Rattling Around

Look at this cool cake that my daughter decorated! Isn't it beautiful? :-)

Short answer: Nobody
Long answer: I always tried to discourage students from going on to grad school. It is basically slave labor, and your advisor has zero incentive for you to get your graduate degree early. After all, he or she needs to do research and publish in order to get more grant money, department promotions, and recognition in the field. But most of that research is being done by the lowly grad student. Also, teaching does not help your advisor much, so the grad students do almost all of that as well. A large number of grad students never graduate; those who do often spend even more years as post-docs (still more slave labor). Compare the income of those people who leave with their bachelor's to go to work in industry, with the grad students they left behind...

But you say, "My research will be important, and have a big impact!" Sadly, most PhD theses are never read by anybody after they are published; your review committee is the last to see it. In fact, most published science is meaningless (I can't speak about the non-sciences, or the pseudo-sciences). More than 99% of the important work in science is done by less than 1% of the researchers. And the odds are, you ain't one of them.

The only people who should perhaps go on to grad school are those I could not talk out of going, as hard as I tried. They are the ones who are driven to do research, not for prestige, or to get a good job, or make lots of money, or prove something to their parents, or to keep out of the Army, or because their girlfriend is going there. They are like true artists, who can't not do it. Even if they are starving, driving a ten-year-old car, and living in a dump. (Remember, that still won't make them one of the 1%, but at least it probably raises their odds some.) Few scientists come up with original thinking, new perspectives, new research techniques, a new paradigm. But perhaps you will be one of the ones who can't resist the compulsion...

Here's an interesting phenomenon I've observed a few times, when I am in a state between sleep and wakefulness. I was in a dim room, just dozing off, when I was just conscious enough to notice a tachistoscopic effect. It was as though I was seeing a series of visual shapes in rapid succession, but with no logical connection between them other than shape. For example, imagine a series of round shapes: an orange, a basketball, the setting sun, a wedding ring, etc. It was as in a film, when an image is retained for just a single frame, immediately replaced by another one. However, the images were more or less registered with each other (i.e., about the same size and position). The first time this happened, I woke up as soon as I concentrated on it, but remembered the sensation. The second time it happened, weeks later, I tried to observe it longer without waking up, sort of like lucid dreaming. That worked for a while, but then I woke up again. It has now happened to me maybe a dozen times, but certainly is not very common. I have to have just the right amount of fatigue, be on my back in a dim but not totally dark room, and I guess be in the right mental state.

So what do I think this means? My opinion is that when I am asleep, I automatically scan down a column in my visual cortex, perhaps to refresh my visual memory by "looking at" each image in the stack very quickly. This would imply that the images are stored by shape similarity, rather than by semantic content; certainly other brain work seems to agree with this.

Is this the basis for dreams? Humans are very good at organizing sensations into some coherent pattern, in effect creating a "story" that makes sense of what we are experiencing. So if I assume cortical storage is based on shape and not meaning, but my mind tries to make the series of scanned images into something meaningful, I can see where a dream could result. This is not to say that dreams need be random in nature... I can certainly see where my life experience, traumas, relationships, drives, and all that stuff, could have a huge impact on my mental "story-telling". So that even were two people's visual cortex stacked with the same image set, their dreams could be totally different. Still, it is plausible to me.

If anyone else has experienced this type of visual scanning when drifting off to sleep, I'd encourage you to add a comment here. I'd also like to hear from dream researchers.

The absolute best animation director of all time is Hayao Miyazaki! And every Thursday in January, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is showing some of his wonderful films (nine in all). These include Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Porco Rosso, Whisper of the Heart, Only Yesterday, and Pom Poko (those last two were produced by him). You owe it to yourself to watch as many of these as possible. And then see Howl's Moving Castle in your local theater. And find other Studio Ghibli (Miyazaki-san's studio) films to rent or buy; they are all worth watching again and again.

Well, let's look at a few ways we are not special... What are some behaviors that you might think are done just by humans?
Farming -- Nope, ants do this. Leaf-cutter ants cut pieces of leaves and return them to chambers in the nest. They plant fungus on them, grow the fungus, then harvest it later for food.
Build Structures -- Oh, come on! Lots of animals build all sorts of structures: bird nests, beaver dams and lodges, stickleback nests, spider webs, butterfly and moth cocoons, the list goes on and on.
Ranching -- Ants do this too. They tend aphids, move them to new areas, protect them from predation, and milk them (getting a sugary solution from their butts).
Singing and Dancing -- Actually, exceedingly common among animals, especially for territorial displays and in courtship.
Warfare -- As you might expect, ants do this. Pretty easy to demonstrate; put ants from one colony in a jar and drop them at another colony, then watch the carnage.
Art -- Bowerbird males certainly produce art. They decorate an area to attract a female, gathering items of particular colors (shells, stones, flower petals, etc.) and carefully arrange them along the display area. They will sometimes place an item, stand back to look at it, then move it to a different location. There are often marked differences in the artistic styles of different males.
Slavery -- Ants again. Some ants will raid other nests, stealing babies (uh, larvae) and carrying them back to their own nest. When reared with the pheromones of the new nest, the slave ants dutifully carry out work for the slavers, even though they have no relationship to the queen.
Masturbation -- Hah! Have you ever been to the Primate House of the Zoo? You usually needn't wait long before you can observe human parents hastily covering the eyes of their children, as the monkeys and apes satisfy themselves.
Cannibalism -- Not that uncommon among animals, especially eating the young. And you all know of spiders and praying mantises in which the females eat the males after mating. However, I don't know of any ritual cannibalism among animals, so perhaps only humans do that (at communion).
Virgin birth -- More common among animals than humans, apparently. In fact, there are some populations of lizards that contain only females, so that all births are virgin births (parthenogenesis).
Homosexuality -- Very, very common among animals; not an un-natural act at all! For an excellent survey, see Biological Exuberance, by Dr. Bruce Bagemihl. He gives examples of more than 450 species that engage in same-sex sexual activity. There are even cases of lifelong homosexual bonding in species that do not have lifelong heterosexual bonding. It does appear that homosexuality is more common as you look at "more advanced" animals (I don't believe in that terminology, but lots of people do think birds and mammals are more advanced that reptiles, fish, insects, etc.).
Rape -- Interestingly, rape is not even physically possible in many species, perhaps most. For example, in most insects the female must willingly position her reproductive organs in a specific way, or it is impossible for the male to impregnate her. But there are some animals that can and do rape, including ducks and the beloved dolphins. So one might ask, why has rape been made possible in humans? God's choice? Evolutionary advantage?
Murder -- When some male animals achieve social dominance, supplanting a previous alpha-male, they may systematically murder all the children present, so that there are none of the previous male's offspring around to carry those genes, and to bring the females into a receptive state faster. Lions, bears and apes do this, among others.
Storing food for the future -- Squirrels bury nuts and acorns, butcherbirds impale prey on thorns so they can return to it later, wasps fill a hole with paralyzed prey that their young will one day feed upon.
Praying -- Of course, I can't know if animals do this. Charles Hartshorne suspected a spiritual element in bird song, and some have even speculated that whales songs might be poetry or prayer. My hunch is that only people pray, and say grace before meals, at least on this planet.
Use of symbolic language -- We know that chimps, gorillas and dolphins can do this. Some of the best of the apes have learned a large amount of sign language. Apparently some experiments with African Grey parrots also indicate their ability to learn and understand symbols.

Because we are so very tolerant...
Oh no, I certainly don't mean "allowing or respecting the beliefs or behavior of others"! Virtually all humans are intolerant of at least some others, and far too many disrespect (or even hate) those of other tribes, cults, races, sexual preferences, nationalities, "foreign" language speakers, religions, accents, environmental practices, political parties, colleges, styles of dress, mode of communication, food habits, odors, method of dancing...
No, what I mean is "able to withstand or endure adverse environmental or physiological conditions". Yep, humans can and do live everywhere, no matter how bad it is. We are much better at this than any other species (even roaches and rats). 110 degrees hot, or -40 degrees cold (F, of course); mountain tops or desert flats; tundra or jungles; prairies or cities; marshes or glaciers. We even have people living in space (well, in the ISS), and have gone to the moon (we really did, that was no hoax...). We are so good at living in bad conditions, and continuing to breed heartily, that we have had huge impacts on world habitats. Vast areas have been denuded of trees, burned as fuel, resulting in loss of topsoil or baking of lateritic soil into brick. We are turning more and more of the Earth into desert. We live crushed together in huge cities, where there is no ability to locally gather water or grow food, becoming totally dependent on food and water flowing in from other regions. Even when there are terrible diseases, famine and conflict, we keep producing more and more babies, ensuring that the next generation will have even more suffering. We live on the slopes of active volcanoes, in flood zones, in coastal areas subject to hurricanes and tsunamis, on fault zones, in areas subject to fire and mudslides, and in regions peppered with land mines. Our medical services keep alive people with non-functioning organs until they can receive new transplants. Blind folks can still get food, crippled folks can still get around, even stupid people can get elected to public office. Have you seen BladeRunner? That's what cities will be like, oh so soon. People live in cardboard boxes, and in shacks with no heat. They poop in their water supply and then drink from it (yeah, some die, but there are always more being born). Even with terrible wars and genocide, the human population continues to grow. Even with World War 1 and the 1918 flu epidemic, the population was greater by the end of 1919 than any previous year in history. We're darn good at not only surviving, but thriving and breeeeeeeding.

Make a new word and define it, by adding, subtracting, or changing a single letter...
michelint -- dust in the tire grooves
septmember -- one endowed with seven inches
turdle -- A chelonian swimming in the cess pool
briminology -- the study of things that overflow
jobnoxious -- Referring to annoying co-workers
tsunamix -- when you've added too much to the food processor
formulax -- too lazy to do the math homework
elephone -- pachyderm communications system
dishpensation -- not having to wash up after dinner
pornucopia -- a never-ending supply of smut
carp diem -- never putting off fishing
pollonaise -- a Polish/Mexican fusion food dressing
meunuch -- a fixed cat
fat-of-nine-tails -- tonight's special at Red Lobster

OK, here's the number one reason we are special. Humans are more omnivorous than pigs! We can eat anything! We kill herbivores and eat them. We plant vegetables and eat them. We forage for nuts, berries, fruits, fungus, wild grains, and seeds. We can eat road kill. We've eaten each other (not recommended, not because of moral grounds, but because it's a good way to get diseased; never eat another person's brain, due to the risk of slow viruses). In fact, we even eat diseases (such as corn smut). We eat fish from a mile down in the ocean, and mammoths that have been frozen since the Ice Age. We just love herbs and spices, even though most of them actually contain chemical warfare agents the plants use to prevent their reproductive bodies from being eaten. We have developed manipulative hands and tool use so we can get and eat the most difficult foods; black walnuts, spiny sea urchins, porcupines, turtles, poisonous snakes. We have developed big brains so we can figure out how to prepare toxic or hazardous foods, such as Fugu (blowfish), acorns, and manioc. We learned about fire so we could improve the digestibility of many foods, by cooking them. We have learned many ways to preserve food so it can be eaten later; salt, freeze-drying, canning, chemical preservatives, radiation; and don't forget 1000-year eggs. We are absolutely the top predators on the planet; we eat sharks, snails, locusts, worms, frogs, and everything that was on the Ark. We've learned to perform genetic manipulation, to modify food plants. Corn used to be tiny, now it's huge. (one of these days I'll have to make an entry about gene engineering of foodstuffs) We have mastered fermentation and yeast, so we can all enjoy tofu, bread, beer, and wine. We make soup out of bird spit. We have even managed to install artificial teeth, so we can keep eating for many more years! And our livers must be just amazing...