Making Science More Better For You on 10/17/07

Headline of the day
Homeowner fatally shoots intruder after being warned by parrot
Courtesy of the Obscure Store.

“And the Jews, they’re good with numbers...”
Fury at DNA pioneer's theory: Africans are less intelligent than Westerners
Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really"
By Cahal Milmo for The Independent
Published: 17 October 2007

One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.

James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.

The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.

The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, successor to the Commission for Racial Equality, said it was studying Dr Watson's remarks " in full". Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really". He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

The furore echoes the controversy created in the 1990s by The Bell Curve, a book co-authored by the American political scientist Charles Murray, which suggested differences in IQ were genetic and discussed the implications of a racial divide in intelligence. The work was heavily criticised across the world, in particular by leading scientists who described it as a work of " scientific racism".

Dr Watson arrives in Britain today for a speaking tour to publicise his latest book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. Among his first engagements is a speech to an audience at the Science Museum organised by the Dana Centre, which held a discussion last night on the history of scientific racism.

Critics of Dr Watson said there should be a robust response to his views across the spheres of politics and science. Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "It is sad to see a scientist of such achievement making such baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive comments. I am sure the scientific community will roundly reject what appear to be Dr Watson's personal prejudices.

"These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still exists at the highest professional levels."

The American scientist earned a place in the history of great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the University of Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s and formed part of the team which discovered the structure of DNA. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine with his British colleague Francis Crick and New Zealand-born Maurice Wilkins.

But despite serving for 50 years as a director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, considered a world leader in research into cancer and genetics, Dr Watson has frequently courted controversy with some of his views on politics, sexuality and race. The respected journal Science wrote in 1990: "To many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something of a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath whenever he veers from the script."

In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical" choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that " stupidity" could one day be cured. He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would great."

The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory said yesterday that Dr Watson could not be contacted to comment on his remarks.

Steven Rose, a professor of biological sciences at the Open University and a founder member of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science, said: " This is Watson at his most scandalous. He has said similar things about women before but I have never heard him get into this racist terrain. If he knew the literature in the subject he would know he was out of his depth scientifically, quite apart from socially and politically."

Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust, a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be looked at for grounds of legal
complaint."

Everyone has a blind spot. His seems to be human beings.

“Hey , what are you looking at?”
Sex, Nazi, burrito and Viagra: Who Googles what?

BERLIN, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Internet users in Egypt, India and Turkey are the world's most frequent searchers for Web sites using the keyword "sex" on Google search engines, according to statistics provided by Google Inc.

Germany, Mexico and Austria were world's top three searchers of the word "Hitler" while "Nazi" scored the most hits in Chile, Australia and the United Kingdom, data from 2004 to the present retrievable on the "Google Trends" Web site showed.

Chile also came in first place searching for the word "gay", followed by Mexico and Colombia.

The top searchers for other keywords were as follows (in order from first to third place):

"Jihad" - Morocco, Indonesia, Pakistan

"Terrorism" - Pakistan, Philippines, Australia

"Hangover" - Ireland, United Kingdom, United States

"Burrito" - United States, Argentina, Canada

"Iraq" - United States, Australia, Canada

"Taliban" - Pakistan, Australia, Canada

"Tom Cruise" - Canada, United States, Australia

"Britney Spears" - Mexico, Venezuela, Canada

"Homosexual" - Philippines, Chile, Venezuela

"Love" - Philippines, Australia, United States

"Botox" - Australia, United States, United Kingdom

"Viagra" - Italy, United Kingdom, Germany

"David Beckham" - Venezuela, United Kingdom, Mexico

"Kate Moss" - Ireland, United Kingdom, Sweden

"Dolly Buster" - Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia

"Car bomb" - Australia, United States, Canada

"Marijuana" - Canada, United States, Australia

"IAEA" - Austria, Pakistan, Iran

We’re kind of surprised that banana cream pie didn’t make the list.


Life seems to be imitating art—if you are a flesh-eating zombie, that is.
Staph Fatalities May Exceed AIDS Deaths
Oct 17 07:48 AM US/Eastern
By LINDSEY TANNER
AP Medical Writer

CHICAGO (AP) - More than 90,000 Americans get potentially deadly infections each year from a drug-resistant staph "superbug," the government reported in its first overall estimate of invasive disease caused by the germ.

Deaths tied to these infections may exceed those caused by AIDS, said one public health expert commenting on the new study. Tuesdays report shows just how far one form of the staph germ has spread beyond its traditional hospital setting.

The overall incidence rate was about 32 invasive infections per 100,000 people. That's an "astounding" figure, said an editorial in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the study.

Most drug-resistant staph cases are mild skin infections. But this study focused on invasive infections—those that enter the bloodstream or destroy flesh and can turn deadly.

Researchers found that only about one-quarter involved hospitalized patients. However, more than half were in the health care system—people who had recently had surgery or were on kidney dialysis, for example. Open wounds and exposure to medical equipment are major ways the bug spreads.

In recent years, the resistant germ has become more common in hospitals and it has been spreading through prisons, gyms and locker rooms, and in poor urban neighborhoods.

The new study offers the broadest look yet at the pervasiveness of the most severe infections caused by the bug, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. These bacteria can be carried by healthy people, living on their skin or in their noses.

An invasive form of the disease is being blamed for the death Monday of a 17-year-old Virginia high school senior. Doctors said the germ had spread to his kidneys, liver, lungs and muscles around his heart.

The researchers' estimates are extrapolated from 2005 surveillance data from nine mostly urban regions considered representative of the country. There were 5,287 invasive infections reported that year in people living in those regions, which would translate to an estimated 94,360 cases nationally, the researchers said.

Most cases were life-threatening bloodstream infections. However, about 10 percent involved so-called flesh-eating disease, according to the study led by researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There were 988 reported deaths among infected people in the study, for a rate of 6.3 per 100,000. That would translate to 18,650 deaths annually, although the researchers don't know if MRSA was the cause in all cases.

If these deaths all were related to staph infections, the total would exceed other better-known causes of death including AIDS—which killed an estimated 17,011 Americans in 2005—said Dr. Elizabeth Bancroft of the Los Angeles County Health Department, the editorial author.

The results underscore the need for better prevention measures. That includes curbing the overuse of antibiotics and improving hand-washing and other hygiene procedures among hospital workers, said the CDC's Dr. Scott Fridkin, a study co-author.

Some hospitals have drastically cut infections by first isolating new patients until they are screened for MRSA.

The bacteria don't respond to penicillin-related antibiotics once commonly used to treat them, partly because of overuse. They can be treated with other drugs but health officials worry that their overuse could cause the germ to become resistant to those, too.

A survey earlier this year suggested that MRSA infections, including noninvasive mild forms, affect 46 out of every 1,000 U.S. hospital and nursing home patients—or as many as 5 percent. These patients are vulnerable because of open wounds and invasive medical equipment that can help the germ spread.

Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, said the JAMA study emphasizes the broad scope of the drug-resistant staph "epidemic," and highlights the need for a vaccine, which he called "the holy grail of staphylococcal research."

The regions studied were: the Atlanta metropolitan area; Baltimore, Connecticut; Davidson County, Tenn.; the Denver metropolitan area; Monroe County, NY; the Portland, Ore. metropolitan area; Ramsey County, Minn.; and the San Francisco metropolitan area.

Flesh eating disease—and they’re not talking about a band.


First they steal “the Blues,” now this.
Rich Britons more likely to drink too much

LONDON, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- A British survey purports to show the middle class and rich are more likely to regularly consume hazardous levels of alcohol than the poor.

But the highest levels of harmful binge drinking were found in poorer areas, The Times of London reported.

The study is part of a campaign to reduce alcohol use in the country. By the end of 2008, health officials plan to have all alcoholic beverages sold in bottles and cans labeled for how many "units" of alcohol they contain.

Researchers say steady drinking of 22 units of alcohol a week for men and 15 for women can have long-term health effects. A large glass of wine contains three units, while a pint of beer contains three.

The study found the highest levels of "hazardous" heavy daily drinking were in areas such as the wealthy London suburb of Runnymede.

But the highest levels of "harmful" binge drinking were found in two working-class cities. In Manchester, 8.8 percent of adults consume 50 units or more of alcohol a week, while in Liverpool 8.1 percent do.

Sure they drink too much, but only top-shelf stuff…real classy.




So, how do you say “Keep it up and I’ll give you something to cry about,” in chimp?

Chimps exaggerate calls for help

Chimpanzees under attack exaggerate their screams to get help from higher ranking group members, researchers from Fife have discovered.

The study found primates produce high-pitched and prolonged screams when they were the victims of severe aggression such as beating.

Their cries were exaggerated if there was another higher-ranking chimp in the area who could challenge the aggressor.

St Andrews University experts spent nine months in Budongo Forest, Uganda.


They recorded the apes' screams during attacks by chimps and carried out a computerised analysis of the acoustics.

Dr Katie Slocombe from the university's School of Psychology, who led the study, said: "We conclude victims use screams flexibly to recruit help from others and have a complex understanding of third party relations.

"They know exactly who can challenge who, and this knowledge of social relationships influences their vocal production.

"If no-one is there to help them then the screams are normal but if someone is about then they make it sound even worse than it is.

"This shows there is more flexibility in their vocal communication than previously thought."

Dr Slocombe said they were still researching the underlying reasons for the exaggerated screams.

"It could be that they are wanting to falsely deceive the higher ranking chimpanzee into thinking it is really bad," she said.

Dr Slocombe said that while direct parallels could not be drawn between the actions of the chimps and human behaviour, they displayed similar characteristics.

She said children often did not cry when they hurt themselves while on their own, but started crying if someone else was there.

The research was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

It is part of a wider study into the behaviour of chimpanzees.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It seems that Cheeta wasn't a very good role model.

Those Twinkies aren’t your fault. Neither is that suet ball in your pocket. It’s society that’s making you eat them.

Forget dieting. Obesity a result of modern life
Weight gain not an individual's fault, British government project finds

LONDON – The BBC reports that obesity does not result simply from over-eating and a lack of exercise, but is a consequence of modern life, a British government think-tank said on Wednesday.

Weight gain does not result from people’s actions — such as over-indulgence or laziness —alone, and is a far more passive phenomenon than is often assumed, according to Foresight.

It found that the technological revolution of the 20th century has led to weight gain becoming unavoidable for the majority of the population, because our bodies and biological make-up are out of step with our surroundings.

“Stocking up on food was key to survival in prehistoric times, but now with energy dense, cheap foods, labor-saving devices, motorized transport and sedentary work, obesity is rapidly becoming a consequence of modern life,” said Sir David King, the British government’s chief scientific adviser and head of the Foresight program.

The British Department of Health-sponsored project is the result of a two-year-long study into the causes of obesity involving almost 250 experts and scientists.

They predicted that the so-called obesity “epidemic” would take at least 30 years to reverse.

The government has, up until now, focused policy designed to tackle obesity on encouraging people, particularly children, to lead a healthier lifestyle, eating less fattening foods and taking more exercise.

But Sir David said a wholesale change in attitudes towards obesity is required to address the problem.

“Foresight has, for the first time, drawn together complex evidence to show that we must fight the notion that the current obesity epidemic arises from individual over-indulgence or laziness alone,” he said.

“Personal responsibility is important, but our study shows the problem is much more complicated.

“It is a wake-up call for the nation, showing that only change across many elements of our society will help us tackle obesity.”

The researchers said there was no single “magic bullet” solution; even a new appetite-suppressing drug would not be the answer, because the problem is systemic.

Tackling obesity, like tackling climate change, requires a range of changes in society, from increasing everyday activity through the design of the built environment and transport systems to shifting the drivers of the food chain and consumer purchasing patterns to favor healthier options.

If current obesity growth rates continue, some 60 percent of men, 50 percent of women and 25 percent of children in the country will be obese by 2050, according to the researchers.

Associated chronic health problems are projected to cost society an additional 45.5 billion pounds per year.

Commenting on the report, British public health minister Dawn Primarolo said: “We have made progress with improved physical activity levels at school, healthier school food for children, clearer food labeling and tougher restrictions on advertising foods high in fat and sugar to children — but we know that we need to go further and faster.”