Science Cheerleader

This is a guest post from Occam’s Razor, whose wife is expecting a baby. Mini Occam is due this fall…

A bit from the social sciences….  Did you know that your friends have more friends than you?   It’s true.  But wait, you say, I’m very gregarious. I’m the president of the civic association.  I host Lost parties!  Too bad, according to the “friendship paradox.”  The paradox says that for any person chosen at random from a population, her friends will have more friends and connections than she does (and vice versa, which is the part that makes my head hurt).  This is why when girlfriends have broken up with me over the years, in my exit interview I’ve asked for referrals, figuring they know more attractive women than I do, partly evidenced by the fact that said girlfriend’s attractiveness was iffy, at best. Practically, the paradox is being used by researchers at Harvard. Applying it, they found that randomly selected professors were three times less likely to be incredibly pompous than their fellow …er, actually, it was used to study the spread of the flu by following associates of randomly chosen students – and not the randomly chosen students themselves – making it somewhat easy for them to track the disease’s spread.  It’s a fascinating look at the world of social networks.

These considerations of social networks are important to me now because my wife and I are about to have a baby and I want the best for the child. I need to know to whom to introduce him as he grows, so that he has the best connections and networking opportunities possible. Some of my responsibility for guidance and protection starts in utero, of course, as shown by this fascinating story about crickets.  These cricket parents let their eggs know when they may be endangered by a predator upon being born, perhaps by sending a sensory signal to them.  I must try to learn similar communicative skills to send warning signals to my baby so the child knows upon entering the world when trouble may be looming. For instance:

The sound of a $50 cigar being lit by a burning $100 bill indicates an oil executive may be about to oversee mind-boggling natural devastation.
The sound of a mistyped keyboard key means baby’s college savings will be wiped out by a Wall Street plunge.
The scent of pommade and feta means the Greeks are about to go on strike over the fear of losing their 14-hour work weeks.
The flapping of a Terrible Towel may indicate that Ben Roethlisberger is drunkenly lurking in a club.
The appearance of weeds overtaking a garden means another state has passed an Arizona-like immigration bill. (more…)

Another gem from our own Occam’s Razor. Take it away, Occam!

I am, like the rest of the country, caught up in soccer fever, where the fever in my case manifests itself in a soothing warmth that puts me directly to sleep.  No, this will not be another commentary about how inferior a sport soccer is – for one thing, that puts me on the wrong side of the intelligentsia (not that that’s always a bad thing), and for another, three billion people probably can’t be wrong.  And certainly any sport that inspires fans to stomp and thrash each other (investigated by scientists here) must be thrilling, though has anyone ever suffered a heart attack over a missed header?

I was in the gym a couple of weeks ago and just happened to glance up from my reading to see a game on the TV winding down and locked in a scintillating 0-0 tie.  This score seemed to cause a lot of excitement among soccer fans in the room, one of whom even remarked, enthralled, that the game featured two of the World Cups best scorers. This would be like getting excited about Peyton Manning and Tom Brady play to a scoreless game and I just don’t get it. After all, Americans are generally fans of the double-o football, where our highlight packages are sliced together into videos that contain cuts approximately every .8 seconds. (Seriously…I counted and in this 180-second highlight package there were over 200 seperate shots.)  Can a Twitter society be expected to sit there and watch 0-0 ties without being bored??

Science is split on the issue of boredom, depending on who you talk to. Being bored is certainly not bad for you, as it’s during these moments, scientists say, that we have introspection and bursts of creativity.  As you sit there bored in some dark bar watching a soccer game, drinking Belgian beer with your sophisticated soccer friends – babbling endlessly about ball handling and offensive strategies (score one goal and win!) – you might actually be creating new stuff in your head.   Einstein reportedly came with E=mc2 while staring off into space during a Switzerland-Germany match.  Over the long term, however, as Occam noted in a previous post, a recent study showed that you can literally be bored to death. (more…)

Occam’s Razor is currently typing from snowed-under Washington, DC, a region that has gotten smacked in the face with a giant Mother Nature snowball so vicious, that pretty much everything has come to a halt (insert your own joke about whether congress is more or less harmful when not in session).  The world has taken on that surreal post-apocalyptic feeling where norms as we previously knew them don’t apply and society breaks down (I thought a few days ago I was going to observe my neighbor and a plow-truck driver get into a fight…but it was disappointingly nothing more than that pseudo-bravado posturing and foot stomping we guys do).  Today I emerged to shovel my driveway – again! -  only to look onto a blindingly white, shapeless landscape that resembled the Hoth ice world from Star Wars.

I’ve essentially barely left my house for five days now, and quite honestly I’m bored!  I’ve watched old movies, dusted, waxed my back (Occam is excessively hairy) and by now I’m just about dying of boredom.  Which, by the way, is no longer just a figure of speech!  Scientists at University College London released the findings of a study of 7500 civil servants that shows that people reporting high levels of boredom (which surprisingly, given that they were civil servants, was not the entire cohort) had a shorter life expectancy than those not reporting being bored.  The reason being, say the researchers, is that those who are bored engage in unhealthy behaviors to help give life some edge, such as drinking and smoking.  Occam has drained a six-pack of Guinness and had three Bloody Mary’s (today) but hasn’t touched a cigarette!  I think I’m in the clear.  Next on my agenda is spending some time with SciCheer’s Sexy Scientists and Engineers Gallery, which will raise my blood pressure, but only for a bit.

Adding to my cabin fever is that I’m in my home with two women, one of whom has mono and the other, my wife, who is pretty.  What is wrong with that, you might ask?  Nothing, except for the fact that the latest from science tells us that attractive women are “more prone to anger, prevail more in conflicts of interest, and consider themselves entitled to better treatment.”  (Find the study here in the Proceedings of the NAS).  That explains a lot of the power dynamics in my marriage!  Five days in a house where I know I’m the lesser partner is stressful.  Maybe I’ll think twice about looking at that sexy scientist and engineers gallery…

Part of an occasional, ridiculous series from Occam’s Razor: Now that Darlene’s finally headed off to the ScienceOnline2010 conference (thought she’d never leave), let me fill you in on some REAL science you can use. Science yesterday announced something that half the population of the world has suspected for a long time – men are evolving faster than women.  I won’t bore you with the mumbo-jumbo, nor that scientists are distancing themselves from controversy by saying, “this does not mean that men are evolving faster than women.”  The proof is in the research…and the research is so irrefutable, even a woman is reporting it!  The study was headed up by one Jennifer Hughes, who, according to the internet (invented by a jolly green giant of a MAN – Al Gore), is most definitely a woman, and a bit of a babe, at that.  Lucky for her, she is an outlier among her sex and was able to figure out the challenging laboratory environment.

But has evolution started to bite back at we perfectly-formed males?  A few months ago new research came out to challenge some understandings about natural selection. (more…)

From that skeptical elf, Occam: Santa Claus has been romanticized by everyone from Norman Rockwell to Coca-Cola to filmmakers the world over.  We all have a general idea of what the “jolly old elf” is like, and I guess most of us assume a life of monogamy for the old fellow as part of this image.  But I would argue that if he is like most men with power and financial resources (see: Woods, Tiger), that’s probably not the case.  Consider:  so far as we know he’s always been married to Mrs. Claus, and the internet tells us that he’s anywhere from 250 to 550 years old…that’s a long time to be climbing down just one chimney, if you get my snowdrift.  Further, he’s been sneaking into the homes of women for a looong time, in that kinky, soft, alluring outfit; you can’t tell me that of all those homes there aren’t a few desperate housewives looking for some Christmas comfort, especially given that they may already fetishize him (84 percent of adult women have had Santa fantasies, according to the Holiday Organization of Romantic, Naughty, Yuletide Women).  And judging by the feats attributed to him he apparently transcends time and space, so he wouldn’t have to worry too much about getting caught by Mrs. Claus (though the image of Mrs. Claus using a giant candy cane to smash out the back window of his sleigh is pretty funny).

But, perhaps I’m not giving enough credit to the fidelity of the women of the world.  In fact, a recent report shows that evolutionarily, women may just inherently know that avoiding Santa and being faithful to their spouses helps them – specifically, this report says it helps them have healthier babies.  (more…)

By Occam’s Razor: The list of people who have made significant contributions to geriatric access and communication is distinguished:  Dean Kamen, who invented, among other things, the iBOT, a wheelchair that can navigate stairs (and who once spilled a bit of red wine on Darlene’s BORROWED Chanel pumps…she’s still sorry about that, Amanda); Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart; and Isaac Shepher, founder of the company that sells Life Alert (of, “I’ve fallen…and I can’t get up!” fame). Add to this list of luminaries Florence Henderson.  That’s right, Carol Brady of The Brady Bunch herself.

What has this citizen scientist done to be included in this list?  She has started the FloH Club, which she calls, “roadside assistance for your computer.”

It’s essentially a service that provides seniors with phone assistance to handle technological challenges they encounter as they use a computer, particularly in accessing Facebook, email, and other communication tools.  While there are free resources available to seniors, providing them help in accessing the internet and other secrets of the mysterious IBM box that sits in their den, the FloH Club is doing laudable work, even if it is a fee-based product.  (If Occam was more cynical, he’d compare this to Old Glory, sellers of robot insurance, as a way to scare old people out of their money.)  But regardless of whether Henderson makes a buck or not, we at the Science Cheerleader applaud her at bringing technology – and the world – a bit closer to those otherwise sealed off from it.  Nigerian princes everywhere have already found this new audience quite obliging.

Of course, Henderson is best known as mom Carol Brady from The Brady Bunch, a show which we’ve come to learn with each subsequent castmember book was a bacchanalia of hedonistic Hollywood excess.  Henderson was said to have gone on a date once with TV son Greg Brady, played by Barry Williams.  That would explain one of the premium services of the FloH Club, May-December, an online dating service for those of incongruous ages. FloH Club describes it as “a social meeting place with no judgments…and no boundaries.”    The “aged love” advocacy group Geri-Action has given two wrinkly and Viagra-stained thumbs up to the site.  Celebrity endorser Woody Allen has said:  “Oy vey…this would have made things so much easier for me!” and Roman Polanski adds, “I’m sorry, this is my only phone call this week…can we talk about this later?”

You go, FloHo!   (Warning, this links to graphic images and sounds that may be disturbing to many viewers.)

Occam’s Razor on Functional Foods:

I was reading an article in the Economist recently about functional foods. (I should note here that I barely understand anything in this magazine, which uses REALLY big words and talks a lot about places that as an American I can’t be expected to know about…like “Indonesia,” which I had been pretty certain was probably an Indianapolis dim sum place. I read the Economist on DCs metro, in a very pronounced manner, shaking it and crinkling it often, in the hopes that it will fool people into thinking I’m smart. In Washington, 93 percent of success is about appearances. [The other seven is - of course - about lying].) I looked up “functional foods” on Wikipedia – my generation’s Webster’s – and learned that they are foods that can naturally, or through processing, claim to provide health benefits beyond their basic nutritional contribution to your body.
Is this something we should be happy about? Is this another advancement of science that makes our life better, like penicillin, the Snuggie, and Viagra? Or is it just another sop to our sedentary, slothful lifestyles…a way to allow us (or perhaps force us) to surreptisiously eat something healthy, while doing what we do best: namely, cram our faces with crappy food.
For awhile you’ve probably noticed that some eggs now come with cholesterol-fighting omega-3 fatty acids, and Splenda now comes with added fiber (or “fibre” if you read this in the Economist).You might also be surprised to know that Domino has added insulin to its sugar, you can buy Crisco swirled with Lipitor, and there’s even a brand of tequila with a dissolved morning-after pill in it. This is just the beginning!

If you shop in Washington-DC area Giant grocery stores, now you can get tomatoes containing something called “locally.” I know this because I saw these things called “locally tomatoes,” pictured. (Hey, Giant is owned by Ahold, a Dutch company, so I’ll forgive them their limited English proficiency…but I won’t forgive them that the tulips at Giant cost a fortune

And in another recent Economist there was a story about an up-to-now only joked-about food offering, found at your county fair…fried butter. (How far has the Economist fallen, you wonder, with all this food reporting…a story on fried butter is certainly an example of yellow journalism, if you ask me. (Har har har.) You’d never eat this, you say?  Well, don’t worry…with some luck, that stent in the fried butter will work its way into place!

Does this look like a scientist?

It’s my friend Randy Olson.

He’s an avid surfer but he’s better known as Randy-the-scientist-turned-Hollywood-producer. His films Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy and Flock of Dodos are “must see flicks”.

Here’s Occam with a review of Olson’s new book, Don’t Be Such A Scientist!

Yes, just like jelly donuts, Super Bowl-winning touchdown drives, and this odd, recurring dream I have of Neil Degrasse Tyson in a bathrobe repeating the words “dark matter,” Randy Olson gets me going where it counts.

Why am I admitting this? you ask. How can this be so? you wonder. Who is Randy Olson, is he single, and what’s his address? you are thinking. Randy came to prominence with his documentary Flock of Dodos, on the evolution/intelligent design debate. He has the unique pedigree of being perhaps the only tenured science professor in history to resign from such a cushy post, move to LA, and enroll in film school. Randy fashions himself an expert on communicating science to the general public and has recently written Don’t Be Such a Scientist, chastising the profession for its shortcomings in communications and suggesting how scientists can be better at this task.

Yesterday, New Scientist published this review of Olson’s book calling it “Engaging and timely”.  RealClimate.org says it’s “a MUST read” and popular blogger PZ Meyers adds “there are lessons worth learning” in this book. (more…)

Another work of art from our cynical (and increasingly elitist!?) cheerleader, Occam’s Razor. (For the record, Occam fessed up to me this morning that he wrote this in a fit of pique, AFTER seeing a carny ogle his 15-year old child. Occam says he’s “very, very sorry to have sounded like a high-minded Manhattanite”. )

Take it away, Occam. The title is from Macbeth, spoken by the witches, who could have been prophesying a phenomenon of modern times. See, it’s the time of year – at least where I live – for the county fair to roll into town. I’m certainly not breaking any ground here by positing that the fair is a terrifying place, which I suspect is not the goal of fair organizers, but is an inevitable result of their efforts. Whether it’s the the nails-on-chalkboard shrieking of swine; the putrescent, earthy smells floating from port-a-johns and livestock areas; the food offerings that all seem to come on a stick; or the infamous-to-the-point-of-being-legendary carny himself, whose licentious and lugubrious existence makes for a character so rich you’d think he emerged from the pages of literary genius. The place seems designed to have something horrific just around every corner, not unlike Macbeth’s Dunsinane. One certainly not need enter the fun house to get a twisted view on reality here.

What is most striking about the existence of the fair where I live in particular, is that my county has the highest percentage (29.2%) of residents over 25 years old who hold a post-graduate degree in the entire country. But when I go the fair a different populace oozes out of their hiding places and I find observing them to be fascinating. There’s a simple equation to use when gauging the level of sophistication of the crowd at any public gathering (and thus, perhaps, the event itself). If for a given person the number of Nascar-logoed clothing items + tattoos + cigarettes smoked per hour > the number of teeth that person has, the sophistication is low. The fair has this person in spades (and in wife-beaters). After all, a fair is just a rebranded carnival, and root of that word, carn, is shared with the pleasant-image-making carnage and carnal (and means “flesh,” And flesh you will see at the fair, generous piles of it spilling out shamelessly from under tube tops and such). (more…)

Some good humor for your Saturday. Here’s another skeptical post from everyone’s favorite cynical cheerleader, Occam’s Razor.

A new book has hit the stands recently and it’s making a bit of a splash. It’s called The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. The book was written by David Kessler*, former commissioner of the FDA and in it Kessler goes after food in much the same way he went after tobacco – with the extremely pedestrian observation that people who want to sell something make that product as appealing to customers as possible. (more…)