Politicians who deny the existence of God are barred
“ASHEVILLE — North Carolina’s constitution is clear: politicians who deny the existence of God are barred from holding office.
Opponents of Cecil Bothwell are seizing on that law to argue he should not be seated as a City Council member today, even though federal courts have ruled religious tests for public office are unlawful under the U.S. Constitution.
Voters elected the writer and builder to the council last month.
“I’m not saying that Cecil Bothwell is not a good man, but if he’s an atheist, he’s not eligible to serve in public office, according to the state constitution,” said H.K. Edgerton, a former Asheville NAACP president.”
Citizen-Times (thanks, SonOfSam)
Neuro-Feedback: Can you alter your brain waves?
Two European designers, Dries Verbruggen and Lucas Maassen, became enthralled recently with the idea of neuro-feedback in which a patient—say, someone with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder—observes his or her own brain waves on a video screen and tries to alter their oscillations through mental effort.
Electrodes attached to the head transmit patterns of neural activity that can be nominally altered to produce focused attention, a calm outlook or some other state of mind. Whether neuro-feedback is an effective treatment, however, is still an open question.
Scientific American (thanks, Berber)
Machine Translates Thoughts into Speech in Real Time
“By implanting an electrode into the brain of a person with locked-in syndrome, scientists have demonstrated how to wirelessly transmit neural signals to a speech synthesizer. The “thought-to-speech” process takes about 50 milliseconds – the same amount of time for a non-paralyzed, neurologically intact person to speak their thoughts. The study marks the first successful demonstration of a permanently installed, wireless implant for real-time control of an external device.
“The results of our study show that a brain-machine interface (BMI) user can control sound output directly, rather than having to use a (relatively slow) typing process,” Guenther told PhysOrg.com.
In their study, the researchers tested the technology on a 26-year-old male who had a brain stem stroke at age 16. The brain stem stroke caused a lesion between the volunteer’s motor neurons that carry out actions and the rest of the brain; while his consciousness and cognitive abilities are intact, he is paralyzed except for slow vertical movement of the eyes. The rare condition is called locked-in syndrome.
Five years ago, when the volunteer was 21 years old, the scientists implanted an electrode near the boundary between the speech-related premotor and primary motor cortex (specifically, the left ventral premotor cortex). Neurites began growing into the electrode and, in three or four months, the neurites produced signaling patterns on the electrode wires that have been maintained indefinitely. Three years after implantation, the researchers began testing the brain-machine interface for real-time synthetic speech production.”
Read more at PhysOrg
Italy Science Council Funds Creationist Book
After hosting a panel earlier this year to discuss supposed flaws in evolutionary theory, Italy’s science agency the National Research Council (CNR) reportedly put up thousands of dollars to help with the publication of a follow-up book, Evolutionism: The Decline of an Hypothesis. The move has vexed many scientists in the country where the Vatican recently came out in support of Darwin’s ideas.
Authored by CNR’s Vice President Roberto de Mattei, the book asserts, among other things, that scientific dating of rocks is inaccurate and that dinosaurs went extinct just 40,000 years ago (rather than some 65 million years ago, not accounting for modern birds, of course), according to the blog ScienceInsider. The American Academy for the Advancement of Science blog notes that an Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, is reporting that CNR provided 9,000 Euros (some $13,255) to help publish the book, which came out last month.
Scientific American (thanks, Berber)
Dolphins, Sea Lions To Serve As Marine Guardians Of Naval Base
The newest batch of sentries at Naval Base Kitsap–Bangor will not have to wear uniforms. But they won’t get to clock out for breaks—and they will be paid in fish.
The base near Washington’s Puget Sound is slated to receive up to 20 Navy-trained bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions to patrol the shoreline around the submarine base as part of a bolstered security initiative started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Scientific American (thanks, Berber)
Thou shalt not steal… unless we say so
A priest from North Yorkshire has advised his congregation to shoplift if they find themselves in hard times. Father Tim Jones, the parish priest of St Lawrence and St Hilda in York, said people should steal from big chains rather than small businesses.
He said society’s attitude to those in need “leaves some people little option but crime”. However the Archdeacon of York said: “The Church of England does not advise anyone to shoplift”. North Yorkshire Police described the sermon as “highly irresponsible”.
Speaking to his congregation on Sunday, Father Jones said: “My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift. “I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither.
“I would ask that they do not steal from small, family businesses, but from national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices.
BBC (via Richard Wiseman)
Darwin Had Inherited Illness
An Australian scientist believes he has identified what caused Charles Darwin’s long-standing illness.
Associate Prof. John Hayman from the University of Melbourne’s anatomy department believes Darwin probably had cyclical vomiting syndrome, which he inherited from his mother.
His findings appear in the Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal.
“People with cyclical vomiting syndrome experience abdominal, circulatory, and cerebral symptoms, including headaches and anxiety,” writes Hayward.
CBC (thanks, KirstyJ)
Vatican awards self ‘unique copyright’ on Pope
“The Vatican has awarded itself a “unique copyright” on the Pope’s name, image, coat of arms, and any other symbol or logo related to the Holy Father.
“The use of anything referring directly to the person or office of the Supreme Pontiff…and/or the use of the title ‘Pontifical,’ must receive previous and express authorization from the Holy See,” reads a statement released by the Vatican on Saturday morning, the Catholic News Agency reports.
The statement declares that the Vatican “alone has the right to ensure the respect due to the Successors of Peter.” With its self-awarded “copyright,” the Holy See intends to “protect the figure and personal identity of the Pope from the unauthorized use of his name and/or the papal coat of arms for ends and activities which have little or nothing to do with the Catholic Church.”
In recent years, the statement says, educational and cultural institutions, civic groups, and foundations have exhibited an increased desire to use the Pope’s name without the express approval of the Vatican. The Vatican attributes this to a “great increase of affection and esteem for the person of the Holy Father.” And now it wants to suppress such feelings.
The statement suggests that the Vatican’s new “copyright” is a way of dealing with organizations who use the Pope’s name, image, and symbols to “attribute credibility and authority to initiatives.”
Apparently, the Vatican has mistaken copyright for a trademark. And it has no legal means of enforcing its declaration across the globe. But this is the Vatican. Presumably, it’s assuming that you’ll obey its “copyright” in an effort to avoid spending the rest of your life wallowing in guilt. ”
From The Register
Testosterone Bumps Up Status-Seeking Behaviour, Not Aggressive Risk Taking
Do those with more testosterone coursing through their bodies make riskier, more aggressive decisions? Popular culture and even rodent studies seem to have borne out this trite truism about the sex hormone, but researchers in Switzerland and the U.K. tested whether this perception really held true for humans in a controlled environment—and arrived at counter-intuitive findings.
“We wanted to verify how the hormone affects social behavior,” Christoph Eisenegger, a neuroscientist at the University of Zurich and lead author of a new paper on the subject, said in a prepared statement. “If one were to believe the common opinion, we would expect subjects who received testosterone to adopt aggressive, egocentric and risky strategies.”
Scientific American (thanks, Berber)
The Asteroid That Will Almost Hit Earth
“SAN FRANCISCO — Any number of undiscovered near-Earth objects could one day careen into the Earth, and there is a lot of talk here at the American Geophysical Union meeting about tracking them. So far, though, only one discovered object has seemed even mildly likely to hit our planet.
That asteroid is Apophis, a 900-foot asteroid. Calculations released on Christmas Eve 2004 appeared to show that there was a greater than 2 percent chance the asteroid would hit the Earth in 2029. The asteroid appeared ready to give the Earth its closest shave since astronomers began looking for such things. It was judged a 4 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale for a short time, the highest rating any near-Earth object has received.
As it turned out, more precise observations brought the risk of collision down to just 1 in 250,000, but the scare sparked greater interest and study in the fields of asteroid detection and defense.
Even though the asteroid doesn’t look like it’s going to hit Earth, on April 13, 2029, it will come closer to Earth than any other near-Earth object that we know of. It will pass just 18,300 miles above the planet’s surface.
Here, we see an exclusive animation created by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of what that approach will look like from the perspective of the asteroid. And whoo boy, does it seem close.”"
