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Evolution of the Mind: 4 Fallacies of Psychology

David J. Buller
Scientific American
Wed, 24 Dec 2008 04:37 UTC
Image
© Grant Delin
Key Concepts
* Among Charles Darwin's lasting legacies is our knowledge that the human mind evolved by some adaptive process.

* A major, widely discussed branch of evolutionary psychology - Pop EP - holds that the human brain has many specialized mechanisms that evolved to solve the adaptive problems of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

* The author and several other scholars suggest that some assumptions of Pop EP are flawed: that we can know the psychology of our Stone Age ancestors, that we can thereby figure out how distinctively human traits evolved, that our minds have not evolved much since the Stone Age, and that standard psychological questionnaires yield clear evidence of the adaptations.
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Attention

World's first flying car prepares for take-off

Mark Harris
Times Online
Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:20 UTC
IS it a car? Is it a plane? Actually it's both. The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month.

If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months' time.

Its manufacturer says it is easy to keep and run since it uses normal unleaded fuel and will fit into a garage.
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Magic Hat

U.S. scientists learn how to levitate tiny objects

Julie Steenhuysen
Reuters
Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:44 UTC
Chicago- U.S. scientists have found a way to levitate the very smallest objects using the strange forces of quantum mechanics, and said on Wednesday they might use it to help make tiny nanotechnology machines.

They said they had detected and measured a force that comes into play at the molecular level using certain combinations of molecules that repel one another.

The repulsion can be used to hold molecules aloft, in essence levitating them, creating virtually friction-free parts for tiny devices, the researchers said.
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Pharoah

Mummy thought to be Queen Seshestet found in Egypt

Jonathan Wright
Reuters
Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:41 UTC
Cairo- Egyptian archaeologists have found the remains of a mummy thought to be that of Queen Seshestet, the mother of a pharaoh who ruled Egypt in the 24th century BC, the government said on Thursday.

After five hours spent lifting the lid of a sarcophagus in a pyramid discovered south of Cairo last year, they found a skull, legs, pelvis, other body parts wrapped in linen, and ancient pottery, the government's antiquities department said.

They also found gold wrappings which would have been put on the fingers of the mummified person. Grave robbers ransacked the burial chamber in ancient times and stole the other objects.
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Bug

How Bed Bugs Outsmart Poisons Designed To Control Them


Science Daily
Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:54 UTC
Bed bugs, once nearly eradicated in the built environment, have made a big comeback recently, especially in urban centers such as New York City. In the first study to explain the failure to control certain bed bug populations, toxicologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Korea's Seoul National University show that some of these nocturnal blood suckers have developed resistance to pyrethroid insecticides, in particular deltamethrin, that attack their nervous systems.

The study by senior researcher John Clark and colleagues in the current issue of the Journal of Medical Entomology reveals that these pests have evolved to outsmart the latest generation of chemicals used to control them since DDT was banned. In providing this first look at a mechanism, the researchers summarize that diagnostic tools to detect the relevant mutation in bed bug populations have been "urgently needed for effective control and resistance management."
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Info

Renaissance Capitalist: New Research Answers Mystery About Illegitimate Daughter Of Pope


Science Daily
Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:46 UTC
In popular legend, Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara (1480- 1519), stands falsely accused of poisoning her second husband. Victor Hugo portrayed her in thinly veiled fiction as a tragic femme fatale. Buffalo Bill named his gun after her.

But new research by USC historian Diane Yvonne Ghirardo reveals that the only sister of Machiavelli's Prince was less interested in political intrigue than in running a business, undertaking massive land development projects that "stand alone in the panorama of early sixteenth-century projects, not only those initiated by women," Ghirardo says.

Forced by an economic downturn to cut expenses and become an entrepreneur, the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI would control between 30,000 and 50,000 acres in northern Italy within six years.

"This is a classic case of seeing only what you're looking for and not getting the whole picture," Ghirardo says of the centuries-old mystery surrounding how Lucrezia accumulated her vast personal wealth. Ghirardo notes that historians have long dismissed Lucrezia as stupida because no record exists of her collecting art or antiquities.

"The information was there in the archives, but because she was a woman, scholars only looked at transactions for clothes, for jewelry, or for works of art. Nobody looked at the other entries in the account registers," says Ghirardo of the research project that took her more than seven years.
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Syringe

Scientists Develop First Examples Of RNA That Replicates Itself Indefinitely


PhysOrg
Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:01 UTC
Now, a pair of Scripps Research Institute scientists has taken a significant step toward answering that question. The scientists have synthesized for the first time RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components, and the process proceeds indefinitely.

The work was published on Thursday, January 8, 2008, in Science Express, the advanced, online edition of the journal Science.

In the modern world, DNA carries the genetic sequence for advanced organisms, while RNA is dependent on DNA for performing its roles such as building proteins. But one prominent theory about the origins of life, called the RNA World model, postulates that because RNA can function as both a gene and an enzyme, RNA might have come before DNA and protein and acted as the ancestral molecule of life. However, the process of copying a genetic molecule, which is considered a basic qualification for life, appears to be exceedingly complex, involving many proteins and other cellular components.
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Info

What has been moving rocks on Mars?

Jeff Hecht
New Scientist
Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:00 UTC
Image
© Geological Society of AmericaSmall rocks, known as clasts, are spaced evenly apart rather than being clumped together in this Spirit rover image of the plain around Mars's Lahontan Crater. The image shows a region of terrain about 50 cm wide.

Photos from NASA's Spirit rover show small rocks spaced so evenly on the surface that it seems as if they must have been carefully arranged by order-loving Martians. But with no evidence of extraterrestrial landscapers, what could have created the pattern?

The wind did it, but not in an obvious way, says Jon Pelletier of the University of Arizona.

Wind storms and dust devils rage across Mars, so it's logical to suspect they blew the rocks. But the Red Planet's atmosphere is so thin that winds would have to be "10 times Hurricane Katrina" to pick up the stones, Pelletier told New Scientist. And wind-blown rocks would have no reason to stop where they were nearly equidistant from their neighbours.
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Meteor

Comet Lulin Approaches‏


SpaceWeather.com
Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:39 UTC
Comet Lulin (C/2007 N3), discovered in 2007 by a Strait-bridging team of astronomers from Taiwan and China, is swinging around the sun and approaching Earth. Astronomer Karzaman Ahmad sends this picture taken Jan. 7th from the Langkawi National Observatory in Malaysia:
comet lulin
© Karzaman Ahmad
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Battery

First flight of algae-fuelled jet


BBC News
Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:20 UTC
algal
© BBC NewsThe biofuel's developers showcased its algal origins
A US airline has completed the first test flight of a plane partly powered by biofuel derived from algae.

The 90-minute flight by a Continental Boeing 737-800 went better than expected, a spokesperson said.

One of its engines was powered by a 50-50 blend of biofuel and normal aircraft fuel.

Wednesday's test is the latest in a series of demonstration flights by the aviation industry, which hopes to be using biofuels within five years.
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