Articulatory Loop

If you've ever stared at a fabulous! $300 pair of shoes in the shop and decided, unlike Kelly, not to get them, you probably walked away thinking that they weren't that fabulous anyways. Or that they really wouldn't go with your pants. Or something. This is what we call cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a process by which we humans rationalize our decisions, by essentially obliterating thoughts contrary to our actions.

Used to be, we thought that this was a pretty clever tick humans had learned, but as usual, further research suggests that we're not so unique in our cleverness. Yale researchers have found, for the first time, that monkeys seem to do the same thing (PDF here): then they have to choose between red and blue M+Ms, they subsequently value the rejected color significantly less than others (like green).

Even if we're not the only ones good at justifying our (often arbitrary) decisions, that's no reason to do less of it. So, here are some good reasons to justify things you're going to do anyways:

Data from the Framingham study suggest that drinking coffee and eating fish oil may help protect against Alzheimer's. There's probably a whole lot more going on here than it appears, and these things need to be properly tested, but I'll still say it's time for another coffee break, and sushi for lunch!

Also, there is yet more evidence that abstinence-only sex-ed is not useful, so go ahead and talk about sex with a teenager today! Actually, no. Just make sure your kids go to a school with a worthwhile curriculum.

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Now playing: Gary Flanagan - Metro Boulot Dodo
via FoxyTunes

Labels: abstinence, Alzheimers, anal sex, coffee, cognitive dissonance, fish oil, health, intelligence, monkeys, neuroscience, psychology

The American Taliban is really obsessed with sex. They don't want people to have any fun with it, for starters, and they certainly don't want anyone who isn't Just. Like. Them. to be having it. And since they are mostly middle-aged or older, we get "abstinence-only sex ed." Which, aside from being ridiculous, is now officially ineffective. But we all knew this - if abstinence rules, as are claimed to have been followed "in the good old days," were followed, the human race would have dies out long ago. But of course these folks (who also claim to be big on "fiscal responsibility") want to keep spending hundreds of millions of dollars on abstinence-only programs.

Once you've had sex, they really, REALLY don't want you to be able to control whether or not you get pregnant. Luckily, the Washington State government has just passed a law requiring that pharmacies (though not necessarily individual pharmacists) must fill any and all legal prescriptions. This will hopefully defuse a particularly odious tactic employed by the AT - that of health care providers (all of whom took an oath of one sort or another to provide care) refusing to fill certain prescriptions or care for certain patients on "moral" grounds.

And speaking of things that you can justifiably blame for all your problems: UK researchers have found that hypertension may be due to brain inflammation, in addition to or as opposed to (it's not clear which) circulatory causes. The culprit seems to be a newly discovered protein called junctional adhesion molecule-1 (JAM-1)...for once it may be time to, errr ... pump down the JAM.

Speaking of blame and stomach-turning puns, Pittsburgh researchers have identified three more genes which appear to contribute to Crohn's disease: PHOX2B, NCF4, and autophagic gene ATG16L1. Cool!

Labels: abstinence, America, anal sex, brains, conservatives, crohn's, fascists, genes, government waste, hypertension, IBD, inflammation, JAM-1, prescriptions, sex-ed, taliban, Washington

Female reptiles don't really need males for much of anything, including reproduction. Recent (possibly) virgin births by komodo dragons represent the first time we've seen parthenogenesis in that species, but it is quite common amongst other reptiles. There's a catch though, ladies: the parthenogenic offspring are all male!

Speaking of strange offspring, researchers in China have found a two-headed reptile fossil. It appears as though the specimen died very young, and so was probably just the product of a birth defect, not a man-eating dragon.

Humans have offspring too, of course, but for us the process is made rather more complicated by (among other things) busybodies who want to dictate 'morality' on us all. Despite all the preaching, it seems that the vast majority of Americans are having premarital sex. Needless to say, the usual suspects are decrying the research, and demanding that more money be spent on 'abstinence education.'

Once human kids are conceived, that's really just the start of their problems - it's increasingly likely that they'll grow up to be fat and suffer from some chronic disease, et cetera. Many factors influence how fat people get, including exercise, diet, and, it seems, the bacteria in their guts. US researchers have found that obese people (and mice) seem to have higher proportions of certain natural gut bacteria, which allow for better absorption of calories from food. This is really a cool concept, and one that, if it turns out to be a major factor, could maybe be pretty easy to treat.

Also, living in the suburbs makes your kids fat. Duh.

The good news? More vitamin D may reduce risk of developing multiple sclerosis - a nasty autoimmune disease which ravishes the nervous system, and high blood alcohol levels may actually help you survive the car crash you caused by driving drunk. Very interesting, but weird.

Labels: abstinence, alcohol, bacteria, fat, genes, genetics, komodo dragons, MS, obesity, parthenogenesis, policy, premarital sex, reptiles, science, sex, sprawl, suburbs, trauma, virgin birth, vitamin D