Looks like the UK is following in the footsteps of the US and slowly becoming a nation of idiots. Today’s Guardian reports that over 30% of university students believe in Creationism or Intelligent Design.

In a survey last month, more than 12% questioned preferred creationism – the idea God created us within the past 10,000 years – to any other explanation of how we got here. Another 19% favoured the theory of intelligent design – that some features of living things are due to a supernatural being such as God. This means more than 30% believe our origins have more to do with God than with Darwin – evolution theory rang true for only 56%.

The Weathermakers, by Tim Flannery, looks at the problem of global warming and is a pretty timely read. Flannery breaks the issue down into a few key areas which he addresses in turn, starting with James Lovelock’s Gaia theory and how climate has changed in the past, what effects past changes have had on our planet and how the current CO₂ levels compare to historic ones.

He then goes on to look at the effects global warming has already had on things like coral bleaching, species extinction, sea levels and frequency of severe storms before tackling the science behind climate modelling, the accuracy of our current models and what those models predict for the future. Along the way he shoots down some of the myths put forward by the anti-global warming crowd, eg: that since plants breathe CO₂ an increase in CO₂ will provide unprecedented agricultural yields. This is currently doing the rounds in the US at the moment, with the energy lobby taking out full-pafe newspaper advertisements to promote this theory. Flannery shoots it down by quoting research which shows that plants are actually less productive in an atmosphere with increased CO₂!

Next up is a look in more detail at what will happen if things continue as they are, including a look at how plants and animals adapted to temperature changes before (by migrating) and how human infrastructure and agriculture is likely to hamper that process. He also talks about the effects of warmer oceans and their effect on food production as well as the effects on the ocean’s ciculatory systems.

The penultimate section deals with potential solutions to the problem, noting that we solved the ozone hole problem in a reasonably short time with a concerted international effort. He talks about Kyoto, both good and bad, and how it’s here to stay, the costs of fixing the problem versus those of doing nothing, the downside to plans to encourage the oceans to take up more CO₂ by fertilising them with iron and finally, why a hydrogen economy will never work.

His final section is where he offers solutions that will work, focusing on the golden trio of hydro, wind & solar before introducing nuclear power, which seems to be making a comeback for two reasons: one, it emits very little greenhouse gases (about the same as hydro/wind/solar when you include lifetime costs) and two, more and more scientists think that global warming is a much greater problem than that of nuclear waste.

Flannery concludes by giving a few easy ways for the individual to start making a difference, including tips for reducing energy consumption and offsetting that which you can’t easily reduce. The book is well worth a read, and while it’s certainly alarmist in places, that’s probably what’s needed to get people to start taking the process seriously.

This is brilliant:

To see him speed down hallways and make sharp turns around corners is to observe a typical teen – except, that is, for the clicking. Completely blind since the age of 3, after retinal cancer claimed both his eyes (he now wears two prostheses), Ben has learned to perceive and locate objects by making a steady stream of sounds with his tongue, then listening for the echoes as they bounce off the surfaces around him. About as loud as the snapping of fingers, Ben’s clicks tell him what’s ahead: the echoes they produce can be soft (indicating metals), dense (wood) or sharp (glass). Judging by how loud or faint they are, Ben has learned to gauge distances.

The technique is called echolocation, and many species, most notably bats and dolphins, use it to get around. But a 14-year-old boy from Sacramento? While many blind people listen for echoes to some degree, Ben’s ability to navigate in his sightless world is, say experts, extraordinary. “His skills are rare,” says Dan Kish, a blind psychologist and leading teacher of echomobility among the blind. “Ben pushes the limits of human perception.”

From: People.com

RealClimate has an article up discussing potential tipping points in our climate which, among other things, elaborates further on Jim Hansen’s ‘ten years left’ comment:

The ‘10 year’ horizon is the point by which serious efforts will need to have started to move the trajectory of concentrations away from business-as-usual towards the alternative scenario if the ultimate warming is to stay below ‘dangerous levels’. Is it realistic timescale? That is very difficult to judge. Wrapped up in the ‘10 year’ horizon are considerations of continued emission growth, climate sensitivity, assumptions about future volcanic eruptions and solar activity etc. What is clear is that uncontrolled emissions will very soon put us in range of temperatures that have been unseen since the Eemian/Stage 5e period (about 120,000 years ago) when temperatures may have been a degree or so warmer than now but where sea level was 4 to 6m higher…

Scientific American has a blog post which tackles one of the common global warmign skeptic srguments, namely that the present warming could be a natural uptick. It examines all the different sources of evidence for global warming and explains why the current warming is almost certainly man-made and not a natural uptick. Well worth a read, simply to give you an idea of the depth of evidence. It’s also part of a series of articles dealing with common themes of global warming skepticism, so it’s worth reading the other articles in the series too.

The Bush administration tried to prevent Jim Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, talking to the press about climate change but the plan backfired. Here he gives his expert opinion on the global warming debate in the New York Review of Books, including this alarming warning:

As explained above, we have at most ten years — not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions. Our previous decade of inaction has made the task more difficult, since emissions in the developing world are accelerating. To achieve the alternative scenario will require prompt gains in energy efficiencies so that the supply of conventional fossil fuels can be sustained until advanced technologies can be developed. If instead we follow an energy-intensive path of squeezing liquid fuels from tar sands, shale oil, and heavy oil, and do so without capturing and sequestering CO2 emissions, climate disasters will become unavoidable.

An article in Scientific American details the latest research on how supervolcanoes form and erupt, and how their eruptions can have long term effects on the atmosphere.

The oxygen 17 excess and other chemical patterns that we found in sulfate from the Yellowstone and Long Valley ash samples thus implied that significant amounts of stratospheric ozone were used up in reactions with gas from the supereruptions in those regions. Other researchers studying the acid layers in Antarctica have demonstrated that those events, too, probably eroded stratospheric ozone. It begins to look as if supervolcano emissions eat holes in the ozone layer for an even longer period than they take to cool the climate.

This loss of protective ozone would be expected to result in an increased amount of dangerous ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth’s surface and thus in a rise in genetic damage caused by rays. The magnitude and length of the potential ozone destruction are still being debated. Space observations have revealed a 3 to 8 percent depletion of the ozone layer following the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. But what would happen after an event 100 times larger? Simple arithmetic does not solve the problem, because the details of atmospheric oxidation reactions are extremely complex and not fully understood.

A surgeon answers the question ’What’s it like to cut in to somebody?‘:

Nowadays, routine surgery, such as breast biopsies or other elective surgery, it doesn’t even raise my pulse anymore. But I never forget that, society has granted me and relatively few others the privilege to cut into living human bodies legally in order to try to cure them of disease. I like to think that I’ve earned that right through my skill, but it could just as easily have gone the other way.

An animated GIF of a time-lapse photo series, taken by one of the Mars Rovers, showing Earth rising in the sky as seen from Mars. That little dot rising on the right hand side encompasses everyone you’ve ever met, or will meet, every place you’ve been or will visit and your entire existence, past, present and future. Insignificant in the grand scheme of things, isn’t it?

Very interesting.

Picture a psychiatrist at her desk reviewing a case file. The report describes a young, teenaged male who, with several others his age, killed nearly a hundred victims. The case is astounding—not only because of the intensity and magnitude of the violence, but because nothing remotely like it has ever happened in the community before. Not even a single murder. As the psychiatrist turns the pages and reads on, the pieces of the puzzle start to come together. A few years before, the young killers had witnessed the massacre of their families and been orphaned. Afterwards, although still very young, they were relocated to another community with few adults to raise them; importantly, it was absent of older, mentoring males.

Read the full article for a surprise.

Walter Tschinkel of the Department of Biological Science at Florida University has published a paper on the nest architecture of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius. Not particularly interesting you say, but I like the way he took casts of the nests: by pouring orthodontic plaster into the nest entrance, allowing it to harden, and then excavating the result.

Check out this 12-metre cast!

NASA have published an interesting video showing the operation of one of the cameras aboard the Huygens probe as it descended towards the surface of Titan, including various data readouts. It’s also interesting because of the amount of data crammed on to the screen, and the way they use sound to convey data as well.

Turns out that religious people are wasting their time praying for sick people. Research in the U.S. followed 1,800 heart patients at six different medical centres. Patients were split in to three groups of 600 and Christian groups did the praying. One group was prayed for, and told they were being prayed for, another was prayed for, but only told that they might be being prayed for, and the final group wasn’t prayed for at all, but was told it was a possibility. The group who was being prayed for, and knew it, fared the worst, with more complications within 30 days than either of the other two groups.

A very interesting Salon interview with E.O. Wilson, the legendary Harvard biologist, on the nature of religion and its relationship to science, particularly evolution. The whole article is worth a read, but what caught my eye was his observation on the nature of heaven:

EOW: Would I be happy if I discovered that I could go to heaven forever? And the answer is no. Consider this argument. Think about what is forever. And think about the fact that the human mind, the entire human being, is built to last a certain period of time. Our programmed hormonal systems, the way we learn, the way we settle upon beliefs, and the way we love are all temporary. Because we go through a life’s cycle. Now, if we were to be plucked out at the age of 12 or 56 or whenever, and taken up and told, now you will continue your existence as you are. We’re not going to blot out your memories. We’re not going to diminish your desires. You will exist in a state of bliss — whatever that is — forever. And those who didn’t make it are going to be consigned to darkness or hell. Now think, a trillion times a trillion years. Enough time for universes like this one to be born, explode, form countless star systems and planets, then fade away to entropy. You will sit there watching this happen millions and millions of times and that will just be the beginning of the eternity that you’ve been consigned to bliss in this existence.

S: This heaven would be your hell.

EOW: Yes. If we were able to evolve into something else, then maybe not. But we are not something else.

It would be so incredibly boring! Think about it. You take up a new pursuit, golf, mountain biking, whatever. The first few times, as you learn your way, it’s all new, shiny and exciting. After a while, the improvements get harder to come by. It’s still enjoyable, but not as enjoyable as it was. Later, you gradually lose interest as you’ve got as far as you’re capable of going and you move on to something else. This whole process might take a few months, or a few decades, who knows.

Now imagine you’ve been in heaven for a million years. You’ve long ago tried every sport & pastime, read every book, etc. What do you do now? Tedious doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Scientists develop bird flu vaccine

University of Pittsburgh scientists say they’ve genetically engineered an avian flu vaccine that has proven 100 percent effective in mice and chickens.

It’s like Y2K all over again. Massive panic, lots of work then gets done to ensure it doesn’t happen. Sweet!

from PhysOrg.com

Looks like the Brits are no better than the Yanks when it comes to believing daft religious stuff. A poll conducted by the BBC, for their Horizon science show, revealed the following:

Over 2000 participants took part in the survey, and were asked what best described their view of the origin and development of life:

• 22% chose creationism

• 17% opted for intelligent design

• 48% selected evolution theory

• and the rest did not know.

[…]

When given a choice of three descriptions for the development of life on Earth, people were asked which one or ones they would like to see taught in science lessons in British schools:

• 44% said creationism should be included

• 41% intelligent design

• 69% wanted evolution as part of the science curriculum.

Participants over 55 were less likely to choose evolution over other groups.

What’s wrong with 40% of the population that they feel that creationism provides a scientific account of the creation of the world. “God said, let there be light, and there was light, and God saw that the light was good” – yeah, that’s fucking scientific!

The ‘over 55s’ line has me wondering: I’d like to see a breakdown of the results by age. Given that British society (and Australian and Irish for that matter) has become less religious over the last 50 years, does that mean that the proportion choosing evolution is somewhat inversely proportional to age? Maybe increasing secularity just means that the same number of people believe in creationism/ID they just don’t see the need to worship whatever flavour of god they see as the creator.

There’s a parasite living in the gut of cats which sheds eggs which get eaten by rats, presumably from the cat droppings. The eggs hatch and form cysts in infected rats, including in their brains. However, how does the parasite complete its life-cycle and get back to the cat? It secretes a substance which causes infected rats to lose their fear of cats! Rats normally shy away from the smell of cat piss, however…

Rats carrying the parasite are for the most part indistinguishable from healthy ones. They can compete for mates just as well and have no trouble feeding themselves. The only difference, the researchers found, is that they are more likely to get themselves killed. The scent of a cat in the enclosure didn’t make them anxious, and they went about their business as if nothing was bothering them. They would explore around the odor at least as often as they did anywhere else in the enclosure. In some cases, they even took a special interest in the spot and came back to it over and over again.

But wait, there’s more. Humans can be infected with this parasite as well and it is associated with damage to a particular set of neurons. Schizophrenia is also associated with damage to those very same neurons, and anti-schizophrenia drugs also re-instate rats’ fear of cats, effectively curing them of the parasite’s effects! Is a cat parasite causing some cases of schizophrenia?

(full article)

Revenge may indeed be a dish best served cold, but it would also appear to be a dish best served by men:

In a clever two-phase experiment, the researchers recruited 32 male and female volunteers, as well as four others who were undercover actors hired to play the role of volunteers.

In the first part of the experiment, the group played a game of mutual investment in which they had to give money to one of their number.

The recipient could decide for himself how much to give back from the profits.

He or she could hand back up to triple the investment, but at little reward to himself; or he could hand back little or nothing, thus maximising his own gains but at the investor’s cost.

One actor was cast in a generous role, always giving lots of money back to his partners, while another actor was cast as a meany, giving back very little and sometimes nothing at all.

Body language by the volunteers, confirmed later in questionnaires, confirmed that they did not like the actors who had cheated on them. “Fair” players, in contrast, were rated as more agreeable, more likeable and, remarkably, more attractive.

In the second phase, the same volunteers were each placed in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner, a device which shows blood flows within the brain.

The volunteer was then given a demonstration of a mild shock — the equivalent of short bee-sting — and then watched as the actors, standing next to the scanner, got the same painful treatment.

When a “fair” actor received a shock, the scanner showed empathy among all the volunteers.

In males and females alike, the images showed activation of the anterior insula/fronto-insular cortex (AI/FI) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Previous research has showed that these parts of the brain cause the feeling of distress when one sees someone else in pain.

When an “unfair” actor got a shock, the AI/FI and ACC lit up again among most female volunteers.

Amongst the men, however, these empathic areas showed no increase in activity.

Well the trial is over and the verdict is in. A US Federal court has banned Intelligent Design from the biology classroom on the grounds that it violates the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom.

This is the same problem that Creationism ran up against in 1987 and resulted in it going underground to re-emerge as Intelligent Design. No doubt this will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, and although Bush has tried stacking it with far right-wingers, you’d have to assume that common sense will prevail.

Great article on the lack of rationality attached to religious faith. Includes the scary fact that only 22% of Americans believe in evolution!!

It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational human being can believe in God simply because this belief makes him happy, relieves his fear of death or gives his life meaning. The absurdity becomes obvious the moment we swap the notion of God for some other consoling proposition: Imagine, for instance, that a man wants to believe that there is a diamond buried somewhere in his yard that is the size of a refrigerator. No doubt it would feel uncommonly good to believe this. Just imagine what would happen if he then followed the example of religious moderates and maintained this belief along pragmatic lines: When asked why he thinks that there is a diamond in his yard that is thousands of times larger than any yet discovered, he says things like, “This belief gives my life meaning,” or “My family and I enjoy digging for it on Sundays,” or “I wouldn’t want to live in a universe where there wasn’t a diamond buried in my backyard that is the size of a refrigerator.” Clearly these responses are inadequate. But they are worse than that. They are the responses of a madman or an idiot.