Redux: Do Peepguins Need Sweaters?

By: | April 3, 2015

For Easter, we thought we’d bring back this adorable post from 2014. My friends and I didn’t enter this year–we thought someone else deserved a chance to shine. Also, if anyone wants to buy a lightly used Peeps diorama, we might consider selling. It would make great yarn shop decor.

On Monday, I asked: Do Penguins Need Sweaters? Answer: Not really.

But my friends Joanna, Kate, and I thought penguin sweaters were perfect for the Washington Post Peeps Diorama Contest. Our entry:

Sweaters for Peepguins

After the bunny peeps read on Peepbook that peepguins in the Southern Hemisphere needed sweaters, they met up at their local yarn store to pitch in.

peepguin in an argyle sweater

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Guest Post: Learning to Appreciate the Untracked Life

By: | April 2, 2015

VernonChanFlickrApp
In the weeks after I bought a Fitbit, I noticed I was acting bizarre. I started carrying bags with my left arm so my right arm – the one with the Fitbit – could swing freely to ensure the Fitbit’s accelerometer would count my every step. In the evening, I would pace around my apartment until I got the gentle buzz signaling I’d reached 10,000 steps. And on days I didn’t get to 10,000, I found myself trying to justify my activity. A 30-minute bike ride doesn’t count for anything on a Fitbit, but it’s probably more or less equivalent to 1000 steps, right?

If you believe the tech industry, wearables like the Fitbit are the future. Data on your current behavior can help you better understand your habits and how to change them to meet your goals. The Fitbit, for instance, shows you raw data – steps taken, minutes active, distance travelled – so it’s easy to see progress. The device’s buzz signal is a brilliant application of psychological principles; it uses variable reinforcement, the same principle that makes playing a slot machine exciting. Because you never know exactly when you’ll get the coveted buzz, so you’re enticed to keep going. For even more motivation, you can join Fitbit’s network to “compete” with friends’ numbers. Continue reading →

The Amazing Lives of Fan Li and Xi Shi

By: | April 1, 2015

Screenshot 2015-03-31 23.49.14Gather round, my children and allow me to regale you with the wonderful tale of the adventures of Fan Li and Xi Shi – military strategist, femme fatale, and all-around badasses.

Fan Li was born in a town called Yuan Sanhu sometime in the late 6th Century BCE in a kingdom called Yue, near the modern city of Wuxi (a few hours drive from Shanghai). Born to a poor family, he befriended a man who recognized his talent and wisdom and brought him to the capital to become an advisor to the king, Goujian. King Goujian was clever as near as we can tell a good king but he was a little too ambitious for his own good.

Despite Fan Li’s warnings, not long later he attacked a nearby kingdom called Wu. Wu proceeded to slap Yue’s army like a window slaps an errant bird and take its king and counselors as hostages. Records are thin during this period but it’s safe to assume that Goujian and his subjects were not treated well. Some tales tell of harsh torture at the hands of Wu jailors. After three long years in captivity, Fan Li and his king were eventually released to go home and lick their wounds. But that’s not what what they did. Team Yue started hatching a plan to get their revenge – something more clever and subtle than a simple assault on the Wu army. No, they had a plan that required a more feminine touch.

So Fan Li found Shi Yiguang, otherwise known as Xi Shi – the daughter of a tea trader. And a woman who would later be called one of the four great beauties of Chinese history.

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A Visit to the Museum of Osteology

By: | March 31, 2015

inside the museum

I knew what I expected from the Museum of Osteology in Oklahoma City: amusement. I go to a lot of museums, and in my experience, privately-run museums based on one person’s obsession are always quirky and often pretty fun. This museum was founded by a guy and his wife who have a business next door cleaning skulls. (Apparently there are enough people who need skulls cleaned to support this business.)

But here’s the thing: It was a surprisingly interesting and educational visit. The skeletons are well organized and set up for maximum learning. The contents communicate stories about anatomy and evolution–don’t worry, there was a human in the ape corner, right next to our cousins the bonobo and the gorilla.

Osteology is the study of bones. Bones are an organ like any other. They make blood cells and provide a reservoir of calcium, which you need to make your cells work. They coordinate with the muscles and the tendons to move you around and keep you moving at dance parties. Continue reading →

This Post Longs to Be Close to 500 Birds

By: | March 30, 2015

4821595992_91c744d021_zThe other day I was just starting to work when I heard a strange cooing in the other room. It sounded like a baby. But I swore I’d just dropped the actual baby off at a friend’s house.

When I went to investigate, the baby wasn’t there, so I figured I was having a mild, pleasant postpartum hallucination. I went back to work. Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | March 28, 2015

March 23 – 27, 2015

“How often do you get to document natural selection happening in a free-ranging population on such a short time scale? How many scientific studies look for that and don’t find it?” Guest poster Judith Lewis Mernit tells us about some very interesting bobcats.

In medicine, the word “decompensate” does not mean what you think it means. Ann explains why it’s a creepily good science metaphor.

Climate change: we just keep surpassing our worst case scenarios. But while it’s easy to assume we’re playing out a tragedy, Michelle has a better idea. What if we started treating our fate as though we inhabit the narrative logic of a comedy?

The right movie leaves us walking back into the world with a pit in our stomachs. That’s why we keep going back to chase that high, says guest poster Emma Marris.

What can those sacrificial dilemmas tell you about morality in real life? The exact opposite of what you thought they did. So maybe don’t use them to draw broad conclusions about the neural correlates of moral reasoning. https://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2015/03/27/the-trolley-and-the-psychopath/

The trolley and the psychopath

By: | March 27, 2015

trolleyStop me if you’ve heard this one. A trolley carrying five school children is headed for a cliff. You happen to be standing at the switch, and you could save their lives by diverting the trolley to another track. But there he is – an innocent fat man, picking daisies on that second track, oblivious to the rolling thunder (potentially) hurtling his way. Divert the trolley, and you save the kids and kill a person. Do nothing, and you have killed no one but five children are dead. Which is the greater moral good?

This kind of thought experiment is known as a sacrificial dilemma, and it’s useful for teaching college freshmen about moral philosophy. What you maybe shouldn’t do is ask a guy on the street to answer these questions in an fMRI machine, and then use his answers to draw grand conclusions about the neurophysiological correlates of moral reasoning. But that’s exactly what some neuroscientists are doing. The trouble is, their growing body of research is built on a philosophical house of cards: sacrificial dilemmas are turning out to be exactly the opposite of what we thought they were. Guy Kahane wants to divert this trolley before it drives off a cliff.

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Science Metaphors (cont.): Decompensation

By: | March 26, 2015

1024px-Georges_de_La_Tour_Le_Tricheur_a_l'as_de_carreau_detail_des_piecesI suspect this isn’t really a science metaphor, but I got caught up in the word.

I had a friend who’s married to a hospital doctor, and he brought home many work-related words of interest:  “mother-of-record,” for instance, meant that he wasn’t going to be the one taking cupcakes to their kid’s class in the morning; “trichobezoar,” meant “hairball” and was a nice distraction from the one we found in the grocery-store salad. Then one day he came back with “decompensate:” somebody was decompensating all over the unit, he said.  “What’s decompensating?” I said.  “It’s when somebody just falls to pieces,” he said, “when they just lose it.”  “That’s a weird word,” I said.

“Compensation,” I thought, meant “payment,” like “compensation for pain and suffering,” or “zero compensation for blog posts.”  What’s falling to pieces got to do with it? Continue reading →