If you want to get close to someone, give them a nice hot cup of tea. Or anything warm for that matter.
Can't beat a nice hot Cuppa
New research suggests that when someone experiences physical warmth, they develop increased feelings of interpersonal warmth – and it all happens without them even knowing.
Tests by researchers at Yale University and the University of Colorado at Boulder showed that when given a hot cup to hold, a subject would judge another person to have a ‘warmer’ personality. In another test, application of a thermal pad resulted in the person tending to choose a gift for a friend rather than themselves.
The key to this behaviour is the discovery that a part of the brain, the insular cortex, looks after both the physical and psychological versionsof warmth information, with feelings like trust, empathy, guilt and embarrassment also implicated.
So there you go – yet more evidence that we are completely out of control of ourselves. Ho Hum…..
P.S. Only use a Los Alamos mug if you are looking for that ‘extra warmth’.
WONDERING what the world will look like when the heat is on?
A newly discovered micro-fossil of an organism that lived during a previous global warming is helping researchers understand how aquatic life could adapt to the warmer, lower oxygen, waters that may accompany radical environmental transformations.
"Magnetic Death Star" - CalTech image
Dubbed the “Magnetic Death Star”, due to its round and spiky magnetite structure, the fossil was found among sediment deposited 55 million years ago during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when surging atmospheric carbon drove temperatures 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher. CalTech and McGill University workers believe the single-celled eukaryote evolved during the PETM, only to be out-competed and disappear again when conditions cooled off (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, DOI:10.1073 / pnas.0803634105).
Early warning of three events into the new year that folk might like to consider joining. The Darwin related talks will sell out fast for sure – so think ahead – like me.
‘Weird Science’, Saturday 17th January 2009, London
Organised by the Centre for Inquiry, this all-day event promises to explore ‘Weird Science – science of the weird, and weird and flaky science’ . So pretty weird.
Expect presentations from Ben Goldacre, Richard Wiseman, Chris French and Steven Law. The venue is Conway Hall, Red Lion Square. Details at Centre for Inquiry.
Darwin Day Lecture, 12th February 2009, London
Prof Sir David King
You’ll be aware from previous posts that Darwin will be a bigger deal than usual next year, and appreciate the need to book early for events like the NSS lunch on 7th February. An event guaranteed to be even more popular is the BHA’s annual Darwin Day Lecture, given by Professor Sir David King on ‘Can British Science Rise to the New Challenges of the Twenty First Century?’ Good question. The event will be held at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1 on Thursday 12th February at 6.30pm. Attendance at the lecture is £5 for members of the BHA and £7 for others. Tickets are available from the British Humanist Association on 020 7079 3580 or by email on info@humanism.org.uk
Dan Dennett Lecture, 19th March 2009, London
Dan Dennett
I’m not alone in tagging Dan Dennett as the more philosophical, patient, and possibly more persuasive member of the media-branded atheist quartet of Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris.
On 19th March we will get to hear what will doubtless be an insightful and balanced analysis on ‘A Darwinian Perspective on Religions: Past, Present and Future’. Who better to deliver that than the author of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (Penguin Science)
The location, prices, and contact details are as for the Darwin Day Lecture above.
This Sunday 12th October, Stephen Fry will present the first of a series of programmes recounting his epic 50 State tour of the USA. Fry is well known as an actor, TV presenter, novellist, film maker, and general wit and, as this quote from the current Radio Times reminded me, he’s also a great fan and defender of science:
Stephen Fry (Picture credit: Radio Times online)
“The best definition of science I have ever heard (embarrassingly, it’s my own) is ‘humility in the face of facts” and yet science in America is always being accused of arrogance! Arrogance? Compared to those Sunday evangelists and others who claim that truth is ‘revealed’ in a book, one book, whose journey into existence is traceable in history, whose fragments and parts and apocrypha were arbitrarily decided by compromise and pragmatic need? Yet America’s insistence on equal validity between ‘revealed’ truth and evidence-based truth has meant that evolution is now pitted against so-called ‘intelligent design’, a barbarously irrational mixture of pseudoscience and fallacious argument that poses itself ‘innocently’ as a credible alternative.” (Stephen Fry – Radio Times)
This sort of comment is consistent with the Stephen Fry I encountered at the first DNA Memorial Lecture at the Royal Institution in 2003. Fry was Master of Ceremonies for Richard Dawkins‘s lecture ‘Queerer Than We Can Suppose‘. And no, this wasn’t a homage to Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid, but rather a celebration of the memory of the irreplaceable Douglas Noel Adams, patron to the beneficiaries of the evening – The Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund and Save the Rhino International.
Fry’s comments during the various introductions, links, and humorous ramblings revealed an impressively knowledgeable and scientifically literate guy, especially in all matters evolutionary. He’d doubtless be shocked that anyone would think otherwise, but this was a world as yet unexposed to the intellectual sound-bitery of the QI show.
The real, not to say surreal, reason I remember this all so well is the charity auction at the end of the evening. With Fry as auctioneer, I found myself bidding head-to-head with Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) for a two foot high, ceramic, silver-backed gorilla (as you do). Suffice to say the wrong Jones walked off with the pottery primate – leaving me apeless (sorry).
Also of Interest
“Douglas Adams loved ideas but hated writing, says Terry Jones” March 2012 BBC article HERE
Military robots are in the news today, with the BBC reporting six deaths in Pakistan, allegedly caused by a missile strike from a US unmanned aircraft, or drone. We’re going to see a lot more of this. The military robot sector is booming and well funded through the USA’s $145bn Future Combat Systems (FCS) programme. Robots (the name derives from the Czech vobota, for forced labour) are seen as battlefield lifesavers, which doubtless they are for the side that controls them.
On a lighter robotic note, cuddly dinosaur robot Pleo continues to wow pundits with its cuteness and personality capability – tested here, while in Japan, this unicycle riding robot demonstrated state of the art balance. Balance, particularly in pseudo-human robots with legs, is one of the big challenges for robot engineers. Maybe the solution is to double up on the legs, as in this slightly disturbing clip of Boston Dynamics ‘Big Dog’.
“Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality“
Johann Wolfgang Goethe
That sentiment will be endorsed when, on 8th November, John Adams’s opera Dr Atomic is broadcast live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City to cinema venues across the world.
Trinity
Taking as its theme the first U.S. atomic bomb tests in 1945, Doctor Atomic draws on declassified documents to inform a production that explores the tensions, dilemmas, and decisions that occupied the minds of J.Robert Oppenheimer and his project associates in the weeks leading up to detonation.
Originally, I wanted to draw attention here to Sarah Palin’s environmental credentials, lest the topic be short-changed amidst the lively discussion of her religious beliefs. This article by Britt Collins in the Guardian was the spur; liberally illustrated with quotes from Palin and others, it includes this passage – reproduced verbatim in Collins’ contextual frame with the quote attributed to Palin bolded:
She then wrote a piece for the New York Times, saying that these “magnificent cuddly white bears are doing just fine and don’t need our protection. If the ice melts, they’ll adapt to living on land”. That is a contention most scientists found reckless, given that polar bears have shown little ability to feed on land.
Endangered
But here I came unstuck, the issue being I can’t find the quote in the cited reference (New York Times). I found this article by Palin, titled ‘Bearing Up’, and covering the right topic – but the quote’s not there. Maybe it turns up eventually, but it’s an emotive quotation, not to be spread lightly, even on a blog with Zoonomian’s embryonic circulation. So while I’m not a Palin fan, and find her potential career progression deeply worrying, that’s not the point here.
It turns out the quote has itself been quoted on several blogs concerned with climate change, conservation, or just anti-Palin; sometimes there’s a reference to the Guardian – sometimes not; but all dated after the Guardian posting.
I guess the issue is how comfortable we are in relaying information which can’t be verified – at least in the short term, even when it derives from a normally trustworthy intermediary and supports our own motives.
Two real hoo-hahs have gone down in the world of UK science this week. At the British Association Festival of Science in Liverpool, the Director of Education at the Royal Society, Rev.Prof.Michael Reiss, appeared to support at least some discussion of creationism in school science classes. At the same festival, embryologist and TV science star Robert Winston stirred up journalists and festies alike with further criticism of what he sees as the irresponsible behaviour of the super-atheist clan (Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens et al). This post relates to the Reiss storm; here is a podcast featuring Reiss that accompanied his entry on the Guardian Science Blog on 11th September, and Reiss’s pre-presentation press brief from the BA.
Compatible?
Reiss’s comments are surprising and, given his position and the ammunition he is handing to less moderate interests, politically puzzling. The arguments for and against debate of non-scientific, non-evidence-based, and logic-deficient world views in school science classes have been done to death (the comments on Reiss’s statement on the Guardian Science Blog say it all).
My personal stance is that it is important in schools to explicitly state what science is not, as well as what it is. Science is not a methodology for analysing non-evidence-based beliefs, which includes most religious beliefs as self defined. It is a separate issue if a student wants to argue a religion is evidence based; that’s a good discussion topic for the religious studies class. There would be less angst all round if boundaries, rules, and definitions were more clearly defined in this way.
It is the duty of the educational authority (in the broadest sense of the term, but here including Michael Reiss) to agree the ground rules, and to instruct and enable teachers to relay them to children at the start of term. It boils down to making sure kids know up front what science is and what it is not.
There are two reasons this has not happened. First, the authority setting the rules is itself confused over what science is; and second, there is political comfort in maintaining that ambiguity in an atmosphere where the setting of any boundary is seen as an implied attack on anything lying outside it. The first weakness may be countered with a relentless appeal to reason, defense of the scientific method, and political lobby. The second requires political courage from our leaders, faced with the inescapable truth that the intellectually honest position, without vindictive or malicious intent, will be painful to some.
European Commission press release.
Fast and reliable access to research results, especially via the Internet, can drive innovation, advance scientific discovery and support the development of a strong knowledge-based economy. The European Commission wants to ensure that the results of the research it funds under the EU’s 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7) with more than € 50 billion from 2007 – 2013 are disseminated as widely and effectively as possible to guarantee maximum exploitation and impact in the world of researchers and beyond. The Commission today launched a pilot project that will give unrestricted online access to EU-funded research results, primarily research articles published in peer reviewed journals, after an embargo period of between 6 and 12 months. The pilot will cover around 20% of the FP7 programme budget in areas such as health, energy, environment, social sciences and information and communication technologies. Rapid
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
