Posts

April 10, 2012

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8:40 AM | Boozerlyzer won’t be at TED 2013

A few weeks a go I sent in a very short audition video for TED 2013. I didn’t get in which is probably just as well because I’d have been terrified. But I thought you might like to see it. … Continue reading →

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1:02 AM | Tom Lehrer – The Old Dope Peddler

Today is Tom Lehrer’s 84th birthday When the shades of night are falling, Comes a fellow ev’ryone knows, It’s the old dope peddler, Spreading joy wherever he goes. Ev’ry evening you will find him, Around our neighborhood. It’s the old … Continue reading →

April 09, 2012

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12:29 PM | Beer and theory in the 1800′s at the Royal Society 1pm, 13 April

This friday lunchtime the Royal Society in London is hosting a public history of science lecture by Dr James Sumner. He will talk about what eighteenth century chemists understood about the science of brewing. Eighteenth-century chemists could gain useful income … Continue reading →

April 06, 2012

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11:08 AM | Your Brain on Food aka There are no magic beans.

Lifehacker.com have nice article summarising some of the more recent research on what foods are good for the brain. They’ve interviewed a couple of genuine experts on nutrition (Itself no mean achievement in field with plenty of quacks) Lifehacker spoke to … Continue reading →

April 02, 2012

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8:31 PM | Religion, but not spirituality, helps protect against post-earthquake trauma

On the 6th of April 2009, a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the town of L'Aquila, in central Italy. The result was at least 309 deaths, with more than 1,000 people injured and 66,000 displaced. (After the earthquake, 6 scientists were put on trial for failing to predict it). Some time after the earthquake, Paolo Stratta and colleagues from the Department of Mental Health in L’Aquila, along with colleagues from the University of Pisa and the University of L'Aquila, interviewed 410 [...]

March 30, 2012

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6:03 PM | ISCD Student Smart Drug Study

The Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs have a new survey. They are interested in student attitudes to smart drugs and cognitive enhancement. Please share this with any students you know. This project studies students’ attitudes and experiences around smart drugs … Continue reading →

March 28, 2012

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9:26 PM | Religious students have fewer interracial friends

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Freshmen (NLSF), Julie Park, an educationalist at the University of Maryland, has investigated how inter-racial friendships and religious affiliation interact. The NLSF was an annual survey of White, Black, Latino, and Asian American students from 28 selective institutions that ran from 1999 to 2004. During their fourth year of college, students were asked to “think of the four people at [your college] with whom you have been closest [...]

March 24, 2012

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10:20 PM | Fear of death is highest among Muslims

Many people assume that religious people are less anxious about death than the non-religious. After all, the most popular religions (Islam and Christianity) explicitly hold out the promise of eternal rewards for the faithful. However, it's not quite that simple. After all, traditional versions of these gods are also pretty vengeful, and if you believe in a vengeful god, then you have to face the distinct possibility of some pretty nasty experiences after death. After all, even holy people [...]

March 22, 2012

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12:41 PM | Tobacco profits $35bn last year at cost of 6 million dead

The latest figures show tobacco companies are profiting from death and addiction at an even greater rate than we reported last month. The Guardian reports that revenues topped half a trillion dollars last year with profits over $35 billion. That’s … Continue reading →

March 21, 2012

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7:10 PM | Why open data is good for science.

I recently applied to the Open Knowledge Foundation for one of their Panton Fellowships. They are giving a number of £8,000 Fellowships to researchers who are trying to promote open science and open data. I got through the initial screening … Continue reading →

March 19, 2012

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10:21 PM | Reminders of death make the non-religious more hostile to religion yet more acepting of beliefs

There's quite a lot of research showing that subtly reminding people of death can make them more religious (here's an example). But what's not clear is why that should be - and in particular whether non-religious people also become more religious. Jonathan Jong, a new PhD from the University of Otago in New Zealand, has conducted a series of fascinating studies to investigate just this. You can find his thesis here - there's a lot in it, but here's two key studies that will make you [...]

March 18, 2012

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7:40 PM | Drugs Meter smartphone app

Dr. Adam Winstock The psychiatrist behind the Global Drugs Survey is gearing up to launch a phone based “Drugs Meter “. Here’s how the Guardian describe it: A new digital application – called drugs meter – attempts to provide people who use … Continue reading →

March 16, 2012

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4:22 PM | LOLsevier

Welcome to LOLsevier - A new tumblr photoblog dedicated to taking the piss out of rapacious scientific publisher Elsevier: LOLsevier. Why are scientists & academics picking on a poor defenceless journal publisher? See these articles to find out. ( & thanks … Continue reading →

March 15, 2012

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10:07 PM | Hosility to migrants in Europe is strongest among the 'culturally Christian'

There are many types of religion. In Europe, most people when asked would call themselves 'Christian', even if they rarely (if ever) go to church, and have only a shaky grasp of the core Christian beliefs (you might have seen the recent survey commissioned by the Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science looking into this very issue). These people are quite different from the dutiful Christians who go to Church and, you know, believe in god and all that stuff. Earlier this year I [...]

March 14, 2012

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8:35 PM | Quantified Self Toolmaker Talk

I’ve recently completed an interview about the Boozerlyzer with Raj Mehta for the Quantified Self blog. Our QS Conferences are organized to maximize discovery and serendipity. The entire program results from us inviting attendees to present and participate. You’re never … Continue reading →

March 11, 2012

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2:21 PM | Eight Kindes of Drunkennes & 210 pissonyms.

A rather nice classification of 8 types of drunkeness from the 1592 is currently stumbling through cyberspace. Eight Kinds of Drunkennes was compiled by Thomas Nashe and they’re all stereotypes that we would recognise today. (I’m usually a Martin drunk ) THE … Continue reading →

March 10, 2012

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10:20 PM | Are religious Americans more careful with money?

Dan Hess, at Seattle Pacific University, has looked at whether US cities with more religious people also tend to have fewer people getting into debt trouble. He analysed data from 120 "Metropolitan Statistical Areas" - places with an average population of 1.7 million. You can see a least of the top 10 most religious, and top 10 least religious, in the box. Overall, more religious metropolitan areas also had better credit scores, fewer foreclosures (by around two-thirds) and fewer [...]

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5:23 AM | Scientific progress goes bong

Now that is some impressive laboratory glassware. via RICHARD THEHUMAN, thats right.

March 09, 2012

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6:27 PM | Prof. David Nutt talks to SSDP London, Tues March 13th

Annoyingly, this clashes with the Google War on Drugs online event. But we might show that and get David to comment on it. Related articles War on Drugs online debate – March 13, 7pm GMT (yourbrainondrugs.net)

March 07, 2012

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9:54 PM | Bryony Kimmings: 7 day drunk at Soho Theatre

Booze? Scientists? Experiments? Creativity? This is exactly our kind of thing. The tickets are already booked! 7 DAY DRUNK is a show created by Bryony Kimmings during a 7 day alcohol experiment, inspired by the historical links between artists and … Continue reading →

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1:30 PM | Is Outsourced Science Good for Open Science?

Outsourcing is usually something of a bogeyman in the public sector. So perhaps it would seem to be the antithesis of the sharing/caring idea of Open Science. But a new start up that is bringing outsourcing into the laboratory has … Continue reading →

March 06, 2012

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9:21 PM | Are religious identity and national identity interchangeable?

source Kenneth Harttgen (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) and Matthias Opfinger (Leibniz University Hannover) have developed an index of National Identity based on survey responses to eight questions. Things like interest in politics, confidence in the parliament and justice system, and interest in politics - as well as more obvious things like willingness to fight for your country, and national pride. Using this index, they set out to discover which factors were most closely [...]

March 03, 2012

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7:21 PM | War on Drugs online debate – March 13, 7pm GMT

GoogleTube are launching a new series of online debates. On Monday, March 13th, 7pm, GMT they’re starting things off with “The War on Drugs.” The debate will feature Richard Branson, Russell Brand, Julian Assange, Eliott Spitzer, Vincente Fox, and even Joaquin … Continue reading →

March 02, 2012

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10:23 PM | Church and freedom from depression: cause or effect?

That churchgoers in the USA are less likely to be depressed than non-Churchgoers is pretty well established now. However, what's always been unclear is whether this is down to cause or effect. Does going to Church reduce your risk for depression? Perhaps the social interaction help to prevent it, or perhaps the spiritual beliefs are a buttress against depression. Or is it simply that depressed people tend to stay indoors and become reclusive? One way to find out is to follow people over [...]

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8:46 PM | Boozerlyzing the Quantified Self

Here’s my talk from the Quantified Self Conference in Amsterdam, Dec 2011. If you don’t know what the Boozerlyzer is you can learn about it here. Watching the video, I learned that I say ERM a lot Tracking your brain … Continue reading →

February 29, 2012

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4:48 PM | Faces of Addiction – Chris Arnade

Faces of Addiction. Vanessa: Hunts Point, Bronx Vanessa, thirty-five, had three children with an abusive husband. She “lost her mind, started doing heroin,” after losing the children, who were taken away and given to her mother. The drugs led to … Continue reading →

February 27, 2012

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10:15 PM | Can a pill take away the desire for religion?

Well yes it can - in a manner of speaking. Today's study is one that was actually published in 2010, and has been languishing in my files. I just rediscovered it! It's one of a trio from Aaron Kay and colleagues, at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. They've published a few studies before on how the need to feel in control of situations can drive a heightened sense of religiosity (e.g. here, here, here and here). This study took an unusual approach. First they gave their subjects (37 [...]

February 23, 2012

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9:49 PM | Religion, self esteem and psychological adjustment

Much is made of the apparent fact that religious people are happier and better adjusted than the non-religious. However, as regular readers of this blog will know, this is to a large extent an illusion. The problem is that most research is done in the USA, where being religious is the cultural norm. If you look further afield, you'll find that religion is only linked to happiness in countries where a lot of people are religious. Well, here's some more on that theme. It's from Jochen Gebauer [...]

February 19, 2012

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8:50 PM | Three puzzles of non-religion in Britain

Britain, like many countries in the West, has been undergoing a decline in the numbers of religious believers. The patterns of change, however, throw up some curious anomalies. Three of these puzzles have recently been investigated by David Voas, a demographer at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex - all quite different, each of them quirky, and all of them shedding a little fascinating insight into the trends and patterns of non-belief in the UK. First [...]

February 15, 2012

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10:39 PM | The handedness of belief

People who are ambidextrous are more likely to have magical beliefs. That's something that was known before but has recently been confirmed by Gjurgjica Badzakova-Trajkov and team from Auckland University, New Zealand. The figure on the right shows how high their subjects scored on a 'magical ideation' scale, which asks questions such as "Some people can make me aware of them just by thinking about me" and "I think I could learn to read other’s minds if I wanted to". Handedness was [...]