- July 30, 2010
- 06:13 AM
- 0 views
What proportion of chemical leaks provoke mass hysteria?
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Mass hysteria and not leaked chemicals was the likely cause of the symptoms experienced by those exposed in 16 per cent of hundreds of chemical leaks recorded in England and Wales between January 2007 and April 2008.
That's according to an analysis by Lisa Page and colleagues at the Institute of Psychiatry of 280 chemical leaks recorded by the Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards based at Chilton in Oxfordshire.
Otherwise known as 'mass psychogenic illness', mass hysteria........ Read more »
Page, L., Keshishian, C., Leonardi, G., Murray, V., Rubin, G., & Wessely, S. (2010) Frequency and Predictors of Mass Psychogenic Illness. Epidemiology, 1. DOI: 10.1097/EDE.0b013e3181e9edc4
- July 29, 2010
- 06:12 AM
- 3 views
Genetic ironies: Retrovirus version
by iayork in Mystery Rays from Outer Space
I’ve mentioned the APOBEC family before (for example, here and here). They’re a group of mammalian genes that (among other things) protect against retrovirus infection. DIfferent strains of mice have different resistance to retrovirus infection. Some strains are highly resistant, others quite susceptible. At least some of this difference in susceptibility comes down to different [...]... Read more »
Sanville, B., Dolan, M., Wollenberg, K., Yan, Y., Martin, C., Yeung, M., Strebel, K., Buckler-White, A., & Kozak, C. (2010) Adaptive Evolution of Mus Apobec3 Includes Retroviral Insertion and Positive Selection at Two Clusters of Residues Flanking the Substrate Groove. PLoS Pathogens, 6(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1000974
- July 28, 2010
- 09:36 AM
- 2 views
Past lives caught in the dust of trees
by Alun in Archaeoastronomy
I’m currently working at the Annals of Botany to help out with their social media side. There’s a bit more to it than subtly dropping links to their site, like this one. At the moment I’m struggling with the Facebook integration, but there’s a fun side too. I wouldn’t have browsed AoB if I’d not... Read more »
Mercader, J., Bennett, T., Esselmont, C., Simpson, S., & Walde, D. (2009) Phytoliths in woody plants from the Miombo woodlands of Mozambique. Annals of Botany, 104(1), 91-113. DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcp097
- July 28, 2010
- 06:12 AM
- 3 views
Football fouls more likely to be given when play heads left
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
A simple perceptual bias could influence football referees' judgements about whether a foul occurred or not. That's according to Alexander Kranjec and colleagues, who had 12 football players at the University of Pennsylvania look for half a second each at 268 static images of one player tackling another and decide whether a foul had been committed. Unbeknown to the participants, 134 of the pictures were simply mirror opposites of the other 134.
The key finding was that more fouls (66.5 vs. 63.3........ Read more »
Kranjec A, Lehet M, Bromberger B, & Chatterjee A. (2010) A sinister bias for calling fouls in soccer. PloS one, 5(7). PMID: 20628648
- July 28, 2010
- 02:30 AM
- 2 views
How do doctors cope?
by Dr Shock in Dr Shock MD PhD
Often I will tell my residents that if you can’t take care of yourself how do you expect to take care of your patients. Or in another way: the only difference between God and a doctor is that God knows he’s not a doctor. These sound like cliches but there is some truth in them. [...]
Related posts:Attachment Theory and Poorly Performing Doctors
Doctors reactions to memorable patients deaths’
Have mercy on the NHS Doctors
... Read more »
Jane B Lemaire, & Jean E Wallace. (2010) Not all coping strategies are created equal: a mixed methods study exploring physicians' self reported coping strategies. BMC Health Services Research. info:/10.1186/1472-6963-10-208
- July 27, 2010
- 08:53 PM
- 2 views
THE AGE OF GOVERNANCE: SOME PROPOSED PRINCIPLES OF DEEP FEDERALISM
by Christopher Leo in Christopher Leo
In my most recent blog entry, I pointed out that the way we govern ourselves has changed fundamentally in the last 20 years or so, and yet we've given little thought to the principles by which we should pursue governance - the new name for what we used to call government. The governance revolution that swept over us while we slept... ... Read more »
Leo, C. (2006) Deep Federalism: Respecting Community Difference in National Policy. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique, 39(03). DOI: 10.1017/S0008423906060240
- July 27, 2010
- 11:25 AM
- 1 view
Measuring Temperature by Counting Atoms: "Suppressed Fluctuations in Fermi Gases"
by Chad Orzel in Uncertain Principles
When one of the most recent issues of Physical Review Letters hit my inbox, I immediately flagged these two papers as something to write up for ResearchBlogging. This I looked at the accompanying viewpoint in Physics, and discovered that Chris Westbrook already did most of the work for me. And, as a bonus, you can get free PDF's of the two articles from the Physics link, in case you want to follow along at home.
Since I spent a little time thinking about these already, though, and because it co........ Read more »
Westbrook, C. (2010) Suppressed fluctuations in Fermi gases. Physics. DOI: 10.1103/Physics.3.59
Müller, T., Zimmermann, B., Meineke, J., Brantut, J., Esslinger, T., & Moritz, H. (2010) Local Observation of Antibunching in a Trapped Fermi Gas. Physical Review Letters, 105(4). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.040401
Sanner, C., Su, E., Keshet, A., Gommers, R., Shin, Y., Huang, W., & Ketterle, W. (2010) Suppression of Density Fluctuations in a Quantum Degenerate Fermi Gas. Physical Review Letters, 105(4). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.040402
- July 26, 2010
- 06:12 AM
- 1 view
What's the link between left-handedness and drinking behaviour?
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Back in the 70's, psychologist Paul Bakan published a short research report in which he noted that among 47 inpatients on an alcoholism ward, 7 were left-handed - more than you'd expect based on the approximate 10-per cent prevalence of left-handedness in the general population. Bakan described his observation as 'incidental' but according to Kevin Denny, the idea of an alcoholism-handedness link has proven sticky, with some commentators suggesting the stress of being left-handed in a right-hand........ Read more »
Denny, K. (2010) Handedness and drinking behaviour. British Journal of Health Psychology. DOI: 10.1348/135910710X515705
- July 26, 2010
- 06:11 AM
- 3 views
Quasispecies thoughts
by iayork in Mystery Rays from Outer Space
Quasispecies theory predicts that slower replicators will be favored if they give rise to progeny that are on average more fit; these populations occupy short, flat regions of the fitness landscape … Flat quasispecies accept mutation without a corresponding effect on fitness … A flat quasispecies with an expansive mutant repertoire can explore vast regions of [...]... Read more »
Lauring, A., & Andino, R. (2010) Quasispecies Theory and the Behavior of RNA Viruses. PLoS Pathogens, 6(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1001005
- July 26, 2010
- 02:03 AM
- 4 views
Facebook and Professionalism
by Dr Shock in Dr Shock MD PhD
Does Facebook and other social networking services damage the profession of physicians or the public trust in this profession? So far no systematic research into this topic has been published. However several cases were presented in the media resulting in disciplinary measures. On social networking sites patients may learn information about their doctors that compromises [...]
Related posts:The Dangers of Facebook or Let’s Be Careful Out There
Facebook and Academic Performance
Facebook ........ Read more »
MacDonald, J., Sohn, S., & Ellis, P. (2010) Privacy, professionalism and Facebook: a dilemma for young doctors. Medical Education, 44(8), 805-813. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2010.03720.x
Brown, A. (2010) Social media: a new frontier in reflective practice. Medical Education, 44(8), 744-745. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2010.03729.x
- July 25, 2010
- 06:11 PM
- 3 views
What Color Is Your Cuneus?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Career counseling via voxel-based morphometry? With the U.S. unemployment rate at 9.5% as of June 2010, job seekers might be willing to try anything to gain an edge. As part of the Trends in Phrenology craze sweeping the field, the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation appears to be capitalizing on the new cultural neurophilia:The Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation is a nonprofit scientific research and educational organization with two primary commitments: to study human abilities and to p........ Read more »
Haier, R., Schroeder, D., Tang, C., Head, K., & Colom, R. (2010) Gray matter correlates of cognitive ability tests used for vocational guidance. BMC Research Notes, 3(1), 206. DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-3-206
- July 25, 2010
- 01:33 PM
- 2 views
Hey maybe scientists should do more than just wait for their journal to issue a press release on their new fabu article
by Christina Pikas in Christina's LIS Rant
The authors thesis is that the only mandatory communication of results is in peer reviewed journal articles. Scientists aren't required to do other communicating and often leave communication to the public to the media. They ask if is this is adequate given the very low percentage of scientific articles that ever make it into the press, particularly in areas outside of health and medicine, and also given the fact that for everyone out of formal education, the media is their primary source of sci........ Read more »
Suleski, J., & Ibaraki, M. (2010) Scientists are talking, but mostly to each other: a quantitative analysis of research represented in mass media. Public Understanding of Science, 19(1), 115-125. DOI: 10.1177/0963662508096776
- July 24, 2010
- 12:09 PM
- 2 views
Are most experimental subjects in behavioral science WEIRD?
by Michael Meadon in Ionian Enchantment
My supervisor David Spurrett and I have a commentary on an important paper - "The weirdest people in the world?" (pdf) - in the most recent edition of Behavioral & Brain Sciences. The authors, Canadian psychologists Joseph Henrich, Steven Heine and Ara Norenzayan, argues that most experimental subjects in the behavioral sciences are WEIRD - Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic - and thus weird - not representative of most human beings. And thi........ Read more »
Henrich, J., Heine, S., & Norenzayan, A. (2010) The weirdest people in the world?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61-83. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X0999152X
Meadon, M., & Spurrett, D. (2010) It's not just the subjects – there are too many WEIRD researchers. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 104-105. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X10000208
- July 23, 2010
- 12:09 PM
- 2 views
Quantum Mechanics Is Square: "Ruling Out Multi-Order Interference in Quantum Mechanics"
by Chad Orzel in Uncertain Principles
This week's big story in physics is this Science paper by a group out of Austria, on a triple-slit interference effect. This has drawn both the usual news stories and also some complaining about badly-worded news stories. So, what's the deal?
What did they do in this paper? The paper reports on an experiment in which they looked at the interference of light sent through a set of three small slits, and verified that the resulting pattern agrees with the predictions of the Born rule for quantum p........ Read more »
Sinha, U., Couteau, C., Jennewein, T., Laflamme, R., & Weihs, G. (2010) Ruling Out Multi-Order Interference in Quantum Mechanics. Science, 329(5990), 418-421. DOI: 10.1126/science.1190545
- July 23, 2010
- 06:10 AM
- 2 views
The unsung pioneers in the study of prejudice
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
When did the scholarly study of prejudice begin? Most people cite Gordon Allport's seminal work 'The Nature of Prejudice' published in 1954, but according to Russell Webster and colleagues the first scholar to propose a working definition of prejudice was actually the English humanist and literary critic William Hazlitt (pictured), writing way back in 1830.
Inspired in part by his visit to France where he discovered the French were not as 'butterfly, airy, thoughtless, fluttering' as convention........ Read more »
Webster RJ, Saucier DA, & Harris RJ. (2010) Before the measurement of prejudice: Early psychological and sociological papers on prejudice. Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences, 46(3), 300-313. PMID: 20623744
- July 23, 2010
- 04:15 AM
- 3 views
Looking for leimotifs in the early history of wheat and rice
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
There are two papers out just now which review in detail archaeobotanical and genetic data to elucidate the early history of crops. Dorian Fuller and numerous co-authors do it for Asian rice (Oryza sativa), Hakan Özkan and others do it for emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides). And Fuller actually also comments on the emmer paper on [...]... Read more »
Fuller, D., Sato, Y., Castillo, C., Qin, L., Weisskopf, A., Kingwell-Banham, E., Song, J., Ahn, S., & Etten, J. (2010) Consilience of genetics and archaeobotany in the entangled history of rice. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2(2), 115-131. DOI: 10.1007/s12520-010-0035-y
Özkan, H., Willcox, G., Graner, A., Salamini, F., & Kilian, B. (2010) Geographic distribution and domestication of wild emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides). Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution. DOI: 10.1007/s10722-010-9581-5
Gross, B., & Olsen, K. (2010) Genetic perspectives on crop domestication. Trends in Plant Science. DOI: 10.1016/j.tplants.2010.05.008
- July 23, 2010
- 02:50 AM
- 2 views
It feels like cheating.
by Ponder Stibbons in The truth makes me fret.
I continue to be amazed at the flimsiness of the heuristics that physicists use, often successfully, to make important theoretical progress. A particularly shocking example I’ve just read is Heisenberg’s “discovery” that systems with symmetric wavefunctions correspond to those that obey Bose-Einstein statistics, and that those with anti-symmetric wavefunctions correspond to those that obey Pauli’s [...]... Read more »
Dirac, P. (1926) On the Theory of Quantum Mechanics. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character (1905-1934), 112(762), 661-677. DOI: 10.1098/rspa.1926.0133
Fermi, E. (1926) Zur Quantelung des idealen einatomigen Gases. Zeitschrift für Physik, 36(11-12), 902-912. DOI: 10.1007/BF01400221
Heisenberg, W. (1926) Mehrkörperproblem und Resonanz in der Quantenmechanik. Zeitschrift für Physik, 38(6-7), 411-426. DOI: 10.1007/BF01397160
- July 22, 2010
- 08:00 AM
- 4 views
Drugs in the water affecting crustaceans’s precious bodily fluids?
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
You shouldn’t be able to call a species anything you want.
Yes, biologists switched to using Latin names for species because we recognized that common names were too variable and imprecise. Still, that doesn’t mean that common names are infinitely flexible.
A crustacean story has been making the rounds in the news, and alas, the news stories are often botching the basics. I wish I could be surprised. News stories based on journal articles seem to be a never ending well of things to correct........ Read more »
Guler Y., & Ford A. (2010) Anti-depressants make amphipods see the light. Aquatic Toxicology. DOI: 10.1016/j.aquatox.2010.05.019
- July 21, 2010
- 08:00 AM
- 2 views
Snake eyes
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
To many, “snake eyes” is a bad bet at the craps table. To some, it’s a GI Joe villain. To a very small, select group, it’s a minor addition to the oeuvre of Brian De Palma. *
Today, I want to look at the most literal meaning of the term imaginable. But, since this is a biology blog, you could probably guess that I was going to end up talking about the eyes of snakes.
I’m willing to bet that when most people visualize snake eyes, they think of something with a vertical slit for a pupi........ Read more »
Brischoux F, Pizzatto L, & Shine R. (2010) Insights into the adaptive significance of vertical pupil shape in snakes. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02046.x
- July 21, 2010
- 06:09 AM
- 2 views
We're happier when busy but our instinct is for idleness
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Forced to wait for fifteen minutes at the airport luggage carousel leaves many of us miserable and irritated. Yet if we'd spent the same waiting time walking to the carousel we'd be far happier. That's according to Christopher Hsee and colleagues, who say we're happier when busy but that unfortunately our instinct is for idleness. Unless we have a reason for being active we choose to do nothing - an evolutionary vestige that ensures we conserve energy.
Consider Hsee's first study. His team offe........ Read more »
Hsee CK, Yang AX, & Wang L. (2010) Idleness aversion and the need for justifiable busyness. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 21(7), 926-30. PMID: 20548057
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