Jeanna Bryner
writes: Just the mere thought of money can turn a person selfish, so
that he
helps others less often and prefers to play alone, a new study shows.
In a series of nine experiments, researchers found that money enhanced
people’s motivation to achieve their own goals and degraded their
behavior toward others. The concept of money, they suggest, makes a
person feel more self-sufficient and thus more apt to stand alone. The
scientists said the study had nothing to do with making a person
feel wealthy. When real or fake money, or even a photo of cash, was
placed in sight of participants, they became selfish. … The
scientists split 50 undergraduate students into two groups. One was
primed with the concept of money; other served as a control and was not
primed. … In one test, a participant sat in a lab filling out a
questionnaire
when a supposed student walked into the room and said, “Can you come
over here and help me?” She explained that she was an undergraduate
student and needed help coding data sheets, each of which would take
five minutes. Some of the participants didn’t help at all, Vohs said.
The control group volunteered an average of 42.5 minutes of their time,
whereas the money group gave about 25 minutes. Another experiment gave
participants the opportunity to lend a helping
hand in a situation requiring no skills. In a staged accident, a random
person walked through a room where a participant sat filling out a
questionnaire, and spilled a bunch of pencils. The money participants
picked up far fewer pencils than the controls. … The results,
detailed in Nov. 17 issue of the journal Science, showed no differences in terms of socioeconomic status or gender. (11/29/06)
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Jeremy Lovell
writes: The earth has a fever that could boost temperatures by 8
degrees Celsius making large parts of the surface uninhabitable and
threatening billions of peoples’ lives, a controversial climate
scientist said on Tuesday. James Lovelock, who angered climate
scientists with his Gaia Theory of a living planet and then alienated
environmentalists by backing nuclear power, said a traumatized earth
might only be able to support less than a tenth of it’s 6 billion
people. “We are not all doomed. An awful lot of people will die, but I
don’t see the species dying out,” he told a news conference. “A hot
earth couldn’t support much over 500 million. Almost all of the systems
that have been looked at are in positive feedback … and soon those
effects will be larger than any of the effects of carbon dioxide
emissions from industry and so on around the world,” he added.
Scientists say that global warming due to carbon emissions from burning
fossil fuels for power and transport could boost average temperatures
by up to 6C by the end of the century causing floods, famines and
violent storms. But they also say that tough action now to cut carbon
emissions could stop atmospheric concentrations of CO2 hitting 450
parts per million — equivalent to a temperature rise of 2C from
pre-industrial levels — and save the planet. Lovelock said temperature
rises of up to 8C were already built in and while efforts to curb it
were morally commendable, they were wasted. “It is a bit like if your
kidneys fail you can go on dialysis — and who would refuse dialysis if
death is the alternative. We should think of it in that context,” he
said. “But remember that all they are doing is buying us time, no more.
The problems go on,” he added. (11/28/06)
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I had the misfortune to experience a german shepard bite many years ago
(750 pounds/sq inch). That bite really got my attention. As a scientist, I researched bites. An adult
great dane has a bite of 1500 lbs/sq inch. A bengal tiger’s bite is
5000 lbs/sq inch. But that is nothing compared to this ancient fish. BBC Science –
A prehistoric “Jaws” that roamed the seas 400 million years ago had the
most powerful bite of any living fish. The extinct fish Dunkleosteus
terrelli could bring its jaws together with a remarkable pressure of
5,000kg (11,000lbs). Its bite force was double that of a large great
white shark putting it
up with the most powerful biters ever, such as Tyrannosaurus rex.
Details appear in the UK Royal Society journal Biology Letters. The
ancient sea monster’s teeth focused the bite force into a small
area - the fang tip - at an incredible pressure of 5,625kg per sq cm
(80,000 pounds per sq inch). … To determine the bite force,
scientists used the fossilised skull of a Dunkleosteus terrelli to
recreate the musculature of the ancient fish. This biomechanical model
showed the jaw’s force and motion. The formidable fish was a placoderm,
a diverse group of armoured fish that dominated aquatic ecosystems
during the Devonian Period, from 415 million to 360 million years ago. (11/29/06)
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