akota

the environment is harsh

1. Humans irrigate to help improve agricultural productivity. Sounds like a good idea.
2. Irrigation is coordinated with the seasons, so those on the California coast irrigate approximately in unison.
3. Irrigation water runs to the ocean, bringing with it salts from the fertilized land.
4. Along the coasts, surface salinity rises to unprecedented levels.
5. Diatoms (aka algae, plant plankton) are drawn to the salty surface water.
6. Diatoms of genus Pseudo-nitzschia reproduce and release domoic acid.
7. Domoic acid concentrates in the fatty tissue of plankton feeders like shellfish.
8. Seals and sea lions eat lots of shellfish.
9. Domoic acid activates certain receptors in the brain causing excess calcium to build up in neurons.
10. Neurons degenerate.
11. Seals and sea lions become lethargic, have seizures and die.  According to the NY Times, "domoic acid poisoning has killed hundreds of the animals across Southern California this spring and thousands since a major outbreak in 2002."

This sucks. It isn't like we released some deadly poison into the sea and we could have known this would happen.  This required changes in salinity, a species of algae, and a deadly neurotoxin.  It is impossible to predict the third order effects of human uses of the environment.  So, we are stuck reacting to environmental damage.  We are stuck undoing the investments we made in whatever is causing the environmental damage.  At best, we can proactively manage the risks we know.  But there are always the unknown unknowns.

Autism

From Simon Baron-Cohen, The hyper-systemizing, assortative mating theory of autism,  30 Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry 865-72 (2006):

The evidence that autism could be the genetic result of having two systemizers as parents (assortative mating) includes the following: (a) Both mothers and fathers of children with [Asperger's] have been found to be strong in systemizing on the Embedded Figures Test (Baron-Cohen and Hammer, 1997). This study suggests that both parents may be contributing their systemizing genotypes. (b) Both mothers and fathers of children with autism or [Asperger's] have elevated rates of systemizing occupations among their fathers (Baron-Cohen et al., 1997). (c) Mothers of children with autism show hyper-masculinized patterns of brain activity during a systemizing task (Baron-Cohen et al., in press). (d) The probability of having a brain of Type S (Level 3) in the male population is 0.44, and the probability of having a brain of Type S in the female population is 0.14 (Goldenfeld et al., 2006). If autism arises from assortative mating of two strong systemizers, then the probability of autism in the population should be (0.44 × 0.14) = 0.062. This is remarkably close to the actual rate of autism spectrum conditions in the general population (Baird et al., 2000; Fombonne, 2001).

Thoughts from the Ivory Tower

Steven Pinker writes about dangerous ideas:

In every age, taboo questions raise our blood pressure and threaten moral panic.

...

I have in mind statements of fact or policy that are defended with evidence and argument by serious scientists and thinkers but which are felt to challenge the collective decency of an age.

As examples he gives:

Do women, on average, have a different profile of aptitudes and emotions than men?

Would damage from terrorism be reduced if the police could torture suspects in special circumstances?

I don't think he has watched broadcast TV. And, both are essentially part of the GOP platform.

DIY Quantum

Scientific American has instructions on how to do quantum erasure at home.

It is almost as if our actions with the photons influence what has happened in past events.

Jeez, I've turned into a killer

The New York Times reports on research into the effects of damage to the brain's ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

Those with ventromedial injuries were about twice as likely as the other participants to say they would push someone in front of the train (if that was the only option), or to poison someone with AIDS who was bent on infecting others, or suffocate a baby whose crying would reveal to enemy soldiers where the subject and family and friends were hiding.

After repeatedly endorsing killing in these high-conflict situations, [Dr Koenigs] added, one patient told him, “Jeez, I’ve turned into a killer.”

[...]

This tension between cost-benefit calculations and instinctive emotion in part reflects the brain’s continuing adjustment to the vast social changes that have occurred since the ventromedial area first took shape. The ventromedial area most likely adapted to assist the brain in making snap moral decisions in small kin groups— to spare a valuable group member’s life after a fight, for instance. As human communities became larger and increasingly complex, so did the cortical structures involved in parsing ethical dilemmas. But the more primitive ventromedial area continued to anchor it with emotional insistence an ancient principle: respect for the life of another human being.