Month: June 2013

Probably less than you think:

People who are forced by legislation to wear a bicycle helmet … may not wear the helmet correctly, seeking only to comply with the law and avoid a fine. Secondly, their behaviour may change as a consequence of wearing a helmet through “risk compensation,” a phenomenon [where increasing safety measures will lead people to engage in more risky behaviors]. One study — albeit with a single author and subject—suggests that drivers give larger clearance to cyclists without a helmet.

Vaughan Bell notes how, in general, safety measures may be offset by the behavioral changes they inspire:

Known as self-licensing [this effect] is where people will allow themselves to indulge in more harmful behaviour after doing something ‘good’. For example, people who take health supplements are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviours as a result.

In a review of the latest Superman retread, Dana Stevens compares superhero blockbusters to medieval religious art:

Both rely on rigidly fixed iconographies drawn from a narrow range of canonical subject matter. The individual creator may vary the style, but the terms of the representation are governed by a larger divine or quasi-divine cosmic order: hence the endless variations on the Annunciation, the descent from the cross, the first appearance of the cape and tights, the final fistfight atop a skyscraper. Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel doesn’t aim to turn that cosmic order inside out; this is the work of a man of faith, a director whose whole career has been predicated on his love for the comic and graphic-novel form. But Snyder (300, Watchmen, Sucker Punch) provides an elegantly illuminated retelling of the origin story of that most saintly of superheroes, Superman.

Elsewhere, from a more humanist perspective, a team of psychiatrists concludes after examining Superman’s childhood that he is “more human than superhuman”:

According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a person must first meet basic needs, like food and shelter, before focusing on such higher-level needs as relationships and career development. So, Superman’s near-limitless powers may actually free him up to focus on being super. An even higher-level need is self-actualization, or reaching one’s full potential. Superman’s self-proclaimed never-ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the ever-changing “American Way” seems to sum up his pursuit of self-actualization. The rub: the pursuit is never-ending. There are always more of Lex Luthor’s plots to foil, more invasions from Apokolips to stave off.

This experience isn’t unique to Superman; we are all works in progress. Whether Superman, at least, illustrates that despite the numerous challenges along the way, a path towards realizing one’s full potential exists. Indeed, as a character Superman transcends his own self-actualization by inspiring us – his fans – to achieve our own self-actualization and be the best people we can be.

M.H. Forsyth explains how the retronym came to be:

Paperbacks were introduced in the 1840s to supply the newly literate lower classes with something on which to expend their literacy. They were sometimes called penny-dreadfuls (cost and quality) and sometimes called yellow-backs because they were printed in bright colours (often, as you may have guessed, yellow). Paperback is first recorded in 1843, but hardback isn’t recorded until 1954. Well, to be fair hardback was recorded in 1750 as the name of a kind of West Indian coleopterous insect, and in 1883 as the name of a central American fish. But hardback as a kind of book doesn’t appear until over a century after paperback, despite the fact that hardbacks were there first.

This is a classic example of the retronym. Organic food, live music and acoustic guitars were all there first. However, the introduction of pesticides, records and electric guitars meant that you then had to start specifying. It’s something I always consider when travelling on the London Overground.

(Hat tip: Sadie Stein)

Joe Hanson explains the above image:

A new topographical reconstruction of the land mass beneath Antarctica may, for the first time, let [geologists] glimpse into our possible future. A warm, frightening future.

The British Antarctic Survey created Bedmap2, a detailed map of the terrain beneath the icy sheets of the South Pole. The permanent ice on our polar continent is fluid, mobile, and sensitive to our changing climate. Understanding its relationship to the Earth beneath it is crucial to predicting whether of our warming planet allows it to maintain its solid form, or if some of it could wash away into rising seas.

An interactive version of the map is here.  Recent Dish on climate change here, here, and here.

A study finds that more assertive political views correlate to physical strength, “as if disputes over national policies were a matter of direct physical confrontation among small numbers of individuals, rather than abstract electoral dynamics among millions”:

The professors look at a sample of individuals from the US, Argentina and Denmark and their socioeconomic level, physical strength (using bicep size as a proxy), and support for political policies that redistribute resources from the rich to the poor (as measured through questionnaires). They hypothesize that under their “evolutionarily-based theory of political orientation,” strong men will favor redistribution if they are poor and oppose it if they are rich. Just like in the primal past, they should expect to receive resources, but not to give up their own.

Their results support the hypothesis. A man’s strength correlated with his support for or opposition to redistributional policies depending on whether he was rich or poor.

Derek Mead flags a study (pdf) that suggests “hands-free devices aren’t a safe alternative to chatting while driving”:

The study had 20 men and 18 women, all college aged, conduct a variety of tasks while driving in a simulator to measure just how much mental effort they had leftover for driving. The study includes a variety of metrics to quantify varying mental workload, but the graph [above] sums up the trends nicely.

Driving alone and without devices was given a baseline workload level of 1. You can see that adding in the radio or book on tape increases mental workload, while talking on a cell phone is about the same as talking to a passenger, while speak-to-text programs were even higher. (OSPAN is a specific cognition test you can read about here.)

We interrupted our usual coverage to focus on the resurrection of the Green Movement in Iran. Emails from the country arrived in the in-tray; tweets and tweets poured in through the night of celebration; and we compiled the stunned reaction from across the blogosphere. Of course, if you’re a true Dishhead, the amazing emergence of Rouhani was not a complete surprise. Like the first uprising, we saw it coming. Only the neocons were dismayed.

Meanwhile, almost all of Obama’s core supporters bemoaned his awful decision to enmesh this country in a Muslim sectarian war in the Middle East; and Zbigniew Brzezinski told it like it is. My worry is that if Obama cannot stand up to Anthony Blinken, how is he going to fare against the European allies in Northern Ireland tomorrow?

The most popular post of the weekend was my cri de coeur on Obama’s betrayal of his own presidency (and the American people) on Syria; and this face of unbridled joy and hope. Perhaps best to focus on the good news rather than the ominous return to the Clinton-Bush era. One reader summed up Bill Clinton better than I could.

I’m off to visit my old high school in England tomorrow. But I’ll be blogging from Blighty as well.

See you in the morning.

(Photo of Rouhani supporters celebrating in the streets from Arash Ashoorinia’s Photography)

A reader shares his firsthand perspective on Iran’s remarkable election:

I apologize for writing through the VFYW contest email address. I’m having a hard time getting around the Iranian blocks to find an actual contact address. Hopefully this is seen and found of some interest.

Four years ago I followed your blog on the last Iranian election, so it seems fitting I write to you about what I have heard here the last few days. I am an American currently on a tour of Iran. I’m writing from my hotel’s courtyard in Shiraz. This morning I was in Tehran. Our tour guide got a phone call from a friend last night that the election was about to be called. One of the things I keep hearing is why the election last time was called so fast, with so many more ballets that were suppose to be counted, but that this time there were less ballots but more time.

Our tour guide turned on the Farsi-only news and they announced that Rowhani had won. There were cheers in the lobby. This morning I was greeted by the hotel owner who, as he was returning  my passport, could not be more happy and more enthusiastic about his hope that this means America and Iran could be friends soon. He was so excited to be able to tell me that personally. Everyone I’ve talked to has this cautious hope that things will improve. People are realistic but there’s this relief that maybe, just maybe, things will get better.

(Video: Rouhani supporters celebrating in the streets and chanting “Mousavi, we collected your vote”)