I like wolves. As a child, I loved the book “Julie of the Wolves” and as an adult I enjoyed the anime “Wolf’s Rain.”

Wolves are some of the least understood of the predators that humans have pitted themselves against over the ages, others being sharks, bears, and large cats. One of the main reasons is that they compete with humans for resources. These predators won’t usually outright attack humans unless threatened, but humans will and have killed them in scores because of food and resources. This makes it extra difficult to make the case for their conservation in the face of endangerment and extinction.

I received this poster and bumper sticker in the mail yesterday from Defenders of Wildlife, along with a letter and fliers asking me to donate to the organization with the added incentive of receiving a wolf photo book and/or aluminum water bottle.

I have supported them with a donation in the past, but I am doubtful whether I will give again.

I have a few reasons for this. The main one being that this type of physical mail is so gimmicky and quite annoying, that I do not want to encourage them to send me more by responding to it. I’m hoping that by ignoring their waste of paper (even if it is recycled paper), they will eventually stop it. It would be nice if there were a way to opt out of physical mailings and in place of that receive emails, but as far as I can tell from their website, there is no such thing.

But still, I hope that the people who are reached by their campaigns truly consider conservation more seriously than the pamphlets suggest. The materials could be more informative, but I understand that the species-focus has been one of the most successful strategies.

This is where a more scientifically literate society would be very different. Conservation groups would not have to take the single species or simple issue angle in order to garner public support.

In areas of the world where most people live in and with the environment and accompanying wildlife, human culture has deeper understanding of the relationships of the ecosystems. We may not be able to return to that type of interaction with nature in this country, but perhaps with better incorporation of science into society we can achieve something similar.

This is what I hope to contribute to with my work!

Here are some articles a friend sent to me recently (thanks Katie!).

I posted earlier about piezoelectricity being used in dance clubs and subway turnstiles, but here is an article about a smaller version that could be used in cell phones.

The second article is about gecko tape. Geckos have a really fascinating ability to climb on the pads of their feet using Van der Waals interactions between the tiny setae (each with a diameter of 5 micrometers) on the pads of the toes and the surface of the thing it is sticking to. The article says that tape and adhesive technology being developed now that imitates the gecko’s abilities may be available on the market in 3-5 years!

I watched this TED talk by Jamie Oliver last week and it was quite interesting. I was shocked to see the segment on the children in the classroom he visited in West Virginia. They could not identify vegetables. One child mistook tomatoes for potatoes!

Jamie’s wish is to create a network of organizations and community initiatives to teach kids about food, parents how to cook, and generally get people to eat healthier in the fight against obesity.

For more posts about food, click here.

A friend told me a few months ago that when he was going through heartbreak, he found his way through it by reading an entire graphic novel series in a slightly obsessive binge. He assured me that I would find something to help me through my heartbreak as well. This hopefully is my graphic novel series, not literally of course. For me, it is Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide.

As strange as it may seem, making sense of what is going on in my brain and in my heart seems to be the only way out of heartbreak for me. Somehow, figuring out some of the things that might be causing me to feel pain is therapeutic and somewhat exciting. I want to know why I feel the way that I feel and why things happened the way that they did. I might be able to parse out some things for that first half but probably not the second half.

Heartbreak has been so difficult to deal with because I feel broken by the loss of love. I’m thinking it is at least partly loss aversion, a concept that means people strongly prefer avoiding a loss, and that feeling might be stronger than the desire to acquire a gain.

Loss aversion is a theme that comes up in How We Decide, mostly when dealing with gambling and betting. People who are losing money are more likely to keep gambling or hold onto depreciating stocks because the thought of leaving at a loss is too much to bear. Loss aversion can be linked to some irrational decisions and/or behavior.

The neuroscience behind this suggests that certain areas of the brain increase in activity when the potential gains increase and decreasing activity may represent potential losses. Neural signals could be measured to try to predict loss aversion behavior by comparing the relative activity induced by the gains and losses.

For me, the thought of not being able to create more happy memories with that person is unbearable. I feel unsatisfied with the way things ended and have the urge to hold on until things look better. This is irrational of me and I know that, but my emotions won’t let me accept that loss very easily.

Lehrer brings up the point that it can seem to take several positive comments to make up for one negative comment, and in general that pattern seems to hold true for many things. For example, a married couple might come into trouble from a single comment, but it takes several more instances of good effort to make up for it. Why else would guys need to bring peace offerings from at least 2 out of the 3 biggest industries that benefit from these events: flowers, chocolates, and jewelry?

I feel the remaining negative feelings from heartbreak more strongly than I feel the positive feelings of possibly dating people. In other words, the potential gain of affection from potential suitors has not yet exceeded the loss of the love of this one person.

In other words, the thought of dating again crosses my mind often and it is exciting to have the possibility there, but that feeling is still not stronger than the longing to go back.

But, perhaps this is why finding new love is the best cure for a broken heart (so I’ve heard). By this reasoning, the only way to recover from that negative experience is to have many more positive experiences to counter it. And for that to happen, you have to be out there, exposing yourself to new things. (So hang in there! It has to get better!)

So…am I healed yet? No, but I’m getting there. Eventually the amount of activity in response to this loss will be overwhelmed by the activity in response to a gain.

Anyway…Happy Valentines Day all!


Just for kicks, this video’s lyrics (turn on CCs for translated subtitles) sum up pretty well what I’ve been feeling these past few months with acceptable amounts of cheesiness (ok maybe there is a little much, especially with the dancing).

Image credit: Flickr user johnkoetsier

Related posts

• Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy? (TED Talk from TED.com, “We synthesize happiness but we think happiness is a thing to be found.”)
• Bubbles (about financial bubbles and an experiment) from Jonah Lehrer’s blog on Science Blogs

I’ve donated to Haiti relief efforts, and now I’ve also donated to help save this organization that has been important to me (especially in my current job search!).

In the spirit of altruism, I’d like to bring up the cause for Idealist.org.

For those of you who do not know, here is the description listed on their website describing who they are:

Idealist is a project of Action Without Borders, a nonprofit organization founded in 1995 with offices in the United States and Argentina. Idealist is an interactive site where people and organizations can exchange resources and ideas, locate opportunities and supporters, and take steps toward building a world where all people can lead free and dignified lives.

Through the website, you can find listings of nonprofit organizations and government agencies, people, jobs, internships, volunteer opportunities, events, and groups. They have mostly been able to stay afloat from the dues they charge when organizations post job listings. However, due to the recession, that amount of income is not covering the cost of running the website.

Idealist.org has been important, not only in helping me find job listings that apply to my interests, but I’ve also greatly benefited from their guide for job seekers. (I posted about it earlier here.)

I’m currently in the process of interviewing for a position that I found through Idealist.org, and if I do get the position, I want to pledge my first paycheck to Idealist.org. I think it is an invaluable resource and hope that it can continue to exist so that I may use it again in the future.

I know it might seem silly to donate to a website that mostly functions as a job board, but it is so much more than that!

They have been working to create a community of do-gooders around the world, and if you check out their appeal for donations on their website you will see many stories of others who have been affected by the work of Idealist and the people behind it.

So I hope that anyone who has ever used Idealist.org to look for a job or internship can contribute a few dollars to help it stay up and running. It would be sad to see this great website shutdown now when we need it the most to collaborate and keep doing good things!

We may all be familiar with the face of hunger, but undernutrition may be more difficult to detect and treat. Last Tuesday, I attended a lecture by Dr. Jessica Fanzo of the Earth Institute’s Center for Global Health and Economic Development. She spoke about “Global Progress in Ending Hunger and Undernutrition.”

Some symptoms of undernutrition may include stunted growth for children, and overweightness for adults (due to a poor diet). Undernutrition is linked to lack of access to nutritious foods and poor economic opportunities.

Their Millenium Villages Project focuses on 4 main micronutrients: vitamin A, iron, folate, and iodine. These are essential micronutrients that when deficient are known to affect development, immune system function, and can increase disease risk, particularly of young children and pregnant women.

In general, micronutrients are compounds that are found in very small amounts. Plant health is pretty dependent on certain micronutrients in the soil, such as boron, calcium, zinc, iron, and chlorine.

But nutrition is complex and we do not have a full understanding of how it relates to human health, and that is why Dr. Fanzo promotes an overall approach that emphasizes a diverse diet that includes leafy greens and appropriate portions of carbohydrates and eggs or animal protein.

It is a complex problem overall because of a few major factors:

• Nutrition and health issues are “political, administrative, and institutional orphan” because it is “everybody’s business and nobody’s responsibility”
• As a result, there is a lack of political commitment
• Nutrition focused programs are difficult or less popular to fund
• Cultural factors make it tricky to gather support for initiatives

Global food issues are not just about availability of food, but of high quality food. We are still trying to figure out what that is, but we do know that a diverse diet of plants is essential to a healthy body. It saddens me to see that people consistently choose foods that are known to be bad for their health, when there are better alternatives. Especially in the United States, I’m ashamed of what our food culture has become. It happens here and it happens in poor countries as well, according to Dr. Fanzo. Women in the Millennium Villages Project’s villages eat large portions of refined maize meal daily, when native leafy greens are plentiful.

What is difficult now is, how do can people change their food choices and eating behavior? No one likes to be told what to do, especially with their bodies. If that were not true, smoking would not still be as popular today as it is.

Education and advocacy alone will not work. When given a choice between a food item that is tasty but unhealthy and a food item that is healthy but less tasty, the default is to go with the tastier item. The problem is that a lot of the “tastier” stuff is so far from natural that our bodies can’t process them as well as the plants and animals we have evolved to eat.

As a species, we need to return to the foods that have worked for us for hundreds and thousands of years, and wean ourselves off of the super processed foods that hardly resemble food anymore. For the U.S., maybe that will mean government regulations on the food industry, I’m not sure. But I think the only way that undernutrition and hunger will be alleviated in many places in the world will be through planning that involves capacity building for villagers to gather and grow nutritious food. It certainly will not solve any problems to send them corn meal grown in the U.S.

Thoughts?


Related posts

• Gates: More Money for Global Health Is Good for the Environment
• Dot-Mom:Point of View: Investing in Maternal Health
• My Thoughts on the Food Network’s image and role in food culture

Image credit: Flickr user publik16

Yesterday was the first day that voting has been open for Pepsi’s Refresh projects. They are giving out grants each month to proposals that get the most votes.

Here are some that I think are worth voting for:

• Buy the kind of exciting lab equipment that makes science come alive!
• Host a Day of Social Justice education for our campus community.
• Produce an eco-friendly play in NYC with the Greener Theater Project.
• Create a “Charity Garden” / community garden for the inner-city.

If I were to submit a project idea, I think I would do something in the Education or Food & Shelter category. I intended to try to put together an idea to submit for this, but ended up not having the time to do it.

I have a few ideas about student activism. Any suggestions?

With a slew of recent releases of gadgets that serve as ebook readers (Barnes and Noble Nook, iPad, and all the ones announced at the Consumer Electronics Show), I thought I would take some time to look back on the experience I’ve had with my Sony PRS-505 Reader and why I love it and e-ink technology. (Mine is dark blue, not like the one shown here!)

First of all, I got the Reader a little over 2 years ago in Fall of 2007. I bought it somewhat as an impulse buy, but I justified it as a long term investment. Since then, I read at least 4x more books than I would have otherwise. This is the biggest reason why I’m thankful that I decided to buy the Reader.

Here are the other main reasons why I bought it:

1. I don’t have space at home for all the books that I want to read, and I don’t do well with library books (see #3)
2. I don’t have the money to buy all the books I want to read (ebooks are usually cheaper, and many you might be able to find for free)
3. I’m allergic to old books and dust (I get itchy all over), so I won’t be able to enjoy re-reading any of the physical books, bringing their value down over time

Here are the reasons why I love my reader now:

1. It is way lighter and smaller to carry around than a book
2. I like being able to immediately start reading another book once I’ve finished one
3. The e-ink screen is nice on my eyes, as compared to a lit LCD screen (I get enough of that from staring at my laptop!)

I’m also happy that I chose the Sony Reader over the Amazon Kindle because any of the content that I buy from the Sony store is not locked to my device (i.e. anything bought for the Kindle only works on the Kindle, there are tons of stories if you Google “Kindle DRM”).

I don’t buy books very often, but when I do it is in a format that is more useful and open (usually ePub). The Kindle uses its own proprietary format. Also, I’m not so interested in the wireless download function of the Kindle so that does not bother me.

There was also that incident where Amazon deleted George Orwell books from all Kindles. That type of control is not something I am a fan of. Even though it was for valid reasons and they said they were changing their practices so it wouldn’t happen again, the fact that they have the ability to go into each device and perform that function irks me.

So, while I did have to shell out $280 for my Sony PRS-505, I’ve read enough books to make it worth it and I’m sure that I will be using my Reader for at least 4-5 more years.

Do you have a reader? Would you consider buying a reading device like this? I hope my comments have been helpful!

Image credit: Flickr user cloudsoup

If I were ever to have a video as a desktop background, one of these would probably be it! (But I probably never would because it would use up too much electricity to keep it going.) Take a look:

‘Preener’ from MORPHOLOGIC on Vimeo.

‘Corynactis viridis’ from MORPHOLOGIC on Vimeo.

These videos are from Morphologic, a science/art initiative based in Miami and led by a marine biologist, Colin Foord. and a designer, Jared McKay.


Thanks to Deep Sea News (who found it on Boing Boing)!

Last night, on the eve of what might be the most exciting Apple announcement this year, I wondered what a Mac slate or tablet could mean for scientists, researchers, and people in the field. Now with the iPad announced and the details of it released, here are some of my thoughts.

The increased mobility of a small device designed to be used with specialized apps and software could boost overall productivity. Functionality, combined with mobility can be incredibly useful for scientists.

For example, Wired has this list of 22 iPhone apps for science geeks that include a genetic decoder, anatomy flash cards, food information database, and a scientific calculator. These could be useful on the iPad too, since the iPad can run any apps in the store.

Increased mobile connectedness to the web can be super powerful. We are already seeing mobile technology being helpful for relief efforts in Haiti and a larger, more powerful, yet still portable, device could enhance what can be done and create new possibilities for these purposes and others.

As for ideas of specific uses of the iPad, I can imagine that a scientist could take this device into their study areas to help record data, look at maps, read reference books, and plot trails and data.

This could possibly help scientists forgo the hours and hours usually spent on data entry!!! Especially since Numbers has a function that creates a form for data entry!

I’ve also read about iPod Touches being used in classrooms to supplement math, science, language and other lessons, so the iPad might eventually make it’s way into the classroom too (but that might take a while because of cost!).

It is cool to see something like this come into being. While the iPad might not end up doing a ton for scientists, I’m still excited to see what will happen with the functionality this new tool!