People aren’t all straight, gay, or bisexual. Scientists have begun taking notice of a significant number of people who identify as asexual. Writing for the Scientific American, Jesse Bering descries asexuality as, “the absence of desire and no sexual interest in males or females, only a complete and lifelong lacuna of sexual attraction toward any human being (or non-human being).”

An estimated 1 percent of British residents describe themselves as “never having a sexual attraction to anymore,” according to a 2004 study cited by Bering. That’s just slightly lower than the 3 percent of people who identified themselves as attracted to the same sex. An aversion to sex can stem from childhood trauma or chemical imbalances, but some research points to asexuality as being a true fourth sexual orientation that’s “due neither to genetic anomaly or environmental assault.”

One 18-year-old asexual described her feelings to the University of Michigan saying:

I just don’t feel sexual attraction to people. I love the human form and can regard individuals as works of art and find people aesthetically pleasing, but I don’t ever want to come into sexual contact with even the most beautiful of people.

Source: The Scientific American

Students who want to learn something should probably try failing first. According to new research highlighted in the Scientific American, “learning becomes better if conditions are arranged so that students make errors.” In other words, people who take a test that they are bound to fail before studying the material, actually end up learning better. People who fail first remember things better an longer than people who don’t. According to the article, this could have profound effects on educational programs that specifically try to avoid students making errors. The authors write: “Trying and failing to retrieve the answer is actually helpful to learning.”

Source: Scientific American 

Creativity is not a trait that people either have or they don’t. It’s surprisingly orderly, it can be learned. Robert Epstein told the Scientific American, “I think that the fact that creativity is orderly is good news, because it means we can all tap into this rich potential we all have.”

One way to boost creativity is by thinking about problems as abstract. Studies cited by the Scientific American found that picturing problems as more distant in time or space can lead to more creative solutions. In one study, researchers asked people to devise transportation solutions for different cities. The participants who were asked about distant cities came up with more creative solutions than the people who were asked about cities that were close to them.

The Scientific American reports: “Although the geographical origin of the various tasks was completely irrelevant – it shouldn’t have mattered where the questions came from – simply telling subjects that they came from somewhere far away led to more creative thoughts.” 

This research suggests that problems may be solved simply by thinking about them as further away. It also suggests, according to the article, “traveling to faraway places (or even just thinking about such places), thinking about the distant future, communicating with people who are dissimilar to us, and considering unlikely alternatives to reality” would likely make people more creative.

(Thanks, Kaeti.)

Source:  Scientific American  

Image by estoril, licensed under Creative Commons.

Americans need to get away from their computers and get some sun. Three out of every four American teens and adults aren’t getting enough vitamin D, the nutrient you can get from standing in the sunshine. And the problem is getting worse, according to research published in Archives of Internal Medicine and reported by Scientific American: From 1988 to 1994, 45 percent of people tested had sufficient vitamin D. One decade later, that number had dropped to 23 percent. Among African Americans, 12 percent had sufficient vitamin D a decade ago, while just 3 percent of people had the recommended levels more recently.

Vitamin D deficiencies, “are increasingly blamed for everything from cancer and heart disease to diabetes,” according to the Scientific American. The study’s co-author Adit Ginde blames the lack of vitamin D in part on the proliferation of sunscreen and other efforts to prevent skin cancer. A lack of vitamins in regular diets also may play a role.

Some of the study’s critics claim the results inflate the problem, but still admit that vitamin D deficiencies are hugely prevalent and problematic.

Image by  Brian Moore , licensed under  Creative Commons . 

Source: Scientific American 

In his inauguration speech, President Obama promised that America will “restore science to its rightful place.” But what exactly does that mean? Several bloggers and columnists from around the web have weighed in on what the Obama administration can and should do to further scientific discovery and maintain the United States’ position as a leader in research and innovation.

In Seed Magazine, 49 Nobel Laureates wrote a letter outlining their plan for reinvigorating American science. The current economic bailout could represent “a vital investment in America's future,” the authors write, if some of that money goes to scientific projects and research.

Science education should be the focus for Obama and his new secretary of education, Arne Duncan, according to Bill Allen at the Huffington Post. He calls for the support of both the government and citizens to make “America the country of the scientifically-literate and the mathematically-competent.”

Over at Princeton’s Freedom to Tinker blog, Ed Felton concentrates on the need for developing and strengthening cyber technology and security, as well as a bridge of communication between the government and scientific leaders in order to benefit both sectors. 

As for Obama’s promise to use technology to improve health care, Scientific American interviewed Lawrence Baker (a professor of health policy at Stanford), who insists that “The most health care isn't always the best health care. Decisions about value is probably the key.” New developments are only part of the puzzle, using the right technology for the patient is another.

Forget aspirin: scientists at Oxford University are testing binoculars as painkillers. Their findings suggest that manipulating visual images of the body could help manage chronic pain, reports the Scientific American.

The researchers asked study participants to perform sets of movements using an arm that gave them chronic pain. During each exercise, the participants watched their hand through different binocular lenses. In one test, their hands were magnified to twice their size. In another, they were made to appear smaller. In each case, the subjects experienced greater pain as the size of their hands seemed to grow.

These subjective observations were buoyed by objective ones: Their fingers swelled more when perceived to be bigger.

The authors of the study aren’t exactly sure why the distorted images affect pain, but they hypothesize that the binoculars changed the subjects’ connection to their bodies. When their hands looked larger, they were more aware of owning them and thus felt pain more acutely.

Image courtesy of jlcwalker, licensed under Creative Commons.

“With HIV, ignorance is not bliss,” said Dr. Veronica Miller, director of the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, in a statement released during the organization’s national summit last week. Miller’s comments came after new research presented at the summit showed that routine HIV tests are not exactly routine.

Research found a mere 50 to 100 out of 5,000 emergency rooms across the country routinely screen for HIV, even though the percentage of ER visitors who test positive is much greater than the percentage of the general population that’s known to be infected. Another study found that only 4.9 percent of fully insured patients with “a serious illness suggestive of AIDS” got HIV tests, and yet another revealed that only 36 percent of insured patients who sought treatment for other sexually transmitted diseases were tested for HIV, according to the forum’s statement.

Scientific American notes that these findings come two years after the Centers for Disease Control recommended everyone ages 13 to 64 get an HIV test, but that “many doctors are reluctant to offer it because insurers don’t always pay for the screen,” which can cost anywhere from $15 to $120.

Image by Mark Coggins, licensed under Creative Commons.

The Mars Phoenix Lander has accrued thousands of friends and fans on Facebook and Twitter since “dying” last week, when the red planet’s freezing temperatures ended the machine's functionality, Scientific American reports.

NASA spokeswoman Virginia McGregor became a pseudo-celebrity when she began transmitting Twitter tweets and Facebook messages on the lander’s behalf. This proves that 1) social networking is inescapable, even in space; and 2) humans can mourn inanimate objects in record numbers.

For a space program with a history of public relations problems, harnessing the power of social networking to eulogize the Phoenix was a brilliant bit of marketing, and a great way to exploit the sentimentality of space geeks like [sniff] yours truly.

Therapy and 12-step groups are two of the most popular routes to recovery for people addicted to alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. But some scientists are looking to pharmaceuticals in hopes of breaking the cycle of addiction.

Anti-stress pills are one drug that scientists believe could fight addiction to alcohol, Melinda Wenner reports for the Scientific American. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health and University College Lon­don administered a stress-reduction drug to highly anxious recovering alcoholics, which reduced their craving for a drink, especially in high-stress situations. The study didn’t prove whether stress medication could help alcoholics long-term, but represents another step forward in efforts to treat addiction with pharmaceuticals. 

A more radical drug therapy for addiction is being pioneered in Canada. Writing for This Magazine, Peter Tupper profiles a nonprofit rehabilitation facility in British Columbia called Iboga Therapy House, where addicts are administered ibogaine, a drug classified as Schedule I in the United States (meaning its in the same category as cannabis, heroin, and LSD). The extremely powerful drug induces “a dream-like state lasting anywhere from 24 to 36 hours,” during which patients are monitored by medical professionals. Ibogaine's main benefit seems to be relief from painful withdrawal symptoms, and many subjects report a near or total cessation of cravings after the treatment ends. Ibogaine is unregulated in Canada, and its questionable legality makes the drug’s efficacy difficult to track, but facilities like Iboga House appear to be part of a growing subfield of pharmaceutical addiction treatment.

Image by  Dan4th , licensed by  Creative Commons .

Digital technology has advanced to the point where anyone can doctor a photograph. Sometimes it takes a technical expert to tell the difference between a real photo and a fake one. One such expert, Hany Farid writes for the Scientific American about some of the best examples of photo doctoring in the digital age. He also gives some telltale signs of fake photographs, suggesting that sleuths focus on the eyes, the light sources, and the pixels.

Some Photoshop doctoring jobs don’t need an expert to be exposed as a fake. The blog Photoshop Disasters has become a time-wasting favorite on the internet, chronicling some of the worst photo doctoring in the media, including errant limbs, one-legged models, and other human oddities. There are even a few egregious errors from fairly reputable sources. My favorite (seen left) is from Sports Illustrated, where someone seems to have cut off a man’s head. The question is: How did they miss that?

Actually, Bjorn Lomborg never really went away. Armed with his labyrinthine economic models, the Danish statistician is a frequent go-to commentator for media outlets seeking some “balance” in their global warming coverage. He gladly obliges them by trash-talking the Kyoto Protocol, pointing out that polar bears will be just fine when the ice caps melt, and serving up other mathematically derived opinions that cut against conventional environmental wisdom. Lomborg has written a new book, Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming, that’s landed him choice coverage in sympathetic outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Fox News. Lest anyone else be too inclined to take him seriously, it’s worth remembering that Lomborg’s sketchy science has been pretty soundly thrashed by Scientific American, Grist, and famed biologist E.O. Wilson, who called his first book “a sordid mess.” —Keith Goetzman.