ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 655
October 25, 2015
Do Tech Accelerators Have A Sexism Problem?
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The tech industry is no picture of equality. shutterstock.com
Airbnb, Dropbox and Reddit are all companies that emerged out of tech accelerators. These incubators of talent have been a crucial component in turning tech start-ups into businesses that can stand on their own two feet. As well as giving needy new companies financial support and office space, they play an important role in helping them develop through mentoring.
Physicists Prove ‘Quantum Spookiness’ And Start Chasing Schrödinger’s Cat
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It’s proven: the universe is weird. Robert Couse-Baker/Flickr, CC BY-ND
The world of quantum mechanics is weird. Objects that are far apart can influence each other in what Albert Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”, and cats can potentially be dead and alive at the same time.
We Need To Stop Australia’s Genetic Heritage From Being Taken Overseas
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Nicotiana benthamiana growing in the wild in coastal northern Western Australia. Steve Wylie, Author provided
In August this year Professor Mark Chase from the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, west of London, flew into Perth in Western Australia, hired a 4WD vehicle and drove north.
How Close Are We To Finding Another Earth?
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Romolo Tavani/Shutterstock.
Do the maths: billions of planets per galaxy, and billions of galaxies in the universe. It’s unlikely that only one of those has all the characteristics of our own – Earth-sized, orbiting a Sun-like star, and slap bang in its habitable zone where water can form.
Why are those characteristics so important? Well, Earth is the only planet we know to have life on it. It makes sense, therefore, that if we find a world exactly the same as our own, then it would at least be potentially habitable, and may have life existing on it presently.
The Five Craziest Exoplanets Ever Discovered
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Artist's impression of HD189773 Ab by NASA, via Wikimedia Commons
Living on Earth is very dangerous. We have brought destruction and death to every corner of the globe, and even when we are not responsible for the damage, Mother Nature still threatens us with the likes of earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes. Every day is a fight to survive against all the obstacles thrown at us by our planet. We might think we would do better elsewhere in the galaxy - but when we look at some other hellish worlds we have found, you may reconsider.
If one day we find a way to visit other worlds, these are the five worst places we could pick.
Top 10 WORST Arguments Against Gay Marriage
These are the top 10 WORST arguments used against marriage equality / gay marriage… and they’re used often.
Check out BriaAndChrissy’s video on zombies! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrAfT9x5ofY&feature=youtu.be
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Editorial: Head to Head
From the dialogues of Socrates to Marxist dialectics, our knowledge has always been shaped through opposition. That’s why debate underpins what we do at the Institute of Art and Ideas: from our annual philosophy and music festival HowTheLightGetsIn to our video debates on IAI TV. Now we highlight our new feature format for IAI News: the Head to Head. First up is a head to head from two combatants in the IAI TV debate After the End of Truth. On one side one of the world’s most influential analytic philosophers, John Searle, defends realism and philosophy’s classical values: objectivity and truth. On the other, philosopher and director of the IAI, Hilary Lawson, argues that realism has failed and an independent reality is a fantasy. Then we have a battle between philosophy and science. The UK’s most brilliant moral philosopher Mary Midgley launches the debate by arguing that science does not have all the answers. In response, Oxford chemist Peter Atkins contends that, ultimately, sci...
October 24, 2015
General Anesthesia Causes No Cognitive Deficit in Infants
Early-life exposure to anesthesia does not appear to lead to long-term cognitive problems, researchers announced today. New evidence from the first, randomized anesthesia trial in kids provides the strongest indication yet that exposing young children to anesthesia—at least for a brief time—will not saddle them with developmental deficits. The news comes just a couple of weeks after a medical advisory group reiterated its concerns about such exposures among children younger than four years. Previously, multiple animal and human studies have linked such exposure with cognitive impairment, but none of the information on humans came from a gold-standard, randomized study design that could help eliminate other reasons to explain such a connection.
This is a “reassuring finding, but it is not the final answer,” says Dean Andropoulos, anesthesiologist in chief at Texas Children’s Hospital and an expert who was not involved in the work. The new study assesses only what happens to youngsters after a relatively brief bout with anesthetics, so it is possible that longer or repeated exposures to such chemicals may still cause neurodevelopmental issues. There may also be deficits in anesthesia-exposed children that are not measurable until later in life.
The study followed more than 500 infants undergoing hernia repair across the U.S., Australia, the U.K., Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Italy. The surgeries lasted an average of roughly an hour. About half of the children were randomly selected to be put under with general anesthesia, and the other half stayed awake during the surgery and received targeted anesthesic in a specific body region. The kids in the study were all younger than 60 weeks and were matched by where they had the surgery and whether they were born prematurely.
At age two, the children in both groups completed a battery of neurocognitive tests that examined how they thought and reacted to the world around them. The researchers found that the kids in both groups performed similarly. “This is the strongest evidence we have to date that a brief anesthetic exposure likely isn’t a problem,” says Andrew Davidson, leader of the investigation and director of the Melbourne Children’s Trials Center at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute.
The findings were published October 24 in the Lancet and will be presented Sunday at the American Society of Anesthesiologists annual meeting in San Diego. In recent weeks a medical group concerned about exposing young children to anesthesia, which includes the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, cited the growing body of literature linking anesthesia exposure and neurodevelopmental issues to emphasize that although parents should not hold off on medically necessary surgery, they should always weigh the pros and cons of exposing a young child to anesthesia or sedatives. Numerous animal studies have indicated that anesthesia exposure early in life, when the brain is exceptionally sensitive, can lead to brain cell death and altered connections between neurons. The group also urged medical providers and parents to try to avoid using anesthetics during diagnostic procedures such as MRIs whenever possible.
Many of the surgeries performed on young children are short, similar to the ones in the experiment, but there are still unanswered questions about how these brief exposures to anesthesia may influence brain function later in life. To test if there may be harm from short exposures, those in the current study will also be reassessed at age five with a new spate of memory and cognitive tests that could pick up subtler differences that may not have been apparent at a young age, Davidson says. “There are some aspects of development—like high executive function, reasoning skills and memory—that you don’t actually acquire until you are older.”
Although most kids are generally healthy and do not require early-life surgeries or diagnostic procedures, in total at least half a million children younger than three years are exposed to anesthetic agents annually. There are several ongoing studies examining the long-term neurocognitive effects of such experiences. Meanwhile researchers are also looking into possible alternative anesthetics and ways to mitigate any anesthesia-related neurological damage.
Scientists are also trying to determine how to assess any real-world implications of a child’s potential anesthesia-linked neurological deficits. Testing a few points worse on IQ tests or other cognitive measurements may not substantially change a child’s daily life. But developmental experts have worried about how those deficits could stack up if they are common among many kids exposed to early anesthesia.
Until now, findings from observational studies of kids who had early-life surgeries have been mixed. They could not definitively answer if the anesthesia itself harms the brain or if some other underlying issues were at work—such as sicker kids need surgery and go on to have cognitive issues fueled by their illness. This new study, at least, helps to answer that question.
Political and Industry Leaders Make Basic Research Case
“The message has to be told to Congressmen, the message of the importance of investing in basic research.” Jeannette Wing, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft Research, October 20th at a symposium on Capitol Hill.
“The investments by the federal government go towards the innovation ecosystem, and these kinds of investments are good for the economy, good for global competitiveness.”
Wing, along with other industry leaders and members of Congress from both parties gathered at the “Innovation: An American Imperative” symposium in support of goals and policies delineated in a recent report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. That report titled Restoring the Foundation: The Vital Role of Research in Preserving the American Dream.
“We have to continue to further innovation in our economy through smart investments in basic R&D.” United States Senator from Delaware Chris Coons, at the event. “Because whether it’s public universities, cutting-edge businesses that are well established or early-stage startups, if we want to see American researchers and innovators pulling together to achieve our national potential now and in the future, we have to commit to these crucial investments today and by sustaining them for the long-term.”
Norm Augustine, former chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, led the effort to create the Restoring the Foundation report. To hear a recent extended interview I did with Augustine, browse the Science Talk podcast section of the Scientific American web page. Or just google Augustine and Scientific American to find the episode titled “Restore Research to Preserve the American Dream.”
—Steve Mirsky
(The above text is a transcript of this podcast)
Sino-Tibetan Populations Shed Light On Human Cooperation
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Turns out the movement of women after marriage can help explain why humans cooperate beyond the household. Du Juan, Author provided
One of the big questions in anthropology is why humans, unlike most animals, cooperate with those we are not closely related to. Exactly what has driven this behaviour is not well understood. Anthropologists suspect it could be down to the fact that women have usually left their homes after marriage to go and live with their husband’s family. This creates links between distant families, which may explain our tendency to cooperate beyond our own households.
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