Science & Fun - Jonathan Graehl

“I attribute essentially all my success to the very large amount of chocolate that I consume,” said Eric Cornell, an American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in 2001. “Personally I feel that milk chocolate makes you stupid. Now dark chocolate is the way to go. It’s one thing if you want like a medicine or chemistry Nobel Prize…but if you want a physics Nobel Prize it pretty much has got to be dark chocolate.”

Researchers recruited 10 men and taped absorbent pads under their armpits while they watched 25-minute videos taken from The Shining and Jackass, on separate occasions.

When the women, who had not been told where the samples came from, were exposed to “fear” [Shining] sweat they opened their eyes more widely – an expression of fear. In contrast, the “disgust” [Jackass] condition prompted them to adopt a corresponding facial expression by lowering their eyebrows and wrinkling their noses.

The effects also applied to “sensory acquisition” behaviour, which naturally occurs when we are afraid but is suppressed when we are disgusted. In the “fear” condition women sniffed more deeply and scanned the room with their eyes more – an evolutionary response designed to help to detect danger. The “disgust” scent had the opposite effect, causing the women to wrinkle their noses and lower their eyebrows, which in nature would help limit exposure to noxious chemicals.

Johnson has another political Achilles’ heel: He is unflinchingly honest. “Always be honest and tell the truth” is one of his Seven Principles of Good Government. A profile in GQ last year put it more bluntly: “There is nothing he will not answer, nothing he will not share… . Johnson is fundamentally incapable of bullshitting.” 

Example: When Mitt Romney made a swing through Michigan, he gushed oleaginously about how “I love this state. It seems right here. The trees are the right height. I like seeing the lakes. I love the lakes… .” By contrast, when a reporter asked Johnson if he would say the same nice things about Michigan that he had said about New Hampshire, he answered: “No, Michigan’s the worst.”

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good: Bad Lieutenant (Harvey Kietel), Dark Water (2002) (delightful. non-supernatural explanation is tempting).

“When I first met him personally, I wondered what his biases and prejudices really were and tried to identify them for many years. My effort was wasted. I finally came to the conclusion that he just doesn’t have any. I think this may be a point that is impossible for his critics to understand. On the other hand, it is the very reason he has stood up so well against his critics. He has invested himself in pursuit of the truth, not any particular set of ideas. … He would gladly know the truth even if it proved him wrong.”

“stinky t-shirt studies” demonstrate that women find attractive the body odors of men whose major histocompatibility complex (MHC) gene variants are most different from their own.  Women’s evolved tendency to be physically attracted to men whose MHC genes are different from theirs increases the probability that their offspring are heterozygous in MHC and are therefore immune to a larger range of bacteria and viruses than offspring who are homozygous in MHC.

It might be argued that in America religion still refers overwhelmingly to Christianity, Christianity promises believers salvation and eternal life, and impressionable people buy into it. They’re happy because they think they are saved and will go to heaven, but there’s no substance to that happiness. The data are not consistent with that hypothesis.

First, believing in salvation and heaven isn’t enough. People who self-identify as fundamentalists—meaning that they definitely believe in salvation and heaven—but who attend church no more than once a year have a “very happy” percentage (22 percent) that is almost as low as for nonbelievers. Second, the relationship of religious attendance to self-reported happiness is almost as strong for people who identify themselves as religious moderates or liberals (meaning that their confidence in salvation and heaven is likely to be dodgy) as it is for fundamentalists—47 percent of fundamentalists who attend church weekly or more report they are very happy, compared to 42 percent of religious moderates and 41 percent of religious liberals.’

The 21C human condition is best seen as a selfmate chess problem. “You have 1000 technological wonders; become miserable anyway in 8 moves.”

I was the homeroom teacher in an incident in a school that tried to implement just this criteria [racial quotas] for discipline. One kid (scrawny 7th grader) had the {bleep} beaten out of him by a 6-foot, fully-muscled 7th grader – two different races. The little kid was suspended before his copious blood had been cleaned up off the floor. The big kid never did have ANY punishment – that particular ethnic group had been disciplined too many times.

Need I mention that it was a tough month, as word quickly spread that violence against the “under-disciplined” ethnic group was treated as a freebie?

It is rumoured that the late Kim Jong-il would inject himself with blood from healthy young virgins in a bid to slow the ageing process. Remarkably, the North Korean dictator might have been onto something. Experiments on mice have shown that it is possible to rejuvenate the brains of old animals by injecting them with blood from the young.

The drainage from the cesspools found its way into the well attached to some houses at Locksbrook, near Bath, and the cholera making its appearance there this present autumn became very fatal. The people complained of the water to the gentleman belonging to the property, who lived at Weston, in Bath, and he sent a surveyor, who reported that nothing was the matter. The tenants still complaining, the owner went himself, and on looking at the water and smelling it, he said that he could perceive nothing the matter with it. He was asked if he would taste it, and he drank a glass of it. This occurred on a Wednesday; he went home, was taken ill with the cholera, and died on the Saturday following, there being no cholera in his own neighbourhood at the time.

Those [70-90 year olds] who reported the highest carbohydrate intake at the beginning of the study were 1.9 times likelier to develop mild cognitive impairment than those with the lowest intake of carbohydrates. Participants with the highest sugar intake were 1.5 times likelier to experience mild cognitive impairment than those with the lowest levels. 

But those whose diets were highest in fat — compared to the lowest — were 42 percent less likely to face cognitive impairment, and those who had the highest intake of protein had a reduced risk of 21 percent. 

When total fat and protein intake were taken into account, people with the highest carbohydrate intake were 3.6 times likelier to develop mild cognitive impairment.

As one of the young libertarians (Ronald’s friend Murray Rothbard was another) who were invited to her apartment for intellectual discussions, he was cast into oblivion after a difference of opinion about … Rachmaninoff. Guests were asked to say who their favorite composers were, and when Rand’s turn came, she said “Rachmaninoff,” with specific reference to his second piano concerto. “Why?” Ronald asked. “Because he was the most rational,” Rand responded. At which Ronald laughed, thinking it must be a joke. He knew that the composer had dedicated that concerto to his psychiatrist — and anyway, rationality had nothing to do with its greatness. But Ronald’s laughter resulted in exile, and the loss of friends who were dear to him.