The next time you “catch a yawn” from someone across the room, you’re not copying their sleepiness, you’re participating in an ancient, hardwired ritual that might have evolved to help groups stay alert as a means of detecting danger. That’s the conclusion of University at Albany researchers Andrew C. Gallup and Gordon G. Gallup, Jr. in a study outlined in the May 2007 issue in Evolutionary Psychology.

The psychologists, who studied yawning in college students, concluded that people do not yawn because they need oxygen, since experiments show that raising or lowering oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood fails to produce the reaction.  Rather, yawning acts as a brain-cooling mechanism. The brain burns up to a third of the calories we consume, and as a consequence generates heat. 

According to Gallup and Gallup, our brains, not unlike computers, operate more efficiently when cool, and yawning enhances the brain’s functioning by increasing blood flow and drawing in cooler air.

To research the theory that yawning evolved to cool the brain, the UAlbany psychologists had students watch videotapes of people yawning and counted the number of contagious yawns.  In one experiment they found that 50 percent of the people who were instructed to breathe normally or through their mouths yawned while watching other people yawn, while those told to breathe through their nose did not yawn at all. 

In another experiment they found that subjects who held a cold pack to their forehead acted similarly to those who were instructed to breathe through their nose — they, too, did not yawn, while those who held a warm pack or a room temperature pack to their forehead yawned normally. 

Evidence shows that blood vessels in the nasal cavity and face send cool blood to the brain, and by breathing through the nose or by cooling the forehead, the brain is cooled, eliminating the need to yawn.   Recent evidence has linked multiple sclerosis, a demyelinating disease, to thermoregulatory dysfunction.  Excessive yawning is a common symptom of multiple sclerosis, and some MS patients report brief symptom relief after they yawn.

The UAlbany researchers also suggest, again contrary to popular opinion, that yawning does not promote sleep but helps mitigate the need to sleep.  Since yawning occurs when brain temperature rises, sending cool blood to the brain serves to maintain optimal levels of mental efficiency.  Therefore, the psychologists say, when mental processing slows and someone yawns, the tendency for other people to yawn contagiously might have evolved to promote group vigilance as a means of detecting danger.

So the next time you are telling a story and a listener yawns there is no need to be offended — yawning, a physiological mechanism designed to maintain attention, turns out to be a compliment.

Evolutionary Psychology

www.epjournal.net – 2007. 5(1): 92-101

Yawning as a Brain Cooling Mechanism: Nasal Breathing and Forehead Cooling Diminish the Incidence of Contagious Yawning

Andrew C. Gallup, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY 12222, USA.

Gordon G. Gallup Jr., Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Albany. Email: gallup@albany.edu (Corresponding author)

Abstract: We conducted two experiments that implicate yawning as a thermoregulatory mechanism. The first experiment demonstrates that different patterns of breathing influence susceptibility to contagious yawning. When participants were not directed how to breathe or were instructed to breathe orally (inhaling and exhaling through their mouth), the incidence of contagious yawning in response to seeing videotapes of people yawning was about 48%. When instructed to breathe nasally (inhaling and exhaling through their nose), no participants exhibited contagious yawning. In a second experiment, applying temperature packs to the forehead also influenced the incidence of contagious yawning. When participants held a warm pack (460C) or a pack at room temperature to their forehead while watching people yawn, contagious yawning occurred 41% of the time. When participants held a cold pack (40C) to their forehead, contagious yawning dropped to 9%. These findings suggest that yawning has an adaptive/functional component that it is not merely the derivative of selection for other forms of behavior.

http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/ep0592101.pdf

Human resistance to a retrovirus that infected chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates 4 million years ago ironically may be at least partially responsible for the susceptibility of humans to HIV infection today. These findings provide a better understanding of this modern pandemic infection through the study of an ancient virus called Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus, or PtERV1.
“This ancient virus is a battle that humans have already won. Humans are not susceptible to it and have probably been resistant throughout millennia,” said senior author Michael Emerman, Ph.D., a member of the Human Biology and Basic Sciences divisions at the Hutchinson Center. “However, we found that during primate evolution, this innate immunity to one virus may have made us more vulnerable to HIV.”

Evidence of human immunity to this ancient retrovirus first emerged with the sequencing of the chimpanzee genome. “When the chimp genome was sequenced, a team of scientists at the University of Washington led by Evan Eichler found the largest difference overall between the chimp and human genomes was the presence or absence of PtERV1,” Emerman said. “Chimps have 130 copies of PtERV1 and humans have none.”

It is believed that retroviruses have been entering the genome for many millions of years, and so humans share many retroviral DNA fragments with their primate cousins. Such vestiges of primitive infection, rendered inactive by eons of genetic mutation, make up about 8 percent of the human genome.

Innate protection against PtERV1 in humans could be credited, the researchers believe, to the presence of an ancient, rapidly evolving antiviral defense gene called TRIM5a, which produces a protein that binds to and destroys the virus before it can replicate within the body.

“We know that PtERV1 infected chimps, gorillas and old-world monkeys 4 million years ago but left no traces of having infected humans. Our theory is that this is because humans had this innate viral defense system,” Emerman said.

To test their hypothesis, Emerman and co-authors Harmit Singh Malik, Ph.D., an evolutionary biologist and an assistant member of the Center’s Basic Sciences Division, and Shari Kaiser, a graduate student in Emerman’s laboratory, used DNA sequences from the chimp genome to reconstruct a small part of the PtERV1 virus.

They reassembled about one-fifth of the virus by taking dozens of PtERV1 sequences and aligning them to create an “ancestral” sequence, teasing out areas of commonality between them. They then used this information to make a partial viral genome. During reconstruction the viral segment was debilitated, enabling only one round of infection in cells. Working with cells in the laboratory, the researchers found that the human antiviral protein TRIM5a effectively neutralizes this extinct retrovirus, which never successfully fixed into the human genome. 

“However, while TRIM5a may have served humans well millions of years ago, the antiviral protein does not seem to be good at defending against any of the retroviruses that currently infect humans, such as HIV-1,” Emerman said. “In the end, this drove human evolution to be more susceptible to HIV.” For example, the researchers found that changes in TRIM5a that make it better at fighting HIV actually inhibit its ability to stop PtERV1 and vice versa, which indicates that this antiviral gene may only be good at fighting off one virus at a time.

Uncovering the story of TRIM5a’s role in battling one ancient retrovirus while increasing human susceptibility to modern-day HIV “is a lot like doing archaeology — figuring out how humans have become who we are today and why we are or are not susceptible to modern viruses that presently circulate,” Emerman said.

In fact, this emerging area of research, which seeks to better understand modern infections by studying ancient viruses, is known as “paleovirology.” “Ultimately,” said co-author Malik, “if we want to understand why our defenses are the way they are, the answers inevitably lie in these ancient viruses more so than the ones that have affected us only recently, such as HIV.”

These findings were reported by a team of researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the June 22 issue of Science.

Polavarapu N, Bowen NJ, McDonald JF. 

Identification, characterization and comparative genomics of chimpanzee endogenous retroviruses.
Genome Biol. 2006;7(6):R51.
PMID: 16805923 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Yohn CT, Jiang Z, McGrath SD, Hayden KE, Khaitovich P, Johnson ME, Eichler MY, McPherson JD, Zhao S, Paabo S, Eichler EE.

Lineage-specific expansions of retroviral insertions within the genomes of African great apes but not humans and orangutans.
PLoS Biol. 2005 Apr;3(4):e110. Epub 2005 Mar 1.
PMID: 15737067 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Individual Differences In Sleep Structure Are Biologically Determined

Sleeping pattern variability has long been attributed to differences in several non-biological factors. Now a study from the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University Spokane, Wash., has shown that these individual differences are in large part biologically determined and may even prove to be genetic in origin.

Researchers have long observed significant differences in normal people’s sleep. Some are light sleepers, whereas others sleep deeply. Some fall asleep right away, while others take their time.

Such sleeping pattern variability has long been attributed solely to differences in circumstances, habits, and other non-biological factors. But now a study led by Hans Van Dongen, associate research professor and assistant director of the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University Spokane, has shown that these individual differences constitute traits—that is, they are in large part biologically determined and may even prove to be genetic in origin.

“This is the first study to reveal that substantial differences in sleep patterns exist even among healthy adults who are good sleepers,” said Van Dongen, who emphasized that normal sleep covers a wide terrain and that many different sleep patterns qualify as good sleep. “How much sleep people need and what the structure of their sleep looks like depends in large measure on their biology.”

The results of the NIH-funded research study were published in the June 2007 issue of the Journal of Sleep Research, with WSU graduate student Adrienne Tucker as the lead author. The study, which was conducted in large part at the University of Pennsylvania and was recently continued at Washington State University, assessed the presence and magnitude of biologically determined individual differences in the structure of sleep for a group of 21 carefully screened healthy young adults, and compared these individual differences to the effect of prior sleep deprivation on the structure of their sleep.

Over 11 consecutive days and nights, study participants were monitored continuously in a strictly controlled laboratory environment. They spent eight nights sleeping for up to 12 hours. These nights were interspersed with three 36-hour sleep deprivation periods—that is, three nights without any sleep. During the eight nights when sleep was allowed, polysomnographic recordings—which show brain waves, eye movements, and muscle tone—were done.

The researchers assessed 18 standard sleep parameters, including sleep duration, time to fall asleep, and the amount of time in each sleep stage (stages 1 through 4 and REM sleep). They found large individual differences in these sleep parameters, which showed up consistently across the eight nights with sleep—regardless of whether or not there had been sleep deprivation in the night before. This meant that the individual differences were not driven by circumstance, but were at least partially biologically determined. For deep sleep (stages 3 and 4) in particular, the individual differences were overwhelmingly biological in nature.

“In this group of healthy young adults, the wide variation in the duration and structure of their sleep was, to a large extent, biological in nature. The next logical step is to look for genes that may be responsible for these large individual differences,” Van Dongen said.

The physiological or functional significance of these sleep traits remains a mystery. The fact that all subjects were healthy, young adults and good sleepers seems to rule out any immediate clinical relevance of the differences among them. However, Van Dongen thinks that the sleep differences may be predictive of future clinical conditions.

“Recognition of trait individual differences in sleep may help to understand the increasing evidence for a functional link between sleep and health,” he said.

J Sleep Res. 2007 Jun;16(2):170-80

Trait interindividual differences in the sleep physiology of healthy young adults.

Tucker AM, Dinges DF, Van Dongen HP.

Sleep and Performance Research Center, Washington State University, Spokane, WA 99210-1495, USA.

Despite decades of sleep research by means of polysomnography (PSG), systematic interindividual differences in PSG-assessed sleep parameters have been scarcely investigated. The present study is the first to quantify interindividual variability in standard PSG-assessed variables of sleep structure in terms of stability and robustness as well as magnitude. Twenty-one carefully screened healthy young adults were studied continuously in a strictly controlled laboratory environment, where their PSGs were recorded for eight nights interspersed with three separate 36 h sleep deprivation periods. All PSG records were scored blind to subject and condition, using conventional criteria, and delta power in the non-REM sleep EEG was computed for four electrode derivations. Interindividual differences in sleep variables were examined for stability and robustness, respectively, by comparing results across equivalent nights (e.g. baseline nights) and across experimentally differentiated nights (baseline nights versus recovery nights following sleep deprivation). Among 18 sleep variables analyzed, all except slow-wave sleep (SWS) latency were found to exhibit significantly stable and robust–i.e. trait-like–interindividual differences. This was quantified by means of intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs), which ranged from 36% to 89% across physiologic variables, and were highest for SWS (73%) and delta power in the non-REM sleep EEG (78-89%). The magnitude of the trait interindividual differences was considerable, consistently exceeding the magnitude of the group-average effect on sleep structure of 36 h total sleep deprivation. Notably, for non-REM delta power–a putative marker of sleep homeostasis–the interindividual differences were from 9.9 to 12.8 times greater than the group-average increase following sleep deprivation relative to baseline. Physiologic sleep variables did not vary among subjects in a completely independent manner–61.1% of their combined variance clustered in three trait dimensions, which appeared to represent sleep duration, sleep intensity, and sleep discontinuity. Any independent functional significance of these sleep physiologic phenotypes remains to be determined.

AMA might label Internet as an addiction

ORLANDO, Fla., June 21 (UPI) — The American Medical Association plans to vote on a recommendation to classify Internet and video-game addiction as a formal diagnosis.

The AMA said the heaviest game players are those who play MMORPGs — massive multiplayer online role-playing games — such as World of Warcraft. Those players are more likely to be socially isolated and probably addicted, The Orlando Sentinel said Thursday.

Steve Jones — a communications professor at the University of Illinois and a research fellow with the Pew Internet and American Life Project — said he is skeptical about calling it an addiction.

“Just because any activity might interfere with other activities is not enough to call it an addiction,” he told the newspaper.

Jones said there have been concerns about technology dating back to the 1920s, when people were worried movies were causing children to spend too much time inside

 Hence cautions are to be taken before recklessly creating formal diagnostic categories. Recent medical history is abundant in terms like ADHS or Fibromyalgia, that are so hazy in their delineation, that they might apply two half of the nation or won’t suite anybody, depending on the diagnostician’s rigour. In 2006, the American Medical Association decided to do its part to contribute to the body of knowledge associated with “gaming addiction,” violence and “Internet addiction.” The report — which doesn’t rise to any traditional academic standard for peer-reviewed research, such as a formal literature review — was just published (AMA Report on Internet and Video Game Addiction - PDF).

“Internet adddiction” is a term that was coined in 1996 in a poster at the annual American Psychological Association convention. The term came from a small study that simply changed the word “gambling” in the criteria of “pathological gambling” to “Internet use” and found, not surprising, that a self-selected sample of people identified with the criteria. (The researcher could’ve easily done the same thing with the words, “shopping,” “watching TV,” or “eating chocolate,” and found similar results. This, in itself, is neither an argument pro nor contra non-substance related addiction, though.)

What does the report say about this “disorder”?

“This term seems to have been coined in the 1990s when researchers were attempting to describe a constellation of behaviors observed in persons using the Internet to such an extent that it began to cause other aspects of their lives to become dysfunctional. The DSM-IV disorder most similar to the pattern of behaviors observed with overuse of video games is pathological gambling. “

But unlike the criteria for pathological gambling, which were empirically constructed, the criteria for “Internet addiction” were simply derived from the existing pathological gambling criteria. Hence heavy video game playing is referred to as “video game overuse”, whereas “overuse” certainly is difficult to define.

This is exactly the problem for research. There is no universally accepted definition of “overuse” — of the Internet, of video games, of TV watching, etc. As such, the report states:

“However, as with findings on long-term aggression, there is currently insufficient research to definitively conclude that video game overuse is an addiction. “

Note, AMA does not publish the DSM, the American Psychiatric Association does. The AMA is issuing simply a recommendation. This recommendation, anyway, is welcome to stimulate systematic research as to the boundaries of pathological internet use and gambling as nosological entities.

 

The Man Who was Tired of Life

XII. Dynasty (1991-1786 BC)

 

[...] you in order to say [...] their [tongues] cannot question, for it will be crookedness [...] payments their tongues cannot question.

 

I opened my mouth to my soul, that I might answer what it had said: / This is too much for me today, that my soul does not argue with me; it is too great for [exaggeration], it is as if one ignored me. Let my soul not depart, that it may attend to it for me [...] in my body like a net of cord, / but it will not succeed in escaping the day of trouble. See, my soul misleads me, but I do not listen to it; draws me toward death ere <i> have come to it and casts <me> on the fire to burn me [...] / it approaches me on the day of trouble and it stands on yonder side as does a … Such is he who goes forth that he may bring himself for him. O my soul, too stupid to ease misery in life and yet holding me back from death ere I come to it, sweeten / the West for me. Is it (to much) trouble? Yet life is a transitory state, and even trees fall. Trample on wrong, for my misery endures. May Thoth who pacifies the gods judge me; may Khons defend me, / even he who writes truly; may Re hear my plaint, even he who commands the solar bark; may Isdes defend me in the Holy Chamber, [because] the needy one is weighed down with [the burden] which he has lifted up from me; it is pleasant that / the gods should ward off the secret (thoughts) of my body.

 

What my soul said to me: Are you not a man? Indeed you are alive, but what do you profit? Yet you yearn for life like a man of wealth.

 

I said: I have not gone, (even though) that is on the ground. Indeed, you leap away, but you will / not be cared for. Every prisoner says: “I will take you,” but you are dead, though your name lives. Yonder is a resting place attractive to the heart; the West is a dwelling place, rowing [...] face. If my guiltless soul listens to me / and its heart is in accord with me, it will be fortunate, for I will cause it to attain the West, like one who is in his pyramid, to whose burial a survivor attended. I will [...over] your corpse, so that you make another soul envious / in weariness. I will…., then you will not be cold, so that you make envious another soul which is hot. I will drink water at the eddy, I will raise up shade so that you make envious another soul which is hungry. If/ you hold me back from death in this manner, you will find nowhere you can rest in the West. Be so kind, my soul, my brother, as to become my heir who shall make offering and stand at the tomb on the day of burial, that he may prepare a bier / for the necropolis.

 

My soul opened its mouth to me that it might answer what I had said: If you think of burial, it is a sad matter; it is a bringer of weeping through making a man miserable; it is taking a man from his house, he being cast on the high ground, never again will you go up that you may see / the sun. those who built in granite and constructed halls in goodly pyramids with fine work, when the builders became gods their stelae were destroyed, like the weary ones who died on the riverbank through lack of a survivor, / the flood having taken its toll and the sun likewise to whom talk the fishes of the banks of the water. Listen to me; behold it is good for men to hear. Follow the happy day and forget care.

 

A peasant ploughed his plot and loaded his harvest / aboard a ship, towing it when his time of festival drew near. He saw the coming of the darkness of the norther, for he was vigilant in the boat when the sun set. He escaped with his wife and children, but came to grief on a lake infested by / night with crocodiles. At last he sat down and broke silence, saying: I weep not for yonder mother, who has no more going forth from the West for another (term) upon earth; I sorrow rather for her children broken in the egg, who have looked in the face of the crocodile god / ere they have lived.

 

A peasant asked for a meal, and his wife said to him: There is <…> for supper. he went out to… for a moment and returned to his house (raging) as if he were an ape. His wife reasoned with him, but he would not listen to her, he…. and the bystanders were helpless.

 

I opened my mouth to my soul that I might answer what it had said:

 

Behold, my name is detested,

Behold, more than the smell of vultures

On a summer’s day when the sky is hot.

 

Behold, my name is detested,

Behold, <more than the smell of> a catch of fish

/ On a day of catching when the sky is hot.

 

Behold, my name is detested,

Behold, more than the smell of ducks,

More than a covert of reeds full of waterfowl.

 

Behold, my name is detested,

Behold, more than the smell of fishermen,

More than the creeks / of the marshes where they have fished.

 

Behold, my name is detested,

Behold, more than the smell of crocodiles,

More than sitting by sandbanks full of crocodiles.

 

Behold, my name is detested,

Behold, more than a woman

About whom lies are told to a man.

 

Behold, / my name is detested,

Behold, more than a sturdy child

Of whom it is said: “he belongs to his rival.”

 

Behold, my name is detested,

Behold, <more than> a town belonging to the monarch

Which mutters sedition when his back is turned.

 

To whom can I speak today?

Brothers are evil

And the friends of today unlovable.

 

To whom can I speak / today?

Hearts are rapacious

And everyone takes his neighbour’s goods.

 

<To whom can I speak today?>

Gentleness has perished

And the violent man has come down on everyone.

 

To whom can I speak today?

Men are contented with evil

And goodness is neglected everywhere.

 

To whom can I speak / Today?

He who should enrage a man by his ill deeds,

he makes everyone laugh <by> his wicked wrongdoing.

 

To whom can I speak today?

Men plunder

And every man robs his neighbour.

 

To whom can I speak today?

The wrongdoer is an intimate friend

And the brother with whom one used to act is become / an enemy.

 

To whom can I speak today?

None remember the past,

And no one now helps him who used to do (good).

 

To whom can I speak today?

Brothers are evil,

And men have recourse to strangers for affection.

 

To whom can I speak today?

Faces are averted,

And every man looks askance at / his brethren.

 

To whom can I speak today?

Hearts are rapacious

And there is no man’s heart in which one can trust.

 

To whom can I speak today?

There are no just persons

And the land is left over to the doers of wrong.

 

To whom can I speak today?

There is a lack of an intimate friend

And men have recourse to someone unknown / in order to complain to him.

 

To whom can I speak today?

There is no contented man,

And that person who once walked with him no longer exists.

 

To whom can I speak today?

I am heavy-laden with trouble

Through lack of an intimate friend.

 

To whom can I speak today?

The wrong which roams the earth,

There is no end to it.

 

Death is in my sight today

<As when> a sick man becomes well,

Like going out-of-doors after detention.

 

Death is in my sight today

Like the smell of myrrh,

Like sitting under an awning on a windy day.

 

Death is in my sight today

Like the perfume of lotuses,

Like sitting on the shore of the Land of Drunkenness.

 

Death is in my sight today

Like a trodden way,

As when a man returns home from an expedition.

 

Death is in my sight today

Like the clearing of the sky,

Like a man who…/… for something which he does not know.

 

Death is in my sight today.

As when a man desires to see home

When he has spent many years in captivity.

 

Verily, he who is yonder will be a living god,

Averting the ill of him who does it.

 

Verily, he who is yonder will be one who stands in the Bark of the Sun,

Causing choice things to be given / therefrom for the temples.

 

Verily, he who is yonder will be a sage

Who will not be prevented from appealing to Re when he speaks.

 

What my soul said to me: Cast complaint upon the peg, my comrade and brother; make offering on the brazier / and cleave to life, according as I have said. Desire me here, thrust the West aside, but desire that you may attain the West when your body goes to earth, that I may alight after you are weary; then will we make an abode together.

 

It is finished / from its beginning to its end, just as it was found in writing.

 

On Monday, June 18 2007, I read that a non-governmental organization in Iran is offering $150,000 for the death of author Salman Rushdie. Forouz Raja’ee-Far, secretary general of the Headquarters for Honoring the Martyrs of Islam World Movement, said the former $100,000 prize for carrying out the execution ordered by Imam Khomeini in 1989 has now been increased to $150,000, the Fars News Agency reported Monday. I read, that the bounty increase follows the Queen of England’s bestowal of knighthood on the Indian-born author.“According to Imam Khomeini’s verdict, it is an obligation for all Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie even if he repents from the bottom of his heart and becomes the pious man of the time,” Raja’ee-Far said. “Also according to Imam’s verdict, if a non-Muslim person can find and execute Rushdie sooner than Muslims, it will be an obligation for Muslims to provide such a person with whatever he wants as his payment or prize,” he said.

That very same day I read, that the Pakistan parliament has voted unanimously to condemn the Queen of England’s bestowal of knighthood on controversial author Salman Rushdie. I read that the resolution was proposed by Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, Pakistan’s minister for Parliamentary Affairs, who called Rushdie a “blasphemer” and said his knighthood is an insult to the religious sentiments of Muslims. I read that Niazi said before the country’s National Assembly: “Every religion should be respected. I demand the British government immediately withdraw the title as it is creating religious hatred,” he said.

On Tuesday, June 2007, I read that a British official told Pakistan that England is concerned over a minister’s comment that Salman Rushdie’s knighthood could justify suicide bombings. British High Commissioner to Pakistan Robert Brinkley “made clear the British government’s deep concern at what the minister for religious affairs was reported to have said,” a Foreign Office spokesman said and the Guardian reported. “The British government is very clear that nothing can justify suicide bomb attacks.”I read, that Brinkley met with Pakistani officials in Islamabad Tuesday.“It is simply untrue to suggest that this in anyway is an insult to Islam or the Prophet Muhammad and we have enormous respect for Islam as a religion and for its intellectual and cultural achievements,” Brinkley said in a statement, the Guardian reported.

On Wednesday, June 20 2007, I read that the Pakistani Foreign Office has told a British high commissioner that Pakistan staunchly opposes Britain’s knighthood of author Salman Rushdie.A Foreign Office representative said Robert Brinkley, the British High Commission to Pakistan, was recently informed Muslims were hurt by Britain’s decision to offer Rushdie the title of “Sir,” The (Pakistan) Tribune reported Wednesday.Pakistani official Tasneem Aslam said that through his literary writings and verbal comments, Rushdie became a blasphemer who deeply offended Muslims’ religious beliefs and sentiments.The newspaper said Brinkley also was informed the Pakistani government was set to condemn Britain’s decision with a joint resolution.

On Thursday, 21 June 2007, I read that Britain’s foreign secretary Wednesday expressed sorrow over any offense caused to Muslims by the knighting of “The Satanic Verses” writer Salman Rushdie.

I read, that the Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said people should understand the honor was for Rushdie’s entire literary career, not just one book, The Telegraph reported. She said Rushdie was just one of many Muslims who have been recognized by the British honors system, a point that “may not be realized by many of those who have been vocal in their opposition.” I read, that bestowing of knighthood upon the controversial author has triggered a flood of verbal venom from Islamic nations, including Malaysia where demonstrators chanted “go to hell, Britain.” Iraq’s foreign minister has condemned Britain’s issuing of the honor, saying it could be used as an excuse to cause problems around the world, the British newspaper reported. I read, that British Home Secretary John Reid also said the award was the right thing to do, saying it symbolizes the protection of people’s rights to express their opinions, which is “of overriding value to our society.”

What I don’t read, is whether now fundamentalists are trying to recruit opponents of an author’s writings for a Jihad against the Western World as the well of blasphemy, or if warmongers within that world are trying to recruit his admirers for a Crusade against Islam as the craddle of terrorism.

For those who need an intro: Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian writer who celebrated his 60th birthday Tuesday, and first became a target of the world’s Muslim population with his controversial 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses.” Recently the knighthood for the author has created an uproar in Pakistan, with the parliament calling for the decision granting it to be reversed and effigies of Rushdie and the queen of England being burned. Many Muslims considered “The Satanic Verses” blasphemous and the author lived in hiding and under protection after a “fatwa” was issued by Iran’s spiritual leader in 1988.

see also:

Shalimar the Clown: A Novel by Salman Rushdie

Researchers have discovered a sophisticated neural computer, buried deep in the cerebellum, that performs inertial navigation calculations to figure out a person’s movement through space.

These calculations are no mean feat, emphasized the researchers. The vestibular system in the inner ear provides the primary source of input to the brain about the body’s movement and orientation in space. However, the vestibular sensors in the inner ear yield information about head position only. Also, the vestibular system’s detection of head acceleration cannot distinguish between the effect of movement and that of gravitational force.

Dora Angelaki and colleagues based their brain studies on the predictions of a theoretical mathematical model postulating that the brain could compute inertial motion by combining rotational signals from the semicircular canal in the inner ear with gravity signals. They concentrated their search for the brain’s inertial navigation system on particular types of neurons, called Purkinje cells, in a region of the cerebellum known to receive signals from the vestibular system. This region is known as the posterior cerebellar vermis, a narrow, worm-like structure between the brain’s hemispheres.

In their experiments, the researchers measured the electrical activity of these Purkinje cells in monkeys as the animals’ heads were maneuvered through a precise series of rotations and accelerations. After analyzing the electrical signals measured from the Purkinje cells during these movements, the researchers concluded that the specialized Purkinje cells were, indeed, computing earth-referenced motion from head-centered vestibular information.

The researchers concluded that the output of the Purkinje cells indicates an “elegant solution” to the computational problems involved in inertial navigation.

The researchers include Tatyana A. Yakusheva, Aasef G. Shaikh, Andrea M. Green, Pablo M. Blazquez, J. David Dickman, and Dora E. Angelaki of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO.

Reference: Yakusheva et al.: “Purkinje Cells in Posterior Cerebellar Vermis Encode Motion in an Inertial Reference Frame.” Neuron 54, 973–985, June 21, 2007. DOI 10.1016/j.neuron.2007.06.003.

Parents, doctors, and others have wondered whether common treatments for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) inadvertently predispose adolescents to future drug abuse. The answer may depend on the age at which treatment is started and how long it lasts, say the authors of a new brain-imaging and behavioral study conducted in animals at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.

“Our study shows that the brain’s reward pathways are definitely influenced by methylphenidate, one of the stimulant drugs commonly used to treat ADHD,” said Brookhaven researcher Panayotis (Peter) Thanos, lead author of the study. “But the brain chemistry changes we observed suggest that the developmental stage at which treatment begins and the duration of treatment are important variables that need further study.”

In the study, rats were given methylphenidate mixed with distilled water beginning one month after birth — early adolescence for rats. Animals received either 1 or 2 milligrams methylphenidate per kilogram of body weight, consistent with clinical doses given to children with ADHD. A control group of rats was handled under identical conditions but given plain water.

After two months of treatment, and again after eight months, the scientists performed positron emission tomography (PET) scans to measure the levels of dopamine D2 receptors, a type of brain receptor important for experiencing reward and pleasure that has been linked to pleasure and drug abuse. After the eight-month treatment, animals were also tested for their propensity to self-administer cocaine.

Rats given the 2mg/kg dose of methylphenidate were significantly less likely to press a lever to self-administer cocaine, and received fewer self-initiated infusions of the drug following eight months of treatment than the lower-dose group or the control rats.

The changes observed in brain chemistry were specific to the age and duration of methylphenidate treatment: Specifically, after two months of treatment, brain scans revealed that both groups of treated rats had lower levels of dopamine D2 receptors in their brains than did control animals.

In contrast, after eight months of treatment, the brain scans revealed elevated levels of dopamine D2 receptors in treated rats compared with controls, with the higher-dose treatment group showing the highest level of D2 receptors. In the control group, D2 receptor levels declined with age. Research at Brookhaven and elsewhere has suggested that low levels of dopamine D2 receptors may increase the likelihood of drug abuse, while elevated levels of dopamine D2 receptors may attenuate the propensity to abuse drugs.

“This new study provides evidence that chronic methylphenidate treatment begun in adolescence affects the brain’s dopamine D2 receptor levels, and thus the brain’s reward circuitry, differently depending on the age and treatment duration,” Thanos said. The scientists’ observation of lower rates of cocaine self-administration in the animals treated for eight months with a 2kg/mg dose of methylphenidate supports this idea.

However, the observation of lower levels of D2 receptors after two months of treatment suggests that shorter lengths of treatment or the age at which treatment is evaluated could result in different effects. “Lower dopamine D2 receptor levels following short-term treatment could make the animals more vulnerable to drug self-administration during early adulthood,” Thanos said. “Unfortunately, we cannot compare cocaine self-administration following eight months of treatment with that obtained after two months of treatment in the same animals, since animals were not tested for cocaine self-administration at this earlier time,” Thanos said. “We wanted to avoid any confounding effect that might have resulted from cocaine exposure during this early developmental stage,” he explained.

Evaluating the effect of treatment duration is one avenue the researchers are exploring in follow-up studies “to help assess optimal duration of treatment regimes to minimize adverse effects on the propensity to abuse drugs,” Thanos said.

Thanos notes that the findings from this study cannot be directly extrapolated to treatment regimes used for ADHD. Also, these studies were done in healthy animals, not in rodent models of ADHD. All experiments were conducted in conformity with the National Academy of Sciences Guide for Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and Brookhaven National Laboratory Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee protocols.

Effects of chronic oral methylphenidate on cocaine self-administration and striatal dopamine D2 receptors in rodents
Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available online 5 June 2007,
Panayotis K. Thanos, Michael Michaelides, Helene Benveniste, Gene Jack Wang and Nora D. Volkow

On Tuesday, 29 June 2007, I read that the 2007 Failed States Index (FSI) ranks 177 countries based on their social, economic, and political pressures. It is told, that the Ploughshares Fund supports the work of the Fund for Peace to produce this comprehensive index.

I read, that the FSI was first introduced in the July/August 2005 issue of Foreign Policy magazine. The second FSI was published in the May/June issue and the 2007 edition returned to the July/August issue. In 2005, there were rated 75 countries; in 2006, the Index was expanded to include 146 countries.

The index is compiled using the Fund for Peace’s proprietary methodology, the Conflict Assessment System Tool (CAST). CAST is used to assess violent internal conflicts and measure the impact of mitigating strategies. In addition to the risk of state failure and violent conflict, it allegedly assesses the capacities of core state institutions and analyzes trends in state instability. The FSI claims to focus on the indicators of risk and to be based on hundreds of thousands of articles and reports that are processed by the CAST Software from 12,000+ sources. Given the vast amount of data processed, it is impractical to make the articles and reports available directly to the public. Or so the hp of the fund does tell. Fun, fun…

Here are the “Twelve Indicators”:

Social Indicators
I-1. Mounting Demographic Pressures
I-2. Massive Movement of Refugees or Internally Displaced Persons creating

Complex Humanitarian Emergencies
I-3. Legacy of Vengeance-Seeking Group Grievance or Group Paranoia
I-4. Chronic and Sustained Human Flight

Economic Indicators
I-5. Uneven Economic Development along Group Lines
I-6. Sharp and/or Severe Economic Decline

Political Indicators
I-7. Criminalization and/or Delegitimization of the State
I-8. Progressive Deterioration of Public Services
I-9. Suspension or Arbitrary Application of the Rule of Law and Widespread

Violation of Human Rights
I-10. Security Apparatus Operates as a “State Within a State”
I-11. Rise of Factionalized Elites
I-12. Intervention of Other States or External Political Actors

Pentecost (from Greek pentecoste, “fiftieth day”) is the Christian festival commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples of Jesus, occurring on the Jewish Pentecost, after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. The disciples began to speak in the many languages of the people assembled there, a sign that the disciples should spread the Christian message throughout the world. Jewish Pentecost was a thanksgiving feast for the first fruits of the wheat harvest and was associated with remembrance of God’s gift of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. Christian Pentecost is celebrated on the Sunday concluding the 50-day period following Easter. It is also the name of the Jewish celebration of Shavuot (”Festival of Weeks”).

So far the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Twelve indicators like Twelve Apostles? Obviously the authors of this glorious index feel fired with a zeal similar to those participating in the miracle of the fiery tongues. But while the latter brought Christianity into the world, the former build an index with a nice colourful map. The map uses four colours: red for “Alert” (countries like Iraq or Afghanistan), organge for “Warning” (Russia or China), yellow for “Moderate” risk (Panama, Mongolia or Germany) and green for “Sustainable” Development (the stakeholders of peace like Switzerland, Netherlands or Finland). Some rankings appear prima facie just odd: what is worse in Sudan compared to Iraq or Somalia? Or what is worse in Moldavia compared to Eritrea or Guatemala?

The mentioned twelve indicators are the pillars of this miraculous ranking - zero to ten points in each category. “Highscore” means more than 120, minimum is zero points. Paradigm Norway reached 17,1 points. Failed-State-Ranking-Winner Sudan scored 113,8 points.

Germany ranks in the yellow category, the only point where I agree with the omniscient fund (although for different reasons, lacking the necessary omniscience).

All categories are weighed equally, an absurdity to the non-fiery-tonged mind. Let us assume, a country that is a paradigm of sustainability (grade 1 on every scale). Let us then assume, this paradisiac land of the movies decides to genocide a whole minority (10 points for Massive Movement of Refugees or Internally Displaced Persons creating Complex Humanitarian Emergencies, Legacy of Vengeance-Seeking Group Grievance or Group Paranoia, Chronic and Sustained Human Flight, Uneven Economic Development along Group Lines, Sharp and/or Severe Economic Decline, Criminalization and/or Delegitimization of the State, Progressive Deterioration of Public Services, Suspension or Arbitrary Application of the Rule of Law and Widespread Violation of Human Rights, and Intervention of Other States or External Political Actors). Paradise with rotting corpses of a whole minority would score just yellow - interesting reading of the word “moderation”.

But there is more hidden to those who are lacking the holy spirit behind the fund’s statistics. Germany: in terms of demographics 3,9 - overaging, sure. Italy, not having any higher birth rate: 3,6. Are Italians dying faster to make up for the gained points? Refugee issues: 4,8 for Germany - the third highest score. (Restrictive imigration policy in Finland wins with 1,6 here.)
Fund for Peace seems to agree with Mr. Schaeuble - the liberal imigration policy has to come to an end. What is needed is peace, not migration. But mind, that has nothing to do with paranoia. That is another score.

“Group Paranoia” seems to deal with marginalisation of social groups within societies whereby those perceived as lacking desirable traits or deviating from the group norms tend to be excluded by wider society and ostracised as undesirables, or with revengefulness after past crimes. Germany (4,9) beats Mozambique (4,7) and Southafrica (4,7). Oh my God, I did not know, how dangerous I live here! Israel and Lebanon instead (both 9), seem to be 0,5 points worse than the civil war in Somalia (8,5). My humble mind cries for illumination about the reason of this 0,5 points difference.

As of “Uneven Economic Development along Group Lines”, Germany scores 5,5 - bad compared to Europe, but comparable to U.S. (5,8), Saudi Arabia (6,5), UAE (5,2), Argentina (5,2) or Chile (4). This must be true. I am close to be broke almost all the time, and yet the covert German latifundistas and sheikhs keep spending on Ku’damm, not to talk of American tourists who want to become “a Berliner”.

The good news: Germany has to have no fear about economical development (3 points). There is no real Asian Attack, given the Fund of Peace scores: we are better than Singapore (3,4) and China (4). And our neighbours are even better, like France (2,8) or Sweden (1,3).

Even better we are in matters of “Public Services”, or so the Fund of Peace believes. Obviously none of the guys did ever apply for “Hartz IV” or had to make a tax declaration in Germany. Nor did missing school lessons and acquittal of suspects due to lack of teachers or judges count in any way. Nonetheless, 1,7 for Germany. Better are only the U.S. (1,4) and the public services of France (1,4), probably the reason why employees in the French public service called out on strike. They just cannot get enough. Good to know that the Luxembourgeois, who always pretend to be so happy in their Grand Duché, are suffering close to twice as much from their public services, the impostors (2,6)!

The following two categories seem to be overlapping a bit: “Suspension or Arbitrary Application of the Rule of Law and Widespread Violation of Human Rights” and “Security Apparatus Operates as a State Within a State” (Germany 2,9/2,5). As a term of comparison: USA 4,6/1,3, Sweden 1,4/.9, France 2,1/1 and Romania 4,8/3,4. It appears that politically motivated enharassment of minorities and violations of journalistic freedom are rather normal, while we are having trouble with Elite Forces, Private Militiae and Vigilants - and this twice as much as the U.S. Or did the Fund of Peace Experts mean the G8 protestors and soccer fans in Saxony, perhaps?

What I don’t read, is the real core in the pentecost miracle of political ranking: after these ingenious arithmetics even my unilluminated spirit knows, what a state has to do, to get better:

The Mission Statement of the Fund claims “to prevent war & alleviate the conditions that cause war”. Germany is lacking 9,5 points to reach the green zone. Now, Demography and Public Service were set. What is missing is a more intense economical support for former East Germany, in order to avoid war (and to secure any kind of economical development after that caused by the “Treuhand”). I can see that clearly. Next we need to reduce the number of imigrants drastically. Finally we do have to treat the insomniac Vigilants, or have them watch out against those shameless praetorian elites.

Women’s magazines love to publish “Am I Romantic”- or “Is my boyfriend sexy”-tests. They use different traits, regardless of their relevance and corelation, and the result is a score about romanticism and sex appeal. While the modern woman is very likely to take those test results as what they really are — a hoax, the Fund of Peace research is lacking scientific soundness to the same degree. Alas, nobody seems to have told them to use hairdresser’s magazines as a fore, if they really have to publish their gospel of descriptive and analytical statistics at all price.

You want to know, if your country whins the Fund of Peace Sexy Test? See: http://www.fundforpeace.org/web/index.php

Jean M. Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor in her mid-30s,who wrote, Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable—Than Ever Before, has come up with a new study, applying the “Narcissistic Personality Inventory”, to more than 16.000 college students. Brought to public just in time for the paperback re-edition of her book, the data are not scientifically published yet.

Alas, the study claims, that in 2006 there would have been 30% more narcissist tendencies detectable, compared to 1982. Worse, the average participant in the research would have shown levels of narcissism comparable to a control group of average prominent actors, musicians and tv-starlets.

Detectable narcissist tendencies are no evidence for a narcissist personality disorder. PD are complex and not just “learned” reaction patterns. Nonetheless, the “young narcissists” are going to make social life in the future a lot more complicated. Whoever is convinced to be someone “totally special” or “an ideal ruler of the world” is likely to ruin every long term relationship. Narcissism feels good and helps participating in “Superstar”. But the magic self image suitable for mediatic presence does clash with the reality of closeness and emotionality in human interaction, ruining intimacy. Soon we might find ourselves in a society where everybody is abusing everybody, if that is not the case already.

Surely, narcissism of a whole young generation is not just an effect of an internet, that actually does just reflect a trend towards mediatic self-directing.

Twenge has gained celebrity last year for describing the defining characteristics of the children of Baby Boomers born from 1970 to the end of the 20th century, a group she termed Generation Me. The members of this generation, while remarkably diverse in many respects, share a unifying aspect: they are “unapologetically focused on the individual,” a trait inherited from their Boomer parents and fanned to extremes by the culture they engendered.

While no one—especially a generation raised to worship individualism—likes to have their sameness within a group pointed out to them, I was struck by how consistently Twenge’s generalizations about GenMe rang true about some of my friends, my ex-boyfriend included. They think of work more as a path toward self-affirmation, than as a means to a stable livelihood; they feel they can have it all and believe in “following their dreams” and doing things their own way; they heed social rules and figures of authority only insofar as they don’t get in their way; and they view their 20s as a period to bounce around and “find themselves” because otherwise they won’t be ready for married family life in their late 20s and early 30s. As to whether these trends are good or bad, Twenge, thoughtfully, only seldom makes an outright judgment. Most of the time her research data and sources are selectively mediated by her— yet they are meant to demonstrate, that these developments have no small hand in creating the doldrums of the book’s subtitle.

In sketching out how these conditions came to be, Twenge tells an engaging story, fueled and supported by a solid base of data, illustrative quotes from her and others’ research, and barometric examples from TV shows, movies, comics, and advertisements. She explains how the defiance of authority and shirking of social approval pioneered by Boomers in the ’60s and ’70s was subsumed by the mainstream and incorporated into the status quo, informing GenMe’s Weltanschauung. Twenge also serves up a well argued critique of the self-esteem industry in the United States, which she says has a narcissistic-tinged ethos that is harming America’s youth vastly more than it helps. Her analyses of myriad topics articulated a number of ideas on the tip of my mind’s tongue, getting me to think, as in opposition, about myself and my mother, as well the culture we come from.

Despite Twenge’s somewhat sensationalistic use of the word “miserable” to describe a generation, certainly there are hard facts hard to deal with: depression, crushing disappointment when the real world doesn’t deliver on the things the kids have been taught to expect, credit card debt, mountainous student loans, divorce-like breakups, rising health-insurance premiums and real estate prices, estrangement from the community. “Generation Me needs realistic expectations, careful career guidance, and assistance when we become parents. In return, we will gladly lend our energy and ambition toward our work and toward helping others.” Twenge is concluding.