A weblog about stuff and junk by Jake Sutton
Are germs good for children’s health?
Now some immunology experts are beginning to agree that germs that many parents bleach and disinfect out of existence might help children.
“Hygiene hypothesis” holds that when babies are exposed to germs, it helps them fight allergies and asthma later.
I easily start to sound like an X-Files wackjob conspiracy theorist when I start talking about anti-bacterial foo-faw. I compare it to ArmorAll — the more you use it, the more you need it.
Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues at Cambridge’s Autism Research Centre have created the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, or AQ, as a measure of the extent of autistic traits in adults. In the first major trial using the test, the average score in the control group was 16.4. Eighty percent of those diagnosed with autism or a related disorder scored 32 or higher.
I scored a 21, but I’d be really curious to see how someone else (say, The Wife) would score me.
Update: Turns out I score a 24 with The Wife answering for me. I’ll take it.
Woman With Perfect Memory Baffles Scientists
That level of recall suggests another hypothesis. Some people are able to recall past events by categorizing them. Certain events, or facts, are associated with others, and filed away together so that they may be easier to access. That’s a trick that is often used by entertainers who use feats of memory to wow their audience.
AJ does have “some sort of compulsive tendencies. She wants order in her life,” McGaugh says. “As a child, she would get upset if her mother changed anything in her room because she had a place for everything and wanted everything in its place.
“So she does categorize events by the date, but that doesn’t explain why she remembers it.”
Fascinating… She remembers when tax inititatives were passed in her childhood, for crying out loud!
Well, the old pressure-melt theory (for ice skates, in particular) appears to be wrong.
Surprisingly, nobody is really sure why ice is so dang slick.
The Next X Prizes: DNA, Nanotech, Autos and Education
Along with X Prize purses for space and genomics, Diamandis said Friday that the Foundation is working on prizes in the automotive arena, nanotechnology and education.
For the automotive prize, the focus is on breakthroughs in areas like miles per gallon and manufacturing.
“Why do we still drive cars that use an internal combustion engine and only get 30 miles per gallon? I think that we’ll see some amazing achievements in this area,” Diamandis predicted. Further details on this automotive prize are forthcoming, he added, when the prize is fully formulated.
I love the way the X Prize bring innovation outside of the usual industry red tape. So, suppose this brings about a fuel cell car that drives like a Porsche… will we ever see it on the streets? Or will The Man conspire with Detroit and Japan to keep it under wraps in spite of the public knowledge that come swith winning an X Prize?
Study: Gorillas go through menopause
A study of gorillas at 17 North American zoos, led by Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo, is the first to document gorilla menopause, according to researchers who were not involved in the study.
The findings may help zoos improve how they care for aging female gorillas and change the way evolutionary biologists think about menopause in humans.
Researchers think this may serve to refute the “grandmother hypothesis” which posits menopause evolved to give grandmothers time to help care for the grandchildren. Gorilla grandmas don’t hang with the young’uns, so it might just be a result of living longer.
[Thanks to Mike for the link.]
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