science news roundup

[bunrab]

First, several articles from a variety of sources, including the daily newspaper, about eating foods that are good for you for one reason or another. One about foods high in fiber. Another about foods known to lower your cholesterol. A third article about foods high in anti-oxidants. What's remarkable about these articles is that in all three, several of the top recommended foods are the same. To wit: nuts (especially almonds and walnuts), legumes (especially kidney beans and garbanzos) and berries (especially cranberries and blueberries). So there you have it. For a variety of reasons, eat your nuts and berries.

Next: a page in the 26 November 2005 issue of Science News, which has been buried on the dining table for far too long, summarizes the November meeting of the American Heart Association. "Marrow cells boost ailing hearts," "New drug fights heart failure," "Endurance cycling tied to lasting heart damage" [take that, Floyd Landis!], and "Pill eases craving" which last is about a drug that helps smokers kick the habit better than does bupropion. (Liz, are you paying attention?) The new heart failure drug is called levosimendan, and it dilates blood vessels to improve blood flow and it also increases the heart's sensitivity to calcium, which intensifies contractions and boosts pumping capacity. It'll be a while before it hits market, though.

And then, the "Feedback" column from New Scientist, 22 July 2006, includes this bit:

For reasons unknown to us, Sean Williams found himself looking up the word monolatry." Wikipedia defines it as the practice of worshipping only one deity, while acknowledging that there may be more than one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolatrism. However, Williams was intrigued to find a link to a yet-to-be-written page on "alatrism." At the time Williams wrote, "alatrism" was a Googlewhackblatt, producing that single web page when you search for it. Mentions have multiplied since then - but of course, we pay attention only to one.

We think we can help with that missing definition. "Alatrism" would be formed from the word "alatry," the practice of not bothering to worship any deities, regardless of how many there may be (recall "idolatry" and the prefix "a" for "no" or "not"). This brings us to Feedback's Statistical Proof of Alatry.

It goes like this. The only thing we know about deities with any certainty is that the number of them is a whole number, the idea of a fractional deity being frankly absurd. [note from me: which is why it appears in Terry Pratchett, of course.] So the number of deities in our universe in an integer, in the range from minus infinity to plus infinity. (We leave the theologians to interpret a negative number of deities: this is number theory, and its conclusion should save them the trouble.)

For it is commonly accepted that we should expect our universe to be typical of possible universes. So the expected number of deities is in the middle of the range of possibilities. That is, zero. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Last but not least, "Feedback" from NS 5 August 2006:

Searching for the meaning of life? If a higher power can't help, then there's always Google. Last week it transpired that people in India lead the world in searching for "nanotechnology" on Google. Now we find that the people of Brisbane, Australia, come top in their eagerness to type "meaning of life" into the search engine. (We also spotted that the city comes top for the word "aliens," but the two probably aren't linked.)

Hidden inside Google Labs, where the company road-tests new ideas and software, you can find out what the world is searching for. Which cities search the most for "forgiveness"? Top sinner is Philadelphia, perhaps unsurprisingly followed by Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, Londoners are probably too busy for penitence: they top the world in searches for "lost keys." In a city well known for its hellish driving, our readers in the Boston area are busy trying to find a place to put their car. Cambridge, Massachusetts comes highest for "parking space."

So who could be searching the most for Osama Bin Laden? Naturally, it's Washington D.C.

Oh, and when I spell-checked this post, among other things, "Wikipedia" came up checked, and here are the alternatives LJ suggests:
Wikipedia: Wiped, Wimped, Kipped, Wicked, Whipped, Skipped, Waked, Whooped, Wickeder, Warped, Wigged, Worked, Copied, Whopped, Whupped, Wakened, Whelped, Wiggled