ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 778
February 7, 2015
What Is Insomnia And What Can You Do About It?
Photo credit:
Time spent checking the clock when you can’t sleep may be feeding your insomnia. bark/Flickr, CC BY
We all have a poor night’s sleep from time to time: those nights when you lie awake for hours trying desperately to go to sleep but can’t stop worrying about tomorrow. Or when you repeatedly wake up throughout the night, or can’t get back to sleep in the early hours of the morning.
The Worst Nobel Prize Ever Awarded
SciShow explores the grim story of the lobotomy, the medical prodecure that earned its inventor perhaps the most regrettable Nobel Prize in history.
Hosted by: Michael Aranda
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Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dh35lo.html
http://www.sciencedirect.com.weblib.lib.umt.edu:8080/science/article/pii/S1045187003700296
http://ibro.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Fulton-John-Faquhar.pdf
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1949/moniz-article.html
http://lobotomy.umwblogs.org/the-begining/
http://www.gesnerus.ch/fileadmin/media/pdf/2005_1-2/077-101_Kotowicz.pdf
Junk Diet Rewires Rat Brains
We know junk food can change the way bodies are shaped. Now, a study finds that those irresistible sweet and salty concoctions may also change the way brains are wired—at least in rats.
Researchers divided rats into two groups—one labeled Cafeteria, the other called Chow. Both groups got a typical rat food diet, but the Cafeteria rats also got a bonus: meat pies, cakes and cookies.
Both rat groups gained weight. But the Cafeteria rats gained significantly more than the Chows did—nearly half a pound more, which is a big body burden for a rat. But more important, over two weeks time the Cafeteria rats seemed to care less and less about even seeking out a balanced diet. This new behavior endured even after the rats were returned to their more healthy fare. The study is in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. [Amy C. Reichelt, Margaret J. Morris and R.F. Westbrook, Cafeteria diet impairs expression of sensory-specific satiety and stimulus-outcome learning]
The researchers think junk-food diets cause lasting changes in the rewards circuits part of the brain—which plays a big role in decision-making. So if you’re a regular cookie eater and the next time you mindlessly reach for a cookie you wonder why you can’t help yourself—well, it could be because you’re not in charge, your rewired brain is.
—Erika Beras
(The above text is a transcript of this podcast)
February 3, 2015
Hozier- Take Me To Church (Cover)
Hozier- Take Me To Church (Cover) DOWNLOAD LINK: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jaclynglenn3
Vocals/Piano: Jaclyn Glenn https://www.youtube.com/jaclynnoelmusic
Couple: Bria and Chrissy https://www.youtube.com/user/BriaAndC…
Music Produced By: Jon Callender https://twitter.com/joncallender
Video Produced By: Sean Barrett https://twitter.com/mrseanbarrett
Executive Produced By: Endemol Beyond USA
Special Thanks to Will Keenan =)
Other places you can find me:
Be my patreon! http://www.patreon.com/Jaclyn
Get awesome atheist/logic tshirts @ http://www.jaclynglenn.com
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BUSINESS INQUIRIES ONLY: jaclynglenn@gmail.com
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LYRICS:
My lover’s got humour
He’s the giggle at a funeral
Knows everybody’s disapproval
I should’ve worshipped him sooner
If the heavens ever did speak
He’s the last true mouthpiece
Every Sunday’s getting more bleak
A fresh poison each week
‘We were born sick, ‘ you heard them say it
My Church offers no absolutes
She tells me, ‘Worship in the bedroom.’
The only heaven I’ll be sent to
Is when I’m alone with you—
I was born sick,
But I love it
Command me to be well
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[Chorus 2x:]
Take me to church
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life
If I’m a pagan of the good times
My lover’s the sunlight
To keep the Goddess on my side
She demands a sacrifice
Drain the whole sea
Get something shiny
Something meaty for the main course
That’s a fine looking high horse
What you got in the stable?
We’ve a lot of starving faithful
That looks tasty
That looks plenty
This is hungry work
[Chorus 2x:]
Take me to church
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I’ll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
Offer me my deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life
No Masters or Kings
When the Ritual begins
There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene
Only then I am Human
Only then I am Clean
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[Chorus 2x:]
Take me to church
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life
Read Roald Dahl’s Heartbreaking Letter Urging Parents To Vaccinate
Photo credit:
Africa Studio, via Shutterstock.
Most of you probably know the beloved author Roald Dahl from his delightfully wacky children’s books, such as James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or the BFG. But perhaps his most evocative, thought-provoking and eloquent writing is a heartbreaking essay he penned back in 1988 for a pamphlet published by the Sandwell Health Authority, in which he describes the death of his eldest daughter, Olivia, 26 years previously to measles.
Book review: ‘The Moral Arc,’ science as a force for good, by Michael Shermer
Image credit: Henry Holt
By Seth Shulman and Michael Shermer
‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. told a crowd of protesters in Montgomery, Ala., in March 1965. King’s use of that quote stands as one of history’s more inspiring pieces of oratory, acknowledging that victories in the fight for social justice don’t come as frequently as we might like, while offering hope that progress will come eventually.
But is the contention empirically true?
Michael Shermer, a professor, columnist for Scientific American, and longtime public champion of reason and rationality, takes on this question and more. In “The Moral Arc,” Shermer aims to show that King is right so far about human civilization and that, furthermore, science and reason are the key forces driving us to a more moral world. It is at once an admirably ambitious argument and an exceedingly difficult one to prove.
First, Shermer — defining moral progress as “improvement in the survival and flourishing of sentient beings” — needs to make a case that we humans are, in fact, moving toward such an improvement despite terrorist attacks on cartoonists, Islamic State beheadings, Taliban massacres of schoolchildren and police shootings of innocent civilians, among other seemingly daily atrocities. As he notes in the preface, when they heard he was working on a book about moral progress, “most people thought I was hallucinatory. A quick rundown of the week’s bad news would seem to confirm the diagnosis.”
Read the full article by clicking the name of the source located below.
Lawmaker asks would-be SC judges about ‘Supreme Being,’ gay marriage, equal pay for women
By Cassie Cope
A Republican S.C. House member wants to know about the “personal relationship” that would-be state judges have with the “Supreme Being,” whether they would perform a gay marriage and how they would rule if a woman sued for equal pay.
“Those things … would give an indication of how … they see the world, and how you see the world is going to have everything to do with how you see law, and how a judge should treat law,” said state Rep. Jonathon Hill, who issued the 30-question survey.
State staffers quickly squelched the survey as improper.
Candidates for judgeships are barred ethically from responding to some of the questions, said University of South Carolina law school ethics expert Greg Adams, referencing the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct.
Read the full article by clicking the name of the source located below.
A Discredited Vaccine Study’s Continuing Impact on Public Health
By Clyde Haberman
In the churning over the refusal of some parents to immunize their children against certain diseases, a venerable Latin phrase may prove useful: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. It means, “After this, therefore because of this.” In plainer language: Event B follows Event A, so B must be the direct result of A. It is a classic fallacy in logic.
It is also a trap into which many Americans have fallen. That is the consensus among health professionals trying to contain recent spurts ofinfectious diseases that they had believed were forever in the country’s rearview mirror. They worry that too many people are not getting their children vaccinated, out of a conviction that inoculations are risky.
Some parents feel certain that vaccines can lead to autism, if only because there have been instances when a child got a shot and then became autistic. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Making that connection between the two events, most health experts say, is as fallacious in the world of medicine as it is in the field of logic.
An outbreak of measles several weeks ago at Disneyland in Southern California focused minds and deepened concerns. It was as if the amusement park had become the tragic kingdom. Dozens of measles cases have spread across California. Arizona and other nearby states reported their own eruptions of this nasty illness, which officialdom had pronounced essentially eradicated in this country as recently as 2000.
But it is back. In 2014, there were 644 cases in 27 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Should the pace set in January continue, the numbers could go still higher in 2015. While no one is known to have died in the new outbreaks, the lethal possibilities cannot be shrugged off. If the past is a guide, one or two of every 1,000 infected people will not survive.
Read the full article by clicking the name of the source located below.
Poll Shows Giant Gap Between What Public, Scientists Think
Image credit: Pressmaster/Shutterstock
By Seth Borenstein
The American public and U.S. scientists are light-years apart on science issues. And 98 percent of surveyed scientists say it’s a problem that we don’t know what they’re talking about.
Scientists are far less worried about genetically modified food, pesticide use and nuclear power than is the general public, according to matching polls of both the general public and the country’s largest general science organization. Scientists were more certain that global warming is caused by man, evolution is real, overpopulation is a danger and mandatory vaccination against childhood diseases is needed.
In eight of 13 science-oriented issues, there was a 20-percentage-point or higher gap separating the opinions of the public and members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, according to survey work by the Pew Research Center. The gaps didn’t correlate to any liberal-conservative split; the scientists at times take more traditionally conservative views and at times more liberal.
“These are big and notable gaps,” said Lee Rainie, director of Pew’s internet, science and technology research. He said they are “pretty powerful indicators of the public and the scientific community seeing the world differently.”
Read the full article by clicking the name of the source located below.
Dear Parents, Let’s Talk About Measles
Photo credit:
Colin McRoberts. Vaccine superhero.
Dear parents,
You're probably aware that measles has been in the news a lot lately. We need to talk about it again, even if you feel like it's old news, because of Livia, Rhett, and Cami.
The disease that was virtually eradicated 15 years ago in the United States is spreading in pockets around the country with over 84 infected individuals in 14 states so far this year.
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