Do Not Disturb Any Further

Spoon bending & ocular science

So I was watching Ghost Hunt, which features paranormal researchers. During one case, they deal with people who claim they can bend spoons and keys with their mind. I looked up info on spoon bending because I couldn't remember exactly how the trick is performed.

As always, Wikipedia offers up nifty additional info: the reason why our eyes see a straight object, like a spoon or pencil, "bending" when it's moved rapidly back and forth.

Any 7-year-old can fool her younger brother by holding the neck of a spoon and rapidly tilting it back and forth, like a mini teeter-totter gone haywire. The spoon appears curved, because of cells in the visual cortex called end-stopped neurons, which perceive both motion and the boundaries of objects, the authors write. The end-stopped neurons respond differently from other motion-sensing cells, and this slight differential warps the estimation of where the edges of the spoon are.

I love it that modern science can examine neurons themselves to determine the actual cause behind some "magic". And, in an entertainment sense, I love it that humans have come up with a gajillion and one ways to explain why stuff happens. Shows off the human imagination, if not logical thinking.

Time-outs: r u doin it rite?

Not being the parenting sort, or even the being-in-the-same-room-as-children sort, I tend not to be up to date on the latest parenting research. But the volatile Slate headline "Like a Rat: Animal research and your child's behavior" attracted my attention. The article has an interesting take on how human behavior often mirrors the observed, predictable behavior of non-human animals. (Predictably, the reader responses include several who are immediately irate at the thought of human children behaving as predictably as "lesser" animals.)

This article links to one about "time-outs", the technique where an adult puts a child elsewhere for a few minutes when the child misbehaves. I was fascinated to read that my understanding of time-outs is completely wrong, and I just had to share.

Check it out:

• What I thought a time-out is: an annoyed parent has had enough and gets the child out of everyone's hair for a while, usually taking the opportunity to tell the child where it erred
• What's recommended: a calm parent separates the child from a situation where the child is receiving reinforcement for unwanted behavior 

Here's a description that's a little too short but tries to explain the idea:

Timeout has nothing to do with justice, repentance, or authority. Rather, it follows a simple logic: Attention feeds a behavior, and a timeout is nothing more than a brief break from attention in any form—demands, threats, explanations, rewards, hugs ... everything.

This line made me crack a smile:

If you have to touch, drag, or restrain the child to make the timeout happen, you're doing it wrong, and the timeout won't work.

Really? I would never have believed it. Call me jaded. Even if I'm jaded, though, I sure do love learning new stuff.

Japanese eye-exam chart

Whenever I go to the eye doctor, I pepper him with whatever questions come to me as he does his exam. Since I've been going to the same place for nearly a decade, my doc has grown used to all this questioning, and he's always willing to share.

Last time we discussed how optometrists can test for color blindness deficiencies by having people sort a series of painted discs by color and shade; this can help better define the scope of a problem for people who have learned to distinguish colors by how bright they are. And apparently, those little discs are expensive, since their colored paint must adhere to a very strict palette.

I've also learned a bit about how they can test people who can't read, which often involves common shapes and symbols. (I forgot to ask my doc how he deals with deaf patients, but hell, there's only so many minutes per appointment.)

In a completely unscientific anecdotal way, I've learned that I seem to do better on the peripheral vision test -- which is pretty much a video game -- when I've been playing a video game within a few days before taking the test. It's like I get primed for that hand-eye interaction. Since I can see the video flicker on the monitor even when it's not "activating" something for me, I tend to hesitate before identifying a flicker from the test machine, because my eyes strain for something to move. But when I'm already in gaming mode, I'm more willing to just go for it and take every flicker as a signal.

And I also got my own take-home copy of a high-res image of the blood vessels inside my eyes. Can't find the disc right now, but maybe I'll post it later if I come across it.

I found this article about one type of eye-exam chart used in Japan fascinating: The doc can ask the patient to identify the missing segment in a circle. The patient is asked to indicate the position of the missing segment. It's deceptively simple. It seems to me that it's harder to guess for a circle than for the E chart I've seen used in the U.S.. And I bet it would make for a fun drinking game.

Fun with science: studying affects of zombie attack

Finally, science is catching up with what we've known about the Zombie Menace for years now:

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.

From BBC News.

Make sure you're prepared: Learn about all things walking dead at the Zombie Survival & Defense wiki.

Grrr, argh!

Speaking of tsuki... uh, moons

Apparently there's a hella rare lunar eclipse happening today. Wait, they're calling it a solar eclipse. I'm confused. If the moon is blocking the sun, wouldn't that make it lunar? Whatever.

Check out the interwebz coverage.

(Many of the links are too crowded to get good results right now, so I'm including them for reference. Expect more videos and images will be available over the next few days. And I'll post if I come across any particularly juicy ones.)

FDA considers reducing acceptable amounts of acetaminophen

AKA Tylenol. Especially when it's combined with prescription medications. That wouldn't be so bad on its own, except that Vicodin (hydrocodone/acetaminophen) and its generic counterparts all include acetaminophen. and there are no commercially available versions that don't already contain acetaminophen.

Conveniently, the FDA panel chose not to recommended that Nyquil and other over-the-counter medications containing acetaminophen be pulled from shelves or eliminated. This seems to be because they're claiming that prescription medications containing acetaminophen, or used in conjunction with it, have a higher incidence of overdose than OTC formulations. "Some panelists cited data that suggests that combination over-the-counter drugs account for less than 10 percent of acetaminophen overdoses."

There's not enough verifiable data right now in the news articles to confirm the statistics being claimed by the FDA advisory panel, but I'm going to keep looking. I'll also try to find some way to contact the FDA and tell them to stop the hysteria.

However, in the 10+ news articles I just read, not one of them cited specific statistics or sources to back up the claim that "most" of the acetaminophen overdoses are associated with Vicodin, Percocet, and related prescription drugs. I'm deeply suspicious.

If the FDA decides to officially change their guidelines about safe doses and combining acetaminophen with other prescription drugs, the existing formulations could banned, the manufacturers would have to reformulate all of their hydrocodone/acetaminophen medications, or people would have to switch to other drugs that might not treat their pain as well as the current drug.

Hydrocodone/acetaminophen is one of the most widely prescribed pain relievers in the U.S. It has been invaluable in helping me get through chronic pain, fibromyalgia, and post-surgical pain. It's a key part of pain management for several of my friends, too.

I can't help but think of this as yet another poorly researched scare tactic designed to restrict access to legal pain relievers because of over-hyped "addiction" fears and moral outrage that someone, somewhere, might be getting high.

Food, not too much, mostly plants

I've read too many contradictory, confusing, unscientific, and just plain silly books, magazine articles, and web articles about food and its effects to be even remotely certain about food advice.

But this is almost fool-proof:

Food, not too much, mostly plants

I've added my own mental caveats about grains (less is better) and protein-to-carb ratios (more protein), but on the whole I like this suggestion.

Yay, simplicity!

From Skeptic magazine, vol. 14, no. 4, 2009.

On a definitely related note, I considered not posting the above recommendation, because I was disappointed with the degree of research and proof offered for many of the articles in this issue, especially "The Origin of Eden". I have to recommend that you take this issue with a larger grain of salt than you should have to for a "skeptical" publication. The dietary recommendation, at least, has decent data behind it that can be verified without too much effort. For the rest of the issue, I resignedly conclude that I must continue to be skeptical even for skeptical information. 

Explosives & Weapons forum

So I was reading up on how fireworks are made (following 4th of July links) and I found this forum:

Explosives & Weapons forum

In addition to the sheer coolness of the home site Rogue Science, there are lively discussions about legal, health, science, and political issues, and huge amounts of shared data that's not censored (much) according to legal or political fears.

What I like best is a refreshing paucity of "I am not a lawyer" and "Just say no" and "Don't break the law and you won't go to jail" disclaimers. The participants focus more on exchanging information and opinions than on covering their asses and being politically correct, something not seen much these days. Hell, not just these days...

Anyway, the point is that the forum readers are assumed to be responsible. What a concept!

Project Steve: scientists named Steve supporting evolution

Scientists named Steve show their support for evolution in Project Steve:

• National Center for Science Education (http://ncseweb.org/taking-action/project-steve)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Steve

As noted in the Wikipedia article, Steves make up only 1% or so of the scientific community. So the greater the number of Steves, the easier it is to extrapolate the overwhelming percentage of scientists that support evolutionary theory and reject the poor arguments and nonexistent data supporting "intelligent design" and creation "science".

(From the Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 33, No. 3, May/June 2009, "Darwin (Yes!) Is Project Steve's 1,000th Signer".)

Back to trivia: giant bat-eating centipede!

YouTube is pretty much daily viewing anymore.

Guess which cave I am NEVER going in?

Blind inventor makes web accessible

From BBC News:

A new device that will make internet content available to blind people without the need for computer skills is to be launched in a few months' time.

"The Perils of PC Posture" -- PC meaning "computer"

Get up to speed on proper seating while at the computer. In a related issue, I wholeheartedly advocate getting equipment that fits the human body better than most default computer stuff, like split keyboards instead of those hideous cheap flat rectangles where your hands have to touch each other to type, and squished laptop keyboards too small for a child to use easily. There are tons of options out there, so find something that helps you work most efficiently and with the least pain.

Andean pyramid was farm clock

More sweet news that long-ago humans were just as smart as we modern apes.