I have long been intrigued by the fact that when I am absorbed in reading, I completely miss what people have said, even if they have been speaking directly to me. This can be embarrassing but in my case people tend to indulgently excuse it because of the stereotype of the ‘absent minded professor’. Being a theoretical physicist also helps since we are considered to be a little weird anyway.
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Blog reader Henry sent me the link to this clip from the BBC program Horizon of what is known as the McGurk effect, that shows that when the brain receives two different inputs, one aural and one visual, the brain forces you to register just one. Lawrence Rosenblum of the University of California, Riverside explains this effect and demonstrates how in this particular case the visual overrides the sound.

If we cannot do such a simple act of multitasking, imagine how unlikely it is that we can do more complex and challenging multitasking.

The June 21, 2010 issue The Nation has a good article by Nathan Schneider titled God, Science and Philanthropy that looks at the work of this wealthy foundation that dangles generous grants and a cash prize every year that is larger than the Nobel prize that goes, as Richard Dawkins says, “usually to a scientist who is prepared to say something nice about religion.”

Along with providing support for politically right-wing organizations, the foundation’s goal seems to be to lure scientists to sign on to the idea that science and religion are compatible. Nobel prize winning chemist Harold Kroto is one of those fighting back against it and says of the foundation that “They are involved in an exercise that endangers the fundamental credibility of the scientific community.”

Since I work at a university and am around young adults all the time, I have long been aware that young people today are avid consumers of multimedia, who are adept at emailing, texting, listening to mp3 players, surfing the web, checking up on Facebook, etc. It seems like they are quite proficient at multitasking.

I have always been a poor multitasker. I cannot read or do any work that requires serious thinking if I can hear conversation or loud noises in the background. I have found that I cannot even listen to music in the background when reading. But I know people who seem to thrive on that kind of ambient sound and even deliberately go to coffee shops to do work such as grading papers or writing, things that would be impossible for me.
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These wind-powered sculptures by Theo Jansen are amazing to behold.

You can see more of Jansen’s creations at his website.

(Via Why Evolution is True.)

Jerry Coyne has a nice post about the various forms of altruism and what biology and genetics does, or does not, have to do with them.

Your Inner Fish is a book by Neil Shubin, the leader of the team that in 2006 discovered Tiktaalik, the 375 million year old transitional fossil between fish and land animal. The book shows how the basic morphology (i.e., form and structure) of human bodies can be traced back to our fishy ancestors.

The BBC has nice report (with a short video) on how some of our features, especially the face, came about. In particular, it explains the presence of the philtrum, the little groove on our upper lip just below the nose that has no obvious function.

A reader of this blog told me that he had participated in a study on morality and that they are looking for more people.

Study Name: Moral Boundaries
Location: CCIR at University Hospital (in Cleveland)
Researcher: Megan Norr

Detailed Description:

This study consists of a 2.5 hour research appointment which takes place at the Case Center for Imaging Research at University Hospital. This study seeks to define which brain areas are responsible for moral judgment processing and to determine how they are working with other parts of the brain when we make moral judgments. By using behavioral questionnaires to gather information about individual attitudes on morality and fMRI to examine brain activation in response to a variety of stimuli, we hope to shed some light on the neural representation of human morality. During the appointment, participants will complete a computer-based questionnaire which takes roughly 1 hour and participate in an MRI scan which will take 1 hour and 10 minutes. The MRI session consists of a variety of unique tasks, including viewing of photos and video, listening to stories, reading text, and responding to opinion questions. Some stimuli in this study may be morally challenging or alarming. All participants will have the opportunity to view sample stimuli prior to beginning the study. Participation is voluntary. Participants will be compensated a flat rate of $50. If you are a medical doctor, medical student, or professional in the fields of biology or medicine, you are ineligible for this study.

I believe they are looking for people in the 30-40 year old range but they may not be too rigid about the boundaries.

The blog reader who participated said this about his experience:

In short, It’s a morality study that uses MRI and behavioral measures to examine human morality. They investigate brain areas responsible for moral judgment and moral attitudes. It was a fun experience, asked many thought-provoking questions that revealed many subtleties about myself after some self-reflection and makes for interesting conversation amongst friends over drinks. Would love to give examples, but I don’t want to influence the test in any way if you participate. So neat!.. O and the frosting and cherry on top: they give you a 3D movie of your brain on CD when you are done!

If you are interested you can register and schedule an appointment online or contact Megan Norr at [email protected].

Richard Dawkins gives a clear explanation

Older men like me are routinely given a PSA test for prostate cancer as part of our check-ups. My numbers fluctuated from year to year. Some years my number would rise slightly and my physician would alert me to it, but the next year it would drop. I never did anything about it since I was not convinced that the tests were conclusive enough. Now a new study seems to indicate that my skepticism was justified, since the PSA seems to have high levels of false negatives and even higher levels of false positives.

This latest study was carried out in Norrkoping in Sweden. It followed 9,026 men who were in their 50s or 60s in 1987.

Nearly 1,500 men were randomly chosen to be screened every three years between 1987 and 1996. The first two tests were performed by digital rectal examination and then by prostate specific antigen testing.

The report concludes: “After 20 years of follow-up, the rate of death from prostate cancer did not differ significantly between men in the screening group and those in the control group.”

The favoured method of screening is the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test.

However, around 15% of men with normal PSA levels will have prostate cancer and two-thirds of men with high levels of PSA do not in fact have prostate cancer.

One study has suggested that to prevent one death from prostate cancer you would have to screen 1,410 men and treat 48 of them. (My italics)