Accidental Blogger

A More 'Perfect' Music (Sujatha)

Does the latest music album sound more than perfect to your ears, as it dribbles or blasts out of the earbuds of your music player?  Not a note out of place, no little rough edges that would make you squirm?

There's a reason for that in this world of hyperdigitization. Auto-tuning is the trick.  Steve Guttenberg of Cnet.com muses on whether technology is robbing music of its soul.

Today, for example, Auto-Tuned vocals are so ubiquitous that my friend, mastering engineer Dave McNair, exclaimed, "The only way to know for sure a vocal hasn't been Auto-Tuned, is an out of tune vocal." So once a new technology is available, the engineers can't resist using it. This isn't so much about analog versus digital recording formats. No, it's the way recordings are made. Too many are assembled out of bits and pieces of sound to create technically perfect, but soulless music. It's not that great music can't be made with computers, but it's sure less likely to get my mojo workin'.

I love the ability of some of the new software to manipulate vocals, having toyed with Audacity myself. I record myself singing, wince over how it sounds, raise the pitch by one step or two, sit back and listen to myself singing as I would have sounded when I was in my twenties, with all the technique honed by the added years, yet more of the sweetness that is lost to age and countless infections thickening the vocal cords.

But using Auto-tune to change that which is unmusical into a tune, while not new, has been taken to new heights, in this 'music video' consisting of auto-tuned utterances of well-known scientists.

Or, witness Neil deGrasse Tyson, converted from bathroom singerhood into passably stageworthy in this hilarious Nova Science segment on PBS.

When a performance has been digitally pieced together off several imperfect takes,or slight off-pitches corrected, what does it do to the experience of the listener? We often listen without realizing the amount of correction and can only sigh at our inability to replicate the perfect renditions, a feeling of audio envy, much like the photoshopped perfect models on magazine covers who trigger look envy. 

Even live performances aren't immune to this kind of doctoring, with stars resorting to lip-syncing to their own recorded vocals, just because of the physical impossibility of dancing vigorously while belting out high notes.

I came across this video of a Kathak dancer who actually sings and dances, admittedly one of the slower types of dances. No lip-syncing here, you can hear her breath grow slightly heavier after fancy footwork in places. So what if it isn't perfect, the genuineness of the experience more than makes up for the occasional off-pitch note.

That's the reason why even crackling, terrible old recordings  of long lost gurus are capable of moving me to tears. even with the imperfections, speeded up audio, flubbed lyrics or more. The quest for digitized perfection leaves an older generation of listeners in the cold, while the newer generations get used to a degree of improbable perfection that will never be matched by the pleasures of a live performance.

 

How the Mind Works: The Dunning-Kruger Effect (Norman Costa)

How the Mind Works: The Dunning-Kruger Effect (Norman Costa)

A Facebook friend, Jose Del Solar, posted the folowing article on the Dunning-Kruger effect: Incompetent People Too Ignorant to Know It.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is fascinating, and I've written about it before. In short, people with little knowledge are unable to appreciate their intellectual deficit. Instead they view themselves as very knowledgeable. They overstate their own intellectual competence. On the other hand, people who are very knowledgeable, see themselves as far less accomplished.

Most people will pass through a low knowledge episode or short period of the D-K effect in the course of being educated, growing, and learning. In fact, we may do it multiple times, usually before we get out of high school.

I remember one of my own experiences in 10th grade biology. We had many classes on human blood and the circulatory system. A friend and I agreed that we learned a great deal of the subject matter, compared to our total ignorance at the start of 2nd year biology. We could not imagine that there was more to learn, because it seemed, to us, as comprehensive as we could imagine.

It may sound cliche, but as we learn more and more we appreciate how little we know about the larger subject matter areas. D-K folks never get that far. The D-K effect is evident in just about any subject matter area you can imagine.

What I have found so bothersome, and troubling, is the number of people in positions of power (corporate, military, politics, varied institutions) who cannot imagine that there own knowledge of the world is deficient. The two most obvious examples that come to mind are George W. Bush, and Sarah Palin.

Even when they are brought up to speed on an area where they were deficient, they still cannot see that there could be more to come. To you and I, this is obvious, and we can't get our minds around the fact that they are completely oblivious. Palin was never embarrassed by the fact that she thought Africa was a country, not a continent. However, she was pissed that others made her feel inferior because she was not in the know.

One of the post-hoc giveaways of the D-K effect is that the person who leaves a position of great power is unable to manifest a sense of humility at confronting and dealing with the things that demanded great intellectual effort and new learning. They don't express a sense of awe and respect for what others who preceded them had to deal with, nor any sympathy or compassion for the next person who will occupy the seat of power they just vacated. Again, Bush and Palin are two great examples.

There is another phenomenon that I've observed, and it may be a variation on the D-K effect, except that you find it in otherwise knowledgeable and smart people. This happens when confronted with a problem to be solved, or an area of new knowledge that is important to the present situation. They come to an solution, or an understanding, very quickly and then they hold onto that idea or position with enormous tenacity. One exceptional example was Alexander Haig. He was the former Supreme Commander of NATO forces, Whitehouse aide to President Nixon, and former Secretary of State. I've known a number of these people in executive positions in IBM Corp. This is not a matter of blind adherence to ideology. It's a very different animal.

It is always interesting to try to divine the thought process of political figures. Since this is a Presidential election year, it's a more salient matter. Rick Santorum, in my opinion, formed every significant thought he ever had by the time he was 21. Intellectual life, since that time, has been a process of seeing anything new as a variation on what he already knows. There is a prearranged slot on the shelf for anything that comes along, and no need to create any new slots or reconfigure the old ones.

Mitt Romney, in my opinion, is very much aware of his intellectual limitations and the availability of other view points on just about any issue. Newt Gingrich is harder to read. I am not sure if he displays a thought process that discounts new learning, and overvalues what he knows, or if he is just being confrontational, insulting, and controversial as a strategy, or as a character defect.

I have this mental image of showing the article I referenced, above, to someone who lacks knowledge yet believes they know just about all there is to know. After reading the article they look up at me and ask, "Yeah, so what's your point?"

Psychological Science: The Theory of Test Reliability – Correcting 100 Year Old Mistakes – Part 2 (Norman Costa)

Psychological Science: The Theory of Test Reliability – Correcting 100 Year Old Mistakes – Part 2 (Norman Costa)

By

Norman Costa, PhD

What is Real, and What is Not? – Zeno's Paradoxes

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BCE, Stageira, Chalcidice – 322 BCE, Euboea,) in his Physics, describes a number of paradoxes attributed to the Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea (ca. 490 BCE – 430 BCE.) Zeno was trying to illustrate the idea that everything we see and experience, different though they may appear or seem, is unitary and unchanging. Experiences and perceptions of change, motion, and time are really illusions. His paradoxes have fascinated philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, and theologians through the centuries to this very day. Here are three of his more popular paradoxes:

Achilles pursuing the tortoise paradox

“In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.” --Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b10

A fast runner gives a challenger, who is a slow runner, a head start of 100 meters. The fast runner expects to catch up to and then overtake the slow runner on the way to a winning finish line. According to Zeno this is an impossibility. The swift of foot must first run to the point at which the slow of foot started the race – 100 meters down the course. Then the swift athlete must run to the next spot where the slow athlete was, at the time that swift runner arrived at the position where the slow runner began the race. Next, the swift runner advances to next spot occupied by the slow runner, at the time the swift runner arrived at the prior starting point. The swift runner keeps repeating this sequence of advancing to the next spot that was previously occupied by the slow runner, as both are heading for the finish line. According to Zeno, there is an infinite progression of the swift runner approaching the slow runner, catching up to his prior spot, and then going on to the next spot that was occupied by the slow runner down the course. Since the fast runner must advance to an infinite number of spots previously occupied by the slow runner, it stands to reason that the fast runner will never overtake the slow runner.

Keith Hill responds to Prasad's post

Instrument maker Keith Hill responded to Elatia's query related to Prasad's recent post on violin sounds. It failed to appear in the comments section (TypePad!). I am publishing Hill's opinion as an independent post.

Elatia, 

This is the third time I have read about this interesting experiment, from three different sources.

The first thing I would say is that I have yet to encounter a great antique violin that has not been tampered with by repairmen over the last two centuries. Each instance of tampering degrades the quality of the sound. What we hear in the great old instruments is probably 75 - 80% of what they should sound like had their sound not been too degraded. So it is not so amazing that violinists may select a new violin. 

I have noticed since the publication of my discovery (back in the 1980s) of Area Tuning in the old violins that a few of the best makers today are using that discovery. And when they have used it, they have figured out how to make it work...some perhaps even more successfully than I have. Still there was a great deal known by the 17th and 18th century violin makers about the art -- and it is an art (to contradict Mr. Hunt) -- of enhancing sound that we have yet to discover. 

What makes the violin so challenging to puzzle out is its incredible complexity. To date, I have uncovered 22 distinct tuning systems in a violin and more than 113 acoustical adjustments to get a violin to exhibit the 34 criteria I have learned of from the great old violins. And that doesn't even include anything relating to the preparation and varnishing.

But my work has nothing to do with the modern science of acoustics, as practiced by many modern makers, because it is ear-oriented not eye-oriented. When I hear the sounds of the great antique violins what I hear is sounds that stir my soul because they sound like human voices. In art, the aspect of paradox is essential -- otherwise our senses are quickly sated. When I hear the work of modern makers, what I usually hear is loud violins that sound like loud violins (no paradox), having little sculptability (flexibility) and sounding tepid from the point of view of carrying power (intensity) 

“Loud” doesn't necessarily have carrying power. I have made intense sounding clavichords that can fill a large concert hall--and a sound that is difficult to mold and sculpt isn't worth very much except to a mere technician. Intensity of sound and flexibility of sound are cardinal traits of an acoustically enhanced sound and must be tested for at a significant distance. At a distance of 100-300 feet the sound of most modern violins falls off and gets lost when accompanied by an orchestra. Whereas in this same test, the sound of the great antique violins blossoms, almost doubling in volume the further you are from the violin, and their exquisite timbre cuts through the sound of an entire orchestra to be heard distinctly over all the other competing sounds. These qualities are what the greatest musicians value most, according to my understanding. And these are what the violins made in Italy from 1600 to 1790 (give or take a few years) excel in. 

Ease of playing was another trait the violinists in this experiment mentioned. However, it is my view that violins that are not acoustically enhanced for intensity and flexibility are easy to play because they are not subject to the distortion resistance effect that makes the sound difficult to start without whistling, an effect that Stradivari's violins are known for. The real trick is making a violin that is both flexible and intense to be, as well, easy to play -- so that the music flows out of the instrument, instantly following the will of the player. This assumes that the player is a true artist and has a will backed by real musical understanding.

 
Keith Hill - Instrument Maker

Psychological Science: The Theory of Test Reliability – Correcting 100 Year Old Mistakes - Part 1 (Norman Costa)

Psychological Science: The Theory of Test Reliability – Correcting 100 Year Old Mistakes (Norman Costa)

By

Norman Costa, Ph.D.

The Submarine Torpedoes That Would Not Explode

Non-exploding torpedoes may seem a strange way to open a discussion about the reliability of educational and psychological tests. This true story from the U.S. Navy in World War 2, however, is a perfect example of how to understand the concept of reliability. If submarine torpedoes seem an odd comparison to psychological tests, keep in mind that both are tools or instruments that are expected to perform in their own ways. We expect our tools or instruments to be reliable. So let's see what we mean by reliability.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands on December 7, 1941, the United States entered the Second World War. After declaring war upon Japan, Germany declared war upon the United States. Upon the declaration of war on Japan, the U.S. Navy's fleet of submarines was authorized to hunt and sink enemy war ships and enemy ships of commerce. The submarine service immediately went on the offensive and prowled the waters for prey. They did a superb job of tracking down their targets, and firing their torpedoes at the hulls of enemy ships with great accuracy. For all of their stealth, bravery, and accuracy, none of the torpedoes exploded.

The failure of virtually all torpedoes in the submarine fleet at the outset of the war was kept a tightly guarded secret during and after the war. Today, few people know about the non-exploding torpedoes. Almost no one is aware of the cause of the problem. It was sabotage. German spies and agents had infiltrated the factories that produced the torpedoes for the U.S. Navy, even before the U.S. entered the war. In 1967, I met Richie Harris, one of the former workers at one of the torpedo factories. He told me that he was a maintenance worker and was sweeping the floor of the office of one of the managers. A man who looked like any other factory worker came into the office, flashed a badge and identified himself as an FBI agent, told him to stay in the office and not come out until told that he could do so. The FBI agent closed the door and locked Richie Harris in the office. That was the opening of a massive arrest of saboteurs in the factory.

About six months later a huge  picture of an Italian battleship was hung on the wall of the factory floor. That battleship was sunk by one of their torpedoes.

Double blinding violins (prasad)

If you enjoy a good debunking, this one's a doozy. A scientist and contemporary violin maker conducted blind comparisons, getting professional violinists to try and choose among three old Cremonese violins, including two by Stradivari, (total value 10M) and three high-end modern violins (total value 100k). They used a clever blinding protocol:

With modified welders’ masks on their faces, to restrict vision, and a dab of scent under the violins’ chin rests, to mask tell-tale odors, the participants got to play compare six violins, including two by Stradivari and one by Guarneri. In an initial test, they quickly compared 10 pairs of violins — nine distinct new-vs.-old pairings and one repeat pair. They got to play each instrument for one minute, without visiting the first instrument played, in a room with neutral acoustics. In a second test, they were allowed to compare and contrast the six instruments in a more natural way, playing them all however they wished, for 20 minutes.

The results are unsurprising to any decent cynic:

In the head-to-head tests, the players preferred new and old instruments at equal rates, except in one case: One violin by Stradivari, crafted in roughly 1700, was clearly preferred less often than the others. “It seems that under these test conditions, only a conspicuously least-preferred violin differentiates itself,” the authors write. (What’s more, when the violinists compared the same two instruments twice, they made the same choice only 52% of the time.)

In the more leisurely comparison, the same Stradivari model was again voted as worse than the other violins (new or old); four instruments received statistically indistinguishable ratings. This time, however, a distinctly preferred model arose — and it happened to be a new violin.

The story has been received enthusiastically on science and technology sites, and the analogy to high-end wine has been drawn more than once. I don't think that's quite right though. This isn't really like the claim that wine snobs can't really tell plonk from Chateau whatsisface - the new violins themselves cost tens of thousands of dollars each. Indeed, even in this group of six superb violins, there appears to be some degree of agreement at least on the best or worst instruments. Nor is the psychology really related to the rubbish about finding notes of badger and ear-wax in a single-malt; This is about love, not bull-shit. Great musicians fall in love with great instruments they've played with.

But we do need to expand our sense of what a great instrument (and instrument-maker) is. It's remarkable that craftsmen hundreds of years ago could make instruments that can (almost) hold their own against our labs and years of accumulated practice. But clearly there are superb violin-makers today, and the very best might even be better than the Great ones. It seems like a shame for them to not be well-known, and positively wrong to impose upon them the burden of predetermined, unwinnable comparisons with the long-dead. And it's long past time for the audiophile-type magic-fiddle stuff to die.

Psychological Science: Mathematical Argument and the Quest for Scientific Respectability – Part 2 (Norman Costa)

Listen to the comments of Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics, on social science, from 2':52" through 4':50".

Psychological Science: Mathematical Argument and the Quest for Scientific Respectability – Part 2 (Norman Costa)

By

Norman Costa Ph.D.

The Problem of Measurement

The recognition of psychology as a proper science was a major goal of the pioneers in experimental psychology, and those interested in the study of individual differences.  They understood that the basic function of science was to describe the properties of things through observation and the recording of data.  Key to the process of observation, and essential for mathematical argument, is the concept of measurement.

The early psychologists saw, clearly, the parallel between measurement tools in psychology (tests,  scales, experimental apparatuses,) and measurement instruments in the more successful sciences.  In anecdotes, they told of conversations they had with other scientists on the reliability of test instruments.  They were told, so they reported, that a measurement tool must yield the exact same results each time it is used, assuming identical circumstances, if it is going to be considered reliable.  They translated their understanding of test reliability into what is formulated today in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing1 – reliability is consistency of observed results.  In this definition there is no reference to the purpose or function of the test instrument.  To be reliable, it is only necessary for a test to be consistent in yielding observed scores, independent of the purpose of the test.  In another article, I will show that the concept of reliability, without a statement of purpose, is an illusion. It was a fundamental mistake for psychological science, and was completely out of sync with the concept of test reliability in all other sciences.

They believed they addressed the issue of mathematical argument with the development of descriptive statistics (beginning with Galton and Pearson,) the development of the correlation coefficient to express relationship (Galton, Pearson, Spearman and others,) and in the invention and development of factor analysis for research on the structure of human intelligence (Spearman, Thurstone, and others.)  The body of statistical tools, tests, scales, experimental apparatus, and text books (Thorndike, Spearman, Thurstone, Guilford, Guttman, and Gulliksen) were crowning achievements and sources of pride for scientific psychology.  Of great importance and satisfaction to psychology was the development of the correlation coefficient, and its application to assessing the reliability of measurement instruments.  Eventually, we will see that using the correlation coefficient to measure reliability was a fundamental mistake. The mistake was brought about by an overvaluing of the correlation coefficient, and an over-eagerness to develop mathematical argument for psychological science.

Recognition from the more successful sciences was not forthcoming, however.  The scientific community never looked closely at the psychologists' definition of reliability that was without a statement of purpose, nor at the use of the correlation coefficient to measure reliability.  What they did focus on was psychology's understanding, or lack of understanding, of the concept of measurement in science.

 

Psychological Science: Mathematical Argument and the Quest for Scientific Respectability – Part 1 (Norman Costa)

Sir Francis Galton's first Anthropometric Laboratory

Psychological Science: Mathematical Argument and the Quest for Scientific Respectability – Part 1 (Norman Costa)

By

Norman Costa Ph.D.

Mathematical Argument

We are reminded by Carl Sagan in his book, Cosmos, that the underpinning of modern science with mathematics goes back to Pythagoras. In the search for truths in nature, however, we no longer look for them in Pythagoras' mystical, even magical, power of numbers. Today, mathematics is indispensable for science as method, and science as content. We count, measure, perform basic operations (add, subtract, multiply, and divide,) compute values, solve equations, use visual display to communicate quantitative information, conduct statistical tests, and represent things and ideas with symbols and relationships.

The history of psychological science, even to the present day, has been a quest for scientific respectability. Few things have been as important to this quest as the development of mathematical argument for the science of psychology. Nothing has been more important, or as far reaching, for mathematical argument in psychology, than the development of the correlation coefficient. Because much of psychology (and the social sciences in general) has been the examination of individual differences, it was inevitable that tools be developed to express relationships and dependencies among different traits, capabilities, and just about anything that could be measured and recorded about people.

The rapid fire discoveries, in the 19^th century, of fundamental laws of nature in physics, chemistry, and life sciences created an air of expectation, pride, and optimism. Some held the view that the final discovery of all laws of physical nature would be concluded in the early part of the new century. Psychology envisioned its own role in this great leap forward in knowledge and science. The development of mathematical argument was about to elevate psychology to a level that was on par with the more successful physical and life sciences – or so it was hoped.

It is difficult to appreciate, today, how exciting it was for scientific psychology in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The development of the correlation coefficient became the Royal Road to scientific respectability, at least in the minds of the pioneers of psychological science. Statistical correlation formulas provided powerful tools that could be applied to a myriad of problems in the budding social and economic sciences. The correlation coefficient led to the development of other powerful tools like multiple correlation, canonical correlation, regression, and factor analysis. It gave impetus and support to the development of other tools for mathematical argument, particularly the concept of true score, and statistical tests.

 

Creation by Intelligent Design (Norman Costa)

Creation by Intelligent Design (Norman Costa)

Can you name the creator of each of these 15 designs? 

1. Yes, it's a casserole pot with lid. ______________________________

2. It was a comfortable chair in its day. ______________________________ 

 

3. You've seen one in many motel rooms. ______________________________ 

 

4. What can I say? ______________________________ 

Time to Change the Blog Picture's Motto? (Sujatha)

The motto below the cat picture,  "He who dislikes the cat, was in his former life, a rat." seems no longer apt. We have been seriously maligning rats, who apparently show empathetic behavior and even a degree of altruism that was hitherto unsuspected. Or maybe just unnoticed and unstudied.

"The first evidence of empathy-driven helping behavior in rodents has been observed in laboratory rats that repeatedly free companions from a restraint, according to a new study by University of Chicago neuroscientists."

Empathy has been observed and studied in higher primates and large mammals, but while we use lab rats to test out a variety of medical, biological, even cognitive theories, it hadn't been definitively proved that rats would show any further degree of willingness to assist the helpless. At best, a concept called 'emotional contagion', in which individuals mirror the emotional state of others in the vicinity, had been explored.

This NPR interview, with Peggy Mason, one of the lead authors on the new paper, discusses in layman's terms the design of the experiment and what exactly the results imply. One of the most interesting implications  is that this sense of empathy not only extended to the rats freeing trapped companions, but also sharing a special food (chocolate chips) with them.

The interviewer, hoping perhaps to end the segment on a light note threw this out.

"PALCA: Well, all I can say is I wouldn't try that experiment on humans because I'm sure they'd leave me trapped. Most of my colleagues would leave me trapped and go for the chocolate and then let me out...."

So rats, have been getting a bad rap, just because of cultural perceptions that see them as 'fleeing a sinking ship' (where else could they flee when the water enters the area that they are in) and hence cowardly. It has just evolved into a popular meme and mindless pejorative, just as we categorize pigs as dirty (they love baths much like other mammals and avians and wouldn't wallow in the mud if they had access to clean water baths.).

But that might be too much to hope for, that just like the word 'gay' is finally losing its pejorative connotations, the terms ' ___ is a rat' or 'a pig' will make their way into history as quaint archaisms. We could be losing the shorthand associations of those usages in an entire body of literature that would no longer invoke a visceral reaction. Imagine x years in the future, when somebody reading 20th century literature stumbles across "He who dislikes the cat, was in his former life, a rat." and now has to puzzle out a meaning that would have jumped out at him in earlier times.

However that may turn out, in the context of the horrific fire that trapped and killed over 80 people in Kolkata, India, yesterday, with staff running away from the scene instead of assisting, it seems to me that the worst label humans could attach to such behavior is merely 'human'.

 

 

"The Mystery I'm Thankful For" - Me Too! (Norman Costa)

"The Mystery I'm Thankful For" - Me Too! (Norman Costa)

by Adam Frank

I once participated in a public debate with another scientist on issues surrounding science and religion. I was an atheist with sympathies for the sacred character of human experience and he was an atheist without such sympathies. At one point in the discussion I tried to convince him that inclinations to "spirituality" or a sense of "sacredness" (with or without an institutional religion) was a response to the essential mystery that came with being human. He paused for long moment and then replied.

"There is no mystery"

It took me a while to pick my jaw off the floor and find an appropriate response.

I had made it pretty clear that, being an atheist, I was not arguing for a "God" of the gaps. Neither was I arguing that limits to knowledge (if they exist) imply we should be worshiping before some choice of deity.

Instead I was simply pointing to that fundamental weirdness, that "stranger-in-a-strange land" quality of being human. I was pointing to that mystery because I think its best part of the whole trip. 

We just find ourselves here. With our individual birth we just "wake-up" and discover ourselves in the midst of an extraordinary world of beauty and sorrow. All around us we see exquisite and exquisitely subtle orders played out effortlessly. From the lazy descent of fall leaves to the slow unfolding of cloudscapes in empty blue skies, it is all just here and we are just here to see it.

Day after day we wake again to find the world still here, waiting for us as we play out our own small dramas with their small triumphs and terrible heartbreaks. And then, remarkably, astonishingly, just here just ends.

For me that is the mystery. No amount of explanation, be it a "Theory of Everything" or a religious theology, will reduce the power of its experience. The primitive quality of feeling, the presence of life and its luminosity, is the mystery and I am damn thankful for it.

It is the essential and unalterable question mark saturating the verb "to be" that makes science worth pursuing and gives art its potency. It sets our loves and loss into a context that has no context and somehow makes it all bearable.

I will feel that mystery again as my family converges from across the state and across the continent to gather at the Thanksgiving table. I will feel it, knowing how deeply I love them all and how bound I am to lose them all. I will feel the mystery and be thankful to it, to them and to the world entire.

What else, after all, is there to do?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/11/22/142645717/the-mystery-i-m-thankful-for

Neurological Basis of Really, Really Bad Behavior (Norman Costa)

The Neurological Basis of Really, Really Bad Behavior (Norman Costa)

Anatomy Of A Psychopath : The Neurobiological Basis Of Evil

WRITTEN BY JONATHAN PARARAJASINGHAM SEPTEMBER 30, 2011,

Editor’s Note: This is the first part of “Mind’s Matter”, a new series of articles by Dr. Jonathan Pararajasingham, exploring the Neurobiological basis of behaviour.

“We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere.” – Ted Bundy
One of the most controversial areas of research in neuroscience involves the search for biophysical causes of sadistic thought and behaviour. But there now seems to be enough complementary evidence to at least begin piecing together a coherent materialistic description of the psychopathic mind. A number of potential genetic and pathophysiological causes of violence and aggression have been investigated over recent years. These include things like the monoamine oxidase A gene, head trauma, serotonin deficiency, epilepsy, stress, and neuropeptides. But since the recent surge in quality of neuroimaging techniques, we are now finding exceptionally detailed anatomical correlates to certain types of behaviour, including antisocialism and criminality. Research now points to the discovery that impulsive aggression and violence arise as a consequence of faulty emotion regulation circuitry in the brain. In this paper I aim to outline the evidence and implications of this finding.

Read more HERE:

"Toward Precision Medicine" (Dean)

From the National Academies: "A new data network that integrates emerging research on the molecular makeup of diseases with clinical data on individual patients could drive the development of a more accurate classification of disease and ultimately enhance diagnosis and treatment, says a new report from the National Research Council." (Courtesy of DocuTicker's DocuBase.)

Careful readers will note that the NA press release highlights the goal of a new taxonomy, while the report itself emphasizes the benefits to health care of layered data integration. Nor does the press release explicitly mention privacy or consent issues, alluding only to the report's recommendation of "gradually eliminating institutional, cultural, and regulatory barriers to widespread sharing of individuals' molecular profiles and health histories while still protecting patients' rights." The report itself is more forthcoming, particularly on pages 56-58 of chapter 4, "How Do We Get There?," where it addresses "the ethical and policy challenges" of an "Information Commons" populated with individuals' molecular data, medical histories, profiles of social and environmental environments, and medical outcomes.

Clearly, the authors are queasy about privacy concerns, in two competing respects. First, they view current rules for handling of patient information (fundamentally, HIPAA) as ineffective and obstructive of progress. The vision is for a "commons," after all, accessible not only to academic, but also commercial researchers. Second, even if participating researchers and practitioners can demonstrate trustworthiness, data security remains fraught with potential vulnerabilities. The cultural barrier, a euphemism for personal expectations of privacy, may very well become the challenge most easily adjusted to support the project.

Quantum Fluctuations (Norman Costa)

Quantum Fluctuations (Norman Costa)

 

WARP SPEED NEUTRINOS

Neutrino detector: You're early. When did you leave?
Neutrino: In about 5 minutes.

Neutrino: Do what?
Neutrino detector: How did you do that?

mc^2 E=
 

 NEUTRINO DETECTORS ARE DEEP UNDERGROUND, SUBMERSED IN WATER.

Water molecule: What's going on? 
Neutrino detector: Nothing.
Water molecule: You look like you're standing around waiting for something to happen.
Neutrino detector: Yup!

Neutrino 1: Nice day to travel.
Neutrino 2: Sure is.
Neutrino 1: I could do this forever.
Neutrino 2: Yeah, me too.
Neutrino 1: You see how cleanly we passed through Mars?
Neutrino 2: Like a hot knife through butter.
Neutrino 1: Imagine, the chance of this trip being interrupted is so infinitesimally small.
Neutrino 2: You got that right.
Neutrino 1: In fact, you could...BAM...Son of a bitch!

Supervisor of neutrino detector crew: OK, who's the joker who released a bunch of fire flies in here?
 

MORE QUANTUM RELATIVITY

Observer 1: Your time is dilating.
Observer 2: No. Your time is dilating.
Observer 1: Not from where I'm standing.

Paradox Twin 1: You've aged.
Paradox Twin 2: No, you've aged.
Paradox Twin 1: Excuse me? You're older.
Paradox Twin 2: No, excuse me, old man.

"Time, time, time is on my side, yes it is."
Recorded in 1964 by Mick Jagger in anticipation of the 60th anniversary of Special Relativity the following year.

The Work of Technology in the Age of Artistic Redundancy (Dean)

The passing of Steve Jobs understandably prompted a chorus of grief and eulogy among his fans, along with refrains of the usual hyperboles voiced during his lifetime in praise of his genius and technological vision. Although I admire the evident courage he exhibited during his final years as he struggled with his health, I have never much appreciated his or Apple's work. Like Charlie the Tuna, Apple tries to pass as the embodiment of good taste, when what I want is an Apple that tastes good, namely, a computer that works when you plug it in, turn it on, and try to make it do things. One day, probably not in my lifetime, the self-proclaimed revolutionaries will stride victorious beyond that distant milestone. Call me an idealist. Until then, I must settle for the available pretend versions, a la Fisher-Price.

Yet it's clear that many avid fans of Apple gear experience it as life-changing and itself the stuff of radiant beauty and fine design. Still more regard the Internet and the ubiquity of computing technology as cultural developments not only affording high utility but nearly biblically proportioned salvation. Pondering my own discontent with the trajectory of these tools and my disconnection with popular demand for them, it occurred to me that the gadgetry of technology now assumes the aura once regarded as imbuing the unique work of high art, a radiance formerly acknowledged even by those who had no personal appreciation for the work. This formulation is, of course, an adaptation of Walter Benjamin's famous essay examining the fate of art in the face of increasingly easy reproduction and dissemination. Benjamin doesn't signal such an adaptation, which is merely clever, but riddling the essay are numerous proclamations, typical of his oracular style, that speak pertinently to our own times before and after Jobs. For example, he attributes the "withering" of the aura to:

the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction.

It's easy to recognize this dynamic at work in the advance of social networking technologies. Reading Twitter streams from participants at an unfolding event in real time is a safe proxy for being there. But Benjamin was writing about art, and some proponents of digital technologies believe they promise opportunitites for new varieties of artistic creativity, facilitated by the rapid manipulation of readily available material into new configurations. Thus, for example, the mash-up or the remix, genres that dispense with coy Eliotic allusion in favor of flagrant copying. Their point is to restructure the familiar without disguising it. They are instances, for better or worse, of "free culture."

The World's First Temple! Or ... Not? (Norman Costa)

The World's First Temple! Or ... Not? (Norman Costa)

October 13, 2011

by BARBARA J KING *

"In Turkey over 11,000 years ago, people created a massive structure at a hilltop site called Gobekli Tepe. After carving limestone pillars with all sorts of animal images, they hauled the 16-ton stones into multiple huge rings — without the help of wheeled vehicles or domesticated animals.

"I have been fascinated by this site for years. For one thing, Gobekli Tepe (the accepted story goes) was constructed by hunter-gatherers. When announced, this was major news. Ancient hunter-gatherers, who neither farmed nor lived in settled villages, had long been thought to be too simply organized to pull off anything on the scale of Gobekli Tepe.

"For another thing, the site is billed by German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt as the world's first temple. This provocative claim led to a National Geographic cover story last June. To pinpoint the dawn of religious ritual would, of course, be a fantastic accomplishment for anthropology."

Read more HERE:

Climate change and dieting (prasad)

The New York Times reports reports that a panel of scientists has recommended more research into geoengineering methods to control the Earth's temperature.

Members said they hoped that such extreme engineering techniques, which include scattering particles in the air to mimic the cooling effect of volcanoes or stationing orbiting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight, would never be needed. But in its report, to be released on Tuesday, the panel said it is time to begin researching and testing such ideas in case “the climate system reaches a ‘tipping point’ and swift remedial action is required.”

The 18-member panel was convened by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a research organization based in Washington founded by four senators — Democrats and Republicans — to offer policy advice to the government. In interviews, some of the panel members said they hoped that the mere discussion of such drastic steps would jolt the public and policy makers into meaningful action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which they called the highest priority.

There is a fair bit of alarm about the recommendation, both about the very plausible outcome that such research might further weaken efforts to reduce emissions, and your standard-issue Frankenstein-scientism-hubris stuff. I don't disagree that tampering with the climate would be pretty complicated stuff of course, but can't begin to imagine why anyone would be convinced we couldn't do it fruitfully in a hundred years time, excepting of course that they convinced everyone else at the outset that it would be "playing God" or something to even think about it. [My take on that horrible phrase has always been, "Someone's gotta do it." Don't know who it's picked up from, but I find it enjoyable.]

Nor is the the appeal to risk-aversion or the precautionary principle obviously in their favor. Does anyone think that green energy at reasonable output levels, costs and useful time frames is such a cert that we don't even need to think about alternatives? Could anyone say, for that matter, that it's not risky to tamper with rising third-world economies, on the scale that would be needed to keep Chinese or Indian emissions from becoming several times larger each than the American output? A paragraph giving Joe Romm's view caught my eye:

At the influential blog Climate Progress, Joe Romm, a fellow at the Center for American Progress, has made a similar point, likening geo-engineering to a dangerous course of chemotherapy and radiation to treat a condition curable through diet and exercise — or, in this case, emissions reduction.

This is a singularly infelicitous analogy. The big problem with climate change over the coming century isn't the US or Europe, it's India and China and South America and (one hopes!) Africa. None of those places are sanely characterized as requiring "diets." In a world where Romm and his readership didn't think about fighting climate change largely in moral terms, where the underlying conceptual framework wasn't getting Americans to be less fat and more continent, he wouldn't dream of saying something so bizarre.

In practice presentism or Luddism are always as obviously weighty in prospect as they often are flimsy in hindsight - consider how many people said, quite seriously, back in 2007 that e-books would destroy the true pleasure of reading, consisting as it did in the smell of paper. But hand-wringing about test-tube babies or kindles is relatively inconsequential; delaying important avenues of research by decades with the climate in the balance is not.

India launches Aakash tablet computer priced at $35 (Norman Costa)

India launches Aakash tablet computer priced at $35 (Norman Costa)

In 2008, Tata Motors announced the Nano.

It is 3 metres long, seats four comfortably or five at a squeeze, does 65mph and aims to revolutionise travel for millions. The “People’s Car” is also the cheapest in the world at 100,000 rupees (£1,300) – the same price as the DVD player in a Lexus.

 

Today, India announces the Aakash tablet.

India has launched what it says is the world's cheapest touch-screen tablet computer, priced at just $35 (£23).

What happens when China or India start developing pharmaceuticals at a fraction of the cost of U.S. and German drug developers? How about heavy lift rockets that can compete with the Russians? We've been out of that game for a long time. In a generation both Europe and the U.S. will find it hard to compete with Russia in the commercial aircraft market. Within another generation, if not sooner, India, China, and Brazil, will be taking their own sizeable share.

Read more HERE.

Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos Would Not Violate Relativity (Norman Costa)

Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos Would Not Violate Relativity (Norman Costa)

I've followed the news of superluminal (Faster Than Light Speed) neutrinos since it first hit the popular sites on the Internet. This article in Discover Magazine is the first I've read to give some plausible explanations, other than systematic error. Personally, I'm rooting for particles dropping into another dimension or wormhole before reappearing and arriving ahead of schedule

I've known that Einstein's Special Relativity did not rule out particles that were already superluminal (FTLS.) This is the first time I've come across the idea of 'born to luminal speed,' or 'born to superluminal speed' without the necessity of acceleration.

In the past year or two, I've read of successful lab experiments to slow down light (photons,) and then allow it to resume luminal speed. So I wonder if it is possible to slow superluminal particles. If so, then it might be possible for FTLS neutrinos to go back in time.

Representing the deceleration of FTLS neutrinos introduces the square root of minus one into the Lorenz transformation formulas. The square root of minus one (represented by 'i') is another absolutely bizarre and fascinating idea. I first read about it in the book, "One, Two, Three,..., Infinity." 

I read about the Lorenz transformation formulas and 'i' in junior year of HS. I've been fascinated with them ever since, as with the rest of special and general relativity, and now quantum mechanics.

Oh, to be 45 years younger and have a real go at it.

Read more HERE.

Get Ready Boys, Here Come the Toys (Norman Costa)

Get Ready Boys, Here Come the Toys (Norman Costa)

"...[O]nce a year, the skies over...central Wisconsin ...roar with the sound of the world’s largest air show, the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture....[T]his year’s show ...feature[d] th...debut of Boeing’s... 787 Dreamliner, the ...successor to the aging 767 design...Txchnologist presents ...highlights of recent years."

Watch the F-22 Raptor defy gravity.

An Airbus A-380 makes a rough landing in a cross wind, with wings flexing off their center. Terrific piloting. Or is it terrific computering?

See the carrier-borne upgrade of the famous RAF Spitfire with a 2,000 HP Rolls-Royce engine. The original is still the more elegant and beautiful design.

Your grandchildren may start their vacation on Mars from a descendant of the Virgin Galactic VMS Eve. Aeronautical engineer, architect, and designer Burt Rutan genius will get you there.

Treat yourself to five minutes of 'fly by' with dozens of historic, classic, modern, and experimental flying machines. And let's not forget the pilots that just love to fly. 

Read and see more HERE.

 

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2011 (Norman Costa)

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2011 (Norman Costa)

From giant oval storms on the surface of Jupiter to colourful wispy remnants from a supernova explosion and the dazzling green curtain of the Northern Lights - nearly 800 images were submitted for the latest Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.

See and hear more.

It's a Numbers Game (Norman Costa)

 
It's a Numbers Game

by Norman Costa

As a child, arithmetic came easily to me. My father, though not well educated, had a facility with numbers. He had a fascination for tricks and short-cuts to computations. One day he brought home a book, "The Trachtenburg Speed System of Basic Mathematics," by Jakov Trachtenberg. He is a survivor of The Holocaust, who worked out his system in the camps, and saved his sanity in the process. 

I tried some of the techniques. They worked very nicely, except that I lost interest, quickly. His system was great for very fast arithmetic calculations, but it did nothing to convey an understanding of numbers. That was the 8th grade. From another source I learned how to speed multiply, mentally, 2 numbers ending in 5. I still use it today because I developed an understanding of how the numbers worked.

"Anybody got a calculator? I need to know how much is 165 times 35." People are looking for a calculator or pencil and paper. About 15 to 20 seconds pass. I am quiet and unconcerned with finding anything. "Fifty-seven seventy five." I say. Silence. A few moments later the one in need of emergency calculation asks, "You sure." As I smile at him I tap my right temple with my right index finger. Someone finds a calculator, enters the information, and says, "Wow! You're good."

Another speed trick is multiplying any arbitrarily long number by 25. As long as I can look at the number I can start reciting the answer, beginning with the left most digit. "OK, smarty pants. How about 9 billion, 880 million, 981 thousand, 445." I right down the number so I can see it. I reply, "2 4 7 0 2 4 5 3 6 1 2 5."

As a junior in high school I fell in love with the book, "One Two Three ... Infinity," by George Gamow, and first published in the 1940s. It has been updated and improved and still selling. It did two things for me. It gave me a feel for numbers including an introduction to infinity. Also, it was the beginning of a life-long interest in Einstein's theories of Special and General Relativity. That life-long interest expanded into Cosmology and Quantum Mechanics.

In high school I read a number of the popular books on Einstein. Understanding the Lorentz transformation formulas was a near spiritual experience. College was statistics and calculus. Graduate School brought me into advanced statistics and a start on Bayesian Statistics. For lack of a better way to say this, statistics gave me a love for number play.

This came to the forefront one day when Bill O'Reilly ("The Factor" on Fox) responded to an AAAS scientist who said that scientists do not regard present knowledge as absolute. O'Reilly smirked at the scientist and thought he 'owned' him by saying that, of course, there are absolutes. There are only 24 hours in a day (actually more and getting longer, I was thinking,) there are only 4 seasons in a year (arbitrary demarcations, I thought,) and 1 + 1 is always equal to 2 (not in Boolean math, and not in summation of near light speed velocities, I said to myself.) It was a wonderful moment. The man is an idiot.

Today I read the non-mathematical explanations of both Cosmology and Quantum Mechanics. My calculus is too old and too rusty to take me any further. Yet, I am intrigued by how much more I would understand if I took the time relearn and surpass my earlier mastery of calculus. Hmmm.

Hunting The Replicators: How Did Life Begin? (Norman Costa)

Hunting The Replicators: How Did Life Begin? (Norman Costa)

by Adam Frank, Astrophysicist, University of Rochester

"Amoebas are alive but rocks are not. What is the difference?

"For many people, one of the greatest difficulties in understanding the scientific narrative of cosmic evolution is how nature took the path from non-life to life. This question of "abiotic genesis" haunts many a science and religion debate with advocates of scriptural literalism unwilling to grant that natural processes, unmediated by a higher intelligence, could have taken "dead" matter and created living material.

"Now the path from "just" molecules to "something more" has gotten a bit more clear as researchers take a crucial step toward building the holy of holies: a self-replicating molecule.

"Part of this story, however, is the funny thing that happened to scientists studying the origin of life over the last 80 years. Their perspectives were profoundly rewired.

"In the 1950s, chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey performed a brilliant and brilliantly illustrative experiment. Miller and Urey created a simulated version of the early Earth in a test tube. An "atmosphere" of hydrogen, ammonia and methane was created in one flask. An "ocean" of liquid water was held in a separate flask. The two were connected and a high voltage discharge was set up in the atmospheric flask to act as lightening (and a source of UV light)."

Read more HERE.

 

Quantum Relativity (Norman Costa)

Quantum Relativity (Norman Costa)

Spouse arrives home: Honey, my wave function just collapsed.

Beginning of a poem: I shot an arrow into the future.

Q. Where will you be?
A. Here, there, and everywhere.

Mr. Time: What are you trying to do? You know you cannot reach the speed of light.
Mr. Velocity: Just slow down, will you.

Mr. Length: Hey! You are never going to get to the speed of light.
Mr. Velocity: Don't get short with me.

Mother and daughter speak simultaneously.
Mother: I know you took my best silk blouse to wear tonight, so put it back in my closet.
Daughter: I hate you. You are always entangling me. That's not fair.

Angry impatient Mom:
Listen Mister, I want straight answers from you. You tell me where you are going, but you do not tell who will be with you. Or else you tell me you are going out with Darnell, but you do not tell me where you are going. The most I ever get from you is a vague idea of where you are going and a vague idea who is going with you.

I cannot be in two places at the same time.
Liar, I know you can.

Q. Come on, tell me. I'd like to know. Are we going to have sex tonight or are you going to have another head ache?
A. I really do not know. You will know, tonight, when you open the door to our bedroom.

Photon, listen to me. I said go though the slot on the right. You are all over the place.

Q. What is your favorite romantic song?
A. "Chances Are," sung by Johnny Mathis.

Q. Time, what is the matter with you?
A. Oh, it is one thing after another.
Q. Time, why don't you take the weekend off?
A. I can't. Otherwise, everything happens all at once.

String theory is the best. 
You have to prove it to me.
I don't have to prove it to you.
Yes, you have to.
Have not.
Have to.
Have not.
Have to.

Searching for the Google Effect on People's Memory (Norman Costa)

Searching for the Google Effect on People's Memory (Norman Costa)

External brain. There's a growing belief...that people have become more dependent on online information, but few studies have directly examined this."CREDIT: RANDALL MONROE/XKCD.COM"

[P]eople are using the Internet as a personal memory bank: the so-called Google effect. What surprised [Assistant Professor Betsy] Sparrow most was not people's reliance on nonmemorized information but their ability to find it. “We're remarkably efficient,” she says.

Read more HERE and HERE.