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Interesting Stuff Thread
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Andre Geim of the University of Nijmegen (the Netherlands) and Sir Michael Berry of Bristol University (UK), for using magnets to levitate a frog. [REFERENCE: "Of Flying Frogs and Levitrons" by M.V. Berry and A.K. Geim, European Journal of Physics, v. 18, 1997, p. 307-13.]
NOTE: Ten years later, in 2010, Andre Geim won a Nobel Prize in physics (for research on another subject)
http://improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2000
The frog
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People apply principles inconsistently, study finds
Is it morally appropriate to sacrifice the life of an innocent person to
save the lives of several others? David Pizarro, Cornell assistant
professor of psychology, put a fresh spin on this classic question
from philosophy.
In an update to the classic "footbridge"
scenario in moral philosophy, which asks if it is morally appropriate to throw
an innocent bystander to his death to stop an oncoming trolley that would
kill a group of individuals, Pizarro and his colleagues asked California
undergraduates whether it would be morally appropriate to sacrifice
"Tyrone Payton" (presumably black) to save 100 members of the New York
Philharmonic or "Chip Ellsworth III" (presumably white) to save 100
members of the Harlem Jazz Orchestra.
What Pizarro and his colleagues hoped to learn was whether people were
consistent in their application of moral principles (such as the principle that
it is wrong to kill innocent people regardless of the consequences) or
whether their gut reactions to the names would lead them to endorse
different principles across the two scenarios. Figuring that conservatives
and liberals might have different reactions to the names, they also
assessed the political orientation of their participants.
In the October 2009 issue of the journal Judgment and Decision Making,
Pizarro and colleagues report the results of this and four other studies that
provide evidence that individuals are quite inconsistent in their application
of moral principles. Rather, they select whichever principle is most
consistent with their initial reaction to the description of the individual
being sacrificed.
Pizarro's study found that self-identified liberals presented with these
dilemmas were more likely judge that it was morally appropriate to send
Chip to the great beyond, while conservatives were more likely to judge it
morally appropriate to end Tyrone's life. "Despite explicitly stating that
race shouldn't play a role in these judgments (which our participants do
overwhelmingly), from the results it is clear that conservatives and
liberals value the life of these individuals quite differently, and
that they will defend this judgment with whichever principle
suits their needs best," Pizarro said.
Do these results demonstrate racism on the part of conservatives? "When
looking across our studies at how individuals responded when asked about
moral principles, the largest difference we found was that liberals were
more likely to say it was morally appropriate to sacrifice an innocent
person for the sake of a greater good if the person sacrificed was named
Chip, but not if the person was named Tyrone," Pizarro said.
These studies have received attention from popular science blogs (the
phrase "Kill Whitey" appeared in several headlines). Pizarro thinks that
neither side of the political spectrum should be too happy with the results.
"Our studies show that there's enough inconsistency and bias on both
political sides to go around," he said.
But one finding holds true in these studies, regardless of partisan leanings.
"Although we believe and speak about moral principles as universal, our
judgments demonstrate that we are content with applying whichever one
fits the bill," Pizarro said. "What we really mean is: This is universal and
absolute when I want it to be and not when I don't want it to be."
Despite the moral flip-flopping documented in these studies, Pizarro remains
optimistic about the human capacity to make rational judgments. He
points to one study demonstrating that when participants were
given both versions of the scenario they remained consistent,
responding to the second scenario the same as the first, regardless of
race. "I think studies like ours can motivate people to be more aware of
the irrationality often present in their own judgments and, we hope, to
become more rational."
http://www.physorg.com/news205749342.html
I think this illustrates something important about the power of knowledge
and an informed choice, and that dem consurfativs be a big buncha
rascists
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Interesting article, based on okcupid surveys, looking at the differences between gay and straight sex and relationships (everyone is as horny as everyone else, gays aren't trying to convert straights).
Has some interesting graphs and graphics showing the differences in other areas between homo- and hetero- sexuals, most are fairly obvious (lesbians love The L-Word
), but, imo, by far the most interesting graph is this one:
WTF people! 10% of women and 5% of men on okcupid (total 640,000 users) think the world is bigger than the sun?0 -
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Mark Hamill wrote: »imo, by far the most interesting graph is this one:
WTF people! 10% of women and 5% of men on okcupid (total 640,000 users) think the world is bigger than the sun?
That's what happens whe you live in the kitchen.
I noticed this )red means more likely to be gay curious, blue means less likely):
Seems the closer you get to water the more likely you are to catch teh ghey!0 -
There's a similar iPhone app out there too.Probably posted before but you should all check this out daily:
BTW, via today's image there's a linky to a Hubble Space Telescope that you can print out and stick together:
http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hand-held_hubble/paper-intermediate.php
Just the thing for a long wet Saturday morning with a kid 0 -
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Richard Dawkins and Matt Ridley discuss what extraterrestrial life could look like.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9096000/9096795.stmScientists have demonstrated a "runaway evolutionary effect" that is speeding up Australia's cane toad invasion.
This explains why the invasive toads have increased their rate of spread so dramatically, the researchers say.
They found that toads living at the very edge of their range were "super-invaders" - able to move beyond the boundaries of this existing habitat.
And when toads at the frontiers bred, their offspring inherited this ability to move quickly into new territory.
This phenomenon, which scientists have termed the Olympic Village Effect, has been proposed before, since scientists observed that the toads at the edge of the range had bigger front legs and stronger back legs - all the better to jump and to invade new areas.
In this study, the researchers tested the effect, essentially setting up a cane toad race.
Dr Ben Phillips from James Cook University in Queensland, Australia collected cane toads from four different populations.
He captured ten toads from the core population in northern Queensland, and ten from each of three populations that were increasingly distant from this point.
He took the toads to a facility in the appropriately named Middle Point near Darwin, where he fitted them with radio tags and then released them. The tags enabled the scientists to follow the toads' progress.
As Dr Phillips expected, toads that were collected from the edge of the range were much faster movers.
All in the genes
To confirm that this increased strength and speed had a genetic basis and could be inherited, Dr Phillips studied a generation further.
He allowed toads from the same population to breed. Then he set up another radio-tagged toad race, this time between these captive-bred offspring.
Toads that had parents from the edge of the range won the dispersal race, revealing that they inherited their speed and strength from their parents.
"It's bad news," Dr Phillips told BBC News. "It means they're getting faster and better at invading new areas."
Even worse, the researchers say, all animal invasions are likely to follow this pattern.
He explained that the faster moving toads even reproduced more quickly. But this could point to a chink in their biological armour.
"They have to be trading something off to do that," he said. "And one of the things we suspect is that they're trading off their immune systems."
Since the bigger, faster toads spread and breed so quickly, they are likely to leave any endemic diseases and parasites behind them. This could mean that they have less natural immunity, which could help scientists develop some sort of biological defence against the toads.
"If you re-introduce [these] parasites at the edge of the range, perhaps you could slow down the invasion," said Dr Phillips.
He and his colleagues plan to study the creatures in more detail in the hope of pinpointing some of these biological weak spots.
Cane toads were introduced to Australia in 1935, to north tropical Queensland to control sugar cane pests. They failed to do this, but succeeded in becoming one of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) top 100 invasive species.
Their range now extends through most of Queensland and into Australia's Northern Territory.
"They're certainly up there with the worst invasive species," said Dr Phillips. "They're doing well for themselves, you have to give them that."
The work was published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1vyB-O5i6E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kuzYwzGoXw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQorzOS-F6w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICpefMbpvK4
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