Doves commuting to work

Sometimes animals do surprising things. There is the chimp Santino who, in his zoo cage, gathered a pile of rocks that he later tried to hit tourists with. What is impressive here is not the throwing (I believe that monkeys are quite good at that), but rather the fact that Santino gathered the stones before the tourists arrived.

Another example that many people have probably heard about is the crows in Australia who like nuts (see video below). The problem for the crows is getting the nuts open - they cannot do it themselves so instead they have developed a very clever strategy to achieve their goal. They fly to an intersection with traffic-lights and then wait until the cars stop (red light on), at this point they place their nut in their intersection and then fly up to a light-post of wire and wait for the cars to start driving. The cars then crack the nut and next time when the traffic light are red the crows fly down to the road and get their reward. Very clever indeed!

A third example that I only heard about yesterday, even though it was in our own Capital (Stockholm), is the doves who commute to work. In Stockholm there is a train network which is partially below ground and partially above. Doves have regularly been seen to board these trains, drive one station and then exit the train again. It seems that their rendezvous is "Farsta Strand" where there is plenty of cafes and restaurants where they find their food. The doves typically fly home however, sometimes they commute back from their work as well.

In some of the articles writing about this they say that the doves in London are even cleveler... They sometimes travel more than one stop.... My guess is that these behaviors (maybe with the exception of the chimp) are all extreme cases of operant conditioning. For some unlikely reasons the birds more or less accidentally dropped a nut or entered a train and then received a significant reward (either a nut or a lot of saved energy), which increased the likelihood that the behavior would occur again.

The secret: The Law of Attraction and Einstein

Rhonda Byrne, author of "The Secret" is an expert when it comes to grabbing quotes from dead scientists to make it sound as if their quotes support her crazy idea that what you are thinking affects the universe. By the way, Byrne when stating her "Law of Attraction" doesn't just mean that what you think changes how you behave which changes the way people interact with you (a statement even I would agree with). Rather Byrne wants us to think that there is a fundamental, universal law (like the law of gravity), which entails that everything that has ever happened to you (at least that is how I interpret it), came about because of what you thought - happy thought lead to good things and negative thought lead to bad things...

Byrne writes that: 

"The law of attraction is a law of nature. It is as impartial as the law

of gravity."

"Nothing can come into your experience unless you summon it through persistent thoughts. "

"Often when people first hear this part of the Secret they recall

events in history where masses of lives were lost, and they find

it incomprehensible that so many people could have attracted

themselves to the event. By the law of attraction, they had to be on

the same frequency as the event. It doesn't necessarily mean they

thought of that exact event, but the frequency of their thoughts

matched the frequency of the event. (p.28)"

Anyways, back to quoting dead scientist turning and twitching in their grave. On page 40 Byrne writes that:

"Marci Shimoff shared a wonderful quote from the great Albert

Einstein: "The most important question any human being can ask

themselves is, 'Is this a friendly Universe?'"

Knowing the law of attraction, the only answer to give is, "Yes,

the Universe is friendly." Why? Because when you answer in this

way, by the law of attraction you must experience that. Albert Einstein

posed this powerful question because he knew The Secret.

He knew by asking the question it would force us to think and

make a choice. He gave us a great opportunity, just by posing the

question."

To take Einstein's intention even further, you can affirm and proclaim,

"This is a magnificent Universe. The Universe is bringing all

good things to me. The Universe is conspiring for me in all things.

The Universe is supporting me in everything I do. The Universe

meets all my needs immediately." Know that this is a friendly Universe!

Seriously? Does asking whether we have a friendly/magnificent universe mean that you believe in the (crazy) law of attraction. Of course not! What Einstein likely meant is how easy/difficult it is for us humans to live in this universe. Why have we not been blown up by a supernova already? For how many more millennia will we be able to live on earth like we do today?

Besides, I hardly think that the Universe Byrne is describing in The secret is a "friendly universe", rather it is a universe which gives back what you think. Those African children in Darfur must really have some nasty thoughts...




The next quote can be found on pp. 62-63:

"Time is just an illusion. Einstein told us that. If this is the first time

you have heard it, you may find it a hard concept to get your head

around, because you see everything happening—one thing after

the other. What quantum physicists and Einstein tell us is that everything

is happening simultaneously. If you can understand that

there is no time, and accept that concept, then you will see that

whatever you want in the future already exists. If everything is

happening at the one time, then the parallel version of you with

what you want already exists!

It takes no time for the Universe to manifest what you want. Any

time delay you experience is due to your delay in getting to the

place of believing, knowing, and feeling that you already have it. It

is you getting yourself on the frequency of what you want When

you are on that frequency, then what you want will appear."

I guess that the only real quote here from Einstein is that "time is an illusion", and there is actually some truth to this, although Einstein would not agree with the conclusions. What Einstein showed was that "the constant" in the Universe was "c" which is the speed of light in vacuum. The faster something moves the slower time will go. From this idea there is a theoretical, mathematical possibility that time travel will be possible but that idea is also associated with many difficulties. Why have we not been visited by someone from the future yet? Furthermore, even if time is relative, that says nothing about "The law of attraction". Does Byrne suggest that you need many parallel universes for the law to work?



The last Einstein quote associated with Einstein is on page 79-80 in The Secret:

"The great scientist Albert Einstein revolutionized the way we view

time, space, and gravity. From his poor background and poor beginnings,

you would have thought it impossible for him to achieve

all that he did. Einstein knew a great deal of The Secret, and he

said, "Thank you" hundreds of times each day. He thanked all

the great scientists who had preceded him for their contributions,

which had enabled him to learn and achieve even more in his

work, and eventually become one of the greatest scientists who

has ever lived."

Right... I invite anyone to show me that Einstein literally said thank you "hundreds of times" everyday. That sounds like a lot to me. However, even if Einstein did say thank you often, maybe he was just a positive dude who thanked people when appropriate. Regarding his thanks to his predecessors, it is clear for scientists that the work done by scientists through the ages is a very important foundation for modern science and we should be thankful for their contribution. Also, if we go by "The Secret" why not just wish for and think positive thoughts and then let the universe bring you a fantastic scientific theory, why all the hard work?

The core of Science: Being self-critical

One of the central theorems of science is being self-critical and to stay open to the idea that whatever the current consensus is, in whatever subject, things may change down the road. In the history of science this has happened many times, perhaps most clearly in the field of physics where we have gone from a geo-centric view of the universe (with the earth as the center), to a heliocentric universe with the sun in the middle.

Newton later described, very accurately, the laws that governed the universe and using these laws allowed us to predict, to an impressive degree, how the planets, stars, and other objects in space move. Despite this success, Newton turned out to be wrong of course and Einstein turned out to be right, or at least more right than Newton was.

Does the fact that Einsteins theory have correctly predicted experimental outcomes up to a gazillion decimals mean that he is definitely right? No, only a religious person would take such a stance. If you are a good scientist you stay open to the idea that there may be even better and more exact theories up ahead. All we really know is that Einsteins theory predicts what will happen in the Universe we live in to an impressive degree, and that this is very useful when designing say computers or GPS satellites.

When I discuss whether science is really like I what I have just described, I often hear the critique that scientists are just people, that they have narrow-minded beliefs just like anyone else, and that there are corrupt persons on key positions in science as well. I think this is all true (although I don't think there is as much corruption in Science as there is in politics), however, what is different is that you can ask (almost) any scientist whether this or that theory is definitely true and he or she is very likely to say no. In other words, even though many scientists cling on to certain theories and ideas, they tend to stay open to the idea that it is wrong, and they stay open to the idea that if the right evidence comes in, they will change their beliefs. The examples above (and there are many more from all fields of science), also show that science does in fact change over time

This, of course, stands in stark contrast to the world of religion where it is claimed that one book presents the truth, i.e., they don't say that if so and so, then I guess there is no God(s). Religion is based on faith which is beliefs that are not based on logic or observations. This is what, at the core separates science from religion and it is a very important distinction to make in my mind.  

Nice experiment on Baboons show that monkeys can distinguish words and non-words

There is a common misconception that all animal experimentation has to be painful. Most people have seen pictures of rats being "tortured" or monkeys with sad faces taking part in some kind of experiment, and that type of picture tends to stick.

Of course, there is no denying that many experiments on animals will cause some level of discomfort however, researchers aim at (and are quite good at) minimizing the level of discomfort for animals in experiments. I would even go as far as to say that in most cases dying in a laboratory is probably less painful than dying in nature.

Anyhow, Science magazine recently published an article showing that baboons can learn to distinguish words and non-words. This was an interesting finding (although I must admit that i never surprises me when we learn that monkeys can do things we did not think they could do), however, the reason this study stands out is how "gentle" the study was.

The monkeys were housed in a 30mx25m cage with toys and friends and other types of stimuli that Baboons like. In an adjacent room there was a computer with a touch screen interface. The monkeys could, at their own will visit the computer room. When a monkey entered the room the computer identified the monkey and then the task of distinguishing words and non-words started. If the monkeys got the task right they were rewarded with a treat. When the monkey felt like hanging out with his/her buddies again it would simply leave the room. Sound better than being hunted by a hungry lion on the Savannah if you ask me...


Reference:
Grainger, J., Dufau, S., Montant, M., Ziegler, J., & Fagot, J. (2012). Orthographic Processing in Baboons (Papio papio) Science, 336 (6078), 245-248 DOI: 10.1126/science.1218152

Radiation exposure

Some forms of radiation is dangerous to you and some forms are not dangerous to you. Sunlight, which is a form of electromagnetic radiation, is good for you in moderate doses (it causes your skin to make D-vitamin), but not in large doses (can lead to skin cancer). As a general rule, high energy radiation (waves with a short wavelength) is dangerous to you whereas low energy radiation is bad for you. Radio waves for instance, are so low energy that they cannot do anything to you. At the other end of the scale you have cosmic rays that come in from deep space and hits the earth. Cosmic rays have a lot of energy and when they shoot through your body they may rip up a few DNA molecules, potentially causing the cell to become a cancer cell. Luckily the earths magnetic field protects us from cosmic rays and we generally do not have to worry about them (astronauts do however).

In between radio waves and cosmic rays you find microwaves. These waves have the special property of causing H2O molecules to jiggle. Now jiggling a molecule is the same as heating it up, that is why microwaves are great for heating foods which always contains a fair amount of water. For the same reason you do not want to stick your head in the microwave oven (your brain contains a lot of water to). Mobile phones also communicate using microwaves and when you are using a mobile phone will heat your head a little bit. I want to emphasize little because it is a minuscule amount of heating compared to other sources, and there is no scientific reason to assume that the heating would cause any adverse effects whatsoever.

What about radioactivity? Radioactivity is the high energy radiation that is generated when larger atoms fall apart. In general radioactivity is bad for you because just like cosmic rays it can destroy DNA molecules, however, some forms of radioactivity (alpha particles) are only dangerous if you first eat them (this is because, unlike gamma radiation, they cannot penetrate the skin). For this reason you want to avoid radioactivity as much as possible. Having said that, there is no way that you can avoid radioactivity completely because atoms are falling apart all around us all the time. This informative chart shows how much radioactivity you get from various things you are more or less likely to encounter in your life. For example tonight, when I sleep next to my wife, a certain number of atoms in her body will break, radioactivity will be emitted, and I will receive 0.05 micro sieverts of radiation. You get a hundred times more (5 micro sieverts) if you visit the dentist and get a teeth x-ray, that is why the dentist leaves the room when the picture is taken. If this sounds bad though, consider that a transatlantic flight will give you a full 40 micro sievert, four times as much as a dental x-ray!

All of this pales in comparison to a regular CT scan, a standard technique in medicine that gives you a full 2 milli sieverts, that is 2000 micro sieverts. A chest scan (which I have taken) will give you 7 milli sieverts. Still even at 7 milli sieverts there is no proved risk of adverse effects, although it is not clear that there is no risk either. The lowest dose that has been clearly linked to cancer is 100 milli sieverts. To get radiation poisoning you need 400 milli sieverts and if you get 4 sieverts (4000 milli sieverts), it is usually fatal...

The scope of your brain and your connectome

One cubic millimiter of brain tissue contains a hundred thousand (100.000) neurons. Between these 100.000 neurons there is 1 billion (1.000.000.000) connections. In one cubic millimeter that is!!! Your brain contains millions of miles of wiring, tens of times longer than the circumference of our planet.

Sebastian Seung recently published a book called "connectome" where he lays out the hypothesis that "you are your connectome". What is connectome you ask. Your connectome is all your neurons and the connections between all of your neuron. This statement is more attractive than the statement "you are your genes" because unlike genes, your connectome changes in response to everything that happens to you. I have not looked up the numbers, but I am in no doubt that every second of your life is associated with the formation of new synapses, destruction of other synapses and change in strength of yet other synapses.

The only way this hypothesis can really be tested is by mapping the human connectome, which, according to Seung (and I agree), won't happen for a few decades at least...


In the TED lecture professor Seung presents his ideas.



By the way, the brain actually does not contain 100 billion neurons but more like 86 billion neurons. And we do not just use 10% of our brain - we use 100%!



See also: The Human Connectome Project

Use Google Reader to get most recent publications from specific author or journal

As a PhD student you are often overwhelmed by the huge number of science articles that are published all the time. It is simply impossible to keep up with everything that is going on even in a rather small field. According to this article in science, as many as 27.000 articles are published weekly!

In this information overload, one of the best tools you can have is google reader (or your RSS reader of choice). Pubmed (best place to search for scientific publications) allows you to generate RSS feeds based on any search that you do.

For example, one prominent researcher in my field is Christopher Yeo, at UCL in London. Whenever he publishes a new article, independent of whether it is in Science, Nature, or J.Neuroscience, I want to know it immediately. The times when you would simply browse each individual journal are gone, so how do you do it? This is how I do it. (All you need is a google account).

1. First, go to pubmed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

2. Second, search for whatever it is that you are interested in. In my case it is an author "Yeo CH", but it could also be a number of search terms, e.g. "Classical conditioning" and "Cerebellum".

3. When you get your search results, push the red button saying "RSS" just below the search bar. Choose how many items you want to be able to see (usually I just take the maximum which is 100).

4. Right click on the xml symbol and choose copy link adress. 

5. Next go to google reader: http://www.google.com/reader/, and log in with you google username and password.

6. Press the red subscribe button in the top left corner of your reader window, paste the link adress from Pubmed and press subscribe. 

7. Now you have a list of the 100 most recent articles that match the search terms that you used - and better yet, whenever there is a new item on Pubmed that matches your search terms, this list will get automatically updated. 

Personally I have created an RSS feed for around 20 individual authors that are of particular interest to me. I have also created a feed for about 20 scientific journals that I pay extra attention to.

Below you will find pictures describing the same process.

Dead salmon sensing human emotions...(?)

As anyone who know me will testify, I am a strong proponent of the scientific method. It is quite simply the best available method we have to gain knowledge about the universe, and it has a fantastic track-record.

Theoretically, science is I think, flawless. However, science is done (mostly) by scientists, i.e. people, and we all know that people are, in general, not quite perfect. This is why scientists are so obsessed with writing out the method. Doing so means that other scientists can replicate the experiment and see if they get the same results.

One excellent replication of a scientific method was done by Bennet et. al. Bennet and his colleagues were concerned that a popular statistic method used for fMRI data actually produced statistically significant results that did not represent any real activity. fMRI, in short, is a method that that measures blood flow in the brain, which in turn, is a measure of neural activity (because brain regions with active neurons will consume more oxygen which is delivered by the blood). A statistically significant result is a result that is very unlikely to happen by chance alone.

As mentioned Bennet et al were concerned that a popular method for analyzing fMRI lead to unwarranted conclusions. To prove this he took a trip to the local market were he bought a Salmon, a dead, frozen salmon. He took this fish back to the laboratory and put it in the fMRI machine. The salmon was then shown pictures of situations depicting different emotions (e.g. anger). Bennet then used the fMRI data to see if there were differences in the dead and frozen salmon brain, depending on what type of situation it had just seen, and guess what, there was! Does this prove that dead and frozen salmon have the ability to see what type of emotion a particular situation depicts? No, of course not. Rather, the experiment is an elegant way of showing that the statistical method used lead to invalid conclusions.

See the poster, which is actually quite funny, here.

In a second example appeared in the excellent journal "Psychological Science". This article was perhaps more worrying since the the author Simmons and co-workers reached absurd conclusions using perfectly valid mathematical/statistical methods. Specifically the authors showed that when you listen to music about old age, you become younger - you don't feel younger, you actually get younger. They reached this conclusion simply by varying some decisions about the analysis, after the experiment was done, which is something I believe many scientists do. Ideally you should decide which exact tests you will use before the experiment and then stick with that analysis - if you find unexpected results these have to be checked in another experiment.

The good news is that science is self-correcting i.e. science, unlike say religion, eventually detects its own error, and it is also worth noting that in both examples above, scientists, following the scientific method, found the problems and reported them.

The rise of antibiotic resistance and the meat industry

This post was inspired by an interview with Maryn McKenna, published by Scientific America

I think that most parent are aware of the importance of being strict with the use of antibiotics. When you have started taking it or (more likely) giving it to your child then you have to continue giving the antibiotic for the period prescribed by your doctor, even if you or your child get well before that. Why? Because you want to make sure that you kill all the bacteria. You want to do this because otherwise a few hardy bacteria that survived the antibiotics will hang around and procreate until there is a whole army of bacteria that know how to survive this type of antibiotic. In other words, if you are unlucky you will end up with a whole army of the bacterial equivalent of "William Wallace" in Braveheart.

Lesson: Finish your prescription.

However, it turns out that people's misuse of antibiotics pales in comparison to the misuse within the meat industry. An astonishing 80% of the antibiotics sold in the US are used in animals. To make things even worse, these antibiotics are not primarily used (as you would think), for sick animals but rather they are given to healthy animals in small doses at regular intervals. Now if you are really really eager to get antibiotic resistant bacteria, this is the way to do it. Why, you may ask, is antibiotics given to healthy animals. The reason is that the animal reach its goal-weight a little bit faster. That is it!

What happens then? Well, as mentioned the bacteria in these animals learn to deal with the antibiotics and become resistant. When the animal is slaughtered these bacteria frequently end up all over the meat. Commonly resistant bacteria thrives in the meat storage facilities as well. What about the meat bought in the stores? About 25% of it has antibiotic resistant bacteria on it. Usually they die when you cook it but sometimes they survive and they are becoming a major health problem, throughout the world.

Other examples of this dangerous misuse of antibiotics include over the counter, non-prescription sales of antibiotics, and non-prescription sales of antibiotics online...

For another great blog post on this, with more details, visit: http://thebigceci.wordpress.com/tag/penicillin/

Atheism 2.0 and an atheist sermon

I noticed that I have recently started recommending things other do more than I produce new material myself (with regards to this blog). Nothing wrong with that I think!

Today I want to recommend one TED lecture by Alain de Botton who in beautiful English suggests that we can be atheists and yet steal the good things that religion has to offer. Don't accept the argument that if you are atheist you cannot celebrate christmas - I for one have always loved christmas - getting the family together and getting that Galaxy Nexus that I have dreamed about for a year (true story)!

Anyway, great speech about Atheism 2.0:


I also want to recommend, wait for it, a sermon. Yes, that is right a sermon (defined as an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy). However, this is a special type of sermon, it is an atheist sermon by Jeremy Beahan. Jeremy Beahan is one of the hosts for one of my favorite podcasts - reasonable doubts. In this sermon which is in a church Jeremy answers questions such as "from where do atheists get their morality" (and do they have any?).

Link to Sermon:
http://www.doubtcast.org/podcast/rd_extra_an_atheists_sermon.mp3

Thats it for now...

Exoplanets, Kepler 22b, and the speed of light

About a week ago NASA announced the discovery of yet another exoplanet (so far about two thousand has been discovered and we are discovering more every week). What was special about this exoplanet which has the name kepler 22b, was that it was the most earth like discovered to date. Its radius is 2.4 times the radius of the earth and the orbital period is about 290 days. Depending on how much atmosphere the planet has its surface temperature would be either -11C or +22C (with atmosphere similar to hours). In other words, this could potentially be a planet that we could live on, just one problem, it is 600 lights years away from us... This means that it is hard to get to... Here is my calculation.

• 600 light years is how long light travels in 600 years

• In one second light travels 300.000 kilometers or 7.5 times around the earth, or 3/4 of the way to the moon (384.000 kilometers)
• In one minute light travel 60 x 300.000 kilometers = 18.000.000 kilometers, 18 million kilometers
• In one hour light travels 60 x 60 x 300.000 kilometers = 1.080.000.000 kilometers, 1 billion kilometers
• In one day light travels 24 x 60 x 60 x 300.000 kilometers = 25.920.000.000, 26 billion kilometers
• In one years light travels 365 x 24 x 60 x 60 x 300.000  kilometers = 9.460.800.000.000, 9.5 trillion kilometers
• In 600 years light travels 600 x 365 x 24 x 60 x 60 x 300.000 kilometers = 5.676.480.000.000.000, 5.7 quadrillion kilometers.

Some distances to compare this to:

• The earths circumference is 40.000 kilometers
• The distance to the moon is 384.000 kilometers
• The distance to Mars from earth (when it is at the nearest point) is 54.000.000 kilometers
• The distance to the sun is one AU which is 1.500.000.000 or 1.5 billion kilometers 
• The distance to uranus is 2.570.000.000, or 2.57 billion kilometers
• Distance to nearest star, called Proxima centauri (which is not the sun) is 4.22 light years or 39.900.000.000.000 kilometers, or 39 trillion kilometers away

How long would it take to go to exoplanet Kepler 22b? Well, that depends on the speed of your spacecraft of course. According to wikipedia, the fastest spacecraft we have build so far is the helios probe (unmanned), which had a maximum speed of approximately 260.000 kilometers per hour or about 71 kilometers per second. If we assume that space research gets lots of money and manage to recruit clever scientists and we eventually get a spacecraft that goes more than 10 times as fast, say 1000 kilometers per second then it would take

5.676.480.000.000.000 / 1000 = 5.676.480.000.000 or 5.7 trillion seconds, which translates to 180.000 years, or about 6000 human generations. In other words, if you went not only would you have to spend the rest of your life travelling in space but your son or daughter would also have to spend their life on the spacecraft. Also your grandchild, grand grand child, grand grand grand child and grand grand grand grand grand grand grand (six thousand times), would have to live on the spacecraft. It seems likely that on the

In other words we need to find an exoplanet that is much closer and still earth-like, however, I am optimistic!

One way trip to Mars

This week the Skeptics Guide to the Universe featured a fascinating interview with Lawrence Krauss, author of "the physics of Star Trek. The interview was about space exploration and human space exploration in particular.

Lawrence argued I think convincingly that if we want to bring humans to Mars it should be a one way trip. Reason? Bringing the fuel for the home trip to mars and taking all necessary safety precautions to bring the humans back to earth alive would probably cost 10-times as much as it would cost to simply send them there and then provision them with all necessities for the rest of their life.

Would anyone do this? According to Lawrence it was more difficult to find a scientist who would not do it. We should not see it as sending people to their grave, rather, think of it as building a permanent human coloni of Mars, and it suddenly sounds quite cool.

Lawrence Krauss published most of these thoughts in an NY Times article in 2009 which can be found here.

Could not have said it better myself

While browsing the web looking for blog posts and articles looking at the happiness levels of religious and atheists I found the picture below on Atheists of Utah Valley. I really could not have said it better myself, so I guess that I do have things in common with somewhat extreme christians. Who would have guessed?

I looked at the church's homepage and I got the impression that they are a small rather typical american church filled with people with good intentions. Part of being a typical American church is also to believe that  God wrote the bible, that armageddon will come and that all christians will rise again, among other things... A somewhat less charming belief is also stated on their unusually clear "What we believe page" (basically I am facing an eternal afterlife in the flames).

"WE BELIEVE... A Final Judgement Will Take Place for those who have rejected Christ. They will be judged for their sin and consigned to eternal punishment in a punishing lake of fire."

My Google Listen list - Good podcasts

I have previously listed my favorite podcasts, however since that post I have found quite a few new podcasts that I really enjoy listening to. I thought I would simply give you my whole list of podcasts that I listen to. If I had to single out just a few podcasts that I look forward to a little more than the others it would be

• Skeptics guide to the Universe
• NPR Planet Money
• Reasonable Doubt
• Neuropod
• Quackcast
• Techstuff
• Skeptikerpodden (Swedish)
• P3 Dokumentär (Swedish

Podcasts in English

• 60-second earth - Environment focused science news
• 60-second mind - "Mind" focused science news
• 60-second science - General science news
• Astronomy cast - Good educational astronomy podcast with Pamela Gay
• Brain Science Podcast - Good interviews with researchers, occasionally not the best sound quality
• Common sense (Dan Carlin) - Interesting analysis of current global political situation
• Dan Carlins hardcore history - Fantastic show focused on various historic episodes (often wars!)
• Dr.Karl and the naked scientist - Another great science show that will give you a good feel for science
• ESPN Soccernet podcast - My favorite soccer podcast, focused on the Premier league
• Football Weekly - Another good soccer podcast
• Global news (BBC) - Good news show, what you expect from BBC
• Material World - Another science news podcast
• Nature podcast - Good science podcast based on the journal
• Neuropod - Science podcast focused on the brain, based on the journal Nature Neuroscience
• Neuroscientist talk shop - In depth discussions with neuroscientists
• NPR, planet money - One of my absolute favorite podcasts, analyzes global economics 
• Parenting within reason - Self explanatory, what advice is true about parenting?
• Quackcast - Another one of my favorites, analysis of exactly what is wrong with alt.med
• Rationally speaking - New York skeptics publication, general skepticism
• Reasonable doubt - Critical analysis of religion and religious institutions
• Science magazine podcast - Self explanatory...
• Scientific American podcast - Another good science podcast
• Stuff you missed in history class - Great history podcast, cozy
• Stuff you should know - Also a very good and easy-listening podcast about stuff you should know
• Skeptoid - 10 minute skeptical analysis of all kind of stuff
• Techstuff - Good to know things about technology
• The Economist - Analysis of the global situation the top class british journal
• The Skeptics Guide to the Universe - One of my absolute favorites, the best skeptical pod
• This American life - Very well produced stories about the United States
• This week in tech - Weekly analysis of what is going on in technology
• WNYCs Radiolab - Another well produced podcast that is focused on popular science

Podcasts in Swedish

• P3 Dokumentär - Great documentaries, mostly about significant events in modern Swedish history - Swedish
• Humanistpodden - Official podcast of Humanisterna
• Godmorgon världen (P1) - Best weekly news summary in Sweden, by far - Swedish
• Konflikt (P1) -  Swedish radio program focused on cultural and military conflicts
• Fysiopodden - Podcast that talks about training, fitness and health in general  - Swedish
• Medierna i P1 - Good swedish radio program about the media and its problems
• Plånboken (P1) - Good program that talks mostly about private economy and consumer rights
• Skeptikerpodden - The #1 swedish skeptical podcast, well produced with interesting conversations and interesting interviews

Backyard brains

The Nature neuroscience podcast, also known as the neuropod had this an interesting clip about a company called "Backyard Brains". Backyard brains is a company who tries to bring neuroscience to the amateurs. In other words they try to make neuroscience instruments cheap. Cheap here means that they sell you a "spiker box" for 99 USD. What can a spike box do? A spiker box will let you record action potentials from live cells. Further increasing the "coolness" of their product is that they have iphone/android applications that will let you display the spikes in your smartphone. As soon as I get a little bit richer I will buy one and then publish recordings from whatever I can find right here on this blog. This is seriously cool (and a little nerdy) stuff. Go buy!

Backyard Brains hope that their endeavor will lead to amateurs going into neuroscience and expand the field just like amateur astronomers have made very important contributions to the study of astronomy.

To conclude, although I have never tried the spikerbox I just cannot conceive a scenario where I would not love this thing. I you are still skeptical, check out their video below, it will blow you away!

New Teaching Company Neuroscience series with Sam Wang

Good news for everyone interested in hearing interesting and engaging neuroscience lectures. Sam Wang, who is in fact a big name in my own field (Cerebellum) has recently recorded a lecture series together with The Teaching Company. The lecture series is called Neuroscience in every day life and in the lecture series it seems (I have only read the titles of the lectures) that Wang touches upon basic neuroscience principles as well as the more sexy parts of Neuroscience (emotions, sex differences, happiness etc etc).

Although I have not listened to it myself I can testify that Sam Wang is a very good teacher. If you also take into account the fantastic quality of all productions from The Teaching Company I am sure no one will be disappointed.

Awesome TED lectures

Just wanted to recommend two terrific TED lectures that I stumbled upon. First, the always fantastic lecturer Paul Bloom, from Yale University discusses what makes things valuable. Learn how much people would pay for George Clooney's sweat-shirt - and how much the price drops if it is "thoroughly washed" before you get it. I challenge anyone to listen to this lecture and tell me that you did not enjoy it.

 

The second video is also absolutely fascinating. Richard Resnick describes how genomic sequencing is speeding up and describes what this will do for you and your healthcare. Enjoy!


 

Catholic priests raping nuns...

Ok, I know that all people can make mistakes and that there are many atheists who have done bad things, however, I must say that the priests belonging to the catholic church manages to make my jaw drop again and again. It was not too long ago that we heard about catholic priests (who are supposed to be celibate) abusing boys sexually. I personally don't mind that priests have sex as long as it is consensual (even though it strongly contradict their own moral teachings), but the way in which a large number of catholic priests have systematically abused boys in an inferior position, I think, is appalling. The fact that church leaders don't report such abuse to the authorities (e.g. the police) who are supposed to deal with it is likewise disgusting.

Now as if this was not enough, I just heard on one of my favorite podcasts, Reasonable Doubts, that catholic priests (primarily in Africa) have been raping nuns more or less systematically. The vatican has been receiving reports and of course, as usual, don't tell the authorities. In this article in the independent, you can find a description of one nun who was raped by a priest. The nun got pregnant, however, the "father" convinced (or forced?) her to have an abortion. You would think that is where it ends but its not. The nun actually dies during the surgery to remove the fetus, and guess which priest takes care of the funeral - yes you guessed it - the rapist.

This case may be particularly nasty but there are apparently many reports of nuns who have been convinced by fathers to take contraceptive pills. Again, personally I'am not against contraceptives but according to the catholic church the pill is a big no no. How these priests can live with themselves I do not understand...

Quirkology

Just wanted to give a quick mention of Professor Richard Wiseman. If you are not already familiar with him I suggest that you go check out his stuff right now. He is always informative and entertaining at the same time.

If you have kids or just want to impress at a party I can highly recommend his top 10 quirky science tricks for parties and also ten more science tricks for christmas, both of which can be found on you tube.

If you like small puzzles and optical illusions then you should also check out his blog (a little teaser can be found below).

Why we should not base ethics on the bible...

I am always amazed when christians question where an atheist can get his morals from. They always seem to explicitly or implicitly suggest that you need the bible to tell you right and wrong. The picture below is one example out of many where you would not want to follow your bible...

For more see http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (King James Version)

²⁸If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;

²⁹Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.

Difficult words:

Damsel = Young woman

Betrothed = Engaged

What it means to be a doctor

Two nice quotes from one of my favorite podcasts: Quakcast

1. "Becoming a doctor mean learning to be comfortable with incomplete and changing information."

2. "Becoming a specialist is being ignorant... with style."

These quotes I think are funny and since I am also teaching at a medical school I can say that in my experience these quotes are also relatively accurate. I always get surprised at the many changes that can occur from one edition of a textbook to the next, although I must hasten to point out that there is a large proportion that does not change to. It gets even worse if you compare different textbooks or say journal papers.

Does this mean that doctors are merely shooting at random? No, they are (if they are good doctors) basing their decisions, diagnoses and treatments on the best available evidence - and that is the doctors which have the greatest success in terms of healthy patients (read Neurologica blog for more on this).

So if you are a doctor or becoming a doctor accept that there is rarely such a thing as perfect knowledge, and if you are a patient accept that doctors cannot always say things with perfect certainty...

Watch this if you are afraid of mobile phones or microwave ovens

I have previously written about microwaves here and here. However, the fact is that even though I write about it sometimes there really isn't much to say except, fantastic technology, keep it coming. There are NO dangers associated with mobile phones or with microwave ovens (unless you stick your head in one and somehow manages to turn it on. Neither is there any reason to expect that these technologies could be dangerous.

If you want to hear this from a real expert there is a terrific lecture available on youtube which I admit, I found on the fantastic blog Bad Astronomy.

Here is the first part of the lecture.

The rest you can find here: part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.

One statement that stuck with me was that the radiation you get from base stations (which many people worry about) is approximately equal to the radiation you get from the planet Venus (and as you know the radiation you get from venus is merely reflected sunlight).

Mystery explained? Why women live longer

Since I started studying biology/neuroscience I have always been puzzled by the fact that no one has yet been able to explain why we age. This question may not have a simple answer. Perhaps it is one of those questions (like "what is life?") that will never really be answered, but rather re-formulated.

My own conclusion based on what I have read until now is that many different factors are involved in aging, including but not limited to 1) buildup of toxic materials in the body (from the environment as well as waste from your own body and 2) damage to DNA.

One related mystery is why women live longer than men? What is the cause of this unfair order? Until I read an article in Scientific American I always assumed that guys simply do more stupid things that sometimes kill us... The next explanation that comes to mind is that maybe our lives are just tougher, after all we always did all the difficult things while the women merely sits in their chairs, gossiping, problem solved, right?

Apparently not. It turns out that guys stupid behavior cannot account for the difference, and the latter explanation also fails because guess what, girls have been working to. Also, in the western world today men and women do pretty much the same things, and still we die earlier. Why?

The article in Scientific American suggests that the reason we die and the reason women live longer is that our self-repair mechanisms break down and that women's repair mechanism last longer and are more effective than men's. It is as if, after a certain number of decades, the body says that this body is now so crappy that it is no longer worth fixing, you will now be a burden for others so I will not repair you any longer.

Why would women have better repair? Because they give birth, and giving birth can be traumatic for many parts of the body. In order to recover from childbirth women need very effective repair mechanisms and as a side-effect of that, they also live longer...

Phil Plait - Don't be a Dick

This will just be a short post about a 30min lecture I really recommend for all my fellow skeptics. Phil Plait is an astronomer, a blogger, a skeptic, and just a nice guy (I decided that after listening to him talk but I haven't met him so I guess I don't know that for sure).

In this video Phil Plait talks about skeptic manners. Which is the best way to get people to think more critically? Do you behave like a dick and call people stupid, laugh at their mistakes etc etc (which I admit, can sometimes be tempting), or do you try to take your time to calmly explain why you believe what you believe.

In Phil Plaits words - how many of you became a critical thinker because someone called you an idiot? I think one guy in the audience raised his/her hand...

Anyway - check out the video below, and if you are interested in astronomy, Phil Plaits blog is the place to go: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/

Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

Microwave Ovens

Having grown up in Järna, which may be the most pseudoscience-dense place in Sweden I have learned that microwave ovens are dangerous and that it kills your food (yes that is the term you normally hear).

Their arguments, of course, rely heavily on the naturalistic fallacy i.e. they claim that heating using microwaves is somehow "unnatural", that is unlike conventional oven which they seem to consider "natural". It is as if electromagnetic radiation in the infrared spectrum is somehow more natural than electromagnetic radiation with microwave frequencies.

There are however also some more empirical claims used by people who are against microwaves. For example many people quote a "study" where they compared growth of plants which had received either microwaved water or water which had not been heated. It is claimed that the plants which got the microwaved water waned down and died. The plants which had just gotten normal water on the other hand flourished. According to microwave critics this shows that microwaving water takes out some sort of "life energy" out of the H2O molecules and therefore the plants die.

Snopes have tried to replicate this "study", but found out that it was impossible – they could not kill their plants with microwaved water…

Another empirical claim that microwave antagonists sometimes use is that microwaves are forbidden in Russia because they are so dangerous – this is just a simple lie.

One claim with some actual research behind it is that microwave ovens destroy certain vitamins in your food (see here for example). This claim is probably true but only if you compare microwaved food with raw food. The study quoted on health bulletin shows that meat heated in microwave ovens has 30-40% less vitamin B12 than raw meat. So if you start eating your steaks raw you can skip a glass of milk a day (which would otherwise compensate the loss).

In the same study you can find the following paragraph:

"Microwave ovens are widely used for cooking and food processing. Extensive studies (Cross and Fung, 1982; Hoffman and Zabik, 1985) have shown equal or better retention of some vitamins (B1, B2, B6, C, and folic acid) after microwave heating compared with conventional heating."

In other words, if you lack vitamins, cooking in your microwave can help you.

It is also interesting that otherwise environmentally conscious people are so against microwave ovens even though they save a lot of energy compared to conventional ovens.

So where does all this leave us? My conclusion is that microwave heating is a fast and convenient way of cooking. Don't put eggs or metal in there and don't overheat things so that you burn yourself. If you follow these guidelines a microwave oven will be a terrific assistant in your kitchen. Of course some things just taste better when you cook them in a conventional oven and in that case I am all for that…

If you want more on this topic I can recommend this episode on Brian Dunning's skeptoid.

My favorite podcasts - Best podcasts

I have not been blogging for quite a while, however, this blog is not dead. The reason for my inactivity has been twofold. I have discovered podcasts (more about that in a moment) and I have become a father for the second time. These two "hobbies" of mine have consumed all my spare time and therefore the blog has suffered a bit, but I still feel I have a lot to write about and share with those who are interested.

If you have read any of my previous posts you will probably know that I am a great fan of The Teaching Company, a company that offers great courses for download (read my previous posts here.

Recently I have however mostly been listening to podcasts and I thought I would write a little about my favorite podcasts here. Unlike the teaching company courses, podcasts are normally free to download, although some depend on donations.

1. Skeptics Guide to the Universe - This is the podcast that I look forward to the most every week. Host, Steven Novella (a neurologist) and his fellow rouges discuss science news and discoveries from a skeptical perspective. You learn a lot of science by listening to this show and it is also highly entertaining in my opinion. Fantastic show really.

2. Skeptoid - Another excellent learning resource. Brian Dunning guides you through original sources on many issues including "was the pyramids built by slaves", "is asparthame dangerous (its not)", "organic vs conventional farming", "roswell" and many other topics. Dunning is also not afraid to admit that the jury is still out there if that is the case - he never makes conclusions that go beyond the evidence he has presented - great podcast.

3. Hardcore History and Common Sense - Reporter and excellent storyteller Dan Carlin is the man behind both of these two podcasts. In Hardcore History Carlin gives you some of the best accounts of various historical episodes that I have heard - I especially liked his four part podcast on "Ghosts on the Osfront" about operation Barbarossa - if you are the least bit interested in the second world war this is a must. In "Common Sense" Carlin sits and talks for himself about current events in the news, giving his perspective on things - and according to himself he always manages to piss of someone...

4. Dr.Karl and the Naked Scientist - Great science podcast. Although perhaps not as entertaining as the Skeptics guide to the galaxy this podcast is always very informative and it takes you through the biggest current science news in a way that most people can manage (unlike actually reading Nature and Science which many people find difficult). Some programs are Q&A where listeners can ask about any science question. I always learn a great deal from listening to this podcast.

5. This Week In Tech (TWIT) - This podcast is all about gadgets and new technology and is a great way for me to satisfy my need to hear about the most recent developments. If this is something you like too then I highly recommend this podcast.

6. 60-second science podcasts. "Scientific American" gives you three different 60-second long podcast where they take one news item and explains it very clearly in about 60 seconds, quite impressive if you ask me. Since I am into neuroscience my favorite is 60 second psych, but there is also 60-second earth and then there is the more general 60-science. They also have a longer show called Science Talk where they interview authors of important scientific publications. Also a great show.

7. NeuroPod - Official podcast of the journal "Nature Neuroscience". It simply takes you through their publications - much faster than it takes you to read the journal. Good resource for anyone into the field of Neuroscience.

8. ESPN Soccernet podcast - I am a science nerd and but I also love soccer and especially the Premier League. This podcast gives you all the analysis and transfer gossip you can handle.

9. Quackcast - Mark Crislip gives all medical quacks out there a hard time. If you think that vaccinations are dangerous or that conventional medicine is just one big conspiracy I hope that you will give this podcast a chance.

10. Rationally Speaking - Massimo Pigliucci has another another great podcast based on a skeptical approach. Because he is a philosopher he also gives a different perspective than Steven Novella from Skeptics Guide to the Galaxy. Another podcast which is also interesting and informative.

Swedish podasts:

1. SkeptikerPodden - Sveriges "Skeptics Guide to the Universe". Underhållande och informativ och med intressanta reportage. Min favorit är när ett Medium får kontakt med en död mor - bara det att modern aldrig var död... hmmmm. Bra jobbat SkeptikerPodden!

2. Godmorgon Världen - Enligt mig det bästa veckomagasinet med nyheter som finns.