New Scientist – Silver cars are the safest on the road

Tuesday, June 29th, 2004

A new study shows that silver cars are the safest on the road:

Silver cars are much less likely to be involved in a serious crash than cars of other colours, suggests a new study of over 1000 cars.

People driving in silver cars were 50 per cent less likely to suffer serious injury in a crash compared with drivers of white cars, the research in New Zealand found.

White, yellow, grey, red and blue cars carried about the same risk of injury. But those taking to the roads in black, brown or green cars were twice as likely to suffer a crash with serious injury.

The study doesn’t explain why silver cars are safer, but it may be due to a combination of light color and high reflectivity.

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Cactus extract offers hangover help

Tuesday, June 29th, 2004

According to Cactus extract offers hangover help, an extract from the skin of the prickly pear fruit, called OFI, eases hangovers by soothing the inflammatory response to alcohol:

Hangovers, or veisalgia as the condition is called medically, carry huge economic and health consequences, say Wiese’s team. But despite this, little is known about its mechanism.

It has been associated with a heightened inflammatory response by the body to alcohol impurities called congeners and some preservatives. Extract from the skin of prickly pear fruit, called OFI, had previously been shown to dampen inflammatory response.

So Wiese’s team gave 55 adults aged between 21 and 35 years old either OFI or placebo five hours before they staged a party. The subjects were given a fast-food dinner and then allowed to choose their tipple for the evening from vodka, gin or rum, which are relatively low in impurities, or bourbon, scotch or tequila, which are relatively high.

I can’t help but note that I prefer vodka, gin, and rum to bourbon, scotch, and tequila.

The morning after the parties, those given OFI were nursing less severe hangovers than those given placebo. In particular, it slashed the risk of a severe hangover by half.

The researchers also measured levels of a protein produced by the liver, called C-reactive protein, which is thought to be involved in the inflammation process.

The higher the levels, the worse the hangover, they found. This is the first study to show this, the team believes. Levels of this protein were also 40 per cent higher in the people who took placebo pills compared with those who took the OFI.

The researchers therefore believe that OFI eases hangovers by soothing the inflammatory response to alcohol.

So how does OFI compare to aspirin?

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Sun block

Tuesday, June 29th, 2004

I’ve long had a certain morbid curiosity about sunscreen — are the chemicals in sunscreen worse for you than the UV radiation they block? According to Sun block, they just might be:

Schlumpf and her colleagues tested six common UV screening chemicals used in sunscreens, lipsticks and other cosmetics. All five UVB screens — benzophenone-3, homosalate, 4-methyl-benzylidene camphor (4-MBC), octyl-methoxycinnamate and octyl-dimethyl-PABA — behaved like oestrogen in lab tests, making cancer cells grow more rapidly.

Three caused developmental effects in animals. Only one chemical — a UVA protector called butyl-methoxydibenzoylmethane (B-MDM) — showed no activity.

One of the most common sunscreen chemicals, 4-MBC, had a particularly strong effect. When the team mixed it with olive oil and applied it to rat skin, it doubled the rate of uterine growth well before puberty. ‘That was scary, because we used concentrations that are in the range allowed in sunscreens,’ Schlumpf says.

Nobody knows if doses are high enough to create problems for people, says Schlumpf.

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Early puberty linked to shampoos

Tuesday, June 29th, 2004

According to New Scientist, some popular “black” hair products contain female hormones:

Unbeknown to many parents, a few hair products — especially some marketed to black people — contain small amounts of hormones that could cause premature sexual development in girls.
[...]
Throughout the West, girls are tending to reach puberty earlier. This has been blamed on everything from improved diet to environmental contaminants. But African-American girls are developing even earlier than their white counterparts. About half of black girls in the US begin developing breasts or pubic hair by age eight, compared with just 15 per cent of white girls, one study has found. In Africa, girls enter puberty much later, regardless of their socioeconomic status.
[...]
The products are sold as shampoos or treatments to deep-condition dry, brittle hair. The labels usually state that they contain placenta, hormones or “estrogen”, although not all products that make such claims contain active hormones.

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Television watching may hasten puberty

Tuesday, June 29th, 2004

According to Television watching may hasten puberty, watching television may reduce melatonin levels — and low melatonin levels hasten maturation:

Scientists at the University of Florence in Italy found that when youngsters were deprived of their TV sets, computers and video games, their melatonin production increased by an average 30 per cent.

?Girls are reaching puberty much earlier than in the 1950s. One reason is due to their average increase in weight; but another may be due to reduced levels of melatonin,? suggests Roberto Salti, who led the study. ?Animal studies have shown that low melatonin levels have an important role in promoting an early onset of puberty.?

(Hat tip to FuturePundit.)

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Operation everything

Monday, June 28th, 2004

Virginia Postrel’s Operation everything describes Operations Research, a field that’s finally delivering on old promises, now that we have the computing power and the data to take advantage of it:

“I’ve been explaining for 40 years what operations research is,” says Eisner, who is associate director of the school of operations research and industrial engineering at Cornell University. He defines O.R. as “the effective use of scarce resources under dynamic and uncertain conditions.”

That may sound arcane, but it’s pretty much the problem of living — and certainly the central problem of economic life. O.R. isn’t economics, however, though most economists have some O.R. training. It’s applied mathematics. Since its origins in World War II to its recent resurgence fueled by the explosion in raw computing power, O.R. has developed analytical models of the tradeoffs and uncertainties involved in problems ranging from inventory management to police deployment, from scheduling sports leagues to determining how many people to call for jury duty.
[...]
Magnanti calls O.R. “a liberal education in a technological world.” Just as a classical education once prepared students for a wide range of endeavors, from theology and science to diplomacy and warfare, he argues, so the habits and tools of O.R. are widely applicable to contemporary problems.

I enjoyed this anecdote from the early days of OR, but I’m not sure how you systematize such thinking:

In World War II, scientists from a wide range of fields attacked military problems with a potent combination of empiricism and mathematical models. When airplanes came back riddled with holes from enemy attacks, for instance, the intuitive response was to reinforce the armor where the holes were. But, noted the scientists, those were the planes that made it back. They didn’t need more armor where they were hit. The real challenge was to figure out the places that had been hit in the planes that went down.

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Operations Research

Monday, June 28th, 2004

Operations Research sounds like my kind of job:

One of the more revolutionary weapons developed in the last century is being widely used in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is little known even within the military. It’s called Operations Research (OR), and it’s basically the application of mathematical and statistical tools to determine ‘optimal resource allocation.’ In other words, it’s the use of math and common sense to solve seemingly unsolvable problems. During World War II, OR was first used to solve military problems, and it had a major impact. Developed mainly by British scientists in the 1920s and 30s, it?9s first major success was in developing the British air defense system used with great success during the Battle of Britain. OR was used to determine the most effective way to deploy the new radars, and where to put Britain?9s outnumbered fighter squadrons, and when to send them off to fight oncoming German bombers and fighters. OR was later used to figure out optimal ways to deploy anti-submarine forces in the Battle of the Atlantic, how to best defend formations of American heavy bombers over Germany, and much, much more.

It’s not just military though:

There are some OR specialists in plain sight. These are the MBA crowd. Reviled as heartless bean counters, MBAs practice OR under a different name; ?Management Science.? But the two disciplines are the same, and many business schools have one OR Department that teaches the tricks of the trade to the apprentice captains of industry.

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At Pitt, Scientists Decode The Secret of Getting Grants

Monday, June 28th, 2004

Working as a scientist is as much about getting grants as performing the actual science, and Pitt is actracting negative attention from scientists for its focus on getting grants. From At Pitt, Scientists Decode The Secret of Getting Grants:

To make sure Pittsburgh stays ahead of the pack, Dr. Kupfer runs an intensive “survival skills” course for young postdoctoral fellows in psychiatry to train them in the fine points of applying for their first grants, typically about $600,000 for five years. The biggest trick young scientists need to learn, he says, is to focus their proposals more narrowly. To Dr. Kupfer, it’s almost like marketing or branding. “You need a T-shirt,” he constantly exhorts his charges, by which he means a quick phrase that tells the world what the research stands for.

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Football Rules

Monday, June 28th, 2004

I found an excellent history of Football Rules, including these dates and rules changes:

1905
  • No tackling out-of-bounds.

  • No Hurdling or piling on after play called dead.

  • No tackling below the knee.

  • No stricking the ball carrier in the face.

  • No locking of legs, except for the two players on either side of the center.

  • Referee called the end of the play.

  • Offense had to have 6 players on line of scrimage.

  • Only one player in motion before the snap.

  • Any player moving from the line of scrimage had to be replaced prior to the snap of the ball.

  • The length of the game shortened to 2 thirty minute halves.

  • The number of yards need for a first down increased from 5 to 10.

  • Neutral zone increase to length of the ball.

  • Legalization of the forward pass.
    • If the pass was incomplete, it was a turnover.

    • A pass completed in the endzone was a touchback for the defending team (turnover)

    • If the ball wasn’t thrown within 5 yards, either side of the middle of the field, or hit an ineligble receiver, it was a turnover. Hash marks were added.

1908

  • Seven players on the line of scrimage. End of mass-formation plays.

  • No pushing or pulling the ball carrier.

  • No interlocked interference.

  • No crawling.

  • Flying tackle banned.

  • Score for forfeited game set at 1 point.

1910

  • A player leaving the game could not return until the start of the next quarter.

  • Forward passes limited to 20 yards in length or under.

1912

  • Team had 4 downs to make a firstdown. (10 yards)

  • Length of field reduced to 100 yards from 110 yards. 10 yard endzone created behind each goal.

  • Value of a touchdown increased from 5 to 6 points.

  • All distance restrictions for a forward pass were removed.

  • A pass completed in the endzone was now a touchdown and no longer a turnover.

  • An incompleted pass was a loss of down and no longer a turnover.

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NFL History

Monday, June 28th, 2004

Some of my favorite factoids from NFL History:

1869
Rutgers and Princeton played a college soccer football game, the first ever, November 6. The game used modified London Football Association rules. During the next seven years, rugby gained favor with the major eastern schools over soccer, and modern football began to develop from rugby.

1876
At the Massasoit convention, the first rules for American football were written. Walter Camp, who would become known as the father of American football, first became involved with the game.

1898
A touchdown was changed from four points to five.

1904
A field goal was changed from five points to four.

1906
The forward pass was legalized.

1909
A field goal dropped from four points to three.

1912
A touchdown was increased from five points to six.

Interestingly, the NFL History site doesn’t mention what prompted the forward pass — it was an attempt to open up the game and reduce the number of injuries in the game, which still involved rugby-like scrums charging down field. Teddy Roosevelt himself demanded the changes. (They also changed the first-down distance to 10 yards, from five — in three downs.)

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Touchrugby International

Monday, June 28th, 2004

I’ve had a mild interest in rugby for some time, and touch rugby sounded like a fun variant — “similar to rugby but without the tackling, scrumming, rucking, mauling, lineouts and kicking.”

In fact, it sounds quite a bit like (American) touch football, but with six touches instead of four downs, no forward passing or punting, and some different lingo. For instance, if you’re touched, you have to return to where you were touched and “rollball” (more-or-less “hike” the ball) to a “dummy half” (quarterback) who can’t get touched (I’d say “sacked”) or your team loses possession (not just one of its six touches). Also, the dummy half can’t score; he has to pass the ball along to another player.

Defenders have to back off five meters (yards) from the ball before the rollball — 10 meters (yards) on the first play of the game or after a touchdown — which, by the way, lives up to its name: you have to touch the ball down past the try (goal) line to score.

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Gaelic Football

Monday, June 28th, 2004

This weekend, I watched an Irish friend’s team play Gaelic Football:

Gaelic Football can be described as a mixture of soccer and rugby, although it predates both of those games. It is a field game which has developed as a distinct game similar to the progression of Australian Rules. Indeed it is thought that Australian Rules evolved from Gaelic Football through the many thousands who were either deported or emigrated to Australia from the middle of the nineteenth century. Gaelic Football is played on a pitch approximately 137m long and 82m wide. The goalposts are the same shape as on a rugby pitch, with the crossbar lower than a rugby one and slightly higher than a soccer one.

The ball used in Gaelic Football is round, slightly smaller than a soccer ball. It can be carried in the hand for a distance of four steps and can be kicked or “hand-passed”, a striking motion with the hand or fist. After every four steps the ball must be either bounced or “solo-ed”, an action of dropping the ball onto the foot and kicking it back into the hand. You may not bounce the ball twice in a row. To score, you put the ball over the crossbar by foot or hand/fist for one point or under the crossbar and into the net by foot or the hand/fist in certain circumstances for a goal, the latter being the equivalent of three points.

There are so many variations of football (soccer, rugby union, rugby league, American football, Canadian football, Aussie rules, and Gaelic football), and they all struggle to come up with the right mix of rules. Gaelic rules seemed to provide good action, but I have to admit that the mandatory “solo-ing” seemed odd and arbitrary.

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Spike TV Enlists for ‘Ultimate Fighter’

Monday, June 28th, 2004

I may finally have a reason to watch Spike TV. From Spike TV Enlists for ‘Ultimate Fighter’:

Spike TV is stepping into the ring with Ultimate Fighting Championship for a series about the martial arts sport. The male-oriented cable network has ordered 13 hour-long episodes of ‘Ultimate Fighter’ to begin airing in January.

Set to start shooting in September in Las Vegas, ‘Fighter’ will chronicle a competition among 20 athletes to earn a shot at a spot in the UFC league. Mixed martial arts involves fighters of different weight classes battling each other using techniques from karate, judo and kickboxing.

The Spike deal represents a turnabout for UFC, which cable operators dropped from pay-per-view during the late 1990s because of controversy over its violent action. Since coming under new ownership in 2001, the sport has remade itself in a bid for mainstream viewers.

UFC president Dana White believes that the Spike deal will expose the sport to new fans. ‘This is huge for us,’ he said. ‘It will take UFC to the next level.’

Robert Riesenberg, one of the executive producers, said he expects to sign up advertisers from several categories — ranging from energy drinks to athletic shoes — that would help finance the series in exchange for product integration and off-air extensions of UFC in everything from radio and Internet advertising.

By the way, stepping into the ring? It’s the octagon, people.

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Californians, as a rule, are familiar with ju-jutsu…

Sunday, June 27th, 2004

As an aficionado of “physical culture” and “clever wrestling tricks”, I quite enjoyed this passage from The Land That Time Forgot, where our hero has been tackled by multiple cavemen:

Three of the warriors were sitting upon me, trying to hold me down by main strength and awkwardness, and they were having their hands full in the doing, I can tell you. I don’t like to appear conceited, but I may as well admit that I am proud of my strength and the science that I have acquired and developed in the directing of it — that and my horsemanship I always have been proud of. And now, that day, all the long hours that I had put into careful study, practice and training brought me in two or three minutes a full return upon my investment. Californians, as a rule, are familiar with ju-jutsu, and I especially had made a study of it for several years, both at school and in the gym of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, while recently I had had, in my employ, a Jap who was a wonder at the art.

Californians, as a rule, are familiar with ju-jutsu…

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Merriam-Webster Online – myriad

Friday, June 25th, 2004

I recently learned a friend-of-a-friend’s peeve: using myriad as a noun. Naturally, I’d heard it used as a noun and as an adjective, and I wasn’t sure which version was “correct” (or “more correct”). Merriam-Webster Online explains:

Main Entry: 1myr.i.ad

Pronunciation: ‘mir-E-&d

Function: noun

Etymology: Greek myriad-, myrias, from myrioi countless, ten thousand

1 : ten thousand

2 : a great number <a myriad of ideas>

usage Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase a myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective. As the entries here show, however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it.

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