Tag: Science & Technology

Splice — another science-illiterate movie.

gordsellar7 Comments

If you are worried about spoilers? You need to read this post, so that you don’t spoil your bloody afternoon, the way I did by paying money to watch this crap. Wow, and I thought genetics was a branch of science and industry where people were researching how genetics works, how to design medicines and other technologies based on those discoveries, and hopefully figure out how to regrow organs or limbs, fight aging, combat genetically-heritable illness, and that kind of thing. I mean, yeah, there’s also all kinds of stuff I don’t like in the biotech industry; most people I …

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Culture Bound Mental Illnesses in Korea — Bananaloft

gordsellar2 Comments

I was poking around in Bananaloft, a website devoted to Asian-Canadian goofing-off and fun, and found an article on several, er, conditions that seem to be culture-bound to Korean society, as they say. Well, I would actually say it’s two mental conditions, and one folk-belief. Fear of Fan Death, absurd though it is, seems mainly to be the result of media talking crap; we don’t consider the belief in a higher suicide rate around Christmastime — or fear of the same — a “mental illness” but it’s quite disconnected from reality — a similar folk myth in the Western sphere. …

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Genes and Culture: Ear Rice, Light Sweat, Red Faces, Drinking Places

gordsellar6 Comments

There’s a few neat fact most people seem not to know, regarding genetic differentiations between East Asians and everyone else, and it they’re neat enough to post the going theories about… One particular trait that came into the news a few years ago (2006) is related to sweat and ear wax. (That there was the layperson’s link, but if you want the hard science and have access to Nature, look here.) Which one’s grosser? Ear wax? Okay. Well, there are two kinds of ear wax in humans: brown, wet, waxy stuff, and yellowish-white, drier, flaky stuff. If you’re a Northeast …

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Oxytocin and Social Networking

gordsellar0 Comments

This article is interesting, though its title, “Social Networking Affects Brains Like Falling in Love,” should have a question mark at the end, since the experiment (with Twitter) was a simple one-off. I’d be very curious to see studies of people who use Social Media professionally. (Like, say, someone like pro SF authors twittering like mad at a science fiction convention, or low-level political candidates using Twitter.) I’d also be very curious to see how mediated interaction works compared to non-mediated interaction — how much difference in oxytocin do we see in couples talking on the phone a few hours …

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