Slate tells us: “Surgeons are removing brain tumors through patients’ noses”. Does this remind you of anything?

Where will they remove things through next?

Slate has an article detailing how women are more likely to cave under pressure than men. The evidence is that women make more unforced errors when playing tennis as the score gets tight; men do not show this effect.

Other interesting evidence: men perform better when competing against anyone, but women only perform better when competing against women. In competition with men, women perform the same as if doing the task alone.

The article does not address whether this is due to innate sexual differences, cultural training or something unique to professional tennis players.

Ars Technica reports that scientists have discovered a single gene responsible for two distinct types of insect vision. Insects divide the eye into multiple lenses. In the first type, receptors in each lens combine into a single signal sent to the brain. This design is present in older species and allows for more accurate vision.

The second type does not combine the signal. Each eye sends multiple, differing signals for the brain to process independently. Newer insect species like fruit flies use this design. It allows vision across a broader spectrum of light intensity. Insects will develop this type of eye if the “Spam” gene is expressed during their development.

Insect vision is interesting because each lens in the eye more or less corresponds to a single pixel. Some species have thousands (Dragonflies have 30,000 lenses). Others have as few as one; the workers in many species of ants have around 10.

It is impressive that eyesight is worthwhile when you only have 10 pixels. Whereas you or I would see this an ant must suffice with the following:. I guess that explains why flowers use the vibrant colors they do!

Of further interest is the fact that, concerning vision, accuracy is less important than versatility — or at least the latter is harder to evolve. I do not know any clear answer, but a plausible explanation exists.

When vision was new the few species that had this ability would compete with each other. These species had similar patterns of behavior. They all saw similar things in similar locations in similar situations. To get ahead they had to alter their behavior (to see in new locations and situations) or see more, better things within that same behavior. It was easier to refine performance within the same behavior. Most species took this route.

Eventually this route filled up. The accurate vision niche was saturated; countless species of creatures could see — and see accurately. But the rest of the gene pool did not lie stagnant. Creatures diversified into different forms of behavior too. So the next largest niche available was for creatures who could see earlier, later and in darker places. Species already predisposed to this expanded activity in darker places and/or across longer hours probably developed the Spam gene to enhance their gains from this distinct behavior.

Podcast version.

The holy grail of psychology is discovering the key to consciousness. Consciousness is what takes a bunch of external influences and organizes them into a stream of experience around a unified identity; it is how we experience things personally, the birthplace of the “I”. Unfortunately we know next to nothing about it.

We know consciousness does not rely on the majority of the physical body. I can cut off your arm or leg — even gouge out an eye or two. You will have little trouble considering yourself the same person. You can also destroy significant parts of your brain through surgery, seizure, injury or any other means without sacrificing your sense of self. I can call out your name: you will still answer (assuming you are capable of both hearing and responding to my call).

However damaging other parts of the brain — parts that are often physically small — is catastrophic. Without these functioning areas of the brain, you cease to be. Your body may well remain alive — and your mind active — but you no longer experience the world through your body from a first person perspective. The ghost no longer inhabits the shell.

At present, we understanding almost nothing about our high consciousness came to be, how it works, or where it resides.

For their part, philosophers attempt to elaborate on why consciousness is so special. There is a great example around 16 minutes into the September 30th, 2006 episode of the Philosopher’s Zone. Here the speaker contrasts how a camera experiences vision versus you or I.

Both you and the camera start with the same information. You receive the same input of light waves. You are both capable of distinguishing red light from blue, dark from light. But from here we do vastly different things with than information than will a camera.

There are millions of photoelectric diodes inside a camera. They roughly correspond to the many rods and cones in our retina. While the individual diodes are equally capable to our rods and cones, the individual inputs never become part of a unified whole. The camera gathers the data into a serialized summation. Every picture looks like this one. The camera never sees anything more than millions of colors.

We are unique because we experience the image personally. Instead of colors, we see objects. And the objects we see — including how prominently we see them — vary from person to person. If you have recently pierced your nose or want a nose job, you will likely see a very different version (this is why you see your car everywhere after you bought it; why a 65 pound anorexic adult looks in the mirror and sees a horribly fat person).

We take our experiences in the world and live out a personalized version in our own mind. A camera will only see the world at face value.

Awhile back Robert Wright interviewed Lorenzo Albacete, an ex-Physicist turned Theologist and Catholic University president. He makes an amazing point: while science can explain how things work the way they do, science does nothing to answer the question of why. Science — at least in its present form — is not capable of addressing these problems.

Science explains things in a completely different way to the way we personally experience them. The last chapter in Phantoms of the Brain — Do Martians See Red? — addresses this conundrum. Science can explain how we see things — the cells in our eyes that respond to specific frequencies of light that then enter our brain and excite other cells that activate other cells that have stored the concept of red. But this is categorically different to how we actually see red; Science explains everything from bee dancing to color vision the way a deaf person would explain the experience of listening to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

Some people suffer strokes that make them blind. They say they cannot “see” anything. Ask them to put a paper into a slot that is either horizontal or vertical, studies show that a few will succeed every time. These people “see” in one sense of the term, but they damaged enough of their brain to render them incapable of experiencing seeing. These people are visual automatons.

Why do we not do everything in this automaton fashion? Why do we stand resolute, insisting against all evidence: “I exist. I am. Cogito ergo sum“?

Science cannot answer these questions. Science is not interested in these questions. Science simply concludes, “because”. Things exist; we exist; we see red; we love; this is how the world works; end of question; lets stick to answering how does all this work, how did things come to be…

But I am not here just because.

Yes, my body is here because of my parent’s DNA, the laws of Physics, the need for life to beget life.

Yes, my mind is here because of the endorphins, electrons and chemicals swirling around my brain and body.

But I am not my body.

I am not mind.

I am me. Myself.

My soul.

No one can take this away from me. No one can give this to me. It is completely personal. I created it for myself. It is made by me, for me, of me. Simply,

me.

Bill O’Reilly’s Friday Talking Points Memo asserts that our governments exist in order to protect us. This is a terrible idea because gives government officials all the wrong motivations.

A government that exists to protect us is a government that needs fear for its mandate. Job security depends on us being afraid. It is in their interest not to solve problems — or keep increasing the scope of our fears — to keep us afraid.

Creepy. Reflect on this and Remember the Fifth of November.

A man has an accident and loses his ability to urinate while standing. He demands a penis transplant to restore his God-given right to pee. The psychological acceptance went poorly — partly because the wife rejected the new member. Perhaps she preferred him to sit?

Everyone needs to develop the skills to detect frauds.  Especially fraudulent science, which the public general grants an aura of magic.  The Chronicle details seven warning signs of bogus science:

The most important discovery of modern medicine is not vaccines or antibiotics, it is the randomized double-blind test, by means of which we know what works and what doesn’t. Contrary to the saying, “data” is not the plural of “anecdote.”

Apply this skill to sensationalist stories about MacBook’s wireless security.

From Slate

In the hunter-gatherer era, if we didn’t find food, we died. In the agricultural era, if our crops perished, we died. In the industrial era, famine receded, but infectious diseases killed us. Now we’ve achieved such control over nature that we’re dying not of starvation or infection, but of abundance. Nature isn’t killing us. We’re killing ourselves. 

Nor is this just a problem in America. Obseity is a global problem.

[For] every two people who are malnourished, three are now overweight or obese 

We need to address this issue.