BONUS (unrelated): Nick McKaig sings Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” a capella, solo. (HT @NearaRussell):

Research findings show brain injury to soldiers can arise from exposure to a single explosion

BONUS: If you know of a study showing that brain injury to soldiers CANNOT arise from exposure to a single explosion, we would love to hear about it.

BONUS: The Neurocritic has some bones to pick with (1) the press release as a whole, and with (2) the way some news organizations reported it.

(Thanks to investigator Zach Messer for bringing this to our attention.)

“Academic stress as a risk factor for dental caries,” Cynthia Mejía-Rubalcava, Jorge Alanís-Tavira, Liliana Argueta-Figueroa, Alejandra Legorreta-Reyna, International Dental Journal, vol. 62, no. 3, June 2012, pp. 127-31. The authors, at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEMex), Toluca, Mexico, report:

“Conclusions: Moderate to high levels of academic stress, younger age and lower salivary flow rate represent risk factors for the development of dental caries in students.”

(Thanks to investigator Sergio Uribe for bringing this to our attention.)

BONUS: And of course, there’s the possibly unrelated question of sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar

BONUS (unrelated): Headline from Bloomberg News, May 17, 2012: “Dental Abuse Seen Driven By Private Equity Investments“

“Sweetened blood cools hot tempers: physiological self-control and aggression,” C. Nathan DeWall, Timothy Deckman, Matthew T. Gailliot, Brad J. Bushman, Aggressive Behavior, 2011 Jan-Feb;37(1):73-80. The authors explain:

“Aggressive and violent behaviors are restrained by self-control. Self-control consumes a lot of glucose in the brain, suggesting that low glucose and poor glucose metabolism are linked to aggression and violence. Four studies tested this hypothesis. Study 1 found that participants who consumed a glucose beverage behaved less aggressively than did participants who consumed a placebo beverage. Study 2 found an indirect relationship between diabetes (a disorder marked by low glucose levels and poor glucose metabolism) and aggressiveness through low self-control. Study 3 found that states with high diabetes rates also had high violent crime rates. Study 4 found that countries with high rates of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (a metabolic disorder related to low glucose levels) also had higher killings rates, both war related and non-war related. All four studies suggest that a spoonful of sugar helps aggressive and violent behaviors go down.”

BONUS: The song “A Spoonful of Sugar”, in the movie “Mary Poppins” (thanks to investigator Kurt Verkest for suggesting it, and suggesting “Sugar, Sugar“):

BONUS (May 18, 2012): “Confusing messages about sugar are stupid“

“Association of Coffee Drinking with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality,” Neal D. Freedman, Ph.D. [pictured here], Yikyung Park, Sc.D., Christian C. Abnet, Ph.D., Albert R. Hollenbeck, Ph.D., and Rashmi Sinha, Ph.D., New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 366, May 17, 2012, pp. 1891-1904. The authors report:

“CONCLUSIONS: In this large prospective study, coffee consumption was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality. Whether this was a causal or associational finding cannot be determined from our data.”

BONUS: A look at the study and some of its predecessors.

BONUS: A different look at it, with this stirring passage:

In addition, the researchers note that they lacked specifics on how study participants prepared their coffee, and it could be that healthful and/or harmful attributes of the coffee might change depending on how it is prepared.

Still, they note, this study was larger than any previous study, and the number of deaths (>52,000) was more than double that in any earlier study.

BONUS: A headline (in the Atlantic Health Blog, about about this same study), that draws its own conclusion: “NIH Study: Coffee Really Does Make You Live Longer, After All“

red chips were interspersed at intervals designating one suggested serving size (seven chips) or two serving sizes (14 chips); in the second study, this was changed to five and 10 chips.

Unaware of why some of the chips were red, the students who were served those tubes of chips nonetheless consumed about 50 percent less than their peers: 20 and 24 chips on average for the seven-chip and 14-chip segmented tubes, respectively, compared with 45 chips in the control group; 14 and 16 chips for the five-chip and 10-chip segmented tubes, compared with 35 chips in the control group.

BONUS (about potato chips): The 2008 Ig Nobel Prize in nutrition was awarded to Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is. [REFERENCE: "The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips," Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence, Journal of Sensory Studies, vol. 19, October 2004,  pp. 347-63.]

“Sweets, Sex, or Self-Esteem? Comparing the Value of Self-Esteem Boosts with Other Pleasant Rewards,” Brad J. Bushman, Scott J. Moeller, Jennifer Crocker. Journal of Personality, epub 2010. The authors, at The Ohio State University and VU University, Amsterdam, the Netherland, explain:

“Many people ascribe great value to self-esteem, but how much value? Do people value self-esteem more than other pleasant activities, such as eating sweets and having sex? Two studies of college students showed that people valued boosts to their self-esteem more than they valued eating a favorite food and engaging in a favorite sexual activity. Study 2 also showed that people valued self-esteem more than they valued drinking alcohol, receiving a paycheck, and seeing a best friend. Both studies found that people who highly valued self-esteem engaged in laboratory tasks to boost their self-esteem.”

BONUS (possibly unrelated, possibly not): The International Council for Self-Esteem

Inventor Valery Petrushin obtained his doctorate in computer science from the Glushkov Institute for Cybernetics, Kiev, and now works in Illinois in the US. His patent, granted last year, is for “detecting emotion in voice signals in a call centre“.

A simple flow chart illustrates “a method for detecting nervousness in a voice in a business enviroument to prevent fraud”. We see the following three statements, each enclosed in its own box: “Receiving voice signals from a person during a business event”; “Analysing the voice signals for determining a level of nervousness of the person during the business event”; “Outputting the level of nervousness of the person prior to completion of the business event”….

So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.

BONUS: Video of the inventor talking about his research:

Further details are on the Instructables web site:

Edible Chocolate Brain from MRI Scan

This instructable will show you how to create an edible chocolate brain from sliced data sourced from an MRI scan….  Andy Millns had his brain MRI scanned as part of a research project…. The main steps involved are:
- Converting sliced DICOM data into the STL file format (a 3D geometry format widely used for 3D printing)
- Editing that model to clean up
- 3D printing a solid model
- Producing a latex mould
- Finally casting the chocolate and eating
We’ve made the original DICOM files and the STL file available for download.

(Thanks to investigators Geri Sullivan, Neil Rest, and Dermot Dobson for bringing this to our attention.)