Great minds think (too much) alike

Jul 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Is the web narrowing scientists’ expertise?

ONLINE databases of scientific journals have made life easier for
scientists as well as publishers. No more ambling down to the library,
searching through the musty stacks and queuing up for the photocopier.
Instead, a few clicks of a mouse can bring forth the desired papers
and maybe others that the reader did not know of—the “long tail” of
information that the web makes available.

Well, that is how it is supposed to work, but does it? James Evans, a
sociologist at the University of Chicago, decided to investigate. His
conclusion, published in this week’s Science, is that the opposite is
happening. He has found that as more journals become available online,
fewer articles are being cited in the reference lists of the research
papers published within them. Moreover, those articles that do get a
mention tend to have been recently published themselves. Far from
growing longer, the long tail is being docked.

Drug abuse accounts for a third of the deaths behind Scotland's higher
mortality rate

Drug abuse accounts for a third of the deaths behind Scotland's higher
mortality rate, according to a study published on bmj.com today.

Death rates in Scotland are higher than in England and Wales and the
difference between the nations is increasing. Traditionally this has
been blamed on the higher levels of deprivation in Scotland. Yet over
half the difference between Scottish and English deaths cannot be
accounted for by higher levels of deprivation. This puzzling "excess"
of Scottish deaths has become referred to as the "Scottish effect."

Professor Bloor and colleagues from the University of Glasgow,
analysed how many of these unaccounted-for deaths were the result of
drug abuse.

They say that the published data on "drug related deaths" in Scotland
is properly and purposely restrictive because only deaths which are a
direct result of the pharmacological effect of taking an illegal drug
i.e. an overdose, are counted. This, they argue, inadvertently hides a
much wider problem of deaths linked to drug taking such as blood borne
infections, suicide and violent assaults.

To actually get your visual system to carry out this computation
requires "perceptually walking through the circuit" from the inputs
downward to the output. (Credit: Rensselaer/Changizi)
ScienceDaily (July 24, 2008) — Since the idea of using DNA to create
faster, smaller, and more powerful computers originated in 1994,
scientists have been scrambling to develop successful ways to use
genetic code for computation. Now, new research from a professor at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute suggests that if we want to carry out
artificial computations, all we have to do is literally look around.

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science Mark Changizi has begun to
develop a technique to turn our eyes and visual system into a
programmable computer. His findings are reported in the latest issue
of the journal Perception.

Harnessing the computing power of our visual system, according to
Changizi, requires visually representing a computer program in such a
way that when an individual views the representation, the visual
system naturally carries out the computation and generates a
perception.

Snooping requests soar to half million 12:13PM, Wednesday 23rd July
2008

A surveillance report has revealed that requests by public bodies to
intercept communications soared to over half a million in 2007.
The information was revealed in a report presented by the Interception
of Communications Commissioner, Sir Paul Kennedy, who discovered that
requests for information on private telephone calls and emails in 2007
amounted to more than 1,400 a day, or 519,260 over the course of the
year.

The figure represents a dramatic increase on the 350,000 average in
the previous two years.

Despite the increase, Kennedy believes "local authorities could make
much more use of communications data as a powerful tool to investigate
crime."

see

http://www.dur.ac.uk/gustav.kuhn/Kuhn_et_al_2007/material.htm

Socially awkward? Hit the books
HAYLEY MICK

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

July 10, 2008 at 9:14 AM EDT

For a good chunk of the summer, 17-year-old Charlotte Spafford plans
to hole up in her room so the words of author Toni Morrison can
transport her deep into the American South. Not exactly a sure-fire
way to enhance her teenage social life - or is it?

A group of Toronto researchers have compiled a body of evidence
showing that bookworms have exceptionally strong people skills.

Their years of research - summed up in the current issue of New
Scientist magazine - has shown readers of narrative fiction scored
higher on tests of empathy and social acumen than those who read non-
fiction texts. And follow-up research showed that reading fiction may
help fine-tune these skills: People assigned to read a New Yorker
short story did better on social reasoning tests than those who read
an essay from the same magazine.

Mind Matters - July 22, 2008

Tough Choices: How Making Decisions Tires Your Brain
The brain is like a muscle: when it gets depleted, it becomes less
effective.
By On Amir

The human mind is a remarkable device. Nevertheless, it is not without
limits.
Recently, a growing body of research has focused on a particular
mental
limitation, which has to do with our ability to use...

Understanding How Neurons Communicate May Help Treat Brain Disorders
ScienceDaily (July 21, 2008) - For the first time, Weill Cornell
scientists have
learned important details illustrating how neuronal cells in the brain
communicate at a microcellular level. Such knowledge may help in the
development
of drug compounds used to treat disorders caused by malfunctions in
communication between brain cells, such as schizophrenia, epilepsy,
Parkinson's
and Alzheimer's disease.

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 646-654 (August 2008) | doi:10.1038/
nrn2456

Culture-sensitive neural substrates of human cognition: a
transcultural
neuroimaging approach
Shihui Han & Georg Northoff

NYT
July 22, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Madness and Shame
By BOB HERBERT

You want a scary thought? Imagine a fanatic in the mold of Dick Cheney
but without the vice president’s sense of humor.

In her important new book, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the
War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” Jane Mayer of The
New Yorker devotes a great deal of space to David Addington, Dick
Cheney’s main man and the lead architect of the Bush administration’s
legal strategy for the so-called war on terror.

She quotes a colleague as saying of Mr. Addington: “No one stood to
his right.” Colin Powell, a veteran of many bruising battles with Mr.
Cheney, was reported to have summed up Mr. Addington as follows: “He
doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”