Don’t give up on your New Year’s Resolution just yet!

We know sticking to a New Years resolution can be an uphill battle, especially when it comes to giving up smoking. So to give everyone who’s trying to stop a little bit of motivation to keep going, we’ve put together our top 10 inspirational and informative posts. We hope this arms you with a bit more knowledge, and gives you that extra push to help you stick to your resolution.

1. De-mystifying stop smoking services

Melanie Powell hasn’t had a cigarette since 2012. Image courtesy of Melanie Powell

If you’ve ever had reservations about going to your local Stop Smoking Service, fear no more – Melanie Powell, mother of two from Wiltshire, tell us what they’re really about, and how they helped her kick the habit.

2. National No Smoking Day: don’t quit quitting

National No Smoking Day – 9th March – is just around the corner. A few years ago, we marked the day by looking at the different methods out there to help keep you on track.

3. Constant craving: how science can help smokers to quit

Ever wondered why you crave cigarettes? Well wonder no more! In this interview, one of Cancer Research UK’s leading experts on addiction looks at what the science says.

4. National No Smoking Day: Mark’s story

Mark had a few tries at quitting smoking, but this time he’s sure it’s for good.

If Mark can quit you can too!

5. Roll your own cigarettes: how dangerous are they?

flickr / CC-BY-2.0

Which cigarettes are more harmful, roll your own or manufactured ones? The answer may surprise you.

6. National No Smoking Day: Gower’s story

Gower stopped smoking and now he runs marathons, in a shoe costume no less. This could be you… minus the shoe costume, of course.

7. Lucy Briers – My father Richard’s life was cut short by tobacco

Lucy and Richard Briers

Don’t let tobacco cut your life short.

8. Smokers underestimate nicotine cravings

Underestimating cravings could be your downfall but not if you read this article.

9. Visions for the future: quitting smoking

Take a look at the possible futuristic ways that could one day help smokers quit.

10. Healthy Lifestyles Mark Bates

Mark Bates stopped smoking after 44 years. If that’s not inspiration we don’t know what is.

And to help more smokers stop please support our campaign to make the industry cough up 1p for every cigarette sold. The extra money will help Stop Smoking Services around the country. Add your name to the petition by going to: http://ift.tt/1nLKhor.

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1VBaqAZ

We know sticking to a New Years resolution can be an uphill battle, especially when it comes to giving up smoking. So to give everyone who’s trying to stop a little bit of motivation to keep going, we’ve put together our top 10 inspirational and informative posts. We hope this arms you with a bit more knowledge, and gives you that extra push to help you stick to your resolution.

1. De-mystifying stop smoking services

Melanie Powell hasn’t had a cigarette since 2012. Image courtesy of Melanie Powell

If you’ve ever had reservations about going to your local Stop Smoking Service, fear no more – Melanie Powell, mother of two from Wiltshire, tell us what they’re really about, and how they helped her kick the habit.

2. National No Smoking Day: don’t quit quitting

National No Smoking Day – 9th March – is just around the corner. A few years ago, we marked the day by looking at the different methods out there to help keep you on track.

3. Constant craving: how science can help smokers to quit

Ever wondered why you crave cigarettes? Well wonder no more! In this interview, one of Cancer Research UK’s leading experts on addiction looks at what the science says.

4. National No Smoking Day: Mark’s story

Mark had a few tries at quitting smoking, but this time he’s sure it’s for good.

If Mark can quit you can too!

5. Roll your own cigarettes: how dangerous are they?

flickr / CC-BY-2.0

Which cigarettes are more harmful, roll your own or manufactured ones? The answer may surprise you.

6. National No Smoking Day: Gower’s story

Gower stopped smoking and now he runs marathons, in a shoe costume no less. This could be you… minus the shoe costume, of course.

7. Lucy Briers – My father Richard’s life was cut short by tobacco

Lucy and Richard Briers

Don’t let tobacco cut your life short.

8. Smokers underestimate nicotine cravings

Underestimating cravings could be your downfall but not if you read this article.

9. Visions for the future: quitting smoking

Take a look at the possible futuristic ways that could one day help smokers quit.

10. Healthy Lifestyles Mark Bates

Mark Bates stopped smoking after 44 years. If that’s not inspiration we don’t know what is.

And to help more smokers stop please support our campaign to make the industry cough up 1p for every cigarette sold. The extra money will help Stop Smoking Services around the country. Add your name to the petition by going to: http://ift.tt/1nLKhor.

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1VBaqAZ

Sunday Chess Problem [EvolutionBlog]

Helpmates occupy a curious position in the world of chess problems. On the one hand, they seem to be the most popular form nowadays for composers. There are just so many possibilities for original content, especially when fairy pieces or conditions are added to the mix. On the other hand, they are sometimes sneered at by other composers. You sometimes encounter the attitude that direct mates and studies are serious compositions, while everything else is just candy.

Whatever. Personally, I sometimes find modern direct mates a little too dense to be enjoyable, while helpmates usually bring a smile to my face. At any rate, I happen to have the new issue of The Problemist at hand, and it includes a very impressive helpmate indeed. It is a good illustration of how much strategy can be packed into a mere two moves. This problem was composed by Jozsef Korponai in 1965. The stipulation calls for helpmate in two:

There is also a “twin” to consider, but we shall come to that in a moment.

Recall that in a helpmate, black and white cooperate to construct a position in which black is mated, in no more than the given number of moves. Also, black moves first.

From a solver’s perspective, helpmates can be fun because you can be absolutely certain you have found the solution (or possibly a cook). The position above solves by 1. Rxa7 Kg1 2. Ne4 Rd3 mate.

Now we return to the initial position, but we shift the black king to the square c4, giving us this starting position:

Again, we are asked to find helpmate in two. This time the solution is: 1. Bxc8 Kh2 2. Nb3 Bd3 mate.

As I said, that’s a lot of strategy to pack into two moves. Also, there is a perfect matching of the strategy in each part. Black starts by capturing a piece, thereby unpinning another of his pieces. Then white unpins one of his pieces by moving his king. Then the newly unpinned black piece moves to interfere with one of his pieces, then white gives mate on d3, a square that was triply guarded at the start of the problem. Lovely!

See you next week!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1OZHZet

Helpmates occupy a curious position in the world of chess problems. On the one hand, they seem to be the most popular form nowadays for composers. There are just so many possibilities for original content, especially when fairy pieces or conditions are added to the mix. On the other hand, they are sometimes sneered at by other composers. You sometimes encounter the attitude that direct mates and studies are serious compositions, while everything else is just candy.

Whatever. Personally, I sometimes find modern direct mates a little too dense to be enjoyable, while helpmates usually bring a smile to my face. At any rate, I happen to have the new issue of The Problemist at hand, and it includes a very impressive helpmate indeed. It is a good illustration of how much strategy can be packed into a mere two moves. This problem was composed by Jozsef Korponai in 1965. The stipulation calls for helpmate in two:

There is also a “twin” to consider, but we shall come to that in a moment.

Recall that in a helpmate, black and white cooperate to construct a position in which black is mated, in no more than the given number of moves. Also, black moves first.

From a solver’s perspective, helpmates can be fun because you can be absolutely certain you have found the solution (or possibly a cook). The position above solves by 1. Rxa7 Kg1 2. Ne4 Rd3 mate.

Now we return to the initial position, but we shift the black king to the square c4, giving us this starting position:

Again, we are asked to find helpmate in two. This time the solution is: 1. Bxc8 Kh2 2. Nb3 Bd3 mate.

As I said, that’s a lot of strategy to pack into two moves. Also, there is a perfect matching of the strategy in each part. Black starts by capturing a piece, thereby unpinning another of his pieces. Then white unpins one of his pieces by moving his king. Then the newly unpinned black piece moves to interfere with one of his pieces, then white gives mate on d3, a square that was triply guarded at the start of the problem. Lovely!

See you next week!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1OZHZet

2016 SkS Weekly Digest #5

SkS Highlights... El Niño Impacts... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... They Said What?... SkS in the News... SkS Spotlights... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... 97 Hours of Consensus...

SkS Highlights

Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming by Dana Nuccitelli (Climate Consensus - the 97%, The Guardian) garnered the highest number of comments of the articles posted on SkS during the past week. Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job by Emmanuel Vincent & Daniel Nethery (Climate Feedback) attracted the second highest number.

El Niño Impacts

Global temperatures will continue to soar over the next 12 months as rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions and El Niño combine to bring more record-breaking warmth to the planet.

According to the Met Office’s forecast for the next five years, 2016 is likely to be the warmest since records began. Then in 2017 there will be a dip as the effects of El Niño dissipate and there is some planet-wide cooling.

But after that, and for the remaining three years of the decade, the world will continue to experience even more warming. The forecast, which will be released this week, is the first such report that the Met Office has issued since it overhauled its near-term climate prediction system last year. 

Here is the weather forecast for the next five years: even hotter by Robin McKie, The Guardian, Jan 30. 2016

Toon of the Week

 

Hat tip to I Heart Climate Scientists

Quote of the Week 

Scientists who take the long view on climate change see parallels between global warming today and mass extinctions in Earth’s past: “Apart from the stupid space rock hitting the Earth, most mass extinctions were CO2-driven global warming things,” says Professor Andy Ridgwell of Bristol University in the UK.

It has been a consistent pattern throughout geological time: “If you screw with the climate enough, you have huge extinctions,” says Ridgwell.

If the world ends in 2100, we’re probably OK' by Howard Lee, Climate Consensus - the 97%, The Guardian, Jan 27, 2016

They Said What? 

Florida’s leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, have both criticized federal action to combat climate change, with Rubio warning it would “destroy” the US economy and Bush predicting “someone in a garage somewhere” will solve the problem instead.

Jeb Bush pins hopes on 'someone in a garage' to tackle climate change by Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Jan 29, 2016 

SkS in the News

In his letter-to-the-editor, Warming is no Neverland fantasy, published in the Providence (RI) Jornal, Frank Leven states:

There is consensus among climatologists that global warming is human-caused, resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. This is accepted by national academies of science worldwide and the scientists of the IPCC, and also by the U.S. Department of Defense. More to the point, of the more than 12,000 peer-reviewed abstracts of articles on global warming that were published between 1991 and 2011, 97 percent of their climatologist authors agreed that it is human-caused. This 97 percent result was peer-review published by John Cook and collaborators; Cook, by the way, never stated that his results were incorrect, though this false claim was made. In fact, a re-analysis upheld his results.  

Coming Soon on SkS

• Fox News Republican debate moderators asked a climate question! (Dana)
• “The Blob” Disrupts What We Think We Know About Climate Change, Oceans Scientist Says (Judith Lavoie)
• Guest Post (John Abraham)
• Industrial-era ocean heat uptake has doubled since 1997 (Rob Painting)
• Analysis: How much did El Niño boost global temperature in 2015? (Roz Pidcock)
• 2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #6 (John Hartz)
• 2016 SkS Weekly Digest #6 (John Hartz)

Poster of the Week

 

SkS Week in Review 

• 2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #5 by John Hartz
• 'If the world ends in 2100, we’re probably OK' by Howard Lee (Climate Consensus - the 97%, The Guardian)
• Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job by Emmanuel Vincent & Daniel Nethery (Climate Feedback)
• The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that? by John Cook
• Study finds slim odds of record heat, but not as slim as reported by John Abraham (Climate Consensus - the 97%, The Guardian)
• Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015 by Rob Honeycutt
• Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming by Dana Nuccitelli (Climate Consensus - the 97%, The Guardian)
• 2016 SkS Weekly Digest #4 by John Hatz

97 Hours of Consensus: Josh Willis

 

Josh Willis' bio page

Quote provided by email

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1NJr2AX

SkS Highlights... El Niño Impacts... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... They Said What?... SkS in the News... SkS Spotlights... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... 97 Hours of Consensus...

SkS Highlights

Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming by Dana Nuccitelli (Climate Consensus - the 97%, The Guardian) garnered the highest number of comments of the articles posted on SkS during the past week. Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job by Emmanuel Vincent & Daniel Nethery (Climate Feedback) attracted the second highest number.

El Niño Impacts

Global temperatures will continue to soar over the next 12 months as rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions and El Niño combine to bring more record-breaking warmth to the planet.

According to the Met Office’s forecast for the next five years, 2016 is likely to be the warmest since records began. Then in 2017 there will be a dip as the effects of El Niño dissipate and there is some planet-wide cooling.

But after that, and for the remaining three years of the decade, the world will continue to experience even more warming. The forecast, which will be released this week, is the first such report that the Met Office has issued since it overhauled its near-term climate prediction system last year. 

Here is the weather forecast for the next five years: even hotter by Robin McKie, The Guardian, Jan 30. 2016

Toon of the Week

 

Hat tip to I Heart Climate Scientists

Quote of the Week 

Scientists who take the long view on climate change see parallels between global warming today and mass extinctions in Earth’s past: “Apart from the stupid space rock hitting the Earth, most mass extinctions were CO2-driven global warming things,” says Professor Andy Ridgwell of Bristol University in the UK.

It has been a consistent pattern throughout geological time: “If you screw with the climate enough, you have huge extinctions,” says Ridgwell.

If the world ends in 2100, we’re probably OK' by Howard Lee, Climate Consensus - the 97%, The Guardian, Jan 27, 2016

They Said What? 

Florida’s leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, have both criticized federal action to combat climate change, with Rubio warning it would “destroy” the US economy and Bush predicting “someone in a garage somewhere” will solve the problem instead.

Jeb Bush pins hopes on 'someone in a garage' to tackle climate change by Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Jan 29, 2016 

SkS in the News

In his letter-to-the-editor, Warming is no Neverland fantasy, published in the Providence (RI) Jornal, Frank Leven states:

There is consensus among climatologists that global warming is human-caused, resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. This is accepted by national academies of science worldwide and the scientists of the IPCC, and also by the U.S. Department of Defense. More to the point, of the more than 12,000 peer-reviewed abstracts of articles on global warming that were published between 1991 and 2011, 97 percent of their climatologist authors agreed that it is human-caused. This 97 percent result was peer-review published by John Cook and collaborators; Cook, by the way, never stated that his results were incorrect, though this false claim was made. In fact, a re-analysis upheld his results.  

Coming Soon on SkS

• Fox News Republican debate moderators asked a climate question! (Dana)
• “The Blob” Disrupts What We Think We Know About Climate Change, Oceans Scientist Says (Judith Lavoie)
• Guest Post (John Abraham)
• Industrial-era ocean heat uptake has doubled since 1997 (Rob Painting)
• Analysis: How much did El Niño boost global temperature in 2015? (Roz Pidcock)
• 2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #6 (John Hartz)
• 2016 SkS Weekly Digest #6 (John Hartz)

Poster of the Week

 

SkS Week in Review 

• 2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #5 by John Hartz
• 'If the world ends in 2100, we’re probably OK' by Howard Lee (Climate Consensus - the 97%, The Guardian)
• Climate scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal on its snow job by Emmanuel Vincent & Daniel Nethery (Climate Feedback)
• The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that? by John Cook
• Study finds slim odds of record heat, but not as slim as reported by John Abraham (Climate Consensus - the 97%, The Guardian)
• Tracking the 2°C Limit - December 2015 by Rob Honeycutt
• Record hot 2015 gave us a glimpse at the future of global warming by Dana Nuccitelli (Climate Consensus - the 97%, The Guardian)
• 2016 SkS Weekly Digest #4 by John Hatz

97 Hours of Consensus: Josh Willis

 

Josh Willis' bio page

Quote provided by email

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1NJr2AX

142-150/366: On-Deadline Catchup [Uncertain Principles]

I’ve been neglecting the photo-a-day thing for the last week-and-a-bit, but for a good reason: I had a deadline of, well, today, to finish a chapter I was asked to contribute to an academic book. And while I fully realize that actually hitting that deadline is not typical academic behavior, I have A Thing about that, and was going to make damn sure I finished by the end of the month, as I had promised. So a lot of stuff got neglected, to the point where there were a few days in that stretch where I didn’t take any pictures at all.

So, you get another catch-up post. I owe nine photos, but I have twelve good ones from this stretch, though a few of those are paired. So I’ll somewhat arbitrarily assign numbers to these, and saw that I’m all caught up…

142/366: Carrots

Pictures of carrots. Top by The Pip, bottom by SteelyKid.

The Pip’s favorite restaurant is Applebee’s, God help us, and one of his favorite activities there is using the little at-table tablet things to draw pictures. He almost inevitably decides to draw a carrot, because reasons, and then insists I take a picture of his drawing. And then SteelyKid has to get a piece of that action, too.

So here are some carrot drawings.

143/366: Parkour Kids

We went to a couple of home basketball games over on campus during this stretch, and the kids have discovered the joy of going outside on the patio right off the lobby and doing crazy things. Here’s SteelyKid showing off her frightening agility:

SteelyKid bouncing off a wall.

The Pip doesn’t quite have the same grace:

The Pip trying to kick off a wall.

144/366: Woodpecker

I think I already posted one photo of a woodpecker to this, but here’s another:

Woodpecker on the bird feeder.

145/366: Mystery Birds

One day we suddenly had a big-ass flock of these quail-ish birds all over our yard:

Quail-like birds on the front lawn.

I’m not sure what these are, but when I posted a different image of them to Twitter, the most common guess was starlings, so, probably starlings. I guess.

146/366: Sunrise Bus

Clouds at sunrise, with the bus picking up the kid across the street.

The bus that picks up the kid across the street (who goes to one of the other elementary schools in the district, as we live in a “flex zone” that can feed two of the five, as needed to keep enrollments balanced) arrives a bit earlier than SteelyKid’s which coincided nicely with pretty sunrise colors. This is actually facing west– the sunrise is behind me, but it’s impossible to get a good shot of the sky in that direction.

147/366 Hoops Action

As I said above, there were two basketball games in this stretch. I got some decent action shots at the second:

Opening tip of the women’s basketball game.

Union’s Amy Fisher drives in for a lay-up.

Shortly after the second of these, SteelyKid slipped while climbing up the bleachers and face-planted, scraping up her upper lip. This was not one of the highlights of our week…

148/366: Reading Pip

I try to limit the number of cute-kid photos in these, but they’re so darn cute…

The Pip studying his Lego superhero book with Kate.

149/366: Fort Steelypips

SteelyKid has been obsessed with building forts of late. Here’s the latest of them:

A particularly large blanket fort in the living room.

I crawled inside this one, and made an attempt to capture the inside:

Interior of the giant blanket fort.

150/366: Secret Message

We had a big flurry of “secret message” writing yesterday, using a spy kit that SteelyKid got for… Christmas? Her birthday? I don’t remember; we’ve had it for a while. This involved writing in one color, then scribbling over it with red, which vanishes when viewed through a red plastic filter that came with the kit. She and I did a bunch of experimenting to find crayon combinations that worked well, and here’s one of the better attempts:

Test of the “secret message” kit; in normal light at the top, through the red filter on the bottom.

And that catches us up through yesterday, assuming I’ve counted days correctly. And even if I haven’t, it ought to be enough pictures to prove a point of some sort. My book chapter will get sent out this afternoon, after which I’ll be a little calmer, and expect to resume more regular blogging.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1P5AccL

I’ve been neglecting the photo-a-day thing for the last week-and-a-bit, but for a good reason: I had a deadline of, well, today, to finish a chapter I was asked to contribute to an academic book. And while I fully realize that actually hitting that deadline is not typical academic behavior, I have A Thing about that, and was going to make damn sure I finished by the end of the month, as I had promised. So a lot of stuff got neglected, to the point where there were a few days in that stretch where I didn’t take any pictures at all.

So, you get another catch-up post. I owe nine photos, but I have twelve good ones from this stretch, though a few of those are paired. So I’ll somewhat arbitrarily assign numbers to these, and saw that I’m all caught up…

142/366: Carrots

Pictures of carrots. Top by The Pip, bottom by SteelyKid.

The Pip’s favorite restaurant is Applebee’s, God help us, and one of his favorite activities there is using the little at-table tablet things to draw pictures. He almost inevitably decides to draw a carrot, because reasons, and then insists I take a picture of his drawing. And then SteelyKid has to get a piece of that action, too.

So here are some carrot drawings.

143/366: Parkour Kids

We went to a couple of home basketball games over on campus during this stretch, and the kids have discovered the joy of going outside on the patio right off the lobby and doing crazy things. Here’s SteelyKid showing off her frightening agility:

SteelyKid bouncing off a wall.

The Pip doesn’t quite have the same grace:

The Pip trying to kick off a wall.

144/366: Woodpecker

I think I already posted one photo of a woodpecker to this, but here’s another:

Woodpecker on the bird feeder.

145/366: Mystery Birds

One day we suddenly had a big-ass flock of these quail-ish birds all over our yard:

Quail-like birds on the front lawn.

I’m not sure what these are, but when I posted a different image of them to Twitter, the most common guess was starlings, so, probably starlings. I guess.

146/366: Sunrise Bus

Clouds at sunrise, with the bus picking up the kid across the street.

The bus that picks up the kid across the street (who goes to one of the other elementary schools in the district, as we live in a “flex zone” that can feed two of the five, as needed to keep enrollments balanced) arrives a bit earlier than SteelyKid’s which coincided nicely with pretty sunrise colors. This is actually facing west– the sunrise is behind me, but it’s impossible to get a good shot of the sky in that direction.

147/366 Hoops Action

As I said above, there were two basketball games in this stretch. I got some decent action shots at the second:

Opening tip of the women’s basketball game.

Union’s Amy Fisher drives in for a lay-up.

Shortly after the second of these, SteelyKid slipped while climbing up the bleachers and face-planted, scraping up her upper lip. This was not one of the highlights of our week…

148/366: Reading Pip

I try to limit the number of cute-kid photos in these, but they’re so darn cute…

The Pip studying his Lego superhero book with Kate.

149/366: Fort Steelypips

SteelyKid has been obsessed with building forts of late. Here’s the latest of them:

A particularly large blanket fort in the living room.

I crawled inside this one, and made an attempt to capture the inside:

Interior of the giant blanket fort.

150/366: Secret Message

We had a big flurry of “secret message” writing yesterday, using a spy kit that SteelyKid got for… Christmas? Her birthday? I don’t remember; we’ve had it for a while. This involved writing in one color, then scribbling over it with red, which vanishes when viewed through a red plastic filter that came with the kit. She and I did a bunch of experimenting to find crayon combinations that worked well, and here’s one of the better attempts:

Test of the “secret message” kit; in normal light at the top, through the red filter on the bottom.

And that catches us up through yesterday, assuming I’ve counted days correctly. And even if I haven’t, it ought to be enough pictures to prove a point of some sort. My book chapter will get sent out this afternoon, after which I’ll be a little calmer, and expect to resume more regular blogging.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1P5AccL

Those troublesome, shaky X chromosomes! [Pharyngula]

It’s easy to find lists of dumb things creationists say, and I’m familiar with that lot, but here’s a fun new time-waster: Things Anti-Vaxxers Say. Here’s a beautiful example of something I’ve rarely seen so clearly stated: they get the facts totally wrong, actually the reverse of the actual situation, but nope, that doesn’t stop them from inventing a bogus rationalization around them.

You can do your own research but it comes down to chromosomes — the X chromosome is shaky, and boys have two of them. So they are quite literally twice as likely as girls to be adversely affected by genetic and environmental factors that can lead to the development of autism — they are at twice the risk, purely because of their gender alone.

Uh-oh. I have 22 other chromosomes besides my sex chromosomes (I’ve actually seen them!), and…they’re all in pairs. I’m doomed.

But wait! I only have one X chromosome! I’m saved by the reduction in its pernicious influence!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1NJfgX3

It’s easy to find lists of dumb things creationists say, and I’m familiar with that lot, but here’s a fun new time-waster: Things Anti-Vaxxers Say. Here’s a beautiful example of something I’ve rarely seen so clearly stated: they get the facts totally wrong, actually the reverse of the actual situation, but nope, that doesn’t stop them from inventing a bogus rationalization around them.

You can do your own research but it comes down to chromosomes — the X chromosome is shaky, and boys have two of them. So they are quite literally twice as likely as girls to be adversely affected by genetic and environmental factors that can lead to the development of autism — they are at twice the risk, purely because of their gender alone.

Uh-oh. I have 22 other chromosomes besides my sex chromosomes (I’ve actually seen them!), and…they’re all in pairs. I’m doomed.

But wait! I only have one X chromosome! I’m saved by the reduction in its pernicious influence!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1NJfgX3

This is not how you do science [Pharyngula]

There is a myth about how science progresses: great men have a eureka moment, and rush in to the lab to do the definitive experiment, often bravely and with the opposition of the Science Establishment, and single-handedly revolutionize a discipline. It’s nonsense. I can’t think of a single example of that kind of work that has gotten anywhere — the closest might be Isaac Newton, who developed some great ideas working privately at his home in Woolsthorpe, but even he was tightly connected to a community of fellow scientists. Science is very much a communal and communicative endeavor, and is built “on the shoulders of giants.”

So I do not approve of the work of Phil Kennedy, which looks like a lot of hare-brained Frankensteinian self-indulgence. Kennedy could not get approval for his experiments in implanting electrodes in human brains — I wonder why? — so he charged off to the Caribbean and had bits of wire and glass stuck deep into his own brain. It did not go well.

The brain surgery lasted 11 and a half hours, beginning on the afternoon of June 21, 2014, and stretching into the Caribbean predawn of the next day. In the afternoon, after the anesthesia had worn off, the neurosurgeon came in, removed his wire-frame glasses, and held them up for his bandaged patient to examine. “What are these called?” he asked.

Phil Kennedy stared at the glasses for a moment. Then his gaze drifted up to the ceiling and over to the television. “Uh … uh … ai … aiee,” he stammered after a while, “… aiee … aiee … aiee.”

Don’t worry, he got better — his deficits were caused by post-operative swelling of his brain, and that eventually diminished, and he started recording data off his electrode.

When Kennedy finally did present the data that he’d gathered from himself—first at an Emory University symposium last May and then at the Society for Neuroscience conference in October—some of his colleagues were tentatively supportive. By taking on the risk himself, by working alone and out-of-pocket, Kennedy managed to create a sui generis record of language in the brain, Chang says: “It’s a very precious set of data, whether or not it will ultimately hold the secret for a speech prosthetic. It’s truly an extraordinary event.” Other colleagues found the story thrilling, even if they were somewhat baffled: In a field that is constantly hitting up against ethical roadblocks, this man they’d known for years, and always liked, had made a bold and unexpected bid to force brain research to its destiny. Still other scientists were simply aghast. “Some thought I was brave, some thought I was crazy,” Kennedy says.

I’d score him as foolhardy and arrogant. I don’t even know what one could do with the data — no one is going to replicate it, there’s nothing to test, and future technologies will probably make Kennedy’s mad adventure irrelevant and unnecessary to replicate. This is a dead end, and risking scrambling your brain is not a smart gamble.

Further, this idea that one has to work around “ethical roadblocks” is troubling. There are “ethical roadblocks” to murdering someone; we don’t generally consider it a virtue if someone works out a clever way to kill a person that isn’t prosecutable under the law. We are talking about brain surgeries on human subjects — damn right there better be ethical limitations imposed on that. The only way around that is to demonstrate that the proposed procedures are safe and pose negligible risk, with incremental experimental work in animals and with duplication and verification by multiple investigators. Transhumanists might dream of some amazing Prigogenic leap that abruptly makes their cyborg aspirations reality, but it’s not going to happen that way.

I also shouldn’t want scientists to be encouraged to come up with ways to get around ethics. What next, is informed consent getting in your way, so you need to come up with a cunning plan to avoid it?

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Skd40p

There is a myth about how science progresses: great men have a eureka moment, and rush in to the lab to do the definitive experiment, often bravely and with the opposition of the Science Establishment, and single-handedly revolutionize a discipline. It’s nonsense. I can’t think of a single example of that kind of work that has gotten anywhere — the closest might be Isaac Newton, who developed some great ideas working privately at his home in Woolsthorpe, but even he was tightly connected to a community of fellow scientists. Science is very much a communal and communicative endeavor, and is built “on the shoulders of giants.”

So I do not approve of the work of Phil Kennedy, which looks like a lot of hare-brained Frankensteinian self-indulgence. Kennedy could not get approval for his experiments in implanting electrodes in human brains — I wonder why? — so he charged off to the Caribbean and had bits of wire and glass stuck deep into his own brain. It did not go well.

The brain surgery lasted 11 and a half hours, beginning on the afternoon of June 21, 2014, and stretching into the Caribbean predawn of the next day. In the afternoon, after the anesthesia had worn off, the neurosurgeon came in, removed his wire-frame glasses, and held them up for his bandaged patient to examine. “What are these called?” he asked.

Phil Kennedy stared at the glasses for a moment. Then his gaze drifted up to the ceiling and over to the television. “Uh … uh … ai … aiee,” he stammered after a while, “… aiee … aiee … aiee.”

Don’t worry, he got better — his deficits were caused by post-operative swelling of his brain, and that eventually diminished, and he started recording data off his electrode.

When Kennedy finally did present the data that he’d gathered from himself—first at an Emory University symposium last May and then at the Society for Neuroscience conference in October—some of his colleagues were tentatively supportive. By taking on the risk himself, by working alone and out-of-pocket, Kennedy managed to create a sui generis record of language in the brain, Chang says: “It’s a very precious set of data, whether or not it will ultimately hold the secret for a speech prosthetic. It’s truly an extraordinary event.” Other colleagues found the story thrilling, even if they were somewhat baffled: In a field that is constantly hitting up against ethical roadblocks, this man they’d known for years, and always liked, had made a bold and unexpected bid to force brain research to its destiny. Still other scientists were simply aghast. “Some thought I was brave, some thought I was crazy,” Kennedy says.

I’d score him as foolhardy and arrogant. I don’t even know what one could do with the data — no one is going to replicate it, there’s nothing to test, and future technologies will probably make Kennedy’s mad adventure irrelevant and unnecessary to replicate. This is a dead end, and risking scrambling your brain is not a smart gamble.

Further, this idea that one has to work around “ethical roadblocks” is troubling. There are “ethical roadblocks” to murdering someone; we don’t generally consider it a virtue if someone works out a clever way to kill a person that isn’t prosecutable under the law. We are talking about brain surgeries on human subjects — damn right there better be ethical limitations imposed on that. The only way around that is to demonstrate that the proposed procedures are safe and pose negligible risk, with incremental experimental work in animals and with duplication and verification by multiple investigators. Transhumanists might dream of some amazing Prigogenic leap that abruptly makes their cyborg aspirations reality, but it’s not going to happen that way.

I also shouldn’t want scientists to be encouraged to come up with ways to get around ethics. What next, is informed consent getting in your way, so you need to come up with a cunning plan to avoid it?

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Skd40p

Moon and Mars before dawn February 1

Tomorrow morning – February 1, 2016 – the moon will be near its last quarter phase as it and Mars rise over the eastern horizon an hour or so after the midnight hour at mid-northern latitudes. If you’re not a night owl, you’ll be better off to view the moon and Mars before dawn Monday.

Our sky chart at top specifically applies to mid-northern North American latitudes.

Nonetheless – no matter where you are on Earth – you should have little trouble using the moon to locate Mars in your own sky before dawn on February 1. Look first for the moon, and the nearby bright starlike object will be the red planet Mars.

And, by the way, Monday morning is an awesome time to identify Mars for another reason. This planet has been inconspicuous in our sky for the past year or more, because Earth has been following behind it in the race of the planets around the sun. But – this coming May 22 – we’ll pass between Mars and the sun. Between now and then, you’ll see Mars get much redder and much brighter in our sky.

View larger | Mikhail Chubarets in the Ukraine made this chart. It shows the view of Mars through a telescope in 2016. We pass between Mars and the sun on May 22. We won’t see Mars as a disk like this with the eye alone. But, between the start of 2016 and May, the dot of light that is Mars will grow dramatically brighter and redder in our night sky. Watch for it!

If you look closely, you might also spot a fainter but visible light close to Mars. It’s Zubenelgenubi, the alpha star in the constellation Libra the Scales.

If you have difficulty making out the star Zubenelgenubi with the eye alone, try your luck with binoculars. Mars and Zubenelgenubi will occupy the same binocular field of view for at least another week. What’s more, binoculars show Zubenelgenubi to be a double star.

While taking in the wonder of the predawn sky, take time to view the other four visible planets. Brilliant Jupiter shines to the west of the moon and Mars, while the planets Saturn, Venus and Mercury lurk to the lower east of the moon and Mars. The moon passed Jupiter last week, and will be passing the other planets in the coming days.

Click here to find out more about the grand parade of morning planets.

View larger. | Keep watching in early February, as the moon sweeps past Saturn, Venus and Mercury. The green line represents the ecliptic – path of the sun, moon and planets across the sky’s dome.

View larger. | Beginning around January 20 – through mid-February – you can see five bright planets at once in the predawn sky.

See all five visible planets simultaneously

Bottom line: Before dawn on February 1, 2016, look for the moon and Mars close together on the sky’s dome.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/200Ik3x

Tomorrow morning – February 1, 2016 – the moon will be near its last quarter phase as it and Mars rise over the eastern horizon an hour or so after the midnight hour at mid-northern latitudes. If you’re not a night owl, you’ll be better off to view the moon and Mars before dawn Monday.

Our sky chart at top specifically applies to mid-northern North American latitudes.

Nonetheless – no matter where you are on Earth – you should have little trouble using the moon to locate Mars in your own sky before dawn on February 1. Look first for the moon, and the nearby bright starlike object will be the red planet Mars.

And, by the way, Monday morning is an awesome time to identify Mars for another reason. This planet has been inconspicuous in our sky for the past year or more, because Earth has been following behind it in the race of the planets around the sun. But – this coming May 22 – we’ll pass between Mars and the sun. Between now and then, you’ll see Mars get much redder and much brighter in our sky.

View larger | Mikhail Chubarets in the Ukraine made this chart. It shows the view of Mars through a telescope in 2016. We pass between Mars and the sun on May 22. We won’t see Mars as a disk like this with the eye alone. But, between the start of 2016 and May, the dot of light that is Mars will grow dramatically brighter and redder in our night sky. Watch for it!

If you look closely, you might also spot a fainter but visible light close to Mars. It’s Zubenelgenubi, the alpha star in the constellation Libra the Scales.

If you have difficulty making out the star Zubenelgenubi with the eye alone, try your luck with binoculars. Mars and Zubenelgenubi will occupy the same binocular field of view for at least another week. What’s more, binoculars show Zubenelgenubi to be a double star.

While taking in the wonder of the predawn sky, take time to view the other four visible planets. Brilliant Jupiter shines to the west of the moon and Mars, while the planets Saturn, Venus and Mercury lurk to the lower east of the moon and Mars. The moon passed Jupiter last week, and will be passing the other planets in the coming days.

Click here to find out more about the grand parade of morning planets.

View larger. | Keep watching in early February, as the moon sweeps past Saturn, Venus and Mercury. The green line represents the ecliptic – path of the sun, moon and planets across the sky’s dome.

View larger. | Beginning around January 20 – through mid-February – you can see five bright planets at once in the predawn sky.

See all five visible planets simultaneously

Bottom line: Before dawn on February 1, 2016, look for the moon and Mars close together on the sky’s dome.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/200Ik3x