Category Archives: science

amusements, science

Absurb Scientific Papers

Discoblog over on the science channel Discover has reported today a list of 10 absurd scientific papers of 2009 as highlighted in Wired UK magazine.  I list them here for your delectation:

  1. Optimising the sensory characteristics and acceptance of canned cat food: use of a human taste panel
  2. Effects of cocaine on honeybee dance behaviour
  3. Swearing as a response to pain
  4. Pigeons can discriminate “good” and “bad” paintings by children
  5. The “booty call”: a compromise between men’s and women’s ideal mating strategies
  6. Intermittent access to beer promotes binge-like drinking in adolescent but not adult Wistar rats
  7. Fellatio by fruit bats prolongs copulation time
  8. More information than you ever wanted: does Facebook bring out the green-eyed monster of jealousy?
  9. Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull?
  10. The nature of navel fluff

Can anyone actually explain to me how any one of these papers usefully expands the sum total of human knowledge? No, I thought not.

beliefs, current affairs, freedom of speech, medical, nudism, science, sexuality, thoughts

Nudity, Sex and Sex Education,

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I started this post with a dilemma. Do I write it as one long “review” post or split it into several so I can write more in depth about each topic. In the end I decided on the former if only to ensure that the articles I highlight actually get air time and not consigned, by default or laziness, to Bin 101.

In the last week or so there have been a number of items on the intertubes about nudity, sexuality and sex education. Regular readers (What? You mean I have regular readers?) will be aware of my liberal views and my belief that we need to break down society’s taboos in these areas (very much in the Dutch-mode) so my choice of items should come as little surprise.


We Need to Stop Circumcision
Written by Christine Northrup, herself an obstetrician and gynaecologist, this item in the Huffington Post makes a passionate case for not circumcising infant boys, as well as girls. Here are few extracts:

In the weeks ahead, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) are likely to publish a recommendation that all infant boys undergo circumcision. This is a huge mistake. Circumcision is an unnecessary procedure that is painful and can lead to complications, including death. No organization in the world currently recommends this. Why should we routinely remove normal, functioning tissue from the genitals of little boys within days of their birth?

[C]ircumcision was introduced in English-speaking countries in the late 1800s to control or prevent masturbation.

Routine female circumcision, which has been practiced in some cultures, is completely unacceptable … the United Nations has issued a decree against it. Circumcision is a form of sexual abuse whether it’s done to girls or boys.

[M]isleading medical information has begun to surface (yet again) in support of circumcision. This information supports the belief that men with foreskins are more likely to get viral or bacterial infections and pass them on … these are justifications that science has been unable to support. Nor is there any scientific proof that circumcision prevents sexually transmitted diseases.

The United States has high rates of HIV and the highest rate of circumcision in the West. The “experiment” of using circumcision to stem HIV infection [as has been done in Africa] has been running here for decades. It has failed miserably. Why do countries such as New Zealand, where they abandoned infant circumcision 50 years ago, or European countries, where circumcision is rare, have such low rates of HIV?

Circumcision also has profound implications for male sexuality. Studies document that the amount of pleasure a man can receive during intercourse is greater in uncircumcised males. That’s because the male foreskin, like the clitoris, is richly innervated for maximum sexual pleasure. Sexual researchers have determined that men with [their foreskin] are more likely to feel the most pleasure when they make love.

More Sex Education Please, we’re British
This was an article in the Times on 24 February, in which Alice Thomson argued that we (the British) have the highest rate of teenage STDs, abortions and pregnancies in Europe and that the only way this will be reduced is by very open and frank sex education conducted in an adult way. Sniggering behind the bike-sheds, as we British always have done, has gotten us into this mess and won’t get us out of it. Again a telling quote or two:

British children shouldn’t be getting their sex education from Ashley and Cheryl [Cole] but from their parents and teachers. I was once one of those prissy, prudish parents pussyfooting around the question until I was sent to the Netherlands by this newspaper to discuss procreation.

As I walked to De Burght junior school in Amsterdam to talk to the headmaster about his policy, I bumped into eight-year-old Carla carefully balancing a dish. It was a sample of her father’s sperm for “show and tell”. [I bet that had Tunbridge Wells choking on its Shredded Wheat! – Ed.]

In the Netherlands, sex and children aren’t a taboo subject. As pupils play mummies and daddies in the playground they know exactly what they might have been doing last night … a 12-year-old at the senior school showed me how to roll a condom on to a broomstick while her friend asked me if I masturbated.

The British, meanwhile, expect their children to learn about sex and relationships from the playground, internet porn, WAGs and celebrities, and are amazed that we have the highest rate of sexually transmitted diseases and abortions among the under 21s in Europe.

We need to talk about the subject until we can say various anatomical parts without sniggering.

For the first time, I found myself agreeing with Ed Balls [same here – Ed.], the Schools Secretary, on the Today programme yesterday [23 Feb] that sex education should be compulsory in all schools. Of course five-year-olds need to learn about sex, the earlier the better, and from parents as well as teachers.

The Dutch are more religious than the British and still manage to reach consent among Calvinists, Catholics and Muslims that children should be provided with all the facts to make their own informed decisions, not just lectured on morality and the missionary position.

Thoughts on the “hook-up culture,” or what I learned from my high school diary
This appeared on Scarleteen (an excellent site which addresses all sorts of sexuality questions and is aimed at teens and young adults, in a mature and adult way) and elsewhere on 2 March. In it the female writer discusses dating, sex and relationships and how they relate to our current views of feminism and gender roles. A couple of comments particularly struck home with me.

We need to admit as a culture that teens are sexual beings, and that more often than not, sexual maturity has a completely different timeline than emotional maturity. This is, to be sure, skewed by sexism and restrictive gender roles to make sexual coming-of-age worse for girls. But beyond that, maybe discovering what you want sexually and emotionally is just part of growing up – and that’s okay.

Girls deserve to discover themselves sexually at their own pace, to be neither rushed into having sex nor shamed into not having it. They deserve to have their very own “This is bullshit” moments without wearing a chastity belt.

My only comment is something we’re in danger of forgetting: that (despite all the machismo) just the same applies to boys!  If anything it is more important for boys as they first have to slough off that machismo.

Psychology and the Shock of Nudity
This item on the Academic Natuirist weblog addresses the problem of guilt surrounding being discovered naked. For most people the one discovered appears to carry the guilt, which in the view of the writer (and me) is stupid. Again a couple of excepts:

Naturists have a different attitude … You’ve seen me naked? Good! That means I don’t have to get dressed next time you come over …Why should Alice feel bad about seeing Bob naked, if Bob didn’t care at all about it? Alice is not guilty of embarrassing Bob. 
[Equally why should Bob feel guilty at being seen naked if Alice doesn’t care about it? – Ed.]

Getting textiles to not feel guilty about seeing nudity would be a good step for general acceptance [of nudity] … Maybe we’re wrong about how we notify others? The signs … warn “ATTENTION – BEYOND THIS POINT YOU MAY ENCOUNTER NUDE BATHERS” Perhaps the right approach is something like “There’s friendly naked people beyond this sign, and we won’t mind if you stop over and chat with us!”

Naked People – Your Version
Finally a challenge. On 18 February Dairy of a Nudist invited us to take part in a new phase of Sebastian Kempa’s ongoing Naked People project: Naked People Your Version. All you have to do is to submit a pair of identically posed photos of yourself, one clothed the other nude. The idea is, of course, “to help further break down the barrier of clothing which society has imposed to imprison our natural bodies”. I’ve not yet submitted my photos, but I have every intention of doing so in the next week or so. Dare you? – For each one of you who convinces me you’ve submitted your photos (I may ask you for evidence; depends how well I know you!) I’ll make a small donation to charity.  Who’s up for it?

medical, science, sexuality, thoughts

Body Comfort & Sex Education

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The eponymous author at Oh My God, That Britni’s Shameless wrote an interesting post a day or so ago about sex education.  What I like about Britni is that she is not only completely open minded but she has the confidence to say exactly what she thinks.  Which doesn’t mean I agree with everything she says; for instance her assertion “It’s just a natural and accepted thing that men are sexual, so they’re going to talk about sex and masturbation and dick size“.  Well, no, sorry, at least in my experience, men don’t; they’re too uptight – but that may be different for the younger generation.

Britni’s post, while being largely aimed at sex education (and just as applicable in the UK as in America), adds support to my long-held belief that we would all be better adjusted mentally, have a lower rate of unwanted pregnancies, and be in better health generally, if we were less repressed, better educated and more comfortable with our bodies.  As an example the US and UK have the two highest rates of unwanted teenage pregnancy in the western world; compare with the laid-back, free-thinking Dutch who have the lowest.  See this Wikipedia article (though some of the date here is quite old) and the diagram in this article from the Independent; see also, inter alia, here, here and here.

If we are to achieve this change of mindset we have to do two things: (a) restructure the brains of our revered leaders (political and religious) giving them a complete paradigm shift in their thinking on all things sexual, and then (b) investing in much better, more open and more caring sex & health education, vide the Dutch.  Along the way this, of course, will mean a change in attitudes towards nudity.

But of course the status quo is self-fulfilling and comfortable; change is uncomfortable and no-one much likes being outside their comfort zone.  Our leaders are repressed, so the modus operandi follows this, making the (unthinking) populous repressed, and they become or elect our leaders, and so ad infinitum.  I don’t know how we break the cycle.  All people like me can do is to keep expressing our views in the hope that the message does eventually seep into the cracks in a few brains and start that paradigm shift.  So I’m not putting any money on this change happening any time soon, but hope springs eternal.

science, thoughts

Quantum Spin-Drying

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Two pieces from the Feedback column in New Scientist of 13 February which especially “amused” me.

The care instructions for the dog kennel John Straede bought advised: “Hand wash in warm water with mild detergent.  Do not spin dry.”

Secondly, and probably more worryingly …

FEEDBACK has observed that the word “quantum” often translates to “magic” or “expensive fruitloop magic remedy”.  Threatening to put this observation on a sound academic footing, Graham Barrow carried out a pilot literature-survey.

In just 5 minutes a famous web search engine showed him many variants, starting with – of course! – “quantum crystal healing”.  Then there was “quantum kinesiology”, which presumably begins with the recipient’s arm in a superposition of floppiness and firmness, and “quantum reflexology”, which could lead to your feet changing position without passing through intervening space – handy for avoiding the cracks in the pavement.

“Quantum homeopathy” is so obvious in retrospect that we’re ashamed we didn’t invent it: the remedy does and does not contain any molecule of the claimed active substance, until you open the bottle.

In “quantum acupuncture” we imagine the needle both punctures the skin and misses it altogether.  And would a “quantum massage” involve a hand all over your body at once?  But what on earth, or anywhere else, is “quantum reiki”?  We fear there may be answers – and more examples.

Like Feedback, my mind boggles slightly over the concept of “quantum reiki”.  What’s worse is that in about two minutes I have found “quantum hypnosis”, “quantum dowsing” and “quantum meditation”.  I think I might be getting an attack of quantum worry!

amusements, beliefs, current affairs, science

Mythbusters

The latest (March 2010) issue of the BBC’s popular science magazine Focus contains an article busting some of the world’s most common myths.  For example:

Goldfish have short memories. 
False; they have memories which last at least a week according to experiments.

Sugar makes kids hyperactive. 
Experimentally proven to be false.  But that’ll be about as popular a result as the finding that MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism.

Men with big feet have big penises. 
Sorry girls, also false, according to just about every survey ever conducted.  There is no reliable way to determine the size of a guy’s lingam without seeing it.  Enjoy!

At the end of the article they add a few new myths suggested by readers, including the following with rather zen qualities …

In the era of black and white films,the world was black and white.
According to which logic the world didn’t exist before films were invented.  Interesting idea for a thriller story though!

When you jump up, the world moves forwards a bit before you land, so you touch down in a slightly different place.
This is an old one and I’ll get into trouble with the science community here but I reckon this is actually true.  When you jump the world moves on, but so do you as you have angular momentum (essentially forward motion) from when you were attached to earth.  However you will, I suggest, be slowed very marginally by friction with (resistance from) the air and thus will land in a subtly different spot from where you jumped.  But this effect will be so tiny it will be unmeasurable even after a huge number of jumps.  So for all practical purposes this is also false.

People with outie belly buttons are more attracted to people with innie belly buttons because they fit together: like a jigsaw
Would that life were so simple.  But if it were around 80% of us would be single as outies make up only around 10% of the population.  And no-one knows why.

Every zebra, when scanned by a barcode reader, comes up as ‘frozen peas’.
Unless there is some strange default barcode which defaults to “frozen peas” (very unlikely) this can’t be true as a zebra’s stripes do not conform to the coding of thick and thin lines which make up a barcode.  But I love the zen quality of the idea.  Another good plot-line for a short story?

Anyone got any other new myths?

beliefs, medical, science, thoughts

The Dawkins Delusion

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As regular readers will know I don’t do God or gods (of any gender).  In fact I don’t do dogmatic belief systems at all, preferring to find my own way and my own ethics, intellectually.  Which of course does not mean that I can’t appreciate many of the great things which have been done in the name of religion; that I don’t abhor the many bad things; that I am amoral; or that I would ever deny anyone’s right to believe whatever they wish as a crutch to get them through this life.

I am not a theist; neither am I an atheist.  I prefer to say that, while I find the notion of some all-supreme being inherently unlikely – literally fantastic – I simply do not know; and further I doubt that we can ever know.  Which should not stop us seeking and pushing back the intellectual envelope.

I am as suspicious of atheists as I am of theists.  For atheists are just as bigoted – sometimes more so – than theists.  Richard Dawkins is a case in point.  His aggressive “new atheism” is just as dogmatic, inflexible and demanding as the belief system of any theist fundamentalist.  Indeed I would go so far as to label Dawkins himself a fundamentalist – albeit one who doesn’t fly plane-loads of innocents into office blocks.

I was pleased therefore to see in next week’s Radio Times (23-29 January) the most measured and comprehensive demolition of Dawkins and his ilk under the title The Dawkins Delusion.  It was written by novelist Howard Jacobson who presents the first programme in Channel 4’s series The Bible: a History.  And it isn’t that Jabobson is a believer: he describes himself as an atheist “who fears all fanaticism bred by faith” which includes Dawkins et.al.

Sadly the Radio Times article isn’t on their website, but I feel sufficiently enraged by Dawkins’s bigoted anti-bigot stance that I’ve broken the rules and put a scanned copy online here (although it will be removed forthwith if I am requested to do so by Radio Times, or if I spot that the article is available elsewhere online).

Jacobson’s opinion, although not new, is important and deserves a wider airing.

beliefs, medical, personal, science, thoughts

Things What I Don't Do

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Over recent months I’ve come to realise that there are whole categories of things and activities which I just do not do and cannot engage with. These are things which the vast majority view as important, if not life critical. In general these are things which, contrary to majority opinion, I think are boring, actually not important or (in a couple of cases) just plain wrong. Here’s my controversial list of things what I don’t do …

[Aside: Before you lay into me, remember that these are my personal opinions.  I’m not saying they have to be your opinions too.  You are free to believe whatever you wish as long as you don’t expect me to join you!]

Golf. Pointless. Expensive. Over-hyped. Environmentally damaging. And time-consuming.

Boats. I never could relate to water. I hated learning to swim. Don’t even like putting my head under the shower to wash my hair. Something to do with being in control, I think. And anything to do with more than a small dingy is only standing under a shower tearing up £20 notes. Boring.

Twitter. I might take some notice when someone can really, rationally, explain to me what the point is. Actually totally unimportant. Just because we have the technology to do something doesn’t mean we should do it.

IVF. In my view this is fundamentally wrong. If a couple cannot have children then generally Nature knows there is some good reason they shouldn’t. I also suspect it is being over-used just because your modern girlies can’t conceive easily as they’ve all been on the pill for too many years. Again, just because we have the technology … And no, this isn’t sour grapes just because we don’t have children: we planned not to have children.

Stem cells. For me the jury is still out on this. Yes, I see the apparent medical benefits. But I’m not convinced it isn’t going to turn out to be something with unforeseen adverse consequences. And I’m also not convinced of the overall ethics. Again, just because we have the technology … But mostly I don’t do stem cells because I find it a deeply boring field of study.

Climate change / global warming. This is another which falls into the deeply boring bucket. I know the theory is that it’s important, and maybe it is. But as soon as politicians get involved there are instantly too many vested interests and parochialism. But for me it is just deeply boring, because it is so ubiquitous.

Africa. See comments above about things being ubiquitous and boring and the involvement of politicians. We (white man) has basically fucked up Africa over the last 2-300 years. Perhaps the most respectful thing we can do now is to stop meddling and let the Africans sort themselves out, like we should have done from the start. But most of all this is in my deeply boring bucket. I’ve been assaulted just too much about this over the years — I have issue fatigue.

Elephants. Well for me they just go along with Africa as being deeply boring and so over-done that again I have issue fatigue. Yes OK so they’re endangered. That doesn’t mean I have to take them to my heart. Similarly for polar bears; and even tigers are getting to that bracket.

iPod, Wii, xBox etc. See comment above about Twitter. Really what is the point? Just totally, totally, unimportant and irrelevant.

Mainstream classical music. Boring. Dull. Overdone. Tinkling audio wallpaper at best — especially Mozart and Haydn. With a very few exceptions. Some music pre-Bach or post-Beatles is interesting, but even then by no means all. And no, it isn’t that I don’t like music; I just hate what everyone else likes.

H5N1 Avian Flu. In general I find odd and emerging diseases interesting, in a forensic way, but this appears to have been blown up out of all proportion. More cynical vested interests? Politicians trying to frighten us to keep the great unwashed under control? I don’t know. But as it appears to have been a knee-jerk over-reaction — which does the scientific/medical community no favours — I can’t get interested. The same with H1N1 Swine Flu.

Cars. Oh dear. No, sorry guys, it isn’t necessary for everyone to drive and have their own car. Neither of us drives, we never have done. OK, I accept we live in a city, which helps, but we do OK without driving. We have a good relationship with our local cab company and give them a lot less money than we would spend on running a car. And we get a lot less stress and hassle — not to mention that not having a car is much greener. Again it is all down to politics and vested interests: we have to make and sell stuff to keep the world turning. Err … maybe if we didn’t do this we wouldn’t be in the climate change mess we are? Let’s put the money into decent public transport (and that includes taxi services, ‘cos you can’t run a bus from here to everywhere). Oh, and sorry, cars are deeply boring too.

Yes I know I’m mad; eccentric. Just remember: “blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light”.

current affairs, science

Flexible Working

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Jilly, over at jillysheep, has touched today on the cultures which is part of current working life; cultures which mostly shouldn’t be there!  What follows is verbatim my comment to her post, reflectng my experience of this in a large IT company over the last 10-15 years.

I agree with your comments on working life. Flexibility should be a “no brainer” for most employers. It is 1991 since I worked in the same office as my immediate line manager; well over 10 years since I had my own desk; and 5 years since I went in the office out of routine. On average over my last year working I think I went into an office (not even my base office) just once a month. I could do everything from home with a laptop, broadband, instant messaging, phone, and audio-conferencing phone number (we didn’t even need video-conferencing!). In the rare instance I was sent hardcopy mail it was simply redirected to my home address; but 99.999% of everything (even payslips) was done electronically. And I was managing $5M projects with a team spread across the world – some of whom I never met face to face!

When you put the cost of the technology required against the cost of office space, employee morale (from increased flexibility), efficiencies, savings on travel (cost and time), etc. the payback is probably about 1 year, maybe less. Flexible and mobile/home working actually means you get more work done because people will do a bit extra here and there as long as they are trusted not to abuse the flexibility.

The killer is the long hours culture. And not just long hours in the office, but also people feeling that they have to work long hours at home too — evenings and weekends because it is always there. I used to regularly work a 50 hour week; easily done by starting a bit early, taking little time for lunch and working a little late. I was fairly disciplined about the hours I would and did work – and was still reckoned to be one of the most efficient and achieving project managers in the team! Anyone who needs to work 70 or 80 hours a week (and many of my colleagues did) is either very inefficient (=ineffective) or is being abused by their management with way too much work.

OK, there are of course jobs you can’t do remotely. Anything where objects, food, drink have to be handled (and that’s everything from factories and farms to hospitals and pubs) you need warm bodies on site. But that still doesn’t preclude flexible hours providing you can get the people scheduling right. But anything office based should be easily done from anywhere with current technology.

The challenge is the huge cultural change; let’s not underestimate that. Management have to learn to trust their people to do the hours to get the job done. The company has to be prepared to invest up-front in the technology (and some support staff); that’s an investment usually over several years but with significant paybacks in efficiency (not necessarily overall fewer jobs, just different ones). The people have to learn to do without the office; you have to find ways of allowing people to continue to have a virtual coffee together and gossip. People also have to learn to be trusted, which means not being closely supervised all the time and being a “self-starter”.

Of course, as with anything else, there are people who cannot hack the cultural change; who need the office because (typically) home is too distracting. And this is no respecter of age, gender, role or seniority. I know secretaries who happily work from home and senior directors who have to work in the office; and vice versa.

How the working word has changed even in the time I’ve been working! And what was the prime cause of all this? Ultimately I suspect the PC.