greed is bad for your mental health

It's always been kind of obvious to me, but apparently not to Tony Blair -- that greed doesn't make people happy. Psychologist Oliver James has explained this in a little more detail in his book "Affluenza" which came out a bit over a year ago, and now in a companion volume, which is a bit more academic, and which is called "The selfish capitalist: the origins of affluenza." Basically, James says that countries with a more social-democratic model of capitalism, such as Germany, have half the rate of depression and similar mental illness as the US, UK, and those that follow the "greed is good" philosophy of Blatcherism, so he concludes that a culture based on excessive greed and inequality is bad for people's mental health.

Basically, you'll probably find all the arguments in the works of Erich Fromm from the 60s and 70s already (e.g. To have or to be?), but if you need them spelled out in the modern context, take a look at these:

Affluenza (paperback edition) reviewed by Nicholas Lezard
The selfish capitalist reviewed by Madeleine Bunting
Selfish capitalism is bad for our mental health (an essay by Oliver James)

our man in havana

The former CIA agent who revealed to the world exactly what the agency did to Latin America, Philip Agee, has died aged 72. In recent years he lived in Germany and Cuba and ran a travel agency specialising on travels to Cuba (obviously). Read his obituary here -- it's more interesting than most.

cent ans et un jour

how very rude of me to have missed the 100th birthday of Simone de Beauvoir yesterday. I believe I have read all her novels as a teenager, but I never got round to reading Le deuxieme sexe, which sits on my shelf waiting for me.

love is a battlefield

... and even chemical warfare seems to be quite common.

What I've learned from the current edition of Nature is that Drosophila males have a peptide in their semen, known as the sex peptide, which drastically changes the behaviour of copulated females, such that they reject any further offers they may receive.

Researchers have now found a receptor for this peptide, which is not only of interest for the fans of Dr Tatiana, but also in a more general sense as a model for a very clear connection between a chemical switch and a change of behaviour.

The sex peptide seems to be widespread among insects, so there is the chance that an artificial mimic could be used to control insect populations. Also, while it hasn't been identified in mammals yet, it is quite possible that similar mechanisms exist even in our own species and remain to be discovered.

PS: Evidence that flies and people aren't that different:
Drunken flies get hypersexual
Chronic boozing sends male flies chasing after any and every potential mate.

sesame street on the brain

Rule no. one of science: if you give boring names to the things that you discover, nobody will pay any attention. So researchers studying the development of the brain have named two key proteins ERNI and BERT (obviously, as Sesame Street was also supposed to serve the development of the brain, and as these proteins tend to fight each other), and bingo, they got my attention. I have to say in my defence, though, that it was a very slow news week for science last week, so there wasn't much else really.

Anyhow, here's their story:

BERT and ERNI proteins control brain development

Scientists at University College London have discovered how two proteins ¬called BERT and ERNI interact in embryos to control when different organ systems in the body start to form, deepening our understanding of the development of the brain and nervous system and expanding our knowledge of stem cell behavior.
The new research published this week in the open-access journal PLoS Biology solves the puzzle of how vertebrates prioritize the order in which they begin to develop different sets of structures. During development, only a few signals instruct cells to form thousands of cell types, so the timing of how cells interpret these signals is critical. An international research team led by Professor Claudio Stern of the UCL Department of Anatomy & Developmental Biology has shown that the first stage of development of the brain and nervous system is, paradoxically, a block on its progression.
The scientists describe a sequence of reactions that take place when vertebrate embryos are only a few hours old that together act as a timing mechanism, temporarily preventing the development of neural cells (cells that go on to form the brain and nervous system). This gives a head start to other cells in the embryo that will go on to create the body’s internal organs and skin, and prevents the nervous system from developing prematurely.
Dr. Costis Papanayotou of the Stern laboratory discovered a new protein, BERT, which then binds with the protein ERNI (also discovered by Professor Stern’s team) and other proteins to unblock a gene called Sox2, which gives the green light to cells to start forming the brain and nervous system.
Professor Stern said, “Scientists have been looking for a long time for the switches that determine when cells in the embryo take on specific roles. Our work shows that the proteins BERT and ERNI have an antagonistic relationship: BERT is stronger and overrides ERNI’s suppression of the Sox2 gene, which has a crucial function in setting up the nervous system. As the Sox2 gene is also needed for stem cells to retain their ability to take on a variety of roles in the body and to renew themselves, this research also advances our knowledge of stem cell behavior in adults, which could have implications for this growing area of medical research.”


Citation: Papanayotou C, Mey A, Birot AM, Saka Y, Boast S, et al. (2008) A mechanism regulating the onset of Sox2 expression in the embryonic neural plate. PLoS Biol 6(1): e2.doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060002

books for cuba

on my visits to Cuba I was impressed by the high level of scientific research conducted there in spite of extremely difficult conditions. The advanced biotechnology R&D in Cuba represents a real opportunity for the country to overcome isolation and poverty by exporting products that the majority of the world population desperately need but can’t afford to buy from the big pharma corporations (Current Biology vol. 14, no. 11, pp R401-R402, 2004). Surprisingly for me, the access to information (both electronic and printed) was at least as significant a problem for researchers in Cuba as the shortage of hard currency for the import of instruments.

It occurred to me that I have lots of scientific books that I don’t really need, e.g. books that I reviewed, or ones that I once needed for a long-forgotten research project. I have therefore taken up the monthly (or so) routine of sending one of these books to a friend in Cuba who has agreed to make sure that each book is made accessible and useful for as many researchers as possible. (It appears that the copies of my own books which I brought on my visit are now making a complete tour of the island!)

If you have any science books (in English) that you no longer need and that take away precious shelf space, I encourage you to do the same. A typical book (800g) will cost around GBP 3 to send (surface mail from the UK) and it will be immensely valuable and useful for scientists there. (The packaging comes free as I recycle cardboard boxes and jiffybags in which I have received books myself.) If you would like to send some books too, please contact me and I can provide suitable mailing addresses.

magic and danger

The first two albums that Shakira recorded as a teenager, Magia and Peligro, are officially buried and will never be released again. Thus I was pleased to see that they are at least represented in MySpace:

Magia:


Peligro:


Each site has six tracks from the respective album. Which together would make a nice CD ...

mathematics

... apart from being the year of the frog (as I mentioned earlier), 2008 continues the series of science years in Germany as the Mathematics Year. Events and PR fun will be spread throughout the year, presumably, following the recipe successfully applied to the recent years of physics (2005), humanities (2007), and chemistry (errr, I should remember that one, I think it was 03 or 04).


... and then there is an anniversary to celebrate ... I have no idea how I came to be included in this mailing list, but here is what I received:

January 5, 2008 marks the
60th anniversary of the publication of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.

To learn more about this groundbreaking book, the history of Dr. Kinsey's work,
and the evolution of the Kinsey Institute,
visit our website at: http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/about/history.html

You can hear Dr. Kinsey's brief comments on his research through a video clip,
or read some of the selected findings from the first 'Kinsey Report.'


... well, it may have to do with my two-day stint as a sexpert, around valentine's day 2006 :) As Kinsey also used statistical methods, I guess that counts as mathematics too.

proteins linked to autism

There is a news story on Chemistry World (not mine) about the crystal structure of the complex formed by neuroligin with beta-neurexin. Apparently, mutations in these proteins have been linked to autism.

Obviously, the crystal structure is not going to provide any quick answers about the disorder, as there are at least a dozen genes contributing to the symptoms of autism, but it's good to see things are happening at the molecular scale, and one day we might even understand how it all fits together ...

have heart, will travel

organ transplants are a rather messy feature of modern medicine -- the donor organs can only be stored very briefly on ice, and they may not reach the patients who need them on time or in a reasonable condition.

Researchers are now developing devices that keep donor organs alive in physiological conditions, so they can be kept for longer and can be tested for their functionality before being implanted. Devices for hearts and kidneys are already available, but the big challenge, and the area where such a device could save many lives, is the liver. I've written a feature article about this work which is in the January issue of Chemistry World:

Portable organs
A combination of medical research and engineering could bring an end to the era of putting precious human organs on ice to keep them alive for longer.
... but sadly with restricted access. Should work from university libraries, though.

Oxford research towards the "portable liver" is also discussed in my earlier feature for Oxford Today.

from bad to worse

way back in 1999 I applied for a few London-based jobs, thinking that I would be able to commute in, as the trains could only get better. Since then, they have become worse, and worse, and worse still. And they keep increasing the prices at 2-3 times inflation every year, just to add insult to injury. I believe that under Thatcher (when they were still state-owned, British Rail), there was an official policy of "pricing off demand", i.e. raising the prices to turn people away from the overcrowded trains. Now it seems to work very similarly, only that nobody admits it. Here's today's bad news, but I'm sure we'll hear tomorrow that more lines have to be closed because the wrong type of snow has fallen onto them.

On the plus side, am I glad I never got a job in London. It's already a challenge to go there once a month ...

year of the frog

According to a news report out in Nature, 2008 will be the year of the frog. Oh, and also of the potato, greek feta, sanitation, and 1/3 of the year of Planet Earth.

Very confusing all this, but have a good one anyway !