Have I Got One For YOU

NCBI ROFL: Probably the most horrifying scientific lecture ever.

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:01:01 GMT

How (not) to communicate new scientific information: a memoir of the famous brindley lecture

“In 1983, at the Urodynamics Society meeting in Las Vegas, Professor G.S. Brindley first announced to the world his experiments on self-injection with papaverine to induce a penile erection. This was the first time that an effective medical therapy for erectile dysfunction (ED) was described, and was a historic development in the management of ED. The way in which this information was first reported was completely unique and memorable, and provides an interesting context for the development of therapies for ED. I was present at this extraordinary lecture, and the details are worth sharing. Although this lecture was given more than 20 years ago, the details have remained fresh in my mind, for reasons which will become obvious.

The lecture, which had an innocuous title along the lines of ‘Vaso-active therapy for erectile dysfunction’ was scheduled as an evening lecture of the Urodynamics Society in the hotel in which I was staying. I was a senior resident, hungry for knowledge, and at the AUA I went to every lecture that I could. About 15 min before the lecture I took the elevator to go ...

“Nasal Tampon” Made of Cured Pork Is a Great Cure for Nosebleeds

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:04:01 GMT

Bacon gets all the internet glory, but its more old-fashioned cousin salt pork may actually be good for you—for your nosebleeds, if not your waistline. Doctors recently used strips of cured salt pork to stop a life-threatening nosebleed. One of the doctors remembered the unconventional treatment from a field manual he saw in his military days, after exhausting all medical treatments short of risky surgeries.

The patient was a four-year-old girl with Glanzmann thrombasthenia, a rare blood disorder where her platelets are unable to do their normal job of blood clotting. Surgery and injection of blood coagulation proteins didn’t stop her bleeding after more than a week, so the doctors turned to something untested and low tech: “Cured salted pork crafted as a nasal tampon and packed within the nasal vaults successfully stopped nasal hemorrhage promptly, effectively, and without sequelae,” they wrote in a paper about the episode. While “nasal tampon” may sound distinctly undelicious as a pork product, it worked—not once, but twice, as a cure. When the girl re-injured herself four weeks later, the doctors stuffed salt pork up her nose again and she was home in less than 72 hours.

Now we all ...

3,500-Year-Old Jokes Have Something to Say About Yo Mama

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:14:33 GMT

“That’s what SHE said!”

The study of jokes and riddles written in ancient languages we barely understand is, well, a little tricky. But in a recent paper in the journal Iraq, Middle East scholars Michael Streck and Nathan Wasserman describe and interpret some thigh-slappers scrawled on a badly damaged tablet from Babylon, circa 1500 BC. The scribe’s cuneiform is on the sloppy side. The translations are uncertain, too—but no doubt the humor will still shine through. Here’s one riddle for your pleasure:

The deflowered (girl) did not become pregnant
The undeflowered (girl) became pregnant (-What is it?)

The answer is, of course, is “auxiliary forces.” That was your guess too, right? No? If it makes you feel better, Wasserman and Streck didn’t really get it, either.

Let’s do another one:

He gouged out the eye:
It is not the fate of a dead man.
He cut the throat: A dead man (-Who is it?)

The governor.

ROFL!! Streck and Wasserman write that this is referring to a governor’s hilarious power to sentence people to death.

Here’s one last riddle, whose beginning has been lost and whose translation is a bit uncertain:

… of your mother

is by the one who has intercourse (with her) ...

NCBI ROFL: Your rug is so ugly it makes me sick. Literally.

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:07:14 GMT

The sickening rug: a repeating static pattern that leads to motion-sickness-like symptoms.

“The nauseogenic properties of a patterned rug that reputedly caused motion-sickness-like symptoms in those who viewed it was the topic of this study. Naive observers viewed a 1:1 scale image of the black-and-white patterned rug and a homogeneous gray region of equivalent luminance in a counterbalanced within-subjects design. After 5 min of viewing, symptoms were assessed with the simulator sickness questionnaire (SSQ), yielding a total SSQ score and sub-scores for nausea, oculomotor symptoms, and disorientation. All four scores were significantly higher in the rug condition. Observers also reported significantly more self-motion perception in the rug condition, even though they were seated during the experiment. Results are consistent with findings that suggest that neurologically normal individuals who view a repeating static pattern can experience unpleasant symptoms, some of which are similar to motion sickness.”

Bonus quote from the full text:
“Bottom line: be careful what you buy. You might have to look at it for a while and
it might just make you feel sick.”

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NCBI ROFL: Does it take one to know one? Endorsement of conspiracy theories is influenced by personal willingness to conspire.

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:07:28 GMT

“We advance a new account of why people endorse conspiracy theories, arguing that individuals use the social-cognitive tool of projection when making social judgements about others. In two studies, we found that individuals were more likely to endorse conspiracy theories if they thought they would be willing, personally, to participate in the alleged conspiracies. Study 1 established an association between conspiracy beliefs and personal willingness to conspire, which fully mediated a relationship between Machiavellianism and conspiracy beliefs. In Study 2, participants primed with their own morality were less inclined than controls to endorse conspiracy theories – a finding fully mediated by personal willingness to conspire. These results suggest that some people think ‘they conspired’ because they think ‘I would conspire’.”

Photo: flickr/kyz

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To Thwart Hackers, New Security Software Makes Hacking Tedious

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:06:28 GMT

Mykonos’s motto is two-fold.

When you think of protecting a website from hackers, the first thing that comes to mind is probably blocking them out. But what if you just let them on a wild-goose chase, feeding them nuggets of false information and leading them down dead-ends until they get fed up and go do something else?

That’s the strategy behind Mykonos Software‘s security program, which takes a “step right in, let me fetch you a cup of tea and bore you to tears” approach to protection. The tool identifies individuals who are running common searches for security weaknesses on a site, logs their information, and continues to play them for suckers by dribbling out a breadcrumb trail that appears to yield passwords and other tasty vulnerabilities, but ultimately leads nowhere. CEO David Koretz explained to Tom Simonite at Tech Review the various ways in which the software plays with attackers:

A scan that might usually take five hours could take 30, Koretz says. Other tactics include offering up dummy password files, which can help track an attacker when he or she tries to use them. “We’ll let them break the encryption and present a false login ...

NCBI ROFL: The effect of women’s suggestive clothing on men’s behavior and judgment: a field study.

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:44:39 GMT

“Numerous studies have shown that men overestimate the sexual intent of women based on their clothing style; however, this hypothesis has not been assessed empirically in a natural setting. This small field study measured the time it took for men to approach two female confederates sitting in a tavern, one wearing suggestive clothes and one wearing more conservative clothes. The behavior of 108 men was observed over 54 periods on 16 different nights in two different taverns. The time it took for the men to approach after initial eye contact was significantly shorter in the suggestive clothing condition. The men were also asked by male confederates to rate the likelihood of having a date with the women, and having sex on the first date. The men rated their chances to have a date and to have sex significantly higher in the suggestive clothing condition. Results are discussed with respect to men’s possible misinterpretation that women’s clothing indicates sexual interest, and the risks associated with the misinterpretation.”

Photo: Flickr/philosophygeek

Portland’s Tips for Making Public Potties That Last

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:03:35 GMT

Breezy and exposed! That’s the secret to bathrooms no one, not even street people, wants to live in.

Many cities have had epic, expensive public toilet fails. Seattle, we’re looking at you and your $5 million self-cleaning toilets that wound up trashed.

But over at The Atlantic’s Cities site, John Metcalfe has a piece detailing why Portland’s public potties have survived the aggressions (and heavy use) of the citizens. Here are Portland’s tips for defecation success.

1. Make it open to the elements: we’re talking bathroom stall, sans the bathroom. People walking by on the sidewalk should be able to see the peer’s feet and hear every little splish, splash, and sploosh in that potty. A comfortable, enclosed public bathroom is a bum’s living room, but an open-air crapper is just an open-air crapper.

2. No sink. Bums like to wash clothes in sinks. Instead, provide a spigot outside the stall with cold water.

3. No mirror. People like to break mirrors. It’s just a thing.

4. No nice, homey touches or comfortable detailing. Stainless steel all the way, with a graffiti-repelling coating. People can and will take bats to it; don’t make it easy on them.

And yet, Portlanders ...

NCBI ROFL: Science brings hope for your ugly baby.

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:51:51 GMT

You must have been a beautiful baby: ratings of infant facial attractiveness fail to predict ratings of adult attractiveness.

“Facial attractiveness has been studied extensively, but little research has examined the stability of facial attractiveness of individuals across different stages of development. We conducted a study examining the relationship between facial attractiveness in infants (age 24 months and under) and the same individuals as young adults (age 16-18 years)using infant and adult photographs from high school yearbooks. Contrary to expectations, independent raters’ assessments of infant facial attractiveness did not correlate with adult facial attractiveness. These results are discussed in terms of the adaptive function of heightened attractiveness in infancy, which likely evolved to elicit and maintain parental care.”

Photo: flickr/daveynin

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NCBI ROFL: The best men are (not always) already taken: female preference for single versus attached males depends on conception risk.

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:22:35 GMT

“Because men of higher genetic quality tend to be poorer partners and parents than men of lower genetic quality, women may profit from securing a stable investment from the latter, while obtaining good genes via extrapair mating with the former. Only if conception occurs, however, do the evolutionary benefits of such a strategy overcome its costs. Accordingly, we predicted that (a) partnered women should prefer attached men, because such men are more likely than single men to have pair-bonding qualities, and hence to be good replacement partners, and (b) this inclination should reverse when fertility rises, because attached men are less available for impromptu sex than single men. In this study, 208 women rated the attractiveness of men described as single or attached. As predicted, partnered women favored attached men at the low-fertility phases of the menstrual cycle, but preferred single men (if masculine, i.e., advertising good genetic quality) when conception risk was high.”

Photo: Flickr/MikeCrane83

NCBI ROFL: Apparently, jumping with a weighted vest or springs attached to your shoes is hard.

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:12:26 GMT

Effects of loading on maximum vertical jumps: Selective effects of weight and inertia.

“A novel loading method was applied to explore selective effects of externally added weight (W), weight and inertia (W+I), and inertia (I) on maximum counter-movement jumps (CMJ) performed with arm swing. Externally applied extended rubber bands and/or loaded vest added W, W+I, and I corresponding to 10-40% of subjects’ body mass. As expected, an increase in magnitude of all types of load was associated with an increase in ground reaction forces (GRF), as well as with a decrease in both the jumping performance and power output. However, of more importance could be that discernible differences among the effects of W, W+I, and I were recorded despite a relatively narrow loading range. In particular, an increase in W was associated with the minimal changes in movement kinematic pattern and smallest reduction of jumping performance, while also allowing for the highest power output. Conversely, W+I was associated with the highest ground reaction forces. Finally, the lowest maxima of GRF and power were associated with I. Although further research is apparently needed, the obtained finding could be of potential importance not only for understanding ...

NCBI ROFL: And the And the January “no sh*t, Sherlock” award goes to…

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:35:24 GMT

Effects of heated seats in vehicles on thermal comfort during the initial warm-up period.

“Eight subjects participated in a subjective experiment of eight conditions to investigate the effects of heated seats in vehicles on skin temperature, thermal sensation and thermal comfort during the initial warm-up period. The experimental conditions were designed as a combination of air temperature in the test room (5, 10, 15, or 20 °C) and heated seat (on/off). The heated seat was effective for improving thermal comfort during the initial warm-up period when air temperature was lower than 15 °C. Use of heated seats prevented decreases in or increased toe skin temperature. Heated seats also increased foot thermal sensation at 15 and 20 °C. Optimal thermal sensation in contact with the seat was higher when air temperature was lower. Optimal skin temperature in contact with the seat back was higher than that with the seat cushion. Moreover, these optimal skin temperatures were higher when air temperature was lower.”

Photo: flickr/kjarrett

Go Ahead and Gossip—Science Says It’s the Right Thing to Do

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:58:36 GMT

He did what? Innnnteresting…

Thorough scientific study has revealed that lots of supposed vices can have surprising upsides: alcohol, sex, caffeine. Thanks to UC Berkeley researchers, we can now add another so-bad-but-oh-so-good habit to the list: Gossip, their new study suggests, can be a selfless act of public service.

Surreptitiously passing along the news that someone has behaved badly—what’s technically called “prosocial gossip”—can relieve stress, as well as warn others to regard the rule-breaker with a wary eye, the researchers say. (The study didn’t look directly at other forms of gossip—rumormongering, telling lies, anything said to a confessional cam on reality TV—so make of that what you will.)

In one experiment, the scientists found that people’s heart rates spiked when they saw one of two people playing a game cheating, but calmed again when they had the chance to jot a note, middle school-style, to the next competitor about what they’d seen. “Spreading information about the person whom they had seen behave badly tended to make people feel better, quieting the frustration that drove their gossip,” one of the researchers said in a statement—scientific confirmation of that scratching-a-lingering-itch feeling of relief we get from clucking our tongues ...

NCBI ROFL: [Ring ring] … Hello? … Hi! Are you a lesbian?

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:34:25 GMT

A brief telephone interview to identify lesbian and bisexual women in random digit dialing sampling.

“Lesbian health research has most often relied on nonprobability samples that are biased and restrict generalizability. Random sampling could reduce bias, but requires development of a method for fast and reliable screening of a large number of women. We tested the feasibility of using a brief telephone interview to assess sexual attraction, behavior, and identity. Using Random Digit Dialing in a neighborhood of Boston with a high density of lesbian residents, we interviewed 202 women aged 18 to 59. Of the respondents, 33% reported some sexual attraction to other women, 20% reported sex with women since age 18, and 14% identified as a lesbian. The high level of cooperation with the study among eligible women (94%) and the high proportion of women who disclosed homosexual attraction, behavior, or identity show that it is feasible to use a brief screening questionnaire about sexuality of women over the telephone even without building special rapport with the respondents.”

Photo: Flickr/MacKinnon Photography

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NCBI ROFL: How to improve your human random number generator.

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:01:25 GMT

Doing better by getting worse: posthypnotic amnesia improves random number generation.

“Although forgetting is often regarded as a deficit that we need to control to optimize cognitive functioning, it can have beneficial effects in a number of contexts. We examined whether disrupting memory for previous numerical responses would attenuate repetition avoidance (the tendency to avoid repeating the same number) during random number generation and thereby improve the randomness of responses. Low suggestible and low dissociative and high dissociative highly suggestible individuals completed a random number generation task in a control condition, following a posthypnotic amnesia suggestion to forget previous numerical responses, and in a second control condition following the cancellation of the suggestion. High dissociative highly suggestible participants displayed a selective increase in repetitions during posthypnotic amnesia, with equivalent repetition frequency to a random system, whereas the other two groups exhibited repetition avoidance across conditions. Our results demonstrate that temporarily disrupting memory for previous numerical responses improves random number generation.”

Photo: flickr/garryknight
Thanks to bboybutzemann for today’s ROFL!

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NCBI ROFL: Sexual attitudes as correlates of sexual details in human figure drawing.

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:48:22 GMT

“The hypothesis that sexual attitudes, as measured by the Sexual Opinion Survey, are related to the explicitness with which nude figures are drawn was examined. The presence or absence of various sexual and nonsexual anatomical features, as well as length and width measurements, were assessed in the drawing of nudes by 17 male and 23 female undergraduates. Individuals with relatively positive sexual attitudes (erotophiles), as compared with individuals with relatively negative attitudes (erotophobes), were more likely to include such details as a glans, a urinary meatus, and chest hair on male figures and pubic hair and nipples on female figures. Positive sexual attitudes were also associated with drawing figures with longer and wider penises, breasts, testicles, and mons. Relationships between sexual attitudes and the drawing of nonsexual body parts were generally not significant. The results are discussed in terms of the pervasive generality of sexual attitudes in influencing quite varied sex-related behaviors.”

Photo: flickr/quinn.anya

NCBI ROFL: Farts: an underappreciated threat to astronauts.

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:57:04 GMT

Intestinal hydrogen and methane of men fed space diet.

“Intestinal bacteria form two gases, hydrogen (H2) and methane (CH4), that could constitute a fire hazard in a closed chamber. So H2 and CH4 pass from the anus but these gases are also transported by the blood to the lungs and removed to the atmosphere. Several factors affect gas formation: 1) amount and kind of fermentable substrate; 2) abundance, types, and location of microflora; and 3) psychic and somatic conditions that affect the gut. We evaluated the first factor by studying men fed different diets and have also recorded influences of uncontrollable factors. One group of 6 men ate Gemini-type diet (S) and another received a bland formula (F), for 42 days. Breath and rectal gases were analyzed during the first and final weeks. Flatus gases varied widely within dietary groups but much more gas was generated with diet S than with F. In the first 12-hour collection, subjects fed S passed 3 to 209 ml (ATAP) of rectal H2 (avg 52) and 24 to 156 ml (avg 69) from the lungs (assuming normal pulmonary ventilation). With F, these values were 0 to 3 ml (avg ...

High Schoolers Fold TP a Record Number of Times, Can Now Pad Resumes

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:48:52 GMT

High school kids armed with rolls of toilet paper usually mean there’s going to be a mess on someone’s lawn. A group of Massachusetts students, who had amassed a stockpile of more than 10 miles of toilet paper, could have been the terror of the neighborhood—had they not put their arsenal towards a more cerebral purpose: folding it 13 times. Folding toilet paper hardly sounds like an accomplishment, particularly to those of us who are long since potty trained, but try folding a spare sheet (of any paper) and see how many folds you can manage; until recently, folding paper more than seven times was thought to be mathematically impossible.

But these high schoolers (and their enthusiastic math teacher) crunched the numbers and got to folding, nearly doubling the long-assumed limit and surpassing the 2002 record of 12 folds. The resulting structure stood two-and-a-half feet tall and was made of 8192 layers of toilet tissue. Just in case 2-ply wasn’t enough.

[via New Scientist]

NCBI ROFL: Do dogs really have a “guilty look”?

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:35:08 GMT

Disambiguating the “guilty look”: salient prompts to a familiar dog behaviour.

“Anthropomorphisms are regularly used by owners in describing their dogs. Of interest is whether attributions of understanding and emotions to dogs are sound, or are unwarranted applications of human psychological terms to non-humans. One attribution commonly made to dogs is that the “guilty look” shows that dogs feel guilt at doing a disallowed action. In the current study, this anthropomorphism is empirically tested. The behaviours of 14 domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) were videotaped over a series of trials and analyzed for elements that correspond to an owner-identified “guilty look.” Trials varied the opportunity for dogs to disobey an owner’s command not to eat a desirable treat while the owner was out of the room, and varied the owners’ knowledge of what their dogs did in their absence. The results revealed no difference in behaviours associated with the guilty look. By contrast, more such behaviours were seen in trials when owners scolded their dogs. The effect of scolding was more pronounced when the dogs were obedient, not disobedient. These results indicate that a better description of the so-called guilty look is that it is a response to ...

NCBI ROFL: No. You will never be able to sleep through a sonic boom.

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:40:23 GMT

Disturbance of sleep by sonic booms.

“After a pilot study (2 subjects, 19 nights) we tested two different subjects during 57 nights, administering sonic booms (1 mb, 300 ms; sound level of sonic boom in the bedroom 80-85 dB (A) and recording EEG and peripheral blood volume. After 7 nights without noise, 30 nights with either 2 or 4 sonic booms (alternately) were applied. After 10 more nights without noise, four nights with 8 and 16 bangs followed alternately. The last 6 nights were used as a comparison phase. Results showed that distrubance was obvious during all periods of noise. No adaptation could be observed during any of the experiments. On the contrary, during the night with 4 bangs there was a tendency for compensation, e.g., in the last two thirds of nights with 4 bangs, the total time of deep sleep was comparable with the nights without any noise.”

Photo: flickr/GeoffGabriel

NCBI ROFL: Study proves guns make you an a**hole.

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:48:13 GMT

“We tested whether interacting with a gun increased testosterone levels and later aggressive behavior. Thirty male college students provided a saliva sample (for testosterone assay), interacted with either a gun or a children’s toy for 15 min, and then provided another saliva sample. Next, subjects added as much hot sauce as they wanted to a cup of water they believed another subject would have to drink. Males who interacted with the gun showed significantly greater increases in testosterone and added more hot sauce to the water than did those who interacted with the children’s toy. Moreover, increases in testosterone partially mediated the effects of interacting with the gun on this aggressive behavior.”

Photo: Flickr/daveparker

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Why We Love the Crap We Make, or The Grand Unifying Theory of Regretsy

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:30:08 GMT

Handmade! And priceless!

Your grandma’s day-glo knitted sweaters are proof: People love the stuff they make, even when what they make is a disaster. It’s a weird little corner of human psychology studied by behavioral economist Michael Norton, who dubs it the IKEA phenomenon, having observed in his own studies that people love the IKEA boxes they assembled themselves more than the identical IKEA boxes assembled by some other dude, and that people consider their wretched origami animals valuable works of art while others call them “nearly worthless crumpled paper.” He speculates that it may be the pride of accomplishment that makes people behave this way, or some warped sense that anything that took more work to make is inherently better.

But anyone who’s wasted a perfectly good Saturday working on a BEKVÄM can tell you that it ain’t love or pride that keeps you from throwing that thing out the window—it’s the fear of having to do it all over again. No, forget IKEA: a better name for this quirk of the mind is the Regretsy phenomenon. Etsy is an online marketplace for people selling handmade objects; Regretsy is ...

NCBI ROFL: Surprise! A lower pitched voice doesn’t mean better semen.

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:56:01 GMT

Low Pitched Voices Are Perceived as Masculine and Attractive but Do They Predict Semen Quality in Men?

“Women find masculinity in men’s faces, bodies, and voices attractive, and women’s preferences for men’s masculine features are thought to be biological adaptations for finding a high quality mate. Fertility is an important aspect of mate quality. Here we test the phenotype-linked fertility hypothesis, which proposes that male secondary sexual characters are positively related to semen quality, allowing females to obtain direct benefits from mate choice. Specifically, we examined women’s preferences for men’s voice pitch, and its relationship with men’s semen quality. Consistent with previous voice research, women judged lower pitched voices as more masculine and more attractive. However men with lower pitched voices did not have better semen quality. On the contrary, men whose voices were rated as more attractive tended to have lower concentrations of sperm in their ejaculate. These data are more consistent with a trade off between sperm production and male investment in competing for and attracting females, than with the phenotype-linked fertility hypothesis.”

Photo: flickr/Alan Light
Thanks to bboybutzemann for today’s ROFL!

NCBI ROFL: Naturalistic observations of beer drinking among college students.

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:49:30 GMT

“We observed the beer drinking behavior of 308 university students in several bar and party settings. The following relationships were found: males drinking beer in bars consumed 0.92 oz per min; females drank less beer than males, and stayed in a bar for a longer time period; patrons drank significantly more beer when drinking in groups and when purchasing beer in pitchers versus cups or bottles; and intervals between party arrival and first drink and between party departure and last drink varied inversely with blood alcohol concentration. We discuss these findings with regard to developing interventions to prevent alcohol-impaired driving.”

Photo: Flickr/.A.A.

WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!

NCBI ROFL: Knock knock! Who’s there? Some random statement that you won’t remember.

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:08:07 GMT

The effect of humor on memory: constrained by the pun.

“In a series of experiments, we investigated the effect of pun humor on memory. In all experiments, the participants were exposed to knock-knock jokes in either the original form retaining the pun or in a modified form that removed the pun. In Experiment 1, the authors found that pun humor improved both recall and recognition memory following incidental encoding. In Experiment 2, they found evidence that rehearsal is not the cause of the humor effect on memory. In Experiments 3 and 4, the authors found that the constraints imposed by puns and incongruity may account for the humor effects observed. Puns constrain and limit the information that can fit in the final line of a joke and thus make recall easier.”
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Bonus table from the full text:

Photo: flickr/sastafford

Microsoft Patents a Way to Tell You Where Not To Go

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:47:20 GMT

Anyone who’s journeyed on foot through a strange city can confirm that there’s a lot maps don’t show. For instance, whether it would be a really bad idea to wander through certain neighborhoods with an expensive camera around your neck. Or whether there’s a low-lying neighborhood that will be about 3 degrees cooler than it is everywhere else. Those kinds of things.

Though you won’t find that variety of information on Google Maps’ walking directions, you might soon see it on Bing Maps. Microsoft has just received a patent on a method for incorporating information like violent crime statistics into walking directions, so users could choose a specific rate of crime that they are personally comfortable with when planning a route (bike gangs, OK, murders, no). Other layers of information, like temperature measurements or falling-apart sidewalks, could also make appearances.

A tool like that will have plenty of users, though you know people are going to be disgruntled when their favorite neighborhoods get slapped with a D for dangerous (prepare yourself for an Internet freakout, Microsoft). What we’re really looking forward to, though, is a layer that routes you past all the grocery stores with free ...

NCBI ROFL: Sneezing induced by sexual ideation or orgasm: an under-reported phenomenon.

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 01:19:02 GMT

“We describe a hitherto under-recognized curious response in some individuals: of sneezing in response either to sexual ideation or in response to orgasm. Our review suggests that it may be much more common than expected. We surmise that an indiscrete stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system may be an underlying mechanism to explain this and other reported unusual triggers of sneezing.”

Bonus quote from the full text:
“From the sporadic reports in the medical literature, we surmised that the phenomenon of sneezing in response to sexual ideation or in response to orgasm is more common than recognized. As this is a problem that does not lead to morbidity and may be seen as embarrassing to discuss it may be under-reported. We performed a search of Internet ‘chat rooms’ where this problem may be discussed in an anonymous forum, using the Google search engine and with terms ‘sex, sneeze OR sneezing’. We searched in June 2007, and again six months later in December 2007. We found many discussions of the phenomena, with 17 people of both sexes reporting sneezing immediately upon sexual ideation, and three people after orgasm. Non-expert responses to the queries proposed all ...

The Suit That Makes You Feel 75 Years Old

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:22:04 GMT

And reeeach for the shredded wheat…

Pregnancy suit, meet age suit. Just as scientists in Japan made a suit full of balloons, warm water, and accelerometers to give men a sense of what pregnancy feels like, scientists at MIT have put together a suit that simulates being in one’s mid-70s. But it’s a little easier to see the applications with this one. By 2030, 20% of the American population will be over the age of 65, and if you think these folks are going to willingly weather a world designed by and for hyperactive 26-year-old yoga enthusiasts, well, you’ve got another think coming. By putting on this suit, architects, store designers, and other professionals preoccupied the how people interact with the physical world with can get a sense of old age is like, and design accordingly.

And what does old age feel like? According the folks at MIT’s Age Lab, where the suit was developed, like having giant rubber bands keeping your limbs from fully extending, braces that make your arms stiff, a helmet that makes your spine curve uncomfortably, and glasses that make small print hard to read, among other impairments. Just ...

NCBI ROFL: Top 10 most popular posts of 2011!

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:00:23 GMT

11. NCBI ROFL: The Mere Anticipation of an Interaction with a Woman Can Impair Men’s Cognitive Performance.
“In everyday life, people frequently engage in pseudo-interactions with women (e.g., through the phone or the internet) or anticipate interacting with a woman later on. The goal of the present research was to investigate if men’s cognitive performance decreased in these types of situations…”

10. Why overheard cell phone conversations are extra annoying.
“Why are people more irritated by nearby cell-phone conversations than by conversations between two people who are physically present? Overhearing someone on a cell phone means hearing only half of a conversation–a ‘halfalogue.’”

9. What can 2,914 Australian twins tell us about the evolution of the female orgasm?
“We examined such correlations in a community sample of 2,914 adult female Australian twins who reported their orgasm rates during masturbation, intercourse, and other sexual activities, and who completed demographic, personality, and sexuality questionnaires.”

8. Cutting off the nose to save the penis.
“METHODS: Bicycle police officers from five U.S. metropolitan areas were recruited for this study. Officers completed: (i) the International Index of Erectile Function Questionnaire (IIEF); (ii) computerized pressure measurements at the points ...

When Good Flowerbeds Go Bad: A Story of Chemistry in Action

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:43:32 GMT

White gates turning black in Belgrade.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, a fortress of white limestone was built between the River Sava and the Danube in what is now Serbia. It later gave its name—Belgrade, or “white fortress”—to the city that sprang up within and outside its walls, and in the twenty-first century, after more than a millennium of attacks by Huns, Bulgarians, Byzantines, more Bulgarians, Turks, and what-have-you, Belgrade fortress met its harshest enemy yet: fertilizer.

Our story starts with scientists trying to figure out why the fortress’s legendary white walls were turning black . They took samples of the corrosion and examined it with a number of chemistry techniques to determine what it was made of, finding, as they had expected, that the black hue was partly due to sulfur dioxide released by the coal-burning fires heating the surrounding houses. Too much sulfur dioxide in damp air will trigger a chemical reaction in limestone, causing white calcium carbonate to convert to black calcium sulfate.

But the researchers also found a substance called syngenite, which incorporates calcium, sulfur, and potassium. And that was strange, because syngenite, which often forms on medieval stained glass ...

Adopt a Calendar That Makes Sense? Fat Chance.

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:38:14 GMT

A logical calendar? Never! The pre-Julian Romans (see above) had a good thing going.

It’s almost the new year. And you know what that means: stories about academics’ plans to finally make the Western calendar reasonable and logical. And you know what that means on Discoblog: a quick tour through all of the times when we changed what we were doing because switching over just made sense.

Like the metric system, for example. The quick, unanimous adoption of this eminently logical system by grateful nations the world over has been a sterling example of how reasonable we all can be when we put our minds to it. Pretty much everyone is on board, except for Liberia, which is working to put itself back together after one of Africa’s ghastliest civil wars, and Myanmar, home of the WHO-certified world’s worst health care system. And, of course, the United States, which would rather incinerate a 125-million-dollar satellite in the Martian atmosphere than convert feet to meters. (It also has a pretty crappy health care system. Related?)

The Dvorak keyboard is also a marvel of modern, logical engineering. The keys are arranged ...

Hacktivists: Doin’ It For the Lulz Since 1903

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:35:25 GMT

Marconi and assistants erecting a radio antenna.

They call themselves hacktivists. Or they say they’re doing it just for the lulz: Some hackers take over sites, swipe users’ information, and then post their exploits online just to make the point that hey, you losers aren’t as safe as you thought you were. Better fix that gaping hole in your electronic chain link fence.

It may seem like the kind of public embarrassment only possible in the networked age (at least, Sony probably remembers the era of the Walkman a lot more fondly than this last mortifying year of being hacked again and again), but as Paul Marks writes in New Scientist, it ain’t necessarily so. Just ask Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of the wireless telegraph.

In 1903, Marconi’s assistants in London were prepping for a big demo of their wireless telegraph (aka long-range radio), just like any tech businessmen in the history of technology—setting up the brass lantern projector, getting the telegraph up and running, letting the crowd get nice and excited, you know, the whole shebang. Then, while they’re waiting for their test message to come in from the boss, who’s camped out ...

NCBI ROFL: Psychosexual study of communist era Hungarian twins.

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 04:23:55 GMT

“Our aim in this study is to describe the characteristics of sexual development in twins and estimate the role of heritability and environmental factors as causes of certain sexual disorders. Two hundred and ten adult same-sex twin pairs (92 monozygotic [MZ] female, 41 MZ male, 55 dizygotic [DZ] female and 22 DZ male pairs) were involved in the study. Data were collected in 1982 by self-administered questionnaires that included items on sexual maturation, sexual life, contraception, mutual sexual activity within twin pairs and alcohol use. The ratio of married to unmarried twins was nearly the same in MZs and DZs, with the exception that the divorce rate was higher in MZ female twins (14%), and DZ and male twins were slightly more likely to be single. Menarche was later in twins compared to non-twin Hungarian women. 57% of MZs experienced menarche within 3 months of each other, 77% within 6 months while it occurred for 30% and 43% respectively in DZs. The first seminal emission indicated some delay in male twins compared with the Hungarian general population sample. MZ first kisses occurred later than DZ’s first kisses. The same was true for the first petting, masturbation ...

NCBI ROFL: Immunizing against prejudice: effects of disease protection on attitudes toward out-groups.

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:01:03 GMT

“Contemporary interpersonal biases are partially derived from psychological mechanisms that evolved to protect people against the threat of contagious disease. This behavioral immune system effectively promotes disease avoidance but also results in an overgeneralized prejudice toward people who are not legitimate carriers of disease. In three studies, we tested whether experiences with two modern forms of disease protection (vaccination and hand washing) attenuate the relationship between concerns about disease and prejudice against out-groups. Study 1 demonstrated that when threatened with disease, vaccinated participants exhibited less prejudice toward immigrants than unvaccinated participants did. In Study 2, we found that framing vaccination messages in terms of immunity eliminated the relationship between chronic germ aversion and prejudice. In Study 3, we directly manipulated participants’ protection from disease by having some participants wash their hands and found that this intervention significantly influenced participants’ perceptions of out-group members. Our research suggests that public-health interventions can benefit society in areas beyond immediate health-related domains by informing novel, modern remedies for prejudice.”

Photo: flickr/Noodles and Beef

NCBI ROFL: Living large: The powerful overestimate their own height.

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 23:54:04 GMT

“In three experiments, we tested the prediction that individuals’ experience of power influences their perceptions of their own height. High power, relative to low power, was associated with smaller estimates of a pole’s height relative to the self (Experiment 1), with larger estimates of one’s own height (Experiment 2), and with choice of a taller avatar to represent the self in a second-life game (Experiment 3). These results emerged regardless of whether power was experientially primed (Experiments 1 and 3) or manipulated through assigned roles (Experiment 2). Although a great deal of research has shown that more physically imposing individuals are more likely to acquire power, this work is the first to show that powerful people feel taller than they are. The discussion considers the implications for existing and future research on the physical experience of power.”

Photo: flickr/hellosputnik

WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!

NCBI ROFL: And the December “no sh*t, Sherlock” award goes to…

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:58:51 GMT

Possibilities to improve the aircraft interior comfort experience.

“Comfort plays an increasingly important role in the interior design of airplanes. Although ample research has been conducted on airplane design technology, only a small amount of public scientific information is available addressing the passenger’s opinion. In this study, more than 10,000 internet trip reports and 153 passenger interviews were used to gather opinions about aspects which need to be improved in order to design a more comfortable aircraft interior. The results show clear relationships between comfort and legroom, hygiene, crew attention and seat/personal space. Passengers rate the newer planes significantly better than older ones, indicating that attention to design for comfort has proven effective. The study also shows that rude flight attendants and bad hygiene reduce the comfort experience drastically and that a high comfort rating is related to higher “fly again” values.”

Photo: Flickr/SpecialKRB

WTF is NCBI ROFL? ...

The Perfect Gift This Holiday Season: The Neanderthal Test

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:48:48 GMT

If you’ve ever wondered if your slothful spouse—he of the prominent brow and grunted endearments—has caveman blood, wonder no more. Genomics company 23andMe, purveyors of fine genotyping, would like to suggest a gift that will keep on giving this holiday season: the Neanderthal test, which will give you nagging rights for eternity.

The latest gossip says the Neanderthals, the other human species kicking around about 30,000 years ago, did not leave this earth without spreading a few wild oats among our Cro-Magnon ancestors (nudge nudge, wink wink). And genetics, as so many daytime talkshow guests can tell you, is where such secrets go to die. Everyone except Africans (who missed the shackin’ up party that was prehistoric Europe) now has a sort of genetic souvenir, a remnant of our forebears.

That means you can now give a gift that brings new meaning to getting in touch with your heritage. Having recruited one of the biologists behind the first draft of the Neanderthal genome, who developed the test, 23andMe is able to offer you the exclusive opportunity to learn what percentage of your own genome came from those mysterious ancestors. The average is 2.5%, but some of us—perhaps someone ...

NCBI ROFL: Was Saint Paul struck blind and converted by lightning?

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:58:16 GMT

“In the Bible, St. Paul (Saul of Tarsus) was struck blind by a light from heaven. Three days later his vision was restored by a “laying on of hands.” The circumstances surrounding his blindness represent an important episode in the history of religion. Numerous theories have been proposed to account for this event which has been the subject of interest of theologians, philosophers, artists, and physicians. A lightning strike could explain all of the features of this episode. The proposal of a theory which correlates St. Paul’s symptoms with contemporary scientific knowledge makes his recovery of vision and conversion no less miraculous or religiously significant since the theory demonstrates that, indeed, the event may have occurred exactly as stated in the Bible.”

Photo: Flickr/mararie

WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!

NCBI ROFL: If I’m not hot, are you hot or not? Physical attractiveness evaluations and dating preferences as a function of one’s own attractiveness.

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:00:24 GMT

“Prior research has established that people’s own physical attractiveness affects their selection of romantic partners. This article provides further support for this effect and also examines a different, yet related, question: When less attractive people accept less attractive dates, do they persuade themselves that the people they choose to date are more physically attractive than others perceive them to be? Our analysis of data from the popular Web site http://HOTorNOT.com suggests that this is not the case: Less attractive people do not delude themselves into thinking that their dates are more physically attractive than others perceive them to be. Furthermore, the results also show that males, compared with females, are less affected by their own attractiveness when choosing whom to date.”

WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!

Naked Mole Rat Super Power #12: They Feel No Burn

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:35:23 GMT

Going for a squirm, snacking on poo, living the naked mole rat life.

Oh, naked mole rats, what fresh new weirdness do you have for us today? It wasn’t enough that you look like wee spring rolls with teeth, or that you are nearly blind and navigate your ramifying, oxygen-poor burrows by scent. No, you are also apparently immune to cancer, have terrible, gimpy sperm, and, we learn today, feel no pain from acid burns because your nervous system is defective.

We’d heard things like this before, naked mole rats.

We learned in 2008 that you were missing the gene that makes hot peppers painful, when scientists injected your paws with the stuff and you were blissfully unaware. Giving you the gene reversed that, but you still didn’t seem to care when acid was injected (did we mentioned that you’re also cold-blooded? Holy cow, mole rats.). Now, though, that team has figured out what’s going on in those neurons of yours, and it’s not what they thought.

They expected they’d find that you were missing the receptors for acids, nipping the pain message in the bud. But you had those, so they looked ...