They Won't Have To Hunt Us

So, we're using robots to help stroke victims regain their mobility.

It makes sense. I wouldn't want to spend my day watching someone do boring, repetitive motions to rebuild their muscle strength. In fact, it's so boring and repetitive that the stroke victims don't like doing it. The breakthrough in this case is that by involving virtual reality environments (read: having patients use the robot as a controller in a video game), stroke victims will work at the rehab exercises longer and regain function faster.

Sure, it sounds helpful at first. Until you think about what's in it for the robots. Not only will we be providing them with massive amounts of valuable data about how we move, where our mobility weaknesses are, and how we can be stopped from moving, but we're also giving them the chance to harm us directly. It's all fun and games physical therapy until the patient has his legs ripped off. We won't need faster robots that hunt us like dogs, we're already walking right into their cold metallic hands!

Touching Costs Extra

What's your favorite possession? Where did you get it? How much is it worth to you?

Now imagine I gave you something cheap, like a keychain. Would you value it as much? You might if you held it for a little while. At the very least, you'd think it was more valuable than a keychain that you hadn't held.

All it takes is 30 seconds. Test subjects that held a coffee mug for 30 seconds showed an attachment to it that was stronger than those who held it for ten seconds, or those who hadn't held it at all. How strong? Well, subjects who held their coffee mugs would aggressively bid for them in an auction setting. So aggressively that four out of seven times the test subjects would pay more than the retail price for the mug, even when they were told how much it was selling for in the nearby campus bookstore.

It's a good reason to figure out what you're going to buy and what you're willing to pay for it before you enter the store, since all it takes is a little physical contact to completely abandon common sense.

Your Potato Children Will Be Deformed

Plants have reproductive organs. Who knew? Well, everyone who had to sit through high school biology, but who remembered? And/or who cared?

Soil scientists, that's who. Specifically, agronomists. And not just because they have some kind of sick plant fetish. They're not just daydreaming about the private parts of plants, they're trying to make the world a better place. And this time, someone finally thought of the (plant) children.

Concerned agronomists have determined that while herbicide tests consider whether the plant-killing substances will kill "good" plants (read: the ones that aren't weeds), the tests don't verify that the herbicides don't accidentally sterilize the good plants.

I'm all for improved testing to make sure that we can keep enjoying future generations of plants like potatoes, corn, and soybeans. However, I do think that the language in their press release is dry, densely scientific, and a little obsessed with reproductive organs.

What Makes Someone a Jerk?

How do you define what a jerk is? When you get mad at someone for acting like a jerk, is it because they're actually doing awful things, or is it just because they're not being as nice as you would like? The University of Chicago has found out that not only is it better to be nice to people, but we tend to punish people if we feel slighted by them.

Let me explain the experiment. In part 1, you are participating with another guy. The other guy is given $100, and chooses to give you $50. If the roles were reversed afterwards, and you were given another $100 with the option to share some of it with the other guy, how much would you give him?

In part 2, pretend the study gives you $100, but lets the other guy take as much from you as he wants (and he takes $50). When it's your turn, and he gets $100, how much would you take from him?

It turns out that most people felt like they were getting ripped off in part 2, and took as much as they could from the other guy. In part 1, people generally felt grateful and shared their $100 evenly with the other guy to thank him for his earlier generosity.

It's strange because in both situations, the participant ends up with $50 more than he had before. But in the first part, they liked the other person in the study. In the second part, they thought that they were paired with a jerk. They acted accordingly.

Where did you learn that smile?

Or did you know it all along? That grin of triumph, the pout of unhappiness, are you doing it because you've seen other people do it, or because it just feels natural to you? If you hadn't seen other people expressing their emotions, would you still use the same expressions yourself?

Yes, you would. It turns out that some emotional responses are hard-wired, and not something that you learn. A study of blind and sighted athletes showed similar expressions on the faces of both blind and sighted winners (and similar expressions of disappointment on blind and sighted losers). Even athletes who were blind from birth "knew" how to express happiness and disappointment on their faces without seeing other people do it.

I don't really have any jokes to make about it, it's just kind of interesting.

Walkin' Farther and Doin' It More

In the title of this post, "doin' it" is not referring to walking, it's referring to... you know, doin' it.

It's an an interesting mix of theory and speculation put forward by Washington University in St. Louis. After studying a bunch of mammals (161 different species), researchers found that the animals that traveled the most had the most offspring.

I would have guessed that all the walking was done by bigamist mammals who were trying to make sure that their wives stayed far enough apart that they never bumped into each other, but the researchers had a simpler explanation: the animals that walk more find more food. They find more food, it gives them more energy, and so they get busy more often.

Does this translate to the human species? I kind of doubt it. We can drive places to get food. I think that walking as part of an exercise plan to keep up your appearance could lead to more romantic encounters, but I don't think that people would find a direct link in humans between daily distance walked and number of children.

Peeing In Your Food

I suppose it's not news that no one in food service washes their hands after using the bathroom. But Kansas State wanted to find out why. Surprise! It's because they're lazy.

It's not just bathroom handwashing. It's not cleaning their work surfaces, and not paying attention to how long foods have been sitting out, which foods need to be refrigerated, and how hot food needs to get in order to kill germs. Restaurant workers don't know, and don't care. Luckily, they were willing to complete surveys that confirmed it.

Even after four hours of training, the food service workers participating in the survey still didn't follow proper procedures for kitchen hygeine, but they stopped citing ignorance and started blaming the managers for not monitoring them. I guess they think that if they're sloppy enough, they'll get their own Food Network TV Show.