Does the universe have meaning and structure? Is there some kind of force or power that controls events and preserves order in our lives?

These may seem like questions for philosophers or theologians, but some social psychologists have chimed in with their own evidence-based opinions. Their answer is a resounding … “Well, people certainly think so!”

Most people live with the assumption that there is an order and reason underlying the things that happen in the universe. In fact, it could be said that one of the larger cognitive motivators in life is the preservation of that belief. Without this sense of order, we would be left with a terrifying and chaotic existence in which a terrible fate could befall us at any time.

Some may argue that this chaotic view of life is closer to reality than any sense of meaning or order. We do, indeed, live a life in which something terrible can happen at any moment for no reason. Innocent people die every day and horrendous criminals get away with terrible acts. Senseless natural disasters befall thousands of people every year. So, is this sense of stability and rationality a false hope held by the feeble minded among us? Probably not.

In the face of senseless tragedies, we feel a sense of anger, injustice, and confusion. These reactions are quick and automatic. They indicate that, at our core, we all feel that the things that happen need to have a reason. The deaths of innocent people don’t pass without notice. It shakes our internal sense of order, which needs to be restored.

While many of us look inside ourselves for a sense of stability, we also look for external sources of order. Today, I want to talk about two sources of stability that many people rely on – God and government.

Both God and government are powerful entities and each has control over our lives. Our nation’s government creates a structured society by securing economic stability, providing social welfare, keeping criminals off the streets, and defending national security. Similarly, for believers, God has the power to create a structured and meaningful universe, punish sinners, and reward the virtuous.

A set of fascinating studies shows that these two large sources of external control are important, widely accepted, and interchangeable. That is, when one is threatened, we increase our confidence in the other. When our faith in the government is shaken, we believe more in the presence of God or a God-like entity that has the power to control the universe. Conversely, when our belief in God or a God-like entity is threatened, we increase our support for the government.

The first study from the set asked participants from Malaysia to report on their attitudes towards God and the government during a time of political instability. In 2008, milestone elections left much of the country feeling that their government was highly unstable. When this source or control was shaken, the researchers hypothesized that participants would increase their faith and confidence in a controlling God or God-like entity. Indeed, the data showed that participants’ ratings of government instability two weeks before the election predicted their faith in a controlling God or God-like entity two weeks after the election.

To examine this relationship further, the researchers simulated this situation in the lab. Researchers had one group of Canadian participants read an article discussing the instability of their government, while another group read an article about its stability. The group who read the article discussing government instability was more likely to endorse belief in a controlling God than the group who read about government stability. This group was more likely to agree with statements discussing the presence of God or a non-human entity that is in control of the things in the universe.

These two studies give support for the idea that when the stability of the government is threatened, people increase their faith in God – an alternate source of support.

The researcher’s final study tested the reverse effect and showed that when people’s beliefs in God are threatened, they put more faith in the government. Paralleling the previous study, half the participants read a fake journal article in which notable physicist were either endorsing the existence of a controlling God-like force in the universe or discounting the existence of such a force. Those participants exposed to an article which discounted the existence of a God-like being, were then more likely to support the government.

These studies are notable in several ways. A previous body of research has demonstrated that when events shake our sense of order, we feel a loss of personal control and turn to external sources of control including our religious faith and the government. It is as though we need something larger than us and more powerful to protect and guide our lives. What is notable in this newer research is that people may substitute one source of control for another. This has many implications for interpreting the relationship between religion and government in many nations. If these two sources of power are interchangeable, perhaps governments preserve their authority by either wedding themselves to religion or, conversely, putting serious limitations to religion among their constituents.

I welcome thoughts and feedback on these interesting and controversial attempts to explain some of our deepest held beliefs and most fundamental attitudes.

The article:
Kay, A., Shepherd, S., Blatz, C., Chua, S., & Galinsky, A. (2010). For God (or) country: The hydraulic relation between government instability and belief in religious sources of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99 (5), 725-739 DOI: 10.1037/a0021140

Chimera Rhesus monkeys. Credit: OHSU

Say hello to Roku, Hex, and Chimero, three adorable rhesus monkey infants who have recently stepped into the Internet limelight. Aptly named, each of these tiny mammals was concocted early in fetal development by mixing the cell lines of up to six genetically distinct progenitor individuals. By scientific definition, these little guys are what we call engineered chimera.

The term chimera originated in ancient Greek mythology millenia before it was co-opted for modern scientific jargon. The Greek Chimera, in fact, was a terrible fire-breathing creature. Depicted as a lioness with a goat’s head protruding from her back and a snake for a tail, she was related to other (perhaps more famous) Greek mythological monsters, including Cerberus and the Lernaean hydra.

Western scholars also apply the term chimera to many beasts in ancient Chinese mythology. Depictions of the Qilin, for example, date back to the 5th century BC. While the Qilin’s construction has been altered slightly throughout the centuries, all Qilin are shown with a single horn on the forehead, a body covered in scales, and four hoofed feet. Other Chinese chimera include the Bixie and Tianlu, both of which were winged beasts.

Greek Chimera

While these early chimeric forms were mythological constructions of disjointed body parts merged into Frankensteinesque creatures, today’s chimera are a very real scientific sensation. Yet Western culture largely still associates chimera with the ungodly and unnatural. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Chimera — even human chimera — are as normal and natural as other genetic or congenital conditions, like leucism or holoprosencephaly (both of which I have written about in earlier BSR posts). So when you look at a photo of chimeric Rhesus infants, or in the future when you read scientific articles claiming exceptional work with chimeric embryos, I advise you to remember the following:

1. Nature made chimera first. All modern life originated from unicellular organisms, but even unicellular organisms aren’t as simple as we often consider them to be. Photosynthetic organisms owe their light-harvesting capabilities to an ancestor who once engulfed an entire cyanobacterium and lived to tell the story. Similarly, most protists and all animals rely on mitochondria for energy production, but extensive evidence exists to indicate that mitochondria were once autonomous organisms.The fantastic process by which one organism hosts another is termed endosymbiosis, and it is one way that a chimera can be formed. Both unicellular algae and 60-foot kelp stalks alike are chimera. Bacterial biofilms and coral are, too. And let’s not forget  lichen, which is composed of both fungus and either algae or cyanobacteria. The point is, chimeric lifeforms are exceedingly common, having originated hundreds of millions of years ago in the earliest steps of the evolutionary pathways.


Coral reefs: one of nature's many chimera

2. Nature also made chimera better. Nature’s chimera have evolved into some of the most complex, dynamic, and amazing organisms on Earth. The sequoia’s ancestors were algal slime; now their pinnacles tower nearly a half-mile above ground. The cheetah, which can run at speeds of up to 75 mph, evolved from unicellular organisms completely lacking in locomotive abilities. The coral of the Great Barrier Reef span over 1,600 miles, but each polyp measures just millimeters in length. By comparison, the biological complexity of most engineered chimera is akin to a swirled up bowl of M&Ms and Skittles.
3. Primate chimera are just as normal as you and I. Primate chimera exist all around us. Tetragametic chimerism is a condition found in humans in which one baby is born after two embryos fuse early during fetal development. The cells rarely mix evenly, leading to, for example, an individual with a liver of one genetic constitution and kidneys of the other. In the case of the reproductive organs, the embryo line that they descend from determines the individual’s biological sex and reproductive capabilities. Imagine being a woman who can bear children but has skin with XY chromosomes — and it’s all entirely natural, healthy, and normal! Sometimes, organs may contain both cell lines, leading to complex pigmentation maps of hair, skin, or eye coloring. In short, while our little Rhesus infant friends may seem like laboratory oddities, in actuality, they’re just a variation on a perfectly normal process that occurs naturally in both primates and the animal kingdom at large.

Want to see some chimera for yourselves? Just take a trip to the Botanic Gardens or the zoo! (Or take a look in the mirror!)

I want this post to serve as a tour of some of the amazing machines in the shop and the ways that I use them; to facilitate that, I’ll use some of my own photographs.

Most of my work in the shop begins and ends at the work bench. I’ll start by laying out a design on metal, and finish by filing off the burrs after machining.

When learning to use the tools in the shop, the drill press was one of the first to which I was exposed. It might not be as exciting and complicated as a lathe or milling machine, but if I want to put a hole in something, nine times out of ten I’ll start at a drill press.

The drill press wouldn’t be much good without bits, and the shop has a plethora. Below the standard (if enormous) drill bits in this picture are an array of hole saws for cutting larger-diameter holes in thin material.

My favorite tool in the shop is the lathe. By spinning a piece quickly relative to a fixed cutting tool, the lathe creates objects with radial symmetry very precisely. I’ve personally used it to create a variety of small sample holders and pistons.

Though the lathe’s controls look overwhelming, most of the cranks and knobs involve moving the tool bit or engaging an autofeeder to make smooth, consistent cuts.

Though all of the lathes are similar, there are enough subtle differences between them that I’m happy when I get to use “mine.”

This tray holds the parts necessary to use the lathe. On the right are mounts that hold the cutting tool in place; on the left is the key to a good piece: lubricating oil. The friction of cutting metal generates an enormous amount of heat. Reduce the friction, reduce the heat.

The milling machine is likely the most potent tool in the whole shop. Like a kind of combination between a drill press and a lathe, it cuts planes and grooves at carefully-controlled orientations. It’s particularly helpful for constructing custom mounting brackets. (In spectroscopy, many companies sell the appropriate mirrors or crystals, but I find myself improvising in order to mount them in the correct configuration in my lab.)

The milling machine also has an autofeeder. In much the same way as the lathe’s autofeeder, it allows for putting a gorgeous finish on a piece by moving the cutting tool at a very steady rate over the metal.

The College of Chemistry’s student machine shop offers me an array of possible approaches to produce whatever part my experiment requires. That kind of flexibility dramatically speeds up any experiment. More than that, though, the flexibility means that I can let my imagination go a bit even when I’m just conceiving experiments; I know that I’ll be able to make them work with the help of the machine shop.

The images in this post were taken by the author using a technique called High Dynamic Range imaging, or HDR. Please follow the link if you’d like to learn more about the technique. To see more of the authors photography, please visit decaseconds.com.

Last week, I had the chance to talk to Zoey Herm, Berkeley grad student and organizer of this forum, about electronics waste.

Why did you choose to organize a roundtable on electronics waste?

This is a very pressing issue globally in terms of human health and the environment. Specifically the topic was of interest to the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative because there’s a huge vacuum in the market for solutions to this problem. There are a lot of market incentives to work on this problem, which can be pushed by regulations, but also exist on their own. There’s a lot of valuable materials – plastics and metals – in electronics waste which can be recovered for profit.

What are some of the biggest challenges today in electronics waste recycling?

The biggest issue is deciding how to push regulation forward. There’s a divide in the policy arena about the best way to do that. For instance, extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a policy in most states in the US who have some kind of electronics waste program which requires the manufacturer to take some responsibility for the waste. There are other ways of dealing with it, like having the consumer pay ten dollars into the cost of any electronics when she buys it. Both types of policies exist today.

Are there proponents of both policies on this panel?

Yes.

That should be a lively discussion!

Indeed.

This might be a silly question, but there are these boxes on campus where you can put your old cellphone. How do I know that they’re not just going into a landfill?

An organization called the Basel Action Network is the biggest non-profit for electronics waste in the US. They’ve established a certification program for electronics recyclers called the e-Stewards program. The boxes on campus are eSteward certified, so we can be sure that it’s being handled responsibly.

The eStewards program slightly controversial, because obtaining eSteward certification, like any certification program, is expensive.

Do you know of other resources for Berkeley students to dispose of their electronics waste?

Near campus is Green Citizen, the CEO of which will be at the round table. They have a lot of information as well as free e-waste recycling.

What do you want people who come to the Electronic Waste Roundtable to take away?

I’d want them to start thinking about themselves as global citizens when considering their electronics.

After years of resistance to the smartphone craze, I reluctantly accepted an iphone as a gift last month. I instantly fell in love.

Aside from the obvious convenience of having constant access to email, what I really love are the apps. I love that I can instantly check bus schedules, look up recipes, and take vintage-y looking pictures (thanks Maya!). But as a psychologist, I’m especially excited by the idea that apps can be used in the service of mental health and well-being.

For example:

1. The Happiness Helper. Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, psychologist and author of The How of Happiness, co-developed an app called Live Happy involving activities that research shows contribute to well-being. Users can evaluate and track important goals, envision their best selves, savor positive experiences, and keep a gratitude journal, among other activities. I recently downloaded this app to test it out, and I love the idea, but it was hard to get into the exercises and have the patience to take them seriously. I did appreciate the more interactive elements, such as the ongoing Q & A with Dr. Lyubomirsky, and I do want to try to use the “savoring album” (though that’s sort of what my regular album already is).

2. The Mood Lifter. An app called eCBT for Mood (based on widely-used Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) helps users disrupt the downward spiral of depressive rumination by providing a structure for them to challenge dysfunctional thoughts as they occur. For example, a user might be encouraged to identify the biases processes that give rise to their thoughts, as on the screen to the left. Importantly, this app is intended as an adjunct to therapy and medication, not a replacement. I haven’t tried this one out, but I would imagine that, like Live Happy, it would require a high degree of motivation and commitment – though for those who are used to regularly completing CBT homework it may be a more fluid transition, and a more convenient platform than traditional paper/pencil writing exercises. Coming soon: eCBT for dieting, anxiety, pain, binging, and drinking.

3. The Anxiety Buffer. Research suggests that highly anxious people have an attentional bias that causes them to more quickly perceive negative or threatening stimuli, such as a hostile face. Cognitive bias modification was recently developed as a method for training people to redirect attention away from negative stimuli using simple computer-based tasks, and this approach has demonstrated effectiveness in treating anxiety. A team of researchers at Harvard and Boston University have recently begun testing an app that is based on bias modification for social anxiety. According to a New York Times report, findings from an initial study are mixed: the app was better than nothing but did not beat the placebo condition which involved a non-therapeutic gaze-shifting task. The largest benefits came to those who had first read an article about the program, suggesting that positive expectation might play a role. Stay tuned for more when the paper reporting these results is published. (The app is not yet available.)

4. The Self-Esteem Booster. Mark Baldwin and his graduate students have developed some great self-esteem games. Unlike overt positive affirmations, which can backfire, these games target people’s implicit (i.e., automatic, unconscious) feelings about themselves. Tasks that involve, for example, repeatedly physically linking positive words and images with the self can change these “gut” feelings for the better. And repeatedly focusing on positive social information (e.g., clicking on smiling faces), a task also based on principles of bias modification, is intended to help people learn to ignore rejecting information in their social environments. You can try some of the games here, and they can be purchased at this website. I couldn’t help but be distracted and amused by the models’ varied takes on hostility, but I assume that over time the routine of the task would set in. This is not an app yet, as far as I know, but I imagine that it will be soon!

While few would argue for mental health apps to replace real-life interactions with trained therapists or supportive loved ones, apps do have the unique advantage of being available at times when other resources may not be, such as right before a stressful exam or presentation at work, after a heated argument, or in the middle of the night. Our phones are our constant companions, the one thing that follows us wherever we go – we may as well take advantage of their potential to make us happier and healthier.

References:

Dandeneau, S., & Baldwin, M. (2004). The Inhibition of Socially Rejecting Information Among People with High Versus Low Self-Esteem: The Role of Attentional Bias and the Effects of Bias Reduction Training Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23 (4), 584-603 DOI:10.1521/jscp.23.4.584.40306

MacLeod, C., Koster, E., & Fox, E. (2009). Whither cognitive bias modification research? Commentary on the special section articles. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 118 (1), 89-99 DOI: 10.1037/a0014878

Common sense dictates that we should curb our CO₂ emissions as much as possible. But what about all that anthropogenic carbon that is already in the atmosphere? Scientists and engineers have been scratching their heads for a long time about what to do with the nearly 400 parts per million of CO₂ up there (data from Mauna Loa observatory via NOAA).

If we stopped burning carbon fuels today, this concentration would decrease slowly over time; there are many natural carbon sinks on the Earth’s surface, including plants and oceans. Unfortunately, we humans are adamant about our right to continue emitting carbon, consequences be damned. So the pressure is on for us to figure out a way to accelerate the extraction of carbon from the atmosphere.

PARC researchers developed a technique for pulling carbon dioxide out of sea water. Photo credit: Jon McGovern

This is why I was intrigued by a recent report in Energy & Environmental Science from a group at PARC  (Palo Alto Research Center) describing their method for removing CO₂ from sea water. Our oceans hold massive stores of dissolved CO₂ in equilibrium with the CO₂ in the air. As any general chemistry student can tell you, removing a chemical from any reaction will shift the equilibrium to make more of that chemical (thank you, Le Chatelier). If you pull CO₂ out of the water and store it somewhere (more on this later), more CO₂ from the air will be dissolved.

So what kind of magic makes this CO₂ extraction possible? The answer is something the authors call BPMED: bipolar membrane electrodialysis, which is quite a mouthful. Basically, it’s electrodialysis, meaning they use electricity to clear unwanted components from water, just like dialysis clears waste from blood when a person’s kidneys stop doing their job. Apply an electric potential to salt water in the presence of ion-exchange membranes that prevent particular ions from passing through, and you get a stream of concentrated salt water and a stream of pure water. If this membrane is bipolar, it actually sends positive ions one direction and negative ions the other direction. In water, this has the effect of separating H⁺ and OH^- ions, i.e. making a stream of acid and a stream of base.

This is where it gets clever. Dissolved CO₂ can take many forms, including carbonic acid and the bicarbonate ion HCO3^-. But in an acidic solution, there is an abundance of H⁺ ions, which shifts equilibrium back toward the production of CO₂ and H₂O (Monsieur Le Chatelier strikes again!). So to get CO₂ out of the acid stream, all you need is a vacuum pump. The carbonate dissolved in the base stream is stuck there, but the upshot is that you can get way more CO₂ gas out of solution this way than you ever would by just pumping on plain sea water, which is slightly basic (pH ~8.2).

What makes this idea even cooler is that the CO₂ would actually be useful after it’s collected. A molecule like CO₂ is practically begging to be converted into some form of chemical fuel. Imagine stringing all those carbon atoms together into long chains of C-C and C-H bonds that can eventually release their energy in a combustion engine or fuel cell. Immense research efforts have been undertaken in the field of artificial photosynthesis, including Berkeley’s own JCAP, in hopes of making this scheme a reality.

One interesting tidbit about PARC: it’s actually a sidearm of the Xerox corporation.  It seems that Xerox is interested in more than just printing and photocopying. They support a wide range of exciting R&D activities, including clean water and energy storage, and their slogan is “The Business of Breakthroughs”®. This latest breakthrough may not be game-changing (their BPMED process still consumes a fair amount of energy), but it does represent a creative approach to problem-solving, which we desperately need in this era of big man-made problems.

Eisaman, M., Parajuly, K., Tuganov, A., Eldershaw, C., Chang, N., & Littau, K. (2012). CO2 extraction from seawater using bipolar membrane electrodialysis Energy & Environmental Science DOI: 10.1039/c2ee03393c

Lizard (Agama agama) with Cal Tailbot Robot and Model Velociraptor (Discovery Channel 4D Anatomy Model, 2008 Fame Master Ent. Ltd.)

Do animal tails assist with “in-flight” stabilization?  It’s probably not a question you ponder every day, but it’s exactly what Berkeley graduate student researchers Thomas Libby and Evan Chang-Siu set out to find when they built a tailed robot … and drove it off a ramp.

Libby and Chang-Siu’s project made news when their paper Tail-assisted pitch control in lizards, robots, and dinosaurs made the cover of the latest issue of Nature. Their project is one of many exciting biomechanics projects underway in Berkeley’s Center for Interdisciplinary Bio-inspiration in Education and Research, or CiBER, led by Integrative Biology professor Dr. Bob Full.

Inspired by the observation that Red-headed Agama lizards stabilize themselves in free-fall with controlled movements of their tails, the researchers built a lizard-sized robot with wheels and a “tail” (metal rod) and tried to  mimic the ability to stay upright during a fall. Unlike previous attempts to build self-righting robots, their robot tail used a control mechanism called active feedback.  Active feedback occurs when the robot is able to respond to its environment by making instantaneous movements in accordance to the in-motion changes perceived by its sensors.  In contrast, previous work focused on feed-forward robots, which rely on pre-programmed movements to compensate a predetermined trajectory. Tom Libby explains the difference in terms of picking up a milk jug: if you expect the jug to be full, you will initiate an appropriate amount of muscle power as you pick up the jug; this is feed-forward.  If, upon picking up the jug, you realize that it is empty, the system you use to change the amount of power you input (thereby preventing yourself from getting smacked in the head with the jug) is feedback control.

The researchers used their robot, along with mathematical models, to predict the effectiveness of an active tail compared to a rigid tail, a passively complaint tail (one that is able to move but has no feedback mechanism), or no tail at all (phew, I was hoping they didn’t cut off the lizards’ tails!).  Their models show that an Agama lizard with an active tail is 48% less susceptible to aerial rotation compared to a rigid tail, 66% less susceptible compared to a passively compliant tail, and 78% less susceptible compared to no tail at all.

Lastly, the researchers made a mathematical model of  of Velociraptor mongoliensis to predict how this dinosaur would have used its tail while leaping.  The model showed that the velociraptor had even greater tail effectiveness than that of the Agama lizards, supporting a hypothesis made by paleontologist John Ostram in 1969 that theropod dinosaurs dynamically used their tails to stabilize erratic movements.  And yes, this is the same velociraptor from Jurassic Park.  Turns out the filmmakers did a good job of making the velociraptor’s jump — and subsequent tail movements — realistic.

As cool as this project is on its own (launching robots off of ski-jump-like ramps is always cool), the project goes well beyond lizards and robots.  By better understanding the functions of an active tail, we can make better predictions about the evolution of appendages.  And by increasing our understanding of how redirected angular momentum can stabilize a body, we can increase our knowledge base for generating bio-inspired robots that can be used for a variety of tasks, including search-and-rescue robots to be used in areas too dangerous for humans.  Now that’s really cool.

Photo Credit: Thomas Libby, Evan Chang-Siu and Pauline Jennings. Courtesy of PolyPEDAL Lab & CiBER/UC Berkeley.

Who could resist?

Confession: Today I ate three cookies. Not because I particularly wanted them, but because they were there. I could be a case study for Brian Wansink’s book “Mindless Eating: Why we eat more than we should.” Wansink was one of the invited speakers at SPSP 2012 and he and his colleagues, such as David Just, apply psychology and behavioral economics to food marketing. They use experiments to answer questions such as, “Why do we eat more than we should?” and “How do we get kids to pick healthier food in the school cafeteria?”

Here are a few of their scientifically-backed tips for making healthier food choices. Many of these tips have been put in place in lunchrooms as part of their “SmarterLunchrooms Initiative,” but I think they can also be adapted for use at home, particularly if you are struggling with a child who has very particular food preferences.

1. Put the healthy food up front (and make the junk food harder to reach).People tend to take the easy route, so make the apples more available, and make them work harder for the cookies. People may also assume that the food on display is the best the restaurant/kitchen has to offer. In one study, Wansink and Just found that moving the chocolate milk to the back of the refrigerated display, and putting the regular milk up front increased the number of students who bought regular milk.

2. Make it fun to eat healthy. Simply putting fruit into an attractive bowl, instead of a big plastic bin, increases fruit sales. Healthy may often by synonymous with boring, but you can change that pattern if you start finding fun ways to eat healthy. For example, Wansink made it fun for his daughter to eat healthy by putting walnuts in a small bubblegum machine (watch video at the end of the post to see Audrey Wansink excited about her walnuts!).

3. Give the food a fancy name. Another way to make healthy options sound like the desirable choice is to give them a fancier name. When the bean burritos at a lunch room got renamed the “Big bad bean burrito,” they were sold out by the second lunch period. And carrots might be boring, but what preschooler can resist “x-ray vision carrots?” The fancy name doesn’t just work with kids; research from buffets shows that people are more likely to choose food options with fancy names. Would you choose the veggie dish? What about if there was a label in a fancy font referring to it as “Spring Vegetable Medley?”

4. Make it a choice. Carrots or celery? A simple case of psychology; giving kids a choice between healthy options lets them feel like they had a say in what they ate. Feeling like we chose our food biases us towards wanting to like it. I also think its harder to say ‘no’, when the question isn’t “do you want this?” but instead, “which of these do you want?”

Taller is better.

5. Taller is better… at least when it comes to unhealthy drinks. Have you ever compared two measuring cups in disbelief because they supposedly held the same volume but were very different shapes? Maybe that’s just me. Anyways, people perceive tall glasses to hold more liquid than short and wide glasses, so serving drinks in a tall glass will lead people to believe they drank more, making them less likely to fill up on the next round.

I posted these tips because (a) I think they’re interesting, and (b) I need to learn to resist my officemate’s cookies. But as much as these tips and tricks are being used to encourage healthy eating, cunning marketers may also employ similar tactics in the hopes of getting you to make the less healthy choice. Learning to recognize and avoid these marketing tactics may be just as important as putting them to use!

Do you have other tips you’ve heard about to encourage healthy eating? Do you know other marketing tricks that companies use to get you to choose their product?

Comedian Adam Ruben

On Monday night, I attended the stand-up routine and book reading of Adam Ruben, author of Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School (excerpt). Ruben was able to tap into the universal experiences of graduate students to garner laughs from an audience all too familiar with being “exhausted, overworked, underappreciated, and buried in shit.”

Self-titled “recovering graduate student” Adam Ruben received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University after spending seven years in the program. He left academia to pursue comedy in such ventures as the Food Detective, The National Lampoon, NPR, and opening for Dane Cook; he also works as a microbiologist at a start-up biotechnology company.

Ruben read three sections from the book, which has been acclaimed by the graduate students who have been able to both afford it and have time to read it. (Finding a publisher is difficult when your target market has no money or time.) On the topic of grad school, Ruben said “I went to grad school in the sciences because, like many of you, I was lied to.”

When discussing advisors, he highlighted that most issues come from the fact that scientists are not good communicators. Some advisors are too hands on, some are too hands off; both are ultimately ineffective. He told the story of a meeting in graduate school where faculty met with the entire 6^th year class, not a single member of which had graduated yet. The graduate students were wondering why they hadn’t graduated. The faculty members were wondering why the students were still there. The faculty members were waiting for the students to take initiative. The students were waiting for the faculty members to give them direction. This discussion took six years to happen. When an audience member asked Ruben for advice on graduate school, he replied, “take initiative that [your advisors] don’t expect.”

Another big issue that most audience members had not faced yet was figuring out their post-graduate lives. The hardest part was not knowing definitively when they would graduate and not being able to plan their lives accordingly. Many found maintaining their relationships and the “two-body” problem to be a much bigger issue than if graduation dates were immutable.

The biggest surprise for me is that Ruben said that he didn’t hate grad school. He didn’t even dislike it. Sure, he had regrets, like he could have done some things faster and taken more initiative, but he said “we secretly kind of like this.” All grad students that don’t quit somewhere secretly like sighing and complaining about the fifteen-hour days, grading, and instrumentation failures. He just likes to complain about it more vocally and in a more humorous way than others.

White alligators. With blue eyes.

For weeks, I begged my parents to take me. Finally, they succumbed and we made our visit to the Zoo’s herpetarium. The facility housed a number of intriguing residents, like twenty-foot-long pythons and 200-pound tortoises, but they were no match for the white alligator. To me, the bizarre creature was nothing short of a conundrum of nature. You see, back then I knew, having raised many generations of gerbils of various colors, that albinistic animals don’t have blue eyes. In most albinistic vertebrates, the production of melanin is so lacking, that the eyes appear pink, reflecting the coloring of red blood cells in the capillaries. This blue-eyed alligator I needed to see for myself to verify these wild claims of iris pigment on a white animal.

As usually happens with the animals we most want to see at the zoo, the white alligator was less than compliant with my curiosity. Her head was tucked beneath a log in her habitat, leaving only her milky skin for my juvenile inspection. The information placard next to her display, however, held the next piece of the puzzle: she was born with a recessive gene giving rise to her low pigment condition called, also called leucism.

In the years that followed my encounter with the white alligator, I became fascinated by all kinds of other animals. In fact, I quite nearly forgot about that blue-eyed crocodylian. That is, until I heard a story about the rare, endangered white lions of Africa. By this time, the Internet had conveniently entered my vocabulary, so I booted up our Packard Bell computer, logged onto AOL 2.0 via our only home phone line, and searched for more information on these ghostly felines.

Again, leucism was responsible. So, it appeared that more animals were affected by this condition than reptiles alone. Armed with the power of the Internet, I kept digging. I found peacocks displaying white sunbursts of feathers and pythons with creamy diamond patterns weaving down their bodies. I discovered lightly guilded bison and tuxedo penguins with tan coattails. Indeed, I found an entire world of pale-colored animals, residing somewhere between their pigmented counterparts and albinos.

Unlike in most cases of albinism, leucistic animals generally retain some essence of their normal pigmentation. Thus, while the leucistic python may appear “white,” the normal diamond patterning persists in various creamy shades. And the irises of blue eyes, like the white alligator’s, contain pigments — just in very low quantities.

Recently, a series of beautiful photos of a white hummingbird were released on various internet news venues. You can find them here. So, take a look — which genetic condition does this bird have, albinism or leucism?

Right. Albinism! This pale little hummingbird, captured in photographs feeding against a brilliant display of colored flowers, entirely lacks the ability to manufacture feather and iris pigment. Barely the size of an adult human’s thumb, the miniscule ruby-throated hummingbird normally flaunts an emerald back and wing coat and a brilliant red throat coat. But not our little albino celebrity.

At last, the moral of our story is that first impressions may be deceptive. An alligator with leucism may appear “white” — but compared with the albino hummingbird in recent press, the white alligator is actually not all that white, after all.

Want to witness some white animals on your own? The California Academy of Sciences has just the albino alligator for your fancy! His name is Claude. If he isn’t enough, the San Francisco Zoo has American white pelicans and Chilean flamingos (whose feathers would be much less pink if it weren’t for their diet!). Or just head outside and keep an eye out for a pair of cooing white morning doves.

Lastly, meet the largest white animal on Earth! This is Migaloo, a white humpback whale residing in the waters off eastern Australia.