• In the wake of its banking decombustion, Iceland heads back to an economy based on fishing—at least, for another 50 years or so.

• Should water be priced according to its market value? Vote today in The Economist‘s water poll.

• Morality police or no, 25 percent of teenage girls have received the HPV vaccine.

• Nuclear energy gets a PR boost.

• Some how, pork seems a little less porky when it’s going to green energy.

• The Top Ten Biggest Nobel Prize shafts.

• Doctors and drug companies: How deep does the rabbit hole go?

• And finally, perhaps the best graphic representation so far of this week’s financial wreckage.

The 2008 election will be one for the history books. But it may also be one for the psych texts, with its revealing look inside how politics brings out the basest, most reptilian impulses in the depths of the human mind.

We know that affiliation with a political party or group goes deeper than just your thoughts on abortion or free markets—how you cast a ballot is even rooted in neuroscience. And more research is being done concerning the impact of past leaders’ race and gender on our psyche from childhood on. Plus the gallons of mud slung, not to mention the race-baiting, finger pointing, and infighting, are enough to provide behavioral psychologists with research fodder for decades.

Meanwhile, reporters from all over the campaign trail are bewailing the seeming total lack of rational thought that goes into many voters’ ballot-casting decisions.

Well, as the New Scientist reports, we may be asking a little too much of humanity when we expect every voter (or even a plurality) to form an opinion of the candidates based on carefully-reasoned and factually-grounded analysis of their positions and backgrounds. In other words: Our brains just aren’t built that way.

(more…)

We know that adults consciously and subconsciously “expect” their leaders to be male and Caucasian. But now it looks like the white male-ness of our past leaders is alive and well in the minds of kids as young as five.

In 2006, research teams at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Kansas quizzed 205 children ages five to 10 on “their knowledge, attitudes and beliefs” about the similarities among the U.S. presidents we’ve had so far. The three studies asked kids from “diverse” racial and ethnic backgrounds about why there had never been an African American, Hispanic, or female president. Here’s a summary of the results:

(more…)

You may recall that nerves were jangled this summer over the appearance of a recent Hindenburg Omen—the mathematical formula that measures the probability of a stock market crash, and has reportedly predicted every crash since 1985. Granted, the appearance of an omen didn’t necessarily mean a crash was incoming—though a “confirmed” omen, such as the one in June, substantially upped the chances of the market tanking.

Well, it looks like the numbers didn’t lie.

• Ticked off about the bailout? Luckily there’s Offsetthebailout.com, a social network for angst-filled consumers to post their anti-bailout rants.

• Continuing the presidential technology lovefest, the Obama campaign launches an iPhone application.

• Schwarzenegger cracks the whip on California’s urban—and gas-guzzling—sprawl.

• Jenny McCarthy for president? America’s favorite anti-vaxer hits the political scene.

• And in other anti-vax news, the Florida Institute of Technology publishes the first national survey of attitudes towards autism and vaccines—and it ain’t pretty.

• The BBC reveals its version of the Stanford Prison Experiment (hint: They got the same results).

• And where oh where can we turn for informed and accurate advice about the economy? MIT’s a pretty good start.

Remember how un-cuddly and un-fuzzy animals were getting the shaft from both the media and the public alike? Well, finally an organization is taking a stand for the rights of the slimy, the toady, and the generally awful. The Conservation Law Foundation has asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to add the Atlantic wolffish—the picture speaks for itself—to the Endangered Species List.

As with the majority of aquatic species, the fish is being royally screwed by commercial fishing and could soon be wiped off the planet. The only difference between it and all those photogenic dolphins, however, is that the wolffish is, well, freaking hideous. Which makes it all the less likely that the CLF’s push will be well-received—especially considering that New England fishermen are already eying this move as a potential source of more fishing restrictions.

So unless it’s discovered to make pearls or form the world’s greatest sushi, we’re not holding our breaths for the foundations and charities to spring forth trumpeting the species’ survival. Ah well—we’ll always have pictures.

Image: Flickr/eirikm

Internet slanders or no, Sarah Palin has reportedly spoken words demonstrating her dangerous lack of thought about evolution and education. Now it seems that Matt Damon’s dinosaur question may be more than just a puffed-up Internet rumor as well.

The L.A. Times has a source who claims to have spoken directly to Palin about dinosaurs in 1997, when she was mayor of Wasilla. Stephen Braun reports that the notoriously soundbite-ready VP nominee told Philip Munger, a music teacher at the University of Alaska in Anchorage, that “dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time” 6,000 years ago—an statement that’s so horribly incorrect on so many levels, yet still all too common in creationist lore. Munger said Palin insisted that “she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks.” Were these pictures on display here by any chance?

Granted, Munger is no fan of the photogenic governor: He writes the actively anti-Palin blog ProgressiveAlaska, and has appeared on ultra-liberal Air America radio to speak out against her. Still, unless yet another blogger digs up evidence that he’s lying, there’s no proof that their exchange is a myth. And, of course, all this could be cleared up by a simple Q&A with Palin herself—if such a thing was possible.

Image: Flickr/williac

• The debates are on! Slate analyzes what each candidate must do to win, while a cognitive linguist says the key to victory is appealing to “values, not facts.” Clearly the GOP got that memo.

• Eye-gate explained: A doctor-blogger discusses the controversy over McCain’s apparent facial ailment.

• If you’re going to be president in one of the world’s most volatile times, it’s good to have the Nobel winners on your side.

• January may not be soon enough: The director of NIH resigns, leaving the organization in purgatory until the next administration shows up.

• So signs of autism appear around the time of vaccinations, therefore vaccines must cause autism! Not so much. Here’s a far likelier (and actually logical) explanation.

• This is your brain on cell phones: More warnings from scientists to Congress on your cell’s potential danger.

• Facebook and the science of narcissism.

You still can’t get away with saying it in Hollywood, but after a lawsuit by a Christian anti-choice group, now you can smack it in the center of a Google ad. The New York Times reports that Google is now allowing religious organizations to buy ads in the search giant’s vast network that contain the keyword “abortion.” In the past, the search juggernaut had followed a policy of not selling the “abortion” keyword to religious groups—though it would allow other groups, including doctors offering abortions and resource sites like Our Bodies, Ourselves, to purchase ads with the keyword.

Enter Britain’s staunch anti-choice group the Christian Institute, which took its case to court after Google rejected its ad containing the following: “UK abortion law: Key news and views on abortion law from The Christian Institute.” The ad was referring to a bill before the House of Commons concerning potential abortion restrictions.

(more…)

The ScienceDebate2008 project put together 14 questions for the candidates covering all the major bases, including climate change, energy, education, national security, biotech, conservation, and health care. (For a full list, go here.) Earlier this month, Obama submitted his responses. Now McCain has followed suit. Here are some highlights, with a few of our own annotations.

Innovation

(more…)

What are the most important things the next U.S. president needs to do for science? Earlier this year, an impressive group of scientists and media types got behind the idea that the presidential candidates should have a debate on this very topic. Several months later, it’s clear that their goal won’t be met.

So where do we go from here? The prospects for elevating the public political discussion on science aren’t great, given the circumstances: Campaign strategists—and likely the nominees themselves—see science as a policy area with a world of downside and not much upside.

But when either Barack Obama or John McCain is sworn in as the next commander-in-chief, he will inherit a cauldron of serious problems, from energy to the environment to health care, that will take significant science research and knowledge to solve. As such, we figured it was a good idea to scratch the debates and get right to the recommendations.

With that goal in mind, we bring you the DISCOVER Science Policy Project, in which we give a group of the country’s most celebrated scientists and thinkers the chance to answer the following question:

What are the three most important things the next president can do to positively impact scientific research in the United States?

In the November issue of DISCOVER, we compile and analyze the results. In the meantime, we will be posting each response in its entirety here on Reality Base, as well as additional answers from authors, conservationists, geneticists, and more. Feel free to offer your own ideas and analysis in the comments section.

The time for debate is over. Let’s start providing some answers. All past responses can be found here.

(more…)

As any lawyer knows, the difference between “and” and “or” can mean winning a seven-figure award versus having your a case tossed out of court. Or, in this case, millions of dollars for stem cell research versus none at all.

It all started last week, when the Republican Platform Committee approved an amendment to the party platform regarding embryonic stem cell research. The change boiled down to that one crucial word—from “and” to “or”—in the platform’s call for the ban of (emphasis added): “the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes.”

Which means, essentially, is that if the party has its way, virtually all human embryo research, from freezing embryos at fertilization clinics to the privately-financed creation of new stem-cell lines, will be shut down.

(more…)

Like many, we were Twitter skeptics at first. “Who on earth would ever use this?” we thought a year or so ago, when the micro-blogging service was winding its way through the word-of-mouth (and -blog) channels.

But now, given the site’s major role in the presidential campaign, its history of freeing jailed Americans abroad, and even its ability to facilitate public safety during a national disaster, we’re convinced: Twitter is freakin’ brilliant, and may change the way we communicate on a global scale.

ABC News writer Ki Mae Heussner reports that New Orleans natives and other hardy souls who faced off with Gustav were Twittering up a, er, storm, sending messages about evacuations and shelters, letting friends and family members know their location, and reporting on storm conditions as they watched them.

(more…)

We’ve seen plenty of official statements and soundbite-ready quotes on science policy from both sides of the presidential race. But there’s still plenty of room to nail down exactly where each of the candidates stand on the most important issues. Enter ScienceDebate2008 and Scientists & Engineers for America, who, along with a group of other science and engineering organizations, put together 14 questions for each candidate. The questions hit all the major bases, including climate change, energy, education, national security, biotech, conservation, and health care. (For a full list, go here.)

The first set of responses, from Obama’s camp, are now online. While a lot of it is straight from the political rhetoric handbook (or from policies his campaign has already laid out publicly), it’s a concise and helpful overview of his stances on science. Here are a few highlights: (more…)

The crowd was bursting at the seams in Invesco Field last night—MSM reports have put attendance anywhere from 75,000 to more than 84,000—but for those not packed into the confines of Mile High Stadium, Obama’s historic acceptance speech was alive and well on the Internet. The Democratic nominee’s address—made on the 45th anniversary of civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech—was streamed live on MSM sites, posted to YouTube with astonishing speed, and blogged at length. But one real winner for the night, in addition to the Democratic candidate, was Twitter.

The micro-blogging site, which has been gradually but surely infiltrating the political realm, had a huge night, with Wired‘s Sarah Lai Stirland reporting that “[m]ore than 6,500 tweets poured through the service in just 20 minutes…most of them brief, two-line assessments of Obama’s performance.” While Obama may not have the most comfortable lead in the polls, he does lead the world’s most followed Twitterer list by a wide margin, with 67,969 followers, though he wasn’t the only Democrat to inspire tidal waves of Tweets—Bill Clinton’s speech the night before also drove viewers to their computers and cell phones.

(more…)