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Here are some of this week's Human Nature short takes on the news. To get them in real time, subscribe to the HN Twitter feed.
1. Mayor on Chicago's surveillance network: "cameras are the next best thing" to cops. http://bit.ly/syCfU Prediction: Domestic drones are next.
2. Latest totalitarian hubris: central weather planning http://bit.ly/47M3a6 Didn't work for shamans, won't work for China, Cuba, or Venezuela.
3. GPS tracking is being extended from felons to old folks: http://bit.ly/1ufgAa And that's good for both of them. http://slate.com/id/2118117/
4. Penis-numbing spray prevents premature ejaculation: http://bit.ly/3bsu8i Overdose might have saved Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Mark Foley...
5. If Pistorius' artificial legs aren't faster than real ones (http://bit.ly/10eGGM), the next generation will be. http://slate.com/id/2191801/
6. Dispersed insurgents force US to disperse surveillance & communications to soldiers: http://bit.ly/4sspv2 Infantry is becoming white-collar.
7. "Data does not tell us what to do" in medicine; we must consult "values." GOP on stem cells? No, Dems on breast cancer: http://bit.ly/2axkNH
8. Stupak consolation: No abortion coverage, but contraceptive coverage would cut your risk of having to pay for abortion. http://bit.ly/3nUFke
9. Latest female arousal drug: http://bit.ly/1YjUYL I've seen such hype before. But at least they're targeting the brain now, not the vagina.
10. Palin denies we evolved from "monkeys who ...swung down from the trees." http://bit.ly/3h6VMc So do scientists, dingbat! http://bit.ly/N8k1N
11. As smokers decline to 20% or 15% of population, it becomes economically logical to ban them from apartment buildings. http://bit.ly/4hPmjk
12. "The IED has now replaced direct-fire weapons as the enemy's weapon of choice." http://bit.ly/31auLJ Surveillance, not combat, is the future.
13. God bless this effort to teach mullahs contraception: http://bit.ly/1JcRXf But the surest way to control population is to empower women.
14. 26 gallons of water from a single moon probe impact: http://bit.ly/4pxXSK That's a lot of water. Moon habitation is looking more plausible.
15. Scary theory: By boosting your impression of alertness, caffeine dangerously masks the intoxicating effects of alcohol. http://bit.ly/1ofV83
16. The Vatican may burn a heretic now & then, but the arc of Catholic science bends toward curiosity: http://bit.ly/2HeIZp Also best lede ever.
17. Regrowing penises http://bit.ly/3b83l0 and breasts http://bit.ly/2KDjGT: Will it become possible to alter (or double) your sex "naturally"?
18. Laptop porn-viewing in public: http://bit.ly/2CrSyH Another sign we're mentally drifting out of physical/social reality and into cyberspace.
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Here are some of this week's Human Nature short takes on the news. To get them in real time, subscribe to the HN Twitter feed.
1. Is youth a kind of wealth? Should you pay more for health insurance so old folks can pay less, in the name of equality?
2. Runaway Toyotas don't help us get comfortable with automated cars. Expect more such oops stories as we delegate driving.
3. Now that we can test for genetic susceptibility to harm from vices , we'll use this to find out what we can get away with.
4. Cell phones as microscopes: Another step in the relentless consolidation of gadgets to 1 handheld ().
5. Fascinating challenge to Judaism as inherited trait: Is racial self-definition of who's a Jew religious discrimination?
6. US kids too fat/unfit for military? Bah. More jobs are automated or remotely operated, e.g. drones ().
7. Fruit juice is as bad as soda: Just as I feared. "Natural" isn't a sure guide to morality—or to healthy eating.
8. War against the machines, traffic-cam version: Humans will win these elections ... till machines get the right to vote.
9. Experts using "panda viagra, panda porn and pelvic-thrust exercises" to make pandas mate. Pathetic. Let this species die.
10. Using pot munchies to sell sushi: Commercial integration will legitimate marijuana more effectively than politics can.
11. Uproar over doctors group letting Coke fund its education site: Are soda makers heading toward tobacco's pariah status?
12. The fierce urgency of now can blind you: Gay marriage backers should delay such showdowns till old folks have died off.
13. Dog-scent lineups: Like polygraphs (), a device to make you think you've been caught and confess.
14. Muslim creationism more flexible than Christian version: More evidence that creationism is mostly attitude, not theory.
15. Reframing of mental disorders from either/or to spectra: Good move. The brain is hugely complex with lots of gray area.
16. Sleeping while your copilot minds the instruments is banned by airlines "but is allowed on military planes." Why?
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There's something poignant about the last-minute outrage of the pro-choice groups. The complaints they're leveling—that people had more choices in the private market, that the House bill radically upsets this market, and that it violates Obama's promise not to deprive anyone of their existing coverage—are hardly novel. Republicans have issued such warnings all year. But liberals didn't pay attention until the coverage in jeopardy was abortion.
More here.
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Fort Hood, Texas, hosts tens of thousands of men who are trained to fight for their country. But none of them stopped Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as he blew away 13 of their colleagues Thursday afternoon. It was a civilian police officer, Sgt. Kimberly Munley, who confronted and shot him in an exchange of gunfire. For her trouble, Munley took bullets in both legs and an arm. Maybe the president will pin a medal on her.
Here's a better way to honor Munley: End the ban on women in combat.
More here.
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Can crimes and crashes be blamed on bad genes?
On Friday, Nature reported details of an Italian case in which a court, for the first time in Europe, reduced a criminal sentence based on a genetic theory of behavior. According to the report:
Pietro Pietrini, a molecular neuroscientist at Italy's University of Pisa, and Giuseppe Sartori, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Padova, conducted a series of tests [on the defendant] and found abnormalities in brain-imaging scans and in five genes that have been linked to violent behaviour—including the gene encoding the neurotransmitter-metabolizing enzyme monoamine oxidase A (MAOA). A 2002 study ... had found low levels of MAOA expression to be associated with aggressiveness and criminal conduct of young boys raised in abusive environments. In the report, Pietrini and Sartori concluded that [the defendant's] genes would make him more prone to behaving violently if provoked. ... On the basis of the genetic tests, Judge Reinotti docked a further year off the defendant's sentence, arguing that the defendant's genes "would make him particularly aggressive in stressful situations". Giving his verdict, Reinotti said he had found the MAOA evidence particularly compelling.
Scientists interviewed by Nature say this kind of genetic determinism is too crude and tenuous to justify sentence reductions. Genes operate in relation to each other, not independently, and they produce different effects depending on environmental factors and population differences such as ethnicity. My colleague Dan Engber, who alerted me to the Nature report, has made similar points about brain scans and neuro-determinism. I'm highly sympathetic to his indictment of the field.
Despite these criticisms and the skepticism of judges, Nature reports that according to a database maintained by Nita Farahany of Vanderbilt law school,
in the past five years there have been at least 200 [U.S.] cases where lawyers have attempted to use genetic evidence to support the idea their clients' were predisposed to violent behaviour, depression or drug or alcohol abuse. In Britain, there have been at least 20 such cases in the past five years.
And don't be surprised if the next target of genetic determinists is car crashes. Neuroscientists from the University of California at Irvine have just laid out the case in a paper in Cerebral Cortex, accompanied by a catchy press release. The release is titled, "Bad driving may have genetic basis, UCI study finds." It reports:
People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it—and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant. ... The driving test was taken by 29 people-22 without the gene variant and seven with it. They were asked to drive 15 laps on a simulator that required them to learn the nuances of a track programmed to have difficult curves and turns. Researchers recorded how well they stayed on the course over time. Four days later, the test was repeated. Results showed that people with the variant did worse on both tests than the other participants, and they remembered less the second time.
The release explains how the gene works:
This gene variant limits the availability of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor during activity. BDNF keeps memory strong by supporting communication among brain cells and keeping them functioning optimally. When a person is engaged in a particular task, BDNF is secreted in the brain area connected with that activity to help the body respond.
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, will surely become fodder for defense attorneys in civil and criminal cases involving crashes or dangerous driving. And these lawyers won't be alone in their interest. In the press release, Steven Cramer, the neuroscientist who led the study, says, "I'd be curious to know the genetics of people who get into car crashes. I wonder if the accident rate is higher for drivers with the variant."
I bet every auto insurer would like to know the same thing.
I'm counting on Engber to pick apart the study and the press release. Let's hope the authors are oversimplifying the impact of genes on behavior. Because if the link between genes and driving performance is solid enough to justify reduced sentences and damage awards, it's hard to see why insurances shouldn't be allowed to test and charge you accordingly.