Everyone already knows that romantic love requires sexual attraction, that’s a given. The second component is almost as well known. It’s called attachment, and its part of the show in both romantic and all other kinds of love, including love within families. Attachment is found in other mammal besides us humans: our cats Mischa and Wolfie have become attached to me and my wife, and we are attached to them.
Attachment gives a physical sense of a connection to the beloved. The most obvious cues to attachment are missing the beloved when they are away, and contentment when they return. Loss of that person invokes deep sadness and grief. Another less reliable cue is the sense of having always known a person whom we have just met. This feeling can be intense when it occurs, but it also may be completely absent.
Attachment accounts for an otherwise puzzling aspect of “love”: one can “love” someone that one doesn’t even like. (…)
Finally, there is a third component that is much more complex and subtle than attraction or attachment. It has to do with the lover sharing the thoughts and feelings of the beloved. The lover identifies with the loved person at times, to the point of actually sharing their thoughts their feelings. He or she feels their pain at these times, or joy, or any other feeling, as if it were her or his own. Two people can be attuned, at least at times, to each others’ thoughts and feeling.
It is important to note however, that to qualify as genuine love, the sharing need be balanced between self and other. One shares the others thoughts and feelings as much as one’s own, no more and no less. (…)
The definition of romantic love proposed here involves three components, the three A’s: Attraction, Attachment, and Attunement.
Serial killers just aren’t the sensation they used to be. They haven’t disappeared, of course. But the number of serial murders seems to be dwindling, as does the public’s fascination with them. the data we do have suggests serial murders peaked in the 1980s and have been declining ever since.
There are plenty of structural explanations for the rise of reported serial murders through the 1980s. Data collection and record-keeping improved, making it easier to find cases of serial murder. Law enforcement developed more sophisticated methods of investigation, enabling police to identify linkages between cases—especially across states—that they would have otherwise ignored. The media’s growing obsession with serial killers in the 1970s and ’80s may have created a minor snowball effect, offering a short path to celebrity.
But those factors don’t explain away the decline in serial murders since 1990.
When an atomic bomb explodes, several things happen in short order. First is a flood of “prompt” radiation created by the nuclear fission that produces the explosion. The good news — if you can call it that — is that if you are close enough to get a lethal dose of prompt radiation, you’re close enough that you’re likely to be killed by other bomb effects before it becomes an issue. Next comes the “flash,” a brilliant pulse of light created as the air around the bomb is heated to millions of degrees; this starts out as ultraviolet, falls quickly into the visible light range, and then into the heat-ray infrared range within a few seconds. The flash can blind, or burn exposed skin, and start fires. Next comes the blast, as the superheated air expands outward, initially at supersonic speeds. The blast is dangerous on its own, and also because it crushes buildings and creates clouds of flying glass and debris.
Given that light travels almost instantaneously, for everyone outside the immediate vicinity of the bomb the flash will arrive before the blast. Furthermore, the fire-setting infrared part of the flash peaks a few seconds later than the initial burst of light. So those who see a brilliant flash of light — and know what it means — have a few seconds to get under some sort of cover to protect themselves from what comes next.
After these “prompt effects” of initial radiation, flash, and blast have passed, there is an additional hazard. A nuclear explosion sucks air, dust — and, if it’s close to the ground, vaporized soil, buildings, etc. — up into the fireball, where some components are transformed into radioactive isotopes that then fall out of the cloud and back to earth over the next few hours, hence the term “fallout.” (…)
So the Obama Administration wants to encourage people to shelter in place rather than head for the hills in the event of a nuclear attack. Even sheltering for a few hours, or a couple of days, lets radiation levels fall dramatically and avoids road tie-ups for later evacuation.
related { Pica is the craving or ingestion of nonfood items. The cravings found in patients diagnosed with pica may be associated with a nutritional deficiency state, such as iron-deficiency anemia; with pregnancy; or with mental retardation or mental illness. The word pica is derived from the Latin word for magpie, a species of bird that feeds on whatever it encounters. | Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders }
There are now roughly 2 billion Internet users worldwide. Five billion earthlings have cell phones. That scale of connectivity offers staggering power: In a few seconds, we can summon almost any fact, purchase a replacement hubcap or locate a cabin mate from those halcyon days at Camp Tewonga. We can call, email, text or chat online with our colleagues, friends and family just about anywhere.
Yet, along with the power has come the feeling that digital devices have invaded our every waking moment. We’ve had to pass laws to get people off their cell phones while driving. Backlit iPads slither into our beds for midnight Words With Friends trysts. Sitcoms poke fun at breakfast tables where siblings text each other to ask that the butter be passed. (According to a Nielsen study, the average 13- to 17-year-old now deals with 3,339 texts a month.)
We even buy new technology to cure new problems created by new technology: There’s an iPhone app that uses the device’s built-in camera to show the ground in front of a user as a backdrop on the keypad. “Have you ever tried calling someone while walking with your phone only to run into something because you can’t see where you’re going?” goes the sales pitch. (…)
A growing number of researchers here and elsewhere are exploring the social and psychological consequences of virtual experience and digital incursion. Researchers observe the blurring boundaries between real and virtual life, challenge the vaunted claims of multitasking, and ponder whether people need to establish technology-free zones.
One in five teenagers in America can’t hear rustles or whispers, according to a study published in August in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
These teenagers exhibit what’s known as slight hearing loss, which means they often can’t make out consonants like T’s or K’s, or the plinking of raindrops. The word “talk” can sound like “aw.”
The number of teenagers with hearing loss — from slight to severe — has jumped 33 percent since 1994.
Many researchers attribute this widespread hearing loss to exposure to sound played loudly and regularly through headphones. (Earbuds, in particular, don’t cancel as much noise from outside as do headphones that rest on or around the ear, so earbud users typically listen at higher volume to drown out interference.)
The number of financial fraud cases put before the UK’s courts reached record levels in 2010, a report suggests. (…)
KPMG also highlighted the case of a group of men who were accused of using stolen credit card details to buy their own songs on iTunes, generating almost half a million pounds in royalties.
The men targeted the Apple and Amazon sites with 20 songs which they sold through the websites.
It is thought they then stole approximately 1,500 credit cards to buy the songs, and claimed back just under £469,000 in royalties.
Misfolded proteins are bad news. Not only are they involved in a number of nasty diseases, they also place potentially severe constraints on evolution. As we’ve discussed before, evolution depends on the ability to survive and function in the face of mutations.
A mutation that causes misfolding, so that instead of a nice functional protein you get gunk, causes a number of important problems. First, you’ve wasted all your effort in transcribing an mRNA from a gene, and then translating the mRNA to produce a protein. Second, you still have to make another one. Third, you have to get rid of the gunk, otherwise it may clog up essential functions
How large a problem is a misfolded protein for the cell, and what matters more, the diversion of protein production capacity or the need to get rid of the gunk? A recent paper from Allan Drummond’s lab reports the results of a determined and careful effort to find out.
Sometime in late 2011, according to the UN Population Division, there will be seven billion of us. (…)
Leeuwenhoek concluded there couldn’t be more than 13.385 billion people on Earth—a small number indeed compared with the 150 billion sperm cells of a single codfish! This cheerful little calculation, writes population biologist Joel Cohen in his book How Many People Can the Earth Support?, may have been the first attempt to give a quantitative answer to a question that has become far more pressing now than it was in the 17th century. Most answers these days are far from cheerful.
And the explosion, though it is slowing, is far from over. Not only are people living longer, but so many women across the world are now in their childbearing years—1.8 billion—that the global population will keep growing for another few decades at least. (…)
With the population still growing by about 80 million each year, it’s hard not to be alarmed. Right now on Earth, water tables are falling, soil is eroding, glaciers are melting, and fish stocks are vanishing. Close to a billion people go hungry each day. Decades from now, there will likely be two billion more mouths to feed, mostly in poor countries. There will be billions more people wanting and deserving to boost themselves out of poverty. If they follow the path blazed by wealthy countries—clearing forests, burning coal and oil, freely scattering fertilizers and pesticides—they too will be stepping hard on the planet’s natural resources. How exactly is this going to work?
Also known as “Papa Doc,” Francois Duvalier was President for Life of Haiti until 1971. Among other things, Papa Doc claimed to be the Voodoo spirit of death, Baron Samedi. This kind of hubris is exactly what you want in your elected officials.
After a heart attack plunged him into a nine-hour coma in 1959 that left him with massive brain damage, things kind of went downhill. He demanded that his temporary successor, Clement Barbot, be arrested, but when they couldn’t find Barbot, Papa Doc’s people told him that they believed he had transformed into a large black dog.
Understandably, Papa Doc ordered the deaths of all black dogs, because as we have mentioned, he was fucking insane. Eventually Barbot was caught and executed, and Papa Doc kept his head. You know, for Voodoo.
In 1961, he ordered new elections despite the fact that his “term” wasn’t up until 1963. The move completely baffled everybody until the results of the election, which saw Papa Doc win with 100 percent of the votes.
Papa Doc eventually died in 1971 of natural causes, but not before telling the world that he alone was responsible for John F. Kennedy’s assassination by way of a Voodoo curse. He even sent someone to Kennedy’s grave to collect the air around it so he could use it in a spell to control Kennedy’s soul. By all accounts, Voodoo is kind of awesome.
Cannibalism is part of the great cultural legacies of our species. In times past, for instance, we would eat our honoured dead to gain their wisdom.
In medieval times, it was believed that memories were stored in the cerebrospinal fluid. Sadly, it seems that memory cannot be transferred biochemically. (…)
In the Polynesian islands, human meat has always been known as “long pig,” because people taste like pork.
The slasher horror film has been the subject of frequent criticism based on the assumption that female characters in these films are more likely to be the victims of serious, graphic violence that is juxtaposed with explicit sexual imagery. The purpose of this study was to address limitations inherent in previous analyses of slasher films and examine whether gender differences exist in the nature of violent presentations. A content analysis of several indicators of violent and sexual content was conducted using a random sample of 50 slasher films that were released in North America between 1960 and 2007. Findings suggested that there are several significant gender differences in the nature of violent presentations found in slasher films. In general, female characters were more likely to be victims of less serious and graphic forms of violence, but were also significantly more likely to be victimized in scenes involving a concomitant presentation of sex and violence.
If a plagiarist plagiarizes from an author who herself has plagiarized, do we call it a wash and go for a beer?
That scenario is precisely what Steven L. Shafer found himself facing recently. Shafer, editor-in-chief of Anesthesia & Analgesia (A&A), learned that authors of a 2008 case report in his publication had lifted two-and-a-half paragraphs of text from a 2004 paper published in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia.
A contrite retraction letter, which appears in the December issue of A&A, from the lead author, Sushma Bhatnagar, of New Delhi, India, called the plagiarism “unintended” and apologized for the incident. Straightforward enough.
But then things get sticky. Amazingly, the December issue of A&A also retracts a 2010 manuscript by Turkish researchers who, according to Shafer, plagiarized from at least five other published papers—one of which happens to have been a 2008 article by Bhatnagar in the Journal of Palliative Medicine. (…)
Shafer said his journal is now running every submitted manuscript through CrossCheck, a copy-checking system that allows editors and publishers to screen papers for signs of plagiarism.
Many drivers enjoy the so-called “new car smell,” a mix of volatile organic compounds that rise from the plastic, leather, cloth, wood and other interior components of cars fresh off the assembly line. The aroma is so popular that some companies even sell “new car smell” air fresheners. But is “new car smell” intoxicating?
That appears likely to be an element of the defense of a Colorado driver charged in a hit-and-run accident, according to court documents filed this week, The Vail Daily News reports. The driver, Martin Joel Erzinger, a financial manager, allegedly fled the scene of a crash with a cyclist in July.
The “new car smell” from a month-old Mercedes-Benz may have contributed to Mr. Erzinger’s losing consciousness before the accident, his lawyers say.
The seemingly novel defense has been raised by an “accident reconstructionist” hired by Mr. Erzinger’s lawyers. They contend that Mr. Erzinger suffered from sleep apnea and dozed off at the wheel before driving off the road and striking the cyclist. (…)
When the local police arrested him, the police records say, he was placing a broken side mirror and a damaged bumper in his trunk.
The question now, as humanity pours greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, is not whether Antarctica will begin to warm in earnest, but how rapidly. The melting of Antarctica’s northernmost region — the Antarctic Peninsula — is already well underway, representing the first breach in an enormous citadel of cold that holds 90 percent of the world’s ice.
Repetition is used everywhere—advertising, politics and the media—but does it really persuade us?
It seems too simplistic that just repeating a persuasive message should increase its effect, but that’s exactly what psychological research finds (again and again). Repetition is one of the easiest and most widespread methods of persuasion. In fact it’s so obvious that we sometimes forget how powerful it is.
People rate statements that have been repeated just once as more valid or true than things they’ve heard for the first time. (…)
Easy to understand = true
This is what psychologists call the illusion of truth effect and it arises at least partly because familiarity breeds liking. As we are exposed to a message again and again, it becomes more familiar. Because of the way our minds work, what is familiar is also true. Familiar things require less effort to process and that feeling of ease unconsciously signals truth (this is called cognitive fluency). (…)
Repetition is effective almost across the board when people are paying little attention, but when they are concentrating and the argument is weak, the effect disappears (Moons et al., 2008). In other words, it’s no good repeating a weak argument to people who are listening carefully.
