Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 414

A dark, yet sunny, techno-apocalyptic paper

A dark, yet sunny, techno-apocalyptic paper by the prolific Alexander Bolonkin and a friend, a self-noted self-described thinker:

“Explosion of Sun,” , Joseph Friedlander [pictured here], Computational Water, Energy, and Environmental Engineering, vol. 2, 2013, pp. 83-96. The authors, at Strategic Solutions Technology Group, New York, explain:

“If we create higher temperature and density in a limited region of the solar interior, we may be able to produce self-supporting detonation thermonuclear reactions that spread to the full solar volume. This is analogous to the triggering mechanisms in a thermonuclear bomb. Conditions within the bomb can be optimized in a small area to initiate ignition, then spread to a larger area, allowing producing a hydrogen bomb of any power. In the case of the Sun certain targeting practices may greatly increase the chances of an artificial explosion of the Sun. This explosion would annihilate the Earth and the Solar System, as we know them today. The reader naturally asks: Why even contemplate such a horrible scenario?”

(Thanks to investigator Marc Andelman for bringing this to our attention.)

BONUS: George Dvorsky, writing in Io9, gives his two cents’ worth about the value of this paper.

An Undo Thesis [Ctrl-Z]

Dr. Chuk Moran has recently completed his dissertation on the undo command (ctrl-z) and received his PhD in the Department of Communication at UC San Diego. Unfortunately, Improbable has not been able to track down an online copy of the dissertation, but we did find this short essay on the implications of ludological undoing.

BONUS: Dr. Moran’s video essay ‘UnReDo: 7 Aspects of Undo’

Is “MacBeth Effect” research cursed?

By happy, horrified tradition, theater folk hesitate to name a certain Shakespeare play, for fear bad things will then happen. A noted psychology study that (albeit not being a theatrical endeavor) did explicitly name that play now seems to have had something bad happen. A new study brings (and is!) the bad news:

“Out, Damned Spot: Can the ‘Macbeth Effect’ Be Replicated?” Brian D. Earp [pictured here], Jim A. C. Everett, Elizabeth N. Madva and , Basic and Applied Social Psychology, vol. 36, no. 1, 2014, pp. 91-98. (Thanks to investigator Neil Martin for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Yale University, University of Oxford, Weill Cornell Medical College, University of British Columbia, explain:

“Zhong and Liljenquist (2006) reported evidence of a “Macbeth Effect” in social psychology: a threat to people’s moral purity leads them to seek, literally, to cleanse themselves. In an attempt to build upon these findings, we conducted a series of direct replications of Study 2 from Z&L’s seminal report. We used Z&L’s original materials and methods, investigated samples that were more representative of the general population, investigated samples from different countries and cultures, and substantially increased the power of our statistical tests. Despite multiple good-faith efforts, however, we were unable to detect a “Macbeth Effect” in any of our experiments.”

The old, possibly cursed study to which the new (also possibly cursed) study refers is:

“Washing away your sins: Threatened morality and physical cleansing,” Chen-Bo Zhong and Katie Liljenquist, Science, vol. 313, no. 5792, 2006, pp. 1451-1452.

Here is the passage of the play that gave the effect its name:

April Fools: Justified or Not Justified?

Should well-respected journalistic outlets publish ‘April Fools’ items? For Dr. Moira Smith, writing in the scholarly journal Folklore, Volume 120, Issue 3, 2009, such media hoaxes flout journalistic ethics.

“On April Fools’ Day, journalists from every media take advantage of the occasion to pass off fabricated stories as news. While entertaining, these media hoaxes flout journalistic ethics and disappoint the public’s expectation that the media are reliable arbiters of truth.“

So, are they :

[1] Unwarranted puerile pranks which can not only undermine hard-won credibilities and divert attention from serious subjects deserving our full-time concentration, but also further confuse our already overstretched ability to distinguish truth from fiction?

Or, alternatively,

[2] Only a bit of harmless irreverent fun, which for just one (or half a) day a year might draw a fake moustache on the face of over-earnestness, drop a plastic fly in the soup of institutional gravitas, or ring the doorbell of acquired faux respectability and then run off?

Or neither, or both?

With all this in mind, may we nevertheless, rightly or wrongly, go on to recommend either : Evolutionary Basis of Stapler-Induced Human Aggression and Psychopathology

or : Tinky Winky’s got a Brand New Bag : The Year’s Work in Teletubbies Studies

Note: The cartoon by A. J. Finberg is from The King of Schnorrers (Grotesques and Fantasies), By Israel Zangwill (Heinemann, London, 1894) Chapter: The Memory Clearing House

 

Homeopathic medicine possibly contaminated with actual drugs

Some homeopathic remedies might be contaminated by actual remedies — might contain actual drugs — warns The US Food and Drug Administration in  March 20, 2014 alert headlined “Pleo Homeopathic Drug Products by Terra-Medica: Recall – Potential for Undeclared Penicillin“. (Arielle Duhaime-Ross supplies commentary about this, in The Verge).

BONUS: All wet: Benveniste explains it to you

BONUS: George Macleod and book dilution

BONUS: Where to buy plutonium in London

Generating predictions while watching the movie Moonraker

Two decades ago, Rolf Zwaan — who likely at the time did not predict that he would one day be awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for an experiment involving the Eiffel Tower — published a study, with colleagues, about people generating predictions while watching the James Bond movie Moonraker. The study was and is:

“Generating predictive inferences while viewing a movie,” Joseph P. Magliano, Katinka Dijkstra and Rolf A. Zwaan, Discourse Processes, vol. 22, pp. 199-224. (Thanks to Neil Martin for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, then at Northern Illinois University and Florida State University, explain:

“This study investigated conditions that enable viewers to predict future events while viewing a movie…. In Experiment 1, viewers were instructed to generate predictions while watching the James Bond movie, Moonraker (Broccoli & Gilbert, 1979).The presence of support through visual and discourse modes increased the likelihood that participants would generate a specific prediction. Furthermore, the likelihood of generating a given prediction increased with multiple sources of visual and discourse modes of support.”

Here is the trailer for Moonraker:

For sleep-and-monks-and-nuns enthusiasts

Rare is the study that focus on how monks and nuns sleep. One is:

“Ring the Bell for Matins: Circadian Adaptation to Split Sleep by Cloistered Monks and Nuns,” Isabelle Arnulf [pictured here], Agnès Brion, Michel Pottier and Jean-Louis Golmard, Chronobiology International, Dec., 2011, Vol. 28, No. 10 , pp. 930-41. (Thanks to investigator Yvette Bain for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital and other institutions in Paris, explain:

“Cloistered monks and nuns adhere to a 10-century-old strict schedule with a common zeitgeber of a night split by a 2- to 3-h-long Office (Matins). The authors evaluated how the circadian core body temperature rhythm and sleep adapt in cloistered monks and nuns in two monasteries. Five monks and five nuns following the split-sleep night schedule for 5 to 46 yrs without interruption and 10 controls underwent interviews, sleep scales, and physical examination and produced a week-long sleep diary and actigraphy, plus 48-h recordings of core body temperature….

“In contrast to their daytime silence, they experienced conversations (and occasionally prayers) in dreams. The biphasic temperature profile in monks and nuns suggests the human clock adapts to and even anticipates nocturnal awakenings. It resembles the biphasic sleep and rhythm of healthy volunteers transferred to a short (10-h) photoperiod and provides a living glance into the sleep pattern of medieval time.”

Math Challenge: Light Bulbs Count

Today’s Nasty Mathematics Challenge: Watch this video (taken by astronauts on the International Space Station with a camera that picks up low-intensity light, and then edited by Michael König, and sped up), and estimage the number of light bulbs whose light is visible:

HINT: The task is easier (but not much) if you enlarge the video to watch it full-screen.

How whales can soon be like Roller Derby skaters

One day soon, if someone is willing to do the work, whales could be analyzed in a manner similar to what’s been done with roller derby skaters.

E! Science News reports about preliminary work that’s been done Amy Apprill and colleagues performed with bacterial from the skin of humpback whales:

Bacteria are invisible to the naked eye, but they reside on nearly every surface humans encounter — including the skin. Uncovering the role these microorganisms play in human health is a major focus of research in skin microbiology, but little is known about the identity or function of skin bacteria in other mammals. In a paper published in the open access journal PLOS ONE, researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and colleagues identified a core skin bacterial community that humpback whales share across populations, which could point to a way to assess the overall health of these endangered marine mammals. ”The skin is the interface between the animal and the ocean it lives in,” said lead author Amy Apprill, a microbiologist at WHOI. “By studying the bacterial species on the skin of humpbacks, we might be able to learn more about their health and the status of their environment.” …

At the recent AAAS annual meeting, in Chicago, the Improbable Research session featured Prof. Kate Clancy explaining — and demonstrating, with help from the Twin City Derby Girls and the Chicago Outfit — the significance of the study ”Significant changes in the skin microbiome mediated by the sport of roller derby“.

BONUS (somewhat related): The 2010 Ig Nobel Prize for engineering was awarded to Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico, for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter. [REFERENCE: "A Novel Non-Invasive Tool for Disease Surveillance of Free-Ranging Whales and Its Relevance to Conservation Programs," Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin and Diane Gendron, Animal Conservation, vol. 13, no. 2, April 2010, pp. 217-25.]

Grills, ‘Grillz’ and dental hygiene implications

“Some celebrities have been flashing more than clean, white teeth at their fans. Under the spotlight, the glint from their mouths comes from ‘grills’ or ‘grillz,’ decorative covers often made of gold, silver or jewel-encrusted precious metals that snap over one or more of their teeth.“

The quote comes from an article in The Journal of the American Dental Association, (August 2006) 137, 1192, which references both Nelly and Paul Wall, who can be seen flashing their grillz in the video above. The piece – entitled ‘Grills, ‘grillz’ and fronts’ not only reveals that :

“Grills, sometimes called ‘fronts,’ generally are removable, but some wearers have had their teeth altered with gold crowns to permanently resemble a grill. Some also have tried to attach a ‘homemade’ grill using permanent cement that is not meant for internal use and can damage the teeth and tissues.”

but also alerts :

“Some jewelers and other grill vendors are unaware that, in some states, taking an impression of someone’s mouth is considered dentistry, which requires a license.”

and ends :

“Grills might be trendy at the moment, but ‘pearly whites’ will never go out of style.”