Sex is best when you lose your head

Review by James Meek

• Promiscuity: An Evolutionary History of Sperm Competition and Sexual Conflict by Tim Birkhead
  
  Faber, 272 pp, £9.99, May 2000, ISBN 0 371 19360 5

In 1853 the Reverend Frederick Morris, an opponent of Charles Darwin’s and a man with a Victorian sense of propriety, urged his parishioners to emulate the fidelity of a small bird called the dunnock. Be thou like the dunnock, he told them – the female and the male impeccably faithful to each other.

Charles Robert Darwin. A copy made by John Collier (1850-1934) in 1883 of his 1881 portrait of Charles Darwin. According to Darwin's son Erasmus, "The picture is a replica of the one in the rooms in the Linnaean Society and was made by Collier after the original. I took some trouble about it and as a likeness it is an improvement on the original." Given to the National Portrait Gallery, London in 1896. See source website for additional information. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What would the Rev. Morris have made of the scandalous truth? Far from being monogamous, the dunnocks, from a Victorian point of view, have shockingly lax morals. The female dunnock often takes not one but two males as partners. The best a stern man of religion could say about dunnocks is that there’s no superfluous bump and grind when they mate – it’s strictly fertilisation business, over in 0.1 seconds. Fast enough to do it while your mother’s back is turned.

Tim Birkhead and his fellow evolutionary biologists, exploring the nature of sexuality across species from single-celled organisms to humankind, are the paparazzi of the science world. They travel to remote islands and put up with extreme discomfort in the hope of catching animals having sex with each other, and when they do, splash their names and their pictures over the pages of the science journals. It doesn’t always work out. Fiona Hunter and a colleague, later to expose what the mainstream media dubbed ‘penguin prostitution’ in the Antarctic, once watched a colony of fulmars on Fair Isle for 56 days on the trot, 18 hours a day, only to find the species relatively faithful: a mere 16 per cent of females had sex with a bird who wasn’t their partner, and there were no ‘illegitimate’ chicks. This isn’t a glamorous pursuit. Geoff Parker, one of the human heroes of Birkhead’s story, spent months with his face a few centimetres away from fresh cowpats, watching female dungflies being aggressively mounted by two males in turn. Sometimes the biologists witness scenes more disturbing than they had anticipated: Mats Olsson, observing the rape-like mating of the Lake Eyre dragon in Australia, saw a male lizard bite his female victim so hard while impregnating her that she died.

Often it is not enough to be a mere voyeur with a long lens. Like a manipulative aristocrat in a Jacobean drama, the intrepid investigator arranges things: Birkhead gets live zebra finches to mate with dead ones, Nicholas Davies and Ian Hartley make it possible for female dunnocks to take a third husband.

A Dunnock, Prunella modularis, photographed in Torquay, Devon, England in April 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Decades of accumulated work of this kind have changed our understanding of the nature of sex, reproduction and the different roles of male and female. From Darwin’s time up to the late 1960s – not coincidentally, the time when the intellectual assault on male-centred academic thinking got under way in earnest – it was thought that male animals competed for female partners, with the strongest and most attractive impregnating the most females; that females sought only monogamy, and if they did have sex with multiple partners (and biologists couldn’t help noticing that they did) it was against their will, always a form of submission to rape.
In the past thirty years, the conventional wisdom has been destroyed. The truth is that females of most species actively seek multiple partners to have sex with. If the aim of males is to put their sperm into as many females as possible, females are trying, with equal determination, to get the very best sperm to fertilise their eggs – even if that means having sex with many males in turn.

Rivalry between males and discrimination by females extends beyond the sexual act itself. Inside the female, the sperm of different males fight for supremacy – this is sperm competition. At the same time, the female may be able to select the sperm that are best for her – this is sperm choice. This is the true battle of the sexes. The males and females of each species are permanently locked in a struggle to out-evolve each other as their reproductive equipment and behaviour change to achieve their conflicting aims – i.e. maximum fertilisation v. best fertilisation.

The Hidden Truths about Calories

By Rob Dunn

Odds are you sometimes think about calories. They are among the most often counted things in the universe. When the calorie was originally conceived it was in the context of human work. More calories meant more capacity for work, more chemical fire with which to get the job done, coal in the human stove. Fat, it has been estimated, has nine calories per gram, whereas carbohydrates and proteins have just four; fiber is sometimes counted separately and gets awarded a piddling two. Every box of every food you have ever bought is labeled based on these estimates; too bad then that they are so often wrong.

A Food is Not a Food—Estimates of the number of calories in different kinds of foods measure the average number of calories we could get from those foods based only on the proportions of fat, carbohydrates, protein and sometimes fiber they contain (In essence, calories ingested minus calories egested). A variety of standard systems exist, all of which derive from the original developed by Wilbur Atwater more than a hundred years ago. They are all systems of averages. No food is average.

Differences exist even within a given kind of food. Take, for example, cooked vegetables. Cell walls in some plants are tougher to break down than those in others; nature, of course, varies in everything. If the plant material we eat has more of its cell walls broken down we can more of the calories from the goodies inside. In some plants, cooking ruptures most cell walls; in others, such as cassava, cell walls hold strong and hoard their precious calories in such a way that many of them pass through our bodies intact.
It is not just cooked vegetables though. Nuts flagrantly do their own thing, which might be expected given that nuts are really seeds whose mothers are invested in having them escape digestion. Peanuts, pistachios and almonds all seem to be less completely digested than their levels of protein, fat, carbohydrates and fiber would suggest. How much? Just this month, a new study by Janet Novotny and colleagues at the USDA found that when the “average” person eats almonds she receives just 128 calories per serving rather than the 170 calories “on the label.”

[Image 1. Some of the calories our bodies do not digest go to the dung beetles
and flies whose empire rises around our inefficiencies.
Photo of the species Garreta nitens by Piotr Naskrecki]

It is not totally clear why nuts such as almonds or pistachios yield fewer calories than they “should.” Tough cell walls? Maybe. But there are other options too, if not for the nuts themselves then for other foods.

For one, our bodies seem to expend different quantities of energy to deal with different kinds of food (the energy expended produces heat and so is referred to by scientists as “diet-induced thermogensis”); some foods require us to do more work than others. Proteins can require ten to twenty times as much heat-energy to digest as fats, but the loss of calories as heat energy is not accounted for at all on packaging.

The 7 deadly sins of résumé design

by Chanpory Rith

So you’ve labored with sweat and tears writing your résumé, and now you’re all set to turn it into a magnificently designed creation. Unfortunately, with the freedom of modern computers and fancy software, comes huge opportunities for abuse. When it comes to résumés, both non-designers and professional designers commit some almost unforgivable sins. Here are the 7 deadly sins of résumé design and how to repent:

Ten Tips For Writing A Resume That Will Get The Right Kind Of Attention

Trent at thesimpledollar.com writes:

Over the last month, I’ve helped three different readers polish their resumes as they look to make a major career shift. In each case, I noticed several problems crop up over and over again. These problems weren’t ones that would sink the person, but they did prevent that person from standing out from the crowd, and adding the problems together ended with a forgettable resume.

resume comparison (Photo credit: TheGoogly)

Here are ten things I would always do when writing a resume, regardless of the conventional wisdom about resumes.

1. One page only, period.
This often bothers some people. “I have tons of good things to write about,” they think, so they fill up their resume with six pages of good stuff with just a sprinkling of great stuff in there. Hot tip: it’s not the “good” stuff that will get you the job. The only stuff you want on your resume is the cream of the crop, and that cream will fit on one page. If it doesn’t, you’re not cutting out enough merely “good” stuff.

2. Write everything with active verbs.
Every bullet point on your resume should sound like you took some sort of decisive action, and the more action-oriented, the better. Employers want people who get things done, not people who “participate.” Don’t write that you were involved with a project that produced $5 million in sales, state that you wrote 20,000 lines of code for a project that produced $5 million in sales. Don’t say that you “helped with the development of a new system” – write that you developed that system in a team environment.

3. List everything positive that you can think of about past positions, and use the best.

resume wordle (Photo credit: gloomybrook)

Was there positive growth at the organization while you were there, even if you weren’t directly involved? Mention it. Were you involved, even in a cursory fashion, with a hugely successful project? Mention it. Only mention the things that were clearly and strongly successful on your resume.

4. Be concrete.
Don’t state that you were involved with a hugely successful Project X, state precisely (in an action-oriented form) what your role was with that project, followed by a statement of exactly how successful it was in a quantitative fashion. Don’t state that you were involved with writing a new HR manual – instead, state that you contributed 24 proofread pages to a documentation system used by 25,000 employees. Don’t state that you did some coding for the public interface – state that you wrote 41% of the code for a website used by 2,000,000 visitors a month. If you’ve done the job of trimming things down to only the big successes, these numbers should be impressive ones.

Tips for Preparing Cover Letters

Cover Letter Wordle Cloud (Photo credit: herzogbr)

A cover letter is an important part of your application submittal. It gives employers an opportunity to evaluate your ability to communicate. They'll be reading to see:

• Do you know the proper form for a business letter?
• Can you string together coherent sentences?
• Are you able to express yourself well on paper?
  

Here are some things to consider when putting your cover letter together:

• A cover letter should draw employers to your resume.
• Don't clutter it with needless facts.
• Keep it brief; no employer wants to read your life's history.
• Tailor it to the position and company to which you are applying; in other words, a cover letter shouldn't be "canned." 
• Begin by explaining why you are writing to this person and where you heard about the job opening. You should include something like "Your job announcement on govtjob.net. caught my attention." 
• Be sure to say why you think you would be a good match for the position. If the advertisement lists several traits or skills the employer wants to see in job applicants, refer to those skills in your letter and say how you exemplify them.
• Mention traits that will set you apart from other candidates. 
• Refer the employer to your resume. You may include a phrase, such as: "During your review of my resume, you may note that my background contains the qualifications and experience you are looking for." This will be a way to reinforce that your qualifications match the job profile.
• Write in a business-like but not overly formal manner; use your own wording.
• Don’t be too pushy. While it is acceptable to state that you are looking forward to meeting the recruiter to explore the position in a personal interview, don’t be presumptuous or state that you will contact the person to arrange an interview.
• Thank the person for his/her time and attention to your application.
• Remember to sign your cover letter.
• Note "enclosure" or "enc." two lines after your signature because your resume is enclosed.
  

Source
 

Related articles

• How Not to Open a Cover Letter
• The 7 Deadly Sins of Cover Letter Writing
• Resume Tip: Cover Letters Matter
• Ask the Headhunter: Insider Secrets to Landing the Job
• Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment
• The Cover Letter: What NOT to do

Three Quick Job Search Tips

By Kevin Donlin

Here's a collection of job search tips that have helped my clients over the years.
I couldn't think of any clever theme to tie them together, but you know what? So what! The theme here is that these tips work! And they can help you find work, faster.
So here they are. Read them and reap …

1) Create your own momentum

The Big Mo -- you hear about it all the time in sports. Teams with momentum get on a roll, score more often and win more games than teams without it.
If your job search is stuck, you can create your own momentum and move toward the position you want by starting each day with a victory of some sort, no matter how small.

HOLLYWOOD, FL - OCTOBER 05: Lamar Smith (L) speaks with Salvation Army job recruiter, Esther Rush, as he interviews for an opening as a bell ringer in the upcoming Red Kettle Campaign at the Workforce One South Employment Solutions center on October 5, 2012 in Hollywood, Florida. The Labor Department announced today that the United States economy had gained 114,000 jobs in September and the jobless rate fell from 8.1% to 7.8%, which is the first time it's been below 8% since 2009. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Example: Make your first networking call in the morning to your best friend or favorite family member. Why? There's zero chance of rejection and you'll likely hang up the phone smiling (if not, call somebody who makes you smile).
Or, you can call a former co-worker you haven't seen in months to schedule a networking lunch. Or invite your favorite neighbors over for a barbecue where you can ask for advice on your job hunt.
In other words, make your first action a slam dunk -- something you know will turn out well. A successfully completed task every morning will help you tackle more-challenging work later. Because you will have momentum on your side.

2) Ask for help, listen -- and act!

Question: How many people have you asked this month for advice about your job search? If you're absolutely honest in your answer, the number will be small. Too small.

SAN MATEO, CA - JUNE 07: A job seeker looks over employment pamphlets during the Job Hunter's Boot Camp at College of San Mateo on June 7, 2011 in San Mateo, California. As the national unemployment rate sits at 9.1 percent, U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) hosted a Job Hunter's Boot Camp that attracted hundreds of job seekers. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Why put all the pressure on yourself to find all the employment answers? Why not ask and discover what's worked for other people, and then model your actions on theirs?
Here's how to do it. Ask the following question of friends and family: "How did you find your last three jobs?"
Notice, you're NOT asking, "Do you know anyone who's hiring?" or some equally unimaginative, conversation-killing question. Instead of begging for a job, you are flattering others by asking for advice. Just be sure to shut up, listen, and write down every word they say in reply.
I guarantee this "magic question" will give you a plethora of ideas every time you ask it, and open your eyes to new ways of getting hired. Plus, you'll be raising your profile among the people who know you, which will put you "top of mind" with them when employment leads do pop up.
Stop trying to figure it all out on your own. Instead, start multiplying your brainpower by asking others for advice.

3) Know that change is your friend

According to the US Bureau of Labor, voluntary employee turnover across America was 20.20% in 2004, the most recent year available. This means that about one in five employees quit their jobs every 12 months, on average.
What does that mean for you?

HOLLYWOOD, FL - OCTOBER 05: Gloria Richter fills out a job application for the bell ringing openings that the Salvation Army needs to fill in the upcoming Red Kettle Campaign at the Workforce One South Employment Solutions center on October 5, 2012 in Hollywood, Florida. The Labor Department announced today that the United States economy had gained 114,000 jobs in September and the jobless rate fell from 8.1% to 7.8%, which is the first time it's been below 8% since 2009. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Today's "no" in your job search could be tomorrow's "yes." Because, in a company with 100 employees, approximately 20 of them will quit within the next year. That's 20 chances for you to get hired.
But you won't be hired if they don't remember you.
So, every time you hear, "Sorry, we're not hiring," or "We don't have any openings right now," don't despair. Keep in regular touch with the companies you want to work for, because one in five of their employees will probably leave this year. It's only a matter of time until something opens up for you.
Now, go out and make your own luck!

Source

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• Is It Time for a New Job? Five Signs
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• Job Fairs - 10 Tips if you are really going there
• Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment
• Stop Screwing Up Your Job Search In These Ten Ways
• Unemployed? 4 Ways to Recharge Your Job Search

Tips for preparing applications and resumes

For many government agencies the application is the primary document used to evaluate qualifications. Its presentation is key to obtaining an interview.

resume wordle (Photo credit: gloomybrook)

Most government employers will require completion of the organization's official application form at some time during the process. Even if the resume contains the same information, an application form is often required for legal, data processing, and employer convenience reasons.

The application is an official document. The information must be complete and accurate. If the space is inadequate for a certain situation, explain the situation on an attached page.

Be certain that you document is neat, error- and smudge-free, typed, centered, and complete. Typing application forms is not always possible; however, it is preferred. The form is often copied and widely circulated internally, and a typed form is a more effective presentation.

If there is a "salary desired" or similar blank, you may write, "negotiable" if you have
no significant work experience related to the sought-after assignment. For candidates with work experience or a minimum acceptable salary, the minimum should be specified. If the employer cannot meet the minimum, an offer is unlikely, so both parties can save time.

Double Jeopardy: In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time for them

By Geoffrey Sant

Illustration by Robert Neubecker.

 In May 2009, a wealthy 20-year-old was drag racing through the city streets of Hangzhou, China, when his Mitsubishi struck and killed a pedestrian in a crosswalk. The car was traveling so fast that the victim—a 25-year-old telecom engineer of a modest, rural background—was flung at least 20 yards. Afterward, bystanders and reporters photographed the driver, Hu Bin, as well as his rich friends, who nonchalantly smoked cigarettes and laughed while waiting for the police to arrive at the scene.

These images, soon posted online, provoked a public outcry. Anger over the callous behavior of these wealthy Chinese youths was followed by accusations of a police cover-up. First, the local authorities admitted that they had underestimated the speed Hu’s vehicle was traveling by half. (Incredibly, the police had first suggested that Hu was going no more than 43 mph.) Public furor rose again when Hu received a three-year prison sentence, an exceptionally light punishment in a country where drunk drivers guilty of similar accidents can receive the death penalty.

But the most stunning allegation was that the man appearing in court and serving the three-year sentence wasn’t Hu at all, but a hired body double.

The charge isn’t as far-fetched as it may sound. The practice of hiring “body doubles” or “stand-ins” is well-documented by official Chinese media. In 2009, a hospital president who caused a deadly traffic accident hired an employee’s father to “confess” and serve as his stand-in. A company chairman is currently charged with allegedly arranging criminal substitutes for the executives of two other companies. In another case, after hitting and killing a motorcyclist, a man driving without a license hired a substitute for roughly $8,000. The owner of a demolition company that illegally demolished a home earlier this year hired a destitute man, who made his living scavenging in the rubble of razed homes, and promised him $31 for each day the “body double” spent in jail. In China, the practice is so common that there is even a term for it: ding zui. Ding means “substitute,” and zui means “crime”; in other words, “substitute criminal.”

Money Laundering and Stolen Art

By Mary Rayme

How organized criminals and terrorists purchase art and antiquities to launder money. Stolen art can be traded for a fraction of the true value.

Watching an episode of Burn Notice, the star Michael Weston comments on a crate of antiquities. He says that the madly fluctuating prices of antiquities make it easy for criminals to exchange cash for rare pieces of history from all over the world. I wondered if this was true or just something thrown into a television program to make it more interesting.

Purchasing Artwork to Launder Money
It turns out, this is actually true. One major problem for criminals is what to do with all of their ill-gotten cash. Once they purchase an artifact, antiquity or piece of artwork, that cash becomes legitimized and laundered in essence, into an asset that gains value and can be sold at a later date with no questions asked. Whether purchasing legitimate art or hot artifacts and antiquities, these tangible assets can be used to launder cash into collectibles.

The landmark buildings that never were

Liverpool's Catholic Cathedral

The recently opened Shard is already a familiar landmark on the London skyline, but how might the UK's urban landscapes look if some of the most architecturally ambitious plans of past centuries had been fully realised?

Economic and social factors across the ages meant that some of the grandest designs of renowned architects such as Lutyens and Inigo Jones were never completed.
Here are five ambitious building projects that never made it off the drawing-board.

House of God: Liverpool's Catholic Cathedral

• Sir Edwin Lutyens, proposed architect of Liverpool's Catholic Cathedral was Anglican
• Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral designed in 1903 by Giles Gilbert Scott - a Catholic
• Foundation stone of Lutyens' plan laid in 1933 but building never finished
• Lutyens also designed large sections of Delhi
• Lutyens died New Year's Day 1944

The famed architect Sir Edwin Lutyens was commissioned in 1929 to build a new Catholic cathedral in Liverpool. The building he planned was monumental.
"It would have been 60ft (18m) higher than St Peter's in Rome, it would have been twice the height of St Paul's in London," says Anthony O'Brien, Dean of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, which now stands on the original site.
Lutyens' aim was to build a vast brick and granite cathedral topped with a 510ft (155m) dome. The cathedral was to be perched on a high point in the city, its vantage point and sheer size would have dominated the skyline.

"Right from the beginning, Liverpool Cathedral seemed incredibly ambitious. Lutyens was always intensely competitive in his work," says Jane Ridley, biographer and great-granddaughter of the architect.

A campaign was launched among the city's Catholic community to raise funds.

"In order to finance the building, the parishioners were asked to donate any old gold or jewellery that would contribute to the cost of the building," says Geraldine Judge, a church community worker in Liverpool.
Work began in 1933 with the building of the crypt. That's as far as it got.

"The crypt is complete. It is a great Lutyens building in its own right. It is staggeringly big. It is like walking into a colossal Edwardian railway terminus," says broadcaster Jonathan Glancey.

Why didn't it happen?
The cost was always prohibitive, but work halted with the outbreak of World War II and as the conflict progressed Lutyens lost enthusiasm.
The grand project ran out of steam after his death in January 1944.

Our Ridiculous Approach to Retirement

Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

TERESA GHILARDUCCI writes in the newyork times.

"I WORK on retirement policy, so friends often want to talk about their own retirement plans and prospects. While I am happy to have these conversations, my friends usually walk away feeling worse — for good reason.

Seventy-five percent of Americans nearing retirement age in 2010 had less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts. The specter of downward mobility in retirement is a looming reality for both middle- and higher-income workers. Almost half of middle-class workers, 49 percent, will be poor or near poor in retirement, living on a food budget of about $5 a day. 

 

The Terrifying Background of the Man Who Ran a CIA Assassination Unit

A federal investigation alleged Enrique Prado's involvement in seven murders, yet he was in charge when America outsourced covert killing to a private company.

CIA

It was one of the biggest secrets of the post-9/11 era: soon after the attacks, President Bush gave the CIA permission to create a top secret assassination unit to find and kill Al Qaeda operatives. The program was kept from Congress for seven years. And when Leon Panetta told legislators about it in 2009, he revealed that the CIA had hired the private security firm Blackwater to help run it. "The move was historic," says Evan Wright, the two-time National Magazine Award-winning journalist who wrote Generation Kill. "It seems to have marked the first time the U.S. government outsourced a covert assassination service to private enterprise."

A Skeptic Looks at Alternative Energy

Illustration: Dan Page

In June 2004 the editor of an energy journal called to ask me to comment on a just-announced plan to build the world’s largest photovoltaic electric generating plant. Where would it be, I asked—Arizona? Spain? North Africa? No, it was to be spread among three locations in rural Bavaria, southeast of Nuremberg.

I said there must be some mistake. I grew up not far from that place, just across the border with the Czech Republic, and I will never forget those seemingly endless days of summer spent inside while it rained incessantly. Bavaria is like Seattle in the United States or Sichuan province in China. You don’t want to put a solar plant in Bavaria, but that is exactly where the Germans put it. The plant, with a peak output of 10 megawatts, went into operation in June 2005.

It happened for the best reason there is in politics: money. Welcome to the world of new renewable energies, where the subsidies rule—and consumers pay.

Top 10 DIY Food Geek Projects

Kevin Purdy @ Lifehacker posts:

The best-tasting food is the kind that comes from your own efforts, because victory tastes oh-so-sweet. Conquer KFC-style fried chicken, smoky barbecue, wood-fired pizza, five-minute bread, and other DIY delicacies with these great food-focused projects.
Photo from The Pizza Hacker.
We've previously tackled 10 clever kitchen repurposing tricks and food and drink hacks, but this here is a compendium of more involved, fare more awesome projects that actually create food and drinks you can brag about.

10. Put Your Chicken on a "Throne" for Crispy Skin and Moist Meat

It's a pretty light project, but you certainly get your hands dirty. Cooking chicken so that it's standing up, with a can of liquid inside its carcass, ensures that the skin gets the perfect kind of crisp you're looking for, but the inner meat stays juicy, thanks to the steam coming from the can. You can watch Christopher Walken—yep, that Christopher Walken—demonstrate a fancier indoor method in the video, or read up on how to make it on the grill.

9. Make Crispy Wings at Home in the Oven

Chicken wings you get at the bar are crispy, but their sauce sticks right to them. Wings you make at home in the oven are slick, and you're lucky if half the sauce stays on. The solution? Baking powder, along with some overnight, open-air refrigeration before cooking. You get healthier wings you can cook at home, and a great feeling of having somehow beaten the takeout economy. (Original post)

8. Brew Your Own Beer and Soda

You'd think homebrew beer or soda would be a pretty huge undertaking, but it doesn't have to be. Starting out with either project is nothing more than a weekend afternoon spent with some beginner's materials. Guided tours and cost analyses of DIY brew are provided by the Wise Bread and The Simple Dollar, while a great video on making your own 2-liter soda experiments is offered at Howcast. (Original posts: beer, soda).

7. Fry Some KFC-Style Chicken at Home

The Colonel's 11 secret herbs and spices do a good enough job when you want the bucket, but if you want the good stuff at home—or you're not a huge fan of MSG—you can pick up the mix provided by the Guardian UK's Word of Mouth blog. Many testers claim it to provide the same kind of mouth-filling feeling as the KFC's version, though if you disagree, the theoretically secret recipe is offered at the post, too, coming from Ron Douglas' America's Most Wanted Recipes. (Original post)

6. Make Fresh Bread Without a Bread Maker

First came the no-knead bread, and it was declared good. Then there came faster and whole wheat remixes, and it couldn't seem to get better. But then came another no-bread-machine-needed recipe, a mix-once, break-off-and-bake dough recipe that our own Jason tested and loved, and then a recipe that rises while you're at work for about a minute of prep time. There is nothing quite like fresh-baked bread, and that's all we have to say on that. (Original posts: no-knead, faster and whole wheat, five minutes, one-minute).

Continue reading here...

Why Do Marriages Fall Apart? A Visual Representation of US Marriage Stats [INFOGRAPHIC]]

American marriages have never been more precarious. But why do marriages fall apart, and how are families changing as a result?

The following infographic, by Tiffany Farrant and PromotionalCodes.org.uk, casts a piercing eye on the institution. Based on the annual report by The National Marriage Project, it paints a picture of marriage becoming a less and less relevant factor in the way American's live and raise children. The short version: Marriage is simply shrinking as a cultural value; where 66% of women over 15 were married in 1960, the figure has shrunk every decade since.* Now, it's just 51%:

 

When Marriage Disappears Infographic By Promotional Codes

The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around

(Tim Gabor for The Boston Globe)

By Leon Neyfakh

You hear it all the time: We humans are social animals. We need to spend time together to be happy and functional, and we extract a vast array of benefits from maintaining intimate relationships and associating with groups. Collaborating on projects at work makes us smarter and more creative. Hanging out with friends makes us more emotionally mature and better able to deal with grief and stress.

Spending time alone, by contrast, can look a little suspect. In a world gone wild for wikis and interdisciplinary collaboration, those who prefer solitude and private noodling are seen as eccentric at best and defective at worst, and are often presumed to be suffering from social anxiety, boredom, and alienation.

But an emerging body of research is suggesting that spending time alone, if done right, can be good for us — that certain tasks and thought processes are best carried out without anyone else around, and that even the most socially motivated among us should regularly be taking time to ourselves if we want to have fully developed personalities, and be capable of focus and creative thinking. There is even research to suggest that blocking off enough alone time is an important component of a well-functioning social life — that if we want to get the most out of the time we spend with people, we should make sure we’re spending enough of it away from them. Just as regular exercise and healthy eating make our minds and bodies work better, solitude experts say, so can being alone.

 

“There’s so much cultural anxiety about isolation in our country that we often fail to appreciate the benefits of solitude,” said Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University whose book “Alone in America,” in which he argues for a reevaluation of solitude, will be published next year. “There is something very liberating for people about being on their own. They’re able to establish some control over the way they spend their time. They’re able to decompress at the end of a busy day in a city...and experience a feeling of freedom.”

 

Solitude has long been linked with creativity, spirituality, and intellectual might. The leaders of the world’s great religions — Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses — all had crucial revelations during periods of solitude. The poet James Russell Lowell identified solitude as “needful to the imagination;” in the 1988 book “Solitude: A Return to the Self,” the British psychiatrist Anthony Storr invoked Beethoven, Kafka, and Newton as examples of solitary genius.

 

But what actually happens to people’s minds when they are alone? As much as it’s been exalted, our understanding of how solitude actually works has remained rather abstract, and modern psychology — where you might expect the answers to lie — has tended to treat aloneness more as a problem than a solution. That was what Christopher Long found back in 1999, when as a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst he started working on a project to precisely define solitude and isolate ways in which it could be experienced constructively. The project’s funding came from, of all places, the US Forest Service, an agency with a deep interest in figuring out once and for all what is meant by “solitude” and how the concept could be used to promote America’s wilderness preserves.

 

“Aloneness doesn’t have to be bad,” Long said by phone recently from Ouachita Baptist University, where he is an assistant professor. “There’s all this research on solitary confinement and sensory deprivation and astronauts and people in Antarctica — and we wanted to say, look, it’s not just about loneliness!”

 

Continue reading here.

 

Autism’s First Child

As new cases of autism have exploded in recent years—some form of the condition affects about one in 110 children today—efforts have multiplied to understand and accommodate the condition in childhood. But children with autism will become adults with autism, some 500,000 of them in this decade alone. What then? Meet Donald Gray Triplett, 77, of Forest, Mississippi. He was the first person ever diagnosed with autism. And his long, happy, surprising life may hold some answers.

By John Donvan and Caren Zucker

Image credit: Miller Mobley/Redux

In 1951, a Hungarian-born psychologist, mind reader, and hypnotist named Franz Polgar was booked for a single night’s performance in a town called Forest, Mississippi, at the time a community of some 3,000 people and no hotel accommodations. Perhaps because of his social position—he went by Dr. Polgar, had appeared in Life magazine, and claimed (falsely) to have been Sigmund Freud’s “medical hypnotist”—Polgar was lodged at the home of one of Forest’s wealthiest and best-educated couples, who treated the esteemed mentalist as their personal guest.

Polgar’s all-knowing, all-seeing act had been mesmerizing audiences in American towns large and small for several years. But that night it was his turn to be dazzled, when he met the couple’s older son, Donald, who was then 18. Oddly distant, uninterested in conversation, and awkward in his movements, Donald nevertheless possessed a few advanced faculties of his own, including a flawless ability to name musical notes as they were played on a piano and a genius for multiplying numbers in his head. Polgar tossed out “87 times 23,” and Donald, with his eyes closed and not a hint of hesitation, correctly answered “2,001.”

Indeed, Donald was something of a local legend. Even people in neighboring towns had heard of the Forest teenager who’d calculated the number of bricks in the facade of the high school—the very building in which Polgar would be performing—merely by glancing at it.

According to family lore, Polgar put on his show and then, after taking his final bows, approached his hosts with a proposal: that they let him bring Donald with him on the road, as part of his act.

Donald’s parents were taken aback. “My mother,” recalls Donald’s brother, Oliver, “was not at all interested.” For one, things were finally going well for Donald, after a difficult start in life. “She explained to [Polgar] that he was in school, he had to keep going to classes,” Oliver says. He couldn’t simply drop everything for a run at show business, especially not when he had college in his sights.

But there was also, whether they spoke this aloud to their guest or not, the sheer indignity of what Polgar was proposing. Donald’s being odd, his parents could not undo; his being made an oddity of, they could, and would, prevent. The offer was politely but firmly declined.

What the all-knowing mentalist didn’t know, however, was that Donald, the boy who missed the chance to share his limelight, already owned a place in history. His unusual gifts and deficits had been noted outside Mississippi, and an account of them had been published—one that was destined to be translated and reprinted all over the world, making his name far better-known, in time, than Polgar’s.

His first name, anyway.

Video: The authors reveal how they tracked down Donald and discuss the significance of his long, happy life.

 

Donald was the first child ever diagnosed with autism. Identified in the annals of autism as “Case 1 … Donald T,” he is the initial subject described in a 1943 medical article that announced the discovery of a condition unlike “anything reported so far,” the complex neurological ailment now most often called an autism spectrum disorder, or ASD. At the time, the condition was considered exceedingly rare, limited to Donald and 10 other children—Cases 2 through 11—also cited in that first article.

That was 67 years ago. Today, physicians, parents, and politicians regularly speak of an “epidemic” of autism. The rate of ASDs, which come in a range of forms and widely varying degrees of severity—hence spectrum—has been accelerating dramatically since the early 1990s, and some form of ASD is now estimated to affect one in every 110 American children. And nobody knows why.

There have always been theories about the cause of autism—many theories. In the earliest days, it was an article of faith among psychiatrists that autism was brought on by bad mothers, whose chilly behavior toward their children led the youngsters to withdraw into a safe but private world. In time, autism was recognized to have a biological basis. But this understanding, rather than producing clarity, instead unleashed a contentious debate about the exact mechanisms at work. Differing factions argue that the gluten in food causes autism; that the mercury used as a preservative in some vaccines can trigger autistic symptoms; and that the particular measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is to blame. Other schools of thought have portrayed autism as essentially an autoimmune response, or the result of a nutritional deficiency. The mainstream consensus today—that autism is a neurological condition probably resulting from one or more genetic abnormalities in combination with an environmental trigger—offers little more in the way of explanation: the number of genes and triggers that could be involved is so large that a definitive cause, much less a cure, is unlikely to be determined anytime soon. Even the notion that autism cases are on the rise is disputed to a degree, with some believing that the escalating diagnoses largely result from a greater awareness of what autism looks like.

There is no longer much dispute, however, about the broad outlines of what constitutes a case of autism. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—the so-called bible of psychiatry—draws a clear map of symptoms. And to a remarkable degree, these symptoms still align with those of one “Donald T,” who was first examined at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, in the 1930s, the same boy who would later amaze a mentalist and become renowned for counting bricks.

In subsequent years, the scientific literature updated Donald T’s story a few times, a journal entry here or there, but about four decades ago, that narrative petered out. The later chapters in his life remained unwritten, leaving us with no detailed answer to the question Whatever happened to Donald?

There is an answer. Some of it we turned up in documents long overlooked in the archives of Johns Hopkins. But most of it we found by tracking down and spending time with Donald himself. His full name is Donald Gray Triplett. He’s 77 years old. And he’s still in Forest, Mississippi. Playing golf.

The question that haunts every parent of a child with autism is What will happen when I die? This reflects a chronological inevitability: children with autism will grow up to become adults with autism, in most cases ultimately outliving the parents who provided their primary support.

Then what?

It’s a question that has yet to grab society’s attention, as the discussion of autism to date has skewed, understandably, toward its impact on childhood. But the stark fact is that an epidemic among children today means an epidemic among adults tomorrow. The statistics are dramatic: within a decade or so, more than 500,000 children diagnosed with autism will enter adulthood. Some of them will have the less severe variants—Asperger’s syndrome or HFA, which stands for “high-functioning autism”—and may be able to live more independent and fulfilling lives. But even that subgroup will require some support, and the needs of those with lower-functioning varieties of autism will be profound and constant.

Continue Reading here.

Space over Time

BY MIKE ORCUTT @ technologyreview.com

 

Human exploration is the most visible use of spaceflight, but ­business and defense satellites fill the sky.

The retirement of the space shuttles marks the end of NASA's human spaceflight program, at least for now. But human missions funded by the U.S. government have represented only a small part of the action in space.

Of the 7,000 spacecraft that have been launched into orbit or beyond, more than half were defense satellites used for such purposes as communication, ­navigation, and imaging. (The Soviet Union sent up a huge number, partly because its satellites tended to be much shorter-lived than those from the United States.) In the 1970s, private companies began increasingly adding to the mix, ­launching satellites for telecommunications and broadcasting.

This graphic groups payloads by the nationality of the owner. A satellite, a capsule of cosmonauts, or a deep-space probe would each count as one payload. The data, which run through July 2011, were drawn from hundreds of sources, including space agency documents, academic journals, and interviews. They were compiled by Jonathan ­McDowell, an ­astrophysicist at the Harvard-­Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and author of Jonathan's Space Report, a newsletter that tracks launches.

[Source]

 

Dr. Brian May on Freddie Mercury's creativity + Happy birthday, Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury Google Doodle

 

 

 

by Brian May [founding member of Queen] @ googleblog.blogspot.com

 

I was first introduced to Freddie Mercury—a paradoxically shy yet flamboyant young man—at the side of the stage at one of our early gigs as the group “SMILE.” He told me he was excited by how we played, he had some ideas—and he could sing! I'm not sure we took him very seriously, but he did have the air of someone who knew he was right. He was a frail but energised dandy, with seemingly impossible dreams and a wicked twinkle in his eye. A while later we had the opportunity to actually see him sing ... and it was scary! He was wild and untutored, but massively charismatic. Soon, he began his evolution into a world-class vocal talent, right in front of our eyes.

Freddie was fully focused, never allowing anything or anyone to get in the way of his vision for the future. He was truly a free spirit. There are not many of these in the world. To achieve this, you have to be, like Freddie, fearless—unafraid of upsetting anyone's apple cart.

Some people imagine Freddie as the fiery, difficult diva who required everyone around him to compromise. No. In our world, as four artists attempting to paint on the same canvas, Freddie was always the one who could find the compromise—the way to pull it through. If he found himself at odds with any one of us, he would quickly dispel the cloud with a generous gesture, a wisecrack or an impromptu present. I remember one morning after a particularly tense discussion he presented me with a cassette. He had been up most of the night compiling a collage of my guitar solos. "I wanted you to hear them as I hear them, dear," he said. "They're all fab, so I made them into a symphony!"

To create with Freddie was always stimulating to the max. He was daring, always sensing a way to get outside the box. Sometimes he was too far out ... and he'd usually be the first to realise it. With a conspiratorial smile he would say "Oh ... did I lose it, dears?!" But usually there was sense in his nonsense—art in his madness. It was liberating. I think he encouraged us all in his way, to believe in our own madness, and the collective mad power of the group Queen.

Freddie would have been 65 this year, and even though physically he is not here, his presence seems more potent than ever. Freddie made the last person at the back of the furthest stand in a stadium feel that he was connected. He gave people proof that a man could achieve his dreams—made them feel that through him they were overcoming their own shyness, and becoming the powerful figure of their ambitions. And he lived life to the full. He devoured life. He celebrated every minute. And, like a great comet, he left a luminous trail which will sparkle for many a generation to come.

Happy birthday Freddie!

Posted by Dr. Brian May, CBE. Guitarist.

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