Category: Science

Soot plays a much bigger role in global warming than we may have thought. This is good news because soot is probably easier to control than carbon dioxide emissions. Read the lengthy analysis by Randall Parker at FuturePundit, replete with useful links.

Experimental subjects consistently value a poem or artwork more highly when they are told it took a long time to produce. See this study by four psychologists. The increase in perceived value is strongest when quality is difficult to judge by other means. Furthermore other research suggests that we value artworks more highly, the more time and trouble it took us to understand them.

What does this mean for the arts? We will tend to overvalue difficult works of high culture, most likely. We also will undervalue that which is accessible. In other words, Seinfeld is better than you think.

The authors note that Jackson Pollock, in his lifetime, was attacked for producing paintings that “anyone could have done.” In reality Pollock’s paintings were the result of a painstaking process, difficult for anyone else to mimic. He often was defended on these grounds. A single painting could require months of hard work. So if you don’t like Pollock, perhaps now you will think more of it.

And this blog, well, this blog just takes forever to write…

There is no doubt that laughter is a social activity. “Laughter evolved as a signal to others – it almost disappears when we are alone,” says Robert Provine, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland the author of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation…most laughter comes in polite response to everyday remarks such as “Must be going”, rather anything remotely funny. The idea that laughter works as a kind of social glue fits with some other other observations. A baby’s first giggle comes at around three or four months, which also happens to be the time the baby starts to recognise individual faces. And the way we laugh depends on the company we’re keeping. Men tend to laugh longer and harder when they are with other men, perhaps as a way of bonding. Women tend to laugh more [almost fifty percent more] and at a higher pitch when men are present, possibly indicating flirtation or even submission.

Here is a brief on-line summary of Provine’s ideas. Oh yes, by the way, when the boss laughs, everyone laughs. Note also that smiling may be easier to fake than genuine laughter, which would suggest one reason why laughter evolved to signal social bonds.

And how about tickling? It is, according to Provine, the origin of laughter and a way for two individuals to signal that they trust each other. This seems excessively functional to a skeptical economist like myself. By the way I hate being tickled.

Thanks to Robin Hanson for the pointer to the 20 December issue of New Scientist, from which the opening quotation is taken.

Scientists are making some progress on this difficult problem:

Human embryonic stem (ES) cells can give rise to almost all of the body’s different cell types. They could eventually provide patients with replacement tissues – but there are some roadblocks that currently prevent researchers from putting the cells into patients’ bodies. One problem is that scientists don’t yet know how to control the cells’ transformations into other types. Another is that the cells cannot be grown without help from mouse cells, which means that they could be contaminated with mouse proteins. Ali Brivanlou of Rockefeller University in New York says that he and his colleagues may have found a partial solution to these problems. Brivanlou treated ES cells with a chemical, nicknamed BIO, from a sea snail.

Being 41, I don’t expect to enjoy the fruits of this research. But today’s children may live for a very long time indeed. That being said, my chance is not zero, so the return to exercise and good eating just went up.

If you have been a lucky person in the past, good things will happen to you in the future. Or is it enough simply to think that you were lucky in the past? Relaxed, confident people may find it easier to discover subsequent opportunities. Read about some interesting experiments on the lucky. The bottom line: “Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected.”

And what about practical advice? It is suggested that visualizing yourself as lucky, in advance of a challenge, will improve the course of events.

You are waiting in line, and must decide whether or not to stick it out or bolt. How do you choose?

Most people look back and see how many people are behind them in line. If the line behind them is long, they tend to stay in line and wait. And if they do quit, they are most likely to quit in the first three minutes.

Making this kind of comparison could be economically rational. A long line means that if and when you have to come back, you will be forced to wait anyway. So why not just get the waiting over with? (Note that the researchers try to control for this effect, although imperfectly.) A long line also suggests that many other people value the good or service, which again implies that waiting is worthwhile.

But that is not the primary hypothesis of the researchers, nor is it how I think. When I look back and see many people behind me, I feel that my lot in this matter is not so bad, and that I should stick it out. So I do.

The short article on this research is from the December issue of Psychology Today, but the article itself is not yet on-line. Here is the home page of one of the researchers, including a full citation to the article in Journal of Consumer Research. Here is a on-line summary of the work.

The world’s first private, manned rocket-plane has made a successful maiden flight. And it looks cool. More here.

Read Futurepundit on this topic. This news increases the expected well-being out there in the universe, but probably lowers the expected welfare of mankind. Visiting aliens could be a boon or a disaster but I am risk-averse in this capacity. Neither my juvenile love for science fiction nor my general optimism make me wish to live to see alien visitation. While earth institutions are far from efficient, they could be much worse. Right now the dominant technological power, the United States, is relatively benevolent by the standards of world history. Technologically superior aliens would upset this balance and could leave too much power in the wrong hands.

This whole news about planets only raises the question anew: Where are they? One possibility is that civilizations simply do not last very long on a cosmic time scale. If intelligent life has evolved elsewhere in the universe, most of the time it has expired before having a chance to contact us. If the window of opportunity is sufficienly small, it would help explain why we do not receive signals from other civilizations.

The research also shows that the nature of Jupiter’s orbit may be responsible for intelligent life on earth:

The simulations show that the amount of water on terrestrial, or Earthlike, planets could be greatly influenced by outer gas giant planets like Jupiter.

“The more eccentric giant planet orbits result in drier terrestrial planets,” Raymond said. “Conversely, more circular giant planet orbits mean wetter terrestrial planets.”

In the case of our solar system, Jupiter’s orbit is slightly elliptical, which could explain why Earth is 80 percent covered by oceans rather than being bone dry or completely covered in water miles deep.

This points to another reason why the aliens have not come. The existence of intelligent life requires a very large number of favorable coincident factors, perhaps larger than we have realized to date. But read Brad DeLong on the Fermi paradox, which suggests a large number of intelligent civilizations out there in the universe, even once we account for all the improbabilities.

Newton had the apple, Brad DeLong has a steep hill and a silly dog. Here is his interesting mathematics problem number 23.