In June's Discover Magazine:
1 Think about money, work, economic outlook, family, and relationships. Feeling anxious? In a 2010 American Psychological Association survey [pdf], those five factors were the most often cited sources of stress for Americans.
2 Stress is strongly tied to cardiac disease, hypertension, inflammatory diseases, and compromised immune systems, and possibly to cancer.
3 And stress can literally break your heart. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or “broken heart syndrome,” occurs when the bottom of the heart balloons into the shape of a pot (a tako-tsubo) used in Japan to trap octopus. It’s caused when grief or another extreme stressor makes stress hormones flood the heart.
See "things" 4-20.
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Pornography Terms in Google Searches by Democrats and Republicans
The "challenge hypothesis" first put forth in 1990 in an article in The American Naturalist states that, as an evolutionary holdover from the need to guard mates and progeny, testosterone levels in males are high after vicious competition. Evidence to support the hypothesis has been found in birds. And in human competitors following various types of sporting competitions, elevated testosterone levels have been found--but only in winners. Even politics can provide a testosterone boost, and not only to the direct competitors. For example, right after the 2008 elections, researchers found higher testosterone levels in men who voted for Barack Obama than in men who voted for John McCain.
Now, demonstrating perhaps that the exquisitely sensitive thumb Google has on the pulse of our nation can serve as an epidemiological assay of biomarkers, researchers from Villanova and Rutgers Universities have been following the search terms used in red and blue states. They report that people in traditionally Republican states conducted Google searches for pornography keywords more often after the 2010 midterm elections (widely seen as a Republic victory) than after the 2008 elections (widely seen as a Democratic victory). On the other hand, people from Democratic states searched for pornography terms less frequently after the 2010 Democratic loss than after the 2006 Democratic win. The study assumes a direct correlation between testosterone levels and interest in pornography. It is "Pornography Seeking Behaviors Following Midterm Political Elections in the United States: A Replication of the Challenge Hypothesis," in the May 2011 issue of Computers in Human Behavior.
Now, demonstrating perhaps that the exquisitely sensitive thumb Google has on the pulse of our nation can serve as an epidemiological assay of biomarkers, researchers from Villanova and Rutgers Universities have been following the search terms used in red and blue states. They report that people in traditionally Republican states conducted Google searches for pornography keywords more often after the 2010 midterm elections (widely seen as a Republic victory) than after the 2008 elections (widely seen as a Democratic victory). On the other hand, people from Democratic states searched for pornography terms less frequently after the 2010 Democratic loss than after the 2006 Democratic win. The study assumes a direct correlation between testosterone levels and interest in pornography. It is "Pornography Seeking Behaviors Following Midterm Political Elections in the United States: A Replication of the Challenge Hypothesis," in the May 2011 issue of Computers in Human Behavior.
Monday, May 02, 2011
In Scientific American This Month: Coral in Love
In May's Scientific American:
It is hard to court the opposite sex when you are cemented in place, which explains why polyps—the tiny creatures whose exoskeletons form corals—do not reproduce by mating. Instead they cast millions of sperm and eggs into the sea, where they drift up to the ocean surface, collide, form larvae and float away to form new coral reefs....
Read article.
It is hard to court the opposite sex when you are cemented in place, which explains why polyps—the tiny creatures whose exoskeletons form corals—do not reproduce by mating. Instead they cast millions of sperm and eggs into the sea, where they drift up to the ocean surface, collide, form larvae and float away to form new coral reefs....
Read article.
In Discover Magazine This Month: 20 Things You Didn't Know about Cyrstals
In May's Discover Magazine:
1 It’s all about the rhythm: Crystals are repeating, three-dimensional arrangements of atoms, ions, or molecules.
2 Almost any solid material can crystallize—even DNA. Chemists from New York University, Purdue University, and the Argonne National Laboratory recently created DNA crystals large enough to see with the naked eye. The work could have applications in nanoelectronics and drug development.
3 One thing that is not a crystal: leaded “crystal” glass, like the vases that so many newlyweds dread. (Glass consists of atoms or molecules all in a jumble, not in the well-patterned order that defines a crystal.)
See "things" 4-20.
1 It’s all about the rhythm: Crystals are repeating, three-dimensional arrangements of atoms, ions, or molecules.
2 Almost any solid material can crystallize—even DNA. Chemists from New York University, Purdue University, and the Argonne National Laboratory recently created DNA crystals large enough to see with the naked eye. The work could have applications in nanoelectronics and drug development.
3 One thing that is not a crystal: leaded “crystal” glass, like the vases that so many newlyweds dread. (Glass consists of atoms or molecules all in a jumble, not in the well-patterned order that defines a crystal.)
See "things" 4-20.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Women Think Venus Is Funny; Men Prefer Mars
Gender Differences in How We Process Humor
Functional MRI images have shown gender differences in emotion processing, and behavioral studies have found gender differences in humor processing. In "Gender Differences in the Neural Correlates of Humor Processing: Implications for Different Processing Modes" (in the April issue of Neuropsychologia) an international team of investigators report on an experiment assessing the reactions of 14 females and 15 males to cartoons. Blood oxygenation levels were assessed alongside fMRIs. Women, it seems, process humor primarily in the part of the cortical processing system associated with primitive emotions and motivations. While men, too, engage those deep brain structures, more than women they also engage parts of the cortex associated with evaluative thinking.
Functional MRI images have shown gender differences in emotion processing, and behavioral studies have found gender differences in humor processing. In "Gender Differences in the Neural Correlates of Humor Processing: Implications for Different Processing Modes" (in the April issue of Neuropsychologia) an international team of investigators report on an experiment assessing the reactions of 14 females and 15 males to cartoons. Blood oxygenation levels were assessed alongside fMRIs. Women, it seems, process humor primarily in the part of the cortical processing system associated with primitive emotions and motivations. While men, too, engage those deep brain structures, more than women they also engage parts of the cortex associated with evaluative thinking.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Which Came First, the Tool or the Hand Size?
Did Technology Drive Human Evolution?
140 years ago Charles Darwin speculated that tool use may have influenced the evolution of the human hand. Now, in "Technology Based Evolution? A Biometric Test of the Effects of Handsize Versus Tool Form on Efficiency in an Experimental Cutting Task," in-press at the Journal of Archeological Science, two anthropologists at the University of Kent in Canterbury are investigating the particulars of that idea. Through a series of experiments with stone flake tools (similar to the those used by African hominids 2.6 million years ago) and un-handled steel blades, they have shown that bigger hands use those tools more efficiently. The scientists speculate that just as opposable thumbs may have enabled tool use, tool use may have influenced the biological evolution of hand size—and of musculature and bone structure in the hand. As eons ticked on, it was the hominids with genes coding for hands adept at tool use that survived.
140 years ago Charles Darwin speculated that tool use may have influenced the evolution of the human hand. Now, in "Technology Based Evolution? A Biometric Test of the Effects of Handsize Versus Tool Form on Efficiency in an Experimental Cutting Task," in-press at the Journal of Archeological Science, two anthropologists at the University of Kent in Canterbury are investigating the particulars of that idea. Through a series of experiments with stone flake tools (similar to the those used by African hominids 2.6 million years ago) and un-handled steel blades, they have shown that bigger hands use those tools more efficiently. The scientists speculate that just as opposable thumbs may have enabled tool use, tool use may have influenced the biological evolution of hand size—and of musculature and bone structure in the hand. As eons ticked on, it was the hominids with genes coding for hands adept at tool use that survived.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
In Scientific American This Month: Outsmarting Dengue Fever
In April's Scientific American
Just after sunrise in early January, a delivery van trundled along a suburban street in Queensland, Australia. Inside were tubs filled with a type of mosquito that carries dengue fever, the flu-like illness that annually sickens 50 million to 100 million people worldwide. Workers inside the van stopped at every fourth house, took out what resembled a small Chinese food container and released 40 mosquitoes into the wild. After a week, they had filled the air with 6,000 insects. By early March they had launched 72,000....
Read the article.
Just after sunrise in early January, a delivery van trundled along a suburban street in Queensland, Australia. Inside were tubs filled with a type of mosquito that carries dengue fever, the flu-like illness that annually sickens 50 million to 100 million people worldwide. Workers inside the van stopped at every fourth house, took out what resembled a small Chinese food container and released 40 mosquitoes into the wild. After a week, they had filled the air with 6,000 insects. By early March they had launched 72,000....
Read the article.
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