Allusions In The Matrix

Does size? Go if you care!

was sure, but I wanted evidence, conclusive data. In fact, I received the news of New Scientist with a period of apathy, no more than a gesture of confirmation phlegmatic. "Of course! I thought, I could not be otherwise ... "

I mean, pardon the article oblivion Mating system and brain size in bats , published in the prestigious" I suppose Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , showing everything can be shown convincingly that these things, that a large brain is associated with a small testicles, and vice versa.

¿¿¿........!!!

Well, yes, it is true, the discovery has occurred in bats, not humans, but if it is little difference between the genomes of man and fly, what can we expect the genome of the bat, a mammal attributes as gifted as the best of them ("have something to do with" fly cojonera ? "I do not know ..., I think I'm rolling.) We is not anything to look beyond differences for a take away these genes.

Rewriting history

The substance is that after a thorough study of 334 species of bats, scientists have observed that in species where females are promiscuous, males have developed large testes, but they have small brains and that in species where females are monogamous, the situation is reversed.

What can result from this discovery? For some, that a monogamous relationship is more demanding for the brain (perhaps requires more imagination.) For others, the testes grow when there is high demand for semen.

But I believe that this relationship of inverse proportionality between the size of the brain and the testes is very significant. In the final analysis, it is an empirical law that connects the two bodies, brain and testes, which have marked almost all critical milestones in the evolution of humanity. Just take a look at our history to understand that these bodies have been alternating in the strategic direction of the world, always, of course, with an overwhelming dominance of the testicles.

A relief for more than one

Remember the joke about Bill Gates (Gates Bili for friends)? Is your wedding night? Yes, when naked before his wife and she says, bowlegged:

Honey! Now I understand why the name of your company:

MICRO ... And SOFT!

But now, after reading this research, could have a different ending for the situation, much more advantageous for Gates, not for his wife:

Honey ... Never would have thought you were so ... So smart!

And it only responded to expressions of envy - Type " lot of muscle, little brain " - now acquired an air of science.

Testes and brain are direct competitors. It appears that the brain tissue and sperm cells require a lot of metabolic energy and compete for it, leading to a preference for development of a body against the other. Something like "use body makes."

other words, taking this to the end it appears that intelligence tends to be greatest when the testes tend ... Zero! No, if in the end be true that God can only be women.

My Son Drank Baby Oil

To pay the author!

seems surreal, but no, it is a firm proposal that is beginning to bite in the area of \u200b\u200bscientific journals. This is an unstoppable trend moves towards free access publishing, with open content over the Internet. The funding would come from the authors, usually from the budget of your research project.

This new model is being adapted by a growing number of scientific institutions to solve the problem of high cost of journals. The most prestigious journals Nature, Science, Journal of American Chemical Society ...- are financed by higher subscriptions paid by libraries of research centers. The overall cost to libraries is a scandal, and the worst is that very few people can access content. Formally

is not a new model. Had already been using paper in scientific journals, but restricted to publications with little or no peer review criteria and, therefore, with little credibility among the experts. These magazines are taking advantage of the fever of researchers to publish, whatever. When a job is rejected by prestigious journals, the author gladly pay for publishing in others because the items are the external measure of their productivity and are associated with their career progress. So see this as an indispensable investment spending. Thus, while the quantity-and quality-not only what counts as merit, there is always demand for space to publish all cost.

The idea that the author is reasonable pay, while ensuring absolute rigor in the selection of work. So far, the most prestigious journals rely on the credibility of its editorial board: the screening and do best editing, best compete. In the new model this criterion is perverted: the more work published, the higher the magazine. So there is the risk of succumbing to the "incontinence publisher" of many scientists middling and the publication of many articles insufficiently contrasted.

How to avoid? I think that appeal to personal ethics of the researcher filter is a sure way to perpetuate the monopoly of traditional journals. More reasonable is to maintain the rigorous system of peer review editorial, similar to the great prestige to the paper magazines. This is how I understand institutions as the Public Library of Science , free access, where to publish must pass a stringent review of the article, as in traditional journals and then pay from the issuing institution. This is ultimately cheaper than buying magazines and, of course, reaches more people. It is also a sustainable model for scientific publishing.

Another measure to control incontinence publisher is to limit the number of papers to be presented in public tenders. For example, ask a researcher to present only the ten most important work of his career, the most complete, most grounded, most cited, which have had a major impact in the scientific community ... In short, those who really deserve to be considered. This will avoid those memories bulky, full of items with few ideas repeated ad infinitum, again and again sent to conferences and journals irrelevant. These are publications in bulk, which only serve to feed the vanity and career of mediocre scientists. This explains why we have a system that generates and publications, however, less clear results, because the spotlight is put on the thickness of the personal curriculum, not creativity, innovation and transfer to society and the company's progress.

other words, the type of evaluation of research activity conditions I had some type of research being conducted. So far, the quality of work was associated with the publication that eventually agreed. If you change the evaluation system, quality would be given by the real impact (number of referrals generated, but also patents). And in terms of impact, Internet is the perfect channel, because it reaches many more scientists from anywhere in the world. So a quality editorial, like the big magazines, associated with a channel like the Internet, provide a great impetus to quality research.

Have To Tie My Hair Up But Have Big Ears

Chips: undefined danger

Look what we have said,

"Everything that we like or are expensive or fattening or is sin."

But man, one clings to traces of naivety to believe that there will be some silver lining in this absurd rule. No, eventually we come to the penance in the form of love handles, reporting bank or, worse, the threat of cancer, contemporary presentation of purgatory.

And that's what happens to the chips, that modest food that catches our will as we tested. Cheap, nutritious, easy to prepare ... but with many killjoys bent on punishing the palate. Two or three years ago showed the presence of acrylamide, a dangerous substance that is usually formed in high-temperature treatment of foods with starch in the presence of fat, such as by frying potatoes.

Well, not only generates heat carcinogens in potato. Also years ago and jumped the alarm in the United States to find the exponent of the "sophisticated" national cuisine, barbecue, caused the appearance of cancer in areas scorched meat-yes, the tastiest, if you have already been saying ...-, also by high temperature in the contact area.

But the chips have been accumulating more and more evidence against him, as the Reuters news of this August that linked the high consumption of crisps in children with a higher incidence of breast cancer to become adults .

And that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just not be clear.

"Acrylamide can cause cancer in laboratory animals at high doses, but it is not clear that low levels in foods can cause cancer in humans."

By the way, some have put the cart before the horse and has been to regulate the matter. Well, the thing is that Californians, led by the astute leadership of Arnold Schwazennager, soon find themselves in all kinds of bags of chips messages that warn of potential danger of this food .

Knowing the Governor, I imagine to be subtle messages, like those found on the packages of snuff:

"Eat potatoes can kill."

And the potatoes with the snuff share that point of addiction. Once you make the first, because no one stops to finish the bag. It is to take a joke, that one thing is acrylamide and other more serious are the Americans. I do not dislike them to tell us the risks, what worries me is that sooner or later want to save.

I'm already seeing: areas reserved for eaters of chips, consumer clinics worms coupled with the obligation to serve chips and hot dogs with carrot sticks. Anyway, I am eating eggs with boiled potatoes. If at least give the budget to accompany cachelos with "octopus ..."

La Fitness Seattle, Cost

Why call it when we say energy efficiency grant?

subsidies, incentives, tax exemptions, and different ways of paying all of the high costs that only benefit just a few, are a source of opacity that prevents objective analysis, calm and impartial energy sources and efficiency. Think

nuclear energy, for example. Last June, President of the Forum of the English Nuclear Industry, Eduardo Gonzalez, advocated an increase in this energy , which last year accounted for a quarter of electricity production in Spain, because "energy model can not depend on fuel fossil prices and climate change " and used to remember that the " average production cost is EUR 0.1083 per kilowatt-hour. " But is it really that the actual cost of kWh? Is there include initial official aid and compensation for the nuclear freeze? What about the heavy toll of waste management? What about the costs of decommissioning the plant itself?

The case of alternative energy

This lack of transparency with energy issues hinders informed decision-making and supports the demagogic discourse. But if it is difficult to assess the cost in a traditional power, do it with renewable energy is a pure pipe dream.

Consider, for example solar photovoltaic energy. In the spectacular solar panel that was installed at the Barcelona Forum, timid voices were reminded that the energy consumption to produce the facility was much higher than the energy that would produce. That is, the point of view of energy efficiency, a bread made with a cake.

But there is no data to make a serious analysis, so that the valuation is at the mercy of the media. Thus, if a politician decides to subsidize a photovoltaic installation, Take, for example, monocrystalline silicon, the media abound in the ecological related to this proposal, but surely obviate the costly process to get there. Forget to say that you should first reduce the silica sand with coal to break the strong bonds of silicon with oxygen, and eventually would be released into the atmosphere as CO2. Should be obvious that after treating silicon with halogen for a volatile compound that must be purified by distillation and then decompose to form pure silicon, with the inevitable issue of halogen radical damage. And that's not all, later would have to melt the silicon obtained for a large single crystal form by controlled growth, and finally cut into wafers capable of converting sunlight into a weak electrical current. If a wafer is cut up into tiny fragments, and each serves to build a chip or power a calculator, this effort will be very profitable. But if the idea is to cover a roof with these very expensive wafers to produce electricity, probably will never recover the energy that we had to employ in manufacturing. That is, we would be wasting energy. Of course, if a politician eager for medals decided to subsidize the installation, we would free electricity but have a very high cost for the planet.

not get rid of the wind stream of disinformation. In a recent article published in Diagonal , Pedro Prieto explained that " a 2.3 MW wind generator (it would take between 3000 and 5000 aircraft of this type to replace the Almaraz nuclear power station) is 1000 tons Concrete for foundations, 150 tons of steel, several tons of copper and 30 tons of fiberglass blades. A Spain wind power would cost 70% of steel consumed in Spain, about twice the cement consumed in Spain and about twice the fiberglass that is consumed in the world. " On the other hand, Javier Alvarez Vara denounced this week in five days " lack of transparency surrounding the official support for this technology, just look at the allocation of permits to parks and capital gains the resale of some of these concessions. Once you put all the items in the balance, the policy of temporary support and transparent would be the only sensible. A change in incentives that the market indicates excessive concessions would lead also to the use of more efficient wind technologies between now available. The current bonus system encourages rapid occupation the territory, regardless of optimum utilization of existing wind resources. "

Hydrogen, the energy vector expected

What about the use of hydrogen? Technical tests show that the cell technology with hydrogen is valid for low-power devices and high cost, such as laptops and mobile, but quite inadequate to replace fossil fuels. So why vehicle manufacturers speak so optimistically in the proximity of a hydrogen economy? Mainly because of heavy subsidies public to this energy, which hide the real cost. And the scarcity of light, or perhaps just demagoguery, I do not know what is worse, some politicians, who see the hydrogen goose that lays golden eggs and a machine to attract votes from all streams. For example, in 2003 Bush won approval of a major project on hydrogen fuel cells. A project was also on the agenda of Kerry, and greater investment commitment. The European Commission itself has proposed supporting the transition to a hydrogen economy, for which it is supporting ambitious initiatives for production, storage and hydrogen distribution. The governor of California goes even further. Arnold Schwarzenegger is promoting the construction of a network of hydrogen fueling stations, sure if there will be stations for hydrogen vehicles. Unfortunately it has been less original in the design of the stations would use natural gas to produce hydrogen (and therefore large amounts of CO2).

In what appears to be general agreement that the source is more environmentally friendly and sustainable energy is energy saving and efficiency, but how can we evaluate the efficiency of an energy source with such darkness? To properly assess and manage investment efforts in the right direction is essential to have homogeneous data, containing all objective factors include the noise of the grants.

The cost-benefit must be behind every political decision, that under the guise of an environmental action does not end up causing just the opposite. And, lest we forget, demagoguery is one of the worst enemies of the environment.

Street Value Valium 5mg

Chronicle of a tragedy foretold: Anniversary of the first nuclear explosion Ponte

This week marks-is a manner of speaking, the sixties of a macabre experiment, which would give a sharp turn to the history of mankind. This is the first nuclear explosion that took place in the Jornada del Muerto desert in Alamogordo (New Mexico).

The experiment, under the suggestive codenamed Trinity, apparently proposed by Robert Oppenheimer himself, was designed to test a new weapon developed at Los Alamos. Be the first nuclear explosion caused by humans, and responded to the need for experimental data on its destructive power, because there was only derived estimates of the calculations. Obviously, Oppenheimer did not choose the name of Trinity by the attractive star of Matrix, predictable scenario hypothesized uncontrolled development of nuclear power, but was inspired by a passage from the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, where he took the concept of trinity between the creator (Brahma), the protector (Vishnu) and Destroyer (Shiva).

To measure the effects of the Trinity, it was necessary to calibrate the instruments, which were detonated a few months before the experiment 108 tons of TNT stacked between the tubes full of fission products. And achieved an unprecedented explosion, however, was very weak compared with Trinity, so that some devices were damaged and lost many of the measurements provided.

got burned were also some of the participants in the experiment. At the end of the safety standards were almost nonexistent. Suffice it to say that the plutonium necessary for the core of the bomb was transported without any special protection or that the components were assembled in the McDonald Ranch in Alamogordo, where they were taken to the zero point for a pump. Final assembly took place in a simple tent! With this background
surprised that there were many casualties among the attendees, although the information in this regard is unclear. There is a document of Los Alamos National Laboratory on this, but it seems that this is restricted information. At least I could not access it ( LA-3719 Health Physics Survey of Trinity Site ). It does appear that some groups were seriously irradiated attending soldiers as guinea pigs protected by simple trenches.

On 16 July at half past five, was given the order to detonate. Oppenheimer followed from a shed located about ten kilometers from ground zero and even gave instructions to get back to the blast to protect against strong light, could not prevent several observers were blinded by the light. The reporters reflected the deep satisfaction of Oppenheimer convinced he had found the weapon that would end World War II, as actually happened. But Oppenheimer had not been so proud to know that he had just cut the ribbon of a tragic era, whose first event will take place a month later, when it fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the deadly nuclear devices that would change history. And who would later start the cold war, a dangerous time in which the excessive growth of nuclear weapons would threaten the very survival of the planet.

Fortunately, sanity returned to the political landscape through the nuclear non-proliferation agreements between the superpowers. However, we still suffer the consequences of that fever. According to New Scientist "enjoy" a worrying nuclear legacy, with nine nations with nuclear weapons, 27000 pump and 1855 tonnes of plutonium in the world. There are also many countries that, while not possessing nuclear weapons, have the materials and technology to develop it.

other words, the anniversary of the first nuclear explosion caused is not a celebration of throwing rockets, pun intended, or that humanity should be proud. But it is a reason to seek understanding among peoples. Nations continue to disagree and timid attempts to control nuclear activities are no more than cosmetic. If agreement is reached within a few days ago in Vienna from 89 nations decided to make a more intensive monitoring of nuclear materials. The attempt is appreciated, but is it enough?

Where To Put Powder In A Washing Mashine

red ... to compete

According to a study published last week in the journal Nature athletes wearing red have an advantage over their opponents. But is it really? Russell A.

Hill and Robert A. Barton, researchers at the Evolutionary Anthropology Research Group at the University of Durham, argue in this paper that the color red in dress gives an athlete an advantage that can make a difference when competitors are equal in all other respects. Hill and Barton

extracted this conclusion after examining the results of four disciplines of fighting in the Olympic Games in Athens involving two opponents, who were assigned randomly red or blue for battle. According to their observations, the red garments athlete won the blue dress in 55% of the fighting in the subjects studied (boxing, taekwondo, Greco-Roman wrestling).

The conclusion seems predictable and reasonable. The red color in nature is often associated with increased aggressiveness and intimidation of the opponent situations, so it seems reasonable that "red dress is often linked with a higher probability of winning." But what is significant evidence to this conclusion? Is it enough to fight analysis of results of pairs in an Olympics to conclude that red is an advantage? That

conclusion seems reasonable does not mean it has been demonstrated. More. The authors relate the garments red with red color used as a signal associated with testosterone in several animal species. That is, red dress might similarly increase levels of testosterone and, therefore, the aggressiveness and the possibility of defeat. But the red garments increase testosterone levels of the wearer is a mere hypothesis that the study does not elucidate. On the other hand, the researchers added no little confusion to incorporate into their qualifications comment on teams that choose to compete red garments, ie items that do not come by chance, but of preference. Are they more aggressive to bring these items or chosen because they are more aggressive?

Smoke and Mirrors, also in scientific work

In my opinion, the authors interpreted in a rather superficial correlation between wear red and have a greater chance of winning. But there is a correlation between data does not guarantee that the hypothesis is correct. For example, years ago I saw a table showing a very high mortality from tuberculosis in Segovia, much higher than elsewhere in the Peninsula. A superficial analysis led to the immediate conclusion that the climate Segovia was especially dangerous for patients lung. But further analysis it followed exactly the opposite. Segovia weather was ideal for the treatment of these patients, leading to a greater number of nursing home and, of course, a greater number of deaths from these diseases.

Do not pass the same to the interpretation of color in sportswear? A first analysis suggests that red increases the aggressiveness of the wearer, but is this the only reading? In the absence of data on testosterone or other hormones among the contenders, I would choose me more plausible explanations as to distribute the clothing gives the red color that fierce looks more or less competitive than the more accepting blue or simply that the sample for this study is not statistically significant. I confess I am overlooking the representativeness of the samples when working with complex experiments in which measured variables of human behavior, as is the case.

From what I am sure of is that we must be careful in interpreting these results, it would not be the first time I meet with bold conclusions of studies based on very little data, but in truth, surprise me that a magazine like Nature accept jobs of questionable rigor. Surely it is that I lack the criteria for understanding work this type or that I'm missing some information. In any case, from now on I intend to look a tad more skepticism studies publications with mark of "prestige."

More :

Psychology: Red Enhances human performance in contests
Nature 435, 293 (19 May 2005) doi: 10.1038/435293 to