Science

Here’s why you’re not smart enough

by Rebecca Roache, Royal Holloway University of London
June 30, 2008

An interesting
article in The New York Times
describes how the way in which the brain forms memories can, over time,
lead to false information from noncredible sources being reinterpreted as true. The article notes that this may explain why
smear campaigns can be so effective in politics: those who spread misinformation ‘know that if
their message is initially memorable, its impression will persist long after it
is debunked’—and the rehashing of false information by victims during their defence simply adds to its plausibility in
the long term. It seems, then, that
what we believe may often be based not on truth or credibility, but on repetition and emotional
resonance.

Duck and cover: how expensive does impact safety have to be?

by Anders Sandberg
June 27, 2008

This week is Tunguska week: on June 30 1908 a large meteoroid or comet exploded with the force of 5-30 megatons above the Tunguska River in Russia. The journal Nature celebrates it with several articles about impacts, ranging from a discussion of a controversial meteorite artwork to the confirmation that most of the northern hemisphere of Mars is a gargantuan crater.

From an ethics perspective the most interesting issue is how we should protect ourselves from rare but very destructive events. Had the Tunguska impactor hit an inhabited area it could easily have killed
millions, and larger impacts could imperil our species. But big impacts are rare: how much should we pay to detect and avoid them?

Same species, different needs: could ‘genes for’ improve the way we treat animals?

by Rebecca Roache, Royal Holloway University of London
June 16, 2008

The New
Scientist recently reviewed a variety of studies showing that many traits often supposed unique to humans are in fact shared by
animals. There is evidence that apes, dolphins,
songbirds, elephants, and monkeys share with humans some of the
most important aspects of behaviour associated with speech; killer whales have
distinct cultural groups; great apes and some monkeys have a degree of
understanding of the minds of others, enabling them to deceive; chimpanzees,
gorillas, and crows use tools; and there is suggestive evidence that elephants,
magpies, baboons, whales, and chimpanzees demonstrate emotional behaviour, and
that monkeys and rats are capable of drawing primitive moral distinctions.

Claims that animals have capacities usually thought
unique to humans are controversial, and those who make them are often accused
of anthropomorphising animal behaviour. Plausibly,
there is often more to such accusations than concern for explanatory
parsimony. As humans, we profit from
using animals—for food, research, sport, and so on—in ways that we would not
use other humans, and suggestions that animals are more like humans than we
usually suppose place an unwelcome demand on society to rethink its ethical stance
towards animals. This suggests that a
clear division between humans and other species is important to us in justifying
the discrepancies between what we view as ethical treatment of other humans and
what we view as ethical treatment of non-human animals. Pragmatically speaking, if we
humans wish to retain a privileged moral status, and if our privileged moral
status is at least partly due to our being different to other animals in
certain important (usually biologically-based) respects, then it is in our
interests to resist attempts to draw similarities between humans and other
animals.

The new asbestos?

by Toby Ord
May 21, 2008

Carbon nanotubes are tiny man-made fibers with an incredibly high tensile strength. They are one of the most promising nanotechnological developments with many potential applications in electronics, medicine and futuristic materials. However, a new study by a group of scientists from the US and the UK suggests that carbon nanotubes may cause health problems similar to those of asbestos. The problem comes from their similar shapes: both nanotubes and asbestos consist of hard microscopic fibers that can cause significant damage to the lining of the lungs. The study involved exposing mice to nanotubes and found that nanotubes of a certain size caused asbestos-like inflammations and lesions.

The Ethics of ‘Human Admixed Embryos’: Concerns and Responses

by Julian Savulescu
May 19, 2008

By Loane Skene, Professor of Law, University of Melbourne and Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics and Director Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) Bill, currently before the UK Parliament, will, if passed, permit HFEA to license the creation for research of embryos that combine human and animal genetic material (called, in the Bill, ‘human admixed embryos’). These embryos include cybrids which are formed by inserting the nucleus of a human body cell into an animal egg that has had its nucleus removed. Cybrids would produce embryonic stem cells that are 99.9% human. The Bill would also permit other types of embryos to be formed from human and animal genetic material that would be up to half animal. This post explains why scientists want to create human admixed embryos. It then outlines some ethical concerns about the creation of these embryos and responses that may be made to those concerns.

A Second Human Singularity?

by Rebecca Roache, Royal Holloway University of London
May 16, 2008

New Scientist
reports this week claims that the reason human cognitive powers are so
superior to those of other animals has to do not with biology alone, but also
with our ability to interact with others and with the world.

Hunger is the best spice

by Anders Sandberg
May 9, 2008

Ghrelin is a hormone produced in the stomach that
appears to stimulate appetite. A recent paper in Cell Metabolism shows that
giving ghrelin to volunteers made their brains respond more strongly to food
images, reward systems in the brain became more active and they rated their
level of hunger higher. An immediate reaction in the blogosphere
was to consider the practical applications: Stomach hormone turns hungry people
into junkies (New Scientist), Fast Food Joints Add
Hormone to Food That Makes You Want to Eat More (Io9). Are we moving towards a future where
food will be literally addictive?

New hope or false hope for vegetative patients?

by Dominic Wilkinson
April 25, 2008

A BBC documentary screening this evening on the ‘Inside Out’ program reports on what it describes as a breakthrough for patients in a vegetative state. It is based upon research by a group of neuroscientists in Cambridge, who have used sophisticated brain scans (functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)) to look for signs of consciousness in patients who have previously been thought to be completely unaware of their surroundings.

Trading on Testosterone: Doping and the Financial Markets

by Tom Douglas
April 18, 2008

Two cambridge researchers have found that found that the amount of money a male financial trader makes in a day is correlated with his testosterone level. The pair – John Coates and Joe Herbert – also found that a trader’s testosterone at the beginning of a day is strongly predictive of his success that day, suggesting that testosterone causes improved stock market performance, rather than the reverse.

Junk science reporting

by Toby Ord
April 3, 2008

Science constantly gives rise to new information, new technologies, and new ethical dilemmas. To keep abreast of such changes, we need good science reporting in the newspapers, television and online. However there is a fundamental disconnect between the way science works and the way the media works which leads to big problems in mainstream science reporting. This is excellently illustrated by two of today’s news stories.