Amanda’s busy hunting the Yeticorn in Tunisia, so I’ve taken over the Quickies for today!
- Japan has some of the oldest people in the world! Too bad they’re all secretly dead. (Thanks Zoltan!)
- Parents try to shut down the school’s wifi because the kids are obviously using it as an excuse to pretend they’re sick and miss school for a day or two, you idiots. (Thanks Lisa and many others!)
- How do you communicate science news without leaving people with misconceptions? (via Ed Yong)
- Who wouldn’t want a remote-control nematode?
The science (mis)conceptions article was thought-provoking and well written but to get more attention it should have been headlined; “Blogger slaps scientists with his PNAS.”
Instant readership from the very people who need to read this. :)
From the wifi article: “the size of their brains more closely approximates the size of the wave length being deployed,” said Ms. Clarke.”
WTF?!
@mrmisconception
I just reread the pertinent part of the article and realized that the headline I suggested would be misleading. Instead it would have to read; “Blogger slaps scientists with their own PNAS.â€
There, that’s clearer.
The WiFi story is a terrific example of the clear, unbiased reporting that we hope to be seeing in the future.
P.S. Today is opposite day. :(
OK, this is enough to bring me out of hiding. At least for a few minutes:
I’ve always been curious about people who claim to be sensitive to wi-fi transmissions. Not because I believe them, necessarily, but because developing an experiment to test the claim is fairly conceivable: build a room with a Faraday cage around it, and a wireless access point inside. Turn the WAP on and off at random intervals, and see if there’s a difference.
All I need is a subject. And a few thousand dollars worth of building material. And experience in carpentry.
Then I read this:
I read that, and I think; I’ve got most of those symptoms. Maybe I’m Wi-Fi sensitive. Maybe I’ve got a subject already. That’s one thing off my checklist.
Then I read this:
Um… Yeah, I had really bad insomnia when I was in school too. I found it really hard to sleep with the teacher banging on my desk yelling at me to wake up. And I was in school in the ’90s. Back when the only wireless we had to worry about was analogue cell phones.
Oh well. So much for that theory.
@mrmisconception: COTW for all 3 of your comments.
““They are culpable and … they have the gall to go on the record and say they haven’t had any doctors’ notes. Well what doctor has been schooled about the rate of microwave infections?—
How do you even begin to argue with that?
I found a rather more reasonable article on the wi-fi decisions in Ontario. http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/columns/article.php/3591071/WLAN-Sickness-Rubbish-or-Reasonable.htm
The university that banned it is taking the position that since its more of a convenience tool rather than a necessity, (the campus is entirely connected by fiber) its better to take a precautionary stance until the RFR effects are more thoroughly tested. They haven’t stopped the students from setting up wi-fi.
Being a convenience junkie, I think I’ll wait until the surgeon general come out with a warning.
“The parents complain they can’t get the Simcoe County school board or anyone else to take their concerns seriously, even though the children’s symptoms all disappear on weekends when they aren’t in school.”
Imagine that. An illness that gets a child out of school, but is miraculously gone just in time for the weekend. That proves the kid isn’t faking it.
Remote control worm is very cool, mainly because it’s yet another application of nanoparticles (what can’t these things do, Bob Novella?)
But this is not the kick-assest remote controlled animal. Karl Deisseroth uses optogenetics and fiber optics to control mouse behaviour, and that is some craaazy shee-yit. Here’s a talk of his for those nerds who are interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8bPbHuOZXg
He starts showing off his remote-control mouse around minute 10. I saw him give this talk at a meeting at the NIH and there was much pants-pissing going on among the neuroscience geeks.
C. elegans is 30-40% neurons (based on a vaguely-remembered article in Science News about 10 years ago.) Must be the most intelligent species on Earth. How do we know *they* aren’t running sophisticated neurological experiments on *us*?
Wow, I wonder if any of the parents of these “sick” kids have a wireless network setup at home?
Just sayin’…
@B Hitt: That’s nothing. Lobbyists learned how to remote control politicians a long long time ago.
@Skepotter
Yeah, and the Bible is the greatest universal remote ever.
@mrmisconception: COTW