Low-calorie, high-temp melting chocolate - have to taste it to believe it

Why food labels are wrong

Genetic link between schizophrenia and creativity

Brain wiring that creates false memories

Neanderthals were always an endangered species

Autism as academic advantage (opinion, not news) from catvincent

- Yesterday someone came to the door offering organic manure & compost for sale. This is a departure from the more usual door-to-door fish salesman.

- I got a mystery card from someone having a celebratory walk at Avebury, who forgot to enclose any other information about it. Two emails later, I worked out who sent it & where and when it would take place - only to find that I wouldn't be able to attend in any case.

- My father just sent me a link to a YouTube video of breakdancing babies. This is right up there with when he sent me a dozen red roses for my 24th birthday - when he, and I, were and had always been allergic to roses. I suspected the intervention of a secretary somewhere along the line. My mother also unfailingly would give me the most mawkishly sentimental cards at birthdays. When I told her I'd rather not receive anything at all, she got upset. Yes, I was and am a horribly spoiled brat. I'm comfortable with it.

EDIT: According to my father, he was non compos mentis around the time of my 24th birthday, as he was still recovering from my mother's death and liable to do just about anything. I'm perfectly willing to believe this. So that's one mystery of my life cleared up. It still doesn't explain the breakdancing babies.

I recently had occasion to renew my US passport, on the grounds that repeated trips to the jungle had caused the laminate over my photo to start to separate. Every time I went through Immigration, I got funny looks. If it wasn't because of the laminate problem, it was because I no longer resemble my pre-9/11 passport photo. And I was running out of empty pages, too.

So I filled in all the required info (why do they bother asking for hair and eye color these days, when they're so trivially changeable?), sent it all off to the US consulate in London, and finally got the thing back today.

The new US passport is like a mini-propaganda film. My photos can't do it justice, so I've linked here. I can only wonder: will foreign immigration authorities be more or less eager to cover up these pages than they were the others?

On Sunday I gave the updated & improved talk on my time in Peru to an enthusiastic audience of about a dozen people at the Bath Omphalos Pagan Moot. Based on feedback I've had from the two previous talks, I added more photos and personal anecdotes, along with more details on things like the Catholic roots of curanderismo and the outlook for women in Iquitos. There were good questions and I held people's attention pretty well.

I think it ran about an hour and a half all told before the questions began. I could certainly trim it down to an hour or even 45 min or expand it to 2h, depending. Our friend D was in from London and had only two suggestions for me: 1) drink water and 2) stand up. Water would definitely have been a good idea - I was thirsty for the rest of the day afterward. Standing up would have been nice, but it'll mean getting a remote for the computer. I need a new mouse anyway - my ring-style trackball is dying - and I could probably even write it off as a business expense at this stage. What an odd thought.

I even got paid expenses for this gig, which was both novel and welcome. Maybe someday I'll manage to get a fee as well!

Chatting with a friend recently, it struck me that I've never really understood the saying, "LIke shooting fish in a barrel". I got that it was something very easy, but never thought about it much. Are the fish alive or dead? Am I shooting them from the top, or from the side? Did people ever actually do this, perhaps as a carnival game?

I was gratified to find that I'm not the only one to ask these questions, though answers are thin on the ground. Thanks to fragiletender for the link. Like the author of the foregoing, I don't use the expression much myself.

I was talking to a reddish-brown bull, who was about to go into a bullfight. We were good friends, and he was telling me about his childhood on an Indian reservation. Then he had to go into the bullring - and he got killed. I was upset. Then I had to sit an exam in which I knew the answers to the questions but I was lost as to the format. Instead of just writing down the answers, I got all hung up on not knowing the format and lost it completely, curling up into a little ball and crying hysterically. It was rather disturbing.

I get that the test thing was about anxiety, but what knowing the information but not the format means I have no clue.

Just got back from a trip to the dentist. Since, historically, my teeth have never given me any trouble, I've been seeing the dentist once every 2 years (with full agreement of the practise - this is the UK, after all). Just in the last few months, though, I've been noticing a couple of pits in my teeth. I didn't twig that they could be cavities for ages, since I don't have any experience with cavities.

On Monday I looked in the mirror and actually saw the little hole in my tooth. I went into a bit of a panic and booked a dental appointment immediately, after buying fluoride toothpaste for the first time in about 4 years. I've been brushing a bit obsessively since, trying to strike a balance between getting all the plaque off and removing parts of my gums and the enamel as well.

When I saw the dentist, he said that the 2 pits weren't cavities as such, just wear and tear. But they're little holes in my enamel! That sure sounds like the operational definition of cavity to me. Maybe what he meant was that they weren't infected yet, and thus won't require drilling, just a little buffing and sealing. I came home and looked up tooth decay on the Net and it seems to confirm my view that I do, in fact, have cavities, just not very serious ones yet (for which I am duly grateful).

Ah, the joys of UK dentistry. I'm sure a US dentist would be scolding me for slacking. Here, they all tell me how great my teeth and gums are. Too bad I can't get them to examine me for free as a shining example to students.

Copy number variations responsible for some mental disorders

Schizophrenia & bipolar disorder share genetic roots

When positive thinking fails - thanks to catvincent for this and the two previous

Stoned wallabies responsible for Tasmanian crop circles

Can gardening improve your sex life?

The end of war

Listen to the music of the brain - reminds me of
DNA and protein music as promulgated by Susumu Ohno et al.

A friend on another blog has called for the creation of some new, original sins.

I came up with four:

- perversery: the commission of a vile or stupid action merely because one knows that one should not (from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat")

- sapioreification: the treatment of other sentient beings as things

- goodgermanitude: willful ignorance of palpable evidence of wrongdoing

- fortmainic oppression (aka mightmakesrighteousness): causing harm to others just because one can

Can you think of others?

From fragiletender via catvincent, as he deconstructs what can only be described as one man's lonely-hearts website.

The guy seems like an old-fashioned Male Chauvinist Pig who's been to just enough personal growth seminars to pick up the lingo, but not actually get any of the concepts presented therein. Has inspired me to create a list of People I Wouldn't Want to Drink Ayahuasca With, with him near the top.

Patriotism as disease-avoidance behaviour?

Language and theory of mind

Cyborgs, here we come

Gray hair could be protecting us from cancer

(NOTE: For purposes of this post, I am defining "geekery" as a set of beliefs including the following: 1) new information has inherent value 2) that this value can and should be shared with others and 3) that one's world view can and should change in light of new data.)

My household participates in a program known as CouchSurfing, a hospitality exchange network in which travelers looking to meet up with locals can log onto a website and be matched up with hosts most likely to be congenial to them. Over the years we have played host to perhaps a dozen individuals and groups, who have requested to stay with us after (presumably) reading the profile I put up on the site. Most of these folks have been quite cool, funky people, no surprise given the data I choose to put on my profile. The exceptions, however, have been most educational.

A case in point just departed this morning. I was contacted by S, from London, who told me that he was organizing a group of people on a brief tour of SW England. There was some confusion as people signed up and dropped out. Finally I just told him I'd expect two people arriving on the day, and not worry about too much else. S arrived with R in tow. R is not a CouchSurfer as such, being a recent acquaintance of S in another context. As soon as they pulled into the drive, I saw R and my heart immediately sank. She was fiftyish, blonde, showing a lot of cleavage, and wearing high heels. I scolded myself for judging on appearances and resolved to give her my friendliest welcome.

This resolve was soon sorely tested. R worked for a charity in London, and couldn't seem to talk about anything else. When the rest of us tried to open other avenues of conversation, we were steered right back to where she'd left off. Talking over her did no good. It was the R show and we were all just bit players. I thought that maybe it was just that she'd been cooped up in a car all day long and was a bit frazzled, but it was hard going.

R, S, and I went out to dinner, the rest of the family having already eaten. They were satisfied with our local Indian place, but the conversational waters remained distressingly shallow. I kept trying to shift the focus onto S, who seemed like quite a good guy, but R wasn't having it. I tried every trick I could think of to get the ball rolling conversationally - trying to discuss important current events, bringing up interesting (relevant) tidbits from articles I'd read recently - and everything fell flat with an almost audible thud. I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong, but it was profoundly frustrating. It didn't help that I had to keep stopping and explaining things to R, who seemed to have no databanks to call on outside her own direct experience.

This morning, once they had left, I had something of a revelation. Both fragiletender and catvincent had immediately pegged R as what we geeks 'n' freaks somewhat disparagingly call mundane - a "normal" person, the kind of folks for whom the status quo is designed. I've always had trouble relating to such, and I'd always blamed it on my own ignorance of social niceties and inability to process visual cues. Certainly these have been part of the problem, but not all of it. Today I had a bit of an epiphany - and realized that normal people actually think differently.

To me and mine, geeks all, new information is generally offered as a gift to our partners in conversation: "Here is this wondrous thing I have found! Here, friend, share and enjoy!" Whereas to the mainstream world, new information is at best a nuisance and at worst, an attempt to show superiority: "See, I know this and you don't. Feel really stupid and inferior now!" Not that geeks are immune to this hierarchical posturing, but with the folks I hang out with, it's definitely not the default setting. This was a real "Eureka!" moment for me. These insights were closely followed by the understanding that my kind of geekery, while often accompanied by raw intellectual ability, is by no means identical with it.

For years, I moved from lab to lab, hoping to find people I could relate to. A staggering number of scientists turn out to be smart, but not geeky - something I absolutely couldn't wrap my head around at the time. I was stunned that there could be scientists who didn't enjoy science fiction. Every piece of new technology begins as science fiction - someone has to have the idea in the first place, right? But upon further discussion with fragiletender and catvincent, I came to understand that SF can be profoundly threatening to those who want to maintain a single, consistent worldview. Each new novel, each new TV show, exposes the audience to an alternate world, with different paradigms. If you're content with your experience of consensus reality, there's not only no motivation to reach beyond it, but an overpowering fear/hatred of anyone who does so. But how can anyone be that content with business as usual? I still don't grok it, but am finally able to recognize it, accept it, and incorporate it into my operating system.

Moreover, these days, it's easy for me to exist in a little bubble of like-minded folks, to be lulled into the false impression that my crowd constitutes the norm. It's annoying but ultimately essential for me to be kicked out of that comfort zone on a regular basis.

I'm sure wiser heads than mine figured all of this out long ago, but it's a watershed moment for me. And it makes hosting the occasional mundane much more valuable, if not more enjoyable.

Body parts? Not taboo. Names of diseases? Watch out!

From linguaphiles

The Thermae Spa in Bath is the long-awaited reinterpretation of the original Roman baths, which were closed in 1978 due to hygienic concerns. The smaller Cross Bath reopened in 1991 and was the only functioning part of the spa complex until 2006. The Thermae Spa project began with the demolition of the Beau Street Baths in 1998, ending with the opening of the new spa building in 2006.

The building itself is completely modern-looking within, and it's huge - there are 5 levels: the hot bath level; the Minerva pool; the changing area; the massage and steam rooms; and the rooftop pool. All are fed by warm mineral water from three separate underground springs.

Upon arrival, one is presented with a wristband containing a computer chip that keeps track of not only any purchases made but is also used to open and lock the lockers in the changing suite. Fees are 22 pounds for 2 hours for the general public, less for residents of Bath itself. There's currently a 2-for-1 deal going with First Great Western whereby you can get 4 hours for the price of 2 by showing a valid train ticket on the day plus a voucher, available from the website. The spa is not clothing-optional, and towels, bathrobes, and slippers are available for an additional fee. The space is mixed-sex throughout, including the changing suite.

The changing suite is a bit of a rabbit warren, with the cubicles opening from both sides. It took several attempts to find the way from the entrance to the lockers and vice-versa. There are no toilets or showers on the same level with the changing suite, which was something of a nuisance.

After donning our swimsuits and locking up our belongings, fragiletender and I started out heading downward, that being the location of the nearest toilet and shower. Once there, we decided to check out the Minerva Pool on that level. This reminded both of us of the Gellert Spa in Budapest - big enough for swimming, yet quite calm and tranquil. There is a ringed area where bubbles appear at timed intervals, as well as a timed power shower area. The underwater lighting shines up to cast ripply images on the white ceiling, as though from a projector. It's quite trippy, actually.

We then skipped a floor and went up to the steam rooms, which are in a wing of their own. There are 4 steam areas, or "pods", each encircled by thick Perspex and scented with a different essential oil. The lavender, frankincense, and mint pods were operational at the time of our visit, whilst the eucalyptus and mint one was closed for maintenance. Outside the pods are long stone benches, some flat and some containing foot baths. In the centre is a waterfall shower on a timer. This was my favourite part of the spa, and I probably spent more time in the steam rooms than was strictly good for me.

Continuing upwards, we reached the rooftop pool. This was much like the Minerva Pool downstairs, but open to the air. There were excellent views of Bath to be had, as well as the bubbles and timed shower. This was fragiletender's favourite part of the spa. We stayed up top until the wind started chilling us, when we headed back down to the steam rooms.

One thing we found lacking was a place to just sit and relax, away from the water. There were some areas of this type, but they were restricted to those who were having spa treatments or eating in the restaurant. We also think we would have enjoyed ourselves even more had we had the benefit of bathrobes, as we began to feel the chill after a while as our towels became more and more sodden.

All in all, though, we had an excellent afternoon at the spa and plan to go back in the not-too-distant future.

We rounded off our day with dinner at a Nepalese restaurant called Yak Yeti Yak, which turned out to be an inspired choice. Nepalese food is a bit like Indian but with its own definite flavours. The typical meal consists of rice, dal, aloo channa (chickpeas with potatoes), popadum, fresh stone-ground chutney and a meat or vegetable dish. We both had this set meal and were most taken with the chutney, called achar, containing tomato, ginger, and other spices.

The service was excellent - we spent some time chatting with the Nepalese owner, who told us about how he used to go back to Nepal for a couple of months a year but now that the restaurant is taking off, he can't spare so much time anymore. Same thing everywhere!

We caught the train back to Bristol tired but very happy indeed.

From linguaphiles

Here's a linguistics student looking for people to fill out an online survey on negative attitudes to Brummie accents. Help a kid out if you can, eh?

The Aurora Borealis as seen from space

Views of Iguazu Falls (at the triple border of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay)

Who knew Pravda was so full of weird-ass stuff?

Creative business cards


Kirlian photography - of objects

Music as brain tonic - thanks to catvincent for bringing this to my attention

Why they can't all be He-Man types...

Lessons from autistic savants

Danish software firm places people with autism in IT jobs

Virtual twins could bring an end to animal research

Shooting of George Tiller finally made the front page here in the UK

- and they wonder why dead-tree newspapers aren't selling the way they used to.

Why do we have to share the planet with these people? Isn't there a kind of prohibition about shooting someone in a church? Even for anti-abortion crazies? Or is it OK because he didn't belong to their church?