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Observatory: Bigger Sea Creatures, Like Squid, May Feel Effects of Higher CO2
By HENRY FOUNTAIN, The New York Times, December 23, 2008
Increased emissions of carbon dioxide affect more than the atmosphere. Much of the CO2 is absorbed by the oceans, causing them to become more acidic.
Recent research has looked at the impact of the acidification on corals and other small calcifying organisms. But increasing CO2, coupled with gradual warming of the oceans, may have other effects, and may affect bigger creatures, because there will be less oxygen at the surface and deep oxygen-poor zones will expand vertically.
A study in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looks at the potential effects on one of those bigger creatures, the Humboldt squid, which can be six feet long and weigh more than 100 pounds. Rui Rosa and Brad A. Seibel of the University of Rhode Island put squid in a flow-through respirometer that allowed measurements of metabolism while concentrations of gases in the water were changed.
( Read More )
Basics: A Highly Evolved Propensity for Deceit
By NATALIE ANGIER, The New York Times, December 23, 2008
When considering the behavior of putative scam operators like Bernard “Ponzi scheme” Madoff or Rod “Potty Mouth” Blagojevich, feel free to express a sense of outrage, indignation, disgust, despair, amusement, schadenfreude. But surprise? Don’t make me laugh.
Sure, Mr. Madoff may have bilked his clients of $50 billion, and Governor Blagojevich, of Illinois, stands accused of seeking personal gain through the illicit sale of public property — a United States Senate seat. Yet while the scale of their maneuvers may have been exceptional, their apparent willingness to lie, cheat, bluff and deceive most emphatically was not.
Deceitful behavior has a long and storied history in the evolution of social life, and the more sophisticated the animal, it seems, the more commonplace the con games, the more cunning their contours.
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Cases: From a Place of Fire and Weeping, Lessons on Memory, Aging and Hope
By MARC E. AGRONIN, M.D., The New York Times, December 23, 2008
Place of fire,
place of weeping,
place of madness
— Zelda, “Place of Fire”
The forest still stands, but the people are gone. Only a stone memorial guards their place, surrounded by tall grasses that hide bits of ash and bone deep beneath their roots.
On this spot on Feb. 4, 1942, more than 920 Jewish men, women and children from the town of Rakov in what is now Belarus were rounded up by the Nazis and herded into the synagogue. Several shrieking children were stabbed with bayonets and thrown over the heads of the weeping Jews just before the doors and windows were sealed and the building was doused with kerosene.
An unspeakable scene of wailing ensued as the once vibrant Jewish community was annihilated in the fire. My patient, now 98, still weeps when he describes witnessing this horror from a hidden perch in a tree. He gasps audibly when he recalls watching his father being pummeled by a Nazi soldier before he was thrust into the doomed crowd.
When this survivor first told me his story, I was speechless. He held tight to my arm, and I imagined myself as the branches of the tree that supported him during this trauma. I was now a witness.
As his psychiatrist I am obliged to ease his suffering, but no medicine of mine can touch such a memory. I have tried hard to understand how he and others managed to mentally survive such traumatic experiences. These aging Holocaust survivors, in particular, have taught me what I have come to call “lessons from fire.”
( Read More )
By HENRY FOUNTAIN, The New York Times, December 23, 2008
Increased emissions of carbon dioxide affect more than the atmosphere. Much of the CO2 is absorbed by the oceans, causing them to become more acidic.
Recent research has looked at the impact of the acidification on corals and other small calcifying organisms. But increasing CO2, coupled with gradual warming of the oceans, may have other effects, and may affect bigger creatures, because there will be less oxygen at the surface and deep oxygen-poor zones will expand vertically.
A study in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looks at the potential effects on one of those bigger creatures, the Humboldt squid, which can be six feet long and weigh more than 100 pounds. Rui Rosa and Brad A. Seibel of the University of Rhode Island put squid in a flow-through respirometer that allowed measurements of metabolism while concentrations of gases in the water were changed.
( Read More )
Basics: A Highly Evolved Propensity for Deceit
By NATALIE ANGIER, The New York Times, December 23, 2008
When considering the behavior of putative scam operators like Bernard “Ponzi scheme” Madoff or Rod “Potty Mouth” Blagojevich, feel free to express a sense of outrage, indignation, disgust, despair, amusement, schadenfreude. But surprise? Don’t make me laugh.
Sure, Mr. Madoff may have bilked his clients of $50 billion, and Governor Blagojevich, of Illinois, stands accused of seeking personal gain through the illicit sale of public property — a United States Senate seat. Yet while the scale of their maneuvers may have been exceptional, their apparent willingness to lie, cheat, bluff and deceive most emphatically was not.
Deceitful behavior has a long and storied history in the evolution of social life, and the more sophisticated the animal, it seems, the more commonplace the con games, the more cunning their contours.
( Read More )
Cases: From a Place of Fire and Weeping, Lessons on Memory, Aging and Hope
By MARC E. AGRONIN, M.D., The New York Times, December 23, 2008
Place of fire,
place of weeping,
place of madness
— Zelda, “Place of Fire”
The forest still stands, but the people are gone. Only a stone memorial guards their place, surrounded by tall grasses that hide bits of ash and bone deep beneath their roots.
On this spot on Feb. 4, 1942, more than 920 Jewish men, women and children from the town of Rakov in what is now Belarus were rounded up by the Nazis and herded into the synagogue. Several shrieking children were stabbed with bayonets and thrown over the heads of the weeping Jews just before the doors and windows were sealed and the building was doused with kerosene.
An unspeakable scene of wailing ensued as the once vibrant Jewish community was annihilated in the fire. My patient, now 98, still weeps when he describes witnessing this horror from a hidden perch in a tree. He gasps audibly when he recalls watching his father being pummeled by a Nazi soldier before he was thrust into the doomed crowd.
When this survivor first told me his story, I was speechless. He held tight to my arm, and I imagined myself as the branches of the tree that supported him during this trauma. I was now a witness.
As his psychiatrist I am obliged to ease his suffering, but no medicine of mine can touch such a memory. I have tried hard to understand how he and others managed to mentally survive such traumatic experiences. These aging Holocaust survivors, in particular, have taught me what I have come to call “lessons from fire.”
( Read More )
