All posts by Paul Raven

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Does the Earth harbour a ‘shadow biosphere’?

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alien desertDoes the Earth harbour forms of life unrelated to the carbon-based DNA-powered stuff we know about? “Impossible,” you might say, but as pointed out by astrophysicist Paul Davies, we wouldn’t know – because we’ve never looked for it.

“Our search for life [has been] based on our assumptions of life as we know it. Weird life and normal life could be intermingled, and filtering out the things we understand about life as we know it from the things we don’t understand is tricky.”

The tools and experiments researchers use to look for new forms of life – such as those on missions to Mars – would not detect biochemistries different from our own, making it easy for scientists to miss alien life, even if was under their noses.

Alternative biochemistry is inherently a speculative field, which is why it has made plenty of appearances in science fiction – Rudy Rucker has dealt with similar ideas before, for example, and Futurismic columnist Mac Tonnies has theorised about the potential of Earth being home to beings we are not able to recognise as such.

Finding examples of alien life here on Earth might add credence to theories like panspermia – but, more importantly, it would suggest that the likelihood of life developing elsewhere in the universe is closer to one than to zero. [via SlashDot; image by Haeroldus Laudeus]

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Lamarckism reassessed – can acquired characteristics be inherited?

Lamarckian evolutionary theory – the notion that acquired characteristics can be passed on to offspring – was dismissed (and roundly mocked) in light of Darwin’s theories of natural genetic selection. But new research shows that, in rodents at least, the environment in which a creature is raised can affect its offspring quite profoundly:

In Feig’s study, mice genetically engineered to have memory problems were raised in an enriched environment–given toys, exercise, and social interaction–for two weeks during adolescence. The animals’ memory improved–an unsurprising finding, given that enrichment has been previously shown to boost brain function. The mice were then returned to normal conditions, where they grew up and had offspring. This next generation of mice also had better memory, despite having the genetic defect and never having been exposed to the enriched environment.

If the same applies to humans, the implication is that an enriched nurturing environment – or, conversely, childhood abuse – could have effects that reach beyond generations.

It’s pretty much accepted that childhood poverty will have a negative effect on someone’s prospects as an adult, but if Lamarckism turns out to be valid we have an even stronger argument for striving to improve the lot of the world’s least fortunate. [via SlashDot]

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Judging a book by its cover – faces and personality

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face behind the mask“You can’t tell what someone’s really like just by looking at them,” my mother told me once. But then again she also told me that “first impressions last,” and it turns out she was right on both counts – despite the seeming contradiction.

It turns out that we judge the personalities our fellow humans by their facial layout all the time, and evidence suggests that there may be a grain of truth in the judgements:

People also act on these snap judgements. Politicians with competent-looking faces have a greater chance of being elected, and CEOs who look dominant are more likely to run a profitable company. Baby-faced men and those with compassionate-looking faces tend to be over-represented in the caring professions. Soldiers deemed to look dominant tend to rise faster through the ranks, while their baby-faced comrades tend to be weeded out early. When baby-faced men appear in court they are more likely than their mature-faced peers to be exonerated from a crime. However, they are also more likely to be found guilty of negligence.

There is also a well-established “attractiveness halo”. People seen as good-looking not only get the most valentines but are also judged to be more outgoing, socially competent, powerful, sexually responsive, intelligent and healthy. They do better in all manner of ways, from how they are greeted by other people to how they are treated by the criminal justice system.

In other words, we all do it instinctively… as much as we might like to think otherwise. The latest research implies that it’s almost certainly an overgeneralisation based on an evolved response, but that means it’s been there for thousands of years, and probably isn’t going to go away any time soon.

Will we eventually end up with a political class that look like clones of one another*, all carefully sculpted to have agreeable and trustworthy by the most subtle and discerning elective surgeries? Will soldiers be re-cut to look more intimidating and fearless? What other subtle messages might we hide in our faces… and what would our willingness to do so say about the true character beneath? [via FuturePundit; image by xenia antunes]

[ * – OK, I meant even more so than currently. ]

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Macrograffiti: Communist slogans carved into forests

No commentary or speculation this time; I’m just throwing this up here because it tickled my WTF spot, and I thought it might do the same for you lot.

So: Soviet-era Russian forestry projects that form political slogans when viewed from space. Bam.

'100 years to Lenin' - Communist slogan cut into Russian forest

There’s a whole bunch of these (plus the Google Maps coordinates, so you can see they’re not ‘shopped) at the consistently bizarre EnglishRussia blog; the hat-tip goes to Strangeharvest.

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Writing a diary makes you happier

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hand-written journalBrain scans suggest that daily writing about your emotions can help you feel better about things; writing by hand is apparently more effective than typing:

The psychologists investigated the effect by inviting volunteers to visit the lab for a brain scan before asking them to write for 20 minutes a day for four consecutive days. Half of the participants wrote about a recent emotional experience, while the other half wrote about a neutral experience.

Those who wrote about an emotional experience showed more activity in part of the brain called the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which in turn dampened down neural activity linked to strong emotional feelings.

If pouring your heart into dreadful poetry and song lyrics really is an emotionally beneficial outlet, does it then follow that MySpace deserves some sort of award for keeping teenagers from committing suicide? [image by Boa-sorte&Careca]