Posted by Miguel Vilar on December 5, 2013 
400,000-year-old hominid from Spain, news.nationalgeographic.com
Denisovan tooth, from www.genographic.com
Wilma the Neanderthal, by Becky Hale.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
DNA from ancient site in Spain reshapes human family tree
Posted by Miguel Vilar on December 5, 2013 
Our Universe Could be One Of Billions, Paper Explains
Scientists believe they have found the first evidence that other universes exist after analyzing the data gathered by the European Space Agency’s Planck spacecraft.
Theories that our universe could be just one of billions — perhaps an infinite number – have been discussed for decades but until now they have lacked any evidence.
However, a few weeks ago, scientists published a new map of the cosmic microwave background – the ‘radiation’ left behind after the Big Bang that created the universe 13.8 billion years ago.
The map, based on Planck data, showed anomalies in the background radiation that, some experts say, could only have been caused by the gravitational pull of other universes outside our own.
“These anomalies were caused by other universes pulling on our universe as it formed during the Big Bang,” said Laura Mersini-Houghton, a theoretical physicist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“They are the first hard evidence for the existence of other universes that we have seen,” she said.
Mersini-Houghton, and her colleague Professor Richard Holman, at Carnegie Mellon University, published a series of papers from 2005 predicting what Planck would see.
In particular, they predicted that the ancient radiation permeating our universe would show anomalies generated by the pull from other universes.
The scientists analysing the Planck data have now published a paper acknowledging the anomalies exist and cannot be explained by conventional means.
“It may be that the statistical anomalies described in this paper are a hint of more profound physical phenomena that are yet to be revealed,” it said.
Planck gathered radiation from when the universe was just 3,700,000 years old – still glowing from the Big Bang. It has been travelling across space for 13.8 billion years and so is remarkably faint but still detectable.
In theory, that radiation should vary a little on the scale of galaxies and clusters of galaxies, but at much larger scales it should be evenly distributed.
Planck’s data showed the radiation is stronger in one half of the sky than the other. There is also a large ‘cold’ spot where the temperature is below average.
George Efstathiou, professor of astrophysics at Cambridge, who co-authored the papers setting out the Planck findings, said the suggestion that the data offered evidence for other universes was speculative but “very interesting”.
“Such ideas may sound wacky now, just like the Big Bang theory did three generations ago. But then we got evidence and now it has changed the whole way we think about the universe,” he said.
Theories that our universe could be just one of billions — perhaps an infinite number – have been discussed for decades but until now they have lacked any evidence.
However, a few weeks ago, scientists published a new map of the cosmic microwave background – the ‘radiation’ left behind after the Big Bang that created the universe 13.8 billion years ago.
The map, based on Planck data, showed anomalies in the background radiation that, some experts say, could only have been caused by the gravitational pull of other universes outside our own.
Planck spacecraft and the cosmic microwave background.
Credit: ESA
http://spaceinimages.esa.int/Images/2013/03/Planck_and_the_Cosmic_microwave_background
Credit: ESA
http://spaceinimages.esa.int/Images/2013/03/Planck_and_the_Cosmic_microwave_background
“They are the first hard evidence for the existence of other universes that we have seen,” she said.
Mersini-Houghton, and her colleague Professor Richard Holman, at Carnegie Mellon University, published a series of papers from 2005 predicting what Planck would see.
In particular, they predicted that the ancient radiation permeating our universe would show anomalies generated by the pull from other universes.
The scientists analysing the Planck data have now published a paper acknowledging the anomalies exist and cannot be explained by conventional means.
“It may be that the statistical anomalies described in this paper are a hint of more profound physical phenomena that are yet to be revealed,” it said.
Planck gathered radiation from when the universe was just 3,700,000 years old – still glowing from the Big Bang. It has been travelling across space for 13.8 billion years and so is remarkably faint but still detectable.
In theory, that radiation should vary a little on the scale of galaxies and clusters of galaxies, but at much larger scales it should be evenly distributed.
Planck’s data showed the radiation is stronger in one half of the sky than the other. There is also a large ‘cold’ spot where the temperature is below average.
George Efstathiou, professor of astrophysics at Cambridge, who co-authored the papers setting out the Planck findings, said the suggestion that the data offered evidence for other universes was speculative but “very interesting”.
“Such ideas may sound wacky now, just like the Big Bang theory did three generations ago. But then we got evidence and now it has changed the whole way we think about the universe,” he said.
Can Synesthesia in Autism Lead to Savantism?
Can Synesthesia in Autism Lead to Savantism?
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Credit: Flickr/Andy Maguire
Daniel is a savant. He is also autistic. And he is a synesthete.
Daniel experiences numbers as having color, as well as shape and texture. This helps him perform amazing mathematical feats seemingly without effort, the answer simply materializing to him rather than having to calculate it out.
In an interview he gave with The Guardian, Daniel explained, “When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That’s the answer. It’s mental imagery. It’s like maths without having to think.”
Clearly this man has an extraordinary brain. However, Daniel is perhaps not entirely unique, and it appears that the link between autism and synesthesia is more common than originally thought. This suggests that there is a potential common mechanism between these two conditions, which may even help to explain some of Daniel’s special savant abilities.
A new study published in the journal Molecular Autism from a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge now empirically shows that there is an almost three-fold higher occurrence of synesthesia in individuals with autism (18.9%), compared with that of the general population (7.2%). This increased prevalence implies that there is indeed a significant link between autism and synesthesia.
Synesthesia can be thought of as a crossing of the senses, where one perceptual experience is accompanied by another unrelated one. For example, individuals with sound-color synesthesia experience visions and sensations of color in harmony with hearing music. In a similar (and the most common) rendition, grapheme-color, letters and numbers are perceived as having their own unique shade.
While at first seemingly unrelated, if you look closer at what is happening in the brain in both autism and synesthesia this overlap is not so surprising. Each condition is thought to at least partly stem from abnormalities in the way the brain is wired. For example, white matter tracts connecting different parts of the brain – shooting signals across regions and hemispheres – have been shown to be increased in both conditions.
While some of these connections traverse the entire brain, traveling from the frontal cortex back to the occipital lobe, others work more locally, connecting adjacent regions and sending information quickly back and forth. In autism, there is an increased volume of these short-distance white matter connections, either due to a proliferation of synaptogenesis (the creation of new connections), or a failure in the pruning out of these synaptic connections during childhood. Individuals with synesthesia also show a greater density of white matter, particularly in sensory regions implicated in the condition. In individuals with grapheme-color synesthesia, for instance, there is greater connection between visual area four, the region responsible for color perception, and the eponymous visual word-form area.
It has also been suggested that this increased white matter integrity and synesthetic ability may be behind the extraordinary faculty of individuals like Daniel who show signs of autistic savantism. One theory that has been proposed is that synesthesia may help people to better recall memories as they can tap into an automatic mnemonic device via their multiple sensory experiences – i.e. being able to rely on both visual and numeric memory when trying to remember a string of numbers.
However, while there is already an established link between autism and savantism, no such studies have been conducted on superior memory in people with synesthesia. Also, it should be noted that many savants do not report any presence of synesthesia, and certainly there are many synesthetes without any hint of superior memory or savantism. In fact, even I have traces of synesthesia, experiencing sensations of color in combination with days of the week, and I’ve certainly yet to experience any hint of enhanced cognitive ability.
So it looks like Daniel Tammet’s crown as the European champion for reciting Pi is safe for now. And certainly his method is unique – the current world leader, Chinese student Lu Chao, recited 67,890 digits of the number relying solely on ancient Chinese rote memorization techniques.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Carbon-dioxide levels are at their highest point in at least 800,000 years
Posted by Brad Plumer on May 8, 2013 at 11:21 am
Since 1956, the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii has been gathering data on how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere — a very basic measure of how humans are transforming the planet and setting the stage for future climate change.
The so-called Keeling Curve is attracting even more attention than usual this month, as the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is on the verge of hitting 400 parts per million, a new milestone (the readings hit 399.71 on Tuesday):
Notice that the curve is jagged. As humans keep burning fossil fuels, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has trended upward over time. But there are still seasonal fluctuations. When trees in the Northern Hemisphere bloom in the spring and summer, they absorb some of that carbon. When the leaves wilt in the winter, carbon returns to the air and readings spike. The curve is a record of the planet's breathing.
As such, even if Mauna Loa does register levels above 400 parts per million this May, it will prove temporary. The readings will drop again this summer by a few parts per million, and it will likely be a few years before levels remain above 400 ppm all year.
But in an important sense, this year's milestone is beside the point. For decades now, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have higher than at any point in the last 800,000 years — a fact scientists discovered by analyzing ancient air bubbles trapped in ice cores:
In fact, even that's probably an understatement. Recent studies have estimated that current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are at their highest levels since the Pliocene, the geologic era between five million and three million years ago. Here's a description of that era from the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography:
For a long time, many climate experts thought we should aim to stabilize atmospheric carbon to about 450 parts per million. That goal looks daunting now. At the current rate, the world will pass that mark within a few decades. Indeed, even the most optimistic analyses of current trends, like this one from the International Energy Agency, which predicts that natural gas will displace coal, see us hitting at least 650 parts per million without drastic changes.
Further reading:
--There are a bunch of great resources about the Keeling Curve over at the Scripps Institution website, including a chart that is updated daily. There's also a Twitter account reporting daily readings as soon as they come in.
--Back in 2010, Justin Gillis of the New York Times wrote a nice profile of the Mauna Loa Observatory and Charles David Keeling, the scientist who first began measuring atmospheric carbon. (His son, Ralph Keeling, now runs the measurement program.)
--Here's a more detailed look, from the International Energy Agency, of the changes the world would need to make to its energy system to stay under 450 parts per million. (And some scientists, like NASA's James Hansen, have argued that we need to go even further and get back down to 350 parts per million.)
The so-called Keeling Curve is attracting even more attention than usual this month, as the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is on the verge of hitting 400 parts per million, a new milestone (the readings hit 399.71 on Tuesday):
Notice that the curve is jagged. As humans keep burning fossil fuels, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has trended upward over time. But there are still seasonal fluctuations. When trees in the Northern Hemisphere bloom in the spring and summer, they absorb some of that carbon. When the leaves wilt in the winter, carbon returns to the air and readings spike. The curve is a record of the planet's breathing.
As such, even if Mauna Loa does register levels above 400 parts per million this May, it will prove temporary. The readings will drop again this summer by a few parts per million, and it will likely be a few years before levels remain above 400 ppm all year.
But in an important sense, this year's milestone is beside the point. For decades now, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have higher than at any point in the last 800,000 years — a fact scientists discovered by analyzing ancient air bubbles trapped in ice cores:
In fact, even that's probably an understatement. Recent studies have estimated that current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are at their highest levels since the Pliocene, the geologic era between five million and three million years ago. Here's a description of that era from the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography:
Recent estimates suggest CO2 levels reached as much as 415 parts per million (ppm) during the Pliocene. With that came global average temperatures that eventually reached 3 or 4 degrees C (5.4-7.2 degrees F) higher than today’s and as much as 10 degrees C (18 degrees F) warmer at the poles. Sea level ranged between five and 40 meters (16 to 131 feet) higher than today.The Pliocene is not strictly comparable to our current era, and there are still questions about why that period was as warm as it was, but it's thought to be a useful historical guide. Here's a little more detail about what conditions were like at the time:
As for what life was like then, scientists rely on fossil records to recreate where plants and animals lived and in what quantity. Pliocene fossil records show that the climate was generally warmer and wetter than today. ...Keep in mind, too, that the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide during the Pliocene era was a very gradual process over many thousands of years, caused by subtle changes in the Earth's orbit. Today, carbon dioxide is rising much more rapidly, largely due to fossil-fuel burning and land-use changes. Climatologists argue that speed will make a big difference:
The absence of significant ocean upwelling in the warmest part of the Pliocene would have suppressed fisheries along the west coasts of the Americas, and deprived seabirds and marine mammals of food supplies. Reef corals suffered a major extinction during the peak of Pliocene warmth but reefs themselves did not disappear.
Richard Norris, a geologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, said the concentration of CO2 is one means of comparison, but what is not comparable, and more significant, is the speed at which 400 ppm is being surpassed today.One final point: Humanity is all but certain to zoom past 400 parts per million. The big question is, how far past?
“I think it is likely that all these ecosystem changes could recur, even though the time scales for the Pliocene warmth are different than the present,” Norris said. “The main lagging indicator is likely to be sea level just because it takes a long time to heat the ocean and a long time to melt ice. But our dumping of heat and CO2 into the ocean is like making investments in a pollution ‘bank,’ since we can put heat and CO2 in the ocean, but we will only extract the results (more sea-level rise from thermal expansion and more acidification) over the next several thousand years. And we cannot easily withdraw either the heat or the CO2 from the ocean if we actually get our act together and try to limit our industrial pollution–the ocean keeps what we put in it.”
For a long time, many climate experts thought we should aim to stabilize atmospheric carbon to about 450 parts per million. That goal looks daunting now. At the current rate, the world will pass that mark within a few decades. Indeed, even the most optimistic analyses of current trends, like this one from the International Energy Agency, which predicts that natural gas will displace coal, see us hitting at least 650 parts per million without drastic changes.
Further reading:
--There are a bunch of great resources about the Keeling Curve over at the Scripps Institution website, including a chart that is updated daily. There's also a Twitter account reporting daily readings as soon as they come in.
--Back in 2010, Justin Gillis of the New York Times wrote a nice profile of the Mauna Loa Observatory and Charles David Keeling, the scientist who first began measuring atmospheric carbon. (His son, Ralph Keeling, now runs the measurement program.)
--Here's a more detailed look, from the International Energy Agency, of the changes the world would need to make to its energy system to stay under 450 parts per million. (And some scientists, like NASA's James Hansen, have argued that we need to go even further and get back down to 350 parts per million.)
French Kids Do Have ADHD: An Interview
French kids do have ADHD. An interview with Elias Sarkis M.D.
Toby et Lucy: Deux Enfants Hyperactifs by Charles-Antoine Haenggeli
I interviewed Elias Sarkis MD, a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist and Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Assocation, to learn more about the prevalence of ADHD in France. Dr. Sarkis lived in France for 10 years, and graduated from medical school at Universite de Lille in Lille, France. He is now the medical director of Sarkis Family Psychiatry and Sarkis Clinical Trials in Gainesville, Florida. His website is www.sarkisfamilypsychiatry.com.
Dr. Sarkis returns to France on a regular basis. He said that ADHD does most certainly exist in France. Not only are there clinical studies showing the prevalence of ADHD in France, but Dr. Sarkis also has a friend, a psychiatrist, whose child has ADHD. His friend's daughter had lifelong difficulties in school, had an unplanned pregnancy, and then dropped out of school. Her mother is now watching her child so she can return to school.
Dr. Sarkis said that in France there is a "strong negative cultural belief against medication" for children with psychiatric disorders. However, he said, children with ADHD continue to suffer the consequences of the disorder. Regarding the impact of undiagnosed and unmedicated ADHD in France, Dr. Sarkis said, "the reality is that there are French kids in prison, a high rate of tobacco use, and kids dropping out of school".
Dr. Sarkis said said that if a French child with ADHD receives "excellent parenting, high structure, and clear expectations from parents" it can mitigate behaviors, However, it is "at the price of the child experiencing increased anxiety and internalizing problems". For those children who are not able to receive excellent parenting and high structure, ADHD behaviors can be extremely impairing.
In France it is difficult for parents to get an evaluation and treatment for their ADHD child. It takes 8 months for a child to get an appointment with a specialist, and it can take another 8 months before a child is prescribed medication (Getin, 2011).
Fortunately, Dr. Sarkis said, the concept of ADHD as a serious, treatable disorder is gaining strength in France. Parents are learning more about ADHD via the Internet, and there are more centers being established to help treat this debiliating disorder.
Faraone, S.V., Sergeant, J., Gillberg, C., & Biederman, J. (2003). The worldwide prevalence of ADHD: Is it an American condition? World Psychiatry 2(2):104-113.
Getin, C. (2011). Déficit de l'attention/hyperactivité: Le point de vue des familles. L'Information Psychiatrique 87(5):375-378.
Lencendreux, M., Konofal, E., & Faraone, S.V. (2011). Prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and associated features among children in France. Journal of Attention Disorders 15(6):516-524.
www.stephaniesarkis.com
Dr. Sarkis said that in France there is a "strong negative cultural belief against medication" for children with psychiatric disorders. However, he said, children with ADHD continue to suffer the consequences of the disorder. Regarding the impact of undiagnosed and unmedicated ADHD in France, Dr. Sarkis said, "the reality is that there are French kids in prison, a high rate of tobacco use, and kids dropping out of school".
Dr. Sarkis said said that if a French child with ADHD receives "excellent parenting, high structure, and clear expectations from parents" it can mitigate behaviors, However, it is "at the price of the child experiencing increased anxiety and internalizing problems". For those children who are not able to receive excellent parenting and high structure, ADHD behaviors can be extremely impairing.
In France it is difficult for parents to get an evaluation and treatment for their ADHD child. It takes 8 months for a child to get an appointment with a specialist, and it can take another 8 months before a child is prescribed medication (Getin, 2011).
Fortunately, Dr. Sarkis said, the concept of ADHD as a serious, treatable disorder is gaining strength in France. Parents are learning more about ADHD via the Internet, and there are more centers being established to help treat this debiliating disorder.
Faraone, S.V., Sergeant, J., Gillberg, C., & Biederman, J. (2003). The worldwide prevalence of ADHD: Is it an American condition? World Psychiatry 2(2):104-113.
Getin, C. (2011). Déficit de l'attention/hyperactivité: Le point de vue des familles. L'Information Psychiatrique 87(5):375-378.
Lencendreux, M., Konofal, E., & Faraone, S.V. (2011). Prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and associated features among children in France. Journal of Attention Disorders 15(6):516-524.
www.stephaniesarkis.com
Australia just scrapped its debt ceiling. America should, too.
Mature countries just walk away from a fight
Should the U.S. Treasury, like Australia's, get an unlimited borrowing limit? (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
D
ebt ceiling fights, it seems, have become a permanent fixture in American politics. Twice in the last couple of years, the United States has been days away from potentially irrevocable economic damage because Congress refused to raise the debt ceiling and let the Treasury issue more debt. The next debt ceiling fight is slated for March 2014.
But isn't there a better way to increase a borrowing limit — and one that doesn't freak out markets, investors, and, well, just about everyone every few months?
Australia has an answer: It decided to get rid of its debt ceiling altogether:
The federal government will be able to borrow as much money as it wants after Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey cut a deal with the Greens to dispense with the debt ceiling completely...
It means the government will not have to ask the Parliament for permission whenever it wants to borrow money above a certain limit. [Sydney Morning Herald]
Some may be extremely concerned by this possibility. If the government can borrow all the money it wants, then won't that lead to the government making extremely irresponsible decisions, such as spending huge amounts of money it doesn't have building bridges to nowhere?
But it's actually a brilliant idea — and one that America and the rest of the world would do well to implement as soon as possible — because it would eliminate the uncertainty and confusion of debt ceiling fights. And there is no reason — absolutely no reason — to believe that it will lead to excessive government spending. Why? Because there already exists a natural debt ceiling called interest rates — the cost at which investors in the market will lend the government money.
The U.S. government is legally bound to pay its debts, and as the issuer of currency it has the means to do so. This means that U.S. government debt is considered by the market to be a very safe asset. And, as Frances Coppola argues, that means that it is a critically important part of the global financial system, because it is used around the world as collateral for lending and as a store of purchasing power. Right now interest rates are very low by historical standards, even after adjusting for inflation. This means that the government is not producing sufficient debt to satisfy the market demand. The main reason for that is the debt ceiling.
If the Treasury became extremely profligate and started borrowing much, much more — say, increasing borrowing from just over half a trillion dollars a year to ten trillion dollars a year — interest rates would rise significantly, making it unaffordable for the government to do so. That is the only debt ceiling we need.
The debt ceiling today is particularly badly designed. Why? Because it's denominated in an arbitrary number of dollars. Let's say you are a government with $1,000 of debt. Can you repay it? It depends what your tax base is. If the whole economy is generating $10 of activity per year, you have no chance. At a 30 percent tax rate, that would yield just $3 per year in tax. But let's say you have a $10,000 economy. Then, a 30 percent tax rate yields $3,000, meaning that $1,000 of debt would be easy to repay. So the sustainability of your debt is dependent on the size of the economy, and the size of your debt is much more meaningful if it is expressed in terms of the amount of activity taking place in the economy (GDP).
So should the current debt ceiling be replaced by a ceiling expressed as a percentage of GDP? While that is slightly less stupid than the current system, it is still not the best idea because it would be very hard to agree on what constitutes a sustainable level of debt. For example, Harvard economists Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart published a well-received paper suggesting that 90 percent of GDP was the level at which government debt becomes damaging to economic growth. But their 90 percent limit has been completely debunked since. Great Britain, for example, had a debt over 250 percent of GDP in the 19th century, and successfully paid it down without defaulting.
Essentially, then, the only sensible way to determine how much the government can borrow is whether or not people are willing to lend the government more money. Australia has made a very smart move, and the U.S. should follow suit as soon as possible.
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