J. Alden Page
September 14, 2008
Science, Society
2 Comments
Sean A. Spence wrote an article in the Journal of British Psychiatry, about whether we should use drugs to make people behave ethically. Among other points, the paper gives a few examples of ways that drugs are already being used to make people behave ethically.
There are drugs that make you happy, drugs that help you pay attention, and even drugs that make you smarter. What about drugs that increase empathy? There are many potential applications for such a drug.
These drugs might be able to help sociopaths, who have no ability, or a significantly lessened ability to sympathize with other human beings. It could “cure” a sociopath in the same way that an anti-depressant can cure someone with clinical depression.
What if an entire group of people artificially upped their empathy? Would this group of people be happier or sadder, more productive or less productive?
I’m not even willing to guess. This is an area where much more research needs to be conducted. Vast amounts of money are spent on both promoting behavior enhancing drugs, and studying the effects of these drugs on individuals. But, little is being done to research the effects of wide use on a population. The current trend is towards it being okay for everyone to use drugs that “improve” behavior. Is this trend for better or worse?
mistasteez
August 11, 2008
Science, Society
No Comments
It is interesting that it usually takes a tragedy to set people straight, and even then some don’t catch on. In October, 2007, 17-year-old Ashton Bonds showed up at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital in rural Virginia, complaining about pain in his side. Less than a week later he was pronounced dead. Ashton was infected with MRSA. MRSA, short for methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a modern day superbug of our own creation. Spawned by the gross over perscription of antibiotics, this superbug is resistant to almost all of the commonly prescribed antibiotics (except vancomyocin).
The scary thing is that this is not the only bug of its kind, there are now several multiple, drug-resistant organisms that have been created. This is just the one we hear about in the news. Other genuses such as Enterococcus, Streptococcus, Neisseria, Salmonella and Mycobacterium tuberculosis all have shown multiple drug resistant strains. So the next time you go to the doctor with a cold, begging for antibiotics, think twice.
The responsibility is on us, not just the doctors, to utilize antibiotic drugs in a responsible way. Antibiotics are a wonderful thing when you really need them, lets hope that they can be as useful to us in the future as they have been in the past.
J. Alden Page
August 11, 2008
Science
No Comments
Gravity seems to be able to do work, and it can never be used up. In stars, it causes hydrogen to be crammed together, creating massive amounts of energy. On earth, we can utilize it through riding a bike or creating hydroelectric power. It seems intuitively incorrect for things to have an infinite supply of energy simply because of having mass. Yet, gravity effects everything with mass, and there has yet to be evidence that you can run out of it.
Some say the Theory of Relativity gets around this issue by asserting that gravity isn’t actually a force, it is simply a result of space curvature. I don’t think space curvature adequately answers this question. Space curvature seems to be a viable explanation behind why objects are drawn to other objects with greater mass. The analogy of a bowling ball on a mattress is often used. But, just like in this analogy, curvature still requires the existence of a force that continuously pulls space towards dense deposits of matter. Seemingly, this force is never extinguished.
However, there is a major practical hurdle in utilizing this energy. Something has to be moved for work to be done; after gravity has moved an object, energy must be expended against gravity for the object to be moved again. Tesla claimed to have figured out a way to access limitless energy. Supposedly this discovery was based on his Dynamic Theory of Gravity, which unified the theories of gravity and electromagnetism. But, he came up with this theory at the end of his life, and died before publishing the papers. Upon his death, the U.S. government confiscated much of his work, so who knows whether his claims were justified.
I do not have PhD in theoretical physics. So, if anyone understands where my misunderstanding is please correct me.
mistasteez
July 28, 2008
Philosophy
1 Comment
I think oftentimes, the perceptions people have are inconsistent with what we would call reality. We spend our entire lives trying to figure out what other people think of us, failing to realize that they are doing the exact same thing. We all suffer from the insecurity of not knowing our exact place in the world and most conscious individuals have (at one time or another) pondered the meaning of life.
I would like to think that the decisions we make can affect the course of our lives (for better or worse) and that we all have some special purpose, but most often, I just feel like an ant in a giant ant hill. Am I doing what I want or am I helping someone else fulfill their dream? Its hard to tell. Humans are selfish actors, each playing a role to fulfill some need or desire and that is the reality we often don’t want to believe. Dreams and the idea that we can live the life we want to if we work really hard is looking more and more like a croc of shit to me.
Reality is cold and harsh, some have and some have not. There is no rhyme or reason to it and there is no purpose, it just is. As depressing as that sounds, I feel that I must accept it as a rational person. I would prefer to see things for how they really are, rather than create my own alternate reality. However, forcing yourself to accept this truth leads to innevitable depression, so the only thing to do is delude yourself as little a possible while retaining enough hope to continue.
