Science – Page 4 – Letter Never Sent

Thoughts on Myspace

I recently found out one of my friends is getting a divorce. They’ve been married about five years and have kids. I don’t know all the details of the situation and I don’t care to know. I’m a big believer in the idea that “it takes two to tango”. In other words, no matter what the circumstances, both people in a relationship bear equal responsibility for what happens. The good and the bad. That doesn’t mean if someone is being abused or mistreated that they’re responsible for that behavior against them. On the other hand, when someone is being mistreated it is often not the first occasion or indication of such negative behavior. We teach people how we want to be treated. That sounds like a Dr. Phil-ism, but I think it’s true. On some level, if you let people treat you like crap, that is acceptable to you. You either think that’s what you deserve, or you even want to be mistreated. Anyway, I don’t believe that there’s a good guy or a bad guy in any relationship. It’s almost always the case that each party is equally responsible.

That being said, this friend’s wife met a guy on Myspace. They started emailing and contacting each other and the result is that she’s leaving my friend for this guy she barely knows. According to my friend, this guy found his wife by contacting one of her friends who is also married with children. He was looking for single women with children and found her “by mistake”. So, this friend put him in touch with my friend’s wife and they went from there, and now they’re getting divorced. It’s a big mess and it bothers me.

What kind of world do we live in where random strangers can sort through thousands of people to find someone who meets certain characteristics? Is that something we really want to participate in? I don’t think Myspace is a haven for pedophiles and sexual predators, but there is something creepy about the whole thing. A bunch of human beings on computers who distill down their personality to what bands they like, and other loose touchstones like what sports teams they root for, or what TV shows they like. Maybe I just don’t get the social network thing. I’m fairly asocial. I do think it would be naive to assume that it’s an entirely positive thing. It smacks too much of unreality, or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it just lays bare the whole grasping social equation, the desire for human contact, because we can only be ourselves when we’re reflected in others.

General / Psychology / Society — 4 Comments
14
Feb 06

Brokeback Mountain as slash fiction

From Steve Sailer’s heretical blog, Brokeback Mountain as slash fiction:

“Slash” is about 100% written and read by women — some lesbian but most straight. In fact it follows romance novel formulas very closely. One member of the buddy pair is more sensitive and feminine — physically a man, emotionally a woman — while the other is a conventional romance hero. With Kirk/Spock, it’s Kirk who’s the sensitive one and Spock who’s the cold, emotionally distant hero who discovers his true feelings at the end. Part of the appeal is that the guys end up having sex not because they’re gay, but because True Love conquers all.

Gay men aren’t any more interested in “slash” than straight men are in Georgette Heyer. [Who?] The real parallel to “slash” among straight men is girl-on-girl pornography, where women combine ultra-feminine bodies with implausibly guy-like appetites for casual sex. Presumably these women inhabit the same male fantasy land where hot babes are interested in cool guy stuff, like martial arts and field-stripping automatic weapons, instead of boring girl stuff, like relationships and feelings (whatever those are).

Both slash and girl-girl porn tell us a lot (maybe more than we’d like to know) about the chasm between male and female sexuality. but, apart from the physical activities, they have nothing to do with real homosexuality. It’s funny how many reviewers are so clueless about human sexuality they can’t figure stuff like this out.

Personal / Science / Society — 1 Comment
16
Nov 05

Breathe deep, me hearties!

Today be the first cold day of the year! I’ve been experimenting with “indoor roughing it”, which has led me to forgo indoor climate control in favor of clothing control. I woke up very cold this morning, and had to get up every few minutes to readjust my blankets. Brrrrrr.

Something about cold weather brings out my inner caveman. My mind retreats inward, the senses sharpen, my skin dries and thickens becoming less sensitive, and I get a strong impulse to stop shaving. There has to be DNA memory. I am feeling wild. It reminds me of that scene in “American Werewolf in London” where he has the dream in the forest after being bitten by the werewolf. In the dream, he’s naked and hunting down a deer with his bare hands.

When I was last in Oklahoma, Jody, her mom, and I went out to feed the “calves” (in this case, yearling bullocks who have yet to be castrated). At this age, they’ve bulked up around the neck and shoulders, on their way to becoming true bulls. This particular morning was cool and the young bulls were feeling their oats, butting each other with their hornless heads trying to dig in and push each other back.

I screwed up and let an unbred heifer into the same pen as the young bulls, and the reaction was immediate. Within a few seconds she had a train of bulls following after her their heads raised, eyes rolled back, and upper lip lifted to catch the seductive scent trailing behind her.

It’s a mirror of our own world. The center of it all is the same: survival and perpetuation of the species. Everything else we have serves to take up all the time we used to spend just surviving and procreating.

Personal / Science — 2 Comments
24
Oct 05

Cool things at the Dallas World Aquarium

Wow. I don’t know if I told you about when Jody and I went to the Dallas Zoo a couple weeks ago, but Sunday we did one better and went to the Dallas World Aquarium. It was amazing, probably due to it being newer than the zoo and more expensive. They do a good job of moving you through the exhibits while conveying a sense of moving through the various ecological niches. Rainforest to river to ocean. The best parts were as follows:

Giant river otters – Two playful river otters who look like long skinny dogs. They swam around their cage and would swim up to the glass to gawk at the humans. Up close you can see the massive jaws they use to crush the heads of fish. Very cat-like in the skull area. Flattened muscular tails they use like oars. Beautiful creatures.
Antillean manatees – These are like the Florida manatee except they’re thinner and smaller. I pegged them incorrectly as dugongs (another member of Sirenia) because they just didn’t look like your normal manatee. Up close you can see them much better. One thing I was surprised about was the long hairs protruding from their fat grey bodies just like elephants, which is not surprising since they are closely related, I believe. In the manatee tank they had all sorts of other fish, catfish, and side-necked turtles. Some very huge arapaima also, which are air breathing fish that grow up to fourteen feet.
Three-toed sloth – The sloth was so cute and amazing. From it’s mossy fur to its Mona Lisa smile, it is easily one of the most adorable animals you will see. I learned something interesting, sloths live in trees full-time, but they come to ground to defecate. How tidy!
A few other animals I loved: the cuttlefish with their color-changing chromatophores, the sleepy jaguar, seadragons, and the smiling stingrays who flapped against the glass expecting food.

Whenever you’re in Dallas, be sure to check out the aquarium. It’s worth it. Here’s a link to the otter and manatee webcams. Updating live.

Science — 3 Comments
11
Sep 05

Amazing life

BBC: Tongue-eating bug found in fish:

A gross creature which gobbles up a fish’s tongue and then replaces it with its own body has been found in Britain for the first time.

The bug – which has the scientific name cymothoa exigua – was discovered inside the mouth of a red snapper bought from a London fishmonger.

The 3.5cm creature had grabbed onto the fish’s tongue and slowly ate away at it until only a stub was left.

It then latched onto the stub and became the fish’s “replacement tongue”.

Psychology — 2 Comments
06
Sep 05

Notes on male / female identity

In researching some ideas I had about rebelliousness (especially political) and father-absence I came across several provocative ideas related to the formation of male / female identity. In a review of THE CHURCH IMPOTENT: THE FEMINIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY by Leon J. Podles:

Continue reading →

Science — Comments Off
23
Aug 05

Politics meets practical issues of consciousness

…and idealism meets materialism. Fetal pain unlikely before third trimester-study:

Legislation under consideration by the U.S. Congress and some U.S. states would require doctors to inform women seeking abortions after the 22nd week of gestation that their fetus feels pain and offer to anesthetize the fetus.

Supporters of the legislation say that when a fetus displays a withdrawal reflex or hormonal stress response, that is evidence of fetal pain. But the researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, questioned that view, saying the responses may be automatic and not signs of discomfort.

Drawing on findings from thousands of medical-journal articles on the subject of fetal pain and related topics, the report’s author, Susan Lee, wrote that “pain is a subjective sensory and emotional experience that requires the presence of consciousness.”

Consciousness is created by brain connections between the thalamus and the cerebral cortex, and those do not begin to develop before the 23rd week and possibly not before the 30th week of gestation. The human gestation period is 38 weeks from conception.

Science — Comments Off
23
Aug 05

Absolutely amazing anemones

We are living among aliens and we barely know them. I would be very interested to read more about the evolutionary strategies of species at the group level. Anemone Armies Battle to a Standoff via robotwisdom.

Clashing colonies of sea anemones fight as organized armies with distinct castes of warriors, scouts, reproductives and other types, according to a new study.

The sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima lives in large colonies of genetically identical clones on boulders around the tide line. Where two colonies meet they form a distinct boundary zone. Anemones that contact an animal from another colony will fight, hitting each other with special tentacles that leave patches of stinging cells stuck to their opponent.

(Snip)

When the tide is out, the polyps are contracted and quiet. As the tide covers the colonies, “scouts” move out into the border to look for empty space to occupy. Larger, well-armed “warriors” inflate their stinging arms and swing them around. Towards the center of the colony, poorly armed “reproductive” anemones stay out of the fray and conduct the clone’s business of breeding.

When anemones from opposing colonies come in contact, they usually fight. But after about 20 or 30 minutes of battle the clones settle down to a truce until the next high tide.

It’s not just polyps along the border between two clones that clash. Polyps three or four rows away from the front will reach over their comrades to engage in fights, Grosberg said.

Science — Comments Off
16
Aug 05

This alien world

Crocodile blood may yield powerful new antibiotics:

Scientists in Australia’s tropical north are collecting blood from crocodiles in the hope of developing a powerful antibiotic for humans, after tests showed that the reptile’s immune system kills the HIV virus.

The crocodile’s immune system is much more powerful than that of humans, preventing life-threatening infections after savage territorial fights which often leave the animals with gaping wounds and missing limbs.

“They tear limbs off each other and despite the fact that they live in this environment with all these microbes, they heal up very rapidly and normally almost always without infection,” said U.S. scientist Mark Merchant, who has been taking crocodile blood samples in the Northern Territory.

the old stuff