Scientific American Topic - Thought & Cognition

Cap-and-Trade Program Creates Green Jobs

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:05:00 EST

BOSTON -- Scott Newman was laid off in February from his job repairing home oil heaters, a victim of the dismal economy. Today, he sits in a class with a new job, learning how to sleuth out wasted energy in homes. [More]

Cancer Clues from Embryonic Development

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:00:00 EST

One reason cancer is not considered a single disease but many is that every cancer cell seems to be dysfunctional in its own way. Random mutations in a cell’s DNA initiate its slide into abnormal behavior. And as additional mutations accumulate, that randomness is also thought to account for the diversity in different patients’ tumors, even when they are cancers of the same tissue. But evidence is growing that there is a method to the madness of tumor cells, making some scientists reevaluate the nature of cancer.

Analyzing tumors from dozens of tissue types, Isaac S. Kohane of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology has catalogued surprising yet familiar patterns of gene activity in cancer cells--they are the same programmed genetic instructions active during various stages of embryonic and fetal development. Entire suites of genes that drive an embryo’s early growth and the later formation of limbs and other structures in the womb normally go silent during the rest of life, but these genetic programs are switched back on in many tumor cells.

[More]

How Room Designs Affect Your Work and Mood

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:00:00 EST

In the 1950s prizewinning biologist and doctor Jonas Salk was working on a cure for polio in a dark basement laboratory in Pittsburgh. Progress was slow, so to clear his head, Salk traveled to Assisi, Italy, where he spent time in a 13th-century monastery, ambling amid its columns and cloistered courtyards. Suddenly, Salk found himself awash in new insights, including the one that would lead to his successful polio vaccine. Salk was convinced he had drawn his inspiration from the contemplative setting. He came to believe so strongly in architecture’s ability to influence the mind that he teamed up with renowned architect Louis Kahn to build the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., as a scientific facility that would stimulate breakthroughs and encourage creativity.

Architects have long intuited that the places we inhabit can affect our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. But now, half a century after Salk’s inspiring excursion, behavioral scien-tists are giving these hunches an empirical basis. They are unearthing tantalizing clues about how to design spaces that promote creativity, keep students focused and alert, and lead to relaxation and social intimacy. Institutions such as the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture in San Diego are encouraging interdisciplinary research into how a planned environment influences the mind, and some architecture schools are now offering classes in introductory neuroscience.

[More]

Over the hump of the expedition, and the science keeps on coming

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:00:00 EST

Editor's Note: Peggy Delaney is sailing on a newly refurbished research vessel, the JOIDES Resolution, that left Honolulu on March 10 with an international group of researchers on board. The ship, supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, conducts scientific investigations beneath the seafloor by drilling the ocean floor and retrieving long “cores” of mud for testing and data collection. This is her eighth blog post. To see all her posts, see "60 Seconds in the Mid-Pacific."

SOMEWHERE IN THE EQUATORIAL PACIFIC (APRIL 11, 2009)--We are past the hump--the midway point. We have 16 days of operations left, split between our remaining two sites, and these are followed by a long transit back to Hawaii. We are currently coring at our fourth site, U1334. People are tired and grumpy. Using the new or newly reconfigured science systems and computing infrastructure has been and continues to be harder than anticipated. Doing routine things requires learning new ways, and it often feels like we are all just putting out small brush fires as fast as we can. We struggle to keep our heads above water and to focus on the science of what we are doing. So, what helps to keep our spirits up? And what about that science? [More]

Come Together: Our Need to Cooperate

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EST

The natural world seems intent on synchronizing. Schools of fish, flocks of birds, herds of wildebeest, and swarms of fireflies all effortlessly coordinate their actions with one another. A recent study published by Scott Wiltermuth and Chip Heath of Stanford University in the journal Psychological Science, suggests that humans are no different. In fact, our ability to synchronize might be one of the most important developments in our evolution as a social species, a skill we need to successfully choreograph our dance moves at parties--and also, perhaps, to live together in stable, cooperative societies.

Examples of the power of human synchrony abound--from the awe-inspiring opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics to the fear-inspiring Nazi military march, to the ridiculous communal dances in which we find ourselves at weddings. Who hasn’t bad-mouthed the chicken dance in the buffet line and then been drawn in by that insufferable staccato? Like a Siren, the allure of synchrony pulls you into the group.

[More]

How Does the Brain Form Sentences?

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:00:00 EST

Forming a grammatically correct sentence may seem to require advanced cognitive skills, but it turns out that our creative language capacity might rely on a less sophisticated system than is commonly thought. A recent study suggests that our ability to construct sentences may arise from procedural memory--the same simple memory system that lets our dogs learn to sit on command.

Scientists distinguish between procedural memory, which is relevant for learning skills such as how to swim, and declarative memory, which stores knowledge, including facts and memories of events, such as one’s birthday, says Victor S. Ferreira of the University of California, San Diego. To find out which system is at work when we form sentences, Ferreira and his team exploited a phenomenon called syntactic persistence--speakers tend to use the same grammatical pattern they have used or heard in previous sentences.

[More]

Readers Respond on "Driving toward Crashless Cars"

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:00:00 EST

Don’t Shoot the Prognosticator"After the Crash" [Perspectives] places part of the blame for the current financial crisis on the software models created by the physics and math specialists whom Wall Street refers to as quants to police investment banks after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lifted a rule requiring them to maintain debt ceilings and federal reserves in 2004. Pointing fingers at the quants for their imperfect financial models is like blaming meteorologists for imperfect models of climate change or immunologists for their imperfect models of AIDS. Such scientists overwhelmingly understand that their models are imperfect and are constantly trying to better them.

[More]

Learn to Think Better: Tips from a Savant

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:00:00 EST

Daniel Tammet is author of two books, Born on a Blue Day and Embracing the Wide Sky, the latter of which came out in January. He is also a linguist and holds the European record for reciting the first 22,514 digits of the mathematical constant pi. Scientific American Mind contributing editor Jonah Lehrer chats with Tammet about the way his memory works, why the IQ test is overrated, and a possible explanation for extraordinary feats of creativity.

Scientific American Mind: Your recent memoir, Born on a Blue Day, documented your life as an autistic savant. You describe, for example, how you are able to quickly learn new languages and remember scenes from years earlier in cinematic detail. Are you ever surprised by your own abilities?

[More]

A new type of painkiller

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:45:00 EST

A new extended-release anesthetic can safely numb body parts for as long as a week, a new study in rats suggests. If the anesthetic has the same effect in humans, it might one day be used to manage chronic and surgery-induced pain, researchers say. [More]

Stimulus funds already out the door for volcano monitoring

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:10:00 EST

Despite receiving flack from Republicans earlier this year, volcano monitoring is among the first programs to get federal stimulus dough from the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), the Associated Press reports. [More]

Tiny Tech Can Leave a Big Mess

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:50:00 EST

Nanotechnology's image is sleek, modern and clean. But that's not its reality. [More]

Defense Mechanisms: Neuroscience Meets Psychoanalysis

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:00:00 EST

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself. --Ludwig Wittgenstein

[More]

Soldiers' Stress: What Doctors Get Wrong about PTSD

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:00:00 EST

In 2006, soon after returning from military service in Ramadi, Iraq, during the bloodiest period of the war, Captain Matt Stevens of the Vermont National Guard began to have a problem with PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Stevens's problem was not that he had PTSD. It was that he began to have doubts about PTSD: the condition was real enough, but as a diagnosis he saw it being wildly, even dangerously, overextended.

Stevens led the medics tending an armored brigade of 800 soldiers, and his team patched together GIs and Iraqi citizens almost every day. He saw horrific things. Once home, he said he had his share of "nights where I'd wake up and it would be clear I wasn't going to sleep again."

[More]

Polar Meltdown Triggers International Arctic Landgrab

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EST

As a nuclear-powered icebreaker crunched through 10 feet of August ice at the North Pole, Russian sailors readied two deepwater submersibles for their two-and-a-half-mile descent. Dubbed Mir 1 and Mir 2 (mir meaning “world”), the subs were aptly named--their deployment was about to catch the world’s attention. A hole opened in the ship’s wake, and the subs were lowered. At the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, one sub took seabed samples, the ostensible purpose of the mission, while the other deposited a titanium capsule containing a Russian flag, symbolically claiming this undersea turf for its homeland.

Moscow’s 2007 stunt was mocked widely for its ostentatious flouting of diplomatic etiquette but had its intended effect: other countries were rattled. Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper scurried to the Arctic for a sovereignty tour, and the Danish science minister released preliminary findings that the North Pole was, in fact, Danish.

[More]

Intoxicating Studies: The Effects of Alcohol on Social Behavior

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:30:00 EST

Perhaps the only thing stopping me from becoming an alcoholic is the fact that I find the taste of alcohol unconscionably offensive. Beer is sewer water. Rum? Cough syrup. I’m likely betraying my unpolished, suburban upbringing here, but even the crème de la crème of liqueurs--say, a gilded bottle of vintage cognac festooned with Swarovski crystals--might as well be a dressed-up container of Liquid Drano to me. And if you’re ever sitting across from me at a fancy restaurant, note my uncontrollable wincing after I lift my glass in surrender to the moment and the first piquant coat of expensive wine rudely invades my taste buds. [More]

What is a megamouth shark? Is it still a scientific mystery?

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:00:00 EST

On the morning of March 30, fishermen casting their nets in the Burias Pass, a centrally located channel in the Philippine archipelago, got the catch--not to mention surprise--of their lives: a megamouth shark so rare that some people still consider it a "cryptid", a creature that is seen so infrequently science can't confirm its existence. [More]

Natural gas powered vehicles on the rise, even as refueling device maker goes bust

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:40:00 EST

FuelMaker, the Honda-owned, Canada-based manufacturer of natural gas fueling systems for vehicles, went belly-up last week. The company made the only residential natural gas refueling product (called Phill) in the world. [More]

Pssst: Gossip hurts--but friends can protect you from the worst of it

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:20:00 EST

CHICAGO--Think a little gossip is harmless? Beware: new research says gossiping can be a form of warfare in which information is used as a weapon that could potentially damage a competitor's reputation. An effective defense, according to the study released here last week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists: friends. [More]

Knowing Your Chances: What Health Stats Really Mean

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:00:00 EST

In a 2007 campaign advertisement, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said, “I had prostate cancer, five, six years ago. My chances of surviving prostate cancer--and thank God, I was cured of it--in the United States? Eighty-two percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent under socialized medicine.” Giuliani used these statistics to argue that he was lucky to be living in New York and not in York. This statement was big news. As we will explain, it was also a big mistake.

In 1938 in World Brain (Methuen & Co.), English writer H. G. Wells predicted that for an educated citizenship in a modern democracy, statistical thinking would be as indispensable as reading and writing. At the beginning of the 21st century, nearly everyone living in an industrial society has been taught reading and writing but not statistical thinking--how to understand information about risks and uncertainties in our technological world. That lack of understanding is shared by many physicians, journalists and politicians such as Giuliani who, as a result, spread misconceptions to the public.

[More]

Regrowing Forests Could Provide Climate Change Help

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:05:00 EST

As policymakers and scientists try to find the best way to pump emissions from coal-fired power plants into deep underground reservoirs, another carbon dioxide sink is already soaking up greenhouse gases and has the potential to soak up much more. [More]