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Whenever I worked on radar systems, I always remember the story about bats, moths, sonar, sonar jamming and nature’s equivalent to electronic warfare. Fascinating!
Justin: Very cool.
Kirsten: Yeah, I think that’s really neat to go from a biological book, I mean, we’re talking earlier about how everything’s biology, you know, but to go from this biological book on bat and moth sonar to avionics. And, you know, working on these, you know, electrical systems – flight related systems.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Yeah. You know do you want to read some of these too, Justin?
Justin: I don’t have, I don’t have any of that in front of me.
Kirsten: Can you load it up on the computer?
Justin: I don’t know how to make this button. There’s crazy stuff going on the computer, you have no idea, Kirsten. This is not a normal computer. The normal computer…
Kirsten: All right.
Justin: …has been replaced by, they’re like re-doing the networks because they’re like the bridge…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …is being redone. They’ve also decided to redo the computer systems done here at KDVS. And now nothing, nothing works.
Kirsten: Then maybe it allow works better after they’re done. How can you know…
Justin: Well, I think that’s the plan.
Kirsten: …how science solved?
Justin: That’s the plan.
Kirsten: Yeah, okay. Frank Dominguez from Albuquerque, New Mexico, he wrote in. And he says that, ‘As you requested this is what I am now reading huge – “The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind by Gary Marquez.”’ That’s a great book. And Gary says really interesting sciences.
What else are you reading? “The Wauchula Woods Accord,” never heard of that.
Justin: Mm hmm?
Kirsten: By Charles Siebert.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Excuse me, that was a sneeze. Let’s see what else is reading, “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature” by Steven Pinker, that’s a great book. I’ve been reading that one myself. “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)” by Carol Tavris, “How We Decide” by Jonah Lehrer, and the whole immense wrote in to say the book of most note is: “Guns, Germs, and Steel”.
Revived the level of insight into human society’s evaluation, and with the book it cost me to evaluate how I looked at life. Jared Diamond’s other book’s “Collapse” is also worth a look. An understanding the ecological pressure that can result in societal collapse fits the whole global warming thing in perspective.
The last book is “Three Cups of Tea”. A story about Greg Mortenson and his quest for building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I’m not done yet so please do not ruin the ending. I wonder if they’re done by now though.
It’s been awhile since the e-mail. Angela Heins wrote in and said, ‘for some reason the entire time I was composing this list I have “Summer Loving” from “Grease” stuck in my head.
This is my list of books that have bookmarks in them. Suddenly I started and now collect dust. Others I keep with me at all times with the hope of a few spare minutes to read. “Proust Was a Neuroscientist” by Jonah Lehrer; “Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief” by Lewis Wolpert; “How We Believe: Science, Skepticism and the Search for God” by Michael Shermer.
And the inevitable books that I’ve already read but started to reread “Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and The Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill” by Robert Whitaker; “Demon Box” by Ken Kesey; “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” by Tom Wolfe.
And she says, “I totally agree with Justin’s 150-page limit. I often find myself choosing science magazines over books simply because of the length and convenience…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …I’d like to start about learning more a little, than always knowing a little about a lot.”
Justin: Yeah and as inevitable in any book that’s over a 150 pages, as that the writer at some point went – well, my book’s too short. And then came up with some kind of filler to fill out so they could pound it off and make it look like a thicker book.
I don’t know why. I think publishers should like all agree to get, they’d save so much money printing books. The authors could make more money per book, the manufacturers and we wouldn’t be stuck with 300 pages with a head butt, you know, 150 pages may descent content.
Kirsten: Yeah, yeah, you’re possibly right. I’ve also heard Chris Mooney said that, he believes that no presentation should be any longer than 30 minutes also. So, maybe that’s along the same line, short books, short presentation, get the information in there.
Justin: Yeah, I don’t know, I can sit for a good hour and a half, two hours, if it’s the right. But I have to really be into it, whatever the topic is.
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: I have to be geeked out on it at the moment; otherwise, it is not totally right, yeah, an hour from drag.
Kirsten: Stacey O’Brien, a 28-year old medical technologist from Minnesota, Minnesota, says, as to what I am reading and rather embarrassed about this, but between the holding down two jobs and taking care of six horses, I spend what little time I have at reading science fiction.
So I tend to think of it more as science future. It keeps me awake when I do overnight shift, and allows me a place to go when I need to get away from it all.”
Shawn (unintelligible) Clark says, “Science is the message by which we figure out – this is not in relation to books, this is just a comment that he sent in – it’s the message by which we figure out why things work. Scientists often catch grief from ignorant politicians and other figures for apparently wasting time figuring out seemingly useless things.
Not realizing that once you understand why something works, you can come up with uses for them. In short, Science is a message for making everything in the universe more useful. Including things that are seemingly, completely useless and I can’t think of a more noble cause than that.
Justin: Yeah, that’s a pretty, that’s a great point.
Kirsten: Yeah, this is, besides also I like the idea of having ever increasing supply of toys. Science does absolutely increase the toy supply. What’s this? So this is directed to you Justin. Kurt Larsen from Portland, Oregon…
Justin: Ooh, ooh.
Kirsten: …says, “this week Justin again derided the usefulness of humans in space. I just wondered how he likes his Hubble photos, and whether he feels that it is helped push science in exploration of a cosmos forward…
Justin: Absolutely, love the Hubble.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: Absolutely love it. Fascinating ever.
Kirsten: Yeah, he says, the HST would not be anything more than a multi-million dollars spotter scope, if we didn’t have human repair people in space. Immediately following this conversation Justin intimated that he feels that autonomous robots in the military would be foolish and dangerous.
Justin: Very dangerous.
Kirsten: I hoped trust autonomous robots to do the most important work of humanity, understanding the universe. Like you won’t trust them doing the job with traditionally – given the overstressed sleep deprived hormone pumped 18-year old – seems odd, doesn’t it?
Justin: Ah huh, well. This is the whole thing with the robot. It would be fine if everybody have robots and it was like this big robot wars contest – like robot games. And like nations brought their robots into the arena and, you know, whoever wins the robot war gets to go home and serve, okay, that’s our oil field now, whatever.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: But regardless if you’re sending humans in or robots, they’re end result is dead people. So I’m against – I’m even against people banging the military not just robots – I’m against people being in the military.
Kirsten: Yeah, along these lines, Roy Prier writes in and says, “When we in any way limit the risk of human death and/or injury from conflict – as in war. We also reduced the incentive to resolve, limit or end the conflict.
This applies both remotely controlled unmanned devices as well as the proposed unmanned independent AI controlled robotic devices. Those we give the power and authority must have good reason to think before we act – as in go to war.
AI itself is another issue and has its own risks and benefits. Personally I’m not sure that giving any device with independent AI or AI-like abilities that capability that take action that may destroy life or property is a good thing.
The AI – he goes on to say a few more things – but basically, that the issue is that probably who should be deciding what basic options or actions in aid AI device should have.
Justin: Mm hmm, mm hmm, yeah, I apologize…
Kirsten: Who’s the one to define the boundaries.
Justin: …apologize real quick to the college who tried to be calling during the show today because we’ve got kiki via remote, kiki via one phone line. And the other one becomes unaccessible at that point because of the technology in the dungeon.
Maybe they will fix that. Maybe that’s something they could work on here. Giving us a second phone line, that we can actually take your call on.
Kirsten: That would be good.
Justin: Yeah, the thing with, the problem with artificial intelligence, I mean I don’t even think that the non-artificial intelligence does the best job of preventing casualties, you know.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: But at the end of it, there’s somebody to hold accountable for and to, you know, when you have AI it’s like the robot that shots its own troops. I think that was in Australia, the robot turned on Australian troops and gunned them down. Like…
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: …who’s accountable? They don’t, you know, they don’t. I mean the robot is just a robot. It’s like, yeah okay, it will happen, yeah, malfunction. So every human.
Kirsten: It’s like a glitch.
Justin: Yeah, like I don’t buy into glitches, I don’t blame the spark but, you know, the best thing to do is forget artificial intelligence. Let’s work on real intelligence – the kind of prevent these all sorts of things from happening in the first place. Let’s concentrate on that one. That’s the important part.
Kirsten: Sounds good, sounds good. James Anderson, this is the last of the last note that was sent in that we’ve got time for. James Anderson from Australia writes in and says, “Just a short note to let you know that you are making a bizarre contribution to physics here in Melbourne, Australia.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: He teaches Physics at Wantirna College at the public school. And part of the course that we have is a virtual classroom where we put up a class notes, notices, stuff of interest. And recently we’ve put up a “What Are We Listening To?” section.
In this section the teachers and the students posed the science website, podcast, etcetera that they have found interesting. And they are recommending to each other. Naturally yours was one of the first posted.
Justin: Mm hmm, yeah.
Kirsten: What else? I also take the opportunity to play sections of your podcast to the students at various times. The class consists of students also taking chemistry and/or biology. So I try to inflict as much diversity on to them as I can.
Hopefully they will begin to appreciate the cross linking between the sciences. Usually they’re just highly amused and segments prompt active discussions.
Justin: I can hear that…
Kirsten: Yes, you can.
Justin: …active discussion right now, okay. So who can explain to me why Justin was wrong? Okay, see hands over there, hands over there. Why would everybody can’t put their hands up at once? Let’s all play another clip. Maybe that one’s.
Kirsten: Yup. James says, “thanks again for a great show. Let your wombats wander free and unfettered.
Justin: Unfettered wombats, yes.
Kirsten: Yeah, you know, we never feathered our wombats. They’re always unfettered. I’m sure everyone can tell that by listening. But I just want to say, “Hi to everyone who is possibly listening at Wantirna College. I probably didn’t pronounce that correctly, but still hello James and hello Australia!
Justin: And we’ve got, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where we at, we have anything more stories, what do you want?
Kirsten: Yeah, we’ve got time…
Justin: I got a good one.
Kirsten: …for more stories.
Justin: I got a good one.
Kirsten: …in science. Thanks everyone for writing in, it’s always fun to read your letters and it was neat to hear your comments from the books that you’re reading. I hope to hear more.
Justin: Yeah, we’re getting all kinds, I’m getting a shatter requests from the twitter right now. Someone.
Kirsten: Are you?
Justin: Yes, so hi Lea in Lexington, Kentucky. Hello Stumpy Raccoon. It’s a great name. Tim Fisher, wooh! Who’s also, who’s also out there? There’s all kinds of people on. Hey there’s a-
Kirsten: There’s Kara Batch and Akira117, Dodopurpura, maybe?
Justin: What, what’s a dodopurpura? I wonder, I want to know what that means? He claims that we’re, wait. Dodopurpura this is for you.
Justin: The voice you’re hearing now is not coming from outside your head. So, there’s a study that explains why I can eat anything and never gain an ounce. Mm hmm.
Kirsten: I’d like to know that.
Justin: Yeah, there’s a study in the journal Cell that identifies the gene that springs into action or response to a high-fat diet, and mice that lack that gene become essentially immune to growing obese regardless of their eating habits.
So it’s a actually a lack of a gene as protein encoded by the gene belongs to a class of enzymes, the kinases, which are typically make good drug targets because they’re relatively easy to block, according to the researchers. So there could be some also therapeutic potential as mice without the gene are protected against weight gain but chronic inflammation, fatty liver and insulin resistance.
So it’s actually, it’s kind of interesting idea because it maybe a gene that’s blockable with drugs that would become an instant multi-bazillion dollar industry overnight.
Kirsten: Yeah, there’s definitely a market for it out there.
Justin: Yeah, but it.
Kirsten: But it’s also interesting also to understand more about how all these different problems, you know, what we considered problems for our life – happiness.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: You know, they are all intertwined and, you know, the fact that gaining weight does lead to inflammation and liver problems, insulin resistance. That all of these things, they are tied together and you need to understand, you know, the web of protein interactions, to be able to get at solving these problems.
Justin: There’s my favorite brain story of the week. I forgot all about this, it’s because I’m losing my memory. The long held belief that brains of older people are smaller than those of younger brain folk, is that?
Kirsten: Oh, yeah, that comes from the idea, you know, you born with a certain number of brain cells and then they all just start dying from the minute you were born which is not true, but.
Justin: Yeah, the previous findings of overestimated atrophy and underestimated maybe even the normal size of a brain – of the older brain – but they did this study, examining behavioral data collected for about a decade. Researchers divided participants into two groups, one group of cognitively healthy people who’s stayed free of dementia, who’s average starting age was 69.
The other group was 30 people who showed substantial cognitive decline but were still dementia free, averaging 69 years old as well. And they found that the cognitive decline was measured by drop of at least 30% on a bunch of these scores.
But the people whose cognitive condition got, of those whose cognition got worse, older participants had smaller brain areas than younger participants. But if you were free of the cognitive problems to begin with – there was no distinctive difference.
So if you have a healthy brain, you don’t need to worry. The brain isn’t going to shrink to spite itself.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: Does that make sense?
Kirsten: Yeah, seems to make sense?
Justin: Yeah, and so and I think there are a lot of the older studies that they’ve done previously they’re saying there was no distinction between those that have cognitive issue to begin with and those who didn’t, those who were heading towards dementia already earlier in life and those later on.
So the decline in brain capacity, cognitive powers was overestimated in the past. And that aging – if you keep your brain healthy – won’t end in a small brain. Yes.
Kirsten: You’re not, you’re not doomed to a…
Justin: You’re not…
Kirsten: …small, tiny brain.
Justin: …it’s not inevitable.
Kirsten: Brain shrinkage.
Justin: If you do your mental exercise every morning, you’ll be fine.
Kirsten: Yeah, yeah and listening to TWIS is a part of that.
Justin: If you say so. Hey that Neil guy.
Kirsten: There’s a story.
Justin: Wooh, hey what’s going on that Neil guy?
Kirsten: There’s a story that was sent to me by Ed Dior and Dylan Chombelik. Those of them that sent me the story and I’m very interested in it, there’s more monopole madness.
Justin: Huh?
Kirsten: Huh, what does that mean? Well, story I related a few couple of months ago about magnets. Magnets have a north and a south pole, a positive and a negative end. And when you split a magnet in half, you end up with just two smaller magnets, right?
Justin: Ah huh.
Kirsten: But, theory suggests that you should be able to get inside of this dipole. You should be able to get a monopole under certain situation, that they do exist.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: The one end of a magnet can exist on its own…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …without being anywhere near the other end of magnet. So physicists are searching for monopoles. Now some scientists have published in science and archives.org – they’ve published new theoretical and experimental evidence showing that monopoles probably do exist.
Justin: Really?
Kirsten: And what they’ve, yeah, what they’ve looked at in what’s called thin ice – its compounds where the atoms are arranged similarly to water ice. And what happens, there’s an atom that sits at the vertices of four-sided pyramid. And then each of the atom behaves like a tiny bar magnet – this is from nature.com.
When the crystal is cooled to mere absolute zero, the atom magnet aligned and sometimes three of the pyramid four-corners aligned together creating a region of north or south magnetic charge at the center of the pyramid. And the charges then attached to anything physical but it behaves like a monopole.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: So, they’ve got these measurements of monopoles – the problem with this is they haven’t actually directly seen or found monopoles. It’s evidence for them so it’s still like, oh we measured this other stuff that was measurable or so we’re inferring that a monopole is there.
But these researchers, there’s this one researcher who’s quoted as saying: “ this sort of measurement makes monopoles more substantial at least in my mind.” And then another researcher says that, “the evidence for monopoles is now overwhelming.”
And so, you know, they can’t really say that they’re impossible anymore but they still haven’t measured them, really.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Really.
Justin: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean you have to put the other pole somewhere and then I mean I don’t know where they think they’re going to tuck it away and hide it out. It has to be because it’s imbalance, the system is a whole imbalance thing where, I don’t know.
Kirsten: Well, that’s the balance thing, that’s why they think that monopoles do exist. There should be some aspects of these monopoles existing in nature based on mathematics and physics.
Justin: It stuff over my head for sure. But it just seems like if you’ve got an up, you have got a down, otherwise there wasn’t an up, otherwise it’s not an up. That’s the only thing. Where’s the – there’s a motion of electrons through the thing that you can’t even tell that something magnetic is happening.
So then what are you storing in a battery and saying, “ooh, no, no, that’s not a negative, that just disappears. It’s just gone. I don’t know.” Something fundamental is wrong with that picture in my head not with the actual science.
The actual science probably makes sense to people, some people, not this person.
Kirsten: To some people.
Justin: To this person that one doesn’t make sense.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: It makes, no. Did I do the “Alcoholism Makes You Happy” story, last week?
Kirsten: No.
Justin: Okay.
Kirsten: Yes.
Justin: Did I, I think I might have?
Kirsten: I think you remember.
Justin: Yeah, I mean.
Kirsten: I think you might have…
Justin: I’m going to spit it out really quick. According to the news today published in Addiction’s Rule, abstaining from alcohol can be associated with an increased risk of depression.
Kirsten: Abstaining?
Justin: Abstaining.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: Yeah, I mean, alcohol consumption can lead to poor mental health. Used to be considered a personality disorder, but now new evidence pouring in that no or low alcohol consumption may also be associated with poor mental health. It kind of seems like.
Kirsten: Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
Justin: Yeah, sort of what it seems. I mean it’s – aside from the addictive – what they found is two groups that have the worst mental health. Not the worst mental health, I think that I’m going too far. They have found associations of poor mental health between abstainers from alcohol and those who abstained free because they were reformed heavy drinkers. Both have…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …have associations with poor mental health than those who are still drinking. Wait a second. So if you stayed drunk is it just hard to tell that you’re depressed or that you’ve got problems. “No, I’m fine. I don’t care. Another makes me sad.” I don’t know. I have no idea…
Kirsten: Uh huh.
Justin: how it’s supposed to work. We’re at the end of the show.
Kirsten: We are.
Justin: Yes. Thank you everyone for having listened today. We’re happy that you’ve enjoyed the show with us. We’re available via podcast. You can go to our website www.twis.org. and you can search for us in the iTunes to find the podcast.
Kirsten: Yeah, that’s right. And next week I’m not going to be here. Justin is going to hold the court on his own plus special guests. I’m going to be out of town for the next couple of weeks.
And TWIS is going to be joined by minion correspondents and guest co-hosts. I will be back in the end of the month. If you want any information on anything you have heard here today show notes are going to be available on our website twis.org. We want to hear from you so e-mail us at kirsten@thisweekinscience.com or justin@thisweekinscience.com
Justin: Put TWIS somewhere in that subject line of that e-mail, otherwise it will get spam, filtered into oblivion. We love your feedback so do write us in with topics, suggestions, anything like that.
Kirsten: That’s right and we’ll be back here on KDVS next Tuesday 8:30am PT. We’ll hope you’ll join Justin and special guests for more great science news.
Justin: And if you’ve learned anything today, from today’s show remember.
Kirsten: It’s all in your head.
Podcast: http://www.twis.org/audio/2009/09/08/379/