Scientific Method / Science & Exploration

Weird Science shocks its brain into an acid trip

Truffle sex, shocking flashbacks, and perceptive fingers all feature in the …

Triggering the bad flashbacks of PTSD: It's apparently possible to trigger flashbacks without resorting to any of the chemical hallucinogens that are famed for producing this sort of effect. The downside is that you have to send electric currents into specific areas of the brain. "Electrical stimulation of the temporal cortex in awake human subjects, mostly in the right hemisphere, can elicit the reenactment and reliving of past experiences," according to a paper on post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD patients suffer from flashbacks, and the new paper suggests that they have overactive neural connections in this area of the brain—in essence, their neurons act as if they've been hit by an electric shock.

The genome of a weird nonscientist: There's no paper here, just the fact that the latest human to have his genome sequenced is Ozzy Osbourne. The finest joke I've seen so far is a reference to "heavy Mendel." Some of the better coverage is at Technology Review. In the end, though, there probably won't be much to say about the completion of Ozzy's genome that couldn't be said about any of the others on the rapidly expanding list—we simply can't link any of the features that make a genome distinctive with much of the traits that we identify in a person, even if that person has Ozzy's oversized personality. In fact, we probably get more out of the sequencing from a completely different ethnic group.

So, in many ways, the story is a non-story. But that hasn't stopped people from trying. One of the weirder aspects of this is that people are claiming various percentages of Neanderthal DNA in Ozzy's genome and elsewhere. As of my last check of the literature, we don't actually know enough about which sequences are likely to be derived from Neanderthals to really say anything like this.

The genetics and environment of liberalism: This is a really fascinating study that's getting buried with headlines about a "liberal gene." The authors are actually working with the hypothesis that an exposure to diverse views during adolescence helps promote a liberal outlook, but that genetic factors influence this process. And that's precisely what they found. Using a population of over 2,500, they checked the genotype of a dopamine receptor gene.

Among those that carry a form of the gene that's associated with novelty seeking behavior, having a large number of friends in adolescence ended up being associated with adopting a liberal outlook. A lower number of friends, and there was no connection; same thing if this specific variant is missing (so, in some ways, there are a bunch of conservative alleles, too). It's a great example of how genetic and environmental influences can combine to create a complex behavior.

A scientific platform with a hint of unicorn about it: Getting any data from the Arctic in winter is a challenging thing, but that hasn't stopped some scientists from finding a way. "We report on wintertime data collected from Baffin Bay and northern Davis Strait, a major gateway linking the Arctic with the subpolar North Atlantic, using narwhals (Monodon monoceros) as an oceanographic sampling platform," the authors write, and go on to describe how, thanks to the narwhal's feeding habits, most of the dives sampled the temperatures all the way to the ocean's bottom, in some cases 1700m down. Thanks to depth and location readings, the narwhal data helped them identify various currents in the bay, and demonstrated "the feasibility of using narwhals as ocean observation platforms."

Surprise! Truffles have sex: Truffles are a prized culinary ingredient, but they remain extremely expensive because we've not figured out how to culture them. Some researchers have now figured out why. In two papers, they show that truffles carry genes that suggest there are different sexes, and find that these sexes aren't evenly distributed in the truffle's natural habitat. Maybe now that we know that they mate, we'll have better luck with domestication.

Doing more with the same thing: There's lots of talk about how the blind manage to get more out of their other senses, but not quite as much in the way of actual evidence. That's started to change recently, and a new study extends the evidence to experienced Braille readers. Apparently, the blind are no more sensitive to vibrational differences in their fingers, but can greatly outperform their sighted peers when it comes to taking what they can sense with their fingers and integrating it into a complete picture, which suggests that their brains are reorganized in a way that enhances perceptual processing of touch input.

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