Links of the Day
1. Celts to Anglo-Saxons, in light of updated assumptions. Interesting discussion about the two ways people living in a certain place transform into a new ethnicity — whether by replacement of the population, or through assimilation.
2 The first advertising campaign for non-human primates . Researchers are seeing if using sex in advertising targeted to chimpanzees can get them to start eating a flavor of jello that they otherwise don’t like.
3. Could Legally Getting High Reduce the Deficit?. “Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Barney Frank (D-MA) plan to introduce a bill on Thursday that would end the federal prohibition on marijuana. . . . Miron estimates that the US would be around $88 billion a year better off if drugs were legalized, with $41.3 billion saved on enforcement of drug-related laws and $46.7 billion garnered in tax revenues.”
4. Homemade ‘Mars in a Bottle’ Tortures Bacteria. Scientists have built small habitats designed to mimic Martian surface conditions to see how bacteria cope with such conditions and to discover which species of bacteria could survive on Mars. This will give us a better idea of what to look for when searching for life with future probes sent to Mars.
The most striking finding, however, was limited to the minds of men. According to the data, when men (but not women) watched a defector get punished, they showed additional activation in reward related areas of the brain, such as the ventral striatum and nucleus accumbens. These are essential elements of the dopamine reward pathway, that same highway of nerves that also gets titillated by sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. Apparently, we are engineered to get pleasure from punishing those who deserve to be punished. As the scientists note:
“The findings of enhanced activation in ventral striatum to a signal indicating that a defector is receiving pain are in agreement with the hypothesis that humans derive satisfaction simply from seeing justice administered, even if the instrument of punishment is out of their control.”
6. Who Needs a Moon? “The number of Earth-like extrasolar planets suitable for harboring advanced life could be 10 times higher than has been assumed until now, according to a new modeling study. The finding contradicts the prevailing notion that a terrestrial planet needs a large moon to stabilize the orientation of its axis and, hence, its climate.”
7. Trust and education. People’s levels of trust in others is positively correlated with level of education and with IQ.
8. Easily distracted people may have too much brain . Researchers “found larger than average volumes of grey matter in certain brain regions in those whose attention is readily diverted.”