Research reported by the University of Rochester last week indicates that test takers seeing even a glimpse of the color red perform significanctly worse on standardized tests than those who don't see red.
Four experiments demonstrated that the brief perception of red prior to an important test—such as an IQ test or a major exam—actually impaired performance. Two further experiments also established the link between red and avoidance motivation when task choice and psychophysiological measures were applied.
Useful information for those of us who will likely be in school for the rest of our lives (I'm never going to run out of things I want to understand better).
Monday, March 5, 2007
Rosetta@home Branches Out
The Rosetta@home project (which I blogged about in December) has branched out from its original mission of predicting protein structures. David Baker reports in the Rosetta blog that they are working on a way to convert carbon dioxide into simple sugars using enzymes computationally engineered using Rosetta@home.
David writes:
David writes:
Graduate student Justin Siegal and postdoc Eric Althoff have come up with a very clever new reaction cycle using new enzymes we would collectively engineer that in total carries out the following reaction:
2C02 + 2e- + H20 -> C2O3H2 + O2
the product is a simple sugar that could be used in a variety of ways, and the removal of C02 from the atmosphere would be great for countering global warming. A nice thing about this compared to current ideas of forming inorganic carbonate compounds is that it requires no other inputs. However, it does require electrons, and hence a source of energy. We are currently assessing the energy requirements of this process and comparing them to those of other proposed carbon sequestration mechanisms.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Debating Science: Practical Reasoning and Nanotechnology
This fall, from September 3, 2007, to December 14, 2007, the University of Montana will be offering a web-based course entitled Debating Science: Practical Reasoning and Nanotechnology. If you want a say in the debate about the utility and safety of nanotechnology, this is your chance.
The course instructors are Christopher Preston, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The University of Montana, and Catherine Murphy, the Guy F. Lipscomb Professor of Chemistry at the University of South Carolina.
The course instructors are Christopher Preston, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The University of Montana, and Catherine Murphy, the Guy F. Lipscomb Professor of Chemistry at the University of South Carolina.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
PlanetQuest Update
I received an email today from Dr. Laurance Doyle, who (among other things) serves as the President of PlanetQuest. PlanetQuest is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to inspire global participation in the discovery of planets.
Their goal is to launch a distributed computing project using the BOINC platform that I've blogged about here before. Their software--dubbed Collaboratory--will analyze data from telescopes focused on extremely dense star regions, such as the center of the galaxy in Sagittarius in the hopes of finding planets around other stars.
From their website:
Dr. Doyle's email (which came in response to my donating money toward their work on the software) contained some information on the status of their work on the software. The information was long overdue, as they haven't done a very good job of keeping the public up-to-date on their progress (although they have responded to email requests for information). Dr. Doyle writes:
Their goal is to launch a distributed computing project using the BOINC platform that I've blogged about here before. Their software--dubbed Collaboratory--will analyze data from telescopes focused on extremely dense star regions, such as the center of the galaxy in Sagittarius in the hopes of finding planets around other stars.
From their website:
Discovering a new delta Scuti star, for example, will help astronomers better understand the stability of stars; a new Cepheid variable star would help astronomers determine how far away stars are. Most exciting of all, you could discover a new planet—a never-before-seen world beyond our solar system! You will be credited for your discovery, and your find will be entered into the PlanetQuest catalog.
Dr. Doyle's email (which came in response to my donating money toward their work on the software) contained some information on the status of their work on the software. The information was long overdue, as they haven't done a very good job of keeping the public up-to-date on their progress (although they have responded to email requests for information). Dr. Doyle writes:
We have the eclipsing binary system classifier running very well, and are now interfacing the circum-binary planet discriminator with the the binary classifier. We'll soon be going straight onto the BOINC platform with this and at that time can release an alpha version of the Collaboratory. The beta should not be far behind with a ready number of testers interested in helping us, and we are shooting for this summer to release the beta test.
Method Developed for Mapping Neural Connections
Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have developed a new method for identifying all of the connections to a single neuron in the human brain. Researchers have said they won’t be able to understand the brain until they can put together a map of how billions of neurons are interconnected.
The Salk researchers identified the connections by modifying the deadly rabies virus, turning it into a tool that can cross the synaptic space of a targeted nerve cell just once to identify all the neurons to which it is directly connected.
With luck and given time, neural science researchers will be able to map all of the connections in the human brain, which will lead to a better understanding of how the brain--and hopefully, human thought and sensory perception--works.
The Salk researchers identified the connections by modifying the deadly rabies virus, turning it into a tool that can cross the synaptic space of a targeted nerve cell just once to identify all the neurons to which it is directly connected.
With luck and given time, neural science researchers will be able to map all of the connections in the human brain, which will lead to a better understanding of how the brain--and hopefully, human thought and sensory perception--works.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
The Debate on the HPV Vaccine
A lot of fuss has been made recently about Merck's new vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), GARDASIL®. Legislation has been proposed in several states mandating the HPV vaccine, which has caused an uproar for various reasons.
One of the concerns is that making a vaccine mandatory is a big decision that the government would be making for people, leaving them no choice. I can't, personally, think of any reason why a woman might decide that she'd rather just take her chances with cancer, but I suppose there are people who would make that decision. The question becomes, should we let them? Or should we put together a program where the vaccine is freely available, but make it an opt-in situation?
Another major reason people have objected is because, it turns out, the main group pushing these legislative actions has been a lobbying firm employed by Merck, who stands to make a sizeable profit off this vaccine, even if it doesn't become mandatory... but an even bigger profit if it does.
My feeling on this latter reason--Merck making huge profits--is this: good for them. Why should we care if somebody makes a profit? They put a lot of time and resources into developing this vaccine. And let's keep something else in mind here: they developed a vaccine that can prevent cervical cancer in many cases. According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, in 2002 nearly 4,000 women died from cervical cancer and more than 12,000 others were diagnosed with the disease. Merck has invented a product with the ability to save thousands of lives every year, with three separate shots costing about $120 each.
So think about any girl or young woman you know between the ages of 9 and 26 and ask yourself this... is $360 a fair price to pay for a 70% chance of preventing HPV and reducing the risk of cervical cancer?
One of the concerns is that making a vaccine mandatory is a big decision that the government would be making for people, leaving them no choice. I can't, personally, think of any reason why a woman might decide that she'd rather just take her chances with cancer, but I suppose there are people who would make that decision. The question becomes, should we let them? Or should we put together a program where the vaccine is freely available, but make it an opt-in situation?
Another major reason people have objected is because, it turns out, the main group pushing these legislative actions has been a lobbying firm employed by Merck, who stands to make a sizeable profit off this vaccine, even if it doesn't become mandatory... but an even bigger profit if it does.
My feeling on this latter reason--Merck making huge profits--is this: good for them. Why should we care if somebody makes a profit? They put a lot of time and resources into developing this vaccine. And let's keep something else in mind here: they developed a vaccine that can prevent cervical cancer in many cases. According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, in 2002 nearly 4,000 women died from cervical cancer and more than 12,000 others were diagnosed with the disease. Merck has invented a product with the ability to save thousands of lives every year, with three separate shots costing about $120 each.
So think about any girl or young woman you know between the ages of 9 and 26 and ask yourself this... is $360 a fair price to pay for a 70% chance of preventing HPV and reducing the risk of cervical cancer?
Shuttle Launch Delayed
The U.S. Space Shuttles are fragile beasts, with (so far) a catastrophic failure rate of about 1-in-60. For that reason, NASA takes even small amounts of damage to the shuttles very seriously.
When a severe storm pounded Florida a couple of days ago, Atlantis was already sitting on the launch pad, and consequently the foam protecting its external fuel tank was damaged by severe hail. Since degraded foam doomed Columbia a few years ago, NASA has taken damage to the foam protectant very seriously.
As a result, NASA has decided to roll the shuttle back into the Vehicle Assembly Building to repair the damage, which will result in a roughly six week delay in launching the shuttle (they cannot launch to the ISS while the crews are being changed out due to traffic congestion). So the new expected launch date for Atlantis will be in late April.
By the way, I'm not an expert on launch pad processes, but it seems to me that rolling the shuttle out to the pad a month before launch is just asking for this kind of trouble. This isn't the first time NASA has had to delay a launch because of something like this. I know they get to have drills and practice the launch a couple of times by having the launcher on the pad, but do they really need a month to do all of that, or could they be server by having it out 7-10 days before launch?
When a severe storm pounded Florida a couple of days ago, Atlantis was already sitting on the launch pad, and consequently the foam protecting its external fuel tank was damaged by severe hail. Since degraded foam doomed Columbia a few years ago, NASA has taken damage to the foam protectant very seriously.
As a result, NASA has decided to roll the shuttle back into the Vehicle Assembly Building to repair the damage, which will result in a roughly six week delay in launching the shuttle (they cannot launch to the ISS while the crews are being changed out due to traffic congestion). So the new expected launch date for Atlantis will be in late April.
By the way, I'm not an expert on launch pad processes, but it seems to me that rolling the shuttle out to the pad a month before launch is just asking for this kind of trouble. This isn't the first time NASA has had to delay a launch because of something like this. I know they get to have drills and practice the launch a couple of times by having the launcher on the pad, but do they really need a month to do all of that, or could they be server by having it out 7-10 days before launch?
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