Senator Al Franken on Medical Bankruptcies

Workout notes Yoga class; maybe the stepper over lunch.

Late Night Thoughts…or Early Morning…

Yes, my knee is straight:

Why do sleepy heads forget stuff? The molecule that is affected is isolated.

Yoga in a political commercial?

Politics Rep. Grayson takes on legislation aimed at ACORN:

In other words, you can’t pass legislation aimed to punish a specific organization; this power should be held by the judicial branch.

Atheist Billboard in Chicago

Ok, pretty run-of-the-mill, right? This is no more pushy…in fact, far LESS pushy than billboards which advertise churches right? After all, it is ok to let others know that they are not alone, right?

Well, some are NOT ok with it.

But apparently, that’s not how everyone sees it…

I wonder why a group of self-proclaimed atheists would feel the need to push their point of view onto others? Is this not one of the fundamental problems with established religion? How is your organization furthering the atheist agenda? Let’s face it, you’re just trying to incite anger. Why don’t you do us all a favor and keep your non-beliefs to yourself, just as I would like established religion to keep to themselves.

If we wanted to incite anger, there’s a whole slew of other slogans we could have used. This one was the least offensive out there.

…

There seems to be three words left off. The billboard should read: “Are you good without God? Millions are — until the judgment.

WTF?

By the way, I see nothing wrong with churches putting up billboards.

But if people WANT to be offended:

(note: this is photoshop and NOT a real sign. But THAT is what a provocative sign looks like).

Speaking of religion, which one (if any) should you join?

21 October 09, PM edition

Late day at work…

Are spiders really that different from humans?

Male spiders that saunter onto a female’s web after a rival has spent hours wooing her can quickly copulate without being prematurely eaten by the female. This tactic could lead to small spider suitors seeking out competition with larger rival spiders rather than avoiding it, Canadian researchers say.

The Australian redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti), a member of the black widow family, has a particularly deadly mating ritual. It is one of only a handful of spider species in which the males willingly and actively assist the females with sexual cannibalism — in which the female consumes the male after copulation. In the process of mating, the tiny redback male, whose 4-millimetre body is dwarfed by that of the centimetre-long female, inserts one of his two penis-like organs into one of the female’s two sperm-storage sacs. The male then somersaults to place his abdomen over the female’s mouthparts, and the female starts eating him as they mate.

The male is eventually completely consumed, but first, the female makes one of two choices. Either she lets the male inseminate her other sperm-storage sac, enabling him to father all her offspring before polishing him off; or, in an act of premature cannibalism, she gobbles him up then and there and waits for another mate. This decision, show Jeff Stoltz and Maydianne Andrade of the University of Toronto Scarborough in Ontario, Canada, depends on the length of time that the male spends courting the female before copulation commences.

Oh my, it looks grim for the male, right?

The researchers then staged competitions in which they allowed solitary males to get past the first phase of courtship and make contact, then introduced intruder males (see video). These latecomers, Stoltz and Andrade report in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, could then mate after only 20-50 minutes of wooing without being prematurely eaten, thereby allowing less-fit males to get one up on their stronger rivals.

“It’s a very sneaky tactic that males are employing here to get around having to expend any energy in courting these females,” says Stoltz. “Females are unable or unwilling to discriminate the source of the courtship, and that provides the opportunity for other males to circumvent female choice.”

In other words, sex for less effort. Hey, the males are still eaten, but not prematurely.

Academia: if you write letters of recommendation, please avoid this pitfal:

In a standard letter of recommendation at the postdoc/faculty level, there is frequently a comparison to other successful scientists. The letter usually reads something like “reminds me of person X, Y, or Z at a similar level of their career” or “shows the same persistence and insight as person Q, and stronger big picture thinking than person P”. These comparisons are almost always favorable, saying that the applicant is in the same league as other people who are recognized as having had a significant scientific impact.

But, for some reason, some fraction of letter writers insist upon doing these comparisons only within a single gender, when the applicant is a woman. In other words, “(woman) X shows a similar level of insight as (woman) Y and (woman) Z”. I’m not saying that these comparisons are not favorable — they’re usually comparing a strong female applicant favorably with other successful female scientists. Their praise is genuine and well meant. However, one can’t but help perceive that they see women as somehow swimming in a different pool than the rest of the guys.

21 October 09

Workout notes 1.5 miles on the “elliptical” stepper; I felt it (calf) start to twinge so I quit (right around 20 minutes). Then I went to the new gadget and did more up and down motion; painless (another 1.5 miles); total time was 37 minutes.

Then 2200 yards in the pool: 500 of alt 25 free/25 back (under 10), 500 of alt 25 side, 25 back (way under 10), 5 x 200 on the 3:30 (3:21, 20, 18, 22, 18); not my best day. Then 200 cool down via 25 side kick (drill), 25 swim with fins.

Fitness Fun: Another sassy triathlon post from Celtic Rose with another OBS.

There are many other posts of this type; I wonder if she offers subscriptions?

Update: Here is a “wink” from a fast racewalker.

She also pointed us to the following New York Times article:

Training: I often “cool down” after a hard workout. Is that necessary?

The science is far from settled:

the cool-down is enshrined in training lore. It’s in physiology textbooks, personal trainers often insist on it, fitness magazines tell you that you must do it — and some exercise equipment at gyms automatically includes it. You punch in the time you want to work out on the machine and when your time is up, the machine automatically reduces the workload and continues for five minutes so you can cool down.

The problem, says Hirofumi Tanaka, an exercise physiologist at the University of Texas, Austin, is that there is pretty much no science behind the cool-down advice.

The cool-down, Dr. Tanaka said, “is an understudied topic.”

”Everyone thinks it’s an established fact,” he added, “so they don’t study it.”

It’s not even clear what a cool-down is supposed to be. Some say you just have to keep moving for a few minutes — walking to your car after you finish a run rather than stopping abruptly and standing there. Others say you have to spend 5 to 10 minutes doing the same exercise, only slowly. Jog after your run, then transition into a walk. Still others say that a cool-down should include stretching.

And it’s not clear what the cool-down is supposed to do. Some say it alleviates muscle soreness. Others say it prevents muscle tightness or relieves strain on the heart.

Exercise researchers say there is only one agreed-on fact about the possible risk of suddenly stopping intense exercise. When you exercise hard, the blood vessels in your legs are expanded to send more blood to your legs and feet. And your heart is pumping fast. If you suddenly stop, your heart slows down, your blood is pooled in your legs and feet, and you can feel dizzy, even pass out.

The best athletes are most vulnerable, said Dr. Paul Thompson, a cardiologist and marathon runner who is an exercise researcher at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.

“If you are well trained, your heart rate is slow already, and it slows down even faster with exercise,” he said. “Also, there are bigger veins with a large capacity to pool blood in your legs.”

Politics
President Obama speaks to Organizing For America:

(36 minutes)

Fox News: they claim that the public says that they are the most balanced. They ignore recent polls.

There is some optimism for a public option of some sort. This is why. Of course, this is yet another example of the facts having a liberal bias, as Paul Krugman points out:

Serious students of health care have known for a long time that the magic of the marketplace doesn’t work in health care; the United States has the most privatized health-care system in the advanced world, and also the least efficient. The pale reflection of this reality in the current discussion is that reform with a strong public option is cheaper than reform without — which means that as we get closer to really doing something, rhetoric about socialism fades out, and that $100 billion or so in projected savings starts to look awfully attractive.

It has also been clear from international evidence that universality is cheaper than leaving a few people expensively without care. That’s reflected now in the projected savings from a strong employer mandate.

News of the weird: a robber stops to pray with those he is robbing. Belief in a deity does NOT make one moral!

20 October 09

Workout notes 2200 yard swim (leaky goggles?), 500 of free/back (just over 1 min. per lap), 500 of side/free (well under 1 minute per lap), 5 x (25 front, 75 free) on the 2 (1:52 mostly, one 1:58), 500 (25 drill, 25 free, fins), 200 fly kick drills (no stroke)

Then yoga with Ms. Nancy, then elliptical (3.16 miles in 30 minutes); painless.

Posts

“I don’t know”.

Diet: saturated fat can make you hungrier:

When you’ve spent the weekend splurging on greasy fast foods, your bathroom scale isn’t alone in reeling from the impact. Your brain does, too. New research shows just how saturated fat tricks us into eating more and elucidates the evolutionary basis for the propensity for poundage in developed nations. Our brain physiology, it seems, is glaringly out-of-date in the modern world.

Researchers have long known that the hormones leptin and insulin play key roles in appetite and food intake. In healthy people leptin, which is secreted by fat tissue, acts as a molecular measuring tape for our waistlines, quashing feelings of hunger. Insulin spikes when the pancreas gets a whiff of the blood sugar increase after a meal; once the brain detects the spike, it knows to tamp down the desire for food.

Certain foods and metabolic disorders, however, can disrupt our ability to respond appropriately to these hormonal signals. In a study published in the September issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, scientists report unraveling a central biochemical mechanism behind fat’s effect on the mammalian brain . They found that after only three days on a diet high in saturated fat—a common ingredient in beef and cheese—the brains of rats and mice became resistant to leptin and insulin. In contrast, unsaturated fats, such as those found in olive oil, did not trigger resistance.

As a result of the hormone resistance, a meal high in saturated fat can crank up our appetite well after dessert. “Taking time off from a healthy diet to eat most fast foods may have consequences that last for some days, even after one resumes the healthy diet,” says University of Cincinnati behavioral neuroscientist Stephen Benoit, who led the study. He believes the findings are likely to apply to humans, too.

19 October 09 noon

Is there a rift among atheists? NPR wants you to think so.

But, maybe not so much. Here is what PZ Myers (one of the people mentioned in the NPR story) says

That’s not the message I gave when she interviewed me, but maybe she got it from the others. Or maybe it’s what she wanted to hear.

I told her a number of things. I said that atheism doesn’t have a central dogma or doctrine, so of course we have a variety of different views under the catch-all category of atheism; and that is a strength of our ideas, that we can freely argue among ourselves. I also explained that we need a variety of approaches to appeal to a wide range of people, and that my personal belief was that we should encourage a thousand flowers of godlessness to bloom, all different.

As to the charge that atheism is a purely negative philosophy, I also said that wasn’t so: that it’s a rejection of old dogmas and superstitions, sure, but that it’s built on the positive value of rationalism and materialism, and scientific thinking. We adopt moral values from humanistic ideas that are centered on stuff that actually exists, like other human beings, rather than imaginary commands from an invisible man in the sky.

She also asked about Paul Kurtz, who does sound rather bitter in the sound bites used in the interview. I think Kurtz is a smart guy, and he has made and is making significant contributions to atheism, and I told Hagerty that I respected him…but that he’s only part of the atheist mosaic, not the totality of it. And the same goes for people like Dawkins and Hitchens and Harris and Dennett.

Then even Richard Dawkins worked with a Bishop of the Church of England on crafting a pro-evolution letter:

It is frequently, and rightly, said that senior clergy and theologians have no problem with evolution and, in many cases, actively support scientists in this respect. This is often true, as I know from the agreeable experience of collaborating with the Bishop of Oxford, now Lord Harries, on two separate occasions. In 2004 we wrote a joint article in The Sunday Times whose concluding words were: “Nowadays there is nothing to debate. Evolution is a fact and, from a Christian perspective, one of the greatest of God’s works.” The last sentence was written by Richard Harries, but we agreed about all the rest of our article. Two years previously, Bishop Harries and I had organised a joint letter to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

[In the letter, eminent scientists and churchmen, including seven bishops, expressed concern over the teaching of evolution and their alarm at it being posed as a “faith position”at the Emmanuel City Technology College in Gateshead.] Bishop Harries and I organised this letter in a hurry. As far as I remember, the signatories to the letter constituted 100 per cent of those we approached. There was no disagreement either from scientists or from bishops.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has no problem with evolution, nor does the Pope (give or take the odd wobble over the precise palaeontological juncture when the human soul was injected), nor do educated priests and professors of theology. The Greatest Show on Earth is a book about the positive evidence that evolution is a fact. It is not intended as an antireligious book. I’ve done that, it’s another T-shirt, this is not the place to wear it again. Bishops and theologians who have attended to the evidence for evolution have given up the struggle against it. Some may do so reluctantly, some, like Richard Harries, enthusiastically, but all except the woefully uninformed are forced to accept the fact of evolution.

In short, the NPR article is terrible. But this is what we’ve come to expect of journalists: it appears to me that journalists are, on the whole, not that smart. The more complex the story, the more likely they are to get it wrong. Don’t even get me started on how badly they botch anything technical.

Mano Singham: Reviews Michael Moore’s new film.

Academia: enjoy: the “whine” flu.

19 Octboer 09 (am)

Workout notes 2650 swim; 5 x 100 on 2 warm up (1:47 down to 1:45; breathing on off side), 5 x 100 on 2 (1:52 each; 25 front kick, 75 free), 1000 in 16:22 (4:05, 8:11, 12:18) last 250 was the fastest. Then 500 of off strokes, 150 of kicking with fins.

Felt the shoulder oh-so-slightly.

Me at this weekends trail races. Photo taken by Shelia Hansen.

Posts
An old grad school buddy wrote this; it is called “pushing through the pain”.

Ronald Reagan: at least one person doesn’t remember him fondly. But like him or not, Reagan could connect to people; Will Bunch’s book is a bit more balanced (and no, I didn’t like Reagan either).

Republican application

Ok, I can take it. Am I a sell-out and an accommodist?

I am on facebook and have a variety of friends. Many are religious and frequently post stuff about their Bible class, the Sunday School session that they led, etc.

Now I came across this video and I darn near posted it on facebook:

But I didn’t; in the end I didn’t want to “hurt anyone’s feelings”.

Sure, I am loud and noisy about my lack of belief (my profile says “atheist”) and I am an open, staunch supporter of evolution and an even noisier, staunch opponent of ID/Creationism.

I suppose that I overvalue popularity?

17 October 09

Workout notes 3550 yard swim; 5 x 100 on 2 to warm up (breathing on my off side every other lap), 5 x 100 (25 sfs, 75 free) on the 2:15, 5 x 100 (25 front, 75 free) on the 2:15 (2:00-2:05 each), 5 x 100 on the 2 (25 3g, 75 free) (1:47-1:51 each), 10 x 50 on 1 (fins, 43-46 each), 500 off strokes, 5 x 100 drills (side kicks, front kicks; mostly with fins), 50 cool-down.

I started off ok then one guy had to come and split a lane; yep, instead of a babe I get this guy with an enormous beer belly.

I helped out at an 8 mile/32 mile race and took some photos (more here)

Note: this runner is looking at the finisher’s awards (rocks with the name of the race engraved on it); she is going to pick one out.

(blurry, but it shows the runners coming out of the woods)

Academia Should professors have student friends on places like facebook? I think not. Frankly, I like a place to unwind and to let my guard down.

Science

Look at these chimps as one of their “family” gets buried. Does it look familiar?

Advances on the brain: by studying flies:

Previous experiments had shown that a structure in the fly brain called the mushroom body was essential for storing those memories, but the mechanism by which those memories get stored has not been well understood.

To examine the mechanism, a team led by the University of Oxford’s Gero Miesenböck took advantage of “optogenetics”, a technique in which they use light to activate particular cell types that have been genetically engineered to express a light-responsive protein. When laser pulses hit the brain, cells expressing the light-sensitive protein activate. “It’s like sending a radio signal to a city but only those houses with a radios set to the right frequency will get the signal,” says Miesenböck.
Light work

Previous research showed that dopamine was involved in making negative associations, for example with smells to be avoided, so Miesenböck’s team made different clusters of dopaminergic cells light-sensitive. Then the flies were trained: when they crossed into a certain gas stream — methylcyclohexanol (MCH) — a laser was flipped on and the dopaminergic cells were activated.

The experiment was as effective as electric shock treatment — the flies learned to avoid MCH. The memory was written directly into the brain without the sensory input. Although it is impossible to know, Miesenböck doubts the flies experience pain, like a shock. “I think it’s probably more abstract than that,” he says.

It makes statements like this one sound idiotic, doesn’t it?

Evolution/Creationism Richard Dawkins talks about his latest book:

Do you also think there’s a greater degree of anti-intellectualism in America compared to a lot of other countries?

There does seem to be evidence of a divide in the United States between two cultures. It does seem to be a deeper divide, and maybe even a widening one, perhaps we don’t see in European countries. There seems to be a divide between what shall we say — the Sarah Palin voters and the Barack Obama voters — who seem to be more bitterly split than the corresponding divides in other countries.

You say in the beginning of the book that you would like to convince people that creationism is not a feasible or a viable belief system, but you also make it clear that you’re not a big fan of creationists.

That’s putting it mildly, yes.

Doesn’t that make it difficult for a creationist to read this book without feeling insulted? Won’t that hurt your goal?

No, I’m not really aiming it at creationists. I don’t think they read books anyway, except for one book. It’s aimed at the intelligent layperson who does read books and who vaguely knows a little bit about evolution and who vaguely knows that there are creationists and maybe even vaguely thinks that he’s a creationist himself, but who is curious and wants to know the evidence.

It’s just that the evidence is so enthralling, it’s so exciting. It is so wonderful that here we are on this planet and we understand why we’re here. And it’s just a sort of ecstatic feeling to understand why you exist, and I want to share that feeling with other people.

Read more by following the link.

Note: the US is not the only country to be plagued by creationists.

Politics

The Republicans will probably pick up seats in 2010, but it won’t be a repeat of 1994.

The case for single payer in cartoon from; check it out.

17 October 09

Workout notes 2650 swim; included 10 x 50 (free, back), 10 x 50 (side/free), 5 x 100 (25 front kick, 75 free), 5 x 100 on 2 (25 3g, 75 free; 1:48-51 each), 300 fly drill (fins), 4 x 25 fly (fins), 4 x 25 fly, 150 cool down.

Then I went to Farmdale and helped out; I was there for most of the race.

You can see the photos here.