Old-school film short from 1977 that I fell in love with long ago at school. The next time someone needs the term 'order of magnitude' explained to 'em, this is what you show 'em.

Here's the YouTube link (when oh when will Insanejournal allow Tube embedding??)

Here's the Wikipedia summary.

The Fermi Paradox is getting a fair bit of blogtime on the sites my RSS feed pulls in - for instance, there's a discussion on Jamais Cascio's blog (which Stross has a funny comment on about panspermia).

Anyway... one of the main points discussed is whether or not the Singularity would have an effect on the so-called Great Filter. (Simply put - if post-Singularity civilisations simply give up on exploring or talking to outer space and spend all their time wanking in the Matrix instead, which is why we don't see any signs of advanced alien races.)

This of course led to some discussion about AI - and this splendid piece by one Jacob Davies:

...the human brain already contains one Turing-compliant AI. That's you. It also contains a virtual-reality suite capable of simulating anything you can imagine. That's your mind. At present, it's simulating (as best it can) the world around you, but it's capable of a lot more than that, as dreaming or hallucinations can demonstrate. It can even do both at once, as with daydreaming. Similarly your AI suite is capable of quite-accurately modelling other personalities, which is what it does when you think about what your mother would like for her birthday or whether your boss is about to fire you for reading blogs at work.

In fact, as experience with computers will tell you, there doesn't seem much innate reason why this exceptionally flexible system is limited to running one personality and one model of reality. There are obvious and significant differences between brains and computers, but for capacity I think this kind of analogy is fair: computers usually have a lot of wasted capacity, and if they can do one thing, they can usually do that thing ten times at once, or a thousand. At the very least, they can do it twice, each at half the speed.

Not to mention, there are long periods when your brain is doing virtually nothing, just ticking over. So why don't we have access to a controllable VR suite? (The closest is perhaps lucid dreaming.) Why are we not able to imagine other personalities to converse with? (Except a small section of the population, for whom this phenomenon seems to cause extreme distress.) Why can we only remember 7 things? Why do some people lack the empathy required not to hurt other people? Why are some people smarter than other people when their minds are so similar? Why are other animals not able to communicate with us, or even with each other at more than a very basic level? Why do our brains start out so apparently blank, when other animals can function at birth?

To me these are mysteries of just the same kind as the Fermi paradox. What you would expect - given our existence and experience - seems not to be the case.

Noted mostly 'cos I think it's cool - which is why most of us blog stuff, I guess.

Charlie Stross opens up an interesting debate on current theories attempting to resolve the Fermi Paradox. Do look at the comments.

Scientific American has just run a piece on the biology of orgasm - which is cool.

However...
On page 3 of this piece, the following study is quoted:

' To find out whether orgasm looks similar in the female brain, Holstege’s team asked the male partners of 12 women to stimulate their partner’s clitoris—the site whose excitation most easily leads to orgasm—until she climaxed, again inside a PET scanner. Not surprisingly, the team reported in 2006, clitoral stimulation by itself led to activation in areas of the brain involved in receiving and perceiving sensory signals from that part of the body and in describing a body sensation—for instance, labeling it “sexual.”

But when a woman reached orgasm, something unexpected happened: much of her brain went silent. Some of the most muted neurons sat in the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex, which may govern self-control over basic desires such as sex. Decreased activity there, the researchers suggest, might correspond to a release of tension and inhibition. The scientists also saw a dip in excitation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which has an apparent role in moral reasoning and social judgment—a change that may be tied to a suspension of judgment and reflection.

Brain activity fell in the amygdala, too, suggesting a depression of vigilance similar to that seen in men, who generally showed far less deactivation in their brain during orgasm than their female counterparts did. “Fear and anxiety need to be avoided at all costs if a woman wishes to have an orgasm; we knew that, but now we can see it happening in the depths of the brain,” Holstege says. He went so far as to declare at the 2005 meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Development: “At the moment of orgasm, women do not have any emotional feelings.” '

(Emphasis mine.)

I have to say my admittedly anecdotal experience contradicts both these points. Drastically.

Again I am reminded of my wish to see a study of sexual expression run with medical fetishists - so that the whole getting-off-inside-a-MRI-machine part enhances rather than taints the study.
But then again, try finding someone who fits the bill who doesn't have piercings!

Via Boing, today's best lede:

"In the violent tangle that is sex between giant squids, almost anything can happen, including accidentally injecting yourself with firehose-pressure blasts of sperm."

http://www.cdnn.info/news/eco/e050925.html

Via the Danger Room blog at Wired.com:

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Health/2008/03/14/bioterror_defense_--_tea_anthrax_antidote/9315/

' Welsh and U.S. researchers say black tea -- without milk -- may be an antidote to the Bacillus anthracis -- anthrax.

Scientists led by Les Baillie of the Welsh School of Pharmacy at Cardiff University and Theresa Gallagher, Biodefence Institute, Medical Biotechnology Center of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute in Baltimore, have found that the widely available English Breakfast tea has the potential to inhibit the activity of anthrax.

The study, published in Microbiologist, also found the addition of whole milk to a standard cup of tea completely inhibited its antibacterial activity against anthrax...

"What's more, given the ability of tea to bring solace and steady the mind and to inactivate Bacillus anthracis and its toxin, perhaps the Boston Tea Party was not such a good idea after all," Baillie said in a statement. '

From the BBC:

"Life may begin at 40, but research suggests that 44 is the age at which we are most vulnerable to depression.

Data analysis on two million people from 80 countries found a remarkably consistent pattern around the world.
The risk of depression was lowest in younger and older people, with the middle-aged years associated with the highest risk for both men and women. "

You know that T-shirt slogan, "I'm only wearing black until they invent a darker colour"?

Here it is.

' The "darkest ever" substance known to science has been made in a US laboratory.
The material was created from carbon nanotubes - sheets of carbon just one atom thick rolled up into cylinders.
Researchers say it is the closest thing yet to the ideal black material, which absorbs light perfectly at all angles and over all wavelengths. '

Yes, I want some. Preferably in a trenchcoat.

Zero-G sex - only four positions work and missionary is 'impossible'.

This article amused me - as I remarked to fragiletender, the statistics work out so that I'm functionally immortal...

A German research published in New England Journal of Medicine and Weekly World News said that men staring at women's breasts in fact prolong their lives with years.

The problem with this study is the lack of proper double-blind controls, especially in the area of real-versus-fake tits. (And NB, the link above leads to a the article, illustrated with a picture of a woman who has apparantly been inflated - badly - toat least five times her natural bust.)

The article - an exemplar of responsible science journalism - starts thus:

' Listen, guys, now we know why Pamela Anderson made her transplants: to make us healthier. "Angels of mercy" like Jordan just prolong our life and Hugh Hefner knows it. 'Immediately one observes the problem. The two women named are noted silicon addicts.

' "Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female such as Baywatch actress Pamela Lee is equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out," said author Dr. Karen Weatherby, a gerontologist.

The team led by Weatherby was made up of researchers at three hospitals in Frankfurt, Germany, and found this results after monitoring for 5 years the health of 200 male subjects, half of whom were asked to look at busty females daily, while the other half had to abstain from doing so.

For five years, the boob oglers presented a lower blood pressure, slower resting pulse rates and decreased risk of coronary artery disease. '

But...

A quick Googling of the lead researchers name leads to a debunking:

' Don't bet on it. No such study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (check for yourself).
A search of the thousands of international medical journal articles contained in the Medline database turned up zero items on this topic and zero items authored by "Dr. Karen Weatherby," who presumably does not even exist.

If the story seems to smack of tabloid journalism, it's because that's precisely what it is. It began circulating via email in March or April 2000, not long after a similar article appeared in the consistently misinformative Weekly World News (nor is this the first time we've run into laughable rumors traceable to that source). '

Ahh... dear old Weekly World News - we miss you so.

" Battling scientists around the world are racing to be first to develop practical robots remotely controlled by harvested monkey brains over the internet. "

I for one welcome our new monkey-brained-cyborg overlords...

A few fun links from my hiatus:

"A multi-national team of biologists has concluded that developmental evolution is deterministic and orderly, rather than random, based on a study of different species of roundworms."
They accomplished this by studying minute vatiations in roundworm vulvas. Imagine the date potential in that profession- "What do you do?" "I study invertebtate cunts. No, wait, come back..."

Carnegie Mellon neuroscientist proposes new theory of brain flexibility
The theory explains how the brain compensates for damage from injuries such as stroke. Nice model, could take in more on other work in neural plasticity.

Brainsturbrator, always a mensh, offers, "10 Ways YOU Can Fight Fascism Around the World" This is good basic survival meme-kit.

I am sure the tale of "Mayor Resigns, Claims Abduction By Satan Worshippers" will run and run...

Technoccult's brief but provoking piece on vaule judgements in occultism - which is not entirely cynical but does offer the now-stolen term for most art in Newage shops, "ooh-ahh pictures", which I think should be more sung than enunciated. In a high, mystic, Stevie Nicks kind of "ooh-aah!!!" stylee.

Latest sign of the End Times - Dog perfume. IdiotToys News is there.

Penultimate End Times sign - Rose back on Doctor Who (for 3 or 4 eps?), official. Click will lead to new DW season spoilers, most of which are rubbish except for the bit about ( REDACTED )

And finally... an elegant expression masculine pain. Not at feminists, loss of jobs or status or even at foofie. At accidentally getting Deep Heat on your bollocks. He wax most elegantly on the subject. Coments display some nice delayed-minimal-responses too.

And I'm spent!

Ben Goldacre of The Guardian has written his 'Bad Science' column for that distinguished broadsheet for a while now. Sometimes (when demolishing the recent anti-cannabis studies) he's both funny and accurate. Other times (when he did the same thing for homeopathy) he's at least seeming to offer a model for reasonably good scientific principles.

Shame that he just got outed for spectacularly bad journalistic tradecraft by The Register...

Seems that Dr. Goldacre, MD, approached the Open Rights Group thus;

"hi, my name's ben and i write "badscience" in the guardian (and badscience.net )

i wanted to write something on the shitness of biometrics tomorrow for the col on sat, if anyone's got a nice big bundle of stuff i need (a) people like, say, hang on, gordon brown in PMQ making grand claims about how they will cure all ills and (b) good evidence/arguments/rocksolidundeniablefacts on why these claims are nonsense

...incidentally, before you assume that i'm a lazy journo, i dont write like this with anyone else, but in fact i am offering ORG the chance to use me as a mouthpiece for your righteous rightness.

...think of it as a "pull" model for lobbying, rather than the usual push.

...essentially i have a bag of kittens and will drown one on the hour every hour until you give me a good biometrics story".

Assuming this tale isn't bollocks, you can cross him off your list of reputable science reporters. Ironic, or at least hypoctitical, after he authored these words.

And would it hurt him to use a CAPS key occasionally?

Briefly leaving my surgery-induced purdah to share this, which has amused me.

The great blogger and occasional SF writer John Scalzi has made his long-promised trip to critique the Creationist Museum, and see the displays of vegetarian T. Rexes and raptors living in cosmic harmony with Adam and Eve (but not, of course, Steve).. The result was a lot of pics on his Flickr (with added sarcasm), and an essay (on the nature of worshipping bullshit).

And then... he invited readers to take his photos and Macro them.

Results are here.

I am especially fond of the variations on the Cain and Abel diorama and the ones involving Adam, a conveniently placed sheep and a puzzled-looking penguin.

"Dusty Winds Bursting Out Of Black Holes May Have Seeded Planets, Life"

Then, miraculously, it gets worse.

The lede;
' The hit song that proclaimed, "All we are is dust in the wind," may have some cosmic truth to it. '
(

Quite fun, good science - and BRRAAIINNNNSSSSSS!!

Let's take a look at number 5 - Brain Parasites...

"As seen in ...
Resident Evil IV

What are they?
Parasites that turn victims into mindless, zombie-like slaves are fairly common in nature. There's one called toxoplasmosa gondii that seems to devote its entire existence to being terrifying.

This bug infects rats, but can only breed inside the intestines of a cat. The parasite knows it needs to get the rat inside the cat (yes, we realize this sounds like the beginning of the most fucked-up Dr. Seuss poem ever) so the parasite takes over the rat's freaking brain, and intentionally makes it scurry toward where the cats hang out. The rat is being programmed to get itself eaten, and it doesn't even know.

Of course, those are just rats, right?

How it can result in zombies:
Hey, did we mention that half the human population on Earth is infected with toxoplasmosa, and don't know it? Hey, maybe you're one of them. Flip a coin.

Oh, also, they've done studies and shown that the infected see a change in their personality and have a higher chance of going batshit insane.

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:
Humans and rats aren't all that different; thats why they use them to test our drugs. All it takes is a more evolved version of toxoplasmosa, one that could to do us what it does to the rats. So, imagine if half the world suddenly had no instinct for self-preservation or rational thought. Even less than they do now, we mean.

If you're comforting yourself with the thought that it may take forever for such a parasite to evolve, you're forgetting about all the biological weapons programs around the world, intentionally weaponizing such bugs. You've got to wonder if the lab workers don't carry out their work under the unwitting command of the toxoplasmosa gondii already in their brains. If you don't want to sleep at night, that is.

You may be protesting that technically these people have never been dead and thus don't fit the dictionary definition of "zombies," but we can assure you that the distinction won't matter a whole lot once these groaning hordes are clawing their way through your windows. "

Click on the top likn for the rest.

No, not left-wing... left *hemisphere*.

An excellent piece by the hard SF writer Peter Watts:

" This is an ancient review article — about ten years old, judging by the references — but it contains an intriguing insight from split-brain research that I hadn't encountered before: The right hemisphere remembers stuff with a minimum of elaboration, pretty much as it happens. The left hemisphere makes shit up. Mr. Right just parses things relatively agenda-free, while the left hemisphere tries to force things into context.

The left hemisphere, according to Gazzaniga, looks for patterns. Ol' Lefty's on a quest for meaning.

I learned back in undergrad days that our brains see patterns even where none exist; we're pattern-matching machines, is what we are. But I hadn't realized that such functions were lateralized. This hemispheric specialization strikes me as a little reminiscent of "gene duplication": that process by which genetic replication goes occasionally off the rails and serves up two (or more) copies of a gene where only one had existed before. Which is very useful, because evolution can now play around with one of those copies to its heart's content, and as long as the other retains its original function you don't have to worry about screwing up a vital piece of a working system. (This is something the creationists hope you never learn, since it single-handedly blows their whole the-mousetrap-can't-work-unless-all-the-parts-evolve-simultaneously argument right out of the water.) Analogously, I see one hemisphere experimenting with different functions — imagination, the search for meaning— while the other retains the basic just-the-facts-ma'am approach that traditionally served the organism so well.

Anyway, for whatever reason, we've got a pragmatist hemisphere, and a philosopher hemisphere. Lefty, who imposes patterns even on noise, unsurprisingly turns out to be the source of most false memories. But pattern-matching, the integration of scattered data into cohesive working models of The Way Things Are — that's almost another word for science, isn't it? And a search for deeper meanings, for the reasons behind the way things are — well, that's not exactly formal religion (it doesn't involve parasitic social constructs designed to exploit believers), but it is, perhaps, the religious impulse that formal religion evolved to exploit. Which is getting uncomfortably close to saying that neurologically, the scientific and religious impulses are different facets of the same thing...

When there is a pattern to be found, and enough usable data to parse it, the adaptive significance is obvious: you end up using the stars to predict when the Nile is going to flood its banks. If there is no data, or no pattern, you find it anyway, only it's bogus: thunder comes from Zeus, and Noah surfed a tidal bore that carved out the Grand Canyon in an afternoon. Lefty talks in metaphors sometimes, so even when it gets something right it's not the best at communicating those insights— but that's okay, because Mr. Right is just across the hall, unsullied, unspecialized, picking up the slack.

Only what if, now, we're acquiring data that Mr. Right can't handle? "

Quote of the day, from an interview with Deborah Blum, author of Ghost Hunters (which I've not read yet but I want to):

"Here's the blessing and curse of mainstream science. It's the most powerful investigative tool ever invented. It has succeeded by following a very strict set of rules for "proof" of a phenomenon. That phenomenon, for instance, must be predictable, testable, replicable, confirmable. An example of this is the freezing temperature of water (phase change from liquid to solid at 32 degrees fahrenheit.) I can predict this and I (and you and the entire population of the world) can repeat and confirm it ad infinitum.

So far, paranormal phenomena don't follow those rules. They're not predictable in any consistent sense, and rarely perfectly replicable. So - and this William James complained about bitterly - mainstream science has responded by declaring them nonsense and the scientists who pursue them as pseudo-scientists. The problem with that is that our scientific rules may prevent us from trying new approaches, considering alternative ways to measure reality - in other words, box us into a very limited world.

Bottom line, science plays it safe and ruthlessly defends its limits. Totally human and - here's the scandalous part - punishes those who try to make the universe a little more open."

From the newsfeed at Better Humans - a great resource for all your science needs - these;

"Scientists know that information travels between brain cells along hairlike extensions called axons. For the first time, researchers have found that axons don’t just transmit information – they can turn the signal up or down with the right stimulation."

(CatNote - Hah! Fuck you, dualistic binary models of cognition!!)

"Brain imaging has revealed a breakdown in normal patterns of emotional processing that impairs the ability of people with clinical depression to suppress negative emotional states. Efforts by depressed patients to suppress their feelings when viewing emotionally negative images enhanced activity in several brain areas, including the amygdala, known to play a role in generating emotion..."

Ever since I heard about cases of anencephlia (absence of brain matter) where the sufferer is fully conscious and functional (instead of, to quote 'The Man With Two Brains', sitting in the corner and going *pttttthhhhh*), I've been trying to find actual source material to quote here.

Thanks to Nature, here is some:

"Three years ago, a 44-year-old man was admitted to hospital in Marseille, France, complaining of weakness in his left leg. He had no idea what doctors would find to be the source of the problem: a huge pocket of fluid where most of his brain ought to be.

Normally, fluid continuously circulates throughout the brain and is drained away into the circulatory system. But in this case, the man's drainage tubes had narrowed, resulting in an accumulation of fluid in the ventricles and an enlargement of the skull due to the great volume of fluid pressing against it. This had squeezed his brain into a narrow layer around the outside of the fluid, doctors report in the Lancet1 today.

"We were very surprised when we looked for the first time the CT scan," says Lionel Feuillet, a neurologist at the Mediterranean University, Marseille. "The brain was very, very much smaller than normal." Nevertheless, subsequent tests showed the man to have an IQ of 75 — at the lower end of the 'normal range'.

The patient was a married father with two children and a job as a civil servant. His problems with his left leg were a neurological symptom of the condition, says Feuillet."

(Insert Civil Service joke here. Yes, I used to be one. That's my excuse.)

The case I especially love - and cannot source - is of a guy whose fine apart from headaches... and only having a thin strand of neural tissue where his corpus callosum should be and the rest of his skull is filled with cerebro-spinal fluid. If anyone has a reference on that, do tell me!