Acupuncture for headaches and migraines works better than pills, but not much better than placebo

Reuters - Needles, not technique, may be acupuncture key

Acupuncture works better than painkillers at treating headaches and migraines (and possibly preventing their onset) over an 8-week period. However, untrained or random placement of needles worked almost as well for headaches and just about as well for migraines. The theory is that endorphins (that relive stress and pain released by any needle or acupressure treatment) added to a placebo effect explains acupuncture's efficacy.

Humans are a super-predator and are altering evolution dramatically

Reuters - As humans hunt, their prey gets smaller: study

A study of nearly 30 different species, including some plants, showed that human predatory tendencies has created pressures on them to become around 20% smaller and produce offspring 25% earlier (younger) than they have historically. Humans have preferred larger 'trophy' prey and this has created pressure to on animals to become smaller and mate earlier before reaching mature sizes (perhaps within a few decades). One major problem is that there are fewer offspring when an animal mates earlier in life.

Tetris may interfere with memory encoding and ease Post-Traumatic Stress

Reuters - Computer puzzle may ease post-traumatic stress

Scientists showed 40 healthy subjects videos involving traumatic injuries and violence and then waited 30 minutes, then made half play Tetris for 10 minutes, the control did nothing special. They then tracked the subjects over a week and discovered that the control had far more image flashbacks to the videos than those who played Tetris. The theory is that the visual activity employed in playing the game competes with the parts of the brain that try to encode sensory memories like traumatic images. If the images aren't encoded into memory, the likelihood of flashback later is greatly reduced.

When FDIC Insurance is needed most, the government, not banks, ends up paying for the coverage

Physorg.com - Flawed deposit insurance programs need reform, banking expert says

The FDIC insurance program is not just administered by the government but also subsidized by it when times get tough. The FDIC reimburses premiums when there are few failures but raises them when there are many failures, which is a premium increase at a time when other banks are at risk of failure too. When one becomes 'too big to fail' or when there appears to be the possibility of widespread failure, the government has historically stepped in with a bailout-- money that isn't coming from premium payments anymore and is coming directly from the Treasury. In the 1980s the savings and loan scandal cost the government $124bl. The article is mostly reporting the work of George Pennacchi, who has written a book published by a conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, where he is reporting his findings. He includes many policy and reform suggestions in the article, one of which being an insurance program similar to the ones that insure credit default swaps. This could double the premiums banks are accustomed to paying under FDIC.

Exonerations from convictions since 1989 are probably way too low

PhysOrg.com - Exonerations correct only a small fraction of false convictions

Because of the high degree of post-conviction litigation that goes into death-sentence convictions, these have been the easiest to study when it comes to the ability to convict the guilty. After conducting studies on death-penalty cases, researchers concluded that at least 2.3% of death-penalty convictions were false since 1973. If similar rates of error occurred for other crimes, there should be roughly 87,000 false convictions from 1989 to 2003, rather than the 266 that were reported. The three categories of exoneration in the US are rape (DNA overturned), murder (high degree of post-conviction investigation), and some drug/gun convictions (cops planting evidence). Blacks were much more likely to be falsely convicted of raping a white woman. (Remember that granting an exoneration doesn't indicate the exonerated person didn't do the crime, and a 'false conviction' doesn't mean the person is truly innocent.)

Somali pirates: some are just trying to protect their country

The Independent - Johann Hari: You are being lied to about pirates

and

Somali Press Review - The two piracies in Somalia: why the world ignores the other?

and

The Indypendent - Pirates and Mercenaries and Islamists, Oh My!

The Hari article gives a quick context of piracy through the Rediker book Villains Of All Nations, portraying the toil of a legitimate merchant marine or navy sailor as grueling, with the sailors often being cheated of wages after years of work under a totalitarian captain.  Through the 'golden age' of piracy 1650-1730, pirates mostly weren't the cut-throat bloodthirsty savages that the British propaganda machine tried to portray them as.  Most of them shared the loot evenly, elected their captains, and lived side-by-side with former black slaves.  So is another propaganda job being done on the Somali pirates?  While some are just thugs and gangsters, and surely taking hostages is deplorable, many have taken to patrolling the seas because of the comparative disadvantage that lack of a government has put to them.  Being a relatively lawless country with little means of defending their own coastal waters through a navy, Western countries are dumping toxic waste off their coasts and fishing boats from a multitude of nations are pulling millions of dollars of fish from their waters.  Some pirates are just trying to stop this kind of egregious pillaging.

The Somali Press article gives a more in-depth view of poaching and fishing on the seas, how the poached fish are 'laundered' by having the fishing boats unload their catches onto larger transport boats (containing fish taken from legal areas too) all while at sea, thus the poachers never have to enter a port and report where they got their catch from.  The poaching from sub-Saharan Africa is the worst, and it started in Somalia shortly after the fall of the last government in 1991-2 and the collapse of the official coast guard.  It's estimated that poachers steal from $300-450m of fish annually, taking vastly more than the EU's monetary aid to Somalia.  The article names the specifics of which countries have registered and received poached fish, and how a syndicate of Somali warlords and business interests set up sham companies to issue sham 'licenses' for fishing. If you seek proof, this article is rife with it.

The last article gives more history of the region.  In the name of the War on Terror, the US backed an Ethiopian invasion of the country in late 2006, after the Islamic Courts Union, a government that was trying to return peace, order and prosperity to Somalia, was beginning to make positive strides there.  The invasion destroyed much of the ICU's progress yet is a humanitarian disaster and governance quagmire, and Ethiopia is pulling out.  Somalia lies in ruins, and nearly 700 commercial fishing trawlers remain on their coastlines, stealing its fish and its population's livelihoods.

Fructose-in-solution consumption puts on fatty tissue

ScienceDaily - Research May Provide New Link Between Soft Drinks And Weight Gain

A study done by adding fructose to the water of mice revealed that while they actually consumed fewer calories than the relevant control groups, they gained much more weight, and had 90% more body fat than the control groups.  The theory is that fructose doesn't 'trigger' mechanisms that control food intake and metabolism.  Importantly, these findings are consistent with other studies that showed that fructose and high-fructose corn syrup had negligible effects on human appetite.

Current research finds fish oil health effects overall mild

ScienceDaily - Evidence For Protective Effect Of Fish Oil Not Conclusive

and

British Medical Journal - Effect of fish oil on arrhythmias and mortality: systematic review

In a compilation project that reviewed many of the studies and trials of fish oil supplements, some benefit was found. In aiding treatment of abnormal heart rates (arrhythmias), 'sudden cardiac death' and preventing overall mortality, fish oil supplements showed little or inconclusive benefit across studies.  The study did find an approximate 20% reduction in all heart-related deaths, however.  Also interestingly, there is no particular dosage amount that is consistent; we don't know how much or how little is good for us.

Simulations reveal it unlikely there are specific human language genes

Physorg.com - Language driven by culture, not biology

This article reports on a study that took the 'Baldwin effect' seriously when dealing with the emergence of language in humans.  The Baldwin effect will predict that if an species or population consistently develops physical traits in response to the environment that raises survival value, such traits will eventually become encoded into the genes (or perhaps a pre-disposition for them will become encoded).  Taking this as a possible way that language could have developed, the study tried to model a language environment that would allow for the gradual encoding of language genes.  This environment proved unrealistic, requiring long-standing cultural and linguistic stability that was unlikely given humans' history of mobility, cultural change, and the multiplicity of languages that we have.  The conclusion was that the biological bases for language aren't specific language genes but older physical structures.  On the positive side of the theory, Nick Chater suggests human language is due to cultural evolution.

Thinking makes you hungry

Telegraph - Too much thinking 'can make you fat'

In an experiment where students were asked to either relax or perform mental tasks that involved thinking, the thinking subjects afterwards ate roughly 25-30% more calories (~200 more) than the resting ones did.  The thinking task was only supposed to use 3 more calories than the relaxing one.  Blood tests revealed high fluctuations in glucose and insulin in the blood, which the body might try to alleviate by making us hungry.  

Marinating meat in alcohol or a water-retaining alternative reduces carcinogenic compounds

Telegraph - Marinating steak in beer or wine 'reduces cancer chemicals'

Heterocyclic amines are associated with cancer and can be created when sugars and amino acids within muscle tissue are exposed to high temperatures, e.g. especially, frying and grilling.  Marinating red meat in red wine for 6 hours reduced the compounds found in them (once cooked) by 90%, and the same results were obtained from 4 hours of beer marinating, which tasters preferred.  The efficacy of beer over wine might have to do with more 'water-retaining sugars' that may stop the meat's own molecules from migrating to the surface to become heterocyclic amines when being cooked.  A similar study done with chicken found that a olive-oil, lemon juice and garlic marinade reduced the compound also by 90%.

'Beer Goggles' seem to be a real effect, and affect the sober as well

NewScientist - 'Beer goggles' are real-- it's official

and

Telegraph - Beer goggles last longer for women

The 'beer goggle' effect is when a subject perceives another as more attractive when the subject has consumed alcohol. Scientists found that after consuming alcohol, college students rated both sexes higher in attractiveness than the control who drank a similarly flavored non-alcoholic drink. This was different from another study which showed only an opposite-sex effect, but was done in social situations rather than a more sterile lab.

More concerning was a second study that showed that even sober women who are frequent drinkers overrate the attractiveness of men versus their less-drinking peers. A possible theory is that frequent alcohol consumption affects the visual centers of the brain, making it less discerning when it comes to facial symmetry, the main determinant of 'attractiveness' in this study.

Barney Frank is a pragmatic realist, not an idealogue

The New Yorker - Barney's Great Adventure

In a long bio-article about Barney Frank, the chairman of the House's Financial Services committee, a portrait of a practical, intelligent, and committed liberal who is a realist about housing.  Frank's expertise is in housing and he envisions a government fund that provides subsidies for building low-income rental housing.  The fund would be outside of the usual congressional appropriations process by coming from a profit center in FHA oversight and was supposed to come partially from the profits of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.  Frank was unable to get much momentum for the kinds of regulatory oversight he thought Fannie and Freddie needed, mostly blaming the anti-regulation ideology of the GOP, and their control of congress from 1994-2006.  Aside from talking about his biography, the article gives blow-by-blow details of Frank's involvement with the financial bailout and the auto industry bailout process.  Barney Frank is presented not as a blind liberal idealist who ignored the GOP's concerns over Fannie & Freddie's riskiness (the common theme in the conservative financial press) but instead as a pragmatist whose efforts have been stymied over the years by GOP ideology of deregulation. 

The layoff isn't the only solution to labor costs

Human Resource Executive Online - Innovative Layoff Alternatives (broken)

There are good alternatives to layoffs and the conventional wisdom about some of the alternatives is probably flawed.  For instance, the belief that lowering pay or perks will cause the company to lose their best people is commonly touted.  But this assumes that everybody is like the CEO-- highly mobile (which is unlikely) and also assumes that other competitive companies are hiring (which, in a recession like this, is also unlikely).  Another alternative is to ask employees to take a pay cut or hours-cut so that their co-workers can stay on, perhaps providing some sort of bonus that is cheap for an employer, like company stock.  Another alternative that worked in a unionized steel mill in the past was to ask older employees to retire early (giving a small incentive package) so that the younger workers can keep their jobs.  The costs to the company of layoffs can be significant, most especially losing workers who are familiar with the business and have the proper training.  Some states have adopted furlough programs and 'shared work programs' that give incentives to employers to furlough their employees rather than laying them off.  The article also gives some history of different layoff alternatives, ending with gently suggesting that government programs (spending) can assist the private sector in avoiding layoffs. 

Mercury in predator fish higher than 'safe' in some

NPR - Making Sense Out of Mercury in Fish

and

New York Times - So Is Fish Safe to Eat or Not?

Oceana, a marine conservation group purchased under 100 samples of raw fish from grocery stores and sushi restaurants in 23 cities and sent them to an independent testing lab in Michigan. In nearly half the samples, the levels of mercury were high. Predator fish like swordfish, tilefish, shark, and king mackrel, all of which eat other fish (who have mercury in them, too) and live longer (and therefore have more time to accumulate the mercury) were among the worst. Tuna is also high, though 'canned light' is usually skipjack tuna, a younger, smaller variety than the albacore and yellowfin and should contain less mercury. Mercury is bad for neurological development in children, babies, and probably bad for the brains of adults too, though the FDA's 'action level' is a 1 part per million.

Unfortunately, there is no strong consensus on how many parts per million is bad for people, and the FDA and EPA are at loggerheads about whether the benefits of fish outweight the costs.

The 'Broken Window' theory bolstered, yet still inconclusive

LA Times - Graffiti study bolsters 'broken window' theory
and
WTOP.com (AP) - Study shows messiness leads to behavior decline
then see
University of Chicago Chronicle - Study authors find cracks in 'broken-windows'
and
Boston Globe - The cracks in 'broken windows'

The broken window theory (put forth in 1982 by George Kelling and James Wilson) is that a neighborhood's environmental factors of orderliness, cleanliness and respect for the small things like graffiti, littering and other minor infractions will reduce the likelihood of larger crimes being committed there. NYC is credited with adopting this policy in the 90s and reducing violent crime by 50%. The study in the Netherlands placed flyers on bicycles with no trash can around. When a nearby wall was clean, people littered the flyers 30% of the time, when it was covered with graffiti, littering was at 69%. Relatedly, people doubled their rate of pilfering a small amount of money sitcking out of a mailbox when it was surrounded with trash vs when it wasn't: 25-27% to 13%. The theory is that when perceived social pressures to behave are lower, people act on their other 'instincts', maximization of resources and immediate gratification. Second article lists some of the other experiments the study conducted.

The third article shows the dissenting opinion of Bernard Harcourt: that the policing of cleanliness and orderliness may reduce petty crime, but there is no evidence that violent crime is reduced because petty crime is. Authors attribute NYC's drop in crime not to broken-window policing but instead the he crack-cocaine epidemic and the violence and serious crime surrounding it: once the epidemic receded was when NYC saw its biggest reduction in violent crime.

The Globe article traces the influence of these policing methods from William Bratton in Boston-- who in the early 1980s believed that patrolmen shouldn't just respond to calls but rather keep order in the community and deal with 'quality of life' issues-- to Rudy Guiliani's rise to NYC mayor and eventual hiring of Bratton. Other studies like ones done by sociologist Robert Sampson predict that perceptions of disorder is fueled by racial demographics, specifically the number of blacks and latinos in a neighborhood. Sampson and his colleague Stephen Raudenbush are longtime critics of Kelling.

Physical activity increases blood flow to the brain, which might account for healthier cognitive function

BrainBlogger - Exercise to Keep Your Brain Healthy and Increase Cerebral Blood Flow

This blog post references a variety of studies, mostly relating to cognitive health and exercise. There is a long-standing correlation between exercise and cognitive function in older adults yet the mechanism was unclear. Using MRI and magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), scientists found increased blood flow to the brain and a greater number of small blood vessels in older adults who regularly exercised. The theory is similar to the rest of the body: these small blood vessels shrink and shrivel as we fail to pump blood through them, which aging and lack of exercise both do. Less blood flow to all the parts of the brain might be link. Most of this work was done regarding aerobic exercise, not weight or resistance training, though the latter kinds of training are good for older adults for other reasons, like staving off morbidity.

The SEC is either inept or corrupted, and the Treasury may be too (Opinion)

The End of the Financial World as we Know it
and then
How to Repair a Broken Financial World

In a pair of Op-Ed pieces, we get a distillation of the various bizarre actions of different governmental bodies (the SEC, the Treasury) and private institutions whose very existence was supposed to be the product of (and a contributor to) a salubrious financial system (investment banks, credit-rating agencies). The first article blames a short-term profit mindset in the private sector that placed immediate, competitive profits over sustainability as the highest priority. Regulators and the Treasury seemed concerned more with maintaining a good image and propping up stock price than with fixing the real problems that were occurring. The first article talks mainly about the Security and Exchange Commission, a body that was initially designed to protect investors from financial predators, now seemingly insulating the most wealthy in the financial markets from punishment. The reason offered is that most of the influential SEC brass go on to make vastly more money on Wall Street once they leave the SEC-- so doing anything to hurt the financial markets will probably hurt one's future career, too. The first article also aims at credit rating agencies, whose malfeasance was almost laughable, giving AAA ratings to firms with abhorrent debt ratios. The analysis is that they too were unwilling to bite the hands that feed them: they are paid by the debt issuers.

The second article deals with the Treasury and the erratic actions that were taken with Paulson at the head, which did not accomplish his stated goals of restoring confidence or to unfreeze the credit markets. The libertine and irrational nature of the bailout has caused a flight of creditors from solvent companies seemingly because they weren't backed by the government. The Treasury seemed deeply concerned with propping up stock price and yet unwilling to buy common stock (a true capital injection) but preferred stock instead (which is more like a loan because it requires regular interest payments). The end result is that many bankers keep their jobs and the root problems continue. The article ends with a variety of very reasonable policy proposals, among them: "Another good solution to the too-big-to-fail problem is to break up any institution that becomes too big to fail."

Silicon Valley seems flat compared to foreign firms

BusinessWeek - Whatever Happened to Silicon Valley Innovation?
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2008-12-30/whatever-happened-to-silicon-valley-innovation

Silicon valley used to be (and still is) the leader of innovation in the US and still ranks very competitively in the world. Japan, China, India, and Europe however are all growing at rates much higher than they valley is. The model for tech and software startups has become corrupted, with a focus on short term success, taking the company public (or being purchased by an established firm) and getting a big payday, and then finally an 'exit strategy' for the leaders and original investors (usually venture capital firms). Venture capital firms have been slow to throw much money into startups, or at least much money beyond $100mil. Another sore spot: new innovative software and growth like Digg, Facebook, etc. aren't groundbreaking-- they are modifying and 'riding the wave' of previous innovations. IBM, Microsoft, Google and the other big companies are all still working on innovative designs and technologies, and recently there have been a number of personally funded companies started with the money of well-paid former innovators. Congress passed a 2007 'America Competes Act' which was never funded: the article concludes by recommending it.

Big breakfasts are important to stave food cravings and can assist in weight loss

Washington Post - Big, Well-Balanced Breakfast Aids Weight Loss
also
ScienceDaily - New Weight Loss Diet Recommends High-carp and Protein Big Breakfast

Researchers asked a group of obese women to participate either in eating a calorie-rich breakfast including meat, cheese, carbohydrates and a little chocolate, or a traditional high-protein low-carbohydrate diet for 8 months. Those on the big breakfast diet ate protein and vegetables for the rest of the day. Those on the big breakfast diet lost over 4 times what the traditional diet group lost and also reported less of an incidence of experiencing carbohydrate or sugar cravings. The theory is that when you wake, you have high levels of serotonin, metabolism, cortisol, and adrenaline, priming your body for food. If you don't eat, your body takes nutrients from muscle tissues and goes into an 'emergency' mode that stores food eaten later as fat. Furthermore, when your serotonin levels dip later in the day, you may get a craving for sweets or chocolate, which raise that level and can create a mini-addiction. Lastly, article mentions a relates study that showed that appetite in overweight women doesn't drop after exercise like it does in lean women, suggesting that the body is trying to maintain that overweight position by getting you to eat more after exercise.

Second article gives more specifics on the Big Breakfast study.

Economic policy from the 80s onward was deliterious, especially for the American worker

The Nation - Beyond Rubinomics

In real terms, average wages have either stagnated or dropped since the 1970s in the US. The thesis is that debt-financing covered up much of the social short-falls that wage stagnation brought on. Democrats adopted a 'debt-based social contract' [Republicans, I guess, just wanted to ditch any social contract in favor of a free-market?], which was propped up by a strong dollar. Clinton's Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin fostered a strong dollar and easy credit. The strong dollar attracted international capital investment, easy credit propped up the failure of US households to save (they borrowed instead). The model's third ideal is to keep wage growth low or else it will drive up inflation. This model was championed by Greenspan and Summers (Summers and his protege Geithner are now on Obama's economic team). The article suggests an alternative model: deficit spend to build infrastructure and thereby raise wages, which will encourage domestic savings, which will fuel capital investment. This is also the most historically American model: the US had the highest wages in the world from 1800-1980. The article ends with a variety of policy proposals.