October 2011
September 2011
“Nearly 80 percent of the world’s natural reefs could be gone by 2050. But at least some of the creatures that rely on them will still have a place to live. Submerge something big in the right spot and the ocean will colonize it—which can be good for marine life, beaches, and you, if you happen to scuba dive, snorkel, or surf.”
—Retired Tanks and Jets House Marine Life | Magazine
“My post last week on “Liberals, Conservatives, and Science” triggered a response from a researcher, Everett Young of Washington University in St. Louis, who studies and teaches about the psychology of political opinion formation. (See his syllabus here.) In the initial post, I had asserted that the burden of proof falls on those who would claim that left-right splits are caused by anything more than standard political jostling, interests coming into conflict, coalitions forming, etc. In contrast, Young argues that the burden actually falls on those of us who don’t know the psychology literature or understand how well, in his words, the “psychology-ideology link” is now supported.”
—More on the Psychology of Liberals and Conservatives | The Intersection | Discover Magazine
“To help a nation plagued by corruption scandals on a veritably daily basis, the top government economist has suggested a radical solution: Paying bribes should be legal.
India’s chief economic adviser Kaushik Basu argues that for a certain class of bribes, which possibly for want of a better word he describes as ”harassment bribes,” bribe giving should be a legitimate activity. Such bribes should be directed only toward getting services to which you and I are legally entitled at the moment, such as an income tax refund or customs clearance for an exporter’s goods. In a working paper, Mr. Basu argues that decriminalizing bribe paying would cause a sharp decline in the incidence of bribery. The reasoning he offers involves game theory, which tries to analyze how players will act in situations where the outcome also depends on the behavior of others. He suggests that once the law is altered in this manner, the interests of the bribe giver and the bribe taker will be at odds—and that will help reduce corruption.
In theory, once a demand for a bribe has been satisfied—and the service received, one presumes—the bribe giver may be interested in cooperating in getting the bribe taker caught, knowing that he or she will not face any punishment. That possibility could deter the bribe taker from taking a bribe in the first place. Right now, the interests of both converge, since both payer and taker face punishment if caught, and so the payer has a reduced interest in uncovering bribery.” —Kaushik Basu Says Make Bribe Giving Legal - India Real Time - WSJ
India’s chief economic adviser Kaushik Basu argues that for a certain class of bribes, which possibly for want of a better word he describes as ”harassment bribes,” bribe giving should be a legitimate activity. Such bribes should be directed only toward getting services to which you and I are legally entitled at the moment, such as an income tax refund or customs clearance for an exporter’s goods. In a working paper, Mr. Basu argues that decriminalizing bribe paying would cause a sharp decline in the incidence of bribery. The reasoning he offers involves game theory, which tries to analyze how players will act in situations where the outcome also depends on the behavior of others. He suggests that once the law is altered in this manner, the interests of the bribe giver and the bribe taker will be at odds—and that will help reduce corruption.
In theory, once a demand for a bribe has been satisfied—and the service received, one presumes—the bribe giver may be interested in cooperating in getting the bribe taker caught, knowing that he or she will not face any punishment. That possibility could deter the bribe taker from taking a bribe in the first place. Right now, the interests of both converge, since both payer and taker face punishment if caught, and so the payer has a reduced interest in uncovering bribery.” —Kaushik Basu Says Make Bribe Giving Legal - India Real Time - WSJ
“ANAHEIM, March 27, 2011 — Scientists today claimed one of the milestones in the drive for sustainable energy — development of the first practical artificial leaf. Speaking here at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, they described an advanced solar cell the size of a poker card that mimics the process, called photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert sunlight and water into energy.”
—Debut of the first practical ‘artificial leaf’
“Most people reading this blog will have heard of the “selfish gene” - the idea, formally defined by Hamilton and popularised by Dawkins, that what matters from the perspective of evolution is not organisms, but genes. Those genes that maximise their chances of survival - regardless of what happens to individuals - will be the ones that come to predominate. It comes in for a lot of flack, mostly from people who wrongly equate selfish genes with selfish people. To be fair, there is also a lot of confusion over terms, with old ideas being reinvented under new terms - like “group selection”. Stuart West, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University in the UK, is here to put us straight. In a recent paper written specifically with social scientists in mind, he lays down the power of the selfish gene. It’s a great paper that takes a look at why so many misconceptions have taken hold and lays out, in non-specialist language, the reasons why most criticisms of the ‘selfish gene’ are the a result of confusion rather than insight. Anybody who’s interested in the evolution of human altruism should read it!”
—Epiphenom: The evolution of nice
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“From a lonely rusted tower in a forest north of Moscow, a mysterious shortwave radio station transmitted day and night. For at least the decade leading up to 1992, it broadcast almost nothing but beeps; after that, it switched to buzzes, generally between 21 and 34 per minute, each lasting roughly a second—a nasally foghorn blaring through a crackly ether. The signal was said to emanate from the grounds of a voyenni gorodok (mini military city) near the village of Povarovo, and very rarely, perhaps once every few weeks, the monotony was broken by a male voice reciting brief sequences of numbers and words, often strings of Russian names: “Anna, Nikolai, Ivan, Tatyana, Roman.” But the balance of the airtime was filled by a steady, almost maddening, series of inexplicable tones.”
—Inside The Russian Short Wave Radio Enigma | Magazine
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“The Pentagon will not tell the public what it costs to locate, target and kill a single Taliban soldier because the price-tag is so scandalously high that it makes the Taliban appear to be Super-Soldiers. As set out in this article, the estimated cost to kill each Taliban is as high as $100 million, with a conservative estimate being $50 million. A public discussion should be taking place in the United States regarding whether the Taliban have become too expensive an enemy to defeat.”
— Killing Each Taliban Soldier Costs $50 Million : Information Clearing House: ICH
