There’s been enormous progress in genomics; we’re now on the threshold of truly understanding how little we understand. While the anticipated firehose of genome-based treatments hasn’t materialized, we now know why it hasn’t materialized, and it’s possible to start filling in the gaps in the map. Turns out that sequencing the human genome was merely the start. (It’s not a blueprint; it’s not even an algorithm for generating a human being. Rather, it’s like a snapshot of the static data structures embedded in an executing process. Debug that.) My bet is that we’re going to have to wait another decade. Then things are going to start to get very strange in medicine.
Charles Stross, “Reasons to be cheerful”, Charlie’s Diary, 2010-12-31
February 7, 2011
QotD: Genomics
Comments Off on QotD: Genomics
January 31, 2011
Study implies that “traditional” parenting roles may be better for children
Cue the outrage:
Despite the long push for more equality in parenting duties, new research suggests that mothers and fathers may actually get along better when parenting roles are divided along more traditional lines — that is, when fathers back off caregiving duties, such as feeding and bathing, and put more effort into playtime.
[. . .]
Families in which fathers were more involved in play activities had more of what researchers called supportive interaction between the two parents.
In contrast, more of what is described by researchers as “undermining behaviour” was seen among families in which fathers do more of the caregiving.
[. . .]
It is unclear why the study yielded the results it did, but Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, a professor of family science at Ohio State University and one of the study’s co-authors, suggested parents may be subconsciously bothered when parenting roles conflict with their pre-conceived ideas.
From the mother’s point of view, it could be a function of “maternal gatekeeping,” she said. “For mothers, maybe, it’s hard to give up some control to the father. That could be a total social effect, but there could some sort of biological underpinning to it.”
It’s a single study, so the results are hardly conclusive, but the general tenor of the study will not be popular in certain academic and political circles.
Comments Off on Study implies that “traditional” parenting roles may be better for children
January 27, 2011
Unanticipated outcome of increasing sexual equality
Caroline May is almost right in the title to this article: “Stay vertical a bit longer, ladies: Study claims men are winning the game of love”.
It’s not all men who benefit, even if we just talk about men who are unmarried and not in a long-term relationship. The men who benefit from this development are the kind of men who already had high “market value” before the days of sexual equality:
“Girl power” might have brought women and girls victories in academics and sports but, as a recent book out of the University of Texas reports, an unintended consequence of women’s success has given men a leg up in the game of love.
Based on research published in their new book,“Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate and Think About Marrying,” Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, sociologists from the University of Texas at Austin, have found that with women becoming more educated and professionally successful than ever, it has become extremely difficult for them to find a committed man.
Part of the problem is that women traditionally have looked to have relationships with higher-status men (dating or marrying “up”). Now that women are achieving higher financial, academic, and professional status themselves, they’re finding a much-reduced group of men who meet their new (higher) expectations, but also facing much more competition from other women who have also achieved higher status. In economic terms, the market for high status men has more potential buyers chasing fewer sellers. Prices (in this case, willingness to offer sex earlier) must rise to compensate.
Comments Off on Unanticipated outcome of increasing sexual equality
January 24, 2011
Ten things you didn’t know about orgasm
Probably NSFW, although it’s all science.
H/T to Radley Balko for the link.
January 15, 2011
Indian model photoshopped against her will
It’s no secret that most of the images used for magazine covers have had a healthy dose of Photoshoppery, but this is a few filters too far:
Leave it to ELLE Magazine to photochop the world’s most beautiful woman. Aishwarya Rai, the reigning queen of Indian cinema, model and classically trained dancer is currently on the cover of ELLE India — several shades lighter. Rai’s skin has been lightened and her dark brown hair appears to have a red tint to it.
The Times of India reported the former Miss World is “furious with the bleaching botch-up” and is considering taking legal action against ELLE.
ELLE’s mission is to make women “chic and smart, guide their self-expression, and encourage their personal power,” but their recent covers could lead readers to believe that “chic, smart and personal empowerment” only comes to those with light skin.
H/T to Tim Harford for the link.
January 10, 2011
Facebook has a repeat of their earlier boob
Facebook apparently has something against breasts — specifically those used to feed babies:
Facebook had one of its nipple-related related brainstorms last week, banning, unbanning, then re-banning breastfeeding support group, The Leaky Boob.
The Leaky Boob group allows almost 11,000 mothers to share their experiences on breastfeeding — as well as providing casual visitors with a treasure trove of advice and tips. Well, it would do, if Facebook didn’t keep deleting it — as they did the previous weekend.
This provoked an angry reaction from the tens of thousands of women who use the page for information and support.
Breastfeeding supporters responded swiftly, creating two pages on Facebook, Bring Back the Leaky Boob and TLB Support, which gained the best part of 10,000 fans in just two days.
On Tuesday, according to group founder Jessica Martin-Weber, the page was back up.
On Wednesday it was gone again.
Then, later in the day, it returned and is still up today.
It’s easy to see how the content of TLB might be offensive to closed-minded people, and if the banning mechanism Facebook uses is mostly automated, it’d explain the way in which the group was originally banned. If all it takes is a complaint, and the (I assume automated) follow-up to the complaint only checks for certain things, the first shutdown is explained. The fact that the group has been through this process before shows a weakness in Facebook’s administrative tracking policies.
Comments Off on Facebook has a repeat of their earlier boob
January 7, 2011
How not to handle public health issues like influenza
I was astonished to hear a radio reporter yesterday admit that much of the reason for the drop in people getting flu shots is the massively overblown oh-my-god-we’re-all-going-to-die media panic last year over Swine flu H1N1. In case you somehow managed to miss out on it last year, every news broadcast seemed to feature yet another doctor or public health official telling us that we faced a worldwide pandemic of H1N1 which was the invincible, all-conquering Überflu to top all plagues we’d ever faced before. Death tolls in the millions were confidently predicted. Every individual who died seemed to be mentioned personally . . . because there were so relatively few compared to those poor folks who died of “ordinary” seasonal flu.
Lorne Gunter gives a bit of credit where it’s due:
Give Allison McGeer credit for being frank about what’s behind this winter’s flu outbreak in Ontario: unnecessary panic over last year’s swine flu “pandemic.” Dr. McGeer, head of infection control at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, says flu cases are way up this season because vaccinations are way down; and vaccinations are way down, likely, because too much was made of the swine flu by media and officialdom last winter.
It is a medical case of the doctors who cried wolf, in other words.
[. . .]
There is a fine line between erring on the side of caution and crying wolf. And last year, the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) blew through that barrier with abandon.
Just as it had on SARS and bird flu and the Ebola virus, the WHO overreacted to swine flu, issuing cautions that were out of all proportion to the risk the disease posed to the public. (Remember in 2003 when the WHO recommended people from around the world stay away from Toronto because the city was host to a few hundred SARS infections?)
But unlike those earlier panics, the WHO pulled out every stop on swine flu. It was as if the UN agency had been surprised that its earlier scares had failed to grow into full-blown pandemics; and so they figured that, finally, swine flu was due to become a worldwide infection requiring a dramatic response from international health officials.
As I wrote last year in May, when even the most panic-stricken media outlets were no longer playing the JuggernautOfDoom theme:
This would have been a good opportunity for de-escalating the panic mongering (and perhaps even attempting to rein-in the media, who were equally to blame for the tone of the information getting to the public). They chose, instead, to actively hide the fact that H1N1 cases were running below the level of ordinary seasonal flu cases (total H1N1 deaths: approximately 18,000 — typical annual death toll from seasonal flu: 250,000-500,000).
The biggest problem isn’t that they over-reacted this time, it’s that it has reduced their credibility the next time they start issuing health warnings. And that’s a bad thing. Unless they pull the same stunt next time, too. In which case, we may start hearing talk about setting up competing organizations to do the job the current entities appear to have given up on.
Comments Off on How not to handle public health issues like influenza
December 23, 2010
Aspirin, the rediscovered wonder drug
A recent study intended to verify that small doses of aspirin did reduce the chances of heart attack and stroke has also shown that it reduces the incidence of certain cancers:
In trials lasting between four and eight years, the patients who had been given aspirin were 21% less likely to die from cancer than those who had been given a placebo. These results were based on 674 cancer deaths, so are unlikely to represent the kind of statistical oddity that can beset studies on cancer risks that sometimes create headlines.
The benefits of aspirin were also apparent many years after the trials had ended. After five years, death rates for all cancers fell by 35% and for gastrointestinal cancers by 54%. A long-term follow-up of patients showed that the 20-year risk of cancer death remained 20% lower in those who had taken aspirin.
The study revealed that the effect takes time to accrue, so aspirin must be taken over a long period. The latent period for improving oesophageal, pancreatic, brain and lung cancer was about five years of aspirin taking on a daily basis. For stomach and colorectal cancer the effects took ten years and for prostate cancer about 15 years. The means by which aspirin prevents cancer is not well understood. It is believed that it inhibits an enzyme that promotes cell proliferation in tumours.
Comments Off on Aspirin, the rediscovered wonder drug
December 21, 2010
This goes far beyond accepting the end of “DADT”
As I posted back in January, one of the problems western troops have in dealing with Pashtuns in Afghanistan is the radically different sexual culture, including barely concealed pedophilia:
The vast gulf between U.S. and Afghan attitudes about homosexuality and pedophilia has generated concern among U.S. advisers in Afghanistan since the American presence there began to expand.
In late 2009, U.S. and British forces ordered a study of Pashtun male sexuality. They were worried that homosexuality and pedophilia among Afghan security forces and tribes could create cultural misunderstanding with allied troops, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Washington Examiner.
[. . .]
“I know Marines and soldiers who have refused to work with Afghan military or police,” said one U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s not about homosexuality as much as it is about the young boys. Some of them like to show pictures on their cell phone — that should be illegal. Some of the Afghans have their own young boys they use for sexual purposes and we can’t do anything about it.”
[. . .]
“Homosexuality is strictly prohibited in Islam, but cultural interpretations of Islamic teaching prevalent in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan tacitly condone it in comparison to heterosexual relationships,” the study states.
For a male to have sex with a boy is considered a “foible,” the report said. By contrast, having sex with an “ineligible woman” would set up “issues of revenge and honor killings.”
Years of living under that cultural construct have greatly altered sexual attitudes, the study said. “One of the country’s favorite sayings is ‘women are for children, boys are for pleasure,” the report noted.
Comments Off on This goes far beyond accepting the end of “DADT”
December 2, 2010
Autism may be linked to faulty mitochondria
A report in The Economist looks at a recent study which may explain the cause of autism:
One suggestion that does pop up from time to time is that the process which leads to autism involves faulty mitochondria. The mitochondria are a cell’s powerpacks. They disassemble sugar molecules and turn the energy thus liberated into a form that biochemical machinery can use. Mitochondrial faults could be caused by broken genes, by environmental effects, or by a combination of the two.
Nerve cells have a huge demand for energy, so a failure of the mitochondria would certainly affect them. The question is, could it cause autism? To try to find out Cecilia Giulivi of the University of California, Davis, and her colleagues studied the mitochondria of ten children, aged between two and five years, who had been diagnosed with autism. They have just published their results in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
[. . .]
The children in question were randomly selected from a previous study on autism. They were matched with ten children of similar ages and ethnic backgrounds who were developing normally. Dr Giulivi found that mitochondria from children with autism consumed far less oxygen than those from the control group. That is a sign of lower activity. One important set of enzymes — NADH oxidases — used, on average, only a third as much oxygen in autistic children as they did in non-autists, and eight of the autistic children had significantly lower NADH-oxidase activity than is normal.
The mitochondria of the autistic children also leaked damaging oxygen-rich chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide. These are a normal by-product of mitochondrial activity, but are usually mopped up by special enzymes before they can escape and cause harm — for instance, by damaging a cell’s DNA. The level of hydrogen peroxide in the cells of autistic children was twice that found in non-autists. Such high levels suggest the brains of autistic children are exposed to a lot of oxidative stress, something that would probably cause cumulative damage.
While such a mechanism may allow better treatments to be developed, it also implies that those who already suffer from autism may not benefit as much (or at all) from such treatments, as the cellular damage will be a much tougher challenge to reverse.
On the other hand, if the pattern can be detected early enough, it may allow treatment well in advance of serious damage.
Comments Off on Autism may be linked to faulty mitochondria
November 16, 2010
QotD: The true nature of parenthood
We have a name for people who pursue rare moments of bliss at the expense of their wallets and their social and professional relationships: addicts.
Children regularly give parents the kind of highs that only narcotics can rival. The unpredictability of those moments of bliss is an important factor in their addictiveness. If you give animals a predictable reward — say, a shot of sugar every time they press a lever — you can get them to press that lever quite regularly. But if you want irrational and addictive behavior, you make the reward unpredictable. Pressing the lever produces sugar, but only once every 10 tries. Sometimes, the animal might have to go 20 or 30 tries without a reward. Sometimes it gets a big jolt of sugar three tries in a row. If you train an animal to work for an unexpected reward, you can get it to work harder and longer than if you train it to work for a predictable reward.
[. . .]
I suspect oxytocin works the same way. The unexpected, kind, and loving things that children do produce chemical surges in their parents’ brains like the rush of the pipe or the needle. Like addicts, parents will sacrifice anything for the glimpses of heaven that their offspring periodically provide.
Shankar Vedantam, “Parents Are Junkies: If parenthood sucks, why do we love it? Because we’re addicted”, Slate, 2010-11-16
Comments Off on QotD: The true nature of parenthood
November 14, 2010
Wandering minds or wandered researchers?
I can’t improve at all on Chris Myrick’s comment on this article:
Harvard psychologists have determined that we are happiest when: having sex, exercising, in intense conversations with friends, listening to music or playing. Aside from their use of an iPhone app to determine this, (http://www.trackyourhappiness.org/), I’m missing the news value.
However, I see potential for a follow-up study where researchers can determine whether receiving phone messages during sex, sport or engaging conversation puts a damper on someone’s mood.
Comments Off on Wandering minds or wandered researchers?
November 1, 2010
This will come as a surprise only to drug warriors
A recent British study totted up the effects both on the individual and costs to society of various legal and illegal drugs:
Alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack, according to a study published in medical journal the Lancet.
The report is co-authored by Professor David Nutt, the former UK chief drugs adviser who was sacked by the government in October 2009.
It ranks 20 drugs on 16 measures of harm to users and to wider society.
Tobacco and cocaine are judged to be equally harmful, while ecstasy and LSD are among the least damaging.
H/T to DarkWaterMuse, who writes:
An interesting result, no doubt, but one thing the researchers failed to do is to aggregate the harm due to all illicit drugs, or even a handful of drugs frequently abused by the same users. Seems to me this would likely reveal alcohol as relatively benign though it’s not clear how additive the effects are.
Comments Off on This will come as a surprise only to drug warriors
October 29, 2010
Would KFC’s Double Down have been a hit without the Food Police panic?
Lorne Gunter salutes KFC and their surprise hit menu item:
Way to go KFC! Your Double Down sandwich has the health police in a tizzy. Those preachy, prancing, eat-your-peas pokenoses can’t decide whether to tax you, shield their children’s eyes from you or send you to re-education camp — or perhaps all three at once.
I’m am happy to hear your new bun-less concoction is your most successful new-product launch in company history. May the marketing mastermind who came up with the Double-D get an unhealthy bonus.
To be honest, I can’t even imagine trying one — two deep-fried chicken breasts wrapped around two strips of bacon, two slices of processed cheese and some sauce doesn’t appeal to me — except maybe as a dare; a Double Down Dare. Still, I am genuinely pleased that you have had the chicken balls to come out with an item that thumbs its nose so completely at conventional public-health wisdom.
I’ll never eat one myself, but I cheer on the spirit of those who tell the Nanny State’s food police where to go.
Comments Off on Would KFC’s Double Down have been a hit without the Food Police panic?
An alarming argument against DNA testing
The actual article is behind a paywall (“Who’s the Daddy?” by Melanie McDonagh), so I haven’t read all of it. Andrew Stuttaford quotes a most disturbing paragraph, however:
DNA tests are an anti-feminist appliance of science, a change in the balance of power between the sexes that we’ve hardly come to terms with. And that holds true even though many women have the economic potential to provide for their children themselves . . . Uncertainty allows mothers to select for their children the father who would be best for them. The point is that paternity was ambiguous and it was effectively up to the mother to name her child’s father, or not . . . Many men have, of course, ended up raising children who were not genetically their own, but really, does it matter . . . in making paternity conditional on a test rather than the say-so of the mother, it has removed from women a powerful instrument of choice.
So, she’s against DNA testing to determine paternity because it reveals the truth? I’ve always discounted stories about women deliberately choosing to lie about who the father of a child is, but if this opinion is common, I’ve been mighty naive.
Comments Off on An alarming argument against DNA testing
