Eric Scott, who has been testing jet packs for 14 years, crossed the Royal Gorge near Canyon City, Colorado today in a supposed historic flight ("the biggest feat of daring since Evil Knievel crossed the Snake River") that is sure to be endlessly replayed on TV newscasts desperate for something happy to report.

That means free advertising for sponsor Go Fast energy drinks. And the 33-second maximum flight time turns out to be just long enough for flashy TV spots. Needless to say, the panzies at DARPA would never waste countless dollars on such a limited machine. (See, America's not entirely socialist yet!)

(Video excerpted from Denver Post)

And, OK, they're not technically for sale, but they're still weird! A mechanical engineering professor at the University of Michigan created the minuscule Obama portraits "to raise awareness of nanotechnology and science." Yes, there needs to be more awareness of science! Like about what science is and why it can be used, for some reason, to make wee portraits of our newest president-elect. The coolest part of the whole project, though? How cool everyone who worked on them is:

"Developments like this are an excellent way to bring the concepts of nanotechnology to a broader audience," said [creator John] Hart, who made the portraits with his colleagues by working late on a Friday evening. "Also, we thought it would be fun."

"The study measured the number of fast-food ads kids watched and found a fast-food TV-ad ban for children's programming would reduce the number of overweight children aged 3 to 11 by 18%, and for adolescents (12- to 18-year-olds) by 14%."

You could expect McDonald's et al. to pull out the real big guns to fight any sort of proposed law that would legally restrict their marketing. It's un-American! Yes it is, but the smart countries have done it:

Sweden and Norway instituted bans on all ads to children in the early 1990s, but the legislation sought to avoid exploitation rather than prevent obesity. Quebec has banned food advertising to children during programs geared toward kids, and the Canadian province has shown lower childhood obesity rates than surrounding areas.

The Scandinavians really are our superiors. [Ad Age]

Dr. Church said there might be an alternative approach that would “alarm a minimal number of people.” The workaround would be to modify not a human genome but that of the chimpanzee, which is some 98 percent similar to that of people. The chimp’s genome would be progressively modified until close enough to that of Neanderthals, and the embryo brought to term in a chimpanzee.

“The big issue would be whether enough people felt that a chimp-Neanderthal hybrid would be acceptable, and that would be broadly discussed before anyone started to work on it,” Dr. Church said.

How "minimal" would the "alarm" be? Chimp-Neatherthals, guys? Anyone?

...he's considering applying the site's predictive tools to congressional votes, movies' box-office performance and other topics.

It would be surprising if Silver weren't in talks to go on retainer with a cable news network or some other media outlet (beyond his gig at Baseball Prospectus) as a consultant.

Silver's predictions on the nutty electoral college, by the way, were only slightly less accurate than his calls on the popular vote:

(Picture via Guardian)

The scientists of Oz believe that extra length of the androgen receptor gene may weaken testosterone signals that are sent out to various parts of the brain and body that make you do boy things like play sports and enjoy having a penis. One of the researchers told the Australian AP:

We think that these genetic differences might reduce testosterone action and under masculinize the brain during fetal development. This is something that people are born with and it's certainly not a lifestyle choice as some have suggested.

Which, is good news. The more power we can take away from the argument that these difficult, alienating paths are willfully chosen, the more (one hopes) we can breed compassion and, eventually, understanding. The kind of compassion and understanding exhibited in the first sentence of this post. Trannies forever!

Transsexual Gene Found, Researchers Claim [GayWired]

For example: do you buy the latest US Weekly if there's a dude on the cover? Practically no one does. Why? 'Cause women want to read and gossip about other women. The relentless coverage of the Britneys of the world isn't as unfair and sexist as it seems—it's what you want.

"In keeping with the evolutionary hypotheses suggested earlier, we have consistently found that people are most interested in gossip about individuals of the same sex as themselves who happen to be around their own age."

That's why Sarah Palin sells: "although males are usually more interested in news about other males, females are virtually obsessed with news about other females."

We have also found that information that is socially useful is always of greatest interest to us: we like to know about the scandals and misfortunes of our rivals and of high-status people because this information might be valuable in social competition. Positive information about such people tends to be uninteresting to us. Finding out that someone already higher in status than ourselves has just acquired something that puts that person even further ahead of us does not supply us with ammunition that we can use to gain ground on him.

Like Rupert Murdoch.
The Science of Gossip: Why We Can't Stop Ourselves [Scientific American via Boing Boing]

• Rollins gave 10 points to Palin on CNN.
• "Sarah Palin was sensational tonight... she wiped the floor with Joe Biden." -Pat Buchanan on MSNBC
• "Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, “Hey, I think she just winked at me.” And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America." -Richard Lowry, pundit on National Review’s The Corner blog. [via Wonkette]
• "She delivered big-time... It was the best 90 minutes this campaign has had in two weeks... Whatever expectations there were, she blew them away." -Tom Rath, New Hampshire-based GOP strategist. [Washington Post]

All from (admittedly Republican) men. Coincidence? No, Joe—pheromones, transmitted through the TV.

That said, even if men seem to like Palin more than women do, that doesn't mean they'll vote for her McCain. Because, continuing this logic, the same dudes love strippers, but not for marrying.

Conservatives Are Scared A Lot

Rice University Political Scientist John Alford published some research in the creatively named journal Science about a possible biological basis to liberalism and conservatism. Basically, "46 mostly white Midwesterners who self-identified as having strong political beliefs" were shown "threatening images" ("a large spider on someone's face, a bloodied person and maggot-filled wound"). The conservatives were more scared, of all of the images. Or, as Newsweek puts it, "illegal immigrants may = spiders = gay marriages = maggot-filled wounds = abortion rights = bloodied faces. " Liberals were not sensitive to the scary images. Which means they're biologically inferior, because they'd die if a gay spider tried to abort their faces to death. Notable problems with this study: small sample, also wtf this doesn't explain anything.

Conservatives Refuse to Believe "Facts"

The most upsetting and alarming research? Probably Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler's backfire effect study. In that, the political scientists took two groups of volunteers and gave them the Bush administration's prewar claims that Iraq was a threat and had weapons of mass destruction.

One group was given a refutation — the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration's claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

This "backfire" effect only worked on conservatives. Even when they varied the source of the refutations, it made no difference—corrections from the New York Times and Fox News both caused conservatives to believe the lies even harder. In other words, objective truth is dead, observable reality is a fairy tale, etc.

Conservatives Have An Entirely Different Moral Code

This should bring you down, a little bit. Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist, wrote a lengthy anthropological investigation into why people vote for Republicans. It's not the Thomas Frank "they are distracted by bullshit" explanation, though it is related: they have different cultural standards of ethics and morality! Liberals and college students define morality as "how we treat each other," conservatives attach more significance to "supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way." Liberals recognize fairness and care as important moral virtues, conservatives add to that loyalty, respect for authority, and duty. The educated moral relativism worldview is fundamentally incompatible with the way like 50% of America thinks, and stereotypes about out-of-touch elitist coastal democrats are basically correct. Sigh.

So What Have We Learned?

Conservatives respond instinctually, not rationally, to scary images, "facts," and institutions. Whether this is innate and biological or cultural seems still up in the air. Democrats can't with with logical arguments or even appeals to the innate rightness of concepts like "diversity" and "tolerance," because those aren't considered essentially good and important by the voters they're trying to appeal to. This does suggest that an appeal to old New Deal institutional concepts like the Welfare State might actually be effective, if they're wrapped in the flag and a sense of duty. Also scientists still consider the majority of Americans to be like a fascinating exotic backwards tribe and the fucking country is doomed.

Consider the opinion of psychologists, Julia Allison:

Some studies have found that excessive talking about problems can contribute to emotional difficulties, including anxiety and depression.

Get off the internet, Lena Chen:

The term researchers use is “co-rumination” to describe frequently or obsessively discussing the same problem. The behavior is typical among teens — Why didn’t he call? Should I break up with him? And, psychologists say, it has intensified significantly with e-mail, text messaging, instant messaging and Facebook.

Caveat: having friends to overshare with is considered good for self-esteem; the obsessive oversharing itself is not.

Caveat 2: these lessons could just as easily apply to, say, Rex Sorgatz as to Emily Brill. Oversharing knows no bounds.

Stop it!

[NYT]

Most psychiatrists seem to the think that, in the case of Truman Syndrome, the fear generated by reality television—that the people of the world has gone mad for documenting each other's mundane existences, invading privacy at any cost—is simply a new trope for people who were already paranoid and delusional to grab onto. There is an air of Fear of Persecution, a good ol' crazypants standby, in the idea that cameras are documenting your every move. It's a lie, it's sinister. Everything else is fake! No one is real but me! Lonely and desperate imaginings. It must be how Lauren Conrad's dog feels. So yes the fear was always there, it's just taken on new themes. A psychiatrist at NYU tells the paper:

Most likely these people would be delusional anyway. But the more radical view is that this pushes some people over the threshold; the environment tips them over the edge. And if culture can make people crazy, then we need to look at it.

Well, right. I mean the Truman Show delusion is pretty nuts, but not that nuts. Why must that fear be relegated solely to the realm of the psychotic? Is every be-halter topped young lady bellowing and sloshing her drink around, whoop!-ing at Off the Wagon as if she were on The Real World, some sort of mental invalid? Well, maybe, but not necessarily crazy! If all behavior is learned from somewhere, it's certainly possible that our youngs are learning from reality television. They may be operating under some soft delusion that if they're not already there doing so, a camera crew could pop out and film them at any moment.

And as for the other two, well... I just don't find it that irrational to be afraid of environmental catastrophe or the Internet. I mean, you could be some tinfoil hat-wearing nutterbutter who skulks around his apartment in a soiled bathrobe listening to Mozart at full-blast, occasionally darting his hands at the computer keyboard, conversing with another bathrobe-clad insane in Missoula. And that, yes, would be crazy. But the internet does open a strange side door into one's life that is easily crept through by some wicked people. It is perfectly rational to be aware of that slice-of-modern-life fact. And the environment? Well let's just say take your unborn great-grandchildren to New York City for a visit now. Because it's not going to be around when they're breathing and blinking and in the world if we continue on this Icarusian course.

Or, you know, maybe I'm just crazy.

Dr. Leon A. Greenberg, Yale professor of physiology, said beer isn’t [intoxicating] – and should be reclassified to the non-intoxicating drinks.

This brought emphatic objection from other scientists. They wanted to know if the man who is “high” or “tight” isn’t also drunk. Beer certainly makes people “high” and “tight,” they said.

That's a good question! It depends on what this "high" or "tight" man is drinking?

For people to show consistently the “abnormal behavior” which goes with intoxication, the alcohol content of their blood must be 0.15 per cent or higher.

THE AVERAGE alcohol content of American beers is 3.7 per cent by weight. In order for the alcohol blood level to be at 0.15 per cent, there would have to be two and one-half quarts of 3.7 beer in the stomach. But the capacity of the human stomach is one and one-half to two quarts.

Therefore, no one can drink enough beer at one time to get intoxicated, according to theory. As for doing it by degrees: beer is destroyed or eliminated in the body at the rate of one-third of a quart an hour. So three quarts would have to be consumed in two or three hours, and this, he said, was “physiologically unnatural.”

See? It's air-tight. Back when 0.15 was considered, like, almost drunk. The good old days. Also it's totally true! We fiddled around with this handy intoxication calculator and we'd need to down 5 beers in one hour to get to like 0.11. And we'd still be legal to drive home to 1955! Thanks, science!

Tattoos and piercings send social signals. In some cultures, you're saying, "I'm healthy"—suffering the pain and health risks of body modification demonstrates biological fitness. In ours, the message is more like, "I'm down for anything."
But now that body art has crossed from punk rock to soccer mom, it doesn't mean all that it used to. The Germans found that the ornamented are no more extroverted, neurotic, careless, or open to new experiences. And they score no differently on measures of sexual orientation, masculinity, femininity, body image, or association with subcultures. Further, a team of sociologists at Texas Tech found no link among Southern college students between religiousness and number of piercings or tattoos.

GLBT Adults More Likely to Own a Pet than Heterosexuals [Business Wire]

[M]ore than 60 million people in the United States are infected with a parasite that may migrate into their brains and alter their behavior in a way that — among other things — may leave them more likely to be eaten by cats. New research into this common parasite — Toxoplasma gondii — may offer clues to the phenomenon known to the unscientifically-minded as "crazy cat lady" syndrome.

Says the paper: "That first lovers' gaze is the staple of the romantic novelist, and scientists believe they have now revealed the true nature of its true attractive power. According to new research, romance has very little do to with it. That 'look' is all about sex and ego."

The research actually challenges some previous findings about attractiveness—you know, those studies where people were found to have a preference for facial symmetry, or masculine versus feminine features. The study says that all that matters is whether someone displays "social cues" that indicate they're attracted to you. "It does seem to be a sort of narcissistic thing," said Ben Jones, who works at the Face Research Laboratory at the University of Aberdeen:

Dr Jones said the results make sense from an evolutionary perspective. 'It takes quite a lot of effort to attract a mate and what you want to do is allocate that effort in a more efficient way, in other words in a way that is more likely to help you secure a mate.'

The students sucking down Speed Balls, Bullgaritas and Bull Breezes were much more likely to be hurt or injured, to ride with an intoxicated driver or to take advantage of someone else sexually.

Get Wired, Get Wasted & Get Hurt [WSJ Health Blog]

The Stripper's Secret [Psychology Today]

- 4 seems to be legitimate (or person at least): 1 successful online conversation / 3 email conversation (2 dudes)
- 58 immediate (with in 2 hours) automatic fake responses (porn sites)
- 19 delayed responses: the fake sites are getting smarter, they are sending out reply after a day
- 19 non-reply (i even got rejected from porn sites!!)

The 100 post reply test - w4m - 99 [Craigslist]

One of the early results of the new study showed big differences in methamphetamine use city to city. One urban area with a gambling industry had meth levels more than five times higher than other cities.

Teaspoon of urine can drug test an entire city [AP]

Update: A reader from Sin City correctly notes: "You commented on how Las Vegas is kicking your ass on meth use. That might be, but the study didn't test our wastewater — they limited it to areas with a population of 600,000 — Las Vegas is much larger. I'm guessing y'all might wanna catch a tour bus to Atlantic City." Or Reno. Or whatever city Mohegan Sun is in, if it is in fact a city. Anyway, the point remains: you people should be doing more meth!

[Update update: Ed. Note: Actually? Las Vegas 2006 city population: 552,539. (Their metro area: 1,777,539.) So yeah, it counts. What, do you think I don't fact-check our drugged-out ramblings?]

A common virus, implicated in previous studies as a possible cause of obesity, was found in lab tests to transform adult stem cells obtained from fat tissue into fat cells. A gene in the virus has now been found to be the likely culprit.

Common virus may contribute to obesity [LiveScience]

If Joseph Mauriello has his way, the entire island of Manhattan will soon be a quieter place, thanks to a gadget. For 20 years in New York City, the 55-year-old says he's been disgusted by all the honking. As a tour company operator who's on the street constantly, he says he often finds it hard to hear over the clamor.

Mr. Mauriello has spent three years and tens of thousands of dollars developing the "Automobile Horn Audit System," a device that records honk stats like time, date and duration and has a GPS component to determine where the honking occurred.

He envisions it being installed in all cars in New York so that when owners bring them in for a state inspection, the data will be sent to a central office that will be empowered to assess levies on anyone who has demonstrated a pattern of excessive honking.

Revenge by Gadget [WSJ]

The Myth, the Math, the Sex [NYT]